That's a good point. No, no, it's a good point.
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.
Norm will 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 Plan.
I don't think you understand politics.
They forced the British to prevent emigration of Jews from Europe and reaching safe shores in Palestine.
That's what they did. And they knew that the Jews were being persecuted in Europe.
Was Palestine the only spot of land on earth?
Yes, basically that was the problem. The Jews couldn't immigrate anywhere else.
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 the Americans weren't happy to take in Jews.
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?
Because they were helping to close the only safe haven for Jews.
Professor Morris, because of your logic, and I'm not disputing it, that's why October 7th happened.
Oh, my God.
Because there was no options left for those people.
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.
Talk fast. People think that you're coherent.
I'm just reading from the U.N. I know you like them sometimes. Only when they agree with you, though.
You've lied about this particular instance in the past. Those kids weren't just on the beaches, as often stated in articles.
Those kids were literally coming out of a previously identified Hamas compound that they had operated from.
They literally did. You can Google it. Mr. Borelli, with all due respect, you're such a fantastic moron. It's terrifying.
The following is a debate on the topic of Israel and Palestine, with Norman Finklestein, Benny Morris, Mouin Rabbani, and Stephen Bunnell, also known online as Destiny.
Norm and Benny are historians. Mouin 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.
It wasn't to get views or likes. I never care about those.
And I think there are probably much easier ways to get those things if I did care.
However, 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.
And 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 and the future, but 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.
This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.
To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Norman Ficklestein, Benny Morris, Mourian Rabbani, and Stephen Bunnell.
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 the Nakba, 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 could speak first, and Benny, then Mourian, and then Stephen.
Norm?
After World War II, the British decided that they didn't want to deal with the Palestine question anymore,
and the ball 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 associated 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 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 modus vivendi 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,
and I understand there's new scholarship on 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 UNSCAP, 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.
In 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 Gromyko.
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, Jamie Sternweiner,
to edit it and just get the essence
of what Foreign Minister Gromyko had to say.
During the last war, Gromyko said,
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 Hitlerites
and their allies.
This is an unpleasant fact,
but unfortunately,
like all other facts,
it must be admitted.
Gromyko 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 it 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 it proclaimed
during the UNSKOP public hearings,
at the time,
Ben-Gurion 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
and elementally
expansionist.
And then he wrote
in another book,
Transfer,
the euphemism for expulsion,
transfer was inevitable
and inbuilt
into 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
persuaded the yeshuv's leaders,
the yeshuv being
the Jewish community,
the yeshuv's 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.
Norm asked
that you make
a lengthy
statement
in the beginning.
Benny,
I hope it's
okay to call
everybody
by their
first name
in the name
of camaraderie.
Norm has
quoted
several things
you said.
Perhaps you
can comment
broadly on the
question of
1948 and
maybe respond
to the things
that Norm
said.
Yeah.
UNSCOP,
the United Nations
Special Committee
on Palestine
recommended
partition,
the majority
of UNSCOP
recommended partition
which was
accepted by
the UN
General Assembly
in November
1947.
Essentially
looking back
to the
Peel Commission
in 1937,
10 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 Peel
said there
should be
two states,
that's the
principle.
The country
must be
partitioned
into 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,
UNSCOP,
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 Norman
Finkelstein
said.
They said
no,
they rejected
the partition
idea,
the principle
of partition,
not just
the idea
of what
percentage
which side
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.
Husseini
had said
only Jews
who 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 a very
disorganized
fashion,
war against
the resolution,
against the
implementation
of the
resolution,
against the
Jewish
community
in Palestine.
and this
was their
defeat in
that civil
war between
the two
communities
while the
British were
withdrawing
from Palestine
led to
the Arab
invasion,
the 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 he
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.
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
to war,
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
or ordered
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.
When you
said 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
was passed,
Arab gunmen
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, the
expulsion, the
thing that
people call
the Nakba
happened.
Muiin, could
you speak to
1948 and the
historical
significance of
it?
Sure.
There's a lot
to unpack
here.
I'll try to
limit myself
to just a
few points.
Regarding
Zionism and
transfer, I
think Haim
Weizmann, the
head of the
World 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 as
French.
Jewish.
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.
And 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, Andrei
Gromyko, said
is exactly
right with
one reservation.
Gromyko was
describing a
European
savagery
unleashed
against Europe's
Jews.
At the
time, you
know, it
wasn't
Palestinians or
Arabs.
The savages
and the
barbarians were
European to
the core.
It had
nothing to
do with
developments in
Palestine or
the Middle
East.
Secondly, at
the time that
Gromyko 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 this
crisis.
I think it
should have
been an
international
responsibility.
The 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 the 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 yeshuv,
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,
Waleed
Al-Khalidi
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
Nakba 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
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 Nakba 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
1948 and
1949.
Palestinian
society was
essentially
destroyed over
80%, I
believe, of
Palestinians
residents in
the territory
that became
the state of
Israel were
either expelled
or fled, and
ultimately were
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
Benny Morris has
written, I think,
an article about
Yosef Weitz 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
it's been
thoroughly
researched and
written about by
the Israeli-British
historian Avi
Shlaim,
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,
UN assemblies,
and all the
things you
mentioned, there's
a lot to
dig into.
So, again, if
we can keep it to
just one statement
moving forward
after Stephen, if
you want to go
a little longer.
Also, we should
acknowledge 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 notice 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 to.
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.
That 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 years
preceding 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
that 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 Hussein 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 the
professor.
Okay.
There's a real
problem here.
And it's been a
problem I've had over
many years of reading
your work.
Apart perhaps from
as 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 quicksilver.
It's 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 Bunnell.
Okay.
Mr. Bunnell 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.
Four pages.
Yeah.
In the first book.
In the first book.
Four pages.
Maybe four.
You know, I'm not
going to quarrel.
My memory is not
clear.
We're talking about
40 years ago.
I read it.
I read it.
But then I read other
things about you.
Okay.
And you were taken to
task, if my memory is
correct, that you
hadn't adequately
documented the claims
of transfer.
Allow me to finish.
And I thought that was a
reasonable challenge because
it was an unusual claim
for a mainstream Israeli
historian to say, as you
did in that first book,
that from the very
beginning, transfer
figured prominently in
Zionist thinking.
That was an unusual, if you
read Anita Shapira, you read
Shabtai Tevet, that was an
unusual acknowledgement by
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 inbuilt into
Zionism.
We're not talking about
circumstantial factors, a war,
error, Arab hostility.
You said it's inevitable and
inbuilt into 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, but
I'll choose one, you said
removing a 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's as 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 inbuilt and inevitable.
And so now for you to come along and
say that it all happened just because of
the war, that otherwise the Zionists
made all these plans for a happy
minority to live there, that simply
does not gel.
It does not cohere.
It is not reconcilable with what you
yourself have written.
It was inevitable and inbuilt.
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 Theodore Roosevelt's argument
in our own country.
He said, we don't want the whole of
North America to remain a squalid
refuge for these wigwams and teepees.
We have to get rid of them and make this
a great country.
But he didn't deny that it was inbuilt
and inevitable.
I think you've made your point.
First, I'll take up something that
Muin said.
He said that the Nakba was inevitable.
As have you.
And predictable.
No, no, no.
I've never said that.
It was inevitable and predictable only
because the Arabs assaulted the Jewish
community and state in 1947-48.
Had there been no assault, there probably
wouldn't have been a refugee problem.
There's no reason for a refugee problem
to have occurred, expulsions to have
occurred, dispossession, massive
dispossession to occur.
These occurred as a result of war.
Now, Norman has said that I said that
transfer was inbuilt into Zionism in
one way or another.
And this is certainly true.
In order to buy land, the Jews bought
tracts of land on which some Arabs
sometimes lived.
Sometimes they bought tracts 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, 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 were 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, an inevitability
in Zionist ideology of buying tracts 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 47, 48.
And in 47, 48, 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 the Gaza Strip.
They do something terrible.
They kill 1,200 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 counterattacking.
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.
Norman, 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 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 there were people who wanted it, always a large minority
of Jewish politicians and leaders would have said,
no, this is immoral.
We cannot 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 Ben-Gurion wanted
as few Arabs in the course of the war staying in the Jewish state
after they attacked it.
He didn't want disloyal 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 Peel Commission to divide the country into two states,
one Arab, one Jewish, which the Arabs, of course, rejected,
Peel 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 Ben-Gurion and Weizmann latched onto this proposal
by the most famous 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.
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, yes.
By the Arabs.
Yeah.
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 the claim
that transfer, expulsion, and so on was, in fact,
a very localized phenomenon 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 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 went way beyond we need to remove these tenants
so that we can farm 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 that view
is that long before the UN General Assembly convened
to address the question of Palestine,
Palestinian and Arab and other leaders as well
had been warning ad infinitum
that the purpose of the Zionist movement
is not just to establish a Jewish state
but to establish an exclusivist Jewish state.
And that transfer, forced displacement,
was fundamental to that project.
And just responding to, sorry, was it Bonnell or Donnell?
With a B.
Yeah.
You made the point that 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 campaigns.
So, of course, the Palestinians have engaged in 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, spurned diplomacy,
I think really has no basis 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, I have fresher eyes on this and I'm a newcomer to this arena
versus the three of you guys for sure.
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.
I'm sure we'll talk about Plan D or Plan D at some point.
The issue that I run into is, while you can find quotes from leaders,
while 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 a 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 Lusanne a couple years later
that Israel was willing to formally annex the Gaza Strip
and make 200,000 or so people those citizens?
But I'm just curious, 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 idea that they would have just slowly expelled them afterwards?
Is that a question to me or Norm?
To either one.
I'm just curious for the incorporation of the answer.
Yeah.
There is some misunderstandings here.
So let's try to clarify that.
Number one, it was the old historians who would point to the fact,
in Professor Morris'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 Morris, who, contrary to Israel's historian establishment,
who said, now you remind me it's four pages, but it came at the end of the book.
It was...
No, no, it's at the beginning of the book.
Transfer.
Yeah, transfer is dealt with in four pages at the beginning of my first book on the Palestinian refugee problem.
It's a fault of my memory, but the point still stands.
It was Professor Morris who introduced this idea in what you might call a big way.
Yeah, but I didn't say it was central to the Zionist experiment or experience.
You're saying centrality.
Okay.
I never said it was central.
I said it was there, the idea.
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 Benny, from Professor Morris.
It's also okay to say those quotes do not reflect the full context of the...
That would be fine.
So, like, if we go back, you know, to quotes we've said in the past, and you both here have
written, the three you have written on this topic a lot, we should be careful and just
admit, like, well, yeah, well, that's...
Just real quick, just to be clear, the contention is that Norm is quoting a part and saying that
this was the entire reason for this, whereas Benny's saying it's a part of that.
I'm not quoting a part.
In fact, I'm quoting 25 pages where Professor Morris 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.
It never became part of policy.
Fine.
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying.
It wasn't policy.
We're also asked, well, if this is true, why did that happen?
Why did that happen?
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 couldn't very well expect the Zionist movement to come out in neon lights and announce,
hey, we're going to be expelling you the first chance we get.
That's not realistic.
Let me respond.
Look, you've said it a number of times,
that the Arabs, from fairly early on 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, maybe 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.
And Arabs later said, 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 mainstream of Zionism has always wanted and always strived for.
But this is nonsense.
It's something that Husseini used to use as a way to mobilize masses for the cause,
using religion as the way to get them to join him.
And the fact that Arabs said that the Zionists want to dispossess us doesn't mean it's true.
It just means that some Arabs thought that, maybe said it sincerely and maybe insincerely.
Professor Morris.
Later it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This is true.
Because the Arabs attacked the Jews.
Professor Morris.
I read through your stuff.
Even yesterday, I was looking through Righteous Victim.
You should read other things.
You're wasting your time.
No.
No.
Actually, no.
I do read other things, but I don't consider it a waste of time to read you.
Not at all.
You say that this wasn't inherent in Zionism.
Now, would you agree that David Ben-Gurion was a Zionist?
A major Zionist.
Right.
Would you agree Ryan Weitzman 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 realpolitik.
The ideology went out the window.
The first generation, I have no doubt about their convictions.
Okay?
They were Zionists.
Transfer was inevitable and inbuilt in Zionism.
You keep repeating the same thing.
Because I have, as I said, Benny, Mr. Morris, 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 inbuilt.
Deeply entrenched?
I never wrote that.
Well, I'm not sure.
It's something you just invented.
Okay.
But it was there.
Inevitable and inbuilt.
Let me concede something.
The idea of transfer was there.
Israel Zangvill, a British Zionist, talked about it early on in the century.
Even Herzl in some way talked about transferring population.
According to your 25 pages, everybody talked about it.
Well, that's right.
We keep bringing up this line in the 25 pages and the four pages.
We're lucky to have Benny in front of us right now.
We don't need to go to the quotes.
We can legitimately ask how central is expulsion to Zionism in its early version of Zionism,
in whatever Zionism is today, and how much power influence does Zionism and ideology have
in Israel, like influence, the philosophy, the ideology of Zionism have on Israel today?
The Zionist movement up to 1948, Zionist ideology was central to 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.
Slowly, the hold of Zionism, 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 sorts of things which have 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 who had been 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.
2,000 years ago, Arafat famously said, what temple was there on Temple Mount?
Maybe it was in Nablus, which of course is nonsense.
But they had a 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.
And the question was how to accommodate the vision of a Jewish state in Palestine alongside
the existence of these Arab masses living on, who 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 1937 most of Palestine.
In 1947, the ratios were changed.
But we can live side by side with each other in a partitioned 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, the Zionist
enterprise and the emergent Jewish state.
And the reaction was transfer in some way.
Not as policy, but this is what happened on the battlefield.
And this is also what Ben-Gurion, at some point, began to want as well.
Well, one of the first books on this issue I read when I was still in high school, because
my late father had it, was the Diaries of Theodor Herzl.
And I think Theodor Herzl, of course, 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 proceed, his model was Cecil
Rhodes.
His, I think, you know, Rhodes, from what I recall, correct me if I'm wrong, has quite
a prominent place in Herzl's diaries.
I think Herzl was also corresponding with him and seeking his support.
Cecil Rhodes, of course, was the British colonialist after whom the former white minority regime
in Rhodesia was named.
And Herzl also says explicitly in his diaries that it is essential to remove the existing
population from Palestine.
Can I respond to this?
In a moment, please, he says, we shall have to spirit the penniless population across the
borders and procure employment for them elsewhere or something.
And Israel Zengwill, who you mentioned, a land without a people for a people without
a land.
They knew damn well it wasn't a people, a land without a people.
