The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé

One such example was Joan Peters’ 1984 fraud, From Time Immemorial: the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine, in which she attempted to “#8220 prove” the laughable proposition that the land was uninhabited before Zionist immigration created the jobs that attracted Arabs from other regions. All of us have had to counter the Zionist narrative, in which reality is often turned on its head. Our efforts in this struggle are informed by an understanding of historical events, just as our opponents’ are assisted by the application of myth.

Israel is able to continue its Occupation, of which ethnic cleansing is a primary component, only because it receives economic, military, and diplomatic support from the U.S. As activists in the United States, we have both the opportunity and the obligation to join the struggle. There is, however, this important fact: we can join in the struggle to end it. Seen in this light, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine can be considered to be yet another in a long list of human atrocities. Each one has its own characteristics, motives, means, and responses. WHILE THE TERM “#8220 ethnic cleansing” has come into use only very recently, the act that it describes, namely the forcible expulsion of one or more ethnic groups from a region, has been practiced for millennia.įrom ancient Assyrians, who in the 9th century BCE regularly transferred conquered people to other lands, to the expulsion of the French from Sicily in 1282, to the removal of Jews and Muslims from Spain in 1492, to Cromwell’s conquest of Ireland in 1652, to the expulsion of millions from Crimea in 1783, to the fascist-led transfer and murder of millions in the 1940s, and now to the cleansing of Darfur: human history is riddled with such events. Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), 181 I have no illusion that it will take more than a book to reverse the reality that demonizes a people who have been colonized, expelled and occupied, and glorifies the very people who colonized, expelled and occupied them. Ali Abunimah writing in late December, 2008, as Israel attacked Gaza

In Gaza, Palestinians died silently, for want of basic medications: insulin, cancer treatment, products for dialysis prohibited from reaching them by Israel.' In recent months they died mostly silent deaths, the elderly and sick especially, deprived of food and necessary medicine by the two-year-old Israeli blockade calculated and intended to cause suffering and deprivation to 1.5 million Palestinians, the vast majority refugees and children, caged into the Gaza Strip. 'Today’s horrific attacks mark only a change in Israel’s method of killing Palestinians recently. Joel Finkel The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Ethnic Cleansing: Palestine Reality | Solidarity Ethnic Cleansing: Palestine Reality

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé