Is Zionism compatible with democracy? | Head to Head

it promised a land of safety and peace but the Zionist dream became a Palestinian nightmare is Zionism still about the right to self-determination or is even its liberal variety just a form of colonialism today Israel takes pride in saying it's the only democracy in the region but for Palestinians living on both sides of the wall things look very different I'm Mandy Hassan and I've come here to the Oxford Union to go head-to-head with [ __ ] Minami the former foreign minister of Israel one of the most influential voices on the Israeli left he came close to ending the conflict in 2001 but failed today I'll challenge him on whether liberal Zionism is compatible with liberal democracy and whether it can ever produce a just settlement for the Palestinians I'll also be joined by three experts tonight who will share their perspective renowned Israeli historian professor a bee-sh lime Paul Charney chairman of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Deanna boo to a Palestinian lawyer and former PLO legal adviser ladies and gentlemen slow-mo ben-ami he considers himself an ardent Zionist but also a liberal and left-wing democrat the coming thanks a much Shalom urban ami you would presumably describe yourself as a liberal as a man of the left as a Democrat and yet you also describe yourself as an ardent Zionist is it possible to be both a liberal and a Zionist of course it is possible I would refer you to the initial declaration of independence of the State of Israel where it says that this is about the ingathering of the exiles based on ancestral certificates of belonging but one that is also respectful of the rights of minorities ethnic groups religions gender and they would add to it the definition that the founder of Zionism Herzl gave at a time that this is about the creation of a Jewish state based on the laws of the nations on international law you would say today if Israel aspects all these parameters this is design isn't that I'm an ardent supporter thought so how would you define Zionism in a way that's a different to the way that a settler defined Zionism or even Benjamin Netanyahu different yeah well I I say that in my book I put the limits in the borders of 1948 I think that state that is part of the community of nations should not settle beyond its internationally recognized borders admittedly the 1948 borders were not recognized internationally and one of the meanings in my view perhaps the main meaning of the 1967 war is that Lachie it has legitimized the 1948 borders in the eyes of the Arab world how does a political ideology which at its core is about privilege in a particular ethnic group presumably over other ethnic groups how do you reconcile that with the principles of liberalism which is about equal rights for all equal citizenship for all I think you need an effort to reconcile the two to square the circle it's not easy but I do agree that there is a fundamental anomaly in the creation of the State of Israel these perhaps can explain the the controversy around the Jewish state because it was created in a very particular way and given the background of Jewish history as we know it but I do believe that enlightened leadership and more sober political construction in Israel could have reached that kind of squaring the circle but when you talk about squaring the circle or anomaly some people go further they say there is inherent modernist attention there's a contradiction when you talk of being a Jewish and democratic state it's like talking about hot ice it's a contradiction in terms it's an oxymoron it is not an oxymoron and you can be a Jewish state where the Jews are a majority but is fully unconditionally respectful of the minorities look without declaring it many other states throughout the world gave priority to a majority ethnic care or religion you're right so if we take the United States for example you could say there's a big debate about indigenous people there Australia the difference surely is that in the nature of Zionism surely it's about preserving a Jewish majority and that Jewish majority of course came about by expelling some of the Palestinians who were living within those original borders those UN mandated borders you wouldn't have a Jewish majority and a Jewish state had you not expelled Palestinians along the way well this is the way the State of Israel was created that I'm not trying to whitewash an anomaly in the creation of the State of Israel by saying that nations normally throughout history were but were born in blood and were born with in sin the the difference is that Israel was born in the age of mass media imagine that the United States would have bought we would have been born in the age of mass media after the elimination of the indigenous people today the States does not say it is the nation or the country of one particular ethnic group or religion and borås the Jewish state is called the Jewish state in its very title is privileged in one group of people over another group of people happen to live within that states borders that's why people talk about it's an ethnocracy not a democracy some suggestion you need to see that against the background of Jewish history now what we need is to reconcile that complex historical background with what a normal state should be let me go to our