Freedom4um

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

Israel/Zionism
See other Israel/Zionism Articles

Title: Examining ‘Ten Myths about Israel’
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://mondoweiss.net/2018/01/examining-myths-israel/
Published: Feb 18, 2018
Author: Ilan Pappe
Post Date: 2018-02-18 07:45:56 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 66

This review of the book “Ten Myths About Israel’ by Ilan Pappe will appear in the Winter 2018 ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. The book is published by Verso.

The Middle East remains a subject of increasing examination and debate. The prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians seem to be receding. Early in 2018, Israel’s ruling Likud Party unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for the annexation of West Bank settlements. This decision marked the latest step by Likud to distance itself from the internationally backed idea of establishing an independent Palestinian state as part of a future peace agreement. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan declared: “We are telling the world that it doesn’t matter what the nations of the world say. The time has come to express our biblical right to the land.”

Much of the world’s understanding of the conflicting claims to historic Palestine is confused. We have heard over the years of “an Israeli narrative” and a “Palestinian narrative.” There have been too few efforts to understand what really has happened in this region, and to arrive at some agreement about where myth ends and facts begin. In this book, written on the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Professor Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian now teaching at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, examines the most contested ideas concerning the origins and identity of the contemporary state of Israel.

The “ten myths” that Pappe explores reinforce the regional status quo. He explores the claim that Palestine was an empty land at the time of the Balfour Declaration, as well as the formation of Zionism and its role in the early decades of nation building. He asks whether the Palestinians voluntarily left their homeland in 1948, and whether June 1967 was a war of “no choice.” Turning to the myths surrounding the failures of the Camp David Accords and the official reasons for the attacks on Gaza, he explains why the two state solution, in his view, is no longer viable.

Historical Disinformation

“As the example of the Israel-Palestine conflict shows,” writes Pappe, “historical disinformation, even of the most recent past, can do tremendous harm. This willful misunderstanding of history can promote oppression and protect a regime of colonization and occupation. It is not surprising, therefore, that policies of disinformation continue to the present and play an important part in perpetuating the conflict…The Zionist historical account of how the disputed land became the state of Israel is based on a cluster of myths that subtly cast doubt on the Palestinians’ moral right to the land…This book challenges these myths, which appear in the public domain as indisputable truths. These statements are, to my eyes, distortions and fabrications that can—and must—be refuted through a closer examination of the historical record.”

The author begins by admitting that, “This is not a balanced book; it is yet another attempt to redress the balance of power on behalf of the colonized, occupied and oppressed Palestinians in the land of Israel and Palestine. It would be a real bonus if advocates of Zionism or loyal supporters of Israel were also willing to engage with the arguments herein. After all, the book is written by an Israeli Jew who cares about his own society as much as he does the Palestinian one. Refuting mythologies that sustain injustice should be of benefit to everyone living in the country or wishing to live there. It forms a basis on which all its inhabitants might enjoy the great achievements that only one privileged group currently has access to.”

The first myth which is confronted is the Zionist claim that Palestine was an empty land. There is a consensus among scholars that it was the Romans who gave the land the name “Palestine.” During the period of Roman and, later, Byzantine, rule it was an imperial province. Various Muslim empires aspired to control it, since it was home to the second holiest place in Islam and was also fertile and in a strategic location. The Ottoman period began in 1517 and lasted 400 years. When the Ottomans arrived, they found a society that was mostly Sunni Muslim and rural, with small urban elites who spoke Arabic. Less than 5 per cent of the population was Jewish and probably 10 to 15 per cent Christian.

Jewish Population of 2 to 5 Per Cent

Historian Yonatan Mendel notes that, “The exact percentage of Jews prior to the rise of Zionism is unknown. However, it probably ranged from 2 to 5 per cent. According to Ottoman records, a total population of 462,465 resided in 1878 in what is today Israel/Palestine. Of this number, 403,795 (87 per cent) were Muslim, 43,659 (10 per cent) were Christian and 15,011 (3 per cent) were Jewish.”

Those who receive their information from official Israeli sources, Pappe shows, would come away with the view that, “Sixteenth-century Palestine… was mainly Jewish and the commercial lifeblood of the region was concentrated in the Jewish communities.” According to the Website of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Pappe points out, “By 1800, Palestine had become a desert…Every passing year the land became more barren, deforestation increased and farmland turned to desert. Promoted through an official state website this fabricated picture is unprecedented.”

Many Israeli scholars have challenged this false narrative, among them David Grossman (the demographer not the novelist), Amnon Cohen and Yehoushua Ben-Arieh. Their research shows that, over the centuries, Palestine, rather than being a desert, was a thriving Arab society. Yet, Pappe reports, “Outside of Israel, in particular in the United States, the assumption that the promised land was empty, desolate, and barren before the arrival of Zionism is still alive and kicking…Palestine began to develop as a nation long before the arrival of the Zionist movement. In the hands of energetic local rulers such as Daher al-Umar (1690-1775), the towns of Haifa, Shefamr, Tiberias, and Acre were renovated and re-energized. The coastal network of ports and towns boomed through its trade connections with Europe, while the inner plains traded inland with nearby regions. The very opposite of a desert.”

Click for Full Text!

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread