He has been called Israel’s bravest historian. Ilan Pappé has recently published the Italian edition of his book The Biggest Prison on Earth. A History of the Occupied Territories, in which he uses data and archival materials to rigorously reconstruct a monstrous injustice, which is still tolerated despite taking place under the eyes of the entire world: how Israel transformed the West Bank (Cisjordan) and the Gaza Strip into the biggest prison on earth. Il Fatto Quotidiano sat down for an in-depth interview with Ilan Pappé.
You have dedicated your book to the children of Palestine who have been killed, injured, traumatized while living in the biggest prison on earth. In your book, you write that in the Palestinian uprising known as “the First Intifada” (1987-1993), the Swedish section of the international Save The Children organisation estimated that between 23,600 and 29,900 children – one-third of whom under the age of 10 – had to seek medical treatment as a result of injuries caused by beating. You are an Israeli historian, the son of German-Jewish emigrants who fled the Nazis. When did you start questioning Israel’s brutal policies against Palestinians?
I started to see the brutality, take it in and realize how structural it was in two stages, actually. First when I did my PhD in Oxford university, writing about 1948, and the dry archival material included some harrowing graphic descriptions of massacres, expulsions and other war crimes. I realized that what I grew up on, the belief that the IDF is the most moral army in the world, is quite questionable. The second time was when I saw with my own eyes the brutality of the Israeli army in the second Lebanon war in 1982, then during the first Intifada, and then again at very close range during the second Intifada in 2000, when I started writing The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
Your uncompromising stand on Palestine has made you a pariah in Israel. Do you still receive death threats? Are you still concerned about your and your family’s safety?
Not much anymore, after all I left the country for a long period, and there are others who are much more targeted now. As I am still a public figure, of course the fears are there and so are the threats, but with the passing of time you get more used to it and you care less about it.
In your book, you reconstruct how Israel transformed the West Bank (Cisjordan) and the Gaza Strip into the biggest prison on earth, and justified their colonisation as the necessary response to Israel’s security concerns well before terrorism was of concern. You have been denouncing the cruel oppression of Palestinians by Israel for decades. What changes, if any, have you seen in Israel’s civil society as a result?
The major change is the shift to the right, which means that the voices in the past that had some moral problems with the “biggest prison” and were not totally at ease about it have shrunk, and the vast majority of Israeli Jews are either indifferent or unconditionally support this oppression. On the other hand, a small anti-occupation core, brave and willing to do all they can to help those under oppression, is still there. It has probably grown somewhat over the years, and there is a new generation of activists pushing the struggle forward, but it is still very small.
This year, Amnesty International joined other major organisations like B’Tselem and Human Rights Watch in denouncing that all Palestinians living under the control of the Israeli authorities – whether in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories or in other countries as refugees, denied the right to return to their former villages – are living under a system of oppression that constitutes apartheid, a crime against humanity. Do you believe that this consensus among three major human rights organisations will have any impact on Israeli society and government and will trigger change?
Not for the time being. For such understanding and declarations to make a difference, they have to be adopted by governments. As long as governments are not adopting this attitude, you cannot impact Israeli Jewish society. But since these organizations are important, we hope they will eventually influence the governments.
In the last year we have seen the world uniting to support Ukraine: sanctions, weapons, and solidarity for Ukrainian refugees. By contrast, we see very little solidarity in the case of Palestine. The new British PM, Liz Truss, has announced that the United Kingdom may move its embassy to Jerusalem, like Donald Trump did. And Salvini has also promised to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. How do you view the Western world’s double standard: overwhelming support for the Ukrainians, while Israel can kill Palestinians at will?
I think the Ukraine crisis has really exposed this double standard and hypocrisy like never before. Of course, this hypocrisy was there all the time, but when the West claims that an occupation of even a week is illegal and that the occupier should be punished with sanctions, and when it hails the struggle of the occupied, in particular its use of violence against the occupier, and even provides military aid to the occupied, you are amazed that not even a small part of this behavior was applied to Israel and Palestine. We could immediately see the result of this hypocrisy. Since the war in the Ukraine began, the Israeli government has intensified its killing policies against the Palestinians. Since the war, killing Palestinians, including children, has become not a matter of one or two a week, but rather a daily business. Official Israel senses that it has international immunity to carry out this criminal policy, under the protection of this hypocrisy.
You are a supporter of the one-state solution: how realistic is the possibility of Israelis and Palestinian living in the same state after decades of brutality?
There are worse historical case studies of mutual bloodshed that were replaced by co-existence. Western Europe is full of such examples, the USA after its bloody civil war is another. Some Palestinians are more used to living with the Israelis, such as the 48 Arabs, while others only know Israeli soldiers and settlers. It is really not a question of the possibility of living together, but rather the lack of any other possibility apart from MAD, mutual assured destruction. The question is how and on what basis, and since now the basis is the worst one possible, an apartheid system, we also have to invest in how best to transform it through peaceful means and then create the joint space. It is not a marriage of love, it is out of historical circumstances, and by now not all of those circumstances can be changed. The dividends for the future are huge for a new Palestine that can fuse together the energies and human capital of both peoples.
What would you suggest to the “little” people who want to help the Palestinian people? How might they provide a shred of practical help?
I think if you are outside of Palestine we cannot overrate the importance of active solidarity, which is meant both to show support for the Palestinian struggle and to exert pressure on your governments to change their policies towards Israel and Palestine. Pro-activism includes participating in the BDS movement and similar actions that are very important in the long run. No less important in places such as Italy is to offer an alternative to the misinformation provided by the mainstream media about Israel and Palestine.
You have paid a price for your courageous work. In retrospect, would you do it again?
Without hesitation. These decisions taken in the past were motivated by a sense of accountability and justice and not by any circumstantial context or ulterior motives. I only regret not beginning this trip much earlier, as there is so much more I could do.