Speaker: Professor Ilan Pappe

(University of Exeter and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine)

Can Trump’s administration be any worse than Obama’s for the prospect of peace in the Middle East and securing justice for the Palestinians? Throughout Obama’s 8 years Israeli settlements on Palestinian land have continued to expand and Israel’s siege of Gaza has entered its 10th year.

In January 2009, Obama was president elect and only a few weeks away from assuming power when Israel’s Operation Cast Lead on Gaza, killed 1400 people, mostly civilians. He chose not to speak out. Later that year, on a visit to Cairo, Obama pledged to do everything in his power to bring about Palestinian statehood. Nothing came of it.

In 2014, during Israel’s 51 days of bombing of Gaza, the US condemned the bombing of UN schools but declared on the war as whole, causing 2100 Palestinian deaths: ‘We defend Israel’s right to do what it is doing.’

In September 2016, the Obama administration signed a new 10-year military-assistance deal with Israel, representing the single largest pledge of its kind in American history. The pact, will be worth $38 billion over the course of a decade, an increase of 27 percent on the money pledged in the last agreement, signed in 2007. Israel, though by no means a poor country is according to the Congressional Research Service, “the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II.”

Will a Trump administration, staffed by US corporate capitalism, be any different? Israeli born Professor Ilan Pappe, the author of several books on Palestine and Israel will address this issue.

Organised by Sheffield PSC