Palestina: erresilientzia (3)

Resilience: the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

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Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1795855278824464703

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Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1795612361971343720

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PalMedia@PalBint

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1795930123578880031

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Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1795926598576652725

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Arnaud Bertrand@RnaudBertrand

Let’s take the example of Gaza because, given VDL’s unequivocal support of Israel to date, I’m sure she’d have loved to “pre-bunk” people’s minds with a lot of Israeli propaganda.

“Pre-bunking”, if it’s going to be effective, basically involves defining an official government-backed “truth” in order to define opposing viewpoints as “disinformation”.

It’s fundamentally different from debunking because debunking involves exposing the falseness of an information that’s existing out there, with proofs and rigor. For pre-bunking however, by definition there’s nothing to debunk because it’s a process that occurs before.

Which means it’s a fundamentally different approach to dealing with our understanding of the world we live in: rather than constructing it based on existing facts which we try to analyze and derive meaning from, she wants our understanding of the world to be based on an official narrative. And when facts do finally occur, to analyze them through the framework of that narrative. It essentially brings us back to a world before the enlightenment, where religion and myths defined our understanding of the world instead of approaching it with rationality. It would be the triumph of dogma vs seeking truth from facts.

Again, it’s quite easy to imagine how that’d work for Gaza if, much like Israeli society, we’d been plunged in the official Zionist narrative: we’d have reacted as they do, believing there are “no innocents” in the Gaza population…

The scary thing is that the West is already a big part of the way there: ideology and dogma are already way too prevalent in the way we approach the world, and it’s extremely damaging. The right direction is AWAY from that, and very much not to make it official and double down as this horrible woman is suggesting…

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1796049704293486800

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Middle East Eye@MiddleEastEye

Bideoa: https://x.com/i/status/1795843109118423383

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Jake Shields@jakeshieldsajj

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On 1948 | Ilan Pappe | Part I | 2018 interview

Bideoa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipT1dHU1ya4

What happened to the Palestinians when Israel declared its independence in 1948?

Was it ethnic cleansing? Chaos? Legitimate Jewish self-defense?

Prof. Ilan Pappe is perhaps the most contentious Israeli historian of this question.

Decidedly left-wing in his outlook, Pappe is both an historian, and a social activist. He’s perhaps most famous for his book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” in which he lays out a case that the war for the creation of Israel in 1948 is best understood as an ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinian population by primarily European Jews.

Unsurprisingly, Pappe’s scholarship is widely derided in Israel. Yet his work is often celebrated by many pro-Palestinian activists in the Middle East and abroad.

Pappe currently teaches history at the University of Exeter, in the UK.

This is part one of my two part interview with Pappe last summer, in Haifa.

Transkripzioa:

0:11

so i’m interested in reconstructing to the best of our knowledge what happened in 1948 and

0:17

what’s the most complete and true to life way of telling the narrative maybe you can articulate to me why it is

0:23

that you’ve decided to choose ethnic cleansing as the framework for understanding what happened in 1948 if

0:29

that’s a correct characterization yeah absolutely absolutely ethnic cleansing

0:34

is a common term when in a mixed in an area where you have a

0:40

mixed ethnic population one uh group uh gets through it

0:45

gets rid of the other group uh various means of doing that first of all

0:53

it begins with ideology with uh abstract ideas when

0:59

for instance in the case of the zionist movement you already envisage the mixed country

1:05

as being uh purely yours even we don’t even when you don’t have the capacity

1:12

to implement the dream and plenty of quotes from all the zionist leaders from top to

1:19

bottom this is the the wet dream of zionism to see palestine without palestinians so

1:26

there’s already an ethnic cleansing ideology not yet the operation but in ethnic cleansing

1:33

ideology and that’s very important to establish because we need to establish the fact

1:38

that uh there is an ideological will to ethnically cleanse a population right

1:45

so so my understanding is some of the contention that does exist because the quotes are the quotes and right you can’t really do much about the

1:52

fact that they exist right if you’re arguing a different narrative but part of the contention and correct me if i’m wrong

1:58

is that at least some streams of zionist thinking prior to 1947 1948 was that the achievement of a

2:05

jewish state in all of palestine could be achieved simply on a demographic basis if there

2:10

was mass immigration of jews to the land of israel so much so that it actually swamped out the local population which

2:16

would preclude the need to in scare quotes transfer essentially expel possibly with compensation

2:23

large numbers of arabs what do you say to that argument that in some in some sectors of zionist thinking

2:29

it’s so long as there were enough jews this wouldn’t be a problem and transfer wouldn’t be necessary again in scare quotes yeah

2:35

i’m not familiar with such quotes i must say i don’t think there are such quotes i

2:41

think that there are there is a twin argument for how to create the jewish

2:47

state without palestinians we will bring many many jews as possible and we’ll find ways of getting rid of

2:54

the arabs you cannot unpack it and say that they had uh one talk about bringing jews

3:02

and then they seemed to immoral and then you separate say oh these may be the different people or even if it’s the

3:08

same people that’s a different point of view no it’s a comprehensive point of view

3:13

immigration of jews to palestine and emigration of arabs out of palestine

3:18

is the very natural project of settler colonialism which

3:24

zionism is every settler colonialist movement wants to bring as much as it can

3:30

from the settler community and get rid of the natives it happened in the united states it happened in canada it happened in

3:35

australia and it happened in palestine so what would you say to those who argue that well there were many flavors so to

3:42

speak of zionism um you know from from the end of the 19th century leading up to the establishment of state of israel

3:48

made there was cultural zionism there was political zionism evolutionary zionism and at least half of the mapam if i

3:55

understand correctly not the mapai but the mapum was of an ilk that actually wanted to see a binational state and didn’t have

4:00

any incentive did ideologically didn’t have an incentive to expel arabs so if there were people like that in the zionist camp

4:07

is it a question of zionism writ large being inherently tied up with inextricably with transfer or expulsion

4:14

ethnic cleansing if you prefer or were there streams that one could have pulled apart and it’s just that the

4:19

political momentum and all the historical contingencies of the time pushed everything in a direction that

4:25

necessitated from their ideological perspective mass expulsion yeah well uh

4:31

center colonialism comes with some universal ideologies not only in the case of palestine also

4:37

in the case of the united states also in the case of australia in canada in argentina and brazil people

4:44

come with both revolutionary ideas of universal values

4:49

and a practical aim of creating a new homeland and the main obstacle are the native

4:56

population now for a while and that’s happening with the zionist movement as well for a while you hope you can

5:04

reconcile your universal ideology such as socialism if you want

5:09

bionationalism with the aim of creating a settler state

5:15

but once it becomes a practical project the universalism is slowly disappearing

5:23

there’s a great book by the ed sternhall a zionist scholar who shows exactly how

5:28

it happened there’s another great book by gershon shafir who shows how it already happened in 1914 that the universal ideology was

5:36

giving way for the settler colonial ideology just a little bit for us i know

5:42

yeah it what happens is you come with the idea of liberating workers whoever they are