I'll continue, but I'll, please, go ahead.
Just to this, there is one small diary entry in Herzl's vast...
It's five volumes.
Yeah, five volumes.
There's one paragraph which actually mentions the idea of transfer.
There are people who I think that Herzl 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 penniless natives to make way for Jewish settlement.
Maybe he wasn't even talking about the Arabs in that particular passage.
That's the argument of some people.
Maybe he was, but the point is it has only a one hundredth of a one percent of the diary
which is devoted to the subject.
It's not a central idea in Herzl's thinking.
What Herzl wanted, and this is what's important, not Rhodes.
I don't think he was the model.
Herzl wanted to create a liberal, democratic, Western state in Palestine for the Jews.
That was the idea.
Not some imperial enterprise serving some imperial master, which is what Rhodes was about, but
to have a Jewish state which was modeled on the Western democracies in Palestine.
And this incidentally was more or less what Weizmann and Ben-Gurion wanted.
Ben-Gurion was more of a socialist.
Weizmann 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 Ben-Gurion 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 would be necessary.
But it's not something which they were willing to translate into actual policy.
Just a quick pause to mention, and for people who are not familiar, the other 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 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.
Yes.
In other words, very much seeing his project as a proxy for Western imperialism in the Middle
East.
That's the right word.
Not proxy.
He wanted to establish a Jewish state which would be independent.
To get that, he hoped that he would be able to garner support from major imperial powers.
Including the Ottoman sultan he tried to cultivate.
I just want to respond to a point you made earlier, which was that people expressed their
rejection of the partition resolution on the grounds that it gave the majority 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 of things.
One, they would have rejected any.
Two, a lot of that land given was in the Negev.
It was pretty terrible land at the time.
And then three, the land that would have been partitioned to Jews, I think would have been...
I think I saw it was like 500,000...
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 raise 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 are
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 and the remaining
22% was occupied in 1967.
That's not how things work.
And 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 47 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 no, 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 they, as a people, have a right to or are 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 a government on their own.
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 territory.
Of what would emerge from that territory, but not of the Palestinians.
It 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.
It was a British mandate of Palestine, not the British mandate of Israel.
The word exclusive, which you keep using, is nonsense.
The state which Ben-Gurion 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 the Zionist leaders
in 47, 48.
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 that 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 bi-national 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, if not more than for the
Arabs.
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 answered,
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-Amin describes it as an obsession with getting validation or support
from Western states.
Great Britain, and then a couple of decades later...
That explains the Suez war, the Suez crisis.
Yeah, exactly.
Correct.
That was one of the major motivators, the idea to work with Britain and France on a military
operation against Arabs.
Imperial stooge.
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-fashioned 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, would that not have been, how not?
Well, first of all, I think that the Zionist leadership's acceptance of the partition resolution,
and I think you may have written about this, that they accepted it because it provided international
endorsement of the legitimacy of the principle of Jewish statehood, and they didn't accept the
borders, and in fact, later expanded the borders.
Second of all, the borders were expanded in war.
They accepted the UN partition resolution, borders and all.
That's how they accepted it.
You can say that some of the Zionists, deep in their hearts, had the idea that maybe at some point
they would be able to get more.
Including their most senior leaders who said so, and I think you've quoted them as saying so.
But they grudgingly accepted what the United Nations, the world community, had said,
this is what you're going to get.
Yes, and second of all, I mean, removing dark people, darker people, it's intrinsic.
In Israel, Jews are as dark as Arabs.
It's intrinsic to Western history.
So the idea that Americans or Brits or the French would have an issue with, I mean,
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 fact, even in the 1944 resolution of the Labour Party, and at the time even Bertrand Russell
was a member of the Labour Party, it endorsed transfer of Arabs out of Palestine.
As Mawinz 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 Zionists 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 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
changed 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 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 political 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 the Arab 23 states.
No, wait, before we get to the Arabs, 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 they're Zionists.
Now, I personally have shied away from using the word Zionism ever since I finished my doctoral dissertation.
It was that 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 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 Weitzman, and they wanted to live peacefully with the Arabs.
Weitzman 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 just respond to the word of unsufferance.
The unsufferance 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 would talk 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 in the army, which they didn't want to.
And they have Supreme Court justices.
They have Knesset members.
They enjoyed basically-
They lived under emergency laws until 1966.
For a period.
Sure, they lived under emergency.
So they didn't immediately have citizenship.
No, no, no.
No, no.
Wait a second.
This is just fantasy.
At the beginning, it's not fantasy.
At the beginning, they 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, this didn't happen in 49, and it didn't happen in subsequent decades.
Then why did you say, Professor Morris, then why did you say without a population expulsion, a Jewish state would not have been established?
Because 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 the Arabs.
Norm, I'm officially forbidding you referencing that again.
I think—
Hold on a second.
Wait.
We responded to it.
So the main point you're making, we have to take Vaniere's word, is like there was a war, and that's the reason why he made that statement.
I think just one last point on this.
I remember reading your book when it first came out 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.
And I remember reacting almost in shock to that, that 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 the research that you have conducted and published demonstrates that it was, in fact, inherent and inbuilt and inevitable.
And I think the point that Norm and I are making 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 actually respond to that?
Because this is actually, I think this is emblematic of the entire conversation.
I watched a lot of Norm's interviews and conversations in preparation for this, and I hear Norm will 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 Plan.
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 Morris, 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 binational idea in mandatory Palestine by a woman.
I forgot her name now.
You'll remember her.
I'm trying to.
Yeah.
Okay.
Would you know the book?
I think so.
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 Morris, you are aware that until the Biltmore 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.
The Zionist movement couldn't say in public, we're expelling 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.
The Zionists wanted a Jewish state, correct?
That didn't mean expulsion 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 47, and subsequently, to have an Arab minority, a large Arab minority.
In 37, there was a transfer.
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 was Arab.
They ended up for about five minutes before they were expelled.
They agreed to win until 47, and then they were gone by March, 1949.
What happened in between the rejection of the partition plan and the expulsion of the Arabs?
The Arabs launched the war.
Well, yeah.
I mean, it wasn't random.
There is a potential that even—
I agree.
It wasn't random.
I totally agree with that.
It was by design.
It wasn't random.
You can say that, but in this case, the facts betray you.
There was no Arab acceptance of anything that would have allowed for a Jewish state to exist.
Of course not.
Number 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.
It's up to any peace deal.
As I said—
Over and over and over again.
As I said, when the war was thrown into the court of the United Nations, they were faced with a practical problem.
And I, for one, am 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 2024.
For now, I think.
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 cede its country.
You can perfectly understand Native American resistance to Euro-colonialism.
You can perfectly well understand it without any anti-Europeanism, anti-whitism, anti-Christianism.
They didn't want to cede their country to invaders.
That's completely understandable.
You're minimizing the anti-Semitic element in Arab nationalism.
In all your books, you minimized.
No, no, no.
Husseini 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 Hitler for four years with 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.
Why is it—
And he wasn't alone.
He wasn't alone.
Professor, why is it that if 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.
Even—I didn't say it doesn't exist.
Ah, you agreed 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, I know.
Husseini was an important anti-Semitism.
And among the Arabs.
So, Professor Mars, here's my problem.
I didn't see that in your Righteous Victims.
Even when you talked about the first Intifada, and you talked about the second Intifada, and you talked about how there was a lot of influence by Hamas, the Islamic movement.
You even stated that there was 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, but you're moving from different ages, across the ages.
It was about your whole book.
The occupation began in 67, the one you're talking about.
I looked and looked and looked for evidence of this anti-Semitism as being a chief motor of Arab resistance to Zionism.
I didn't see it.
Did he make that claim?
I don't remember the word chief.
It's one of the elements.
I'm very binary thinking when it comes to it.
Binary?
Yes, binary.
Please, don't give me this post-modernism binary.
You're the one—
No, but you are thinking in terms of black and white.
You're the one that said, the chief motor.
Do you have your book here, page 137?
You're talking in black and white concepts when history is much grayer.
Lots of things happen because of lots of reasons, not one or the other.
And you don't seem to see that.
Can I ask you a question, because it's for them to talk to you.
It's a very quick question.
What do you think the ideal solution was on the Arab side from 47?
What would they have preferred?
Well, they were explicit.
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 or Jewish population?
I think the Palestinians and the Arabs were explicit that they wanted a unitary, I think,
federal state.
And they made their submissions to UNSCAP.
They made their appeals at the UN General Assembly.
What do you mean by unitary and federal?
I don't get that.
They wanted an Arab state.
They wanted Palestine to be an Arab state.
Yes, yes.
But it's simply.
Without the word, unitary, federal, they wanted Palestine as an Arab and exclusively Arab state.
No, 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, Husseini, the leader of the movement, said that all the Jews who had come since 1917, and that's the majority of the Jews in Palestine in 1947, shouldn't be there.
Well, he did say that.
They shouldn't be citizens, and they shouldn't be there.
He did say that.
He did say that.
He did say that in 1964.
I'm not going to deny it.
Of course.
It's true.
I can understand the sentiment, but I think it's wrong.
But also, you guys are the ones who...
We agree on this.
I want to answer your question.
You used the words earlier that it was supremacy and exclusivity that the Zionists did.
Well, I want to answer your question.
Husseini 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.
A second Holocaust.
That's what we're talking about.
Well, no.
That was the Jewish fear.
A second Holocaust.
That may well have been the Jewish fear.
It was an unfounded Jewish fear.
It was unfounded?
Of course it was unfounded.
What about like in 48 and 56?
You really think that the Palestinians, had they won the war, were going to import ovens and crematoria from Germany?
But there were pogroms across, in almost every single Arab state where there were Jews living, after 48, after 56, after 67, there were always pogroms.
There were always flights from Jews from those countries to Israel afterward.
I don't think it would be—
I wouldn't say there were always pogroms in every Arab state.
I think there was flight 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 or out of whatever, the Jews were identified as French rather than Algerians.
I think this is a bit of a red herring.
There were pogroms in the Arab countries, in Bahrain even, where there's almost no Jews.
There was a pogrom in 1947.
There was a pogrom in Aleppo in 1947.
I'm not denying any of that history.
There were killings of Jews in Iraq and Egypt in 1948-49.
I'm not denying any.
So 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 them.
Look, without getting into the details, I think we can both agree that ultimately, a clear majority of Arab Jews who believed that after having lived in these countries 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 and the emergence of the state of Israel.
Look, I'm not...
The pogroms didn't begin with Zionism in the Arab world.
The issue is 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 as second-class citizens or be subject to Arab-majority states.
I also think it's interesting that when you analyze the flight of Jewish people, and I've seen this, that 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 were also pull factors.
Now, I don't know how you guys feel about the Nakba, but when the analysis of the Nakba 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 30s 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 it's that selective.
It's a selective critical analysis of the...
I'm going to confirm Jewish here because it wasn't the Jews of England or the Soviet Jews.
Well, I say Jewish because prior to 48, it's an Israeli.
The Yishu, I guess, or whatever.
I think we should...
I think it's useful to say, refer to Zionists before 1948 and Israelis after 48.
We don't need to implicate Jews elsewhere.
But the Jewish people that were being attacked in Arab states weren't Zionists.
They were just Jews living there, right?
I want to just comment on that.
I was rereading Shlomo Ben-Ammi's 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 emigration, if you'll 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 emigration of 600,000 Jews from Arab countries following
the creation of the state of Israel, as if it were, quote, an unplanned exchange of populations,
unquote.
And then Mr. Ben-Ammi, 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, envoys 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
Israel was the culmination 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, 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.
Arab Jews, right.
But Shlomo Ben-Ammi knows the literature.
He knows the scholarship.
He also comes from Tangiers.
He's from Morocco.
Right.
So he knows his...
Yif Abish Lime from Iraq has written on this issue.
And they wrote that the Jews in the Arab lands were not pro-Zionist.
They weren't Zionists at all.
Certainly Abish Lime's family was anti-Zionist.
And Abish Lime, when he was interviewed by Maren 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 and family in 1948.
They were pushed out.
They weren't expelled.
That's probably the right phrase.
I think it's more complex than that.
I think it was...
Sorry, I interrupted you.
No, you're not interrupting me because 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 Shlomo Ben-Ami, a stalwart 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, a lot of push.
That's indisputable.
There was push.
And on the point of agreement, on 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 can 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 Herzl'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 Zionists would have just never been okay living alongside Arab Palestinians.
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.
I think it was said even on the other end of the table that Arab Palestinians 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 in 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 Moeen 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
this 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 movement's leader, Husseini, 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 broadcast 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
Husseini's role. I'm not saying he was the instigator of the Holocaust, but he helped 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 Haj Amin al-Husseini and his collaboration with the
Nazis. Entirely legitimate point to raise, but I think one can also say definitively had Haj Amin al-Husseini
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 kill the Jews.
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 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. And 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, ended up giving up Palestine. And it's in that
context, I think, that we need to see the emergence 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 nationality,
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 an apartheid state.
With the Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem describes a regime of Jewish supremacy
between the river and the sea.
You're really tempting a response from the other side on the last few sentences.
We'll talk about the claims of apartheid and so on. It's a fascinating discussion. We need to have it.
Norm?
On the question of the responsibility of the Palestinian Arabs for the Nazi Holocaust, direct or indirect,
I consider that an absurd claim. As Gromyko said, and I quoted him,
the entire Western world turned its back on the Jews. To somehow focus on the Palestinians strikes me
as 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 intended 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 Raoul Hilberg's three-volume classic work,
the destruction of the European Jewry, he has in those 1,000-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, disorienting,
where you have a person who's produced a voluminous corpus,
rich in insights and rich in archival sources,
who seems to disown each and every word that you pluck 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.
In 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 among the Zionists 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 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, values, social values as embodied in the Bible,
social justice and all sorts of other things.
And the Christian world owes the Jews because it persecuted them for 2,000 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 ruled Palestine for 20, 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 today to have the Americans support Israel.
But it's not because we're stooges 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.
Herbert Samuel.
No, before Herbert 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 curbed Zionist immigration to Palestine.
And in 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 the Arabs didn't actually understand what they were being given on the silver platter, Husseini 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 the Zionist enterprise.
But at other points, were less consistent than 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.
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...
Changed his mind.
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 Suez 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 declaration.
I'll ask real quick as 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...
20s, 30s.
Sure, but I'm saying that if the whole goal was just to be an imperialist project, like there were terrorist attacks from Jewish...
Yes, but I'll answer you.
Yeah, in the 40s, 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 used 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 recognized the mess they were in, the irreconcilable differences, and basically pursued a policy of just muddling on.
