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SvennoJ on 15 May 2024
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‘Ethnic cleansing a terrible crime, but genocide even worse: Ilan Pappe

The Israeli historian and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine says that what happened during the Nakba in 1948 and what’s occurring in Palestine now is comparable in some ways but added that “in many other respects” today’s events are “even worse”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ilan Pappe pointed out to the higher number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks over the past seven months. He also said that in 1948, “massacres were then used in order to persuade people to leave”.

“What we see now are massacres which are part of the genocidal impulse, namely to kill people in order to downsize the number of people living in Gaza,” Pappe, who is a professor of history at the University of Exeter, added.

“Ethnic cleansing is a terrible crime against humanity but genocide is even worse,” he continued. “So I think we are seeing a transition from using ethnic cleansing as the main method of taking as much of Palestine as possible, with as few Palestinians in it as possible – we are moving into a far more lethal method, that of genocide.”

Western denial today ‘far more sinister, outraging’ than during Nakba: Historian

Ilan Pappe, the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, says the enabling role of Western countries when it comes to Israel’s war on Gaza is “even worse” than their stance during the Nakba.

“At the time in 1948, there was no television. People did not have smartphones, and it was relatively easy to cover up the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing, and to claim that it didn’t exist,” the Israeli historian told Al Jazeera.

“It is impossible to say now that people cannot know what is going on when it appears on our screens,” Pappe said.

“So I think the level of denial today is far more sinister, far more outraging and really I think is one of the main reasons why the civil societies, even in the West, find it impossible to be silent anymore and are led now by brave students all around the United States and elsewhere who feel that they know exactly what goes on and they do all they can to stop it,” he added.

Pappe also expressed scepticism that politicians in Europe would change their “basic indifference and the international immunity they have provided to Israel” before the European Parliament elections at the beginning of June.

“But I am confident that in the near future, beyond the 2024 elections, this kind of attitude that has been displayed by European politicians will come back to bite them because they are not representing faithfully their electorates when it comes to Palestine,” he said.

“They never did before, but particularly in the last seven months, their positions have been very different from the moral position displayed by most of the people who have a modicum of consciousness and decency in them when they understand what goes in Gaza and when they show their support for the people of Gaza.”

US human rights experts finds Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

The University Network for Human Rights, along with other experts, has conducted a thorough legal analysis of Israel’s acts since October 7, finding that it violated the Genocide Convention.

“Specifically, Israel has committed genocidal acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, a protected group that forms a substantial part of the Palestinian people,” the group of international legal experts said.

The experts submitted their 100-page report, Genocide in Gaza: Analysis of International Law and its Application to Israel’s Military Actions since October 7, 2023 (PDF), to several UN officials.

“The findings of this report put other States on notice that they have an obligation to not be complicit in, and work together to prevent and punish, Israel’s egregious violations of the prohibition on genocide. They also serve to strengthen the current legal cases against Israel in the International Court of Justice and against the Biden administration in US federal court.”

“This assault has been one of extremes: the deadliest conflict for journalists and aid workers ever recorded, the world’s fastest starvation rate ever, and more children killed in four months than all conflicts in the past four years combined. Simply put, the devastation in Gaza is unparalleled,” said Thomas Becker, legal and policy director of UNHR.”