Of Benny Morris and Ethnic Cleansing
Ever since I read Benny Morris’s op-ed piece in the LA Times last week, in which he stated that, “In 48’ Israel Did what It Had to Do”, I have spent many hours pondering his conclusion. His justification for the ethnic cleansing, rape, and murder of the Palestinian people to facilitate the founding of the Jewish state left me numb. Ethnic cleansing, rape, and murder were justified as a means to an end. Although I was born in Palestine and moved to the US at the age of 8, I was, like most Americans, had been bombarded by the Zionist accounts of the “brave and moral” Zionist under dogs fighting for survival against the “backward bloodthirsty savages”. There was never any mention of the crimes and atrocities that were visited upon the Palestinian inhabitants. The stories and narratives of the Zionists that I had read and seen had a kind of “rugged romanticism” to them that smacked of a typical Hollywood Western. The Zionists were the “cowboys” and the Palestinians were cast in the role of the “Indians”.