And muddling on in the context of British rule in Palestine, whose overall purpose was to serve for the development of Zionist institutions, Yeshuv's 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 in 1939.
Yes, yes, of course.
And maintained that anti-Zionist, no, no, before they were being shot off, but maintained that anti-Zionist posture until 1948.
Okay.
And if I may, just also one point, you mentioned Haj Amin al-Husseini during a world entirely legitimate.
But what I would also point out is that you had a Zionist organization, the Leahy.
Three hundred people.
Three hundred people, one of whom happened to become an Israeli prime minister, an Israeli foreign minister, a speaker of Israeli parliament.
Maybe you should give his name.
Yitzhak Shamir, proposing an alliance with Nazi Germany in 1941.
Shamir proposed.
Shamir.
Well, no, the Leahy proposed.
Some people in the Leahy proposed.
Of which Shamir was a prominent leader.
This is a red herring also.
No, no.
Okay.
Well, if he's a red herring, Haj Amin al-Husseini is a red whale.
I'm sorry.
The Leahy was an unimportant organization in the Yishuv.
Three hundred people versus thirty thousand 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, not 1931.
We're talking 1940.
41, from what I recall.
1940.
They approached the German emissary in Istanbul or something.
Yes.
Istanbul.
And if I may, proposed an alliance with Nazi Germany on what the Leahy described as on the basis of shared ideological principles.
No, they didn't share ideological principles.
Well, they said they did.
No, they didn't.
They reviled.
Why are you doing these things?
Of course they said it.
You know the state, but you know that you know what the statement said on the basis of a shared ideology.
Why do you say no?
You think that the Leahy people were Nazis?
Is that what you're saying?
I'm saying that.
Are you saying that?
They said.
No, are you saying that?
Forget statements.
You like to quote things.
But were they Nazis?
It's called facts.
Were the Leahy Nazis?
That's what I'm asking.
What did he just say?
Some of them supported Stalin, incidentally.
Did he say that the basis of the pact was their agreement on ideology?
There wasn't any pact.
They suggested.
I said.
They proposed an agreement.
And what did the agreement say?
They wanted arms against the British.
That's what they wanted.
What did the agreement say?
Well, that's what Hajimein al-Husseini wanted also.
That's what others in India and elsewhere.
The Leahy people didn't work in Berlin helping the Nazi regime.
I mean, it's what the IRA wanted also.
No, but this is what Hajimein al-Husseini did.
You know that he was an anti-Semite.
You've probably read some of his works.
He wasn't just anti-British.
He was also anti-Semitic.
So he had a common ground with Hitler.
It's a simple effect.
I think we can agree.
Not every anti-Semite is a Hitlerite.
I think we can.
He literally worked with the Nazis to recruit people.
He wasn't just a guy posting or...
And he was an absolutely revolting, disgusting human being.
This I'm happy to hear.
But the problem is you're saying that Husseini was his influence.
You're saying the move to he was...
But I don't even understand of all the crimes you want to ascribe to the Palestinian people,
trying to blame them directly, indirectly, indirectly, or indirectly,
three times removed for the Nazi Holocaust is completely lunatic.
Hold on.
Wait, there's not a...
He's not blaming them for the Holocaust.
He's saying that from the perspective...
No, no, no.
No, he's saying that from the perspective of Jews in the region,
Palestinians would have been part of the region.
That is exactly what he said.
You have not read him.
That is exactly what he said.
I've read him.
You've read him.
You don't understand him.
He's just right here.
Believe me, I'm a lot more literate than you, Mr. Borelli.
I'm going to believe the guy that wrote the stuff.
You read what Wikipedia said.
That's great.
I read Ben Amaro's.
And you don't even speak Hebrew.
You call yourself an Israeli historian.
We're all here on different grounds.
I just want...
If I can just respond to you.
Well, no, no.
I'm just saying that there were two tricks...
He said nothing as long as...
That's fine.
There were two tricks that are being played here that I think is interesting.
Nazi Germany because of a shared ideology.
That's what they said.
Yeah, but hold on.
No, no, no, no.
Wait, wait, wait.
No, no.
It's about what you said.
You brought that up to imply that Zionism must be inexorably linked to...
I'm sorry.
No, you're putting words in my mouth.
No, no, no.
Okay, wait.
Well, then what was the purpose of saying that the Leahy claimed that they...
The Leahy who were a small group of people that were reviled by many in Israel.
Not many, by everybody, practically.
They were called terrorists.
So reviled.
The Zionist movement called them terrorists.
Yes, yes.
And hundreds of them.
And hundreds of them.
And Shemir called them.
Called himself a terrorist.
They were so irrelevant that their leader ended up being kicked upstairs to the leader
of the Israeli parliament.
That's Israeli parliament.
To the Israeli...
To the Israeli...
To the Israeli foreign minister.
And Begin was also...
Yes.
You want to characterize him as irrelevant as well?
Go ahead.
No, no.
Characterizing him as relevant or 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 alignment?
Why is...
Why is...
Why is...
Why is...
What is relevant is bringing up the Mufti of Jerusalem and trying to blame the Holocaust
indirectly.
No, no, no.
Indirectly.
Indirectly.
Indirectly.
The Mufti was the leader of the Palestine Arab National Movement.
And he had about as much...
The Leahy was 300 people.
And he had 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 soldiers...
People for the SS.
He recruited soldiers in the Balkans, mostly Kosovars, which was disgusting.
I have no doubt about that.
But he had one...
He also wrote letters to foreign ministers saying, don't let the Jews out.
I knew Rahul Hill...
Can I say...
The Italian foreign minister received letters from Husseini during the Holocaust.
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.
He wasn't even minor.
One sentence.
But if we're agreed that Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, collaborated with the
Nazis during World War II and actively sought their sponsorship, why is it irrelevant?
And probably wanted the destruction of European Jewry.
He probably wanted a lot of things.
Okay.
Okay?
If that's relevant, why is it irrelevant that a prime minister of Israel...
Not prime minister.
In 1941, he wasn't prime minister of Israel.
He was a leader of a very small terrorist group.
So do you consider...
Denounced as terrorists by the mainstream of Zionism.
Do you consider it irrelevant that many years ago, Mahmoud Abbas wrote a doctoral thesis,
which is basically tantamountable...
It showed something about Mahmoud Abbas.
Okay, but...
But I didn't bring it up.
You're the one who's bringing it up.
Yes, but you consider that relevant.
Belittling the Holocaust.
That's what you're saying.
The president of the Palestinian National Authority belittled the Holocaust and it didn't happen
or only a few Jews died.
I think that's a fair characterization of Mahmoud Abbas.
But I didn't bring it up.
I brought it up.
Yeah.
Okay?
Because my question is, then why is Shamir's antecedency relevant?
He was a terrorist leader of a very small marginal group.
Who became Israel...
Khachmineh al-Husseini was the head of the movement at the time.
Also, the point of bringing up Husseini's stuff wasn't to say that he was a great furtherer
of the Holocaust.
It's that he might have been a great furtherer in the prevention of Jews fleeing to go to
Palestine to escape the Holocaust.
Yes, but the point I make...
That was the point.
And I explained why I think that's not an entirely accurate characterization.
And 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, foreign minister...
30 years since.
40 years since.
Why is it...
And also...
He was a young terrorist.
And was also responsible for the murder of the United Nations' first international envoy,
Bernadotti, Folky Bernadotti.
Why is all that irrelevant?
I don't think anybody...
I don't understand.
I think that the reason why he was brought up was because Jewish people in 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, that 75,000 immigration limit.
Yes.
But it's not about them furthering the Holocaust or being an architect, major or minor play
in the Holocaust.
Well, actually...
It was a major play in that region.
So if you wanted to bring up...
Actually, Eddie Morris 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.
...Europe to Palestine.
And my response to that is, first of all, I disagree with that characterization.
But second of all...
How can you disagree with that?
They prevented...
They forced the British to prevent emigration of Jews from Europe and reaching safe shores
in Palestine.
That's what they did.
Again, was...
And they knew that the Jews were being persecuted in Europe at the time.
Was Palestine the only spot of land on earth?
Yes.
Basically, that was the problem.
The Jews couldn't emigrate anywhere else.
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 the Americans weren't happy to take in Jews.
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?
They were helping to close the only safe haven for Jews.
That's all.
Really, the United States wasn't a potential safe haven.
The only one was Palestine.
At the time.
The United States had no room from the Atlantic to the Pacific for Jews.
It did have room.
But it didn't want Jews.
So that wasn't the only safe haven.
But it didn't want Jews.
But shouldn't you be focusing your anger and outrage?
America should be blamed for not letting Jews in during the 30s and 40s.
They are blamed, but 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 mufti of
Jerusalem.
That's nonsense.
We all know that's nonsense.
But we also know that Netanyahu said it, correct?
Netanyahu says so many things which are absurd.
And he happens to be the prime minister's longest serving.
I can't be responsible for them.
I can't be responsible for them.
You're not responsible for them.
But it is relevant that he's the longest serving prime minister of Israel.
Unfortunately, it says something about the Israeli public.
And he gets selected, not despite saying such things, but because he says such things.
His voters don't care about Khadjamil Husseini or Hitler.
They know nothing about his voters.
They will be right.
His base know nothing about anything.
And he can say what he likes and they'll say yes or they don't care if he says these things.
You may well be right.
But anyway, not to beat a dead horse.
But I still don't understand.
That's not to beat a dead horse.
You're right.
I'll just conclude by saying I don't understand why the mufti of Jerusalem is relevant.
He is relevant.
He is relevant.
But the head of the national...
You check Shamir is not relevant.
Shamir wasn't the head of the national movement.
He represented 100 or 200 or 300 gunmen who were considered terrorists by the Zionist movement at the time.
The fact that 30 years later he becomes prime minister, that's the crux of history.
And his history is not...
But Khadjamil Husseini 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 attacks by Hamas on Israel genocidal?
Was it an act of ethnic cleansing?
Just so we lay out the moral calculus that we are engaged in.
I don't...
Maybe you was...
The problem with 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 1,200 Israelis that day and abducted, as we know, something like 250 civilians, mostly civilians, also some soldiers, 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 1988, 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 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 90s, I think.
1988.
1988.
So it's from the 80s.
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 implicit.
And more importantly, that charter has been superseded by a new charter.
In fact, has been—well, there is a—
There is no new charter.
There is a new charter.
There is an explanation, a statement they made in the 2000 and something, 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.
And in 2018, the Hamas charter, if we look at the current version of the charter—
It's not called a charter.
You're calling it a charter.
It wasn't.
The only thing called a 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 probably the right word.
Secondly, I'm really unfamiliar with fighters who consult these kinds of documents before they go on—
In their education system.
In the kindergarten, they're told, kill the Jews.
They practice with make-believe guns and uniforms when they're five years old in the kindergartens of the Hamas—
At the instruction of the Commissioner General of UNRWA, right?
I didn't say that.
I said the Hamas has kindergartens and summer camps in which they train to kill Jews, children, age 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 Hezbollah, which has targeted Jews outside Palestine.
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, Zionism to be a bit disturbing.
Secondly, I think there are quite a few indications in the factual record that raise 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 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, Karim Khan, lacks any and all credibility.
He's been 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 from each other.
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, which is Islamic.
There were no beheadings of infants.
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, there were some people who were beheaded.
We could bring it up right now.
But 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 it today, four and a half months later.
Do you know that they killed eight or nine hundred civilians in their assault?
Absolutely.
That seems to me indisputable.
Oh, okay.
Well, I'm glad that you're conceding something.
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 IDF that it killed a lot of-
I said that there is no question because the names were published in Haaretz.
There is no question that roughly of the twelve hundred people killed, eight hundred of them
were civilians.
Eight fifty.
Eight fifty, fine.
So I never said that.
But then I said, no, we don't know exactly how they were killed.
But eight hundred civilians killed?
Eight hundred fifty?
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 eight hundred fifty-
There's nothing tricky.
It's called attaching value to words and not talking like a motor mouth.
Okay.
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 eight hundred and fifty civilians were
killed by Hamas?
My view is even if it were half, four hundred is a huge number by any reckoning.
It's a-
Okay, wait, you didn't-
I said even if-
Wait, wait, wait.
Because-
Because Benny-
Because Professor Morris, I don't know.
I agree with Muin Rabbania.
I'm not sure if he concedes the four hundred.
I'll say-
Why four hundred?
Because I have-
Whoever thought up the hundred and four hundred.
Right.
As I said-
Eight hundred of the eight hundred and fifty slaughtered by Hamas.
If I may.
Maybe a couple of individuals were killed in this very action.
I don't know.
You're saying from day one you believe this particular thing and you clearly don't.
You clearly don't believe this thing.
You don't.
From day one I said-
You said people died.
That's not controversial.
Wait, hold on, hold on.
If I may.
That's not controversial.
Mr. Bunnell, Mr. Bunnell, I attach value to words.
Yes, you've said that.
When I was-
Mr. Bunnell, please slow down the speech and attempt to listen.
When I was explicitly asked by Piers Morgan, I said there can be no question that Hamas
committed atrocities on October 7th.
If you want me to pin down a number, I can't do that.
I'm going to ask you to pin down a number.
You can listen to what I'm saying.
You mean to ask me?
No, my question is-
I'll ask.
I'll ask a very precise question.
Sorry, if you'll be-
Excuse me.
It's a very easy question.
If I understood your question correctly.
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, four or five hundred in the crossfire?
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-
We're bunching together the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas.
That's splitting hairs now.
His question was specifically about-
No, but he means the Raiders.
He means the Raiders.
I'm speaking in opposition to the conspiracy theory that people like, do you prefer Norm
or Professor Frankelstein or what do you, I don't know what you're, how do you prefer
to be a terrorist?
Well, it's not a conspiracy theory.
Well, the conspiracy theory is the idea that the IDF killed the majority of them.
It's not a conspiracy theory.
And then 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-
So when you say that in combination with, well, I'm not sure how many were killed.
Well, do you 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 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 and eventually they 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
this out.
And they came out initially with a slightly higher figure, 1400 dead.
And eventually reduced it to 1200 dead Israelis.
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 many words-
No, I don't mean specifically Hamas, but I just think when you use the word some, that's
doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Who used some?
That's fine.
But some can mean anywhere from 1% to 49%.
But we don't know.
So the numbers here and the details are interesting and important almost from a legal perspective.
But if we zoom out, the moral perspective, are Palestinians from Gaza justified in violent
resistance?
Well, Palestinians have the right to resistance.
Palestinians, 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.
The attacks of October 7th, where do they land for you?
There's been almost exclusive focus on the attacks on civilian population centers and the
killings of civilians on October 7th.
