:00:00. > :00:00.on his appointment as the new head of the European Commission. It's
:00:00. > :00:00.understood that Mr Juncker told the Prime Minister that he was committed
:00:00. > :00:00.to "working for a fair deal with Britain". Those are the latest
:00:07. > :00:14.headlines. Now on BBC News, it's time for HARDtalk.
:00:15. > :00:20.Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur. The Israeli`Palestinian
:00:21. > :00:26.conflict is, at its heart, a story of two peoples and one land. Both
:00:27. > :00:31.the history as their justification which means an historian who appears
:00:32. > :00:36.to change sides inevitably becomes a figure of enormous controversy. So
:00:37. > :00:40.we gaze with my guest today, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe who says that
:00:41. > :00:44.state is racist, born of a state is racist, born of a
:00:45. > :00:50.deliberate programme of ethnic cleansing. Not surprisingly, he is
:00:51. > :00:59.widely reviled in his home country. Have you had anti` Zionism
:01:00. > :01:20.undermines his academic integrity `` has his? `` undermined.
:01:21. > :01:31.Ilan Pappe, welcome to HARDtalk. You are an Israeli but for the best part
:01:32. > :01:36.of a decade, have lived in a self`imposed exile in the UK and yet
:01:37. > :01:42.you still seem intellectually drawn to Israel and still write about it.
:01:43. > :01:48.Try and correct arise for me your feelings for your home country
:01:49. > :01:54.today. I think the best way of explaining it is to differentiate
:01:55. > :02:01.tween the state and the country and the state and the regime. I was born
:02:02. > :02:07.in Israel and Palestine and I'm very attached to the people there. I'm
:02:08. > :02:13.very worried about its future but I am very opposed to the ideological
:02:14. > :02:20.regime that governs the life of everyone who lives there tween the
:02:21. > :02:22.River Jordan and the Mediterranean. You a machine which implies there is
:02:23. > :02:26.something about the particular colour of the government of the day
:02:27. > :02:31.that surely it is not the machine you are opposed to but the founding
:02:32. > :02:40.ideology of the country coming that is Zionism. You are anti` Zionist.
:02:41. > :02:43.You reject Zionism. That is true. When I'm in the regime, I mean that
:02:44. > :02:49.the successive governments were all loyal to the same foundation and
:02:50. > :02:55.indeed, I find the idea that, in a country where half of the people are
:02:56. > :02:59.not Jewish, a state cannot be founded on the ideas of ethnic
:03:00. > :03:05.exclusivity or supremacy. There needs to be a more democratic and
:03:06. > :03:08.more egalitarian and more fair political outfit that would respect
:03:09. > :03:15.the rights and aspirations of everyone who lives there. We will
:03:16. > :03:17.get more into that argument and particularly your claim that half
:03:18. > :03:20.the people are not Jewish because obviously you're talking about
:03:21. > :03:27.Israel and occupied territories. Between the Mediterranean and the
:03:28. > :03:31.River Jordan. A sovereign nation. But we will get to a discussion of
:03:32. > :03:37.that later. Here's what I found most paradoxical about you. You are clear
:03:38. > :03:46.in your anti` Zionism and yet, your own life story and your families
:03:47. > :03:53.life story is the best advertisement for the importance of Zionism that
:03:54. > :03:58.there could ever be. I disagree with this. I think my life story,
:03:59. > :04:07.especially the fact that my family came from Germany originally and
:04:08. > :04:12.escaped. And found haven in what was to become the Jewish state of Israel
:04:13. > :04:19.thanks to the development in the 1930s of the Zionist idea. But it
:04:20. > :04:25.was also a family that was a big Dem of racism, of ethnic cleansing and
:04:26. > :04:32.extermination and as such... Jews who faced extermination and needed a
:04:33. > :04:34.haven. They cannot become themselves victimizers who will apply the same
:04:35. > :04:40.methods to someone else. Your father was a passionate Zionist. I don't
:04:41. > :04:46.know if he was. He probably would've preferred to go to the United States
:04:47. > :04:51.or England but were closed and so he found a way to Palestine but I don't
:04:52. > :04:57.think that he would have condoned the ethnic cleansing of 1948. I
:04:58. > :05:04.don't think he would accept that, in order to survive, you are entitled
:05:05. > :05:07.to either ethnically cleanse or exterminate someone else. Having a
:05:08. > :05:11.safe haven for people who are victimized does not give them the
:05:12. > :05:16.license to victimize someone else. You have already dropped ethnic
:05:17. > :05:20.cleansing into conversation and it has become very much associated with
:05:21. > :05:24.your historical work and is even the title of one of your most important
:05:25. > :05:32.books but it is a phrase which stakes in the throat of so many
:05:33. > :05:36.Israelis and indeed, so many Israeli historians who look at the record of
:05:37. > :05:41.what happened in those founding days that led to the creation of the
:05:42. > :05:47.state of Israel and they do not identify the programme of three
:05:48. > :05:55.meditated ethnic cleansing that you sits the record. You've got it wrong
:05:56. > :06:04.`` premeditated. It is not about meditation. It is an alteration, in
:06:05. > :06:07.the end of which, one ethnic group is displaced by another and no one
:06:08. > :06:13.can argue that half of Palestine's people were expelled, that of their
:06:14. > :06:19.cities and villages were destroyed, . They lost Palestine because
:06:20. > :06:23.Zionism created its own state. Even by the most conservative
:06:24. > :06:29.definitions, it is an act of ethnic cleansing. But the idea of
:06:30. > :06:38.premeditation is central to your idea of what Israel is and how it's
:06:39. > :06:44.going to be. Even revisionist Zionists don't dispute anything you
:06:45. > :06:48.have said about the fact, at 700,000 Arabs were forced to flee their
:06:49. > :06:53.homes as the Jewish agency established what was to become the
:06:54. > :06:58.Jewish state, that is not in dispute. But you say that there were
:06:59. > :07:07.meetings in which they planned this operation and they say, no.
