Israel to drop 'ethnic cleansing' from schoolbooks

The Israeli Education Ministry plans to omit a passage in their history books that tells the story of the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948, describing it as 'ethnic cleansing.'

The ministry announced that it has decided to reissue the history textbook taught to secondary classes after relevant changes are made, local media outlets reported on Sunday.

The media outlets quoted the passage in question as saying: "The Palestinians and the Arab countries contended that most of the refugees were civilians who were attacked and expelled from their homes by armed Jewish forces, which instituted a policy of ethnic cleansing."

Israel has always claimed that the Palestinians were not forcefully removed.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made racist remarks similar to the slogans of the original Zionists who expelled over 750,000 indigenous Palestinian Arabs from their homeland in 1948. "Israel is not a bi-national state," he stated and added, "It's the homeland of any Jew."

Although most Israelis refuse to admit that the Zionist regime was established through ethnic cleansing, not all of them are in denial.

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has written a book entitled "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine." His book, which has been harshly criticized by Zionists, is based on documents he retrieved from the archives of the Israeli Defense Ministry.

The book says the Zionists planned to establish Israel on the land inhabited by a Palestinian population and provides details of plans drawn up by Zionist leaders on how to get rid of the existing Palestinian population.