5:50

but then you say i cannot create an arab jewish trade unions i mean that’s

5:55

that would be against the idea of hebrew labor of jewish labor which is why we created the zionist

6:01

movement so we will create a palestinian labor trade union

6:06

that we will control yes it’s not ethnic cleansing but the reason it’s not ethnic cleansing is because you’re only 10

6:12

of the population there’s a limit of how crazy they could have been with what they thought they could do or not do and maybe they even thought that

6:19

they have reconciled it they reconciled the wish to create the palestine without palestinians

6:25

and universal obligation to liberating workers wherever they are

6:30

and then it’s it’s it’s a it’s a time process as as the as their presence in palestine

6:38

continues and as the native population begins an anti-colonialist struggle

6:43

against them universal ideologies thrown out of the window mapam believed in by a national state it

6:51

is true but one has to explain why did the mapam soldiers in the palmach why did they play such a

6:58

crucial role a brutal role a criminal role in ethnically cleansing the palestinians

7:04

they they committed some of the worst crimes against the palestinians and after the villages were destroyed

7:12

they were the most greedy movement among the kibbutzi movement for taking over the palestinian villages

7:20

that were deserted just to be clear is the uh sort of the

7:25

the political party out of the this socialist movement uh of ashomeratsair

7:30

and we were talking about the left wing of the kibbutzi movement which you mentioned is supporting bio-nationalism we also had

7:36

another wing called which also had a bio-national ideologies

7:41

but these ideologies the more i’m thinking about them i don’t think people were not genuine they really wanted

7:47

to be both a colonialist and a universalist like the state of

7:53

israel it wishes to be both jewish and democratic and it’s impossible there cannot be a jewish democratic

7:59

state either there will be a jewish state which will be a racist apartheid ethnic state which is israel

8:04

today or it can be a democratic state but then it cannot be jewish it’s impossible this is an oxymoron the

8:12

designers move and invented a because maybe people thought they can reconcile

8:17

as i say universal ideologies with ethnic ideologies or more cynical ones and i suspect there

8:24

were some cynical people there as well said it’s good for commodifying zionism outside of

8:30

palestine as a project of socialism of communism liberalism and later on as democracy

8:37

but the essence of the zionist project is an essence of the settler colonialist

8:43

movement and no settler colonialist movement could tolerate the presence of native population there

8:49

isn’t one example in the world where settlers came from europe with

8:54

a an idea that the natives can stay the best they could hope for was south

9:00

africa they can stay but under a segregative uh system called apartheid

9:06

so if we’re making the comparison to other settler colonial projects specifically where there was let’s say a metropole that they

9:12

that they emigrated oh no no you’re wrong i’m sorry i’m stopping you settler colonialism has no metropole you’re

9:17

totally wrong there classical colonial movements have metropole settler colonial movements

9:23

work against the metropole eventually they are assisted sometimes when metropolitan zionist movement needed britain but they

9:30

are not serving the metropole on the contrary set the colonialists in the united states worked against the metropole

9:36

the central colonialists in australia worked against the metropole the set of colonialists in south africa

9:42

worked against the metropole no no there’s no metropole that’s where the that’s why zionism

9:48

zionist scholars try to say oh there was no metropol no no but that’s totally wrong it’s not

9:54

a cli it didn’t say this is a classical colonialist movement it’s a settler colorless movement so let me define for

9:59

you settle colonism so that you don’t make this mistake again cell colonism is a movement of people

10:06

who are persecuted in europe for whatever reasons economic cultural

10:11

religious throughout the centuries and they run away from europe with a one-way ticket they

10:18

don’t want to go back to europe so this would include religious minorities in france absolutely the huguenots

10:24

the protestants later on absolutely people who were chased out of britain and they come and

10:30

they want not only to create a new home they want to create a new homeland and the main obstacle is the fact that

10:35

there is someone else there so they work according to what the great scholar of settler colonialism patrick

10:41

woolf called the logic of the annihilation of the native now you could annihilate the native

10:47

physically as we know people did or you can annihilate the native by expelling him

10:53

or her or by segregating the system i mean there are various

10:59

means of of the various interpretations of annihilation right so for instance so i’m i’m canadian and and

11:05

uh what we’ve finally come to to recognize to some degree historically

11:10

is that there was a strong impetus to um not not physically eradicate the native

11:17

population because so much of that had already been done essentially by uh by microbes

11:23

wittingly or otherwise right but to uh to quote unquote kill the native save the

11:28

child so there was a cultural annihilation and it’s an attempt to fully integrate these this quote-unquote native

11:34

population into whatever it was that the settler colonials saw as you know as progress as the future of

11:41

the society so in that case um within this this umbrella of annihilation are you including

11:47

i assume efforts to at least culturally assimilate or culturally absorb

11:53

the one-time native population into oh yes but zionism was too racist for doing that

11:59

they even had a problem of what to do with the jews who came from the arab countries in 1950 they were not sure

12:04

they wanted to assimilate them either they had to bring them over because the jews from the united states and europe

12:10

did not come jews the ashkenazi jews were lost after i mean

12:16

they lost great in great numbers were killed by the nazis so they decided to bring reluctantly the

12:23

jews from the arab countries and they hoped that they could de-arabize them one should say

12:29

quite successfully that this this human engineering worked

12:34

so this is an interesting point because i think what some people would say is a dis analogy between the settler colonial

12:40

paradigm and zionism is precisely that second stage in the sense that one could make this

12:45

argument from a devil’s advocate perspective if you if you step back like let’s say about a decade or so

12:50

and you take the the entire context into into focus you could say that what happened was

12:56

actually more akin to a population exchange such as you saw in uh in turkey and

13:01

greece after the you know the deconstruction of the ottoman empire or even in india and pakistan

13:07

because you had an approximately equal number of jews from arab countries or jews from

13:13

muslim countries leave their their native homelands and emigrate to israel within a 10 to 15 year period

13:21

after the palestinians themselves have been expelled so from that perspective if that’s how you choose to frame it and

13:26

of course the framing is a choice but if that’s how you choose to to create the bounds of your framework

13:33

you could say well this was a population exchange what do you as a as a person who who is very committed to articulating

13:39

this as a set of colonies project how do you how do you reconcile that argument with uh with your friends it’s

13:45

a ridiculous argument to be honest uh first of all not one palestinian came

13:52

from uh not not the i’m sorry iraqis egyptian palestinian series are not the

13:58

same people so i can’t i can’t see the what what has the movement of jews from iraq has to do

14:05

with the expulsions of the palestinians from palestine what’s the connection the jews of iraq did not belong to

14:12

to palestine secondly apart from the case of iraq where there was really

14:17

expulsion in by the way triggered by subversive actions by the zionist movement

14:24

apart from that jews jews chose to immigrate to palestine they wanted to

14:30

come to palestine that’s the whole idea of zionism palestinians did not want to leave pakistan so it’s it’s a different

14:36

analytical framework one is ethnic cleansing the other is immigration and it’s not

14:43

the same thing so so is your argument then the the jewish communities in these various countries be the iraq

14:49

um morocco uh the remnants of the ottoman empire and turkey and elsewhere syria elsewhere

