On Wednesday, “Nakba Day” was commemorated around the world with even more vehemence than usual as outpourings of hatred against Israel, sprinkled with ample doses of anti-Semitism, issued from screaming crowds.

What was entirely missing was any historical perspective on the Nakba – that is, the displacement, mainly through voluntary flight, of Palestinians from mandatory Palestine. Stripped out of its broader context, the event was invested with a uniqueness that distorts the processes that caused it and its contemporary significance.


It is, to begin with, important to understand that the displacement of Palestinians was only one facet of the sweeping population movements caused by the collapse of the great European land empires. At the heart of that process was the unravelling of the Ottoman Empire, which started with the Greek war of independence in 1821 and accelerated during subsequent decades.

As the empire teetered, religious conflicts exploded, forcing entire communities to leave. Following the Crimean War of 1854-56, earlier flows of Muslims out of Russia and its border territories became a flood, with as many as 900,000 people fleeing the Caucasus and Crimea regions for Ottoman territory. The successive Balkan wars and then World War I gave that flood torrential force as more than two million people left or were expelled from their ancestral homes and sought refuge among their co-religionists.

The transfers reshaped the population geography of the entire Middle East, with domino effects that affected virtually every one of the region’s ethnic and religious groups.

The formation of new nation-states out of what had been the Ottoman Empire then led to further rearrangements, with many of those states passing highly restrictive nationality laws in an attempt to secure ethnic and religious homogeneity.

Nothing more starkly symbolised that quest for homogeneity than the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations signed on January 30, 1923. This was the first agreement that made movement mandatory: with only a few exceptions, all the Christians living in the newly established Turkish state were to be deported to Greece, while all of Greece’s Muslims were to be deported to Turkey. The agreement, reached under the auspices of the League of Nations, also specified that the populations being transferred would lose their original nationality along with any right to return, instead being resettled in the new homeland.

Underlying the transfer was the conviction, articulated by French prime minister (and foreign minister) Raymond Poincare, that “the mixture of populations of different races and religions has been the main cause of troubles and of war”, and that the “unmixing of peoples” would “remove one of the greatest menaces to peace”.

That the forced population transfers, which affected about 1.5 million people, imposed enormous suffering is beyond doubt. But they were generally viewed as a success. Despite considerable difficulties, the transferred populations became integrated into the fabric of the recipient communities – at least partly because they had no other option. At the same time, relations between Turkey and Greece improved immensely, with the Ankara Agreements of 1930 inaugurating a long period of relative stability.

The result was to give large-scale, permanent population movements, planned or unplanned, a marked degree of legitimacy.

Thus, the formation of what became the Irish Republic was accompanied by the flight of Protestants to England and Northern Ireland, eventually more than halving, into an insignificant minority, the Protestant share of the Irish state’s population; that was viewed as easing the tensions that had so embittered the Irish civil war.

It is therefore unsurprising that further “unmixing” was seen by the allies in World War II as vital to ensuring peace in the post-war world. In a statement later echoed by Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill made this explicit in 1944, telling the House of Commons he was “not alarmed by the prospect of the disentanglement of populations, nor even by these large transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions than they ever were before”.

The immediate effect, endorsed as part of the Potsdam Agreements and implemented as soon as the war ended, was the brutal expulsion from central and eastern Europe of 12 million ethnic Germans whose families had lived in those regions for centuries. Stripped of their nationality and possessions, then forcibly deported to a war-devastated Germany, the refugees – who received very little by way of assistance – gradually merged into German society, though the scars took decades to heal.

Even more traumatic was the movement in 1947 of 18 million people between India and the newly formed state of Pakistan.

As Indian novelist Alok Bhalla put it, India’s declaration of independence triggered the subcontinent’s sudden descent into “a bestial world of hatred, rage, self-interest and frenzy”, with Lord Ismay, who witnessed the process, later writing that “the frontier between India and Pakistan was to see more tragedy than any frontier conceived before or since”. Yet in the subcontinent too, and especially in India, the integration of refugees proceeded to the point where little now separates their descendants from those of the native born.

All that formed the context in which the planned partition of Palestine was to occur. The 1937 Peel Commission, which initially proposed partition, had recommended a mandatory population exchange but the entire issue was ignored in UN Resolution 181 that was supposed to govern the creation of the two new states.

When a majority of the UN General Assembly endorsed that resolution on November 29, 1947, the major Zionist forces reluctantly accepted the proposed partition, despite it being vastly unfavourable to them. But the Arab states not only rejected the plan, they launched what the Arab League described as “a war of extermination” whose aim was to “erase (Palestine’s Jewish population) from the face of the earth”. Nor did the fighting give any reason to doubt that was the Arabs’ goal.

At least until late May 1948, Jewish prisoners were invariably slaughtered. In one instance, 77 Jewish civilians were burned alive after a medical convey was captured; in another, soldiers who had surrendered were castrated before being shot; in yet another, death came by public decapitation. And even after the Arab armies declared they would abide by the Geneva Convention, Jewish prisoners were regularly murdered on the spot.

While those atrocities continued a longstanding pattern of barbarism, they also reflected the conviction that unrestrained terror would “push the Jews into the sea”, as Izzedin Shawa, who represented the Arab High Committee, put it.

A crucial element of that strategy was to use civilian militias in the territory’s 450 Arab villages to ambush, encircle and destroy Jewish forces, as they did in the conflict’s first three months.

It was to reduce that risk that the Haganah – the predecessor of the Israel Defence Force – adopted the Dalet plan in March 1948 that ordered the evacuation of those “hostile” Arab villages, notably in the surrounds of Jerusalem, that posed a direct threat of encirclement. The implementation of its criteria for clearing villages was inevitably imperfect, but the Dalet plan neither sought nor was the primary cause of the massive outflow of Arab refugees that was well under way before it came into effect.

Nor was the scale of the outflow much influenced by the massacres committed by Irgun and Lehi – small Jewish militias that had broken away from the Haganah – which did not loom large in a prolonged, extremely violent, conflict that also displaced a very high proportion of the Jewish population.

Rather, three factors were mainly involved. First, the Muslim authorities, led by the rector of Cairo’s Al Azhar Mosque, instructed the faithful to “temporarily leave the territory, so that our warriors can freely undertake their task of extermination”.

Second, believing that the war would be short-lived and that they could soon return without having to incur its risks, the Arab elites fled immediately, leaving the Arab population leaderless, disoriented and demoralised, especially once the Jewish forces gained the upper hand.

Third and last, as Benny Morris, a harsh critic of Israel, stresses in his widely cited study of the Palestinian exodus, “knowing what the Arabs had done to the Jews, the Arabs were terrified the Jews would, once they could, do it to them”.

Seen in that perspective, the exodus was little different from the fear-ridden flights of civilians discussed above. There was, however, one immensely significant difference: having precipitated the creation of a pool of 700,000 Palestinian refugees, the Arab states refused to absorb them. 

Rather, they used their clout in the UN to establish the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, which became a bloated, grant-funded bureaucracy whose survival depended on endlessly perpetuating the Palestinians’ refugee status.

In entrenching the problem, the UN was merely doing the bidding of the Arab states, which increasingly relied on the issue of Palestine to convert popular anger at their abject failures into rage against Israel and the West. Terminally corrupt, manifestly incapable of economic and social development, the Arab kleptocracies elevated Jew-hatred into the opium of the people – and empowered the Islamist fanaticism that has wreaked so much harm worldwide.

Nor did it end there. Fanning the flames of anti-Semitism, the Arab states proceeded to expel, or force the departure of, 800,000 Jews who had lived in the Arab lands for millennia, taking away their nationality, expropriating their assets and forbidding them from ever returning to the place of their birth. Those Jews were, however painfully, integrated into Israel; the Palestinian refugees, in contrast, remained isolated, subsisting mainly on welfare, rejected by countries that claimed to be their greatest friends. Thus was born the myth of the Nakba.
That vast population movements have inflicted enormous costs on those who have been ousted from their homes is undeniable. Nor have the tragedies ended: without a murmur from the Arab states, 400,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait after the first Gulf War, in retaliation for the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s support of Saddam Hussein. More recently, Myanmar has expelled 1.2 million Rohingya.

But the greatest tragedy associated with the plight of the Palestinians is not the loss of a homeland; over the past century, that has been the fate of tens of millions. Rather, it is the refusal to look forward rather than always looking back, an attitude encapsulated in the slogan “from the river to the sea”.

That has suited the Arab leaders, but it has condemned ordinary Palestinians to endless misery and perpetual war. Until that changes, the future will be a constant repetition of a blood-soaked past.

Henry Ergas

Frank wrote on May 18^th, 2024 at 3:20pm:

refusal to look forward rather than always looking back, an attitude encapsulated in the slogan “from the river to the sea”.

Mussos look back a century. Zionists look back 35 centuries.

The Muslim armies that were about to try to wipe the Jews out once and for all actually encouraged the Muslims to leave from a lot of areas where they expected to be fighting. The Muslims were probably more frightened of the propaganda they had been spreading about evil Jews than the reality they were faced with. Today, those Muslims that were willing to live in peace with the Jews in Israel have more rights and freedoms than in any other middle eastern or north african country.

Muslims of all types get their homes bulldozed for Zionist expansion. It's right and the land is freed.

freediver wrote on May 18^th, 2024 at 3:28pm:

The Muslim armies that were about to try to wipe the Jews out once and for all actually encouraged the Muslims to leave from a lot of areas where they expected to be fighting. The Muslims were probably more frightened of the propaganda they had been spreading about evil Jews than the reality they were faced with. Today, those Muslims that were willing to live in peace with the Jews in Israel have more rights and freedoms than in any other middle eastern or north african country.

Quote:

First, the Muslim authorities, led by the rector of Cairo’s Al Azhar Mosque, instructed the faithful to “temporarily leave the territory, so that our warriors can freely undertake their task of extermination”. Second, believing that the war would be short-lived and that they could soon return without having to incur its risks, the Arab elites fled immediately, leaving the Arab population leaderless, disoriented and demoralised, especially once the Jewish forces gained the upper hand. Third and last, as Benny Morris, a harsh critic of Israel, stresses in his widely cited study of the Palestinian exodus, “knowing what the Arabs had done to the Jews, the Arabs were terrified the Jews would, once they could, do it to them”.

Quote:

Third and last, as Benny Morris, a harsh critic of Israel, stresses in his widely cited study of the Palestinian exodus, “knowing what the Arabs had done to the Jews, the Arabs were terrified the Jews would, once they could, do it to them”.

;D

Frank wrote on May 18^th, 2024 at 3:15pm:

On Wednesday, “Nakba Day” was commemorated around the world with even more vehemence than usual as outpourings of hatred against Israel, sprinkled with ample doses of anti-Semitism, issued from screaming crowds. What was entirely missing was any historical perspective on the Nakba – that is, the displacement, mainly through voluntary flight, of Palestinians from mandatory Palestine. Stripped out of its broader context, the event was invested with a uniqueness that distorts the processes that caused it and its contemporary significance.

That author is just repeating Zionist propaganda.

 Ilan Pappe: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

By Stephen Lendman  -  The Palestine Chronicle

Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and senior lecturer at Haifa University. He's also Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies. Pappe is an expert on Israel and Zionism and the Palestinians' Right of Return to their homeland, is considered "an honourable academic with integrity and conscience," and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Council for Palestinian Restitution and Repatriation (CPRR), an organization declaring that "every Palestinian has a legitimate, individual right to return to his or her original home and to absolute restitution of his or her property."

