from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, written by Israeli historian Ilan Pappé

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappé (2006)

TW: Self-harm, self-immolation, extreme Protest.

Aaron the last 1:30 of Aaron Bushnell before he died for a free Palestine.

The video is blurred at the end. There is no graphic imagery.

“When it created its nation-state, the Zionist movement did not wage a war that 'tragically but inevitably’ led to the expulsion of ‘parts of’ the indigenous population, but the other way round: the main goal was the ethnic cleansing of all of Palestine, which the movement coveted for its new state.”

Ilan Pappe - The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

A Palestinian-Canadian woman is raising money on GoFundMe to get her family out of Gaza to Canada. She has a family of 13 people (7 adults, 6 kids) in Gaza. Their expenses include application fees, the fee to leave Gaza (up to $7000 per person), and funds to stay in Cairo until they can fly to Canada, among other things.

This is how much they have raised as of today (Jan 4, 2024) at the time of my posting this. Please give as much as you can spare to help out! If you can’t personally donate, at least reblog so that someone who can will find this.

I discovered their GFM through Aya Ghanameh’s twitter. She’s a Palestinian author who frequently posts mutual aid for Palestinian families. Please check out her mutual aid tweets.

"I took my son's picture, may god have mercy on him, his bracelet, his death certificate..... a paper that proves that I am a Palestinian."

Go follow wizard_bisan

2 many ppl love sharing pics of neturei karta, & saying taht "actually orthodox [read: 'real'] jews r antizionist", when the ppl in the jewish settlement movement in tge occupied territories r very proud of their religious fanaticism. tge most annoying 2 me is da argument taht 'israel doesnt represent judaism' bc they dont respect tgis & taht religious law from the bible, when in reality if more religious laws were enforced in israel taht wld very clearly make it a worse place. & da ppl defending the authority of orthodox judaism like tjis never want 2 practice it themselves, just 2 feel good abt tgemselves bc they defended a ""marginalized religion"". anyway here;s how the representative kf tge orthodox jews reacted 2 the news of a massacre in a palestinian village in 1947

Hi. I’m Israeli, I saw a few of your posts and I would like to share my perspective with you.

You talk a lot about Zionism as an ideology, but I think it’s important to distinguish between the ideology itself and what is being done today.

Zionism is an ideology that states that Jews have a right for self determination in their own state. A lot of it is rooted in religion, but a large part of it was a response to Jewish persecution in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Being a minority you are essentially helpless when people decide to pillage you or treat you like a second class citizen (and yes, that also happened to Jews in North Africa and the Middle East) when you have your own state, you can at least defend yourself.

Just like any other group of people can strive for self determination (including Palestinians) so can Jews. It’s not just a matter of being secluded from others, or being elitist, it’s a matter of insuring your own security as much as you can as a people.

Zionism is not an evil ideology. You can maybe argue that the way it was achieving its goal is evil, but by that logic you can also argue that Palestinians are evil since they had also committed heinous acts against Jews in this land way before the invention of Zionism and even before they defined themselves as Palestinians.

Zionism is also very tied to Judaism. The longing for returning to “the homeland” is referenced throughout countless Jewish texts in the diaspora, again, way before the invention of Zionism.

There are some sects of Judaism that are against it, but saying “hey, Judaism and Zionism are completely detached!” Is I’d say… incorrect. Like to a point where the overwhelming majority of practicing Jews have some sort of Zionist views.

So about the situation today. in an ideal world, I believe that Palestinians have a right for self determination as much as we do. Saying Zionism is just like this evil, western colonial power, whose sole purpose is to harm and torture Palestinians is very very incorrect.

Thanks for reading, have a nice day 🙏🏽

This is gonna take me a whole essay to respond to so I’m gonna do y’all a favor and put a cut below feel free to read more if you want

If Zionism were purely about “Jewish self-determination”, that would be one thing. However, the reality is that the ideology of Zionism is inseparable from anti-Arab racism and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The argument you are making only works if you are operating under the assumption that Palestine was an empty piece of land before it was settled by Israelis, which is a notion that many Zionists have tried to push, hence the Zionist slogan: “A land without a people for a people without a land.” However, this is not true. There were always people living in Palestine, and there is no way that an exclusively Jewish state could have existed there without systematically murdering them and expelling them from their land. If you go back and read the texts of the original Zionist leaders, they make it explicitly clear that this was their objective from the very beginning. Ilan Pappe’s book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” documents this extensively. I’ll include a few excerpts here. This is Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion’s second in command Moshe Sharett explaining how he wanted to pay off villagers to leave in order to “reduce the number of Arabs” in Palestine:

This is the description of “Plan Dalet”, which was explicitly designed to drive out Palestinians and murder whoever remained:

This is David Ben-Gurion explicitly saying that even 40% “non-Jews” (aka Arabs) in Palestine was unacceptable:

This is an example of how Plan Dalet was carried out in the village of Deir Yassin (tw: murder, sexual assault, this is extremely graphic)

While to some, Zionism might seem like a nice idea, in practice, it requires murder and systematic cruelty towards the Palestinian population that is continuing to this day. This is why people are opposed to it. It has nothing to do with religion or antisemitism; it is because people can very plainly see that the occupation and genocide it has caused is morally wrong. To quote Dr. Gabor Mate on why he is no longer a Zionist: “Yes, we created this beautiful dream, but we created a nightmare for somebody else.”

