Is Zionism in Crisis? A Follow-Up Debate with Peter Beinart and Alan Dershowitz

- Good evening, I'm Andrea J. Ovearan. I'm the director or public programs here at The Graduate Center and I'd like to welcome you to tonight's event, Is Zionism in Crisis, a follow-up debate which is part of our series, Perspectives, with Peter Beinart. Produced by the GC's Public Programs office and co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Journalism, the Perspective series features dynamic thinkers and practitioners examining some of the most urgent political and public policy issues shaping our world today. For a complete list of our upcoming public programs, I'd invite you to visit The Graduate Center's website where you will also find information about our membership program. Tonight, following their impassioned conversation this past fall, Peter Beinart will re-engage with Alan Dershowitz on the topic of Zionism. This time with Ethan Bronner serving as moderator. Let me just say a few brief words about our distinguished participants so that we can begin the discussion. First, we're indebted to Peter Beinart who has been instrumental in organizing and producing this series. He is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at The New America Foundation and associate professor of journalism and political science at CUNY's Graduate Center and Graduate School of Journalism. He is also senior political writer for the Daily Beast as well as the editor of its blog, Open Zion. A contributor to Time and the author of the Icarus Syndrome, A history of American Hubris and, most recently, The Crisis of Zionism. We also have the honor of welcoming back to our stage someone who, again, needs no introduction, Alan Dershowitz. Professor Dershowitz is a Brooklyn native who has been called the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer and Israel's single most visible defender. A graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, professor Dershowitz joined the Harvard Law School faculty at the age of 25 where he's now the Felix Frankfurter professor of law. He has published more than a hundred articles in major magazines and journals such as The New York Time's magazine, The Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Professor Dershowitz is also the author of 27 fiction and non-fiction works. And can I just ask everyone please to be quiet? There will be a Q&A session at the end where you can ask questions and respond to our participants. Finally, we are very fortunate to have as our moderator this evening, Ethan Bronner. Mr. Bronner is currently the National Legal Affair's correspondent for The New York Times. He served as Jerusalem Bureau chief for the Times from 2008 to 2012, following four years as the newspaper's deputy foreign editor. Mr. Bronner has also served as assistant editorial page editor of the Times and worked in the paper's investigative unit, focusing on the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. A graduate of Wesleyan and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Mr. Bronner began his career at Reuters in 1980 reporting from London, Madrid, Brussels, and Jerusalem. He worked at The Boston globe for a dozen years. Four of them as its legal and supreme court correspondent. He's the author of Battle for Justice, How the Bork Nomination Shook America which was named one of the 25 best books of 1989 by the New York public library and awarded a Silver Gavel by the American Bar Association. I'd like to remind everyone to please turn off your cell phones and noise making devices. Also, please remember that McNally Jackson will have books on sale in the lobby area. Now, please join me in welcoming Peter Beinart, Alan Dershowitz, and Ethan Bronner. (audience applauds) - The idea that I'm gonna moderate, right, is sort of amusing with these two guys on either end of me here. They're both among the most articulate people out here on these issues. My goal will be to try to rein them in a little bit and keep them as honest as I can. They've had a debate here some months ago which tended to focus more on Iran. We'll try to do a little bit more maybe on Israel and Israel, Palestine today. A question that underlies this comes from the title of your book, whether Zionism is in crisis. In a Clintonian way, I want to know what Zionism and what crisis are. Peter, why don't I start with you? From what I understood from the book, and I'll do this briefly, you have, probably, a more Jewishly-infused sense of Zionism than Alan does. Although, I'm happy to hear you tell me I'm wrong. He, in fact, at the last debate which I watched said to you, "You want a Jewish state, "I want a homeland for the Jewish people." My first question is, do you favor, in fact, the separation of church and state in Israel? - I favor, not entirely. It depends in some ways what you mean by church in this case. I believe-- - Not the one with the cross in this particular-- - That's right, that's right. Is that what you mean by shool and state? I believe that the fundamental and most important justification for Israel's existence is that this will be the one country in the world that has the protection of Jewish life as its mission statement. That it will be a refuge for Jews in distress. Therefore, I believe Israel has to fulfill that mission and should have a special obligation to the Jewish people which it can incarnate in a preferential immigration policy for Jews. - Okay, I'm gonna stop you there for one second. I don't think you disagree with that, right? Do you disagree with anything that he just said? - I don't disagree, certainly, with preferential immigration over a period of time. - Or that its goal is as a protective place for-- - That's a too narrow definition. Instead of asking me whether I agree with him, let me state my own perspective at the right time. My answer is, in part. - I would dismantle the Chief Rabbinate, which I think is one of the worst innovations in the history or Judaism. For me, part of what it means to be a Jewish state is not only a state where the kids get off for Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur, Pesach, it's the two incarnate Jewish values. We were born as a people in slavery. Some of the most frequent words in the Torah are, "Remember that you were slaves in Egypt." It seems to be part of what it means to be a Jewish state is to have that memory and have it inform your actions. - The other question for you and then I'll get to you, Alan, is you did also say in this book that came out a year ago that for the first time in history many of the Jews' greatest challenges stem, not from their weakness, but from their strengths. The way you just described the importance of Israel sounded like it was a kind of weakness-based or fear, concern-based phenomenon. How do you take your notion that we need to actually focus on the problems the emerge from strength and reconcile that with your understanding of the Israel need? - Because although a Jewish state needs to exist in the world as a place of refuge for Jews in distress. Because Israel has emerged as a successful and powerful country with millions of non-Jews, mostly Palestinians living under its domain, we now face this very unusual situation in Jewish history in which we have millions of people under Jewish sovereignty. To me, that tests the core of what it means to be a Jewish state because if the Jewish tradition of justice forged in powerlessness cannot survive the encounter with Jewish power and it cannot help Israel live up to its own founding liberal democratic ideals, then Israel fails as a Jewish state. - Alan, you want to respond to that? Do you have a different sense of the significance of how to view Israel there? - I do. First, I want to mention that Peter, who, by the way his book is brilliant. I really think everybody should read it. And as I said once before, read it very critically, particularly read the part about separation of church, mosque, synagogue, and state very critically because Peter, also in his book, doesn't really believe in the conventional Jewish concept of separation of church and state in the United States. He believes that the yeshiva movement in America is in trouble. I agree it is. And he would like the federal government to pay for yeshiva. - I don't want-- - It responds to the point about only in Israel should there be a merger of this kind. I think he cares more about the survival of Judaism. Frankly, that's an issue that is of no concern to me as a lawyer and as an advocate. If Jews want to intermarry and assimilate and choose to disappear, that's an internal problem. I might bemoan it and maybe the world will lose something but I'm not gonna be involved in that controversy. - You don't support Israel in order to fight that assimilation in the world? - No, I think if Jews choose to assimilate that's a question of free will, choice, and freedom. As I said, I might de-moan it, but I defend Israel against its external enemies, external threats. My job is to protect Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people along with many other people, from external threats so that Jews can obsess about their internal problems and drive themselves crazy, as they will. I want to get back to the point where we are divided and fight among each other and have these kinds of arguments as long as the Stephen Hawking's of the world leave us alone and don't try to destroy us. Then we have our own issues. Peter talks about Jewish values. I don't know what that means. I'm as familiar