Does Middle East Peace Require a Two-State Solution or a Palestinian Defeat? A Debate

the Palestinian movement is hostile to individual liberty including and especially the liberty of Palestinians themselves Israel can no more defeat the narrowly defined Palestinian movement than the massive American military machine could win any sort of military victory in Iraq or Afghanistan the Palestinian Authority moreover incites its own people to commit atrocities attacks against Israelis knife attacks car rhymings and other kinds of violent actions this is a one-sided tale that my opponent is telling of good Israelis and bad Palestinians it's a necessary condition to reach peace but the Palestinian movement be defeated oftentimes one must work with talk to and compromise with certain nefarious actors now for the main event tonight's resolution reads to resolve the israeli-palestinian conflict Israel must first achieve defeat of the Palestinian movement again for the affirmative Ilan giorno Ilan please come to the stage arguing for the negative Danny Susan Danny please come to the stage Jane please close the voting good evening Thank You Jean for inviting me Thank You Danny for joining the debate and thank you to the sponsors of the tides event tonight's resolution presupposes a detailed analysis of a hugely complicated conflict that's the analysis I offer in my book what justice demands and here let me indicate one crucial point to start with so much of the debate and the discussion about the israeli-palestinian conflict is bound up in religious ethnic nationalist and tribal premises and these get us nowhere instead I suggest we need to adopt a different approach we need to adopt a secular individualist pro-freedom perspective that's the framework that I offer in my book and that's what I'll be arguing from tonight and the reason for this is I believe and I think you can demonstrate objectively that individual liberty is an objective moral ideal it is true for all people in all places at all times and I believe that freedom is the standard by which we should evaluate the adversaries in this conflict so this individuals perspective that I'm arguing for leads us to discard collectivist and tribal premises and that whole way of thinking and one of the major steps in this way of thinking is we need to recognize a major distinction that I think gets blurred and completely ignored by many people there's a crucial difference between the Palestinian community and the Palestinian movement we have to be keep these separate and distinct the community is a group of individuals who recognize themselves as part of the Palestinian identity and they have features of a culture and the Palestinian movement is an ideological political enterprise it has specific goals and on an ideology and it claims to speak for the Palestinian community there is overlap between the two that's definitely true but they can't be treated as interchangeable they're not they're distinct and we have to keep them distinguished when we think about this issue this debate hinges on a moral evaluation of the adversaries so let's ask does the Palestinian movement seek freedom is it Pro human progress is a concern with righting wrongs done to the Palestinian community no no and no I argue that the Palestinian movement is hostile to individual liberty including and especially the liberty of Palestinians themselves and by contrast I argue Israel is a region's only free society it has flaws and moral failings really serious ones and these need to be addressed and reformed but none of these warrant the Palestinian movements aggression against it if you want to understand this conflict I think it's crucial to see that the Palestine movement is an obstacle to peace it's a fundamental barrier to progress in this region let me stress this debate does not hinge on the question of whether individual Palestinians have grievances they do some of them are legitimate grievances and they need to be redressed I argue this in my book for example are cases of Israeli land expropriation or cases where the Israeli police failed to protect the land owners who are Palestinians from Jewish religious fundamentalists who attacked them that is wrong it's a violation of the rule of law and it has to be stopped but even when you take all of these flaws and failings into account they do not end is particularly the grievances which I regard as legitimate they do not justify the militant goal of the Palestinian movement which is to liquidate Israel that's been true since the founding of the major factions of this move the Palestinian movement in a word has exploited the people it claims to be serving and protecting and righting wrongs for in reality the Palestinian movement is hostile to freedom and does not care about righting wrongs done to the people it claims to serve if you look at what is the Palestinian movement what is it composed of there are two major wings the Palestinian Liberation Organization or the PLO and Hamas the Islamist wing both were founded with a shared goal of bringing an end to Israel as a society both are hostile to rights and individual freedom and they try they actively now in the present day not in some future state that they are claiming to seek right now they're trampling the rights of their own people the PLO runs the Palestinian Authority which is an interim quasi state was supposed to be a step toward full sovereignty and this is mostly in the parts of the West Bank it is a dictatorial authoritarian regime the president of this organization this entity is Mahmoud Abbas he his four-year term as president ended about 10 years ago and he is still in power and he's not leaving he's going to appoint the next prime minister it seems if you try to live there you'll realize quickly there is no freedom of speech there's no freedom of association if you criticize Abbas who is the dictator and in place you may well be thrown in jail and God help you if you're a Christian or if you're gay under the Palestinian Authority you will be hounded out if you make it out alive and the Palestinian Authority moreover incites its own people to commit atrocities attacks against Israelis knife attacks car rhymings and other kinds of violent actions and they celebrate the perpetrators of these attacks as martyrs to the cause and the Palestinian Authority is led by the PLO should be we should note this is what is considered by many people as the moderate wing of the Palestinian movement so let's look at what people regard as beyond the pale Hamas this is the Islamist faction which runs Gaza and it took over in a bloody coup in 2007 it has injected Islamist ideas into the the area where rules and it's conducted summary executions in the street Hamas is for rocket Wars against Israel numerous times in 2008 2012 2014 and there have been small skirmishes in between there and of course they were rocketed to rockets fired from Gaza last week toward Tel Aviv and Hamas is notorious for inciting its people to commit suicide bombings and to celebrate their acts of destruction of other people this not only through the mainstream press that Hamas controls but through children's programming and magazines it is inculcating really perverse ideas so when you look at the Palestinian movement you realize that this is a movement that is hostile to freedom that does not care about the lives of the people it governs and this is a movement committed to liquidating a free society basically free society in the region's only free society in the Middle East that's what I'll I'll suggest what I argue in depth in my book now let me stress I've argued that the Palestrina move is hostile field let me argue let me indicate some reasons to think that it is not concerned with righting wrongs actual wrongs done to Palestinians in fact you can see by the way it's governing that to the extent that has control to the extent it has self-government in Gaza and parts of the West Bank the Palestinian movement has inflicted its own forms of injustice which I've mentioned there is no freedom of speech under its control minorities are persecuted horribly religious and other minorities but worse than this to the extent they have control over these people of the Palestinian community the Palestinian movement is not really opposed to the kinds of crimes that it accuses Israel of such as arbitrary arrests censorship expropriation because it itself is committing these a crimes against its own people in my book I mentioned one notable example which is a Qatari businessman who came to the Palestinian territories to open a bank and help build out the what was beginning to be a new state the Palestinian Authority his bank and his personal property were expropriated from him by the Palestinian Authority in broad daylight and there are many other examples of this now one other thing to note about the Palestinian Authority at which again is there is the wing within the Palestinian movement that many people regard as deal with and one Mahmoud Abbas is a sort of is one of the people that is invited and who visits the white house he has that kind of diplomatic status under the Palestinian Authority it is a crime to sell land to Jews so this is a is defined by people's race right there ethnicity and it's the the kind of punishment you can get and people actually face this punishment is hard labor for life and the maximum penalty is death just keep that in mind so let me turn now to look at Israel briefly what I want to argue here is that if you take seriously the value of human life the value of human progress and a freedom it's crucial to recognize a stark moral difference and moral inequality between Israel and the Palestinian movement Israel stands out as a basically free society one with many flaws and moral failings and yet it has freedom of speech it has religious freedom intellectual freedom all citizens regardless of race or creed have the right to vote and be part of the government now there are going to be objections to Israel's moral standing and I was anticipate some of them here which is that is an ethnic national state and that it's an apartheid state I opposed the ethnic national elements of Israel regard Israel as a combination of individualist elements that are good and that's what leads it to protect individual rights and national ethnic elements and religious elements which I regard as a problem in a source of its failings we can talk about the apartheid claim which deserves more attention in the question period I invite you to ask me about that I want to make the case for why I think the the main barrier here to reaching moving forward towards peace is the Palestinian movement to the extent that the current approach is being tried the two-state solution