First published as "Bizat ha-rekhush ha-'Arvi be-Milḥemet ha-'Atsmaʼut" by Carmel Publishing House, 2020

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 Affai : Ben-Gurion had 'the strongest historical instincts' -- Ben-Gurion and the plunder of property -- Complicity in a crime -- A brief conclusion

"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." --