#418 – Israel-Palestine Debate: Finkelstein, Destiny, M. Rabbani & Benny Morris

The following is a debate on the topic of Israel and Palestine, with Norman Ficklstein, Benny Morris, M. Rabbani & Stephen Bennell, also known online as Destiny. Norman Benny are historians, Wayne is a Middle East analyst, and Stephen is a political commentator and streamer. All four have spoken and debated extensively on this topic. The goal for this debate was not for anyone to win or to score points. There wasn't to get views or likes, I never care about those.

I think there are probably much easier ways to get those things if I did care. The goal was to explore together the history, present and future of Israel and Palestine in a free, flowing conversation, no time limits, no rules. There was a lot of tension in the room from the very beginning, and it only got more intense as we went along.

I quickly realized that this very conversation in a very real human way was a microcosm of the tensions and distance and perspectives on the topic of Israel and Palestine. For some debates, I will step in and moderate strictly to prevent emotion from boiling. For this, I saw the value in not interfering with the passion of the exchanges, because that emotion in itself spoke volumes.

We did talk about the history in the future, about the anger, the frustration, the biting wit, and at times respect and camaraderie were all there. Like I said, we did it in an perhaps all-too human way. I will do more debates and conversations on these difficult topics, and I will continue to search for hope in the midst of death and destruction, to search for our common humanity in the midst of division and hate. This thing we have going on, human civilization, the whole of it, is beautiful.

And it's worth figuring out how we can help it flourish together. I love you all. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got ExpressVPN for privacy, Babel for learning new languages, policy genius for insurance, and hate sleep for you guessed it. Sleep. Choose wise and my friends. Also if you want to work with our amazing team or just get in touch with me, go to lexfreedman.com slash contact.

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And now dear friends, here's Norman Ficklstein, Benny Morris, William Robani, and Steven Bonel. First question is about 1948. For Israelis, 1948 is the establishment of the State of Israel and the war of independence. For Palestinians, 1948 is a knock-buck, which means catastrophe. Or the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians from their homes as a consequence of the war. What to you is important to understand about the events of 1948.

And the period around there, 47, 49, that helps us understand what's going on today. And maybe helps us understand the roots of all of this that started even before 1948. I was hoping that Norm can speak first and Benny and then wean. After World War II, the British decided they didn't want to deal with the Palestine question anymore. And the war was thrown into the court of the United Nations. Now as I read the record, the UN was not attempting to arbitrate or adjudicate rights and wrongs.

It was confronting a very practical problem. There were two national communities in Palestine and there were irreconcilable differences on fundamental questions, most importantly looking at the historic record on the question of immigration and associate with the question of immigration, the question of land. The UN Special Committee on Palestine, which came into being before the UN 181 partition resolution, the UN Special Committee, it recommended two states in Palestine.

There was a minority position represented by Iran, India, Yugoslavia. They supported one state, but they believed that if forced to, the two communities would figure out some sort of modest vendee and live together. The United Nations General Assembly supported partition between what it called a Jewish state and an Arab state. Now in my reading of the record, they understand there's new scholarship in the subject which I've not read.

But so far as I've read the record, there's no clarity on what the United Nations General Assembly meant by a Jewish state and an Arab state except for the fact that the Jewish state would be demographically, the majority would be Jewish and the Arab state demographically would be Arab.

The UN SCOP, the UN Special Committee on Palestine, it was very clear and it was reiterated many times that in recommending two states, each state, the Arab state and the Jewish state, would have to guarantee full equality of all citizens with regard to political, civil and religious matters.

Now that does raise the question if there is absolute full equality of all citizens both in the Jewish state and the Arab state with regard to political rights, civil rights and religious rights, apart from the demographic majority, it's very unclear what it meant to call a state Jewish or call a state Arab. But my view, the partition resolution was the correct decision. I do not believe that the Arab and Jewish communities could at that point be made to live together.

I disagree with the minority position of India, Iran and Yugoslavia and that not being a practical option, two states was the only other option. In this regard, I would want to pay tribute to what was probably the most moving speech at the UN General Assembly proceedings by the Soviet Foreign Minister Romico. I was very tempted to quote it at length, but I recognized that would be taking too much time.

So I asked a young friend, the Jamie Stern-Miner, to edit it and just get the essence of what Foreign Minister Romico had to say. Following the last war, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering. Without any exaggeration, this sorrow and suffering are indescribable. Hundreds of thousands of Jews are wandering about in various countries of Europe, in search of means of existence and in search of shelter.

The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference. Past experience, particularly during the Second World War, shows that no Western European state was able to provide adequate assistance for the Jewish people in defending its rights and its very existence from the violence of the Hitler rights and their allies. This is an unpleasant fact, but unfortunately, like all other facts, it must be admitted.

Romico went on to say, in principle, he supports one state or the Soviet Union, supports one state. But he said, if relations between the Jewish and Arab populations of Palestine proved to be so bad that would be impossible to reconcile them and to ensure the peaceful coexistence of the Arabs and the Jews, the Soviet Union would support two states. I personally am not convinced that the two states would have been unsustainable in the long term.

If, and this is a big if, the Zionist movement had been faithful to the position that proclaimed during the unskop public hearings, at the time, Ben Gorion testified, quote, I want to express what we mean by a Jewish state. We mean by a Jewish state simply a state where the majority of the people are Jews. Not a state where a Jew has in any way any privilege more than anyone else. A Jewish state means a state based on absolute equality of all her citizens and on democracy.

Alas, this was not to be. As Professor Morris has written, quote, Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist. And then he wrote in another book, transfer the euphemism for expulsion, transfer was inevitable and inbuilt in to Zionism because it sought to transform a land which was Arab into a Jewish state. And a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population.

And because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs which in turn persuade the Yashavs leaders, the Yashav being the Jewish community, the Yashavs leaders that a hostile Arab majority or a large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure. Or as Professor Morris retrospectively put it quote, a removing of a population was needed. Without a population expulsion, a Jewish state would not have been established.

Unquote. The Arab side rejected outright the partition resolution. I won't play games with that. I know a lot of people tried to prove it's not true. It clearly in my view is true. The Arab side rejected outright the partition resolution. While Israeli leaders acting on the compulsions inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism found the pretext in the course of the first Arab-Israeli war to expel the indigenous population and expand its borders.

I therefore conclude that neither side was committed to the letter of the partition resolution and both sides aborted it. Thank you, Norm. I'm not going to ask that. You make a lengthy statement in the beginning. I hope it's okay to call everybody but their first name in the name of camaraderie. Norm has quoted several things you said. Perhaps you can comment, broader than the question of a 1948 and maybe respond to the things that Norm said.

Yeah. Unscope, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine recommended partition, the majority of Unscope, recommended partition which was accepted by the UN General Assembly in November 1947. Essentially looking back to the Peele Commission in 1937, ten years earlier, a British Commission had looked at the problem of Palestine, the two warring national groups who refused to live together if you like or consolidate a unitary state between them.

And Peele said there should be two states, that's the principle. The country must be partitioned and two states. This would give a modicum of justice to both sides, if not all their demands of course. And the United Nations followed suit. The United Nations, Unscope and then the UN General Assembly representing the will of the international community said two states is the just solution in this complex situation.

The problem was that immediately with the passage of the resolution, the Arab states and the Arabs of Palestine said no, as no Norman Finkelstein said, they said no, the rejected the partition, the idea, the principle of partition, not just the idea of what percentage which sides should get, but the principle of partition they said no to the Jews should not have any part of Palestine for their sovereign territory. Maybe Jews could live as a minority in Palestine.

That also was problematic in the eyes of the Palestinian Arab leadership. Hussein had said only Jews were there before 1917 could actually get citizenship and continue to live there. But the Arabs rejected partition and the Arabs of Palestine launched in very disorganized fashion war against the resolution against the implementation of the resolution against the Jewish community in Palestine.

And this were their defeat in that civil war between the two communities while the British were withdrawing from Palestine led to the Arab invasion by the Arab states in May 1948 of the country. Again, basically with the idea of eradicating or preventing the emergence of a Jewish state in line with the United Nations decision and the will of the international community.

Norman said that the Zionist enterprise and quoted me meant from the beginning to transfer or expel the Arabs of Palestine or some of the Arabs of Palestine. And I think he's sort of quoting out of context, the context in which the statements were made that the Jewish state could only emerge if there was a transfer of Arab population was preceded in the way I wrote it and the way it actually happened by Arab resistance and hostilities towards the Jewish community.

He had the Arabs accepted partition, there would have been a large Arab minority in the Jewish state which emerged in 1947. And in fact, Jewish economists and state builders took into account that there would be a large Arab minority and its needs would be cared for, etc. But this was not to be because the Arabs attacked and had they not attacked, perhaps a Jewish state of the large Arab minority could have emerged, but this didn't happen.

They went toward the Jews resisted and in the course of that war, Arab populations were driven out, some were expelled, some left because Arab leaders advised them to leave, order them to leave, and at the end of the war Israel said they can't return because they just tried to destroy the Jewish state. And that's the basic reality of what happened in 1948, the Jews created a state, the Palestinian Arabs never bothered to even try to create a state before 1948 and in the course of the 1948 war.

And for that reason, they have no state to this day. The Jews do have a state because they prepared to establish a state, fought for it and established it, hopefully, lastingly. The Palestinians had hostility in case people are not familiar, there was a full on war where Arab states invaded and Israel won that war. Let me just add to clarify, the war had two parts to it. The first part was the Arab community in Palestine, its militiamen, attacked the Jews from November 1947.

In other words, from the day after the UN partition resolution, it was past Arab government were busy shooting up Jews and that snowballed into a full-scale civil war between the two communities in Palestine. In May 1948, a second stage began in the war in which the Arab states invaded the new state, attacked the new state and they too were defeated and thus a state of Israel emerged. In the course of this two-stage war, a vast Palestinian refugee problem occurred.

So after that, the transfer of the expulsion, the thing that people call the knock-bottles happened. We could you speak to 1948 and the historical significance of it? Sure. There was a lot to unpack here. I'll try to limit myself to just a few points regarding Zionism and transfer. I think heim Weitzman, the head of the world's Zionist organization, had it exactly right when he said that the objective of Zionism is to make Palestine as Jewish, as England is English, or France is French.

In other words, as Norman explained, a Jewish state requires Jewish political demographic and territorial supremacy without those three elements. A state would be Jewish in name only. I think what distinguishes Zionism is its insistence, supremacy and exclusivity. That would be my first point. The second point is I think what the Soviet Foreign Minister at the time André Gromico said is exactly right with one reservation.

Gromico was describing a European savagery, unleashed against Europe's Jews. At the time, it wasn't Palestinians or Arabs, the savagers and the barbarians were European to the core. Had nothing to do with developments in Palestine or the Middle East. Secondly, at the time that Gromico was speaking, those Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and others who were in need of safe haven were still overwhelmingly on the European continent and not in Palestine.

And I think given the scale of the savagery, I don't think that any one state or country should have borne the responsibility for addressing the crisis. I think it should have been an international responsibility. Soviet Union could have contributed. Germany certainly could and should have contributed. The United Kingdom and the United States, which slammed their doors shut to the persecuted Jews of Europe as an Nazis were rising to power. They certainly should have played a role.

But instead, what passed for the international community at the time, decided to partition Palestine. And here I think we need to judge the partition resolution against the realities that obtained at the time. Two thirds of the population of Palestine was Arab. The Yishouv, the Jewish community in Palestine, constituted about one third of the total population and controlled even less of the land within Palestine.

As a preeminent Palestinian historian, Walid al-Hallady has pointed out the partition resolution in giving roughly 55% of Palestine to the Jewish community. And I think 41-42% to the Arab community, to the Palestinians, did not preserve the position of each community or even favor one community at the expense of the others. Rather, it thoroughly inverted and revolutionized the relationship between the two communities.

And as many have written, the Nakhba was the inevitable consequence of partition. Given the nature of Zionism, given the territorial disposition, given the weakness of the Palestinian community whose leadership had been largely decimated during a major revolt at the end of the 1930s, given that the Arab states were still very much under French and British influence, the Nakhba was inevitable, the inevitable product of the partition resolution.

And one last point also about the UN's partition resolution is, yes, formally, that is what the international community decided on the 29th of November 1947. It's not a resolution that could ever have gotten through the UN General Assembly today for a very simple reason. It was a very different general assembly. Most African, most Asian states were not yet independent. Were the resolution to be placed before the international community today?

And I find it telling that the minority opinion was led by India, Iran, and Yugoslavia. I think they would have represented the clear majority. So partition, given what we know about Zionism, given that it was entirely predictable what would happen, given the realities on the ground in Palestine was deeply unjust. And the idea that either the Palestinians or the Arab states could have accepted such a resolution is, I think, an illusion. That was in 1947. We saw what happened in 49.

Palestinian society was essentially destroyed over 80% I believe of Palestinians resident in the territory that became the state of Israel, were either expelled or fled. And ultimately, we're ethnically cleansed because ethnic cleansing consists of two components. It's not just forcing people into refuge or expelling them. It's just as importantly preventing their return. And here, and Benymoris has written, I think, a article about Yosef Leitz and the transfer committees.

There was a very detailed initiative to prevent their return. And it consisted of raising hundreds of Palestinian villages to the ground, which was systematically implemented. And so on and so Palestinians became a stateless people. Now, what is the most important reason that no Arab state was established in Palestine?

Well, since the 1930s, the Zionist leadership and the Hashmite leadership of Jordan, as has been thoroughly researched and written about by the Israeli-British historian Avi Slime, essentially colluded to prevent the establishment of an independent Arab state in Palestine in the late 1940s. There's much more here, but I think those are the key points I would make about 1948. We may talk about Zionism, Britain, you know, and assemblies and all the things you mentioned as a lot to dig into.

Keep it to just one statement moving forward after Stephen, if you want to go longer. Also we should have knowledge of the fact that the speaking speeds of people here are different. Stephen speaks about 10 times faster than me. Stephen, do you want to comment on 1948? Yeah, I think it's interesting where people choose to start the history.

I noticed a lot of people like to start at either 47 or 48, because it's the first time where they can clearly point to a catastrophe that occurs on the Arab side, that they want to ascribe 100% of the blame to the newly emergent Israeli state too. But I feel like when you have this type of reading of history, it feels like the goal is to moralize everything first and then to pick and choose facts that kind of support the statements of your initial moral statement afterwards.

Whenever people are talking about 48 or the establishment of the Arab state, I never hear about the fact that a civil war started in 47. It was largely instigated because of the Arab rejectionism of the 47 partition plan. I never hear about the fact that the majority of the land that was acquired happened by purchases from Jewish organizations of Palestinian Arabs of the Ottoman Empire before the mandatory period in 1920 even started.

Funnily enough, King Abdullah of Jordan was quoted as saying the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in weeping about it. I never hear about the multiple times that Arabs rejected partition, rejected living with Jews, rejected any sort of state that would have even had any sort of Jewish exclusivity.

It's funny because it was brought up before that the partition plan was unfair and that's why the Arabs rejected it as though they rejected it because it was unfair, because of the amount of land that Jews were given and not just due to the fact that Jews were given land at all as though a 30% partition or a 25% partition would have been accepted when I don't think that was the reality of the circumstances.

I feel like most of the other stuff has been said but I noticed that whenever people talk about 48 or the year is proceeding 48, I think the worst thing that happens is there's a cherry picking of the facts where basically all of the blame is ascribed to this built-in

idea of Zionism because of a handful of quotes or because of an ideology we can say that transfer or population expulsion or basically the mandate of all of these Arabs being kicked off the land was always going to happen when I think there's a refusal sometimes as well

to acknowledge that regardless of the ideas of some of the Zionist leaders there is a political social and military reality on the ground that they're forced to contend with and unfortunately the Arabs because of their inability to engage in diplomacy and only to use tools of war

to try to negotiate everything going on in mandatory Palestine basically always gave the Jews a reason or an excuse to fight and acquire land through that way because of their refusal to negotiate on anything else whether it was the partition plan in 47 whether it was the

loose and peace conference afterwards where Israel even offered to annex Gaza in 51 where they offered to take in 100,000 refugees every single deal is just projected out of hand because the Arabs don't want a Jewish state anywhere in this region of the world.

I would like to engage Professor Morris if you don't mind I'm not with the first name it's just not my way of relating you can just call me Morris you don't need to profess okay it's a real problem here and it's been a problem I've had over many years of reading

your work apart perhaps from a grandchild I suspect nobody knows your work better than I do I've read it many times not once not twice at least three times everything you've written and the problem is it's a kind of quick silver you're very hard to grasp a point

and hold you to it so we're going to try here to see whether we can hold you to a point and then you argue with me the point I have no problem with that your name please Stephen Banal okay Mr. Banal referred to cherry picking and handful of quotes now it's true that

when you wrote your first book on the Palestinian refugee question you only had a few lines on this issue of transfer for pages yeah in the first book in the first book for a day before you know I'm not going to quarrel my memory is not clear we're talking about

for the years ago I read it I read it but then I read other things but you okay and you were taken to task if my memories correct that you haven't adequately documented the claims of transfer let me allow me to finish and I thought that was a reasonable challenge because

it was an unusual claim from mainstream Israeli historian to say as you did not first book that from the very beginning transfer figured prominently in scientists thinking that was an unusual if you read the neither Shapiro Shapiro you read Shaptite have it that was an unusual

acknowledgement for you and then I found it very impressive that in that revised version of your first book you devoted 25 pages to copiously documenting the salience of transfer in Zionist thinking and in fact you used a very provocative and resonant phrase you

said that transfer was inevitable and in built in Zionism we're not talking about circumstantial factors or war Arab hostility you said it's inevitable and in built in Zionism now as I said so we won't be accused of cherry picking those were 25 very densely argued pages and then

in an interview and I could cite several quotes without choose one you said removing the population was needed let's look at the words without a population expulsion a Jewish state would not have been established now you're the one again I was very surprised when

I read your book here I'm referring to righteous victims I was very surprised when I came to that page 37 where you wrote that territorial displacement and dispossession was the chief motor of Arab resistance to Zionism territorial displacement and dispossession were the chief

motor of Arab resistance to Zionism so you then went on to say because the Arab population rationally feared territorial displacement and dispossession it of course opposed Zionism that says normal as Native Americans opposing the Euro American manifest destiny in the

history of our own country because they understood it would be at their expense it was in built and inevitable and so now for you to come along and say that it all happened just because of the war that otherwise Zionist made all these plans for a happy minority to live there

that simply does not gel it does not co here it is not reconcilable with what you yourself have written it was inevitable and in built now in other situations you've said that's true but I think it was a greater good to establish a Jewish state at the expense of the

indigenous population that's another kind of argument that was theater Roosevelt's argument in our own country he said we don't want a whole of North America to remain a squalid refuge for these wigwams and TPs we have to get rid of them and make this a great country but

he didn't deny that it was in built and inevitable I think you've made your point there first I'll take up something that Moeens said he said that the Nakba was inevitable as have you unpredictable no no no I never said that was inevitable and predictable only because

the Arabs assaulted the Jewish community and state in 1947-48 had there been no assault they probably wouldn't have been a refugee problem there's no reason for a refugee problem to have occurred expulsions to have occurred a dispossession massive dispossession to occur

these occurred as a result of war now Norma said that I said that transfer was in built into Zionism in one way or another and this is certainly true in order to buy land they had the Jews a bought tracks of land on which some Arabs sometimes lived sometimes they bought

tracks of land on which there weren't Arab villages but sometimes they bought land on which there were Arabs and according to Ottoman law and the British at least in the initial years of the British mandate a the law said that the people who bought the land could do what they liked

with the people who didn't own the land who were basically squatting on the land which is the Arab tenant farmers which is we're talking about a very small number actually of Arabs who displaced as a result of land purchases in the Ottoman period or the mandate period but there was dispossession in one way they didn't possess the land they didn't own it but they were removed from the land and this did happen in Zionism and there's if you like in a in a vatability in Zionist

ideology of buying tracks of land and starting to work it yourself and settle it with your own people and so on that made sense but what we're really talking about is what happened in 4748 and in 4748 the Arabs started a war and actually people pay for their mistakes and the Palestinians have never

actually agreed to pay for their mistakes they make mistakes they attack they suffer as a result and we see something similar going on today in Ga in the Gaza Strip they do something terrible they kill 1200 Jews they abduct 250 women and children and babies and old people and whatever and then

they start screaming please save us from what we did because the Jews are counter attacking and this is what happened then and this is what's happening now there's something fairly similar in the situation here expulsion and this is important normally you should pay attention to this you

didn't raise that expulsion transfer whenever policy of the Zionist movement before 47 it doesn't exist in a Zionist platforms of the various political parties of the Zionist organization of the Israeli state of the Jewish agency nobody would have actually made it into policy because it was

always a large minority if the work people wanted it always a large minority of Jewish politicians and leaders would have said no this is a moral we cannot a start a state on the basis of an expulsion so it was never adopted and actually was never adopted as policy even in 48 even though

Bengurian wanted as few Arabs in the course of the war staying in the Jewish state after they attacked it he didn't want to soil citizens staying there because they wouldn't have been loyal citizens but this made sense in the war itself but the movement itself and its political

parties never accepted it it's true that in 1937 when the British as part of the proposal by the Peele Commission to divide the country into two states one Arab one Jewish which the Arabs of course rejected a Peele also recommended the Arabs most of the Arabs in the Jewish state to be should be transferred because otherwise if they stayed and were disloyal to the emergent Jewish

state this would cause endless disturbances warfare killing and so on. So Bengurian and lightsman latched on to this proposal by the famous famous American democracy in the world the British democracy when they proposed the idea of transfer side by side with the idea of partition because it made sense in and they said well if the British say so we should also advocate it but they never actually tried to pass it as Zionist policy and they fairly quickly stopped

even talking about transfer after 1938. So just to clarify what you're saying is that 47 was an offensive war not a defensive war by the Arabs by the Arabs and you're also saying that there was never a top-down policy of expulsion yes just to clarify the point if I understood you

correctly you're making you're making the claim that transfer expulsion and so on was in fact a very localized phenomenon resulting resulting from individual land purchases and that if I understand you correctly you're also making the claim that the idea that a Jewish state requires a

removal or overwhelming reduction of the non-Jewish population was if the Arabs are attacking you yes but but that let's say prior to 1947 it would be your claim that the idea that a significant reduction or wholesale removal of their population was not part of Zionist thinking well I think

there's two problems with that I think what you're saying about localized disputes is correct but I also think that there is a whole literature that demonstrates that transfer was envisioned by Zionist leaders on a much broader scale than simply individual land purchases in other words

it's it went way beyond we need to remove these tenants so that we can form this land the idea was we can't have a state where all these Arabs remain and we have to get rid of them and the second I think impediment to to that view is that long before the UN General Assembly convened to address

a question of Palestine Palestinian and Arab and other leaders as well had been warning ad infinitum that the purpose of Zionist movement is not just to establish a Jewish state but to establish an exclusivist Jewish state and that transfer force displacement

was fundamental to that project and just responding to sorry was it that but Bonnele or donnell yeah would it be yeah yeah um you made the point that the the problem here is that people don't recognize is that the first and last result for the Arabs is always war I think there's a problem

with that I think you might do well to recall the 1936 general strike conducted by Palestinians at the beginning of the revolt which at the time was the longest recorded general strike in history you may want to consult the book published last year by Laurie Allen a history of false hope

which discusses in great detail the consistent engagement by Palestinians their leaders their elites their diplomats and so on with all these international committees if we look at today the Palestinians are once again going to the international court of justice they're consistently

trying to persuade the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court to do his job they have launched widespread boycott campaign so of course the Palestinians have engaged in um uh military resistance but I think the suggestion that this has always been their first and last

resort and that they have somehow spurned civic action spurn diplomacy I I think really has no basis uh in reality I'll respond to that and then a question for Norm to take into account I think when he answers Benny because I am curious obviously uh I have fresher eyes on this and I'm a new comrade to this arena versus the three of you guys for sure um a claim that gets brought up a lot has to do with the inevitability of transfer in Zionism or the idea that as soon as the Jews envisioned a

state in Palestine they knew that it would involve some mass transfer of population perhaps a mass expulsion um I'm sure we'll talk about planned dialogue or planned diet at some point the issue that I run into is while you can find quotes from leaders what you can find maybe desires expressed in

diaries I feel like it's hard to truly ever know if there would have been mass transfer in the face of Arab peace because I feel like every time there was a huge deal on the table that would have had a sizable Jewish and Arab population living together the Arabs would reject it out of hand

so for instance when we say that transfer was inevitable when we say that Zionists would have never accepted you know sizable Arab population how do you explain the acceptance of the 47 partition plan that would have had a huge Arab population living in the Jewish state is your

contention that after the acceptance of that after the establishment of that state that Jews would have slowly started to expel all of these Arab citizens from their country or how do you explain that in lucian a couple years later that israel was willing to formally annex the Gaza Strip and make

