22 Jul 2024 Israeli historian Ilan Pappe speech addressing the UN on the 1948 Nakbah a bitter palestian history on the formation of israel.
Transcript
0:00
hey call me Louie this is my
0:04
spot Lou sport let me Begin by this
0:08
organization where we are the United
0:11
Nation in uh February 1947 the United
0:16
Nation uh appointed the United Nations
0:19
special Committee of Palestine
0:22
unscop with the me 13 member states who
0:26
knew very little about Palestine and
0:29
most of them have never been there
0:32
before maybe this is one of the reasons
0:35
that they totally misunderstood either
0:37
the Palestinian position of the United
0:40
Nation involvement or the general Arab
0:43
the Arab League position on the
0:45
Palestine question all around the Arab
0:48
world there were mandatory countries
0:51
such as Iraq Egypt Jordan Syria Lebanon
0:56
waiting for their independence That was
0:59
supposed to to come through a democratic
1:01
vote by the people living in those
1:04
countries to decide the future and
1:06
character of the liberated new Arab
1:09
state only in Palestine the very idea
1:14
that the Palestinians would decide what
1:16
is the future of Palestine was not
1:18
accepted by the United Nation instead it
1:21
suggested that the settler movement of
1:24
Zionism most of these settlers came few
1:26
years before just few years before to
1:29
Palestine that they would have the right
1:32
to participate in negotiation over the
1:34
future of Palestine and even before the
1:37
United Nation adopted its resolution 181
1:41
through the general assembly on the 29th
1:43
of November
1:44
1947 even before that resolution that
1:47
gave the settler Colonial movement of
1:50
Zionism more than half of the country
1:53
even before that the Palestinians
1:55
demanded from the United Nation a far
1:57
longer process of negotiation so as to
2:00
explain to them why their rights of
2:03
self-determination are being denied by
2:05
the international
2:07
organization the American delegation one
2:09
should say in February 1948 suggested
2:12
5year truste ship over Palestine which
2:15
was accepted by the Palestinians for in
2:17
order to give the additional 5 years for
2:20
negotiating a far more just idea for the
2:23
future of Palestine however under
2:26
pressure of the uh uh Jewish Lobby in
2:29
the United State President Truman
2:31
withdrew the American support for the
2:33
trusty ship uh Council um council is
2:37
here trusty ship
2:39
agreement in February 1948 the uh forces
2:44
of the Jewish community in palestin
2:46
began uh regardless of what was
2:49
happening here in the United Nation
2:51
began a process that I called in my book
2:53
in 2007 of ethnic cleansing ethnically
2:57
cleansing the Palestinians in in April
3:00
1948 most of the Palestinian population
3:04
that lived in Palestine towns in the
3:06
Palestinian towns or the mixed Arab
3:09
Jewish towns of Palestine were expelled
3:12
or forced to leave uh and we are talking
3:15
about more than
3:17
150,000 Palestinians who lived in the
3:19
urban space of Palestine who became
3:23
refugees even before the British Mandate
3:26
of Palestine on the 15th of May ended uh
3:30
these expulsions from the city were
3:32
accelerated by acts of massacres the
3:35
most known of them the massacre of diria
3:37
scene on April the 9th
3:40
1948 so even before the Arab League
3:43
decided to send military forces in order
3:46
to try and save the Palestinians on May
3:48
the 15
3:50
1948 250,000 Palestinians were already
3:54
refugees and the presence of these
3:56
refugees in the Arab world forced the
3:59
Arab government to do something although
4:01
most of them were quite reluctant to
4:03
participate in any kind of military
4:05
Adventure in
4:08
Palestine while uh the Israeli forces we
4:12
should call them now the Israeli forces
4:13
after the establishment of the state of
4:15
Israel on May the 15 1948 while the
4:18
Israeli forces were fighting against
4:20
these contingents from the Arab world
