A central myth of Zionism myth is that Israel was founded in a “land without people for a people without land.” But from the outset the project to colonize Palestine was predicated on the expulsion of its Arab inhabitants. It was a project that sought the support of imperialist powers and presented itself to them as “an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism,” as Zionist founder Theodor Herzl put it. Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency’s Colonization Department, outlined what became policy as early as 1940: “There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries…not one village, not one tribe should be left.” In 1948, Zionist militias drove 750,000 Palestinians from their towns and villages and declared an exclusively Jewish state. Since then, every Israeli state policy has been designed to further this initial project of expulsion and exclusions.