OBAMA GO to U.N. and vote on Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
by Ilan Pappe
ISBN: 1851685553
ISBN-13: 9781851685554
Format: Paperback, 320pp
Publisher: National Book Network
Pub. Date: September 2007
Synopsis
In this controversial new book, a prominent Israeli historian at Haifa University revisits the formative period of the State of Israel. Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord during the War of Independence, he offers archival evidence to demonstrate that a central plank in Israel's founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. This book is a passionate plea to acknowledge the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 as the root cause of the ongoing Palestine-Israel conflict.
Publishers Weekly
In his latest work, renowned Israeli author and academic Pappe (A History of Modern Palestine) does not mince words, doing Jimmy Carter one better (or worse, depending on one's point of view) by accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, beginning in the 1948 war for independence and continuing through the present. Focusing primarily on Plan D (Dalet, in Hebrew), conceived on March 10, 1948, Pappe demonstrates how ethnic cleansing was not a circumstance of war, but rather a deliberate goal of combat for early Israeli military units organized by David Ben-Gurion, whom Pappe labels the "architect of ethnic cleansing." The forced expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians between 1948 and 1949, Pappe argues, was part of a long-standing Zionist plan to manufacture an ethnically pure Jewish state. Framing his argument with accepted international and U.N. definitions of ethnic cleansing, Pappe follows with an excruciatingly detailed account of Israeli military involvement in the demolition and depopulation of hundreds of villages, and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Arab inhabitants. An accessible, learned resource, this volume provides important insights into the historical antecedents of today's conflict, but its conclusions will not be easy for everyone to stomach: Pappe argues that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine continues today, and calls for the unconditional return of all Palestinian refugees and an end to the Israeli occupation. Without question, Pappe's account will provoke ire from many readers; importantly, it will spark discussion as well. (Jan.)
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- Highr0ller
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January 25, 2007: Pappe, an Israeli historian and a senior lecturer at Haifa University, has written a superb account of the Israeli expulsion of the Palestinians from their land in 1948. He quotes David Ben Gurion, leader of the Zionist movement from the mid-1920 until the 1960s, who wrote in his diary in 1938, ?I am for compulsory transfer I do not see anything immoral in it.? This contradicts the Zionists? public claim that they were seizing a land without a people. Pappe writes of the Israelis? March 1948 plan for evicting the Palestinians, ?The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be employed to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centres setting fire to homes, properties and goods expulsion demolition and, finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning.? Between 30 March and 15 May 1948, i.e. before any Arab government intervened, Israeli forces seized 200 villages and expelled 250,000 Palestinians. The Israeli leadership stated, ?The principal objective of the operation is the destruction of Arab villages ? the eviction of the villagers.? On 9 April, Israeli forces massacred 93 people, including 30 babies, at Deir Yassin. In Haifa, the Israeli commander ordered, ?Kill any Arab you encounter.? This all happened under British rule in Palestine, where Britain had 75,000 troops: Britain?s Mandate did not end until 14 May. The Labour government connived at the Israeli onslaught, although the British state was legally obliged as the occupier (and also by UN resolution 181) to uphold law and order. Yet the Labour government announced that it would no longer be responsible for law and order and it withdrew all the British policemen. It also forbade the presence of any UN bodies, again breaching the terms of the UN resolution. The government ordered British forces to disarm the few Palestinians who had weapons, promising to protect them from Israeli attacks, then immediately reneged on this promise. On 24 May 1948, Ben Gurion wrote, ?We will establish a Christian state in Lebanon, the southern border of which will be the Litani River. We will break Transjordan, bomb Amman and destroy its army, and then Syria falls, and if Egypt will still continue to fight ? we will bombard Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo. This will be in revenge for what they (the Egyptians, the Aramis and Assyrians) did to our forefathers during Biblical times.? These ravings of an insane warmonger hardly betrayed any genuine fear of a `second holocaust?. The Palestinians were suffering massive expulsion, not trying to destroy the Jewish community. Pappe summarises, ?When it created its nation-state, the Zionist movement did not wage a war that `tragically but inevitably? led to the expulsion of `parts of? the indigenous population, but the other way round: the main goal was the ethnic cleansing of all of Palestine, which the movement coveted for its new state. A few weeks after the ethnic cleansing operations began, the neighbouring Arab states sent a small army ? small in comparison to their overall military might ? to try, in vain, to prevent the ethnic cleansing. The war with the regular Arab armies did not bring the ethnic cleansing operations to a halt until their successful completion in the autumn of 1948.? Overall, the Zionist forces uprooted more than half Palestine?s p
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- Highr0ller
- 7 months ago
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There has to be somting to do, I really don't think our President wants ethnic cleansing. but i belive there wil come a time that Israel will get what they deserve. And what I have notice the Israelies that are anti Palestine are the European Jews. Not Oathadox or Hasidic...i don't know if i am spelling it right pardon me.But in what Gods name does anybody have the right to just kill off a whole culture. I know when we arrived in the USA we killed american Indians which was also wrong,But we gave them their own laws and land and left them alone. I am the visitor here in this country just like the Jews in Israel. Just because a book says it belongs to them doesn't mean thay can kill and mame the Palestinians.
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- maof4brats
- 4 months ago
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