'To break the mirror'

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe faces expulsion from Haifa University for supporting Palestinian rights, Hala Sakr reports
When Israeli historian Ilan Pappe's name popped up on Al-Ahram Weekly's e-mail last Sunday, the initial reaction was to assume that his message would relate to his latest contribution to this newspaper (see supplement). But, one double click later, the unexpected content of his e-mail was displayed on the screen.
Pappe had been requested by his own University of Haifa to stand "trial". The prosecution, represented by the Dean of Humanities, had called upon the court "to judge Dr Pappe on the offences he has committed and to use the court's legal authority to expel him from the university."
Pappe, a professor of political science and a member of the non-Zionist Arab Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, has written a number of books including The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951.
According to a statement issued by Pappe, the real reason why Haifa University is seeking to put him on trial lies in his "past critique of the university's conduct in the Katz affair". Teddy Katz was an MA student who was expelled by the university in 2001 for unearthing evidence of a massacre committed by Israeli forces in the coastal village of Tantura in May 1948. Pappe and fellow revisionist historians such as Avi Shlaim and Benny Morris have dedicated their professional lives to unearthing the truth about events that have entered Israel's triumphalist mythology associated with what Israel calls its "war of independence" and the Palestinians, Al-Nakba, or the catastrophe.
The rector of Haifa University appointed a committee of four lecturers from April to June 2001 to examine Katz's thesis. According to Pappe, they inspected only six instances, previously highlighted by the prosecution as the worst cases of misquotation and falsification, claiming that they were only the tip of an iceberg of systematic fabrications.
Pappe recalls that the committee ended up with only one inexcusable misquote out of hundreds which, he says, "does not at all undermine the conclusions of the thesis". The committee's report, however, stated that the thesis contained grave problems and fallacies and left the final decision to the university. Five months later, Haifa University's Council for Advanced Studies decided to disqualify Katz's thesis. Pappe said earlier: "The Katz case sheds light on the extent to which mainstream Zionism is prepared to go in discouraging research that brings to the fore such aspects of the 1948 war as 'ethnic cleansing'."
Having no illusion that he will receive a "fair trial", Pappe said in his statement that he did not intend to participate in what he called a "MacCarthyist charade". To him, the current proceedings are nothing but "an opening gambit."
"Many colleagues, particularly my Palestinian-Israeli colleagues, may be next," he warned.
Pappe stated that, despite the fact that he would shortly be on trial, his "situation is far better than that of (his Palestinian) colleagues in the occupied territories, living under the daily harassment and brutal abuses of the Israeli army."
In his statement, Pappe called upon his friends to voice their opinions and help expose "the already dismal and false pretense of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East." He stressed, however, that his was not a personal appeal. Pappe said his expulsion was likely to happen sooner or later, given the present atmosphere in Israel where "Israeli academia has unanimously decided to support the government and silence any criticism." This could be the time to "shed light on the debate of whether or not to boycott Israeli academia," he suggested.
The Academic Secretariat, Haifa University's disciplinary body, says the writ Pappe was served did not contain any political implications. They sent an e-mail reply to all the addresses listed on Pappe's "claims" e-mail denying that Pappe was being "hounded for his political views" and arguing that the complaint was lodged against him because of his behaviour, described in the letter as "contrary to all accepted rules of ethics at an academic institution". Furious that Pappe made the case public in a "distorted manner," the Secretariat stressed that "any person -- whether a senior political figure, a judge, or a person with unacceptable views -- against whom charges have been levelled of exhibiting behaviour that appears unethical or illegal, has no immunity when these charges are brought up for clarification."
On the other hand, Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, issued an action alert condemning Haifa University's efforts to expel Pappe. The alert also called on all academics "to join the growing demand for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions."
Salman Abu Sitta, an expert on Palestinian refugees, described Pappe as "an honourable academic with integrity and conscience."
"Even if we cannot do anything in Haifa University, we should let the world know about it and make those 'judges' unwelcome in all academic forums. The case of Katz is only a thin guise for silencing his human rights' position," he said.
Following Israel's recent incursions into the West Bank, Pappe, along with two other Israeli academics -- Tanya Reinhart and Rachel Giora -- issued a statement expressing "their support for the initiative to call on Princeton University to divest all holdings in corporations doing significant business in Israel."
Pappe has always stood apart in his open support of the Palestinian struggle for independence. He strongly believes that the only means to achieve peace and reconciliation with the Palestinian people is to de-Zionise Israel, a first step towards the creation of some form of a future bi-national or secular democratic state. Along with other Israeli "new historians", Pappe continues to unveil what really happened in 1948, refuting Israel's claims that Palestinians left their homes willingly and affirming that they were expelled by military force.
Many Palestinian intellectuals have hailed the position Pappe has taken. After a conference he attended with Edward Said in Paris -- where Israeli new historians met their Palestinian counterparts -- Said wrote that, "... Ilan Pappe ... was open in his espousal of the Palestinian point of view and, in my opinion, provided the most iconoclastic and brilliant of Israeli interventions."
Pappe once wrote that despite all the risks involved, he was determined to "go on telling my own people, from within, to break the mirror that shows them a superior moral body. They must replace it with one that exposes the crimes that they, on their behalf their various leaders and governments, are committing against humanity and the Palestinian people."
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