04.01.08
Ethnic cleansing: Israel
From R-G
Georgia Straight March 27, 2008
Controversial history prof alleges Israeli ethnic cleansing
By Charlie Smith
A controversial Israeli historian—who claims that the Jewish
founders of Israel perpetrated ethnic cleansing on Palestinians living
in the Jewish state—will speak at the Vancouver Public Library’s
central branch as part of a cross-country tour. Ilan Pappe, who
teaches history at the University of Exeter in England, told the
Georgia Straight in a phone interview from Montreal that he hopes to
rouse public opinion to persuade the Canadian government to “exert
pressure” on Israel “to end the occupation as a first step towards a
lasting peace in Israel and Palestine”.
Pappe will discuss his 2006 book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
(Oneworld) at 7 p.m. on Saturday (March 29). The book cites historical
documents to state that 11 veteran Zionist leaders completed a plan in
March 1948 for the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians from the new
Jewish state, which was to attain independence two months later.
“Once the decision was taken, it took six months to complete the
mission,” Pappe writes in his book. “When it was over, more than half
of Palestine’s native population, close to 800,000 people, had been
uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and eleven urban
neighbourhoods emptied of their inhabitants. The plan decided upon on
10 March 1948, and above all its systematic implementation in the
following months, was a clear-cut case of an ethnic cleansing
operation, regarded under international law today as a crime against
humanity.”
Pappe told the Straight that he didn’t choose the term ethnic
cleansing lightly, claiming that he studied it from legal and moral
perspectives. “It’s very clear to me that the case of the expulsion of
the Palestinians in 1948 is a classical example of ethnic cleansing,”
he said. “I’m not just using it as an adjective to create sensation.”
Moreover, Pappe claimed that there has been “creeping ethnic cleansing
taking place in the last eight years in the Greater Jerusalem area and
alongside the apartheid wall” that is being built to shield Israel
from Palestinian attacks. “I’m also worried that if the Israelis feel
that the Palestinian minority within Israel threatens their democratic
majority, they would not hesitate to exercise ethnic cleansing in this
case as well,” Pappe alleged.
Vancouver resident Stephen Aberle, a member of the working group of
Jews for a Just Peace, told the Straight in a phone interview that it
is “essential” to read Pappe’s work to have an informed discussion
about what is happening now in Israel and Palestine. Aberle, whose
group, along with two Canadian Palestinian-support organizations, is
sponsoring Pappe’s local talk, said that The Ethnic Cleansing of
Palestine had a “profound impact” on him.
“The material that he has so meticulously researched is just crucial,”
Aberle said. “I don’t see many ways to argue against the conclusions.”
However, Paul Michaels, a spokesperson for the Canada-Israel
Committee, told the Straight in a phone interview from Toronto that
Pappe presents “an extremely one-sided view of history”, describing
him as a “Marxist” and a “very marginal figure in Israel”.
“He believes that history should be used in the service of political
or ideological narrative,” Michaels claimed, citing a critique of
Pappe’s work in The New Republic by Israeli historian Benny Morris.
“And he sees Israel almost uniformly as negative and the Palestinians
uniformly as helpless victims.”
Michaels said that the CIC “strongly supports a two-state solution”
with Israel and Palestine peacefully coexisting side-by-side. He
claimed that Pappe, on the other hand, prefers a “binational
solution”, in which Palestinians and Israeli Jews would live together
in one larger nation. “He believes that Israel should disappear,”
Michaels charged.
Pappe, who speaks Arabic and relies on Palestinian sources as well as
Israeli historical documents, told the Straight that he has a vision
of a “democratic binational state instead of the racist state that
Israel is today”. He said he is not opposed to the existence of
Israel, and insisted that Zionism can be compatible with providing
equal rights to anyone who is not Jewish.
“I’m an Israeli Jew,” Pappe said. “I don’t deny it. I want very much
to continue to live in my country, but I want to live in a democratic
country. And I do it [his work] for the sake of both the Palestinians
and the Jews.”
References
1. http://www.straight.com/print/138337?