Pappe is also one of Israel's "new historians" whose scholarship and writings are based on access to material now available from British Mandate period and Israeli archives that provide the most accurate and authentic documented history of Israel before and after it became a state and which now serve to debunk the myths about the years leading up to the Jewish State's founding and those following it to this day.

He proves from official records how the Israeli state came into being with blood on its hands from lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who'd lived on it for hundreds of years previously. Since the 1940s, they were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone.

Pappe calls the book his "J'Accuse against the politicians who devised the plan and the generals who carried out the ethnic cleansing" naming the guilty, the villages and urban areas destroyed, and the cruelest crimes committed against defenseless people only wanting to live in peace on their own land and were willing to do it with Jews as neighbors but not as overlords or oppressors.

Pappe provides extensive documentation and other suggested reading on the origins of Zionist ideology leading to the ethnic cleansing in the 1940s and thereafter.



'Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.'
- John Pilger


'Ilan Pappe has written an extraordinary book that is of profound relevance to the past, present, and future of Israel/Palestine relations. Anyone concerned with peace and justice for these two peoples needs to read and reflect upon this brave, honest, and illuminating exposure of the crimes committed against the Palestinians in the course of establishing the state of Israel in 1948, and since.'
- Richard Falk, Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University


'Fresh insights into a world historic tragedy, related by a historian of genius.'
- George Galloway MP


'Ilan Pappe is out to fight against Zionism, whose power of deletion has driven a whole nation not only out of its homeland but out of historic memory as well. A detailed, documented record of the true history of that crime.'
- Anton Shammas, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern Literature, University of Michigan


'An instant classic. Finally we have the authoritative account of an historic event, which continues to shape our world today, and drives the conflict in the Middle East. Pappe is the only historian who could have told it, and he has done so with supreme command of the facts, elegance, and compassion. The publication of this book is a landmark event.'
- Karma Nabulsi, research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2024 at 6:48pm:

Frank wrote on May 18th, 2024 at 3:15pm: On Wednesday, “Nakba Day” was commemorated around the world with even more vehemence than usual as outpourings of hatred against Israel, sprinkled with ample doses of anti-Semitism, issued from screaming crowds. What was entirely missing was any historical perspective on the Nakba – that is, the displacement, mainly through voluntary flight, of Palestinians from mandatory Palestine. Stripped out of its broader context, the event was invested with a uniqueness that distorts the processes that caused it and its contemporary significance. That author is just repeating Zionist propaganda.  Ilan Pappe: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. By Stephen Lendman  -  The Palestine Chronicle Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and senior lecturer at Haifa University. He's also Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies. Pappe is an expert on Israel and Zionism and the Palestinians' Right of Return to their homeland, is considered "an honourable academic with integrity and conscience," and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Council for Palestinian Restitution and Repatriation (CPRR), an organization declaring that "every Palestinian has a legitimate, individual right to return to his or her original home and to absolute restitution of his or her property." Pappe is also one of Israel's "new historians" whose scholarship and writings are based on access to material now available from British Mandate period and Israeli archives that provide the most accurate and authentic documented history of Israel before and after it became a state and which now serve to debunk the myths about the years leading up to the Jewish State's founding and those following it to this day. He proves from official records how the Israeli state came into being with blood on its hands from lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who'd lived on it for hundreds of years previously. Since the 1940s, they were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone. Pappe calls the book his "J'Accuse against the politicians who devised the plan and the generals who carried out the ethnic cleansing" naming the guilty, the villages and urban areas destroyed, and the cruelest crimes committed against defenseless people only wanting to live in peace on their own land and were willing to do it with Jews as neighbors but not as overlords or oppressors. Pappe provides extensive documentation and other suggested reading on the origins of Zionist ideology leading to the ethnic cleansing in the 1940s and thereafter. 'Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.' - John Pilger 'Ilan Pappe has written an extraordinary book that is of profound relevance to the past, present, and future of Israel/Palestine relations. Anyone concerned with peace and justice for these two peoples needs to read and reflect upon this brave, honest, and illuminating exposure of the crimes committed against the Palestinians in the course of establishing the state of Israel in 1948, and since.' - Richard Falk, Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University 'Fresh insights into a world historic tragedy, related by a historian of genius.' - George Galloway MP 'Ilan Pappe is out to fight against Zionism, whose power of deletion has driven a whole nation not only out of its homeland but out of historic memory as well. A detailed, documented record of the true history of that crime.' - Anton Shammas, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern Literature, University of Michigan 'An instant classic. Finally we have the authoritative account of an historic event, which continues to shape our world today, and drives the conflict in the Middle East. Pappe is the only historian who could have told it, and he has done so with supreme command of the facts, elegance, and compassion. The publication of this book is a landmark event.' - Karma Nabulsi, research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University

Academic freedom.

He would be burnt alive if he were a  Muslim.

Islamic savagery is limitless.

Hate is fomented and incited inside Israel by Israeli Jews and directed outward.

Israeli Jews would fight each other if an external enemy was not created.

Israel does not deserve peace.

---

Laugh till you cry wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2024 at 7:23pm:

Hate is fomented and incited inside Israel by Israeli Jews and directed outward. Israeli Jews would fight each other if an external enemy was not created. Israel does not deserve peace.

Laugh till you cry wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2024 at 1:48pm:

Busy, busy, busy. A hate spreader's work is never done.

