14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This Book will make you angry., June 2, 2002
This review is from: The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from Their Homeland (Paperback)
When I was a teenager, all I knew about the 1948 "war of independence" was what I saw in the movie "Exodus" with Paul Newman and what I read in the World Book Encyclopedia entry.
In that movie the Zionist wanted nothing more than to live in peace with their Arab neighbors, but the "arab neighbors" like children following the pied piper of Hamelin, left their homes (and all their earthly belongings) at the word of radio broadcasts from "Arab High Command". (It didn't occur to me to ask why not let them back once they came to their senses.)
From the World Book encyclopedia, I was told that all the surrounding arab countries declared war on Israel within the hour of it's "declaration of independence" and their armies invaded with single minded aim of destroying the country. Israel, against incredible odds, triumphed over all an as an added bonus ended up with 78% of Palestine, instead of the 52% provided for in the UN partition. (What Luck!)
Michael Palumbo, who previously got the goods on Kurt Waldheim's wartime record, followed up by writing this history from UN archival sources, Palestinian sources, and Israeli diaries and memiors (frequently more reliable than Israeli military and intelligence archives).
No matter how much you think you know about the middle east, how much of a critic of Israel you might be, this book will make you angry. Angry over the continuing injustice, angry over the continuing lies, angry over the continuing manipulation of western opinion (particularly US opinion), angry over the impotence of the newly formed UN.
In this book you will learn that the Palestinians did not leave because they were ordered to, on the contrary Arab radio broadcasts demanded that they *stay.* The Palestinians left, because they were terrorized, coerced, and, when all else failed, forced out. The Zionist movement never had any intention of living in peace with "their arab neighbors." From the very beginning (even before Herzl), they intended to claim the entire land for a Jewish State, and would only tolerate the smallest Arab minority possible. The Arab states declared war, but the fighting had started with the partition a year earlier. Their intervention was half-hearted at best and was never meant to destroy Israel (e.g. they never entered in the "jewish part" of the partition.)
Reading this at this time will give the uncanny sense of deja vu.
You'll find the systematic use of looting and wanton vandalism of palestinian homes and businesses. The same manipulation of opinion. (On the one hand, denying access because of fight. On the other hand denying atrocities, because there's "no evidence."
The destruction of houses with people still in them (by dynamite, not by bulldozers tho').
Also there's Menachem Begin's role in the massacre of Deir Yassin and Yitzak Shamir's role in the assasination of UN mediator Folke Bernadotte. (Keep in mind next time you hear Yassir Arafat a "terrorist.")
The overwhelming feeling will be "how can we have been so lied to for so long."
How indeed?
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16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and accurate coverage, October 24, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from Their Homeland (Paperback)
I read this book a couple of years ago and was very impressed at the level of research the author has done to bring this information to the public. It is hard to find books with impartial view on this sensitive subject, this is a good one. Read it!!
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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Horrifying, June 10, 2003
It is amazing to read of the level of atrocity and deceit. Ethnic Cleansing, Localized Genocide, Rampant Racism- it reads like something out of Nazi Germany. But here it is, in the middle of the Middle East, anti-Semitism, committed by Jews against Arabs. Brother against Brother. Palumbo shares with us stories of those who helped the Jews flee the Nazis, and how these same individuals watch the actions of the nascent Israeli Defense Forces, and can see no difference in their actions. Truly, as Walter Wink said, we become that which we hate. We learn hatred, and the practices of hatred, from our enemies. And here one repeatedly hears leaders of the Zionist movement explicitly calling for the same practices as the Nazis, as they worked so well, and even calling for alliances with the Nazis, in order to establish a country 'Goyim Rein', an 'Israel for the Jews, as Germany is for the Germans'.
And it is surprising to hear how most Jews in the first half of the 20th century did *not* want an Israeli nation, as they did not see that as part of God's call for their people. Or how leader after modern Israeli leader engaged in explicit terrorist action- in fact, most of them were on the top 20 list of terrorists by the British government, during the British mandate. Doing the same practices, the same suicide bombings, as extremist Palestinians do today. We become that which we hate. And it's not just Palumbo's opinion- this is a meticulously researched book. If you choose to disagree with what is said, you must prove a large number of resources wrong- including many resources from Israeli government leaders.
This isn't just dry history. Palumbo uses a highly readable format, telling stories through the eyes of the observers and the victims, with additional factual information. Yet he does it in a way that is in now way fictional, but breathes authenticity. He looks primarily at the infamous al nakba, the Catastrophe, wherein the Palestinians were driven from their homeland- a people uniquely tied in self-identity to the land, just as Americans are tied to their sense of the individual in their identities. I reside, therefore I am.
Insult to injury is the Zionist propaganda machine, that has managed to shift the blame for wartime atrocities on to the victims. After reading this work, one may come away with the same feeling- that truly, Israel has been one of the primary leaders in terrorism.
To read more, I'd recommend Wink's Engaging the Powers, as well as Dying in the Land of Promise. Don Wagner focuses here on the history of Christian Palestinians, from the year 33 to the present, and how they were driven away during al nakba, and their experiences afterward.
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