14:54

uh they had they had basically freedom of choice they could say okay i’ll stay it’s relatively safe for

15:00

me i don’t see a problem for my future here even if it was not safe for them even if it was not safe to them

15:05

what’s the connection it was not safe for christians to be in iraq let’s say how is it connected to

15:13

the expulsion of the palestinians i mean you have to be a zionist to accept this you have to be a zionist

15:19

to say that the jews in iraq belong to palestine but then you get into trouble

15:24

if the jews in iraq belong to palestine you as a zionist movement wants you want the iraqi government to

15:31

expel the jews in fact you worked very hard to convince the iraqi government to expel the jews

15:36

by what you mean there if i understand correctly there were literal political programs uh opaque and and non-opaque to

15:44

to encourage the jewish communities in these areas but that’s that ism there’s nothing wrong with it from

15:50

azani’s point of view we want the jews that’s why zionism anti-semitism is so much in common

15:55

even zionism and nazism had something in common in the early 1930s they have one common uh ideology to get

16:03

the jews out from wherever they are and bring them to palestine now in the case of iraq the mossad agents planted bombs

16:09

in iraqi synagogues in order to make sure that the iraqi jews would feel even more unsafe they already felt

16:16

because of the 48th war and that’s a matter of settled history yeah there’s no there’s no there’s no

16:22

argument again do you know any good sources for actually yeah about it and and

16:28

uh someone called malka for his family name i forgot his first name uh they’re very proud of it they’re very

16:35

proud of it they being a massage or agents who worked on it it was not easy to con they would tell

16:41

you it was not easy to convince the moroccan jews to come to to to israel in fact the elite went to

16:47

france and canada yes if i understand correctly morocco was a was quite a different uh

16:53

was a different situation you know algeria was a different situation syria and lebanon were a different situation egypt was a different

17:00

situation until 56 egyptian jews did not want to to

17:05

leave egypt and when and when they had to make the choice that nasser put to them are you zionists or

17:12

jews and they could not answer that question they got into trouble with nasr

17:17

and there are egyptian jewish diasporas all over the world in fact there is an

17:23

egyptian jewish diaspora in israel so it’s a diaspora it’s not the same

17:28

it’s it’s the there is no dialectical connection there it’s not an exchange of population

17:35

it’s uh it’s one hand is the central colonialist movement that

17:40

ethnically cleans the native population on the other you have immigration

17:45

sometimes because of ideology sometimes because of

17:51

economic issues cultural issues people immigrate you know one of the best way of showing how

17:58

absurd this comparison is is i can tell you every palestinian in the world

18:04

supports the right of iraqi jews to return to iraq not one iraqi jew supports the rights of

18:09

the palestinians to return to palestine and that shows you that this is the end of the debate there’s nothing to talk

18:15

about here it’s two different stories and of course people can ask for compensation from the iraqi

18:20

government people should go back to morocco if they want to this is nothing palestinians want to go back to

18:27

palestine in fact the international community recognizes the right of return of course international community would recognize

18:33

the rights of iraqi jews to go back to iraq i can assure you the present iraqi government would love

18:39

the iraqi jews to come back so we we see that this is these are two

18:45

discrete issues that have nothing in common apart from within the israeli propaganda of

18:50

course you wanted to to find a moral argumentation for the expulsion of the

18:56

palestinians i don’t think anyone serious in the world is taking it anyone in vortex

19:02

it seriously people know that the palestinians are not coming back

19:07

because of israeli power not because of problems with international law

19:15

or because there is a you know there was a deal with the arab world no the only reason the right to return

19:21

is not implemented is because israel is powerful enough to prevent it right

19:26

which is a strong again this analogy to what others would argue you know parallels population exchanges

19:33

in other parts of the world in the wake of uh crumbling british empire you’re saying this is this is a clear distinction

19:38

a clear distinction uh if all the palestinians went to a palestine

19:43

they created the palestine and all the jews went to in israel uh and they were all like in

19:50

india we’re all living there for hundreds of years then i would find the parallel but who

19:55

were the jews in 1948 in palestine they were one third of the population

20:01

the vast majority of them arrived three years earlier three years earlier how can you compare

20:09

it to the muslims and hindus who lived for millennia in in the subcontinent of india

20:17

i i you know the mosquitoes and uh and helicopters both fly but it’s still

20:24

they’re still not the same you know they’re still not the same having discussed that maybe we can move on to your understanding of

20:30

the processes that occurred in 1947 1948 and what actually led to

20:37

the palestinian refugee crisis essentially right um because the the nitty gritty the

20:42

details of the intentionality involved in different stages and the the programmatic nature

20:47

or lack thereof i think is is really that’s my understanding is where a lot of the historical contention

20:53

in serious historic history historiography lies today so how how would you articulate it to uh to

20:58

a lay public by the way just a general remark i don’t agree with you i think that

21:03

the main debate used to be about facts i think the debate now is about the moral interpretation of facts but

21:11

that’s putting it aside and and i think what really makes the operation in 48

21:18

and ethnic cleansing even without agreeing on the nitty-gritty whether it was intentional systematic is not

21:24

is the fact that israel did not allow the palestinians to return which is an established fact it’s an official israeli policy in

21:31

effect is it not is it not they don’t allow them to return unless it’s within the confines of or within

21:38

the rubric of a comprehensive piece it doesn’t matter it comes to the international law

21:44

the palestinians in january 49 had the right to return you could not condition it by peace

21:50

nobody did in fact the united states imposed sanctions on israel throughout 1949 for not allowing their

21:57

palestinian refugees to return unfortunately american policy changed later but anyway

22:02

well let’s go to the what you call the nitty-gritty um i think the the crucial moment is

22:08

february 1947 when britain decides to leave palestine

22:13

as i said there was already an ideology of ethnic lensing uh very much part of the zionist

22:19

ideology but there was no capacity to implement it and there was no historical opportunity

22:26

to implement it february 47 provided that opportunity

22:31

i don’t think in february 47 ladies they were clear on what they want to do with the palestinian population

22:38

they first reacted to uh the new situation by trying

22:44

to take over governmental uh you know centers of power

22:52

create an infrastructure for the state i don’t think much was debated about the fate of the

22:57

palestinian population at that moment they had more important fish to try and just to be clear so that moment was

23:03

the united nations no no no it’s before it’s a february 47 britain tells uh everyone in that

23:11

it does not going to it’s not going to stay in palestine and it transfers the issue to the united

23:16

nations we don’t know yet what the united nations is going to do right britain has now officially ended

23:22

very interesting the palestinian leadership doesn’t do anything with this announcement they think it doesn’t matter they are

23:29

sure that the united nations would do with palestine what it did with iraq

23:34

well what’s what’s what palestinian leadership was there to speak of it oh there was there was an arab higher

23:40

committee most of its members were in exile but they still met in there were local national committees

23:47

uh there was strong connection between the palestinian leadership and the arab league

23:53

so they had to they digested the news by saying that probably the united nation

23:58

would apply the same principle applied in other mandatory situations where the majority would

24:04

decide what would be the nature of the state the zionist movement understood that if

