Interview 'I felt it was my duty to protest' The Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, tells Chris Arnot

Yet in 2005 and 2006, this Israeli son of German-Jewish emigrants found himself in the eye of a storm that would lead him to leave the country of his birth and seek sanctuary in the English west country. He has been chair in the history department at Exeter University for the last 18 months. By the time he left the University of Haifa, he had been condemned in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset; the minister of education had publicly called for him to be sacked; and his pictures had appeared in the country's biggest-selling newspaper at the centre of a target. Next to it, a popular columnist addressed his readers thus: "I'm not telling you to kill this person, but I shouldn't be surprised if someone did."