:07:08. > :07:12.Understand that that war is tough, news happened but it was ad hoc and
:07:13. > :07:16.it was not premeditated and in some cases, local commanders could be
:07:17. > :07:20.blamed and certainly not all of it was down to a plan. If this is so,
:07:21. > :07:25.one has to answer a simple question. Why were half of the
:07:26. > :07:31.people who became Palestinian refugees already expelled before the
:07:32. > :07:37.war even started? By the 15th of May 1948, the whole urban space of
:07:38. > :07:44.Palestine was free of Arabs. By the 15th of May, before one Arab soldier
:07:45. > :07:46.entered the land of Palestine, hundreds of thousands of
:07:47. > :07:53.Palestinians were either acted by force from the countryside. The
:07:54. > :08:01.evidence, I think, is quite clear and in the documentation, especially
:08:02. > :08:04.that which came out in 1998, Israel releases military documentation 50
:08:05. > :08:09.years after the fact and it shows very clearly a planned and
:08:10. > :08:12.structured idea of how to turn Palestine, which was basically an
:08:13. > :08:17.Arab country, into a Jewish country, a Jewish state through the
:08:18. > :08:23.means of ethnic cleansing. I think the documentation is now much more
:08:24. > :08:30.clear and it carries out the evidence. We don't want to get hung
:08:31. > :08:35.up on every single detail of what happened in those early days but
:08:36. > :08:42.just one key piece of evidence which would plant a seed of doubt about
:08:43. > :08:46.your version of events, on the 24th of March, the Chief of Staff of what
:08:47. > :08:57.would become the Israeli defensive force, he said, to all his field
:08:58. > :09:05.commanders, a must protect the Fulbright, needs and freedoms of
:09:06. > :09:09.Arabs living in the Hebrews base. He wrote that. He may have written it
:09:10. > :09:14.but I have seen the group of commands that was sent to each of
:09:15. > :09:20.the commanders of the brigade and each commander of a battalion and
:09:21. > :09:25.they were very clear. They had to occupy the villages, expel the
:09:26. > :09:29.people, detonate the houses. These commands came on the 1st of April so
:09:30. > :09:33.I do not know what he wrote seven days before but what is important
:09:34. > :09:39.now is that we are also exploring the old history of 1948 from the
:09:40. > :09:46.Jewish side and maybe because they are old and very close to their
:09:47. > :09:53.death bed, commanders are now admitting that their mission was to
:09:54. > :09:55.cleanse Palestine from the Palestinians. I don't know why
:09:56. > :10:03.people find it so difficult to believe. This was the major point of
:10:04. > :10:10.Zionism. This was also an existential war. It was clear in
:10:11. > :10:15.1948 that, unless the Jews fought and held this space, they could be
:10:16. > :10:20.exterminated and in the end, as Benny Morris who was your historical
:10:21. > :10:27.collaborator that now, has to be said, is your nemesis, he says that
:10:28. > :10:34.in this sort of war, stuff happens, really bad stuff but in the end, it
:10:35. > :10:39.can be justified. The Jews did what they had to do. It is amazing. We're
:10:40. > :10:46.talking about but the Palestinians could have done to the Jews and this
:10:47. > :10:51.is really flimsy history. To write a book of what could have happened is
:10:52. > :10:55.really bad. I am writing a book of what has happened and what happened
:10:56. > :11:00.is a crime against humanity. Ethnic cleansing is a crime against
:11:01. > :11:04.humanity. The Zionist movement was founded for very good reasons but
:11:05. > :11:09.what he did in 1948 is unforgivable. Unacceptable. Let's keep a sense of
:11:10. > :11:16.context is everything we are discussing right now, it all
:11:17. > :11:22.connects to the present day, let's have some perspective. Benny Morris
:11:23. > :11:30.says that 800 or 1000 Palestinian civilians ended up dying, they were
:11:31. > :11:34.either extrajudicially killed or executed by a Jewish agency military
:11:35. > :11:38.operatives but compare that with what we see happening in the world
