SuperHumanizer Podcast

Israel's Bravest Historian: Archives Expose Ethnic Cleansing

• Dr. Hani Chaabo & Katie Bogen M.A. • Season 1 • Episode 15

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Join Ilan Pappé, Israel's bravest historian who uncovered the suppressed truths of 1948 and exposed the machinery of denial behind Israel’s founding. His ground breaking book, "The Ethnic Cleansing Of Palestine" revealed the shocking hidden history buried in the diaries of Israel's founders including Ben Gurion, the first prime minister. He explains why confronting “aggressive ignorance” is crucial, how Western complicity sustains ongoing injustice, and what a post-Zionist future could mean for Israelis and Palestinians alike. Don’t miss his insights on the urgent need for intersectional solidarity and the power of hope in the darkest times.

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Welcome to Super Humanizer Podcast, where we promote empathy and understanding in polarizing viewpoints through stories told by people living them.

Katie Bogen:

Hello everybody. Welcome back to Super Humanizer. I'm your host, Katie Bogen. Joined as always by Dr. Hani Chaabo, and today we're honored to share space with renowned historian and author Professor Ilan Pappé, who has been called Israel's bravest, most principled, most incisive historian. Professor Pappé is one of the world's leading scholars on the Israel Palestine conflict and the author of 24 books, including his groundbreaking work, the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, born in Haifa in 1954 to German Jewish parents who fled Nazi persecution. Professor Pappé obtained his BA from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his doctorate from Oxford University. He currently serves as a professor of history at the University of Exeter in the uk and is the director of the European Center for Palestinian Studies. His work has challenged conventional narratives about Israel's founding and has drawn both praise and criticism for his brave examination of historical events. Professor Pappé is known for advocating for a one state solution and for his analysis on Zionism as a settler colonial project. As we face the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza with over 50,000 Palestinians killed at least since October 2023 and 1.9 million displaced Professor Pappé's historical perspective offers crucial context for understanding both the past and the present of this conflict and active genocide. Professor Pappé, it's a privilege to have you here with us today. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your time.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Great pleasure to be with both of you. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Thank you. Really, what an honor. Before we get into our, I'm sure profound discussion today with you, professor, we like to play a game called What Brings You Joy with all our guests. Would you play that game with us?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yes, definitely.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Okay. Professor Ilan, what brings you joy?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

I think on two levels, one is that any successful, even the smallest success of fighting injustice anywhere that I am aware of, that I'm involved in makes my day, makes my year, and that's pure joy. On a more personal level, any good news about my children brings me a lot of joy. So I suppose now I should ask Katie what brings her joy.

Katie Bogen:

Yes. Thank you so much. I will say meeting other Jewish people, in particular Jewish scholars who are vocally critical and interrogative of Zionism. Given how uncommon that continues to be, though obviously we're seeing generational shifts, that brings me so much joy. Having Jewish elders to turn to, to discuss Zionism and criticize and unlearn some of what I was indoctrinated into, brings me not only joy, but comfort, which I think is a particular kind of joy, both like cognitively and embodied joy. So i'm feeling alot of that today and thank you so much for being here. Hmm Hani, my love, what brings you joy?

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Same here, Katie. I would say in this moment I'm hearing you both reflect back to each other about standing up for justice and doing that following the wisdom of Jewish elders like Professor Ilan. So what's bringing me joy today is being here with both of you. I was just mind blown reading the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. I thought I knew a lot, especially being both Lebanese and Palestinian in origin, and I didn't realize how much I didn't know. So I felt a lot of relief and joy knowing that somebody documented all this history and has it for us because I feel like if Professor Ilan didn't do that, who else would've done that? What a profound book. Thank you so much, Professor Ilan, round two. What brings you joy?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Being with both of you, seems to be very joyful. So far, so good. Calling me an elder, I'm not sure. Brings me a lot of joy, but I'll have to resign to it given that I'm 70 years old. That's okay. Okay. At least an elder, not older.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Wisdom. Pure wisdom.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

So we move to Katie round two.

Katie Bogen:

So something that's been bringing me a lot of joy recently is seeing this new peer reviewed academic journal out there on Critical Zionism studies, which as far as I've seen, is the first academic journal like ISBN. Journal that's accepting peer-reviewed manuscripts. They're doing a special issue right now and they accept work interrogating the legacy of Zionism and really trying to scrape back through the literature over the last, 76 plus years and finding those papers that weren't able to be published because they, violated dominant academic paradigms at the time or dialogues at the time. So it's been a huge relief to me to see this movement reach the academic world and really be led in a grassroots manner by individual scholars, especially as bigger institutions are still failing to hold an apartheid state accountable. So the critical journal of Zionism Studies is making me very happy. It's like bringing me a lot of intellectually curious joy and Hani. I'll pass it on to you.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

