Since the state of Israel was created in 1948, many Israelis have dreamed of getting rid of the Palestinians. From Ramzy Baroud at antiwar.com:
It is simply inaccurate to claim that the ongoing Israeli attempt to displace all, or many Palestinian refugees from Gaza to Sinai is a new idea, compelled by recent circumstances.
Displacing Palestinians, or as it is known in Israeli political lexicon, the ‘transfer’, is an old idea – as old as Israel itself.
In fact, historically, population ‘transfer’ has been more than an idea, but an actual government policy, with clear mechanisms. Yosef Weitz, director of the Land and Afforestation Department, was entrusted with setting up the Transfer Committee in May 1948 to oversee the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from their towns and villages.
In other words, while Israel was concluding the initial phase of ethnic cleansing, it initiated another phase, that of ‘transfer’, the results of which are well-known.
But even many of Israel’s so-called liberal intellectuals have, and continue to promote the idea, either proactively or in hindsight. “I don’t think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes,” Israeli historian Benny Morris said in an interview with Haaretz in 2004. “I think he (Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion) made a serious historical mistake in 1948 (…) If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a complete job. (… ) You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands.”
Morris was specifically referring to the Nakba, which began in earnest in December 1947, and did not conclude until 1949. Then, ethnic cleansing took on a different form, a slower campaign aimed at rejigging the demographic map of the newly founded Israel in favor of Israeli Jews at the expense of Palestinian Arabs.
