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The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from Their Homeland

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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?

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!!

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.

This is an outstanding historical document daring to tell the truth about the early years of the Israeli State. Based primarily on Israeli government documents it details the sytematic efforts to expunge the Palestinian people from their land and incorporate it under Israeli control. Every American should read this book.

Palubmo's book is not a history but rather an antiIsrael polemic. Palumbo cherry picks his facts, scrupulously inserting any half truth that puts the Zionist movement in the worst light possible and totally omitting Palestinian and Arab atrocities. For example he omits the fact that all almost all Jews
in Arab countries were driven out penniless. Approximately 850,000 were expelled and 600,000 settled in Israel, not because they were Zionists but because of Arab antisemitc persecution.The 600,000 were first settled in Israeli refugee camps, but unlike the so-called Palestinians refugees in Lebanon they were not confined to these camps but were quickly integrated into Israeli society. The irony is that Arab antiSemitism populated Israel almost as much as Nazi antisemitism. Palumbo tries to explain why there were over three hundred thousand Arab still remaining in Israel after it won its independence by quoting a speech by Golda Meir in which she stated that Israel needed laborers. What Palumbo conveniently omits is that remaining Arabs were given FULL ISRAELI CITIZENSHIP, unlike the Palestinian refugees in the Arab countries who were denied citizenship in their host countries. With the exception of Jordan the refugees were confined to camps and were stateless. In Jordan most were made Jordanian citizens because that's what they were, Jordanians. On page 19 Palumbo mention Amin Husseini. Palumbo quotes Yassir Arafat naming Husseini as the political and spiritual of Pa lestinian nationalism, which reveals that there wasn't such a movement before Husseini invented it. Strangely, there is only one other mention of Husseini in the book. You would think that such a central figure, and he most certainly was, would be extensively covered, but he isn't.
This omission reveals Palumbo's dishonesty. Husseini was the Grand Mufti
of Jerusalem from 1922 to 1936. He was a racist and antiSemite. He organized
the April 1929 riots which drove the Jews out of Gaza and Hebron killing dozens.
The British did nothing, so much Palumbo's claim of British professionalism
In 1936 the Mufti led a riot not only against the Jews but also the British.
He fled Jerusalem. During WW2 this founder of Palestinian nationalism
found refuge in Nazi Germany. In 1943 this champion of Palestinian nationalist cause, by the request of Heinrich Himmler, organized the Hanzer Moslem battalion of the Waffen SS. They murdered hundreds of thousands in Bosnia and Hungary. Nowhere does Palumbo mention this in his diatribe against the Jewish State. Certainly if he researched the facts he should have been aware of it. Almost everychapter is full of distortions, half truths and out-and-out lies. It's beyond the scope of this review to rebut them all so I picked some, but not all, of the most egregious to discuss. What are Palumbo's real motives in writing this book?