What is much, 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 illegitimate.
You mean attacking Israeli civilians is legitimate?
No, no, no.
That's not what I said.
I didn'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 illegitimate, as a separate issue from the killing of Israeli civilians where in those
cases where they had been deliberately targeted, that's very clearly illegitimate.
Whole families were slaughtered in kibbutzim.
But I'm making...
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Many of them left wingers, incidentally, who helped Palestinians go to hospitals in Israel and so on.
Again...
Even drove Palestinian cancer patients to hospitals in Israeli...
Again, I'm making a distinction here.
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.
I don't do selective outrage.
I'm talking about specific condemnation of this specific assault on civilians.
Well, you know what it is.
You know what I...
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 interviewed 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, in my personal experience over decades,
is exclusively applied to Palestinians.
No, this is nonsense.
Israel is condemned day and night on every television channel, on every...
And has been for the last decade.
I'm telling you about a personal experience lasting decades.
You said quote.
Uh-oh.
Oh, no.
I'm trying to quote what you just said.
I shouldn't have said anything at any point.
You should say, Professor Morris.
Yes.
You just said, I would condemn...
And I have to condemn.
...any time Israel deliberately attacks civilians.
Yes.
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 Israel has attacked civilians.
Professor Morris.
In Kibia, Israel attacked civilians.
Right, right, right.
Professor Morris.
And I've written extensively about it.
Okay, I know that.
In Kafir Qasim, they killed civilians.
And now let's...
So you're just eliminating.
Okay.
You're selecting.
Okay.
As Stephen says, you cherry-pick.
If I were you...
Before you do...
You cherry-pick.
Let's fast forward when you were an adult.
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 as a young man until the...
This is true.
Until the 1982 Lebanon War.
Yeah.
Lost the passage.
I'll find it.
Okay, real quick.
While he's searching for that.
Yeah, allow me.
That's good.
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 is just ways to act within a war.
And these two things principally do have a distinction from one another.
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.
No.
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, let's say, 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.
Those strike me as, by definition, illegitimate.
And I want to be very clear about that.
Illegitimate means you condemn them.
Illegitimate means they are not legitimate.
I have a problem with—
Condemning your side, yes.
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.
Exclusive request for condemnation has to do with what Palestinians do.
And just as importantly, I'm sure if you watch BBC or CNN, when 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.
No, but now that we're talking about Israeli victims, all of a sudden morality is central.
Well, I think the reason why it comes up is because there's no shortage of international
condemnation for Israel.
As Norm will point out a million times that there are 50 billion UN resolutions.
You've got Amnesty International.
You've got multiple bodies of the UN.
You've got now this case for the ICJ.
So there's no question of if there's condemnation for Israel.
But sorry, if I can interrupt you.
In 1948, the entire world stood behind the establishment of a Jewish state.
And the entire world—
No, 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, that's what you're saying.
Well, and then also, just my quick question—
Western democracies supported the establishment of Israel.
My quick question was, you said that you believe that—this is a very short one.
You don't have to—it's just—you think that there's an argument to be made that the people
in Gaza, that Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whoever 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.
The Palestinians—
Okay, you think they absolutely had a just cause for war.
Do you think that Israel has a just cause for Operation Swords of Iron?
No, of course not.
Okay.
All right.
You can say your quote.
Okay.
First of all, on this issue of double standards, which is the one that irks or irritates Muin,
you said that you are not a person of double standards, unlike people like Muin.
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,
that's true for your account of the First Intifada.
There, it seems to me, you were in conformity with most mainstream accounts.
And the case of the First Intifada, you also used, surprisingly, you used Arab human rights
sources like Al-Haq, which I think Muin worked for during the First Intifada.
That's true.
But then something very strange happens.
So let's illustrate it.
Wait, there's something strange that's happened, is the Arabs rejected the First Intifada.
Okay, wait.
Peace offers.
That's what happened.
By accepting the Oslo agreement.
Yeah.
Not the Oslo agreement.
Okay.
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.
Morris quickly enters 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 15,000 and 20,000 Palestinian and Lebanese were killed, overwhelmingly civilians.
The biggest bloodletting until the current Gaza genocide, 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 voluminous, huge volumes.
I'll just take one example.
Now, you will remember, because I think you served in Lebanon in 82.
Am I correct on that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you will remember that Dov Yarmia kept a 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 conquered 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 smell of corpses.
Destruction and death are continuing.
Does that sound like your description of the Lebanon War?
Forget my description.
Forget it?
Words are in print.
We can't just forget them.
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 immoral.
You don't find that on the Arab side.
I'm talking about you.
You don't find that.
Mr. Morris, I'm not talking about Dov Yarmia.
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 civilian casualties.
As I think they've tried to do in Gaza now.
All the accounts by Robert Fisk in Pity the Nation.
Robert Fisk is an anti-Zionist journalist.
I know.
Has always been.
That's why you can say with such confidence that you don't condemn deliberate Israeli attacks on civilians.
There weren't any.
Because there weren't any.
No, I didn't say there weren't any.
You agreed that I have condemned Israeli attacks on civilians.
I never quarrel with facts.
Your description of the 1982 war is so shocking, it makes my innards writhe.
And then your description of the second intifada, your description of defensive shield, they are worse than apologetics.
That's like the Stalinist rule of falsification.
You're destroying Jews in masses in buses and in restaurants.
No, no.
That's the second intifada.
Do you remember that?
You can try everything.
Suicide bombers in Jerusalem's buses and restaurants.
I am completely aware of that.
You will.
But if you forgot the numbers.
I don't forget that.
It was three to one.
They killed mostly armed Palestinian government.
No.
I know.
That's what you say in your book.
That's what I say.
That's what I say.
Amnesty International said.
That's not what Human Rights Squad said.
I don't remember what they said.
I do.
No, no.
I don't know whether their figures are right.
Amari figures are right.
Listen, listen.
In the second intifada, some 4,000 Palestinians were killed.
Professor Morris.
Most of them armed people.
And the Israelis, a thousand Israelis were killed.
Almost all of them were civilians.
Professor Morris, fantasy, but I'm not going to argue with here.
Here's a simple challenge.
You said not to look at the camera.
Sounds fun.
Scares the people.
I'll make the open challenge.
You are going to scare 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's 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 not familiar.
I'm sorry.
I'm not familiar with what you wrote.
No, that's no problem.
You're a busy man.
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 misrepresented.
Send me the article.
And then we can have a civil scholarly discussion.
I'm not sure we will agree even if I.
We don't have to agree.
Yeah, yeah.
I'll be standing there.
Okay.
I'm looking at both sides.
Okay.
Where does truth stand?
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.
Mm-hmm.
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 and discuss the ideas.
No, there are two aspects.
There's a public debate, but there's also written words.
Yes.
I'm just telling you that you, as an academic historian, put a lot of value in the written
word.
Correct.
And I think it is valuable.
But in this context-
He's, incidentally, not the only historian who puts value to words.
Yes.
I also do, actually.
More than just one or two sentences at a time.
But in this context, just for the educational purpose of teaching people-
Well, 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 the Lebanon War?
I looked at the book that he got this from, and what the quote was from.
It sounds cold to say it, but war is tragic, and civilians die.
There is no war that this has not happened in, 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, where we say things like, civilians dying is a war crime,
or civilian homes or hospitals getting destroyed is necessarily a war crime, or is necessarily
somebody intentionally targeting civilians without making distinctions between military targets
or civilian ones.
I think that when we analyze different attacks or 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, I'll fast forward
to 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 Amnesty International, people that Norm 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 free from
attacks.
Essentially?
Yes.
I'm just saying that, essentially, in terms of how international law defines it, not how
Amnesty International defines it, but Amnesty International describes times of human shielding,
but they don't actually apply the correct international legal standard.
You don't know what's the correct international law.
I know, absolutely.
You haven't been closed.
Norm, I absolutely do, Norm.
You haven't been closed.
I absolutely do, Norm.
You can't find it on Wikipedia.
I'm just saying, believe it or not, the entire Geneva Convention is all on Wikipedia.
It's a wonderful website.
But I'm just saying that on the Hamas side, if there's an attempt to induce this type of
military activity, an attempt to induce civilian harm, that it's not just enough to say, like,
well, here's a diary entry where a guy talks about how tragic these attacks are.
See, I think the problem with your statement is that if you go back and listen to it, the
first part of it is war is hell, civilians die.
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 are, unfortunately, far from alone in this.
I'll give you, I'll give you, you know who for me is a perfect example.
Well, wait, hold on.
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...
Well, they did happen to stumble into it.
They did, but they're...
And they killed 300...
Yeah, but they did.
But when they stumbled into it, that wasn't an issue of trying to figure out a military
target or not.
They weren't failing in distinction.
There wasn't a proportionality assessment done.
It was just to kill civilians.
Even the Amnesty International in 2008 and in 2014 and even today will continue to say
that these types of attacks...
I don't think you'll find anyone who will deny that Hamas has targeted civilians.
Sure.
That's the example of suicide bombings during the Second Intifada.
I mean, facts are facts.
Sure.
But I'm saying that the Hamas targeting of civilians is different than the incidental loss
of life that occurs when Israel does...
You know, genocide is the intentional mass murder.
Genocide is an entirely separate claim.
Yeah, but the idea that Israel is not in the business of intentionally targeting civilians...
I know that's what we're supposed to believe, but the historical record stands very clearly.
No, it doesn't.
I don't believe it does.
You've written about it yourself.
Well, when you say historical, do you mean like in the 40s to the 60s or do you mean like
over the past...
I would say from the 30s of the last century to the 20s of this century.
I'd just like to make, you know, the way you characterized it, I think the best example
of that I've come across during this specific conflict is John Kirby, the White House spokesman.
I've named him Tiers Tosterone for a very good reason.
When he's talking about Palestinian civilian deaths, war is 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 in public.
But he understood that one is deliberate and one isn't.
He understood that.
No, that's what he tried to make us understand.
No, no.
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.
The Israeli attacks on Hamas installations.
You know better.
You know better.
I don't know better.
No.
You don't know Israeli pilots.
That's the problem.
Thank God.
No, you don't know Israeli pilots.
I know.
Thank God.
They believe that they are killing Hamasniks.
They're given certain objectives and that's what they attack.
I'm sure they believe it.
And if the Hamas is hiding behind civilians, civilians die.
It's as simple as that.
Every time they target a kid, I'm sure they believe it's Hamas.
Yeah.
When they killed the four kids.
They believe it.
They believe it.
I know they believe it.
Even though they were a diminutive size.
You know that.
Even though they were a diminutive size.
Yeah.
You don't see the size.
You don't see the size.
Let's see the size.
I know what he's quoting.
You've lied about this particular instance in the past.
Those kids weren't just on the beaches as often stated in articles.
Those kids were literally coming out of a previously identified Hamas compound that they had operated
from.
They literally did.
You can Google it.
Mr. Borelli.
Mr. Borelli.
With all due respect, you're such a fantastic moron.
It's terrifying.
That wharf 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.
Hamas Navel.
It's so painful to listen to this idiocy.
And to be clear, on the other side, you're implying that a strike was okayed on the Israeli
side where they said, we're just going to kill four Palestinian children today for no
reason.
Do you believe that?
Do you believe that?
Right.
As you said, right here in the hotel of journalists, do you think that they were out to kill four
children?
Here we go.
I will answer the question.
The pilots were out to kill four children.
I will even answer moron's questions.
Because that was a strike.
That was a drone strike.
So it was a proof all the way up the chain that we're going to kill children today.
We're going to kill Palestinian children today.
You want me to answer or do you want your motor mouth to go?
Okay?
Answer.
In 2018, there was the great march of return in Gaza.
By all reckonings of human rights organizations and journalists who were there, it was overwhelmingly
nonviolent.
But organized by the Hamas.
Whoever organized it-
It was organized by Satan.
Let's start with that.
Yeah, Hamas.
Okay, Satan.
I agree.
Let's go for the big one.
The big Megillah.
It's Satan.
Okay?
They threw bombs here and there.
They threw bombs here and there.
Yeah.
Okay.
Not bombs.
They tried to make holes in the fence, obviously.
Okay.
Let's continue.
Yeah.
So-
But I'm not sure Israel behaved morally in that respect.
Okay.
Okay.
No, no, no.
Okay.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
I'm willing to grant you that.
Please, please.
I'm willing to grant you that.
Allow me to-
You don't have to pursue it because I'm willing to grant-
Allow me to-
Allow me to-
Allow me to-
Allow me to-
Allow me to finish.
I don't know anything about this.
I'd like to hear-
Okay.
So, as you know, along the Gaza perimeter, there was Israel's best trained snipers.
Correct?
I don't know best trained.
There were snipers.
Fine.
Sniper.
Okay.
All right?
Because-
Hey, laugh.
It's hilarious.
The story is so funny.
It's so funny.
The U.N. had aspects of violence to it.
Okay.
According to even the U.N. says it themselves.
Okay.
Okay.
But you only collect what the U.N. says that you like.
You see, the problem, Mr. Morelli, is you don't know the English language.
You don't-
I can read from the U.N. website itself.
In regards to the Great March of Return, they said-
Please stop with your idiotic-
With your idiotic-
With your idiotic-
During most protests, dozens have approached the fence attempting to damage it.
Burning tires, throwing stones, and Molotov cocktails towards Israeli forces and
flying incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory.
The latter resulted in extensive damage to agricultural land and nature reserves inside
Israel and risked the lives of Israeli civilians.
Mr. Morelli-
Some incidents of shooting and throwing them explosives are also-
Talk fast.
Talk fast.
People think that you're coherent.
I'm just reading from the U.N.
Yeah, but you see-
I know you like them sometimes.
Only when they agree with you, though.
You got the months wrong.
You got the months wrong.
We're talking about the beginning in March 30th, 2018.
You just described that march as mostly peaceful.
Okay, allow me to finish.
So there were the snipers, okay?
Now you find it so far-fetched.
Israelis purposely, deliberately targeting civilians?
That's such a far-fetched idea.
An overwhelmingly non-violent march.
What did the international investigation-
Wasn't a march.
It was a campaign which went on for months.
Months.
Whatever you want to call it.
Months.
Yeah.
What did the U.N. investigation find?
Well, he just read a few-
It found-
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 machine.
I already know what you're going to say.
You're going to say it found that only one or two of them were justified killings.
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.
If what you're saying is true.
If what you're saying is true.
By the way, just a quick pause.
I think everything was fascinating 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 at the obvious joyful camaraderie in the room.
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 one is a policy of killing civilians.
Do we-
So I would 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-
He said yes.
Yeah.
That's fine.
