The founding myths of the Zionist movement and Israel are engraved in the minds of not only the global Zionist movement and Israel, but also almost all over the world. Zionist settlers settled in empty lands where there were no natives (Arabs), the local people could not cultivate the Palestinian lands well, the Zionists restored the land, the Arabs left their lands voluntarily or sold them to the Zionists, Israel is a promised country in the Torah, the moral burden of the Holocaust gave the Zionist settlers the right to establish a state in Palestine, Israel is the only democratic state in the Middle East, Israel is committed to a two-state solution, and more…
Haifa-born historian Ilan Pappé took part in the front organization Hadash, which also includes the Israeli Communist Party, left Israel in 2008 and was condemned by the Israeli parliament. Pappé, still at the University of Exeter, was one of the most important figures in the “New Historians” group in Israel. This group looked at the history of the Zionist movement and Israel from a different perspective, and with the emergence of new archival documents, they directed strong attacks on Israel’s founding myths. One of Pappé’s most notable theses is that Israel is a settler colonial state and has ethnically cleansed Palestinians from the very beginning: the leaders of the Zionist movement decided to ethnically cleanse by conscious choice, not by force of circumstances.
Therefore, in Israel, the only remnant of settler colonialism in the 21st century, the anti-colonial struggle is at the forefront and all of historical Palestine must be decolonized. The logical consequence of this is not a two-state solution, but the establishment of a single, democratic state in historical Palestine.
We talked to Ilan Pappé about Israel’s new government, decades of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and what a possible Intifada would look like. It is better to evaluate Pappé’s answers together with the framework drawn above.
Let me ask first about the new Israeli government. Lots of people think that this new ‘right-wing’ Netanyahu government contains fascistic tendencies, it is the most ‘right-wing’ government in Israel history, and so on. Is the new Israeli government a rupture with the past or a continuation of historical Zionism?
The two are not mutually exclusive. It is the most right wing, fascist, government in the history of Israel. On the other hand, it pursues policies which fundamentally have been pursued before, especially with regard to the Palestinians. The end result is much of the same, but worse. There are areas which are more relevant to a more secular and liberal section of the Jewish society, which this government might adopt a stricter and more hostile attitude towards the LGBT community and women.
You claim that there has been a denial about the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians for decades. Which mechanisms has the state of Israel and its allies (e.g. the USA) adopted to cover up Zionism’s ongoing crimes against Palestinians?
A project of a denial is a complex work of fabrication and distortion. You need for this a committed academia, alongside, other cultural media (fiction, film, theatre etc.) that provide both emotional and scholarly scaffolding so that you will be able to win the battle of narratives; in particular when this narrative is concocted to justify colonization and ethnic cleansing.
In order to make sure that such a narrative, based on myths such as Palestine was a land without people waiting for people without land, or that the Palestinians voluntarily fled in 1948 etc., is accepted in the USA, you need a strong lobby. And the Zionist movement had built one even before the creation of the state of Israel, also using scholarship and media such as Hollywood to sustain the fabricated narrative.
Israel still adheres to the two-state solution on paper. Do you think that after the so-called Abraham Accords, there can be a Palestinian state according to the 1967 borders?
Even before the Abraham accords there was no hope for the two states solution. The only interpretation of the two state solution that mattered was the Israeli one. According to that interpretation the Palestinian state was supposed to be a Bantustan without proper sovereignty or independence. This is what we had since Oslo and will continue to have unless we opt for a democratic state all over historical Palestine.
Is Israel a ‘democratic’ state? If it is not, can it be ‘democratised’? You characterise it as a settler colonial state. It seems you think that not Israel, but Palestine has to be ‘decolonised’. Do you agree with that? It is also a question about whether there can be a united ‘Arab-Jewish’ front against Israel in historical Palestine.
Israel is not a democratic state. Half of the inhabitants it controls, have no basic civil and human rights. It is a proper Apartheid state, as indeed recognized by many human rights organizations around the world.
Israel in theory could be democratized, but it will not happen, as there are no forces from within who fully understand the meaning of democracy or are willing to sacrifice their privileges for such a project. Because of the nature of Zionism and Israel, historical Palestine as a whole has to be decolonized. A project that has to be led by the Palestinian national movement with hopefully a strong support and solidarity from progressive Israeli Jews from the inside, however numerous they will be.
Do you think a new Intifada is looming? It seems that the military capabilities of the Palestinian factions are growing and even inside the West Bank there are attacks against Israeli targets now. What would a new Intifada look like in occupied Palestine?
In many ways we are already in the throes of a new Intifada. Every Intifada is different from the previous one. But we need to time what mode of resistance this intifada will take. Mainly because this time it is very localized, and a daily occurrence. I would not expect this armed struggle by itself to end the occupation and the colonization. Since its very inception, armed struggle for a strategy and not just tactics for the Palestinians, meant to ensure their presence and resilience, rather than an effective means of liberation.
One of the most important elements of the Palestinian cause is the return of the Palestinian refugees. Zionist movement has always tended to expel Palestinians from their lands. Today it reveals itself as ‘Jewish settler’ attacks on Arabs in Jerusalem, Negev, and so on. Are those settlers’ fate tied to the State of Israel? Or a collapse of the State of Israel does not mean the return of the refugees ipso facto?
Ethnic cleansing was an integral part of the settler colonial project of Zionism. As scholars of settler colonialism noted, settler colonialism is a structure not an event, and hence as long as the indigenous population is there, and in particular as long as it refuses to accept the settler colonial rule, ethnic cleansing continues. It is not the collapse of Israel that would allow the return of the refugees but a change from apartheid regime to a decolonized and democratic regime.