panel dr. avi Shlaim is one of Israel's best-known historians he's a professor emeritus of international relations here Oxford University professor schleimann do you think there's a contradiction inherent within the Zionist project no I do not think that liberalism and Zionism are a contradiction in terms Zionism isn't a monolithic movement Zionism is a pluralist movement and there are many different strands of Zionism and professor been army represents the most liberal strand within the Zionist movement and he represents the views of a handful a few percent of the Israeli population but mainstream Zionism has never been liberal the gap between the lofty Zionist ideals and the reality of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians on the ground has always been so huge that Zionist leaders filled it with hypocrisy and humbug you describe yourself I believe as a post Zionist what is that it means that I'm not in anti Zionist because I accept Jainism as the national liberation movement of the Jews but I believe that the Zionist project was achieved by 1967 there was a viable Jewish state in the Middle East and I would have liked Israel to have given back all the territories to trade them for peace so that everyone could get on with their lives both Israelis and Arabs and 1967 is the great watershed before 1967 Israel had considerable international legitimacy if lost it in the aftermath of the war because it became a colonial power ruling over an Arab population let me bring in Paul Shani who is chairman of the Zionist Federation of Britain and Ireland former left tenant in the Israeli army - lime says that there's no inherent contradiction he believes between Zionism and liberalism and democracy but the gap has been filled in practice the gap has been filled by hypocrisy and humbug what's your response to that I disagree with the premise of the question I disagree with some of what my esteemed colleague has been saying let's come back to what Zionism is Zionism was formed in the late 19th century as an answer as a solution to the Jewish people who were persecuted around the world the world itself defined Zionism by telling the Jewish people no matter where you live at any point of history at any time you are not safe and the liberal Zionists at the time came up with a conclusion that we need a Jewish homeland a safe Jewish homeland in our Jewish historical national homeland for the Jewish people and then we will be safe let me bring in Diana Bhutto who is a Palestinian Loren activist former legal adviser to the PLO between 2000 and 2005 and I believe your parents were born in what is now Israel and you have Israeli citizenship as well shalom urban ami says every country is born in sin why is do you think Israel is any different then it's very different the the fact of the matter is is that the Zionists movement and Zionism on the ground is the idea of creating not only a Jewish state but at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian population what Zionism is is the idea of privilege and giving exclusive rights to one group of people at the expense of another group of people this isn't liberal this isn't relating to equality there isn't a single Zionist who's able to say that they actually believe that Palestinians the exact same rights as Israelis who are living in that country and this is the fundamental problem with Zionism what's your response to them well Arab Israelis share in some way the predicament of Jews in the Diaspora in the following sense that they are equal by the law to the to the Jewish part of the population but real life has discriminated against Arab Israelis in many fields 700,000 Palestinians left what is now Israel they didn't just all run away out of choice in many cases that were driven out do you accept that you would not have the Jewish majority and the Jewish state today without that original act what the Palestinians called an occupier catastrophe easterly offered different options 1947 what was one option you could have had an Israeli a Jewish state without expulsion without the expulsion you wouldn't have a Jewish majority this fact of history is today one of the major reasons that the Israeli right-of-center is ready to engage in a peace process in order to give away lands in the West Bank the the fear of a demographic doomsday that's that always always been one of the central issues in this process would you accept that the Jewish state was built on an act of ethnic cleansing then well there were elements of fact of ethnic cleansing there is no doubt about it the story of Leda know of flawed so there were obviously cases and there were many other cases where the the country this was bisected by war and people ran away out of fear I don't believe that there was a master plan let's assume it was all an accident let's assume the Palestinians all ran away out of choice you didn't let them come back it's all very well acknowledging the history and saying that was unfortunate this may have been after cleansing but I'm asking you you say today I'm an ardent Zionist that's part of the legacy of Zionism well I accept it as it is but you don't say I don't want to therefore take the tag of an ideology that produced that and trying to reconcile the price that was paid by everybody in this conflict with a decent state of affairs that is what is to be