#ilan pappe

[disruptiveempathy]

At times, the original flora [of Palestine] manages to return in surprising ways. Pine trees were planted not only over bulldozed houses, but also over fields and olive groves. In the new development town of Migdal Ha-Emek, for example, the JNF did its utmost to try and cover the ruins of the Palestinian village of Mujaydil, at the town’s eastern entrance, with rows of pine trees, not a proper forest in this case but just a small wood. Such ‘green lungs’ can be found in many of Israel’s development towns that cover destroyed Palestinian villages (Tirat Hacarmel over Tirat Haifa, Qiryat Shemona over Khalsa, Ashkelon over Majdal, etc.). But this particular species failed to adapt to the local soil and, despite repeated treatment, disease kept afflicting the trees. Later visits by relatives of some of Mujaydial’s original villagers revealed that some of the pine trees had literally split in two and how, in the middle of their broken trunks, olive trees had popped up in defiance of the alien flora planted over them fifty-six years ago.

—Ilan Pappé, from The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

[heritageposts]

By Ilan Pappe, published 5th of November 2023.

On October 24, a statement by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres caused a sharp reaction by Israel. While addressing the UN Security Council, the UN chief said that while he condemned in the strongest terms the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7, he wished to remind the world that it did not take place in a vacuum. He explained that one cannot dissociate 56 years of occupation from our engagement with the tragedy that unfolded on that day. The Israeli government was quick to condemn the statement. Israeli officials demanded Guterres’s resignation, claiming that he supported Hamas and justified the massacre it carried out. The Israeli media also jumped on the bandwagon, asserting among other things that the UN chief “has demonstrated a stunning degree of moral bankruptcy”. This reaction suggests that a new type of allegation of anti-Semitism may now be on the table. Until October 7, Israel had pushed for the definition of anti-Semitism to be expanded to include criticism of the Israeli state and questioning the moral basis of Zionism. Now, contextualising and historicising what is going on could also trigger an accusation of anti-Semitism.

. . . article continues on Al Jazeera

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Another post for JVP Boston I made and am quite proud of! I may do a sequel if requested because there are so many more great people we could cover:

Judith Butler

Jamie Margolin

Rabbi Alissa Klein

Miriam Margolyes

Avi Shlaim

If you have any more suggestions let me know!

[a-typical]

But there is an alternative. In fact, there has always been one: 

A de-zionised, liberated and democratic Palestine from the river to the sea; a Palestine that will welcome back the refugees and build a society that does not discriminate on the basis of culture, religion or ethnicity. 

This new state would labor to rectify, as much as possible, the past evils, in terms of economic inequality, the stealing of property and the denial of rights. This could herald a new dawn for the whole Middle East.

It is not always easy to stick to your moral compass, but if it does point north – towards decolonization and liberation – then it will most likely guide you through the fog of poisonous propaganda, hypocritical policies and the inhumanity, often perpetrated in the name of ‘our common Western values’.

My Israeli Friends: This is Why I Support Palestinians – Ilan Pappe (10 October 2023)

[greencarnation]

I went to an Ilan Pappé talk yesterdays - I really recommend his books if you've not checked them out already. He's arguably one of the worlds leading experts on Zionism and the "Israel"-Palestine conflict, so obviously everything he said was great, but what I want to highlight:

Someone asked him if he thought the protests and petitions and calling you reps and shit would work, and he said no, it never will. It's still important to do that but the powerful will never surrender their power to the powerless just because they ask for it. Asking the UK and the US to cut ties with their imperial outpost in the Middle East is like asking an animal to gnaw off it's own limb - it won't do it unless its only other choice is dying completely.

So who does have the power to put a stop to this, we asked. The working class of the imperial core. That's us, and we are the most powerful people in the world right now, because this war machine can't function without us. Movements like this can only be built from the ground up, so stop looking to the government and start looking to your community. We need to make it more unprofitable to support Israel than it is to cut ties with it.

This is a call to action. The people HAVE the power, and we have to use it. Yes, that's you. Contact your trade union, your workplace, your school, your church, your university. Your friends, family, any connections you have. As many people on board as possible, with one goal: shut it down. Take direct action now.

