Our Zoom call this week, for paid subscribers, will be at a special time: Friday at 11 AM EDT (not the usual Noon). Our guest will be the Israeli historian Benny Morris. He gained renown for his 1988 book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem
Rick--I entirely agree. Palestinians want elections throughout the W Bank, E Jerusalem and Gaza to choose a more legitimate leadership. Unfortunately for them, neither Abbas nor Israel nor the US nor probably many surrounding Arab countries agree
We, academics and other public figures from Israel/Palestine and abroad, call attention to the direct link between Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary and its illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinian people lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest. They face constant violence: this year alone, Israeli forces have killed over 190 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and demolished over 590 structures. Settler vigilantes burn, loot,and kill with impunity.
Without equal rights for all, whether in one state, two states, or in some other political framework, there is always a danger of dictatorship. There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid, as Israeli legal experts have described it. Indeed, the ultimate purpose of the judicial overhaul is to tighten restrictions on Gaza, deprive Palestinians of equal rights both beyond the Green Line and within it, annex more land, and ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population. The problems did not start with the current radical government: Jewish supremacism has been growing for years and was enshrined in law by the 2018 Nation State Law.
American Jews have long been at the forefront of social justice causes, from racial equality to abortion rights, but have paid insufficient attention to the elephant in the room: Israel’s long-standing occupation that, we repeat, has yielded a regime of apartheid. As Israel has grown more right-wing and come under the spell of the current government’s messianic, homophobic, and misogynistic agenda, young American Jews have grown more and more alienated from it. Meanwhile, American Jewish billionaire funders help support the Israeli far right.
In this moment of urgency and also possibility for change, we call on leaders of North American Jewry - foundation leaders, scholars, rabbis, educators - to
Support the Israeli protest movement, yet call on it to embrace equality for Jews and Palestinians within the Green Line and in the OPT.
Support human rights organizations which defend Palestinians and provide real-time information on the lived reality of occupation and apartheid.
Commit to overhaul educational norms and curricula for Jewish children and youth in order to provide a more honest appraisal of Israel’s past and present.
Demand from elected leaders in the United States that they help end the occupation, restrict American military aid from being used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and end Israeli impunity in the UN and other international organizations.
No more silence. The time to act is now.
Benny Morris, Professor Emeritus, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Meron Mendel, Professor, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences
Yitzhak Hen, Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Ronen Segev, Professor, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Uri Mor, Associate Professor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
A new low for Beinart!!!! Now he very cleverly chastises Ben Gurion as worse than Bibi and his minions…. Next he will go against Mother Theresa and Abraham Lincoln! Is there no lengths that this tin-pot leftist will go in an effort to castigate Israel. Of course, this will play well with the pro Palestine professors that he loves to break bread with!
Palestinian civil society isn’t asking for a boycott, they aren’t even participating in one themselves. Norman Finkelstein pointed that out a decade ago. The BDS “call” was a bunch of unelected one man NGOs in Ramallah. They don’t represent the Palestinians any more than Abbas does.
At least before you comment like this, do your research! Well over 100 Palestinian civil orgs made the call together. And have you read the BDS statement yet? I doubt it. And btw, Palestinians are busy trying to survive a brutal occupation. WE need to do the work of BDS.
It’s not me saying that, it’s Norman Finkelstein, who pointed out that those so called “civil orgs” only exist on paper. They’re one guy sitting in an office who wasn’t chose by the Palestinian people to speak on their behalf. Palestinians don’t boycott Israel. Neither should we.
What strikes me about the history and evolution of Israel-Palestinian relations is the persistence of fragmentation within the Palestinian political community, fragmentation that certainly has been encouraged by Israel. Without some sort of unity within the Palestinian community, I don't see how any of this will be mitigated, much less resolved.
I realize that we are living at a time when people like Biden can be addressed as radical socialists. So I suppose I should not be surprised when you suggest that Ben Gurion’s government was as right wing or more so than the current Israeli government.
All these things happen at a time when no one is interested in seeing history through the eyes of the people who lived those times or viewing the events in the context of the times they took place. We simply hoist our current cultural heritage onto the past. In such a world Lincoln can be called a racist and his statues can be removed.