Okay.
But then the second thing is, or there's two distinctions I want 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 that they should not have done.
That would be prosecutable as war crimes as defined by-
And some have been prosecuted.
Yeah.
And I'm absolutely sure-
According to you and your book, practically none.
I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure-
According to you and your book, practically none.
I'm sure, 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-earing, and there also have typically lawyers involved.
When you make the claim that an IDF soldier shot a Palestinian, those three people, the
three hostages that came up with white flags and 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-
Deliberately, yes.
Deliberately, yes.
The claim that you're making, the claim that you're making is that multiple levels of the
IDF signed off on just killing-
I never-
I have no idea what-
That's great if you don't understand the process, then let me educate you.
You don't understand the process.
I can tell you.
I do understand the process.
I'm telling you.
I'm trying to explain you right now.
Really?
You're the IDF?
Aside from Wikipedia, can you tell me what your knowledge of the IDF is?
Yes, you can talk to people who work in the military.
Apart from Wikipedia, what's your knowledge of the IDF?
You know what?
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 in control of an airplane or a drone strike?
Can I respond to that?
Yes, strike cells have entire apparatuses that are designed to figure out how to strike
and who to strike.
So when you say that four children are targeted, you're saying that a whole apparatus is trying
to murder four Palestinian children.
You make my argument better than me.
Which is a ridiculous argument.
Oh, 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 at the top.
You don't understand the strength of the claim that you're making.
You're saying that from a top-down level that lawyers, multiple commanders, all these
people signed off on killing four Palestinians.
It's true.
It's true.
I don't spend my nights on Wikipedia.
I read books.
I admit that as a signal.
It's a waste of time.
Yeah.
I know.
Books are a waste of time.
With all due regard, I completely respect the fact, and I'll say it on the air, as much
as I find totally disgusting what's 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 books for the listener.
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.
He didn't say they're a waste of time.
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.
Neither really understands Israel.
Now it works.
I think we're all agreed that Palestinians have deliberately targeted civilians, whether
we're talking about Hamas and Islamic Jihad today or previously-
I prefer the word murdered and raped rather than targeted.
Targeted is too soft for what the Hamas did.
I'm okay with that.
I'm not talking about-
I'm talking about this now.
Yeah, but I'm trying to answer his question.
Yeah, you're okay.
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 both.
We just agreed.
This has happened here and there.
Okay.
And I think-
We've agreed on that.
I think-
What we're saying is it's not policy, which is what you guys are implying.
Okay.
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 command.
For strike cells that are involved in like drone attacks or plane attacks or-
Yes.
Yes.
Of the Israeli military and you could perhaps, you've served in it, you would know better.
It's actually a fairly chaotic organization.
No, 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 to drop it.
In Protective Edge, was that 200 strikes in like 60 seconds, I think?
I think the opening of Protective Edge?
Yeah.
The coordination between the military and everything.
You're talking about 2008?
I think Protective Edge was 2014.
Okay.
But I'm just saying that the coordination in the military is pretty tight.
Well, my understanding of the Israeli military-
It's very ordinary.
It's very ordinary.
...is that it's quite chaotic and there's also a lot of testimonies from Israel.
But be that as it may, okay, I'm prepared to accept both of your contentions that it's
a highly organized and disciplined force.
Especially the Air 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 inconceivable.
I'm just saying that like that would have required murderous intent for so many different
levels.
I don't think good evidence has been presented to say that that's-
Your basic claim is that it would be fair to assume that such a strike could have only
been carried out with multiple levels of authorization and signing off.
Okay.
Let's accept that for the sake of argument.
We have now seen incident after incident after incident after incident where entire families
are vaporized in single strikes.
Who is in the families?
Who lives in the house?
Family members.
Inside.
No, or next to the house.
Family members.
Family members.
In which these families are killed.
We have seen incident after-
Do you know that Hamasniks weren't in that house?
Do you know that their ammunition dumps weren't in those houses?
Why do I have to prove a negative?
You're saying that they deliberately targeted families.
Well, how do you-
If Israel wanted to kill civilians in Gaza, they could have killed 500,000 by now with the
number of strikes they've done.
And therefore-
And the fact that they've only killed a certain small number in proportion-
30,000 is a small number.
30,000 is a small number.
Small number in proportion.
You consider 30,000 a small number.
Small number in proportion over four months probably is an indication that it's targeted
and that there are Hamas targets in these places.
So, I've given-
12,000 children is only.
And if that's the case, why is it-
Did I use the-
Yeah, you said only.
Only.
Though, Professor Morris, 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 Vietnam, the Americans killed a million people.
I said-
I'm not talking about Vietnam.
Well, they could have killed 40 million.
I wasn't-
Yeah, I was again in the anti-war movement.
So, don't strap me-
Americans killed a million people in Vietnam.
Fine.
Fine.
And 30 million Russians were killed during World War II.
So, everything else is irrelevant.
Okay.
Here's a question.
Stick to proportionality.
Professor Morris, 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 is that supposed to prove?
Okay, I'm going to-
I'm going to tell you-
Wait, wait.
Firstly, you're relying-
You're relying on Hamas numbers.
And I'll tell you-
No, I'm not relying-
I'm relying on the numbers that everybody else-
You know that.
Even if we take the numbers though.
What does that prove?
Those are Hamas numbers.
Okay, okay.
Which may not be true.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Good.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
believe that they deliberately target civilians, they would have killed many, many more.
The fact is that they don't deliberately target civilians. Professor Morris, for an historian,
I don't want to understand Israeli society. You don't want to know the truth. I don't want to.
I don't want to again slide their heads. That's the problem. A good historian tries to get into
the heads of the various protagonists. There's a limit. When 90% of Israelis think that
Israel is using enough or too little force in Gaza, I don't want to get inside that head.
40% think that Israel is 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, 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, let's drop an atomic bomb on Gaza.
Do you think he really meant that? He said it three years.
No, no, no. It was said in a sort of a very questionable way. He didn't say they should drop
an atomic bomb on. I'm not supporting him. He's an idiot. None other than Israel's chief historian,
the famed, justifiably famed, Benny Morris, thinks we should be dropping nuclear weapons on Iran.
Iran has for years, its 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 Khomeini. I would say Iranian leaders have said
mixed messages. Okay. Okay. But some of them have said, including Khamenei and Khomeini.
If you don't know their evidence, if you don't know their evidence, why are you laughing?
Wait, wait, wait. This is like a skepticism. It's very funny.
It's funny because... Iran supports Hezbollah and the Houthis and Hamas.
Oh yeah. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Wait, wait, wait. To the extent that the Houthis are trying... It's complicated.
To the extent that the Houthis are trying to stop the genocide in Gaza.
There is no genocide. There is no genocide.
I support... I support... I support... I support...
I know you selectively support international law when it agrees with you.
I support... Okay. And then when it doesn't, you decide to throw international law to the wind.
There's no genocide in Gaza. If you like... If you like...
Hold on. Norm. Norm. Norm. Stop, please. Norm, just for me, please. Just give me a second.
You said that there's no genocide going on in Gaza. Let me ask that clear question.
Yes. The same question I asked on the 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. But at the moment...
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 Bosnia 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 they committed genocide. You already said they committed genocide.
Israel is committing genocide.
But if I could just-
Allow me, allow me-
Use that word.
That's correct.
Now-
I don't run away-
So Norman, you did say Israel is committing genocide.
Can you let Moeen finish?
Well, the end of the story is you specifically asked whether I think Israel is committing 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 Bosnia case, which I think
all four of us would agree was clearly a case of genocide, the court determined-
You mean by the Serbs?
Yes. In the Bosnia 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. You know, 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 Norman has determined already.
I have too, 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 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 in the Gaza Strip.
Which is the PLO line.
Yeah, with the program, the PLO is long past.
Okay, the Palestinian authority.
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 below the threshold.
There is a problem of numbers.
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 the 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 party.
Well, I'd like to finish.
They're just pro-Hamas government. That's got nothing to do with anything.
I think they're pro-Satan as well, last time I checked. No, they're pro-Hamas.
Um, 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-Hamas. Not because of that. Because they supported an organization
which murdered 1,200 people deliberately. That's my problem.
But supporting a state that has murdered 30,000-
But they haven't, because these are 30,000-
Okay.
...are basically human shields used by the Hamas, in which the Hamas wanted killed.
Okay.
They wanted them killed.
All right, if I could-
Hamas wanted these people killed.
Sure. If I could just get-
You don't think they wanted them killed?
No, I don't.
They didn't provide them with shelters.
They build tunnels for their fighters, but not one shelter for their own civilians.
You asked me about-
Of course they want them killed.
Okay. 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-
All sorts of idiotic ministers in Israel.
Well, yeah, including the prime minister, the defense minister-
The prime minister didn't say killed-
The chief of staff-
Didn't say genocide, the chief of staff-
No, he said Amalek.
He said Amalek.
He said Amalek.
He said Amalek.
Use the word Amalek.
Because the Hamas are a really-
According to Asa Kasher-
If I may.
According to Asa Kasher, the philosopher of IDF-
Asa Kasher, yeah.
Yeah.
He said that Netanyahu was-
He's just an old-
Was vowing genocide.
Now, he's an idiot.
So-
He didn't say he's an idiot, but he is-
Yeah.
So the reason I raised the South African application is twofold.
Yeah.
Hamas or no Hamas.
It's exceptionally detailed-
Okay.
On the question of intent.
And secondly, when the International Court of Justice issues a ruling, individual justices
have the right-
Can give their own-
Can give their own opinion.
Yeah, yeah.
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 that
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 that-
Plausible.
Plausible, which legally, this is obviously below criminal conviction, below-
Yes, of course.
Yeah, below-
Think of it as an indictment.
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 with you.
That's fine if 16 ICJ judges disagree, but I'm going to give-
They must be awful incompetent.
You know, they could be, but-
They must be.
Even the American judge, she must have been awful incompetent if she was unable to see the
misrepresentations that Mr. Bunnell, based on his Wikipedia entry, was able to find.
So this is based on the official ICJ report that was released.
I'm not sure if you read the entire thing or not.
I read every aspect.
Okay, that's great.
Did you go through and actually identify any of the sources for the underlying quotes?
Actually, brace yourself for this and Mawin could confirm it.
Yaniv Kogan, an Israeli, and Jamie Sternweiner, half Israeli, they checked every single quote
in the Hebrew original.
And Yaniv Kogan, love the guy, he has terrifying powers of concentration.
He checked every single quote.
Is that correct, Mawin?
And Jamie checked every single quote in the English, in the context.
And were there any contextual questions, they told us.
I think they found one.
Yeah, I think they found one.
So, I do not believe that those 15 judges was 15 to 2.
16 to 2, I think.
They're 15 in 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, an American, would allow herself
to be duped.
Okay.
Well, let me read it.
Let me read it.
Let me read it.
Let me read it.
Let me read it.
Let me read it.
Let me read it.
Let me read it.
Let me read it.
Let me read it.
Sure.
So, this was taken from the South African complaint.
There's tons of these.
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.
Correct.
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.
Yeah.
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, end quote.
If you actually go to the news article that 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 Gazans 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 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 this is supposed to be one of many quotes that they've shown that is supposed to demonstrate
genocidal intent, but it is very easily explained by military intent or by a conflict between
two parties.
We saw that press conference.
Wait, 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 Hag has ruled that Israel is committing genocide.
No, I think we-
No.
It's just going in the next few years to look at the whole subject.
Okay.
I think we're agreed on that.
There has been no determination at all.
Fine.
And as Stephen says, some of the quotes are not exactly accurate quotes or taken out of
context.
Yes.
Okay.
It is correct, as Mowin put it, that it will be several years before the court makes a
determination.
And my guess is that it will determine there was no genocide.
That's my guess.
Yes, no, I'm just giving you my guess.
I can't predict.
I got it all wrong, actually, as Mowin will attest.
I got it all wrong the first time.
I never thought the American judge would vote in favor of plausibility.
So you admit that you are wrong?
Yeah, of course.
I think I tell Mowin 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, they can be wrong.
Okay.
Leaving that aside.
First of all, as Mowin 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.
Even 84 pages can be frivolous.
It was single spaced.
It was an hour and a half to read.
It was not a massive case.
It was single spaced and it had literally hundreds of footnotes.
It can still be frivolous.
It's possible.
Of course.
It could be.
But this one wasn't.
Yeah.
I read the report.
To tell you the truth, I followed very closely everything that's been happening until 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 Dugard and Vaughan
Lowe.
Vaughan Lowe, as you might know, he argued the Wall 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. Dugard personally and I've corresponded with
Vaughan Lowe, 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, a silver medal or a bronze medal.
But they can swim, that's what you're saying.
No, I would say that's a very high bar to even qualify.
They can swim well enough to have a realistic prospect winning a medal.
So, to even make it to plausible...
That is not true.
That is not what plausible means.
It's a very high...
It is absolutely not.
You're dead wrong.
Mr. Borelli, please don't teach me about the English language.
I said, I said, plausibility is the same concept as qualifying.
The court is not asked at this present phase of the proceedings to determine whether South
Africa's allegations of genocide are well-founded.
They're not well-founded.
They're not even well-founded.
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 quotes 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 used the phrase, the dolo specialis, that the intentional part of
genocide...
I don't know that term.
I think it's called dolo specialis.
It's the most important part of genocide, which is proving the special, it is a highly special
intent to commit genocide.
It's possible that Israel could...
That's mens ream.
No.
The mens ream, yes, I understand the state of mind, but for genocide, there is, it's
called dolo specialis.
It's a highly special intent.
Did you read the case?
It is a highly special intent to be convicted of genocide.
Yes.
Please stop displaying your imbecility.
Okay, I'm sorry if you think the declaration of the judge is imbecility.
Don't put on public display that you're a moron.
At least have the self-possession to shut up.
Did I read the case?
I'm comfortable putting my display on camera if you're comfortable putting yours in book.
Mr. Borelli, I read the case around four times.
I read all of the majority opinion, the declarations.
I read Aaron Barak's declaration.
Then why are you lying and saying plausible is a high 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.
But the court will rule, there was no genocide.
That's what the court will rule.
Remember what I just told you.
The court will rule, there was no genocide.
I don't expect to be even around when the court reaches its final decision.
Why?
Why?
It'll take a long, long time.
Two years.
Three years.
No, I don't think it'll take two or three years.
I mean, 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…
I assume they'll take two or three years.
But the point you're making…
I'm saying that something horrible must be happening to even achieve…
It is horrible.
It's a war.
Yeah.
It's true.
It's horrible.
Except they weren't…
They weren't rendering a ruling on the war.
