= new reply since forum marked as read
Your question presumes that Israel made such a choice. Israel was attacked by the armies of 5 Arab Nations. Israel won that war. Should Israel have chosen to lose that war? Were some people forced off land, sure, but was that a deliberate policy of the Israeli government: absolutely not. The Arabs were not prepared to accept any comprise that would have created a Jewish state and I don't think you can objectively look at the issue without considering the eviction/evacuation of nearly 1 million Jews from across the Muslim world.
There's no fruit in counter-factual consideration and irrelevant comparisons- what has happened has happened, the real question is why groups like Hamas refuse to turn swords into plowshares
Also, I would just suggest that you consider the Terms of Service you have agreed to in regards to this topic just so you've been informed on this websites policy in regard to this topic:
Do not post bigotry based on someone's race or ethnic origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or lack thereof, disability, or other comparable personal characteristic. To be clear: This includes any post which states opposition to full equal rights for gays and lesbians; it also includes any post asserting disloyalty by Jewish Americans, claiming nefarious influence by Jews/Zionists/Israel, advocating the destruction of the state of Israel, or arguing that Holocaust deniers are just misunderstood. In determining what constitutes bigotry, please be aware that we cannot know what is in anyone's heart, and we will give members the benefit of the doubt, when — and only when — such doubt exists.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=termsofservice
I contextualized a historical fact. If you have legitimate documents as proof that the Israeli government developed an official policy of expulsion in 1948, please present it, but otherwise I'm going to continue to go with the mainstream historical analysis in regards to this question: there was a war, shit happened. In terms of this argument, the only reasonable explanation is that there was population movement both forced and voluntary on both sides - 700,000 Palestinians out of Israel and 1 million Jews out of the Arab World. You can call it whatever the heck you want, but those are the historical facts: there was a war, people moved both willingly and unwillingly, but at no point did the Israeli government institute an official policy of expulsion. After the war, 156,000 Palestinian Arabs would eventually become Israeli citizens with full rights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel#1948_Arab-Israeli_War
Don't deny history, it never really helps any sort of argument.
My mindless blather comes backed by widespread agreement among mainstream historians that this was a complex historical event with divergent motivations on all sides that resists categorical moral judgment of the actors. I also notice you did not meet my challenge to demonstrate how expulsion was the official policy of the Israeli government in 1948.
Just because I don't agree that Israel is some sort of monster founded on ethnic cleansing and genocide doesn't mean I'm wrong - how easy it must be to live in a world of simplifications. 
Look man, I think that's all pretty darn insulting. I don't want to destroy the Jewish state or think zionist what the frack are you talking about and why am I replying to this crazy accusation???
I was just asking the man a question because I thought he might have some insight as to what people thought over there. He understood. He knew I was just curious. Why don't you? I call it "learning." I guess you call it hate speech?
Also, the 1948 creation of Israel predated the wars. These are excerpts from the wiki link you posted and associated links in the article:
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a plan for the future government of Palestine. The Plan was described as a Plan of Partition with Economic Union which, after the termination of the British Mandate, would lead to the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of the Plan as Resolution 181(II).[1]
Part I of the Plan contained provisions dealing with the Termination of the Mandate, Partition and Independence. The Mandate would be terminated as soon as possible and the United Kingdom would withdraw from Palestine no later than the previously announced date of 1 August 1948. The new states would come into existence two months after the withdrawal, but no later than 1 October 1948. The Plan sought to address the conflicting objectives and claims of two competing movements: Arab nationalism and Jewish nationalism (Zionism). Part II of the Plan included a detailed description of the proposed boundaries for each state.[2] The Plan also called for Economic Union between the proposed states, and for the protection of religious and minority rights.
The Plan was accepted by the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine, through the Jewish Agency.[3][4] The Plan was rejected by leaders of the Arab community, including the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee,[3][5] who were supported in their rejection by the states of the Arab League. The Arab leadership (in and out of Palestine) opposed partition and claimed all of Palestine.[6] The Arabs argued that it violated the rights of the majority of the people in Palestine, which at the time was 65% non-Jewish (1,200,000) and 35% Jewish (650,000).[7]
The 1948 Arab–Israeli War or the First Arab-Israeli War was fought between the State of Israel and a military coalition of Arab states and Palestinian Arab forces. This war was the second stage of the 1948 Palestine war, known in Arabic as al-Nakba (Arabic: النكبة, "The Catastrophe"
and in Hebrew as the Milkhemet Ha'atzma'ut (Hebrew: מלחמת העצמאות, "War of Independence" or Milkhemet Hashikhrur (Hebrew: מלחמת השחרור "War of Liberation" .
The war was preceded by a period of civil war in the territory of the Mandatory Palestine between Jewish Yishuv forces and Palestinian Arab forces in response to the UN Partition Plan. An alliance of Arab states intervened on the Palestinian side, turning the civil war into a war between sovereign states.[19] The fighting took place mostly on the former territory of the British Mandate and for a short time also in the Sinai Peninsula and southern Lebanon.[20]
At the issue of the war, the State of Israel kept of nearly all the area that had been recommended by the UN General Assembly Resolution 181 and took control of almost 60% of the area allocated to the proposed Arab state,[21] including the Jaffa, Lydda and Ramle area, Galilee, some parts of the Negev, a wide strip along the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem road and some territories in the West Bank. Transjordan took control of the remainder of the West Bank and East-Jerusalem, putting it under military rule, and the Egyptian military took control of the Gaza Strip. No Arab Palestinian state was created. Armistice agreements were signed between all belligerants except Irakis and Palestinians.
