How the Nakba was marked not just by forced expulsions but also widespread looting of Palestinian property

During the 1948 war, looting was a general and widespread phenomenon whereby Israeli fighters and residents alike plundered Palestinian property - including homes, shops, businesses, and farms - left behind by those who were expelled or fled during the war.

This bitter truth was then silenced and forgotten by the Jewish public in Israel over the years: thousands of shops and tens of thousands of homes and buildings were pillaged by the Jewish residents of the country during and after the war.

The pillage of Palestinian property was carried out by tens of thousands who stole the belongings of those who had been their neighbours. However, this mass looting has implications that go far beyond the personality or moral fortitude of those who took part in it. The widespread looting served a political agenda that sought to empty the country of its Palestinian residents. It should be seen in its context as an aspect of the prevailing policy during the war - a policy that sought, among other things, to crush the Palestinian economy, destroy villages, and to confiscate and sometimes destroy crops and harvests remaining in displaced villages.

The participating Jewish public became a stakeholder in preventing Palestinian residents from returning to the villages and cities they left, and as such, was mobilized to support a political agenda that pushed for segregation between Jews and Arabs in the early years of statehood.

Adam Raz is a human rights researcher and historian whose field of research is the political history of the twentieth century and Marxist thought. In recent years Raz has written several books on the history of nuclear weapons in Israel and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Among his books in Hebrew are: The Struggle for the Bomb (2015), Herzl: The Conflicts of Zionism’s Founder with Supporters and Opponents (2017), Kafr Qassem Massacre: A Political Biography (2018), The Military Rule 1948-1966 (2021). His most recent book is The Demagogue – the Mechanics of Political Power (2023). Raz works at Akevot: Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research.

Archival Collections and Abbreviations
Introduction

Part I: THE PLUNDER OF PALESTINIAN PROPERTY – CHRONICLE OF A DISAPPEARANCE
Tiberias
Haifa
Jerusalem
Jaffa
Acre
Safed
Beisan (Beit She’an)
Ramle and Lydda
Beersheba
Mosques and Churches
The Palestinian Villages
Collective Looting

Part II: THE PLUNDER OF PALESTINIAN PROPERTY – POLITICS AND SOCIETY
A Poison Spreading Through the Arteries of Society
Personal Plunder and Collective Pillaging
Opposing the Plunder
Sheetrit, 'Professional Mourner'
Ben-Gurion Ignores Minister Sheetrit and
the Ministry of Minorities
The Existence of a Policy for Expelling and Robbing the Arabs
'Ben-Gurion, This Is Your Fault!'
The Nazareth Affair: Ben-Gurion Had
'The Strongest Historical Instincts'
Ben-Gurion and the Plunder of Property
Complicity in a Crime

A Brief Conclusion

Index