200,000 people those citizens but I'm just curious how how do we get this idea of Zionism always means mass transfer when there were times at least early on in the history of israel and a little bit before it where israel would have accepted a state that would have had a massive Arab population

in it is your yeah is your idea that they would have just slowly expelled them afterwards or is that question to you or norm but to either one I'm just curious with the incorporation of the answer yeah there's some misunderstandings here so let's try to clarify that number one it was the

old historians who would point to the fact and professor maris's terminology the old historians what he called not real historians he called them chroniclers not real historians it was the old israeli historians who denied the centrality of transfer in Zionist thinking it was then professor

maris who contrary to israel's historian establishment who said now you remind me its four pages but came at the end of the book it was no no it's at the beginning of the book transfer yes the answer is dealt with in four pages at the beginning of my first book on the map yeah okay a few g

problem it's a fourth of my memory but the points don't stand it was professor maris who introduced this idea in what you might call a big way yeah but I didn't say it's a central to the Zionist allowing experimental allow a lot allow you saying central okay I never said it was central

okay it was there okay the idea it's by the way it's okay to respond back and forth this is great and also just a quick question if I may you're using quotes from from Benny from professor maris it's also okay to say those quotes do not reflect the whole context of the so like if we go back

if you know to quotes we've said in the past and you've both here have written the three you have written on this topic a lot is we should be careful and just admit like well yeah well that's just that's what you're real quick just to be clear though the contention is that norm is

quoting apart and saying that this was the entire reason for this whereas Benny saying it's a part of that I'm not quoting apart I'm quoting 25 pages where professor maris was at great pains to document the claim that appeared in those early four pages of his book now you say

it never became part of the official Zionist platform never became part of the policy we're also asked well this is true why did that happen why that happened it's because it's a very simple fact which everybody understands ideology doesn't operate in a vacuum there are real

world practical problems you can't just take an ideology and superimpose it on a political reality and turn it into a fact it was the British mandate there was significant Arab resistance to Zionism and that resistance was based on the fact as you said the fear of territorial displacement and

dispossession so you could it very well expect design this movement to come out in neon lights and announce hey we're going to be expeling you the first chance we get that's not realistic now let me respond look you said you've said it a number of times that the Arabs from fairly early on

in the in the conflict from the 1890s or the early 1900s said the Jews intend to expel us this doesn't mean that it's true it means that some Arabs said this may be believing it was true maybe using it as a political instrument to gain support to mobilize Arabs against the Zionist

experiment but the fact is transfer did not occur before 1947 in an Arabs later said then and since then have said that the Jews want to build a third temple on the temple mount as if that's what really the the mainstream of Zionism has always wanted and always strived for but this is nonsense

it's something that Hussein he used to use as a way to mobilize masses in for the cause using religion as as the way to get them to to join join him in the fact that Arabs said that their the Zionist wanted this possessors doesn't mean it's true it just means that there's some Arabs

thought that maybe and maybe said it sincerely and maybe it's sincerely professor maris later became a self-fulfilling prophecy this is true professor maris attacked the Jews professor maris I read through your stuff even yesterday I was looking through righteous victim you should read

out the things you're wasting your time no no actually no I do read other things but I don't consider the waste of time to read you not at all um you say that this wasn't inherent in Zionism now would you agree that ben gore David Ben gorean was a Zionist

a Zionist a major Zionist would you agree my invite's man was a Zionist yeah okay I believe they were I believe they took their ideology seriously it was the first generation just like with the Bolsheviks the first generation was committed to an idea by the 1930s it was just pure rail politic the ideology went out the window the first generation I have no doubt about their convictions okay they were Zionists transfer was inevitable and in build in Zionism

they're keep repeating the same thing because I have as I said then it mr. maris I have a problem reconciling what you're saying it either was incidental or it was deeply entrenched here I read it's deeply entrenched two very resonant words inevitable and in built deeply entrenched I never

wrote well I'm not sure it's something you just invented okay but but it's there no you built the idea let me see fine let me see something no the idea of transfer was there Israel's angle a British Zionist talked about it early on in the century

a even hurtzel in some way talked about transfer in 25 your 25 pages everybody talk well that's we keep bringing up this line in the 25 page in the four pages you know we're lucky to have been in front of us right now we don't need to go to the quotes like we can legitimately ask

how central is expulsion to Zionism in this early version of Zionism and what whatever Zionism is today and how much power influenced the Zionism and ideology have in Israel and like influence the philosophy the ideology Zionism have on Israel today the Zionist movement up to 1948 Zionist

ideology was central to the the whole Zionist experience the whole enterprise up to 1948 and I think Zionist ideology was also important in the first decades of Israel's existence a slowly the the the hold of Zionism like if you like like like Bolshevism held the Soviet Union

gradually faded and a lot of Israelis today think in terms of individual success and then the capitalism and all all sorts of things which are nothing to do with Zionism but Zionism was very important but what I'm saying is that the idea of transfer wasn't the core of Zionism the idea

of Zionism was to save the Jews would be vastly persecuted in Eastern Europe and incidentally in the Arab world the Muslim world for centuries and eventually ending up with the Holocaust the idea of Zionism was to save the Jewish people by establishing a state or reestablishing a Jewish

state on the ancient Jewish homeland which is something the Arabs today even deny that there were Jews in Palestine or the land of Israel a 2000 years ago Arifat famously said what temple was there on temple mount maybe it was in Nablus which of course is nonsense but but they

they had a connection strong connection for thousands of years to the land to which they wanted to return and returned there they found that on the land lived hundreds of thousands of Arabs in the question was how to accommodate the vision of a Jewish state in Palestine alongside the existence

of these Arab masses living on were indigenous in fact to the land by that stage and the idea of partition because they couldn't live together because the Arabs didn't want to live together with the Jews and I think the Jews also didn't want to live together in one state with Arabs in general

the idea of partition was the thing which the Zionists accepted okay we can only get a small part of Palestine the Arabs will get in 37 most of Palestine in 1947 the ratios were changed but we can we can live side by side with each other in a partition Palestine and this was the essence of it

the idea of transfer was there but it was never adopted as policy but in 1947-48 the Arabs attacked trying to destroy essentially the Jewish design a centiprise and the emergent Jewish state and the reaction was a transfer in some way not as policy but this is what happened on the battlefield

and this is also what Benguri and at some point began to want as well right well you know one of the first books on this issue I read when I was still in high school because my my late father had it was a diaries of Theodore Herzl and I think you know Theodore Herzl of course was was the founder

of the contemporary Zionist movement and I think if you read that it's very clear for Herzl the model upon which the Zionist movement would would proceed his model with Cecil Rhodes his I think you know Rhodes from what I recall correct me if I'm wrong has quite a prominent place and Herzl's

diaries I think Herzl was also corresponding with him and seeking his support Cecil Rhodes of course was was the British colonialist after whom the former white minority regime in in Rhodesia was named and Herzl also says explicitly in his diaries that it is essential to remove

the existing population from Palestine in a moment please as we shall have to spirit the penniless population across the borders and procure employment for the most where or some and Israel's angle who you mentioned a land without a people for a people without a land they knew

them well it wasn't to people aligned without a people I'll continue but I'll but please go just to this there is one small diary entry in Herzl's vast five volumes yeah five volumes is one paragraph which actually mentions the idea of transfer there are people who are I think

the Terzo was actually pointing to South America when he was talking about that the Jews were going to move to Argentina and then they would try and buy out or buy off or spirit the the penniless natives to make way for Jewish settlement maybe wasn't even talking about the Arabs in that

particular passage that's the argument of some people maybe it was but the point is it has only a one hundredth of a one percent of the diary which is devoted to this subject it's not a central idea in Herzl in Herzl's thinking die what Herzl wanted and this is what's important not

roads I don't think he was the model a Herzl wanted to create a liberal democratic western state in Palestine for the Jews that's that was the idea a not some imperial enterprise serving some imperial master which is what Rhodes was about a but to have a Jewish state which was modeled on

the western democracies in in Palestine and this incidentally was more or less what Weitzman and Bingurian Bingurian wanted they Bingurian was more of a socialist Weitzman was more of a liberal westerner but they wanted to establish a social democratic or liberal state in Palestine and

they both envisioned through most of the years of their activity that there would be an Arab minority in that Jewish state it's true that Bingurian strived to have as small as possible an Arab minority in the Jewish state because he knew that if you want a Jewish majority state

that that would be necessary but it's not something which they were willing to translate into actual policy just a quick pause to to mention that for people who are not familiar to their Herzl we're talking about over a century ago and everything we've been talking about has

been mostly in 1948 and before yes just one clarification on Herzl's diaries I mean the other thing that I recall from those diaries is he was he was very preoccupied with in fact getting great power patronage seeing Palestine the Jewish state in Palestine I think his words an outpost

of civilization against barbarism in other words very much seeing his project as a proxy for western imperialism in the Middle East not proxy he wanted to establish a Jewish state which would be independent to get that he hoped that he would be able to a garner support from major

imperial power including including the Ottoman Sultan he tried to cultivate I just want to respond to point you made earlier which was that people expressed their rejection of the partition resolution on the grounds that it gave the majority of the of Palestine to the Jewish community which

formed only a third whereas in fact if I understood you correctly you're saying the Palestinians and the Arabs would have rejected any partition resolution yeah I think a couple things that one they would have rejected any two a lot of that land given was in the negab it was pretty terrible

land at the time well three the land that would have been partitioned to Jews I think would have been I think I saw it was like 500,000 error it would have been 500,000 Jews 400,000 Arabs and I think like 80,000 Bedouin would have been there so the state would have been I think you raised a valid

point because I think the Palestinians did reject the partition of their homeland in principle and I think the fact that the United Nations General Assembly then awarded the majority of their homeland to the Zionist movement only added insult to injury I mean one doesn't have to sympathize

with the Palestinians to recognize that they have now been a stateless people for 75 years can you name any country yours for example or yours that would be prepared to give 55% 25% 10% of your country to the Palestinians of course not and so the issue was not the existence of Jews in Palestine

they had been there for centuries and of course they had ties to Palestine and particularly to Jerusalem and other places going back centuries if not millennia but the idea of establishing an exclusively Jewish state at the expense of those who were already living there I think it was

right to reject that and I don't think we can look back now 75 years later and say well you should have accepted losing 55% of your homeland because you ended up losing 78% of it in the edition the remaining 22% was occupied in 1967 that's that's not how things work yeah and I can I can imagine

I can imagine an American rejecting giving 10% of the United States to the Palestinians and if that rejection leads to war and you lose half your country I doubt that 50 years from now you're going to say well maybe I should have accepted that sure so I like this answer more than what I usually

feel like I'm hearing when it comes to the Palestinian rejection of the 47th petition plan because sometimes I feel like a weird switch happens to where the Arabs in the area are actually presented as entirely pragmatic people who are simply doing a calculation and saying like well we're losing

55% of our land Jews are only maybe one third of the people here and we've got 45 and now the math doesn't work basically but it wasn't a math problem I think like you said it was a matter of principle it was an ideology problem no it was a matter of principle yeah ideologically driven

that that they as a as a people have a right to or entitled to this land that they've never actually had an independent state on that they've never had even a guarantee of an independent state on that they've never actually ruled it over that last point is actually not correct because

for all its injustice the mandate system recognized Palestine as a class A mandate which provisionally recognized the independence of that of what would emerge from that territory but that that was provisionally recognized but not but the territory itself was but not of the Palestinian

people to have a right or a guarantee to a government that would emerge from it was a British mandate of Palestine not the British mandate of Israel the word exclusive which you keep using as nonsense the state which been gruean envisioned would be a Jewish majority state as they accepted

the 1947 partition resolution as Stephen said that included 400,000 plus Arabs in a state which would have 500,000 Jews so the idea of exclusivity wasn't anywhere in the air at all among designist leaders in 4748 they wanted a Jewish majority state but were willing to accept a state

which had 40% Arabs that's one point the second thing is the Palestinians may have regarded the land of Palestine as their homeland but so did the Jews it was the homeland of the Jews as well the problem was the Arabs were unable and remain to this day unable to recognize that for the Jews

that is their homeland as well and the problem then is how do you share this homeland either with one binational state or separate this partitioned into two states the problem is that the Arabs have always rejected both of these ideas the homeland belongs to the Jews as Jews feel as much as it does

I think I would say for the Jews it's the Jewish people's homeland real quick I just want for both of you guys because I haven't heard these questions answer I really want these questions to be I'm just so curious how to make sense of them it was correctly brought up

that I believe that Ben Gurion had I think Shlomo Ben-Ami describes it as an obsession with getting validation or support from Western states great Britain and then a couple decades later it becomes like the claims of Suez War if this is Christy yeah exactly correct that was one of the major

motivators the idea to work with Britain and France on a military operation but then the question again I go back to if that is true if Ben Gurion if the early Israel saw themselves as a Western fashion nation how could we possibly imagine that they would have engaged in the transfer of some

400,000 Arabs after accepting the partition plan would that not have completely and totally destroyed their legitimacy in the eyes of the entire Western world with not have been how not well first of all I think that that design us leadership's acceptance of the partition resolution

and and I think you may have written about this that they accepted it because it provided international endorsements of the legitimacy of the principle of Jewish statehood and they didn't accept the borders and in fact later expanded the border second of all the borders the border is the foreign

expansion and war they accepted the UN partition resolution borders and all they accepted you can say that some of the Zionists deep in their hearts had the idea that maybe at some point including they were able to get more including their most senior leaders who said so and I think

we've quoted them saying so yes that's very logically accepted what the United Nations the world community had said this is what you'll be again and and second of all I mean removing dark people darker people it's it's it's intrinsic it's intrinsic it's intrinsic to Western history so

the idea that Americans or Brits or the French would have an issue with I mean you French had been doing it in Algeria for decades the Americans have been doing it in North America for centuries so how would Israel forcibly displacing Palestinians somehow besmirch Israel in the eyes of the West?

in the 1944 resolution of the labor party and at the time even Bertrand Russell was a member of the labor party it endorsed transfer of Arabs out of Palestine as Moines pointed out that was a deeply entrenched idea in Western thinking that there was nothing it doesn't in any way contradict

or violate or breach any moral values to displace the Palestinian population now I do believe there's a legitimate question had it been the case as you said Professor Morris that the Zionist wanted to create a happy state with a Jewish majority but a large Jewish minority and if by virtue of

immigration like in our own country in our own country given the current trajectories non-whites will become the majority population in our the United States quite soon and according to democratic principles we have to accept that so if that were the case I would say maybe there's an argument

that had there been mass Jewish immigration change the demographic balance in Palestine and therefore Jews became the majority it can make an argument in the abstract that the Indigenous Arab population should have been accepting of that just as whites in the United States quote-unquote

whites have to be accepting of the fact that the demographic majority is shifting to non-whites in our own country but that's not what Zionism was about I did write my doctoral dissertation on Zionism and I don't want to get now bogged down in the abstract ideas but as I suspect you know

most theorists of nationalism say there are two kinds of nationalism one is a nationalism based on citizenship you become a citizen you're integral to the country that's sometimes called puticle nationalism and then there's another kind of nationalism and that says the state should not

belong to its citizens it should belong to an ethnic group each ethnic group should have its own state it's usually called the German Romantic idea of nationalism Zionism is squarely in the German Romantic idea that was the whole point of Zionism we don't want to be

bundists and be one more ethnic minority in Russia we don't want to become citizens and just become a Jewish people in England or France we want our own state like like the Arab people are in the state no wait let's before we get to the Arabs let's get let's stick to the

Jews for a moment or the Zionists we want our own state and in that concept of wanting your own state the minority at best lives on sufferance and at worst gets expelled that's the logic of the German Romantic Zionist idea of a state that's why there's Zionists now I personally have

shied away from using the word Zionism ever since I finished my doctoral dissertation because that's painful because as I said I don't believe it's the operative ideology today it's like talking about Bolshevism and referring to Khrushchev I doubt Khrushchev could have spelled Bolshevik

but for the period we're talking about they were Zionists they were committed to their exclusive state with with a minority living on sufferance or at worst expelled that was their ideology and I really feel there's a problem with your happy vision of these western democrats like

vitesmen and they wanted to live peacefully with their Arabs vitesmen described the expulsion in 1948 as quote the miraculous clearing of the land that doesn't sound like somebody shedding too many tears at the loss of the indigenous population let me use the word the un sufferance I don't

agree with I think that's wrong the Jewish state came into being in 1948 it had a population which was 20% Arab when it came into being after Arab refugees many of them had become refugees but 20% remained in the country 20% of Israel's population at inception in 1949 was Arab 80%

went missing no no no I was talking about what remained in Palestine Israel after it was created the 20% who lived in Israel received citizenship and all the rights of Israelis except of course the right to serve an army which they didn't want to and they have supreme court justices they have

knesset members they enjoyed basically basically for period sure they lived under a no no no no no wait a minute at the beginning at the beginning it's not fantasy at the beginning of their received citizenship could vote in elections for their own people and they were put

into parliament but in the first years the Israeli the Jewish majority suspected that maybe the Arabs would be disloyal because they had just tried to destroy the Jewish state then they dropped the military government and they became fully equal citizens so if the whole idea was they must

have a state without Arabs they this didn't happen in 49 and it didn't happen in the in some why did you say Professor Morris yes and why did you say without a population expulsion a Jewish state would not have been a stab because the the you're missing the first section of

that paragraph which was they were being assaulted by the Arabs and as a result a Jewish state could not have come into being unless there had also been an expulsion of the population which was trying to kill no I'm officially forbidding you referencing that again I think we've responded

to it so the main point you're making we have to take many of his words like there was a war and that's the reason why he made that statement I think to just one last point on this I remember reading your book when it first came out and and and reading you know one incident after the

other and one example after the other and then getting to the conclusion where you said the Nakba was a product of war not design I think we're exact and I remember reacting almost in and in shock to that the I felt you had mobilized overwhelming evidence that it was a product of

design not war and I think our discussion today very much reflects let's say the dissonance between the evidence and the conclusion you don't feel that that the the research that you have conducted and published demonstrates that it was in fact inherent and in built and inevitable

and I think the point that norm and iron making is is that your own historical research together with that of others indisputably demonstrates that it does I think that's a fundamental disagreement we're having here can I wait I can I actually respond to that because this is actually

I think this is an emblematic of the entire conversation I watched a lot of norms interviews and conversations and preparation for this and I hear normal say this all over and over and over again I only deal in facts I don't deal in hypotheticals I only deal in facts I only deal in facts

and that seems to be the case except for when the facts are completely and totally contrary to the particular point you're trying to push the idea that Jews would have out of hand rejected any state that had Arabs on it or always had a plan of expulsion is just betrayed by the acceptance

of the 47 partition I don't think you understand politics did I just say that there is a chasm that separates your ideology from the limits and constraints imposed by politics and reality now professor maris I suspect would agree that the Zionist movement from fairly early on

was committed to the idea of a Jewish state I am aware of only one major study probably written 40 years ago the the binational idea and mandatory Palestine by a woman I forgot her name now you remember I'm trying yeah okay would you know the book yeah she is the only one who tried

to persuasively argue that the Zionist movement was actually not formally actually committed to the binational idea but most historians of the subject agree the Zionist movement was committed to the idea of a Jewish state having written my doctoral dissertation on the topic I was confirmed in that

idea because professor chomsky who was my closest friend for about 40 years was very committed to the idea that binationalism was the dominant trend in Zionism I could not agree with I couldn't go with him there but professor maris you are aware that until the built more resolution in 1942

the Zionist movement never declared it was for a Jewish state why because it was politically impossible at the moment until 1942 there is your ideology there are your convictions there are your operative plans and there's also separately what you say in public design this movement couldn't

say in public we're expelting all the Arabs they can't say that and they couldn't even say we support a Jewish state until 1942 you're conflating two things that the Zionists wanted a Jewish state correct that didn't mean that the expression of the Arabs it's not the same thing they wanted a

Jewish state with a Jewish majority but they were willing as it turned out both in 37 and in 40 47 and subsequently to have an Arab minority a large trans a large Arab minority they were willing to have a large Arab minority in the country and they ended up with a large Arab minority

in the country 20% of the population in 49 they ended up and it's still in the for about five minutes before they were expelled they agreed to wait until 47 and then they were gone by March 19 49 what happened in between the rejection of the partition plan and the

expulsion of the Arabs the Arabs launched the war well yeah well I mean like it's not it wasn't random like there's a potential that even there was totally agree with that yeah but by design you can say that you can say that but in this case the facts betray you there was no Arabic

acceptance of anything that would have allowed for a Jewish state to exist of course one and number two I think that it's entirely possible given how things happen after war that this exact same conflict could have played out and an expulsion would have happened without any ideology at play

that there was a people that disagreed on who had territorial rights to a land there was a massive war afterwards and then a bunch of their friends invaded after to reinforce the idea that the Jewish people in this case couldn't have a state there could have been a transfer regardless

anything could have been that's not what history is about history is about Palestinian rejection isn't that any peace deal as I said over and over again when the war was thrown into the court of the United Nations they were faced with a practical problem and I for one I'm not going to try

to adjudicate the rights and wrongs from the beginning I do not believe that if territorial displacement and dispossession was inherent in the Zionist project I do not believe it can be a legitimate political enterprise now you might say that's speaking from 2022 or 2020

we're not okay but we have to recognize that from nearly the beginning for perfectly obvious reasons having nothing to do with anti-Semitism anti-Westernism anti-Europeanism but because no people that I am aware of would voluntarily seed its country you can perfectly understand native American

resistance to Eurocolonialism you can perfectly well understand it without any anti-Europeanism anti-Witism anti-Christianism they didn't want to see their country to invaders that's completely understandable you're minimizing the anti-Semitic element in Arab and all your books you minimized

no no no the Hussein was an anti-Semite the leader of the Palestinian national movement in the 30s and 40s was an anti-Semite this was one of the things which drove him and also drove him in the end to work in Berlin for four years with a Nazi giving Nazi propaganda to the Arab world

calling on the Arabs to murder the Jews that's what he did in World War II that's the leader of the Palestinian Arab national movement and he wasn't alone he wasn't alone he wasn't what is it that you read your book righteous victims you can read it and read it and read it and

read it as I have you will find barely a word about the Arabs being motivated by anti-Semitism it exists though I didn't say it doesn't exist I agree that it exists hey I don't know a single non Jew who doesn't harbor anti-Semitic sentiment we're talking about Arabs now yeah but I don't know

anybody that's just part of the human condition anti-Semitism yes Hussein was a or and among the Arabs so Professor Mars here's my problem I didn't say that in your righteous victims even when you talked about the first interfather and you talked about the second

interfather and you talked about how there was a lot of influence by Hamas the Islamic movement you even stated that there is a lot of anti-Semitism in those movements but then you went on to say but of course at bottom it was about the occupation it wasn't about and I've read it yeah you'll

be moving from different ages across the ages your whole book the occupation began 1967 the one you're talking about I looked and looked and look for evidence of this anti-Semitism as being a chief motor of Arab resistance to power Zionism I didn't say it you like you did he make that claim

