Ilan Pappé - Pt2 - Lecture Series (2011)

Ilan Pappé: Thank you, Summer, for your very kind words. I wish my wife would be here. She would have heard it for the first time, some good things. I wish my late mother would be here. In the 2 talks today and tomorrow, I hope to cover a topic which Actually, I try and cover in a whole course or module in the university in a term, so I try and squeeze into 2 basically not too long lectures a topic which deserves a much more expanded series of lectures. I think we can compensate for the lack of time to discuss everything by knowing that many of you probably have the background and know much of what I'm going to talk about anyway. And for those who are relatively new to the topic, at least I hope this will be an appetizer to read more and to engage in the conversation on Palestine here in the United States. Which is a very important one, not just for the sake of Palestinians and Israelis, but I think also for the sake of America's global standing and future relationship with the Middle East and the Muslim world. The Zionist movement emerged in the late 19th century out of 2 impulses. And I would say that these were in many ways noble impulses. The first impulse was to find a safe haven for communities in Central and Eastern Europe that felt in the late 19th century more than ever before as being under threat of annihilation. And communities who had suffered years of persecution and discrimination. And there was a sense among community leaders and activists in the Jewish community in the late 19th century that worse is to come. And of course, they were vindicated in this next century when European Jewry suffered a genocide during the Holocaust. So the first, I think, impulse, the most basic reason for creating the Zionist movement was to find a safe place for endangered Jewish communities. The second impulse was to redefine Judaism as a national movement. This was not unique to the Jewish communities in Europe. Ever since the Spring of Nations in 1848, quite a few religious, cultural, and ethnic communities in Europe felt that they would be better defined and would better cater for their own needs if they would adopt this new idea of nationalism. So Judaism, in the eyes of Zionist activists, was not just a religion but also a national movement. The idea was from very early on that if you want to save the Jewish communities in Europe and you want to redefine Judaism as a national movement, you cannot do it on European soil. You have to look for a different continent. A different place. Now, this is the age of colonialism we are talking about. Oh, I didn't turn off— do you need my mic? Yes. Yes. You do? Okay. Is that better? I don't, I don't hear any difference. There's a green light on my trousers, but maybe that indicates something else. I don't know. Uh, can you hear me now? Did I do something wrong? Could you move the microphone up just a little, honey? Can you take it up? Yeah? OK. I think we're hearing something different now. Oops. Oh, sorry about that. Is it better? Yes. You have to say this to me. There's no other option. I'll warm up anyway. So the idea was that geographically you cannot satisfy these 2 impulses in Europe. And this being the age of colonialism and the movement being a European movement, it's not surprising that the rest of the world seemed open. As some of you may know, that the first choice was actually a place in the United States. Oh, really? Not far away from the Niagara Falls, which the leaders of the Zionist movement thought would be the newfound Jerusalem, so to speak. Then there were talks about Azerbaijan, Argentina. The most famous option was Uganda in Africa, and of course Palestine. Palestine as well, due to the centrality of Palestine in Judaism. But it was not in many ways the first choice, and the leader of the Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl, preferred Uganda actually to Palestine. The reason that eventually Palestine was chosen had to do with Christian Zionism, or Zionist Christians, Christian Zionism as it was called then, which appeared in the very early 19th century on both sides of the Atlantic. Evangelical churches regarded the idea of the return of the Jews to Palestine as, of course, a precursor of the divine scheme for the resurrection and the second coming of the Messiah. And return of the Jews was an important element in it. And definitely there was a pressure on the Zionist movement to choose Palestine for Christian reasons. Needless to say that something happened with some churches. The motive was also antisemitic. If you can both precipitate the second coming of the Messiah and get rid of the Jews in Europe in the same ticket, that's quite a good idea. And of course, you don't tell the Jews on the trip, don't read the small letters. Small letters said that when the Messiah is coming back, you guys have to convert to Christianity or you will be shish kebab in hell. And that, that part of the scheme is still there with Christian Zionists, as you know, today. But they are the best allies of Israel because either Israelis like to be barbecued in hell or they don't read the small letters. I would go for the second option when it comes to Israelis. In any case, whatever the historical reasons are, Palestine was chosen as the venue in which one could satisfy these 2 noble impulses: safety and national independence, if you want. As you all probably know, the problem is that Palestine was not empty. And from very early on, and this is very well documented for for one particular reason. Early Zionist settlers were quite obsessive diarists and writers. Every thought they had, every mosquito bite they suffered from, you can read about, probably more than you would like to. And there's nothing there that escaped their pen. And there are mountains of documents one can one can read if you want to reconstruct both the leaders' perception of what to do with the indigenous native population of Palestine and the more sort of average member of the movement. And do remember, when we're talking about the early Zionist movement, let's say from 1880 to the 1930s, it's a very small number. It's 150,000, maybe 200,000. And therefore, it's quite a manageable community for a researcher to have a good idea of what people felt. What they felt is still with us today, and the basic idea was that people believed or wanted to believe that, A, once they chose Palestine, they chose An ancient homeland. So the basic concept was of returning to a homeland. Now, what do you do when you return to your homeland and someone else is in your home? The fact that you actually left home 2,000 years ago is forgotten in this kind of engagement, and what matters is that someone has illegally occupied your home, and that comes very strongly. In the early Zionist writing and also in the way that Zionist leaders and Zionist discourse develops in the 1920s and the 1930s. The— there is kind of a paradox typical to colonialist movements, by the way, that Palestinians sometimes are not there because it's very convenient to treat Palestine as terra nulla, an empty land, as did the settlers who came to Australia treated the Aboriginals present there. But sometimes they are there and then you have to demonize them in order to disregard their connection to the place. So they are either absent or they are usurpers or illegal occupants of your homeland. The Zionist movement in the 1920s and the 1930s, to be fair, was not very occupied with the question of what would be the fate of the Palestinians in Palestine. They were busy with other worries. Would the international community protect them? Would there be enough Jews? This is before the Holocaust. Would be there enough Jews who would come to Palestine? Can they create an independent state? Under the British mandate and so on. In a very bizarre, in a very, of course, painful way, one could say that the Holocaust and even the rise in Nazism and fascism before the Holocaust in the 1930s calmed down some of the Zionists' fears. Jews were coming to Europe, from Europe, because it was impossible to stay in Europe as a The community in Palestine reached quite a sizable number, and it seemed that the British mandatory authorities allowed the Zionist community to build a state within a state or build an infrastructure for future state. This is when, in 1936-1937, Zionist leaders begin to pay to attract attention of. Divert their attention to the question of what would be the fate of the Palestinians in Palestine. And something very clear comes out from there up to the end of the British Mandate. For the Jewish community in Palestine to not only to survive but also to thrive, to excel, to succeed, and for the Jewish community to become democratic to be part of the democratic world, for that to happen, it has to have an absolute majority in the land. It also has to have a control over much of the land. So there is a geographical dimension and there is a demographic dimension. It comes very clear out in the late 1930s. Jews have to be— to have supremacy, if possible exclusivity, and Jews have to have physical control over the ancient land of Palestine. The problem is, of course, that even in 1938, the Jews are still only one-third of the population, and they don't have control even over one square inch of Palestine. So they're waiting for the right historical moment. And that historical moment comes in 1948, when the British government decides that it had enough of fighting both Jews and Arabs And in any case, the British Empire collapses after the Second World War. The day the British mandatory authorities informed both Jews and Arabs that the British mandate is coming to an end is the day that the Zionist political and military leadership decided on the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That's the moment When everything comes into place for the leadership of the Zionists. They can have a chance to create a Jewish state. They have a chance to create a democratic Jewish state to be part of the Western world. And they have a chance to get rid of the Arabs, of the Palestinians, because it's very near to the Holocaust. There is an inbuilt immunity for anything Jews would do. Right. 2 years or 3 years after the Holocaust. And in many ways, they exploited the decision of Arab neighboring states to go to war against the future Jewish state, so they could use the situation of the war to implement an ethnic cleansing program. I would say that the finer details of that program are articulated in Marx 1944, in by now the famous or infamous land deeds of the Jewish military forces, the Haganah, in Palestine. Now ethnic cleansing is a very loaded term and one should be careful when one uses such terms, but in my book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, I decided to use A source which I don't always regard as the beacon of truth, but I knew that all my Israeli Jewish friends and their friends around the world would treat it as a beacon of truth. And this is the website of the State Department. The website of the State Department has a very clear definition of ethnic cleansing, and I tried to show in my book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine How that definition fits what happened in Palestine in '47, '48. Mm-hmm. It's very interesting that according to the State Department, you don't even need to have a clear-cut master plan for expulsion. You don't need to expel the whole population, and you do not need to make sure that not everyone is allowed to return to be regarded as an ethnic cleanser. So even in the soft version, what the Zionist movement did to the Palestinians was ethnic cleansing. I think it's even harsher than that. Yeah. All in all, as you probably know, the Israeli army within 7 months expelled half of Palestine's population. And if you want to understand the magnitude of the crime, You actually have to look at the map of Israel. Israel was built over 80% of Palestine. In the 80% of Palestine that became the Jewish state, 80% of the population were expelled. Half of Palestine villages were destroyed. When I say they were destroyed, they were wiped out. And instead of their place, the new Jewish state created either Jewish settlements or planted recreational forests. The urban space of Palestine changed beyond recognition. Whole cities just disappeared. In Haifa, a Palestinian population— out-of-Palestinian population of 70,000 people Out of that population, only a few thousand were left, and there are similar proportions in Jaffa. And there are towns that were just demolished and disappeared altogether. Now, it's very interesting that the Israeli narrative was that this was done voluntarily. Palestinians must be very special people. I mean, so they obliterate the cities voluntarily. They leave their homes voluntarily. It's like a big picnic. Let's go out and put some TNT in our house. Leave it. Great fun. Never to come back to where we lived for 700 years. I don't think there's any other historical crime that was committed that has such a counter-narrative. There are counter-narratives to criminal acts. People justify it. They find extenuating circumstances. The Israeli invention is that the Palestinians did it voluntarily. I've never heard such a thing about any other case study. And to— I must tell you, visiting the States again and again, it's the last place it's being believed is here. Israelis don't believe it anymore, but Americans do. Well, you are gullible people in many ways. Yeah. You know that. It's quite easy to sell you fables such as these without much effort. But it's really time to wake up. People do not voluntarily destroy their villages and cities and leave their home country. And people who are not allowed to come back, whatever the reason is, are being expelled. This is another of the sort of fabrication of history that since some of the Palestinians did leave Because they were afraid. They were not allowed to go back, but the Israelis count them as people who voluntarily left. If the City of Medicine would be under the danger of being nuclear— under nuclear attack from Canada, and you will all leave, you would not voluntarily leave. You leave because you think that nuclear bombs are not a place, are not a situation you like to encounter. And if you would not be allowed to return after the threat is over, if the mayor of Madison would not— at least some of you would like to see them back— he would expel you. And according to the international law, he would commit a crime. The amazing thing about the 1948 ethnic cleansing is that on the ground you had reporters, including from the New York Times, On the ground, you had emissaries of the International Red Cross. You had people working for the United Nations. People saw with their own eyes. In fact, if you read American reports, people talk about expulsion all the time in their reports from the ground itself in 1948. There was no need for the new historians to wait for the big declassification of archives to know that. But the editors-in-chief in New York, the head of the Red Cross, the Secretariat of the United Nations decide for understandable reasons that 2 and a half years or 3 years after the Holocaust, you don't blame the Jews of committing crimes. There are more cynical interests behind Hiding this crime. And the reason is Germany. Already in '48, '49, it was very important for the West to reintroduce Germany to the community of civilized nations. It was very important. I mean Western Germany, because the Cold War was raging. Hmm. It was very important. Germany was the front line. And a deal was created The only people who could say that Germany is a new Germany were the Israelis, because they were the representative in the eyes of the world of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. They were the ones, and they were willing to absorb Germany, to allow it to come back to the community or family of nations. The price was that the world decided to be silent on what happened in Palestine. There were other more objective reasons or more easy reasons to understand after the Second World War, because so many people were moved around and expelled and the magnitude of the tragedies that the world has seen in 1939 to 1945. One can see why the expulsion of 3/4 of a million people was not seen as something that extraordinary or something that demands a particular attention. It was a very bad year to be a victim of an ethnic cleansing. It's much better to be today. But the fact that the world sent a very clear message to Israel, you are still a democracy, you are dignified member of the community of civilized nations, despite the fact that you're ethnically cleansed Palestinians, was a very important message. Because the idea of ethnic purity and supremacy became the ideological infrastructure for the Jewish state. Therefore, the Palestinians who remained in Israel were put under military— ruthless military regime between 1948 to 1966, and the world didn't care because Israel was still the only democracy in the Middle East. It was America's main ally in the Cold War, and it was regarded as a domestic affair. Now here we come to 1967. The 1967 war has its own mythology, and it's time to write the new history of 1967 as well. We have lived for too long with the narrative of '67 as we still teach it and read about it as just an Arab attempt to wipe out Israel. And a miraculous Israeli response that defeated the Arab armies in 6 days and so on. It's far more complex than that, but I won't go into the details of that. Of course, I would be very happy to answer questions or respond to comments on that as well. What I'm interested here is less why Israel went to war in '67 But as I tell you, I think that one has to revisit that period as well and not just take for granted what we've been told. But far more important, whatever the reasons are, it's very important to revisit what happened immediately after the war. Because after the war, the Israelis had control over 100% of Palestine. They controlled 80% of Palestine in 1948. 