![[Skip to Page Content]](graphics/skip_sliver.jpg){kind=small}
|
       |
 
 |
Current Issue
Title:
State of Denial: Israel, 1948-2008
In their flight from Hitler’s Germany in the early 1930s, Ilan Pappe’s parents opted to go to Palestine, his father for ideological reasons, he was a Zionist; his mother for practical reasons, it was the least expensive. Their son was born in 1954, six years after the founding of the Jewish state, and he grew up in Haifa, an Arab-Jewish city where Ilan had Palestinian friends. From there his journey “beyond the margins of permitted discourse” led to Hebrew University in the 1970s, where he learned what happened to Palestinians in 1948-49, then on to Oxford University in the 1980s, where his doctoral thesis became his first book, “Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.” Based on declassified documents in England, the United States, and Israel, his research debunked — his word — all of the lessons about Israel’s creation that he had been raised on. He returned to Israel as a professor in the history department at Haifa University. Other published works followed, including a feature article in our January-March 1998 Link. Later, in 1998, he organized events on his campus to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Palestinian catastrophe. The action incurred the displeasure of the university’s powerful Land of Israel Studies department. If that was a step beyond the margins, his next action in 2005 was a leap. Arguing that Hitler was able to carry out his genocide against Jews because German academics refused to protest, he called for universities outside Israel to boycott those professors at Israel’s Bar-Ilan and Haifa Universities who had not publicly condemned Israel’s occupation policy. Haifa University’s president Aharon Ben-Ze’ev called on Pappe to resign. In 2007, he did resign. He had been called “the most hated man in Israel,” and was finding it increasingly difficult not only to teach but to live in the Jewish state. Today, he is chair of the history department at the University of Exeter in England. We are honored to welcome him back to the pages of The Link. On page 9, we begin an enumeration of Palestinian towns and villages obliterated in 1948. The entire list is found in our booklet “The Colonization of Palestine.” On this the 60th year of what Ilan Pappe calls the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, we will be pleased to send this recently updated booklet to any reader for the cost of postage: $1. In addition to describing the fate of each town and village, the booklet contains photos of the refugee camps, where hundreds upon thousands of ousted Palestinians ended up. We hope our readers will order copies not only for themselves but for others. We note on page 12 the death of Lachlan Reed, a longtime AMEU board member. AMEU’s book/video catalog is on pp. 13-15. It includes Ilan Pappe’s latest book, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” and a new video interview with him, “Israel: Myths & Propaganda,” both of which are excellent complements to his article. Finally, on page 16, we offer a tribute to Lucille Ablan. Long before Ilan Pappe knew about the Palestinian catastrophe—and certainly long before I did—Lucille Ablan knew. And in her gentle, effective way, she did something about it.—John F. Mahoney, Executive Director, April 2008.
Articles
|
 |
Special Reports:
|