I don't remember the word chief yeah it's a why the elements very binary binary yes binary please don't give me this postmodernism binary you're the one thinking you're talking black and white concepts when history is much greater lots of things happen because

of lots of reasons not one or the other and and you don't you don't seem to see that can I ask you quite because it's for them to talk to just a very quick question what was what do you think the ideal solution was on the Arab side from 47 what would they have preferred what would have happened

if and then the second one what would have happened if Jews would have lost the war in 48 what do you think would have happened to the Israeli population I think the Palestinians and the Arabs were explicit that they wanted a unitary I think federal state and and they made their submissions

to one's cop they made their appeals at the UN General Assembly what do you mean by unitarian federal I don't get that they wanted an Arab state they wanted Palestine to be an Arab yes yes yes simply but I think they wanted Palestine yes but it's an Arab and exclusively Arab

state no wasn't an it wasn't an exclusively Arab state I think we have to distinguish between Palestinian and Arab opposition to a Jewish state in Palestine on the one hand and Palestinian and Arab attitudes to Jewish existence in Palestine there's a fundamental

difference. Well for say the leader of the movement said that all the Jews would come since 1917 and that's the majority of the Jews in Palestine in 1947 shouldn't be there well he didn't be citizens and he shouldn't be there he didn't say that yes I'm not saying that it's true I can

understand this sentiment but I think it's wrong but also you guys I want to use the words earlier that it was supremacy and exclusivity that the Zionist system helped me answer your question as you say he did say that and I'm sure there was a very substantial body of Palestinian

Arab public opinion that endorsed that but by the same token I think a unitary Arab state as you call it or a Palestinian state could have been established with arrangements with guarantees to ensure the security and rights of both communities how that would work in detail had been

discussed and proposed but never resolved and again I think you know Jewish fears about what would have happened well no that was the Jewish fear that may well have been the Jewish fear it wasn't unfounded Jewish fear it wasn't founded of course it wasn't found what about like in 48 and 56

you really think you really think that the Palestinians had they won the war were going to import ovens and crematorium from Germany but there were no grams across in almost every single Arab state where there were Jews living after after 48 after 56 after 67 there were always programs

there were always flights from Jews from those countries to Israel I don't think it would be I wouldn't I wouldn't say there were always programs in every Arab state I think there was flight of of Arab Jews for multiple reasons in some cases for precisely the reasons you say if you look at

the Jewish community in Algeria for example their flight had virtually nothing to do with the Arab Israeli conflict the issue of Algerian Jews was that the French gave them citizenship during their colonial rule of Algeria and they increasingly became identified with French rule

and when Algeria became independent and all the French ended up leaving out of fear or out of disappointment rather of whatever the Jews were identified as French rather than Algeria this is a bit of a red herring there were programs in the Arab countries in Bahrain even where there's

almost no Jews there was a program in 1947 there was a program in Aleppo in 1947 I'm not tonight any of that history killings of Jews in Iraq and Egypt in 1948 49 so the Arabs the Jews basically fled the Arab states not for multiple reasons they fled because they felt that the governments there

and the societies amid which they had lived for hundreds of years no longer wanted to look without getting into the details I think we can both agree that ultimately a clear majority of Arab Jews who believe that after having lived in these countries for centuries for centuries for centuries

if for centuries for centuries if not millennia came to the unfortunate conclusion that their situation had become untenable I also think that we can both agree that this had never been an issue prior to Zionism the emergence of the state of Israel look I'm not the problems didn't begin with Zionism

in the Arab world the issue is as the point I raised which is whether these communities had ever come to a collective conclusion that their position had become untenable in this part of the world no they were Arab Jews well because untenable meant there was no alternative but with the creation

of Israel there was an alternative right a place where they could go and not be discriminated against or live a second class citizens or be subject to Arab majority states I also think it's interesting that like when you analyze the the flight of Jewish people and I've seen this that

there it's not it wasn't just I agree with you it wasn't just a mass expulsion from all the Arab states there were definitely push factors there are also poll factors now I don't know how you guys feel about the knock-butt but when the analysis the knock-butt comes in again it's back to that

well that was actually just a top-down expulsion you know the retreat of wealthy Arab people in the thirties didn't matter any of the messaging from the surrounding Arab states didn't matter it was just an expulsion from Jewish people or people running from their lives from Jewish massacres again it's like that I feel like that's a lot of critical analysis of that I think it's a term Jewish here because it wasn't the you know the Jews of England or the Soviet

Jewish people. Well I said Jewish is prior to 48 it I think Israeli you should make that sort of right. I think I think we should I think it's useful to to say refer to Zionists before 1948 and Israelis after 48 we don't need to implicate Jews all sort of. But the Jewish people that were

being attacked in Arab states weren't Zionists they were just Jews living there. I just comment on that I was rereading Shlomo bin Amiz last book and he does at the end discuss at some length the whole issue of the refugee question bearing on the so-called peace process and on the question

of 48 and the Arab immigration if you allow me let me just quote him. Israel is particularly fond of the awkwardly false symmetry she makes between the Palestinian refugee crisis and the forced immigration of 600,000 Jews from Arab countries following the creation of the state of Israel as if it were quote an unplanned exchange of unpopulations unquote and then Mr. Ben Amiz for those of you who are listening he was Israel's former foreign minister and he's an influential historian

in his own right. He says in fact on voice from the Mossad and the Jewish agency worked underground in Arab countries and Iran to encourage Jews to go to Israel. More importantly for many Jews in Arab states the very possibility of emigrating to Israel was the combination of millennial aspirations.

It represented the consummation of a dream to take part in Israel's resurgence as a nation. So this idea that they were all expelled after 1948 it's that's one area professor Morris I defer to expertise that's one of my credos in life I don't know the Israeli literature but as it's been translated in English there is very little solid scholarship on what happened in 1948 in the Arab countries and which caused the Jews to leave Arab Jews friend but she's almost been amine,

that was the literature he knows the scholarship. He was in his time. 10 years ago. Yeah from Morocco. Right. So he knows this from Iraq and has written on this issue. And they wrote that the Jews in the Arab lands were not pro-Zionist. They were in Zionist at all. Certainly Abish Laih's family was anti-Zionist. And Abish Laih when he was interviewed by Merrin Rappaport on this question he said you simply cannot say that the Iraqi Jews were expelled

it's just not true. And he was speaking as an Iraqi Jew who left with his father family in 1948 they were pushed out they weren't expelled. Well that's probably the right phrase. I think it's more complex than that. I think it was sorry I interrupt you. No you're not interrupting me because I don't know I only know what's been translated into English and the English literature on the subject is

very small and not scholarly. Now there may be a Hebrew literature I don't know but I was surprised that even Shalom of the Nami, a steward of his state fair enough on this particular point he called it false symmetry. No no Stephen is right there was a pull and a push mechanism in the departure

of the Jews from the Arab lands post-48 but there was also a lot of push. That's that's indisputable there was put and on the point of agreement let and this one brief light of agreement let us wrap up with this topic of history and move on to modern day but before that I'm wondering if

we could just say a couple of last words on this topic. Stephen? Yeah I think that when you look at the behaviors of both parties in the time period around 48 or especially 48 and earlier there's this assumption that there was this huge built-in mechanism of Zionism and that it was going to be inevitable from the inception of the first Zionist thought I guess that appeared in Herzal's mind that there would be a mass violent population transfer of Arab Palestinians out of

what would become the Israeli state. I understand that there are some quotes that we can find that maybe seem to possibly support an idea that looks close to that but I think when you actually consult the record of what happened when you look at the populations the massive populations that

Israel was willing to accept within what would become their state borders their nation borders I just don't think that the historical record agrees with the idea that Zionist would have just never been okay living alongside Herapalestinians but when you look at the other side Arabs would out of hand reject literally any deal that apportioned any amount of that land for any state relating to Jewish people or the Israeli people and they get what's said even on the other end of the table

that Herapalestinians would have never accepted the Arabs would have never accepted any Jewish state whatsoever so it's interesting that on the ideology part where it's claimed that Zionists are people of exclusion and supremacy and expulsion we can find that in diary entries but we can find that

expressed very real terms on the Arab side I think in all of their behavior around 48 and earlier where the goal was the destruction of the Israeli state it would have been the dispossession of many Jewish people it probably would have been the expulsion of a lot of them back to Europe and I think that very clearly plays out in the difference between the actions of the Arabs versus

some diary entries of some Jewish leaders. Benny? Well one thing which stood out and I think Moean made this point is that the Arabs had nothing to do with the Holocaust but then the world community forced the Arabs to pay the price for the Holocaust that's the traditional Arab argument

this is slightly distorting the reality the Arabs in the 1930s did their utmost to prevent Jewish immigration from Europe and reaching Palestine which was the only safe haven available because America, Britain, France nobody wanted Jews anywhere and they were being persecuted in central

Europe and eventually would be massacred in large numbers so the Arab effort to pressure the British to prevent Jews reaching Palestine's safe shores contributed indirectly to the slaughter of many Jews in Europe because they couldn't get to anywhere and they couldn't get to Palestine

because the Arabs were busy attacking Jews in Palestine and attacking the British to make sure they didn't allow Jews to reach the safe haven that's important the second thing is of course there's no point in belittling the fact that the Arab Palestinian Arab national movements leader

Hussein worked for the Nazis in the 1940s he got a salary from the German foreign ministry he raised troops among Muslims in Bosnia for the SS and he broadcasts to the Arab world calling for the murder of the Jews in the Middle East this is what he did and the Arabs since then have been trying to

whitewash Hussein his role and not saying he was the instigator of the Holocaust but he did say he helped the Arab the Germans along in doing what they were doing and supported them in doing that so this can't be removed from the fact that the Arabs as you say paid a price for the Holocaust

but they also participated in various ways in helping it happen I'll make two points the first is you mentioned Hajj Amin al-Hoseini and his collaboration with the Nazis entirely legitimate point to raise but I think one can also say definitively had Hajj

Amin al-Hoseini never existed the Holocaust would have played out precisely as it did as far as Palestinian opposition to Jewish immigration to Palestine during the 1930s is concerned it was of a different character than for example British and American rejection of Jewish

immigration they just didn't want Jews on their soil objectively it helped the Germans killed it in the Palestinian case their opposition to Jewish immigration was to prevent the transformation of their homeland into a Jewish state that would dispossess them and I think that's an important

distinction to make the other point I wanted to make is we've spent the past several hours talking about Zionism, transfer and so on but I think there's a more fundamental aspect to this which is that Zionism I think would have emerged and disappeared as yet one more utopian political project

had it not been for the British what the preeminent Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi has termed the British shield because I think without the British sponsorship we wouldn't be having this discussion today the British sponsored Zionism for a very simple reason which is that during

World War I the Ottoman armies attempted to march on the Suez Canal, Suez Canal was the jugular vein of the British empire you know between Europe and India and the British came to the conclusion that they needed to secure the Suez Canal from any threat and as the British have done so often in

so many places how do you deal with this well you know you you bring in a foreign minority implant them amongst a hostile population and establish a protectorate over them I don't think a Jewish state in Palestine had been part of British intentions in the Balfour Declaration very specifically

speaks about a Jewish national home in Palestine in other words a British protectorate things ended up taking a different course and I think the most important development was World War II and I think this had maybe less to do with the Holocaust and more to do with the effective bankruptcy

of the United Kingdom during that war and its inability to sustain its global empire it ended up giving up India and it ended up giving up Palestine and it's in that context I think that we need to see the emergence of a of a Jewish state in Palestine and again a Jewish state means a state

in which the Jewish community enjoys not only a demographic majority but an uncontestable demographic majority an uncontestable territorial hegemony and an uncontestable political supremacy and that is also why after 1948 the nascent Israeli state confiscated I believe up to 90%

of lands that had been previously owned by Palestinians who became citizens of Israel it is why the new Israeli state imposed a military government on its population of Palestinian citizens between 1948 and 1966 it is why the Israeli state effectively reduced the Palestinians living within

the Israeli state as citizens of the Israeli state to second class citizens on the one hand promoting Jewish nationalism and Jewish nationalist parties on the other hand doing everything within its power to suppress and eliminate Palestinian or Arab nationalist movements and that's why today

there's a consensus among all major human rights organizations that Israel is in a partite state with the Israeli human rights organization Betsellem describes a regime of Jewish supremacy between the river and the sea you're you're really tempting a response from the other side on

the last few sentences we'll talk we'll talk about the claims of apartheid and so on it's a fascinating discussion we need to have it uh norm under question of the responsibility of the Palestinian Arabs for the Nazi Holocaust direct or indirect I consider that and observed claim

uh as Gromiko said and I quoted him the entire western world turned its back on the Jews to somehow focus on the Palestinian strikes me is completely ridiculous number two as Mawin said there's a perfectly understandable reason why Palestinian Arabs wouldn't want Jews

because in their minds and not irrationally these Jews intend to create a Jewish state which would quite likely have resulted in their expulsion I'm a very generous person I've actually taken in a homeless person for two and a half years but if I knew in advance that that homeless

person was going to try to turn me out of my apartment I would think 10,000 times before I took him in okay as far as the actual complicity of the Palestinian Arabs if you look at uh Raoul Hilberg's three volume classic work the destruction of the European jury he has in those thousand plus pages

one sentence one sentence on the role of the Mufti of Jerusalem and that I think is probably an overstatement but we'll leave it aside the only two points I would make aside from the Holocaust point is number one I do think the transfer discussion is useful because it indicates that there was

a rational reason behind the Arab resistance to Jewish or Zionist immigration to Palestine the fear of territorial displacement and dispossession and number two there are two issues one is the history and the second is being responsible for your words now some people accuse me of speaking very

slowly and they're advised on YouTube to turn up the speed twice to three times whenever I'm on one of the reasons I speak slowly is because I attach value to every word I say and it is discomforting this orienting where you have a person who's produced a voluminous corpus

rich in insight and rich in archival sources who scenes to disown each and every word that you plucked from that corpus by claiming that it's either out of context or it's cherry picking words count and I agree with Lex everybody has the right to rescind what they've said in the past

but what you cannot claim is that you didn't say what you said I'll stick to the history not the current propaganda 1917 the British the Zionist movement began way before the British supported the Zionist movement for decades 1917 the British jumped in and issued the Balfour

Declaration supporting the emergence of a Jewish national home in Palestine which most people understood to mean eventual Jewish statehood in Palestine most people understood that in Britain and in his own Zionist and among the Arabs but the British declared the Balfour Declaration

or issued the Balfour Declaration not only because of imperial self-interest and this is what you're basically saying they had the imperial interests a buffer state which would protect the Suez Canal from the east the British also were motivated by idealism and this incidentally

is how Balfour described the reasoning behind issuing the Declaration and he said the Western world Western Christendom owes the Jews a great debt both for giving the world and the West if you like value social values as as embodied in the the Bible a social justice and all sorts of

other things and the Christian world owes the Jews because it persecuted them for 2000 years this debt we're now beginning to repay with the 1917 Declaration favoring Zionism but it's also worth remembering that the Jews weren't proxies or attached to the British imperial endeavor they

were happy to receive British support in 1917 and then subsequently when the British rule Palestine 20 or 30 years but they weren't part of the British imperial design or mission they wanted a state for themselves the Jews happy to have the British support them happy to date to have the Americans

support Israel but it's not because we're studious or extensions of American imperial interests the British incidentally always described in Arab narratives or propaganda as consistent supporters of Zionism they weren't the first British rulers in Palestine 1917 1920

but Samuel no before her but Samuel Samuel came in 1920 the British ruled there for three years previously and most of the leaders the British generals and so on who were in Palestine were anti-Zionist and subsequently in the 20s and 30s the British occasionally a curved Zionist

immigration to Palestine in the 1939 switched horses and supported the Arab national movement and not Zionism they turned anti-Zionist and basically said you Arabs will rule Palestine within the next 10 years this is what we're giving you by limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine

but Arabs didn't actually understand what they were being given on the silver platter Husaini again and he said no no we can't accept the British white paper of May 1939 which had given the Arabs everything they wanted basically self-determination in an Arab majority state

so what I'm saying is the British at some point did support Zionist enterprise but at other points were less consistent in the support and in 1939 until 1948 when they didn't vote even for partition for Jewish statehood in Palestine in the UN resolution they didn't support Zionism during the last

decade of the mandate it's worth remembering that I'd like to respond to that I mean speaking of propaganda I find it simply impossible to accept that balfour who as British Prime Minister in 1905 was a chief sponsor of the Aliens Act which was specifically designed to keep persecuted

Eastern European Jews out of the streets of the UK and who was denounced as an anti-Semite by the entire British Jewish establishment a decade later all of a sudden people change their minds but when the changing of the mind just coincidentally happens to coincide with the British imperial

interest I think perhaps the transformation is a little more superficial than he's being given credit for it was clearly a British imperial venture and if there had been no threat to the Suwa's canal during World War I regardless of what balfour would have thought about the Jews and their contribution to history and their persecution and so on there would have been no balfour. And ask real quick is a question on that why did the British ever cap immigration then

from Jews to that area at all? Well we're talking now about 1937 but I'm saying that if it was no whole goal was just to be an imperialist project like there were terrorist attacks from Jewish first. Yeah but you're talking I'll answer you.

Yeah and the port is yeah. And we're talking now about 1917 and as I mentioned earlier I don't think the British had a Jewish state in mind that's why they use the term Jewish National Home I think what they wanted was a British protectorate loyal to and dependent upon the British I think

an outstanding review of British policy towards these issues during the mandate has been done by Martin Bunton of the University of Victoria and he basically makes the argument that once the British realized the mess they were in certainly by the late 20s early 30s they they recognized these

the mess they were in the irreconcilable differences and basically pursued a policy of just muddling on and and and muddling on in the context of British rule in Palestine whose overall purpose was to serve for the development of Zionist institutions, the issues of the economy and so on meant even if the British were not self consciously doing this preparing the groundwork for the eventual establishment of a Jewish state I don't know if that answers your question. Except they

did turn anti-Zionist 1939. Yes of course. And maintain that anti-Zionist. No no before they were being shot off but maintain that anti-Zionist posture until 1948. Okay and if I may just also one point you mentioned Hajjimina Hosseini during a well entirely legitimate but what I would also point out is that you had a Zionist organization the Leahy. 300 people. 300 people. One of whom happened to become an Israeli Prime Minister and Israeli Foreign Minister Speaker of Israeli Parliament.

Maybe you should give his name. Yuchak Shamir proposing an alliance with Nazi Germany in 1941. Shamir? Shamir? Shamir. Well no the Leahy proposed. Some people in the Leahy proposed. Of which Shamir was a prominent leader. But then this is the red herringles. No no. Okay well if he's a red herring, Hajjimina's a red whale. I'm sorry. The Leahy was an unimportant organization in the Yishuv. 300 people versus 30,000 belonged to the Haganah. So it was not a very important

organization. It's true before the Holocaust actually began. They wanted allies against the British where they could find them. We're talking 1941 here. 1941. 1941. 1941 from what I recall. 1940. They approached the German emissary in Istanbul or something. Yes. And if I may, proposed an alliance with Nazi Germany on what the Leahy described as on the basis of shared ideological, shared ideological principles. Well they said they did. They did revile. Why are you

doing this? The list is reviled by the majority. But you know what the statement said on the basis of a shared ideology. Why do you say no? You think that the list, like the last people when that's the case? That's what they said. They said they said. No, are you saying that? Forget statements. You like to quote things. But were they were they Nazi words and that were the lechian Nazis? That's what I'm asking. What did he say? He said that the basis of the pack was there agreement

on ideology. There wasn't any pack they suggested. I said what's the agreement? And what did the agreement say? They wanted arms against the British. That's what they wanted. No, well that's what has I mean, I was saying he wanted also. That's what. No, no, but they didn't. They didn't know. They left people didn't work in Berlin, helping the Nazi regime. What the IRA wanted also. No, but this is what Hachemin Ali, I'm who say he did. You know that he was an anti-Semite,

you've probably read some of his works. Yeah. It wasn't just anti-British and he was also anti-Semite. And so they had a common ground with Hitler. I think we can agree. Every anti-Semite is a Hitler, right? I think we can. He literally worked with the Nazis to recruit people. He wasn't just a guy posting. Absolutely revolting, disgusting, human being. There's some higher. No. But the problem is you're saying that you're saying that you're saying you was an influence.

You're saying the move. But I don't even understand of all the crimes you want to describe to the Palestinian people trying to blame them directly, indirectly, indirectly, indirectly or indirectly, three times the move for the Nazi Holocaust is completely lunatic. Well, the way there's not a, he's blaming them for the Holocaust. He's saying that from the perspective, oh, I know, he's saying that from the perspective of Jews in the region,

Palestinians would have been part of the reason that is it's not red. But he said, I've read him. You've read and understand him. He's just right here. Believe me, I'm a lot more literate than you, Mr. Barale. I'm going to believe the guy that wrote the stuff. I'm not a wiki pdf. That's great. I don't even have any more. You call yourself an Israeli historian. I just want to respond. Well, no, I'm just saying that there were two,

there were two tricks. Absolutely. That's fine. There were two tricks that are being played here that I think is interesting. One is you guys claim that the Leahy was trying to forge an alliance with Nazi Germany because of a shared ideology. That's what they said. Yeah, but hold on. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's about what you said. You brought that up to imply that Zionism must be inexplicably linked to. No, I'm sorry.

Well, you're putting words in my mouth. Okay. Wait, well, then what was the purpose of saying that the Leahy claim that the Leahy who were a small group of people that were reviled by many in Israel, in many by everybody practically. They were so revised. The feminist movement called them

terrorists. Yes. Yes. And and the share and I called himself a terrorist. They were so irrelevant that their leader ended up being kicked upstairs to the leader of the Israeli parliament to the Israeli to Israeli foreign minister and beggined and also yes, you wonder, you wonder, you want to characterize him as irrelevant as well? Go ahead. No, no, characterism is relevant. Irrelevant based on what happens decades later. The timeline matters.

Well, the question is, what is the point of saying that the Leahy tried to forge an alliance? Why is why is why is relevant is bringing up the moofty of Jerusalem and trying to blame the Holocaust? No, no, no, no, no. The moofty was the leader of the Palestine Arab national movement. And he had about as much to do with the Nazi Holocaust as I did. No, he recruited people for the SS. How can you get away from that? No, he recruited people for the SS. He recruited soldiers in the

Balkans, mostly Kosovar's, which was disgusting. I have no doubt about that. But he had the oil, he got one said, don't let the Jews out. Can I say get your own murder? I don't want to receive letters from Hussein during during the Holocaust. One said, during the Holocaust, don't let the Jews out. Don't let the Jews out.

I'm not saying he was a major architect of the Holocaust. But if we're agreed, if we're agreed that Hajj Amin al-Haseini, the moofty of Jerusalem, collaborated with the Nazis during World War II and actively sought their sponsorship, why is it irrelevant? He probably wanted a lot of things. If that's relevant, why is it irrelevant that a prime minister of Israel? Not prime minister. 1941, he wasn't prime minister of Israel. He was a leader of a very small terrorist.

Do you consider it irrelevant that many years ago, Mahmoud Abbas, wrote a doctoral thesis, which is basically tantamount. But I don't, but didn't bring it up. You're the one who's bringing it up. But you can consider that. The little thing, the Holocaust, that's what you're saying. The president of the Palestinian National Authority, the little the Holocaust, and it didn't happen. I think that's a fair characterization of Mahmoud Abbas.

I brought it up. Because my question is, then why is Shamir's antecedency relevant? He was a terrorist leader of a very small marginal group. Who became, I mean, the whole thing. He was the head of the movement at the time. Also, the point of bringing it up to the Senate. There's no point of bringing up who said any stuff wasn't to say that he was a great further of the Holocaust. It's that he might have been a great further in the prevention of

Jews fleeing to go to Palestine to escape the Holocaust. But the point of that was the point. And I explained why I think that's not an entirely accurate characterization. But then I wanted to make another point. If it's legitimate to bring up his role during World War II, why is it illegitimate to bring up a man who would become Israel's Speaker of Parliament for an minutes' time? Yes. Why is it? And also.