Important demographic changes occurred in the country. Between 600,000 and 760,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from the area that became Israel and became Palestinian refugees.[22] On the other hand, around 10,000 Jews were forced to leave their homes in Palestine.[citation needed] The war and the creation of Israel also triggered the Jewish exodus from Arab lands. In the three years following the war, about 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, residing mainly along the borders of the State.[23]
Why don't you read what you post, punk? And don't ever call me an anti-semite. I've been to Dachau. Have you? I saw the roses put on the oven lids every morning by the nuns. Have you? I watched people run out of the theater in the on-site museum in tears because they couldn't handle the archival footage. I bitched out the tour guide IN GERMAN who drove our freakin' bus because he had the nerve to say that the town didn't know about it. It was right smack dab in the middle of the damn town. I volunteered with a jewish friend of mine on several occasions when I was in high school at the holocaust museum in Dallas. So why don't you take whatever you are smokin, pass it around, and stop makin stuff up. The facts are the facts, it doesn't mean I hate jews or in favor of this or against that. If ever a people deserved their own state its the Jewish people, but its caused a bit of a hubub, or wouldn't you agree?? Damn son
I did suggest that one must be careful in this website in terms of how we talk about the creation of the State of Israel and what we are allowed to consider in the range of potential solutions to the present conflict.
I suggest you take your own advice in this regard.
Honestly, as someone with a degree in history, your question was crap. Damn son.
...as you yourself noted below, that could be read as advocating the destruction of the State of Israel:
Many historians would argue that what happened in the UN was not terribly influential in the outcome of the war of 1948 where the IDF and its forerunners did not receive any substantial international assistance. Israel did not need permission from Churchill, Truman and the UN to become a state, Israel became a state as a result of a military outcome i.e. the defeat of the Arab Armies. Mind you the British left and the UN partition never became a reality because it was superseded by the military conflict, which Israel won decisively against substantial odds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1949_Armistice_Agreements
...because it's just too much trouble and that Jews and Israelis worldwide should regret the creation of the State of Israel for causing such trouble. I fail to see the substantiative difference between such an argument and advocacy for the destruction of the State of Israel, which is expressly defined in the Terms of Service as bigoted hate speech.
I have not read such a book. But I would gamble that it is a revisionist history based on the use of "Revisited" and am somewhat familiar with the basic revisionist arguments. I have read other histories. I again feel compelled to repeat, I did not state that there were no expulsions, but rather that this was not official Israeli policy, and that although it may have been de facto policy of some elements in some places, that it was not the most significant factor in "the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem," and that this cannot be understood without major appreciation of the military events as they unfolded.
I think too many people are too fast and loose with using terms such as "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide" in this regard. If these terms were liberally applied, every national power in every war in human history would be guilty of such crimes, they have very specific meanings in regard to intent. Consider the UN Convention on Genocide Article II:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Nowhere is it stated that taking territory as part of a military conflict is genocide, and I still would await any presentation of documentary proof that Israel sought to commit genocide as defined by the UN Convention on Genocide as there was no intent to destroy, rather the intent was to defend and secure the State of Israel.
welcome to DU. I agree that both parties have to compromise to attain true peace, my lovely wife even agrees that Hamas and Israel need to sit down and hammer out an agreement that benefits both parties and benefits the whole region.
I look forward to reading more of your thoughtful posts, you even have the attention of my wife, which is a difficult thing to do, Kudos to you. 
and so far, everyone is ok. We've both experienced the horrors of war, Me-Vietnam, her-the PLO terror attacks and her stint in the IDF during the Yom Kippur War, so we have some unique insight on what needs to be done.
My wife thinks your idea of a carefully monitered system of large scale internation finacial aid and rebuilding is one of the best ideas she's heard yet.
She is sickened by all the violence itn the ME and wishes it would stop.
Execellent post.
I dunno if the aid would work, but its worth a try at this point. We'll take some hits from it. Undoubtedly, some of it will be used for terrorism and to harm our people and the Israeli people and the Knesset would throw a fit. But i can't help but wondering if the Arab Spring was just in the countries we have seen or beyond. Its the internet I think, that will make the difference. Perhaps if we can overcome Palestinian pride and appeal to their young people to accept money in this case to open up their own businesses, to have an international financial presence of some significance, they can build something that will create a prosperity which will overcome the horror.
Probably a fool's dream, but its worth a try. We give Israel roughly $8 billion a year in aid, so I suggest we give Palestine an equal amount at least for the foreseeable future. 
since their inception in 1948, maybe because a certain Mr. Hitler tried to wipe out the Jewish race in WWII, maybe because the Jewish people are constantly persecuted.
Think maybe that could have something to do with it.
As Israel systemically wipes Palestine off the face of the earth, they scream bloody murder at the thought of Iran wanting to do the same thing to them. Imagine if the colors were reversed. 
...should we look at Jewish land-ownership throughout the Muslim world as well? I means surely 1 million Arab and North African Jews must have owned a fair deal of land?
The War of 1948 happened - the armies of 5 Arab States failed in their attempt to destroy the state of Israel - you can either accept that course of events or you can deny it and blame the Jews for defending themselves. The State of Israel will never be wiped from the face of the Earth. Your assertion that "Israel systemically wipes Palestine off the face of the earth" is complete and utter nonsense that has no basis in historical fact and is rejected by mainstream Western historical analysis.
Is Israel still settling in what little scraps of land the Palestinians have left? Seems to me that Israel wont be done until theres no Palestinian land at all. They take it, they settle it, they wall it off, they clear it & the kill its inhabitants. I'd call that wiping of the face of the earth.
Simple as that.
PB
PB
... after a few stray shells from Syria landed in Turkey?
Pot, meet kettle.
Don't be so hostile. I never said I didn't believe you 