I don’t know what percentage of the Jewish population are Zionists, but I think the fact that there is such a strong Jewish anti-Zionist community is proof enough that Zionism should not be linked to Judaism. In fact, you could even argue that saying so is antisemitic because it implies that every single Jewish person is complicit in Israel’s war crimes, which is not true. Furthermore, I strongly believe that many Jewish Zionists subscribe to the ideology because they have been told lies and propaganda about the creation of Israel. It is very evident that Israel is going out of its way to cover up its crimes against Palestinians (i.e. outlawing mentioning the Nakba, planting trees over destroyed Palestinian villages to make it look like nothing was ever there, etc.) I think more Jewish people would have second thoughts about Zionism if they knew the truth behind the ideology.

As for the notion that the military occupation and apartheid of Palestinians is somehow “necessary” for Jewish safety, I would say that this is not only untrue but also makes no sense. Violence is inherently necessary to run a military state and keep a population under an occupation, and violence is always going to beget more violence, which is the exact opposite of the “safe utopia” that Israel strives to depict itself as. Think about it: if you were in a Palestinian’s shoes, would you not do exactly what they are doing? If you were born under a military occupation where you were routinely at risk of being bombed and having your home stolen by settlers, would you not resist by any means necessary, even if it meant resorting to violence? At the end of the day, the only difference between you and a Palestinian is luck in where you were born - that’s it. Safety is not achieved by oppressing others. Safety is achieved with peace and respect for others. I am not against Israelis living in Palestine. But there is no reason why Palestinians need to be ethnically cleansed for that to happen. People of different religions coexisted in Palestine before Israel; there is no reason why that can’t happen again. The more Israelis that realize ending the occupation is in their best interest, the faster the violence will end. It really is that simple.

Review: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Ilan Pappé)

As someone who, until college, had been increasingly concerned about human rights violations in Gaza but, to a certain degree, bought into the idiotic notion that the whole situation was “complicated” and with “fault on both sides,” The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé is a great place to begin. You cannot read 336 pages of Israel committing ethnic cleansing over 70+ years without…

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Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappé (2006)

I Beg You To Read "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"

it's by an Israeli author, it is not propaganda. It is an accurate account. It describes the founding of Israel. Israel is a settler colonialist state. The State of Israel vs. The Jews is also a really good book.

“Within a few weeks of UNSCOP starting its work, the Palestinians realised the cards had been stacked against them: the final result of this process would be a UN resolution on partitioning the country between the Palestinians, as the indigenous population, and a settler colony of newcomers, many of whom had arrived only recently. When Resolution 181 was adopted in November 1947, their worst nightmare began to unfold in front oftheir eyes: nine months after the British had announced their decision to leave, the Palestinians were at the mercy of an international organisation that appeared ready to ignore all the rules of international mediation, which its own Charter endorsed, and was willing to declare a solution that in Palestinian eyes was both illegal and immoral.”

Ilan Pappe - The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Excerpt from Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein.

Tiktok by @skravid.

january - march 2024 reading

books in bold are especially recommended!

Gentle Chaos: Poems, Tales, and Magic by Tyler Gaca - 4.5/5. i’ve followed Tyler (ghosthoney on TikTok) for years now, and this book beautifully captures the strange, magical energy of his videos. i love his mind and creativity!

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe - 4/5. this is an excellent introduction to the Nakba and how Israel oppresses and kills Palestinians. the writing can sometimes be a bit academically dense, and the material is overwhelming (emotionally/horrifically and because of the sheer amount of it that he provides). my one major concern is the use of the term "ethnic cleansing" rather than genocide

The Girls by John Bowen - 4/5. simple, macabre, delightful. lesbians in a little english village and there’s murder.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White - 5/5. stunning. showstopping. bloody ghost story with a lovely T4T romance. i can’t put into words how much i loved this. i finished it in a day because i couldn’t bear to put it down for very long.

Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella - 4/5. this was just fun. also, love anything that shits on toxic masculinity. seemed like it was setting up for a sequel and i’m really hoping there is one!

Hell House by Richard Matheson - 2/5. a friend recommended this to me, but i wish i’d read some reviews first. holy men-writing-women. “horny house,” as i’ve seen some people call it, is apt. the plot is driven by rape, the fear and “horror” of lesbianism, and constant hypersexualization. it’s gross, honestly. this book had a strong start but fell apart about a third of the way in.

Unmasking Autism by Devon Price - 5/5. i’m currently investigating whether i’m autistic. whether or not i am, this book helped expand my understanding of autism and what a better, more accepting society might look like.

did you guys know that american journalists witnessed zionist militias commit massacres against palestinian civilians as early as 1947, long before any arab armies invaded israel in may 1948