80%. But the remaining 20% became under Israeli control in 1967. With the 20%, which was a great geographical achievement, came from an Israeli point of view a new demographic headache because the territory came with 1.5 million Palestinians, half of them refugees who were expelled by Israel in 1948, exactly As not to count them in the demographic balance of the Jewish state. So when you are hungry for territory in the 1960s, it's very different from when you are hungry for territory in the colonial— colonialist age. In the colonialist age, if you're hungry for territory and you don't like the people, you can either genocide them or expel them. It wasn't that easy in the 1960s, although some Israelis contemplated it. Yeah. But the war in many ways was too short, the Six-Day War. And the Israelis were left with the kind of territory they always wanted. They really felt like geographically this is the future Jewish state. But demographically, this was really a problem. A million and a half, an additional million and a half Palestinians to what was then already a sizable population. Right. Palestinian minority inside Israel. Not only that, these were 1.5 million Palestinians who did not live under 19 years— for 19 years under Israeli rule. There were more Palestinians, if you will, than Israeli Palestinians. They were far more connected to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, to Palestinian identity and nationalism. Therefore, they were not just numerically— from a numeric, sort of, from a demographic Point of view, a problem, but also from an ideological point of view, they constituted quite a threat in the eyes of the Israelis. Now, the Israeli government has set day after day after the Six-Day War, and to the credit of the Israelis, and this is still a mystery, the Israelis are, although they're getting worse in it, but they're basically not too bad in opening up documentation. And in 1997, in 1998, the Israeli archives for these meetings of June and July 1967 all through to the summer of 1968 were made open to the public. And you learn a lot from these meetings. You learn That basically the Israeli cabinet and leadership saw the '67 war as a continuation of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, regardless of how they thought the war happened, whether they blamed themselves or Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, or it didn't matter. Some of them thought that You know, the Egyptians are responsible for the war, but that lended Israel with a golden opportunity. Others were more aware of the Israeli action that led to the war, but in the end of the day, it's the same thing. There was an historical opportunity to take over the rest of Palestine. And then you can see throughout the daily meetings that they had that they take 3 major decisions which are with us today. They haven't changed. It's quite amazing. It's the same reality. Oh, I would say all the successive governments of Israel, including this current government, are loyal to these 3 decisions. One decision was the territories will have to remain part of Israel. Whatever happens. Whatever you promise, whatever peace process you will be engaged in, basically these territories, especially the West Bank, not so much the Gaza Strip, but especially the West Bank, is the ancient heart of the Israeli nation. And therefore, they have to remain in Israeli hands. Secondly, Israel cannot expel the Palestinians from these territories. Maybe it was possible in '48. The world would not tolerate it in '67. So whoever brought to the government— some ministers brought to the government ideas of getting rid of the Palestinians— the vast majority of the ministers rejected the idea. Thirdly, there is no way that the Palestinians would remain, therefore, because they will not be expelled, In the territories that should remain under Israeli control, there's no way that these Palestinians would be granted equal citizenship. And there are interesting linguistic debates in the cabinet what to call them. And they come up with the Hebrew word toshavin, inhabitants. They are the inhabitants of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which means they are citizenless— Citizens. Citizens. They are inhabitants, as if the Gaza Strip is Madison, a city, or the West Bank is Chicago. It's inhabitants of a city. There are also sort of decisions that emanate from these 3 major decisions. For instance, there's a wish to be involved in the peace process and to be guided by the Americans in the peace But it's very clear from the very beginning that the peace process cannot in any way question the validity of the 3 decisions stated. Namely, the peace process has to, has to provide means by which Israel can continue to control the West Bank and the Gaza Strip directly or indirectly, means by which Israel would be allowed to retain the Palestinians without full citizenship. And means by which Israel would not be forced to expand the Palestinians because it would be forced by the international community to grant them equal rights, such as the right to vote, for instance, about their own future. And I would like to end so that to give you enough time for a long discussion, I hope. By saying that the Israelis detailed to death the reality, if I may use this sentence. And it's very important to understand it. One, and I would describe it best because I want to claim that this is ethnic cleansing in different means. It's not dramatic as the Pan-Arabic War created. But it is ethnic cleansing in different means. And they take additional decisions, and through these additional decisions, I would hopefully conclude the picture and leave it there, and then we can open up a discussion. One decision is whether to involve or not to involve the Israeli Supreme Court in the running Of the occupation, according to international law, those of you who know international law, Israel was not obliged to involve the local Supreme Court in running the affairs of the occupation. That's what the international law says. Yet the Israelis said, "No, no, no, we want the our Supreme Court, which is the most respected establishment in the state." the most respected establishment outsiders to keep an eye on our forces and our troops so that— to show that they are exceptionally moral in their behavior. The result was, of course, the opposite. Since the result was the opposite, I had the nagging feeling that the motivation was Exactly the opposite. It was not to keep an eye on Israeli crimes; it was to legitimize them. Almost every decision that people were taking to the Supreme Court against confiscation of land, demolition of houses, expulsion of people, imprisonment of people without a trial—all their inventory of Israeli. Criminal acts that we are familiar with after 40 years of occupation were legalized by the Supreme Court of Israel, which meant that when people like you would come out and say, wait a minute, we are part of, I don't know, Human Watch, United Nations, international agencies, churches in Seattle, I don't know, come from all over the world, and we have a high standard And we don't like what you do. Israelis would say to you, sorry, we have the internet, we have the Supreme Court, we checked it with our Supreme Court, it's fine. That's why international law in Israel is, in the eyes of Israelis, tantamount to antisemitism. You say international law, they think about antisemitism. Why would you need international law when you have the Supreme Court of Israel making So that's one part of the occupation that has to be understood. Now it doesn't matter anymore because the Israelis are going to change the whole composition of the Israeli Supreme Court and all the liberal Zionist judges are going to be replaced anyway by national religious and extreme nationalist judges. So at least the world will not have to believe these things. The second issue, which is very interesting, Is the issue of the land regime. This is a fascinating story. Those of you who come from the West Bank, you know it. The Israelis, of course, could go around, confiscate land, give it to settlers, and go home, right? No, they wanted it to be legal. So they looked at the international law. International law does not allow them either to allow any Jew to colonize. Right. It's against the international law. You cannot bring your own citizens to the occupied land, nor are you allowed to confiscate private land. And the Israelis said, okay, we have to abide by these issues, but we can be clever. A, we will find a way of showing that the land is not private, and then we can give it to the settlers. Right. So there's an interesting chapter in the legal history of the occupation where the Israelis are recruiting the academic institutes and experts, which is one of many good reasons to boycott Israeli academia later on. They recruit them and they say to them, can you come up with something that would allow us not just to use force but to show that this is legal? So they come up with the idea that during the time of the Ottoman Empire Private land, it's called mawat. Private land that was not cultivated for 3 years was returned to the empire, became state land, right? Now there was a problem. Most Palestinians never left a land uncultivated for 3 years, and the Ottoman Empire was long gone, right? But count on the Israelis, the resuscitated the Ottoman Empire, and they had a scale of time which fitted the Middle East better than the rest of the world. Mainly, if you didn't cultivate the land for 3 months, it's nearly 3 years. You know, here and there, 3 months, 4 months is nearly 3 years. The man who was the inventor of this was Ariel Sharon, and there's a famous trip he takes with a helicopter And he says, this is my wife, this is my wife, this is my wife. And that's how they legalized settlements on— and declared it a state. Now, why do they need it? That's why dictators need elections. They need to feel that this is legalized. And it all goes back to '48. You use force to dispossess the Palestinians. But you use legal discourse in order to say that this is not an ordinary case of ethnic cleansing. This is legal, it was examined, it can be recognized. And I would end with another Israeli decision that I'm not sure you know about, which also completes the picture. When Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, 1968, the first Palestinian guerrilla operations against the occupation started. People would come from the West Bank and from Jordan and infiltrate into the local schools. That's a typical Palestinian story, but we need the Palestinians alone tonight. How they were caught is quite pathetic, but never mind. They were caught, uh, and they had the military fatigue, and their intention was to attack a military installation. According to the international law, again, this is a military operation. This is not terrorism. The Israelis had a very serious discussion, which I just discovered the other day, whether to call these guys terrorists or not. In fact, they consulted American experts, French experts, all over the world, who told them, yes, this is a liberation movement that sent a military unit, and therefore the people you caught should be treated as prisoners of war, and you should ask the Red Cross to come and see them. And Israel decided, no, no, they are terrorists, and that terrorizing the Palestinian action against the occupation became a very important part from legalizing anything the Israelis would do later on, whether it's collective punishment of demolishing houses, expelling people, putting almost every third person in the West Bank in prison without trial through their lives, putting children in prison. Everything is legalized because whatever you do as a Palestinian in the West Bank is part of the terrorist action. And it's all grounded in legal institutions. So when you face the ethnic cleansing of Palestine between '48 and '67, you are facing a state that genuinely believes it found a legal way of justifying what it does. So it won't be enough to protest and say, what you're doing is wrong. You need to study. You need to analyze, you need to deconstruct their actions because the shield that defends them is not just sheer power, military power, financial aid from the United States. It is also a complex structure, a narrative that they have built, which a lot of good people around the world still believe and making them I disbelieve that this is not an easy project, believe me, I know it personally. But I hope this lecture contributes something to this very sacred mission. Thank you very much. Go ahead, please. Hi, I was just wondering if you believe that it's possible for a 2-state solution like presented in the partition plan before the British mandate in 1947? And if not, do you think that Israelis have any right to the land in the Middle East, seeing that they were exiled from their homeland years ago, just as you, as you say Palestinians are exiled from their homeland? Yeah, well, I don't believe that a 2-state solution is a good solution. I think, I used to believe it was a good idea, especially, you're right, especially the way that the partition plan suggested it, which was much better than the partition idea that emerged after 1967, namely that at least both sides would have half of the country, you know, as it is suggested now. So I think that the only future for both Jews and Palestinians in the land is to share the land together, which means that from a national perspective Both the Palestinians and the Israeli Jews will have to give up the dream of a nation-state, if that's what makes them tick, because it's not going to work there, to my mind. So I think Israelis have a right to be in Israel and in Palestine, provided they would grant equal rights, the same rights, to the Palestinians. You know, there's a very interesting correspondence between Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, and Mahatma Gandhi in the 1930s. Gandhi was very critical about Zionism, and Buber was a very liberal Zionist, as you probably know. He was— he created Bridge Shalom, the idea that Arabs and Jews actually could live in one binational state. And Gandhi wrote to him the famous letter. He said to him, the question is not whether it would be a 2-state or a binational state. The question is not even, he said, are the Jews really coming back to their homeland or not? He said, I'm not interested in that. So the question is, would the Jews allow the Palestinians the same kind of life that they desire for themselves? And Hoover concluded his letter, from what I hear, I fear that they would not. And I think his prediction was right. Yes, please, here. Here, you. Yeah. When was Israel accepted to the United Nations as a country? And at that time, what were the boundaries? And why wasn't the rest of Palestine admitted to the United Nations as a country? And why are they having to try to establish their nation at this point? Yeah. Israel was admitted as a full member on the 13th of May, 1949, as a full member. The condition for its acceptance was actually an American initiative, that it would be willing, as a result of being admitted as a full member, be engaged in negotiations with the Palestinians over 3 issues: the return of the refugees of 1948, the redrawing of the borders, and accepting the international status of Jerusalem. And the result was that the Israelis signed the protocol that accepted this, became members, and then, of course, forgot about it. So if you want, the United Nations first of all was not interested in granting at the same time a similar status to the Palestinians, but at least it said the way the state looks is too tentative. It has to negotiate comprehensive peace. For example, Israel took over a lot of land that according to the United Nations partition resolution belonged to the Palestinians, and the question was, does Israel have the right? To declare these areas as part of Israel. Israel is not allowing the refugees to come back. Nobody in the United Nations thought it made any sense. By the way, nobody in the American administration, the Truman administration, thought it made any sense to prevent the refugees from coming home. Even those who were very strong supporters of the idea of the Jewish state did not understand why Israel is not allowing the refugees to return. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. And very few people in the world rejected the idea of Jerusalem as an international city holy to all 3 religions. But the Israelis disregarded their promise, if you want, to the United Nations. So that's why that acceptance as membership was not accompanied by any other additional means that may have had a chance maybe to create a more peaceful reality in Israel-Palestine. Yes. Is it true that Harry Truman was going to withdraw support for Israel because of their treatment of Palestinians? Yes, it is. In fact, far more interesting is President Eisenhower on this. He was far more severe on Israel. Truman was very annoyed with the refusal of Israel To allow the repatriation, the return of the Palestinians. So it was less the treatment of the Palestinians themselves, but the very idea that the Palestinians cannot come back to their homes. And he exerted a very strong pressure on Israel, including withdrawing a promised loan to Israel for $100 million, which is a lot of money, even now for me. And the Israelis said, okay, we'll We'll get back 100,000 as a gesture of goodwill. Then they— typical, they detail you to death, as I said. Then they said, out of the 100,000, 25,000 actually already returned illegally. 25,000 would be reunited with their families in the future. The rest of the 50,000, if they will show loyalty to the State of Israel, maybe they can come back, maybe not. But they didn't. By that time, you know, the Truman administration was involved in the Cold War, Korea, and so on, was not interested in this. Eisenhower was much more serious about it. He was— he thought in 1953 that Israel should allow all the refugees to return, which to my reading in the book I wrote together with Noam Chomsky, I tried to prove it, is why Israel created AIPAC, this lovely lobby that you have here. Thank God we don't have it in Israel. You have it here. So it's for good things, not on me. And AIPAC was created by Abba Eban, who was the Israeli representative in the United Nations, together with Jewish labor unions, exactly because the feeling was that God knows how far Eisenhower would go. He seemed much more serious than Truman. He was far more outraged Than Truman was about the idea that refugees could not go back. The Israelis tried to explain— it's interesting, I think we should draw some pride as Americans out of it. They tried to explain both to Truman and Eisenhower that it makes sense not to allow Palestinian citizens who were born in Israel to come back because then the Jews will not be a majority. At least these 2 presidents, with all their deficiencies and faults— Could not understand Why you do not allow people to return because they are of the wrong religion. They really didn't understand it. They really didn't. Future presidents who would be elected in different ways, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, would understand. Yes, here. Oh, I've got 2 questions. They're both somewhat related to '67. The first is, I think your account of Israel becoming a friend of the U.S. because of the beginning of the Cold War around 1948 might be simplifying things a little bit. I mean, there was fear in the U.S. for many years that Israel would actually become a socialist or even a communist country. And also the question about accepting the existence of Germany. Israel didn't recognize at least West Germany until 1965, I think it was. And then my second question, which is a little bit off the subject, but you mentioned a lot of archives becoming available. Do you think those new archives will shed light or any further explanation on the bizarre Liberty incident? The first question, yeah, I think it's true. I mean, you're right. In fact, maybe Eisenhower himself was tamed by the fact that he didn't want to push Israel to the side of the Soviet bloc, and it may explain, yeah, it may explain some of the American sort of Hesitations on this. Although, again, I have to say the Soviet Union was no different. It showed no interest at that time in the refugee question. It supported the state of Israel. Once Israel sided openly with the West, then the Soviet Union began to help the Palestinian organizations, but it was not the other way around. Mm-hmm. As for the Liberty, yes, my guess is that if someone is interested, I think there is new material. What I saw, summing up, is that to me this is the most— but it has to be substantiated what I'm saying now. What I've seen, and I haven't dealt with it because I was interested in big crimes, not the little ones, that the Liberty was a kind of an intelligence vessel. Right. And they were listening to all kinds of military communications that the Israelis had. And that included some atrocities in Gaza and so on. And I think that there was an Israeli wish to dysfunction the boat. But God knows. I mean, it could have been a mistake. It could have been on purpose. As you say, it's bizarre. Worth looking at. And I think there is new material now. Yeah, I just wasn't able to stick myself in there. I just had a quick announcement. My name is Ziad. I'm a student here, undergrad, at the university. We actually just established a Students for Justice in Palestine organization here on campus, so we will continue to inform the student body about the plight of the Palestinian people in Palestine. And in diaspora. So please, we have a table at the back of the room. Please come, and there's an email list. You can put your name and email address on it if you want more information about us or if you want to get involved in future events. So thank you very much. Thank you. Yes, please. In the middle. You were talking about one country solution for two nations. At least at this point in time, Can you speak louder, please? I can hear. Yeah. At this point in time, who do you think is more open for that solution? Who do you think wants to talk peace more, Israelis or Palestinians? Yeah, at this, at this moment in time, I think first of all the 2 political leaderships are not interested in a one-state solution. The 2 political leaderships still think about what is called the 2-state solution. Uh, among the societies themselves, I think there's And of course, more openness among the Palestinians, because half of the Palestinians do not live there. And the Palestinians who are refugees certainly would see the chance of returning as fulfilled much easier, or have more— a better chance of fulfilling the right of return through a one-state solution than a two-state solution. You cannot return to Haifa if you have a two-state solution. You can return to Haifa— Right. It's a one-state solution. Mm-hmm. Palestinians who live inside Israel also tend to support more and more the one-state solution because they would like to see a better improvement of their status. I think the people who have doubts in the Palestinian side about the one-state solution are those who live under occupation, because they feel that a two-state solution is connected to the end of occupation. And think that it may undermine. So I think it's not the Palestinian Israeli thing. First of all, it depends which who among the Palestinians will support. Among the Israeli Jews, I think very few people support one state solution. Very few people. But I think that this is part of the problem: the Israeli Jewish public has to be in many ways coerced. to change the regime, change the legal status, the civil status, very much to my mind like the whites in South Africa. They opposed the end of apartheid, but that did not stop the world from telling them that apartheid should cease. Yes, please. I have 2 questions, one about transfer and the other about the military situation in '48. Right. In your book, You make a very good case that transfer was discussed as early as 1937 during the Peel Commission, of course, and that plans were drawn up, the village lists, all the military contingency plans were drawn up years in advance, and that the ethnic cleansing, you could say, actually began in December of '47, like a in the Karmel neighborhood in Jerusalem. So I was a little surprised to hear you say that they made the decision, you know, in the spring of '48, you know, to carry out the ethnic cleansing. It seems to me that it was planned years in advance. Yeah. My other question is, was there ever any time during the '48 war when the Haganah and later the Israeli Defense Forces did not have an absolute military superiority over both the Palestinian village militias and the various Arab armies that entered Palestine. Yep. And also, just throw in one last thing, and that is that I got from your book that the Arab states did not want to fight Israel and that they were forced by public opinion As a result of the ethnic cleansing done in the spring of '48 under Plan Dalet, they were forced to intervene into the Arab state area of Palestine. So— Yeah, okay. Yeah, maybe I mispresented my case. I— when I— what I said about spring '48 in the talk tonight was the final— I meant that the final touch to the plan was done there. Of course, I think that As I said, I think I also said that between the moment the British decided to leave, they began to seriously plan the ethnic cleansing. I just think that they really had a final idea of what they were doing in March '48. But if you look at the ethnic cleansing cases around the world, they develop usually on a similar trajectory. They begin with a diffused idea, there's a master plan eventually, or sometimes they're done without a master plan. Yeah. As for the military, I think the only moment was when the Jewish forces were inferior are some fronts in the very early days of the Arab entrance into Palestine, maybe between the 15th of May, 1948, until the first truce, which was in the very second week of June. And this had to do with strategic decisions. Decisions by Ben-Gurion, who wanted to concentrate troops on some areas and decrease the number of troops in another area. So there were local imbalances, but all in all, I think the superiority was quite clear on the Jewish side in this respect. As for the Arab— yes, I think that's a fair description. I think Arab governments were very hesitant to be sending troops for various reasons. The Egyptians were involved in their own war of liberation against the British, and they didn't want to get rid— to dispatch a large army. And really in the last moment, King Farouk succumbed to sort of public opinion on this. And he also very— he thought of mainly sending the Muslim Brotherhood who were imprisoned near Cairo with the hope that it would be a one-way ticket to Palestine. The Jordanian army, which was the best-equipped army, as Avi Shlaim, my colleague, has shown in Collusion Across the Jordan, had a prior agreement with the Jewish army. So it was also hesitant in that respect. I think the only army that really was sent full-heartedly was the Syrian army. I mean, there was no hesitation. It was kind of a joint position, both of the government and the people. This is the last question. Right thing to do. Yes. Actually, yeah, yeah, I'll come back to you. Thank you. My question is, how do you do Israel through your story? Is Israel strong because it has the technology and the weapons? Is it weak because of its failure to use nuclear history? What's your comment on that? Well, I think you're right. There are 2 pillars that keep Israel strong. One is material, whether it's economy, technology, military, and one is moral, ethical. I think they're losing the moral, ethical pillar. It's being eroded to such an extent that I'm not sure they can really rely on it anymore. Israelis call it the illegitimation I think this is a challenge to the very idea of Israel. So I think Israel is much weakened. But we know from the case of South Africa that a regime that loses its moral legitimacy and has the military capacity is very fierce in the last moments, very dangerous. when it is in such a situation. So I wouldn't draw any optimistic conclusions from that analysis. Okay, please. Yeah, I want to understand your position on the issue of a Jewish ethnic nation-state, right, comparable to an Italian or a French ethnic nation-state. I understand you to say that both Palestinians That Palestinians and Jews have a right to be in Palestine and that they have to share it in some way, but that you see a single state as the legitimate way to do that sharing, and a 2-state solution, 2 ethnic nation-states, as not appropriate. Yes. And it seems that some of that is that you feel that the Jewish claim to ethnicity is not fully legitimate, that it was a religion which picked up ethnicity. But it seems to me that if you look at the dictionary definition of ethnicity, it includes cultural and linguistic factors. It includes a gene pool factor. It includes geopolitical factors. And Jewish ethnicity has had all of those characteristics throughout history. So why— it seems to me you have a feeling still it's not appropriate for there to be a Jewish ethnic nation-state, as there is a French or Italian one. Why is that? First of all, if you notice, I began my talk I don't know if you were here from the very beginning, but I began the talk by saying that Zionism was born out of 2 noble, I said, impulses. And I said one noble impulse was to define Judaism as a national movement. So I definitely, unlike many other critics of Israel, I have no problem with the idea of Jewish nationalism or Jewish ethnicity. I think it's very legitimate. I also do not judge the 2 states versus the one state on the basis of legitimacy. I judge it whether these are the right tools or the bad tools for changing an oppressive situation. So my issue is not with defining Judaism as ethnicity or as a national movement. My problem is with an ethnic state that deprives the other ethnic group, which is also the indigenous group, of having the same equal rights. In other words, if, if Jews and Palestinians would have 2 states and the Palestinians in the Jewish state would have equal rights, I have no problem with that if that's what the 2 sides want. But their whole idea of partition is that the Jews are taking 80% of Palestine, having a Jewish state, namely that whoever is not a Jew doesn't have equal rights. To those who are Jews, and they don't care what happens in the rest of the 20%. I find it morally repugnant and unacceptable. Do you find the nation-state idea repugnant? Yeah, I mean, I'm not crazy, you know. You know, in France, if you're not French, if you're an ethnic minority, you really don't have full rights. In Italy, if you're an ethnic minority, if you're a South Tyrolean in Italy, you don't have Full rights as an Italian. This is one of the downsides of the nation-state system. But why do you want to select Israel as the particular nation-state that you want to have lead all nation-states in the right direction when you're not calling on other nation-states to do that? For 2 reasons. One, it's my nation-state. I'm sorry, I'm puzzled by my own nation-state. Maybe it's immoral, but I'm very worried of my own nation-state more than the other nation-state, and I apologize for being egotistic on this. Secondly, there is a great difference between the Tirol people in Italy and the Palestinians. According to the nation-state, the Jewish nation-state, the Palestinians are under constant threat of survival. Because they're there. You cannot say the same about the people of Europe. It's the only nation-state in the world that I know that is busy with demographic accountancy. They count. They count all the time. I had a colleague in the University of Haifa, Arnon Sofer. I don't know if you know, but in Hebrew, sofer