I am familiar, of course, with the later statements of Benny Morris, quoted here. They are among the most often cited, perhaps in hopes that they cancel out his early research and writing. They really don't do that; it is more that they give them a different spin. You can't cancel a book like "1948," because almost for each assertion it has a citation, and the accumulation of examples is vast. All you can do is try to spin it differently.

He says that there was no Zionist 'plan' or blanket policy of expelling the Palestinian population. Actually, he did not say in "1948" that there was such a plan; but there were dozens and dozens of references to "cleansing," "expulsion," :transfer, and their equivalents in orders to the troops; and the consistency of actions over many, many months speaks louder than words. But, yet, no written, enunciated, over-all plan or final solution.

As for Morris's statement that he "realized" the Palestinians "wanted it all"--I can't imagine how that is different than what he said and showed through hundreds of pages of "1948." The Palestinians wanted to part of the partition plan; they felt it was an outrage; they had long been in the majority in the Palestine Mandate and never proposed taking political power. The area had been Arab/Christian for 1300 years, and they wondered how the Jews, arriving 60 years ago, could claim half the country.

The arriving Jewish immigrants did buy land, of course, and they achieved marvels of cultivation and development--often on the least promising acreage. Nevertheless, there was no land simply for the taking in the Palestine Mandate, and if much was owned by absentee landlords, I don't see how that matters. And, yes, the Jews did respect property rights, so that, by the time of the partition plan Jewish owned and occupied land was small and fragmentary. Compared with that, what the partition plan offered was huge.

I dd catch the implication in the wording (" those smart .err. Zionists") that I am antisemitic).

No, the Zionists did not want war, or invasion, and didn't "plan" them. They knew the war would be brutal and heartbreaking. What they did do is accept the UN partition plan, which was a proposal to BOTH sides, dependent on acceptance, and, when the other side rejected it, declared the Jewish State, knowing it would mean war and willing to accept that.

"Palestine" is a term for the area that goes back to the Romans, of course. During the Ottoman Empire, they residents of the area considered themselves south Syrian Arabs. When the British took over and handed Syrian to the French, and handed the Trans Jordan to Abdullah, they called the remaining area the Palestine Mandate because the area always had been called Palestine by the Christians. In about 1920, a very strong Palestinian political and social consciousness began to emerge, and to be expressed in action and in publications, in response to alarm at the influx of the Jews. The term "Israel," as applied to the area, was made up much later--based, like "Palestine," on reference to ancient history. The area actually occupied by the tribes of Israel thousands of years earlier bore little relation to the area of the Palestine Mandate. I saw all this only because of the I think absurd attempt to deny that the 'Palestinians' even exist.

I think I may let this thread drop, at this point. The issues I raised have been and are being raised more and more frequently in Israel and elsewhere. I don't think they are going away, because I don't think that the Palestinians are going away. And yet, invariably, as they are here, those issues are dismissed with sarcasm and insults to anyone who would raise them. The sense of righteousness and superior knowledge, including by many who wield only wisdom from pro-Zionist apologetics, is astonishing. My guess is many of the ardent defenders have not taken the trouble to read a single real book.

I believe that Israel has to go back and repair, as best it can, the injustice attending its birth as a nation. I think it can do so without jeopardizing its security--even improving it--or reducing its economic, scientific, and cultural greatness. But Israel cannot act as it should until it stops distorting and denying its history.

As I plow on through "1948," by Benny Morris, I do not see how one can read this book and not recognize the incredible texture of historical fact, and documentation, so that virtually every sentence is a report that is specific. When Morris does venture an opinion, he makes it obvious. Nor do I think anyone can miss his taking the Israeli perspective. Nor his resolute even-handedness. To dismiss this book without reading it is an injustice to a massive achievement of scholarship. Is he infallible? No, he has changed his views and perspective in later years. But I suggest to you that anyone who reads this will put behind certain common assertions: 1. That there "were no Palestinians"--the term is merely political. Not true and not relevant. 2. That the non-Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine Mandate fled from their homes because the Mufti, or the Arab nations, told them to do so. The causes were fear of the war, exacerbated by terrorist attacks, and some massacres by Haganah, and by deliberate policy to "cleanse" areas for military purposes, and, soon after, by deliberate policy to "cleanse" Jewish parts of the Partition, and then territory occupied, and then explicit orders against permitting them to return. 3. That the Arab armies attacked an Israel that wanted only peace. The Zionists wanted the land, wanted their own Jewish State, and declared a state unilaterally when every one understood that it would mean war. The Jewish Agency had been preparing for this war for years. The declaration of the State of Israel, accepting the UN partition plan when the Palestinians rejected it--a step that had no international support except from the American Zionists--was a calculated risk by the Jewish Agency, which had prepared to fight it out. The war of 1947-48 was inevitable, given the choices that the Jewish Agency made, so that the invasion by the Arab states must be seen as part of the plan.

