In Israel ethnic cleansing has been the key to ensuring that within the boundaries of Israel Palestinians are always in a minority.

Ethnic cleansing?

Yes, in 1948, when the United Nations partitioned Palestine into two states: one Jewish (Israel) and the other Arab, the Israelis accepted the partition and the Arabs did not. Some Arabs (they weren't called Palestinians then, the Jews were then called Palestinians) were driven from what became Israel. Many times more left on their own accord at the encouragement of the surrounding Arab states who promised to drive the Jews into the sea. Approximately 725,000 Arabs left Israel in 1948.

Hundreds of thousands of other Arabs stayed in what became Israel. They have always enjoyed more human and democratic rights than the citizens of any Arab country. Since the beginning of Israel's statehood, for example, there have been Arab members of the Israeli Knesset and Arabic has equal status with Hebrew as an official language of the State.

Ethnic cleansing?

How about the 850,000 Jews who were driven out of surrounding Arab countries, who were forced to leave behind their property and money, at the time of Israel's statehood?

The difference in the two situations is that the Jews who were driven out of Arab countries were absorbed by Israel while the Arab refugees just continued to receive promises that the other Arab countries would drive the Jews into the sea.

The other Arab countries failed in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 to drive the Jews into the sea.

Realizing that Israel was here to stay, Egypt and, eventually, Jordan, made peace with Israel.

BTW, what we now consider to be the Palestinian territories, the West Bank and Gaza, were captured by Israel in the 1967 war. From 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan and Gaza was part of Egypt. The Arabs could have easily created a Palestinian state in those areas. They had no desire to do so and when Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel, they washed their hands of the territories and the Palestinians.

Ethnic cleansing? A loaded propaganda term that fools gullible people with no knowledge of the actual history.