Ten Myths About Israel. Ilan Pappé

       Preface

      History lies at the core of every conflict. A true and unbiased understanding of the past offers the possibility of peace. The distortion or manipulation of history, in contrast, will only sow disaster. As the example of the Israel–Palestine conflict shows, historical disinformation, even of the most recent past, can do tremendous harm. This willful misunderstanding of history can promote oppression and protect a regime of colonization and occupation. It is not surprising, therefore, that policies of disinformation and distortion continue to the present and play an important part in perpetuating the conflict, leaving very little hope for the future.

      Constructed fallacies about the past and the present in Israel and Palestine hinder us from understanding the origins of the conflict. Meanwhile, the constant manipulation of the relevant facts works against the interests of all those victimized by the ongoing bloodshed and violence. What is to be done?

      The Zionist historical account of how the disputed land became the state of Israel is based on a cluster of myths that subtly cast doubt on the Palestinians’ moral right to the land. Often, the Western mainstream media and political elites accept this set of myths as a given truth, as well as the justification for Israeli actions across the last sixty or so years. More often than not, the tacit acceptance of these myths serves as an explanation for Western governments’ disinclination to interfere in any meaningful way in a conflict that has been going on since the nation’s foundation.

      This book challenges these myths, which appear in the public domain as indisputable truths. These statements are, to my eyes, distortions and fabrications that can—and must—be refuted through a closer examination of the historical record. The common thread that runs through this book is the juxtaposition of popular assumption and historical reality. By placing each myth side by side with the truth, each chapter exposes the weaknesses of the received wisdom through an examination of the latest historical research.

      The book covers ten foundational myths, or clusters of myths, which are common and recognizable to anyone engaged in one way or another with the Israel–Palestine question. The myths and the counter arguments follow a chronological order.

      The first chapter charts Palestine on the eve of the arrival of Zionism in the late nineteenth century. The myth is the depiction of Palestine as an empty, arid, almost desert-like land that was cultivated by the arriving Zionists. The counter- argument reveals a thriving pre-existing society undergoing accelerated processes of modernization and nationalization.

      The myth of Palestine being a land without people has its correlate in the famous myth of the people without a land, the subject of Chapter 2. Were the Jews indeed the original inhabitants of Palestine who deserved to be supported in every way possible in their “return” to their “homeland”? The myth insists that the Jews who arrived in 1882 were the descendants of the Jews expelled by the Romans around 70 CE. The counterargument questions this genealogical connection. Quite a hefty scholarly effort has shown that the Jews of Roman Palestine remained on the land and were first converted to Christianity and then to Islam. Who these Jews were is still an open question—maybe the Khazars who converted to Judaism in the ninth century; or maybe the mixture of races across a millennium precludes any answer to such a question. More importantly, I argue in this chapter that in the pre-Zionist