with the Torah as Peter is. I can quote from all the wonderful parts of the Torah and the wonderful parts of the Talmud. But I also understand that for every wonderful part of the Torah and the Talmud is at least one, perhaps two, god-awful parts that also represent the worst of Jewish values. So, Peter doesn't really, I'm not speaking for him but I'm speculating, doesn't really want Israel to represent Jewish values. He wants them to represent Peter's Jewish values. I would much prefer that they represent Peter's Jewish values than Meir Kahane's Jewish values 'cause I like Peter's Jewish values better than I like Meir Kahane's. But I can't tell you that Kahane's are any less authentic. I think one of the big debates between us is I'm an externalist and Peter is an internalist. I care about the external threats to Israel You care a lot about-- - Let me ask you something that external point. Today, in contrast to when you were a kid and the idea of Israel was still in the air and not yet real. Today, Israel, I think it's fair to say and let me see if you agree, is the central project of the Jewish people of the world. It's the one thing that they broadly have some link to. Not everyone but if we were to choose, it certainly isn't some element of the religion. If that's true, and you're welcome to tell me it's not, is attacking Israel's right to exist a form of anti-Semitism today? - Let me put it this way. I have never met anybody except, perhaps, Palestinians who really give one good goddamn about the Palestinian people. The love of the Palestinian people is largely a function of the hatred of the nation-state of the Jewish people. People who don't care about the Kurds, who don't care about the Armenians, who don't care about the Tibetans, who didn't give a damn about the Cambodians, who didn't say a word about the people of Rwanda and the people of Darfur suddenly have discovered the Palestinian people. The deep hatred that people have of Israel, I'm not talking about criticism. I was very actively involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. I remember how strongly we felt about white South Africa. It didn't come close to the kind of hatred that many people feel today about Israel. Let me put it this way. Stephen Hawking would not refuse to attend a conference in a country that was equally oppressing another country, say, China and Tibet or Russia and Chechnya. It's all about the fact that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. You cannot understand the hatred of Israel if you eliminate the fact that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. - Let me stop you-- - Is that anti-Semitism? You know, you name it, I'm describing it. - Actually, that's not what you say, right? - I agree with Alan that there is disproportionate criticism of Israel given the scale of the human right's abuses. But there are other explanations for why there is disproportionate criticism. That part of the world, the Holy Land, happens to be a place that a lot of people care a lot about. More than many of them for their own religious reasons. Christians or Muslims, more than they care about Burma. There are a lot of Americans who care because America which gives Israel three billion dollars a year is much more deeply invested in supporting Israel's policies than it is involved in supporting the policies of many other dictatorial governments. I also think, and this goes back to South Africa point, there on the left there is a long tradition of judging more harshly western regimes than non-western regimes. I'm not defending that tradition. I think it's a blind spot of the west. I think it's part of the west's moral blind spot, but you could see it in South Africa. I'm not saying Israel is the same as South Africa but South Africa was not the worst human rights abuser in the world at that time. It was not even the worst human rights abuser in Africa at that time. So, why did it get so much attention? Because there is this tendency in the post-colonial third world to focus on things that look like western imperialism and a tendency in Europe to do the same thing. Is there anti-Semitism that motivates hostility to Israel, disproportionate focus? Absolutely. But if you think it's only anti-Semitism, you're not gonna know how to respond to it effectively because it's actually a lot more complicated than that. The proof of the pudding is that the dirty little secret of the anti-Israel movement, of the people who don't want there to be a Jewish state who want there to be a secular bi-national state or whatever is a huge percentage of them are Jews. - [Alan] So. So, Jewish anti-Semitism is as old as history. - If the animating principle of that movement were hostility to Jews per se, I don't think it would be so easy for so many of its most active members to be Jews. - How do you feel about the argument that if you attack the existence of the state, not its actions, not its policies, not its occupation, the idea of a Jewish state, that that is a contemporary version of anti-Semitism. Are you comfortable with that? - No, because the problem is that Israel has never defined what it means to be a Jewish state. Israel has never even defined what it means to be a Jew very effectively. Israel has no constitution. If I say, "I think Israel's national anthem, Hatikva, "which talks about nefesh yehudi the Jewish soul, "well, that's not very good because "its Arab-Israeli citizens they don't have "a Jewish soul. "Maybe they should change it to the Israeli soul." Are you negating Israel's existence? The point is that to try to figure out whether someone wants to negate Israels' existence, you have to first come up with a definition of what makes Israel Israel. I've said that, for me, the fundamental core definition of a Jewish state, for me, has to be that Israel has to take responsibility for Jews around the world in distress. I think the conversation about whether you want to negate the existence can only take place once you've actually defined what makes Israel a Jewish state in the first place. - I don't think we'll ever succeed in defining what makes Israel a Jewish state any more than we'll ever succeed at defining what is the essence of Judaism. If you ask a thousand Jews, if a pollster had asked a thousand Jews in the year zero or 100 BC, what is the essence of Judaism? They'd all have a very simple answer. Of course, who would doubt it, animal sacrifices. Of course, animal sacrifices are the essence of Judaism, look at the Torah. The whole book of Vayikra is full of animal sacrifices, much of BaMidbar. Judaism without animal sacrifices, unthinkable, inconceivable. The idea that you can define what is the essence of Judaism or what is the essence of the Jewish state? What is the essence of the Jewish people? That's why I use a much more descriptive term. Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. The nation-state of people from Theodor Herzl who has never been on the inside of a synagogue, to Acha Adam, who tried to rebuild Jewish literary tradition to David Ben-Gurion who was a fervent atheist who loved the Bible. You can't define a common Jewish... And Israel will exist beyond the scope of our ability to define it in a narrow, reductionistic way. - Meanwhile, my sense is that your desire to define it as a refuge for Jews in trouble is getting old 'cause there aren't too many Jews left out there in trouble. All the Jews are basically there or here. It's not a very troubled population, right? In other words, it seems to me that it's safe to call it a refuge for Jews in trouble but we're moving beyond that moment, it seems to me. - Well, we don't know. - Admittedly. - There Jews leaving Israel from France in the last few years. - Okay, but, like two thousand or something. And Are they really in trouble? - Well, not a huge number. I think the point is that, I think, given the long scope of Jewish history it is a little arrogant for us to say that because at this particular moment we don't see the group of Jews who need it, that we can give up on the idea. - No, I'm not saying to give it up. But I'm saying that to rely on it on it as the core mission, it sort of a little bit easy. Because, really, there's so many other things to deal with right now and that is not a central issue right at this minute. Let me ask you something else, Peter, which is this. Because I think this is where you guys differ. Do you think that the hostility to Israel stems essentially from what it is or from what it does? In other words, is it because its policy and it occupation? Or because its very existence? - The answer is both. I have never met a Palestinian who was happy that Israel was created. Every Palestinian I've ever met thinks that Israel's creation was a historical tragedy for the Palestinians. They believe it's racist, colonialist, imperialist, ethnic cleansing, every bad word you can trot out. I think that's true. And I think that people on the left who try to deny that are silly. That is true. But, I think it's also important to acknowledge that there are many Palestinians and many in the broader Arab and Muslim world, you can see it in the Arab Peace Initiative, who have come to say that they can accept Israel's existence within certain borders. Not because they're happy that it was created, not because they get excited when they hear Hatikva and the love Zionism but because they don't want their children and grandchildren to die in more wars trying to destroy it when they don't think they can win. What I think is absolutely