Ilan Pappé

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Ilan Pappé (born 1954) is an Israeli historian who teaches at Haifa University. He is considered one of the "New Historians" who have re-examined the history of Israel and Zionism.

Contents

Education

Pappé graduated from the Hebrew University in 1978 and obtained his D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1984. He was the head of the academic institute for peace in Givat Haviva in 1993-2000 and is currently the chair of the Emil Touma institute for Palestinian studies.

Politics

His early books dealt with Israeli policy in 1948, a subject he returned to in his latest book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. His A History of Modern Palestine covers the last 200 years in the history of the land and focuses on cultural and social issues. His Modern Middle East is a textbook that brings to the fore the social and cultural developments in the region in the last century.

After years of being involved in the peace camp and talks, Pappé supported the boycott of Israel in 2005, including the academic boycott. According to Paapé, the reason for wanting the boycott is the "need to apply external pressure on Israel as the best means of ending the worst occupation in recent history"[1]. As a result, University of Haifa President Aharon 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. He said that Pappé would not be ostracized, since that would undermine academic freedom, but he should leave voluntarily.[2] In the same year, Pappé initiated the annual Israeli Right of Return conferences that called for the unconditional right of return of the Palestinian refugees who were expelled in 1948.

He was involved in a controversy over an M.A. thesis by Teddy Katz about an alleged massacre in 1948 in the Palestinian village of Tantura.

Criticism

Pappé's books have been met with academic criticism. Efraim Karsh, Professor and Head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, writes :"Even by the skewed standards of this field of studies, Pappé's latest book ranks in a class of its own. Not only does it add no new facts or ideas to the anti-Israel literature, but the sloppiness of its research astounds... More serious is the book's consistent resort to factual misrepresentation, distortion, and outright falsehood. Readers are told of events that never happened".[3]

Benny Morris, a member of the "New Historians" and a professor of history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva, has attacked Pappé, saying, "Unfortunately, much of what Pappé tries to sell his readers is complete fabrication" and describing Pappé's History of Modern Palestine as "truly ... an appalling book". [4]

Books

  • Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Macmillan 1988)
  • The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951, I.B. Tauris, 1992
  • The Israel/Palestine Question, 1999
  • History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, Cambridge University Press, 2003 , ISBN 0521556325
  • The Modern Middle East (Routledge)
  • The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld Publications)

Notes

  1. ^ From Ilan Pappe, to the Association of University Teachers in Britain by Ilan Pappe May 2005
  2. ^ Haifa U. academic remains steadfast in support of boycott By Tamara Traubman
  3. ^ Efraim Karsh
  4. ^ Benny Morris: Ilan Pappé's New Book Is Appalling

External links

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