I'm gonna switch gears and say that today here where I live in the forest, it's raining I am a pluviophile I love the rain, I love the smell of the rain. And then also when it rains, all these frogs come out and they make this beautiful symphony during the night, which just feels like natural ambient noise. Super helpful for sleep. One more. Professor Ilan. What brings you joy?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

This is a very dark moment and finding joyful moments is very difficult for me in the last 16 months. But here and there huge shows of solidarity with the Palestinians. The knowing about the resilience of young Palestinians, including Gaza and as Katie said, I'm not sure joy is the always the right word there, but gives some hope, some comfort, Some faith in humanity that we will be able to see through that this particular terrible period we are living in. So it's less joy, but at least it's it's hope,

Katie Bogen:

Yeah.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

which for me is now a bit more important than being joyful, is to be hopeful. And I find if anything I can bring to meetings with people, especially large audiences nowadays, is some glimmer of hope. And I'm glad to see that usually it works. It's rewarding, it's satisfying. Yeah. I would say this way. Yeah. Katie, to you?

Katie Bogen:

Hope, satisfaction and reward all sound like cousins of joy to me.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Mm-hmm.

Katie Bogen:

So something that's been bringing me, I guess also some soothing is protest music. And I have a beloved friend who challenged me recently to learn how to sing the black national anthem in the United States. It's called Lift Every Voice and Sing. So I spent last night learning to sing some different hymns and spirituals that I wouldn't have learned without this friend. And it just speaks to me of this overlap of community protest, wisdom, protest music, and how creativity is born from building these bridges. And I'm definitely feeling that that spirit today after doing all that singing last night. Hani, your third joy.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Yeah I would echo you both in terms of is this joy that we're experiencing or is it relief or hope or solidarity? And especially in music, I play the piano and recently I learned Imagine by The Beatles, and I felt like that was also a form of protest through a reminder of joy and what could be for us in the world. So yeah, that song and playing it, it's also bringing me relief, knowing that one day that imagination can actually lead to a truth of peace for all of us. Thank you so much for that game. It was lovely to get to know you a little bit more professor Ilan.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Thank you.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

we will dive into our questions.

Katie Bogen:

Okay, so we know you were born in Haifa to German Jewish parents who fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s, and many have called you Israel's bravest historian for challenging so many of these dominant narratives that you were taught in Israeli schools. You grew up in this space where teaching those lessons is really paramount. So how did your family background and growing up in Israel shape your perspective on history and justice and what eventually gave you the courage to speak this truth to power?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yes. I think that my family background itself, home so to speak, unfortunately, did not play any important role in that trajectory that I chose, or the journey I took out of Zionism, so to speak and one that positioned me in such a critical stance towards Israel Zionism, its narratives. Its interpretations of reality. I think that this family history is such the one, as I understood it not so sure that the rest of my family understood it in a similar way, but the fact that so many members of my family were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, for me, was a moral message of the need to be attentive, alert to any future or any crimes that were committed after the Holocaust. Especially if the crimes are committed in my name or by my state, by my society. So I think that played a role. Definitely the, the victimizing or the fact that my family were one of the many millions of Jews that were killed during the Holocaust played an important role in not being content when writing history with kind of an unbiased professional way of looking at history without any emotions, without any moral judgment and so on, especially history of which I was part of and so on. So that's 1, 1, 1, 1 thing as for the second part of your question journeys like myself are journeys, and that means that there are a lot of stations. So there's no particularly moment of epiphany where you you wake up and you say everything I was taught about is wrong, and everything that I know now is clear and so on. No, it's a very long process and it has stations and it has a lot to do with the fact that I chose to become a professional historian. I really loved history from very early on, and I knew I would like to be an historian in the academic sense of the word. And it was only natural that that I would like to focus, for me at least, it was natural to focus on my own country's history. So I think that played a very important role. I could have chosen, A lot of people do choose to do history of other places and I don't know what would've happened if I have chosen a different country a different continent, a different period. But I chose what I chose. And that was, that played a very important role. The documents I found the evidence I found so on. I think also the fact that I decided to do the most important part in one's professional career as an historian, which is the doctorate the fact that I decided to pursue my postgraduate studies outside of Israel,

Katie Bogen:

Mm-hmm.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

uh, Played an important role because, you know, the things from the outside, sometimes you cannot see from the inside, especially know in a very indoctrinated society. So I think it, it, it helped a lot that when I wrote my dissertation. I did it outside of Israel and I was lucky in many ways that one of my supervisor was an Arab. And through him I saw the history from a different perspective. And through him I also met a lot of Palestinians and other Arabs of people from the Arab world who I met them on an equal footing, which you wouldn't be able to do in Israel. Israel was, at least Israel I grew into, was very segregated. I had hardly any contact with Palestinians until I reached the university. University was the first time that I really was able to meet Palestinians and talk to them. So it was, I think this kind of combination of. Interesting history being outside while becoming a professional historian and being able through good contacts to, to meet on equal footing, especially Palestinian academics, activists, intellectuals help to shape the point of view that eventually confronted. I, I, in a way helped me to confront the indoctrination I was facing as a younger person. Yeah,

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Wow.

