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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.
