Ilan Pappe Blames West’s “Conspiracy of Silence” Condoning Israel’s Ethnic Cleansing

By Pat and Samir Twair


	Dr. Ilan Pappé (Staff photos S. Twair).

PROFESSOR Ilan Pappé of Exeter University gave three separate lectures in three days—May 14, 15 and 16—at the University of California at Irvine, University of California at Los Angeles and the al-Awda convention. At UCLA on May 15, the Oxford University-educated Israeli historian noted that, on any other day, many in his audience would be protesting Israel’s criminal acts against the Palestinians, but that on this date, people should contemplate what happened 60 years ago on the pronouncement of the founding of Israel.

According to Pappé, who resigned last year from his teaching post at Haifa University because of right-wing harassment over his books and his support of the boycott against Israeli universities, Zionists crystallized their formula in the 1930s. Their credo was that in order to create a Jewish nation, the indigenous population must be cleared.

By 1947, Pappé stated, it was obvious that the Zionists had failed, as only 7 percent of the land had been purchased, and Jews—mainly newcomers—accounted for only one-third of the population. In 1948, under orders from soon-to-be Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Zionists opted for ethnic cleansing, which meant razing 530 Palestinian villages and looting all their possessions, including furniture, books and bank accounts.

A conspiracy of silence on the part of the International Red Cross and Western journalists covered up the Zionist crime, Pappé continued. The message to the Jews, he said, was that Europe wanted to atone for its silence during the Nazi persecution of Jews. A go-ahead signaled that building their state would bring closure to what the West allowed to happen to Jews during World War II.

With the 1967 capture of Gaza, the West Bank and Golan Heights, Israel seized more land—but also got more Palestinians. Israeli leaders conducted extensive meetings from May 1967 to January 1968, Pappé said, and concluded that Israel could possibly withdraw from the Golan, but that the West Bank and Gaza were necessary to the state’s existence.

According to Pappé, following the 1967 conquest Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan decided not to annex the West Bank and Gaza in order to deny full citizenship to the Palestinian inhabitants. The Israeli leaders conceived a mega prison in which the Palestinians could run their domestic affairs without interference from the wardens. If they resisted, however, the population would suffer terrible collective punishment.

The Israelis took pains to package their policy in the language of peace so as to manipulate Washington into going along with the charade.

Pappe urged the audience not to use the word “conflict” when describing what is going on in Israel/Palestine. “There is no conflict between the rapist and his victim nor the occupier and the occupied,” he explained to audible gasps in the audience.

“Your role,” he concluded, “is to convince the U.S. government that it must be fair and that no solution that looks like another prison is acceptable.”

Words From the al-Awda Convention


Jerusalem Chief Justice Dr. Sheikh Taiseer al-Tamimi (l) and Archbishop Theodosios Hanna (Staff photo S. Twair).

A multitude of noted Palestinians academics, writers and activists spoke May 16 to 18 at the sixth annual al-Awda convention in Garden Grove. The following are quotes from speakers at the event, themed “Palestine at 60 Years of Forced Exile—Time for Return,” which drew more than 1,000 participants.

Jerusalem Chief Justice Dr. Sheikh Taiseer al-Tamimi: ”According to Islam, the only state is a civil state, not a religious state. Palestine will remain Arab to the end of time.”

Archbishop Theodosios Hanna of the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem: “Anyone who supports Zionism cannot be a Christian. Christian Zionists are not Christians. I am here with Mufti Tamimi to show our religious diversity in asking God to stop oppression. Our destroyed villages must be revived. Hold onto your keys and your land deeds, because your towns are waiting for you. We are coming back. We are coming back.”

Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, founder of the Palestine Land Society: “We must plan, coordinate and lobby for a Palestinian National Council. We must have all components of Palestinian society represented. If elections are denied, we can call on 20 percent of the 350 existing PNC charter members for a conference in a non-Arab country. We don’t care who wins. Our people are held hostage in the hands of a few. One who prefers his faction over Palestinian rights is not one of us.”

Prof. Saree Makdisi, UCLA: “Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has admitted that when the Palestinians shift in their struggle by explaining their grievances they will win.”

Dr. Ghada Karmi, author, lecturer at Exeter University, physician: “Israel reinvents itself every few years. At first it was socialist, then it was a protector against the threat from the U.S.S.R. In the post-9/11 world, it portrays itself as indispensable in the war against terrorism and exports hi-tech surveillance products. My deepest concern is over the Fatah/Hamas split. I fear an agreement will be signed that will throw away our rights.”

Levantine Center Program on Two People, One Land


	Levantine Center panelists (l-r) Bernard Avishai, Prof. Saree Makdisi, Dr. Ghada Karmi and Amy Wilentz (Staff photo S. Twair).

“Israel and Palestine at 60: Is There a Solution?” was the title of a May 20 program by the Levantine Cultural Center in which musicians, poets and four authors discussed their hopes for the future of Jews and Palestinians living on the same bitterly contested land. The event took place at a neutral setting: the Sokka Gakkai Buddhist Center.

Deborah Kanafani was moderator for the panel, whose members were journalist Amy Wilentz; physician/writer Dr. Ghada Karmi; UCLA English literature professor Dr. Saree Makdisi; and economist Bernard Avishai.

Wilentz has written a book, Martyr’s Crossing, about the critically ill child of an American mother and a Hamas father who is not allowed to cross a checkpoint for medical care.

The former Jerusalem correspondent for the New Yorker magazine recalled witnessing Israel’s 50th year celebration while the Har Homa settlement was yet to be built and there was no apartheid wall. “We were laboring under the delusion that Oslo would work,” she said. “At least we knew what the intentions of Yasser Arafat, Ariel Sharon and Sheikh Yassin were. I’m nervous about [Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, who is out of control.”

As for a one-state solution, Wilentz observed: “I don’t see Israel taking this with any grace.”

Dr. Karmi, who fled as a child with her family in 1948 from Palestine, is a physician whose latest book is Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine (see book review p. 64). Her demeanor was solemn as she noted: “If decent people could have solved our problem, it would have been over long ago. The Israeli government and army are not nice. The Israeli people who keep voting in right-wing governments that don’t want peace are not nice.

“The word peace is being uttered a lot tonight, but this peace must be a just peace with justice for both people. There must be a genuine coexistence in a shared single state.”

Professor Makdisi stressed the cruelty of the apartheid wall and the more than 500 checkpoints that disrupt Palestinian lives. He uses actual case histories of abused Palestinians in his new book, Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation (available from the AET Book Club).

He quoted Zionist theorist Vladimir Jabotinsky, who wrote in 1923 that Zionist colonization must be carried out against the will of the Palestinian people by means of an Iron Wall to keep them out of the pure Jewish state.

Avishai, who is affiliated with Harvard Business Review, said he lives in Jerusalem most of the year. While describing the idea of a one-state solution as “ridiculous,” he admitted that Israel’s military occupation policies are obnoxious and embarrassing to him. Avishai further commented the Israeli army is evil and good while performing a “complicated” task. His solution for peace, he said, is a Middle East confederation.

Pat and Samir Twair are free-lance journalists based in Los Angeles.