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Zionists Always Dreamt of Ethnic Cleansing
The first Zionists claimed Palestine was “a land without a people for a people without a land”. They knew that was a lie. In 1891, Achad Ha’Am noted, “Abroad we are accustomed to believe that Israel is almost empty; nothing is grown here and that whoever wishes to buy land could come here and buy what his heart desires. In reality, the situation is not like this. Throughout the country it is difficult to find cultivable land which is not already cultivated.”
The early Zionists needed to solve what they called “the Arab question”: With all the good land occupied by Muslim and Christian descendants of the original Israelis, how could European Jews become Palestine's dominant group?
Theodor Herzl, famed as the father of modern Zionism, proposed starving out most of the natives:
“We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it employment in our own country. … Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” —Theodor Herzl, 1896
Herzl’s apologists say his plan was humane because he called for finding employment for Palestinians elsewhere, but Zionists only took the second part of his advice — today as I write, Israel is starving Gazans. The…
