Zionist Logic - By Prof Ilan Pappe

Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking book revisits the formation of the State of Israel. 

Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint.

Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing". 

Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East.

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On 1948

What happened to the Palestinians when Israel declared its independence in 1948?

Was it ethnic cleansing? Chaos? Legitimate Jewish self-defense? 

Prof. Ilan Pappe is perhaps the most contentious Israeli historian of this question. Decidedly left-wing in his outlook, Pappe is both an historian, and a social activist. He's perhaps most famous for his book "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," in which he lays out a case that the war for the creation of Israel in 1948 is best understood as an ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinian population by primarily European Jews. Unsurprisingly, Pappe's scholarship is widely derided in Israel. Yet his work is often celebrated by many pro-Palestinian activists in the Middle East and abroad. Pappe currently teaches history at the University of Exeter, in the UK. This is part one of my two part interview with Pappe last summer, in Haifa.
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