24:09

you allow the majority to decide the nature of the state there will be no jewish state but

24:14

as i say i don’t think immediately they dealt with it i think that only after the united

24:20

nation partition plan was adopted in november 1947 and it was clear that

24:26

the arab world and the palestinians are not going to accept it then it and i think the documents also

24:32

show it i think that the crucial moment is the 29th of november of 1947 when the leadership of the zionist

24:39

movement understands it has an historical opportunity because of the arab rejection

24:45

of the petition plan and because the petition plan gives international legitimacy

24:51

to the jewish state although they hate as ben guron stated very clearly even openly not just in secret documents

24:57

he stated we can never have a viable jewish state within what the united nation accorded to us

25:04

and the reason was that according to the united nations the part that was accorded to the jewish state had an equal number of jews and

25:11

palestinians in it yeah and also something like like fifty one fourteen percent

25:16

and also he said the the borders are not viable but but he said doesn’t matter because the palestinians in the arab world rejected

25:23

it what will determine he says very clearly we have explicit written documents oh yeah yeah but as i said this was not even secret

25:30

documents these are his speeches in front of mapai the major party in which he says

25:36

we will need to have at least a population where we are 80 percent of

25:42

the population not 60 40 not 40 40 80 and we need 80 percent of the of of the

25:49

land if we want to have a viable state he’s very clear about it 80 percent of the land being 80 percent

25:54

of mandatory which is very interesting because the zionist movement gave the united nation

26:01

when they they started their deliberations they gave them a map and in the map

26:07

they uh offered that the jewish state would be 80 of palestine which is israel today without the west

26:12

bank very interesting the united nations thought there was too much for forgive the one-third of the

26:18

population most of them immigrants who came few years before to give them 80 was a bit too even they thought it was a

26:24

bit too much so they offered them half of the more or less half of the of of the country but i think

26:29

you know let’s say the first of december uh and and what i what i think the

26:35

documents show that two things they show first of all that there is a small group

26:41

of people who decide to take upon themselves the decision-making process on the fate of the palestinians

26:48

they’re very secretive they don’t share their ideas with others they meet quite often led by david

26:54

bengurion they are called the vardamia etc the consultancy

26:59

it’s an ad hoc move a group it is not established like you know zhanis were

27:05

very organized they had the elections and so on this is not nobody’s elected and so on nonetheless these meetings are being

27:11

documented they are being documented although they are not minuted all the time because it was secret i mean that’s the nature

27:18

of secret meetings every now and then you can go and find maybe there are you know my friend gadil ghazi says i think he’s

27:24

right we’ve only been shown two percent of the documents of 48. only two percent do we know that that’s

27:30

like just in terms of actual volume that’s oh yeah yeah it’s absolutely accurate only two percent

27:35

so i don’t know maybe there are minutes for all this meeting i had to reconstruct them through ben gurion’s diary

27:41

through interviews with people through you know actions that had orders that i assumed

27:47

were decided by the consultancy and so on there is no file organized file of the

27:54

consultancy but it’s very but there’s enough material to see how the thinking develops there is

28:01

palestinian rejection of the partition plan there are even palestinian actions against the petition

28:08

plan attacks on jewish transport attacks on jewish

28:13

settlements demonstrations petition although they peter out this very interesting uh remark by one

28:20

of ben gurion’s advisers who says they peter out too quickly we need them to to show more resistance in a way

28:27

they’re sort of worried about it and why where they’re worried and that’s the second thing that happens they suddenly they see something which

28:33

will become part of the israeli dna if you want to feel good with something bad you do to the palestinians you need

28:40

a pretext and the palestinians at first provided the pretext they attacked the jewish

28:45

settlement they murdered a jewish bypasser so you can retaliate

28:51

and at first the retaliation is not ethnic cleansing it’s a tit-for-tat but then comes

28:58

two things happen the palestinian resistance peters out there’s not much to react against or retaliate

29:04

and secondly you suddenly see that what is described as retaliation becomes more

29:11

orientated towards uh chasing people out of their villages

29:16

uh in but it takes a while and i describe it in my book the ethnic cleansing in palestine it takes a year for it to gel

29:24

as a strategy by february 1948 it’s already a strategy and then it

29:31

makes its way into what is called plan d on the 10th of march 1948

29:37

and more importantly it makes its way to what is called the orders of plan d or

29:43

status b matsav dalit which is thousands and thousands of orders that were sent to the people uh to the

29:51

troops on the field so that’s kind of a trajectory and those and those orders themselves

29:56

are documented there are documents again we we have many of them we don’t all all of them we have enough right so so my

30:04

understanding is it is at one point of contention even within the new historian cadre is the interpretation of planned

30:10

dalet right of um whether it says this is how we’re going to um in a generous interpretation

30:19

this is how we’re going to defend the nation state against the incoming arab armies and to do so we

30:25

have to make sure that we don’t have a fifth column at our rear versus aha now is our chance this is how

30:31

we’re going to expel the palestinian population so so what can you do i think plan d is

30:36

is straightforward it’s straightforward it says uh the palestinian villages and towns

30:44

have two options either to surrender or to be kicked out and then comes the question why did

30:52

people who surrender also were kicked out but were they all kicked out not all but

30:57

many of them many of them we will come back to the question why did not kicked out but although the palestinians and haifa

31:04

were kicked out all the palestinians of jaffa were kicked out all the palestinians all urban palestine

31:10

was ethnically cleansed by the 1st of may 1948 and this was a direct implementation of

31:16

plan d i think part of the bone of contention is that people focus on the document that they have

31:22

which is called plan d which is the political document i would i did i said plenty is not just this document

31:28

which said you know as you say we will defend ourselves against invading arab armies

31:34

and we are just talking about the area which is between us and the arab armies and there will do that in that but if

31:40

you look at what i call matsav the orders they were given to the brigades and the

31:47

brigades to the battalions and the companies and these weren’t just spoken orders these are no no these are written documents uh you

31:54

can see that the same method that plan d suggests for applying to the to the

32:02

villages and towns in what was called the tsuata bitcoin in this security zone are applied to every

32:09

village and neighborhood in palestine every village every village neighborhood in fact you

32:15

could easily say that um it is very interesting the the one one uh brigade i really looked at uh

32:24

really focused is alexandroni brigade where i really could find uh you know the orders

32:31

it does say in the end of every order it says basically what to do with the population after you

32:37

occupy the village of the neighborhood is up to you disappeared in every basically it’s up to you

32:43

i interviewed a lot of officers and so on they said we understood that as kick them out some of them it’s true

32:51

some of them in in few cases uh decided to let them be it’s true

32:57

so there was some variegation but people understood people understood

33:04

uh what was uh to be done so the understanding was it was a wink-wink situation or

33:10

it was uh we’ll leave this to your discretion no area cleansing operation in the history is uh as you can see in

33:16

the ethnic lensing operation ethnic cleansing definition the state department

33:21

definition they even in the worst case of ethnic lesson which we had in the 1990s

33:26

in serbia there were no direct orders like that you create an atmosphere the soldiers