New Zealand terrorists. And was also responsible for the murder of the United Nations's first international envoy, Bernadati, Fokie Bernadati. Why is all that irrelevant? I don't think anybody would understand. I think the reason why he was brought up was because Jewish people at this time period would have viewed it as there was a prevention of Jews leaving Europe because of the Palestinians pressuring the British to put a curb at 75,000

immigration limit. Yes. But it's not about like, it's not about them furthering the Holocaust or being an architect, major minor play in the Holocaust. Well, we use a major play in that region. So if you wanted to bring up like, Morris was specific, made the specific claim that the Palestinians played an indirect role in the Holocaust. The indirect role would have been the prevention of people escaping from. Yes. And my response to that is, first of all, I disagree with that

characterization. But second of all, they just agree with that. They prevented, they forced the British to prevent immigration of Jews from reaching safe shores in Palestine. Again, they did. And they knew that the Palestine was persecuted in Europe. Was Palestine the only spot of land on earth? Yes. Basically, that was the problem. The Jews couldn't immigrate there. What about your great friends in Britain, the architects

of the Balfour Declaration? By the late 1930s. What about the United States? They weren't happy to take in Jews and Americans. And why are Palestinians who were not Europeans, who had zero role in the rise of Nazism, who had no relation to any of this? Why are they somehow uniquely responsible for what happened in Europe and uniquely cold? They were helping to cause the only safe haven for Jews. Oh, really? The United States wasn't a potential safe haven. The only one was Palestine.

At the time. The United States had no room. No, it had no room. They did have room. It did have room. It did have room. But it didn't have room. It wasn't the only safe haven. But suddenly you'd be focusing your end on a race. Should be blamed for not letting Jews in during the 30s and planes. Nobody blames them for the Holocaust. Well, indirectly. No, I've never heard it said that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was indirectly

responsible for the Holocaust. I never heard that. Now, maybe it's in Israeli literature because the Israelis have gone mad. Yes, your prime minister said the whole idea of the gas chambers came from the Muthi of Jerusalem. That's nonsense. We all know that. But we also know that. That's in YAHGEN. Netanyahu says so many things which are. And happens to be the most important. I've been the longest serving prime minister for the real.

No, you're not responsible for them. But it is relevant that he's a longest serving prime minister of Israel. Unfortunately, and that is really public. And he gets selected, not despite saying such things. But because he says his voters don't care about Khajiminal Hussein or Hitler, they know nothing about his base. No, nothing about, no, nothing about anything. And he could say what he likes. And they'll say yes, so they don't care if he says these things.

You may well be right. But anyway, not to be the dead horse, but I don't, I still don't understand. That's not the dead horse. You're right. I'll just conclude by saying I don't understand why the Muthi of Jerusalem is relevant. He is relevant. He is relevant. But the head of the national Palestinian, the Palestinian, the Shamir wasn't the head of the national movement. You represented 100 or 200 or 300 gunmen who

are considered terrorists by the Zionist movement at the time. The fact that 30 years lady becomes prime minister, that's the crux of his, and his, and his, and his, his, Khajiminal Hussein. He was the head of the Palestine Arab National movement at the time. Anyway, I, what can you do? I think we're speaking past each other. We're not. I'm talking facts. Let's move to the modern day. And we'll return to history, maybe 67 and other important moments. But let's look to today in the recent months.

October 7th, let me ask sort of a pointed question. Was October 7th attacked by Hamas on Israel, genocide, was, was in an act of ethnic cleansing, just so we lay out the moral calculus that we are in Khajim. I don't, maybe it was the problem, the problem with the October 7th is this. The Hamas fighters who invaded southern Israel were sent ordered to murder,

rape, and do all the nasty things that they did. And they killed some 1200 Israelis that day, and they abducted them, as we know, something like 250 civilian, mostly civilians, also some soldiers, and took them back to Gaza, dungeons in Gaza. But they were motivated, not just by the words of their current leader in the Gaza Strip, but by their ideology, which is embedded in their charter from 81988, if I remember correctly. And that charter is genocidal. It says that the

Jews must be eradicated basically from the land of Israel, from Palestine. The Jews are described there as sons of apes and pigs. The Jews are a base people, killers of prophets, and they should not exist in Palestine. It doesn't say that they necessarily should be murdered all around the world, the Hamas charter, but certainly the Jews should be eliminated from Palestine. And this is the driving ideology behind the massacre of the Jews on October 7th, which brought down on the

Gaza Strip. And I think with the intention by the Hamas of the Israeli counteroffensive, because they knew that that counteroffensive would result in many Palestinian dead because the Hamas, fighters, and their weaponry, and so on were embedded in the population in Gaza. And they hoped to benefit from this in the eyes of world public opinion as Israel chased these Hamas people and their ammunition dumps and so on and killed lots of Palestinian civilians in the process. All of this

was understood by a Sinwar, by the head of the Hamas, and he strived for that. But initially, he wanted to kill as many Jews as he could in the border areas around the Gaza Strip. I'll respond directly to the points you made, and then I'll leave it to norm to bring in the historical context. That Hamas charter is from the 1980s. So it's from the 1980s. I think your characterization of that charter as anti-Semitic is indisputable.

I think your characterization of that charter as genocidal is off the mark. It's important. And more importantly, that charter has been superseded by a new charter. In fact, it has been... Well, there is no new charter. There is a explanation, a state of the 18th and the 20th and 20th. In 2018, supposedly clarifying things which are in the charter. But it doesn't actually step back from what the charter says. Eliminate Israel, eliminate the Jews from the land of Israel.

In 2018, the Hamas charter, if we look at the current version of the charter, it's not a call to charter. You're calling it a charter. The only thing called the charter is what was issued in 1988 by Yassin himself. Anyway, it makes a clear distinction between Jews and Zionists in 2018. Now, you can choose to dismiss it, believe it, it's sincere, it's insincere, whatever. Insincere is the probably the right word. Secondly, I'm really unfamiliar with fighters who consult these kinds of documents

before they go on... In the kindergarten, they're told kill the Jews. They practice with, they make believe guns and uniforms with their five years old in the kindergarten of the Hamas. At the instruction of the commissioner-general of UNR, right? I didn't say that. I said the Hamas has kindergarten and summer camps in which they trained to kill Jews, children, and five and six. Secondly, you keep saying Jews to which I would respond. They use the word Jews.

To which I would respond, that Hamas does not have a record of deliberately targeting Jews who are not Israelis. And in fact, it also doesn't have a record of deliberately targeting either Jews or Israelis outside Israel and Palestine. So, you know, all this talk of... Unlike the Qizbalah, which has taught in... Well, we're talking about... We're talking about... We're talking about... We're talking about October 7th and Hamas.

If you'd also like to speak about Hezbollah, let's get to that separately, if you don't mind. So, again, genocidal... Well, if that term is going to be discussed, my first response would be... Let's talk about potentially genocidal actions against Israelis, rather than against Jews, for the reasons that I just mentioned. And again, I find this constant conflation of Jews' Israel's inism to be bit disturbing.

Secondly, I think there are quite a few indications in the factual record that raised serious questions about the accusations of the genocidal intent and genocidal practice of what happened on October 7th. And my final point would be, I don't think I should take your word for it. I don't think you should take my word for it. I think what we need here is a proper independent international investigation.

And the reason we need that of genocide during this conflict, whether by Palestinians on October 7th or Israel thereafter, the reason that we need such an investigation is because Hamas... There won't be any hearings on what Hamas did on October 7th at the International Court of Justice, because the international convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide deals only with states and not with movements.

I think the International Criminal Court, and specifically its current prosecutor, Gereem Khan lacks any and all credibility, and bit an absolute failure at his job. He's just been sitting on his backside for years on this file. And I think I would point out that Hamas has called for independent investigations of all these allegations. Israel has categorically rejected any international investigation, of course fully supported by the United States.

And I think what is required is to have credible investigations of these things, because I don't think you're going to convince me. I don't think I'm going to convince you. And this is two people sitting across the table for me. No, there's certain things you don't even have to investigate. You know how many citizens, civilians died in the October 7th assault. Yes, but that's not. You know that there are lots of allegations of rape. I don't know how persuaded you are of those.

They did find bodies without heads. There were no beheadings of infest. There were some beheadings apparently. The Israelis didn't even claim that in the document they submitted before the ICJ. Go read what your government submitted. It never mentioned beheadings. Well, as far as I know, I said people would be headed. But they could bring it up right now. You also denied that there were rapes there. I didn't deny. I said, I've not seen convincing evidence that confirms it.

I've said that from day one. And I'll say today, four and a half months later. Do you know that they killed eight or 900 civilians in the assault? Absolutely. That seems to me indisputable. Okay. Well, yes. And I've said that from day one. Well, to be clear, you haven't. You did a debate. I don't remember the talk show, but you seem to imply that there was a lot of crossfire. And then it might have been the idea of that.

I said, I said that there is no question because the names were published in Horits. There is no question that roughly of the 1200 people killed. 800 of them were civilians. I see 850. 850 fine. So I never said that, but then I said, no, we don't know exactly how they were killed. But 800 civilians killed, 850. No question there. And I also said on repeat occasions, there cannot be any doubt.

In my opinion, as of now, with the available evidence that Hamas was responsible for significant atrocities. And I made sure to include the plural. There's a lot of tricky language being employed here. Do you think of the anterty 50? It's called attaching value to words and not talking like a motor mouth. I am very careful about qualifying because that's what language is about. That's great. Then let me just ask a clarifying question.

Do you firmly believe that the majority of the 850 civilians were killed by Hamas? My view is even if it were half, 400 is a huge number by any reckoning. Wait, you didn't do it. Even if, because, because, because Professor Morris, I don't know. I agree with Moin Rabani. I'm not sure if he concedes the 400. I'll say, why 400? Because I have 400. Right. I said, they 150. Well, because, if I know, a couple of individuals, look at them, they say, I don't, I don't know.

You're saying Professor Morris, you believe this particular thing. You clearly don't. I don't believe this thing. You know, one, I said, not people died. That's not controversial. Wait, hold on. Hold on. That's not controversial. Mr. Binell, I attach value to words. You said that. When I was so much, Mr. Binell, please slow down the speech and attempt to listen. When I was explicitly asked by Pierce Morgan, I said there can be no question that Hamas committed atrocities. I've heard this.

On October 7th. If you want me to pin down a number, I can't do that. An asking a number. You can listen to what you ask. No, my question is, I'll ask. This is a very precise question. Sorry. You'll be cooking this. It's a very easy question. It's a very easy question. You should. My question is, do you think the majority of the people that were killed on October 7th, the civilians were killed by Hamas? Or are we subscribing to the idea that the IDF killed hundreds?

No, or 500. No, but let me explain why that's a difficult question to answer. The total number of civilians killed was 800, 850. We know that Hamas is responsible, probably for the majority of those killings. We also know that there were killings by Islamic Jihad. We also know. No, we're with bunching together. There's Islamic Jihad in the Hamas. That's a question. What's specific about the Hamas? No, he means that he means that it's very hard.

I'm speaking at opposition to the conspiracy theory that people like, do you prefer Norm or Professor Frankl Steiner? What do you, I don't know, how do you prefer this? Well, it's not a conspiracy. The conspiracy theory is the idea that the IDF killed the majority of them. It's not a conspiracy theory.

There's also a theory that, as Norm pointed out on the show that he was on, that he thought that it was very strange that, given how reputable, Israeli services are when it comes to sending ambulances, retrieving bodies, he thought it was very strange that that number was continually being adjusted. And do you know why? You say that in combination with, well, I'm not sure how many were killed. I don't know why the number went down.

The number went down because the Israeli authorities were in possession of 200 corpses that were burned to a crisp that they assumed were Israeli, Israelis who had been killed on October 7th. They later determined that these were in fact Palestinian fighters. Now, how does a Palestinian fighter get burned to a crisp? No, you're mixing two things. Some of the bodies they didn't weren't able to identify.

Eventually, they disir... ruled that some of them were actually Arab marauders rather than Israeli victims. Some, a few of them also of the Jews were burnt to a crisp. And it took them time to work themselves. And they came out initially with a slightly higher figure, 1400 dead, and eventually reduced it to 12,000 dead. And the reason is... Yes, and the reason is that a proportion of Israeli civilians killed on October 7th, I don't believe it was a majority. We don't know how many.

Some were killed in crossfire. Some were killed by Israeli shell fire, helicopter fire, and so on. And the majority were killed by Palestinians. And of that majority, we don't know... I mean, again, I understood your question is referring specifically to Hamas, which is why I tried to answer it that way. But if you meant generically Palestinians, yes. If you mean specifically Hamas, we don't have a clear breakdown of how people... I don't mean specifically Hamas.

But I just think when you use the word some, that's doing a lot of heavy lifting. Oh, you some. That's fine, but some can mean anywhere from 1% to 49%. But we don't know. So the numbers here in the details are interesting and important, almost from a legal perspective. But if we zoom out the moral perspective, are Palestinians from Gaza justified and violent resistance? Well, Palestinians have the right to resistance. Palestinian, that right includes the right to armed resistance.

At the same time, armed resistance is subject to the laws of war. And there are very clear regulations that separate legitimate acts of armed resistance from acts of armed resistance that are not legitimate. And the attacks of October 7th, where did they land for you? There has been almost exclusive focus on the attacks on civilian population centers and the killings of civilians on October 7th.

What is much less discussed to the point of amnesia is that there were very extensive attacks on Israeli military and intelligence facilities on October 7th. I would make a very clear distinction between those two. And secondly, I'm not sure that I would characterize the efforts by Palestinians on October 7th to seize Israeli territory and Israeli population centers as in and of themselves a legitimate. You mean attacking Israeli civilians in the German? No, no, that's not what I said.

You can't understand what you said. I think what you had on October 7th was an effort by Hamas to seize Israeli territory and population centers. And kill civilians. That's not what I said. What I said is I think I would not describe the effort to seize Israeli territory as in and of itself a legitimate, as a separate issue from the killing of Israeli civilians where in those cases where they had been deliberately targeted. That's very clearly legitimate.

All families were slaughtered in Kibbutz. But I'm making, I can't wait. But many of them left wingers, I think, who helped Palestinians go to hospitals in Israel and so on, you can drove Palestinian cancer patients to hospitals and maybe, but you don't seem to be very condemnatory of what the Hamas did. Well, I don't do selective condemnation. I'm not talking about selective condemnation. I don't do selective condemnation of this specific.

Well, you know what I would, for example, condemn Israeli assaults on civilians, deliberate assaults on civilians. Yes, I would condemn them, but you're not doing that with the Hamas. You know what the issue is? Well, I've been speaking in public now. I would say since the late 1980s and interviews and so on. I have never on one occasion ever been asked to condemn any Israeli act.

When I've been in group discussions, those supporting the Israeli action or perspective, I have never encountered an example where these individuals are asked to condemn what Israel is doing. The demand and obligation of condemnation is exclusively applied. And my personal experience over decades is exclusively applied to Palestinians and those of us. Well, the Israeli condemn day and night on every television channel on every and has been telling you about a personal experience lasting decades.

You said quote. Uh oh, oh no. I'm trying to probably just say, I should say anything at any point. You should say, Professor Morris. Yes, you just said, I would condemn, and I'd say Israel deliberately attacks civilians. Okay. The problem, Professor Morris is over and over again, you claim in the face of overwhelming evidence that they didn't attack civilians. That's not true. I've said it only as a technology. Professor Morris. In Kenya, Israel attacks.

In Kenya, and I've been extensively about it. I know that. In Catholic, custom-based civilians. And now let's, let's see. You're just letting me. Okay. Selecting. As, as, as you see, yeah, if I were you, if I were you, you'd be. Okay. Let's fast forward when you were in a doubt. What did you say about the 1982 Lebanon war? What did I say? You don't remember? Okay. Allow me.

Wow. Okay. So it happens that I was not at all by any, I had no interest in the Israel Palestine conflict with a young man until the 90s. This is true. Until the 1992 Lebanon war. Yeah. Lost the passage. I'll find it. Okay. Well, he's searching for that. Yeah. You bring up something that's really important that a lot of people don't draw distinction between in that there is just causes for war and there's just ways to act within a war.

And these two things principally do have a distinction from one another. Right. However, while I appreciate the recognition of the distinction, the idea that the cause for war that Hamas was engaged in, I don't believe if we look at their actions in war or the statements that they've made, it doesn't seem like it had to do with territorial acquisition. No, no, no. The point is like taking land back. No, the point I was making was what was Hamas trying to achieve militarily on October 7th.

And I was pointing out that the focus has been very much on Hamas attacks on civilians and atrocities and so on. And I'm not saying those things should be ignored. What I'm saying is that what's getting lost in the shuffle is that there were extensive attacks on military and intelligence facilities.

And as far as the other aspects are concerned because I think either you or Lex asked me about the legitimacy of these attacks, I said, I'm unclear whether efforts by Hamas to seize Israeli population centers in and of themselves are illegitimate as opposed to actions that either deliberately targeted Israeli civilians or actions that should reasonably have been expected to result in the killings of Israeli civilians. So strike me as my definition illegitimate.

And I want to be very clear about that. I have where I am. Illegitimate means you condemn them. Illegitimate means they are not legitimate. I have a problem with your side. No, not condemning my side. I have a problem with selective outrage and I have a problem with selective condemnation. And as I explained to you a few minutes ago, in my decades of appearing in public and being interviewed, I have never seen, I've never been asked to condemn an Israeli action.

I've never been asked for a moral judgment on an Israeli action. I'm exclusive request for condemnation has to do with what Palestinian is doing more and just as importantly, I'm sure if you watch BBC or CNN, one is the last time an Israeli spokesperson has been asked to condemn an Israeli act. I've never seen it. I don't think we condemn the Arab side either though, right? I don't think there's any condemnation there.

No, but now that we're talking about Israeli victims, all of the sudden morality is so important. Well, I think the reason why it comes up is because there's no shortage of international condemnation for Israel. As normal, we'll point out a million times that there are 50 billion UN resolutions. You've got Amnesty International. You've got multiple bodies that you own. You've got now the case for the ICJ. So there's no question of if there's condemnation for it. Sorry, if I can interrupt you.

In 1948, the entire world stood behind the establishment of a Jewish state in the entire world. No, except the Arab states and the Muslim states. Well, not the entire world. Okay, but I think you know what I mean by that. The Western democracies, after you say that. Well, then also, what's my question? What's my question? Supported the establishment of Israel. My quick question was you said that you believe that there's a very short one.

You're not just, you think that there's an argument to be made that the people in Gaza, that Hamas and his army, Jair, who ever participated, had a just cause for war. Maybe they didn't do it in the correct way, but they maybe had a just cause for war. I don't think there's a maybe there in the policy. Okay, you think they absolutely had a just cause for war? Do you think that Israel has just caused for operation sorts of iron? No, of course not. Okay. All right. You can say you're across.

Okay. First of all, on this issue of double standards, which is the one that Erks or irritates Muayn. You said that you are not a person of double standards unlike people like Muayn. You hold high a single standard and you condemn deliberate Israeli attacks on civilians. When they appear, yeah. And I would say that's true for the period up till 1967. And I think it's accurate. You are your account of the first interfather.

There it seems to me you were in conformity with most mainstream accounts and the case of the first interfather. You also used surprisingly, he used Arab human rights sources like Al-Hak, which I think Muayn worked for during the first interfather. That's true. But then something very strange happens. So let's illustrate it. Like, does something strange happen as the Arabs are doing? Okay, wait. It's all for sure. That could happen. Well, accepting the Oslo agreements. Yeah.

I reject it. He's fine. I can't. If we have time, I know the record very well. I'd be very happy to go through it with you. But let's get to those double standards. So this is what you have to say about Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. You said Israel was reluctant to harm civilians, sought to avoid casualties on both sides. And took care not to harm Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.

You then went on to acknowledge the massive use of IDF firepower against civilians during the siege of Beirut, which traumatized Israeli society. Marx, Marx quickly answers the caveat that Israel, quote, tried to pinpoint military targets, but inevitably many civilians were hit. That's your description of the Lebanon War. As I say, that's when I first got involved in the conflict. I am a voracious reader. I read everything on the Lebanon War.

I would say there's not a single account of the Lebanon War in which the estimates are between 15 and 20,000 Palestinian Lebanese were killed overwhelmingly civilians, the biggest bloodletting until the Karin Gaza genocide, a biggest bloodletting. I would say I can't think of a single mainstream account that remotely approximates what you just said. So leaving aside, I can name the books, the luminous huge volumes. I'll just take one example.

Now you will remember, because I think you served in Lebanon in 80 to am I correct on that? Yeah, yeah. So you will remember that Dove Yarmia kept the war diary. So with your permission, allow me to describe what he wrote during his diary. So he writes, the war machine of the IDF is galloping and trampling over the conquer territory, demonstrating a total insensitivity to the fate of the Arabs who are found in its path. A PLO run hospital, suffered a direct hit.

Thousands of refugees are returning to the city. When they arrive at their homes, many of which have been destroyed or damaged, you hear their cries of pain and their howls over the deaths of their loved ones. The air is permeated with the snow. I think we use the destruction and the air are continuing. What's happening? What you're making actually. Does that sound like you're the description of the Lebanon war? I forget my descriptions. But at the point you're making, we can't get that.

Let me just finish my sentence. The point you're making, which you somehow forget, is that there are Israelis who strongly criticize their own side and describe how Israelis are doing things which they regard as a moral. You don't find that on the Arab side. I'm talking about you. Don't you? Don't you? Mr. Marris, I'm not talking about deaf people. Don't you? Don't you? I'm talking about you, the historian. How did you depict the Lebanon war?

Because I believe that the Israeli military tried to avoid committing a civilian disaster. So deaf people are setting deaf people? I think they should. All the, all the house by Robert Fisk and Pity the Nation. All the, all the, all the, I'm journalists. I know. Has always been. So that's why, that's why you can say with such confidence that you don't commit, you don't condemn deliberate Israeli attacks. That's why you think there weren't any. No, I didn't say there weren't any.

Yeah, you didn't? You agreed that I have condemned Israeli against their own civilians. I never quarrel with facts. Your, your description of the 1982 war is so shocking. It makes my inner's rive. And then your description of the second into father, your description of defensive shield. They are, they are worse. They were suicide bombers. They are worse than the polygenic. When the Arab suicide bombers were destroying Jews and masses and buses and in restaurants. That is the second and defada.

Do you remember that? You could try to trick me. You get to Ursula and CHEERING's consumo, your daughter. fatod Because you get stuck in your war zone and that's why I said, volunteer in oriental states isn't the best it is. It's physics. Iก่osure be a cold and I Bernie Goldberg and I am a little late. If you give the order to strike, you drive me in combat and then it's gonna fall throughERSIL uit Как beschleksam. in the second quarter, some four thousand Palestinians.

Professor Morris, most of them your armed people. And is that a towel? No, that's a towel. No, no, no. No, Professor Morris, fantasy. But I'm not going to argue with here. Here is a simple challenge. You said not to look at the camera. So scared as the people. I'll make the open challenge. You are going to kill them. No, Professor Morris. Open challenge. Words are in print. I wrote 50 pages analyzing all of your work. I quote some will say cherry pick. But I think accurately quote you.

Here is a simple challenge. Answer me in print. Answer what I wrote and show where I'm making things up. Answer me in print. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's no problem. You're a busy van. You're an important historian. You don't have to know everything that's in print especially by modest publishers. But now you know. And so here's the public challenge. You answer and show where I cherry picked, where I misrepresent it. Send me the article.

And then we can have a civil scholarly discussion. I'm sure we will agree. We don't have to agree. We'll agree. It's for the reader to decide looking at both sides where this truth stands. No, man. And if I may ask, it's good to discuss ideas that are in the air now as opposed to citing literature that was written in the past as much as possible because listeners were not familiar with the literature.

So like whatever was written just express it condense the key idea and then we can debate the ideas of this. To ask backstares of public debate, but there's also within words. Yes, I'm just telling you that you as a academic historian put a lot of value in the written word. And I think it is valuable. But in this context, it's not the only story that puts value to words. I also do actually. Yes. But in the one that just wanted to sentence us at a time.

And but this in this context just for the educational purpose, the teaching paper. The educational purpose is why would people commit what I have to acknowledge because I am faithful to the facts massive atrocities on October 7th. Why did that happen? And I think that's the problem. The past is erased. And we suddenly went from 1948 to October 7th, 2023. And there is a problem there. So first of all, you have complete freedom to backtrack and we'll go there with you.

