Ilan Pappé | |
|---|---|
אילן פפה | |
.jpg) Pappé in 2023 | |
| Born | (1954-11-07)7 November 1954 (age 71) Haifa, Israel |
| Academic background | |
| Education | |
| Thesis | British Foreign Policy Towards the Middle East, 1948–1951: Britain and the Arab–Israeli Conflict (1984) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Historian |
| School or tradition | Israel'sNew Historians |
| Institutions | |
Ilan Pappé (Hebrew:אילן פפה[iˈlanpaˈpe]; born 7 November 1954) is an Israeli historian andpolitical scientist, known for his work on theIsraeli–Palestinian conflict and as a leading figure among Israel'sNew Historians. He is a professor at theUniversity of Exeter's College of Social Sciences and International Studies, where he directs the European Centre for Palestine Studies and co-directs the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies.
Pappé's research focuses on the1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, which he characterizes as a deliberateethnic cleansing campaign, citingPlan Dalet as a blueprint.[1] His notable works includeThe Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006),A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (2003), andTen Myths About Israel (2017).[2]
Born inHaifa, Israel, Pappé was a senior lecturer at theUniversity of Haifa (1984–2007) and chaired theEmil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies (2000–2008).[3] He left Israel in 2008 after facing criticism in theKnesset and receiving death threats.[4]
Pappé was active in Israeli politics as a member of theHadash party and ran in the1996[5] and1999 elections.[6] He advocates asingle democratic state for Israelis and Palestinians[7] and supports theBDS movement, including anacademic boycott of Israel.[8]
Pappé was born inHaifa, Israel, to a family ofAshkenazi Jews. His parents wereGerman Jews who hadfled Nazi persecution in the 1930s.[4] At the age of 18, he was drafted into theIsrael Defense Forces (IDF) and served in theGolan Heights during theYom Kippur War in 1973.[9] He graduated from theHebrew University of Jerusalem in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree.[10] He then moved to England to study history at theUniversity of Oxford, completing a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree in 1984 under thesupervision of British historiansAlbert Hourani andRoger Owen.[9] Hisdoctoral thesis was titled "British foreign policy towards the Middle East, 1948-1951: Britain and the Arab-Israeli conflict"[11] and this became his first book, titledBritain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.[8]
Pappé was a senior lecturer at the Middle Eastern History Department and the Political Science Department of theUniversity of Haifa between 1984 and 2006.[12] He was the Academic Director of theResearch Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva from 1993 to 2000, and chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies.
Pappé left Israel in 2007 to take up his appointment in Exeter, after his endorsement of theboycott of Israeli universities led the president of the University of Haifa to call for his resignation.[13] Pappé said that he found it "increasingly difficult to live in Israel" with his "unwelcome views and convictions." In a Qatari newspaper interview explaining his decision, he said: "I was boycotted in my university and there had been attempts to expel me from my job. I am getting threatening calls from people every day. I am not being viewed as a threat to the Israeli society but my people think that I am either insane or my views are irrelevant. Many Israelis also believe that I am working as a mercenary for the Arabs."[14] He joined Exeter as Professor of History, and has been director of its European Centre for Palestine Studies since 2009.[10][15]
Pappé publicly supported an M.A. thesis by Haifa University student Teddy Katz, which was approved with highest honors, that claimed Israel had committed a massacre in the Palestinian village ofTantura during the war in 1948, based upon interviews with Arab residents of the village and with an Israeli veteran of the operation.[16] Neither Israeli nor Palestinian historians had previously recorded any such incident, whichMeyrav Wurmser described as a "made-up massacre".[17] According to Pappé, "the story of Tantura had already been told before, as early as 1950... It appears in the memoirs of a Haifa notable,Muhammad Nimr al-Khatib, who, a few days after the battle, recorded the testimony of a Palestinian."[18] In December 2000, Katz was sued for libel by veterans of theAlexandroni Brigade and after the testimony was heard, he retracted his allegations about the massacre. Twelve hours later, he retracted his retraction.[citation needed] During the trial, lawyers for the veterans pointed to what they said were discrepancies between the taped interviews Katz conducted and descriptions in Katz's thesis.[19]
Katz revised his thesis, and, following the trial, the university appointed a committee to examine it. After reviewing the taped interviews and finding discrepancies between them and what was written in the thesis, Katz was allowed to submit a revised thesis.[16] Pappé continues to defend both Katz and his thesis.[20][21]Tom Segev and others argued that there is merit or some truth in what Katz described.[21][22] According to the Israeli New HistorianBenny Morris: "There is no unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were perpetrated there."[23]
In January 2022, Alon Schwarz's filmTantura was shown at the2022 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Documentary Competition. In it, former Israeli soldiers admitted that a massacre took place in 1948 at Tantura. One former combat soldier stated: "They silenced it. The victims of the massacre were buried under what is today theDor Beach parking lot, in an area measuring 35×4 meters."Adam Raz [he] commented inHaaretz that there had been a public debate about the issue, withYoav Gelber trying to discredit Katz's thesis, while Pappé defended the thesis. Raz said: "With the appearance of the testimony in Schwarz's film, the debate would seem to be decided."[24]
In 1999, Pappé ran in theKnesset elections as seventh on theCommunist Party-ledHadash list.[25]
After years of political activism, Pappé supportseconomic and political boycotts of Israel, including anacademic boycott. He believes boycotts are justified because "theIsraeli occupation is a dynamic process and it becomes worse with each passing day. TheAUT can choose to stand by and do nothing, or to be part of a historical movement similar to the anti-apartheid campaign against thewhite supremacist regime in South Africa. By choosing the latter, it can move us forward along the only remaining viable and non-violent road to saving both Palestinians and Israelis from an impending catastrophe."[26]