Katie Bogen:

hearing you talk about this trajectory because I think it speaks against some assumptions we have about activistic perfection and istic perfectionism of, oh, you're already supposed to know everything. And here, these folks who are teachers who are instructing us on what we've missed or I guess more accurately what's been hidden from us. They

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Hmm.

Katie Bogen:

don't believe in activistic perfection or intellectual perfection. This is a learning process. This is a process of inquiry. So thank you so much for sharing that procedure.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yeah, it's learning and unlearning. Of course,

Katie Bogen:

Yes,

Professor Ilan Pappe:

a lot of unlearning goes through that process as well. Yeah.

Katie Bogen:

How did your colleagues at Israeli universities respond when you began publishing your work that was challenging these narratives? What personal price have you paid for your academic integrity?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

When I started expressing in writing and talking through my teachings these views to begin with, which was more or less the late 1980s, early 1990s, there was a certain openness in Israeli academia. And these views were not totally accepted by, I would say were tolerated to a certain extent. So I felt like, a bit under pressure and a bit isolated, but still legitimate, so to speak. And everything, I think in many ways changed towards the end of the 20th century. The very last years of the 1990s, the beginning of the 21st century, that particular period between 1999 and 2001, 2002 the whole Israeli political mood has changed. Israel became a far more racist society, far more aggressive, far less tolerant against views that challenged the basic narrative. It was very different kind of Israel, which is still with us, unfortunately, 24, 25 years later, hasn't changed in the country, became even worse. And so it was very clear that I had two choices. Either I give in to that new atmosphere and I shut up and I toe the line. Some of my friends were critical in the 1990s, decided to do for the sake of uh, academic survival, so to speak or I'll take the chance and I'll take it further and and see what happens. And I decided I cannot lie to myself. Uh, In, in fact uh, the more as every year that passed, I knew, as you said, it's a learning process. So every year that passed, I knew more, and the more I knew, the less I was willing to accept what I knew. Uh, So there was no chance that I would go back or would limit or censor myself. The price was very clear to me that there will be a price. I didn't know exactly what it would be. There were two retributions I think that I fixed. One is individual personal. I had to leave the university. It was very clear they expelled me. It took some years to, to 2006, but it was a whole campaign against me for six years until I, I broke down and I left. And there was the society that was more familiar now with what I was doing. And as I said, the whole society became more racist and less tolerant. So it didn't include the death threats and so on. So we decided also to take the family out of Israel for a while until things subsided. So there was a price. I always remember that the price, of course. Palestinian historians or any Palestinian activist or academic who would've expressed similar positions to mine would've paid, and they would've were or paid a far higher price. They it's still a, an apartheid system. And if you are a Palestinian who challenges Israeli narrative and so on, the price is even higher of course. And I always remember that. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Hmm.

Katie Bogen:

Yeah.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Wow.

Katie Bogen:

of sort of a balance of power of you being able to say things that even perhaps Palestinian historians wanted to say, or would have said, or had been trying to say, and just the risk for them was too great. So taking on some of that too, to fight injustice in a way that was accessible you.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yeah, especially Palestinians who work within the Israeli system. Palestinians outside in the United States or and anywhere else we're saying these things very clearly and boldly. They didn't need me for that. But within the atmosphere in Israel as 20% of the Israeli citizens are Palestinians. And although they have a very limited presence in Israeli academia because of the apartheid nature of the state of Israel but those who were inside were not always able. To say things without really paying a very high price. It's very much like the atmosphere today. Any Palestinian citizen of Israel that even expresses compassion with the children of Gaza without any political statement attached to it, might find him himself or herself in prison. It's so it's worse than it was. It was, that was not the atmosphere, but it was, it was very difficult to challenge the establishment. Its positions and its narratives.

Katie Bogen:

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Thank Thank you so much for your courage in not just wanting to know, but creating the works that ended up awakening so many people around the world. You've even had a student from Gaza send you letters saying, thank you for documenting our history. Because before the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, none of these things were really documented. And you talk about how you spent time with Palestinians, you expanded your mind. You also learned Arabic, which is really impressive. Part of your exploration for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine was you interviewed Nakba survivors like the farmer, Abu Mahmoud from Tantura, who described soldiers burning his villages olive groves in 1948. So I'm going to dive a little bit into the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. You documented how planned Dalet resulted in six months, more than half of a native population was uprooted. 800,000 people, 531 villages destroyed. 11 urban neighborhoods emptied. You've written about changing the paradigm from quote unquote war to the truth of ethnic cleansing. Your work reframes prime ministers of Israel like Ben Gurion from founding father and Rabin, from peacemaker to architects and executors of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Would you tell us more about the shocking discoveries in your research that changed your understanding of Israel's founding and why this history has been so hidden from us and the world?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yeah, definitely. I think that once you delve into the documents you can see that the kind of recollections Palestinian tell you that they have. As individual, although they could not see the big picture, they could only see what happened to them individually in the village, in the neighborhood. They never saw the whole picture. I think some of them realized better, the whole picture. Once actually, they arrived at refugee camps and understood that so many other people underwent the same experiences as they did, but still they could not see the whole picture once you go to the documents. I was really shocked by the preparations, by the systematic and intention to get rid of a massive number of people without any real moral inhibition. And for me it was surprising. I wanted to believe in the version that, for instance, my colleague Benny Morris was trying to put forward that in a world these things happen. There is a war and people are kicked out because there's violence, but nothing in the documents actually shows that he's right. In fact, he's wrong. I think what the documents show actually that a war was planned in order to uproot the population. It was not that the population was uprooted as a byproduct of a war. The war was the means for uh, uprooting the population. And I didn't want to believe it at first because this is really a crime against humanity. This is not just a conflict between people, which I was aware was happening all around the world. No, this was a coldblooded idea and that was shocking for me. The level of preparation, the level of an ideological level of dehumanizing native people and indigenous people saying, they are the main obstacle for our success of building, ironically, for building a democratic western state, we will not be able to have a western democratic state if we are not the majority. In fact, we have to be an absolute majority. Now, how can we be an absolute majority if the demography is against us. So there's a way out of it, and the only way out of it is committing this crime against humanity, ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. That was one shock. And the documents were very clear about it. There was no need to be a particularly good detective. It was just, uh, uh, just being willing to, to accept that this is possible, for that Jews could be victim of genocide in, in Europe, but they other Jews can be the victimizers of the Palestinians and, and that. Not easy to accept but I thought the evidence was so striking you could not ignore it. Then there is the question of why did the world accept it? And and I think people knew in 48, people who had the power to change things knew, namely the main, of course, we have to remind our younger viewers, so to speak that there was no internet. There was no television at the time, right? It was more difficult to know than this. Today you only had printed news papers and radio. You didn't have anything else. But the New York Times had correspondence in in Palestine during those eventful month. So did major news papers in the west radio stations had their own correspondence. And they saw what I saw in the documents. They saw it in real time. So definitely they knew. And it was very interesting for me and shocking when I worked not so much on the Israeli documents, when I worked on the documents in the United Nations in Britain, the United States red Cross, that the directors of these institutions or the leaders of these institutions from secretary of State through direct chief editors of news papers and so on, that they decided there was no need to expose this feeling that three years after the Holocaust, you don't want to accuse any Jew of committing crimes. So there was it was a conspiracy of silence. And not of ignorance. It was not ignorance, it was denial Denial. There is a concept in psychology called aggressive ignorance, which is kind of, you know, when it's, it's an intentional ignorance. It's not because you're stupid because you, you, you, you, you opt to be stupid because it serves your own uh, purposes. And I think that was for me really shocking because I thought maybe people didn't know. And of course the vast majority of people in the world did not know. But the people who could have make a change, who mattered as policy makers people who formulate public opinions so on, they knew, but they decided that it would not, be the right thing to do and that was shocking. Now, why did they do it? I said three years after the Holocaust. But of course, this is far more profound I learned years later. This has to do with the whole complicity of the West in this project of building a European state at the heart of the Arab world, at the expense of the Palestinians in order to solve a European problem of racism, European antisemitism. So it was not just because of the Holocaust it was because this whole idea of replacing the Palestinians with the Jews of Europe was not just a Zionist project, it was European project later, also an American project. And uh, and that's why there was no way that the Palestinian victimization by this project would be high on the agenda of anyone in the West who matter. Which unfortunately still the case today 77 years, almost 77 years after the events of 1948. Yeah,

