Ilan Pappé

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Dr. Ilan Pappé

Ilan Pappé (Hebrew: אילן פפה‎, born 1954) is Professor of History at the University of Exeter. Born in Israel, he was Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Haifa University from 1984 to 2007.^[1] Pappe is considered one of Israel's "New Historians," historians who reject the Israeli narrative and hold controversial views of Israeli history and Zionism.

1 Biography
2 Academic career
3 Political views
4 Praise and criticism
5 Published work
- 5.1 Books
- 5.2 Articles
6 References
7 External links (reviews, interviews, debates)

Biography

Pappé was born in Haifa to German-Jewish parents who fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s.^[2] He graduated from the Hebrew University in 1978, and obtained a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in 1984. He was the Academic Director of the Research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva from 1993 to 2000, and is currently chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian Studies.

Academic career

In 2007, Pappé left his position as a senior lecturer of Political Science at the University of Haifa. His endorsement of the boycott of Israeli universities had led the University president to call for his resignation,^[3] and Pappe said that he found it "increasingly difficult to live in Israel" with his "unwelcome views and convictions". In a Qatar 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.” ^[4]

He further said:

"I support Hamas in its resistance against the Israeli occupation though I disagree with their political ideology. I am for separating state from religion ...Any state that perpetrates occupation cannot be called a democratic state"

Political views

Dr. Ilan Pappé in a lecture in MMU in 2008

In 1996 Pappé ran in the Knesset elections as number seven on the Communist Party-led Hadash list.^[5]

Ilan Pappé is one of the predominant Israeli supporters of the One State Solution where Palestinians and Israelis can live in one state for two people.^[6] He is known for his anti-Zionist opinions and his analysis of Zionism in the colonial context.

Pappé was involved in a controversy when he publicly supported an M.A. thesis by Teddy Katz, about an alleged massacre by Israeli troops in 1948 in the Palestinian village of Tantura.^[7] Neither Israeli nor Palestinian historians had previously recorded or described any such incident. Meyrav Wurmser, writing in The Weekly Standard, described it as a "made-up massacre". ^[8], while Pappé was joined by both Tom Segev who also argue that there is merit or some truth in what Katz described.^[9]. In December 2000, as defendant in a libel case, Katz, under economic and mental pressure, retracted his allegations about the massacre overnight, but then retracted his retraction, the following day, and asked that the trial proceed. His request was turned down. The M.A. thesis, which had originally received an unprecedented 97% mark, was reconsidered and eventually disqualified by the University of Haifa because of alleged research errors. Katz was subsequently awarded a "non-research" MA.^[10]^[11]

After years of being involved in political activism, Pappé supported the boycott of Israel in 2005, including the academic boycott. According to Pappé, the reason for supporting the boycott is the "need to apply external pressure on Israel as the best means of ending the worst occupation in recent history."^[12] 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.^[13] In the same year, Pappé initiated the annual Israeli Right of return conferences, which called for the unconditional right of return of the Palestinian refugees who were expelled in 1948.

In a lecture in MMU in 17th of Jan 2008, Ilan Pappé said:

"Israel systematically expelled half of the Palestinian population. Think of a country that has half of its population been expelled after the World War II"

"If you don’t understand colonialism, ethnic cleansing and the war for freedom, you can’t understand Palestine (Cause)."

"I can tell you that I do know, the Israeli academia, day by day, is playing a role in maintaining the occupation"

Praise and criticism

Pappé's books have been praised by Walid Khalidi, Richard Falk, Ella Shohat and John Pilger. Pilger describes Pappe as Israel’s bravest, most principled, most incisive historian." On the other hand, Israeli historian Benny Morris, another of Israel's "new historians," is critical of his work. On Pappé's A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, he wrote: Unfortunately much of what Pappe tries to sell his readers is complete fabrication. [...] This book is awash with errors of a quantity and a quality that are not found in serious historiography. [...] The multiplicity of mistakes on each page is a product of both Pappe's historical methodology and his political proclivities[.] [...] For those enamored with subjectivity and in thrall to historical relativism, a fact is not a fact and accuracy is unattainable. ^[14] Pappé replied: 'My books has^[sic] in it mistakes of the dates, names and numbers as does his books. We should all try and minimize them to note, I agree. Very few of us succeed and one can only hope to become perfect in the next work — which has not as yet been written[.] [...] They should not however be pointed out as part of an ideology or a basis for ad hominem attack. Worse, a reviewer is not allowed to lie openly about them as Morris does.^[15]^[16]

Efraim Karsh also accuses Pappé of factual misrepresentations:Readers are told of events that never happened, such as the nonexistent May 1948 Tantura "massacre" or the expulsion of Arabs within twelve days of the partition resolution. They learn of political decisions that were never made, such as the Anglo-French 1912 plan for the occupation of Palestine or the contriving of 'a master plan to rid the future Jewish state of as many Palestinians as possible. And they are misinformed about military and political developments, such as the rationale for the Balfour declaration . . .'^[17]

Pappé's response was that Karsh 'has taken upon himself the mantle of spokesperson for the Zionist narrative, and anyone thus committed to a national narrative cannot begin to accept the claims made by the counter-narrative, in this case, the Palestinian one.'^[18]

In a review essay of "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine," Seth J. Frantzman calls Pappe's work "a cynical exercise in manipulating evidence to fit an implausible thesis." ^[19] Frantzman summarizes: "Pappe's book falls short, and it does so in a particularly damning way. He ignores context and draws far broader conclusions than evicence allows by cherry-picking some reports and ignoring other sources entirely."^[20]

Published work

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

Books

Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1951, Macmillan, 1988, ISBN 0312015739
The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951, I.B. Tauris, 1992, ISBN 1850438196
The Israel/Palestine Question, Routledge, 1999, ISBN 0415169488
A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, Cambridge University Press, 2003 , ISBN 0521556325
The Modern Middle East, Routledge, 2005, ISBN 0415214092
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld Publications, 2006, ISBN 1851684670