:11:39. > :11:42.today in some of the conflicts not very far from Israel, in Syria and
:11:43. > :11:48.Iraq and other places. The numbers of casualties compared with some of
:11:49. > :11:54.the conflicts we see around the world, he has used the phrase small
:11:55. > :12:00.potatoes. For him it is small potatoes. Imagine that half of
:12:01. > :12:02.Britain's population has been exterminated. Imagine that half of
:12:03. > :12:08.their cities were demolished to the earth. Imagine that the villages
:12:09. > :12:12.were destroyed and then I would like you to come to an Israeli television
:12:13. > :12:19.programme and tell them that that is small potatoes. This is about
:12:20. > :12:23.ideology though, isn't it? It is about human suffering created by
:12:24. > :12:26.people who ought to now have been immune from international
:12:27. > :12:31.condemnation for the crimes that they have committed and are
:12:32. > :12:38.committing. Here is what you said in 1999 to a Belgian newspaper, I admit
:12:39. > :12:43.my ideology influences my historical writings that so what? That is the
:12:44. > :12:49.case for everybody? Is that a good justification for this story? No, I
:12:50. > :12:52.said it are two years ago. It was a time when you were a younger man
:12:53. > :13:00.doing research that you have built on fans. What I meant is that we are
:13:01. > :13:04.committed to historians and it is ridiculous to say that we do not
:13:05. > :13:07.have an agenda. That doesn't mean that we don't have to be
:13:08. > :13:11.professional. It doesn't mean that we don't correct mistakes if we make
:13:12. > :13:18.them but it would be ridiculous to say that we don't have a moral
:13:19. > :13:22.agenda. It plans a seed of doubt in the minds of people particularly
:13:23. > :13:27.Israeli mind about the fairness with which you approach not just
:13:28. > :13:32.historical events but also more contemporary ones. I'm going to
:13:33. > :13:36.bring it up to date now because you are a commentator and a finger on
:13:37. > :13:41.the way Israel operates today. In the summer of 2006 when is really
:13:42. > :13:50.military forces were pounding Gaza after renewed rocket attacks, there
:13:51. > :13:56.have been various assaults and this one was in 2006, you said that in
:13:57. > :14:00.the name of Holocaust memory, let us hope the world will not allow the
:14:01. > :14:09.continued genocide in Gaza to continue. As an historian, how could
:14:10. > :14:16.you link Holocaust memory, alleged Israeli genocide or action in Gaza.
:14:17. > :14:19.How could you do that? By observing very closely what is being done by
:14:20. > :14:35.Israel. Genocide? Not allowing people to get basic
:14:36. > :14:42.commodities. Checking every shipment going into Gaza. People have
:14:43. > :14:45.different interpretations, but they do know that thousands and millions
:14:46. > :14:49.of Palestinians are not being killed I the Israelis. Genocide is the
:14:50. > :14:54.elimination of an ethnic grouping of people. You are an historian, you
:14:55. > :14:58.have to use words carefully. You must respect words, don't you? I do
:14:59. > :15:04.respect words. That is why I succeeded in convincing that what
:15:05. > :15:08.happened in 1948 is ethnic cleansing. It is the ethnic
:15:09. > :15:11.cleansing of Palestine. I used the term incremental genocide. I think
:15:12. > :15:17.that if you get wise people and starve them, and you check how many
:15:18. > :15:22.calories they can have in order to survive, in the long`term, this
:15:23. > :15:30.could turn into a genocidal operation. The fact that Gaza is
:15:31. > :15:35.condoned is closed from all sides. The fact that Israel does not know
:15:36. > :15:40.what to do with the Gaza Strip, where is it knows what to do with
:15:41. > :15:43.the West Bank, is that potential for incremental genocide. I am not
:15:44. > :15:48.taking back my words, I only want to explain to people that people in
:15:49. > :15:53.Gaza are under existential danger by the policies of the state of Israel.
:15:54. > :15:56.I understand that you thought carefully about the words you use.
