Dear Ilan Pappé

Let us first thank you for agreeing to answer our questions. For us, who have long followed your work, it is an honour to be able to talk with you. And since there is absolutely no need to introduce you, we will start with our first question:

Question: For a very long time, you have said that the 1948 Nakba has never ceased. However, it seems that this time, Israel has decided to open the "gates of hell" across Palestine – more specifically in Gaza – and to "finish the job". In your opinion, what elements today permit Israel to resort to such a level of violence? Have there been structural changes, inside the country or internationally, which cause Israel to perpetuate such genocide?

Ilan Pappé: Although undoubtedly this is the worst manifestation of the Israeli brutality and dehumanization of the Palestinians, it is not a structural change.  It is indeed a new, and terrible chapter, in the ongoing Nakba. All the elements of previous significant attacks against the Palestinians are here: choosing a pretext (the Hamas attack), transforming retaliation into an initiative of ethnic cleansing and genocide so as to serve a superior motive to take as much of Palestine as possible with a few Palestinian it it as possible and so far, withstanding verbal rebuke from the Western world that is not effective or sincere.  Ethnic cleansing, starvation and genocide are not ends by themselves they are means on the way to a complete the Judaization of historical Palestine.

Question: What, in your opinion, is the strategy employed by Netanyahu and his government in this genocidal aggression? Has the discovery of natural gas reserves off the coast of Gaza in the 1990s played a role in the current situation?

Ilan Pappé: Netanyahu himself does not have a strategy – he has to decide which strategy offered by the emergency government established after 7 October to follow. On the one hand there is the strategy of the more fanatic right wing parties of his coalition.  Their strategy is to annex the Strip to Israel by building colonies in the north of the strip, forcing Palestinians to leave to the south, facing danger of genocide and further ethnic cleansing. On the other hand, the more “pragmatic” flank on the government, wish to impose the West Bank structure on the Gaza Strip which means annexation of small part and the imposition of a collaborative regime n the rest of the Strip.

Hard to know with whom Netanyahu would side, depends very much whom he would think can assure his political career and distance him from been further prosecuted in court.

Question: Benny Morris claims that the expulsion of Palestinians has never been a central policy of Zionists. What are your thoughts on this?

Ilan Pappé: This is strange as his own book; the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem proves this beyond doubt. I think he is afraid, for ideological reasons, to derive the right historical conclusion from the evidence he so industriously collected over time.

Question: Can you tell us more about the history of the "New Historians"?

Ilan Pappé: The new historians were a small group of professional Israeli historians, probably among them were Avi Shalim, Benny Morris and I.

We conducted research on the events of 1948 on the basis of newly declassified documents that became available according to the archival regulations in places such as the UN, Britain and Israel.

On the basis of this new material in the late 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s we published articles and books that debunk many of the Israeli myths that are associated with the 1948 war. The most important of them were three myths. The first was that this was not a war between an Israeli David and an Arab Goliath, contrary to the Israeli narrative. In military terms the balance was slightly in favour to the Zionist and later Israeli forces. This was also influenced by a tacit agreement between Israel and Jordan about the annexation of the West Bank to Jordan in return for a very limited Jordanian participation in the war. The Jordanian army was the most experienced army in the Arab world at the time.

The second myth debunked was that the Palestinian left because their leaders and the Arab leaders told to leave to make way for the all-Arab invasion.

The declassified documents reveal a systematic Israeli master plan for ethnically cleansing the Palestinians as well a large number of massacres perpetrated in order to accelerate the expulsion.

Finally, the new historians debunked the myth that Israel extended its hand to peace and the Arab world, and the Palestinians rejected it. The documents show an Arab and Palestinian willingness to negotiate within the framework of a peace conference the UN convened in April 1949 and that Israel was the intransigent party.

Question: We are very concerned by the state of public opinion in Israel; some opinion polls carried out in the country indicate widespread support by Israelis for their government's war effort. What are the means used to format this public opinion? Can you enlighten us on this point?

Ilan Pappé: This is the outcome of indoctrination that institutionalised and been in place from even the pre-state days. You can ensure total support of your community for a settler colonial project such as Israel and later an apartheid state without convincing your own society, through education, socialisation in the army, the media, the academia, and political discourse, that this first necessary, secondly just and thirdly successful. The end result is dehumanization of the Palestinians and accepting that any act against them is self-defence, existential and is due to the inhumanity of them, not of us.

Question: Do you see a possible withdrawal of settlers from the West Bank?

Ilan Pappé: No, under no circumstances, unless Israel is replaced by a different regime.

