The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

The 1948 Palestine-Israel War is known to Israelis as 'The War of Independence', but for Palestinians it will forever be the Nakba, the 'catastrophe'.

Alongside the creation of the State of Israel, the end of the war led to one of the largest forced?migrations in modern history. Around a million people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred, and hundreds of Palestinian villages deliberately destroyed. Though the truth about the mass expulsion has been systematically distorted and suppressed, had it taken place in the twenty-first century it could only have been called 'ethnic cleansing'.

Prominent Israeli academic Ilan Pappe argues passionately for the international recognition of this tragedy. His groundbreaking and controversial work sheds new light on the origins and development of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, asking questions that the world has so far failed to ask to reveal the real story behind the events of 1948. Based on meticulous research, including recently declassified Israeli archival material, Dr. Pappe's vivid and timely account demonstrates conclusively that 'transfer' - a euphemism for ethnic cleansing - was from the start an integral part of a carefully planned strategy, and lies at the root of today's ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

ILAN PAPPE is an Israeli historian and senior lecturer of Political Science at Haifa University. He is also Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva, and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies, Haifa. He is the author of a number of books, including A History of Modern Palestine, The Modern Middle East and The Israel/Palestine Question.


List of Illustrations, Maps and Tables
Acknowledgements
Preface

1. An 'Alleged' Ethnic Cleansing?
2. The Drive for an Exclusively Jewish State
3. Partition and Destruction: UN Resolution 181 and its Impact
4. Finalising a Master Plan
5. The Blueprint for Ethnic Cleansing: Plan Dalet
6. The Phony War and the Real War over Palestine: May 1948
7. The Escalation of the Cleansing Operations: June--September 1948
8. Completing the Job: October 1948--January 1949
9. Occupation and its Ugly Faces
10. The Memoricide of the Nakba
11. Nakba Denial and the 'Peace Process'
12. Fortress Israel

Epilogue
Endnotes
Chronology
Maps and Tables
Bibliography
Index