Regarding Ben Gurion, Ben Gurion was a card-carrying member of the international Labor organizations. He was a socialist. Never mind, you accuse his government of starting apartheid. By stealing Palestinian land that was abandoned in the haste of Palestinians departing Israel. You in the process say they were expelled even though there is significant data that they were not all expelled. In fact we know that what precipitated the flight was the 70,000 one percenters who departed as they saw the state of Israel forming—in other words the Palestinian intelligentsia departed and with it the wealth and human capital to form a government for a Palestinian state.
I m not familiar with any country whose formation did not result in war that created winners and losers. Somehow only Israel must compensate the losers, even though there is a significant historical evidence that Israel did not start the war in 1948.
I will spare all here the what abouttism. Instead, I want to take you all back to 1945. At that time WWII ended in Europe. We know that some 6 million Jews were slaughtered: burned alive, gassed, shot and starved to death. Approximately 200,000 survived and were put into what was called “Displaced Persons Camps” DP camps for short. These people who somehow managed to survive were not allowed to go back to their homes in Europe and of course no country volunteered to take them back and America was not interested in more Jews.
Instead, Israeli agents arranged for them to escape and come to Palestine. They were not always successful. The famous Exodus ship was actually turned back and those aboard were ghoulishly sent back to Europe. But the Haganah nonetheless was able to illegally continue to bring over 150,000 survivors.
Let me now put us all in their shoes; these people who no one wanted and who just missed being slaughtered and who landed on new shores somehow were expected to do justice to other people who started a war?
You want the new country who managed to survive a war to somehow reserve the right for its enemies to return? Really who does that?
Ran, have you read Ilan Pappe’s book ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’
“ Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking book revisits the formation of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint.
Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing". Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East.”
Ilan Pappe is neither renowned nor faithful to the facts. Nonetheless many Palestinians were pushed out of Israel. What is patently untrue is that all or even most were pushed out..
Many people lost homes as a result of war. Not a single people have ever retrieved those homes. Nor are they expected to. Germany and Poland did not even repatriate the peoples they displaced inthe aftermath of WWII. The US did not restore homes or lands of the Japanese people they interned in WWII. And of course let' s not talk about native Americans.
I do find it odd that most of those countries who have not restored or even compensated these peoples seem to think the at Israel should. Israel has offered compensation and has from time-to-time p[rovided compensation. It is the Palestinians who insist on the return of the grand children and great grandchildren to the original homes that no longer even exist. The Palestinians are the only people on this planet that have been granted refugee status in perpetuity. Isn't that odd? Why them and not the other peoples?
I disagree, Ilan Pappe is renowned and is faithful to the facts. I have listened to Ilan in various forums and personally met the man, he always comes over as someone who knows his history, and a gentleman to boot.
In 2014 Ilan appeared on the BBC program ‘Hardtalk’ grilled by Stephen Sackur.
Well worth a look, as Peter’s guest this Friday, Benny Morris gets a few mentions.
You talk about repatriation in Germany and Poland, but those countries are not still using a brutal military occupation to keep their neighbours down, like Israel is doing.
I don’t think the return of Palestinian refugees from around the world is insurmountable.
To return to my question which you haven’t answered, have you read Ilan’s book, ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’?
Hi Sean, I watched the interview. I sure wish we had people in the US who were as knowledgeable about the subject matter when they interview people, alas the BBC is way ahead.
I must say Pappe does not come out looking good and in a real debate against someone like Benny Morris and others would be taken apart.
But more important...
There was a point in the interview when it was pointed out to him that he is alive today because his parents escaped to Palestine. His response was that they would rather have gone to the UK or the USA. SO would my father, who also escaped from Germany. The problem was no one wanted his parents or my parents. Palestine was the only exit.
Hi Ran, I must disagree with you again. I thought Ilan Pappe acquitted himself very well in the interview, in spite of the constant interruptions by Sackur. So bring on Benny Morris, Ilan would win any debate hands down.
The comments section on the video overwhelmingly were for Ilan, and against Sackur for his interruptions and bullying.
I do like the Hardtalk programs, but sometimes Sackur has his own agenda, which really isn’t very professional for a journalist who should be neutral.