crucial for those of us who love Israel is that we act to strengthen those forces among the Palestinians and the Arabs and the muslims and weaken those who are willing to fight for a thousand years until we're all dead. This Israeli government is doing the opposite and that's what bothers me. - I agree with everything you said up until the very last term. Because when you say this Israeli government, let's remember, Israeli governments are not like US governments. The United States government is Barack Obama. Whatever he says, goes. If he gets-- (audience laughs) In terms of executive authority. - That's next week's debate. - We'll get to the legislature in a minute. - From your mouth to God's ears. - If John Kerry looks at him funny, he's out. If any cabinet member, in any way undercuts him, that's the end. We have the strongest executive in the history of any nation-state. In Israel, the cabinet consists of people who hate the prime minister, are trying to get his job, who are reluctantly there because of the insane coalition politics that has been foisted upon Israel by the multi-party system and by the impossibility of ever reforming a system from within because you can try form outside but you have to do it from within and everybody always has a stake in the outcome. When you say the Israeli government policy, I know what Netanyahu would do if he had the power to do it alone. He doesn't have the power to do that. - You do? - I think I do. I know him very well. I've known him for 40 years. I think I know what the former foreign minister of Israel would do if he had the power. I think I know what Tzipi Livni would do, what Ehud Barak would do. But, I don't know what the Israeli government policy is. I think that Bibi Netanyahu would love to have the statue of him in Jerusalem as the man who brought about the two state solution, brought about peace, kept Jerusalem united, did a variety of things that are impossible to do in a reconcilable way. But, I think to say that the Israeli government is doing exactly the opposite. First of all, today's Israeli government is not doing anything very different from what the labor government did. In fact, although, were I an Israeli I'd be a person of the left and voting the left, I think the biggest problems that Israel caused, and I don't think Peter's gonna disagree with me on this, were caused by the labor government. - You weren't arguing that this government as opposed the one that's-- - Let's not talk about what Benjamin Netanyahu might want to do or what he told Alan he would want to do. Let's look at what he's done. - No let's look at what the government has done. - Okay, let's look at what his government has done because he's been in power since the beginning of 2009. Last November, his finance minister boasted that they had doubled funding for settlements. There was a big report by business supplement of (speaks Hebrew) last summer which found that the five most heavily subsidized cities in Israel, subsidized by the government are all in the West Bank. They're all Jewish cities in the West Bank. The most heavily subsidized Jewish municipality in the state of Israel is the radical Jewish settlement in Hebron which gets seven times as much government money as the large, poor, historically Misrahi city of Beersheba in the Negev. That's the policy of this Israeli government. The policy of this Israeli government was when Barack Obama gave a speech talking about 1967 lines plus swaps. He didn't even say equal swaps, by the way. He just said swaps which was the principle that had been accepted by Ehud Olmert in his negotiations that Bibi rushed on a plane, came in front of the white house and basically told Barack Obama to jump in the lake. This is also the prime minister who, when Mahmoud Abbas said he renounced his own claim on spot as a refugee, Benjamin Netanyahu basically said it's not important. Now with the Arab league re-offering their initiative, basically Netanyahu is, again, to the dismay of many Israelis, not said anything positive in return. So, let's look at what he's done. - Netanyahu's 100% right on the issue of the '67 lines with swaps. Not only that, but Barack Obama now agrees with him. Let me explain why. If you start with the '67 borders and then have swaps, here's the way you begin. You begin with the Palestinians owning the Kotel, the Western Wall, owning the Jewish quarter, owning the access road to Hebrew University, owning the Latrun Corridor, owning the areas that make Israel eight kilometers or eight miles wide at its belly. Then you ask the Israelis to make the land swaps with the Palestinians. I discussed this with both Fayyad and Abbas. They both had the same answer, "We'll do land swaps." But, as Fayyad put it to me, "You're a smart lawyer Dershowitz. "You know that in real estate, "the only thing that's important is location, "location, location." What do you think the Kotel and the area around the Kotel which is about one acre, what do you think that's worth? 10 thousand acres in the north? 20 thousand acres in the north? When you start an exchange of land with the Palestinians having everything '67, in total violation of Security Council Resolution 242, in total violation of what everybody believed the peace treaty was between, the unilateral peace treaty, of course, between Israel and its enemies after the '67 war, you're inviting absolute disaster. You cannot start with the '67 lines. - The argument was to start with as a basis. - How can you start with that as a basis? What does that mean? Does it mean the Palestinians have the Kotel, or doesn't it? Does it mean they have the access road to the Hebrew University, or doesn't it? If you can't agree on land swaps, it's the '67 lines. And that's unacceptable. - I want to ask you something else. - But ask Peter that. Does he think if we end with the '67 lines, is that a good thing? - No, I don't want to end with the '67 lines. But, with all due respect, this is all nonsense. The point is, is there going to be a Palestinian state which is viable, which to be viable, has to be on 95% plus of the west bank. Everyone knows there's gonna be a special regime for the tiny little area of the Old City in which all kinds of different formulas have been talked about, how you deal with the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. The basic question is the Benjamin Netanyahu and many on the Israeli right basically have a vision in which Israel controls area C. That's 60% or 50% of the West Bank. Then you basically say, "If you want to take "these disconnected cantons on 40% of the West Bank "and call it a state. "You can call it an empire for all we care." - Then why do the Palestinians turn down 93 to 95% when offered by Ehud Barak, 96% when offered by Ehud Olmert? They had an opportunity to accept that. - Because, Alan, if I want to sell you my house and I say it's worth a million dollars and you say, "No," you've rejected my offer. If you say, "I'm willing to pay 500 thousand dollars," and I say, "No," I've rejected your offer. What people like you keep leaving out in these narratives is that the Palestinians also had offers. Palestinians rejected Israel's offer, Israel rejected the Palestinian's offer. Gilead Sher who was Barak's chief negotiator at Camp David says that Arafat had an offer for about a 2.5% land swap, international troops in the Jordan Valley, Jewish control over the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. We know that Saeb Erekat has said that when Olmert offered 6.3% with a 5.7% land swap, that Abbas offered a 1.9% equal land swap. You can't simply tell the story as the Palestinians say, "No." The truth is there was a difference in the amount of land they wanted the Palestinians to take control of. There were differences on refugees, differences on other issues as well. That's why building settlements is so catastrophic because it makes the possibility of bridging those divides that much harder. - We'll never agree on this. No, we do disagree on this because the other people-- - Who are the other people? - Bill Clinton, Dennis Ross, have a completely different narrative. They say that Yasser Arafat walked away without making a counter offer. - Alan, with all due respect, those are the only people you've read. If you actually read the literature more broadly you would see that actually there are a series of Israeli negotiators. From Yossi Beilin to Gilead Sher, and including Americans. - They all have an agenda and they're all creating narratives that fit their agenda. And I'm saying to you, we'll never resolve this. We'll never resolve what happened. - I want to make clear. I am not absolving Yasser Arafat from a significant share of the blame for what happened at Camp David. - Or Jimmy Carter, who told Yasser Arafat to turn down-- - Okay, if you want to throw Carter in there, too. The point is there was a difference between the two parties. Simply saying that it was a story of Israel offering the moon and the Palestinians saying no and offering nothing in return is simply not true to the historical record. - It is true. No, it is true and it's true in '67 when Israel accepted 242 and the Palestinians went to to Khartoum and said no negotiations, no peace, no recognition. - Listen to this. This is Barak's former aid Tal Silberstein. "10 years later," this is what he said in 2011, "There are still people who say we gave them everything "at Camp David and got nothing. "That is a flagrant lie." This was another Barak aid who has come out and said, in fact, that