a very short history of the israel-palestine conflict, by ilan pappe

Renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe provides an instructive short history.

​The decades-long Israel-Palestine conflict is complicated and often highly contested. Enter Israeli historian Ilan Pappe with this accessible short history. Zionism, we learn, began as a European Christian movement in the 16th Century. It was believed the return of the Jewish people to Zion would fulfil God’s promise in the Old Testament. Hence many religious groups were emotionally and spiritually invested in Palestine. Modern Zionism took off in earnest in the 19th Century, and once the Ottoman Empire collapsed during the First World War and Britain controlled Palestine, they promised the establishment of a Jewish homeland there. 

The Palestinians, also, had been promised their own state, just as had happened with neighbouring territories such as Jordan and Egypt. The main problem was how Britain juggled these two promises. As Jews bought more and more land, with income from around the world, they were allowed to displace Palestinians from their villages and farms. Fast forward to the wars of 1948 and 1967, and all of Historical Palestine came under Israeli rule. Two refugee camps were set up - the Gaza Strip and West Bank, still in existence today. 

The conflict as Ilan Pappe portrays it is basically one of power imbalance. Britain and the US sided with Israel, providing arms and money. Palestinians were disenfranchised and removed from their lands (Pappe constantly refers to this process as ethnic cleansing.)

The solution (obviously what should have happened from the start) is to give full citizenship to all Palestinians. That is, a one state solution. 

With such entrenched division, this seems impossible. But so does the continuation of the current situation, with Palestinians as a disenfranchised, stateless people. Into this mix, Pappe adds that Israel is not stable itself, and at the time of the Hamas attacks the country was on the verge of civil war, with deep seated divisions between secular and religious Jews.

An excellent primer that clarifies much, but leaves a despairing portrait. 

A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, by Ilan Pappe. Published by Oneworld. $24.99

Review by Chris Saliba

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