On “On Palestine”

On Palestine

On Palestine is a 2014 book written by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé and edited by Frank Barat. The book is a follow up to a former work by the three men Gaza in Crisis (2010)  which was self described as a collection of essays, interviews, and dialogues as to why the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict had been perpetuated as long as it had and if there was any chance at ending the conflict. 

However, this book takes a much darker turn. In the introductory chapter by Pappé  titled “The Old and New Conversations”, he advocates for a future in which we are now living: an era in which it is acceptable to compare Zionism, an indigenous people’s liberation movement, to racism and apartheid, to label Israel’s self-defense as ethnic cleansing, to reframe legitimate acts of Palestinian terror as resistance and decolonization, and more. 

Who is Ilan Pappé?

Per his author’s page on Simon and Schuster Publishing:

“Ilan Pappe is an Israeli historian and socialist activist. He is a professor of history at the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university’s European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies.”

What his page won’t tell you is that he is an IDF veteran of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, during which he served in the Golan Heights. It also won’t tell you that Pappé ran for the Knesset with the Hadash party in the late ‘90’s. It won’t tell you that Ilan Pappé, an Israeli academic, calls for the academic boycott of Israeli academics. And it really won’t tell you that he has written for the Electronic Intifada, which Honest Reporting has cited for numerous false claims and lies over the years. Yikes.

However, my biggest gripe with Pappé is not his ideology. His ideology is his to hold and shape as he pleases. My squabble is that he presents himself as an academic, particularly in his writing in On Palestine, citing instances of racist Israeli policies (pg 18), engages in historical language fallacies (pg 21), and the use of legal terms outside their proper context (pg 29), just to name a few. However, he fails to source any of these claims, and I checked throughout the book. The only sources in the WHOLE book are for Chapter 10. As of now, this is only an essay on his introduction to the book. 

I’m not sure what kind of academic background you are from, dear reader, but personally, I was taught that if I am going to make a claim, then I must cite it. This has continued through my education, until present day at the Master’s level. Why does Mr. Pappé fails to cite his claims if he is the academic that he presents himself to be?

Actually, I will take a slight issue with his ideology, however entitled he is to hold it. It is this book which championed the adoption of BDS on college campuses (pg 19), that presented the idea that coexistence should not be possible for Israelis and Palestinians (pg 33), and advocates that the ideology of “من الماء إلى الماء ستكون فلسطين عربية” translated more oftenly as “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” (as opposed to the true arabic translation of “from water to water, Palestine will be Arab”) does not deny Israel’s right to exist (pg 35). This introduction is a textbook that the anti-Israel movement has adopted since its introduction in 2014, and now Jewish college students are facing assaults on college campuses due to its mainstreaming. 

How did we miss it?

If we are being honest with ourselves in the pro-Israel movement, we didn’t miss this shift in paradigm and language. We ignored it. It was too comfortable to live in a world where everyone was generally supportive of Israel. Students as early as 2000 were alerting legacy Jewish organizations that the conversation on campus in regards to Israel was becoming incrementally more hostile, especially during times of Israeli military activity. On Palestine only served to accelerate this shift.

Perhaps I have given too much credit to Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Pappé for accelerating the paradigm and language shift. The First and Second Intifada and the associated media coverage depicted the Israeli Goliath to the Palestinian David while the Jewish and Israeli perception was still the Israeli David to the Arab Goliath. Perhaps there was nothing that could have been done to maintain the Israeli perspective regarding its underdog status, but its drastic military efforts during the Intifadas and later military campaigns did not serve its messaging well.

At the end of the day, both On Palestine and the current pro-Israel “hasbara” efforts are both meant to address what can only be described as a marketing failure of their cause. However, the pro-Israel movement is about a decade late to the conversation, giving anti-Israel advocates an upper hand in the campus and public dialogue.

So what?

In the pre-introduction to the book written by its editor, Frank Barat, he begins by posing the questions “How did you become an activist? Why Palestine?”. He juxtaposes the question against one of his own “Why aren’t you an activist?” (pg 1). Perhaps the pro-Israel movement can begin to find proper messaging again by retuning to these questions in a reframed way: “How did you become an activist? Why Israel? Why aren’t you an activist?” Alongside the the reassessment of the pro-Israel advocacy movement’s reasoning and tactics, we may do well to adopt a few of the thoughts presented by Pappé to advance the anti-Israel cause into the mainstream. There are two main quotes that I believe that the pro-Israel movement can adopt immediately to begin to change the conversations we are having. 

The first is: “Hence framing this challenge as a conversation may be more helpful” (pg 15). The challenge that Pappé is referring to is the idea that Palestinians have the exclusive  right to a state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. However, in 2014, Pappé realized this would be an unappetizing position for much of the western world. So he asserted that the anti-Israel movement should present this claim as one of many perspectives to be considered at the beginning and as time progressed to gradually assert it as the only true way forward. The pro-Israel movment can also utilize this tactic to present the idea that Israelis also deserve to live, and it will (hopefully) gradually become a more accepted position over time as it is repeated and brought into conversations regularly.

The second tactic Pappé outlines is thus: “It is a simple rather than complex narrative” (pg 22). He asserts that anti-Israel advocates must reframe the conversation surrounding Israel as non-complicated. The anti-Israel movement has done well at this over the past decade. By consistently providing short, easy, digestible answers without nuance, they have positioned themselves as the more accessible perspective. There is much that is lost when resorting to this, however, the pro-Israel advocate would do well to reduce the complexity of the narrative which they present to one such as: “Israel is surrounded by countries and groups that have pledged to annihilate the Jews and when these groups make good on their promise to commit a second holocaust, Israelis protect themselves and ensure these groups can’t complete their mission”. 

On On Palestine

This is just the start of a series of response essays I will be writing as I read through the book On Palestine by Chomsky and Pappé. I believe that it is deeply important to the pro-Israel movement to truly understand the thought process, psyche, and language being utilized by our detractors, however, I also understand that most people do not have the time nor the patience to sit through some of the absolutely infuriating things written by anti-Israel authors. I hope that by summarizing and providing my thoughts on these people’s writings, I can help others be better prepared to counter the things they are hearing.

General Sources:

On Palestine by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé, edited by Frank Barat

https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Ilan-Pappe/167493452

https://honestreporting.com/tag/electronic-intifada/

https://newrepublic.com/article/85344/ilan-pappe-sloppy-dishonest-historian