it's led to empowering the Palestinian movement it's given them mini-state in effect in the West Bank in Gaza which is a militant regime that is hostile to the lives of the people it controls and retrying the the peace process that leads to a two-state solution which is the entrenched approach is going to lead to the same kind of outcome it's not going to change until the ideas that are animating the Palestinian movement are changed or it gives up its goal which is what I advocate so the the approach that's being tried so far has only made the conflict worse more people have died in violence since the signing of the famous peace process deal under Bill Clinton in xx in 1993 than did in the 25 years before that so this is a bad attempt to suit to solve the problem because I think it evades the character of the adversaries and particularly the Palestinian movement what I'm advocating for instead what I'm suggesting is that it's a necessary condition to reach peace that the Palestinian movement be defeated and this is because I think what's happening is it's a protracted war between two sides and Wars typically end if we look at history when one side gives up its goals when it puts down its arms as hopeless and its goal is unachievable and that's what I'm suggesting needs to happen with the Palestinian movement it needs to lose heart it needs to give up its so-called armed struggle and it's jihad and through a combination of economic political and military pressure the infrastructure of the Palestine movement in the West Bank and the Palestinian in the Gaza Strip needs to be uprooted this is a long-term process it's not going to happen overnight and the crucial thing that has to happen is a psychological or a my shift people need to the followers of the Palestinian movement the leaders of the Palestine moon need to abandon their goal of liquidating Israel and creating a society that is an authoritarian one which is what they've been acting on all this time and a major thing that can be done from outside the conflict is that all of us in this room all of us who have influenced and particularly the governments that here in the in the US and in Canada and Europe need to with withdraw their moral endorsement of the idea that the Palestinian state is a goal to be achieved because what we've seen when it's materialized even to a small degree is that it is hostile to freedom and it is a militant regime that is hot that seeks to undermine Israel withdrawing that moral sanction and the financial support that makes it possible I think is critical to reaching the point at which the Palestinian movement feels defeated and gives up its goal thank you very much Jenny surgeon for the negative thank you my opponent has undoubtedly laid out a passionate detailed defense of Israeli policy over the last half-century he's also highlighted the very worst aspects of what he dubs the Palestinian movement where his remarks merely in an unopposed introduction to this rather complex topic the very simplicity of the model would likely be persuasive unfortunately as a veteran of two wars in the greater Middle East and a budding scholar of Israel Palestine I found matters in this region far more nuanced and thorny than all that it is for this reason that I must oppose this resolution tonight along with the black and white thinking that informs it's very framework I cannot promise you any neat models nor any simple reassuring solutions this intractable conflict rather I hope to present a middling approach to conflict resolution that accepts as genuine the fears for Israeli security but does not dismiss the plight of the Palestinians outright mine is a path of empathy and an attempt at even-handedness for one-sided solutions such as my opponent is crafted here tonight will never bring peace to the Holy Land that said the israeli-palestinian crisis as many of us know is a veritable third rail in American political discourse so it may be necessary for me to start with a few disclaimers I speak as someone who is not anti-semitic who opposes anti-semitism in all the ugly forms it takes and who believes the Israeli state has a right to exist now that that's out of the way I have to address the controversial caveat Palestinians for both moral and strategic reasons also deserve state sovereignty and equivalent civil rights and that should be the stated position of libertarians all real small see conservatives and my debate opponent tonight Israel is neither saint nor Satan neither is Palestine these are two fluid societies that shift with domestic and international winds the two sides do not operate in a mannequin world of good evil duality no matter how much some of us would like them to in that vein I shall oppose tonight's resolution on the basis of three major arguments first I reject as deceptive the very term Palestinian movement especially as mr. Giorno has pejoratively defined in this movement is no single thing and it's certainly not nearly as simple or as evil Islamist jihadi as the labels that my opponent refers second I shall demonstrate that the vast majority of Palestinian organizations even Hamas can and should be dealt with as potential partners in negotiations indeed despite all the blood spilt in recent years both Fatah and Hamas are more willing than ever before to make peace along the pre-1967 borders accept the two-state solution and at least tacitly recognized Israel's right to exist further I'll indicate that it's often been Israel especially under its contemporary right-wing government that has provoked Hamas broken truces and otherwise sought to undermine the very existence a popular democratically elected Palestinian movement and finally I'll argue that peace necessitates not a fantastical notion of quote defeat of the Palestinian movement which is neither plausible nor grounded in fairness rather what peace does require is the isolation and common condemnation of most terroristic elements of Palestinian resistance but it demands that we recognize and condemn Israeli policies that also hinder conflict resolution indeed in some cases making peace impossible and that's what's missing from my opponents opening remarks the notion that Israel has a role to play in reforming you see in the way it's been laid out the Palestinians are evil their movement at least their leaders are all evil they can't be dealt with and I reject that so finally I'll argue that peace necessitates that any solution in the Holy Land will not be forthcoming unless the Israeli government or hopefully a successor administration reverses course in its militarization an escalation of the occupation regime and opens its mind and hearts authentic negotiation with all components of the multi-faceted Palestinian movement so let us begin by first assertion the resolutions problematic definition of the Palestinian movement I mean take a moment to read to actually read the resolution tonight that staggering sentence that my opponent has affirms I'm gonna break down three main parts of it first off it's clear from the resolution and for my opponents remarks that he places Israel and Israelis at the center of this model to him Israel represents everything good in the world juxtaposed with all the evil Arab states of the region Israel and Israelis can do no wrong this is problematic not only because there are good people and good faith movements in the Middle East I've met many of them but because he lets Israel off the hook for its own flawed policies human rights abuses and sometimes undemocratic tendencies in the territories educated Israelis should seek to improve their own society just as Americans should it doesn't make you an American or unpatriotic it's a critique American foreign policy I will say the same applies to Israel but you'll hear very little of that tonight this is a one-sided tale that my opponent is telling of good Israelis and bad Palestinians or really movements and bad Palestinian movements indeed yolk white you'll hear quite little of the somehow absent Palestinians from my opponent tonight the Palestinians are almost the elephant in the room that no one dare speak of then there's the term defeat I must say that as a combat soldier and officer having conducted fruitless counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan which is remarkably similar to duty in the West Bank in Gaza in fact we study it the very term quote defeat has come to seem rather absurd highly unrealistic how can one people how can one a defeat of people's movement can one even win a true counterinsurgency I'm quite doubtful and so are most military historians but that's precisely the assumption of this resolution that Israel can and should defeat the Palestinians this ladies and gentlemen is fantasy it's it's wishful thinking at best lastly we return to the problematic phrase Palestinian movement my opponent believes that today's Palestinian movement is the enemy an entity worthy only of destruction I think that when he looks at Palestine and Palestinians and their organizations what he sees is Isis that Palestinian equals Islamofascist jihadism but Palestinians ok are little more than terrorists in this telling and that's just not accurate beyond being wildly inaccurate it's a very very dangerous conception it leads to a lack of empathy for a lack of concern with civilian lives a demonstrable fact is this the vast majority of Palestinians like the vast majority of Muslims are not civilian slaughtering terrorists Palestinians are a manifold diverse people in fact they're the most highly educated Arab people on the planet yes there are monsters among them but this is a small fraction of a vigorous and beautiful whole so the crux of this first argument is that the very framework the very language and construction of the resolution is poorly defined factually inaccurate unachievable and one-sided so much so that on this point alone one should vote down the resolution nevertheless let us turn to my second major argument that the vast majority of Palestinian organizations even Hamas can and should be dealt with as potential partners in negotiation service in America's never-ending post 9/11 wars has taught me that sometimes oftentimes one must work with talk to and compromise with certain nefarious actors the US military tried quote defeating Sunni Islam o nationalism in western Iraq for four full years with little or no success to the tune of 2,000 dead soldiers only went forward thinking Colonels and a willing General David Petraeus began talking to the Sunni tribesmen and dividing them from the most extreme elements of the insurgency did the US Army achieve a drop in violence this mind you was a very hard pill for us to swallow in fact many of our new partners in the Sunni tribes had