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April 09, 2012
JPS Uses New Falsification to Defend Pappé Falsification
CAMERA's response to Journal of Palestine Studies' defense of Ilan Pappé is now posted on our main website. Pappé had used a fabricated quote, which he attributed to a 1937 letter by David Ben-Gurion to his son Amos, in a 2006 article in JPS.
Unfortunately, instead of publishing a straightforward correction, JPS doubled down.
We explain in our article that
the journal's editors defended "the overall accuracy" of Pappé's piece, arguing that another purported statement by Ben-Gurion showed the author was essentially correct. Pappé claimed Ben-Gurion wrote that "The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war." JPS maintained this quote, while incorrect, is close enough to what they say Ben-Gurion actually wrote, namely that "We must expel Arabs and take their place." The editors should have realized, though, that the new quote they cited is at best questionable, and almost certainly inaccurate. Making matters worse, JPS inserted invented words into its English translation of the document it used to defend Pappé's article. In other words, it introduced its own falsehoods to defend Pappé's falsehood.
Among other things, we note that JPS's English version of the 1937 Ben-Gurion letter, as translated by the journal's parent organization The Institute for Palestine Studies, includes the invented phrase "Up to now," which is inserted into the beginning of a key sentence and misleadingly suggests Ben-Gurion is describing a change of heart.
What we left out for the sake of brevity is that this wasn't the only peculiar change IPS made in its translation of the letter. For example, in another passage Ben-Gurion states that if Jews have to use force to secure their right to settle the barren land, "it is clear that we will then have an issue not only with the Arabs that are in the Land of Israel." It is very likely, he continues, that Arabs from neighboring countries "will come to help them against us."
In the JPS translation, "we will have an issue" turns into the nefarious sounding "we will have to deal ... with." The phrase "against us" is lopped of altogether, so that JPS's translation has Ben-Gurion writing, "it is very probable that Arabs from the neighboring countries will come to their aid."
Posted by GI at April 9, 2012 04:32 PM
Comments
Thank goodness for camera, which can rebuke the lies of Pappe and shows how he makes up history to promote his hatred of Israel.
Posted by: Ed Frias at April 10, 2012 08:29 AM
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