Obviously, we can't cover every single year, every single event. But there's probably critical moments in time. Can I respond to something relating to that dilemma where I looked at the book that he got this from what the quote was from. It sounds cool to say it, but war is tragic and civilians die. There is no war that this has not happened in the history of all of humankind.

The statement that Israel might take care not to target civilians is not incompatible with a diary entry from someone who said they saw civilians getting killed.

I think that sometimes we do a lot of weird games when we talk about international humanitarian law or laws that govern conflict, but we say things like civilians dying as a war crime or civilian homes or hospitals getting destroyed as necessarily a war crime or as necessarily somebody intentionally targeting civilians without making distinctions between military targets or civilian ones.

I think that when we analyze different attacks and when we talk about the conduct of the military, I think it's important to understand, like, prospectively, from the unit of analysis of the actual military committing the acts, what's happening and what are the decisions being made rather than just saying retrospectively, oh, well, a lot of civilians died. Not very many, you know, military people died comparatively speaking.

So it must have been war crimes, especially when you've got another side, all fast words of Hamas that intentionally attempts to induce those same civilian numbers because Hamas is guilty of any war crime that you would potentially accuse.

And this is according to the Amnesty International people that normal loves to cite Hamas is guilty of all of these same war crimes of them failing to take care of the civilian population of them, essentially utilizing human shields to try to fire rockets and free from attack. Essentially, yes.

I'm just saying that essentially, in terms of how international law defines them, not how Amnesty International defines them, Amnesty International describes times of human shielding, but they don't actually apply the correct international legal standard. I know absolutely. No, absolutely. I think, but I'm just saying, I'm just saying, believe it or not, normal, the entire Geneva Convertures is all on Wikipedia.

I'm just saying that on the Hamas side, if there's an attempt to induce this type of military activity, attempt to induce civilian harm, that it's not just enough to say, well, here's a diary entry where a guy talks about how tragic is a problem. I think the problem with your statement is that if you go back and listen to it, the first part of it is war as hell.

It's a fact of life. And you state that in a very factual matter. Then when you start talking about Hamas, all of a sudden you've discovered morality, and you've discovered condemnation, and you've discovered intent, and you're unfortunately far from alone in this. I'll give you, I'll give you, you know who for me is a perfect example. Hold on, we just never started. We don't need examples.

The false equivalency of the two sides is astounding. When Hamas kills civilians in a surprise attack on October 7th, this isn't because they are attempting to target military targets, and they happen to stumble into a giant festival of people that they happen to stumble into it. They did, but they did, but when they stumbled into it, it wasn't an issue of trying to figure out a military target or not. They weren't failing a distinction.

It wasn't a proportionality assessment done. It was just to kill civilians. Even the MNSD International in 2008 and in 2014, and even today, we'll continue to say that it's like the type of attacks. I don't think anyone who will deny that Hamas has targeted civilians. You gave the example of... But there's a difference because... A suicide bombings during the Second and Default. I mean, facts are facts.

I'm saying that the Hamas targeting of civilians is different than the incidental loss of life that occurs when Israel does... Genocide is the intentional mass murder. Genocide is a completely separate claim. I know that's what we're supposed to believe, but the historical record stands very clearly. You've written about... When you say historical, do you mean like in the 40s to the 60s or do you mean like over the past like that? From the 30s of the last century to the 20s of this century.

I just like to make you know, the way you characterized it, I think the best example of that have come across during this specific conflict is John Kirby. The White House spokesman, I've named him Tears Tostorone for a very good reason. When he's talking about Palestinian civilian deaths, War as Hell, you know, it's a fact of life, get used to it. When he was confronted with Israeli civilian deaths on October 7th, he literally broke down in tears and...

But one is deliberate and one isn't. You understood that. No, that's what he tried to make us understand. He was speaking facts. The Hamas guys who attacked the Kibbutzim, apart from the attacks on the military sites, when they attacked the Kibbutzim, were out to kill civilians. And they killed family after family, house after house. There's really attacks on Hamas installations and finally they don't know better. No, you don't know Israeli violence, that's the problem.

Thank God. I know, they believe that they are killing Hamasniks, they're given search for objectives. I'm sure they believe it. And if the Hamas are hiding behind civilian deaths, every time they target a kid, I'm sure they believe it's Hamas. When they kill the four kids and the... They believe they believe it's Hamasniks. Even though they were the negative side, even though they were at the many times. They don't see this side. They don't see this side. I know.

You've lied about this particular incident in the past. Those kids weren't just on the beach as his opposite. Those kids were literally coming out of a previously identified Hamas conflict. They have surrounded them. They literally... You can still go rally with all due respect. With all due respect, you're such a fantastic moron. It's terrifying. That war was filled with journalists. There were tens scores of journalists. That was an old fisherman's shack.

What are you talking about? It's so painful. It's so painful to listen to this idiocy. And to be clear on the other side, your implying that strike was okayed on the Israeli side where they said, we're just going to take four Palestinian soldiers today for no reason. You believe that? You believe that? You believe that? You believe that? Let's do it. You believe that? You believe that? You believe that? Okay. Right. Why do you believe that? Tell a journalist.

Do you think that they will tell children? Here we go. We'll never answer that. I will answer the question. I will even answer them. And it was the wrong. Because that was a strike. That was a drone strike. It was a proof all the way up the chain that we're going to kill children. We're going to kill Palestinian children. You want me to answer or do you want your motor mouth to go? Mark of return in Gaza.

By all reckoning of human rights organizations and journalists who were there, it was overwhelmingly non-violent. It was said by the Hamas. Whoever organized it, let's say it. Let's go for the big one. The big McGillah. It's Satan. Okay. Okay? Overwhelmingly organized, overwhelmingly nonviolent. Recymbal at the beginning, the first thing. The first thing, the first thing to faggot. They can go on the first day. Yeah, okay. Not bombs. But they try to make holes in this place. Okay, obviously.

Let's continue. Yeah. So. But I'm not sure Israel behaved morally in that way. Okay, okay. No, no, no. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm willing to grant. Please, please. I'm willing to grant. I'm willing to grant. I don't have to pursue this. I'm willing to grant. I'm willing to. I don't have to worry about anything about this. I'd like to. Okay. So. As you know, along the Gaza perimeter, there was Israel's best trained snipers. Correct. I don't know best trained. There was snipers.

Fine. Okay. All right. Hey, laugh. It's hilarious. The story is so funny. You're lying about it. It's so far from it. It's so far from it. It had aspects of violence to it. Okay. Okay. Okay. But you only select what the UN says that you like. What should a problem, Mr. Morelle, is you don't know the English language. You don't. I can read it from the UN website itself. I'm referring to the great marcher, which they said, all the vast majority of protested and acted in any peaceful manner.

The most protested doesn't have a protestance. It really worth me to damage it. It's a dirty pile of throwing stones and all the top cocktails, which is rarely forced to fly incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory. The latter is also an extensive damage to agricultural land. And nature reserves inside Israel and rest the lives of Israeli civilians. Some international shooting around going on explosive. Yeah, talk fast. Talk fast. I'm just trying to think that you're cold.

I'm just reading from the UN. Yeah, but you say you like the time. You got the month's wrong. You got the month's wrong. We're talking about the beginning in March 30th. You described that marches mostly. Okay. Allow me to finish. So there were the snipers. Okay. Now, you find it so far fetched Israelis purposely deliberately targeting civilians that such a far fetched idea. An overwhelmingly nonviolent march. What did the international investigation? What was the campaign?

Which happened on the phone call months. Whatever you want to call months. Yeah. What did the UN investigation find? Well, he just read it. I read the report. I don't read things off of those machines. I read the report. What did it find? Brace yourself. You thought it was so funny. The idea of IDF targeting civilians. It found. Go look this up on your mission. I already know what you're going to say. You're going to say it found it only one or two of them were just like things.

Targeted journalists. Targeted medics. And here's the funniest one of all. It's so hilarious. They targeted disabled people who were 300 meters away from the fence and just standing by trees. If it's true. But I just quick pause. I think everything was fascinating. I think it's not the same thing to listen to except the mention of hilarious. Nobody finds any of this hilarious. And if any of us are laughing. It's not at the suffering of civilians or suffering of anyone.

It's that the obvious joyful camaraderie in the room. So I'm enjoying it. And also the joy of learning. So thank you. Can we talk about the targeting civilian thing a little bit? I think there's like an important underlying. Not necessarily that. I think it's important to understand. Yeah. I think it's important to understand. There's like three different things here that we need to think about. So I'm going to ask the other side.

I'm going to ask all three because I know there won't be a short answer. Do you think there is a policy top down from the IDF to target civilians? That's one thing. A second thing is when I started. That's right. So, that's my... Okay. But then the second thing is or there's two distinctly one to draw between. I think Benny would say this I would say this.

I'm sure undoubtedly there have been cases where IDF soldiers for no good reason have targeted and killed Palestinians Palestinians that they should not have done. That would be prosecutable as war crimes as defined by the run-statch and I- And so much as some have been prosecuted. Yeah, and I'm absolutely sure. You follow up for pre-election. I'm sure I'm sure, I'm sure. You and your brother. I'm sure that we would all agree for soldiers that that happens.

But I think that it's important, I think that it's important that when we talk about military strikes, when we talk about things especially involving bombings or drone attacks, these are things that are signed off by multiple different layers of command, by multiple people involved in an operation, including intelligence gathering, including weapon earring, and they're also typically lawyers involved.

When you make the claim that an idea of soldiers shot a Palestinian, those three people, the three hostages, the camera with white flags is something horrible happened. I think that's a fair statement to make, and I think a lot of criticism is deserved. But when you make the statement that four children were killed by a strike, the claim that you're making, yeah. The claim that you're making, the claim that you're making is that multiple levels of the idea of signed off on just killing.

I have no idea what followed today. You don't understand the process, then let me educate you. I do understand the process. I'm telling you, I'm trying to write an idea. You're trying to write an idea. No, I'm basically making an idea. Anybody who's talking about working pdf. Can you tell me what you're now and what you're talking about? You're talking people who are working in the military. What's your knowledge of the idea? Audience can look this up.

Do you think that bombing and strikes are decided by one person in the field? Do you think one person is responsible to every plane on drone strikes? Can you tell me the pilot doesn't do it? Yes, you can. Strike an idea. Strike an idea. Strike an idea. Strike an idea. Strike an idea. Strike an idea. You're saying that a whole apparatus is trying to murder for Palestinian children. You're making my argument there. The ridiculous argument. Because really, that it's impossible at the command level.

It's impossible at the command level. But you said that they couldn't have done it at the bottom if it weren't also the path. You don't understand the strength of the claim that you're making. You're saying that from a shutdown level that lawyers will come in and start to be assigned off. You're not telling without telling. For Palestinians. It's true. It's true. I don't spend my nights on Wikipedia. I read books. I admit that as a signal. Waste of time.

Yeah, as I know, books are a waste of time with all due regard. Well, there are things you'd take from them. I completely respect the fact. And I'll say it on the air as much as I find totally disgusting what's how come of your politics. A lot of the books are excellent. And I'll even tell you because I'm not afraid of saying it. Whenever I have to check on the basic fact, the equivalent of going to the Britannica, I go to your books. I know you got a lot of the facts, right?

Benny Moore's book, I would never say books are a waste of time. And it's regrettable to you that you got strapped with a partner who thinks that all the wisdom, all the wisdom, I'd like to respond to what you were saying. I think the question that we're trying to answer, I think. I think you don't understand Israel, you know? Let me finish this. Really understand Israel. I think we're all at works. I think we're all agreed that Palestinians have deliberately targeted civilians.

Whether we're talking about Hamas and Islamic she had today or previously. I prefer the word murdered and raped rather than targeted. Target is too soft. For what the Hamas did. I'm not talking about this now. Yeah, but I'm trying to answer his question. Historically, there is substantial evidence that Palestinians have targeted civilians. Whether it's been incidental or systematic is a different discussion. I don't want to get into that now.

For some reason, there seems to be a huge debate about whether any Israeli has ever sunk so low as to target a civilian. No, we've agreed. We've just agreed. We've just said that this has happened here and there. And I think agreed on that. I think what we're saying is it's not policy, which is what you guys are applying, that they kill civilians deliberately.

If I understand you correctly, you're basically making the claim that none of these attacks could have happened without going through an entire chain of combat. Strike cells that are involved in drone attacks or plane attacks or yes. My understanding of the Israeli military and you could perhaps you've served in it, you would know better, it's actually fairly chaotic organization. No, that's not true, especially not the Air Force.

Extremely, extremely organized. The Air Force works in a very organized fashion. As he says with lawyers, chain of command, and ultimately the pilot drops the bomb where he's told him to drop it. And that's what I think is the most effective edge, was that 200, 200 strikes on like 60 seconds, I think, the opening of protective edge? Like the coordination between the two. You're talking about 2000 days. I think the edge was 2014.

But I'm just saying that the coordination in the military is pretty tight. Well, my understanding of the Israeli military is very welcome. It's very welcome. It's actually quite chaotic and there's also a lot of testimonies from Israeli, but be that as it may. OK, I'm prepared to accept both of your contensions that are highly organized and disciplined force. Air Force, under any scenario, is going to be more organized than the other branches.

And you're saying such a strike would have been inconceivable? Well, I'm not necessarily saying anything, I'm just saying that that would have required my life. You're basically... I'm really content for so many times. Yes. I don't think good evidence is represented to say that that's... Your basic claim is that we would be fair to assume that such a strike could have only been carried out with multiple levels of authorization and signing off. OK, let's accept that for the sake of argument.

We have now seen incident after incident after incident where entire families are vaporized in single strikes. Who is in the families? Who lives in the house inside? No, more next to the house. Which these families have seen incident after... Do you know that Hamasniks weren't in that house? Do you know that their ammunition dumps were... Why do I have to prove a negative? You were saying that the deliberately talking family...

If Israel wanted to kill civilians in Gaza, they could have killed 500,000 by now with a number of strikes and their... And the fact that they've only killed a certain small number... 30,000 is a small number. Small number in particular. That's a small number in proportion over 4,000 children. Probably is an indication that... 12,000 children are only... ...and that their Hamas targets in these places. So I've given... 12,000 children is only... And if that's the case, why is that?

You said only... Only... Professor Mars, here's a question for you. If we take every combat zone in the world for the past three years, every combat zone in the world... In the American skill... I said, I'm not talking about the... 40 million. Yeah, I was in the anti-war movement. So don't strapped the million people of the... Fine, fine. And 30 million Russians were killed. So in Jordan, everything else is irrelevant. Okay. Here's a question. Yes, Professor Mars, here's a question.

It's very perplexing. If you take every combat zone in the world for the past three years, and you multiply the number of children killed by four... Every combat zone in the world, you get Gaza. Okay. So when you say... What if I first propose a proof? I'm gonna... First of all, you shut up. You're a liar. I'm not... No, I'm not lying. I'm lying on the number... I'm lying on the number... Everybody else... I'm lying on the number... Even if we take the numbers, what does that mean?

Okay. Okay. Which may not be true. They could invent anything. I think we... I think we... I think we all... I know Mendacious. Believe me. You like Mendacious as in... Mendacious real... ...the Ministry of Fire and Affairs. Okay. So here's the thing. You say they could have killed 500,000. But they only killed only. That's your words. They're absolutely... You believe that they did. Subrically... ...survillians... They could have killed many, many more. The fact is... The Professor Morris...

Professor Morris... For a head... For a head... I don't understand the Israeli society. You went on the truth. I don't want to. I don't want to get inside their heads. That's the problem. 90% of the... Good story. 90% of the... Good story. Trying to get into the heads... There's a limit. There's a limit. There's a limit. 90% of the... 90% of the Israelis think that... Israel's using enough... Two little force in Gaza... I don't want to get inside that head. 40% think...

That Israel's using insufficient force in Gaza. I don't want to get inside that head. I don't want to get inside the head of people who think... They're using insufficient force against the population... No. Against the population... Half of which is children. I don't want to get inside that head. But here's the point... Because your partner wants to know the point. You don't understand political constraints. One of your ministers said that... Drop in the atomic bomb on Gaza.

You said it three times. No, no, no. It was said in the sort of a... Professor Morris. He didn't say they should drop in the Senate. Professor Morris. I'm not supporting the Israeli-American. This minister is a mischievous, mischievous, and an idiot. But that's the... He didn't say drop in the atomic bomb. Is there any other... Israel's chief historian, the famed, justifiably famed, Ben-E-Marris thinks we should be dropping nuclear weapons on Iran.

Iran has for years, it's leaders for years, have said we should destroy Israel. You agree with that. They've said we should destroy Israel. Israel must be destroyed. Have you... Is that correct? This is what the Iranian leaders have been saying since home-made. I would say Iranian leaders have said mixed message. Okay. But some of them have said... There are people withvero good secrets from home-made. They don't know thosebut statements. You know it's funny. You already said support.

You're very creative. Stop mackere ziemlich, like the Zelda disease, According to Dalayaka newspaper. There are no insulation. I like surveillance. I keep annoying my Aunt Y..] put in national law when it agrees with you. Okay. And then when it doesn't, you decide to throw international out of the way. If you like, if you like, you can read what you saw. Norm, Norm, stop please. Norm, just for me, please, just give you a second. You said that there's no genocide going on in Gaza.

And we asked that clear question. The same question I asked on Hamas attacks. Is there, from a legal philosophical moral perspective, is there genocide going on in Gaza today? Is there a genocide going on in Gaza? Well, in several years, we will have a definitive response to that question.

What has happened thus far is that on the 29th of December, the Republic of South Africa, instituted proceedings against Israel pursuant to the 1948 convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. South Africa basically accused Israel of perpetrating genocide in the Gaza Strip. On the 26th of January, the court issued its initial ruling. The court at this stage is not making a determination on whether Israel has or has not committed genocide.

So just as it has not found Israel guilty, it certainly also hasn't found Israel innocent. What the court had to do at this stage was take one of two decisions. Either South Africa's case was the equivalent of a frivolous lawsuit and dismiss it and close the proceedings, or it had to determine that South Africa presented a plausible case that Israel was violating its obligations under the genocide convention and that it would on that basis hold a full hearing.

Now, a lot of people have looked at the court's ruling of the 26th of January and focused on the fact that the court did not order a ceasefire. I actually wasn't expecting it to order a ceasefire and I wasn't surprised that it didn't because in the other cases that the court has considered most prominently, Lausanne and Myanmar, it also didn't order a ceasefire.

And South Africa in requesting a ceasefire also didn't ask the court to render an opinion on the legitimacy or lack thereof of Israel's military operation. From my perspective, the key issue on the 26th of January was whether the court would simply dismiss the case or decide to proceed with it. And it decided to proceed. And it decided to proceed. And I think that's enormously. I think that's enormously significant. But you said the committee said the committee genocide. I also like that.

It's committee genocide. But if I can just allow me, allow me. That's correct. Now, I don't run away. It's a norm and you did say Israel's committee genocide. You let me finish. Well, the end of the story is you specifically asked whether I think Israel's committee genocide. I explained formally there is no finding. And as you said, we won't know for a number of years. And I think there's legitimate questions to be raised.

I mean, in the Bosnian case, which I think all four of us would agree was clearly a case of genocide. The court determined. We mean by the serves. Yes. And in the Bosnian case, the court determined that of all the evidence placed before them, only Srebrenica qualified as genocide. And all the other atrocities committed did not qualify as genocide. International law is a developing organism. I don't know how the court is going to respond in this case.

So I wouldn't take it as a foregone conclusion how the court is going to respond. But my... The moment has determined already. I have two, because you're asking my personal opinion. Personal opinion is also... So as a matter of law, I want to state very clearly, it has not been determined. And it won't be determined for several years.

Based on my observations and the evidence before me, I would say it's indisputable that Israel is engaged in a genocidal assault against the Palestinian people who are the Gaza Strip. Which is the PLO line. Yes, with the program. The PLO is long passed. What's the final thought of? As you were saying, genocide is not a body count. Genocide consists of two elements. The destruction of a people in whole or in part. So in other words, you can commit genocide by killing 30,000 people.

It doesn't have... Well, five probably is... There is a problem. Yes, but I think 30,000 crosses the threshold and not reaching 500,000 is probably relevant. And the second element is there has to be an intent. In other words... And you believe there's an intent? Yes, I think if there is any other plausible reason for why all these people are being murdered, it's not genocide. And as far as intent is... What about hiding behind a human shield?

You don't think that's a reason for them being killed? Well, let's get the intent part out of the way first. South Africa's... Forget South Africa, they're not the parties. I'd like to finish. I'd like to finish a government that's got nothing to do with it. I think they're prosatin as well last time. No, they're pro-Khamas. You know, for some reason, you don't have a problem with people being pro-Israeli at the time of this.

But if they support Palestinians' right to life or self-determination, they get demonized and delegitimized as pro-Khamas. They support an organization which murdered 1200 people deliberately. That's my problem. But supporting a state that has murdered 30,000 people. But they haven't, because these are 30,000 are basically human shields used by the Khamas. And which the Khamas want is not. Wanted killed. They wanted them killed. If I can... If I can... If I can just kill...

You don't think they wanted them killed? No, I don't. They've occupied them with shelters. They build canals for their fighters. But not one shelter for their own civilians. You asked me about intent. Of course they want them killed. You asked me about intent. And the reason that I bought in the South African application is because it is actually exceptionally detailed on intent by quoting numerous... ...the sorts of idiotic ministers in Israel.

Well, yeah, including the Prime Minister, the defense minister, the chief of staff... ...don't say genocide. No, he said a mother. He said a mother. He said a mother. The one that the Aces are. He really... The Aces are a mother. He's... According to Aces a cacher, the philosopher of the idea... Yeah. He said that Netanyahu was... ...avowing genocide. Now he's an idiot. He didn't say it's an idiot, but he passed it. So the reason I raised the South African application is twofold.

Hamas or Noh Hamas. It's exceptionally detailed on the question of intent. And secondly, when the International Court of Justice issues are ruling, individual justices have the right to give their own opinion. And I found the German one to be the most interesting on this specific question because he was basically saying that he didn't think South Africa presented a persuasive case.

But he said their section on intent was so overpowering that he felt he was left with no choice, but to vote with the majority. So I think that answers the intent part of your question. So for the ICJ case that South Africa's brought, I think there's a couple things I need to be mentioned. One is, and I saw you two talk at length about this, the plausibility standard is incredibly low.

The only thing we're looking for is a basic presentation of facts that make it conceivable, possible, which legally, this is obviously below criminal conviction, below... Yeah, below... Think of it as an indictment. Sure, possibly. Maybe even a lower level than even an indictment. So plausibility is an incredibly low standard. Number one.

Number two, if you actually go through and you read the complaint that South Africa filed, I would say that if you go through the quotes and you even follow through to the source of the quotes, the misrepresentation that South Africa does and their case about all of these horrendous quotes, in my opinion, borders on criminal. Well, 16 ICJ judges disagree. That's fine as 16 ICJ judges disagree, but I'm going to give... You must be a more popular competent... You know, they could be.

You must be... Even the American judge, she must have been awful incompetent if she was unable to see the misrepresentations that Mr. Baneu, based on his wiki pedia entry, was able to file. So this is based on the official ICJ report that was released. I read the entire... Okay, that's great. Did you go through and actually identify any of the sources that are underline quotes? Actually, embrace yourself with this and the wean could confirm it.

Yanev Kogin and Israeli and Jamie Sternweiner, half Israeli, they checked every single quote in the Hebrew original and Yanev Kogin loved the guy. He has terrifying powers of concentration. He checked every single quote. Is that correct, Muin? And Jamie checked every single quote in the English, in the context, and where there were any contextual questions, they told us. I think they found one. Yeah, I think they found one. So I do not believe that those...

16... 15 judges was 15 to 2. 16 to 2, I think. They're 15 to the court plus 2. So it's 17, so it's 15 to 2. I don't think those 15 judges were incompetent and I certainly don't believe the president of the court and American would allow herself to be duped. Okay, because... You might read... You might read... Mr. Lemmy-Ryro! Mr. Prow! I think you might read... Sure, so this was taken from the South African complaint. There's tons of these, but so here's one.