literal American blood on their hands still there was no alternative course with any hope to lower violence ultimately protect US soldiers and bring a semblance of peace than to work with the Muslims of the region work with the Sunni Islamists in much the same way Israel must deal with any Palestinian individual or organization that is ready to accept a long-term truce and a two-state solution why because there is no other path to peace none isolating Fatah or even Hamas will alienate perhaps three-quarters of the Palestinian people the notion that upon the defeat of Hamas is leadership or leadership the Palestinians are just going to lay down okay and give up and form some sort of new version of themselves one that looks like an Israeli just zipped up inside of them is fantasy to keep on this path will freeze any movement towards peace increased violence and birth and I promise you birth a generation far more radical than the past Palestinian generation even Hamas the unit dimensional villain of mr. journos movement is a far more complex and evolving movement than he gives them credit for though it formed as an Islamist response to twenty years of Israeli occupation in 1987 though at times after 1994 it engaged in suicide attacks on Israeli civilians and though it's early charter denied the right of Israel to exist even Hamas has changed and has come a long way in reality the Hamas of 2019 is not the Hamas of 1987 and the organization can be dealt with rather than quote defeated indeed it has often been Israel that broke truces and provoked Hamas such as in the 2004 Israeli assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin a quadriplegic in a wheelchair this targeted killing came on the heels of Yasin having stated listen to this Hamas could accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip furthermore that leader had also offered a long-term truce in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories this was significant shift in Hamas policy that should have been capitalized on instead Israel turned to violence refusing then as it refuses now to deal with and compromise with Hamas what's more in 2006 Hamas published a manifesto that lacked any reference to the old goal of eliminating Israel another positive change in the direction of negotiation instead both the US and Israel punished Hamas and by extension the majority of Palestinian people who voted for them in the Gaza Strip both imposed sanctions and withheld much-needed funding the New York Times certainly not known for any anti Israeli bias concluded that this was all part of the plan quote to destabilize the palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again this sounds a lot like a coup except the coup rather than being Hamas taking over appears to be Israel in the United States overturning a democratically sanctioned election the bottom line is that by associating the Palestinian movement with the dictatorial nature of secular Arab states and the violence of Islamic extremism my opponent denies the legitimacy of the Palestinian struggle I reject the simplicity and the factuality of that assumption I'll now turn to my third and final argument that Israel has its own flawed policies I'm gonna flip the resolution here and assert that aspects not everything about Israel but aspects of the Israeli movement must be reversed before true peace is possible among others these are one a perennial military occupation of the West Bank in Gaza to an illegal settlements regime which is a colonization of the West Bank 3 a brutal blockade of the Gaza Strip and for an unacceptably disproportionate lack of concern for Palestinian civilian casualties now there's no time for history lesson I have maybe three four minutes left but let me briefly address these grievances first it is an indisputable fact that the founding of Israel in 1948 and the expansion of Israel after the 1967 war created millions of displaced Palestinian refugees now am I saying this does not mean that Israel must give it all back that's unrealistic or cease to exist that would be a genocide but rather it recognizes the genuine suffering and grievance of the Palestinian people that there are two sides in this argument mine is the side that says there are guilty parties on both sides but there are those we can work with on both sides but you don't have to take my word for it consider a 1969 interview with the Israeli defense minister and national hero Moshe Dayan where he admitted we came to this country which was already populated by Arabs and we are establishing a Hebrew that is a Jewish state here Jewish villages were built in place of Arab villages you do not even know the name of these villages and I do not blame you because the geography looks no longer exist not only do the books not exist but the Arab villages are not there either this is the one place there is not one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population then there's the settlements regime the bottom line is this until Israel dismantles its settlements and returns that's land to the rightful Palestinian ownership then it is in violation of international law and impeding the peace the idea that the Palestinians are going to lay down and accept any sort of solution while massive massive numbers of Israeli citizens upwards of 500,000 are living in these settlements is it's fantasy I can tell you these people are not going to quit that's not how insurgencies ends historically the brutal blockade of Gaza is is it enormous ly cruel in fact to demonstrate the cruelty and premeditation of this blockade let us consider that a prominent Israeli governing official actually took to literally calculating the number of calories a person in Gaza needed lest there be an outright famine someone one of the aides to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly joked that because they voted the wrong way for Hamas Palestinians would undergo something like an appointment with the doctor they will get a lot thinner but they won't die let me conclude my opening remarks in a rather sullen way I would be remiss if I did not recognize the historic crimes perpetrated against Jews and of the worst crime in world history the Holocaust for those reasons among those reasons I believe Israel as the right to exist and to be secured but here's what I also believe there is a second side to this conflict there are Palestinians with genuine grievances with leaders who can be negotiated with and should be negotiate with they can not be defeated nor should they be if there's any sense of equity and fairness Thank You United for the rebuttal the Palestinian movement I said just needs to be distinguished from the Palestinian people and I guess that didn't really sink in so let me amplify that point there is no question that there are Palestinians who have suffered wrongs and I think they need to have those wrongs redressed but let me focus on the claim that the Palestinian leadership in the movement because that seems to be the crux of your argument Palestine movement is not monolithic I did not say that it was uniform I said there are two major wings and it's correct to equate it with the Islamist movement but it's not the same as Isis the Islamist movement is rather large it includes both Saudi Arabia and Iran which are conflicted countries and Isis which both of them dislike the Palestinian movement originated primarily as an ethnic nationalist movement and then it morphed over many years into what is now primarily a religious Islamist movement and you can see that this is documented in the rise of religiosity within the territories and it's reflected in the rising 14 of Hamas now it is important to recognize what Hamas is goals are and what they remain so it is certainly true that Hamas has issued member of documents and manifestos and the most recent one was not turning 2006 was actually 2017 I believe where it issued a policy statement and this was read as Hamas is moderating now I will come I will concede Hamas has changed its position in tactical ways for example it joined the elections in 2006 and which it won by a landslide these are the tactical maneuvers that it has done and the most recent one in 2017 was to insulate itself from the stench of the Muslim Brotherhood which was in very ill repute in Egypt Egypt being on the border of Gaza and from Qatar which does not like the Muslim Brotherhood and once and that Hamas wants to be funded by Hamas I think retains its goal it has not disavowed its goal of liquidating Israel none of those documents do that when you read them closely what it does is it presents itself in terms that are meant to how shall I put it to gall and fool people into thinking that Hamas is somehow d-level with I don't think that's true and I think the principle that you can deal with anyone this is a very common principle in diplomacy it's false you cannot it's not true that you can make a deal with anyone and that there are factions within Hamas that are better to the point where you can deal with them that's just not valid and you can see the evidence for that when the piates because we had the same argument about the Palestinian Liberation Organization changing its position and accepting Israel and it went through a number of Hoops to do that and prove itself in 1988 that actually went exactly as you how one would expect it was a lie and the same thing happened in 1993 when Arafat stood on the stage with Bill Clinton and Robin that again was a lie it didn't the Palestinian movement did not then and has not since repudiated its goal even if in tactical ways it is moderated its positions to seem more appealing and and to lure people back to the negotiating table what happened when this was taken on faith is that the Palestinian movement was given a quasi-state in the Palestinian Authority which enabled it with money and arms to carry out what was then called the Second Intifada or rather in war against Israel by suicide bombers and other kinds of attacks that was one of the most lethal outbreaks of violence that has been in this conflict let me mention you raised some of the historical points which I invite people in the audience to raise in the question pyramid we can have more discussion of it I think it's important to recognize that in fact the grievances are treated as well they're obviously wrong Rayo there's real wrongs here I think it's I am in favor of nuance and otherwise took me a book to argue my point I think you're missing some of those including with the settlement which I think cannot be treated as a uniform phenomenon and I'm certainly not in favor of Israeli policy I'm not here to defend it I'm arguing for Israel's position as a free society to the extent it's free and for as long as it's