They were rendering a ruling on the genocide.
And I think the suggestion…
They said it was plausible.
They also said it was plausible that Israel is committing a military operation as well.
Yeah, but I think the problem with your characterization is you're saying in so many words that South
Africans basically only have to show up in court with a coherent statement.
Right.
That is correct.
In today's atmosphere, that's probably correct.
They needed to do a lot more.
Not much more.
Not much more.
Not much more.
They needed to persuade…
The American judge?
The day's atmosphere.
The day's atmosphere.
Judges go according to what the majority want to hear.
Yeah, but they needed…
Who was the president?
They needed to persuade the court that it was worth investing several years of their
time in hearing this case.
They're probably well paid for it.
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.
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 genocidal intent.
I don't think so either.
I don't think so either.
For finance on the 8th of October, 2023.
This is taken from the ICJ.
This is from South Africa Submission.
Bezalel Smotrik…
I can't read this.
Stated…
There you go.
I don't think so.
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 this own source…
Quote…
The powerful finance minister, settler leader, Bezalel Smotrik…
I can't read this.
Demanded at the cabinet meeting late Saturday that the army, quote…
Hit Hamas brutally and not take the matter of the captives into 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 of the Arab one with, and then…
I think…
I think…
Take down Gaza.
That's not how…
Take down Gaza.
Take down Gaza.
Take down Gaza.
Take down Gaza.
Take down Gaza.
Take down Gaza.
No.
When Ukraine says we need to defeat Russia, is that genocidal?
Here's one.
Do they mean killing all Russian citizens?
Professor…
Professor Morris, here's another one.
It's ridiculous.
When the defense…
Yeah, ridiculous.
Yes, ridiculous.
The American judge…
He also doesn't determine policy, but that's…
The American judge…
The American judge…
Read…
You are holding the American judge to, you know…
Well, he was the president.
He was the president.
He was the president.
He was the president.
I don't want to deal with the actual facts of the matter, ever.
Okay.
The American judge read several of the quotes…
Look at the American Supreme Court today.
They may support Trump.
Okay.
It shows you how…
Okay.
Professor Morris, without going too far afield, if you heard a statement by the defense
minister…
The defense minister said, we are going to prevent any food, water, fuel, or electricity
from entering Gaza.
Did they do that?
He wanted to make…
Did Israel do that?
Okay.
No, I'm wondering…
What he said…
I'm asking…
Isn't Israeli government policy?
Wait.
But we're talking about statements now.
Intent.
How would you interpret that?
If the citizens are murdered the way they were, I would expect extreme statements by
lots of politicians.
By lots of politicians.
But you don't accept extreme Palestinians…
But that's not Israeli policy.
Wait.
But you don't accept…
What he said isn't Israeli policy.
But you don't…
They let in water.
They let in gas.
I'm true.
But you don't accept extreme Palestinian statements after they lost their entire country,
not just 1,200 people.
That's a good point.
No, no.
That'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.
We need a water break.
We need a bathroom break.
Take down Gaza is not a genocide.
I don't know what it means.
I don't know what it means.
What does take down Gaza mean?
We went to war with Iraq and we wanted to destroy Iraq.
That was a genocidal statement.
Take down Gaza.
There's a reason why genocide is such an importantly guarded concept.
And it's not to condemn every nation that goes to war.
I don't know what it means.
What does take down Gaza mean?
I don't know how to pronounce my name.
Are you mispronouncing it intentionally?
I'm so touched.
He made you into an Italian all the time.
I'm so touched by your solicitude for international law.
You should try learning it sometime.
It would help you start out a lot of 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.
There you go.
How are you guys doing?
Okay.
Okay.
There are major things to discuss here.
Not just what some court is doing and going to 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.
Right.
We're not going to talk about 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 the differences in how do you conduct war in an urban environment
where people are using...
Yeah.
We're just going to talk about genocide.
We're not going to talk about what's a good solution for the Palestinians.
No, no, you're right.
We're missing...
We're just going to say ethnic cleansing.
Can you be productive over the next two hours and 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 wanted a positive end to this discussion, which is what you said at
the beginning, I can't contribute to that because I'm pessimistic.
I don't see any way forward here.
But the lack of...
The solution is easy.
The reason why the solution is hard is because the histories and the myths are completely...
There's a different factual record.
Well, one of the things that would be good to talk about solutions was the future is going
back in all the times it has failed.
So every time...
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 99, 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 Y memorandum, the transparency.
He's going to say all of this, and he's not going to bring up anything on the Palestinian side.
And then for Camp David, he's going to say that, yeah, that Arafat 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.
Well, lay it all up.
Lay it up.
You do fall quickly, you know?
Yeah, I know, yeah.
Anyhow, my future book should interest you guys.
Oh, what are you working on?
No, not working on it.
It's actually going to come out.
Ah.
It deals with Israeli and Arab atrocities, war crimes I call them, in the 48th 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.
No, it's marginal.
Yeah.
It deals with that as well, but they have tried to seal off documents which had already
used and seen.
Yeah.
So...
Now they don't let people see them.
That's happened.
But it's marginal in terms of its effect on...
Were the British archives useful for you, for this new book?
Well, for this list, it's mostly Israeli archives.
Yeah.
The British and the Americans and the UN did deal with these subjects, but not as well
as Israeli documents.
What's your casualty count for Deir Yassin?
It's about 100.
About 100.
I think there's agreement on that by Israelis and Arabs.
Yeah.
100, 105.
Because before they were...
They used to say 245 or 254.
Yeah.
Those were the figures the British and the Arabs and the Haganah 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 Reynier.
Yeah.
Maybe he came up with that number.
But it was just...
He didn't count.
They didn't count bodies.
They just threw the number out and everybody was happy to blame the Irgun and the Lehi
for killing more Arabs than actually...
Well, and they put it to good use as well.
Well, they said that it helped to precipitate more evacuation.
So they were happy to...
I think Begin and his memoirs...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They also used that number.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
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...
By way of hope for the future.
So when has, in Israel and Palestine, have we 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, from my knowledge of the 120 years or so 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 Barack and then subsequently Clinton offered a two-state settlement to PLO, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
And Arafat seemed to waver.
He didn't immediately reject what was being offered.
But ultimately, he came down at the end of Camp David in July 2000.
He came down against the proposals.
And Clinton, who said he wouldn't blame him, later blamed Arafat 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 Barack 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, East Jerusalem, 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 Arafat 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 on 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 buy that.
I don't think so.
But other people disagree with me on this.
What do you think?
Well, just briefly in response, Arafat formally recognized Israel in 1993.
Yeah, earlier.
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, fell short of the minimum that the Palestinians consider to be a reasonable two-state settlement.
Bearing in mind that as of 1949, Israel controlled 78% of the British mandate of Palestine.
The Palestinians were seeking a stay on the remaining 22%.
And this was apparently too much for Israel.
My response to your question would be…
Wait, wait.
They were being offered something like 22% or 21%.
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 problem was one of the problems.
The refugee problem was one of the problems.
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 present at Camp David.
Who was recently thrown out of the State Department or whatever.
The point I want to make about Rob was he wrote, I think, a very perceptive article in 2001 in the New York Review of Books.
I know that you and Ehud Barak have had a debate with them.
But I think he gives a very compelling reason of why and how Camp David failed.
But rather than going into that…
He wrote that together with Hussein Arah.
Hussein Arah, yes.
Yes.
Who was not at Camp David.
Yes.
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 Sharmash Sheikh without peace or peace without Sharmash Sheikh, this is referring to the resort in Egyptian Sinai, which was under Israeli occupation.
And Dayan said, I will choose for Sharmash Sheikh 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 had there been a joint U.S.-S.
Soviet push for an Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian resolution that incorporated both an 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.
It 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 know, you ask when were we closest, and I can't give you an answer of when we were closest.
I can only tell you when I think we could have been close, and that was a lost opportunity.
If we look at the situation today, you know, 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 the 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?
Can 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 by applying even more violence, that has an insatiable lust for Palestinian territory,
a genocidal apartheid state that seems increasingly incapable of even conceiving of peaceful coexistence with the other people on that land?
So, I'm very pessimistic that a solution is possible.
If I look at, 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 look at Southeast Asia 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 that ruled Zimbabwe and South Africa not been dismantled, there could not have been peace in that region.
And 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?
And I make 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.
And 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, extremely distasteful, supremacist, dehumanizing 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 were we 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 Taba 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, you know, 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? PLO and the Muslim Brotherhood?
Sadat was upset because there were attempted assassinations by people in, oh no, an assassination.
It was a personal friend of his, Yusuf Al-Sibai, I can't pronounce that.
He was assassinated by a Palestinian squad.
He was killed by the Abu Nidal organization.
Sure, yeah.
Admittedly, yeah, he says as much, belongs to a listener group, not the PLO 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 the 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, of 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 or 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, represent 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.
Like, it's going to take some actual difficult political maneuvering on the ground.
Of accepting Israel.
Of accepting Israel, yeah.
Which they formally did in 1993.
Which they formally did in 1993.
Yeah, but then no lasting peace came after that in 2000.
No, because 1993 was not a peace agreement.
Sure, the Oslo Accords didn't have a final solution.
Were 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 apartheid.
It's not.
There is some sort of apartheid going on in the West Bank.
The Israeli regime itself is not an apartheid regime.
This is nonsense.
By any definition of apartheid, which—
Well, by the formal definition, I think it qualifies.
No, it doesn't qualify.
Apartheid is a race-based distinction between different segments of the population.
Correct.
And some of them don't have any representation at all, like the blacks in South Africa.
But that's not a requirement.
In Israel, 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 been 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, is—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 to say.
Optimistic to say.
No, I—even though I agree, I've thought about it a lot, and I agree with Mouin's analysis.
I'm not really in the business of punditry.
I'd 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.
But I don't quite—I agree and I disagree with Mouin 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 2,000 and 3,000 Israeli soldiers were killed during the 1970s.
It was 2,500?
Yeah, 2,700.
Yeah, okay, so I got it right.
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 there was a fear that this might be it.
No, no, there wasn't.
There wasn't.
No, the Israelis—
This is nonsense.
Everybody forgets Israel's atomic weaponry.
I know, but—
So how could they have been defeated?
Didn't Dayan talk about the collapse of the Third Temple?
He did, but it was hysterical and silly.
Well, I can't—
Because Israel had atomic weapons.
They wanted to stop the Syrians or the Egyptians.
But we're talking about perceptions here.
Yeah, I'm not—I can't tell you if he was hysterical or not.
No, he was.
For a day, he was hysterical.
I wasn't in the same room with him.
For a day, he was hysterical.
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.
Extreme.
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 the Palestinian homeland.
He wouldn't accept—
Palestinian national home.
On 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 get 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 Yaniv, he's since
passed from the scene, he said—Yaniv, in his book, Dilemmas 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 Intifada.
Then there's the Oslo Accord.
And let's now go to the heart of the issue, namely the 2000-2001 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, 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, the insanity part.
Yeah.
Actually, I will vouch for it.
I will personally vouch for it.
There is one extensive record from that whole period from 2000 to, 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-Ami's book, which I have with me, Prophets 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 will withdraw from 90, relinquish, 92% of the West Bank.
Ben-Ami was at Camp David.
Yeah.
Ben-Ami was at Taba.
Oh, yeah.
He was also at Camp David.
Israel wanted to keep all the major settlement blocks.
It wanted to keep roughly 8% of the West Bank.
They were allowing for, you put it at 84% to 90% in your books.
They put it at roughly 92%.
Israel was willing to give up.
That's how you calculate.
Yeah.
It also depends what stage Camp David, because there were two weeks.
Yeah.
I'll get to that.
The proposals changed during those two weeks.
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 Male Adumim.
We have as Condoleezza 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 Ehud Barak in the article he co-authored with you in the New York Review of Books,
we will accept, and I think the quote's 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 wall decision in 2004, in July 2004, all 15 judges, including the American judge Bergenthal,
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...
No, not Palestinian, because there was no Palestine.
There's never been a Palestinian state.
How could it be Palestinian?
I listen patiently to you.
Sorry.
Under international law, if you read the decision, all territory...
The not 2004 wall decision.
All territory beyond the Green Line, which includes East Jerusalem, is occupied Palestinian territory.
Except in the Golan Heights.
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.
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...
Allocated to the Palestinians.
Allocated to the Palestinians, yes.
Thank you for the clarification.
Now, about Arafat.
Liked the mufti.
Never liked the guy.
I think that was one of the only disagreements Muin and I had when Arafat 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 negotiations started up, the Palestinians just kept saying the same things.
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 on the other side agreed.
Clinton, don't talk to me about international law.
Livni, during the Omar administration, he 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, along with the U.S.
When has international law been relevant to any conflict, basically, in the world?
Hey, that's why the Palestinians have to recognize Israel, because that's international law.
No, but international laws are meaningless.
That was UN Resolution 242.
Conflicts are not solved by international law or in accordance with international law.
Yeah, but then, Professor Morris, for argument's sake, let's agree on that, strictly for argument's sake.
What's the alternative?
Dennis Ross 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 Ross decided to be the philosopher king.
He's going to decide on the basis of needs.
Well, if you ask me, since Gaza is one of the densest places on earth, it needs a nice big chunk.
Of Sinai.
Well, not Sinai.
That's what it actually needs.
Okay, I don't even want to go there.
It needs a nice big chunk, but I have to accept international law says no.
Okay?
International law is irrelevant.
Now, Ben Hamid says, I think the Israeli offer was reasonable.
Okay, that's your-
And he's a reasonable guy.
That's your-
He seems that, even though-
Okay, I don't want to go there.
I've debated him, and part I agree 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 considers unreasonable.
I think that the issue is, when you apply international law or international standards, I wouldn't say what Benny Moore says that they're 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.
Have Palestinians gained more or less land since that 2004 advisory opinion was issued?
So 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, but then what both sides are reasonable for.
But for instance, this statement of full retreat from the West Bank, what is it, 400,000 settlers?
How many settlers live in the West Bank now?
Probably half a million.
It depends if you include the Jerusalem suburbs or not.
Yeah, 400,000 or 500,000 people are never-
I think it's 700,000.
With the Jerusalem suburbs, perhaps.
Sure.
Yeah.
There's no call is that 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 there's half a million Israeli people are not being expelled.
My response, you're basically saying, if I understand correctly, there's only one way to resolve this, and that is through direct bilateral negotiation.
Probably, yeah.
Yeah, okay.
Or ideally, but-
If you're taking over your house, you're not going to go to the police because the law is only of 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 advocating bilateral negotiations, that effectively that gives each of the parties veto power.