liberal but Paul Johnny wants to come in here Paul in the 1950s they rosette Jewish a Jewish majority in that land because the Arab nations expelled 800,000 Jews and they had nowhere to go but Israel the Arabs have created as much of a Jewish population in Israel as the Palestinian refugees been allowed to return it because the fundamental issue is that you view Palestinians as a demographic and that you don't believe I want to pick up what [ __ ] said about dealing with now the consequences of now I hear a lot of people on the left in Israel say you know we're opposed to the settlements the settlements are bad don't judge us on the base settlements we're against settlements - and there's this sense that settlements are somehow alien distinct different to Israel proper isn't the problem here that you can't distinguish the two they are part and parcel of the same enterprise yes I think Israel hasn't been able to overcome the hangover from the years prior to the State of Israel we're settling the land was made by outsmarting the British and outwitting the Arabs in 1967 unleashed the spirit of the old Jewish community in Palestine of settling the land and I think that it's about time to put an end to it when I hear people in Israel talking about settlements there's two different types there's someone like yourself saying it's time to bring it to an end and we had Danny Dyer on this show the former leader of the West Bank settlers sitting in that very chair last year on head to head and he said quote if Tel Aviv is not a colonialist project then Mali Shomron the West patent settlement where he lives is not a colonialist project ie if the settlement are colonialist and illegitimate then so too is Tel Aviv so too is Haifa he's got a point isn't he's kind of bluntly honest about it doesn't have a point this is a silly argument this is a totally silly argument simply because 1948 is a reality that is now originally internationally recognized and going beyond 1948 settling in the West Bank today which is what remains for the Palestinians to have their own sovereign decent state you need to put limits to the sin there has been as I say as seen in the creation of the State of Israel as I do believe that there has been a scene in the creation of many nations throughout history but you need to put a limit and the limit the reasonable limit is the state of 1948 and going beyond that by saying the Tel Aviv is also a settlement is its political pornography okay let me ask the Honorable to when you hear someone like [ __ ] benami here on the left of the Israeli political spectrum saying political pornography what's your response I hate to agree with Danny Dayan but you know in a way he's absolutely right I mean the the fact that we're trying to make a distinction between what happened in 48 and what happened in 67 is a false distinction to be making Zionism as its fundamental core is the idea of privilege in one group of people over another and with the way that they created a Zionist state in the first place was to expel millions hundreds of thousands now millions of Palestinian refugees including my family and the way that you create a bigger Zionist state is do to do the exact same process I think that it's important to keep in mind that between the period of 1948 and 1967 which which people are sort of trying to idealize as being the great years of Israel there were Palestinians who were who were citizens of that state were living under military rule let me just ask you this in the past 60 years roughly 700 Jewish communities have been established inside the 1967 borders do you know how many have been established for Arab citizens I guess none 7-7 so when you see a statistic like that how can you say that this is a country which treats its Arab citizens and its Jewish citizens equally I say equal according to the law not reality I say that very clearly and this is one major assignment that the state of israel still has that is to turn these equality according to the law into a reality as social and from the very beginning there have been laws discriminating against Palestine live in Israel I'm not going to be the advocate of these policies these are the policies upon which the State of Israel was built Israel is driven by a paranoia with regard to the Arab world the dilemma of the arab israelis is of other people wools people is at war with his with its state and this is a very very odd condition that you don't find among other nations and therefore everything that happens is conditions by these contradictions that are inherent in the creation of the State of Israel could a Palestinian ever be Prime Minister of Israel history history will tell you had a Palestinian Prime Minister then why call yourself a Jewish state because the state so far has this preoccupation with being the refuge of being the shelter of the Jews given the historical background we have a particular history and the Jewish state its formation is Constitution has much to do with this burden the great history I don't think anyone would dispute the burden the suffering the persecution that's not what's at stake I think the issue is that the right to self-determination of Jews came at the expense of the equal rights of other people and continues to come at the expense and as I say this is the assignment of liberal Zionists to try and put