33:33

know what they have to do that’s what oral history is as important as the documents

33:39

you know every israeli trooper i uh interview said to me come on are you

33:45

joking we knew what we had to do you can see by the way you go to the zahrat website they have

33:51

30 to 50 interviews with israeli soldiers from 48 who say to the camera we knew exactly

33:58

what was expected of us are these some of the people that ended up ended up turning around and suing after they had been

34:04

after they had seen themselves on film essentially and decided wait a minute only one of them only one one individual one individual

34:10

kind gory because he’s uh and and fish because both of them are national heroes and so they had second

34:16

thoughts but most of them but you know i interviewed them even before they wrote

34:24

the orders you had three kinds of orders if you want there were villa first of all let’s say

34:31

about urban palestine it was clear that urban palestine had to be cleansed there there the soldier the uh commanders were

34:39

not saying it’s up to for your discretion no you had to kick this people out he was preferred to have a quiet uh

34:47

transfer that is true they like the idea of the people of haifa would leave voluntarily so so haifa specifically is

34:55

confusing for me i’m trying to wrap my head around this because what i’ve heard is that the the mayor of haifa the jewish mayor of haife at the

35:00

time specifically requested of the local arab population to stay he did he was not part of the

35:07

leadership right and the arab high committee in this particular instance actually suggested people leave no

35:15

what happened was that uh the the arab you have to remember this is 21st

35:20

22nd of april this is after uh delirious scene uh after already tiberius is being cleansed

35:27

and based on and and so there is a sense among the leadership that uh uh

35:34

an organized eviction is better but it’s eviction they didn’t want to leave you describe it as if they wanted to to

35:42

go in on a picnic and leave the town they they they they they decided they can save the

35:48

people with an organized eviction that is true organized from the zionist side no no

35:53

with the british because the british are responsible for law and order and the british are criminals they should have said to the zionist movement

35:59

we are responsible for law and order not one arab is going to live here but they didn’t they first they

36:05

facilitated negotiations between the jewish forces and the jews and the arab leaders and

36:11

arab leaders said okay we’ll have an organized eviction so people were told to come to the harbor the area of the harbor

36:18

on the 22nd of april and then they were bombarded from above to make sure that they leave

36:27

yeah but at the same time correct me if i’m wrong is it at the same time that the mayor is making pleas to the

36:33

arab community yeah yeah i mean this is what i’m saying the the systematic ethnic cleansing

36:40

was not organized by the mayor of haifa who had very good connections with the jews with the palestinians of

36:47

course he was not he was a zionist didn’t want to see the palestinian leave i believe he was

36:52

genuine in this but the commander of the uh you know the carmeli brigade

36:59

uh that was uh ethnically cleansing haifa had no wish for the palestinians to

37:04

leave we have their orders they had orders to kick people out of haitha and the orders are all the arabs

37:10

everyone out of the city yeah of course to empty the city to empty the city

37:16

now they came this moment which happens you know it happened in ex yugoslavia as well the leaders of the community say let’s

37:23

let’s do it in an organized way you know let’s let’s take them out because

37:29

they cannot stay something terrible would happen to them and while they are organizing this

37:35

eviction they are being bombardment bombarded from uh from above so it’s a

37:40

concern for their safety or it’s a concern for being viewed retroactively as as being complicit in

37:46

the process like what’s what’s the incentive from from the the side of the arab leadership to facilitate to save the population

37:54

remember deriving is in the background jews massacre palestinians there are

37:59

rumors that they’re raping women uh it doesn’t matter by the way whether they were substantiated or not

38:04

and the intelligence as benny morris showed in his book to his credit the intelligence unit of the haganah

38:10

spread these rumors all the time of what would happen to you uh so yeah

38:15

there’s fear great great fear great great fear and you remember they they thought that

38:21

they will evict them to akka which is 15 minutes drive from haifa and that they could

38:27

come back they didn’t think that they were evicting them forever

38:33

they thought there’s fighting it doesn’t go well the jews are quite

38:38

barbaric let’s take them out the idea was for this is why people left things as they

38:45

were nobody really packed and and the reason was they thought they could come back

38:52

and in fact the in united nations the united states britain wanted the people of haifa to

38:59

come back from makkah they told the israelis why are you okay there’s a you know in the first truth

39:04

june 9th of june that’s the truth ben adot is here the united nations media he says to the

39:10

israelis okay the people of haifa should come back just to be clear bernadotte he was he

39:15

was a swede who actually saved jewish refuge yeah he was in europe he was the president of the um

39:21

of the international uh red cross in sweden who saved a lot of jews in the

39:26

holocaust and he was appointed to the united nations mediator and he arrives in palestine on 20th of

39:31

may 48th and he says okay these people left

39:36

he didn’t blame the israelis for the expulsion of the people of haifa or

39:42

jaffa he said remember when he arrives all the cities are emptied already so he says let these people go

39:50

back to jaffa let these people go back to haifa and let’s stop this madness for him it

39:56

was madness why these two communities should fight each other and the israeli position is very clear

40:03

anybody who left is not going to come back it’s not going to come back that’s the documented position that’s undocumented

40:09

and they were very proud of it they didn’t hide it uh and it didn’t matter whether you left

40:16

voluntarily so to speak maybe namely you left because you were afraid or you left because someone put you on

40:21

the lorry and kicked you out so this is ethnic cleansing you have to look not on the nitty-gritty

40:28

you have to look at the big picture now of course hundreds of thousands of soldiers were

40:34

involved in it and they act as they as they are now and hundreds of thousands of soldiers

40:40

are uh busy uh policing palestinians in the west bank some soldiers are more moral some are

40:48

more barbaric the big picture is not the individual soldier who does something

40:53

differently the big picture is the ideology the the overall impression you get from

41:01

the overall commands and the behavior on the ground behavior

41:07

on the ground um i’ll give you an example

41:13

the commander who occupied safad felt spitty for 100 elderly people

41:20

and he allowed them to stay there was 80 years and over ben gurion

41:27

in his diary and i quoted in my book the ethnic cleansing writes an angry letter to the commander

41:34

of safad why did you leave these 100 people in safat we won’t suffer to be totally

41:40

empty of any arabs that’s an example

41:46

haifa you know a few thousand palestinians were left in haifa yes so this is partly why i’m so confused about haifa business no no

41:52

a few thousand out of seventy five thousand is ethnic lensing five thousand out of seventy five thousand seventy thousand were kicked

41:59

out now kicking out for me again is also not allowing you to come back

42:05

it’s very important if i am afraid in tel aviv because i think iraq is going

42:11

to bomb tel aviv in 1991 and i go to a lot if you don’t allow me to go back to my flat to tel

42:17

aviv you’ve kicked me out of my flat it doesn’t matter that i ran away because i didn’t want to be killed

42:23

it seems like a reason that’s ethnic cleansing ethnic cleansing is the smoking gun i agree there’s no

42:30

no ethnic cleansing in the world including by the way no genocide there is no smoking gun for the nazi decision

42:37

to to to exterminate the jews uh there’s no smoking gun and by by smoking gun you mean actual doctor

