We publish an unofficial translation of an article from the Brazilian New Democratic newspaper A Nova Democracia found here.
By Enrico Di Gregorio
Progressive historian Ilan Pappe, author of books such as 10 Myths about Israel and The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, was detained and interrogated by the FBI at the Detroit airport in Michigan, in the United States (USA), on May 13.
Pappe denounced the case in his Facebook on May 15th. According to the complaint, he had his cell phone confiscated and was asked about supporting the Palestinian National Resistance. The whole interrogation lasted about two hours.
“am I a Hamas supporter? do I regard the Israeli actions in Gaza a genocide? what is the solution to the “conflict” (seriously this what they asked!)” Pappe wrote.
Agents also questioned the relations the historian had with “Arab and Muslim friends”.
During the interrogation, FBI agents had long conversations on the phone with other people. “[With] the Israelis?”, Pappe asks, in the publication.
This episode increases the list of repressions against Ilan Pappe by states and companies of imperialist countries.
Last year, a French publisher cancelled printouts of the book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, in what Pappe denounced as censorship.
Ilan Pappe does not detract from the repression he suffered from the persecution of pro-Palestinian personalities around the world, such as the Palestinian rector of the University of Glasgow, who was forbidden to enter France and Germany.
“The good news is – actions like this by the USA or European countries taken under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby or Israel itself smell of sheer panic and desperation in reaction to Israel’s becoming very soon a pariah state with all the implications of such a status,” Pappe concludes.