an end to this and put a limit to this inequality peace with the Palestinians would be a major step towards such a goal you would accept surely the very minimum we've just discussed that Arabs are discriminated against legally in an institutionalized fashion they are but less and less I think Israelis making headway in reconciling itself with a scalpel chanee you would accept the Arab citizens of Israel are treated differently to Jewish let's look at it this way there was no palestinian liberation movement in the West Bank prior to 1967 that's not the question I asked do you accept the arab citizen israel are treated differently to jerusalem in israel I accept that Israel has some way to go for all its citizens to be 100% equal in its society not in the law but in the society and that takes time because I mean not in the Latin means that just in every democratic society around the world minorities are treated in some circumstances differently to the majorities including this country here really in this country people are treating this country and you'll find a little party that the BNP talk about different races and different you're comparing of Israel to the British National Authority a farmer cup kasha Spartan I'm comparing Israel to a conglomerate of Democratic parties just like the UK okay let's say let me know ok let me ask a vish loan to respond like to disagree with please as a ben-ami when he says that israel is less and less discriminatory I think that's the exact opposite of the truth because ever since the breakdown of the Camp David conference summit Israel has been moving further and further to the right and today we have a prime minister who embodies the most right-wing xenophobic exclusivist and racist brand of Zionism and his government is an extremely chauvinistic government which not only is opposed to any withdrawal on the West Bank in other words it's supposed to peace with the Palestinians but it's also increasingly discriminatory towards that are a minority within Israel generally what do you make of the argument from liberal Zionists not so liberal Zionists that the everyone inside of Israel is treated equally by the law if not in practice absolute rubbish first and foremost I think it's important to go through some of the laws just so that people get a flavor of what these laws are about first of all immigration issues my family hails from a town that is in the Galilee and they were ethnically cleansed from their homes in 1948 have never been allowed to return back even though they themselves are citizens of the state of Israel we're considered present absent ease my family some of whom actually fled to other other Arab countries including Jordan have never been allowed to return to their home inside what is what is present-day Israel be it for one reason and only one reason because they're not Jewish another law that the that the Knesset has recently passed is a law that allows communities to be able to discriminate against people who decide to move into those areas so for example if you are Arab there are communities that are specifically designed to weed you out because they don't want any Palestinians living amongst them it's true that's a reality and it is not a reality that should be condoned they come from something which is inherent in in a movement that wants demographic majority the same Drive that will eventually bring about the creation of a Palestinian state simply because these drive to be the majority is what will prevent the annexation of the West Bank just to come back to my only question this is the key here you don't accept that your definition which you'd use the phrase demographic and demographic drive and demographic majority is a definition of an ideology that doesn't match most other political ideologies it is the result of Jewish history that brings us to want to have a Jewish majority if it is if it continues to be preserved and the limit is not put to it it becomes it becomes racism and and this is exactly what people like myself and many others would like to put an end to we're gonna take a break now in part two I want to talk to you about the peace negotiations that you engaged in when you were foreign minister of Israel slightly over a decade ago and we're also gonna be talking to our audience here at the Oxford Union so stay tuned for part two of head-to-head with [ __ ] benami welcome back to part 2 have head to head we've been talking about liberal Zionism is there a contradiction between liberalism and Zionism our guest today is the former Foreign Minister of Israel Omaha ben-ami in part two in this part I'd like to talk about some of your experiences as a negotiator at Camp David as a foreign minister for Israel at the table our peace summit in January 2001 we're always talking about the peace process quote unquote peace process and what I wanted to ask is whether this process was all ultimately a waste of time because in two decades later we talked about settlements in part one the number of settlements doubled during that time the Palestinians still don't have a state still haven't ended the occupation there's still no peace in the Middle East well that it was not a waste of time I think that we reached a point where we all understand what is the price of peace when we came to the Madrid Peace Conference we thought that peace is not