Philly Remembers Al-Nakba... 60 Days for 60 Years

7PM, Bindlestiff Books 4530 Baltimore Avenue

Discuss Ilan Pappe's "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" on the 60th anniversary of the Deir Yassin Massacre

A portion of the book is available for download at the bottom of this page. Please RSVP to sustainphilly @ gmail . com

The 1948 Palestine-Israel War is known to Israelis as 'The War of Independence', but for Palestinians it will forever be the Nakba, the 'catastrophe'. Alongside the creation of the State of Israel, the end of the war led to one of the largest forced†migrations in modern history. Around a million people were expelled from their homes at gunpoint, civilians were massacred, and hundreds of Palestinian villages deliberately destroyed. Though the truth about the mass expulsion has been systematically distorted and suppressed, had it taken place in the twenty-first century it could only have been called ‘ethnic cleansing’.

Prominent Israeli academic Ilan Pappe argues passionately for the international recognition of this tragedy. His groundbreaking and controversial work sheds new light on the origins and development of the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, asking questions that the world has so far failed to ask to reveal the real story behind the events of 1948. Based on meticulous research, including recently declassified Israeli archival material, Dr. Pappe's vivid and timely account demonstrates conclusively that 'transfer' - a euphemism for ethnic cleansing - was from the start an integral part of a carefully planned strategy, and lies at the root of today’s ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

About the author: Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and senior lecturer of Political Science at Haifa University. He is also Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva, and Chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies, Haifa. He is the author of a number of books, including A History of Modern Palestine and The Modern Middle East.

Reviews
"Ground breaking research into a well kept Israeli secret. A classic of historical scholarship on a taboo subject by one of Israel's foremost New Historians."
--Ghada Karmi – University of Exeter (UK)

"Ilan Pappe is Israel’s bravest, most principled, most incisive historian"
--John Pilger