Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

It took courage to write this book and puts Ilan Pappe in the same category as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn lived in a different time and place; however his exposure of an unjust system with a manipulated history had significant impact on changing it.

During the past century a number of milestones have been put in place including the formation of the League of Nations, the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions. These define the standards to which we are expected to adhere (or be judged by) in both peace and war. We cannot compare what was acceptable behaviour in biblical times, ancient empires or the middle ages with a 20th Century ethnic cleansing.

If Pappe's book contributes towards peace in the Middle East through truth and reconciliation, then may history remember him well. He will have achieved what the United Nations and the world's leading superpower failed to do.

How A Racist State Was Formed. (10/11 people found this helpful)

In The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappé explains and documents that the true goal of the founders of Zionism had always been to create a majority Jewish state, emptied as much as possible of the native Palestinian population. He meticulously (and painfully) reconstructs the story of how Zionist leaders, over many decades, carefully laid the groundwork for this expulsion and how they intiated their plan in 1948 when the British finally decided to leave.

Israel's official version of the story of 1948 claims that Jewish settlers in Palestine never intended to expel their Palestinian Arab neighbours; that Zionist leaders were willing to accept UN resolution 181 of November 1947, which called for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, but that it was the Palestinians who rejected that plan; and that the Palestinians became refugees when they "voluntarily" fled their homes to make room for the Arab armies that invaded Palestine in May 1948 to carry out what they called a "second Holocaust" against Jews.

Pappé decided to debunk the Israeli myths by relying almost exclusively on declassified Israeli military archives and the memoirs of Israel's "founding fathers." These sources leave no doubt that, in the decades before 1948, the leaders of Zionism concocted a premeditated plan to expel the native Palestinian population. Pappé details how these Israeli "heroes" executed the plan in the period from December 1947 to March 1949 through the use of massacres, rapes, demolition of villages, and forced expulsion of the native population. In doing so, he manages to vindicate and corroborate the story that the Palestinians have been trying to get out to the Western world for the past sixty years.

Zionist leaders drew up Plan D, or dalet in Hebrew. These leaders ordered their militias and gangs to start implementing Plan D only hours after the UN issued resolution 181 in November 1947. The long nightmare for the Palestinians would only get worse. Zionist militias began to attack and expel villagers with or without provocation inside lands allocated to either the Jewish or Arab state.

Declassified Israeli military archives confirm that the Zionist militias carried out at least thirty-seven large-scale massacres in that period. Some of the worst massacres and rape cases took place in villages such as Deir Yassin.

By the spring of 1949, Israel had conquered up to 80 percent of historic Palestine. It expelled 800,000 Palestinians, or 75 percent of the native Arab population, from their homeland, turning them into refugees and preventing them from coming back at the end of the war. The founding fathers had finally succeeded in securing a Jewish state with a Jewish majority.

Excellent and essential reading.

The begining of a disaster. (11/12 people found this helpful)

Anyone wishing to understand the roots of the Arab Israeli conflict from an historical perspective must read this book. Pappe presents an alternate course of events that lead up to the creation of the state of Israel and to me at least he seems to have hit on a vein of truth and one that, if a fraction is true, makes for depressing reading. What is really upsetting is that there is little hope of any improvement for the Palestinian people whilst the other versions on the story are presented as the sole historic truth.

The REAL history of the Israeli state (40/45 people found this helpful)

An excellent and meticulously researched historical text.
The level of cold, calculated brutality and unprovoked savagery used against a largely peaceful peasant population usually offering little or no resistance, a population quite unprepared for a war, who were usually just 'going about their business', is absolutely shocking. As is the clinical pre-planning and ruthless, cold efficiency with which the plan was then carried out. It is no exaggeration to compare what happened with the Nazi push into the Baltic states and Russia in the early 1940's.
The reality of what actually happened during the years 1948-49, compared with the 'official' Israeli version, is astonishing. This is a subject I have had an interest in for some considerable time now, but despite my interest and knowledge of the subject, I was not prepared for the detail. The unnecessary nastiness and inhumanity of the jewish forces, is really hard to come to terms with.
It is also interesting to compare the present day horror and outrage that is expressed at the actions of a 'suicide bomber' with events in early 1948 [when there was no war]. The Stern Gang and Hagana routinely threw bombs into CIVILIAN Palestinian gatherings and blew up houses with all the occupants asleep inside, often killing scores of people, simply to terrorise the population into fleeing Palestine.
I am also deeply ashamed of the role [or non-role] played by the British forces, with one or two notable exceptions, [and the Bevin Government] who, until May 1948, were still officially charged with upholding law and order in Palestine.
Anyone who still buys the notion that the events at Quana, the murder of the UN workers [despite hours of telephone conversations], the very high civilian casualty rates during the 2006 push into Lebanon, the deaths on the beach in Gaza and so on, were all REALLY accidental, should read this book. This particular brand of terror is long established practice by the Israelis.
In fact, it is hard to understand how most of our media and politicians, people who have chosen to make a career informing the rest of us about what goes on, in and around the world, seem remarkably oblivious to this information. Well, there are no excuses now are there ?
I am not sure how anyone could [intelligently] argue that this is 'a piece of anti-zionist fiction' as one of your reviewers suggests, it is far too factually based and closely referenced. It IS a testament to the power of the Israeli lobby and their campaign of distortion and misinformation that we are still presented by most of the media for most of the time the image of Israel as the victim in the Middle East. Now THAT is a piece of PRO-zionist fiction. Excellent, though disturbing book.

Political aims cloaked in historical 'sheeps clothing' (10/75 people found this helpful)

Pappe is one, and by no means the most talented, of a group of 'new historians'. They base their work around the supposed discovery of new sources by which they can evaluate the origins of the state of Israel.

It needs to be stated that these 'histories' have great political influence on current negotiations - and do not represent any balanced or fair impartial evaluation.

Pappe has been a soap box writer - clearly an oportunist who would sell his family members for a chance to gain fame and recognition. He tells a good story - but these are reasons why mainstream historians do not agree with this line of thought - it is simply based on fantasy and anti-israel propaganda.

But any excuse to hate the Jews - right? Dont let something like evidence get in the way.

Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Ilan Pappe

Reader Reviews:

Brilliant book (4/4 people found this helpful)

How A Racist State Was Formed. (10/11 people found this helpful)

The begining of a disaster. (11/12 people found this helpful)

The REAL history of the Israeli state (40/45 people found this helpful)

Political aims cloaked in historical 'sheeps clothing' (10/75 people found this helpful)

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