If it is possible Israel's conduct in 1948 would be brought onto the stage of international tribunals; this may deliver a message even to the peace camp in Israel that reconciliation entails recognition of war crimes and collective atrocities. This cannot be done from within, as any reference in the Israeli press to expulsion, massacre or destruction in 1948 is usually denied and attributed to self hate and service to the enemy in times of war. This reaction encompasses academia, the media and educational system, as well as political circles.[27]
As a result, then University of Haifa PresidentAaron Ben-Ze'ev called on Pappé to resign, saying: "it is fitting for someone who calls for a boycott of his university to apply the boycott himself."[13] He said that Pappé would not be ostracized, since that would undermineacademic freedom, but he should leave voluntarily.[28] In the same year, Pappé initiated the annual Israeli Right of Return Conferences, which called for the unconditionalright of return of the Palestinian refugees who were expelled in 1948. According to Pappé, while national movements deserve a state of their own, this principle does not extend to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists or Christians because they constitute a religious group rather than a nation. However, it could possibly apply to Zionists, as a national movement, if that movement did not infringe upon the rights of Palestinians.[29]
In August 2015, Pappé was a signatory to a letter criticisingThe Jewish Chronicle's reporting ofJeremy Corbyn's association with allegedantisemites.[30] In 2023, he described Israel as committing an "incremental genocide" of the Palestinian people.[31] During theGaza war, Pappé reaffirmed his opposition toZionism, writing that "this violence is not a new phenomenon," and called for a "de-zionised, liberated and democratic Palestinefrom the river to the sea."[32] He called for the Israeli government to conduct aprisoner exchange in order to release thehostages held by Hamas.[33] Pappé's comments following the7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel in 2023 drew criticism fromThe Telegraph and parts of the student body at the University of Exeter, namely in stating he had admiration for Hamas militants' courage and ability to take over military bases in Israel and rejected the claim that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, although he condemned the attack.[34] In May 2024, Pappé said he was questioned at Detroit airport for two hours by the Department of Homeland Security,[35] and that his phone was copied.[36]
In an op-ed to Al-Jazeera on 7 October 2024, Pappé argued that terms like "Iran-backed terrorist groupHamas" or "peace process," commonly used by Western and U.S. media, are misleading. He suggested that it is more accurate to speak of "Palestinian resistance" and the "decolonization of Palestinefrom the river to the sea." He mentioned that "mainstream academia and media still refuse to define theZionist project as a colonial, or as it is referred to more accurately a settler-colonial project", and further contended that the original Zionist vision "of planting a European Jewish state at the heart of the Arab world through the dispossession of the Palestinians was illogical, immoral and impractical from the onset."[37]
Israeli scholarEmmanuel Sivan [he], reviewing Pappé's 2003 political biography of theal-Husayni family, praised the book's treatment of the development of Palestinian nationalism and that of Haj Amin's exile inGermany, but criticised the view taken on the mufti's visit to the German consul and the scant attention given toFaisal Husseini.[38]
In a review forArab Studies Quarterly, Seif Da'Na described Pappé's 2006 bookThe Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine as a "highly documented narrative of the events" surrounding theNakba and an example of "serious scholarship that only a virtuoso historiographer could produce".[39]Arab Studies Quarterly also praised Pappé's 2017 bookTen Myths About Israel, describing it as "well-documented" and an "invaluable and courageous contribution" from an "insightful" historian.[40] In a review for the journalGlobal Governance, Rashmi Singh praised Pappé's 2014 bookThe Idea of Israel as a "courageous and unflinching study of the role ofZionism in the creation of [...] the state of Israel".[41] However, Singh did feel that the book assumes the reader has prior knowledge of the Arab-Israeli conflict and thus may be difficult to follow for "those who are not conversant with the facts".[41]
Uri Ram, a professor ofBen-Gurion University, reviewedThe Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine for theMiddle East Journal and described the book as "a most important and daring book that challenges head-on Israeli historiography and collective memory and even more importantly Israeli conscience".[42] The same book was reviewed by Hugh Steadman for theNew Zealand International Review, in which he called Pappé's book the "definitive record of the caesarean operation by which the state of Israel was born" and "essential reading" for those who wish to see a "peaceful and internationally acceptable Middle Eastern home for Jewish people".[43]
Those critical of his work includeBenny Morris,[44][45]Efraim Karsh, and activistHerbert London as well as professorsDaniel Gutwein [he][46][47] andYossi Ben-Artzi[48] from Haifa University. Morris, in particular, described some of Pappé's writing as "complete fabrication"[44] due to alleged factual errors, and called him "at best...one of the world's sloppiest historians; at worst, one of the most dishonest".[45] Pappé has replied to this criticism, condemning Morris for holding "abominable racist views about the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular."[20][21][49][50]
Pappé's approach to historiography has been characterised as post-modernist. According to Morris, "Pappé is a proud postmodernist. He believes that there is no such thing as historical truth, only a collection of narratives as numerous as the participants in any given event or process; and each narrative, each perspective, is as valid and legitimate, as true, as the next. Moreover, every narrative is inherently political and, consciously or not, serves political ends. Each historian is justified in shaping his narrative to promote particular political purposes."[51] In response, Pappé stated that all historians are necessarily "subjective human beings striving to tell their own version of the past" and that he is worried about "moral issues not the natural human follies of professional historians."[50]
In August 2021, following the translation of his bookThe Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine into Hebrew, the historianAdam Raz [he] published a review inHaaretz[52] criticizing Pappé as a historian.
'The question of whether the Alexandroni Brigade troopers did indeed murder residents of Tantura and the place of the entire episode in the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians still remains,' the historian Tom Segev wrote in the Ha'aretz newspaper.
Pappe has written a book that begins with a roar but ends in a whimper.
Quotations related toIlan Pappé at Wikiquote
