Exiled Israeli historian Ilan Pappe seeks change

Pappe left Israel for Britain after condemnation from the Israeli public and parliament for his work The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine, published in 2006.

Based upon his PhD thesis, The Ethnic Cleaning Of Palestine studies the history of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Using previously unseen documentation from the British and Israeli governments Pappe rewrote the historical zionist narrative to include the expulsion or flight of 700,000 Palestinians in the same year.

"We were not the 'new historians' as we were often called," said Pappe. "We were the first historians - there was no detailed historiography before this.

But emotionally and ideologically there was a history - every visit to a demolished Arab village tells the story of 1948."

This intellectual piece of work cost Pappe his academic credibility in Israel and led him to fear for both his and his family's safety.

He recalled friends and acquaintances receiving phone calls from anonymous people in which they were warned that it was not good to be seen with him. Death threats by phone, e-mail and post became frequent.

The discovery of this new evidence fell upon deaf ears. In Israeli society still, no-one addressed the ethical values of zionism, the ideology upon which the state of Israel is founded.

Pappe said that, in fact, new history has become "weighted for zionism" and it has allowed people subscribing to zionist beliefs to think they have questioned the situation without actually doing so.

"I am still bewildered that the debate in this new history has not been moral or ethical," Pappe said. "No one opened Pandora's box and asked what it means for Israel."

Why were so few Israelis moved by this new reality? Why do so few Israelis question the zionist ideology that led to such violent expulsion and that continues to influence the violence between Israel and Palestinians today?

Pappe told a packed lecture theatre at a talk given in the West Bank city of Ramallah that it is these questions that he is now moved to answer.

This question is the motivation for his subsequent writings. In the last year, Pappe has authored two books, Out Of The Frame: The Struggle For Academic Freedom In Israel and The Rise And Fall Of A Palestinian Dynasty: The Husaynis 1700-1948."

In the same year he co-authored Gaza In Crisis with Noam Chomsky and wrote the introduction to Vittorio Arrigoni's Gaza: Stay Human, a vivid eyewitness account of Operation Cast Lead by the Italian human rights worker.

In the lecture Pappe summarised these works and attempted to answer his existential question about the zionist mind frame through a personal narrative.

Pappe personally relates to the influence of the utopian visions of the founder of Zionism Theodor Herzl. He recalls being born into a "benign zionist" environment in Haifa to German parents who remained set on creating a better version of their German homeland in Israel.

"My parents had the capacity to look over their balcony and believe they were in Germany," he told a packed lecture hall. "They didn't see the natives of the land."

Pappe said that many Israelis share this outlook, which draws on a sense of achievement and self-satisfaction in having returned and transformed the land into their vision.

Changing this fundamental ideal to include others and, indeed, the reality on the ground, is difficult. "You need something absurd to happen," he says.

For Pappe it was "the invitation to be shot" by Palestinian political and guerilla leader Abu Nidal that changed him.

Pappe was studying at Oxford University in 1982 when Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador to Britain was shot. Israel blamed the shooting on the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and it became part of the pretext for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

The Israeli embassy asked Pappe to talk at a public relations event in Liverpool. "We were going to send our number two" they told Pappe, "but it is too dangerous" he said, raising a laugh from the audience.

"I was insulted that they assumed that I would speak for the state," said Pappe.

Every Israeli abroad was automatically expected to act as an ambassador for the actions of their home government he says.

Without a shock - something that forces you to question your values - it is difficult to change your beliefs.

The hope then lies in the international community, he said, from those who have not grown up inside a zionist mind frame.

Pappe said that what is most needed in Israel is a change in language. "We have to change the dictionary we are using.

We have to talk about Israel as a racist apartheid state," he said.

It is the responsibility of every Israeli to question their government's approach to Palestinians living within and without of Israel's borders. "If you have no opinion then, at best, you are a supporter. At worst, you are part of it."