this is a distortion of-- - I actually spoke to Tal Silberstein days after this was over and I got a completely different account of that than the one that he has written years later. What happens is people rewrite history according to their ideology. My point is we'll never know for sure what happened. But if you look from '38 on. '38, two state solution, '48, two state solution, Israel accepts it, Palestinians reject it. '67, '92, 2001, 2007, it's a consistent pattern. You can find a quote or two that seems inconsistent with that but you can't deny the pattern. - Which leader, Mahmoud Abbas or Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected Barack Obama's proposal for '67 lines plus swaps? - I would've, too. - And which one signed the Dershowitz Deal? You have your peace plan, right? I saw a picture in the Jerusalem Post of Abbas' signature on it. Where's Bibi's signature? - Well, Bibi didn't turn it down. - Oh, he didn't turn it down. No, he didn't turn it down. You offered it last fall, what's he waiting for? - Steinmetz turned it down last week in front of you. - Steinmetz said, "No," and so did Uzi Arad. But I have to tell you that Benjamin Netanyahu, I think, would very-- First of all, Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying, "Let's have negotiations "without any preconditions." Having negotiations without any preconditions, it seems to me, is the right approach. - Yeah, but you're saying once you start, you freeze and that's what you're demanding-- - And he's not said, "Yes," to that. - I wish he had said, "Yes," to it, I agree with you. - Who's missing the opportunity, him or Abbas? - Really both. - What we don't know is whether if Netanyahu accepted that, Abbas would stick with it. We just don't know. I'm agreeing with you. We ought to try it. I am critical of this government for not, and I've said it over and over again in writing, that the Israeli government should be more generous, should start the negotiations. But I think the Palestinians have to come to the table. Remember this, Israel won the West Bank in a completely legitimate, defensive war. And it's entitled under international law and practice not to end a military occupation until there is peace. 242 said, Israel should return-- - We don't need to return to this. We don't, we don't, we don't. - You don't but you just need 30 seconds to make the point. Until there is peace and recognized boundaries, Israel's is not obliged to return territories. Israel has complied with 242. With every country it made peace with, Egypt and Jordan, it gave them back every inch of land. - No, it didn't. - It really didn't. - Gaza back to Egypt-- - He wanted to give it back, they didn't take it back. - But you said it gave back every piece of land. - They said, "Take it." In fact, Begin didn't even want to accept the Camp David accords until Egypt took it back and Jimmy Carter forced him not to give it back. If that doesn't constitute giving it back, I don't know what does. - Fine. There is a difference in who is more at fault, historically, between the two of you, fine. But there is not fundamentally difference that there are flaws in both sides. As we move forward, - On the settlements, we agree. - And on the settlements you agree. As we move forward, how do feel about the demand by the Israeli government that the Palestinians declare Israel to be a Jewish state? - They don't. Here's the issue and it's very, very clear. This has been stated publicly over and over and over again as recently as last week. Benjamin Netanyahu has said the Palestinians do not have to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people in order to sit down and negotiate. It is not a precondition to negotiation. He said he doesn't think there will be a deal unless that happens. Let me explain why I think that's right. It was right not to demand that of Egypt. It was right not to demand that of Jordan. And they made peace with Jordan and Egypt without demanding that they recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. It's very different with the Palestinian Authorities because by failing to do that, they are implicitly including the right of return. What they're saying is, "We're not gonna tell you "that we accept Israel as the nation-state "of the Jewish people because we think "that millions of Palestinians have the right "to go back and become full citizens of Israel." I believe, this is my prediction, that if the Palestinian Authority were to compromise on the right of return and accept the symbolic right of return, 20 thousand, 30 thousand, 50 thousand people and give up any universal right of return, then the demand for recognizing Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people would weaken and probably dissipate. I do not believe that is the ultimate barrier to peace. I don't think that that would be a condition of any final negotiation. But it certainly, we all agree here, that it's not a condition for sitting down renewing negotiations. - The question, then, that I throw to Peter and to you, too, is why won't the Palestinians sit down and negotiate with no preconditions now? - I'm not here to defend the Palestinians or are you. So, let me ask you. Are you troubled by the demand or do you think it's an appropriate one? Again, not as a precondition for sitting down but as an assertion that there can't really be a two-state solution unless you guys see us as a Jewish state or the homeland of the Jewish people? - No, I think this is an obstacle to concluding a deal that Netanyahu has thrown up in large part because he doesn't want to have to face the political consequences of what would happen if he got close-- - So, you think it's a cynical demand? - Yeah, I do because it was not emphasized like this by his predecessors. Look, if the issue is refugees, talk about refugees. There's a huge amount of work that's been done on refugees. We have some reporting, for instance, that in the Olmert-Abbas negotiations, that the Palestinian's final offer was for Israel to accept 150 thousand refugees. Now, that's more than the 20 or 30 thousand that Alan said but just in terms of the demographic character of Israel, you would lose more Palestinians by giving back East Jerusalem to a Palestinian state than you would take. So, if you want to have this conversation about how many refugees, have that conversation. There's no need for the Palestinians, you have to resolve the refugee question. But you don't have to tell the Palestinians that they have to accept Israel as a Jewish state. They just have to accept Israel. Israel can call itself whatever it wants. - I don't ultimately disagree with that. Remember that, also, and this is a much more difficult question. Netanyahu has now said that any peace agreement would require a referendum. As you know Tal Silberstein was sitting with Ehud Barak everyday and doing, literally, instant polling to see how far Barak could go without losing the election. Turned out he lost the election in any event. But, in a democracy, unlike the Palestinian Authority or Hamas-- - We're also talking about a referendum, Alan. - I understand that but it's a different kind of referendum. - I want to challenge you a little bit on this idea. - But a referendum might benefit from the Palestinians being willing to say the words nation-state of the Jewish people. It might help the referendum prevail. - Let me offer an easy compromise. There's nothing wrong, actually. I think you could solve this problem by saying, "We recognize it as a nation-state of the Jewish people, "without prejudice to the democratic rights "of all its citizens." - I agree with that. - But they are not offering to do that, you're offering them, but they're not offering. So, what I'm asking you is why doesn't it bother you more that they're not offering? Why is it a problem if it turns out that decades of efforts have actually gotten nowhere. The argument from the right is the reason it's gotten nowhere is actually they don't get that this is what we want. They still think the Jews are a religion, that it's some big western European thing. All of that talk is still quite common. Does it not matter? - It doesn't matter what Palestinians think Judaism is. Just as it doesn't matter whether they think Zionism is a legitimate enterprise. The difficult issue is that 20% of the Israeli citizenry inside the Green Line are what we Jews have historically called Arab-Israelis but are essentially Palestinians citizens of Israel. The problem that Israel has to deal with is that those people don't want, those Palestinian citizens don't want Israel to be a Jewish state because they don't feel their sons and daughters can grow up and aspire to be prime minister because they're not Jews. They don't get excited looking at a flag that looks like a tallit and has a Magen David on it. That problem, you can't ask the Palestinian leadership which is gonna create a state in the West Bank in Gaza to make that problem go away. It won't go away. Israel is gonna have to find a way of finding its own identity within its original borders in a way that can be more inclusive. - Peter, we were both furious when people like Golda Meir would announce over and over, "There are no Palestinian people. "Palestine is just Jordan, "there already is a Palestinian state." I mean, that's a terrible thing to say, to deny people their peoplehood. I have said since 1967, - And you're allowing them to do that. - That the Palestinian people are a legitimate people. They have a right to peoplehood, they