:15:57. > :16:00.But I am just challenging some of them. It goes back to my opening
:16:01. > :16:03.question. Your feelings about your home country today. You have
:16:04. > :16:08.described Zionism, and this is another quote from you, as are
:16:09. > :16:12.racist and quite evil philosophy of morale at the AMP life. I put it to
:16:13. > :16:16.you that you have not lived in Israel for the last ten years,
:16:17. > :16:19.you're still preoccupied with what Israelis, but anyone who visits
:16:20. > :16:24.Israel, due really think they come away feeling that they are living in
:16:25. > :16:29.a country that is driven by a quite evil philosophy? If they art...
:16:30. > :16:34.First of all, I have been in Israel in the last ten years, every year.
:16:35. > :16:37.So I am still there, as a much as I am here. Secondly, if you look at
:16:38. > :16:40.Zionism from the perspective of those who are not Jewish, and
:16:41. > :16:44.especially from a Palestinian perspective, then you understand
:16:45. > :16:49.what I am talking about. Let's talk about the Palestinians or the
:16:50. > :16:52.Israeli Arabs who are citizens of the state of Israel. They were
:16:53. > :16:54.polled recently, in the Jerusalem Post, more than 60% of them
:16:55. > :17:01.described Israel as a good place to live. Well over 50% said that they
:17:02. > :17:07.believed in the legitimacy of Israel as being the Jewish state. And fewer
:17:08. > :17:13.than a quarter said that they would want to go and live in a Palestinian
:17:14. > :17:20.state, alongside Israel. My question is, if there is one topic I am
:17:21. > :17:24.really and expert on, it is Palestinians in Israel. This is my
:17:25. > :17:29.political, cultural, and social home. I don't know what is the basis
:17:30. > :17:33.for these answers, but this is definitely not a reflection of how
:17:34. > :17:37.Palestinians feel in Israel. Nor is it... But it may be a reflection of
:17:38. > :17:43.something that you may dispute, which is Israel is a democracy,
:17:44. > :17:46.Israeli Arabs do have a vote in Israeli elections. They have a court
:17:47. > :17:51.system which is capable of standing up to those in power, we have seen
:17:52. > :17:55.is rarely prime ministers convicted of serious crimes. There is a basic
:17:56. > :18:00.commitment to civil society, democracy, in Israel, which is not
:18:01. > :18:06.seen in the Palestinian territories right now, not seen in any Arab
:18:07. > :18:11.nation that neighbours Israel, and surely the Israeli Arabs are capable
:18:12. > :18:15.of seeing that as well. No, they can't see that. 93% of the land is
:18:16. > :18:20.exclusively Jewish in Israel. Palestinians are not allowed to
:18:21. > :18:23.build new settlements, new villages, they are not allowed to expand the
:18:24. > :18:28.cities. They are not allowed, they are not getting the same national
:18:29. > :18:37.security, the same welfare benefits, as the average Jewish is receiving
:18:38. > :18:39.Israel. Their educational system is segregated from the Jewish a
:18:40. > :18:51.professional system `` educational system. On every aspect of life,
:18:52. > :18:54.legal, and financial, they are is committed against. But more than
:18:55. > :18:57.anything else, the fact that the state is not really know them as
:18:58. > :19:00.part of the nation. And because the state is not recognise them as part
:19:01. > :19:05.of the nation, there has been a last ten years, a wave of legislation
:19:06. > :19:12.that question is there belonging to the State, and hangs as an axe over
:19:13. > :19:15.their heads. They live a very precarious life, as we have seen in
:19:16. > :19:19.the south of Israel, where Palestinians, 70,000 Palestinians,
:19:20. > :19:25.have been driven out from their villages as we speak. Ethnic
:19:26. > :19:29.cleansing, let me just come if you allow me just one sentence, and I
:19:30. > :19:35.promise. I think it is important to understand, Israel, Zionism, has a
:19:36. > :19:38.vision of having as much of Palestine as possible. With as few
:19:39. > :19:42.Palestinians in it is possible. No, I just want to explain. You
:19:43. > :19:45.constantly say that the ethnic cleansing continues, the racism as
:19:46. > :19:49.prevalent as ever. What you never do, what I want to ask you, is
:19:50. > :19:54.something somewhat different. Why, in all of your history, and all of
:19:55. > :19:59.your commentary, do you persist in focusing on Israel's evils,
:20:00. > :20:02.Israel's crimes, and the Palestinians and the Arabs are
:20:03. > :20:08.always the Thames. You never focused on the Palestinians as act doors, as
:20:09. > :20:14.committed as of violent acts. `` actors. Sometimes as architect of
:20:15. > :20:17.terrorist activity. You have never in your writings, your history,
:20:18. > :20:26.focused on what the Palestinians have done as actors, rather than
:20:27. > :20:29.victims. This is a ridiculous summary of my work, if I may say so.
