Book Review: "The Biggest Prison on Earth" by Ilan Pappe
Pappe's Controversial Takes on 1967, Oslo, and More
Overall Rating: 4.25/5.0
I was in high school in the late 1980s when the first intifada erupted. Luckily for me, my father and I stopped into a university bookstore around this time, where I stumbled upon a copy of The Israel-Arab Reader. This was a collection of primary source material presenting both sides of the history of the conflict. It proved invaluable in helping me see through the propaganda of the day.
Unbeknownst to me, also around this time, Israel's "new historians," including Ilan Pappe, were starting to uncover more evidence, in IDF archives for instance, to substantiate challenges to the version of history pushed by Israeli propaganda, which The Israel-Arab Reader had brought to my attention.
My interest in the conflict waned after college, however, due to the breakdown of Oslo, and especially after 9/11. I thought maybe the Palestinians would just keep fighting forever, with unrealistic expectations of what Israel's military dominance meant they could ever hope for, whether they were right or not, in terms of a peace agreement. Israel's rhetoric after the horrific events of Oct 7, 2023, for instance, calling Palestinians "human animals" and saying that every inch of Gaza was a war zone, alarmed me and made me realize that I needed to revisit the conflict. To that end, Ilan Pappe's work has been tremendously helpful in getting me up to speed on what has been learned since the late 1980s. The Biggest Prison on Earth is essential to this work. It is particularly effective in challenging the common perspective about the causes of the 1967 War, the breakdown of Oslo, and whether or not peace initiatives have failed primarily due to inexplicable Arab aggression and intransigence.
The Six-Day Way
This book covers Israeli/Palestinian history, starting with the end of the War of Independence and continuing to the time the book was written: 2017, the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, which is a particular area of focus.
Pappe makes the case that many Zionists in 1948-9 were disappointed that Israel did not take the West Bank when it could have. They harbored thoughts of using conflicts with Israel's neighbors after that as pretexts to correct this mistake. Pappe mentions 1963, in particular, as the beginning of meticulous planning in Israel on how they would go about occupying the West Bank and Gaza Strip once a suitable pretext occurred.
Pappe then dives into the proximate causes of the 1967 War. Pappe's thesis is that although there were some border skirmishes around this time and some saber-rattling by Nasser, it was nothing out of the ordinary and certainly nothing that called for a pre-emptive Israeli strike on its neighbors. Instead, Pappe believes that it was merely the pretext that Zionists had long been looking for but something that could easily have been managed back to relative peace had Israel been willing. Pappe argues, however, that Israel was not willing, largely due to its increased military prowess, especially in terms of its air force, which it had acquired thanks to a closer relationship with Washington, DC.
The Occupation
A substantial portion of Pappe's book describes how quickly Israel began to implement its occupation plans: a testimony to how systematic and thorough the planning had been. Pappe makes it clear that almost immediately, many Palestinians were expelled from their homes. He puts the total for 1967 at around 180,000. Also, almost immediately, Israel began a program of moving settlers into the occupied territories.
Pappe describes the extraordinary legal reasoning, sometimes blocked by Israel's Supreme Court, and how Israeli leaders such as Sharon sought to work around it by various subterfuge. This included the invocation of laws from Jordan, Mandatory Palestine, and even the Ottoman Empire to justify the land grabs.
As the title implies, Pappe believes a prison model describes the situation well. He cites Israeli officials explicitly stating they wanted to use a carrot-and-stick model. If Palestinians were accepting of the situation, treatment would be better, an open-air prison, although expansion via settlements would continue. If Palestinians, however, were resistant, there would be a crackdown where freedoms were severely restricted: a maximum security prison. Pappe points out that although there are some imperfections with the analogy, for instance, Israel would love for all prison inhabitants to just leave for another country, it is a good description overall.
Pappe sees the prison model as a strategy for dealing with the fact that Israel does not want to annex the territories, as that would mean making the Palestinians citizens. That, in turn, would mean Jews would no longer be a substantial majority in Israel. Along these lines, Pappe sees the peace process as a canard: Israel has no intention of giving up much of its gains in the West Bank, although it is less interested in Gaza. The occupation, as opposed to annexation, means that it does not have to grant citizenship to the Palestinians. It can point to the unsurprising resistance, often provoked by Israel, as a reason to continue expansion and not make a serious offer regarding a two-state solution. Israel, Pappe argues, also points to the resistance as a reason not to seriously discuss the Palestinians' right of return.
Another particularly fascinating aspect of Pappe's book is his discussion of the role of Orthodox and other marginalized Jews in implementing the expansionist plan. Pappe describes how their religious beliefs mean they feel they are entitled to expand into the West Bank and engage in violence with Palestinians already there. They are further encouraged to do so by tax breaks and the understanding that Israel's government will leave them alone in creating religious communities even where there are some conflicts with laws in the rest of Israel.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The book is remarkably engaging, given that a substantial part deals with the laws and bureaucracy of occupation: something one would not expect to be the most riveting of subjects. Here, Pappe manages to find a good balance in providing enough detail to see the harm the bureaucracy did to the Palestinians while also not going into excessive details as The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine did in parts.
The book also does a good job of discussing the critical events in the last 75 years in what is relatively short for a history book. Beyond just a raw recounting of events, however, Pappe generally makes a compelling case that there is a strategy behind it all dating back to the late 1930s. In addition, Pappe, in this book, does more to proactively address challenges to his admittedly controversial interpretations of history. An example of this is his dismissal of common arguments taken as evidence that Israel's neighbors' actions warranted a pre-emptive strike in 1967.
In terms of downside, I was not ultimately convinced by Pappe's argument that Israel's policy turned into one of genocide in Gaza beginning around 2006. He claims that one needs to look beyond numbers and consider whether Israel wants to kill many people and otherwise wreak sufficient destruction to make the place unlivable. This, of course, is logically possible. Still, it seems more plausible that Israel had no plan to deal with Gaza other than to maintain a tight blockade and accept that Hamas would fire some rockets and make some occasional raids necessitating "mowing the lawn" every few years. This was damage that, until Oct 7, they likely felt was small enough to live with.
Conclusion
This book, like The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, is invaluable in understanding the current conflict in Gaza. Specifically, it helps in analyzing whether pro-Palestinian protesters are correct in claiming that Israel is engaged in settler-colonialism, apartheid, genocide, and, of course, maintaining an open-air prison. Other than for genocide, I felt that Pappe made a convincing case. The book also substantially challenges the notion that Israel's pre-emptive strike in 1967 was necessary. This, of course, is controversial, and readers should compare it with Benny Morris's view, for instance, that although a pre-emptive strike was justified, the case is not as clear-cut as it has historically been made out to be.
Pappe, additionally, makes a compelling case that it was not primarily Arafat and the Palestinians "never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity" that led to the breakdown of the Oslo Accords.
Overall, I rate the book 4.25/5.0. This book is better written than The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine as it is more engaging and better at anticipating counterarguments. On the other hand, if you only wish to read one book by Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is better as it discusses the origins of the more fundamental issue: the history and aftermath of the Nakba, in greater detail.