“The greatest threat to Jews in Israel is Zionism itself.”
Powerful, if not paradoxical, this was the conclusion of Israeli revisionist scholar, Ilan Pappe, who addressed a near capacity crowd at the Medical Sciences Auditorium on Friday evening.
Often called “the most hated Jew in Israel”, Pappe is a professor of political science at Haifa University, as well as a vocal critic of Israeli policy. His lecture was the last in the controversial Israeli Apartheid Week lecture series-a series of events organized by the Arab Students Collective that garnered vitriol from several Jewish groups, and created a buzz in media outlets across the globe.
Pappe described Israel as a state “in denial of its systemic abuses of the rights of Palestinians”, and urged the international community to divest from the Israeli economy, a cause he has long been advancing. In the case of South Africa, he said, boycotting goods played a vital role in ending apartheid, a term Pappe has few reservations about using to describe the political situation in his homeland.
Unlike the four preceding Israeli Apartheid Week lectures, where speakers were routinely interrupted and insulted by members of the audience, Pappe’s talk proceeded without incident.
During a lengthy question period, following his talk, Pappe spoke to several opposing Zionist viewpoints, though a majority of audience members seemed to agree with his thesis, which argued that bi-nationalism was “the only way to peace.” Bi-nationalism-Jews and Palestinians living in one large country-runs counter to the more mainstream “two state solution,” and is often considered utopian by its critics. When asked to address the feasibility of bi-nationalism by one questioner, Pappe conceded that it was “indeed a bit utopian,” but urged that this made it even worthier of pursuit.
Also speaking on Friday, was Rafeef Ziadah, a York University doctoral candidate, and member of Al Awda, The Palestinian Right of Return Group. Ziadah, whose talk also argued for boycotts of Israeli products, is a third-generation Palestinian whose parents were killed in the 1982 attack on the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps, where 2000 refugees were slaughtered at the hands of Lebanese Christian Phalangist militias. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was Defence Minister at the time of the attacks, let militias enter the camps, for the purpose of rooting out terrorist cells. An inquiry conducted by Palestinian authorities, however, found that the refugees were largely unarmed. This controversy eventually forced Sharon to resign from his post.
After Pappe’s lecture, The Varsity spoke with U of T graduate Kole Kilibarda, who also delivered a lecture during Tuesday’s session, and helped to organize Israeli Apartheid Week. “It’s been an exhausting week for us; I’m glad it’s over, but I think it went very well.”
