Ilan Pappe, the Israeli Historian, has written a new book, The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories. It is an important follow-up to his seminal work, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. He concluded his current US Book Tour with a presentation to a packed house at Friends Meeting Center, Cambridge, MA. That presentation constitutes our total program today. This event was introduced and moderated by UMass Boston Professor, Leila Farsakh.
As Pappe explains and concludes, the entire purpose of the so-called Peace Process is to continue the status quo, indefinitely. That means brutal occupation and/or oppression of non-Jews throughout original Palestine. If Israel officially annexed the entire remainder of Palestine (beyond what it has seized already) rather than occupying it, it could no longer get away with proclaiming itself a "Jewish democracy." It's not a democracy, and there are more non-Jews than Jews in that combined land.
For the West Bank, status quo means more and more walls, checkpoints, military courts, settlers, harassment or death at the whim of sadistic Israeli soldiers, house demolitions, and apartheid. For Gaza, all of the above plus much more. For the Zionists, full-spectrum U.S. support, privilege beyond measure, and/or acceptance of the nonsensical "Jewish democracy" claim.
Professor Pappe taught for more than two decades at the University of Haifa until, in 2008, government pressure and death threats forced him to leave Israel. He now teaches at the University of Exeter in the UK where he is Professor of the College of Social Studies and International Studies and Director of the University's European Centre for Palestine Studies.
We are grateful to Steve Low of GRALTA for his superior recording of Pappe's main talk, which we aired. Q&A (not aired) was recorded and level-adjusted by TJR's Stan Robinson.
This Week In Palestine (a weekly 8am feature of Truth and Justice Radio (TJR)) is an award-winning 45-minute (or more) segment of news from Palestine and discussion of issues relevant to the Palestinians' struggle for freedom from Israel's brutal military occupation and colonization of their homeland. It speaks from the point of view of Palestinians and those who care about them. TJR is aired Sundays 6-10am ET on WZBC 90.3FM, Newton, MA, also streamed live and archived for two weeks at wzbc.org; TJR's modest website, truthandjusticeradio.org, has a link to This Week In Palestine archives back thru 1-6-2008; editions are also accessible at radio4all.net or by navigating through our playlists. TJR sometimes airs Palestine coverage IN ADDITION to that provided by This Week In Palestine. We hope you'll write to us at tjradio@fastmail.com if you rebroadcast our work or have questions or comments.
This Week In Palestine 3-18-2018
Ilan Pappe on the real purpose of the so-called Peace Process
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