I’m glad Ilan’s father didn’t go anywhere but Palestine, as we might have lost a courageous human being to the Palestinian cause.
Have you got any comments on ‘The Elephant in The Room’ petition?
Hi Sean, Pappe has his supporters and his detractors. You can check his entry in Wiki which lists and discusses both. One thing I can tell you, anyone who wants to do work on this particular topic must know Hebrew because all the records are kept in Israel. I would therefore trust the critics or supporters in Israel over others.
I am not yet an expert on the details of what happened in 1948 which is why I stick only to what I do know. I want you to note that his main critics are Israeli historians who have access to the data and their claim in general is that he fabricates and makes statements that are not supported by citations or data.
I do find it funny that you have personally decided that it would be just fine for Israel to admit a population almost as large as the one there already or as you say its not insurmountable. I believe you live in the UK. I note that the UK decided to leave the European market primarily because they did not want to continue to import people who were not from the UK. And I am sure that England could absorb quiet a few more people, it is maybe 10 times the size of Israel.
Ran, you could learn a lot about Ilan if you looked at the Hardtalk video, link in the last comments I made. The claim that he fabricates and makes statements that are not supported by citations or data is absolutely not true. I believe that Benny Morris could have been one of the historians that made that claim, and I will put a question to him about that claim in Friday’s zoom call.
Regarding Israel admitting a people that has shown an active dislike to Israel, I think the elephant in the room petition covers that question.
Rick--I entirely agree. Palestinians want elections throughout the W Bank, E Jerusalem and Gaza to choose a more legitimate leadership. Unfortunately for them, neither Abbas nor Israel nor the US nor probably many surrounding Arab countries agree
Here is the truth and nothing but the truth..
The Elephant in the Room
We, academics and other public figures from Israel/Palestine and abroad, call attention to the direct link between Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary and its illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinian people lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest. They face constant violence: this year alone, Israeli forces have killed over 190 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and demolished over 590 structures. Settler vigilantes burn, loot,and kill with impunity.
Without equal rights for all, whether in one state, two states, or in some other political framework, there is always a danger of dictatorship. There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid, as Israeli legal experts have described it. Indeed, the ultimate purpose of the judicial overhaul is to tighten restrictions on Gaza, deprive Palestinians of equal rights both beyond the Green Line and within it, annex more land, and ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population. The problems did not start with the current radical government: Jewish supremacism has been growing for years and was enshrined in law by the 2018 Nation State Law.
American Jews have long been at the forefront of social justice causes, from racial equality to abortion rights, but have paid insufficient attention to the elephant in the room: Israel’s long-standing occupation that, we repeat, has yielded a regime of apartheid. As Israel has grown more right-wing and come under the spell of the current government’s messianic, homophobic, and misogynistic agenda, young American Jews have grown more and more alienated from it. Meanwhile, American Jewish billionaire funders help support the Israeli far right.
In this moment of urgency and also possibility for change, we call on leaders of North American Jewry - foundation leaders, scholars, rabbis, educators - to
Support the Israeli protest movement, yet call on it to embrace equality for Jews and Palestinians within the Green Line and in the OPT.
Support human rights organizations which defend Palestinians and provide real-time information on the lived reality of occupation and apartheid.
Commit to overhaul educational norms and curricula for Jewish children and youth in order to provide a more honest appraisal of Israel’s past and present.
Demand from elected leaders in the United States that they help end the occupation, restrict American military aid from being used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and end Israeli impunity in the UN and other international organizations.
No more silence. The time to act is now.
Benny Morris, Professor Emeritus, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Meron Mendel, Professor, Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences
Yitzhak Hen, Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Ronen Segev, Professor, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Uri Mor, Associate Professor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
https://sites.google.com/view/israel-elephant-in-the-room/home?authuser=0
Per usual, uncomfortable and inconvenient truths. Thank you for the valuable historical perspective.
Spot on, yet again. I made this case months ago in this post:
https://epalestine.blogspot.com/2023/03/Previous-Israeli-Governments.html
I will have a bowl of popcorn waiting to hear Benny Morris in his own words explain why he signed that letter.