42:43

there’s a document that says there are six 12 million jews in the world we will kill six million of them

42:50

no there’s no smoking gun but the smoking gown for the israeli criminality

42:56

is the decision not to allow them to return because that nobody can argue about it

43:01

you can argue morally about it whether israel had the right i think there are small smoking guns for

43:07

uh decisions on localities of expulsion and i think there is a very

43:14

for me very convincing case to be made for a master plan systematic plan and so

43:20

on but you need like every good historian you don’t get one document it’s a puzzle you have to recreate the

43:28

puzzle and as historians we are entitled to argue about whether i did the puzzle correctly or not correctly i

43:35

don’t mind i don’t mind people arguing with me but i think

43:42

anyone who would say today in 2017 israel did not kick out the palestinians out of palestine

43:47

would be ridiculous exactly how he did it i think it’s up to us the professional historians to argue with

43:53

each other that’s okay i’ve i’ve for me i have a very clear view of what happened

43:59

i had all the criticism against what i did i’m still very strongly convinced that the small

44:06

group of zionist leaders and military commanders from february 48 not before february 48 thought that the

44:14

arab reaction to the petition plan provided the pretext and that’s why already in february 48

44:21

they expel three villages around caesarea what is kesaria today under the eyes of the british under the

44:27

eyes of the international community where the arab world is not doing anything they’re very encouraged by their operation in february that’s

44:33

february 48 and i think what really matters is april 48 the urban the the destruction of the

44:41

urban um space i don’t have quotes with me but in in

44:48

and i didn’t bring i didn’t find this is a quote i found after i published the ethnic cleansing so i’m publishing i’m 30 i’m inserting

44:55

that quote into a new edition that i hope to to bring because since lappan gave me that quote

45:01

after i published the book since lapland is also one of the new historians and he interviewed ben gurion and ben

45:08

gurion says to him he personally interviewed ben gurion before he passed away oh yeah uh before he passed away and he brings

45:14

a quote in his book the birth of israel where magorian says to him of course we

45:20

had to destroy the cities of palestine they were the brain of the palestinians you needed and it

45:28

didn’t we we did it by destroying their economic infrastructure

45:33

uh the villages around them and by having a proper urban warfare

45:39

and that’s how we something like that again i don’t want to this is this is in reference to april may 14th no no april may

45:47

and it can be found in the book by sinha flappan the birth of israel i think it’s even a quote that opens

45:54

one’s of the chapter i may be wrong there and we can check it later on um

46:00

that’s that’s almost a smoking gun quote if you want but even without it even without it i think um when you go

46:07

to the orders of plan d again i’m saying the orders of plan d uh it’s very clear that you attack the

46:14

villages around the cities then you attack the cities themselves

46:20

and you cause the population to flee so given that how does one account for

46:26

the fact that today’s israel within 48 borders

46:32

uh still has a population of at least 20 percent arab yep yeah well ethnic cleansing is not a

46:39

complete success it was not bad one million in the in the

46:45

area that became the jewish state one million palestinians lost became

46:51

refugees almost one million uh a small we don’t i don’t remember

46:56

their numbers but i think one hundred sixty thousand to two hundred thousand remained so that’s ethnic lens

47:02

percentage-wise do you know twenty percent of the palestinians who

47:07

lived within what became the jewish state were not expelled 80 percent were expelled 20 percent were kept we have today the

47:14

same percentage 20 percent of the parents of the population of israel are palestinians so the percentage

47:20

has not changed it’s not changed it’s the same percentage um the natural growth

47:28

was much triple than the one in the jewish side so that explains the the growth in population

47:34

israel became also very greedy in 49 it annexed what the era an area was part

47:41

of the west bank and voluntarily incorporated the large

47:46

number of palestinians that increased the number of the palestinian minority as you know the second biggest palestinian concentration

47:53

in israel today is what they are uh this uh valley that connects the sea

47:58

with the eastern valleys of palestine um uh so they you know intentionally that

48:04

that’s exclusive to the triangle or that’s that’s that’s together it’s the same area the same

48:10

area which is not part of israel in january 49. it only became part of israel in june 1914

48:17

so the same opportunity captured it but they couldn’t engage in successful ethnic ethnic cleansing they

48:22

did diane was responsible for expelling quite a lot of people from those areas

48:27

between 48 and 67 but not enough from his perspective he was not allowed

48:33

to to you cannot do the same in 49 that you did in 48

48:38

just because of the the fog of war is no it has lifted exactly exactly so and do you know just off hand

48:44

i’m genuinely unaware how that how those numbers compare to let’s say the what what we now call the ethnic

48:49

cleansing uh that occurred in yugoslavia formed yugoslavia no percentages do we know

48:54

i i don’t know i haven’t checked it to be honest i don’t know but for me getting rid of 80 of the population is

49:01

is massive it’s huge it’s a crime and was there a discernible pattern in

49:06

the sense that in today’s israel and palestine you see uh a much larger percentage of the

49:13

population of let’s say the galil so every everywhere from the north of the west bank northwards um the percentage of arabs

49:20

that remain there relative to the jewish population is much higher than in the south so do we have a historical explanation

49:26

we do the jewish forces reached the galilee in the end of 48 and they were tired they were

49:33

exhausted the palestinians already knew what awaited them so they put a fight that’s the only

49:40

places where palestinians really fought against the expulsion it was much harder to expel them in the galilee than it was

49:46

in other parts you’re saying in in places like um like lid down romley they didn’t see it coming uh no the same

49:52

thing that rumble is in another story they relied on the arab legion you know the

49:58

if the arab region would have stayed in linden rumbly they would they would be a bloody battle but they

50:05

decided to withdraw and left the population unarmed

50:10

so they couldn’t do much so they thought the arab legion would defend them and their obligation they left in one

50:16

day the next day they were occupied and expelled uh by the orders of rabin who said ben gurion

50:22

you remember the famous movement with a hand that ben gurion did to rabin just kicked them up

50:29

galilee they came later so so is it that the populations of galilee had learned their lesson from

50:34

the from the rumors they learned the lessons they had a close proximity to

50:42

lebanese villages so people from lebanon came and helped them it was much easier literally they

50:48

literally came across to help them yeah yeah you remember there was no border right there was no border this is the

50:55

last stronghold of the arab the salvation army of kauti he made the final stance

51:02

it was tougher it was it was ethnic cleansing it was tougher and i think that’s one of

51:08

the reasons that in operation iran the operation that closes the war in the in the north october 48

51:14

some of the worst atrocities were committed by the jewish soldiers including rape killing of pregnant women

51:21

and massacring people by tying them up one to another and throwing them into

51:27

into into uh pits uh because of a sense of desperation at

51:32

that point yeah because they lost people well as nuclear cleansing they lost people so it was revenge

51:38

it was revenge in safsaf in sasa uh in in zetune and and these by the way

51:45

are again morris to his credit morris does not believe in anything but israeli

51:51

documents which i think is ridiculous i think israelis are big liars and i wouldn’t trust the documents

51:56

more than i trust the oral history of the palestinians but then never mind to his credit wherever the israeli