In the complaint for the ICJ, they said that on the 12th of October, 2023, President Isaac Herzog made clear that Israel was not distinguishing between militants and civilians in Gaza, stating in a press conference to foreign media in relation to Palestinians in Gaza, over 1 million of whom are children, quote, quote. It's an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. I saw that.

It's absolutely not true, and we will fight until we break their backbone and quote. If you actually go to the news article, they even state, they even link it in their complaint. The full context for the quote was, quote, it is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It's not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime, which took over Gaza in a coup d'etat,

but we are at war. We are defending our homes. We are protecting our homes. That's the truth, and when a nation protects its home, it fights, and we will fight until we break their backbone. He acknowledged that many gossens had nothing to do with Hamas, but was adamant that others did. Quote, I agree. There are many innocent Palestinians who don't agree with this, but you have a missile in your goddamn kitchen, and you want to shoot it at me.

Am I allowed to defend myself? We have to defend ourselves. We have the right to do so. This is not the same as saying there is no distinction between militants and civilians in Gaza. His statement here is actually fully compliant with international law to the letter, because if you are storing military supplies in civilian areas, these things become military targets, and you're allowed to do proportionality assessments afterwards.

So if this is supposed to be one of many quotes that they've shown that it's supposed to demonstrate genocide of intent, but it is very easily explained by military intent, or by a conflict between two parties. I saw that press conference. Let me just say something. All of this talk is a bit irrelevant, because it may sound to the listeners that the court in the Hague has ruled that Israel is committing genocide.

No, I think it hasn't. It's just going in the next few years to look at the old stuff. Okay. There has been no determination at all. And as Steven says, some of the quotes are not exactly accurate quotes, or taken out of the public. Okay. It is correct as moving, put it, that only several years before the court makes a determination. And my guess is with a determined there was no genocide. I can't predict. I got it all wrong. Actually, as moving will test, I got all wrong the first time.

I never thought the American judge would vote again with vote in favor of plausibility. So you admit that you are wrong? Yeah, of course. I think I tell Moeene twice a day, I was wrong about this, and I was wrong about that. I'm not wrong about the facts. I try not to be, but my speculations can be wrong. Okay, leaving that aside. First of all, as Moeene pointed out, there's a difference between the legal decision by the ruling and an independent judgment.

Now, South Africa was not filing a frivolous case. That was 84 pages. It was single. It was single space. It was single space. It was single. It was not a massive case. It was single space. And it had literally hundreds of footnotes. It could still be frivolous. It could be. It could be. Yeah, I read the report to tell you the truth. I followed very closely everything that's been happening to October 7th. I was mesmerized. I couldn't believe the comprehensiveness of that particular report.

Number two, there are two quite respected judges. Excuse me. There were two quite respected experts of international law sitting on the South African panel, John Dougard and Vaughan Low. Vaughan Low, as you might know, he argued the war case in 2004 before the International Court of Justice. Now, they were not... They were alleging genocide, which in their view means the evidence in their minds, we're not yet at the court.

The evidence in their minds compels the conclusion that genocide is being committed. I am willing, because I happen to know Mr. Dougard personally, and I've corresponded with Vaughan Low. I've heard their claim. I've read the report. I would say they make a very strong case. But let's agree plausible. Now, here's a question. If somebody qualifies for an Olympic team, let's say a regional person qualifies for an Olympic team, it doesn't mean they're going to be on the Olympic team.

It doesn't mean they're going to win a gold medal, silver medal or bronze medal. They can swim. That's what you're saying. No, I would say that's a very high bar. They can swim. They can even qualify. It's not well enough to have a realistic prospect running a medal. So, to even make it to plausible... That is not true. That is not what plausible means. It is absolutely not your dead form. Mr. Burrelli, please don't teach me about the English language.

I said the court is not the same concept as qualifying. They're not asked at this present phase of the proceedings to determine whether South Africa's allegations of genocide are well-founded. They're not even well-founded. The court is... You said that plausible was a high standard. It is absolutely not. It is a misrepresentation of the strength of the case against Israel, just like the majority of the clubs they have in this case are. And also, you said it was an extremely well-founded case.

They spend like one-fourth of all of the quotations, some even pulled from the Goldstone report, that actually deal with the intent part, which is, by the way, I think you guys... I don't know if you use the phrase, the Dolos Specialis, that the intentional part of genocide... I don't know that term. I think it's called Dolos Specialis. It is the most important part of genocide, which is proving the highly special intent to commit genocide. It's possible that Israel... That's Mence Rayum.

No. The Mence Rayum... Yes, I understand the state of mind, but for genocide, there is... It's called Dolos Specialis. It's a highly special intent. Did you read the case? It is a highly special intent. I'm going to ask you again. Please stop displaying your imbicility. Do not... Do not you think the declaration of the 100- Don't put... I'm public display that you're a moron. At least have the self-possession to shut up. Did I read the case? I'm recording my... Mr. Barrowing.

You're recording your... Mr. Barrowing. I read the case around four times. I read all of the... The majority of the opinion, the declarations. I read... I read Barrowing Barrow's declaration. I read all of the... I know it's like a plausible standard. Because I said... Even reaching the benchmark of plausibility is a very high standard in the world. It's the equivalent of a regional player qualifying for an Olympics. It's still two steps removed. You may not be on the team.

And you may not get a medal. But to get qualified, which in this context is the equivalent of plausible, you must be doing something pretty horrible. And as it happens... As it happens for... As it happens for... As it... Remember what I just told you. I don't expect to be even around when the court reaches its final decision. Why? Why? They'll take a long, long time. Two years, three years.

I mean, the Bosnia, which was admittedly a special type of case, because they were accusing Serbia of sponsoring the Bosnian Serbs. That took, I think, 17 years from 90 years. I assume they'll take two or three years. But the point you're making... I'm saying that's something horrible must be happening, even the cheese horrible to war. I know it's terrible. But I think they weren't rendering a ruling on the war. They were rendering a ruling on the genocide.

And I think... I think the suggestion... They said it was plausible. They also said it's horrible. But Israel is committing a murder. I think... But I think the problem with your characterization is you're saying in so many words, South Africans basically only have to show up in court with a coherent statement. That is correct. They need it. That's probable correct. They needed to do a lot more. They needed to persuade... They need to persuade...

The judges go according to what the majority want to hear. Yeah, but they need to... They need to persuade the court that it was worth investing several years of their time in hearing the case. They're well paid whether they take this case or not. I mean, you know, they have a full docket, whether they accept or reject this case. And I think... I don't think we should... Remember what I just said, they won't rule there was genocide. Remember what I said.

Also, I recommend people actually read the case and follow through a lot of the quotes that they just don't show genocide on the table. I don't think so either. The Israeli minister of finance on the 8th of October, 2023. This is taken from the ICJ. This is from South Africa's submission. Bizarre little smotric. I can't read this. Stayed at... There you go. Okay, at a meeting of the Israeli cabinet that, quote, we need to deal a blow that hasn't been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza.

End quote. But again, if you click through and you read the source, their own linked source. It says, as per the own source, quote, the powerful finance minister, subtler leader, uh, Bizarre little smotric, I can't pronounce this. Demanded at the cabinet meeting late Saturday that the army, quote, hit Hamas brutally and not take the matter of the captives in the significant consideration, end quote. Quote, in war, as in war, you have to be brutal, end quote.

He was quoted as saying, quote, we need to deal a blow that hasn't been seen in 50 years and take down Gaza, end quote. You can't strip the quotation of Hamas, a entity that you're up with. And then there's just a tiny tank down that's not how it's not. That's all genocide. Hey, so when you're praying, when you're praying, say, get out of the Russia, that's not genocide. No, when Ukraine says we need to defeat Russia, is that genocide? It'll be killing all Russian citizens.

Professor Mars, here's another one. When the defense, yet ridiculous, yes, ridiculous. Uh, the American judge, it doesn't determine policy. The American judge, the American judge, red, you are holding the American judge to, you know, well, he was the president. Because he'll look so authority wanted to create for him, and we won't deal with the actual facts of the matter, ever. Okay. The American judge, red, several of the quotes. Look at the American Supreme Court today. They may support Trump.

Okay, let's show you how we're in the America. Professor Mars, without going too far afield. If you heard this statement by the defense minister, the defense minister said, we are going to prevent any food, water, fuel, or electricity from entering the desert. He wanted to make that. Did Israel do that? Okay. No, I'm wondering. What he said, I'm asking, isn't Israeli government policy? What we're talking about statements now, intent. How would you interpret that?

After 1200 of your citizens murdered the way they were, I would expect extreme statements by lots of politicians. But you're, by lots of politicians. But you don't accept extreme Palestinians. But that's not a very poll. Wait, but you don't accept. What he said isn't Israeli poll. They let in water. They let in gas. I'm sure. But you don't accept. But you don't accept extreme Palestinian statements. After they lost their entire country, not just 1200 people. That's a good point.

No, no, it's a good point. And on that, on that moment, brief moment of agreement, let's just take a quick pause. We need a smoke break, you know, water break, in a bathroom break. It's not a genocide. What does take down gas? We went to war with Iraq and we wanted to destroy Iraq. That was a genocide of statements. There's a reason why genocide is such an importantly guarded concept. And it's not to condemn every nation that goes to war. What you did in the last couple of days.

Why you made you do an Italian long time. You could try to learn it sometime. It would help you. So we're not allowed to the civilian deaths. Unfortunately, 15 judges. You could keep citing the judges. You should actually try reading the actual statements. This is tiring. You've invited us to a tiring session. Yeah. How are you guys doing? Okay. Okay. There are major things to discuss here. Not just what some court is doing in the judge in two years' time.

Yes. Okay. So what you just said is my whole one of the reasons why I feel so strongly about this particular conflict is because there are really important things to discuss, but they will never be discussed. We're not going to talk about like like area A, B and C or what a transference of territory. Instead, we're going to talk about apartheid. We're not going to talk about, you know, the differences in how do you conduct war in an urban environment where people use him.

We're just going to talk about genocide. We're not going to talk about what's a good solution to the Palestinians. We're just going to say ethnic cleansing. The possible to talk would be productive over the next two hours to talk about solutions. About solutions, I have no idea what to say. I mean, I don't see any solutions on, you know, if you want the repository of end, there's a discussion, which is what you said at the beginning. I can't contribute to this because I'm pessimistic.

I don't see anywhere any way forward here. But the like of the solution is easy. The reason why the solution is hard is because the histories and the myths are completely different factual record. One of the things would be good to talk about solutions with the future is going back in all the times it has failed. But even at that, we're probably not going to agree. He's going to say, you can write that I can predict the whole line.

He's going to say from 93 to 1990, he's going to say Israel didn't adhere to the Oslo courts ever. Settlement expansion continued. Raids happened into the West Bank that there was never a legitimate that Netanyahu came in and violated the, the why memorandum, the transference of, he's going to say all of this.

And he's not going to bring up any of the Palestinians side. And then for Camp David, he's going to say that, yeah, that era fat was trying that the maps and the territorial exchange wasn't good enough that they were asking Palestinians to make all the concessions that Israel would have. Yeah, I'll lay it all up. You do it for quickly. Yeah, I know. Any of my future books should interest you guys. Oh, what are you working on? No, not working on it's actually going to come out.

Yeah, it deals with Israeli and Arab atrocities war crimes, I call them in the 48 war. Oh, really? Yeah, just deals with that subject. Is this because I know you've also talked about the closure of the archives and stuff. Well, it's, it's marginal because they do deals with that as well, but they have tried to seal off documents which I already used and seen.

So now they don't let people see them. That's happened, but it's marginal in terms of its effect on on where the British are useful for you for the new book. Well, for this less, it's mostly Israeli archived. The British and Americans and you and did deal with these subjects, but not not as well as Israeli documents. What's your casualty count for Dary a scene? It's about 100. I think there's agreement on that by Israelis and Arabs. 105. Because before they were. They used to say 245, 54.

Those were the figures. The British and the Arabs and the Haganad agreed on at the beginning. Because the Red Cross, I think, was the one that first put out that number. I don't remember. Maybe it was what's his name, Jacques de Rainier or maybe. Yeah, maybe he came up with that number, but it was just they didn't count. They didn't count bodies. They just threw the number out and everybody was happy to blame the Ergun and the Lechi for killing more Arabs and actually.

Well, and they put it to good use as well. Well, they said that it helped to precipitate more evacuation. I think Megan and I. Yeah, they were. So first of all, thank you for that heated discussion about the present. I would love to go back into history in a way that informs what we can look for in a. As a way of hope for the future. So when has in Israel and Palestine had been closest to something like a peace settlement.

To something that like where both sides would be happy and enable the flourishing of both peoples. Well, my from my knowledge of the 120 years of sort of conflict, the closest I think the two sides have been to reaching some sort of settlement appears to have been in the year 2000 when Barak and then subsequently Clinton offered a two state settlement to P.

P. L. O. Palestinian Authority chairman, Yasser Arrafat. And Arrafat seemed to waver. He didn't immediately reject what was being offered, but ultimately came down at the end of camp David in July 2000. He came down against the proposals and the Clinton who said he wouldn't blame him later blame Darrafat for bringing down the summit and not reaching a solution there.

But I think there on the table, certainly in the Clinton parameters of December 2000, which followed the proposals by Barak in July. The Palestinians were offered the best deal they're ever going to get from Israel unless Israel is destroyed and then there'll just be a Palestinian Arab state.

But the best deal that Israel could ever offer them they were offered, which essentially was 95% of the West Bank, a each Jerusalem, a half of the old city of Jerusalem, some sort of joint control of the temple mount and the Gaza strip, of course, in full and the Palestinians said no to this deal.

And nobody really knows why Arrafat said no, that is some people think he was trying to hold out for slightly better terms. But my reading is that he was constitutionally psychologically incapable of signing off an a two state deal, meaning acceptance of the existence of a Jewish state. This was really the problem of Israel or of a Jewish state of a Jewish state, the Jewish state of Israel. He wasn't willing to share Palestine with the Jews and put his name to that.

I think he just couldn't do it. That's my reading, but some people say it was because the terms were insufficient and he was willing, but was waiting for slightly better terms. I don't I don't buy that. I don't think so. But other people disagree with me on this.

What do you think? Well, just briefly in response, Arrafat formally recognized Israel in 1993. I don't think actually that in 2000, 2001, a genuine resolution was on offer because I think the maximum Israel was prepared to offer admittedly more than it had been prepared to offer in the past. Phil Schor of the minimum that the Palestinians considered to be a reasonable two state settlement bearing in mind that as of 1949, Israel controlled 78% of the British mandate of Palestine.

Palestinians were seeking a stay on the remaining 22% and this was apparently too much for Israel. My response to your question would be. Are you being offered something like 22 or 21% there? They were being offered. I think less than a withdrawal to the 1967 borders with mutual and minor and reciprocal land swaps and the just resolution of the refugee was one of the question.

Yes. You know, I worked for a number of years with international crisis group and my boss at the time was Rob Malley, who was one of the American officials. President of the state Department or the point I want to make about Rob was he wrote, I think, a very perceptive article in 2001 in the New York Review books. I know that you and I would have had to debate with him. I think he gives a very compelling reason of why and how camp camp David failed, but rather than going into that, I'll.

You wrote that together with the Hussein Arah. Hussein Arah, yes, who was not at camp David. But in response to your question, I think there could have been a real possibility of Israeli Palestinian and Arab Israeli peace in the mid 1970s in the wake of the 1973 October war.

I'll recall that in 1971, Moshe Dayan, Israel's defense minister at the time, full of triumphalism about Israel's victory in 1967, speaking to a group of Israeli military veterans stated, you know, if I had to choose between Sharmishikh without peace or peace without Sharmishikh, this is referring to the resort in Egyptian signer, which was an under Israeli occupation, Dayan said, I will choose for Sharmishikh without peace.

Then the 1973 war came along and I think Israeli calculations began to change very significantly. And I think it was in that context that have there been a joint US Soviet push for an Arab Israeli and Israeli Palestinian resolution. That incorporated both in Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories. I think there was a very reasonable prospect for that being achieved and ended up being aborted, I think, for several reasons.

And ultimately, the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, decided for reasons we can discuss later to launch a separate unilateral initiative for Israeli Egyptian rather than Arab Israeli peace. And I think once that set in motion, the prospects disappeared because Israel essentially saw its most powerful adversary removed from the equation and felt that this would give it a free hand in the occupied territories also in Lebanon to get rid of the PLO and so on.

So, you ask, when were we closest? And I can't give you an answer of when we were closest. I can only tell you one, I think we could have been close and that was a lost opportunity. If we look at this situation today, there's been a lot of discussion about a two-state settlement. My own view, and I've written about this, I don't buy the arguments of the naysayers that we have passed the so-called point of no return with respect to a two-state settlement.

Certainly, if you look at the Israeli position in the occupied territories, I would argue it's more tenuous than was the French position in Algeria in 1954, than was a British position in Ireland in 1916, than was the Ethiopian position in Eritrea in 1990. And so, as a matter of practicality, as a matter of principle, I do think the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories remains realistic.

I think the question that we now need to ask ourselves, it's one I'm certainly asking myself since October 7th, and looking at Israel's genocidal campaign, but also looking at larger questions, is it desirable?

When you have peace with what increasingly appears to be an irrational genocidal state that seeks to confront and resolve each and every political challenge with violence, and that reacts to its failure to achieve solutions to political challenges with violence by applying even more violence, and an insatiable lust for Palestinian territory, that a genocidal apartheid state that seems increasingly incapable of even conceiving of peaceful coexistence with the other people on that land.

I'm very pessimistic that a solution is possible. I grew up in Western Europe in the long shadow of the Second World War. I think we can all agree that there could have been no peace in Europe had certain regimes on that continent not been removed from power. I think we could look at Southeast Asian in the late 1970s, and I think we're all agreed that there could not have been peace in that region had the Khmer Rouge not been ousted.

I look at southern Africa during the 1990s, and I think we can all be agreed that had the white minority regimes of that rules in Bobwyn South Africa not been dismantled. I think we could not have been peace in that region. Although I think it's worth having a discussion, I do think it's now a legitimate question to ask, can there be peace without dismantling the Zionist regime?

There's a very clear distinction between the Israeli state and its institutions on the one hand, and the Israeli people who, I think, regardless of our discussion about the history, I think you can now talk about an Israeli people and a people that have developed rights over time. It's a formula for peaceful coexistence with them, will need to be found, which is a separate matter from dismantling the Israeli state and its institutions.

And again, I haven't reached clear conclusions about this, except to say, as a practical matter, I think a two-state settlement remains feasible. But I think there are very legitimate questions about its desirability, and about whether peace can be achieved in the Middle East, with the persistence of an irrational genocidal apartheid regime.

Particularly because Israeli society is beginning to develop many extremely distasteful supremacists, the humanizing aspects that I think also stand in the way of coexistence that are being fed by this regime. So if you look back into history, when we're closest to peace, and do you draw any hope from any of them?

I feel like in 2000, I feel like the deal that was present, at least at the end of the top of summit, I think in terms of what Israel, I think had the appetite to give, and what the Palestinians would have gotten, would have definitely been the most agreeable between the two parties. I don't know if in 73, I'm not sure if the appetite would have ever been there for the Arab states to negotiate alongside the Palestinians.

I know that in Jordan, there was no love for the Palestinians after 1970, after Black September. I know that Sadat had no love for the Palestinians due to their association with the Muslim Brotherhoods, attempted assassinations in Egypt. Sorry, which P.O.L.O. and the Muslim Brotherhood? Sadat was upset because they were attempted assassinations by people, and oh no, an assassination. It was a personal friend of his, Yisuf Al-Sibai, I can't pronounce that. He was assassinated by a Palestinian.

He was killed by the Abu Nidal organization. He says it's much, it's long since the group now that they're killed directly, but I think that there was a history of the Palestinians sometimes fighting with their neighboring states that were hosting them if they weren't getting the political concessions they wanted. The assassination of the Jordanian King in 51 might be another example of that in Jordan.

It feels like over a long period of time, it feels like the Palestinians have been kind of told from the neighboring Arab states that if they just continue to enact violence, whether in Israel or abroad, that eventually a state will materialize somehow. I don't think it's gotten them any closer to a state, if anything, I think it's taken them farther and farther and farther away from one.

And I think as long as the hyperbolic language is continually employed internationally, the idea that Israel is committing a genocide, the idea that there is an apartheid, the idea that they live in a concentration camp, all of these words, I think further than narrative for the Palestinians, that Israel is an evil state that needs to be dismantled. I mean, you said as much about the institution, at least to the Zionist government, Israel's government is probably not going anywhere.

All of the other surrounding Arab states have accepted that, or at least most of them down in the Gulf, Egypt and Jordan have accepted that. The Palestinians need to accept it too. The Israeli state, where the state apparatus is not going anywhere, and at some point they need to realize like, hey, we need a leader that's going to come out and represent us.

All of us is willing to take political risks, is willing to negotiate some lasting peace for us, and it's not going to be the international community or some invocation of international law or some invocation of morality or justice that's going to extricate us from this conflict. It's going to take some actual difficult political maneuvering on the ground of accepting Israel of accepting Israel. It's a formally did in 1993, which they formally did in 1993.

Yeah, but then no, no lasting peace came after that in 2000. No, because 1993 was not a peace agreement. Sure, the Oslo Accords were an interim. They had a final solution for an interim agreement. And Palestinians actually began clamoring for commencing the permanent status resolutions on schedule, and the Israelis kept delaying them. In fact, they only began, I believe, in 99 under American pressure on the Israelis. I think you're being a bit one sided.

Both sides didn't fulfill the promise of Oslo and the steps needed for Oslo. There was Palestinian terrorism, which accompanied Israel's expansion of settlements and other things. The two things fed each other and led to what happened in 2000, which was a breakdown of the talks altogether when the Palestinians said no. But I think there's a, I don't agree incidentally with this definition of Israel or the Israeli state. As a partied, it's not.

There is some sort of a partied going on in the West Bank. The Israeli regime itself is not in apartheid regime. That's nonsense. By any definition of apartheid, which... Well, by the formal definition, I think it qualifies. No, it doesn't qualify. A partied is a race-based distinction between different segments of the population. And some of them don't have any representation at all, like the blacks in South Africa. But that's not a... No right to...

In Israel itself, the minority, the Arabs, do have representation, do have rights and so on. I don't think Israel is also genocidal. I don't think it's being genocidal. It wasn't so in 48. It wasn't so in 67. And it hasn't been recently, in my view. And talk about dismantling Israel. And that's what you're talking about. I think Stephen said it correctly, is counterproductive. It just pushes Israelis further away from willing to give Palestinians anything. Please, Norm, tell me you have...

Something optimistic. Optimistic to say. I... Even though I agree, I've thought about it a lot. And I agree with Moines analysis. I'm not really in the business of punditry. I rather look at the historical record where I feel more comfortable. And I feel on terra firma. So I'd like to just go through that. I don't quite... I agree and I disagree with Moines on the 73 issue. After the 1973 war, it was clear that Israel was surprised by what happened during the war. And it took a big hit.

The estimates are, I don't know what numbers you use, but I hear between two and three thousand Israelis... Sojoures were killed during the 1900s. It was 2500. 27. Yeah. Okay, so I got... I read different numbers. That's, you know, it's a very large number of Israelis who were killed. There were moments at the beginning of the war where they were a fear that this might be it. No, there wasn't. There wasn't. No, the... Everybody forgets Israel's atomic weaponry. I know, but...

So how could they have been treated? They didn't die on top about the collapse of the third time. But it was hysterical. Oh, well, I can't... I don't know who's... They wanted to start the series. But we're talking about perceptions. Yeah, I'm not... I can't tell you if he was hysterical or not. No, he wanted to say a room with him. But I'm just saying, let's not bog down on that.

The war is over, and when President Carter comes into power, Carter was an extremely smart guy, Jimmy Carter, extremely smart guy, and he was very fixed on details. He was probably the most impressive of modern American presidents, in my opinion, by a wide margin. And he was determined to resolve the conflict on a big scale, on the Arab-Israeli scale, on the Palestinian issue, he wouldn't go past what he called a Palestinian homeland.