free and for long as it's carrying out policies that are consonant with that I do not support I certainly don't support all the policies that is enacting and I oppose many of them as you'll find in my book thank you [Applause] thank you so I have about five minutes to address some of the rebuttals from the last two statements from my opponent who is very well informed and has written an excellent book on the topic I have one question why is it and this is really hypothetical Israel's state to give to the Palestinians the whole framing seems problematic it seems that if Israel has a right to exist there's a right and equivalent right for Palestine to exist yet in this telling it is Israel that somehow has the ability the right even to grant but what's been called a quasi-state to the Palestinians which is little more than an open-air prison in many ways which is little more than a collaboration as the regime in many ways my opponent spoke in his early remarks about a pro freedom perspective and I agree that that should be the framework but what about the life and situation of actual living breathing Palestinians in Gaza today who lacks civil rights who lack the basic freedoms of even Arabs within Israel who already don't have the same rights as Jews within Israel but who live under military occupation 50 years after the 1967 war in defiance of every single ruling of any international court or international organization now perhaps a hundred and eighty countries in the world are all just anti-semitic and only Israel in the United States are correct or maybe they're something to these grievances for not just Palestinian people but for their movement which represents them I agree with my opponent that this should have hinge on the moral interpretation but a moral interpretation would again make one wonder why there are no civil and political rights and no Palestinian state sovereignty my opponent also says that the Palestinian movement is an obstacle to peace but what about Israeli obstacles except for just a vague notion of Israel's not perfect from my opponent there's no list of what the Israeli obstacles to peace are why is there nothing about this I'd argue the silence on this issue is more telling than anything my opponent says I think it's a fallacy that the Palestinian movement is dedicated the destruction of Israel in 1993 actually before then the PLO did accept the right of Israel to exist did accept the two-state solution even Hamas while didn't change its full original document has made it clear that it's willing to accept the two-state solution from its highest leadership levels and that it will accept the long-term truce the truth of the matter is Israel never made steps towards the final settlement that 1993's Oslo was supposed to create if the Palestinian movement is so harmful to Palestinians why did they vote it in why did so many of them turn to Hamas could it be that part of it was frustration with the lack of progress towards a Palestinian state could it be the intransigence of Israel in many cases not every time not every Palestinian leader is a saint not every Israeli leader is a villain but the reality is there are two sides to this story there are two sides to this situation the question for me is what if Palestinians vote the wrong way it appears you either have to believe in democracy or not democracy appears okay for Israelis because we can we're happy with the way they vote but what about when the Palestinians democratically elect Tomas into government who then has the right to determine that Hamas cannot be dealt with like I said in Iraq and Afghanistan we dealt with people who literally had the blood of our soldiers on our hands and it worked and we didn't like it one bit I still don't but what I knew is that we're never gonna defeat the Iraqi nationalist movement in Iraq we're never gonna defeat militarily the Taliban in Afghanistan good luck the Soviets tried we've been trying Fulks spoilered it's not it's not gonna happen they're not going to just give up and roll over this is not going to happen it is a historical from a military history standpoint putting down their arms is not how movements end compromise and politicization of movements is how they ends so these steps of Hamas towards negotiation are the signs of possibility for peace take the Irish Republican Army thirty years of being told that the IRA will never ever settle for peace they didn't just lay down their arms they were brought into the movement so much so that today members of parliament in Britain used to be IRA brigade commanders in Northern Ireland but the British swallowed their pride and realized they had to deal with people who had blood on their hands otherwise they would fight this war for another eleven hundred years and that's the reality do the Palestinians have some sort of biological predilection for evil I think not perhaps there is a historic injustice and some role the Israelis are playing in this I think that the silence on the issue of Israeli perpetuation of violence and even rights abuses is instructive thank you thanks to you both and we go to the Q&A a part of the question a part of the evening I'm a tech moderators prerogative to ask a couple questions first - Danny sirs and then because you can come in as well even you have you've affirmed your own support of Israel's right to exist and Ilan was saying that most recently Hamas seems to be ambiguous about that you say that in their masses for basic document they still do they deny Israel's right to exist well my particular question most sharply is what is your best evidence that Hamas has affirmative Lee stated as you have stated it is realized the right to exist [Music] okay that's a great question well for positive evidence I like evidence almost attest expen three rewards in Gaza since 2008 Operation Cast Lead was 2008 there was another war in 2012 and another in 2014 the US State Department actually recognized as well as an international terrorist analysis organization in Israel that got the the Hamas fighters actually showed a fair amount of acceptance of the long-term truce and it was actually Israel that broke the truce in each of those cases so in all three cases Israel actually conducted raids into Gaza broke the truce at which point Rockets were then fired very inaccurately into Israel and then of course the response was overwhelming Palestinian casualties thirteen hundred and seventy one in Operation Cast Lead of which seven hundred and seventy two were civilians and some 320 were civilians or were children so I think what we can do is look at how Hamas acts rather than what's in their founding document Hamas is dealing with radicals and their own ranks they're dealing with moderates their own ranks and they're dealing with the folks who want to work with Israel who want to work with the Palestinian Authority so what I think we're seeing is Hamas is waging a battle because it's a fluid organization to maintain the truces and what we know is Hamas is capable of maintaining a long-term truce it is as capable of holding a long-term truce as Israel which at this point is enough from my perspective to negotiate with doesn't mean we have to fall in love with the mosque we have to deal with their reality that be win elections and they're going to have to be dealt with on some level you want to come in dealing to that answer okay the question to you Ilan and then I'm gonna give it over to either view or to the audience you said a couple of times that there are legitimate Palestinian grievances that should be redressed could you elaborate on those grievances that should be specifically redressed sure can I be yes but I mean I mentioned two other and I think they're important because they speak to the moral framework that I'm bringing one of the worst things that's happening in Israel right now is that Jewish fundamentalists are trying to illegally settle land and I and I think that is wrong it violates the law in Israel it's a violation of the rule of law and one of the ways they do this is they basically squat I mean in English law squatting is when you just take over someone's property and you sit there until they you exclude them they do this and then they expect the government to come protect them and they have accomplices within the within various levels of government I think this is wrong it essentially steals land that does not belong to the belong to the Palestinians and Israeli of the Israeli government as removed many of these illegal outposts and settlements and undal them by force and I think that's one an example where there's real wrongs done to Palestinians right now not in history living breathing people now who are suffering another kind of example that happens is not only those kinds of squatting situations but attacks on Palestinian or chodes that are carried out again often by a religious fundamentalist Jews and they the point of that is you destroy someone's olive grove or their orchards and you basically ruin their farm and and that's destroying their property and they should be the perpetrators of those crimes have to be stopped and put in jail and punished in a full extent of the law I think there are so one of the things I would say about grievances is that Danny mentioned the refugee problem I think red the refugee problem is probably the thorniest one and that's one where I think it's really complicated to untangle because part of the problem which Danny hasn't really brought out in his historical snapshot is that what led to that war was the initiation of war by neighboring Arab states in 1948 and that the culpability for that has been evaded over time and that their attempts to resettle those refugees and attempt to reduce the number and to compensate them they were all pushed aside and refugees that are settled in Lebanon for example are in a situation that is worse than Gaza if you want a place with a wall around it and they can't bring in cement and they can't become citizens go to look at Lebanon that's that is a real crime and I've heard nothing about the crimes against the Palestinians done by our Arab regimes that refuse to give them any kind of succor or citizenship or even to get a job if you're in Lebanon so I think there are real grievances some of them are and I think one of the problems with the refugee grievance is that it's been inflated there there are seven times more refugee now after 70 plus years than they were at the time of this war and one reason for that is that there's a politicized way in which they're defined you could be a pal you can be a citizen of Jordan who is fully resettled in Jordan and yet be counted as a refugee and you can be a refugee who's in a refugee camp so there's something really wrong with