Ilan Pappe to quit Israel for UK

"Ilan Pappe, a senior lecturer in the
University of Haifa's
Department of Political Science,
says he is moving to the UK because it
is "increasingly difficult to live
in Israel" with his "unwelcome views
and convictions."

In an interview in The Peninsula,
Qatar's leading English-language
daily, during a visit last week
to Doha as a guest of the Qatar
Foundation, Pappe said:
"I was boycotted in my university and
there had been attempts to
expel me from my job. I am getting
threatening calls from people every day.
I am not being viewed as a threat
to the Israeli society but
my people think that I am either
insane or my views are irrelevant.
Many Israelis also believe
that I am working as a mercenary for the
Arabs."

Pappe is to join the History
Department at Exeter University,
in southwest England. He is active in anti-Israel
academic boycott efforts.

Referred to in the Peninsula
article as "the only
Jewish academic in Israel who
is vehemently critical of Zionism," Pappe
said the only solution to the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict was the
creation of a single state,
shared by Jews, Arabs and others. He said
that two independent states
cannot coexist in "the land of Palestine."

He also said there was "no
immediate solution to the crisis
and only international pressure
can force Israel to end the occupation
and the continuing atrocities against the Palestinians."
"Over the past six years, the
Israeli government has become more
oppressive, thanks to the strong
support from the Bush administration.
They now feel that they can do anything they want," he said.

The interviewer in Qatar
admitted to being "a bit surprised" by
Pappe's support for Hamas.

"A bit surprisingly," the
paper wrote, Pappe said: "I support
Hamas in its resistance against
the Israeli occupation, though I
disagree with their political ideology.
I am for separating state from
religion."

Pappe also questioned Israeli
democracy: "Any state that
perpetrates occupation cannot be
called a democratic state," he said,
adding that Israeli democracy
was meant "only for Jews" and there is
"no space for other communities."

The interview then looks at what
has shaped Pappe's opinions: "Pappe's
transformation from a 'typical
Jew' to a strong critic of Zionism
started in the 1980s while studying in the UK," it wrote.

"I reexamined the events of 1948,
which changed my perceptions,
and I realized how the Israeli
state was formed at the expense of the
Palestinians. I don't subscribe
to the view that a community
which has a claim to a land
that goes back thousands of years had the
right to occupy it by dispossessing
indigenous communities," Pappe
said......."