Question: Before October 7th, we witnessed the emergence of an unprecedented protest movement in Israel; but nevertheless, this wave of protest has never taken the Palestinian question fully to heart. Can you tell us why?

Ilan Pappé: This was a protest movement of the secular and liberal Zionist camp against the take over by the religious and nationalist camp that won the 2022 elections. The first act the winning camp was to change the constitutional setup of Israel and to politicise it. It showed there is very little common basis for the two camps apart from war against the Palestinians. And this is what happened for a while after the Hamas attack, but the demonstrations are now back six months later.

Question: In recent weeks, we have seen an outbreak of a new wave of protest led notably by the families of hostages. This movement, despite involving a minority in Israel, is starting to increase in scale. Do you think that the Palestinian question will now become a key issue within Israeli society?

Ilan Pappé: There is no connection between the families’ protest and the Palestinian question.  These are people who say first release the hostages and then can continue and punish Gaza.

Question: While reading up on the history of Zionism, we have come across references to the 1907 Imperial Conference and more particularly the "Campbell-Bannerman Report"; but it is impossible to find the original text. Can you tell us about this report?

Ilan Pappé: I am afraid I do not have any more details, I wished I could  help here.

Question: We are convinced that the Zionist plan includes colonisation through settlement and consequently ethnic cleansing. However, some declare they are members of the Zionist Left. Our question, then, is this: Is it possible to be both left-wing and Zionist?

Ilan Pappé: To my mind, not.  You can not be a leftist colonizer or a progressive ethnic cleanser or an enlightened occupier.  This has to be seen from the perspective of the occupied and colonised. They feel that the Zionist and Israeli boot is on their fact and it does not matter where the person who wears the boot is holding Das Capital of Marx, the Old testament or book by liberal thinkers. Zionism is an ideology that does not recognize the Palestinians and their right to Palestine, so it does not matter if it is right or left.

Question: On several occasions, you have spoken of the "beginning of the end of the Zionist project". Can you give us some signs of this decline?

Ilan Pappé: There are several indications. One is the implosion from with the Israeli Jewish society, there is no cement that holds the two camps in Israel together apart from a common enemy and war (one camp you can call the state of Israel – the secular Jews and the other the state of Judea – the settlers state which probably is going to win and make Israel a more theocratic, racist state with little support in the world and would lead to brain drain from Israel of the financial elite, which already started. This is will affect an already deteriorating economy.

The army does not seem to be invincible any more and state fails to provide the basic services.

Jewish communities in the world are becoming less and less Zionist and its younger generation support the Palestinians

Finally there is a new Palestinian generation, united with a clear vision that would lead the Palestinian liberation movement into a more effective period.

All these indicators  together begin a long process of collapse that will take may years to mature, and is a very dangerous period when a regime fights for its life (as was the case with the last days of apartheid in south Africa), but to my mind is inevitable.

Question: As you can imagine, as Iranians with a certain experience of Islamic political rule, the question of Hamas and its political plans are of particular interest to us. What do you think of this organisation and its plans?

Ilan Pappé: I think the Hamas will be part of the politics of Palestine in the future, whether it will be able to be part of the future of the Gaza strip or not.  But in the more distant future, I do not think Fatah or Hamas interest the younger generation and we will se new formations.

Question: In your opinion, what was the true aim of Hamas with the October 7th operation?

Ilan Pappé: I think they wanted to break into a prison and release prisoners; to occupy a military base and capture tanks and soldiers, they were surprised how easy it was and therefore I think what happened, not all of it was planned. And they wanted to break the deadlock on the Palestine issue that since the war in the Ukraine was marginalized. You can to this the fear of a Jewish takeover of Haram al-Shafir and the continued assaults on their people in the West Bank.

Question: Can you tell us what you think of the various solutions to this conflict that have been proposed? One or two states? Or a confederate state?

Ilan Pappé: I think the two state solution has been dead for quite a while. It became an impractical solution now that you have about 700,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. But also from a moral point of view it is a solution that pertains only to 22% of Palestine and only to less than half of the Palestinian people. It is also a solution that can guarantee the Right of Return for the Palestinian refugees or a proper sovereign Palestinian state. More importantly, it does not guarantee the most important value missing from Palestine since the Zionist arrival: equality. You need at least a political system that promises equality as well compensation for past dispossession through the repatriation of the people expelled, reparations for what the lost and all within the framework of restorative justice.

All this can only be safeguarded within one democratic state from the river Jordan to the sea. 

Dear Ilan Pappé, we thank you so much for giving us your time, which we know is precious during this difficult period for the Palestinian people and for all oppressed peoples throughout the world.

The "Andishé va Peykar" Collective

April 2024