the way that's accounted for and so I think the politicization of that grievance makes it really hard to untangle and the worst part is that the Palestinian movement this is uniform including the supposed moderates they hold that it's an absolute wholesale right of return so so basically six million people have to come back into Israel now that is a there's something really fishy about that I think you have to agree and that's not a grievance that I think you can easily remedy because you have to really think about what happened in the history and figure out the culpability of all parties not just Israel which is usually the one who's painted as the villager do you want to come in China yeah so I think it's important that we note that largely the reason there are so many more Palestinians seven times as many refugees mostly towards a natural high birth rate and what's what's not mentioned is that there were plans in place by the Israeli military or the nascent Israeli military to conduct ethnic cleansing in Palestine in 1948 the most esteemed Israeli historians like Benny Morris admitted this David ben-gurion has admitted to it he's been on the record I can read quotes that this was a historical crime it pales in comparison to the Holocaust at any time that people try to equate them I think they're wrong but it doesn't deny that there was truly a grievance there and also yes many of them may have become out of necessity citizens of Jordan but I would imagine that people who left Poland in response to the World War two though they quickly became citizens the United States if they could would still consider themselves refugees from Poland now as for rights of return I think it's very interesting first of all I don't think that six million people can actually come into Israel that's going to have to be arbitrated with a symbolic right of return and compensation it's just it's not possible for Jewish to remain both democratic and Jewish while letting six million Palestinians and I recognize that but you know who does have a right of return based on religion Israel a right of return for any Jew worldwide so what I'm interested in is why does that right which is based purely on religion ethnicity why does that exist but the right for Palestinians whose grandparents were you know kicked out of their villages should be so easily dismissed I think it's a it's a fascinating dichotomy and it's problematic we're coming to yeah I'm glad you raised that because the right of return is Israel's immigration law that permits as you said instant or almost instant citizenship to Jews I think that's a real problem I don't think we can treat that as the principle by which to to hold both sides accountable to cuz I a lot of countries have that kind of rule but I think it's a problem I think it reflects the the motivations for establishing Israel but I think just a couple of Corrections on some of the things you said Benny Morris does not think as far as I read him that there was a premeditated plan to cleanse the land I think he's written on the contrary that that's the opposite and in fact the evidence and I think it's worth reading other historians to that part of what happened there was a lot of people who left as a consequence of the war and it was military contingencies that led to them being - fleeing now the high number of refugees is not exclusively birth rate related it is the fact that unique among all refugees in history that we know of they're defined as you can be a refugee through your father's bloodline so if you're born to someone as a refugee even if you are not born present in that place where the war happened you're a refugee so are your children through the male line that's not the same standard that the UN High Commission for Refugees for other conflicts holds so part of the issue is it's a politicized definition of refugees now I want to just acknowledge that there are refugees who were invited to come back and resettled and that's definitely a fact but I don't think either side should be held to this idea that it's Israel has a right of return and and that's what we should hold it because I think that's a problematic rule and I don't think it's easy to say what Israel's immigration rules should be but I don't think those are very different things in understanding this issue yeah okay and then also I know we have people in the audience want to ask questions do you do you guys want to wait for audience questions what do you have any questions you want to ask the other yeah yeah Danny what what do you take to be the basis for Israel's right to exist well that's an interesting point because one could argue that it's a problematic framing for any state to have the right to exist I think that the the historical wrong against the Jewish people which is unique to a certain degree especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust meant that there was a global need an understanding among the states of the post-world War two world that there was a special situation and thus Israel should have a right to a sovereign Jewish state which is why there was a UN Commission which is why there was a partition which even though Arabs were still the majority gave 55 percent of the land to Israel this was problematic for a number of reasons since Israelis or Jews only owned 7 percent of the property at that time but I do think that the special circumstances of the Jewish people made it a global norm and accepted global norm by most states that later form the UN - to have an Israeli state now I will admit that there are intellectual arguments against any state having the right to exist I choose on my own to accept the Israeli right to exist because of the historic wrongs done to the Jewish people you have a question to ask you know I don't do you want to yeah I'm the microphone microphone please so Ilana would you please define what you mean by the quote defeat of the Palestinian movement how do you see this proceeding and how long will it take sure so I think it's a multi generation process it doesn't happen overnight it requires the kind of shift that happened off to World War two with the Nazi regime in Germany and with Japan and essentially what it requires I don't think it requires necessarily a large-scale conflict that's armed and violent but I think it requires a psychological shift the abandonment of a goal that is animating the hostilities on one side and in my analysis the Palestinian movement is animated by a goal of making the whole of the territory that is now Israel ruled by Palestinians and that means from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean that's the phrasing that's commonly used and I think the achievement of that requires sustained pressure and communicating that violence is not going to pay which is the way in which the negotiations which you're you seem to be an advocate for really encourage so the the the peace process model was we talked with anybody we may we pretend that the Palestinian movement was deal with and that they were moderating and we sat down with them numerous times we meaning the Israelis and then led and sponsored by the US on the premise that you should speak to anyone and I think that is empirically false what that led to is they were given the encouragement to think that wow we spent decades attacking Israel we didn't get as far as we wanted but hey we just got invited to the diplomatic negotiations look at the the way in which we've been elevated and given a dignity we've never earned Arafat was a pioneer of international terrorism and violence I mean that I think cannot be disputed and here he was celebrated as somebody who you know he's given that up well has he has he really so I think that was a misconception and in fact what those kinds of negotiations led to was no is a rewarding of that kind of behavior and a continuation and enough funding of it over time so I think what you want to do is reverse that so defeat means not rewarding that behavior but showing that the more you do that kind of thing the more you attack the less likely you are to ever to reach your goal and it's it's a lost goal so it's a long-term process it requires shifting the understanding of what's achievable and that requires significant pressure over time so so you do you believe that they can be militarily defeated the Palestinian movement and and let me just say quickly cuz it seems like you're saying Palestinians have to wait more multi-generations I mean it's been three or four generations so now we're saying it's gonna be multi-generational to defeat them so now a Palestinian refugee might have to wait seven or eight generations but Japan as you mentioned got its sovereignty back in 1952 despite attacking Pearl Harbor and West Germany got its sovereignty back in 1954 and was armed and was given tanks and was put into NATO by 1954 so it only had to go through nine years of occupation prior to regaining its sovereignty so I I'm wondering if you really believe that there is a military solution to the Palestinian resistance I think that can be I don't think it has to be military but I think the the premise of your question is what I think is essential to challenge and I want to raise that which is you are you seem to be operating on the premise that the Palestinians are entitled to a state and you're challenging me for saying they don't and you're that's part of your argument that I'm being one-sided well let me make it explicit I don't think the right to self-determination can mean that you are entitled to create your own tyranny and then sell yourself and the people that you regard as part of your group into slavery or into domination and authoritarianism there's no such right and so long as that is what's animating the Palestinian movement they should not be pursuing they should not be permitted to pursue a state now if there's a point at which in the future that is no longer the kind of state that they're working to build then fine I'm the only favorite the standard is you in order to to be justified in pursuing that the momentous step of creating a state which means you have the monopoly on the use of force within a geographical area that's a momentous step the only my view the only basis for that is you're actually going to create a state that protects freedom and or you're leaving a situation which you don't have freedom you're moving towards a situation with greater freedom is my view of sort of the essential premise for Israel's basses it's basically free society if Palestinians really wanted that and there was evidence for that then I would be in favor of it I would say yes go ahead build yourself a state create it support it I'm not opposed to that what I'm opposed to the Palestinians demanding