ZIONISM= *ETHNIC CLEANSING *APARTHEID *OPPRESSION
October 26, 2024Speaking at an event in Berlin, Israeli historian and professor Ilan Pappe described the Zionist project as inherently oppressive towards Palestinians.
“The essence of the Zionist project is to oppress the Palestinians because they are still there,” he said.
He emphasised that ‘Israel’s military, security services, police, and government are continuously engaged in forcing millions of people to live a life they don’t want,’ which, he says, defines the state’s core identity.
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English Script:
Ilan Pappe: It’s not only an abstract idea. A Jewish state instead of the Palestinian. It’s a reality of dispossession of ethnic cleansing and an anti-colonial struggle by the Palestinians. It’s true that the Palestinian national movement in the 50s, the 60s and the 70s did not liberate even one square inch of Palestine. That is true, but we should remember that against this global alliance that decided that the Palestinians have no right for Palestine. Which is an incredible idea, if you think about it. Under that kind of alliance, the success of the liberation movement, was to say, no, we are here. We are still Palestinians. Yes, we don’t have Palestine, but we’re here. We’re not giving up, and after 1967, suddenly more people in the world wake up and say, wait a minute, now that it’s easier to know what’s going on because there’s television and there is the occupation of the West Bank and the occupation of the Gaza Strip, people begin to know a little bit more. How does this idea that this powerful global alliance support translates to the experience of the Palestinians? There was very little knowledge in the world. It was not anti-Palestinian. There was just not knowledge in the world, what does it mean to be a Palestinian in Palestine, from the beginning of the moment that the Zionist movement is in Palestine? Very few people understood it and knew it. But after 1967, and that’s what also was so interesting for me. Every year from 1967 until today, and you know it even yourself, even if you are younger, that every year that passes, there is more and more clear evidence that Israel oppresses the Palestinians, dispossesses them, violates every basic civil and human rights of the Palestinians. That the essence of the Zionist project is to oppress the Palestinians, because they’re still there, despite the ethnic-cleansing of 1948 and the Israeli army and secret service and the police and the government, whoever is there has to be busy every day in forcing millions of people to live a life they don’t want. This is this is what Israel is all about from a Palestinian perspective, I’m not saying that there are no other aspects for Israel. They did some brilliant things as well. No doubt. I don’t want this historical picture to be one dimensional, but from a Palestinian perspective, as the late Edward Said used to say, “Zionism was only bad news”. There was nothing positive in this ideology that says “Palestine is not for the Palestinians. It has to be a Jewish state”. But this was translated more and more into the oppression of the Palestinians. And as the Palestinian resistance grew, the oppression became more cruel, more, ruthless, more inhuman. What happened in the last year, shouldn’t have surprised anyone who saw how from 1948, you have these two parallel developments. The Palestinians become more and more resistance to the oppression. And the Israelis become more and more inhuman and cruel in their reaction, and that’s what we have seen in the last year.