UC Berkeley lecture by the Israeli historian, held on October 19, 2023
Ilan Pappe is one of Israel’s New Historians. Since the release of classified British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, they have offered a critical view of Israel’s creation in 1948, and the corresponding flight and expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians in the same year. Pappe has written that the expulsions were not decided on an ad hoc basis, as other historians have argued, but were done in accordance with Plan Dalet, drawn up in 1947 by Israel’s future leaders. In a 2004 interview, Pappe said “The aim has always been, and it still remains, to have as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians in it as possible.”
Prior to coming to the University of Exeter in the UK in 2008, Pappe was a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa. (1984–2007) After publishing his book: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappe was condemned in Israel’s parliament, and a minister of education called for him to be sacked.
Professor Ilan Pappe spoke at the University of California Berkeley on October 19, 2023. You can find the full lecture and Q/A period on YouTube under the title “Crisis in Zionism, Opportunity for Palestine?”
The moderator of the event was Dr. Ussama Makdisi, Professor of History and Chancellor’s Chair at the University of California Berkeley. The producer was Dr. Hatem Bazian, lecturer at the Department of Ethnic Studies, UC Berkeley.
Please come back to your radio station or on line for the conclusion of Ilan Pappe’s talk and a standing ovation.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:00 — 39.8MB)
