Ilan PappeThe Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

A well-written and scarily prescient background to the present distressing (and largely ignored) present (2025). I learned a lot of detail I either didn't know or had forgotten One of my boyhood 'heroes' (Ord Wingate) outed early on! Really, a must read to maintain some kind of balanced view on the current tragedy and a reminder of Britain's role in it's development.

Would recommend to anyone who doesn’t understand the current conflict, a tough but important read

Ilan Pappe is surely one of the bravest of Israel's new historians. In this book he has exposed the reality of Palestinian life before the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948, unpicking the myth of Palestine as an empty land waiting to be transformed into a blooming country. He exposes the brutality of the expulsion of Palestinian residents from Palestine in what Palestinians call the nakba. This book is only part of Pappe's work as an honest non-Zionist Israeli citizen. It is a must read for all those wishing to understand the current 'conflict'.

A real eye opener.This book may be a little difficult for some to come to terms with and for others even more difficult to accept. It is something that has been placed in the psyche of us in Europe after the horrors of the holocaust that any criticism of the state of Israel or Zionism is equal to anti semitism. That the state of Israel was created out of the ashes of the second world war in order to provide a safe and free land for Jews the world over and a place of return for the Jews to their historical homeland.This book dispels the myth. Pappe rather presents the establishment of the state of Israel as being not only created by men whose ideology was every equal of the extreme nationalism that European Jews had suffered under but also created out of the ethnic cleansing of the native population of that land, the Palestinians.Pappe begins his book by providing us with with definitions of ethnic cleansing quoting from the United Nations amongst others. unfortunately his use of wikipedia, an 'encyclopedia' by his own admissions is edited by anyone in order to further his argument greatly diminishes his own introduction. While he may choose to use this in his own words to gauge public opinion on how genocide and ethnic cleansing is defined the fact that wikipedia is more of a soap box for anyone with a grudge makes the website frankly worthless.According to Pappe, ethnic cleansing is something that requires planning and pre-thought before execution and in the first few chapters Pappe documents how Zionist leaders wrote up maps of Palestinian areas, their populations and numbers. Pappe is also quick to point out however, how some Palestinian leaders were only too happy to sell off land to Zionist settlers believing that the greater threat to their land was the colonialism of the British. For some, the Zionists were the poor of Europe and offered little threat, little were they to know that these people would be one and the same who orchestrated their own extinction from their own lands.Pappe goes on to examine the execution of the Zionist plans of forced expulsion of Palestinians under threats of murder, how the response of Arab militias resulted in further excuses for Zionist outrages on civilian populations. Pappe gives examples of Palestinian villages of both Christian and Muslim who were wiped from the map. Further examples of man (Defined as aged between 10 and 50) being separated from their women folk and executed. Examples of mass rape, destruction of Churches, Mosques, orchards are also given.Another interesting point is the Arab-Israeli war which Pappe defines as a 'phony war' Pointing out that Jordan had no intention of defending Palestinians rather in protecting its agreed annexation of the West Bank. How the poorly armed and trained Arab armies were no match for the Zionist forces due to the Egyptians while large in numbers (Swelled by the Muslim brotherhood whose lack of any military training made them more a liability than help) The Syrians lack of modern arms, the Lebanese whose numbers were so small they were more concerned with holding onto their own land and Iraqis. Most of these forces were tied down by their own political leaders who had no intentions of seeing them defend the Palestinian people.I believe it was Robert Fisk in his book 'Pity the nation' who once pointed out the irony of the victims of genocide often being the most enthusiastic perpetrators of it. It is interesting that most of the criticism of this book is that it is 'anti semitic' (Strange considering the author is Jewish!) and reminds me of how Serbs would point out the massacres that were committed against their people in World War 2 by Croatian militias as though that somehow justifies the slaughter of thousands in Bosnia and Kosovo. Similarly Zionists use the holocaust to deflect war crimes in Lebanon and the ethnic cleansing of an entire people in Palestine.Thankfully Pappe has brought this to the worlds attention in a book that while filled with information that will be shocking and disturbing is also clear and easy to read.

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.