Frank wrote on Jun 2^nd, 2024 at 6:57pm:

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 2nd, 2024 at 6:48pm: Frank wrote on May 18th, 2024 at 3:15pm: On Wednesday, “Nakba Day” was commemorated around the world with even more vehemence than usual as outpourings of hatred against Israel, sprinkled with ample doses of anti-Semitism, issued from screaming crowds. What was entirely missing was any historical perspective on the Nakba – that is, the displacement, mainly through voluntary flight, of Palestinians from mandatory Palestine. Stripped out of its broader context, the event was invested with a uniqueness that distorts the processes that caused it and its contemporary significance. That author is just repeating Zionist propaganda.  Ilan Pappe: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. By Stephen Lendman  -  The Palestine Chronicle Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and senior lecturer at Haifa University. He's also Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies. Pappe is an expert on Israel and Zionism and the Palestinians' Right of Return to their homeland, is considered "an honourable academic with integrity and conscience," and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Council for Palestinian Restitution and Repatriation (CPRR), an organization declaring that "every Palestinian has a legitimate, individual right to return to his or her original home and to absolute restitution of his or her property." Pappe is also one of Israel's "new historians" whose scholarship and writings are based on access to material now available from British Mandate period and Israeli archives that provide the most accurate and authentic documented history of Israel before and after it became a state and which now serve to debunk the myths about the years leading up to the Jewish State's founding and those following it to this day. He proves from official records how the Israeli state came into being with blood on its hands from lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who'd lived on it for hundreds of years previously. Since the 1940s, they were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone. Pappe calls the book his "J'Accuse against the politicians who devised the plan and the generals who carried out the ethnic cleansing" naming the guilty, the villages and urban areas destroyed, and the cruelest crimes committed against defenseless people only wanting to live in peace on their own land and were willing to do it with Jews as neighbors but not as overlords or oppressors. Pappe provides extensive documentation and other suggested reading on the origins of Zionist ideology leading to the ethnic cleansing in the 1940s and thereafter. 'Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.' - John Pilger 'Ilan Pappe has written an extraordinary book that is of profound relevance to the past, present, and future of Israel/Palestine relations. Anyone concerned with peace and justice for these two peoples needs to read and reflect upon this brave, honest, and illuminating exposure of the crimes committed against the Palestinians in the course of establishing the state of Israel in 1948, and since.' - Richard Falk, Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University 'Fresh insights into a world historic tragedy, related by a historian of genius.' - George Galloway MP 'Ilan Pappe is out to fight against Zionism, whose power of deletion has driven a whole nation not only out of its homeland but out of historic memory as well. A detailed, documented record of the true history of that crime.' - Anton Shammas, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern Literature, University of Michigan 'An instant classic. Finally we have the authoritative account of an historic event, which continues to shape our world today, and drives the conflict in the Middle East. Pappe is the only historian who could have told it, and he has done so with supreme command of the facts, elegance, and compassion. The publication of this book is a landmark event.' - Karma Nabulsi, research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University Academic freedom. He would be burnt alive if he were a  Muslim. Islamic savagery is limitless.

What savagery? Defending one's home and property can never be called savagery.

Also, your author is talking about the war in Europe, which displaced millions. Yet there was no conflict in Palestine. That is, until Zionist settlers began arriving and treating the locals like second-class citizens.

Before that Jews and Muslims had lived peacefully in Palestine for centuries.

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 3^rd, 2024 at 9:29pm:

Frank wrote on Jun 2nd, 2024 at 6:57pm: wombatwoody wrote on Jun 2nd, 2024 at 6:48pm: Frank wrote on May 18th, 2024 at 3:15pm: On Wednesday, “Nakba Day” was commemorated around the world with even more vehemence than usual as outpourings of hatred against Israel, sprinkled with ample doses of anti-Semitism, issued from screaming crowds. What was entirely missing was any historical perspective on the Nakba – that is, the displacement, mainly through voluntary flight, of Palestinians from mandatory Palestine. Stripped out of its broader context, the event was invested with a uniqueness that distorts the processes that caused it and its contemporary significance. That author is just repeating Zionist propaganda.  Ilan Pappe: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. By Stephen Lendman  -  The Palestine Chronicle Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and senior lecturer at Haifa University. He's also Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies. Pappe is an expert on Israel and Zionism and the Palestinians' Right of Return to their homeland, is considered "an honourable academic with integrity and conscience," and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Council for Palestinian Restitution and Repatriation (CPRR), an organization declaring that "every Palestinian has a legitimate, individual right to return to his or her original home and to absolute restitution of his or her property." Pappe is also one of Israel's "new historians" whose scholarship and writings are based on access to material now available from British Mandate period and Israeli archives that provide the most accurate and authentic documented history of Israel before and after it became a state and which now serve to debunk the myths about the years leading up to the Jewish State's founding and those following it to this day. He proves from official records how the Israeli state came into being with blood on its hands from lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who'd lived on it for hundreds of years previously. Since the 1940s, they were ethnically cleansed and slaughtered without mercy so their homeland would become one for Jews alone. Pappe calls the book his "J'Accuse against the politicians who devised the plan and the generals who carried out the ethnic cleansing" naming the guilty, the villages and urban areas destroyed, and the cruelest crimes committed against defenseless people only wanting to live in peace on their own land and were willing to do it with Jews as neighbors but not as overlords or oppressors. Pappe provides extensive documentation and other suggested reading on the origins of Zionist ideology leading to the ethnic cleansing in the 1940s and thereafter. 'Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.' - John Pilger 'Ilan Pappe has written an extraordinary book that is of profound relevance to the past, present, and future of Israel/Palestine relations. Anyone concerned with peace and justice for these two peoples needs to read and reflect upon this brave, honest, and illuminating exposure of the crimes committed against the Palestinians in the course of establishing the state of Israel in 1948, and since.' - Richard Falk, Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University 'Fresh insights into a world historic tragedy, related by a historian of genius.' - George Galloway MP 'Ilan Pappe is out to fight against Zionism, whose power of deletion has driven a whole nation not only out of its homeland but out of historic memory as well. A detailed, documented record of the true history of that crime.' - Anton Shammas, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern Literature, University of Michigan 'An instant classic. Finally we have the authoritative account of an historic event, which continues to shape our world today, and drives the conflict in the Middle East. Pappe is the only historian who could have told it, and he has done so with supreme command of the facts, elegance, and compassion. The publication of this book is a landmark event.' - Karma Nabulsi, research fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University Academic freedom. He would be burnt alive if he were a  Muslim. Islamic savagery is limitless. What savagery? Defending one's home and property can never be called savagery. Also, your author is talking about the war in Europe, which displaced millions. Yet there was no conflict in Palestine. That is, until Zionist settlers began arriving and treating the locals like second-class citizens. Before that Jews and Muslims had lived peacefully in Palestine for centuries.

