by Bea
In the Holocaust thread, Bernhard wrote: "Ethnic cleansing, killing a group of somehow assumed "lesser value" people, has happened before and after the 1940s and such still happens today. Such has been tried or done by about each ruling powers of their time and area."
It just so happens that I am presently reading a book on this very subject, and I feel compelled to contribute a post about it. At the risk of stepping into a pot of boiling oil, I would just like to share some passages from this book, which is unbelievably powerful and important. It’s written by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, who has meticulously combed official Israeli archives to put together the picture that he paints here. I will excerpt only a very few passages which can no means do this remarkable book or very loaded subject justice. I will also post links to some interviews with Pappe elsewhere on the web.
The ‘Red House’ was a typical early Tel-Avivian building…towards the end of 1947, it became the headquarters of the Hagana, the main Zionist underground militia in Palestine….
In this 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 neighborhoods 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. … This fourth and last blueprint spelled it out clearly and unambiguously: The Palestinians had to go….The aim of the plan was in fact the destruction of both the rural and urban areas of Palestine….Indifferent as to whether these Palestinians might decide to collaborate with or oppose their Jewish State, Plan Dalet called for their systematic and total expulsion from their homeland….
Once the decision was taken, it took six months to complete the mission. When it was over, more than half Palestine’s native population, close to 800,000 people, had been uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and eleven urban neighborhoods 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….
I accuse, but I am also part of the society that stands condemned in this book. I feel both responsible for and part of the story and, like others in my own society, I am convinced…that such a painful journey into the past is the only way forward if we want to create a better future for us all, Palestinians and Israelis alike. Because at heart, this is what this book is about….
Ethnic cleansing today is a well-defined concept…. Israel’s 1948 Plan D…contains a repertoire of cleansing methods that one by one fit the means the UN describes in its definition of ethnic cleansing, and sets the background for the massacres that accompanied the massive expulsion….
…beyond the 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 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.
Some related links:
- Excerpted from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe, 2006.
- History of Israel Reconsidered – A Talk by Ilan Pappe in Tokyo, posted on Jewishconscience.org
- Ilan Pappe website
- George Galloway interviews Ilan Pappe: Part I, Part II
- Original footage from the late 1940s and early 1950s of Palestinian refugees
Even if this is a highly controversial subject, it is vitally important that we open the door and begin to discuss it honestly. I truly believe that anyone who genuinely cares about the future of the State of Israel or Palestine should honestly engage in this most difficult review of the past, and consider how much it continues to vividly color the present, even up to and including the complete closure of Gaza, the building of the separation wall, the checkpoints in the West Bank, and yes, the US occupation of Iraq.