Dr. Ilan Pappe interviewed by Greg Dropkin
Published: 13/09/2002
Published: 13/09/2002
Dr. Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian at Haifa University who writes on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the history of the 1948 war. He was interviewed on 11 Sept. before addressing a public meeting and open debate at the University of Manchester. Both events were recorded by Joseph Cooper and Kristin Karlson.
Dr. Ilan Pappe said:
I think there are 3 main myths that inform mainstream Israeli Jewish society.
[The first myth]
A lot of them still believe, because that’s the way they have been educated, that Palestine had been empty when the Jewish settlers came there in the late 19th century. There is still a feeling there that basically the Palestinian inhabitants of Palestine are either a nuisance or newcomers, or irrelevant. They are an obstacle, but not people with rights or indigenous rights.
The second myth is more directly connected to 1948. Most Israeli Jews believe that the Palestinians left voluntarily in 1948. They are not aware, or do not want to be aware of the fact that an ethnic cleansing took place in 1948.
And the third myth concerns the Occupation. Very few Israelis would call it an Occupation at all. Very few relate to any of the Palestinian demands to end the Occupation, and most Israeli Jews would regard the war against them not as a war of liberation or a war against Occupation, but as part of the more general scheme by Arabs or Muslims in general to destroy the Jewish State.
The second myth is more directly connected to 1948. Most Israeli Jews believe that the Palestinians left voluntarily in 1948. They are not aware, or do not want to be aware of the fact that an ethnic cleansing took place in 1948.
And the third myth concerns the Occupation. Very few Israelis would call it an Occupation at all. Very few relate to any of the Palestinian demands to end the Occupation, and most Israeli Jews would regard the war against them not as a war of liberation or a war against Occupation, but as part of the more general scheme by Arabs or Muslims in general to destroy the Jewish State.
Link to detail interview: http://www.labournet.net/world/0209/pappe1.html