52:02

documents admitted the massacre he registered it and the massacres of october 48

52:09

shocked quite a lot of people especially in mapam we mentioned them before and that’s why he could find i remember

52:15

when maurice worked in his book the israeli military archive was still close to him so he went to the mapam archive where

52:22

soldiers close associated with mapam had their administers close to mapam

52:28

had their memoirs diaries and so on and used them and they really pressured ben gurion to

52:34

investigate the atrocities done in in hiram in

52:42

operation kiram and they were very graphic in their description of what the

52:47

soldiers did uh which is really horrific uh and the reason they did it was because they

52:53

they encountered uh more fierce resistance more physical resistance this is also

52:59

one of the only places where the israelis used extensively uh the airplanes to to bomb barred

53:06

palestinian villages to cause people to flee one of the persons was the famous a b

53:11

nathan who bombarded a village that survived is still with us

53:17

today israelis could not get rid of them so they allow them to

53:23

to stay so that’s just there really was this this time and uh and logistical pressure

53:29

to accomplish this as quickly as possible this is a from your perspective as quickly as possible but in the course of that because people

53:36

had clued in there it was harder to do it effectively so you saw

53:41

you saw less effective ethnic cleansing and more retribution is that is that a fair assessment yeah it’s a fair assessment uh

53:47

then when the the the war subsides the few villages like

53:54

uh in birhem in rapsia and cadiza a few villages where the army

54:01

says we cannot allow palestinians to be in these villages they are too strategic and then they do something terrible

54:10

they think it’s about six or seven villages they convince them to leave the village to tell them

54:15

go for two weeks the army needs to survey the villages and they destroy the village in those

54:21

two weeks and tell the people you unfortunately you cannot come back because we had a military

54:26

exercise here in the village unfortunately and and because the army did a mistake

54:33

two villages it made the promise in writing uh ikrit and biryan so they went to the supreme high court

54:39

in israel and after years and years of struggle the supreme court said you know you’re right

54:44

the army promised you to come back and the supreme court said if the army

54:51

agrees we we don’t mind if you go back well the army doesn’t agree

54:56

so but uh this is just a settler colonialist movement like the zionist movement when it

55:02

becomes a settler state we saw it in south africa also in the united states and canada

55:08

they adapt themselves to new realities for example you cannot genocide native

55:14

americans at a certain moment in the 20th century you cannot hunt down aboriginals anymore

55:21

in australia at a certain moment so you use other means in canada you you

55:27

kidnap the kids and you send them to schools supposedly schools where they’re really

55:32

morally tortured and abused okay you don’t kill them but you kill the soul

55:41

the native people in the world really were victimized by settler colonialism

55:46

on a level that is as bad as the holocaust but they’re not allowed to say it i was

55:52

allowed to say it there is hard to make that direction in canada you don’t have you don’t have a memorial

55:59

museum for the genocide or whatever it was done to the first nation not yet i’d like to think we’re getting there but

56:05

it’s been a slow i hope so process america only now is willing to look at african-american i

56:11

mean the holocaust of the slaves was worse than the one in in germany was

56:17

much longer the numbers were higher of course each case is horrific by

56:22

itself you know the german modern industrial nation doing this is who can my family was lost there so i

56:29

know what i’m talking about but this idea that you could really downgrade

56:35

what happened to the native people where and in case of palestine you downgraded because the victimizers

56:42

are jews that’s the main problem for the poor palestinians have no chance because

56:49

the people who abused them were the ultimate victims

56:55

of the 20th century and they have for some reason the world thinks that

57:00

they are they are the ones who have to pay the price for this that’s why israel was absorbed in 48

57:06

from the crimes it committed still is absorbed from the crimes it commits against the palestinian people and remember there’s always a pretext

57:13

israelis will tell you you know the suicide bombs there’s terrorism we’re not doing it out of a

57:18

plan it’s retaliation it’s retaliation it’s interesting israel always needs a

57:24

pretext but when you check the retaliation you see no connection between the act

57:32

and retaliation then you think so maybe the retaliation is part of something bigger i’ll give

57:37

you an example you’re saying there’s never any connection or there’s hardly any connection if i throw a stone

57:42

even if i stab you and i come from a village you cannot

57:47

punish the whole village for the fact that i stabbed your brothers well you can it’s just a legal under international law you yeah but it’s not

57:54

it’s not because it’s a retaliation the collective punishment serves something deeper

58:00

i’m here i’m powerful i can you all in the village yes i

58:06

i’m sometimes i need an excuse for this sometimes i don’t even need an excuse you cannot starve the whole people of

58:13

gaza because a kasam missile was launched from gaza of course you can

58:18

you know what i mean when i say you can’t you don’t destroy a whole neighborhood

58:24

in america because there is a gang there that robbed the bank killed the i

58:29

don’t know killed even innocent civilians you don’t use f-16 to bomb that neighborhood

58:37

yes that that pulls it into focus i think that comparison right you know it’s it’s and therefore i think

58:45

it’s it’s part of an ideology a world view and i think what is so elusive for us as

58:51

academics is the smoking gun question uh the empirical question

58:57

it’s i don’t think there is a document in israeli military headquarters that says

59:02

you know all these retaliations are actually part of our strategy and so on every now and then it slips

59:09

for them when the israeli chief of the general staff says about

59:15

the what they call it the higher doctrine that is the higher was the shiite neighborhood

59:20

of beirut than in 2006 was carpet bombed by israel and he explained that the higher

59:27

doctrine is you you you engrave in the how they put it he said he said you sort

59:35

of make sure that the people would be burnt in such a way i don’t remember exactly

59:41

his word but there was something there about making them suffer in such a way

59:47

that they will not do it again okay something like that so he admitted that was there was a

59:53

collective a punishment so that the society the community would not support

59:59

any more insurgency or something that phrasing reminds me uh almost directly of what i’ve what

1:00:05

i’ve read and heard about uh how the british reacted to the arab revolts in absolutely oh they’re using

1:00:12

repertoire i remember one phd students in haifa writing about how the israeli

1:00:17

army were using the repertoires of the british in 36 to 39. that’s it do you think there was direct

1:00:22

continuity there was it just any occupation there is there was direct continuity you know unfortunately franz fanon wrote

1:00:29

about it this is true not about only set the colonialism it’s true about postcolonialism as well

1:00:35

the secret service of the liberated people use the same techniques that the colonialist power used against

1:00:42

their enemies that’s unfortunate because it’s effective it’s effective yeah yeah exactly they don’t need to invent the wheel

1:00:47

right so it’s not surprising that the israelis are using the same methods that the british used

1:00:53

not only in palestine also in kenya and elsewhere the whole emerg israel is built on

1:01:00

emergency regulations that allows the democracy actually to forget about this democracy

1:01:06

is there an argument then to be made uh maybe there’s a stretching present argument to be made that israel’s behavior is

1:01:12

essentially the culmination of centuries of what the british learned as

1:01:18

being an occupying colonial force around the world they they honed their techniques and

1:01:24

what we saw in palestine was really the peak in that essentially the end of the british colonial project so they had refined