[shealwaysreads]

If anyone is looking for things to read, Haymarket Books is giving away 10 free ebooks - a really diverse group of brilliant writers and thinkers to inspire and inform at a tricky fuckin time in the world! You can get books here - though you might need to register 👍

[beljar]

Ethnic cleansing is an effort to render an ethnically mixed country homogenous by expelling a particular group of people and turning them into refugees while demolishing the homes they were driven out from.

Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2006

[metamatar]

American documentation reveals that Washington was not easily deceived and even by 1967 they understood that what they had been told had little relevance to what was happening on the ground. On 25 June 1967 the President requested that the Israeli government should not officially annex Jerusalem. This was the first use of a formula that would be employed again and again, and, one should say, that would be perfected over time and it is still in use today: a firm American request not to annex or colonize is followed by an unequivocal promise to take this position on board, while the planned annexation or colonization goes ahead anyway.

The Biggest Prison on Earth, Ilan Pappe

[godzilla-reads]

“Exploring the Palestine case is therefore crucial for understanding where we stand as human beings and what we stand for. Finding a solution to this question could then open the door to a new vision, to a new world, to new possibilities for all of us.”

—Frank Barat’s Introduction to “On Palestine” by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé

[jaffababe]

“When it created its nation-state, the Zionist movement did not wage a war that 'tragically but inevitably’ led to the expulsion of ‘parts of’ the indigenous population, but the other way round: the main goal was the ethnic cleansing of all of Palestine, which the movement coveted for its new state.”

Ilan Pappe - The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

[heritageposts]

[...] The Zionist Left in Israel is in a limbo. On the one hand, it is ostracized by Jewish society as, at best, being naïve and, at worst, as being accused of betrayal. This is in reaction to their support for the two-state solution and the call to end the occupation. This alienation, of course, is now more acute after the events of October 7. On the other hand, they are not considered, and rightly so, genuine allies of the Palestinian liberation struggle. The Israeli Left’s biggest hope was that the Global Left, as they call it, would share the same language and attitude regarding the October 7 operation by Hamas; namely to be unconditionally behind Israel. The Israeli Left was outraged that, in the eyes of the Global Left, the Hamas operation did not absolve Israel from its past criminal policies nor did it provide Israel with a green light for its genocidal policies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. To their great surprise, the Global Left in its entirety was galvanized behind the call to “Stop the War” and “Free Palestine”, rather than echoing their government’s repeated response of “We support Israel’s right to defend itself”. What is most illuminating – in the dialogue the liberal Zionists have with themselves on the pages of Haaretz – is their vicious attack on any one associating colonialism with Israel. For some reason, they chose Judith Butler as the main culprit, which would leave many of us disappointed, as we devoted our careers to frame Zionism as settler colonialism, probably going back to the 1960s. In fact, today, the framing of Zionism and Israel as a settler-colonial project is a consensual issue among all the leading scholars on the Middle East, and it is rejected as an accurate paradigm only among mainstream Israeli academia. The Global Left is guilty of two ‘sins’, in the eyes of the liberal Zionists: one, it refers to Israel as a settler-colonial state and two, it provides a context for the Hamas attack on October 7.

. . . continues at Palestine Chronicles (16 Nov., 2023)

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

Well if this isn’t fucked and terrifying.

[youritalianbookpal]

Top 10 reads of 2024

I haven't been as active here in 2024 as in other years, but I still feel like sharing my top 10 fo the year. No idea how, but I managed to read 52 books overall - the goal was 49 and I honestly thought I wouldn't reach it... Let's see which books were the best of the bunch to me :)

Kallocain by Karin Boye

Extremely beautiful dystopian novel. I feel like this is what people think 1984 is when they get disappointed by it (I'm saying this as a compliment). It's the story of a scientist who lives under an oppressive totalitarian state, and discovers a potent truth serum. 10/10, would recommend to everyone ever to read this.

2. Summer by Ali Smith

Don't ask me why I began reading the seasonal quartet from the last book, but so far this is the only one I read and... I loved it. It made me emotional in all the best ways. This has raised the stakes for the other three books of the series (I plan on reading Autumn in 2025 but why knows, might take me another two or three business years to actually do it).

