Genocide Lecture and Education Award

At the Sixth Annual Genocide Memorial Week Lecture, Professor Ilan Pappe spoke to a packed Health Sciences Auditorium at the University of Toronto on Wednesday, March 26, 2008. The topic of the lecture was the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The sponsor of the event was the organization Canadians for Genocide Education.

Prof. Pappe, said he was a former Israeli Zionist. He described how the Israeli leadership starting in 1948 expelled half (700,000), of the Palestinians in creating the state of Israel which today has a population of about 6.5 million. The genocide of the Palestinians continues to this day with the goal of expelling the Palestinians even from the small territory they now occupy as segregated citizens. The ultimate goal of Israel is to create a state free of the original inhabitants of Palestine.

The sense of guilt felt by much of the Western world toward the genuine suffering of the Jewish people during WWII, according to Pappe, has lead to a paralysis in the West’s ability to recognize the genuine suffering of the Palestinians. Prof. Pappe’s body of work directly challenges the West’s conspiracy of silence regarding the historic narrative of the Palestinian people and more generally, the racism that underlies the politics of human suffering.

In response to questions after his eloquent lecture, Prof. Pappe said that if world opinion did not force a change on Israeli policies within a decade, the Palestinians would be totally dispossessed. In his opinion, boycotts would help to change Israel’s policies.

Dr. Pappe was born in Haifa, Palestine (now in Israel), to German-Jewish parents who had fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s. He was educated in Israel and then obtained a Doctorate in Philosophy from Oxford University in 1984. He was the Academic Director of the research Institute for Peace at Givat Haviva from 1993 to 2000. He is currently Chair of the Department of History at the University of Exeter in England He is the author of numerous articles and books on the Middle East, Palestine and genocide. His latest work is Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld, 2006. See  www.ilanpappe.org for more information.

Prof. Pappe’s demonstration of professional and academic integrity in the face of persecution and ostracism within his homeland is inspiring. He has continued and published his research work in spite of enormous political pressure. He contributes to inclusivity and equity in genocide education and commemoration by presenting the little known narrative of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland.

The meeting closed with CGE Chairman John Gregorovich’s presentation of the Canadians for Genocide Education 2008 Educator Award to Prof. Pappe in recognition of his dedication to inclusivity and equity in genocide education. Prof. Pappe was available to meet members of the audience in person during a book signing session following the evening’s formal programme.

Canadians for Genocide Education, established ten years ago as Canadians for a Genocide Museum, today unites 44 Canadian organizations from 27 ethnic groups including a Jewish organization. Six Ukrainian Canadian community groups are members, including the Ukrainian National Federation (UNF) and the Ukrainian Women’s Organization of Canada (UWO).