A new low for Beinart!!!! Now he very cleverly chastises Ben Gurion as worse than Bibi and his minions…. Next he will go against Mother Theresa and Abraham Lincoln! Is there no lengths that this tin-pot leftist will go in an effort to castigate Israel. Of course, this will play well with the pro Palestine professors that he loves to break bread with!
Palestinian civil society isn’t asking for a boycott, they aren’t even participating in one themselves. Norman Finkelstein pointed that out a decade ago. The BDS “call” was a bunch of unelected one man NGOs in Ramallah. They don’t represent the Palestinians any more than Abbas does.
At least before you comment like this, do your research! Well over 100 Palestinian civil orgs made the call together. And have you read the BDS statement yet? I doubt it. And btw, Palestinians are busy trying to survive a brutal occupation. WE need to do the work of BDS.
It’s not me saying that, it’s Norman Finkelstein, who pointed out that those so called “civil orgs” only exist on paper. They’re one guy sitting in an office who wasn’t chose by the Palestinian people to speak on their behalf. Palestinians don’t boycott Israel. Neither should we.
That is such bullshit!!!
What strikes me about the history and evolution of Israel-Palestinian relations is the persistence of fragmentation within the Palestinian political community, fragmentation that certainly has been encouraged by Israel. Without some sort of unity within the Palestinian community, I don't see how any of this will be mitigated, much less resolved.
I realize that we are living at a time when people like Biden can be addressed as radical socialists. So I suppose I should not be surprised when you suggest that Ben Gurion’s government was as right wing or more so than the current Israeli government.
All these things happen at a time when no one is interested in seeing history through the eyes of the people who lived those times or viewing the events in the context of the times they took place. We simply hoist our current cultural heritage onto the past. In such a world Lincoln can be called a racist and his statues can be removed.
Regarding Ben Gurion, Ben Gurion was a card-carrying member of the international Labor organizations. He was a socialist. Never mind, you accuse his government of starting apartheid. By stealing Palestinian land that was abandoned in the haste of Palestinians departing Israel. You in the process say they were expelled even though there is significant data that they were not all expelled. In fact we know that what precipitated the flight was the 70,000 one percenters who departed as they saw the state of Israel forming—in other words the Palestinian intelligentsia departed and with it the wealth and human capital to form a government for a Palestinian state.
I m not familiar with any country whose formation did not result in war that created winners and losers. Somehow only Israel must compensate the losers, even though there is a significant historical evidence that Israel did not start the war in 1948.
I will spare all here the what abouttism. Instead, I want to take you all back to 1945. At that time WWII ended in Europe. We know that some 6 million Jews were slaughtered: burned alive, gassed, shot and starved to death. Approximately 200,000 survived and were put into what was called “Displaced Persons Camps” DP camps for short. These people who somehow managed to survive were not allowed to go back to their homes in Europe and of course no country volunteered to take them back and America was not interested in more Jews.
Instead, Israeli agents arranged for them to escape and come to Palestine. They were not always successful. The famous Exodus ship was actually turned back and those aboard were ghoulishly sent back to Europe. But the Haganah nonetheless was able to illegally continue to bring over 150,000 survivors.
Let me now put us all in their shoes; these people who no one wanted and who just missed being slaughtered and who landed on new shores somehow were expected to do justice to other people who started a war?
You want the new country who managed to survive a war to somehow reserve the right for its enemies to return? Really who does that?
Ran, have you read Ilan Pappe’s book ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’
“ Renowned Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe's groundbreaking book revisits the formation of the State of Israel. Between 1947 and 1949, over 400 Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed, civilians were massacred and around a million men, women, and children were expelled from their homes at gunpoint.
Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing". Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East.”
Ilan Pappe is neither renowned nor faithful to the facts. Nonetheless many Palestinians were pushed out of Israel. What is patently untrue is that all or even most were pushed out..
Many people lost homes as a result of war. Not a single people have ever retrieved those homes. Nor are they expected to. Germany and Poland did not even repatriate the peoples they displaced inthe aftermath of WWII. The US did not restore homes or lands of the Japanese people they interned in WWII. And of course let' s not talk about native Americans.