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Yeah. Wow. So powerful. You said conspiracy of silence and aggressive ignorance, which your work has been so powerful to counteract both of those. You've been described as one of the new historians who challenged traditional Israeli narratives and your research, you had access to Ben Gurion's diaries and uncovered details about the village files, which to me was one of the most shocking things to read about in your work, which you described as involving the Haganah, which is an organization, a militia, a Jewish militia that founded Israel, as well as the Jewish National Fund, which was this like complicity of the international world in financing the ethnic cleansing, and these village files were so controversial that they were hidden from the British because they were considered illegal intelligence efforts. They mapped out each Palestinian community in detail ahead of their eventual destruction. These included maps, social information, ages, religions, which essentially formed what you called the indexes of hostility towards Zionism. And you wrote that these files even contain information about the living rooms of Imams and led to mass executions and torture, which in so many ways prove the premeditation that happened in 1948. Why do you think, although that you, this is so clear in your evidence, why is there still a resistance to this.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yeah. I think the resistance is first of all because the Jewish state Israel is part of the western world in the eyes of the western world and that really puts a big question mark on what is Western values? What are the achievements of Western civilization, especially when they were transferred into other parts of the world. So I think what they called before the complicity of the West is for me one of the reasons for this conspiracy of denial. But there is something else. You don't obtain such a denial for such a long period without advocating for it. So we have to understand that this denial is bought through a very serious effort of advocacy and lobbying. You have to maintain it all the time. And and as the years go by. The evidence accumulates. It's easier to get evidence either through works like my own, or through the reality on the ground, through television, later on internet, and so on. Through the methods of lobbying and advocacy and what is incredible about these efforts that they begin with moral arguments. Jews have the right to go back home. This is the only democracy in the Middle East. But more and more as the evidence unfolds it's less about winning the moral argument as much as killing the messenger. Advocacy becomes intimidation, defamation, weaponizing, antisemitism, weaponizing, all across denial in order to to maintain it. The third thing I would say about it, which is very worrying or interesting, everybody can decipher themselves until about 20 years ago, the Israeli political system was made of people who were aware that what had been done in 48 was was problematic. I don't think they regretted it or they thought there was any other option, but they understood that this is not something that with time would always be easy to justify. So they worked on denial in order not to face the consequences of the exposure of what they did. Since the last 20 years, we have a different political elite in Israel. I'm not sure that they mind the world knowing what they did in 48. I don't think they mind for the world to know what they're doing in Gaza.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Hmm.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Uh, For two reasons. One, they think that they are now in the mission from God. That's one thing. So they're doing a sacred work, even if this is totally brutal and ruthless. And secondly they keep if you see the the messages of the Israeli army to the people of Gaza and before that to the people of the West Bank, they use the Nakba as intimidation.

Katie Bogen:

Mm-hmm.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

If you will resist the occupation, if you will not accept living under oppression. Remember what we did to you in the Nakba. If you remember the leading Israeli politicians and generals immediately after the seventh of October said, now the Palestinian would experience another nakba uh,

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Yes.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

another catastrophe. So I think that puts us in a very different place. But what is still surprising putting President Trump aside for a moment, but, so let's go to the Democratic Party or the more reasonable people in Republican party in America, or most of the most kind of conventional politicians of the West, right? I'm not talking about the nutcases or the extreme margins of these political system. They still deny it. Very surprising um,

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Mm.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Despite the fact that now I would say even the Israelis admit it because it exposes their own complicity and they're all part of it. And they don't know how to deal with it. So they'd rather

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Mm-hmm.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

say nothing happened and so on. And it gives me hope because the, probably a younger generation of politicians in the west, hopefully at all in the United States will feel less burdened by this complicity

Katie Bogen:

Mm-hmm.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

They were not part of it.

Katie Bogen:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Yeah.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

And I do believe one day justice would be done also in this sense that the crime would be admitted because many Palestinians will tell you we were victims twice. We were victims when the crime was committed against us, and then we were victims once more when the crime was denied. And I think at least, I don't know how much we can offer them a better future, but at least we should be able to offer a time where the crime would be admitted, which is very important. This acknowledgement and recognition should be very important

Katie Bogen:

absolutely. Absolutely. You've written about this chilling, like bone deep chilling level of bureaucracy of mapping out entire populations for potential removal. And we've seen this has a really modern ring to it. The 1940s methods that you've documented mirror today's high tech surveillance of Palestinians. Israel has, deployed this red wolf AI system to monitor and control Palestinians at checkpoints that has graduated or sludged into the AI driven surveillance and targeting of Palestinians and Gaza in the West Bank, being able to employ, AI informed drones in order to target certain families and populations. And this intelligence isn't benign. The collection of the intelligence isn't benign, it's designed for the purpose of effectively carrying out mass violence, and so the fact that these data are being collected is itself evidence of this culpability. And as you said, like Israel is not hiding that it's using these technologies for these purposes anymore. In fact, they're stating it repeatedly of, yes, this is going to give us the best data possible to remove to ethnically cleanse this population. It's astonishing. On the one hand that these incriminating records were preserved and declassified, the prior records from the 1940s. It's astonishing today that we have this public awareness of the use of AI and data collection in these ways. we initially had written this question of, why do you think authorities opened these archives and exposed the documents? Was this a lapse in judgment? Was this a miscalculation? But I wonder today with the lens that you were just discussing, is it this. Arrogant assumption that there will be no culpability, that there are no systems currently in place to, to move forward any accountability that would actually land on the people who are choosing to enact this type of violence. Like do we just not have the systems in place, whether it's at the level of the UN or other international governing bodies to make accountability something possible.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yeah. I think one of the issues that is important to remember in this context of what you've raised, that we are dealing here with the symptoms of the problem, not the problem itself, whether it's the ai technique that you are talking about, whether it's the village files before such technique was there. These are all symptoms of the problem. It's not the problem itself. And, And the problem itself is that Zionism, like so many other settler colonial movements was motivated. By what the late Patrick Wolf called the logic of the elimination of the native, because the native was the main obstacle for creating the Jewish state, the European Jewish state. That was very tragic in a way because most of the Jews who came to Palestine would've stayed in Europe if Europe would've been willing to accept Jews as equal citizen, which it didn't. And what happens is that, of course, the wish to eliminate the native, to make a country empty of its indigenous population encounters an anti colonialist struggle. And the anti colonialist struggle can be also violent, and the violence of the anti-colonialism movement justifies more violence in reaction to it. So by the time you get to where we are today the manipulation of fear the depiction of the colonized people as brutal people, as violent people plays into this mentality or this ability to say, oh, we're not dealing with human beings here. So even if we kill babies, we're not really killing babies. We're killing the potential terrorists of the future. Anybody who's been in Israel as I am a lot as much as I can, knows that this is the discourse, this is the discourse total dehumanization. Now, the early dehumanization was not based on anything that the Palestinians did. The present day dehumanization is 100 years of struggle between the Palestinian anti-colonialism movement and the settler colonial project of Israel. And violence can even strengthen this idea that what you're doing is morally fine. Add to this what we have in the last 20 years the emergence of these messianic Zionists a group of people who are now taking over Israel. For them it's not even the dehumanization of the Palestinians, what of, because of their struggle against colonialism. It's the dehumanization of the Palestinian through the Bible, through religion through certain interpretation of religion. It's not a religion itself that is at fault here. It's the way they want to interpret religion, which is at fault here. And and therefore it adds to the dehumanization and our dehumanization together with an high technician gets what you have described it.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Mm.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

that's, That's where the Palestinians are really victims, not only of a classical colonialist project and then a classical sense of colonial project. They are now victims also of a living colonialist project that is very savvy as far as high-tech is concerned. So you have all these issues. The problem is that high tech technology as means of oppression, cannot be obtained through one country alone. One country, one state like Israel cannot produce everything. There are a lot of other companies. Multinational companies corporation that are part of this technologies which again raises the question of complicity.

Katie Bogen:

Yep.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

And unfortunately, universities are places where most of the research is being done for improving these kinds of dehumanizing, ruthless criminal methods against people. And that's where I think what the BDS, the boycott, divest, sanction, movement among others, is trying to do. And I think it was very, we talked before about joy and not being necessarily joy, but maybe rewarding. I think it was very important that the student encampments, especially in the us, but not only in the US. Demanded the universities to look inside and see how much are they part of that dehumanization through high tech achievements and developments? So all of it is the symptoms of the main problem which always is something that we need to remember and understand the origins of the violence as much as confirm the symptoms of the violence.

Katie Bogen:

Absolutely, and you have these academic origins of, who is conducting the research that makes this sort of technology possible. You have institutional investment as well in index funds or banks that are then bankrolling this investment to make the finances possible. You have the export of this weaponry multi nationally in the form of this military industrial complex, and it culminates in the use of these weapons being akin to almost playing a video game. Like you're not the one actually killing another human being. We are not at the point of whites of their eyes. Combat warfare. We're instead pressing a button eliminate a green figure who's lit up because of the temperature of their body. And it has nothing to do with a face-to-face interaction with another human being. So the dehumanization at every step I find very stark but the fact that this technology winds up concatenating into a game system like the gamification of violence, I find particularly horrifying.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yeah,

Katie Bogen:

Hani, I

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Hmm.

Katie Bogen:

Reflection.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

that's okay.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

you are

Professor Ilan Pappe:

I think it's important point, you know, it's uh, and Israel is a laboratory for where you can in real life experiment with the latest development in this field. Yeah,

Katie Bogen:

People

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

hmm.

Katie Bogen:

Playing war, playing cleansing. It

Professor Ilan Pappe:

absolutely.