And in the current circumstances, the Palestinians have already recognized Israel.
They have-
You keep bringing that up like it's a significant concession.
It's not true.
It's not even true.
It's not even true.
It doesn't, but it doesn't, the recognition from Palestine isn't doing anything for-
You're, you're, you're-
Hamas totally rejects.
I'm not talking about Hamas.
Hamas is the majority in the, among the Palestinian people.
They won the elections in 2006.
Actually, they won a majority of the seats.
Yes, exactly.
They didn't win a majority of the votes.
Every opinion poll today says the majority of Palestinians support the Hamas.
That sounds right.
Hamas absolutely rejects Israel.
But-
So, if Arafat, 2003, 1993 or whatever issued a sort of recognition of Israel-
It wasn't a sort of recognition, it wasn't-
Okay, a recognition of Israel.
It doesn't, it's meaningless.
It's meaningless.
It's meaningless.
Any, anyhow, I don't believe that Arafat was sincere about it.
Does it matter what you or I think about what you felt?
Well, most Israelis do, and that does matter.
Okay.
So-
That doesn't matter.
But Hamas says no, and Hamas is the majority.
So, for years, the Israeli and U.S. demand was that the Palestinians recognize 242 and 338.
They did.
But you're saying, okay, we demanded that they do this, but it was meaningless when they
did it.
Then the demand was that-
It was a tactical thing, yes.
Then the demand was the PLO recognize Israel.
Tactical.
We demanded that they did this, and they did it, but it's meaningless.
Yeah.
And they never changed their charter, the PLO.
You may remember that.
In fact, in 19-
They supposedly abrogated the old charter, but never came up with a new one.
No, but-
So there was no new charter.
But in 1996-
And Farouk Hadoumi said, of course, the old charter is still in force.
Yes.
Yes.
But the point is, you know, the Palestinians' demands are constantly made of them, and when
they-
And when they accede 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.
There's no new set of demands.
It's like a hamster.
Let me-
It's like a hamster stuck in a wheel.
No, no.
Let me tell you what the bottom line is.
That will be told if you run fast enough, you'll get out of the cage.
No, no.
The bottom line is that Israel would like a Palestinian Sadat.
It wants the Palestinians-
This is really a worst case scenario-
Okay, let me just-
Yeah, because they shot Sadat.
But anyhow-
For good reason.
The Israelis want-
For good reason?
The Israelis want the Palestinians-
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 in two states.
The Israelis-
I don't even know if it's true.
And what is the formal position-
I don't even know if that's true today.
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.
And it's predecessor.
Come on.
That's what Israelis want.
They want a change of psyche among the Palestinians.
And if that doesn't happen, there won't be a Palestinian state.
There just won't be.
Muin has an interesting point.
Forget international law.
Because 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, but it doesn't suit them as well, right?
Okay.
But here's the problem.
And it's exactly the problem that Muin 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 though.
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 Muin wrote.
Here's what you said.
You said, formally, you said, yes, it's true.
The Palestinians recognize Israel.
But then you said, viscerally, in their hearts, they didn't really recognize Israel.
So, I thought to myself, how does Professor Morrison know what's in the hearts of Palestinians?
I don't know.
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.
The two-state solution, as proposed, doesn't make any sense.
Exactly as Muin said, you keep moving the goalposts until we reach the point where we
realize, according to Benny Morris, there can't be a solution.
So, why don't you just say that outright?
Right.
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, they couldn't possibly agree to a two-state
settlement, because it's such a lousy settlement.
Because they want all of Palestine.
That's what you said.
Because they want all of Palestine.
But you said, rationally, they couldn't accept it.
Not their feelings.
It's both.
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 want all of Palestine.
So, Muin is absolutely correct.
There's no way to resolve the problem, according to your logic.
They want all of Palestine.
He said that himself.
He said they should dismantle Israel.
I'm talking about…
That's what he's saying.
I'm talking about…
He didn't say that.
What I said, and I've written…
I'm glad you didn't deny it.
Go ahead.
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 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 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 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, Kauter Loerse, has written a very perceptive article on when
the PLO, already in 1976, came out in open support of a two-state resolution at the Security
Council.
The PLO accepted it.
Israel, of course, rejected it.
But the resolution didn't pass because the US and the UK vetoed it.
It was both of them.
I think it was nine to five.
Ah, okay.
Yeah.
But the fact of the matter is that the PLO came to accept a two-state settlement.
Why they did it, I think, is irrelevant.
And subsequently, the PLO acted on the basis of seeking to achieve a two-state settlement.
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.
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 something I've never understood.
He should have logically accepted the springboard and then from there launched his next stage.
No, he understood what he doesn't understand.
He understood international law would put a real constraint on him.
No, but also-
Once he accepted, it was over.
Constitutionally, he was incapable of signing.
I don't know that.
You're right that 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.
The springboard.
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.
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.
The principle.
He said I 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.
Arafat, 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.
Those were his priorities.
Which was a large concession from whether you accept the number or not.
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 Walmart offer.
Sure.
Can we just pretend like we didn't all lay out the exceptionally pessimistic view of a two-state?
Hold on a second.
Two-state solution.
Let's pretend that in five years, in 10 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 Arafat thought that if he held on, there was always a better deal around the corner.
Abbas 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 for peace that the Palestinians had, have completely and utterly abandoned them.
Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf states, whether you're talking bilateral peace or 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,
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 Sadat-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 on October 7th and we've got a room of Hamas, but we can't trust these people in the West.
We have to do the night raids because, you know, the second intifada, you know,
it 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.
Because 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 B'Tselem, we talk about Haretz, 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.
If you paint a picture of the future, now is a good moment for both Palestine and Israel to get new leadership.
Netanyahu is 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 Benny said, yeah, it's difficult because Hamas enjoys so much widespread support amongst the Palestinian people.
I think that the well, I don't know that 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 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 that are intended to regulate our conduct, all of our conduct, not just some of us.
So that's a fundamental thing I'm saying to abandon.
Well, you're saying, you know, international law in the millionth UN resolution, you're being very dismissive about all these things.
Well, I'm saying that's fine, but then you have to be dismissive across the board.
I'm saying like, for instance, like 242, that was a chapter six resolution.
That's a non-binding.
But 242 is the thing.
Of course it's binding.
Of course it's binding.
Absolutely not binding.
What is binding?
Do you know anything about how the UN system works?
Binding, if you read the language of the resolution, binding is typically if it commits you to upholding a particular international law or if it establishes a new law.
What is chapter six?
You just throw out words.
You hear binding, not binding.
Does 242 even, does 242 mention a Palestinian state?
No.
Of course not.
That's part of the problem.
That was the reason why the Palestinians didn't want to recognize 242 because they only referred at the very end to a refugee problem.
Sure, but the PLO recognized 181 and 242.
Yeah, but hold on, hold on.
Every United Nations Security Council resolution, irrespective of under which chapter it 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.
Okay.
Now regarding, yes.
The language even of 242 is kept intentionally vague such that it doesn't actually provide, again, the final concourse.
It's probably not that vague because the term, the term land for peace originates in 242.
Sure, but the part about territorial acquisition and Israel's need to give it up was kept vague.
Okay.
That's why in 79 Israel thought that they fulfilled their obligations under 242 in terms of withdrawal.
Allow me points of information.
Yeah.
The first principle in UN resolution, 242, is that the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force.
Which is meaningless.
It may be meaningless to you, Mr. Bunnell.
It was meaningless to everyone in the region.
Okay.
Mr. Bunnell, 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 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 Arafat supported.
Which Arafat supported.
That's what's called-
That's true.
Arafat did support it.
Arafat did support it.
It's not accurate.
I'm not going to go there.
I'm not going to go there.
It's not accurate that Arafat endorsed-
Okay.
I'm not going to go there.
Okay.
The whole Palatine-
It's called under international law, use Kogan's or peremptory 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.
Who owned the West Bank before 67?
That is-
That is-
That is-
That is-
That is-
That is-
Mr. Bunnell, don't change the subject.
If you don't know what you're talking about-
It's not about change-
You can say-
I'm curious-
You can say-
I'm curious-
How close has 242 gotten-
How close has 242 gotten-
How close has 242 gotten to the Palestinians to peace?
You don't know chapter six from tweet five.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
It's just so embarrassing.
At least have some humility.
Between us, we've read maybe 10,000 books on the topic, and you've read two Wikipedia entries, and you start talking about chapter six.
Do you know what chapter seven is?
Answer me-
Do you know what chapter seven is?
Answer me question.
How close has 242 gotten the Palestinians to a state?
Let me answer this.
How close has the 2004 advisory opinion gotten the West Bank settlements written?
What's your alternative?
The alternative is not this, whatever this making money off the conflict is.
The actual alternative-
The actual alternative-
Destiny should talk about making money off of idiocy.
Yeah, you're a media blitz where you go and talk to 50 million different people about your awesome solution.
But he has a point there.
The issue is you have to negotiate-
All these resolutions have gotten the Palestinians no closer to a state.
Yeah, but hold on a second.
Because they haven't been enforced because of the U.S. veto.
They're not going to be enforced.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Okay.
If I may.
If I may.
You know what?
You know what, Professor Morris?
We're talking about the case for genocide.
Professor Morris, because of your logic, and I'm not disputing it, that's why October
7th happened.
Oh my god.
Because there was no options left for those people.
Exactly what Moeen said.
And now all options are left?
After October 7th?
You know, I-
I-
What's the option is what?
Oh!
Listen, listen to this.
The only option is combat.
Lister Bonnell is now an expert on Palestinian mentality.
Hold on.
You're contradicting yourself.
I only deal with facts.
I only deal with facts.
I only deal with facts.
Egypt didn't find it necessary to-
Tell me about chapter five.
Tell me about chapter five.
Egypt didn't find it necessary to negotiate peace with the Palestinians.
Tell me about chapter five.
Jordan didn't find it necessary to negotiate peace with the Palestinians.
Hey, if I may.
You're contradicting yourself.
Fuck faster.
You're contradicting yourself.
On the one hand, you're saying all the Palestinians do is fight and violence and terrorism and
all the rest of it.
But on the other hand, you're saying they're expecting salvation from UN resolutions and
international court.
Those aren't violent.
No, but it's part of maintaining-
It's the law.
It's the continual putting off of negotiating any solution.
They've negotiated.
I think he said 19-
As in when Arafat takes 10 days to respond-
I think he said 19-
I think he said 19-
I think he said 19-
I think he said-
I think he said-
I think Moeen-
I think Moeen said-
I think Moeen said-
That's what putting the conflict off indefinitely.
19-
Why didn't they accept the color of racism?
Why didn't they accept the color of racism?
Why didn't they accept the color of racism?
That's 50 years ago.
This is a legend.
That's a half century ago.
There's a very-
No, no.
They didn't accept the two-state solution.
He quoted a very good article.
You can quote Arafat talking about how he's lying and he's just going to use a 94 and
a 95 when he's making trips around the world-
But there's a very rich-
That's the starting ground.
I'm sorry.
I can't talk slow.
You can watch TV and slow it down at 0.5 speed if you don't understand what I'm saying.
Let me-
There's a very-
There's a very lengthy history of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
You want to deny that those negotiations took place-
Where it feels like there was a good faith effort-
What feels like?
Where there was a good faith effort-
Where it was a good faith effort-
We have a written record-
With all due respect-
We have a written record-
Mr. Pop History, you can't even read the written records.
I don't know why you're referring to-
Excuse me?
I said there are 15,000 pages on Annapolis.
And I'm sure you cherry-quicked your favorite quote from all of them.
I know cherry-pick.
Okay?
That's great.
That's great.
Mr. Barrel, at least I had a quote to cherry-pick.
That's great.
All you have is Wikipedia.
I gave you quotes.
All you have is Wikipedia.
Do you want quotes?
Find me the information that shows the Palestinian cause has been furthered by any international
law.
You can't do it.
I think the problem is different.
Okay?
If you want to say the Palestinians were only fighting, and then when I point out they've
also gone to the court, and the UN say, well, all they do then is these things, and
they should be negotiating, and I demonstrate that there was a lengthy record of negotiations,
and said, 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 negotiations on the side of the-
Please, if I could just finish.
I think the fundamental problem here is not what the Palestinians have and 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 Taba's summit?
How do you explain the Camp David?
No, Barat and Olmert did accept the legitimacy of Palestinian demands.
But they didn't want to give the Palestinians all of Palestine, that's all.
No, all of Palestine?
All of Palestine.
You mean all of the occupied territories?
No, no.
You're talking about all of Palestine.
Wait, what is the occupied territories?
The occupied territories-
Is that all of Israel?
The occupied territories are those territories that Israel occupied in June of 1967.
Palestinians often use that term to define the whole of Palestine, 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 in
the negotiations, because that's what we were talking about, wanted all of Israel.
The maximum-
They can't say that, because the international community won't accept it.
So they didn't say it, they didn't ask for it.
But you know what lurks in their heart.
No, Hamas did.
Hamas always said all of it.
Hamas never-
Hamas only negotiated with Israel about prisoner exchanges in the pocket.
No, I know, but they represent a lot of the Palestinian people, you will agree.
The only place I saw pieces of Israel were the land swaps.
And the land swaps accounted for about two to five percent of Israel.
Nobody asked for all of Israel.
Why do you say things like that?
Hey, what do 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, because you have no answer.
I'll respond to you.
That's correct.
Mr. Benel, we were talking about the diplomatic negotiations beginning with 20, 2000, 2001.
Yes, I understand, but you can't pretend that the first ask for Israel was in diplomacy.
Okay.
It was through war.
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 don't think so, no.
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.
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-U.S. deal, which committed the U.S. to make certain
commitments to Saudi Arabia that would probably never get through Congress.
Do you not consider 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.
The core of this conflict is not between Israel and Egypt.
The core of this conflict is between Israel and the Palestinian people.
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 that there would come a point when Egypt would find a way to extract
an unbearable price.
Maybe just the Israelis wanted peace.
Well, the Israelis wanted it.
Not just because they were afraid of what Egypt might do at some point.
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.
How do you remove the most powerful Arab military state from the equation?
Two points.
Simple points.
What was the terms of that Egypt-Israeli peace treaty?
International law.
Egypt demanded every…
Nobody cared about international law.
Allow me to finish.
Every single inch of Egyptian…
Nobody talked about international law.
Beggin and Carter and Saddam talked about the realities of Israel occupying territory.
I want the peace.
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 dismantled.
No, that's in the…
The air fields be dismantled.
No, not dismantled.
They wanted the oil fields.
They wanted the settlements dismantled.
They wanted the settlements dismantled.
The settlements, the oil fields, and the airfield.