3. All Men Are Mortal by Simone de Beauvoir

I think I should tell you that I picked up this book by chance from my mom's bookcase - as usual she knew she read it and remembered nothing of it. This novel felt like a slap in the face, and I don't understand how people can't always remember it after having read it. This is the story of an immortal man who regrets his immortality, and somehow it's an in-dept analysis of humankind's mortality and... I don't know how else to describe it if not the aforementioned slap in the face. Absolutely majestic.

4. The Biggest Prison on Earth by Ilan Pappé

This book should be mandatory in every school but alas. I don't think it's a good recommentation for people who never approached the subject of the history of Palestine, but I think it could still prove extremely useful to people who are interested in the topic - and let's face it, we all should be.

5. Act your age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert

Took me ages to finally finish the Brown sisters series, and I loved this third instalment just so much. I think Eve and Jacob are a great exaple of well written enemies to lovers - or whatever "sorry I accidentally run you over with my car, let me help you run your B&B" is supposed to be. It's my favorite trope and it better be done like this more often.

6. Velvet was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I think I'll remember this novel for the wrong reason - it's so far the only book by Moreno-Garcia I didn't give 5 stars (I gave it a 4.75 so I should really just shut up). But I really enjoyed it, as it's written well, the characters are compelling, and it takes place in a moment in the history of Mexico I didn't know much about, which made it a good reason to do further research, something I always like. And, may I say? It has one of my favorite endings in all the Moreno-Garcia books.

7. From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine ed. Sai Englert, Rosie Warren, Michal Schatz

Extremely upset I didn't have access to this while I was writing my Master's thesis (don't care if it has been published 2 years after my graduation ok). Please read this if you can.

8. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

First book I read completely in 2024 and it was GREAT. I spent the year looking for Bloodmaker at my usual bookshop, but I will end up having to order it on their website. I need to know how the story goes, ok? This book wins the Best Plot Twist of the Year award to me (which means it's the best written, the one with the best build up, and not done for shock value).

9. Bite by Bite: Nourishment and Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

World of Wonders, which I read a couple of years ago, is still one of my favorite books. This is basically the food version of it, so how could I not love this one too? it's so caring, so loving, so beautifully written: I can't ask anything else from a book.

10. Our wives under the sea by Julia Armfield

I'm not good with books that scare me. This scared me just enough to be able to finish it and still be so full of dread I could cry. If you're not a whimp like me you will probably think this is very tame, but to me the not knowing will always be more upsetting than the knowing.

Honorable mentions

I decided to put in the top 10 only books I read for the first time last year, but it was also a year I allowed myself some re-reads, which I think still deserve to be mentioned. Girl Woman Other by Bernardine Evaristo was maybe even better than I remember it, and I remember loving it dearly on the first read as well. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, which I listened to as audiobooks but read ages ago, cemented themselves as some of my favorite classics.

[metamatar]

In the interplay between demography and geography, the exclusion of Jerusalem from the West Bank created a problem. Any Israeli de jure incorporation of land tipped the demographic balance in favour of the Palestinians. Ministers noted that the new plan for the unification of Jerusalem added 70,000 Palestinians to Israel’s population. They were not deterred by this. It could be offset by the immigration of Jews and the purchase of private Arab lands, Prime Minister Eshkol reassured his cabinet. A more sinister plan, which was eventually implemented, was offered by the socialist Minister of Agriculture, Haim Givati. He had overseen the covering of destroyed Palestinian villages in 1948 with Jewish National Fund forests, and considered using the JNF to complete the act of dispossession once again – this time in another way. He suggested allocating some of the newly dispossessed lands to the JNF, since, according to its charter, it is not allowed to sell or let land to non-Jews. He must have been delighted when Eshkol responded by saying: ‘Ergo, we should give money to the JNF to also buy the private Arab land.’12 The area annexed in East Jerusalem was exclusively Palestinian prior to 1967. A year later, only 14 per cent of the land remained in Palestinian hands: 46 per cent was owned by the state, and the remaining 40 per cent was designated green areas.

The Biggest Prison on Earth, Ilan Pappe

[godzilla-reads]

Sleepy dog + educational reading = 🤩