In this Webinar, The Movement for Liberation from Nakba (MLN), discusses the “day after” question in regard to the genocidal policies of Israel against the Gaza Strip. We locate the events that unfolded since 7 October 2023 within wider historical and moral contexts, but mainly focus on the question “what next”?A new reality on-the ground has already transpired. There are now nearly two million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, most of whose houses are demolished. The number of dead is rising by the day and has already reached nearly 20,000, many of them children. The infrastructure in the Strip has been destroyed and people there are living under the threat of Israel to annex part of the Strip while continuing their ethnic cleansing outside of the Strip.These developments have a huge impact on Palestine, Israel, the region and possibly further afield in the world.We ask what are the possible visions for a distant future? What are the moral and political constellations that affect the future developments on the ground? We discuss the role of the solidarity movement in the future, the prospects of a united Palestinian representation and vision, the future of the two state solution and the chances of change from within Israel. Strengthening a “Global Palestine” coalition that would confront what one might call the “Global Israel” – a collective of governments, mainstream media, MNCs, Military Industrial complex, Christian Zionists and Zionist Jewish communities. Israel’s criminal actions are sustained by the above coalition. This conversation is our first in a series that will involve interlocutors from Palestine, the Arab and Muslim worlds, the global south, and activists and scholars from the Global North. In these conversations MLN will seek broad perspectives and context as possible for the horrific war on Gaza and its impacts.
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THIS IS A TRANSCRIPTION OF THE WEBINAR
Hassanal: All right, so I would like to welcome everyone once more to our webinar for 2024 for the
Movement for Liberation from Nakba and the webinar is titled Zionism 2024: Where to? The core
concept of this webinar, the question that we want to ask during this webinar, in this conversation with
regard to the present Gaza crisis and situation on the day after. The question of the day after in regards
to the genocidal policies of the Israeli State against the Gaza Strip. So, starting from the events from 7th
October 2023 to the Contemporary setting, we will be asking our panelists and also questions from our
respective audience to actually ponder on the historical and moral context and mainly focus on the
question of what will be the next thing going forward for the Palestinian people. With that I would like to
pass the floor to our moderator Dr Nida Ariff who is with us today. So, Dr Nida, the floor is yours.
Dr. Nida Ariff: Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to our audiences across the globe. I
would not rehash the situation with an account of numbers in Gaza for the audience here who are quite
aware of the scale of destruction and loss meted out to Palestinian people in Gaza in one of the most
brutal episodes in their long history of suffering and resilience. If there is a silver lining to all this horror
then it could only be this Israel’s genocidal nature has never been more apparent to the world, even to
the governments of the Global North, proverbial ostriches with their heads buried in colonialism and
white supremacy. We would try to locate the prison break of October 7 within the wider historical and
moral contexts. What could be “the next” for the region and world? How would Global Palestine defined
as a coalition of people’s movements across the world against the oppressive governments and
colonialism within the cross-section of Palestinian national movement prevail over Global Israel a
coalition made of governments, parliaments, mainstream media, multinational corporations, security
companies, military industry, Christian Zionists and Zionist Jewish communities. And what about the days
after “the next.” What could be the possible visions for that distant future? Hopefully, a more just future.
So we have a lot on our plate to discuss today. Prof. Ilan Pappé Ilan Pappé is an expatriate Israeli historian
and activist. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the
University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the University European Centre for Palestine
Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. Prof. Pappé is particularly
regarded for his work on challenging Israeli State narrative about its establishment, and conclusively
proving that the expulsion of Palestinians in the Israeli-Arab War 1948, or the inauguration of the
on-going nakba since then, constituted ethnic cleansing, in accordance with Plan Dalet. His books include
Ten Myths About Israel (2017), The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of Occupied Territories (2016), The
Idea of Israel (2012) The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006) and History of Modern Palestine: One Land,
Two Peoples (2003). And, ask you all to please check these books out, they are very good. Professor
Pappe, thank you the floor is yours. Each of you will have 15 minutes 10 minutes
Prof Ilan Pappe: Thank you so much, Hassanal, Nida, Ranjan and all the team that made this webinar
possible. I know that many of you who are viewing us or listening to us or would view it a bit later, as a
recording, have already been attending similar webinars and meetings but I do think that there always is
a space for a more profound, more expanded and different angles to what I can say from my life
experience and as an historian is the worst chapter in the history of modern Palestine. I devoted my life
to the research on what I thought was the most catastrophic year in the history of modern Palestine
1948, the nakba. We created this movement this website, this outfit as a Liberation from nakba but we
were always aware that not only was 48 a horrific chapter of dispossession, oppression and colonization
we were always aware that we are dealing and engaging with something that the Palestinians call the
ongoing nakba, but I don’t think we imagined that the ongoing nakba would have a chapter which is
worse than the original nakba itself and I’m afraid in every parameter in terms of number of dead, in the
in the level of Carnage and destruction and given that this is the 21st century where people know every
detail of what’s going on, which was not the case in 1948, this is even more horrendous and a moment
of great apprehension and worry about the future. What I would like actually to say is that within this
dark moment in the history of modern Palestine we sometimes forget that historically moments of
disasters, moment of despair, moment of terrible cruelty and ruthlessness, can also produce something
different or a better future, not immediately but in a longer trajectory and I would like to talk about that
possibility that this horrific moment in the history of Palestine carries with it some opportunities for the
future that, I would like to talk about and if I summarize them in one sentence, I would say that the
events of the 7th of October and not just the events of the seventh of October itself the last three
months and in fact also the two years preceding the 7th of October, exposed indications that actually the
project of Zionism is then in the beginning of the end of its existence. I stress the beginning of the end
and why do I would like to say that it’s a beginning of the end because that’s very important for me to
stress because as historically I’m aware that trajectories of disintegration, decolonization, collapse of
political entities, disappearance of political entities, all these can take time and they don’t happen in a
day or in two days, so the beginning of an end can be a decade, can be 15 years but nonetheless you can
detect the processes that eventually implode such a project like Zionism from within aided by certain
developments from the outside, and I think we’re already witnessing some discrete processes of the
implosion from within the Zionist project, some fundamental changes in the region and in the world that
I think one day these discrete processes would fuse together into a very powerful transformative event
that might lead us to a very different Palestine, historical Palestine in the future. Another caveat that one
should add is that not only can it be a long process of ending a project or disintegration of a project, it’s
also a very dangerous moment. Because outfits, regimes, institutions, that are losing their grip, that are
losing validity, they’re losing the power to survive, fight for their own life and in that fight they become
ruthless and even more ruthless than before and intransigent and and dangerous and we have seen it in
the fall of South Vietnam, we have seen it in the fall of apartheid South Africa and there are other quite
important historical examples, I don’t have time to go into. So it’s both a longer period, too long
unfortunately and a dangerous one but nonetheless one that I think carries with it some hope for the
future. So let me talk about four or five, as much as the time would allow me, indications, as I call them,
that point to the disintegration of the project, the settler colonialism project of Zionism.
To Read more: Zionism 2024 Where to -1