Palestinian National Home. And the Palestinian National Home, he wouldn't go as far as a Palestinian state. I'm not going to go into the details of that. I don't think realistically given the political balance of forces that was going to happen, but that's a separate issue. Let's go to the issue at hand, namely what is the obstacle, or what has been the obstacle since the early 1970s. Since roughly 1974, the Palestinians have accepted the two-state settlement on the June 1967 border.

Now, as it got, as more pressure was exerted on Israel, because the Palestinians seemed reasonable, the Israelis to quote the Israeli political scientist, Avner Yaneef, he since passed from the scene, he said, Yaneef in his book, The Lemus of Security, he said that the big Israeli fear was what he called the Palestinian Peace Offensive. That was their worry, that the Palestinians were becoming too moderate. And unless you understand that, you can't understand the June 1982 Lebanon War.

The purpose of the June 1982 Lebanon War was to liquidate the PLO in southern Lebanon, because they were too moderate, the Palestinian Peace Offensive. I'm going to have to fast forward, there are many events, there's the first and the further, then there's the Oslo court. And let's now go to the heart of the issue, namely the 2001 negotiations. Well, the negotiations are divided into three parts for the sake of listeners.

There's Camp David in July 2000, there are the Clinton parameters in December 2000, and then there are negotiations in Taba, in Egypt, in 2001. Those are the three phases. Now, I have studied the record probably to the point of insanity, because there are so many details you have to master. I'll vouch for that. I will vouch for it. I will personally vouch for it. There is one extensive record from that whole period, from 2000, until you could say 2007.

And that is what came to be called the Palestine Papers, which are about 15,000 pages of all the records of the negotiations. I have read through all of them, every single page. And this is what I find. If you look at Shlomo Ben Amiz book, which I have with me, profits without honor, it's his last book.

He says, going into Camp David, that means July, going into Camp David, July 2000, he said the Israelis were willing to return about, not return, but withdraw from 90 relinquish, 92% of the West Bank. Ben Amiz was at Camp David. He was at Tabba. Oh, yeah, he was also at Camp David. They wanted Israel wanted to keep all the major settlement blocks. It wanted to keep roughly 8% of the West Bank. And they put it at roughly 92% of Israel was fully picked up. How do you calculate?

Yeah, that was enough. And what staged Camp David, because it was two weeks. I'll get to the proposals changed during the two weeks. So Israel wants to keep all the major settlement blocks. Means the border area of the West Bank. Well, not the border. We have Ariel. We have Maalai Adoumim. We have is. I've kind of leads the rice called Ariel. She said it was a dagger into the heart of the West Bank. So they want to keep 8% of the land. They want to keep the settlement blocks.

They want to keep 80% of the settlers. They will not budge an inch on the question of refugees to quote. El-Barak in the article. Eco-authored with you in the New York Review of Books. We will accept, and I think the quotes accurate, no moral legal or historical responsibility for what happened to the refugees. So forget about even allowing refugees to return. We accept no moral legal or historical responsibility for the refugees. And on Jerusalem, they wanted to keep large parts of Jerusalem.

Now, how do we judge who is reasonable and who is not? Then Ami says, I think the Israeli offer was reasonable. That's how he sees it. But what is the standard of reasonable? My standard is what does international law say? International law says the settlements are illegal. Israel wants to keep all the settlement blocks.

15 judges, all 15, in the whole decision in 2004, in July 2004, all 15 judges, including the American judge, Bergen Thal, ruled the settlements are illegal under international law. They want to keep 80% of the settlers under international law. All the settlers are illegal in the West Bank. They want to keep large parts of East Jerusalem. But under international law, East Jerusalem is occupied Palestinian territory. That's what the international- That's because the law is not Palestinian.

It's not Palestinian. There's never been a Palestinian state. I listen patiently to you. Under international law, if you read the decision, all territory, in that 2004, wall decision, all territory beyond the green line, which includes East Jerusalem, is occupied Palestinian territory. The designated unit according to the international court of justice, the designated unit for Palestinian self-determination. And they deny any right whatsoever on the right of return.

The maximum, I don't want to go into the details now, the maximum formal offer was by Ehud Omar in 2008. He offered 5,000 refugees could return under what was called family reunification, 5,000 in the course of five years, and no recognition of any Israeli responsibility.

So, if you use as the baseline, what the UN General Assembly has said, and what the international court of justice has said, if you use that baseline international law, by that baseline, all the concessions came from the Palestinian side. Every single concession came from the Palestinian side. None came from the Israeli side. They may have accepted less than what they wanted, but it was still beyond what international law allocated to them. Now, you say... I'm allocated to the Palestinian.

I'm allocated to Palestinians, yes. Thank you for the clarification. Now, about Arifat, like the Mufdi, never liked the guy. I think that was one of the only disagreements. Mouin and I had, when Arifat passed, you were a little sentimental, I was not. Never liked the guy, but politics you don't have to like the guy. There was no question. Nobody argues it. That whenever the negotiation started up, the Palestinians just kept saying the same things. No. It no. They kept saying no. No.

Professor Morris with due respect. Incorrect. They kept saying international legitimacy, international law, UN resolutions. They said, we already gave you what the law required. We gave that in 1988, November 1988, and then ratified again at Oslo in 1993. And they said, now we want what was promised us under international law. And that was the one point where everybody in the other side agreed. Clinton, don't talk to me about international law.

Livney, during the Omar administration, she said, I studied international law. I don't believe in international law. Every single member on the other side, they didn't want to hear from international law. And to my thinking that that is the only reasonable baseline for trying to resolve the conflict, and Israel has a long way to go. But when has international law been relevant to any conflict, basically in the world?

That's why over the last hundred years, that's why the Palestinians had to recognize Israel because that's international law. But international law is meaningless. That was UN resolution 24th soul by international law, or in accordance with international law. You know what, Professor Morris, for argument's sake, let's agree on that strictly for argument's sake. What's the alternative? Dennis Rua said, we're going to decide who gets what on the basis of needs. So he says Israel needs this.

Israel needs that. Israel needs that. Dennis Rua decided to be the philosopher king. He's going to decide on the basis of needs. Well, if you asked me, since Gaza is one of the densest places on earth, it needs a nice big chunk of sign. That's what it actually needs. I don't even want to go there. It needs a nice big chunk. But I have to accept international law says no. It doesn't law is irrelevant. Now, Benjamin says, I think the Israeli offer was reasonable. Okay, that's the reasonable guy.

He seems even though, okay, I've not been able to go there. I've debated him and partly agreed with you. But who decides what's reasonable? I think the international community in its political incarnation, the General Assembly, the Security Council, all those UN Security Council resolutions saying the settlements are illegal, annexation of East Jerusalem is null and void, and the international court of justice. That to me is a reasonable standard.

And by that standard, the Palestinians were asked to make concessions which I consider unreasonable. Or the international community considered unreasonable. I think that the issue is when you apply international law or international standards, I wouldn't say what Benny Moore says is there irrelevant. But I think that these have to be seen as informing the conversation. I don't think these are the final shape of the conversation.

I don't think historically Israel has ever negotiated within the strict bounds of whether we're talking Resolution 242, whether we're talking about any General Assembly resolutions. That's just not how these negotiations tend to go. You might consider international opinion on things, but at the end of the day, it's the bilateral negotiations. Oftentimes, historically started in secret independent of the international community that end up shaping what the final agreements look like.

I think the issue with this broad appeal to international law is again, going back to my earlier point about all of the euphemistic words, all it simply does is drive Palestinian expectations up to a level that is never going to be satisfied. For instance, you can throw that ICJ opinion all you want. It was an advisory opinion. That came in 2004, how Palestinians gained more or less land since that 2004 advisory opinion was issued. What would your standard be then?

Both sides have to have a delegation that confronts each other and they assess the realistic conditions on the ground and they try to figure out within the confines of international law, and then what both sides are reasonable for. But like, for instance, this statement of like full retreat from the West Bank, what is it? 400,000 settlers? How many settlers live in the West Bank now? Probably, yeah, 100 million. Yeah, you're going to think that you include the Jerusalem suburbs.

Yeah, 400,000 people are never... With the Jerusalem suburbs perhaps. Yeah, there's no cause that. There's not a million people. Jerusalem, not settlements. I know that, but that's not what the law, the law calls it null and void. We can say whatever we want, until we're blue in the face. But like, there's half a million Israeli people are not being exiled in a way. It's not going to happen.

You're basically saying if I understand correctly, there's only one way to resolve this, and that is through direct bilateral negotiations. Probably, yeah. Okay. So... Or ideally, but... I've taken over your house. Okay. You're not going to go to the police because, you know, the laws of only have limited value. So you come over and sit in what is now my living room that used to be your living room. And we negotiate.

The problem there is that you're not going to get anything unless I agree to it. And standards and norms and law and all the rest of it be damned. So you need to take into account that when you're advocate by lateral negotiations, that effectively that gives each of the parties veto power. And in the current circumstances, Palestinians have already recognized Israel. They have... What, you keep bringing that up like a significant infection? No, no. And I don't... Even if... It's not even true.

It doesn't. But it doesn't. The recognition from Palestine isn't doing anything for... You're... Hamas, totally reject. I'm not talking about Hamas. Hamas is the majority among the Palestinian people. They won the elections in 2006. They're actually... They won a majority of the seats. Yes, exactly. They didn't win a majority of votes. Every opinion poll today says the majority of Palestinians support the Hamas. That sounds right. The Hamas absolutely reject Israel.

But... So if Arif had the 2003 or whatever issued a sort of recognition... What is a sort of recognition? It was a recognition of Israel. It does... It's meaningless. It's meaningless. It's meaningless. I don't believe that Arif had to be sincere about it. Does it matter what you were, I think, about what Israelis do? Well, most Israelis do, and that does matter. Okay. And that does matter. But Hamas says no, and Hamas is the majority state. So for years...

So for years, the Israeli and U.S. demand was that the Palestinians recognized two, four, two, and three, three, eight. They did. But you're saying, okay, we demanded that they do this. But it was meaningless when they did it. Because it was... Then the demand was that... It was a tactical thing, yes. Then the demand was that the PLO recognizes real. Tactical. Okay, we demanded that they did this, and they did it, but it's meaningless. And they never changed their charter, the PLO.

You may remember that. In fact, in nice... They supposedly abrogated the old charter but never came up with a new one. No, but... But in 1996... And Faru Kadumi said, of course, the old charter is still in... Yes, of course, yes. But the point is, you know, the Palestinians... Demands are constantly made of them. And when they... And when they exceed to those demands, they're then told, actually, what you did is meaningless. So here's a new set of demands. I mean, you know, it's like a hamster.

No, you said it. It's like a hamster. Let me tell you what... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let me tell you what the... There will be told if you run from the line. You'll get out of the case. No, no, no. The bottom line is that Israel would like a Palestinian Sadat. It wants the Palestinians... I was... Listen, listen, listen. This is really a worst-case scenario. Okay, let me just... Yeah, because they shot Sadat. The Israelis want the Palestinians... For good reason.

Israelis want the Palestinians to actually accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel and the Zionist project and then live side by side with them into states. That's what the Israelis don't even know the truth. And what is the formal position of this Israeli government? No, no, I'm saying. I don't know if it exists today. Okay, it's predecessor. And it's predecessor. And it's predecessor. That's what Israelis want. The Israelis want the change of side of psyche among the Palestinians.

The Queen hasn't been in this state. That doesn't happen. There won't be a Palestinian state. I remember... The Jerusalemurs. The Queen has an interesting point. For the international law. Because I've... I know you want to forget it just like you want to forget the genocide charge. But I know you want to forget that. Well, the Palestinians want to forget it too. Okay, but here's the problem. And it's exactly the problem that the Queen just brought up.

Now, I read carefully your book, One State Two States. With all due respect. Absolutely, a disgrace. Coming from you. Coming from you. Most reviewers didn't agree with you. Yeah. Coming from you was like you wrote it in your sleep. It's nothing compared to what you wrote before. I don't know why you did it. In my opinion, you ruined your reputation not totally. But you undermined it with that book. But let's get to the issue that the Queen wrote. Here's what you said.

You said formally, you said, yes, it's true. The Palestinians recognized Israel. But then you said viscerally in their hearts. They didn't really recognize Israel. So I thought to myself, how does... Professor Morris, you know, you know what's in the hearts of Palestinians? I don't know. I was a little... I was explained. I was surprised as a historian. You would be talking about what's lurking in the hearts of Palestinians. But then you said something which was really interesting.

You said, even if in their hearts they accepted Israel, you said, quote, rationally, they could never accept Israel. Because they got nothing. They had this beautiful Palestine. And now they're reduced to just a few pieces, a few parcels of land. So they will never accept it. Yes, so you said there's no way they can accept it. I would say that as well. So as proposed... Definitely. Exactly as Moean said, you keep moving the gold poles.

No, no, no. Until we reach the point where we realize, according to Benny Morris, there can be a solution. So why don't you just say that outright? Maybe. Why don't you say it outright? According to you, the Palestinians can never be reasonable. Because according to you... They want all of Palestine. According to you, they couldn't possibly agree to a two-state settlement. Because it's such a lousy settlement. Because they want all of Palestine. But you said rationally, they couldn't accept it.

Not their feelings. It's vote. You said rationally, you went from formally, viscerally, rationally. So now we're reaching the point where according to Benny Morris, the Palestinians can't be reasonable. Because reasonably, they have to reject two states. They won't go all of Palestine. Moean is absolutely correct. There's no way to resolve the problem. They won't go all of Palestine. He said that himself. He said they should dismantle the drill. He didn't say that. He didn't say that.

What I said. And I've written... I'm glad you didn't deny it. I've written extensively on this issue on why a two-state settlement is still feasible. And I came out in support of that proposition. Perhaps in my heart, you know, you can see that I was just bullshitting. But that's what I actually wrote. That was a number of years ago.

And just as a matter of a historical record, beginning in the early 1970s, there was fierce debate within the Palestinian National Movement about whether to accept or reject. And there were three schools of thought. There was one that would accept nothing less than the total liberation of Palestine.

There was a second that accepted what was called the establishment of a fighting national authority on Palestinian soil, which they saw as the begin... as a springboard for the total liberation of Palestine. And there was a third school that believed that under current dynamics and so on that they should go for a two-state settlement.

And our friend and correspondent, Gauter Loerse, has written a very perceptive article on when the Puello, already in 1976, came out in open support of a two-state resolution at the Security Council. Puello accepted it. Israel, of course, rejected it. But the resolution didn't pass because the U.S. and the U.K. vetoed it. It was both of that. I think it was nine to five. Yeah, okay. But the fact of the matter is that the Puello came to accept a two-state settlement.

Why they did it, I think, is irrelevant. And subsequently, the Puello acted on the basis of seeking to achieve a two-state settlement. The reason, I think, and I think, Norm, you've written about this. The reason that Arafat was so insistent on getting minimally acceptable terms for a two-state settlement at Camp David and afterwards was precisely because he knew that once he signed, that was all the Palestinians were going to get.

Yeah. If his intention had been, you know, I'm not accepting Israel, I simply want to springboard. He would have accepted a Palestinian state in Jericho, but he didn't. He insisted. That's the thing I've never understood. He should have logically accepted the springboard, and then from there, law is the next state. Well, he doesn't understand. He should have done that. It's an international law. Would Puello real constraint on him? No, but it wasn't accepted. It was over.

Institutionally, he was incapable of signing. Well, if that's right, did he not accept it? He should have accepted it. But if you're correct, okay, that he was really out to eliminate Israel, then he wouldn't have cared about the borders. He wouldn't have cared about what the thing said about refugees. He would have gotten a sovereign state and used that to achieve that purpose. But I think it was precisely because he recognized that he was not negotiating for a springboard.

He was negotiating permanent status that he was such a stickler about the details. He wasn't just as a factual matter. He wasn't such a stickler. When they asked him how many refugees, the numbers... It was a principle rather than the numbers. He said that would be pragmatic about it. Yes. And the numbers that were used at Annapolis were between 100 and 250,000 refugees over 10 years. That was the number.

Arifat, when he was asked at Camp David, he kept saying, I care about the Lebanese, the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, which came to about 300,000. Which was a large concession from whether you accept the number or not that he wasn't talking about 6 million. He was talking about between 100 and 250,000 over 10 years. Now, the best offer that came from the Palestinians, excuse me, the best offer that came from Israel was the all-mourn offer.

Can we just pretend like we didn't all lay out the exceptionally pessimistic view of a two-state holoste. I can two-state solution. Let's pretend that in five years and ten years, a two-state peace settlement is reached. And as historians, you'll still be here writing about it 20 years from now, how would it have happened?

I think that historically, I think that the big issue is, I think that both sides have had their own internal motivations to fight, because they feel like they have something to gain from it. But I think as time has gone on, unfortunately, the record proves that the Palestinian side is delusional. The longer that the conflict endures, the worse position they'll be in, but for some reason they've never had a leader that convinced them of that as much.

That era fat thought that if he held on, there was always a better deal around the corner. A boss is more concerned with trying to maintain any legitimacy amongst Palestinians than actually trying to negotiate anything realistic with Israel, that Palestinians are always incentivized to feel like as long as they keep fighting, either the international community is going to save them with the five millionth UN resolution condemning whatever,

that another ICJ advisory opinion is finally going to lead to the expulsion of half a million Jews from the West Bank, or that some other international body, the ICJ and the genocide charge is going to come and save the Palestinians. As long as they in their mind feel like somebody is coming to save them, then they feel like they're going to have the ability to get something better in the future.

But the reality is, is all of the good partners who are peace that the Palestinians had have completely and utterly abandoned them. Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf states, whether you're talking bilateral peace of the Abraham Accords, most of the Arab leaders in negotiating peace with Israel have just not had as much of an interest in maintaining the rights and the representations of what the Palestinian people want,

and the only people they have today to draw legitimacy from, or to have on their side to argue with them, are people that I guess write books or tweet, or people in the international community that do resolutions or amnesty international reports. And the reality is, we can scream until we're blue in the face on these things. None of it has gotten any closer to helping the Palestinians in any sense of the word.

The condition has only gotten worse. The settlements only continue to expand. The military operations are only to get more brutal. The blockade is going to continue to have worse effects. As long as we use international law as the basis, and there isn't a strong, a seduct like Palestinian leader that's willing to come up and confront Israel with the brave peaceful negotiations to force them to acquiesce, nothing is going to happen.

And I think that the issue you come up with is, you know, whether it's people like Norm that talk about how brave the October 7th attacks were, or how much respect they have for those fighters, the Israel in a way. And I think people have said as much about Netanyahu, the right wants violence from the Palestinians because it always gives them a perpetual excuse to further the conflict.

Well, we have to go in in October 7th and we've got a room with them. So we can't trust these people in the West. We have to do the night raids because the second intifada made us feel like the Palestinian people didn't want trust with us.

I feel like the biggest thing that would force Israel to change its path would be an actual, a real, not for like two weeks, but an actual peaceful Palestinian leader, somebody committed to peace that is able to apply those standards and hold the entire region of Palestine to those standards.

But I think over time, the mounting pressure from without the international community and the mounting pressure from within because Israel hosts a lot of its own criticism, if we talk about Beth Salem, we talk about her, it's like Israel will host a lot of its own criticism. I think that that pressure would force Israel towards an actual peace agreement, but it's never going to come through violence.

Historically, it hasn't. And in the modern day, violence has just hurt the Palestinians more and more. And I'm sure the future now is a good moment for both Palestine and Israel to get new leadership that Yahoo's on the way out. Hamas possibly is on the way out who should rise to the top such that a peaceful settlement can be reached. The problem is like any said, yeah, it's difficult because Hamas enjoy so much widespread support amongst the Palestinian people.

I think that the, well, I don't know, there's opinions on whether democracy or pushing them towards elections was the right or wrong idea, but with like an Islamic fundamentalist government for Hamas, I don't know if a negotiation with Israel ever happens there. And then when the international pressure is always, you know, 67 borders, infinite right of return for refugees and a total withdrawal of Israel from all these lands to even start negotiations.

I just don't see realistically that on the Palestinian side, no negotiations are ever going to start in a place that Israel is willing to accept. If you want to dismiss international law, that's fine, but then you have to do it consistently. You can't set standards for the Palestinians, but reject applying those standards to Israel. If we're going to have the law of the jungle, then we can all be beasts and not only some of us.

And I think so it's either that or you have certain agreed standards that are intended to regulate our conduct, all of our conduct, not just some of us. So that's a fundamental saying to abandon. Well, you're saying, you know, international law and the millionth UN resolution, you're being very dismissive about all the things. And that's fine, but then you have to be dismissive across the board. That was a chapter six resolution. That's a non-binding.

But two four two is like, what is that? What is binding? Do you know anything about how the UN system works? If you read the language of the resolution, binding is typically the committee to uphold a particular international law or for the staff to draw. What is the child draw? You just throw out words. You hear binding. There's two four two, there's two four two mentioned of Palestinian state. No, of course, that's part of the problem.

That was the reason why the Palestinians didn't want to recognize two four two because they only refer that the very end of the rep. You recognize one eight one and two four two. Yeah, but hold on, hold on. Every United Nations Security Council resolution, irrespective of under which chapter was adopted, is by definition binding. Binding, not only on the members of the Security Council, but on every member state of the UN. That's read the UN charter. It's black and white.

Sure. People look at the language. The language even of two four two is kept intentionally vague such that it doesn't actually provide again the final con. It's actually not that vague because the term the term land for peace originates in two four two three ideas. Sure. I thought about territorial acquisition and Israel's need to give it up. Was kept vague. That's why I said 79. You saw the need to fill out their obligations under two four two.

A lot of points of information. A lot of points of information. The first principle in UN resolution two four two is the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, which is made less. It may be meaningless to you, Mr. Binal. Mr. Binal, that principle was adopted by the friendly nations resolution, the UN General Assembly in 1970. That resolution was then reiterated in the international court of justice, this ruling advisory opinion in 2004.

That was the basis of the coalition against Iraq when it acquired Kuwait and then declared it a province of Kuwait. Which I have that supported. That's what's cool. That's what's cool. I'm not going to go there. I'm not going to go there. It's not accurate. That error fed endorsed. Okay. I'm not going to go there. It's called under international law use Cogins or preemptory norms of international law, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.

That is not controversial. It's not vague. You couldn't put it more succinctly. You cannot acquire territory by force under international law. That is 47, who I've done this trip before 67. Mr. Binal, don't change the subject. If you don't know what you're talking about, at least have the future. At least have the future. You talk about chapter 2 or 2. You don't know how close it has to go to the Palestinian.

From tweet five, you have no idea what you're talking about. It's just so embarrassing. At least have some humility between us with red maybe 10,000 books on the topic. And you've read two wiki pedia entries and you start talking about chapter six. Do you know what chapter seven is? You know what chapter seven is? Answer me question. How close is two four two got in the Palestinians to a state? How close is the 2004 advisory opinion gotten the West Bank settlement?

What's your alternative? The alternative is you just you just not this whatever this making money off the conflict is the actual alternative. Yes, we should talk about your money. Yeah, your media. You go and talk to 50 million different people. You're a lot of some point. The issue is you have all these solutions have gotten the Palestinians no place to stay because they're here earlier because of the US veto. They're not going to be in for.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, no, if I may, you know, I'm going to force you. You know what? You know what, Professor Morris. Professor Morris. Because of your logic and I'm not disputing it. That's why October seven happened because there was no options left for those people. Exactly what my options are left after. No, I don't know what's going on. What's the option? Listen to this. Oh, the only option is not an expert on Palestinian mentality. You're contradicting your show.

I only am how the other factor for Egypt didn't find a very good. But you're contradicting yourself on the one hand. You're saying all the Palestinians do was fight in violence and terrorism and all the rest of it. But on the other hand, you're saying they're expecting salvation from from UN resolutions and international court. Those aren't violent. No, but it's part of maintaining. It's the it's the continual putting off of negotiating. They've no solution.

