Ilan Pappe has recently published Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (2024), a concise primer A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (2024), and an updated version of Ten Myths About Israel (2024). Like Pankaj Mishra and Raja Khouri and Jeffrey Wilkinson, Pappe provides a courageous voice against settler colonialism, erasure of identity, weaponised victimhood, occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. A synoptic review of the myths is as follows.
Zionism - colonialism and fanaticism
Pappe writes that contextualising Palestinian action has become “evidence of anti-Semitism” and “justifying terrorism” (p x). However, he rejects the myth that “Zionism is not colonialism” or that Palestinian resistance is “terroristic rather than anticolonialist” (p xi). He argues that during the Ottoman period, like other Arab societies, Palestinians developed a national movement, demanded more autonomy and eventually independence from the Ottoman Empire (pp 6-7). However, the nexus of “Zionism, Protestant millenarianism, and British imperialism” destroyed Palestine and its people (p 20). This is because Zionism wanted as much Palestine with as few Palestinians (pp 38).
Pappe argues that religious Jewish leaders initially rejected Zionism as a “form of secularisation and modernisation” (p 24). Other Jews viewed Zionism as provocative, as it questioned the loyalty of European Jews to their respective home nations (p 28). Additionally, he draws out the inconsistencies of the Zionists who did not believe in God but used the Bible as a justification for colonising Palestine (p 31). However, usurping the Bible for political objectives can lead to fanaticism, given references to genocide like that of the Amalekites (p 35), a trope that was used by Prime Minister Netanyahu in the case of Gaza.
Rejecting another myth that the Jewish settlers in 1882 were the descendants of Jews expelled by the Romans around 70 AD, Pappe writes that hefty scholarship shows that Jews of Roman Palestine remained on the land, first converted to Christianity, and then to Islam
Dispelling myths
Pappe writes that Israel remains a settler colonial state despite framing itself as the “only democracy in the Middle East” (p xiii). This is because it denies Palestinians basic human or civil rights, as even the lowest ranking IDF soldier can ruin Palestinian lives, demolish their homes, hold them at checkpoints for hours, or incarcerate them without trial (pp 85-86). He adds atrocities like “pulling fingers apart and twisting testicles” and “shaming people” for their sexual orientation to elicit collaboration (p 95). Thus, Pappe showcases “systematic cruelty” that is manifest in the Israeli regime’s “daily, mundane presence” (p 87).
Rejecting another myth that the Jewish settlers in 1882 were the descendants of Jews expelled by the Romans around 70 AD, Pappe writes that hefty scholarship shows that Jews of Roman Palestine remained on the land, first converted to Christianity, and then to Islam (p xvi). Alluding to “professional historiography”, he debunks another myth of “voluntary Palestinian flight” in 1948 (p xvii). He argues that there was no Arab call for Palestinians to leave their land and that Israel was never asked to provide evidence for this myth (p 54). Instead, Palestinian exodus is explained by Israeli intimidation, expulsion, and fear, as in a matter of 7 months, 531 villages were destroyed accompanied by massacres, rape, and imprisonment of males over the age of 10 in labour camps (pp 55, 64).
Pappe argues that contrary to the myth that Palestinians never miss an opportunity to reject peace or that Palestinian leaders are intransigent, it is Israel that has consistently rejected peace (pp 57, 68). He writes that blaming Palestinians for rejecting the UN partition plan, devised without their consultation, ignores the colonialist nature of Zionism (p 56). Moreover, he rejects the Israeli David against the Arab Goliath metaphor, as Palestine had no military power and Arab state troops were “far less equipped or trained” in response to Zionist operations (p 56). Pappe is clear that “Israel is exclusively culpable” for the “Palestinian refugee problem” and that the “Jewish state was born out of sin” based on a “racist ethnic ideology” (pp 64, 66).
Occupation and the rotten peace process
Pappe argues that greater Israel was carefully planned and that the “apparatus to control both the West Bank and Gaza” was prepared before the 1967 war, as evident from the immediate enactment of Israeli policies (pp xvii, 69, 73). Israeli experts from the army, civil service, and academia had planned to run Palestinian territory with a detailed manual since 1963 (p 74). Moreover, Israeli academics, journalists and politicians adopted a reductionist view of Muslims, associating them with “violence, terror, and inhumanity” whilst ignoring the occupation (p 114). On the other hand, despite the wars between Israel and the Arab world, the Palestinian minority did not behave as a fifth column against the regime (p 90).
Pappe rejects the Oslo process as a “genuine peace process”, as it rejected the right of return of Palestinian refugees, reduced the Palestinian Authority to a security subcontractor, and partitioned Palestinian areas into Bantustans without significant dismantling of settlements, which extracted most of the water resources in gated communities (pp 99, 101, 102, 106). He argues that the Oslo process was “compromise” by a “defeated, colonised people” and a “diplomatic charade” that “deepened Israeli control” (p 101). Moreover, he emphasises that initial non-violent Palestinian demonstrations were crushed brutally, and it was this “callous repression” that instigated suicide bombers (p 108).
Pappe argues that Hamas became a significant player due to Israeli encouragement and policy to counterbalance the secular Fatah movement (p 115). He adds that people turn to religion when secular movements fail to provide “employment, welfare, and economic security” and that unlike the Palestinian Authority, Hamas was clear on the Palestinian refugee right of return (pp 116, 117). On Gaza, he states that Israeli withdrawal was self-serving, as it closed a handful of Gaza settlements in exchange for annexing the majority of the West Bank settlements (p 128). He adds that Hamas built tunnels to bring food and move people as part of its “resistance strategy” (p 135). Overall, he views Israeli policy as based on “incremental genocide” that is slow and creeping, but boring for the Western media (pp 130, 131).
The way forward
Pappe states that the world did not condemn ethnic cleansing of the Nakba and argues that the Oslo Accords were simply a “ploy for a different kind of occupation” (p xii). He views a two-state solution as providing for a Palestinian Bantustan and argues that criticising autonomy for part of the West Bank in exchange for ceding the Palestinian refugee right to return is often “branded as anti-Semitism” (pp 141, 142). Moreover, he rejects “the peace process” and Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East” as “illusion and deception” (p 143). Instead, he argues that a starting point for some kind of “restitutive justice” would emerge once the “two-state solution is buried”, Zionism is defined as colonialism, Israel as an apartheid state, and Nakbah as ethnic cleansing (pp 65, 143).