have a right to nationhood. I think Israel should say that. I think the Palestinians should say that Israel has the right to nationhood as the nation-state of the Jewish people with full and complete democratic rights of all of the people who live there. - If you make clear that it's without prejudice to the rights of all of Israel's citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish, I don't have a problem. - When Canada takes the cross out of its national anthem, when virtually every European country takes Christianity out of their, quote, secular national anthems, we'll get on line and we'll get to Israel and maybe Israel will change to nefesh Israeli. But don't pick on Israel first. - I said that same thing in my book in defending the idea that you can have a democratic Jewish state. I agree but there are practical things that Israel has to do in order to make its own Palestinian citizens, who its own government, their own commission said suffer discrimination and neglect to feel the more truly-- - But, Peter do you think, wait I just want to ask Peter one question. Israel has 20%, as you know, of Palestinian Arabs. Would it be such a terrible thing if the state of Palestine had 20% or 10% Jewish population and would you insist that Palestine not have the crescent in its flag? - I'm not insisting that Israel not have the Magen David. - It sounded to me like you were. - Look, I love the idea of Jews living in the West Bank. I can read Bereshit as well as anyone else. I understand that people might want to live near Hebron or Bethlehem or places that are historically very important to these people. - Bethlehem is in Israel last time I looked. Oh, you mean in the West Bank. - Bethlehem is in the West Bank. The issue is not Jews living there. The issue is Jews living under a different law than their Palestinian neighbors. If Jews are willing to live under the same law which means they cannot have religiously and ethnically exclusive communities. Means if a Palestinian wants to go and buy a house in Kiryat Arba or Ariel, they have the right to do that. Then, by all means. - You think Israelis today have the right to live in small Arab communities in the Affoula Triangle? I mean, the tragedy is that today in Israel and on the West Bank, there are exclusive Jewish and exclusive Arab neighborhoods. That's a big problem and that's the way both sides want it. That's not segregation or apartheid. That's an unfortunate reality as to the way things happen. - Now, let me ask you something else, Alan. The question on whether is Zionism is in crisis, underlying this discussion. How long can the occupation go on? And do you feel that Zionism has a future? - Well, first of all, there are two occupations. Let's be very clear about that. There's a military occupation and there are the settlements. And they are completely different. Their status is completely different in international law. I, right from the beginning in '67, was a strong supporter of the Allon Plan. What was the Allon Plan? The Allon Plan required that Israel would annex parts of the West Bank as military, appropriate military response to a defensive war. But it would not create civilian settlements. So, I'm in favor of a continued military occupation of parts of the West Bank until there's real peace. I think Israel made a mistake in ending the military occupation of Gaza. - Let me ask you differently. How long can the settlements stand there? Even if you don't want them there. - If I had my way, I would not have permitted Ma'ale Adumim and Gilo. Ma'ale Adumim and Gilo are a reality, they're gonna stay. - But what I'm asking is not, "Did you not favor them?" But how serious an issue is it. It's one thing to say, "Look, it happened and we'll have to live with it." It's another thing to say, "Everything that Israel's supposed to stand for "is challenged by its continued existence." That's what Peter says. - First of all, I don't think Peter believes that. I don't think Peter believes that Israel's existence as a Jewish nation is challenged by Ma'ale Adumim and Gilo, continuing to be. In fact, he's written that. Continuing to be part of Israel as part of land swaps as part of an agreed upon resolution. Now, they're a hard issues, the Ariel bloc, the Ezion bloc. To my mind there ought to be land swaps that, as much as possible, the areas that are within the security barrier of Israel ought to be exchanged for areas in the north of Israel. There should be, in my mind, equal land swaps. I favor completely equal land swaps. But the reality on the ground is you're not gonna move. It would be much easier to end the occupation and to create a two-state solution realistically, in Israel, if you don't have to dismantle the very large, near Jerusalem settlement blocs. Having said that, I would abolish immediately all the settlements outside the security area, all the unlawful settlements, all the new settlements, all of that. - Do you imagine it's still doable? - Absolutely. - Until how long? - I think that John Kerry makes a terrible mistake when he says that there is a time limit on that. Look, Israel proved, everybody said that we'd never be able to have an evacuation of the Gaza, even though there are only nine to 10 thousand people. It happened. It was difficult. Israel screwed it up to a fare-thee-well. It treated the people who left Gaza horribly. It sent a terrible message to the people on the West Bank that we will treat you horribly, too, if you leave. If they had only really done a good job in evacuating Gaza, I think it would be much easier for them to evacuate the West Bank. But I think it's doable. I do not think the settlements are the major barrier to peace, though they are a barrier. - Peter? - We won't know until Israel tries. But what really worries me in the Jewish community is the sense of complacency. Again, to continue to massively subsidize more and more people to move to the West Bank and think that basically the deal is still always gonna be there for the end of the day. Nine thousand settlers, that was the biggest Israeli military operation since the Yom Kippur War to remove nine thousand settlers from a place of Gaza which is not nearly as biblically significant as is the West Bank. Everyone agrees that you're basically talking about at least 100 thousand settlers from the West Bank now in a situation in which those communities have become much more deeply entrenched in the military than they were before. You have settlements like Ariel which at 20 thousand people, they now have a full-fledged University there. Bibi called it the heart of our country. It is not compatible with a contiguous, viable Palestinian state as even Shlomo Ben-Ami, Barak's foreign minister, has acknowledged. Efrat is considered one of the most consensus settlements in Israel. The Palestinians cannot accept it 'cause it sits right on Route 60 which is the main north, south artery. It's not even to mention the potential of moving into E1, which this Israeli government has been moving forward on, according to reports. Which would basically sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. - The Olmert government also favored adapting E1. - Well, then shame on them but at lest they were negotiating towards a deal seriously. The point is that it is not hard to imagine a situation, even if you look at polling. Polling still show Palestinians favor, by a small margin, the two-state solution over a one state solution. But they don't believe the two-state solution will ever happen because of settlement growth. What you're doing is you are pushing Palestinians towards going for the one state option en masse. Once they do that en masse, there will be a tipping point that we can't recover from. If Palestinians, en masse, start demanding Israeli citizenship in a secular bi-national state, Israel will have no answer for that. The world will ultimately get behind them and it will be the end of the Zionist project. - Well, I just don't agree. I think that it would be far better if the Palestinians were to accept the peace of the kind that was offered by Olmert, which included the major settlement blocs, many of them remaining within Israel, carving out around the security barrier, accepting the reality on the ground, which was unfortunate but put there by the labor government as much as by the right wing governments, having major land exchanges, which would give-- Here's a real problem for Israel and for democracy. Many areas in the north of Israel around the Affoula Triangle are populated 98% by Palestinian Israelis. But, 82 or 83%, according to polls, don't want to become part of a Palestinian state even if they're given that option. They want to remain Israelis. Now, that may change. If a Palestinian state is successful and viable and economically effective. But right now, even the land swaps are difficult. And it's not because of the settlements alone, it's because what are you gonna swap? You have to swap land that has people on it. - This is precisely the problem. Israel doesn't have very much land to swap. Once you start going above two, three, four percent, there is no high quality land that doesn't have people on it. You're gonna have to be moving people against their will inside Israel in order to accommodate all the land that you need to take in the West Bank. This is why it's a very, very difficult proposition which we should not be making worse by continuing to subsidize settlements. - I'm not sure it's being made any worse. Remember, the settlement building, for the most