I think he says I'm going to respond. I think all over the world. Yes, I put in the conflict. Who states in 1975? This is a legend. There's a part. They didn't accept the two states. You can quote Erifett talking about how he's lying and he's just going to use a 94 and a 95 when he's making trips on the world. There's a very lengthy history of Israeli Palestinian negotiations.

I want to deny that those negotiations took place where it feels like there was a good faith effort where there was a good faith effort. We have a written pop history. You can't even read the written record. I don't know why you're afraid. I just said there are 15,000 pages on the NAPOLIS. And I'm sure you cherry with your favorite quote from all of them. That's great. That's great. I had a quote to share. I gave you quote. I have a question. Do you want to get?

I think the Palestinian cause has been furthered by any international law. You can't do it. I think the problem is is different. Okay. You want to say the Palestinians were only fighting. And then when I point out they've also gone to the court and you want to say, well, all they do, then, is these things. And you said they should be negotiating. And I demonstrate that there was a lengthy record of negotiations that yeah, but they didn't go in good faith.

Again, you're placing the hamster in the wheel and telling him if he runs fast enough, maybe one day he'll get out of the cage. What was the best good faith negotiation? I think the fundamental problem here is not what the Palestinians have. And the Palestinians haven't done. And it's perfectly legitimate to have a discussion about whether they could have been more effective. Of course they could have been more effective. Everyone could have always been more effective.

The fundamental issue here is that Israel has never been prepared to concede the legitimacy of Palestinian national rights in the land of the former British Mandate of Palestine. How do you explain Tabasamah? How do you explain the capital? No, they're not. How do you explain all the legitimacy of Palestinian demands? Well, they didn't want to give the Palestinians all of Palestine. That's all. No, all of Palestine. You mean all of the occupied territories?

You're talking about all of Palestine. What is the occupied territory? The occupied territory. Are those territories that Israel occupied in June of 1967? The Indians often use that term to define the whole of Palestine. Could you show me? Not just the West Bank. Could you show me Professor Morris? In all the negotiations, all the negotiations and all the accounts that have been written, can you show me one where the Palestinians end the negotiations? That's what we were talking about.

Wanted all of Israel. The maximum I can't say that because international community vote accepted. So they didn't say it. They didn't ask for it. No, that's what Hamas did. Hamas always said it. Hamas only negotiated with Israel about prisoner exchanges of the United States. No, no, no. We were talking about a lot of the Palestinian people who agree. The only place I saw pieces of Israel were the land swaps. And the land swaps accounted for about 2 to 5 percent of Israel.

Nobody asked for all of Israel. Why would you mean they asked for all of Israel in 48? They asked for all of Israel in 67. What do you think those words were about? You're not going to respond to anything I'm saying. You have no answer. You're not going to respond to anything I'm saying. That's correct. Okay, Mr. Bino. We were talking about the diplomatic negotiations beginning with 20, 2000, 2001. He was asked for Israel. He was in diplomacy. You don't know what you're talking about.

Is the international law argument ever going to get the Palestinians closer to state? Is the Israeli state ever going to be dismantled? Do you think that's like realistic coming up ever in the next 20 years? Again, I'm posing a question. And the question is regardless of what's feasible or realistic today, the question I'm posing is can you have peace in the Middle East with this militant, irrational, genocidal, apartheid state and power? I lost. I don't think so now.

Okay. And the question I'm asking is can you have peace with this regime? Or does this regime and its institutions need to be dismantled similar to what the examples I gave of Europe and Southern Africa? How do you contend with the fact that most of the surrounding Arab states seem to agree that you can? Yeah, you're correct. Several of them, most importantly Egypt, Jordan, have made their peace with Israel. I should add that Israel's conduct since then has placed these relations under strain.

And I had very little, I didn't take the reports of a Saudi Israeli rapprochement, particularly seriously before October 7th. The reason being that it was really a Saudi-Israeli-US deal, which committed the US to make certain commitments to Saudi Arabia that would probably never get through Congress. You're not considered the Egypt-Israeli peace deal legitimate then since the United States made a great financial contribution to Egypt?

I don't think the question is whether that deal is legitimate or not. I think that deal exists. But the core of this conflict is not between Israel and Egypt. The core of this conflict is between Israel and the Palestinian people.

And the reason that Israel agreed to relinquish the occupied Egyptian Sinai, and the reason that Egyptian Israeli peace treaty was signed in 1979 is because Israel in 1973 recognized that its military superiority was ultimately no match for Egypt's determination to recover its occupied territories. And there would come a point when Egypt would find a way to extract an unbearable price. Maybe just Israeli wanted peace. Well, the Israelis wanted it.

Not just because they were afraid of what Egypt might do at the top of it. If you're talking about the average Israeli citizen, I think that's a fair characterization. If you're talking about the Israeli leadership, I think they looked at it in more strategic terms. I think it's the most powerful two-point. Two point. Two point. What was the terms of that Egypt Israel peace treaty? International law. Egypt demanded every... Nobody scared about it in that regard. Allow me to finish.

Every single inch of Egypt... No, but Egypt. Okay. They give and profess their... No, professor. Professor... Professor Morris. I know the record. They demanded, as you know, because you've written about it. They demanded every square inch. As you know, they demanded the oil fields be the smell of oil. No, that's in the airfield. No, not the smell of oil fields. And what did the settlements dismantle? That was the... The settlements, the oil fields in the airfield. They demanded all three back.

You can't have... Leave me back. The airfields weren't there. Okay, that's incorrect. What's... You're incorrect. They're built in the airfield. The Israelis built an airfield in the occupied sign office. Yes. And they wanted it back. They didn't want it back, man. No. Okay. They wanted the territory in which they... Okay. The oil fields, the airfields, the settlements have to be dismantled. Yes. Bacon said, I don't want to be the first prime minister to dismantle a settlement. But he did. Why?

Because of the law. No. It was because of peace. It was normalization of the law. The law had nothing to do with anything. It was a negotiation between two states. Two states, each one which wanted... So Palestinians... Not the law had nothing to do with anything. I would have said repeatedly in the negotiations... You're not listening. I know. You're missing one point. I read the negotiation. The law has nothing to do with anything. There are two foreign relations of US volumes on.

Nobody cares about the law. The Palestinians kept saying we want exactly... For example, they were there. Allow me to finish. The Palestinians kept saying we want what each of God... We want what each of God... Yeah. ...each of God... But what we're going to do with the law. Okay. Nothing to do with it. And number two, I'm not saying it's the whole picture. But as foreign minister Moisha Diane said at the time, he said, if a car has four wheels and you remove one wheel, the car can't move.

And for them, removing each up from the Arab front would then remove any Arab military threat to Israel. It's because of the war. The war was... No, the first part did. And that's what the Palestinians kept saying. We want what each of God... Yeah, yeah, that's true. But forget international law. And by the way, everything to do with the law. One last thing, one last on a personal note. The quote about Charmail Shake with our peace. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. That's the only thing you ever cited from a book of mine. You've got... I cited you a book. Yes. I was absolutely shocked at your betrayal of your people. That was your reason. I apologize for that. I apologize for that. Okay, I apologize. All right. Well, let me try once again. For the region and for just entirety of humanity. What gives you hope? We just heard a lot of pessimistic cynical takes. What gives you hope? That's a good reason. That's hope.

In other words, the fear of war, the disaster of war, should give people an impetus to try and seek peace. When you look at people in Gaza, people in West Bank, people in Israel... They should want... Fundamentally, no, but fundamentally they hate war. Yes, I think so. What gives you hope? There is no hope now. It's an extreme... No, I'm... Hey! I'm not happy to say that. Of course you are. It's a... It's a very bleak moment right now. That I agree with.

Israel believes it has to restore what it calls its deterrence capability. I think you've written about it actually. I just realized. Israel has to restore its deterrence capability and after the catastrophe of October 7th, restoring its deterrence capacity means this part... You didn't write about the annihilation of Gaza and then moving on to the Hezbollah. No, no, no. So the Israelis are dead set on restoring that deterrence capability.

On the Arab side, and I know Mawin and I have disagreed on it, and we're allowed to disagree. I think the Arab side, the lesson they learned from October 7th, is Israelis aren't as strong as we thought they were. And... That would be an unfit. And they... And they... And they... That's really what that is. And they think that there is a military option now. And I think that... That's... It's a zero-sum game at this point. And it's very, very bleak. And I'm not going to lie about that.

Now, I will admit my predictive capacities are not perfect. Are limited. But for the moment, it's a very bleak situation. That agree. And I don't see right now a way out. However, at the very minimum, permanence ceasefire ended in human and illegal blockade of Gaza. And... Why is it illegal? They were shooting rockets in Israel for 20 years. Why is that illegal to blockade Gaza? Why is it illegal? I'll tell you why. You don't drop it to a neighbor. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why.

Expect consequences. But that works both ways. I know. I know. I'll tell you why. Because every human rights humanitarian and UN organization in the world has said... Nobody cares about that. It's a form of collective punishment. Nobody cares about that. It's illegal under international law. You think a blockade, which doesn't have to stand the way the world works. And you think confining... Because that's the blockade. Yes, you don't know. Confining a million children. Confining...

That's the choice of almost... Confining a million children in what the economist calls a human rubbish sheep. The economist supported Israel in this war. And can talk to the support Israel. But international committed Red Cross called a syncing ship. With a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called a toxic slum. You think... It is a slum of human rights. You think... But it's a slum of human rights. Under international law. You think it's legitimate to... I don't know.

Hey. I know you want to forget the law. What about the law? It's the one thing that every... What about the law? It's what every Israeli fears the most. The law. No, no, no. Zippy Littleby said, I studied international law. I oppose international law. Of course you don't want to hear about the law. So anything. Okay, so here's the thing. Yeah. Then don't complain about October 7th. If you don't want... Do you need me to complain? If you want to say, forget about the law. I said was there...

Then there is no international humanitarian law. There is no distinction between the law. There is no distinction between civilians and combatants. Then there should be. And so... Now you're doing what Mouin said. You're becoming very selective about the law. If you want to forget about the law, Hamas had every right to do what he did. He was a force of support. It had every right to do what he did. According to you, not to me. Because you want to forget the law.

Do you still support the Houthis shooting random shots? Absolutely. Okay, that's a violation of international law. You play the same... Absolutely. And where there are power during World War II, who had the courage of the Houthis, where there are power that had that kind of courage. To be bombing the merchant ships. Well, tens of thousands of people died actual starvation. Not the starvation that exists in the Gaza Strip. Before our time, it was like, don't die of starvation.

What about the concentration campers? What about starvation in Yemen? Don't have it. That was the Houthis. Yes, I know. Don't have it. Don't have anything that I can do. And you know in three years, they will have to be feeding. Should they be feeding? Should they be feeding the Yemenis? You know 60,000 Yemenis died. Why fight? Why fight? The starvation? Why fight the Western powers in Israel when you should be taking care of your problems at home? The Houthis.

Often, the only allies of the dispossessed are those who experience similar circumstances. Don't you think that they should take care of the Yemeni problems? As I said. I'm very happy. I'm very happy they're helping out the Palestinians. Anyone who helps the people. They have the peace of Yemenis. Anybody who comes to the aid of those suffering the genocide has the whom are children?

Yes, according to the most current UN reports, as of today, one quarter of the population of Gaza that means 500,000 children are on the verge of famine. They keep saying on the verge of famine. I have not seen one Palestinian die of starvation. In these last four months. Not one. They're having documented cases. They're always on the verge. They haven't documented cases. I haven't seen a Al-Jazeera said six in the day before that. They said two. So those are the two.

That number probably dies in Israel of starvation also. I don't think there is famine in Israel. There isn't. The Gaza Strip is something which is produced for the Western countries. There are infants dying due to an engineered lack of access to food and nutrition. I don't think there is an engineered. I think the FAMAS stopped shooting perhaps. As you said, engineered. I think, excuse me, human rights watch call that using starvation as a weapon. That's called engineering. That's what they did.

But you were pushed on this by Coleman Hughes to bring up like an example of why is the Gaza Strip? Like, what by what metric are they starving? By what metric is it so behind the rest of the world? You know, if we're going to bring up... I want to hear an answer that because you didn't answer it. I'm happy to answer it. I just called you from the humanitarian organizations. They said one quarter of the population of Gaza is now verging on famine. Before October 7th.

Okay. I'm not going before October 7th. That's what we're using. You said it's justification for Hamas fighting. You say the conditions were unlivable. They had to fight. I said to him. So my question is what made it unlivable prior to October 7th? What are the metrics that you're using? There were about five, six or seven reports issued by UNC dead, issued by the World Bank, issued by the International Monetary Fund, and they all said, that's why. That's why they say why. Why did they say that?

That's why the economist, not a radical, periodical, described Gaza as a human rubbish. So tell me by what metrics. If you're a historian of you, tell me what the message is. Tell me by what metrics. He's not going to answer it again. I don't think I've avoided any of your questions. Except when they breached, when they breached a threshold of complete impassilities. I'm asking what metric the Gaza Strip is that you have to answer.

You remember when I said a moment ago, I said to Professor Morris, I defer to expertise. I look at what the organizations say. I look at what the United Nations High Commissioner said. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know. I don't know. You know how complicated have you ever investigated? How complicated is the metric for hunger, starvation, and famine? It is such a complicated metric they figured out. If you asked me to repeat it now, I couldn't do it.

And yet we have a human development index where we rank countries that we can still measure infant mortality, white, expectancy, the human, yeah, we can measure all of these things. I'm holding out for you here. You still didn't answer the hope question. What gives you a source of hope about the region? Well, first of all, I would agree with Benny Morris and Norman Finkelstein that the current situation is bleak.

And I think it would be unreasonable to expect it to not get even bleaker in the coming weeks and months. And we now, this conflict really, it originated in the late 19th century. It's been a more less active conflict since the 1920s, 1930s. And it has produced a tremendous amount of suffering and regional conflict in geopolitical complications and all of that. But what gives me hope is that throughout their entire ordeal, the Palestinian people have never surrendered.

And I believe they never will surrender to overwhelming force and violence. They have taken everything that Israel has thrown at them. They have taken everything that the West has thrown at them. They have taken everything that those who are supposed to be their natural allies have on occasion thrown at them. But this is a people that never has, and I believe, never will surrender.

And at a certain point, I think Israel and its leaders will have to come to the realization that by hook or by crook, these people are going to achieve their inalienable and legitimate national rights. And that is going to be a reality. What you mean by that? You mean all of Palestine? Is that what you mean? No, and from the river to the sea? Well, ideally, of course, yes. Those are inalienable rights.

No, what I was saying earlier and then the discussion got sidetracked is that I did believe that a two-state settlement, a partition of Palestine along the 1967 boundaries, would have been a reasonable solution because I think it also would have opened pathways to further... But now you believe what? Further non-violent engagement between Israel and the Palestinians that could create other forms of coexistence in a federal or by national or other...

What do you think about refugees in regards to that? Do you think there has to be a resettlement of the five or six million whoever wants to lay claim to be a senator? I think there has to be an explicit acknowledgement of responsibility and of the rights. I think that in the framework of a two-state settlement, I think a formula would need to be found that does not undermine the foundations of a two-state settlement.

And I don't think it would be that difficult because I suspect that there are probably large numbers of Palestinian refugees who, once their rights are acknowledged, will find it exceptionally distasteful... Exceptionally distasteful to have to live among the kind of sentiments that we've heard around this table today to be quite frank. I mean, I heard... I was previously unfamiliar with you. And I watched one of your preparation videos. Very disconcerting stuff I have to say.

You were explaining two days ago in the discussion about apartheid and how absurd it was that in your view, Jim Crow was not apartheid. Jim Crow was not apartheid. But Arab states, not giving citizenship to Palestinian refugees is apartheid. That's what I meant with my lawyer comments about white supremacy. So my issue, that's great, the white supremacy, come out. Well, hold on, let me respond. My issue is that I feel like we have jumped on this euphemistic treadmill.

And I think that's part of the reason why this conflict will never get solved. It's because on one end you've got a people who are now convinced internationally that they're victims of apartheid, genocide, concentration camp conditions, ethnic cleansing, they're forced to live in an open air prison, with all of these things that are stacked against them, all of these terms that are highly specific, that revered to very precise things.

And then when people like you said that they should... I respect nothing less from someone who doesn't think Jim Crow is a part of it. I don't know of Jim Crow. Because apartheid states not giving citizenship to apartheid. The problem is you're morally loading for you. apartheid is when racist do bad things. No, there's a definition of apartheid. That's great.

There's a very specific top down racial domination and acted through, top down like federal legislative policies or whatever, means that I don't know if Jim Crow would have qualified for apartheid. That doesn't make it any less... Excuse me. I've never heard of this before. Excuse me. I'm talking to your friend over here. I don't know if it would have qualified as the crime of apartheid.

Just like if Israel were to literally nuke the Gaza Strip and kill two million people, I don't know if that would qualify for the crime of apartheid. You're eyes probably not. Well, yeah, but because genocide requires a special intent. I think the issue is... And instead of... I don't think this conversation actually is emblematic of the entire conversation. I don't think anything. Let me finish answering. Well, Sherry, you accused me of supporting racism. So, yeah. You did. And you are.

Do you think I support Jim Crow laws? Look, when... The fact that you can't even answer that honestly, right? It doesn't matter what. It would say that 800 civilians were killed by Hamas. You said, well, maybe 400 were killed by Israel. No, I didn't say that. Maybe you said 400. No, I didn't say that. You co-sign the opinion. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. Oh, wait. How many... I think the word was some. That's what I heard. How many people do you think approximately if you had to fall...

If you had to fall park it, how many do you think were killed by Hamas? I think it's pretty clear that the majority of civilians that were killed... 51% or 90%. Don't ask me to put a number on something I don't know. First of all, are you... When you say Hamas, do you mean Palestinians or do you mean Hamas specifically? I mean, they're dating Palestinian force. I don't like to say Palestinians because I don't think all Palestinians were involved. No. That's all I say. Hamas is a lot of time out.

That's how this discussion started. You said Hamas and I began to answer that. Then Benny Morris said, actually, he means Hamas in addition to what you have in the others. So of the invading Palestinian force, how many do you think killed civilians versus the idea of? What do you think of the ballpark the percentage? Well, the figures we have are that about a third of the casualties on October 7th were military. That's not what I'm talking about. About two-thirds were...

What's your question about the percentage of civilians that were killed by the invading force? I think a clear majority, but I can't give you a specific figure. If you thought it was close to 51% or 99% were killed by... Why would you call that? It's because it's interesting to actually stay out of position. I think it's interesting. If you want to be completely acknowledged, it's going to be a complete ignorance because we don't know... Professor Morris doesn't know, we know, we know, we know.

And you can speak with absolute certainty that the idea of this targeting and murdering Palestinian children intentional. You see the double standard? No, I don't. You see. I know. I have a question. Why? Because I know that you got the matter. I looked at the UN report. Uh-huh. I looked at the UN report. The goldstone report? No. The UN report on the great march of return in 2018. And they said that the snipers were targeting children, medics, journalists, and disabled people.

Just as they are now in this conflict. Exactly. So, uh, more journalists have been killed in the last several months in Gaza than an idea of their common rules. You mean the number of world war too? You mean the number of world war too? That's the great, the comparison. Hamas is not killing journalists in Gaza. You agree that they operate in civilian uniforms? That their goal is to induce that confusion? That that's the way that they conduct themselves militarily? Let me finish my point.

More journalists have been more you want children than the... I don't think there's one to hear. No, because it's very, very simple. It's very simple. It's very simple. It's very simple. It is very simple. Yeah. Yes, like when you say children over again, that's very simple. You know, talk about how many, you have to, how many Israelis were killed. That's not virtue signaling. Because that's human rights. I don't care about it. I don't care about 100,000 people killed. You just think her.

You just think her. I'm saying that she's playing too. 51% of the question. And then we, and then the number of, and then the remaining. And then the remaining. The remaining mentions that more journalists were killed in Gaza than an all-world war too. And there are any part of the. And more medics were killed in Gaza. No, no, no, that's silly. And then he says it's virtual scenario. But when Israelis get killed, that's serious. I never said it's serious on both sides of the.

I didn't say it was all federal. I'm not virtual signaling. I'm asking a substantive question of who do you assign blame to? Or do you plan to norm thinklstein's conspiracies that the ambulance should have known immediately who was dead? That the numbers were changed? Because they were fake. Or that maybe 51% of the people were killed by by Hamas and Islamabad. But 99% were killed by high-yes helicopters. You asked me direct question and you got a direct answer. I did it.

I got majority, which could be. I said it clear. I said a clear majority. What percentage is a clear majority as opposed to a majority? It's always they live in amputation. A clear majority in my view is well over 50%. Please don't ask me to be more precise. Because I, you could say 80, 90, 95%. I don't, if I knew that, I would say it. I think it's a reasonable, it's a reasonable. Perhaps it is. But I, you're not the best person to be asking that question.

You know, I read when you wrote up, describe operation defensive shield. And you said a few dozen homes were destroyed. You told me what happened in the engineering refugee camp. And you said, no, the Arabs said 500. You said 500. You said a few. Palestinians were killed in the engineering. I never said that. No, but that was the state of the PLO. The Palestinian Authority. You said a few dozen homes were destroyed. And the domesticers there. A few dozen homes were destroyed.

Yes, a few dozen homes. Yeah. Well, it turned out 140 buildings were destroyed. 5,000 people were left homeless. How many people killed? You just 5,000. How many people killed? You described it. No, I'm talking about homes destroyed. So you're not the best person to be criticizing what Mouin says when he says, clear majority, but he can't say more. You know why he can't say more? He doesn't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and stand that. I hope that it started.

If I was trying to belittle, I would give you a very different answer. I would just say, I don't know. I do know that some were starting. The right phrase, the right phrase, there would be the overwhelming majority were killed by Arab government. And very small number were killed by Israelis, by accident or whatever. That's probably true. That's probably true. That may be the, I can stay with confidence, a clear majority, overwhelming majority.

You may be correct, but I can't stay that with certainty. I think there's a very easy way to find out is to have a independent. Forget independent. I know exactly. Well, of course you forget independence. Forget the law. Forget the law. He's not a member of the government. You're not a member of the government, necessarily. I'm not a member. You're not a member of the government. Yes, a member, or a member of the government. A member of the government.

You know, a Syrian was the head of the UN Commission for Human Rights. But if it wasn't Israeli, it would have been okay. He certainly would have been more honest than a Syrian. Yeah, from your perspective, but to disagree with Stephen. I thought this was extremely valuable and at times really like the view of history, the passion. I'm really grateful that you would spend your really valuable time and just one more question since we have two historians here.

Well, just briefly, from a history perspective, what do you hope your legacy as historians, Benny and Norm will be of the work that you've put out there. Maybe Norm, you can go first and try to just say briefly. I think there's a value to preserving the record. I'm not optimistic about where things are going to end up. There was a very nice book written by a woman named Helen Hunt Jackson at the end of the 19th century describing what was done to the Native Americans.

She called it a century of dishonor and she described and vivid poignant detail. What was done to the Native Americans? Did it save them? No. Did it help them? Probably not. Did it preserve their memory? Yes. I think there's a value to that. There was a famous film by Eisenstein, Sergey Eisenstein. It was either battleship Potemkin or mother. I can't remember which one. The last scene was the Zars troops mowing down all the Russian people. He pans the scene. Not all the Russian people.

He pans the massacre. He pans the massacre. But he could have killed a lot more. And the last words of the movie were proletarians exclamation point. Remember, exclamation point. And I've seen it as my life's work to preserve the memory and to remember I didn't expect that anyone would read my book on Gaza. It's very dense. It gives me even a bit of a headache to read at least one of the chapters. You wrote about Angosa. And but I thought that the memory deserves to be preserved. Amen.

Well, I would just say very briefly unlike my colleague, I think writing the truth about what happened in history and various periods of history, if I've done a little bit of that, I'm happy. Thank you. Thank you, Benny. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you, Muin. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Norman Ficklstein, Benny Morris, Muin Robani, and Stephen Bernal. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the

description. And now, let me leave you some words from Lyndon B. Johnson. Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.