Ilan Pappe

If once you do not cave in, you discover that as time goes by, the ability of Zionist lobbies of intimidation around the world to affect you gradually diminishes.

We are all going to be invited to the funeral of the two-state solution if and when the UN General Assembly announces the acceptance of Palestine as a member state.

The effort to gain recognition for a “State of Palestine” as a West Bank enclave inhabited by a fraction of the Palestinian people may intimidate Israel, but does not constitute a defining moment in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine, argues Ilan Pappe.

A relentless struggle against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine will continue outside the realm of the western corridors of power. That is only confirmed by Obama’s recent speeches at the State Department and the annual AIPAC policy conference.

Richard Goldstone’s shameful U-turn did not happen this week. It comes after more than a year and a half of a sustained campaign of intimidation and character assassination against the judge. Ilan Pappe comments for The Electronic Intifada.

The view from Israel is that if they indeed succeed, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions are very bad. They make the Israeli occupation and apartheid policies in Palestine look like the acts of a typical “Arab” regime. Ilan Pappe examines how the Israeli establishment sees regional events and argues that the Arab uprisings offer hope for reconciliation built on the Palestinian right of return and universal principles.

The significance of this — alas short lived — exposure of what lies behind the apartheid wall and the fences that encircle the West Bank and the Gaza Strip stems from the seniority of Kristin Halvorsen, the Norwegian finance minister who herself announced the decision to divest. It is the first official act of such a kind by a Western government. It is reminiscent of the first day when governments heeded the pressures of their societies in the West to act against apartheid South Africa. Ilan Pappe comments for The Electronic Intifada.

It is bewildering that the shift of public opinion in the UK regarding the Israeli occupation has had no impact so far on policy; but again we are reminded of the tortuous way the campaign against apartheid had to go before it became a policy. It is also worth remembering that two brave women in Dublin, toiling on the cashiers in a local supermarket, were the ones who began a huge movement of change by refusing to sell South African goods. Ilan Pappe comments.

My visit back home to the Galilee coincided with the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza. The state, through its media and with the help of its academia, broadcasted one unanimous voice — even louder than the one heard during the criminal attack against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Israel is engulfed once more with righteous fury that translates into destructive policies in the Gaza Strip. This appalling self-justification for the inhumanity and impunity is not just annoying, it is a subject worth dwelling on, if one wants to understand the international immunity for the massacre that rages on in Gaza. Ilan Pappe comments for The Electronic Intifada.

In several articles published by The Electronic Intifada, I claimed that Israel is pursuing a genocidal policy against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The argument was that since Israel does not know how to deal with the Gaza Strip, they opted for a knee-jerk reaction in the form of massive killings whenever the Palestinians in the Strip dared to protest their strangulation and imprisonment. The end result so far is the escalation of the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians — unfortunately validating the adjective “genocidal” I and others attached to these policies. Ilan Pappe comments for EI.