UPDATES

Media Week – And they called it Pappe love; Randa does the rounds

Sep 27, 2012 | Allon Lee

Media Week - And they called it Pappe love; Randa does the rounds
news_item/spin640_____________________.jpg


And they called it Pappe love

Anti-Zionist historian Ilan Pappe told Geraldine Doogue on ABC Radio National‘s “Breakfast” program  (17/9) that the “mainstream Zionist leadership from the very beginning understood that… they could not have a Jewish state as long as the Palestinians remained in Palestine”.

The fact is that the mainstream Zionist leadership accepted and still accepts partitioning the disputed territory into Jewish and Arab states – in 1922 (when Jordan was created), 1937, 1947, 2000, and 2008.

Moreover, Zionist documents have always discussed the expectation that the Jewish state would have a non-Jewish minority.

Pappe claimed “every Jewish settlement is built on the ruins of a Palestinian village” – effectively labelling all Israeli cities as “settlements” – and that Israeli Jews were brought up to believe that the “Palestinians left voluntarily and that’s why actually there are very few of them in the land of Palestine.” Except for the six million Palestinians living in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank!

That night Pappe made similarly outlandish claims on ABC TV‘s “Q&A“. Jewish barrister Irving Wallach offered some balance: “The United Nations proposed a partition plan… the Palestinian people forcefully… rejected the concept of having a Jewish state next to a Palestinian state. Had they accepted the plan… then… the war and… what happened afterwards would never have arisen.”
 
The next morning Doogue interviewed Israeli historian Benny Morris who characterised Pappe as someone who “invents documentation, mistranslates, invents whole sentences in the things he supposedly quotes.”

Palestinian refugees are a result, Morris said, of “Palestinian Arabs launching an attack on the Jewish community, followed by an attack by the Arab states during which, in self-defence, the Israelis occupied Arab towns and villages, some of which they expelled. Most of the people there fled and there was no preplanning, and no systematic…‘ethnic cleansing’.”

September 19 saw Pappe appear on Melbourne ABC Radio 774‘s “Conversation Hour” and an ABC TV broadcast of his National Press Club address.

Randa does the rounds

Discussing protests in Sydney against the film “Innocence of Muslims”, writer Randa Abdel-Fattah suggested on ABC TV‘s “Lateline” (17/9) that “there are more constructive ways to go about drawing attention to human rights abuses overseas…they have tragically missed an opportunity to…highlight the anniversary of the massacres of Sabra and Shatila yesterday, the 30th year anniversary.”

In the Daily Telegraph (19/9) she complained about “selective indignation” saying how “A small group of Muslims protested violently and the media and politicians were outraged, but as a matter of foreign policy we support drone attacks in Yemen and Pakistan, or the war in Afghanistan.” Once again she complained that the protests were overshadowing “the 30th anniversary of the massacres in the Palestinian Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon.”

Given two opportunities to nominate pressing issues to protest, Abdel-Fattah might’ve included the Assad regime’s legacy of 20,000 mostly Muslim deaths in Syria since the start of 2011, but she instead focused on a massacre of a much smaller number of Muslim Arabs by Christian Arabs in Lebanon in 1982.

Allon Lee

Tags:

RELATED ARTICLES


Sderot, Israel. 7th Oct, 2023. Bodies of dead Israelis lie on the ground following the attacks of Hamas (Image: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa/Alamy Live News)

Israel’s Sept. 11, only worse

Oct 11, 2023 | Update
Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu (r) gets his long-awaited face-to-face meeting with US President Joe Biden in New York (Photo: Avi Ohayon, Israeli Government Press Office)

Netanyahu meets Biden, other world leaders, in New York

Sep 27, 2023 | Update
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who gave an address on Aug. 28 threatening the US and laying out the Iranian-led axis's new "unity of the arenas" doctrine. (Photo: Shutterstock, mohammad kassir)

US-Iran prisoner swap deal set to go through

Sep 12, 2023 | Update
A rally of Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party last year: Yet outside these faithful, Abbas is not only largely unpopular, but his rule over the PA has seen the Palestinian parliament dissolved, judiciary sidelined, and his party hollowed out (Photo: Shutterstock, Anas-Mohammed)

The Crisis in the PA

Aug 28, 2023 | Update
Reports are suggesting a US-Saudi agreement has been reached on the broad outlines of a package that would see Riyadh normalise its relations with Israel, perhaps early next year - though other reports dispute this. (Image: Shutterstock, OnePixelStudio)

Renewed focus on Saudi-Israeli normalisation

Aug 14, 2023 | Update
PM Netanyahu flanked by Justice Minister Yariv Levin (r), the main architect of the judicial reform package, and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (l), known to favour compromise on the reforms, during the Knesset debate over passage of the "reasonableness" clause" on July 25 (Image: Screenshot, Kan TV).

The aftermath of passage of one judicial reform bill in Israel

Aug 1, 2023 | Update

SIGN UP FOR AIJAC EMAILS

RECENT POSTS

Section 93Z of the NSW Crimes Act 1900

AIJAC welcomes the passage of improved NSW race hate laws

Pro-Palestinian protestors waiting in the lobby for the Israeli families of those murdered or taken hostage by Hamas

AIJAC questions handling of pro-Palestinian protestors ambushing visiting families of Israeli murder victims and hostages

Masked members of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas (Image: Shutterstock)

A powerless Hamas is the only way this war will end

Pie Chart

News reports whitewash the crimes of Palestinian prisoners being released

(Image: Shutterstock)

The silence about Hamas’ ongoing war crimes

Section 93Z of the NSW Crimes Act 1900

AIJAC welcomes the passage of improved NSW race hate laws

Pro-Palestinian protestors waiting in the lobby for the Israeli families of those murdered or taken hostage by Hamas

AIJAC questions handling of pro-Palestinian protestors ambushing visiting families of Israeli murder victims and hostages

Masked members of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas (Image: Shutterstock)

A powerless Hamas is the only way this war will end

Pie Chart

News reports whitewash the crimes of Palestinian prisoners being released

(Image: Shutterstock)

The silence about Hamas’ ongoing war crimes

SORT BY TOPICS