Freedom of expression Israeli historian Ilan Pappé detained and interrogated by the FBI – El Salto

In what one observer has called “a new level of madness and paranoia,” renowned Israeli historian and professor Ilan Pappé – a staunch critic of Zionism – was detained and interrogated by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents this week in Detroit. Entry into the United States by airport.

In a Wednesday Facebook post, Pappe said FBI agents interrogated him for two hours after arriving at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport on Monday: “I must say that the two person team was not disrespectful or rude, but their questions were really out of this world! Am I a supporter of Hamas? Do I consider Israeli action? Horoscope A massacre? What is the solution to the ‘conflict’ (really, that’s what they asked!). Who are my Arab and Muslim friends in the United States? What kind of relationship do I have with them?

“He (had) a long conversation on the phone with an Israeli?” He added, “And after copying everything my phone allowed me entry.”

“I know that many of you have had a very bad time,” Pappe wrote, referring to Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sitah, a British-Palestinian plastic surgeon and chancellor of the University of Glasgow in Scotland, who was denied entry to Germany last month. Was done.” The expansion, to 29 Schengen countries, took place before the ban was lifted earlier this week.

“The good news is that such actions, taken by the US or European countries under pressure from the pro-Israel lobby or Israel itself, smack of sheer panic and desperation in response to Israel soon becoming a pariah state The implications of that situation happening,” he said.

Pappe’s behavior sparked outrage among Palestine advocates: “The detention and interrogation of internationally renowned Israeli anti-Semitism historian Ilan Pappe at a Detroit airport by the FBI, a long series of intimidation and harassment throughout the West for indefinite defiance The latest: Israel committed genocide against Palestinians,” Berkeley history professor Ussama Makdisi said on social media on Wednesday. Businessman and geopolitical commentator Arnaud Bertrand said: “We have reached a whole new level of madness and paranoia.”

Pappe, 69, is a scholar of Palestinian history at the University of Exeter in England. More than 20 of his books have been published including Ethnic cleansing of Palestine, Analysis of the Nakba expulsion of over 750,000 Arabs from Palestine by Zionist militants (who sometimes massacred Palestinians to spread terror among them) during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in the late 1940s.

He has been one of Israel’s leading critics of Israel’s ongoing offensive on Gaza, which Palestinian officials say has killed, maimed or disappeared more than 125,000 people since the October 7 attacks. During an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday to mark the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, Pappé claimed that Israel’s current attack is in many ways “worse” than the ethnic cleansing of 1948–49. “What we are seeing now is a massacre that is part of the genocidal impulse, that is, killing people in order to reduce the number of people living in Gaza,” he said. “Ethnic cleansing is a terrible crime against humanity, but genocide is worse.”

Pappe’s last title, Advocacy of Zionism on both sides of the Atlantic, Details “How pro-Israel pressure groups influence the policies of Britain, the United States, and others in the Middle East.” Reacting to the author’s arrest, Jamil Dakwar, a human rights lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and professor at New York University, said: “One has to wonder whether this ‘VIP welcome’ is a reflection of his activism against genocide and his new “Relates to the book.”