Ilan Pappé, a prominent Israeli historian, author and professor, has explained how the Zionist movement established the State of Israel using the European colonialism model.
He also noted that the founders of Israel believed they had the right to ethnically cleanse Palestinians to build their own state after feeling unwelcome in Europe.
Not a Religious State
Pappé said that the Zionist leaders used the Bible for political purposes, portraying Israel as a religious state to gain the support of Christians and convince Jews to settle in Palestine.
“It’s very important to understand that Zionists who built the State of Israel. The ones who were really running the State of Israel until the 1970s and the ones who laid the foundation for a Jewish state in Palestine, were secular Jews who wanted to modernize Judaism and did not want to be anymore regarded as religious Jews,” Pappé said.
#WATCH: Israeli historian Ilan Pappé reveals how the idea of establishing the State of #Israel was born #GazaCeasefire #Gaza pic.twitter.com/lDx9dIAmGw
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“But they used the Bible as a political text, not as a religious text, because they understood that a lot of Christians would support the Zionist movement on the basis of the Old Testament, on the basis of the Bible,” he explained.
“And they hoped – and they succeeded – that with time they would also convince religious Jews that colonizing Palestine, settling in Palestine, is a religious imperative,” he added.
A Colonialist Project
The historian noted that Israel is a colonialist project, influenced by the Europeans who built states for themselves outside Europe.
“But to begin with, this was not a movement of religious Jews trying to build a religious Jewish state. This was a proper colonialist project, very similar to other colonialist projects of Europeans who felt unwelcome in Europe.
“In fact, they felt under danger in Europe and still wanted to be Europeans. So, they decided to build a European state outside of Europe instead of the Europe that did not want them,” he said.
Ethnic Cleansing
Speaking to Al-Mashhad TV, Pappé argued that Israel’s founders believed they had the right to ethnically cleanse Palestinians to build their own state.
“And in the case of Palestine, they chose a land in the heart of the Arab world, in the heart of the Muslim world, where already people were living.
“And this is why I claim that the Zionist movement, from the very beginning, believed that it had the right to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, to remove them, in order to build the European Jewish state that they wanted, instead of the Europe that didn’t want them,” he said.