and the idea that democracy is the all-purpose solvent for making everything good because people enough people voted for it which is completely wrong if that's the principle then yeah they should have a state but that's not the principle it has to be that you're the only way in which you can make sense of self-determination for a group of people is they're trying to reach freedom and that's not what the Palestinian movement has been pursuing now we can talk about the situation in which they live in today which is really parlous and difficult but I don't think there's evidence to think there's certainly no evidence that they've given us that what they're trying to do is move towards greater freedom and that's what that's the basis of my objection and so the issue of how long do they have to wait they have to wait until they change their mind about what kind of society they want to build Japan abandon its goals after World War two with great deal of pressure as you know from probably from studying this and Germany was defeated both of those were defeated in there in I think those are outstanding examples in history because it was so rapid and the fact that the military defeat came first and what happened in Iraq which I believe you saw firsthand I don't believe the surge and that whole thing of handing out money really is a solution and yeah so so that did not work and I think we saw that with the rise of Isis which is I think of fruit of that attempt to solve Iraq by dealing with everybody so the the issue is not how long they have to wait it's what is the goal and what is the standard by which you judge it well I do have a comment about that which again it feels like the Palestinians are being held to a different standard than the Israelis who is to determine what the people want except for the people themselves through democracy I agree that democracy is flawed but as Churchill said it's the worst solution except for all the others potentially in your books or you said that you believe that Palestinian grievances quote cannot explain let alone defy the armed struggle of the Palestinians but article 51 of the UN Charter recognizes quote the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense and the protocol one addition to the Geneva Conventions explicitly recognizes armed conflicts in which people are fighting against alien occupation so I mean one could argue that because the Palestinians are still in a state of resistance still in a state of insurgency that you know we've never really seen what a Palestinian state would look like we've only seen the state lit of a collaboration as the regime that really looks like Swiss cheese because though the Israelis have pulled settlements out of Gaza which were minimal to begin with and pulled the furthest outpost out of the West Bank nothing has been done about the five hundred thousand Jewish Israeli settlers in the West Bank which have turned if you've seen a map of the West Bank it looks like a piece of Swiss cheese rather delicious quite frankly I mean it's a problem when they are coming to questions so III have a real objection to the idea that there's a two different standards here I think there is one standard and that is are you living up to are you trying to achieve a free society and I think democracy is not the standard democracy is a tool is a subordinate part of what makes of society free it's an it's an essential part of it but it is not what makes something good or right just because people vote for it now the issue is the the issue that you're raising here which is you're invoking international treaties and laws and this whole regime of armed resistance and so forth I question that I'm not entirely convinced that that into kind of hundred and eighty countries be wrong yeah they can be wrong the question is is this a moral principle and I go further than that because I'm I should make my I put a cards on the table I am NOT a fan of the UN I am I think there are serious problems with the customary so-called laws of war and including the moral premises that govern the conduct of war I think morality is essential in conduct of having standards for what you do in the battlefield but I think there are real problems with the standards that are imposed because they disadvantage those who obey them and they empower those who disobey them so this is the clear problem with that and the idea that we treat UN bodies or international law as essentially like a papal pronouncement that it's unquestionable I think that's a mistake you have to really think about is this right or not and you you can make an argument that the Palestinians are trying to resist occupation and I'm sure they hate being on the under occupation a lot of them being told that this is all Israel's fault the question however is what is their life being like during occupation I I'm sure none nobody in this room would choose to live under occupation but did you know and this is relevant and I'm sure this has come up in your reading of this is that however bad you might think or the occupation actually has been the material measurements of life for Palestinians are better twenty years into the occupation than they were before into the life expectancy infant mortality the hookups to electricity were like that eight percent there were ninety percent within fifteen years now you might say yeah screw it I still hate the Israelis that's fine but you if you're talking about individual human beings and the the welfare that they need to live then you can't argue that they're not materially better off under occupation even if they still a dream of a Palestinian state so the question is are they seeking freedom and a better life and that to me is the standard by which we have to evaluate these things got a chance respond but you might want to fit in your mouth to that question the first question please phrase your question as a question if you could well I'd like to thank the major Danny for his service and hopefully he'll on has that dual citizenship this work well for you it's hard to believe I'm old enough to be both of your grandfather's but IIIi try yes grandpa yeah I I was brought up with with the fact that boys or was the bankers was bankers worse and and at the same time I was always taught to follow the money and so it's not a mistake that Arafat Yasser Arafat he left how many years over over ten years ago with if you you know he was killed on the you know special circumstances but family has billions and I don't know how how what's your question my question is how do you expect to end a complication that exists right now especially when the the Arabs who are really the Palestinians I don't know where Palestine came from it's not mentioned anywhere what is your question my question is how how are you going to end a conflict that exists right now if what's behind the behind the conflict is something that really is is that what we could put our fingers off one thing if the question is about economic conditions that the Palestinian leadership have enjoyed there is a difference if she's worth noting that the PLO of which are FL is the leader and then Mahmoud Abbas they're much more in the model of the kind of secular Arab dictator who not only dominates his people but also exploits them economically so there's definitely a great deal of documented graft and racketeering under the Palestinian Authority what the difference is the Hamas and this is this speaks to its ideological character one of the ways in which is gained support and credibility is that it's seen as uncorruptible precisely because it's religious I mean it the way it gets funding is not from outside regimes according to its propaganda it gets its money from Akkad which is a kind of tie the religious tide now the reality is Hamas does get outside funding but the essential issue is that the PLO is much more in the model of exploiting its people economically as well and the Hamas is definitely it makes a point of not doing that explicitly because that part of its prestige how do you want America but absolutely I don't think that the conflict will and anytime soon I don't think there will be a military defeat my opponent keeps talking about how the only time you have a right to a state is if it's in favor of freedom and the word freedom and freedom and I think it's an excellent word but what we don't have for the Palestinians is any freedom to form its own sovereign state they've never had that at any point Jordan is not same as Palestinians as excuse me you if you want to ask a question question is civil that rude and you know it's the intellectual as for the economy it is true that the economy of the occupied territories grew very rapidly specific in the 1970s but this was only tying the Palestinian economy to Israel's whims and it was never accompanied by you know any major internal development as its own society so one major economic report noted quote the growth witnessed in the territories is fundamentally not just not sustainable and ending the occupation is the prerequisite for transforming the territory's economic potential into reality just two brief comments so you know in my book what I argue is that the Palestinians have not had the full expression of a state with full sovereignty that's certainly true I agree with that but what you can measure is to the extent that they've achieved some measure of self-rule some sell degree of governance self-governance you can see that in several places the Palestinian authorities the most recent in 1994 to the present the Gaza Strip from which Israel withdrew every last person and left it to the Palestinians so there's no occupation left there and you can see it as well in when the PLO set up bases on the border with Jordan and when it later set up bases under the within the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in all those cases there's commonalities in terms of the way they governed which was authoritarian and in it was they had the practice of full control and arbitrary courts and and just the kind of things that you don't want to see and then this gate got full expression under the pool full of expression under the Palestinian Authority which is a step a full state so look if yeah I get what you're saying Danny do you want the Palestinians to have the room to create the kind of state that you think they should have but I'd love to know what is the evidence for thinking that it would be anything better than and in fact not worse than what we see in the Palestinian Authority today and and in Gaza because where do you see the evidence for that of course you know what's really important we don't have the evidence for that because there has been no sovereignty for the Palestinians in anything