Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking work on the formation of the State of Israel. 'Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappe is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.' NEW STATESMAN Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages weredeliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and childrenwere expelled from their homes at gunpoint. Denied for almost six decades, had it happenedtoday it could only have been called 'ethniccleansing'.Decisively debunking the myth that thePalestinian population left of their own accord inthe course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressivearchival evidence to demonstrate that, from itsvery inception, a central plank in Israel's foundingideology was the forcible removal of the indigenouspopulation. Indispensable for anyone interested inthe current crisis in the Middle East. *** 'Ilan Pappe is Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.' JOHN PILGER 'Pappe has opened up an important new line of inquiry into the vast and fateful subject of the Palestinian refugees. His book is rewarding in other ways. It has at times an elegiac, even sentimental, character, recalling the lost, obliterated life of the Palestinian Arabs and imagining or regretting what Pappe believes could have been a better land of Palestine.' TIMES LITERARYSUPPLEMENT 'A major intervention in an argument that will, and must, continue. There's no hope of lasting Middle East peace while the ghosts of 1948 still walk.'INDEPENDENT