is counting. We used to call him Arnon Sofer Arabim, Arnon who counts Arabs. He would sit like this as a teacher of geography in the University of Haifa. The class would be half Arabs and half Jews, and he would tell the Arabs that they are a demographic threat, that they are a demographic bomb. And he would advise the Israeli government— Israeli politicians from left to right accepted— that if the Arabs ever cross a threshold of 20%, they should be ethnically cleansed. You cannot say the same about any nation-state in the world. So it's not the problem with a nation-state. It's not the problem with an ethnic state as such. It's a problem with an ethnic state that has no chance in the world of remaining an ethnic state without either genociding the other ethnic group or expelling it or enclaving it into ghettos in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This is what I found morally nice. Yes, please. Yeah, what would be your speculation about the future of the relation between Israel and the Arab world, especially now that we are going toward a kind of government that won't be obviously Very pro-Israeli. I think this is the most significant challenge to Israel compared to many others. The fact that the Arab countries have a chance— nobody knows exactly how the Arab Spring will develop, but it has a strong potential for democratizing the Arab world. And democracy would mean that the governments would be expected to reflect the wishes of the people in Palestine. We've already seen in Egypt the pressure on the Egyptians to change the terms of the bilateral agreement with Israel. I think the result would be a very strong pressure from the Arab world that would fuse together with the pressure of the civil society in the West on Israel to change its policies and its nature. The question is, The balance of power, because Israel still has on its side the political elites of the West, financial establishment, the military-industrial complex. To be— this equation is not going to grow. Maybe on the Israeli side, Israelis are not going to win anyone more. They're only losing friends. They're not winning friends unless someone from the galaxy would become a Christian Zionist. But basically, if we're taking the globe as it is, the Israelis on that side of the equation, the numbers are decreasing, diminishing. On the side of the critics of Israel, the numbers are growing. And if it would include even 3, 4 Arab governments who would be— which would be democratically elected by the people— I'm not saying it happened yet. Right. But if that will happen, I think that, A, many more Israelis would think like I do. I really do think so. So I'm waiting for this because it's a way of changing the Israeli position without coercing, without a war. And secondly, I think some of the Western governments would be less timid in their position towards it. Yes. I was telling you earlier about the experience of my niece who lived for several months on the West Bank, and she brought back, I think, 2 concepts that she sees that Americans misapply to this. One is sort of an even-handedness that ignores the disproportionality of the violence, of the power imbalance and some of those other things. The major manifestation of that she sees is sometimes that we have a very Westernized notion on applying concepts of nonviolent resistance. She talks about the youth that throw rocks at a tank. And she had a colleague who was with an NGO who said, well, the solution for that is we should replace the rocks with violins. And for her, it's— this is one of the few things that a young person can do, feeling disempowered, living under the shadow of the occupation. The tanks aren't going to be hurt by this. And yet we apply kind of our own standard that they should somehow not react or to keep it all inside. And I think that's a very important point. How do you apply these standards of nonviolence? What do you think is something that Palestinian children can do to feel that there's something that they can do about this? You know, I'm a student of liberation movements, not just the Palestinian movement, and I realize that certain stages in the struggle of liberation movements is an armed struggle. And I think that I can only bring my individual perspective while understanding if the Palestinians will or will not want to share it. And the point— there are 2 points I would make. One is that the armed struggle so far was not very successful in the case of the Palestinians. It didn't liberate one square inch of Palestine, to be serious about it. I also think it had caused a lot of harm and damage to the Palestinian People themselves, especially in the suicide bombing stage. I can understand where it came from, but I don't think it was effective or productive. Secondly, I think the whole world sees a transformation into popular civil resistance, not only in the case of Palestine. There's— the Palestinians are in many ways epitomize this new wave with their own transformation. Into, or the movement into popular struggle, nonviolent popular struggle. This is why I support the BDS. I think the BDS, the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign, is a nonviolent means of forcing Israel to change its nature and its policies on the ground. So my guess is that it would be more attractive to young people under occupation to move to violence against the occupation, understandably. It will be much more difficult to educate third generation under occupation to accept the raison d'être of the popular resistance. But I think that's the best way forward, and I think more and more people think that way. Put it differently, I think when the gentleman asked about the moral pillar, I think a further erosion of the Israeli moral standing is far more effective than 1,000 Qassam missiles, to my mind. But I may be wrong. I encourage everyone actually to look at some videos today that came out of Palestine. Where there were some Palestinian Freedom Riders who— Palestinians who rode buses today, Israeli buses, and they were forcibly evicted from the buses because they are not allowed in buses that are used by settlers. They are— which is a very civil kind of engagement. But yeah. Hey, I have a quick comment and a question. The comment has to do with the right of return of the refugees around 1949 to '51, the return of the refugees always had to be in the context of peace negotiation and agreement between Israel and the Arabs, which of course never happened. That is the comment. The question that I have, about a month ago, and I cannot quote it word by word, but I think Abu Mazen Made a comment about the greatest mistake that the Palestinians ever made was the rejection of the partition program in 1947. How would you comment on his comment? Yeah. First of all, about your first comment, I don't think it's a fair reading of Resolution 194. In fact, we know the Palestinians went to the International Court many years later, the court said the individual right, the individual right of Palestinians to return does not depend on peace. Every international tribunal that has checked it said that it makes sense also if you think about it. The individual right of a person to go back to his home does not depend on any political solution. The massive return, if you want, the concept of return does depend So there's a difference. And that's why, for instance, Palestinian leaders cannot give up the right of return. It's not in their hands. It's an individual right. Okay. Abu Mazen, yes, I think that there are 2 schools of thought. I would suggest you reading Walid Khalidi's article in the Journal of Palestine Studies. I don't remember exactly from which year, which is called Revisiting the United Nations General Assembly. There are 2 positions, and I side with Walid Khalidi. One position is the one that Abu Mazen talks about, a sense among the Palestinians that they missed an opportunity because they could have had half of Palestine at least for themselves. I agree with Walid Khalidi when he says that the Zionist movement at that time of the Jewish community or the young state of Israel, call it whatever you want, would have allowed the Palestinians to be in control over half of Palestine had the Palestinian movement or leadership accepted the partition resolution. I also agree with Simcha Flapan, and you can read his book, Myths of Israel, where he says that there's quite a lot of evidence that the Israelis decided on the idea of taking over 80% of Palestine. Ben-Gurion actually writes it in his diary. He said, if we take the map of the partition, Israel is not a viable state. We need 80%. It makes sense. So I don't think it would have changed that much as well. But the most important thing is the argument made by Well, the mentality which I accept, in retrospect of course. This is something— what you ask yourself as a person is what would you have done, if one can ask that question, if you were a Palestinian in 1947? And if someone would have come to any other indigenous native population and said, are you willing to give half of your country to the colonialist movement? The answer would be no. If the Algerians would be offered to partition Algeria between the white settlers and the French settlers, I'm sorry, who were 1 million and were there longer than the Zionist settlers. As you know, I mean, the Algerians came in 1830. Not one Algerian in his right mind would have said that's a great idea, let the French have half of Algeria and we will have an independent state in the second half. So I think it was not a mistake. I think that history will vindicate that decision eventually. My great sorrow is that eventually when we will have a joint state, and we will have, believe me, we will, it's unavoidable, the price will be very heavy, very, very heavy. I think Israelis live in a bubble because they have no historical sense, in particular people who are so loaded with history. I think that's a very important point. They really think that 70 years is a long period in history. So if you succeeded something to do for 70 years, nothing can change. Look at the Crusaders. They were there for 120 years, and like the Israelis, they felt invincible. You cannot be an alien element and alienate the area and even be the sub of the neighborhood and expect that one day something will change. Something will not happen to you. Luckily for the Israelis, they had the Palestinians. Really lucky on both accounts. In any respect, the Israelis are like part of the area, right? Sorry, just let me finish the sentence and then I'll respond to what you said. Imagine that the Vietnamese were the neighbors of the Israelis as a liberation movement. And secondly, the Palestinians, whatever had been done to them, The basic impulse is normal life. So the Israelis have a chance. They just have to get over their racism. My neighbors in Tzfón— My neighbors in Tzfón object to the idea that Palestinians would live next door to them. So I asked them why. Because I'm— in my time when I'm in Israel, I'm trying to convince my neighbors to at least make our street a binational street. He said, do you want Arabs to live next door to us? I said, yes. I said, you know what? I'll bring only educated Arabs. I'll bring only handsome Arabs. Okay? I'll bring white Arabs. They look a bit like Ashkenazi Jews. No way. I said, why? Arabs next door? This is racism. Israelis call it security. But this is racism. That's why I want the one state. Well, it's mutual. You know that it's mutual. I don't know it's mutual. It is mutual. Yes, please. Let's, um, let's take another question, please. Here, please. Yeah, you. Um, when you're describing the, uh, one-state solution or binational, um, I'm confused. Well, I'd like, I guess, more information. You're confused? Yes. As opposed, you You describe it as like a solution, alternative for Israel. And when you describe the 80 to 20 percentage ratio that you've been describing, it seems like if you were to create a one-state binational Israel, it would be an alternative to Israel rather than for Israel. So in creating a one-state binational Israel or whatever, I'm wondering what type of What regulations would be in place to make it— to enforce it to be binational rather than a Palestinian Muslim state? Yeah. I don't want either. I don't want a binational state. I don't want a Muslim state. I want the Israelis and the Palestinians to live in a state like the United States. I want a state for all its citizens, which is a crime in Israel. You know, according to the new Israeli law, I should be I remember sitting next to Alon Pinkas, the Israeli consul in New York, who said, this is a dangerous man. He wants Israel to be a democracy. I want Israel, whatever— you're right, whatever we will call it, to be a democracy. I want equal citizens. I want Jews, Arabs, Muslims, secular people, Russian Jews who pray in the Orthodox church next to my house every Sunday, Russian Jews who pray in the synagogue next door to my house. I want everyone who just arrived there yesterday and those who were expelled in 1948 to live together as equal citizens. Now I know it's utopia. I know that this is an ideal type solution, but I would like to educate people to be I believe that this is a very noble, very noble vision, much better than the idea of a Jewish state, much better than the idea of an Arab state, much better to my mind than the idea of a Muslim or Christian state. But this is my vision. So I don't have any contradictions. I have hopes. I understand completely, but when— You do not? No, I hear exactly what you're saying. What I mean to say, I guess, was I— what I hear when you're saying you don't want a Muslim Arab state, I— right, um, when I resort back to the 80 to 20 ratio, what's to say that regardless of what we call it, it won't become exactly what you just said? Ah, okay, it's a risk. Yeah, of course. When you, when you bring back an occupied land to the occupied people, We saw it also in Africa. Would you say— I'll give you another example. Let's say some— and we will agree about this— some of the African independent states are not paragon of democracy, right? Would you say that because of that it was not right to end European colonialism? By the way, I think there's a much better chance Because I know intimately the Palestinians and I know intimately the Israeli Jews, there's much better chance that these 2 people would create something much better than some of the independent states that were created after the end of colonialist rule in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. I think we learn something from this. Human beings are not that stupid. And the moment you humanize the Palestinians, The moment— with my Israeli friends, they will do— the moment you think that the Palestinian mother has the same impulse as a Jewish mother, you can see the future in very different eyes. Let's have one last question. My— the guy who follows me to Jerusalem and comes here. I am a professor in Great Britain, the very country that occupied Israel, that did not let the Jews into the— moved to Israel during the Holocaust. The most disturbing what you said about tonight is concerning what happened in 1948 in the Independence War. You talked about the '20s and the '30s pretending that the Arabs and the Jews got along, when in reality the Arabs were killing the defenseless Jews throughout the 1920s and 1930s, sometimes massacring entire Jewish communities, like in Hebron in 1929, etc., etc. Has it occurred to you that perhaps the reason the Arabs left all those cities in Israel is because they had blood on their hands and they were afraid once the Jews got in power, they came into power, they'll take revenge and kill them? Okay, thank you. First of all, University of Haifa never gave me a PhD. Thank you for coming again, those of you who are here for the second time. Um, I talked last night about the history in a way of Israel and Palestine from the very limited perspective I chose up to 1967, 1968. So in a way, it's appropriate to continue that history from 1968 onwards. And again, as I did last night, I do it from— I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I sliced that reality because that's the only thing you can do in a talk of 30, 35 minutes which covers such a complex issue. Whereas I focused last night on the paradigm of the ethnic cleansing as an ideological infrastructure that explains the Israeli policies, and we call that the Zionist policies, towards the native indigenous population of Palestine. I would like to focus tonight on the history from 1967 and bring it as much as possible to the current situation through the prism of the so-called peace process. And again, this is a reductionist way of looking at things, but it's a very convenient, I think, way of explaining at least my own take on the developments since 1967. Okay. The— I already mentioned last night, but I will repeat it for those who haven't been here, and this would be a good starting point. That the peace process in a way was conceived geographically between Washington and Jerusalem, or between Washington and Tel Aviv, more or less in the very last days of 1969 and the early days of 1970. And maybe it's because of my professional bias that I believe that however you formulate things in the formative period of a process, they have a lasting effect, an impact on the nature of the process in years to come. And it's very difficult to deviate from the basics that have been formulated in the departure point, and in fact the only way of changing the course of the so-called peace process is to redesign it. And that will be my conclusion towards the end. Actually, if you want to get out of the deadlock, you have to go back to the desk and redraw the very basics of what is peace all about. It's one thing politicians, for example, cannot do, because they think about a very short-term perspective. They think about the next election. They would never be able to engage in a fundamental process of rethinking. All they can do is try to refine the existing paradigm and batter it to death. Right. If it doesn't work. So they will try and go to the basic ideas of the peace process and say, okay, let's try it from a different angle, and then let's try it from another angle. And usually when everything collapses in a big bang, that's when they are convinced that the paradigm is not valid anymore. I think we're very near that. We're very near the point that the paradigm of peace as it was conceived in '69, 1970, is about to collapse, to disappear. The problem in history is that usually, as in science, paradigms do not replace one another immediately. There is a transitional period which is quite chaotic and sometimes quite dangerous, but it's inevitable. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So what was the paradigm that dominated our life in Israel and Palestine under the title of the peace process? Or as my friend Noam Chomsky calls it, the so-called peace process. And if I wasn't tired enough, every time that I would mention the peace process, I should do like this. I know from experience being a lecturer that audiences get a bit confused if you continue to do like this, and they don't know exactly How to treat this bizarre lecturer and his gesticulations. So I will try not to do it too often. In between Washington and Jerusalem, political scientists, diplomats, experts on the Arab world worked out something that the Secretary of State in the 1990s, Madeleine Albright, described quite well, because as you probably know, Madeleine Albright— I know her. In the American revolving door kind of system, like Kissinger before her, had an academic background and a diplomatic and a political career. So she was able to articulate things both as a politician and as an academic. And I think she described it well, not critically, by the way. She was very much in favor of that paradigm. But I think she did find the right words of telling us what was born there in '69, 1970, and with which we are still living today. She said, in every conflict, the best you can do if you are an outside mediator or a peace broker is to look at everything that is visible And make it divisible. Everything which is visible is divisible. Anything in a conflict which looks invisible, namely that you cannot really see, is indivisible, and therefore the peace negotiator should leave that aside. That meant in the case of Israel and Palestine that the most tangible aspects of the conflict were territory, which are very visible and very easily divisible. It meant that natural resources, populations, anything material that is on the ground can be divided. It also means, for instance, that history Ethics, morality, question of culpability are not part of the equation. And in many ways, if you look at the basic Palestinian position in 1969 and the basic consensual Israeli Zionist position in 1969, 1970, you would see that if you adopt Moltke and Albright's ideal Divisibility. Divisibility, you are totally siding with the Israeli side. In fact, in any conflict in the world where you have a basic imbalance of power, and usually a conflict that is born in situations of injustice such as colonization of occupation, dispossession, it's quite often the victim that talks about what Madeleine Albright would describe as the invisible characteristics of the conflict. And it would be the stronger party that would talk about the visibility. And not only that, you divide And you accompany the action or the act of division with a narrative or a dictionary or a language of concessions. You are powerful. You've occupied. You've colonized. You're in control. You're willing to divide. That's why there is a chance for peace, that you're willing to divide. And you're willing to divide. That's very important. There is a willingness on your side. You're willing to concede. From the victim's point of view, all you are doing is telling them, you know, we'll tolerate your existence and we will stop the victimization at a certain point, but we will not in any way or form give you a chance to change the imbalance or to rectify past evils. Anyone of you who has followed struggles of indigenous people here in North America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Latin America, would understand what I'm talking about. Anyone who is following struggles of minorities in society would know what I'm talking about. This whole notion that the powerful party in the balance of power, if at all it adopts the language of peace, it's a language of concession, of goodwill. And this was adopted, I think, in 1969, 1970. More concretely, what it meant is the following. It meant that if you really wanted to involve the Israelis in a peace process, or if the Israelis themselves thought that the peace process was something that would serve them well, right, if you wanted to go in that direction, you have to paint the reality of '69 1970 as a reality in which Israel actually can continue without a peace process, but is doing a favor, maybe to the Palestinians, maybe to the Arab world, maybe to the Americans, maybe to the West, maybe to peace worldwide. Doesn't matter. But there is, there is a kind of benevolence in this act, because they really don't have to do this. Right. And it meant concretely that there is no historical dimension to the peace process. The peace process begins at the moment— sorry, the peace process deals with the conflict as if it starts at the moment that the strong party says, okay, I'm willing to engage in a peace process. So when the Israelis are willing to engage in the peace process, and that happens around '69, 1970, with the first, with the William Rogers initiative, and then with the Kissinger initiative. So we're talking about between 1969 to 1970. Mm-hmm. It means that anything that happened up to 1969 or 1970 is not negotiable, is not part of the story. So you negotiate First of all, over the fate of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, if we talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anything that is not within this geographical framework is not negotiable, not even talked about. But even if there are already established facts on the ground in 1969, and there were not that many, but there were already some established facts. Like the Israelis have already ethnically cleansed some neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The Israelis already declared in '67 that Jerusalem is united in the UN annexation. The Israelis have already allowed some groups of settlers to colonize small parts of the West Bank. These are not negotiable anymore, because the goodwill of Israel means that you negotiate over the areas where established facts have not been yet implemented on the ground. Now, from a Palestinian perspective, it means that you need to be in such a desperate mood to accept it that it takes time, even if you're very pragmatic and you come to the conclusion that Actually, you have to do something because it's existential by the time that you agree to enter the negotiations. And as you know, the PLO enters the negotiations only in 1988. So it takes the PLO 20 years before it decides to engage in this game, right? 1988, the first American-PLO negotiations. The Palestinian Declaration of Independence, and finally a Palestinian involvement for the first time in the peace process. The moment they agree to play the game in 1988, it means again that all the facts that Israel established on the ground between 1968 and 1988 are not negotiable. In fact, there is a didactic element to this, which comes very clear— clearly in the, in the peace proposals that are being prepared in the late 1980s, even before the beginning of the Oslo process. The didactic element in this is the following: since you did not agree to engage in the negotiations when we offered you You are going to be offered less as part of our goodwill and concession, and because you have to learn a lesson there. So to make sure that you are not delaying again your willingness to go along with this. Until 1988, as you probably know, Because the Palestinians, through their main legitimate and only, in a way, representative body, the PLO, were not playing the game of peace until 1988. The Israelis and the Americans were playing with what one can call the Jordanian option. They sort of appointed, with the voluntary agreement of the Jordanians, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as a kind of a partner for such a peace. It would be a waste of time to talk about it too much. It's very clear why the Jordanians didn't mind playing the game. It's very clear why the Israelis preferred the Jordanians to the Palestinians. Yeah. And it is equally clear why it was a total failure and a waste of time, and in between A waste of quite a few people's lives with this Jordanian option. But because the Israeli Labor Party was very keen on this, because the Americans were very keen on this, and some Arab regimes were very keen on this, the game continued. But of course, really, it's one of the chapters in the history of so-called peace negotiations that didn't produce anything. I mean, not that many cases in history where 20 years of negotiations don't produce even one agreement, even a marginal agreement. Now, from 1988 onwards, because the PLO Mainly for reasons that have to do with strategic reevaluation on the part of the Palestinian leadership, right or wrong, we can talk about it later. But they decided that because of the end of the Cold War and the monopoly that the Americans had all over the region, that it was better to be involved in the Pax Americana than to reject it. Was it a mistake or not? History will judge. But the fact is that in 1988, most of the people who composed the leadership of the PLO felt that entering Pax Americana was the only option valid, especially because of the eruption of the first uprising in December 1987, the First Intifada, where it was very clear that the PLO was losing its touch with the occupied population that instigated its own uprising, actually singling out to the leadership that the time that was wasted between '67 and 1988 Whether on an inefficient armed struggle or futile diplomacy, did not change the reality on the ground. On the contrary, allowed the Israelis to expropriate more land, arrest more people, demolish houses, and really make life quite miserable for the occupied people. So, I think it was a response both to the change in the global reality and the impatience, if you want, of the occupied people themselves that the PLO decided to try and play the game of Pax Americana. And there were 2 interesting American notions about how to manage the peace process from 1988 onwards. One was to allow the Israelis to dictate the agenda. And that idea, which is much more closer to the Democratic Party, interestingly enough, and was less popular with at least some Republicans, but the Democratic Party, or people who were around the Democratic Party, especially liberal Jews, thought that peace meant asking the Israelis what is a consensual perception of peace that the Israelis can agree to. And that consensual perception became very clear in a while, and one can see it even today. The consensual perception, namely the one peace initiative that you could push forward without risking too much the integrity of the society, The cohesion of the Jewish community inside Israel is one which regards the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as an area that is basically divided into 2 zones. And these zones change with time, but not in principle. Mm-hmm. Is an area that has to be directly controlled by Israel or annexed by Israel. Whether these are what the Israelis nowadays call the big settlement blocks, or whether they are the settlements that look very much like cities anyway, or whether this is the Jordan Valley because of its strategic value, it doesn't matter, right? One thing it's always been— Right. It's impossible to explain to the Americans who haven't been there how small this land is. So once you begin to slice the West Bank, which is almost 20, if not less, even 19% of Palestine, you begin to slice the 19% and you say part of it, even in a liberal Zionist point of view, has to be part of Israel. Right. In terms of real square miles, not much is left, but push that aside. But the idea was that part of it has to be annexed to Israel and has to be an integral part of Israel. And the language in Israel developed in the 1980s in such a way, for example, not one Israeli Arab, not one Israeli Jewish, Calls the colonized settlements in the Greater Jerusalem areas, "תקנת ניו יורק" settlements. They are called neighborhoods. They are an integral part of the city, and most Israelis really don't understand when you talk about these settlements, which still, by the way, the State Department talks about them as settlements, illegal settlements. Illegal settlements by any definition of international law. But the consensual perception in Israel was that these areas were always Israel. Maybe there was a brief moment of 19 years that they were not, but they were always Israel. So that's one zone. One zone is non-negotiable. That's the point. Part of the West Bank is already not negotiable. Didactically, because it was on offer in '67, and the Palestinians, with the famous saying of Abba Eban, never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and therefore didactically they lost. They lost that part. And secondly, because that's the only way you can commodify, that's the only way you can package what the Israelis claim would be a traumatic idea of withdrawing from the areas Israel occupied in 1967. Now, imagine from a Palestinian perspective where the whole of Palestine should be negotiated, they actually find themselves in 1988 and onwards until today already negotiating and fighting For the 50% of the 20% that is left. It's like, it's a brilliant, actually, act of diplomacy on Israel's side, if you want, to make the Palestinians, at least those Palestinians who are willing to engage in it, totally deviate and forget their basic perceptions of the reality. The other zone is negotiable. It's definitely negotiable. It can be 60% of the West Bank and the whole of the Gaza Strip. Sometimes it's 90% of the West Bank and the whole of the Gaza Strip. It changes. It changes according to the Israeli strategic thinking, to the wish of the Americans, to pressure. But there the negotiation is about how much autonomy, how much sovereignty. Right. How much actual control would the Palestinians have on that particular part? And the Israelis, contrary to what people think, already in 1988 had played the game of statehood. There is a clear equation that becomes more— Explicit in the Oslo report, and the equation is the following: The more in Arabic, I would say those of you who understand Arabic, the Israeli equation was even pronounced in Arabic at the time by Moshe Dayan and afterwards by Rabin and others. Is if you offer the Palestinians Salata, they're not getting any Sultan. But if they want Sultan. It was with their salata. So for those of you who are Anglo-Saxons, it means that if you want the perks of the state, if you want the histrionics of the state, your real control would be very limited. If you want a bit more of a limit of a real control, you have to give up The symbols. The symbols, right? That's the idea. You have to choose. Do you want a flag, a palace, the charade of the state? Then in real— in reality, you would have only the perks but not the control. If you want to have a bit more of the control, then you have to give up the histrionics. And the charade of the state. And this, this was the Israeli consensus. This was the basic Israeli consensus. And it hasn't changed. Peace means an Israeli willingness to give up territorially part of the West Bank, part of the Gaza Strip, maybe the whole of the Gaza Strip. Again, that's the mistake. 