part, is building up not out. The settlement building, for the most part, are taking existing settlements and increasing their depth. I oppose all that but I think it's a mistake to think that that has been the barrier to peace. Remember, peace was not coming in '64, in '65, in '55. It was no peace before '67 and there are many other barriers to peace. - Basically, you think that the bigger problems are external not internal? - I do, I do, right. - And that's largely the difference between you. Do you think, Peter, that in the name of a two-state solution, American policy should be to encourage Hamas-Fatah reconciliation? - I think that Israel is already negotiating with Hamas. That's the way we entered the Gaza war with Israeli negotiation with Hamas. - That's not the same thing. - No, it's not. But the point is that Hamas, I think it's a vile movement that is doing terrible things to the Palestinians in Gaza, exists. And Israel is not going to destroy it as a movement. We can politically weaken it by strengthening those Palestinians who are willing to accept the idea of a two-state solution. But, for the Palestinians to be able to be the most legitimate negotiating partner they can be, there needs to be Palestinian democracy. There need to be elections in the West Bank in Gaza. I do favor a Palestinian unity government that can be the beginning of moving toward those elections. Otherwise you have Palestinian leaders who look like puppets. - I have a completely different view. This is gonna take maybe more than 30 seconds. Why is Israel moving to the right? Israel is moving to the right because Peter and I devoted our lives to trying to save Soviet Jewry. We were very successful. I spent all of the '70s in the Soviet Union going back and forth negotiating the release of many dissidents and Jews. So, the Jews from the Soviet Union came to Israel and became right-wingers. - To be fair, I spent the '70s in elementary school. (audience laughs) But I was very inspired by the work you did. No, I mean that. - You were very much part of that movement. You know, there's no free lunch in a democracy. You bring people in, that's part of what Israel is supposed to do. We saved a million Soviet Jews and what did they do? They built settlements because they, Israel is a democracy. The same thing is going to be true in Israel now, as well. Hamas, we wanted democracy. So, there's gonna be a democracy and there's gonna be a vote. And the vote will be never to recognize Israel under any circumstances and to do everything to destroy Israel and to reaffirm the Hamas Charter. I mean, that's democracy. 1932 was democracy in Germany. Democracy is not a guarantee of a good outcome. The result may very well be a more democratic Palestine and a Palestine that will make it much, much harder to make peace. Just as Israel has had a more democratic Israel and that democratic Israel has pushed to the right. So, democracy, in the end, may be a barrier to peace. That is a tragic reality of the real world. I'll never forget, you're gonna accuse me of name-dropping again, and I plead guilty. I'll never forget a conversation that I had with Bill Clinton about this. When he was president, we were sitting in the home of somebody having dinner in Martha's Vineyard. I think maybe your in-laws were even there with us or your mother and her husband were there with us. A guy started attacking the Israeli government's policies. Bill Clinton responded by saying, "You don't understand. "It's so easy to negotiate for me to deal with Jordan, "just call King Hussein, 'Do it or I'll cut off funding,' "call Mubarak, 'Do it.' "You can't do that with Israel," he said. This is exactly Bill Clinton's words, "Israel is a democracy, damn it." And that's the truth and it's very hard. People say democracies don't make war with each other. Democracies also find it harder to make peace because you need consensus. And it's a very difficult reality that we're facing. - So, where do you come down on this idea of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation? I understand there's a risk there. On the other hand, Peter's point that unless you have some kind of unified policy, what are you gonna negotiate with? How do you view it? - I did not favor reconciliation between the democratic governments of Spain in the 1930s and the monarchist king of Spain. It depends on who you're negotiating with. I do not want to see an end result which is a Palestinian Authority that is devoted to the destruction of Israel. Frankly, I care less about whether Palestine is a democracy than I do about whether Palestine is willing to make peace with Israel. So, that's my first priority. Democracy, again, that's Palestine's problem whether they want to be a democracy. I care about whether they want to make peace with Israel. - That's what I'm talking about. I'm not asking you for the welfare of the Palestinians. I'm asking you, you want to cut a deal for your Jewish state. Is it helpful or not helpful-- - At the moment it's not helpful. At the moment, it would be much better for Israel to make a deal with the Palestinian Authority not to empower Hamas to overthrow the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Look, you can ask the same question about Syria. What's the outcome I wish for in Syria? Do I want the rebels to win? Do I want to butcher Assad to win? These are very complicated problems and we cannot solve them by slogans, bumper stickers, or simple-minded resolutions in favor of democracy and in favor of Arab Spring and in favor of this. We have to look at the realpolitik of what's going on and it's very complex and unpredictable. - We're gonna talk for another four or five minutes, then I'm gonna have you guys ask question. - I just want to say one small thing. I think defining Palestinian politics as Mahmoud Abbas against the leaders of Hamas, and this is something really important. I think the question is does Israel want to make peace with leaders who have legitimacy in their own population because they're a democratic processes or not. And Alan's right, there are risks to that. There are huge risks to that. There was a big risk when the Egyptians voted. They voted for the worst possible candidate in Morsi. But it's a mistake to see that it's only Hamas and Fatah for this particular reason. The most popular Palestinian leader is Marwan Barghouti, he's been in jail for many, many years. If you really wanted to have elections and have the most powerful, credible Palestinian leader, I don't think it would be Abbas or Jalemashon. I think the question Israel has to ask itself is does it want Palestinian leaders who have the democratic legitimacy to be able to make really tough decisions? It's true, there are no guarantees. There are no guarantees but, ultimately, Israel will be better off if it doesn't have Palestinian leaders who it itself makes look like puppets because they don't have the democratic legitimacy that comes from voting amongst the Palestinians. - I think you're right. On the other hand there is an issue right now in the atmosphere of the last two and a half years in the region which is that one side could well overwhelm the other in the Palestinian political-- - Yes, and that's why I think-- - And that there's the risk-- - Right, it's a risk. That's why I think what you need to do at the same time is pursue policies that show that Palestinian leaders who do support the two-state solution can deliver. - I don't disagree with that. I think that Israel missed opportunities with Fayyad. Yet, it was the Palestinians who got rid of Fayyad, not the Israelis who got rid of Fayyad. - He resigned. - Well, but he was not popular because he was seen as too western. He was seen as too pro-Israel, too pro-economic growth. Again, more complex. I think we ought to eschew, kind of, simple-minded, blame Israel for everything, or blame the Palestinians for everything. There's enough fault to go around. But the most important point is this is so much more complex than most arguments and debates make it out to be. What we need is wise leadership. And I'm not sure that we have the wisest leadership in terms of any of the participants here. We need wise leadership prepared to make considerable sacrifices on all sides. - Here's my last question, then I'll turn it to the audience. Do you think that the Americans, Secretary Kerry and you guys sitting up here, actually want a deal more than the Israelis and the Palestinians who live there now? - It's a very interesting question because the circumstance for a deal in Israel and Palestine are not optimal for two reasons. One, Palestinians on the West Bank don't have it all that bad. Certainly not compared to Gaza. The GNP has grown on the West Bank. If you go to Ramallah, as I've gone on many occasions, it's a beautiful city, high tech. Things are not bad for many, many Palestinians. Things are very bad for some Palestinians who live near the security barrier, whose farms and houses are divided by the security barrier. No doubt about that. But, you know, usually peace comes about when both sides find it intolerable. Israel is living during a very good time, prosperity, there's been very little terrorism. Most of the the attacks on Israel have been against people who are largely disenfranchised, the people of Sderot who are not particularly politically influential. It's a variation the Tsuris Theory of Jewish Survival that we need tsuris to survive. Maybe we need tsuris to make peace. I'm not sure that the optimum conditions for peace. Also, I