Israel began the 'war' in 1948 by ethnically cleansing 750,000 people!

On 7 March 2024, at the Woman's National Democratic Club in Washington DC, Hax Blumenthal was asked this question:

"Why did the Palestinians initiate this war with their vicious attack on Israelis on October 7th?"

He reponded thus:

"Well, they didn't. This war has been going on for 75 years. Israel initiated it in 1948 by ethnically cleansing 750,000 people.

'We must expel Arabs and take their places... We must expel Arabs and take their places and if we have to use force - not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Trans-Jordan but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places - then we have force at our disposal.' David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel said that in 1937, and that's what they proceeded to do.

The people in Gaza - this is what you need to understand - the people in Gaza, over 80% of them are refugees. Many of them are from a place called Majdal/Askalon in what is now Southern Israel, a city called Ashkalon. And they were dragged from their homes and driven from their homes, placed in barbwire prison camps and then dumped in trucks in 1950 into the Gaza Strip where they would be permanently warehoused. And then Israel proceeded to move Arab Jewish refugees and Russians into Ashkalon to prevent them from ever coming back, and pass laws to prevent Arabs, Palestinians, from being able to return to their homes. 750,000 were ethnically cleansed for 18 years. The remaining Palestinians, 100,000, were internally displaced inside Israel. The remaining were put under military rule. They were under military occupation until 1966.

Then in 1967 Israel violently, in a war it initiated, occupies Gaza, occupies the West Bank, occupies the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, and then invades Lebanon in 1982, attacking Palestinian refugees there, puts Gaza under Siege in 2005. No one can get in or out without Israeli military permission. "We must kill and kill all day, every day." That's according to Arnon Soffer, an Israeli government consultant to help devise the siege of Gaza. For years Israel would not allow certain chocolates and A2 paper into Gaza. And then they began these brutal military assaults which they call 'mowing the lawn': slaughtering a few people will leave Hamas intact but teach them a lesson.

And I talked to you about those assaults that took place on Gaza. So this didn't come out of a vacuum. You're not going to be able to hold people under siege, cut them off from the world and then expect them to just play along. That doesn't mean that I celebrate what happened on October 7th. It should have never had to happen. The reason it happened is because of the Israel Lobby here, the genocide Democrats and the genocide Republicans who deny the Palestinians any right. To have the right to have rights. And it's the right to have rights that defines you as a citizen. They're citizens of nothing.

And now we see what Israel really thinks of them, really thinks of their children. Gaza has become a graveyard for children according to UN Secretary General António Gutterres. So this didn't start on October 7th and it's not going to end when there's a ceasefire."

Max Blumenthal is Jewish.