Expulsion of the Palestinians

Reviews / Votes

As Nur Masalha conclusively shows in his recent book, Expulsion of the Palestinians, the removal of the Palestinians - euphemistically called a 'transfer' - was from the start an integral part of Zionism and had long been planned. -- Ian Gilmour * London Review of Books * Masalha's 1992 book, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of "Transfer" in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948, was a landmark in critical Palestine studies. Drawing on extensive archival sources, Masalha demonstrated that the forced removal of Palestinians was not accidental but a long-standing strategic objective of Zionist leaders. "Transfer was not an emergency solution to a military crisis in 1948," he wrote, "it was the political quintessence of Zionism from its inception." * This Week in Palestine * Almost entirely based on declassified Israeli archival material, Dr Masalha's sober and carefully researched account shows conclusively that "transfer" - a euphemism for expulsion - was from the start and integral part of Zionism. An impressive and timely book. Quietly devastating research. -- Ian Gilmour * Guardian * Dr Masalha shows, using documents fro. the Israeli archives, that the flight of the Arab population from what became Israel in 1948 - which Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann hailed as "a miraculous clearing of the land" - was, in fact, "less of a miracle than the culmination of over half a century of effort, plans and (in the end) brute force". -- Edward Mortimer * Financial Times * Zionist leaders, as this carefully researched study shows, were frequently outspoken in their belief that the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine would be possible only if the existing Arab population could somehow be persuaded to leave. -- William Quandt * Foreign Affairs * Mr Masalha presents us with a bald, unadorned account of a dominant strain of Zionist thinking, from the end of the nineteenth century onwards. Through exhaustive reference to various Israeli archives, Mr Masalha builds a convincing picture of a national movement, constantly preoccupied with one central dilemma: how to rid the land it wanted from the people who lived there. -- Paul Adams * BBC World Service Radio * In his Expulsion of the Palestinians, Nur Masalha helps to contextualize the debate with an articulate, well- researched analysis of the concept of "transfer" in Zionist thought. Relying almost exclusively on Israeli sources, Masalha demonstrates that the notion of transfer was held by both Labour Zionists and revisionist Zionists. -- Lawrence Tal * Times Literary Supplement * Dr Masalha's book will excite controversy, not because because his conclusions can be challenged - the sources leave no doubt about the facts - but because teh books exposes in detail the nature of the Zionist design and and the means by which it was achieved. An important and scrupulous piiece of revisionist history. -- Michael Adams * Middle East International *