#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

[sayruq]

Hamas’s assault of October 7 can be likened to an earthquake that strikes an old building. The cracks were already beginning to show, but they are now visible in its very foundations. More than 120 years since its inception, could the Zionist project in Palestine – the idea of imposing a Jewish state on an Arab, Muslim and Middle Eastern country – be facing the prospect of collapse? Historically, a plethora of factors can cause a state to capsize. It can result from constant attacks by neighbouring countries or from chronic civil war. It can follow the breakdown of public institutions, which become incapable of providing services to citizens. Often it begins as a slow process of disintegration that gathers momentum and then, in a short period of time, brings down structures that once appeared solid and steadfast. The difficulty lies in spotting the early indicators. Here, I will argue that these are clearer than ever in the case of Israel. We are witnessing a historical process – or, more accurately, the beginnings of one – that is likely to culminate in the downfall of Zionism. And, if my diagnosis is correct, then we are also entering a particularly dangerous conjuncture. For once Israel realizes the magnitude of the crisis, it will unleash ferocious and uninhibited force to try to contain it, as did the South African apartheid regime during its final days.

This is an incredible article by Israeli historian Ilan Pappé that argues successfully that Israel is facing a collapse that will come soon than expected

[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.

[sscarletvenus]

Ilan Pappe is a preeminent author, historian and speaker who has written about the Nakba, the series of calculated horrors and atrocities on the basis of which the apartheid regime called israel was founded.

genocidal maniacs are persecuting anti-genocide intellectuals.

detaining and interrogating Jewish scholars is definitely not antisemitism...

madness!

[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

[alwaysbewoke]

This is Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian who explicitly highlights the systematic cruelty endured by Palestinians at the hands of Zionist founders and their ideology...

[good-old-gossip]

Prominent Israeli academic Ilan Pappe said he was interrogated by the FBI after arriving in the US on Monday. Arriving at Detroit airport, the academic - known for his stridently anti-Zionist views and research - said he was subjected to two hours of questioning.

Amongst the questions, he was asked whether he was a Hamas supporter and whether he regarded the Israeli assault on Gaza as a "genocide".

"The two man team were not abusive or rude, I should say, but their questions were really out of the world!" Pappe wrote on Facebook.

"They had a long phone conversation with someone, (the Israelis?) and after copying everything on my phone allowed me to enter."

A number of pro-Palestinian campaigners have warned of increasing pressure being applied by state authorities in the US and Europe against prominent opponents of Israel's war in Gaza.

Pappe also cited the treatment of British-Palestinian doctor and rector of Glasgow University Ghassan Abu Sittah, who on 12 April was detained at an airport in Germany and refused entry into the country. He was travelling to attend a conference on Palestine that he had received an invitation for, but was slapped with a Schengen-wide travel ban for one year, which barred him from travelling to 29 countries across Europe.

The ban was overturned earlier this week. "I know many of you have fared far worse experience, but after France and Germany denied entry to the Rector of Glasgow university for being a Palestinian... God know what will happen next," wrote Pappe.

"Actions like this by the USA or European countries taken under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby or Israel itself smell of sheer panic and desperation in reaction to Israel's becoming very soon a pariah state with all the implications of such a status."

[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

[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.

[a-typical]

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappé (2006)