about all the land and the Arabs thought that it is not about all the peace today we do understand that this is about all the land and all the peace that's one lesson another thing that was not a waste of time is that the peace process managed to bring into the idea of a two-state solution the Israeli Center and the right of center what is a waste of time is to insist on the paradigm the paradigm of peace negotiated directly between Israelis and Palestinians would is not valid anymore in my view of harbour in January the other one where you let the Israeli negotiating team how close do you think you came to an agreement estelle between the Palestinian Israeli and very close what happened to us is what happens in many other peace processes where the political calendar clashes with the logic of the process and we were very close to elections Arafat was unwilling to strike a deal with moribund government he truly believed that with Bush jr. he might have a better deal he remembered Bush Bush Senior but Bush jr. turned out to be not the son of his father your own it turned it turned out to be the son of Reagan but you're all boss I did but I didn't really want to do it daily that's not true he was very keen on having an agreement he came to the peace process the way Robin came he was not a piss-take he saw it as a central pillar for Israel's security and and he wanted it very very strongly what I'm confused about as I read your book scars of war wounds of peace and I'm slightly confused because on the one hand you say things like if I were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David the peace offer at Camp David your table I said can you also say in 2001 after w say quote Arafat doesn't accept as Europe you said at the time neither he nor the Palestinian national movement except us contrary to the Zionist movement they are incapable of compromising let me explain what I mean by this you see for the Egyptians and the Syrians a peace agreement with Israel is about real estate it is about a piece of land we gave back the Sinai Peninsula and we got a peace treaty when it comes to the Palestinians this is not about the political recognition of the State of Israel it is about the moral recognition of the State of Israel it goes into intangible non tangible issues and for them it has extremely difficult I still don't have an answer if he did want in the deal or he did not want the deal and I'm saying that from a very very favorable opinion to Arafat you see for him to recognize the State of Israel was to recognize this state that was born in seen it was to confer to Israel a moral legitimacy which is not the kind of legitimacy that the Egyptians were about to confer to us they gave us political legitimacy so that this is were given the context of the Palestinian tragedy that has some sort of cosmic dimensions all political Solutions fell short of reconciling this tragedy and this is where I see the difficulty of the Palestinians to reach them let me put some of your comments to our panel and Deanna booty you were obviously a legal adviser at the time when all this was going on were you incapable of compromise I was also present at top and this is what compromise is in the in the Israeli mindset they take the land claim that it's theirs and then they make concessions on land that doesn't actually belong to them and this is the way that the Zionist movement is is about so at Taba top I didn't really differ very much from from Camp David they're the Israelis we're still willing to take yes you still wanted the aerial bloc you still wanted my land Amim you still wanted to take large swaths of Palestinian land there was still no recognition that Palestinians have a right to return to their homeland there was still no no compensation that was going to be paid there was still this idea of continual control over Palestinian lives that's what Paul Shani if you were at table would you sign the deal the kind of deal that Shalom urban ami was talking about at the time so long as Israelis can live in a secure safe environment I would be happy to sign the tubba deal Paul privileges the Israel security for him what matters above everything else Israel's security he completely ignores Palestinian rights both individual rights and collective rights now the trouble with the Israeli concept of security is that Israel wants a hundred percent security for itself which means zero security for the Palestinians and I would say that the American sponsored peace process since 1991 is an exercise in futility because it's all process and in no peace Binyamin Netanyahu pretends that he wants to negotiate with the Palestinians but he keeps expanding Israeli settlements he's like a man who pretends to negotiate over the division of a pizza and he keeps eating it have you hunted all process no peace and a lot of people who were supporters of a peace process in a two-state solution along Oslo grounds Camp David grounds tapped Arbor grounds now say it can't happen it won't happen and they would say that a one-state solution a secular by national state of livid Palestinians and Jews living side by side is the only option you say in your book and elsewhere it's utterly unrealistic it's nonsense others would say it's inevitable if we go back to the demography question I think that if the two-state solution doesn't work you will