Katie Bogen:

chills me to the bone.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yeah.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Yeah, and you've also talked about Neo Zionism saying we are in a state that one can define as Neo Zionists. The old values of Zionism are now more extreme, in far more aggressive form than they were before trying to achieve in a short time with the previous generation of Zionists were trying to achieve in a much longer, more incremental, gradual way. And we're seeing that now with like evacuation orders spanning the size of Manhattan, of people in Gaza, and far right ministers like Smotrich and Ben Gvir calling for settlements in Gaza. So it really feels like it's the culmination of the project that you've documented throughout your career. you've said historically, I'm willing to say with some caution that this is the last phase of Zionism. Historically such developments in ideological movements, whether they are colonials or empires. It's usually the final chapter that is the most ruthless one, the most ambitious one, and then it's too much, and then they fall and collapse. With Amnesty International, concluding Israel's committing genocide in Gaza and growing global protests. Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of Zionism as you've predicted?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Yes, I do think so. I have to warn, of course, as an historian, when you talk about the end of a process, it's can be a long, unfortunately, a long period. It's not something for tomorrow or the day after. All you can do is expose indicators that show collapse. You put it simply, you can say I think I'm quite confident it that it will happen, but I don't know when. I cannot locate the when in any possible way. But I can definitely grapple with the question of if and not when and the if for me is clear it, it will happen. We are facing it because of, first of all, internal processes inside Israel where without even direct connection to the Palestinians, the whole idea of defining Judaism as nationalism is not is not in, it seems not to be enough for creating a cohesive Jewish society. And this now comes to haunt the Israeli Jewish Society. Again, not necessarily in any connection to the Palestinian issue by itself. This idea that Judaism is a nationality has now been exposed as a real problem for a society that even if there is a consensus about disregarding the Palestinians, oppressing them, or making them a second rate citizens still doesn't agree what the, if you want the Master Society would be like, or the colonizers society would be like, is it a western liberal society or is it a Jewish theocratic society? And that comes now to, to the fore. And usually the idea was if there is a lot of external threat to that society, this is enough to be the cement that would hold these two different and conflicting ways of understanding what Judaism is together. But here we are with the, what Israelis deem as a very serious external danger to their existence. And yet the internal divide only deepens uh, it's not a proper civil War yet, but it has a lot of Symptoms of civil war already, or. Performative ideas of a civil war. That's one indicator. This includes also the fact that Neo Zionist politics is a populist way of politics and populist politics. And the United States citizens will learn it very soon. Populist leaders are not very competent and they don't know how to run a state systems, whether they're economic, cultural, financial, so on. And they bring these societies. And there's not one example in history that doesn't show that they bring it into collapse. Eventually just but pure inability to run economically and militarily as such a system in order to implement that kind of crazy ideology that they want to implement. So I think that's another indicator. Then you have, of course, the international community growing isolation of Israel as a pariah state. Maybe not by the political elites because some of them, as we mentioned, are populist and right wing. But definitely the civil society, global civil society has never had such a huge number of people who regard Israel as a pariah state, including very important groups of Jews around the world, especially younger Jewish generation, including in the United States, that, that don't want to be associated with Zionism, have their own way of expe expressing their ethnocultural identity of Jews, even if they're not particularly religious or practicing Jews. And some even choose to connect this identity with strong solidarity with the Palestinian people. Um, so, So that, that is also important and I think what is still missing. But will happen, I hope is that the Palestinian national movement itself that has to get its act together so that these processes are, that are inevitable to my mind, would not lead to something worse, but rather would open the way for building something better for everyone.

Katie Bogen:

I think that dovetails so beautifully with our last question for you, which is on global solidarity and solidarity movements. So you've spoken about this need for global solidarity movements to be able to organize more effectively in order to support Palestinian liberation. And in your recent interviews you've mentioned, there are two things. One, we don't have an organization that contains the goodwill, the support, the solidarity, and the energy to fight injustice. So we require a proper infrastructure for those things. And the second thing. Is we need to abandon this purist approach that movements have had in the past and create networks and alliances that take into account normal human disagreements, even on these fundamental issues, so that we're able to work together for stopping an active genocide in Gaza and for liberating colonized people. And as you said, we're seeing students in the US being deported for taking a stance on Palestine for leading these encampments and taking on the political ramifications of that work. And you've been exiled from your own home. For our listeners who are feeling powerless watching this unfold and who are trying to engage in solidarity labor, what are the most effective actions they can take right now in support for justice for Palestinians? And in your view, what would a post Zionist future look like for both Israelis and Palestinians?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