Muslims are invaders in that part of the world, you stupid, ignorant bozo.

Speak to that, pissant.

You're the ignorant one, Frank.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1697553317/17#17

Next, the Muslim armies consolidated their conquest of the Levant as Shurhabil and Amr went deeper into Palestine. Bet She'an surrendered after a little resistance followed by the surrender of Tiberias in February. Umar, after having learned of the position and strength of the Byzantine army in Palestine, wrote detailed instructions to his corps commanders there and ordered Yazid to capture the Mediterranean coast. Amr and Shurhabil accordingly marched against the strongest Byzantine garrison and defeated them in the Second Battle of Ajnadyn. The two corps then separated, with Amr moving to capture Nablus, Amawas, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Yubna in order to complete the conquest of all Palestine, while Shurahbil moved against the coastal towns of Acre and Tyre. Yazid advanced from Damascus to capture the ports of Sidon, Arqa, Byblos and Beirut.[20] By 635 CE, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands.
Wiki



The Muslims are invaders and conquerers.

Frank wrote on Jun 4^th, 2024 at 10:59am:

Next, the Muslim armies consolidated their conquest of the Levant as Shurhabil and Amr went deeper into Palestine. Bet She'an surrendered after a little resistance followed by the surrender of Tiberias in February. Umar, after having learned of the position and strength of the Byzantine army in Palestine, wrote detailed instructions to his corps commanders there and ordered Yazid to capture the Mediterranean coast. Amr and Shurhabil accordingly marched against the strongest Byzantine garrison and defeated them in the Second Battle of Ajnadyn. The two corps then separated, with Amr moving to capture Nablus, Amawas, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Yubna in order to complete the conquest of all Palestine, while Shurahbil moved against the coastal towns of Acre and Tyre. Yazid advanced from Damascus to capture the ports of Sidon, Arqa, Byblos and Beirut.[20] By 635 CE, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands. Wiki The Muslims are invaders and conquerers.

How does that justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5^th, 2024 at 6:24am:

Frank wrote on Jun 4th, 2024 at 10:59am: Next, the Muslim armies consolidated their conquest of the Levant as Shurhabil and Amr went deeper into Palestine. Bet She'an surrendered after a little resistance followed by the surrender of Tiberias in February. Umar, after having learned of the position and strength of the Byzantine army in Palestine, wrote detailed instructions to his corps commanders there and ordered Yazid to capture the Mediterranean coast. Amr and Shurhabil accordingly marched against the strongest Byzantine garrison and defeated them in the Second Battle of Ajnadyn. The two corps then separated, with Amr moving to capture Nablus, Amawas, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Yubna in order to complete the conquest of all Palestine, while Shurahbil moved against the coastal towns of Acre and Tyre. Yazid advanced from Damascus to capture the ports of Sidon, Arqa, Byblos and Beirut.[20] By 635 CE, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands. Wiki The Muslims are invaders and conquerers. How does that justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians?

There is no ethnic clensing.

Frank wrote on Jun 5^th, 2024 at 8:51am:

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 6:24am: Frank wrote on Jun 4th, 2024 at 10:59am: Next, the Muslim armies consolidated their conquest of the Levant as Shurhabil and Amr went deeper into Palestine. Bet She'an surrendered after a little resistance followed by the surrender of Tiberias in February. Umar, after having learned of the position and strength of the Byzantine army in Palestine, wrote detailed instructions to his corps commanders there and ordered Yazid to capture the Mediterranean coast. Amr and Shurhabil accordingly marched against the strongest Byzantine garrison and defeated them in the Second Battle of Ajnadyn. The two corps then separated, with Amr moving to capture Nablus, Amawas, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Yubna in order to complete the conquest of all Palestine, while Shurahbil moved against the coastal towns of Acre and Tyre. Yazid advanced from Damascus to capture the ports of Sidon, Arqa, Byblos and Beirut.[20] By 635 CE, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands. Wiki The Muslims are invaders and conquerers. How does that justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? There is no ethnic clensing.

Zion, schmion back at Frank.

Kiss Zionism goodbye Frank it is being flushed.

Frank wrote on Jun 5^th, 2024 at 8:51am:

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 6:24am: Frank wrote on Jun 4th, 2024 at 10:59am: Next, the Muslim armies consolidated their conquest of the Levant as Shurhabil and Amr went deeper into Palestine. Bet She'an surrendered after a little resistance followed by the surrender of Tiberias in February. Umar, after having learned of the position and strength of the Byzantine army in Palestine, wrote detailed instructions to his corps commanders there and ordered Yazid to capture the Mediterranean coast. Amr and Shurhabil accordingly marched against the strongest Byzantine garrison and defeated them in the Second Battle of Ajnadyn. The two corps then separated, with Amr moving to capture Nablus, Amawas, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Yubna in order to complete the conquest of all Palestine, while Shurahbil moved against the coastal towns of Acre and Tyre. Yazid advanced from Damascus to capture the ports of Sidon, Arqa, Byblos and Beirut.[20] By 635 CE, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands. Wiki The Muslims are invaders and conquerers. How does that justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? There is no ethnic clensing.

Yes there is.