see an Israeli unilateral withdrawal from the bulk of the West Bank precisely because of the demographic issue why did Sharon disengage from Gaza and dismantle the settlements that he himself had created because of demography you see Palestinians is a demographic threat to Israel do you use that language it does not respond to the original plans of science and what proportion of the Israeli population in an ideal world in [ __ ] enemies ideal would be Palestinian I don't I mean it's it's an important question if you're gonna talk about demography how many Palestinians there's too many I can't say that die I don't know if it was 51% Palestinian would that be a problem for you as a liberal Zionist I guess not but but there's a whole that the state needs to have a Jewish majority because this was the initial idea this is the essentially they're contradicting yourself you're saying I guess not to 51% but the state needs to have a Jewish majority with mathematics I'm talking about in a Jewish state with a quote/unquote demographic threat or demographic race is the phrase you use in your book how many Palestinians is how many how many Muslims do you want in Britain you're trying to turn Israel as a special special case it is a special case if the only democracy that defines itself on ethnic grounds but there are others that do not define but do it in practice in practice okay let me example the Arab world is Arab states are not much I don't think their updates have ever claimed to be Western liberal democracies Irish lime every country does it well we are talking about Israel not about other countries and Israel within its pre-1967 borders is a democracy a flawed democracy but Israel plus the occupied territories is most emphatically not a democracy it's an ethnocracy where one ethnic group dominates over very quickly are you supporter of a two-state solution or do you think a one state solution is now inevitable or a unilateral withdrawal to you all my life I supported a two-state solution but now I believe that the two-state solution is dead it's dead as a dodo it's dead as the Oxford dodo which you can see at the entrance to the peat rivers Museum not very far very not very far it's dead I think we get it and Israeli governments destroyed the two-state solution systematically destroyed the basis for a viable Palestinian state oh how many Palestinians is too many in Israel today Judaism and Jews are a fundamental part of the nationality the national outlook of of Israel it's a fundamental part and if you said in Britain today that you would open your borders to immigration from around the world you would have riots on your health the question are Palestinians immigrants in their own land not just Palestinians Israel will limit its immigration of any national of any people around Paul it's a very simple question are Palestinians immigrants in their own land non Israelis which is fundamentally part of Judaism are limited in the amount of people that could come into Israel this is precisely the face of Zionism the fact that Israel comes to me and now I'm considered to be an immigrant to that country this is precisely the idea of the ideology the problem with Israel is that it views me either as a demographic threat or as a security threat and if you look at Israel today it already is one state it's no longer a question of whether it's going to be one state it is one state the problem today is its apartheid that's what we're living under let me go to our audience now we've been waiting very patiently okay gentlemen here waving his hand mr bonomi um you may or may not have a right to a state but why should we Palestinians have to suffer so that you have a state how is that fair and why I'm being denied my right to visit the village of my grandfather which is only 10 kilometer to eat to the east of Gaza and Italy remind you remind the audience the whole world which has been under siege for the past seven years by your government thank you I hope that these two-state solution at one at some point down the road will materialize and we will have peace with the Palestinians and we can we can visit peacefully Palestine and Palestinians can be peaceful Israel what about the earlier part of his question which was about statehood for the Jews came at the expense of Palestinians how is that right it wasn't afraid of the Palestinians if this is what he says and this and if these were the reality then he's right but there is a shared responsibility there must be a shared responsibility why the Palestinians do not have their own state we need to go back again to history and see wine in 1947 it did not happen wine in 1937 it did not happen the Palestinians were offered the state never a perfect state three times and three times they rejected it so this is part of the story you cannot go into the movie in the middle of the movie and say okay this is this is what happens you need to go to the origins and in the origins there were Israeli scenes and there were Palestinian political miscalculations and wrong decisions that brought them to this situation and as brilliant Palestinian scholar yes it's a lot if these kind of decision-making but the Palestinian leadership persists they might end this is a Palestinian saying like the Kurds with the right course but with no solution just shared responsibility when political