The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
by Ilan Pappe
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ilan PappeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-09-25
ISBN: 1851685553
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9781851685554
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Book Review: Pappe presents nothing new, only the particularly biased spin of an active communist on the research of the 'New Historians'
Summary: 1 Stars
To begin with some information the hagiographic cover of the current edition of this work fails to disclose: Ilan Papp?, no neutral scholar, is known in his native country for his role as an active campaigner for the local communist party. Not socialist, communist.
Contrary to Pappe's claim to be presenting us with original research, new conclusions, and shocking disclosures, over the last 20 years a vast number of books, including but not exclusively confined to the works of the revisionist New Historians, have documented the extent to which the picture of the exodus of the Arabs of Palestine is composite, complex, multi-layered and diverse. No historian in Israel today would claim that all the 700,000 Palestinians who left their towns and villages during the war did so of their own volition. There was certainly a mix of premeditated expulsions, as in the Lod-Ramla battles, and massacres (on both sides) which caused some Arabs to flee for their lives.
There were also Arab elites, especially from the cities, who had the means to leave temporarily hoping to return as victors (they left their homes furnished and took their keys with them), as compared to the bulk of the villagers who were simply caught in the cross fire and sought refuge for their families in exile, and there were other villagers who collaborated with Zionists and preferred to seek accommodation with them rather than fight them, as Hillel Cohen has shown in his admirable book. An example of such a community, still flourishing today, is the Circassian town of Abu Ghosh, which stayed neutral during the War of Independence, and was repayed in kind. Tens of thousands of displaced Arabs left their villages and converged in cities like Nazareth where they felt better protected. Finally, the general atmosphere of war prompts people to make hasty and unwise decisions. All these features were present; thus to include this exodus under the all-encompassing umbrella of "ethnic cleansing" simply does not meet any basic yardstick of truth, despite the temptation of a simplistic and unsound interpretation.
A more balanced analysis of the situation in the 1947-1949 period would have to also include the following counter-points:
1. The Zionist enterprise, cognizant of its demographic weakness, has operated on the basis of compromise and partition since its inception. The Peel Commission and later the Partition Plan were accepted by the Zionists and rejected by the Arabs, who under their Mufti, Husseini, insisted on a whole and undivided Palestine. The Mufti's collaboration with Hitler during the War in the genocide of the Jews and the declaration by Azzam Pasha, Secretary of the Arab League concerning the impending massacre of all Jews, combined with repeated attacks on the Jewish settlements, did not augur well for the existential future of the Jews in Palestine, let alone their independence. Thus, from the outset, the Jewish attitude, after experiencing the horrors of the Holocaust, was one of fear, suspicion and determination to fight for survival, especially since many Arabs were prepared to assist them in this endeavor (for a price).
2. Had the neighbouring Arab government worked for a compromise, as the Zionists had, and had the Palestinian Arabs refrained from war with the nascent Israeli state, further opportunities for peaceful accommodation would have emerged. In a vicious spiral, the Jewish perception of the Arab claims and genocidal attempts on their lives by necessity hardened their own views, and in a situation of imminent annihilation, if they did not overcome their enemy, they naturally chose to militarily overpower it, rather than face extinction.
3. While the Palestinians were leaving their country, under expulsion, flight, voluntary exile or otherwise, the same number of Jews were fleeing from Arab countries and found refuge in Israel, where they were absorbed into the system. Their flight did not take place during conditions of war but simply derived from their oppressive dhimmi status that they could no longer bear. Therefore, this unplanned exchange of populations, which resolved one problem though it did nothing to settle the other, remains a living reminder that population transfers, though they may be painful and inhuman at the time, may also bring a problem to an end after a few generations, as was the case with the Jewish immigrants to Israel, something which the Arab governments continuously refuse to accept as a solution for Palestinian refugee communities within their own country. Kuwait expelled 400,000 Palestinians as late as 1990, a fact that barely seems to be known outside the Middle East. Palestinian refugees are banned from owning property in most Arab countries, and in September 1970, King Hussein of Jordan killed up to 25,000 Palestinian refugees in an act of violence that surpasses in scale anything in the Arab-israeli conflict.
4. Examples of Pappe's skewed interpretations abound. In his second chapter (10-28) for example, he castigates Israel for its "drive for an exclusively Jewish state." Firstly, this is not true: the Declaration of Independence calls upon the Arabs to remain within the state and contribute peacefully to its construction. Secondly, 60 years later, 20% of the population is Arab.
5. Pappe views military operations such as Nachshon (86-90) or Palm Tree (154-5) as premeditated moves within the grand plan for "ethnic cleansing," but those exact military operations were explicitly conducted for the sake of extricating the fledgling state from the siege imposed by the invading Arab nations. The vast exodus of Arabs that resulted was the natural outcome of population movements referred to above. But to turn the result into the cause is tantamount to claiming that America planned the Pacific War to test its nuclear bomb.
These reports are so one-sided and exaggerated that the whole story loses its credibility. If it were balanced and less selective, it could have provided an interesting "alternative history" of the origins of the Arab-Israel conflict. In this case, the litany of complaints and selective stories that the author has chosen to elevate to the level of "history" while excising specific events from their context can only cause dismay. How can a knowledgeable scholar claim to present the narrative of a conflict by describing exclusively what one party allegedly did to the other? It is like reporting a boxing match on the radio or in writing by describing only the punches delivered by one boxer, while completely neglecting to mention the defensive and offensive steps taken by his opponent.
The final chapters of the book address the recent problems of the Israeli unilateral disengagement from Gaza, which has brought Hamas to power. Instead of analysing both sides of the conflict, which would include an analysis of radical Islamism, placing it within a broader geo-political context, and a realistic examination of the motives behind Israel's current military strategy, the author elects to concentrate solely on Israel's demographic fears and its opposition to Palestinian claims to the so-called "right of return". This is a book which doesn't even to give the appearance of objectivity. It is closer to the literature of political campaigns than academic history.
Summary of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
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.General Books
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