except a state lit that looks like Swiss cheese that is essentially a collaboration as the regime with the Israeli authorities Palestinians have as much sovereignty as their masters give them and their masters are the ones with the American weapons and with the American money the reality is they cannot militarily defeat Israel but Israel cannot military defeat them we don't know what real Palestinian sovereignty would look like because it has not existed since 1948 we have questions questions of the oil go ahead please ask a question hello my questions to Ilan you bathe a lot of for your argument about defeating the movement in the fact that Hamas wants to eliminate is Israel that's what you says but in American law if someone wants to kill me doesn't give me the right to kill a person so why do you think Americans should support that defeat the question I get it what we're dealing with is a situation that's not governed by American law and the principle is not you have a right to kill the person attacking you you have a right to defend yourself that's the principle now what I'm arguing for and I argue for it in more detail in the book than I do here is that to understand what Hamas is about and what the Palestinian movement has been doing since it came to the fore is it's a sustained campaign over time with that animating goal now are they militarily in a position to destroy Israel I don't think they are but they would like to be and they've they've shown with their numerous attacks that that's what they're after into essentially psychologically destroy Israel by terrorizing and that's the goal my argument is Israel has a right to self-defense now because this is a long-standing war I think the way out of this conflict and I think it is solvable is if you give them to believe through action that their goal is unachievable and you can do that wars have ended because one side has given up its goal and being led to believe that this is hopeless and I think that the idea that that's fantasy is ignoring the fact that we've seen this in other contexts I mean World War two ended not because we negotiated with the Nazis we could defeated them world world and we defeated the the Japanese now there's certainly a great deal of reluctance to fight and defeat people I mean Obama said he doesn't like to use the word victory and Danny certainly doesn't think that's achievable and I agree Iraq was a no way in war but it is not because we fought to win it's because we didn't fight to win and I think it's many things to say about that and I'm sorry that you had to suffer some of the consequences of that now that's what I said I mean I've been arguing about the failure of American foreign policy in the Middle East for a long time and I think it's a misconception to think Yukon and Wars through defeat I can assure you that I fought to win the reality the reality is there was no victory over the Iraqi people so long as we tried to create a country in our own image the reality was we violated Iraqi sovereignty and so long as we did so there would be a forever insurgency correct World War two ended but it was a conventional war declared between powers but every one of those countries involved in World War two that held colonies every one of them lost those colonies to much less technologically advanced militaries because national movements do not easily die question next question yeah I I don't have time to I challenge your your understanding so as you who's you who to suggestion to Ilan to you I challenged your understanding of the Palestinian Authority I've been there a lot and I've studied it a lot and it's not like the Nazis and it's not like the and and it doesn't have to be defeated in the same way but my bigger question is about the two-state solution beyond without a two-state solution you have two choices you either have up basically what's close to a power tie to stateless people or you have a single entity which would mean there would be no Jewish stage and and so there's really no other solution that is that all satisfactory to people you either believe in a idea of a Jewish state want one or who believe in democracy and do not want a revival of of the evils that we've already seen with in South Africa and other places okay you get your question that's a question addressed to you I guess you you I think it's relevant to think about what it means for there to be an end to this conflict and I don't think it's you start with well what does the configuration of the society look like I think you have to start with what is the what is driving the conflict and how do you end it and then there are going to be questions about what happens then what kind of society should there be once the Palestinian movement is no longer seeking to liquidate its opponent Israel and I think they're real hard questions I agree we certainly don't want a whole population that is denied citizenship I think the Israelis certainly won't accept being a minority I think they're fearful of that and I think for a number of good historical reasons they're fearful of being a minority in their own country I don't think that's an easy problem to solve I mean but I think what you what I think it's a mistake to turn that around and say well the obvious solution is they gotta have to be two states I don't think that's obvious and I don't think it's the way to begin I think the way to begin is to say why is this been going on for so long and why what's driving it what are the ideas going on here and then what is the principle that should govern it can we consider I mean I want to say something what can we expect from a Palestinian state and it's I don't think it's true that we don't know I think we have a lot of empirical evidence of what the ideas of the Palestine movement in practice and I think it's also telling if you look at the the scholarship of Rashid Khalidi who is a Palestinian scholar he is a Columbia he wrote a book about that why the Palestinian movement has failed in its attempt as a state building and one of the things that struck me in reading this is that he says sort of he doesn't take it as seriously as I do what he says in passing look they they have given so little thought to what it would look like to achieve a state that is alarming and to me that is well it's not only alarming it's suspicious because if you spent decades yearning for sovereignty wouldn't you give it a lot more thought about what it would actually look like wouldn't you promulgate what that actually looks like and I think the the absence of doing that speaks to this is not a sincere effort at righting wrongs or serving a Palestinian people who some of whom have suffered severely so I think there's a lot of things to solve once you get past moving the obstacles in the road and some of those are really hard things to solve and I think you've hit on one of those all right we have unfortunately we have time for only one final question before we go to the summations so please ask your question yeah I guess there's a more philosophical question both to both groups here I'm unclear whether the arguments are deontological or consequentialist so as far as Elon is concerned you've you made a moral presumption and maybe I'm asking this as being a different kind of libertarian that freedom is somehow tied to democracy individuality and secularism and therefore have rigged the debate off for the side of Israel and on the side of Danny it's unclear to me whether you're arguing for the feasibility or the desirability because your arguments have been for the desirability of collaborating with with the movement the Palestinian movement but you haven't really demonstrated the feasibility because the question is what if it is impossible to both have a Jewish state and to collaborate with them would you then take a deontological position say no we still have to collaborate or a consequentialist one and say well maybe we have to do something else and if so what would it be when you go first standing on this one yeah I think that a Palestinian state is desirable it is not currently feasible so long as there are Jewish only Rhodes Jewish only settlements five hundred thousand Israelis in the West Bank Gaza shut off from both the sea and the land that's the most heavily densely populated place on the earth half the people get their goods from United Nations Organization so I I think yes it is as it stands relatively infeasible for there to be a Palestinian state but largely I would argue that is due to the intransigence of Israeli policy and self-defeating violence on the behalf of terrorist elements within the Palestinians and I agree with Rashid Khalidi and it's interesting he brought him up because he does critique rightfully aspects of the PLO aspects of the Palestinian Authority but what must be remembered is he is one of the preeminent historians in favour of Palestinian nationalism in favor of a Palestinian sovereign entity so I think that in its current state it's not feasible but through honest negotiations or removal of the military occupation and a removal of the settlements it is possible one second extra minute on your summation and so we want to go to the summations and you can answer that question and take the podium okay so I'll try to summation give you my summation and I'll try to address that question you raise loss I'm an atheist I'm an individualist I'm an advocate of liberty and I believe that liberty or the principle of freedom has to be the framework by which to understand the claims in this conflict and the character of the adversaries I don't accept that we have no basis for thinking that apalis what a Palestinian state would look like I think we have a great deal of evidence to know what to expect and I think it's the responsibility of anyone who's advocating for that as an outcome anyone who's in favor of a Palestinian state in the present to make the case that it would be a moral state meaning it would be it would protect the lives and freedom of Palestinians and do so more so than ever in the past and that it's meeting that standard I don't think anyone has put forward that basis that evidence and I think it's it's a Dodge and unfortunately I think there's a great deal of evidence that that's dodging to say we don't know what it would look like it's a problem that we don't know what it would look like and there's been enough development in political thought over the last 200 years for people to pick up say the Federalist Papers to pick up a used Constitution and learn something from it and say look this is the sort of thing we're thinking of doing what do you think of that is does that make sense to you we can make a case that this is what we're doing but just to say we're a group we deserve