decisions need to be taken just very quickly a fishline you're here you're famous for being one of the new historians I'm just wondering what your take is in terms of apportioning blame for the fact that the Palestinians don't have a state today I don't have just ever way you look at the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 it involved in on you mental injustice to the Palestinians okay let's take some more Chris I'm going to go back to the back who's got a hand up hi still that guy put his hand up very high thank you for this event I'm not a Jewish or Palestinian but as someone who's outside the conflict it seems that as a liberal you said you support international law which includes not only ending the occupations and granting equal rights to Palestinian citizens of Israel but also implementing UN 242 right the right of return of the refugees in the Diaspora and so my question is why shouldn't we boycott Israel divest from Israel impose sanctions on Israel until it meets that minimum standard of international law ending the occupations current granting equal rights and allowing the right of return it worked in South African apartheid why shouldn't we apply the same strategy here 2:42 is not about ending occupation two-for-two is is about negotiating the end of occupation and this was negotiated by some Israeli governments in good faith and this is where we you can discuss the question of shared responsibility why we did not reach an agreement in can David why we did not reach an agreement in Taba why we accepted the Clinton peace parameters and the other side did not accept them so there was an attempt to reach a solution what about refugees about refugees 194 this is another example of these divergent rhythms of decision-making between Israelis and Palestinians 194 was rejected by the by the entire Arab world and in Lausanne Israel proposed 100,000 return of refugees I admit that it was done as a tactic but it was not accepted by the Arab world today a hundred thousand refugees returning to Israel would have been a glorious achievement I'm assuming you don't agree with boycotting Israel but do you understand where that sentiment comes from that people do see these kind of discriminatory laws they do see these in justices and they say what else should we do a peaceful means of trying to put pressure on Israel do is push their governments to put pressure on the parties to reach a settlement sanctions need to be ruled out in this context the an abuti do you support as a Palestinian the boycott divestment and sanction absolutely this is the only way that Israel's going to get the message that it's not above international law and that the Palestinians are not beneath international law okay back to the audience lady here in the front row in the gray jacket going to speak up please you acknowledge that there is a gap between the equality that Israel Israeli Arabs receive under the law and the equality they receive from their Jewish Israeli neighbors what practical solutions can you describe right now for addressing and changing that mindset the only practical solution is a more proactive policies by Israeli governments what struck me in in the behavior of the code right now is these tea party emergence within within the code that goes against the initial philosophy of the Israeli right because surprisingly they always believed in a fair deal to the Palestinians okay gentlemen here in the tie on the right third row back professor Ben Ami are talking about peace negotiations and two-state solution but at the end of the day negotiation the devil is in the details can you envisage in Israel government that will meet the minimum requirement on issues like the refugees Jerusalem even even the swap of lands and if I can take it further they are initiated the Saudi initiative can you see any option for this to be revived is it valuable to revive it now or it's all done in dead I don't see an Israeli government in the foreseeable future that will meet the minimal requirements of the Palestinians for statehood when we went to Taba the the negotiating team which I had you cannot imagine in the Israeli political map a team more to the left the Palestinians rejected also the Geneva Accords the political career of Yasser Abed Rabbo was destroyed because he was party to the Geneva Accords so you can one asked oneself what is that minimum because really government should sign up to the Saudi peace plan which has been on the table the government I think that governments from 2002 lost the historic opportunity to subscribe to the plan by the way the plan when it comes to Jerusalem goes beyond what the Palestinians agreed at Camp David and in Taba which is not the division of Jerusalem east-west but the division of Jerusalem along ethnic lines which is the Clinton which are the Clinton these parameters so I think that this is a workable a livable plan that an Israeli government should should have subscribe I don't think it's gonna happen anytime soon I don't see that because the political map has shifted as avi said there rightly to the and Lee could even as it has become a nun governor burrell party let's go back to the audience here let's come back to the lady three rows down with a hand up yes my left I just wanted to know as a liberal Zionist who embraces the idea of equality in Israel for the Arab