They demanded all three back.
You can't have…
What do you mean back?
The airfields weren't there when the Egyptians were there.
Okay.
That's incorrect.
What's…
You're incorrect.
They built an airfield.
The Israelis built an airfield in the occupied Sinai.
Yes.
And they wanted it back.
They didn't want it back.
It wasn't theirs.
Okay.
The oil fields, the airfields, the settlements have to be dismantled.
Yes.
Begin said, I don't want to be the first prime minister to dismantle a settlement.
Then he did.
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, each of which wanted certain things.
The law had nothing to do with anything.
The Palestinians wanted…
The law had nothing to do with anything.
As they said repeatedly in the negotiations…
You're not listening.
You're not listening.
You're missing my point.
I've read the negotiations.
The law has nothing to do with anything.
There are two foreign relations of U.S. volumes on it.
Nobody cares about the law.
The Palestinians kept saying we want exactly…
Forget the Palestinians.
They weren't there.
Allow me to finish.
The Palestinians kept saying we want what Egypt got.
We want what Egypt got.
Yeah.
Egypt got everything back.
But nothing to do with the law.
Okay.
Nothing to do with the law.
And number two, I'm not saying it's the whole picture.
But as Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan 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 Egypt from the Arab front would then remove any Arab military threat
from Israel.
Yeah.
It's got nothing to do with the international law.
No.
The first part did.
And that's what the Palestinians kept saying.
I don't know what the first part is.
We want what Egypt got from the settlement.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's true.
But forget international law.
On a personal note, the quote about Sharm El Sheikh without peace.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's the only thing you ever cited from a book of mine.
I cited from your book?
Yes.
I was absolutely shocked at your betrayal of your people.
That was pure treason.
I apologize for that.
I apologize.
I accept.
I accept.
I accept.
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 things.
What gives you hope?
I don't like war.
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 and people in the West Bank, people in Israel, fundamentally
they hate war.
Yes.
I think so.
What gives you hope?
There is no hope, no.
It's an extreme...
No, I'm...
Hey!
I'm not happy to say that.
Of course you are.
It's a very bleak moment right now because...
That I agree with.
I agree with that.
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.
That would be an unfortunate message if that's really what the Arabs come to believe.
And they think that there is a military option now.
And I think that 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.
Yes, yes.
But for the moment, it's a very bleak situation.
That I agree with you.
And I don't see right now a way out.
However, at the very minimum, permanent ceasefire and the inhuman and illegal blockade of Gaza
and free to hostages.
Why is it illegal?
You're shooting rockets at Israel for 20 years.
Why is that illegal?
To blockade Gaza.
He thinks they're bottle rocks.
Why is it illegal?
I'll tell you why.
You don't rocket your neighbor.
You rocket your neighbor.
Expect consequences.
I'll tell you why.
Expect consequences.
But that works both ways.
I know.
I expect that.
It works both ways.
I'll tell you why.
Because every human rights humanitarian and UN organization in the world has said…
You keep quoting them.
…that the blockade…
Nobody cares about amnesty.
…is a form of collective punishment…
Nobody cares about amnesty.
…which is illegal under international law.
Forget the legal.
The word illegal is…
You think a blockade…
You don't understand the way the world works.
Yeah.
These things are irrelevant.
And you think confining…
Because that's the blockade.
Yes.
You don't…
Confining…
Confining a million children…
Confining…
That's the choice of Hamas.
Confining…
That's Hamas' choice.
…a million children in what the economist called…
Okay.
…a human rubbish sheep…
The economist supported Israel in this war…
…and continues to support Israel.
Okay.
…what International Committee of the Red Cross called a sinking ship…
…what the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called a toxic slum…
…you think…
It is a slum.
Of course it's a slum.
…you think…
But it's caused by the Hamas.
…under international law…
…you think it's legitimate…
Forget the law.
…to…
Hey, I know you want to forget the law.
What about morality?
Forget the law.
What about morality?
It's what every Israeli fears the most.
What?
The law.
No, no, no.
I don't want to…
I don't want to…
I studied international law.
I oppose international law.
Of course you don't want to hear about the law.
Then it's got nothing to do with anything.
Okay.
So here's the thing.
Yeah.
Then don't complain about October 7th.
If you don't want…
Did you hear me complaining?
If you want to say…
…forget about the law…
I didn't complain.
All I said was they acted like barbarians.
Then there is no international humanitarian law.
There's no distinction between civilians and combatants.
There should be.
And so…
There should be.
Now you're doing what Muin said.
You're becoming very selective about the law.
If you want to forget about the law, Hamas had every right to do what it did.
People should give us support.
It had every right to do what it did according to you, not to me, because you want to forget
the law.
Do you still support the Houthis shooting random ships?
Absolutely.
Okay.
That's a violation of international law.
So you play the same game.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And were there a power during World War II who had the courage of the Houthis?
Were there a power to have that kind of courage?
So courageous.
To be bombing merchant ships while tens of thousands of people die of actual starvation.
Not the starvation that exists in the Gaza Strip, where people, before October 7th, don't
die of starvation.
Not the concentration camp.
What about starvation in Yemen?
Don't they have something better to do?
Hey, that was the Houthis.
Yes, I know.
Don't they have anything better to do?
That was the Houthis.
And you know in three years they lost 180,000 people?
Shouldn't they be feeding the Yemenis?
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?
I'm very happy they're helping out the Palestinians.
Anyone who helps the people.
It's at the expense of the Yemenis.
They'll pay for it.
Anybody who comes to the aid of those suffering a genocide, half of whom are children.
Yeah, according to the most current UN reports, as of today, one quarter of the population
of Gaza is starving.
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 always on the verge.
They're on the verge.
There have been documented cases.
I haven't seen them.
Yesterday Al Jazeera said six and 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's famine in Israel.
There isn't.
There isn't in the Gaza Strip either.
It's something which is produced for the Western.
There are infants dying due to a engineered lack of access to food and nutrition.
I don't think it's engineered.
I think the Hamas stopped shooting perhaps.
Unfortunately.
Unfortunately.
As you said, engineered.
I think Amnesty, excuse me, Human Rights Watch called it using starvation as a weapon.
That's called engineering.
Okay.
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?
By what metric are they starving?
By what metric is it so behind the rest of the world?
Okay.
You know, if we're going to bring up-
I want to hear an answer to that because you didn't answer it before-
Okay.
I'm happy to answer it.
Yeah.
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.
Before October 7th.
I'm not going before October 7th.
You use that as 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?
Okay.
There were about five, six or seven reports issued by Uncded, issued by the World Bank, issued
by the International Monetary Fund.
And they all said, that's why.
That's why-
Why did they say why?
Okay.
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, if you do all this work together things, tell me what they said.
Okay.
Here's something.
Mr. Bunnell.
Tell me by what metrics.
Mr. Bunnell.
He's not going to answer again.
I don't think I've avoided any of your questions except when they breached the threshold of
complete imbecility.
So you're about to tell me by what metric the Gaza Strip is a humanitarian crisis.
Let me answer you.
You remember what 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 for Human Rights said.
They're saying more words that you don't know.
You don't know or you don't care.
I don't know.
Okay, that's fine.
Do 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, life expectancy.
Yeah, we can measure all of these things.
Moeen, 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.
We now, this conflict really, it originated in the late 19th century.
It's been a more or less active conflict since the 1920s, 1930s, and has produced a tremendous
amount of suffering and regional conflict and 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 do you mean by that?
You mean all of Palestine?
Is that what you mean?
No.
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 bi-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 descendants of a return?
I think there has to be an explicit acknowledgement of the 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 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 earlier comments about white supremacy.
So, my issue…
That's great.
The white supremacy comment.
Hold on.
Let me respond, okay?
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 refer to very precise things.
And then when people like you said that they should…
I would expect nothing less from someone who doesn't think Jim Crow was apartheid.
I don't know if Jim…
But who does think that Arab states not giving…
Because the problem is you're morally loading.
For you, apartheid is when racists do bad things.
No, no.
There's a definition of apartheid.
That's great.
There's a very clear definition of apartheid.
But the specific top-down racial domination enacted through top-down, like, federal legislative
policies or whatever, means that I don't know if Jim Crow would have qualified for apartheid.
Have you ever heard of Quinkelstein?
That doesn't make it any less…
Excuse me, Quinkelstein.
I'm talking right now.
Have you ever heard of Quinkelstein?
Excuse me, Quinkelstein.
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 2 million people,
I don't know if that would qualify for the crime of genocide.
In your eyes, probably not.
Well, yeah, but because genocide requires a special intent.
I think the issue is instead of…
And I think this conversation actually is emblematic of the entire conversation.
I don't think anything…
Then let me finish answering Jenny Morris' question.
Well, sure, but you accused me of supporting racism.
So, yeah.
Well, you did.
And you are…
I did it.
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…
You wouldn't say that 800 civilians were killed by Hamas.
You said, well, maybe 400 were killed by Israel.
No, I didn't say that.
I don't know the number.
Maybe…
No, I didn't say that.
You said 400.
No, I didn't say that.
You co-signed the opinion.
No, I didn't.
No, I didn't.
That's what I heard.
No, I didn't…
Well, you weren't listening.
How many people do you think approximately…
If you had to ballpark…
If you had to ballpark it, how many do you think were killed by Hamas on October 7th?
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…
I just want to ballpark.
Those are two very different intuitions.
First of all, are you…
When you say Hamas, do you mean Palestinians or do you mean Hamas specifically?
I mean the invading Palestinian force.
I don't like to say Palestinians because I don't think all Palestinian civilians were about
attacks.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, whatever…
But that's how this discussion started.
You said Hamas and I began to answer that.
And then Benny Morris said actually he means Hamas in addition to Jihad and the others.
So…
So of the invading Palestinian force, how many do you think killed civilians versus the
IDF?
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 asked at all.
About two-thirds were…
What's your question?
How many…
What percentage of civilians do you think were killed by the invading force?
A ballpark?
I think a clear majority, but I can't give you a specific figure.
If you thought it was closer to 51% or 99% were killed by…
Why would he know that?
How would he know that?
It's because it's interesting to actually stake out a position.
Yeah, it's interesting.
If you want to be completely, poorly agnostic on it, that's fine.
They start complete ignorance because we don't know.
Professor Morris doesn't know.
Muin Rabani doesn't know.
And yet you can speak with absolute certainty that the IDF is targeting and murdering Palestinian
children intentionally.
Oh, actually…
Do you see the double standard?
No, I don't.
You see…
I know you don't.
It was a rhetorical question.
Obviously you don't.
Why did you get on the matter?
I looked at the UN report.
Uh-huh.
I looked at the UN…
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.
No…
More journalists have been killed in the last several months in Gaza than in any other
conflict.
And in all of World War II.
Hamas is not killing journalists in Gaza.
Do you agree that they operate in civilian uniforms, that their goal is to induce that
that that's the way that they conduct themselves militarily?
Let me finish my point.
More journalists…
I understand.
…have been…
More you…
He doesn't want to hear.
It's so boring.
No, because it's…
Virtue signaling.
It is virtue signaling.
Virtue signaling, yeah.
Yes, like when you say children over and over again, that's virtue signaling.
But talking about…
Talking about how many…
Talking about how many…
Talking about how many Israelis were killed.
That's not virtue signaling, because that's human life.
I don't care about…
I don't care if a hundred are killed or a thousand…
You just interrogated him 51%…
I'm curious who you're assigned…
90%…
The question…
Yes, that's not the number.
That's the responsibility, Norm.
And then Mouin…
Mouin mentions that more journalists were killed in Gaza than in all of World War II.
That doesn't get it.
That doesn't bother any part of the competition.
And more medics were killed in Gaza.
No, no, that's silly.
Journalists…
And then he says it's virtue signaling.
In the area.
But when Israelis get killed, that's serious.
I never said it's serious on both sides.
You call it virtue signaling.
No, no, no.
I'm not virtue signaling.
Virtue signaling.
I'm asking a substantive question of who do you assign blame to, or do you play into
Norm Finkelstein's conspiracies that the ambulances 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 Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but 49% were killed by IDF helicopters.
You asked me a direct question, and you got a direct answer.
I did it.
I got majority, which could be…
I said a clear…
I said a clear majority.
What percent is a clear majority, as opposed to majority?
It's always…
They live in ambiguity, of course.
A clear majority, in my view, is well over 50%.
Please don't ask me to be more precise, because I can't…
You could say 80, 90, 95%.
If I knew that, I would say it.
I think it's a reasonable…
It's a reasonable…
Perhaps it is, but I'd…
You're not the best person to be asking that question.
You know, I read when you wrote, described Operation Defensive Shield, and you said a
few dozen homes were destroyed.
You're talking about what happened in the Janine refugee camp.
And you said…
No, the Arabs said 500.
You guys said 500 Palestinians were killed in Janine.
No, no, no.
I never said that.
No, but that was the statement of the PLO, the Palestinian Authority.
You said a few dozen homes…
And that there were massacres there.
There were a few dozen homes to go.
Yes, a few dozen homes.
That's right.
Well, it turned out 140 buildings were destroyed, 5,000 people were left homeless.
How many were killed?
5,000.
How many were killed?
You described it…
No, I'm talking about homes destroyed.
So, you're not the best person to be criticizing what Muin says when he says clear majority,
but he can't say more.
You know why he can't say more?
He doesn't know.
He doesn't know.
Yeah, yeah, I understand that.
I understood that point.
I hope as a historian…
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 shut up.
Do you know what the right phrase there would be?
The overwhelming majority were killed by Arab gunmen.
And a very small number were killed by Israelis by accident or whatever.
You're not speaking as a historian now.
That's probably true.
You're not speaking as a historian now.
That's probably true.
Because you don't know that.
I can state with confidence a clear majority, overwhelming majority.
You may be correct, but I can't state that with certainty.
I think there's a very easy way to find out is to have an independent…
Forget independent.
I know you're independent.
Well, of course you forget independent.
Forget the law.
Forget that doesn't mean anything.
Forget the law.
Independent is UN High Commission for Human Rights.
Not necessarily.
Just repeat the numbers.
They're all barbaric countries.
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.
Of course.
Oh, yeah.
Of course.
From your perspective.
Well, 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 in 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.
And I think there's a value to that.
You know, 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 Tsar's 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 a book on Gaza.
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, in various periods of history, if I've done a little bit of that, I'm happy.
Thank you, Norm.
Thank you, Benny.
Thank you, Steven.
Thank you, Moeen.
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Norman Ficklenstein, Benny Morris, Moeen Rabbani, and Steven Bunnell.
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now, let me leave you with 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.
Bye, bye.