Prof. Pappe explains that it's still going on today:

https://youtu.be/yhfEWqBvav0?list=PL5I1KO1JPQyuuXPaqDp_B2FVF1yUfk6rk

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5^th, 2024 at 5:49pm:

Frank wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 8:51am: wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 6:24am: Frank wrote on Jun 4th, 2024 at 10:59am: Next, the Muslim armies consolidated their conquest of the Levant as Shurhabil and Amr went deeper into Palestine. Bet She'an surrendered after a little resistance followed by the surrender of Tiberias in February. Umar, after having learned of the position and strength of the Byzantine army in Palestine, wrote detailed instructions to his corps commanders there and ordered Yazid to capture the Mediterranean coast. Amr and Shurhabil accordingly marched against the strongest Byzantine garrison and defeated them in the Second Battle of Ajnadyn. The two corps then separated, with Amr moving to capture Nablus, Amawas, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Yubna in order to complete the conquest of all Palestine, while Shurahbil moved against the coastal towns of Acre and Tyre. Yazid advanced from Damascus to capture the ports of Sidon, Arqa, Byblos and Beirut.[20] By 635 CE, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands. Wiki The Muslims are invaders and conquerers. How does that justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? There is no ethnic clensing. Yes there is. Prof. Pappe explains that it's still going on today: https://youtu.be/yhfEWqBvav0?list=PL5I1KO1JPQyuuXPaqDp_B2FVF1yUfk6rk

So?? Galloway and Pappe.


Why didn't the Arabs accept the 1948 partition?
Because they will never accept Israel's existence in any shape or form.
Why not??

I let you explain that.

Frank wrote on Jun 5^th, 2024 at 5:58pm:

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 5:49pm: Frank wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 8:51am: wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 6:24am: Frank wrote on Jun 4th, 2024 at 10:59am: Next, the Muslim armies consolidated their conquest of the Levant as Shurhabil and Amr went deeper into Palestine. Bet She'an surrendered after a little resistance followed by the surrender of Tiberias in February. Umar, after having learned of the position and strength of the Byzantine army in Palestine, wrote detailed instructions to his corps commanders there and ordered Yazid to capture the Mediterranean coast. Amr and Shurhabil accordingly marched against the strongest Byzantine garrison and defeated them in the Second Battle of Ajnadyn. The two corps then separated, with Amr moving to capture Nablus, Amawas, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Yubna in order to complete the conquest of all Palestine, while Shurahbil moved against the coastal towns of Acre and Tyre. Yazid advanced from Damascus to capture the ports of Sidon, Arqa, Byblos and Beirut.[20] By 635 CE, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands. Wiki The Muslims are invaders and conquerers. How does that justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? There is no ethnic clensing. Yes there is. Prof. Pappe explains that it's still going on today: https://youtu.be/yhfEWqBvav0?list=PL5I1KO1JPQyuuXPaqDp_B2FVF1yUfk6rk So?? Galloway and Pappe.

Prof. Pappe is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, as shown above.


Quote:

Why didn't the Arabs accept the 1948 partition? Because they will never accept Israel's existence in any shape or form. Why not?? I let you explain that.

I already have. You just refuse to accept reality:

https://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1706934335/271#271

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5^th, 2024 at 6:10pm:

Frank wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 5:58pm: wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 5:49pm: Frank wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 8:51am: wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 6:24am: Frank wrote on Jun 4th, 2024 at 10:59am: Next, the Muslim armies consolidated their conquest of the Levant as Shurhabil and Amr went deeper into Palestine. Bet She'an surrendered after a little resistance followed by the surrender of Tiberias in February. Umar, after having learned of the position and strength of the Byzantine army in Palestine, wrote detailed instructions to his corps commanders there and ordered Yazid to capture the Mediterranean coast. Amr and Shurhabil accordingly marched against the strongest Byzantine garrison and defeated them in the Second Battle of Ajnadyn. The two corps then separated, with Amr moving to capture Nablus, Amawas, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Yubna in order to complete the conquest of all Palestine, while Shurahbil moved against the coastal towns of Acre and Tyre. Yazid advanced from Damascus to capture the ports of Sidon, Arqa, Byblos and Beirut.[20] By 635 CE, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands. Wiki The Muslims are invaders and conquerers. How does that justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? There is no ethnic clensing. Yes there is. Prof. Pappe explains that it's still going on today: https://youtu.be/yhfEWqBvav0?list=PL5I1KO1JPQyuuXPaqDp_B2FVF1yUfk6rk So?? Galloway and Pappe. Prof. Pappe is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, as shown above. Quote: Why didn't the Arabs accept the 1948 partition? Because they will never accept Israel's existence in any shape or form. Why not?? I let you explain that. I already have. You just refuse to accept reality: https://www.ozpolitic.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1706934335/271#271

Nonsense.

The UN doesn't create - or not - countries. People create countries.
The UN resolution meant an international endorsement of the SUBSEQUENT creation, if they were willing, of two countries by two peoples.

The Jews accepted the endorsement and went ahead and created their state.
The Arabs, being interested ONLY in not allowing a Jewish state, revolted pronto and have been revolting ever since.

Do note that there was ZERO national 'Palestinian' struggle for nationhood for the previous 1400 years while they were under Islamic rule.


It's all a load of colossal bullshit. All countries in the ME are artificial creations. Come to think of it - all countries are.

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5^th, 2024 at 6:10pm:

Frank wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 5:58pm: wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 5:49pm: Frank wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 8:51am: wombatwoody wrote on Jun 5th, 2024 at 6:24am: Frank wrote on Jun 4th, 2024 at 10:59am: Next, the Muslim armies consolidated their conquest of the Levant as Shurhabil and Amr went deeper into Palestine. Bet She'an surrendered after a little resistance followed by the surrender of Tiberias in February. Umar, after having learned of the position and strength of the Byzantine army in Palestine, wrote detailed instructions to his corps commanders there and ordered Yazid to capture the Mediterranean coast. Amr and Shurhabil accordingly marched against the strongest Byzantine garrison and defeated them in the Second Battle of Ajnadyn. The two corps then separated, with Amr moving to capture Nablus, Amawas, Jaffa, Haifa, Gaza and Yubna in order to complete the conquest of all Palestine, while Shurahbil moved against the coastal towns of Acre and Tyre. Yazid advanced from Damascus to capture the ports of Sidon, Arqa, Byblos and Beirut.[20] By 635 CE, Palestine, Jordan and Southern Syria, with the exception of Jerusalem and Caesarea, were in Muslim hands. Wiki The Muslims are invaders and conquerers. How does that justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians? There is no ethnic clensing. Yes there is. Prof. Pappe explains that it's still going on today: https://youtu.be/yhfEWqBvav0?list=PL5I1KO1JPQyuuXPaqDp_B2FVF1yUfk6rk So?? Galloway and Pappe. Prof. Pappe is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, as shown above.