a state and you're you're not letting us have it and we're going to rage against that that is not an argument that deserves credibility and let me add that there are many more historical issues that have been raised that we didn't get a chance to answer and claims that my opponent has raised that I haven't had a chance to some of them are addressed in the book and I encourage you to look at that the issue that I want to stress is that the Palestinian movement does exist it's a real thing they think of themselves as a movement even if the opponent tonight says that I'm I'm simplifying it there is a progression that you can track over time and what maybe maybe it's difficult to conceptualize but what what brings it together what coheres in this movement it's the goal of a state in place of Israel and that state is what defines that state is some sort of authoritarian or theocratic type model of we see plenty of in the Middle East and that's the unity of this movement even if the the justifications for it over time went from Arab nationalism Palestinian nationalism and now it's more framed in Islamist terms but that's the unifying threads with through time I haven't made the case and I'm sorry if you've been led to believe this I haven't made the case that Israel is blameless or that it is somehow a saint that is certainly not the view I opened with and it's still not my view and it's certainly not the view you'll find in my book I castigate Israel from many of its flaws and there more that we can talk about I think it's a mistake to present the the major obstacle being Israel even if it's made even if it's not being entirely fair here and has committed wrongs the over time the pattern is that Israel is responding to aggression that is and this significant reason to believe is seeking to do significant damage to life and property and in response to that I think it's being justified in retaliating against them if it's going beyond that then it's wrong and that's the standard that I apply here and I think what's missing is I I think what the the silence that I I'm glad was partially broken tonight but not completely is you have a judge a moon not only by its ideas and its Charter and it's its founding documents but also by its actions and I agree with that and I think that the the issue here tonight is the Palestinian movement has been true to its ideas and we have to take seriously what those ideas and pretending that they're not there or trying to whitewash them or say well let's just bite our tongue and we have to talk to anybody I think that misses the point and it is significant that the Palestinian issue has become not only as llama sized in the sense that the leading faction of Hamas is it's acting on the idea of ideas of an Islamic society that's what it seeks to do but that it is aligned with other forces in the region principally Iran and Qatar that are supporting this idea and I suggest that in this sense the conflict is now really it's stark it's in terms of the ideas do you believe that it's better to have a free society or do you believe in tyranny whether it's nationalist or theocratic and that to me is the question thank you [Laughter] why am I here tonight taking the position in favor of a Palestinian state by any logical measure with Islamist organizations in both Iraq and Afghanistan taking the lives of so many of those who I'd loved one would think that I would take the position of many of my less educated soldiers which was to hate Islam okay to hate Arabs in the case of Iraq but I came to a place of respect for the vast majority of the people in the Middle East and I realized that there were both strategic and ethical reasons to care for both sides in this conflict and thus I applied it to the israel-palestine conflict I've hoped to illustrate not a pro Palestinian position tonight but a middle road one that recognizes the strengths of Israeli democracy at times and also recognizes the plight of the Palestinians I do think you've heard another approach that's rather biased that lambaste the very notion that Palestinian has a movement have any meaningful grievances or right to self-defense there's something else and it's a rather personal matter but it's an essential one nonetheless it applies to my third assertion that Israeli policy MA carry some blame for the intractability of the conflict israel is not alone in carrying some of that blame additionally the United States must recognize its own complicity and hindering peace virulent hatred for the US for is for Israel and Islamist terror plots in the West will not meaningfully decrease until Washington at least begins to address the roots of the problem and rebalance its one-sided relationship with Israel first off it's the right thing to do second it's a pivot away from these more unhinged policies will actually make American soldiers Israeli soldiers and civilians in both societies Israel United States ultimately safer to wit this army officer whose interpreter from Iraq Akil from Sadr City is here tonight we heard earful about Israel policy about America support for Israel from angry moderates moderates mind you around the middle of the road in Iraqi society in both Iraq and Afghanistan decorating dingy Baghdad apartments and Kandahar hobbles with pictures of the Dome of the rock in Jerusalem was quite common these people cared about average Palestinians even former CIA director and General Petraeus not exactly a liberal snowflake recognized this way back in 2010 when he said that US favoritism towards Israel in dangers his troops he was predictably lambasted by certain lobbying groups but that didn't make him wrong if you want to genuinely protect the homeland and the troops and the Israeli troops from Islamist inspired violence then insist that both Washington and Israel demonstrate some sense of equity and justice in Israel Palestine that's what's missing from the other argument tonight compromise is the only way to peace it was the case in Northern Ireland it was the case in almost every anti-colonial movement framing one side Israel in this case is the protagonist will gain us nothing besides the further alien ization and radicalization of a new generation of aggrieved Palestinians for compromise requires personal humility and self-awareness from both sides the Palestinian movement must swear off counterproductive and despicable terror attacks on civilians and Israel must measure its own violent attacks with the required degree proportionality and care for its usual victims which are not Israeli civilians but Palestinian non-combatants statistically all serious Arab groups Hamas included must accept the existence of Israel and a two-state solution this may sound like a tall order but notice how unlike my opponents affirmation of the resolution it recognizes the guilt and responsibilities of both sides it recognizes the notion of sovereignty for both sides my opponent loves the State of Israel it it honestly bleeds through as an admirable quality in his every word but he's missing the fact that just liking Israel's democracy more than the secular Arab regimes or the Islamist Irish regimes does not make it any more likely they'll be amoled military or political victory coming in the occupied territories me I'm through with such fanciful make-believe it died with a to my own soldiers in Baghdad in Kandahar Israel can no more defeat the narrowly defined Palestinian movement and the massive American military machine could win any sort of military victory in Iraq or Afghanistan now is the time for realism not fantasy Israel must engage Palestinian groups and negotiate whatever your personal beliefs loyalties or inclinations I ask that you show the rationality and intellectual honesty to vote in the negative and reject this resolution to do so does not reject Israel its people its existence or its right to security it merely recognizes there are two sides in this tale of woe that there may just maybe still a middle path to peace that involves a two-state solution reject this resolution because you have heads and hearts and you know there's no other rational way thank you thank thank you to you both and we are now going to do the final voting Yvonne is going to be signing books afterwards he'll be at that table and it can chat with you and Danny you please stick around as well because a lot of people will want to chat next next a month we're going to be debating the issue of climate change hope you can make it in in in August were going to be debating Bitcoin once again that event has had the previous debate on Bitcoin had four hundred fifty thousand views on YouTube and was sold out weeks in advance you may want to buy tickets to that event in August I'm going to be once again debating socialism in November against a this time somebody who is sort of my own size eight and an emeritus professor named Richard Wolfe from University of Massachusetts debating the broad issue of socialism that will probably not be at this all because we usually get hopefully a lot of socials to show up and we had we sold nearly 500 tickets to the last social sebade I held with Basco Sankara who I gather is gracing the pages of New York magazine did not listen to me when I told him you could start the socialist resident revolution right now just put some of the money together it could happen he's preferred to go the intellectual route and I'm not surprised that he did that Jane where do we stand on the voting when women on the voting again I want to thank my wife who's Kay to this affair and thanks c-span c-span is filmed this and so up you will be on c-span and it will also be shown on video by reason and will be available on our website in in May we're going to be debating vegetarianism the and so a real food fight in May first is the rather tame debate we had this evening and and again I I do want to we were a little bit nervous about the the the import of this debate and I want to commend you all and commend our our speakers our debaters especially on the stability that they felt toward each other yeah yes well they well they were and in fact usually usually this hugging but if you guys want to just want to shake it we have it no how can you okay okay okay the okay the the voting went this way the the yes vote for the resolution was 27.2% and the yes vote picked up nine points went to 36% so that nine points was the figure to beat the no vote went from 33 percent to fifteen fifty percent picked up 14 points so the no vote wins the Tootsie Roll a congratulation to you both you

Channel: ReasonTV

Views: 13,975

Keywords: libertarian, Reason magazine, reason.com, reason.tv, reasontv

Id: Mg1Y2V9Forc

Length: 93min 40sec (5620 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 29 2019