A Very Short History of the Israel-Palestine Conflict by Ilan Pappe
I have read several weighty books over the years about this tragic, seemingly intractable situation yet the history and the facts (all of which are contested) that I get from these tomes never seem to enable me to grasp the essentials of this conflict.
I am instinctively drawn to the Israeli narrative of a search for their traditional homeland. Aside from my family connections, Israel is a democracy surrounded by autocratic and theocratic regimes. Their lively internal political debate seems more akin to our own in comparison to the oppression in the countries arraigned against it such as Iran. Yet I understand that I am heavily influenced by a pro- Israeli media as well as my own memory of events such as the 1972 Munich tragedy. My wavering attention has also meant I have accepted the narrative around the Oslo peace talks that paints Arafat as the rock upon which the hope of a two state solution was shattered.
Yet, I am aware there is another story of a people forced out of its homeland by a combination of western guilt following the second world war and a strong Zionist lobby in the west that won the argument for the reassigning of territories in this relatively small area in the Middle East. And even before the recent events that followed on from the horrific 7th October attack, it seems clear that there was a form of apartheid operating in the Gaza strip and West Bank that seems to be increasingly similar to the situation from those dark days in South Africa before Mandela’s release.
The problem is, whenever my sympathy kicks in for the Palestinians, I remember the joyous celebrations in Gaza when 9/11 occurred or the fact that they voted in the Hamas regime. As I say, stating the blindingly obvious, it’s complicated. No wonder I, along with millions of others, feel tempted to turn my back on something I can’t properly comprehend.
That is of course why I chose to read this book. It was reasonably well-reviewed in several magazines although the online comments mirrored in their five stars and one star reviews the dividing lines between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian viewpoints. However, it had two big attractions for me: its length and the fact that it is written by an Israeli academic.
Nevertheless, it still proved problematic. Whilst Pappe writes with the air of an objective chronicler of the evidence and events over the last 150 odd years that have led us to the current situation, it’s not quite that simple. He presents two enemies: the western powers who seem keen to move the Jewish diaspora away from Europe; and then there’s the Zionists in Israel who he presents as moving seamlessly from pushy, mendacious invaders to full blown colonialists. However, close reading in several instances reveals his bias when, for example, he focuses on the Israeli government’s heavy-handed response to the Palestinians but minimises the catalyst often referring in deliberately sketchy descriptions to an attack on some Israeli farmers or an uprising without ever detailing the deaths and damage these inflicted.
Despite this, though, I would recommend the book as a good starting point for understanding the conflict. In particular, the sections prior to the 1948 Nakba are really clear and informative. I now have a much better grasp of the Balfour Agreement and the British Mandate in Palestine. When we get to the modern era some of the clarity was lost because of the complicating involvement of foreign powers in support of the Palestinians.
Going back to where I started, though, I now believe I was wrong about Arafat’s role in the Oslo Peace Accords. If like me a cloud of incomprehension descends when watching news reports from the Middle East, this is worth a read, biases and all. As Steve Richards, one of my favourite political commentators always says: you can’t understand what’s really going on unless you understand the context. Well, there’s plenty of context, and history, to this conflict and it seems to me the best place to start.