:'( :'( :'(
And the f*%$ given is - what exactly??

Peaceful rational Jews are telling hateful irrational Jews they are trapping themselves in constant war and hate and global isolation.

Laugh till you cry wrote on Jun 5^th, 2024 at 8:52pm:

Peaceful rational Jews are telling hateful irrational Jews they are trapping themselves in constant war and hate and global isolation.

And we all watch you fapping to that, throbbo.

Faster, faster!  :D :D

Frank wrote on Jun 5^th, 2024 at 8:43pm:

The UN doesn't create - or not - countries. People create countries. The UN resolution meant an international endorsement of the SUBSEQUENT creation, if they were willing, of two countries by two peoples. The Jews accepted the endorsement and went ahead and created their state. The Arabs, being interested ONLY in not allowing a Jewish state, revolted pronto and have been revolting ever since. Do note that there was ZERO national 'Palestinian' struggle for nationhood for the previous 1400 years while they were under Islamic rule. It's all a load of colossal bullshit. All countries in the ME are artificial creations. Come to think of it - all countries are.

"In other words, the (UNSCOM) report explicitly recognized that the denial of Palestinian independence in order to pursue the goal of establishing a Jewish state constituted a rejection of the right of the Arab majority to self-determination. And yet, despite this recognition, UNSCOP had accepted this rejection of Arab rights as being within the bounds of a legitimate and reasonable framework for a solution."

But this thread is about the Nakba, So back on topic:

‘I am for compulsory transfer; I do not see anything immoral in it.’
  - David Ben-Gurion to the Jewish Agency Executive, June 1938

---

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine  by Ilan Pappe

Oneworld Publications Limited, October 2006


Preface

In this building (The ‘Red House’, a typical early Tel-Avivian building), on a cold Wednesday afternoon, 10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches to a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That same evening, military orders were dispatched to the units on the ground to prepare for the systematic expulsion of the Palestinians from vast areas of the country. The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be employed to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centres; setting fire to homes, properties and goods; expulsion; demolition; and, finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued with its own list of villages and neighbourhoods as the targets of this master plan. Codenamed Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), this was the fourth and final version of less substantial plans that outlined the fate the Zionists had in store for Palestine and consequently for its native population. The previous three schemes had articulated only obscurely how the Zionist leadership contemplated dealing with the presence of so many Palestinians living in the land the Jewish national movement coveted as its own. This fourth and last blueprint spelled it out clearly and unambiguously: the Palestinians had to go. In the words of one of the first historians to note the significance of that plan, Simcha Flapan, ‘The military campaign against the Arabs, including the “conquest and destruction of the rural areas” was set forth in the Hagana’s Plan Dalet’. The aim of the plan was in fact the destruction of both the rural and urban areas of Palestine.

... this plan was both the inevitable product of the Zionist ideological impulse to have an exclusively Jewish presence in Palestine, and a response to developments on the ground once the British cabinet had decided to end the mandate. Clashes with local Palestinian militias provided the perfect context and pretext for implementing the ideological vision of an ethnically cleansed Palestine...

Once the decision was taken, it took six months to complete the mission. When it was over, more than half of Palestine’s native population, close to 800,000 people, had been uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and eleven urban neighbourhoods emptied of their inhabitants. The plan decided upon on 10 March 1948, and above all its systematic implementation in the following months, was a clear-cut case of an ethnic cleansing operation, regarded under international law today as a crime against humanity.

After (WW II), it has become almost impossible to conceal large-scale crimes against humanity. Our modern communication-driven world, especially since the upsurge of electronic media, no longer allows human-made catastrophes to remain hidden from the public eye or to be denied. And yet, one such crime has been erased almost totally from the global public memory: the dispossession of the Palestinians in 1948 by Israel. This, the most formative event in the modern history of the land of Palestine, has ever since been systematically denied, and is still today not recognised as an historical fact, let alone acknowledged as a crime that needs to be confronted politically as well as morally. Ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity, and the people who perpetrate it today are considered criminals to be brought before special tribunals...

We know the names of the people who sat in that room on the top floor of the Red House, beneath Marxist-style posters that carried such slogans as ‘Brothers in Arms’ and ‘The Fist of Steel’, and showed ‘new’ Jews – muscular, healthy and tanned – aiming their rifles from behind protective barriers in the ‘brave fight’ against ‘hostile Arab invaders’. We also know the names of the senior officers who executed the orders on the ground. All are familiar figures in the pantheon of Israeli heroism. Not so long ago many of them were still alive, playing major roles in Israeli politics and society; very few are still with us today.

For Palestinians, and anyone else who refused to buy into the Zionist narrative, it was clear long before this book was written that these people were perpetrators of crimes, but that they had successfully evaded justice and would probably never be brought to trial for what they had done. Besides their trauma, the deepest form of frustration for Palestinians has been that the criminal act these men were responsible for has been so thoroughly denied, and that Palestinian suffering has been so totally ignored, ever since 1948.

... using primarily Israeli military archives...revisionist Israeli historians did succeed in showing how false and absurd was the Israeli claim that the Palestinians had left ‘of their own accord’. They were able to confirm many cases of massive expulsions from villages and towns and revealed that the Jewish forces had committed a considerable number of atrocities, including massacres...

