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Quote by Ilan Pappé

“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.”

Quote by Ilan Pappé

Work

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

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Ilan Pappé

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“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.”

“Ben-Gurion himself, writing to his son in 1937, appeared convinced that this was the only course of action open to Zionism: ‘The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.’ The opportune moment came in 1948. Ben-Gurion is in many ways the founder of the State of Israel and was its first prime minister. He also masterminded the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”

“For both Christians and Jews, therefore, the colonization of Palestine was seen as an act of return and redemption. The coincidence of the two impulses produced a powerful alliance that turned the anti-Semitic and millenarian idea of transferring the Jews from Europe to Palestine into a real project of settlement at the expense of the native people of Palestine.”

“The translation of these European notions of racial superiority into the Israeli context became evident as soon as the interviewer asked him about the government’s plans for the remaining Palestinian leaders. Interviewer and interviewee giggled as they agreed that the policy should involve the assassination or expulsion of the entire current leadership, that is all the members of the Palestinian Authority—about 40,000 people.”

“Black, white, brown or martian - at the end of the day, you'll find good and evil in every corner of the world. You'll find apes peddling segregation in the name of preserving heritage and purity, in every corner of the world, just like you'll find humans standing up for love and oneness, in every corner of the world. It has nothing to do with ethnicity of a person, and everything to do with humanity of the person.”