Israel-Palestine Through the Lens of Settler-Colonialism – Professor Ilan Pappe

The program begins with a standard disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the following program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this radio station, its staff or board of directors.

I placed the disclaimer because content critical of the Israel/Palestine peace process is frequently criticized. Please give it an airing because the ideas expressed may help explain a situation that has led to decades of pain and bloodshed in the Middle East. And Professor Ilan Pappe is an extraordinary intellectual and historian.

Here is background on him and the organizers:

Ilan Pappe was born in Haifa and educated in Israel. He was a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa (1984–2007) and chaired the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies. He received world attention as one of Israel’s “New Historians” who, since the release of secret British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, have been re-writing the history of Israel’s creation in 1948, and the corresponding expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and villages that became known as the Nakba – the catastrophe.

Ilan Pappe left Israel in 2008, after Israel’s minister of education called for him to be dismissed from the University of Haifa. He also received several death threats. Since then, he has been a professor of history with the College of Social sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

He spoke on March 24, 2017, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. He was introduced by Dale Sprusansky, the assistant editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Once a year – since 2014 – a conference on the Israel Lobby and American Policy has been held in Washington DC at the National Press Club. Sponsored by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, it invites speakers of international importance. Among them in 2017 John Mearsheimer, co-author of the best selling book “The Israel Lobby” and Professor Ilan Pappe, author of “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”- among many other books.

Since critical discussion of US support for Israel is a taboo topic the conference receives no attention from the mass media and very little by the alternative press. This led them to miss a compelling speech by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. He explained how Israel became a settler colonial state, and that it now ranks among those that have instituted a system of Apartheid similar to that found in post World War II South Africa which was widely condemned by the world. Professor Ilan Pappe concluded that facts on the ground created by Israel with the expansion of settlements now make a two state solution impossible.

You can find links to the video and transcripts of this and the other talks at the one day conference on TUC Radio’s web site tucradio.org – or at the following links: