Ilan Pappé: "Israel's best allies are neo-Nazis and far-right politicians"

BarcelonaThe Israeli historian Ilan Pappé (Haifa, 1954) is a professor at the University of Exeter, in the United Kingdom. He is one of the main exponents of the generation of "new historians" who in the 1980s, when British, American and Israeli archives were declassified, contributed to dismantling the myths of the founding of the state of Israel. This work, together with his political activism with the left-wing coalition Hadash, led him to receive death threats and live in exile. He has visited Barcelona to present his latest essay, A brief history of the Israel-Palestine conflict (Captain Swing).

The ceasefire in Gaza has always been very fragile. Do you think Israel will resume indiscriminate attacks on the Strip?

— It is very difficult to predict what will happen because there are so many factors against the ceasefire. Neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor his far-right ministers want it, but it seems that the Israeli army and the US president do. It is not easy to assess the balance of power between the two sides. We are moving on uncertain ground. For the families of the hostages it is a nightmare and for the families of the Palestinian political prisoners as well. As always, it is the ordinary people who pay the price for these policies: those who negotiate play power games, but the people suffer. In this case, many Palestinians and a small number of Israeli Jews suffer. I do not dare to make predictions: I do not know what will happen now.

How has Israeli society experienced the hostage-prisoner exchanges in recent weeks?

— First of all, Israeli society knows nothing about Palestinian political prisoners: they are not interested. And that is a pity because it would have given them a better perspective on everything. As for the staging of Hamas's releasesI think it sends two messages. The first is that Israel has failed in this war. The cost has been enormous for the Palestinians, but it seems that the result is not what the government and the army had promised to the Israeli Jewish society. The second is that it has been perceived as a humiliation. As a journalist, you know that what counts in a news story is not just the facts, but how they are contextualized. And what the Israeli media explains about the hostage ceremonies is that Hamas members are brutal, inhuman and barbaric. Instead of explaining that Hamas is doing this to show that it is still there, at a time when everyone is telling them that in the future they must disappear. They say that they must be taken into account when thinking about the future.

As is the case everywhere, Israeli society has become polarized.

— For twenty years, but especially in the last decade, Israeli society has been divided. There is the old Israeli Jewish society, which I call the State of Israel, which considers itself liberal and democratic. It is not, but it sees itself as such. And there is another group, which grew up in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, with a lot of support among the poorest sectors of society and which was considered marginal until it began to accumulate power in 2022. I call it the State of Judea. Both sectors, unfortunately, agree on the issue of the Palestinians, but nevertheless have profound differences in the notion of Jewish life. What does it mean to be Jewish? The old State of Israel has a secular definition of Judaism: they like to see themselves as Europeans. But the new State of Judea is more religious, more fanatical, more extreme: they would like Israel to be a theocracy. And they would like Israel to occupy the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. and spread further, probably into Syria and LebanonThey are very powerful now: they have taken over the army, the police and the secret services. The only position they have not yet managed to occupy is the judicial system. But they are getting there. Most of the media is also loyal to them. And many of the Israelis who do not agree with them leave the country: they emigrate.

And now they feel strong with Trump, Weidel...

— In the short term, the rise of populist leaders, right-wing or far-right, helps the state of Judea to have no international restraints. But in the long term, I think that these new regimes, whether in America, Europe or elsewhere in the world, represent the end of a period, not the beginning of a new world. I don't think they will be able to stay in power. It will take a while, but there will be a reaction. In the battle between the world of populism, racism and ultra-nationalism on the one hand, and the world of more universal, moral and democratic values, Palestine and the Palestinians win when democracy and human rights win. And Israel wins when democracy and human rights are in danger. What happens in the world will influence Israel and Palestine and also the other way around.

What do you think when you see big supporters of Israel like Elon Musk and Steve Bannon giving the Nazi salute?

— The idea of building a Jewish state in Palestine has always been a goal of both the Zionist movement and the anti-Semitic movement. After all, it is the same idea. It is what happened in Europe: they did not want to see Jews in Europe, so it was good for them that they went to Palestine. The Zionist movement agreed because it saw it as a national resurrection movement. The anti-Semites did not want Jews because they believed that society was better without them. So the extremist neo-Nazis and anti-Semitic politicians have always welcomed the idea of Israel because it means that the Jews will stay. But now there is a new dimension. Most of these movements are not only anti-Semitic: they are also Islamophobic and anti-Arab. And that is why they also like Israel, because they believe that it shows the way to deal with Muslims and Arabs. That is why Israel's best allies are, in many ways, neo-Nazis and far-right politicians.

In his works he has explained that Palestine cannot be understood without the concept of settlement colonialism.

— Since the 16th or 17th century, there were groups in Europe that were not welcome by the majority for religious, economic or cultural reasons. So they were looking for a place to recreate a new Europe. And the places they chose were places where people already lived. The empires helped them colonize these places because they wanted to grow. But in the end, the settlers, who were Europeans that Europe did not want, developed their own national identity and no longer wanted to be part of these empires. This is what happened with the American War of Independence or the war between the white settlers in South Africa against the British Empire. Unlike classic colonialists, who are sent by their empire and when it collapses they return home, settler colonialism is characterized by the fact that the settlers believe that they do not have a home to which they can "return." In settler colonialism, the most important impulse of settler movements is to get rid of the native population, to eliminate it. In America and Australia, it led to genocide. In other places, it was in the form of apartheid systems. In Palestine, it was ethnic cleansing. The main reason for the conflict in Palestine is that Europe decided that the best way to deal with anti-Semitism was to build a Jewish state outside Europe, in the heart of the Arab world, in the heart of the Muslim world, against the will of the people of Palestine. To do that, force was needed, and to maintain it, force was needed. It is not a difficult conflict to talk about: it is a difficult one to find a solution.

And you say that perhaps we are facing the beginning of the end of this project of settlement colonialism.

— I think the project is not working and for the first time I see signs that it is disintegrating. Because Israeli society has no common ground, because Israel's international isolation is growing and because many young Jews around the world say they do not identify with it. Governments are supporting Israel, but civil societies are not. Economically, Israel is more dependent on the United States than ever. And the Israeli army has faced two guerrillas that have neither planes, nor tanks, nor so many fighters and has not been able to win. All this combined is the beginning of the end. As a historian I know that the end can be prolonged and that these regimes, when they know they cannot hold out, act in a particularly brutal way. Do not be surprised if we now see ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Perhaps even ethnic cleansing of Palestinians inside Israel. I think that, unfortunately, this is what awaits us. Gaza is not the end of this chapter. But this depends on the world. It depends on the international community. It depends on the region. And perhaps the more the situation there worsens, the more people will realise that much more needs to be done than has been done so far. Not to bring peace, but above all to defend the Palestinians.