Well, as with so many endlessly argued questions, so much depends upon where you start. Do you start when Israel declares nationhood and the six Arab armies--or in some cases token expeditionary forces--swarm over the borders? if so, what was Israel supposed to do? The Jewish people were fighting for their very existence; they feared extermination if they lost the war. In that context, almost anything was justified. In the lead up to the invasion, which they knew was a certainty--IF they declared nationhood--they did "cleanse" much of the country of Palestinians, with widespread terror, burning villages, and dynamiting homes and businesses. They feared that when the Arab armies invaded, their Palestinian neighbors would attack from all sides, block roads. Indeed, they already had been fighting a "civil war" with a few militant Palestinian groups and a few foreign units. They also quite deliberately and happily took the occasion to drive out by terror and massacres (which Haganah left to the Stern Gang) the hundreds of thousands of Arabs they had been wondering what to do with. The record is absolutely clear on this. But if you start much earlier, then you ask what gave the Zionists the right to choose an inhabited area, settled for hundreds and hundreds of years by people of other ethnicity and religions? The only answer is: The Bible as literal history and that is a very weak argument. And if you begin in 1946 and see the relatively tiny area of the Palestine Mandate occupied or owned by Jews, the huge areas that were Palestinian, then you have to ask: Why would they use their British and American Zionist political pull to ram a partitioning of the country through the United Nations--and what were the Palestinians expected to do? Just what they did do: Say, No Way! And so, by starting earlier you see that the Zionists made a claim to taking over the area that they knew, inevitably, would lead to war. They made the decision to declare statehood and defend it by sheer force; they had been preparing to do so since 1945, at least. And so they knew they would be attacked, expected it. And planned to use the attack to seize as much more land as they could. It really depends where you start...

I wonder how many of those commenting here have actually read the works of Benny Morris or John Judis--or even Ilan Pappe. Or have they read such easily digestible opinions as those of Pamela Geller, on "Atlas Shrugs"--WHAT does it have to do with "Atlas Shrugged"?--and downloaded their opinions from there? I seriously don't know. But I am about half-way through "1948" by Benny Morris and I think serious scholars would have difficulty attacking his facts and documentation. He certainly revolutionized Israeli scholarship on the birth of the Jewish state. The historical case for widespread "cleansing" of non-Jews from the Palestine Mandate in the lead up to invasions of 1948 really is not in question. The dispute is over the claim that this was a deliberate policy ("Plan D") to eliminate non-Jews from the future Jewish state--or a necessity of defense against the onslaught of the Arab armies. Morris suggests that it was a necessity of defense, but with terror, massacres, rape, and looting that do not square with the ideals of the Zionists. And that many, though not all, Zionist leaders cheered at the cleansing of the future Jewish state. Very difficult to deny the evidence, which Morris marshals. The Arab nations did expel many, many Jews--an unjustified, collectivist response--but did so in anger at the expulsion of Arabs from Israel. In that case, Israel sinned first, the Arab nations in response. The State of Israel--founded, justified, by the need to create a Jewish homeland--accepted and settled all Jewish refugees, and made many, many sacrifices to do so. The Arab nations, with a few exceptions, kept the Arab refugees from the Palestine Mandate in refugee camps generation after generation to keep alive the supposed evil of the "catastrophe." Indeed, Israel settled more Arabs than did the vast Arab nations. And yet, the United Nations considers huge numbers of residents of Gaza and the West Bank as refugees. You can scoff at the U.N.--my hobby is to do so--but, then, Israel's only birth certificate is from the U.N. We have to be clear, here: the Zionists had NO claim, except the religious-mystical--to a Jewish State until the Zionist lobbies pushed through the UN into partition. Since then, Israel has felt free to disregard many U.N. resolutions. I think that Benny Morris (and I have read his more outrageous statements) deserves to be read before he is criticized. In some of these cases, he speaks as a "civilian"--a citizen of Israel with emotional responses--rather than an historian. In latter years, he may just yearn to be respected for what he accomplished--and be admired in his old age--but that is what the truth teller has no right to hope.

I have spent the whole weekend reading "1948" by Benny Morris. Still have a long way to go. He provides good evidence that "cleanse," in the orders to the Hagganah about clearing the road to Jerusalem, meant to eliminate potential fighters. The order specifically cautioned against violence toward women, children, and those too old to fight. This was the inception of Plan D and the goal seems to have been to neutralize the villages from which fighters had been recruited to destroy Jewish Agency convoys trying to resupply Jerusalem. A few other points, though, come through: 1. The goal of the Zionists was to take over Palestine (the area of the future Palestine Mandate), with British imperialist ambitions at their backs, and they went to some lengths to deny, rationalize away, the people who lived there. 2. In every sphere--economic, political, educational, scientific, diplomatic, and military--the Zionists ran rings around the Arabs. 3. The Jewish minority, with the constant opposition of the Palestinians and surrounding Arab nations, used their influence within Britain and their huge support among American Zionists, to railroad the U.N. into granting a very unjust partition of the Palestine Mandate. It was opposed by President Truman and the American government, as well as the British, who were battered into accepting by Zionist bullying and sheer terror tactics. 4.When 1947-48 arrived, the Jewish Agency, which declared itself the State of Israel, was superior in every way to the Palestinians and the Arab leaders; the war probably never was a close thing, but we know that only in retrospect because few could have anticipated the incompetence of the Arabs. 5. For the most part, the indigenous Palestinian population waited on the sidelines as their was decided first by the Zionist movement and then by the venial, uncommitted, aggrandizing Arab leaders. 6. And the Jewish Agency took this opportunity to push out the Arab populations they had said, consistently, they did not want, and to seize much more territory than even the U.N. had offered. 7. They kept it against various U.N. resolutions, United States protests, and such, by force and the dominance in American of the Zionists.

