French publisher La Fabrique has announced that the book “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, which recounts the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in the context of the creation of Israel in 1948, will be available again in France from May 2024.
La Fabrique stressed that the book was extremely relevant reading against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, but noted that voices critical of Israel are suppressed in France.
It cited the Paris municipality’s cancellation of a conference organised by the Union of French Jews for Peace (UJFP) to which American philosopher and writer Judith Butler had been invited, planning to discuss the use of “criticism of anti-Semitism as a tool to suppress critical voices”.
Calling the cancellation of the event “unacceptable” interference and censorship of free speech, La Fabrique stressed that in France, interference and censorship have become something of a habit when it comes to Palestine. It noted that those involved in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Palestine also face interference in freedom of expression.
La Fabrique criticised French courts for trying people involved in the movement since 2010, saying that they are one of the few courts in the world to do so. Pointing out that pro-Palestine demonstrations were only allowed in France a month after the Israeli attacks on Gaza began, La Fabrique expressed its concern over the suppression of growing pro-Palestinian voices in the country.
It also criticised the French government, led by President Emmanuel Macron, for banning pro-Palestine demonstrations while allowing anti-Semitism protests, highlighting the political “instrumentalisation” and dilution of the concept of anti-Semitism.
In France, a protest against anti-Semitism was organised in Paris on 12 November at the call of National Assembly Speaker Yael Brown-Pivet and Senate President Gerard Larcher. While demonstrations in favour of Palestine are routinely blocked on public safety grounds, a government-backed march in support of Israel under the slogan of protesting anti-Semitism sparked controversy.
On 15 November, a letter signed by more than 1,300 researchers and academics was published on the Mediapart website, protesting against “intimidation, defamation and restrictions on scientific speech in universities following the tragic events of 7 October”. It also condemns “a climate of threat that breeds fear and self-censorship at the expense of free speech.” The letter adds:
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the indicators of the work of the “thought police” that has settled in the French academic world for several years now, along with the invention of the ‘Islamo-leftist approach’ to disqualify certain academic discourses.
In a recent investigation, the newspaper L’Humanité also denounced “the atmosphere of pressure and intimidation faced by French researchers working on Palestine and the Arab world.”
Ilan Pappé, author of Middle East Eye, belongs to the school of “new historians” known for their criticism of Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians. Since the 1980s, he has sought to critically rethink the history of Israel’s creation and the Israeli-Arab conflict.
In 2017, he was interviewed by MEE on the occasion of the release of his book “The Greatest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories”, which he presented as a sequel to his previous work, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”. He said:
I see the whole project of Zionism as a structure, not as an isolated event. A colonial structure through which the settler movement colonises the homeland. Until colonisation is complete and the indigenous population resists through a national liberation movement, every such period I observe is just a stage within the same structure.
