Date: Saturday, 18th January 2020
Time: 7PM – 10PM
Venue: Graha Pemuda, Sri Hartamas, Kuala Lumpur
Register at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/reading-session-on-the-biggest-prison-on-earth-tickets-90007104673
Professor Ilan Pappé’s latest book, “The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories”, is a review of Israeli policy towards the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The historian sheds light on the mechanism that has been created to rule millions of Palestinians, who have effectively lived in an open air prison for 50 years.
In fact, Pappé goes back to 1948 and takes the reader on a journey through Israel’s political strategy since its creation on Palestinian land. In doing so, he highlights some defining moments and key players in the conflict, whilst pointing continuously to the fact that the total occupation of Palestine and the eradication of its population was always the ultimate end goal of the planners of the Zionist state.
The book makes clear its position on the current situation of the Palestinian territories early on when Pappé contests the definition of occupation. His first reservation is that the term creates “a false separation between Israel and the occupied areas”, such that the Israeli presence as a democratic state outside of the occupied territories is legitimised. He then objects that “occupation” implies a temporary state of affairs, yet this has been the accepted norm for the Palestinians for decades.
About the Author
Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, The Modern Middle East, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, and Britain and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Pappé is one of Israel’s “New Historians” who, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, have been rewriting the history of Israel’s creation in 1948. He is a prominent supporter of the One State Solution envisaging one state for Palestinians and Israelis. To find out more about the author visit Ilan Pappe’s Exeter University Faculty Page.
Program:
700-800PM: Dinner and Solat
800-810PM: Introduction by the Chairperson, Dr Chandra Muzaffar
810-900PM: Presentation by Prof Ilan Pappe
900-1000PM: Discussion
Organized by: Islamic Renaissance Front
