Loot

Exiled in 1948, Palestinians were robbed of their private property when looting became weaponized

During the 1948 War, Israeli fighters and residents alike plundered Palestinian homes, shops, businesses, and farms. This bitter truth was then suppressed or forgotten over the coming years.

Tens of thousands took part in the pillage of Palestinian property, stealing the belongings of their former neighbours. The implications of this mass looting go far beyond the personality or moral fibre of those who took part. Plundering served a political agenda by helping to empty the country of its Palestinian residents. In this context, it was part of the prevailing policy during the war – one designed to crush the Palestinian economy, destroy villages, and to confiscate and sometimes destroy crops and harvests remaining in the depopulated zones.

The participating Jewish public became a stakeholder, motivated to prevent Palestinian residents from returning to the villages and cities they had left. These ordinary people were mobilized in the push for the segregation of Jews and Arabs in the early years of statehood.

With painstaking original research into primary sources, Adam Raz has brought to light a tragic moment in the history of a conflict that roils the region and the wider world. As the details of the Nakba are understood and documented, redress for Palestinian grievances comes closer to reality.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"The dark sides of the War of Independence are illuminated in a book on the massive Jewish looting of Arab property then, showing the link between the plunder and Ben-Gurion's policy to rid the country of its Arab residents."
—Benny Morris, Haaretz

"Historian Adam Raz has produced groundbreaking research."
—Daniel Blatman, Haaretz

"Raz's book meticulously describes the history of the looting of Palestine. It was especially difficult for me to read about the destruction and looting of my hometown, Haifa. Raz shows the central political role that looting played in the creation of the phenomenon of Palestinian refugees, as well as how Prime Minister David Ben Gurion used looting for his own political needs. This is a fascinating book for anyone who wants to understand not only history, but also today's reality."
—Ayman Odeh, member of Knesset and leader of the Hadash party

"Denialism still runs deep in Israeli society around the dark events of 1948. Adam Raz is unafraid to bravely investigate the real situation of Israel's birth, and it was ugly. This unrelenting and essential text should forever shape how the world views the birth of the Jewish state as violent and exploitative. Only through compensation, acknowledgement and truth-telling can Israelis ever hope to reconcile with their Palestinian neighbours."
—Antony Loewenstein, author of The Palestine Laboratory

"A true archive mouse and gifted writer, Adam Raz is the foremost of a new generation of Israel's "new historians". While the story of the theft of Palestinian land and property has been told, Loot tells the story of how Israeli settlers stole the ordinary things - books, ploughs, pots - of their former Palestinian neighbours."
—Eyal Weizman, co-author of Investigative Aesthetics

"This book is a powerful and disturbing document. We in Israel know so little about the Nakba because we are told little. Adam Raz exposes us to another dark side of the 1948 war: the looting. The private form, committed by many individuals, which was almost considered legitimate. This looting was another face of the de-humanization of the Palestinians, which is now, 76 years later, at its peak."
—Gideon Levy, author of The Killing of GazaAdam 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.