At EI, Maureen Clare Murphy reviews Under the Cover of War: the Zionist Expulsion of the Palestinians, by Rosemarie Esber, and quotes the book:
"[T]he creation of the Palestinian Arab refugees began in the convergence of a chaotic civil conflict, British inaction to suppress the escalating violence, and the Jewish Agency’s seizure of the opportunity presented by the cover of war to effect long-held aims of political Zionism: the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine with a population practically devoid of non-Jews. This was done by employing systematic and violent intimidation to drive out the native Palestinian Arab population, which consisted largely of disempowered women, children, and elderly people incapable of resisting."
During this civil war period, Esber writes, "Zionist Jewish military organizations forced more than 400,000 Palestinian Arab inhabitants from their homes in about 225 villages, towns and cities in Palestine." That comprises approximately half of the total number of Palestinians made refugees during the creation of the State of Israel, as well as half of the depopulated Palestinian cities and villages, the latter largely destroyed as part of the systematic campaign to erase Palestinian society.
Israel’s official narrative has long held that the "refugee problem" was the result of a war sparked in the wake of Israel’s 14 May 1948 "declaration of independence" on the eve of the British withdrawal, and what Israel describes as an Arab invasion designed to extinguish the nascent state. The implication of this claim is that had the Arab states not invaded on 15 May, Palestinians might not have become refugees. But given the sheer scale of the expulsions prior to May 1948, the Arab intervention might more accurately be described as a long overdue and ineffectual attempt to halt a well-planned campaign of ethnic cleansing that had been proceeding unchecked for months.
Esber’s reliance on Palestinian testimony is a unique contribution to scholarship on the creation of the State of Israel and the refugee crisis, and the first chapter of the book provides an evaluation of existing scholarly accounts of 1948.
The emphasis is my bone to pick with Benny Morris, he rules out Palestinian oral history. Imagining pursuing that method with the pogroms or the rise of anti-Semitism.Thanks to Helen Schiff.