think the Obama administration, although I'm a supporter and I voted for him and I consider myself a friend of the administration, made mistakes early on in the beginning that got out in front of the Palestinians on the '67 lines. - Peter, it does feel that there is not a sense of urgency. The urgency that you guys project on this stage is lacking in the Israeli political discourse and in the Palestinian political discourse. What to be done? - I don't think one can equate the situations among Israel and the Palestinians. - I'm not equating them but they both lack urgency in that sense. - Palestinians have lived without citizenship, without the right to vote, under military law, and without basic freedom-- - Of course they have the right to vote. They vote in Palestinian elections. - When Israel decides. But, Israel, last year arrested the speaker of the Palestinian parliament near Ramallah. - Remember the last election took place over the objection. - They have no state whose government for which they can vote. - Fine. - So? - There is also a sense of despair among Palestinians and many Palestinians are living off foreign aid coming through the Palestinian Authority. I think if you talk to any Palestinian, sooner or later there is gonna be another intifada because people will not live indefinitely without the basic human rights that all of us would want. On the Israeli side, I think Alan partly got it right. This is what makes me so, so afraid. If Israel pretends that the Palestinians don't exist because the Palestinians are not killing them, because there is not much terrorism coming from the West Bank, then the message you send to Palestinians is, "The only way we can get "your attention is to kill you "and to commit acts of terrible terrorism." That's what's so frightening to me. That's why it's so important that people in the United States who have influence with Israel try to use this moment before the next intifada breaks out, to act before, God forbid, people get blown up again. - Let me tell you why I think that's wrong. - Whoever wants to ask a question, think about lining up on the microphone. - One last point. The last intifada started right after Israel offered 92, 3, 5, 7, whatever you want to think percent and Arafat started it. Obviously, Sharon gave him an excuse by going up to the Temple Mount. That was a planned, calculated, intifada designed by Arafat. - That's not what the Missile Commission says, Alan. - That's not what who says? - The Missile Commission which was sent to investigate the cause of the intifada said the opposite. - I understand that, but that's the truth. That's the reality and that's what happened. When you get commissions sent to try to share the blame. The Peel Commission also shared the blame as to who started the 1939, '37, '38 '39 riots. The reality is that Arafat planned that intifada. I think the First Intifada was more spontaneous. I don't disagree with you. That I think there's always that sort of Damocles hanging over the head. It's amazing we've had a whole discussion without mentioning the one issue that Israelis talk about all the time and obsess about and think about and what's putting the Palestinian issue out of their head. And that is Iran, Iran, Iran, and Iran. That's what's obsessing-- - It's not true, Alan. It wasn't a major election issue in Israel. - It's because there's nothing to vote about involving candidates. But when you talk to Israelis they are very worried about a nuclear-armed Iran. They're very worried about the Syrian, whose gonna win in the Syrian-- - Social protests were not about Iran. - Israeli politics, it's driving Israelis. Israelis care deeply about that and they worry and they obsess about it. That's what's on the mind of many Israelis, the external threats and the Palestinians today do not pose an existential threat to Israel. - Okay, so, we will turn it over to you guys. - You stood up so just the usual warning. Please don't make an enormous speech. Feel free to say something but make it a question. - [Man] Thank you both for an interesting discussion. Professor Dershowitz, I was in your one hour class about eight years ago. You stood up in class and said, "This is actually really hard for me "'cause I'm actually quite a shy person." I shook my head then and I shake my head again now because I'm not quite sure that's true. But my question is, you all address the crisis of Zionism from the perspective of what's going on in Israel. I know, Mr. Beinart, you've written a bit about this in terms of describing your own change in thinking on Israel. What about the crisis of Zionism from the perspective of young American Jews? It's not merely that young American Jews, I think, view Israel's treatment of Palestinians through a lens of some illegitimacy. But it's also that they look at Israel and what's going on domestically in Israel among Jews as something that they don't identify with. I understand that the Jewish community in the United States is no more monolithic than it is in Israel. But I was wondering if you guys could talk a little bit about how that's a crisis in Zionism. How young American Jews and how they see Israel is creating separation between the Jewish community here and Israelis there? - Peter, it's kind of a specialty of yours, so, um... - The single biggest reason that younger American Jews are more distant from Israel is because they're more distant from all things Jewish. Because we have produce one of the largest and wealthiest and most Jewishly illiterate populations in the history of the Jewish people. And because we have done so, we have created a generation of people who are distant from Israel because Israel is simply another thing. If you've never had any experience of Simchat Torah or Shavuot or had meaningful Jewish experience in the United States, you're not gonna be that connected to Israel. That's part of the problem and that's part of why my book is about Jewish education and why I think it's so important. What's interesting is if you look outside the orthodox community at the most religiously committed young American Jews, too, the young reform, reconstructionist, conservative rabbis, the people in the independent, Midian movement, these people who are very Jewishly affiliated, they're also becoming more alienated from Israel. And there it is because they don't see their vision of Judaism. Alan's absolutely right, Judaism is an ocean. People interpret it in completely different ways but they are trying to reconcile Jewish commitment with liberal democratic ideals and they don't see Israel's policies, especially in the West Bank, as doing that. Even therefore if they may be connected to Israeli society, they spent time there, they speak Hebrew, they are alienated from the Israeli state. That, I think, is something which is gonna have big repercussions for Israeli-American Jewish relations in the decades to come. - Alan, you disagree? - I completely disagree on this one. (audience laughs) I think if you start introducing more Judaism into young people, have more of them go to Jewish day schools, have the federal government pay for yeshiva, what we're gonna have is a lot more Jews who care deeply about Israel and are, I agree with you up to now, but are deeply committed to the Israeli right. That's what happens when you get kids who go to yeshiva and kids who get orthodox Jewish education. for the most part, they don't produce the Peter Beinart's of the world. They produce the people who booed me at the Jerusalem Post conference last week when I talked about the two-state solution and when I talked about ending the settlements. You might think I'm not liked by the hard left. I'm hated more by the Jewish right, the extreme Jewish right. The very people who are Jewishly educated. Jewish education is also a double-edged sword. Many of my student who were in your class, who are the strongest Zionists, are not Jewishly educated. They care about Israel because of human rights issues. You may remember, I think in your class, Mitch Weber who was one of the leading Zionist voices on the Harvard campus, who was a completely secular, atheist Jew, who married a woman who's not Jewish, whose whole life is devoted to caring about Israel. So, I don't see the close connection between religion and Zionism. It didn't start that way. Herzl, Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir-- - You don't see a risk of increased separation as a result? - I don't. I think the answer is very different. I think in 1967 Jews were able to beat their chest and say, "Wow, we're proud to be Israel. "Look how tough Israelis are." It was a source of pride. Today, it's a source of embarrassment. - Because of the occupation. - No. - Because what? - Because of their friends. - Friends? - Because of Stephen Hawking. Because of the Brits. - That's about the occupation. - No, it's not. It's not about the occupation. If the occupation ended tomorrow, you would find the same hatred-- - You think Stephen Hawking wouldn't go to Israel? - Absolutely. - He was there twice five years ago. - I understand that. He accepted the invitation two months ago. What happened? Did the Israelis start the occupation in the last two months? He got a lot of pressure in two months. What we're seeing is today, if you go to dinner at a University dinner and you speak up on behalf of Israel, favor of Israel, it is an embarrassment. It's not an embarrassment because of what Israels do it's because of that what Israel is. And the DBS Movement is growing. And the DBS Movement