,,, When it created its nation-state, the Zionist movement did not wage a war that ‘tragically but inevitably’ led to the expulsion of ‘parts of’ the indigenous population, but the other way round: the main goal was the ethnic cleansing of all of Palestine, which the movement coveted for its new state. A few weeks after the ethnic cleansing operations began, the neighbouring Arab states sent a small army – small in comparison to their overall military might – to try, in vain, to prevent the ethnic cleansing. The war with the regular Arab armies did not bring the ethnic cleansing operations to a halt until their successful completion in the autumn of 1948...

But the story of 1948...is the simple but horrific story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, a crime against humanity that Israel has wanted to deny and cause the world to forget. Retrieving it from oblivion is incumbent upon us, not just as a greatly overdue act of historiographical reconstruction or professional duty; it is, as I see it, a moral decision, the very first step we must take if we ever want reconciliation to have a chance, and peace to take root, in the torn lands of Palestine and Israel.

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine  by Ilan Pappe

When ... Zionism began in earnest in the late 19th century, there were only about 15,000 Jews in Palestine. In 1893, for example, the Arabs comprised roughly 95 percent of the population, and though under Ottoman control, they had been in continuous possession of this territory for 1300 years. Even when Israel was founded, Jews were only about 35 percent of Palestine’s population and owned 7 percent of the land. The mainstream Zionist leadership was not interested in establishing a bi‐national state or accepting a permanent partition of Palestine. The Zionist leadership was sometimes willing to accept partition as a first step, but this was a tactical maneuver and not their real objective. As David Ben‐Gurion put it in the late 1930s, “After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.”

To achieve this goal, the Zionists had to expel large numbers of Arabs from the territory that would eventually become Israel. There was simply no other way to accomplish their objective. Ben‐Gurion saw the problem clearly, writing in 1941 that “it is impossible to imagine general evacuation [of the Arab population] without compulsion, and brutal compulsion.” Or as Israeli historian Benny Morris puts it, “the idea of transfer is as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century.” This opportunity came in 1947‐48, when Jewish forces drove up to 700,000 Palestinians into exile. Israeli officials have long claimed that the Arabs fled because their leaders told them to, but careful scholarship (much of it by Israeli historians like Morris) have demolished this myth. In fact, most Arab leaders urged the Palestinian population to stay home, but fear of violent death at the hands of Zionist forces led most of them to flee. After the war, Israel barred the return of the Palestinian exiles.

The fact that the creation of Israel entailed a moral crime against the Palestinian people was well understood by Israel’s leaders. As Ben‐Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. . . . We come from Israel, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti‐Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”

    -   J. J. Mearsheimer and S. M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy, Faculty Research Working Papers Series, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, (March, 2006)

Frank wrote on May 18^th, 2024 at 3:15pm:

It is, to begin with, important to understand that the displacement of Palestinians was only one facet of the sweeping population movements caused by the collapse of the great European land empires. At the heart of that process was the unravelling of the Ottoman Empire, which started with the Greek war of independence in 1821 and accelerated during subsequent decades.

The figure of three-quarters of a million uprooted Palestinians can seem to be ‘modest’ when set in the context of the transfer of millions of people in Europe that was an outcome of the Second World War, or the dispossessions occurring in Africa in the beginning of the twenty-first century. But sometimes one needs to relativise numbers and think in percentages to begin to understand the magnitude of a tragedy that engulfed the population of an entire country. Half of the Palestine population were driven out, half of their villages and towns were destroyed, and only very few among them ever managed to return. But beyond numbers, it is the deep chasm between reality and representation that is most bewildering in the case of Palestine.

It is indeed hard to understand, and for that matter to explain, why a crime that was perpetrated in modern times and at a juncture in history that called for foreign reporters and UN observers to be present, should have been so totally ignored. And yet, there is no denying that the ethnic cleansing of 1948 has been eradicated almost totally from the collective global memory and erased from the world’s conscience. Imagine that not so long ago, in any given country you are familiar with, half of the entire population had been forcibly expelled within a year, half of its villages and towns wiped out, leaving behind only rubble and stones. Imagine now the possibility that somehow this act will never make it into the history books and that all diplomatic efforts to solve the conflict that erupted in that country will totally sideline, if not ignore, this catastrophic event.


The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,  by Prof. Ilan Pappe,  Chapter 1

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 15^th, 2024 at 10:12pm:

Frank wrote on May 18th, 2024 at 3:15pm: It is, to begin with, important to understand that the displacement of Palestinians was only one facet of the sweeping population movements caused by the collapse of the great European land empires. At the heart of that process was the unravelling of the Ottoman Empire, which started with the Greek war of independence in 1821 and accelerated during subsequent decades. The figure of three-quarters of a million uprooted Palestinians can seem to be ‘modest’ when set in the context of the transfer of millions of people in Europe that was an outcome of the Second World War, or the dispossessions occurring in Africa in the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Or when set in the context of the current Palestinian population of 5 million.
Some genocide.

Oh, that word again! Context!




https://x.com/CarolineGlick/status/1804938856120164855

Frank wrote on Jun 16^th, 2024 at 12:02pm:

wombatwoody wrote on Jun 15th, 2024 at 10:12pm: Frank wrote on May 18th, 2024 at 3:15pm: It is, to begin with, important to understand that the displacement of Palestinians was only one facet of the sweeping population movements caused by the collapse of the great European land empires. At the heart of that process was the unravelling of the Ottoman Empire, which started with the Greek war of independence in 1821 and accelerated during subsequent decades. The figure of three-quarters of a million uprooted Palestinians can seem to be ‘modest’ when set in the context of the transfer of millions of people in Europe that was an outcome of the Second World War, or the dispossessions occurring in Africa in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Or when set in the context of the current Palestinian population of 5 million. Some genocide.

The existence of millions of people around the world who identify as Palestinian does not in any way negate the historical fact that ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity, was perpetrated by murderous Jewish fanatics in Palestine in 1948.