citizens of Israel and I am an Arab citizen of Israel would you one how would you move forward in advancing this population and would you agree to affirmative action policies that would advance this this minority in Israel absolutely I would subscribe to affirmative action I would subtract the affirmative action and okay let's go back to the audience lady here on my left I wanted to ask you going back to this divide between 1948 and 1967 you've made a compelling argument tonight as liberal Zionists that the problem is the occupation and not the original sin of 1948 but we know that at this forum down in Dianna said that he rejects this and dilute our esteemed colleague here has also said that this is one and really one of the same and given these opinions of members of both nationalist camps who are not considered radicals within their own movements what gives you hope for the two-state solution going forward no I'm not extremely hopeful if the current paradigm continues where the two parties are supposed to reach a settlement there will not be a solution a solution has to has to have an ingredient of imposition it has to it has to come from the international community what you need is a peace plan that would become the internationally accepted interpretation of 2fort when you talk about hopefulness and what's gonna happen with the Palestinians really that's one of it one quote to you that you said when you were on Democracy Now the American radio show a few years ago you said that you support concessions quote not because I'm concerned with the future of the Palestinians or because I'm concerned with international law it is because I define myself as an ardent Zionist that thinks the best for the Jews in Israel is that we abandon the territories it's not because I'm concerned with the Palestinians I want to be very clear about that my question is as a liberal shouldn't you also be concerned about the Palestinians it shouldn't just be a cynical exercise now in saving Israel are you shifted in that particular answer where is the core of my drive to reach a settlement the fact that I think this is the best for the Jewish state - for all reasons for political reasons for international reasons and for moral reasons because there is a spillover of the practices that one exercises in in the territories into the State of Israel so I think that it includes everything one last question for the gentleman wait a very patient in the back dr. benami does there come a point where Zionism where the mistakes of war and the actions of extremism is the mistakes of wars you call them when those destroy the moral ascendancy in your eyes of Zionism as an ideology well Netanyahu is is obsessed with absolute security something that is utterly unrealistic and in fact this drive to have absolute total security is not possible to implement and therefore you can see him insisting on a continuous presence of Israel in the in the Jordan Valley and come where you say as a fellow Zionist to Benjamin Netanyahu the spectrum where you say this project just doesn't I can't sign up to me I can't be an ardent Zionist any more given what things have happened in the name of if he distorted the idea it doesn't oblige me to to abandon my cred or I think that this is his view it's not a monolithic ideology people gave it different interpretations as as in every other nations just before we finish 13 years ago you say you came very very close to a peace deal at Taba 13 years from now what is that region there what's going to be happening in Israel Palestine what's your prediction I think that Israel condensed itself to perdition if it doesn't reach a settlement whereby you will have a Palestinian state side by side with Israel you have condensed this debate into the moral sphere history is not a department or more of moral philosophy not for the Israelis and not for any other nation in the planet if you see that from a political and strategic perspective I think that this is the end of the Jewish state this is the end of the initial Zionist idea if we do not have a Palestinian state morally politically strategically for me a Palestinian state is not the objective for me this is the instrument the tool the way to reconcile ourselves with the entirety of the Arab and Muslim world and this is the strategic meaning of of a Palestinian state and this is why I want it if it doesn't happen what we will see is something similar to what Arielle Shalon did in Gaza a unilateral withdrawal thank you very much dr. [ __ ] benami for joining us here on head-to-head thank you all for coming to the Oxford Union tonight thanks to our panel and thanks to you all for watching at home head-to-head we'll be back next week good night

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 312,950

Keywords: human rights, palestine, Israel, HeadToHead, Al Jazeera English, Zionist Federation, jazeera, nakba, Paul Charney, al nakba, democracy, west bank, diana buttu, Herzl, Zionism, Jabotinsky, Avi Shlaim, al Jazeera, shlomo ben ami, foreign minister, Mehdi Hasan, middle east, head to head al jazeera, al jazeera head to head, mehdi hassan head to head, head to head israel, norman finkelstein, islamophobia, head to head zionism, aljazeera, aljazeera english

Id: nffaa1p3k_I

Length: 47min 34sec (2854 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 22 2016