Advance praise for this book - Watch Ilan Pappe's Talk - Ilan Pappe on Sky News

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.

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, The Modern Middle East and The Israel/Palestine Question.

Ilan Pappé's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a vital contribution to the scholarship from these new historians…. Pappé forever puts to rest any doubt that Palestinians were sytematically and brutally expelled from their homeland." Against the Current (An independent socialist organisation)

"Pappe’s book will command attention." Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

"If not the last word, this is a major intervention in an argument that will, and must, continue. There's no hope of lasting Middle East peace while the ghosts of 1948 still walk." The Independent

"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 – Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, England, UK

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