2% of Palestine. And the part which will not be directly controlled by Israel can be indirectly controlled in different means. And this is the end of the conflict. This is the end of the conflict. It's quite surprising how many Palestinians, for a very brief moment in history, which could be 10 years, Thought that this was a serious offer throughout the years. Why did they think it was a serious offer? Out of desperation. Maybe some of them, without giving any names, liked the idea of the Salata, the perks. Others thought that, and I know one of them who said it to me and to others very openly, of the leaders who said, if I have effective control over 2% of Palestine, This is better than nothing. These are rationalizations for the worst kind of deal that you can get. But it worked for a while, and it fueled the wheels of the peace process. Now, this was the democratic American take on peace. You go to the Israeli— Israelis, whether they are experts, whether they are diplomats, Whether— whoever eventually makes up the decision. And those Israelis come up with the program of peace. And I just described the logic of this program. It hasn't changed from now— from then until now. And then, of course, you have to find the Palestinians who would be willing to play with this. And you dictate to them how to do this. Interestingly, the old Experts on Arab affairs who hovered around the Republican Party had a different idea. And you can see it in the Madrid Conference in 1991. You can see it in the things that are developed under the presidency of the senior Bush administration. They did not accept the idea of everything which is visible is Visible. And they were willing— I don't know why, but they were willing to take the Palestinian perspective as a legitimate input in discussing peace. And that's why it had no chance, because the Israelis immediately stopped it. If you look, for instance, if you compare the Oslo Accords of 1993 and the Madrid Conference in 1991, the Madrid Conference, which is George Bush Senior's project, right? The Madrid Conference brings all the Arab states to the negotiating table, brings the PLO, and allows the PLO to put a Palestinian perspective of peace, which can be summarized as first and foremost insisting— insistence on the right of the Palestinian refugees to return. Not giving up the idea that the whole of Palestine should be liberated and turned into a democratic state, and the need to accept Israel eventually after that is happening, or the Jewish community in Israel, as part of the Middle East. It's kind of a comprehensive deal, if you want. And this is not accepted by the Republicans. I'm not saying it was accepted, but it was legitimized as a departure point for negotiation vis-à-vis the Israeli position. And the Israelis were very worried in 1991 about this. So they started the Oslo negotiations. I know because I was part of the team in those days, in 1992. I know firsthand how the Oslo Agreement started. I was in my sins. Thinking at the time, maybe my communist period was wrong, and I wanted to give a chance to the Labour Party. So I was involved in those early days. So I know the things how they developed from within. And the main thing was a great apprehension of the kind of ideas that the Americans were pushing forward through the Madrid Conference. It was really a worrying moment for the Israelis. And Shimon Peres and his advisers devised the idea of going back to the Israeli perception, or what I call the Israeli consensus perception of peace, packaging it in a way that they hoped that the PLO would accept. And to their great surprise, the PLO, or more precisely Yasser Arafat, was quite excited about the idea. Why was he excited? Was he— did he believe them when they told him already in the first meetings in Oslo, before that in London, I remember, when they told him that the first stage of such a peace process would be totally according to the Israeli agenda, namely He would receive, as the leader of the Palestinians, part of the West Bank that could become a kind of a state. And if everything works well, then the other issues, such as the refugees, the fate of the rest of the Palestinians, the fate of Jerusalem, would be discussed. But there was, again, a deductive mechanism that he accepted. Or maybe he misunderstood, I don't know, but he accepted. That if you behave well, the next stage is accepting the Palestinian perception. This, by the way, convinced those in the United States who were not so keen on that idea to join eventually and support the Oslo peace process. And if you read the document, which is quite long, of the Oslo peace process, There is clause number 5 and subclause number 3. This should have alerted Arafat. And it alerted him— someone alerted him in the last moment, if you remember the scene in Cairo where he's supposed to sign the Oslo B agreement and he refuses. And behind the scenes, Mubarak and his entourage are pushing him physically, if you remember. I don't know, those of you who have seen it on TV. Yes. If not, try and find it. I'm sure the footage is still there. He's being pushed physically to sign the final accord of the Oslo Accords, which was Oslo B. It's amazing that only in 1995 he noticed Clause 3, sub-Clause— sorry, Clause 5, sub-Clause 3. Clause 5, sub-Clause 3, which was prepared by Israeli lawyers. As I told you yesterday, the Israelis Defeated the Palestinians more— not so much with military power, financial competence, but by detailing them to death. That's the Israeli way of torturing. They detail you to death. And that detailing to death was Clause 5, Sub-Clause 3. What does Clause 5, Sub-Clause 3 say? It says, should everything go according to plan, Namely, the Israeli control over the West Bank, the Palestinian half-autonomy in those parts where Israel are not interested in, the Israeli security arrangement, Israeli control on the Jordan River. All the Israeli demands, should they be met without any interference from the Palestinians, 5 years into the Oslo Agreement, the issues which concern the Palestinians would be negotiated. Namely the refugees, the fate of the settlements, the future of Jerusalem, and the status of the rest of the Palestinian people. It's all there. Now, if you negotiate something and I tell you that the most sacred ideas for me are 1, 2, 3, 4, in a document which has 55 clauses, Mm-hmm. My most sacred, most important taboos appear in clause 5, subclause 3. My instinct should be that I'm being misled. But it's amazing how people were not aware of this. I remember the late Edward Said and Haslina Haikal, the Egyptian journalist. Yes. Probably would live to be 520, given the way he looks now at the age of 145. Hasnin Haikal and Edward Said and Ibrahim Abu-Lurub went to see Arafat in Tunisia. Edward Said writes about it in his 2 booklets about the peace process. And they noticed, they read the agreement, and they noticed Clause 5, Sub-Clause 3. And Arafat said to them, I don't read this agreement. This is not important. What is important is the balance of power. We don't have the Soviet Union. We made a mistake in supporting the Iraqis when they occupied Kuwait. Nobody is on our side. So we'll take whatever they give us. It doesn't— why do I have to read? And psychologically, it's so interesting that When the Israelis, 2 years into the Oslo Agreement, have reinterpreted Clause 5, Sub-Clause 3, reinterpreted. They said, already 2 years into the Oslo Agreement— this is just before Rabin was assassinated, because sometimes we idealize Rabin just because he was assassinated. He was not pushing for peace. I can assure you. He was not pushing for peace. He was pushing for the Israeli version of peace, which had nothing to do with peace. It has to do with submissiveness, with occupation in other means. But that's another story. But in any case, 2 years into the Oslo Agreement, the Israelis say, we already know that you're not going to keep your promise to behave. Now, objectively, one should say that The rejection in Palestine to the Oslo Agreement was manifested in a series of suicide bombing demonstrations, armed opposition, so the Israelis could accumulate evidence that the Palestinian leadership is not keeping its side. So already into that agreement, They interpreted— reinterpreted Clause 5, Sub-Clause 3, by saying, because of your inability to keep your promise, A, we don't know for how long we're going to postpone the next stage of the final status, but far more important, we have a new idea. We'll divide that area that you will have— Yes. Which is much smaller than the area we were willing to give you, again, because you were missing opportunities, into 2 areas, Area B and C. Area A is totally out of control. B and C, or the other way around, doesn't matter, as long as you remember the 3 categories. B is a joint control of us and your security forces. The other one Is supposedly total control by the Palestinians. Now, in terms of percentage, I don't want to bore you too much. I don't want to detail you to death. Not much is left as independent Palestinian control in the end of it. And that's kind of a punishment to the Palestinians. The idea of Oslo B, as it was called, Areas A, B, and C, was a punishment For not fulfilling the promise in clause 5, subclause 3. When Arafat was asked to sign it, if you remember, in the theater hall in Cairo, those of you who were watching it as I did, he suddenly didn't want to sign it. And he was forced to do it. Right. It's a picture that doesn't leave me all my life, because I knew the man and I knew many people around him. It was quite dramatic, one should say that. Now, it's interesting that at that stage, when it's very clear that this whole elaborate edifice that the Israelis have built together with the Americans, which is how to dictate to the Palestinians an occupation by other means and declare it as a final peace. This was the formula. When this failed, actually, in 1995, also because of Rabin's assassination and the election of the Netanyahu government, but also because it had never had any chance of being— to be a reality, right? And the result, as you know, was the growing of the Hamas, the Islamic, political Islamic opposition to the Oslo effort. I don't have to tell you all the details on the ground, 1996, 1997. Right. The interesting thing is the inertia of politicians. Every student, first-year student of political science, every history student, every perceptive, intelligent, and even not so intelligent person would in 1996 say this paradigm is not working. Some would say it's not working because it's unjust. Others would say it's not working because we can see the facts on the ground. It's not working. And the facts on the ground, as you know, included not just the failure of implementing the clauses, but the expansion of the Jewish settlement, the expropriation of land, the imprisonment of Palestinians, and the Palestinian reaction through suicide bombs and other means. So, say, even if you did not judge it ethically or morally, you could see that practically it's not working. But this is the inertia of politicians. Nobody among those who had the power to offer anything new had dared to say there's something wrong with the paradigm. They kept adopting the paradigm to the changing reality rather than allowing the reality to force them to change the paradigm. So the paradigm In 1997, in 1998, it looks even more ridiculous. There's a stage in the conflict in Camp David in the summer of 2000 when Ehud Barak, who has a minority government in Israel, which means, again, practically, that it doesn't matter what he would agree in Camp David, he would not be able to pass it through the Israeli political system. So it didn't even matter. Right. Whether there would have been an agreement between Clinton and Arafat and Barak in the summer of 2000, that doesn't matter. But the paradigm means that they play as if there is a chance, and they try to repackage the paradigm in the following way: they change the percentage. It's a clever game. You know, the Israelis worked on it. For 5 months. For 5 months they repackaged their perception of peace while the Palestinians were doing nothing at the time. It didn't matter in the end. It didn't matter they didn't do anything. The Palestinians, by the way, in the last moment approached the Adam Smith Institute in London and asked them to prepare a counter-master plan to the Israeli plan for the city. Summer of 2000. I know because the Adam Smith Institute approached me to help them write the chapter on the refugees. It was pathetic, both if you know what the Adam Smith Institute is and the fact that the Palestinian Legion needed a right-wing think tank in London to help them to prepare for that pathetic meeting in Camp David. But that doesn't matter. What really matters is How the Israeli package, the new deal. The new deal was the following: you take out the Greater Jerusalem area from what you call the West Bank, right? Which is almost one-third of the West Bank. And then you say you prevent the narrative of the most generous offer ever been made by Israel to the Palestinians. I hope you understand the arithmetic. It's a bit late in the day. It's not that complicated, right? I'm about to offer you actually 50% of something, but because I squeeze that something, the 50% looks like 70%, right? That's what they did. They take the Greater Jerusalem area out of the equation and they say— which they are next to Israel, right? They say the 2/3 of the complete West Bank And out of this new complete West Bank, which is just 2/3 of the West Bank, we are giving you almost 95%. There isn't one Israeli Jew I know, and there isn't one American supporter of Israeli Jews that I know, that wouldn't tell you that in Camp David 2000, the Palestinians were offered almost 97% of the West Bank. Am I right? I mean, you can— if you don't believe me, just open the website of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Right. This was a generous offer. They were offered 97%. They were not offered 97%. They were offered much less. The second repackaging— it's amazing how people allow themselves— the second repackaging was redefining the idea of sovereignty in a way that you wouldn't find even in the most amateurish And sloppy political science book definition of the state. They redefine statehood in a way that the mayor of Madison looks like really a president of the United States compared to what would look the president of the Palestine that was offered in Camp David. And it's incredible. Now, Arafat, as you know, in 2000 was very fragile. And the fact that Barak, you remember the picture, he pushes him forcefully, I think didn't help. Probably that's what killed him in the end of the day, and not the Israeli poison. Arafat looked at that and even he understood that this was too much. The game was so clear. Now the Israeli repackaged the package in Tabaq. This narrative is important. It is important to know it. The Israelis take the Palestinians to Tabah in the Sinai and say, no, wait a minute, we want to be even more generous. And they say, we're even willing to allow you to— a return of a small number of refugees to show you— remember Clause 5, Sub-Clause 3? That we are willing to deal with subclause 5, subclause 3. But you have 2 options. If you think about it, this is all so stupid, but it was taken very seriously. You have 2 options, the liberal Zionists said. You can either allow 100,000 refugees out of 5.5 million to go back, and that's it, or you can take back the refugees only to that part which would be eventually part of Israel. That's right. Palestine, which is one-third of the two-thirds of the two-thirds of the five-thirds and so on, which not much is that. I mean, the cheese, the Swiss cheese that was supposed to be Palestine. And this is a more generous offer than the generous offer, right? This is the best generous offer ever, ever made. The frustration of the Palestinians, even those who went as pragmatically as they could, with their ideas came out in the Second Intifada. Of course the Second Intifada was much more violent than