1:01:29

these these practices and the israelis inherited them they did although the peak comes in in

1:01:35

kenya against the uh uh the mao mao there really what the british did in the 50s

1:01:41

and also in malaysia indonesia they still have an extra mile to go in the 50s

1:01:47

with teaching us how to how to punish whole populations for a war of

1:01:53

liberation but yes i think it’s part of it and you know israel the whole what annoys me with israel is

1:02:00

always not that it’s exceptionally bad or that he did the palestinian things that nobody else did in the world

1:02:07

it’s they’re not the two things first of all is the righteous fury

1:02:14

uh that goes along with the israeli reaction when their crimes are being exposed

1:02:22

their inability to acknowledge these crimes their inability to see the connection

1:02:27

between the acknowledgement of the crimes and the chances of reconciliation as was

1:02:33

admitted by the white community in south africa you know and we’re far away from that

1:02:38

but that without that there will be no peace here and and and secondly of course

1:02:44

is this um basic idea with which i i don’t know how to to deal with it but

1:02:49

it won’t help like which is inherently part of any set of colonial movement

1:02:55

the native becomes the immigrant the alien

1:03:01

just conceptually within israeli society society and what can you do i mean israelis can really go to

1:03:06

europe as experts and say to the british in the belgium we can advise you how to deal with

1:03:12

muslim immigrants because we have a similar problem i heard it with my own ears they really

1:03:18

say we don’t don’t worry we we even have a bigger problem than you are the muslim immigrants in our society is

1:03:25

much bigger in percentage than the news we knew how to israel cut said that

1:03:30

jeff alpert quotes him in his new book brilliant book uh in which israel cards the minister of

1:03:36

uh transport he comes to belgium after the attacks on brussels and he says just as recently with him very recently

1:03:43

very recently he said israel has a huge muslim population

1:03:48

many of them are terrorists and we know how to deal with it you have a small community let us advise you we know how to do it so the

1:03:55

palestinians i’m not talking even about the fact that palestinians are all muslims and terrorists forget about that they are immigrants they are like the

1:04:02

muslims who came from morocco to brussels that’s the basic israeli notion right so

1:04:07

it’s almost as kafka exactly exactly and what is amazing that

1:04:12

they thought about them like that in 48.

1:04:28

you…

oooooo

On 1948 | Ilan Pappe | Part II | 2018

Bideoa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHI7Eel48mc

Transkripzioa:

Introduction

0:03

you

0:09

a crucial difference my understanding is between your reading of history and

0:16

those are some of your new historian compatriots they’ve they have a different approach to oral history and the use of world history and the

0:22

solidity thereof and I’ve heard you know relatively convincing criticisms from both directions so how would you explain

0:28

how you’ve incorporated into your own research and how you deal with the caveats that others abroad opposite

0:34

these are three points to be said about oral history first of all that’s the only way that we can hear the voice of

0:41

the victim of the underprivileged the

0:46

powerless the defeated there’s no other

0:51

way of hearing the voices without oral history in modern history so that’s one

0:58

reason we have to use it while being aware that memory betrays people with

1:03

all the caveats but we cannot give it up because that’s the main voice that the

1:08

people have even if it comes as a story that people heard from the parents if

1:13

the voices we want to hear are already gone that’s the first point second point is about trauma people who witnessed

1:25

rape Massacre expulsion may get the

1:31

details wrong quite possible they may get the day wrong they may get the

1:37

numbers of people who committed the crimes wrong they may not identify

1:43

correctly the weapons that were used absolutely but they don’t get wrong the

1:48

crime they don’t get I don’t know whether you’ve gone into it I I’ve gone

1:54

a lot into the narrative of abused people and on every level before I did

2:00

oral history you can’t reconstruct even for legal purposes you cannot establish

2:07

a crime of abuse without oral history there’s no documents rapists don’t leave

2:14

a written document in the archive I raped someone and then the judge says oh

2:19

if you don’t have the document where the rapist said that he raped I don’t accept your narrative accepts

2:26

the narrative of the victim and I’m talking about case of course the case that was interested in what cases

2:31

historical cases not something that happened the week before right this is one of the key geologists

2:36

right people’s memory and I looked in Canada in the cases of abused children by the Catholic Church people were sent

2:44

to jail on the basis of evidence given by kids twenty years after the crimes

2:49

were committed even when some of these bastards did not admit to what they did

2:58

because the humanity has provided us with enough mechanism to know when

3:05

someone has been has gone through a horrible event in their life so I was

3:12

not using oral history for finding out on the Palestinian side or finding out

3:19

what Israel did I I wanted to have the Palestinian voice and experience and I

3:26

found many things and of course if you can corroborate it later with documents of the United Nations so on fine so it

3:33

doesn’t mean you you take that let me give the certainty it has to be completed the third point is I think

3:40

military documents are full of lies and fabrication I don’t treat them as the truth and nothing but the truth

3:46

I think they’re also even if they’re written on the spot people hide things people fabricate things so we have to be

3:53

skeptical about everything oral history documented history I don’t think the hierarchy is that document written by an

4:00

Israeli officer has more validity than the memory of a Palestinian they have

4:06

different problems of authenticity the one is the caveat his memory

4:11

the other one is authenticity through truthfulness transparency

4:18

transparency I wouldn’t trust any report coming from the Israeli army from the

4:24

West Bank today and I would trust that Palestinian testimony what Israeli soldier did much

4:29

more than I would trust the written report of the Israeli soldier in fact I would throw out to the

4:35

the Israeli report what do you say to arguments that people have an inherent

4:40

incentive because of this it’s clear that the intense political context

4:45

people have an incentive to exaggerate not even exaggerate necessarily knowingly but there’s you know people

4:52

have internal motivations to hope to you know play up certain elements and downplay other elements to serve what

4:58

they view as as an eventual just goal the ends justify the means in some sense that doesn’t tell you with with the

5:05

reality our biggest problem with the Palestinians wasn’t they didn’t want to talk about 48 like the Holocaust

5:11

survivors they didn’t people don’t want to go back to a terrible thing that happened to them we had worked very hard

5:19

in convincing Palestinians to tell the story and Israeli is very amazing in

5:25

this respect and evidence of a Jewish survivor from the Holocaust is sacred in

5:32

evidence of a Palestinian survivor from massacre is a figment of their

5:37

imagination so you need the same methodology I put exactly that question

5:43

to Benny Morris and he said the difference in his mind so I’m interested to hear what you say yeah okay the

(Michael Hudson-en bidetik)

… the only way of stopping what’s happening in Gaza happening in the rest of the world is to create an alternative to the United Nations, an alternative to the World Bank, to the IMF, an alternative to all the organizations that the United States has controlled to turn the whole rest of the world into Gaza, …

Warren Mosler, maisu eta gidari

“Any school of thought that is not ‘MMT consistent’ is inapplicable

with regards to any actual economy”

“DTM-rekin koherentea ez den edozein pentsamendu eskola

aplikaezina zaio gaur egungo edozein ekonomiari”

(Warren Mosler, 2013)

#LearnMMT