Loot: How Israel Stole Palestinian Property
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.
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.
Reviews
--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 Gaza
"An important addition ... Raz has written a book that successfully provides the evidence to break through the 'conspiracy of silence' about the origins of the Israeli state."
--John Westmoreland, Counterfire
"Groundbreaking ... This book is powerful, and Loot will fascinate those wanting to comprehend both history and today's reality."
--Riad al Khouri, New Arab
"Given the ongoing efforts to erase Palestine's past and conceal Israel's treatment of Palestinians, this book is an important contribution to uncovering the reality on which the Zionist state was founded."
--Mike Phipps, Labour Hub
"Astonishing: this book is an important contribution to revealing the reality on which the Zionist state was founded"
--Al Jazeera
"For decades, there were few Jewish Israelis who would speak openly about how Zionist forces displaced and killed Palestinian civilians during what Israelis call their War of Independence. That changed in the 1980s with the arrival of a generation of scholars known as the New Historians. Though their scholarship remains taboo in Israel, their output continues. "Loot," by Adam Raz, published in Hebrew in 2020 and recently translated into English by Philip Hollander, offers an important contribution to the tradition."
--Max Strasser, New York Times
