The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Using declassified Israeli military and cabinet archives, village files, and Palestinian testimony, Ilan Pappé reconstructs the events of 1948 not as a fog of war but as a systematic operation: the implementation of Plan Dalet, under which more than four hundred Palestinian villages were destroyed and some 700,000 people expelled or fled between 1947 and 1949. Pappé argues that this was a deliberate project of ethnic cleansing, decided at the highest levels of the Zionist leadership.

The book was controversial on publication and has since become foundational — a reference point for historians, activists, and courts of public opinion alike. Pappé closes by calling the final chapter of the Nakba an ongoing one, and insists that recognizing 1948 is a precondition for any just settlement.

About the author

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian, a leading figure among Israel’s “New Historians,” and a professor at the University of Exeter, where he directs the European Centre for Palestine Studies. His books include A History of Modern Palestine, The Biggest Prison on Earth, and Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic.

Details

• Published by Oneworld Publications, 2006