the first one. The frustration was much greater. And what do the powers that be— how do they respond? By changing the paradigm. You have a second uprising, do they change the paradigm? On the contrary. They say, oh, we have to twist the paradigm again. There's a new reality. And then you have the roadmap that leads to nowhere. Then you have all kinds of plans that come under the names of officials in the State Department. You know this. Now, if you look from 2000 to 2011, the names of the program are attached to less and less senior officials in the State Department. The more you— the time passes by, the less senior is the official in the State Department under which the new plan is attached. Is named, because everybody understands this is not a very important issue. Bush II, Junior, already gives up the game anyway, because he's a Republican. When the Democrats come, before that Clinton and Obama— and this is the worst thing about the Obama administration. Obama has brought back all the wizards of Oz. Right. From the Clinton administration to repackage for the 5th time this horrible commodity, which is called the peace process. And they're really surprised that there's no one to talk to, not even on the Israeli side. This is not because the Israeli political map has swang— has moved to the right. That's not the reason. Even the Israelis cannot stand anymore the repackaging. Can you imagine? I mean, you take— Right. You take sour milk from the fridge and you add sugar, and then you add salt, and then you add eggs, and then you put it outside in the heat, and then you freeze it, and then you defreeze it. Who can— you can't smell it anymore. And that's what happened to the so-called peace process. And unfortunately, on the ground, nobody is offering anything new. This is still the dominant narrative. The peace process is still the dominant narrative. On top of it, they appointed Tony Blair to be the main emissary that has to now resell this sour milk to us as a peace process. You know, appointing Tony Blair to the peace process is like appointing Dracula to head a blood bank. I mean, they have something in common. They have something in common, but you wouldn't trust the one in the hands of the other. And everybody sees it, and yet it doesn't move. Now, let me finish by saying the following. The fact that there is such a gap between the deliberations, the discussions on the so-called peace process, which feed academics, diplomats, Politicians. And there's a gap that all the time is growing. And the reality on the ground, which is more occupation, more oppression. Because the gap is so big, it's very clear that we are somewhere on the road to the disappearance of that paradigm. Not again because somebody would sit down logically and say, We need a new paradigm because there is a limit. I wrote somewhere that the United Nations discussion on the state of Palestine is the end of the two— of this paradigm. It is the end of this paradigm because there's nothing more bizarre than a United Nations endorsement for a paradigm that does not exist. The Americans support it. The Russians support it. Now the United Nations support it, and they support a nonexistent idea, right? So people would have to bring up a new idea. The new idea is not easy to produce. It's easy to write about, but it's not easy to produce. But I really see no other choice than for everybody concerned to go back to the desk and In many ways, go back to the ideas of the Madrid Conference and say this conflict has a history, and its origins is the source of the illness. Everything that came afterwards is the symptoms. If you don't deal with the refugee issue, if you don't deal with the fate of the whole of the land that was Palestine, if you don't include all the Palestinians in that negotiations The paradigm would be the same. You cannot shrink Palestine geographically, and you cannot shrink Palestine demographically. The more you include the territory and the demography in it, the more you have a chance of solving the problem. Now, I'm not naïve. I know that this is anathema to most Israelis and to most of those who are engaged in peace. Process. But I think that either through the realities, or rather disastrous realities, on the ground, or hopefully through a kind of pressure from below, the false paradigm of parity, the false paradigm of the peace process, would be replaced by a paradigm that is far more authentic, far more relevant to the reality on the ground. And which is based on not on parity, but on equality, which is a very different notion. Equality of citizen rights, of human rights, whether you are a settler or you are indigenous, it doesn't matter. The human— the equal rights is something that also has a way of dealing with history, but also looking forward towards the future. I will end by— Saying, in order to redescribe, to repackage my own paradigm, with 3 A's, which I think are the basis for the future. 3 A's. One is acknowledgment. Unless the Israelis would acknowledge the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and all the ethnic cleansing policies and operations since 1948, there will never be peace. That's acknowledgment. The second A is accountability. Acknowledgment is not enough. You have to be accountable. And the best way to translate accountability in the case of the Israelis is first and foremost to recognize, at least in principle, the right of the Palestinian refugees to return. The third A is acceptance. I think it's the Palestinian agency in this is to accept the ethnic Jewish community that developed in the last 60 years. Years, or maybe in the last 100 years, as a legitimate part of the solution. Which is not easy for Palestinians and neighboring Arab societies to accept. But I think that if you have acknowledgment, accountability, you will also have that acceptance. This, to my mind, are the only guiding principles for those who who should build the new paradigm from scratch in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thank you. populations, they come to me having the paradigm in their heads of 2 equal-sized, equal-standing armies, just like the Soviet-American conflict, and they're completely misguided on this. Right. Yeah, I think you're right. Part of the sustainability of the wrong paradigm is the ability to commodify it for a long time As a successful venture and a logical venture. And I think you're absolutely right. I think if you look at the early discussions, and they are now open, especially in something which is called the Foreign Relations of the United States, which are volumes which are open to the public in the National Archives. If you look at this, the departure point of the Americans and Israelis Of course, there are no Palestinians involved. The departure point of the Americans and the Israelis who conceive the paradigm in its very early form is, we are Westernized, we are logical, we are enlightened, we are part of modernity. Therefore, we know even better than the Palestinians what is good for them. And what we offer is very logical. It comes from a business school. You know, uh, partition is comfortable. If both of you want this room, I'll divide it. Uh, both of you have a claim, I partition it, right? Now, of course, if you think about it even from a business point of view, if I come to you and say to you, you know, this— the room is 100% because I'm a good businessman and you are a good businessman, you would agree with me. There is nothing better than I will have 80% and you have 20%. This is the best offer, really. Now, this is when I'm in a good mood. Maybe this is my peace. This is my peace camp. This is— I'm almost an anti-Zionist when I give you 20%. Now, if I'm in the center of Zionism, if I'm in the right of Zionism, I'm going to give you 5%. Actually, not even that. Okay? Now, Even in the beginning, nobody paid attention to this. Nobody paid attention that even the internal logic of the peace offer had a very terrible idea as a business proposal: 20% to one side, which is the indigenous side, the native side, and 80% to the other side, regardless of whether it was a settler or not considered to be a settler colonialist. Now, the moment you reject the 20%, you prove that you are not part of modernity. You prove that you are an Arab or a Muslim, which is worse. That means you don't use any logic. You are a very emotional person. You think the 20% are not fair. And that narrative is built over. In fact, it works so well that I remember American, you know, your media here, and it's not only your media, but you are leading our ideas of what is good media, unfortunately. You have this idea of you can do in a soundbite the whole history of a place, you know. Whenever, I don't know, an Israeli settler is being hurt on the foot, so there is a headline, and they give in a soundbite the history. And if you listen to that history, you really have the impression that the Palestinians occupied Israel, that the Israelis are fighting a war of liberation against the Palestinian occupation, and that the last peace proposal was 80% for the Palestinians, 20% for the Israelis. And this is working because you begin by saying there's a logical modern Western side that has to deal with something which is exactly the opposite. So I agree. I think Edward Said used to say it. You have to deprogram, you have to deconstruct, in fact, the project of modernity if you want to defeat Zionism. It's not that concrete. It's not just a problem of giving a counter-narrative to the Zionist narrative. You have to challenge the whole, the basic assumptions of the project of modernity to make it work. And it's quite formidable. Yes, please. Do you think this whole peace process on the part of the Israelis is really a charade, that they're doing this to appease the Americans and that they're just trying to make this more difficult so that they can gain more and more Of the land, of the occupied land, and eventually they'll have the whole area and they will have cleansed all of the occupied area of the Palestinians on a gradual basis, which they wouldn't dare to do immediately. I think it's a bit more complex. That's why I like to connect my 2 talks of yesterday and today. I think that this conflict has 2 dimensions for the Israelis, a geographical dimension and a demographic dimension. In 1967, actually, the geographical dimension disappeared. The Israelis didn't have any more geographical problems. They had the whole of Palestine under their control. They were left with the real problem, the demographic problem. You have the whole land you wanted, but there are too many of the people you don't want. Right. The peace process works in 2 ways on 2 different kinds of Israelis. You have the Israelis who are genuinely— I call them diet Zionists or liberal Zionists, you can call them whatever you want. They really believe that this is peace. They would be very much aware, by the way, if you would try an intellectual game with them and you would offer them a different case study, right? Yeah. And you said, would you regard this as a peace process in a different location or different period of history, they would not accept it. But in their case, it's peace. It's peace that allows them to have a smaller part of Palestine if necessary, but with as few Palestinians as possible. The other Israelis do not think that peace is on the agenda at all. There is unilateral Israeli dictatorship. And its weakness, actually, to go on a peace process. The point is that the Labor Party, that was the hegemonic political power in Israel, understood from 1967 onwards that if you want to make it easier for the Americans to square the circle, to have both an unconditional support for Israel And keeping safeguarding the American interests in the Arab world, you have to inflate this, the discourse of peace, the talk about peace, right? And you have to make it even look more dramatic than it was. You know, there's a famous letter from the American President Johnson To Israel, to the Israeli government, when he learns that Israel is annexing officially Jerusalem, a few days after the Six-Day War. Very angry letter. Very angry letter that really undermines for a moment the confidence of the Israeli government. He's really willing to go very far with this. So they concoct an answer, which my friend Avi Shlain wrote about it in The Iron Wall. Right. Which was totally fabrication, and the question is only whether the Americans viewed it was a fabrication or not. They said to the Americans, "Oh, don't worry. This is just in order to satisfy certain demands in the Israeli public. Everything will be open for negotiation." And now everybody knew they didn't mean it. Now the Americans, I think, chose as Avi Shlain rightly says, I think, chose to ignore it. They knew that they were being misled several times after '67. So I think that that that that that's that's how the inertia creates a certain publication, and then you start to believe your own lies, your own lies. The Israelis really have a perception of themselves as being a peace-loving nation, offering the Palestinians a band of time in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Is an indication of a peaceful nation for them. Yes, please. Yes. Why is it okay that there are 1 million Arab citizens of Israel that have representation in government, but when Israelis build homes in today's Samaria, it's seen as this really evil, bad thing? Okay. First of all, the Israeli Palestinians are 1.5 million, and they don't have any representation in the government. They have representation only in the parliament. No Israeli government would be— would have— you'll never have a Palestinian prime minister, minister of defense, or minister of foreign affairs. Secondly, the Israelis in Palestine, or the Palestinians in Israel, are second-rate citizens. They are second-rate citizens according to the law. They are second-rate citizens because the emergency regulation that Israel has Can be operated against them, and only against them, at any given moment. Which means emergency regulation means that the military control over the Palestinian areas could take place, in effect, from the moment the government decides upon it. And military governance means that you have no rights at all. And they're also being mistreated on daily contact between the— whoever represents the authorities And the government and the Palestinian citizens. So first of all, I don't think they are treated fairly, and definitely they are discriminated against. Now, they are in a very different position than the settlers that, according to international law, illegally settled in an occupied area. According to the Hague Convention, you— a government is not allowed to transfer citizens of its own nation to the occupied area. So in a way, even if the Palestinians would have treated these settlers better, they would not be allowed to do it according to the international law. The reality on the ground is of course worse. The settlers are supported by the army in harassing And abusing the rights of the Palestinians on the land. So I think any comparison between the Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank to the Palestinian minority in Israel has to take into account the discrimination against the Palestinians inside Israel and the illegality of the settlers' presence in the occupied territories. Ali, please. Yes, thank you very much. I have 3 questions which are somewhat, how can I say, controversial, but I would be interested to have your perspective and your knowledge on these 3 questions. Yeah. First of all, I would be curious to know what you could tell us about the figure of Moses Hess. Moses Hess, which was— who thought— was at the origin both of communism and also of Zionism, one of the early thinkers of communism and Zionism. Do you have any interesting— have you done any interesting research on Moses Hess? Are there any— is there anything interesting you can tell us about him? Another question. Is the figure— I'm very interested in British history— the figure of Lord Alfred Milner, and who was allegedly behind the Balfour Declaration, and his ideology, his influence. Could you talk about his influence in the creation of Israel? And one third question. I've studied a bit the Lavon Affair, and you mentioned as well yesterday the USS Liberty. Yeah. And is it reasonable to consider or to define the Lavon Affair as a false flag operation? And if so, is it reasonable to consider that false flag operations are still perhaps conducted Conducted in the 21st century. Yeah, I'm not very knowledgeable about Moshe Hess, so I'm afraid I can't tell you anything. You probably know more than I