I do find it odd that most of those countries who have not restored or even compensated these peoples seem to think the at Israel should. Israel has offered compensation and has from time-to-time p[rovided compensation. It is the Palestinians who insist on the return of the grand children and great grandchildren to the original homes that no longer even exist. The Palestinians are the only people on this planet that have been granted refugee status in perpetuity. Isn't that odd? Why them and not the other peoples?
I disagree, Ilan Pappe is renowned and is faithful to the facts. I have listened to Ilan in various forums and personally met the man, he always comes over as someone who knows his history, and a gentleman to boot.
In 2014 Ilan appeared on the BBC program ‘Hardtalk’ grilled by Stephen Sackur.
Well worth a look, as Peter’s guest this Friday, Benny Morris gets a few mentions.
https://youtu.be/4lsmFS75ed4
You talk about repatriation in Germany and Poland, but those countries are not still using a brutal military occupation to keep their neighbours down, like Israel is doing.
I don’t think the return of Palestinian refugees from around the world is insurmountable.
To return to my question which you haven’t answered, have you read Ilan’s book, ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’?
Hi Sean, I watched the interview. I sure wish we had people in the US who were as knowledgeable about the subject matter when they interview people, alas the BBC is way ahead.
I must say Pappe does not come out looking good and in a real debate against someone like Benny Morris and others would be taken apart.
But more important...
There was a point in the interview when it was pointed out to him that he is alive today because his parents escaped to Palestine. His response was that they would rather have gone to the UK or the USA. SO would my father, who also escaped from Germany. The problem was no one wanted his parents or my parents. Palestine was the only exit.
Hi Ran, I must disagree with you again. I thought Ilan Pappe acquitted himself very well in the interview, in spite of the constant interruptions by Sackur. So bring on Benny Morris, Ilan would win any debate hands down.
The comments section on the video overwhelmingly were for Ilan, and against Sackur for his interruptions and bullying.
I do like the Hardtalk programs, but sometimes Sackur has his own agenda, which really isn’t very professional for a journalist who should be neutral.
I’m glad Ilan’s father didn’t go anywhere but Palestine, as we might have lost a courageous human being to the Palestinian cause.
Have you got any comments on ‘The Elephant in The Room’ petition?
On the Elephant in the Room, I agree with it.
I do want to point out to you, that his father could not have gone anywhere else. This is why there was and still is a need for Israel.
Hi Sean, Pappe has his supporters and his detractors. You can check his entry in Wiki which lists and discusses both. One thing I can tell you, anyone who wants to do work on this particular topic must know Hebrew because all the records are kept in Israel. I would therefore trust the critics or supporters in Israel over others.
I am not yet an expert on the details of what happened in 1948 which is why I stick only to what I do know. I want you to note that his main critics are Israeli historians who have access to the data and their claim in general is that he fabricates and makes statements that are not supported by citations or data.
I do find it funny that you have personally decided that it would be just fine for Israel to admit a population almost as large as the one there already or as you say its not insurmountable. I believe you live in the UK. I note that the UK decided to leave the European market primarily because they did not want to continue to import people who were not from the UK. And I am sure that England could absorb quiet a few more people, it is maybe 10 times the size of Israel.
May I add Sean that all of Europe is doing its best to make sure that Muslims from the Middle East and Africans from Africa do not make it to shore.
The United States is up in arms about illegal immigration to the US.
But somehow they are all together about the need for Israel to admit a people that has shown an active dislike to Israel. Again odd. Don't you think?
Ran, you could learn a lot about Ilan if you looked at the Hardtalk video, link in the last comments I made. The claim that he fabricates and makes statements that are not supported by citations or data is absolutely not true. I believe that Benny Morris could have been one of the historians that made that claim, and I will put a question to him about that claim in Friday’s zoom call.
Regarding Israel admitting a people that has shown an active dislike to Israel, I think the elephant in the room petition covers that question.
https://sites.google.com/view/israel-elephant-in-the-room/home?authuser=0
I live in the Republic of Ireland, and like the UK and the EU, we are not perfect.
The Elephant In The Room.
To sign the petition, contact academics.speak.out@gmail.com.
Use your academic email account where possible, and include your academic affiliation.
For press inquiries, contact Dr. Lior Sternfeld at lbs18@psu.edu