Your lack of integrity shines through again. You ask me to justify my comment on Pappe.

Do yourself a favour and provide a link. Any historian making that claim would be committing professional suicide.

I do. And what do you do? Apologize? Realize that Pappe is a crank? No. Tragic.

I’m not surprised you find Pappe’s analysis challenging to the extent that you attack him and not his argument in relation to the topic at hand.

For some more historical fact in regard to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and subsequent Zionist denial, you might find this article, again by an Israeli academic, Eitan Bronstein, enlightening.

Further in depth information can be found in Bronstein’s 2005 paper,
Studying the Nakba and Reconstructing Space in the Palestinian Village of Lifta.

this is the basis of israel’s “right to exist”. a compelling argument and one which will be universally accepted when the victims, their children and grandchildren, are all dead.

until that distant day, zionists are despised by many. you would think that a people that has suffered much from antisemitism would be more careful of the rights of others.

but it turns out the jewish people are just as capable of thuggery as anyone else, given the opportunity. this should surprise no one.

therefore? discount all talk of ‘rights’, of ‘justice’: irgun and the stern gang set the rules of engagement in palestine, and those rules were nature’s own. hamas and hezbullah continue the resistance with the same rules. my real source of contempt for the israelis is their demand for peace and submission from the people whose homes and land they stole, whose families they murdered in the process.

We are all to familiar with the grandiose “scholarly” sophistry that you and your ilk like to hide behind when confronted with inconvenient realities. What you are really trying to say is the Ant and I don’t read the books you consider necessary and visa versa.

Ultimately, your attempts at conflation is always going to be basic common sense.

What you clearly miss from Pappe’s first quote is his honesty and his acknowledgment of his humanity. Some vain historians convince themselves that they are slaves to fact and realities, but in all cases, this can be shown to be otherwise. For example, Benny Morris has also been accused of fabricating historical evidence.

As for he second quote, that too addresses the same issue. Benny Morris has in the past, also admitted to being an avid Zionist and that this position has skewed his objectivity. After all, did he not say this:

I’m trying to be realistic. Preserving my people is more important than any universal moral concepts.

–Israeli writer Benny Morris

In this article for example, Pappe accuses Morris of lying about his book:

Benny Morris tells his readers in the New Republic that he and I walked a stretch of road together as ‘revisionist historians.

And

I was privy to the views he only aired later on, already in our first meeting back in the late 1980s. I was fully aware — as he seemed to trust me — of his abominable racist views about the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular.

And here

Unlike others, I did not feel that his good qualities as a chronologist which came out in his most famous book, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (Cambridge 1987) — he was never a proper historian — and especially his invaluable contribution in aggregating data for us on the 1948 ethnic cleansing — made up for his bigotry and narrow—mindedness.

So you see Viva, it comes down to the word of one historian against another. It is obvious why you woudl recommend Benny Morris as a more credible historian; you are merely advocating the work that confirms your own position.

As for Pilger, as one of the very few genuine investigative reporters, he is in an ideal position to observe the accuracies of what historians like Pappe have recorded.

Seems pretty logical, though I would be surprise dif you don’t reject it.

One of the major problems of you and your ilk is that you do not read the books that these people write. You only get quotes from propaganda websites. You, like Ant, do not have the necessary education to be familiar with the history of this conflict. For you to state “Any historian making that claim would be committing professional suicide” clearly without irony really says it all.

Let us hear from the good Doctor ourselves, shall we

My bias is apparent despite the desire of my peers that I stick to facts and the `truth’ when reconstructing past realities. I view any such construction as vain and presumptuous.

Introduction to “A History of Modern Palestine: One Land Two People”

Or perhaps this one

Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts, Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truthseekers

As to this howler “Benny Morris now supports much of what he says.” Might I suggest you read the Benny Morris’ review of Pappe’s “A History of Modern Palestine:One Land Two Peoples” in the New Republic (22/3/04) where he says quite emphatically

Ilan Pappes New Book Is Appalling….Unfortunately much of what Pappe tries to sell his readers is a complete fabrication.

And John Pilger??? WTF? Since when has John Pilger been any sort of scholar, let alone an historian.

Be careful with Pappe; he is not regarded as a competent historian.

Viva,

Can you provide a list of all the competent historians and their articles establishing that Pappe is not a competent historian? Thanks.

Perhaps you should be more specific. What you mean to say is that you and those of you agree with do not regard Pappe as a competent historian. You after all, consider David Kramer to be a credible academic - the same person who said that Saddam invaded Kuwait as an act of aggression against the US, even thought he US essentially gave hm the green light to do so,

John Pilger describes Pappe him as the most important of our time.

Benny Morris now supports much of what he says.

And next time you make statements like:

He even admits that he is not concerned with historical truth and objectivity. He also totally misrepresents aspects of the Hagganah’s military plans.

Do yourself a favour and provide a link. Any historian making that claim would be committing professional suicide.

Be careful with Pappe; he is not regarded as a competent historian. In fact, his area is more Cultural Studies. He even admits that he is not concerned with historical truth and objectivity. He also totally misrepresents aspects of the Hagganah’s military plans. And he tellingly ignores all the documentation on the ghastly plans of the Muslims.

You would be better off with Benny Morris.