Well, he does say that "we cannot empty the central Galilee...without a war going on..." And, later, that it can be accomplished "without weakening our military efforts in other parts of the country"--as though military efforts come first, but they can spare the time for this, too. I find it awful hard to interpret this as military planning. The American Zionists had for years and years been talking about "transfer" of the Arabs, "removal" of the Arabs, and such. The premise was that since they were Arabs, it didn't matter where they lived in the Arab world.

I've seen similar quotes and comments attributed to Ben Gurdon before. Always out of context.
The term clean or clear has a different meaning if it is in the military contest. It means eliminate the capability of the enemy to fight or resist you.
This is opposed to the terms as applied by the Nazi or radical Muslims. they mean to remove all people from the region either by force or murdering them.
I personally thik Ben Gurdon meant the military not the other.
I really don't know nor does any else most likely.

In itself, this quote relates only to disagreement about history--history going back more than 60 years. But today there is yet another attempt at a "peace" process, which predictably will be derailed because the Arabs insist on the right of return, or compensation, for the hundreds of thousands of refugees still out there, and the Israelis utterly reject it on the grounds that they had nothing to do with causing the problem; it was all the fault of the Arabs. Justice today, wherever it lies, depends upon some agreement about what happened in the past.

WD has been generous in plowing through the works of Benny Morris for us.
I would not have known or bothered with this writer otherwise.
I have since found some quotes of Morris:

"When the Palestinians rejected the proposal.... I understood that they are unwilling to accept the two-state solution. They want it all".
My comment- That was said in year 2000. That it was not seen by Morris from 1947 events suggests foolishness or deliberate blindness. Better late than never.

"There was no Zionist 'plan' or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of 'ethnic cleansing'" and "the demonisation of Israel is largely based on lies—much as the demonisation of the Jews during the past 2,000 years has been based on lies. And there is a connection between the two."
My comment- This does not seem to relate at all to what is in WD's post when reporting on a book by Morris.

WD, apparently using the work of Morris, tells us that the Zionists wanted war, they planned out the provocations needed to get war, planned the war itself, then, did it. Somehow those smart .err. Zionists persuaded the neighboring surrounding Arab nations to attack. The Zionists also planned against themselves an arms embargo, the Arab states had all the armaments they wanted from their friends in UK and USA. Zionists had to smuggle in guns and ammo from eastern Europe and SE Asia. People were smuggled in through the cordon of the British navy.

Comment 'no Palestinians'- The term was invented by the British and applied to all residents including Jews, they accepted the term. The Arab population did not, they identified by tribe and religion.

Massacres by Hagenah- there were dreadful killings of civilian Arabs by Jews in the war tho' massacres of Jews by Arabs started earlier under British supervision.

WD says- 'The declaration of the State of Israel, accepting the UN partition plan when the Palestinians rejected it--a step that had no international support except from the American Zionists'.
My comment- Yes, the Israelis accepted the UN partition plan, declared a state, then the Arabs armies invaded. Yes American Zionists supported, but not the US government, international support was from the committee of non-aligned states who devised the boundary and ratified by the UN which at the time was not dominated by an Islamic block. US, UK and other western governments were hostile perhaps not from the anti-semitism alluded to by Morris but from the need for Saudi oil. The so-called political pull of British and American Zionists existed only in WD's special sources.

WD refers to areas of land but makes an assumption- the area occupied by Jews was small, therefore the area occupied by Arabs was large, wrong, as much land was empty, being desert, uninhabited scrub and swamp. As for property rights, few Arabs owned land which was generally owned by absentee Turkish landlords except for uninhabited areas. The Jews bought land and reclaimed desert and swamp. The state of Israel respected property rights, for example the government area is still owned by the orthodox church.

The case put by WD on the objections to Zionists living in Israel as they have not done it before is interesting, it invites comparison with mass population movements from Europe, and of course with Islamic expansions. Of course the bible is not considered at all, written by the Zionists in 1947 perhaps.
Well, not all take the bible as accurate in history or geography, but it is evidence. Likewise the findings of extensive activity of the Israeli national hobby of archeology. Likewise the extensive Islamist activity of destruction of historic sites, the Buddha statues the best known example. The PA has destroyed important sites that were protected by handover agreements.

To conclude- WD attempts to make a point by quoting from the writer Benny Morris. I have found quotes from Morris that do not support the claim. Several statements made in the postings are wrong or misleading, Perhaps the motivation is to be found in a quote from Morris given above, else it makes no sense to put this topic on an Atlas Shrugged website.