One of the best books written on the conflict. Nur Masalha uses Israeli government archives to examine the idea of "Greater Israel" (uniting Israel proper with the West Bank and Gaza) in Israeli politics. Right wing settlers have long advocated Jewish expansion into the occupied territories as a way of driving the Palestinians out. One has to remember that the current conflict in Israel and Palestine is not only about security, but also about Zionism and expansionism. This book will make you see the conflict in a whole new light.

Masalha focuses on the Israeli policy of dispossession and institutionalized goal of greater Israel or Eretz Israel. He presents irrefutable evidence and sources in support of his assertions which gives the book an undeniable balance. This is not an indictment of the state of Israel. It is simply a record of the policy pursued by Israel through individuals, private groups, and governmental bodies with the overarching objective of disposesing the Palestinians of their properties and then moveing them out of Israel and the occupied territories. Nothing is presented or suggested without proof. Masalha balances his book by also discussing Israeli individuals or organizations that oppose, what most of them rightfully consider as racist, the policies that seek to force the Palestinians off their lands. No student of the Middle East in general, or the Palestinian/Arab-Israeli conflict in particular can afford to neglect reading this book. The failure of the peace process can not be fully understood without learning of the expansionist history of the state of Israel that is presented here. Labor and the Likud, though seemingly on opposite ends of the spectrum in their approach to the peace process, share a common history that sought to realize the Zionist goal of Eretz Israel at the cost of the Palestinians. Masalha also provides a comprehensive listing and a thorough discussion of individuals and groups that have sought to achieve that objective. That information alone gives this book an encyclopedic depth that is invaluable to comprehending the actors involved in the policy of dispossession and diaspora of the Palestinians.

It seems to me that his book is mostly 'lifted' from Dr. Chaim Simons earlier (1988) well researched book available at Amazon, "International Proposals to Transfer the Arabs of Palestine: 1895-1947, A Historical Survey". What Nur Masalha ignores in his 'edited version' of Dr. Simons' work is that the earliest proposals to transfer the Arabs out of what became Israel were proposed by non-Jews first, not by the Zionists. Several major prominent international figures, former US president Herbert Hoover for example, supported the TRANSFER IDEA. Take a good look at Dr. Simons' book, you'll discover just how popular TRANSFERING ARABS OUT OF ISRAEL really was among world leaders in that period. And I might add, if it had taken place and the Arabs would have been comfortably settled elseware, non of the violence, warfare, and bloodshed would have occured for the last 50+ years. THE TRUTH MUST BE TOLD!

In this book Masalha postulates that 80 years of Zionist transfer discussions preceded--and therefore caused--the 1948 war and Arab exodus. This theory is patently absurd. In the first place, the supposed Zionist transfer "discussions" never made it into mainstream Zionist ideology. In the second, the 1948 war resulted directly from Islamic, Pan-Arab intransigence and refusal to accept an Israeli state alongside a second Palestinian state. Seven Arab nations attacked the nascent Israel within 24 hours of its declaration of statehood. Israel lost 6,000 casualties--a devastating 1% of her population--in the struggle for survival that ensued.

The term "population transfer" was first used between the two world wars to describe exchanges like that between Turkey and Greece in the 1920s. As relates to the Middle East, Britain's Peel Commission, in 1937, was first to propose transfering an Arab minority from a tiny Jewish state as part of a would-be partition of western Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. (A previous partition had occurred in 1922, when Britain unilaterally contravened the League of Nations Palestine Mandate and gave 75% of Palestine to Emir Abdullah and the Palestinian Arabs.)

Masalha can hardly claim that Zionist leaders persuaded the Peel Commission to adopt the transfer solution. Zero proof supports such a theory. David Ben-Gurion welcomed the British transfer idea only to persuade Zionists to accept a sliver Jewish state and the proposed second partition--but he also sharply warned of its inherent dangers.In any case, the Peel Commission idea fizzled when Arab leaders refused to accept it. Only a tiny Israeli splinter party ever adopted the transfer idea --and not until well after the 1948 war.

Early Zionist leaders believed that a Jewish majority would come from massive immigration, and that Western Palestine could accommodate millions of Jews and Arabs. History proved them right. In 1920, the Arab population was only 600,000. In the 1930s, Jews planned to increase their own number by a million within a decade--without moving anyone.

Masalha ignores Arab declarations in 1948 that they would annihilate the Jews and Israel--as well as innumerable Arab calls for Arabs to leave Palestine to make way for invading Arab armies. He falsely claims that malevolent Jewish leaders planned to own the entire land and therefore caused the refugee problem. What complete hogwash. Israel had no such plan--and still doesn't--or 1 million Arabs would not now live as citizens in Israel.

If anything, things happened precisely the other way around. When Arabs won the West Bank and Gaza, in 1948, they removed and destroyed all Jewish communities that existed there, including some that had existed for hundreds or thousands of years--like Hebron. No Jewish presence was legal until four Arab nations again declared war on Israel in 1967 and Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza in self-defense. The territories remain disputed only because Arab negotiators in 2000 violently rejected a reasonable (and from Israel's perspective, very painful) plan to permanently settle the dispute.

Arabs went to war in 1948 because they refused to make peace with a Jewish state--and thought they could win. They expelled every last Jew from lands they won, including the ancient Jewish city of Jerusalem. Alyssa A. Lappen

This book proves, without a doubt, that the zionist's thoughts slowly converged to the necessity of the forced expulsion of the palestinians.

The inflexion point came in 1937, i.e. 11 years before the expulsion.

Masalha extensively quotes major figures of zionism and the result is, well, damning. These guys knew very well they had to expel the palestinians and felt very good about this.