do. I didn't study him. He does sound like an intriguing figure. So Alfred Milner, I can say something more profound about it. I think the whole— Milner is responsible together with Together with Balfour. So it's a very interesting period in the British Empire history that produced the Balfour Declaration. I think people do not notice 2 aspects of the Balfour Declaration which Milner was responsible for in many ways. One is that the Balfour Declaration was given at a time when quite a lot of Jews were leaving Eastern Europe and coming to England. And the British officials like Milner regarded this as a very unwelcome group of immigrants. So Milner's idea of supporting the Balfour Declaration was more than anything else to stop the migration of Jews to the United Kingdom. These were poor Jews, East European Jews. He had a lot of respect for the Anglo-Jewish community, but he thought that this was bad for Britain. And the idea that these Jews would come directly to Palestine seemed to him a very good idea. Second part of it is Milner was very close to Lord George, the prime minister, who was a devout Christian. And Lord George Definitely believed that this, that the return of the Jews to Palestine was part of a divine scheme. So I think if you study Milner, you could see that he injects into the British decision eventually to give the Balfour Declaration these 2 elements. There were other elements which had nothing to do with Milner. There were the elements of thinking that the Jews would control the Bolshevik movement and therefore There was a confusion between Zionism and Bolshevism and so on. The last question, the Lavon Affair, maybe not everybody knows what the Lavon Affair is, so we should say this. The Israeli Secret Service convinced a group of Egyptian Jews in 1955 to plant some bombs in institutions that were closely connected to the United Kingdom, Britain. And France in order to convince Britain not to leave Egypt. And these people were caught before planting the bomb, actually. So the bomb never exploded. They were caught because someone informed on them. And these— and there was a big debate in Israel who gave the order for this futile attempt. And Ben-Gurion used it in order to get rid of of someone he didn't like, Mr. Lavon, who was a famous leader of the Mapai, the ruling party. And it dragged— this affair dragged into the '60s and actually caused a serious division in the Israeli labor movement because of that bogus attack. You asked if this is still going on today. Well, there's several things, of course. Of course, 9/11 is— I find 9/11 quite suspicious, but this is my opinion. However, recently we've witnessed in the media this story about an ambassador, Saudi ambassador. I tell you what, maybe we'll come back to it because maybe there are other people who want to ask questions, okay? But yeah, it can happen today, let's put it this way. Yes, please. Lately we've been hearing a lot about that, a lot of safe Rattling with Israel, with Iran, you know, possibly they attack Iran. Right. They'd be crazy enough to do that, number one. What do you think about all that? You know, I'm a historian. I predict about the past. You want me to predict about the future? No, no, no, I mean just— Yeah, listen, to be serious, not to be very serious, I think that The current trio that runs Israel, the Prime Minister Netanyahu, Lieberman, the foreign minister, and Ehud Barak, the minister of defense, together with the new chief of staff that they have, are capable of doing it. Not only are they capable, I am pretty sure that they are planning something. I can't tell you what, because I don't know what they're planning. Wouldn't that be suicide? Ah, well. Who knows? Who knows? It depends what they're planning. It depends what kind of retaliation there will be. How long would the retaliation on both sides continue? I don't know. I can agree with you that this is insane. I also can tell you that I'm sure— I'm not saying without knowledge, I'm guessing— that quite a few serious people in the army And I can judge from what the former head of the Mossad is saying that quite a few of the professionals in Israel are opposing this idea. But I remember that in 1982, the whole professional institutions and security institution and establishment in Israel opposed the idea of occupying Lebanon in 1982. And it didn't make— didn't impress Menachem Begin. Yeah. Yeah. Or Ariel Sharon. So, let me put it this way. It's more likely that Israel will attack than not. It's much more likely. That doesn't mean that it's going to happen for sure. It also seems that the Americans have given up on their ability to stop Israel. When will it happen? How will it happen? If it's going to happen? I'll go for the back and then I'll come back to you. Yes, please. Yes, in the past few months we've seen massive demonstrations within Israel in regard to the failure— protests against neoliberal agenda and imposed austerity. Right. I've been in discussions here regarding what this might mean in terms of influence Implications, ramifications for the Palestinians. Do you see any such? If so, what might they be? Right. Let me put it this way. For the time being, this very interesting protest movement does not seem to have a direct implication for the situation in Palestine or with the Palestinians. It seems to be kind of an internal Jewish-Israeli discontent, if you want. These are people who are angry with the way that the spoils have been divided, but have no problem with this— by the fact that these spoils were illegally taken. However, this can develop, because it shows lack of confidence in the political and financial elite in Israel. It doesn't show lack of confidence in the military elite. Namely, they say you have misled us on issues that have to do with economy, finance, society. They don't say you have misled us on the issue of security, right? In fact, if you notice, the main speeches in Tel Aviv In the occupied Tel Aviv kind of movement was, I'm a good Israeli, I served in the army, I did my duty, and so on. And they stopped the protest when Israel was having this mini attack on Gaza for a while. So these are bad signs that this protest movement is not engaging with the core issues. Nevertheless, we have to be careful. And again, I say this as a historian. Yes. They cannot— they may not want to get there, but they might get there without wanting. So it's a positive thing. It is a positive thing. It is not the indication for transformation from within. Put it this way. Yes, please. Yesterday you said, and I think, and I would agree, that in the long run this is simply an unsustainable course of action, that the combination of the demography and the precariousness— I mean, as sometimes it's said, Israel can win 99 out of 100 wars, right? And then eventually things fall apart. Now, my question is, what are the— what is the elite in Israel actually thinking about the future? I mean, do they actually simply say you're wrong about that, that they believe They believe they can have an armed state that's sufficiently powerful that it can forever— I mean, they have a 2,000-year-old memory about the past but a 20-year future. What's the— what's their timeframe? It's very difficult to explain to people. You know, I'm a product of the Israeli educational industrial line, a flow product. It's very difficult to explain, but I will try. I don't think they use the same language that you're using in your very articulate question. It doesn't work that way. If you're— if they would— if their departure point for analyzing the situation would be your departure point, they would be in a deadlock and they would say you're right. But that's not the departure point. You have to look at it differently. Okay. Their departure point is the following: this is a no-choice situation. We have no choice. That's amazing. There's no choice. We, we have to live here. We have to live here because nobody wants us around the world, and nobody wants us here. So we have to be very powerful. And life here is A constant struggle with this fact that you have to struggle for survival all the time. So the question is, and it's a big question, I'm sharing it with you, I mean, that's my dream is to come to Israel and find a way of deprogramming them. The question is, is there any way that a member of that elite would go the same way that I And I describe it in the book, Out of the Frame, where you suddenly say, wait a minute, the departure point is also manufactured, it's also constructed, it's not the reality. You're being brought up in Israel, and I know it, believe me, I know it, not to say that the departure point is the reality, that it's a given that nobody wants you, that there's no choice. Now, if you take this as a given, your options are very limited. How far can you be as a liberal or a peace-loving person if this is the departure point? If my departure point is that everybody in this hall— I hope it's not Korea, because it happens to be in America— that everybody in this hall wants to kill me, right? If this is my departure point, how benevolent can I be towards you? Right. I mean, if you just move your hand, I will shoot you, right? Now, I may be more liberal, so I will allow you to raise your hand a little bit more than a more fanatic Jew would do. But you see what I'm trying to say? This is— now, you have to understand, this is— you in Israel, you are being indoctrinated from cradle to the grave. And I think you're being indoctrinated even before you're being born. It comes back to me. prenatal kind of reality. And as someone who's liberated himself from this, I can tell you how strong it is. It's not coerced. It's not coerced upon you, but it works. It works because there's a genuine fear. There is an objective reality. I mean, I hit you and you hit me back, and I say, you see, you are a guy who hits, so I'm in real danger. So there is an objective explanation for what I'm going through. Right. So I think, to make it shorter, my answer is the Israelis would tell you, of course we are not— we can lose a war and this would be the end, as you were saying, Naima. But do you see any other way forward? And you would say, yes, of course, you know, you can negotiate. And they would say, we tried to negotiate. We had such a brilliant, generous offer. And they rejected it. Now they're all fanatic Muslims anyway. Yeah. You know, there is a set of answers to all your questions. I did a home university in my house when I lived in Israel with intelligent professionals from the area of Haifa, and I understood this was a departure point. There was nothing I could do Unless I worked with them for a whole year and they began to doubt the departure. I had to bring many Palestinian friends for that to happen. I had to take them to see Nazareth, which is 10 minutes from where they live and they have never visited, and promise them that they will come back alive. This is a very powerful— the most powerful indoctrination I've seen. As Michel Foucault used to say, as you know, when you use force, it's obvious that it's a fabrication. But when you use power, when I make you think, when I make you do things that you think that you want to do, I'm much more powerful than using force. And the Israeli indoctrination is fascinating. It's really fascinating. Yeah. And it's much more tragic than fascinating because I'm part of it, but it's something that you have to take into account as part of the engagement of Israel. And that's why I think that sometimes in such cases, a big bang on the head is not a bad idea. Not bad. Let me take the next one. Yeah, one more. Sorry? We should probably— one more. Oh, okay, sorry. So it'll be there. Considering that the U.S.-Israel relationship is so important for Israel to get away with what it does, and considering that Israel's in the middle of a very oil-rich region and oil's very important, and why does the U.S., do you think, support Israel since that relationship antagonizes Arab countries in that area so much? And I ask this partly because there's kind of a divide on the left about this. So there's people like Mearsheimer and others who say it's AIPAC's influence, and then Chomsky and others who disagree. Yeah, I think that, uh, I would say 2 things about the American support for Israel. First of all, I think it is a triangle. I think the American support for Israel stands on 3 legs, and they are discrete. They have nothing in common, but they are united when it comes to the Pact of Israel, and that's why they're so powerful. One pillar is Christian Zionism, and I said it yesterday, it begins a long time before the creation State of Israel in the early 19th century. It's really part of a certain Christian belief that the presence of the Jews in Palestine is a divine scheme. There are different interpretations of this, there are different levels of convictions about it, but if you read the literature on both sides of the Atlantic, by the way, both sides of the Atlantic, you see it's very powerful. It's very, very powerful. Right. The second pillar is the Jewish lobby, AIPAC. And the third one is the industrial-military complex. Now, the interesting part is the industrial-military complex, because what you say is that at least that pillar should have a problem, because if you support Israel, you may not do good businesses with the Saudis and the Qataris and military regimes. Well, you would be wrong if you would say that. Why? You can do businesses with them and support Israel. The big question is, what will happen in the Arab world after the Arab Spring, when regimes and countries in the Arab world reflect a democratic public opinion which would say, no, no, you can't do the same, you cannot be our friend and support Israel at the same time. It doesn't work anymore. Now, still, the support for Israel would lie rely on these 2 other pillars that I mentioned. I hope that I'm not wrong in thinking that actually the Jewish pillar is far more shaky than the Christian Zionist. That's my impression, that the young Jewish generation shows signs of doubts about it. They're not indoctrinated— they are indoctrinated, but not in the same ways. Right. As Israeli Jews are. And actually, the last pillar would be Christian Zionism. But by itself, I don't think it would be enough to sustain the kind of support that Israel has. But it takes time. It takes time. And for the time being, there are no signs that any of these pillars is seriously eroded. It's potentially speaking about it. So I think that in this debate between Mearsheimer and And Noam Chomsky, as I tried to show in the joint book with Chomsky we've written. I think that they both have a very valid point, but it shouldn't exclude one of the pillars for the sake of it. And there is, I have to admit, there's something also irrational and not totally explainable. I mean, once you are enough in the— I see. Church of brain, which is the secular academia, you believe, you understand that the worst thing that has been done to you after years of being in an academic institute, that you really believe that everything is explainable. You have to. You don't get tenure if you don't believe that everything is explainable. Your students don't respect you if you don't tell them that everything is explainable. But this is nonsense, of course. The American support of Israel has Metaphysical dimensions. I remember going with Chomsky to Capitol Hill to meet the one— I won't say his name— the one senator who was willing to meet us. We had to meet in this tunnel that connects the House of Representatives and whatever, and we got lost there because he didn't want to be seen. He made himself as if he was going to the washroom to meet us. He was a very powerful senator. God knows what he was afraid of, but the timidity of people in this country when it comes to Israel is not in the realm of logical explanation. You need healers, metaphysical shamans, all kinds of— go to the Native Americans. I think they will have a better explanation for— —for what's going on. The way people cower here when it comes to Israel, it's beyond— you know, even Israelis are amazed at how powerful they are at Capitol Hill. They don't believe their luck. So, I don't know, maybe it's time for Americans to wake up and say, we should stop being antisemitic. The Jews are not that powerful as we think, which is an antisemitic idea. I think that's a very good point. They're not as powerful. And it's time just to say no once. It's so liberating. You say no once, you say no twice. That's all you need. That's all you need. And once you have that, also the last European bastion would say no to Israel. It's— but that's my only explanation. Thank you.