First of all, I would say that definitely the solidarity with the Palestinians after the seventh of of October showed how diversified is the coalition for Palestine. It's not anymore the left only and so on. This is really something, when you go to 1 million people protest in London, you understand that they come from all walks of life, from all religions, secular, religious people, so on. So what that gave me the idea that of course that kind of rainbow coalition should also be in politics. Not just politics from below, but also politics from above. And we have to work on it. For that. When you deal with politics from above, you have to be a bit pragmatic. You can't be all the time fun, fundamentalist and purist, otherwise you don't create powerful alliances and that is not always very nice, but sometimes it's very necessary. And I think that this is one of the things that should be done as for the people themself who are involved in, and you're absolutely right. I think because the potential for a global alliance that can make a difference is so high the attempts to prevent that alliance from being effective is so ruthless. That's why everybody's targeted individually or collectively. And this unfortunately will be with us now because. We are in that particular moment in history where it's very clear that all the shields of immunity, all the fabrications, all the kind of attempts to create this ambiguity about Israel and Zionism is not working on the level of moral arguments, logical arguments, so on. So you use force what else can they do? They can only use force and intimidation against individuals, and especially vulnerable individuals like students and so on. And we have to be aware of it. I think that the best way of facing it is of course. To remember, not to do it alone. You are alone as a target, but you're not alone as part of the phenomenon that they're attacking. And that's why I think more and more we need this kind of organization. It has to have a legal infrastructure. It has to have a moral infrastructure. And I hope that academics with standing in their own institution will not be afraid to be part of such a a network that protects students, especially people who have tenure and so on. I don't understand why they are still silent and are afraid to voice their objection. It takes time. I hope that we can build that kind of alliance, but people should be definitely remembering not to be alone and always to seek the widest possible organization to be part of. And the second thing I would say about it. We are now in a position where so many people would identify struggles for injustice elsewhere, with a struggle against injustice in Gaza. So it's very important to be part of more than one struggle. In order to convey this point. And that's the intersectionality we're looking for, isn't it? I mean it's very important to, to show that fighting for African American rights, fighting for Native American rights in the United States is also fighting for Palestinian rights. And not to separate these struggles 'cause they're all struggles for the same thing. A, a world where the essence of politics. Still respects morality, human rights, civil rights, and is not the cynical game of remaining in power, whether it's a democracy or non-democracy. And it seems nowadays doesn't matter anymore. Politicians are self-centered and also are not thinking about electorates as people who have concerns they have to attend to, but rather as a power base that will make sure that they stay in power. All this has to be brought into the fore as part of a big movement, I think that will be able to defend the vulnerable institutions. Unfortunately now it's, I can see my, my, in my university in Exeter, we are doing it quite well in some other universities. We don't do it too well in England, for instance. Our German colleagues are particularly, seem to be helpless at this point, unfortunately, talking about academics and institutions. But hopefully. This work to convince them that this is not going to help them If they will cave in now, if they would try to ignore it won't help them because the oppression of the right to speak for Palestine would lead to the oppression of the right to speak for other issues that they, they care, maybe they care now more than they care about Palestine, but if they think they can isolate oppression and censorship on Palestine and then still have the freedom to speak about what is dear to their heart, they are absolutely wrong. I can tell them, as an historian, this doesn't work that way. So you might as well fight for Palestine if you want to fight for a better world on a, a large number of issues that seem to concern a lot of people.

Katie Bogen:

Absolutely. I get questions so often on, I have this cousin or brother or friend who is so politically oriented but doesn't, like, I just can't get them to care about Palestine. And we speak about the overlap of these issues of, if you're an environmental justice activist, Palestine is environmental justice crisis given the active

Professor Ilan Pappe:

bombardment Absolutely.

Katie Bogen:

And the eco side Being committed. If you're a reproductive justice activist, Palestine is a reproductive justice issue. You have incredibly high maternal mortality rates and labor and delivery without medication. And so looping people in via the solidarity movements, they're already a part of as well. So rather than expansion necessarily, which is also important this targeting of the passions that they do have to this movement or project that really can incorporate all of us and the passions that we already hold for justice. Part of this question is, in your view, what would a post Zionist future look like for Israelis and Palestinians?

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Imagination is such an important part of our wish to be hopeful. And in my imagination, and not only mine, I'm part of a movement which is called the One Democratic state uh, uh, in our imagination post Zionist Palestine is a country, a democratic country for all from the river to the sea. Where equality is respected, first of all, as the most important principle, which also is built on transitional justice that rectifies evils of the past that we are able to rectify, including the right of the Palestinians to, to refugees, to return a redistribution of natural resources and so on. Without idealizing it's a very painful post-colonial place would have alot of teething problems, undoubtedly trying to build in a very pragmatic way, Situation for everyone who's willing to live as an equal citizen. And remember and wouldn't mind at all to acknowledging that Palestine is not part of Europe, it's part of the Arab world, it's part of the Muslim world, it's part of its problems, it's part of its solution. So there's a lot of work to be done there, but at least let's have the beginning of this new road, which we haven't started yet.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

hmm.

Katie Bogen:

Well,

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

Well Said.

Katie Bogen:

so, So much Dr.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Pappé Thank you both.

Katie Bogen:

For your work and for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Thank you.

Katie Bogen:

we always close these interviews with a prayer. May all beings everywhere thrive in peace, dignity, and share in all our joys.

Dr. Hani Chaabo:

And may we see true peace in the Middle East for all in our lifetime. Thank you. Thank

Katie Bogen:

you.

Professor Ilan Pappe:

Amen.