:20:30. > :20:32.I have written a lot on the movement as an anticolonial movement which
:20:33. > :20:37.used violence, terror. I explained why they used violence. I was
:20:38. > :20:40.looking for the source of the violence. And because I regard the
:20:41. > :20:43.situation in Palestine as a colonialist situation, as a
:20:44. > :20:50.settlement. You see the violent as justified? The attacks on civilians,
:20:51. > :20:56.you see those... No, don't put words in my mouth. What word would you
:20:57. > :21:01.use? I would use the word violence in the struggle for liberation.
:21:02. > :21:04.Which can be replaced by non`violent struggle as most Palestinians would
:21:05. > :21:08.like to do. Because the armed struggle, the Palestinian armed
:21:09. > :21:12.struggle, has not benefited the Palestinian national movement. At to
:21:13. > :21:17.argue that the struggle of liberation movements around the
:21:18. > :21:21.world in the 50s in the 60s is different from the Palestinian
:21:22. > :21:26.struggle, is really taking the Palestinian issue out of historical
:21:27. > :21:30.context. In other words, we understand that people who fought
:21:31. > :21:35.against colonialism, people who fought against occupation, are using
:21:36. > :21:40.violence. I am not fall violence, of any kind. But I think there is a
:21:41. > :21:43.difference. I will tell you, I think there is a difference between the
:21:44. > :21:47.violence of the occupier, the violence of the oppressor, the
:21:48. > :21:53.violence of the coloniser, and the violence of those who try not to be
:21:54. > :21:57.colonised. Do you see Israel's actions is more morally
:21:58. > :22:02.reprehensible than those of Hamas? Yes, in many ways I do. Because I
:22:03. > :22:05.think there is a difference between the State and the power of the
:22:06. > :22:08.people who are oppressed by the state. I can question the wisdom of
:22:09. > :22:14.using violence. Before we end, we don't have much time. I want to get
:22:15. > :22:18.to the present in the future. It is not only are you an historian, you
:22:19. > :22:21.are somebody who thinks hard about where Israel and the Palestinians go
:22:22. > :22:24.from here. And you have said there is only one way. It has to be a
:22:25. > :22:28.Unitarian state. From the Mediterranean, to the Jordan River.
:22:29. > :22:34.Do you not accept that if that were to be the case, it would not be the
:22:35. > :22:38.binational, secular state that you have painted. It would be a state
:22:39. > :22:42.dominated by the Arab population, because they would be the clear
:22:43. > :22:46.majority, particularly if you get your way and all of the descendants
:22:47. > :22:51.of the 48 refugees returned. And it would be a Muslim state. No, I don't
:22:52. > :22:56.accept that. People who don't know the Palestinians have this kind of
:22:57. > :22:59.nightmarish scenarios. I think that when you change... That is why I am
:23:00. > :23:03.talking about a change of regime at the start of the conversation. When
:23:04. > :23:10.you gradually changed regime which is not democratic, which is really
:23:11. > :23:13.like an apartheid state, and you make it more democratic in an
:23:14. > :23:18.evolutionary way. You get a state that represents much more faithfully
:23:19. > :23:23.the aspirations of all the ethnic groups. All the religious groups.
:23:24. > :23:26.I'm inclined to ask whether you have spent one second considering the
:23:27. > :23:30.import of what is happening in Syria and Iraq today, and it did in Gaza
:23:31. > :23:36.in recent years. Does that mean nothing to you? It means to me, that
:23:37. > :23:39.all the political outfits, including the State of Israel, that were
:23:40. > :23:42.created by the force of colonialism, not by the wish of the people, are
:23:43. > :23:47.collapsing in front of allies. If we're lucky, this would be replaced
:23:48. > :23:50.by a more authentic and more reasonable political outfit that
:23:51. > :23:55.would represent more faithfully what people want. If we are not lucky, we
:23:56. > :24:01.will have the bloodshed that we have in Iraq and Syria. And we have to
:24:02. > :24:02.end there. Ilan Pappe, thank you for being on HARDtalk. Thank you very
:24:03. > :24:25.much. Hello. The weekend showers are
:24:26. > :24:30.fading away and temperatures are falling away. It's going to be a
:24:31. > :24:33.fresh start to the working week. A little bit cool first thing Monday
:24:34. > :24:37.morning. But then, for most places, a fine day. And there is more
:24:38. > :24:38.sunshine to come throughout the