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The 'ethnic cleansing' of Palestine
Israel faces up to its past
With access to 60 years of official archives, Israel's new historians have shed light on old myths. As a result, a new generation of writers, academics and artists is able to look afresh at the country's past.
In the 1980s in Israel a new generation of men and woman who had not lived through the Holocaust or the creation of their country came of age intellectually and embarked on a remarkable period of change. This change is indicative of how Israel's intelligentsia has gradually matured to a point where it is now able to judge the country's past without hang-ups, and free itself from the myths and taboos propagated by the country's leaders.
The anti-conformism of this generation of intellectuals – which includes historians, sociologists, philosophers, novelists, journalists, filmmakers and artists – first made itself felt after the Six Day war in 1967. Events since then have only fuelled their dissent: the occupation, Palestinian resistance, the coming to power of the religious, nationalist right in 1977, the growing influence of settlers and expansionist rabbis, and the worsening tensions between clerics and secular society have all played their part. "Religious people often talk about Tel Aviv as if it were Sodom and Gomorrah," says Michel Warshawski, a leader of the radical wing of the peace movement, "whereas for secular Israelis, Jerusalem is the Tehran of the ayatollahs."
Peace with Egypt in 1979 raised hopes of a final peace settlement, but these hopes were dashed in 1982 with the invasion of Lebanon. This invasion, widely seen as Israel's first offensive war, was launched on what turned out to be a false prospectus. Contrary to the Israeli government's claims, the Palestine Liberation Organisation – which Menahem Begin and Ariel Sharon set out to destroy – had not behaved provocatively. Indeed, it had shown signs of readiness to compromise, and in any case did not pose a serious threat to Israel's existence. At the time, many Israelis were shocked by their army's extreme brutality and the high death toll among the Palestinian and Lebanese population. The worst atrocity, the terrible Sabra and Shatila massacres, was committed with the full knowledge of the Israeli Defence (...)
Eric Rouleau is a journalist and former French ambassador
(1) The Birth of Israel, Myths and Realities, Pantheon Books, New York, 1987.
(2) Comment Israël expulsa les Palestiniens (Editions de l'Atelier, Paris, 2007) is an updated and expanded edition of Le Péché originel d'Israël (Editions de l'Atelier, 1998).
(3) From an interview in Haaretz, Tel Aviv, 8 January 2004.
(4) In Vidal, op cit.
(5) From the preface to Vidal, op cit.
Judaism is universal
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Are the Jews an invented people?
E. R. Preview
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français — Israël face à son histoire
Español — Israel frente a su historia
Deutsch — Der Mythos vom kleinen David
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