Ilan Pappe’s October 25 lecture in Chicago, “The Ongoing Nakba,” promoting his new book, The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge, emphasized two things that stood out to me in particular: Israel’s importing of European pine trees and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. [1] Though these issues are not new to the discourse on Palestine, Pappe reminds his audience that the land is as alive as the indigenous people who inhabited it. The mind, body, and spirit of both land and people are still victims to Israel’s current goal of de-Arabizing Palestine, “which has gotten worse for the Palestinians every year since 1882.”
The lecture, at the Church of Our Savior in Lincoln Park, was packed. As I looked around, I saw some familiar faces: Jewish activists, Episcopalians active in the Divestment movement, students from local colleges. The pews we sat in were so old that if someone moved his or her leg, everyone sitting on the long bench could feel it. It was an unseasonably warm October night in Chicago and the crispy fall leaves I walked on from the train to the church indicated that the city’s winter chill was coming soon.
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