Last Sunday, at the American Colony Hotel in east Jerusalem, the
unofficial base for the PLO in Jerusalem, Ilan Pappe received several
standing ovations as he addressed a packed crowd to launch his new book, "The
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine".

According to my sources present, the audience included many western
journalists, European diplomats, publicly-funded local UN staff, and
anti-Israeli Jews including Mordechai Vanunu.

In his talk, Pappe, made an attack on Israeli Jewish politicians of
left and right, and said it was "horrible" that Shimon Peres had received
a Nobel peace prize. (He did not criticize Yasser Arafat for getting
one. See: www.tomgrossmedia.com/ArafatAllies.htm.)

According to my sources present, Pappe said he was sympathetic to the
idea of Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and "Arab states should have one
too."

He received rousing lengthy applause and many standing ovations.
www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000829.htm
AVI SHLAIM AND NORMAN FINKELSTEIN

A host of Jewish extremists will be participating in the
"Israeli Apartheid Week" events. For example, at Oxford University,
speakers include Israeli-born academic Avi Shlaim, who has based virtually his
whole career on slandering Israel.

At Hamilton University in Ontario Canada, Professor Norman Finkelstein
will be speaking on "Palestine & Israel: Roots of Conflict, Prospects
for Peace."

For Finkelstein's views on the Holocaust, see the first note in the
dispatch "David Irving: Auschwitz 'was a tourist attraction' (& British
Muslims scrap Holocaust Day)" (Jan. 31, 2007)
www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000823.html.

Also speaking in Montreal is Israeli-Arab Member of the Knesset
(Israeli parliament) Jamal Zahalka. He told Yediot Ahronot  that

 "Calling the occupation apartheid isn't an overstatement,
it's an understatement... The Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip are worse than apartheid."

Zahalka apparently doesn't see the irony that he is a freely elected
member of the Israeli Knesset yet claims Israel is like apartheid in
South Africa. Apparently he is unaware of what apartheid actually was.

He also seems to have "forgotten" that Israel withdrew entirely from
Gaza in 2005, and that Gaza, for only the second time in two millennia
has now been ethnically cleansed of any Jewish presence (other than a
young Israeli, Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by the Hamas-led Palestinian
government he apparently so admires). For more, see this photo montage:
Exodus from Gaza (www.tomgrossmedia.com/ExodusFromGaza.html).

SOME MIGHT CALL THEM SELF-LOATHING

Among the Israeli agitators taking part in the "Israeli Apartheid
Week" events are the writer Yitzhak Laor (a poet, playwright and
journalist for Ha'aretz), the filmmaker Eyal Sivan (who also teaches in the
cinema department of Israel's Sapir college in the Negev in southern
Israel), the historian Dr Amnon Raz (from Ben Gurion University also of
the Negev), and Ryvka Bar Zohar, who is helping to organize the New York
part of Israeli Apartheid Week.

Ilan Pappe from Haifa University, an advocate of ending the state of
Israel and before that of boycotting Israeli institutions (including his
own), will speak at Oxford University on "Resisting Apartheid:
Divestment and Solidarity" on Friday. Chairing the meeting is Prof. Steven
Rose, a British Jew who has led calls for a worldwide boycott of the Jewish
state.

Other possible speakers mentioned include Prof. Gabi Piterberg, an
Israeli from the University of California at Los Angeles, who has
previously spoken on "Zionism and Apartheid."

The participation of these Jewish academics has been warmly welcomed by
many non-Jewish haters of Israel.