4:23
the ethnic cleansing of Palestine
4:26
continued uh the uh Palestinian V
4:29
villages in the middle of Palestine in
4:32
the south in the north were all exposed
4:35
to a tactic that was already articulated
4:38
by the Jewish forces in a plan that was
4:41
adopted on the 10 of March 1948 the plan
4:44
described exactly how the Palestinian
4:47
Villages should be encircled forced to
4:50
leave or evicted by force should this uh
4:53
flight not happened the worst chapter in
4:58
the nakba came in October
5:00
1948 during the operation that the
5:03
Israelis called the ham operation in the
5:05
north of galile even some of the uh
5:09
leaders of the Jewish Community
5:11
themselves uh wrote in their diaries
5:13
that what the Israelis did in October
5:15
1948 was not very different from what
5:18
the Nazis did in the second world war
5:21
this operation was the toughest because
5:24
the Palestinians already knew what
5:26
awaited them and they were putting a
5:28
tough resistance which uh had led to a a
5:32
list of uh war crimes uh and atrocities
5:36
uh that uh completed the ethnic lensing
5:39
in
5:40
Palestine through so within 9 months
5:43
half of palestine's population was
5:45
expelled half of palestine's villages
5:49
were demolished and most of the
5:51
Palestinian towns were wiped
5:54
out the Israelis uh already in August
5:57
1948 began a operation that I call
6:00
memoride in order to wipe out any
6:04
residue and remnant of the Palestinian
6:07
existence in
6:08
Palestine they built Jewish uh colonies
6:12
and settlements over the destroyed
6:14
Palestinian Villages quite often giving
6:16
them a Hebrew name giving a Hebrew name
6:19
that resembled the Arab name of the
6:22
village thus Saia became Tori luia
6:25
became Lavi and so on the idea was to
6:28
say that these were actually ancient
6:30
biblical places and therefore this was
6:33
not a destruction of Village but rather
6:35
the Redemption and the return to the
6:37
villages on other Villages the Israeli
6:40
planted forests the Israelis imported
6:43
10,000 pine trees from Europe to cover
6:46
the Palestinian Villages that were uh
6:49
destroyed in the catastrophe of
6:51
48 um I can tell you as a second
6:54
generation of European settler that we
6:57
don't do well in uh the climate of the
7:00
Middle East and the same happened to the
7:02
pine trees of Israel many of them became
7:05
very ill and where they died the Old
7:07
Orchards and olive trees came back to
7:10
claim uh their presence on the land that
7:13
used to be Palestine and an Arab let me
7:17
uh conclude by saying let me conclude by
7:21
saying that uh I think that any peace
7:24
process that ignores what happened in
7:27
1948 and the peace process so far had
7:29
totally ignored what happened in 1948
7:32
would have at least to rely on three
7:34
principles which I call the Three A's a
7:37
for acknowledgement it's quite amazing
7:40
how even the top negotiators in the
7:43
world who deal with Palestine do not
7:46
acknowledge the catastrophe of
7:49
1948 the second is a is accountability
7:53
acknowledge by itself is useless as we
7:55
know in Post apartate South Africa and
7:57
the only way to make Israel able for the
8:00
ethnic cleansing of 1948 which is a
8:02
crime against humanity is to allow the
8:05
unconditional implementation of
8:07
resolution 194 of the United Nation
8:10
General uh uh secretary um how do you
8:14
call
8:15
it General Assembly thank you ran
8:18
General Assembly resolution uh uh
8:21
sanctioning the unconditional Return of
8:23
the Palestinian refugees to their
8:25
Homeland and the last a is acceptance I
8:28
think that once there is acknowledgement
8:31
and one there is accountability not only
8:34
for the crimes of 48 but for the ongoing
8:36
crimes since 948 then the Israelis can
8:39
ask both the Palestinians and the Arab
8:41
world to accept them as an organic part
8:45
of Palestine of the Arab world of the
8:48
Middle East and be part of its problems
8:50
and its Solutions thank you