does not talk about the occupation. The occupation DBS talks about is the occupation of '48, the occupation of from the ocean to the sea. - It's definitely true that there are a lot of people who don't want Israel to exist as a Jewish state and that they have many important people in the BDS Movement to take that view. But if you don't believe that their efforts are being fueled by people's anger at what happens in the West Bank and Gaza, you're just not connected to reality. This is the problem with the Jewish community We go to Israel all the time and it's wonderful. But what we don't go, on birthright, our synagogue church, we don't go to experience Palestinian life in the West Bank. As a result, we are disproportionately ignorant. It's actually the non-Jews who go and see those things. When you go and see those things, I was there last week. Believe me, there's an Israeli flag on my kid's wall. I love Israel. It is deeply, deeply upsetting and deeply angering to see the way that people are forced to live because they lack-- and it's that anger which is leading to the BDS anti-Zionist getting more and more support and leading to some of those Jewish kids. - But that's you. But the people in the BDS movement have never been to Israel. They've never seen the West Bank. There just being politically correct. They're being lemmings who are being led the way the ignoramus, Stephen Hawking, who doesn't know anything about the Middle East was led by pressure by his fellow academics. That's what it's about today, it's an embarrassment. - Sir, your question. - [Man] I'm very surprised that the three of you haven't mentioned anything about the Israeli Declaration of Independence. It's the foundation of their government just like Jefferson's Declaration of Independence is the foundation of ours. And it could lead to another way out of the problem. It may not be able to make, it may not want to make a second state. The problem could be decided inside of Israel by using the Declaration of Independence. - What about the declaration? - [Man] Israel has a Declaration of Independence. - I understand that. - [Man] It's the foundation of their government like ours is the foundation of ours. - The problem is that that Declaration of Independence promises a Jewish state, sorry? - Go ahead. - A Jewish state that offers complete equality of social and political rights to its inhabitants irrespective of race, religion, and sex. The only way in which you can resolve that tension between equal citizenship and also a state that offers a refuge for the Jewish people is within a two-state solution. In the context of a one state solution, it will not be a state that offers refuge for the Jewish people. I think it ultimately will probably be civil war. But the point is, you can live up to Israel's Declaration of Independence or at least get much closer to it within the context of a two-state solution. Right now, Israel has been violating those core principles in its Declaration of Independence for 45 years by controlling millions of people who are, by virtue of not being Jewish, lack citizenship and the right to vote and live under military rule. - And have refused to accept the two-state solution since 1938. So, again, you don't blame just Israel for the lack of a two-state solution. - Sir? - [Man] In the previous discussion, Time was not made for comments from the audience. But something that happened there, I think, is illustrative of why there's been so little progress with peace process in recent years. The discussion was billed as one about, is it possible to find a peace process in a two-state solution? Halfway through the discussion, which initially was going in that direction, Mr. Dershowitz said, "If you ask Israelis "what are the three most important things to them "it's Iran, Iran, Iran." - Halfway through? I think it was the last 10 seconds. - [Man] No, No, he changed the discussion to nothing but Iran. - 10 seconds before it was over, be accurate. - [Man] No, today it was 10 seconds before. So, it was nothing but Iran for the rest of the evening. - You know, you're just lying. Iran came up - Can I finish? - at the last point of the last question. - I think he means the last event. - [Man] We're talking about last time. - Oh, last time, I'm sorry. - [Man] We couldn't talk last time. - You're talking about last November? These people weren't here. - Plenty of them were. - Sir, your point is? - [Man] This mirrors what Benjamin Netanyahu does. Iran, Iran, Iran all the time, existential threats, red lines, and nobody gets a chance to talk to him about the peace process as a result. When they do he says, "No preconditions," and that's it. And that is a good reason or part of the reason why nothing's happened for the last two, three years. (audience applauds) - I guess the point is that we should ignore Iran. I don't get it. I mean, I don't get it. If you're the prime minister of Israel, your main responsibility is to protect your citizens against the threat of nuclear war. And if I were the prime minister of Israel I would be focusing on Iran 23 hours a day and looking to make peace in that 24th hour. But I would keep my priorities straight. The priority is external destruction of Israel. Israel's soul will take care of itself as long as its body is kept intact. The Jews tried to keep their soul alive in the '20s and '30s. They learned a very important lesson they should've learned from the Psalms. Which says (speaks Hebrew). "God will give the Jewish people o' strength, "and only then will there be peace." The only way Israel can make peace is if its physically strong. If it is stronger than all the Arab armies combined. If it can protect itself against an Iranian nuclear threat, then it will have the ability to make peace. I want peace in Israel but I want Israel to survive more than I want peace in Israel. - [Man] Israel has a couple of hundred nuclear weapons and Iran may or may not be trying to build one. - I also think that Iran is a major challenge and I think Iran getting a nuclear weapon would be a terrible thing. Not only for Israel but for the whole region. But the message of the Gatekeeper, if any of you have seen it, which was interviews with six former heads of the Shin Bet, is precisely that Israel's ethical character and its physical security are intertwined. This was the bet that Israel's founders made when they yoked Zionism to democracy. That, ultimately, if Israel surrenders its democratic character, it will not be able to survive physically because in today's age any non-democratic government is living on borrowed time. Any non-democratic government has a huge legitimacy problem in today's world. That's why you can't distinguish so easily Israel's democratic survival and its physical survival. - I don't disagree with that. The worst-case scenario, Israel is still among the top five or 10% of the countries in the world in terms of democratic value, in terms of the judiciary, in terms of the rule of law, in terms of equality for women, equality for gays, Israel's soul is not in grave turmoil today. - Alan, Alan, Alan. - It could improve. It could get better. Israel on the West Bank, the worst-case scenario. Israel on the West Bank is more democratic than any Muslim or Arab state in the world today. There is more democracy on the West Bank, more freedom of speech, more freedom to criticize, more freedom to get an education. I think Israel on the West Bank it's a three or a four on a scale of 10. - You need to spend more time there. - I spend a lot of time on the West Bank. - No, go to Shuhada Street and see in Hebron where Palestinians are literally not allowed to walk on the street even if they live on that street. And tell me that Israel's soul in Hebron is doing well. - You don't look at one place in isolation. (audience applauds) You look at the entire context. - Got five more minutes, go ahead. - [Man] I think you both pointed out very well that's there's resistance to the peace process from the both sides. Let's say nothing happens. Where will we be 20 years from now? - That's a version of a question I tried to ask you. How long can it go on before your sense of crisis grows? - Both Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have answered that question. - With the word apartheid. - With the word South Africa and the word apartheid. That Israel will be one state which permanently has millions of people who lack basic rights because they are not of the right nationality, ethnicity, religion, whatever you want to call it. And those people with the backing of much of the world will be involved in a process of overturning the entire existence of the state and turning it into what they can call a secular bi-national state in which, I personally believe, will be a bloody civil war. That's exactly what I fear. - Israel will never be a bi-national secular state. If it becomes a bi-national state, it will become a bi-national Muslim state because the Palestinians will never allow a secular state. If they do get a majority, they will turn Israel Palestine. They'll name it Palestine. Or maybe they'll name it something else. That will have a more Muslim meaning to it. - But it won't be a vote. The Jews will have the guns. - I understand but you're talking about it being a secular bi-national state. What makes you think it will be secular? - I agree with you, by the way. - I don't accept you hypothetical. I think within 20 years, we're gonna see substantial progress toward peace because I think the demographic issues are impossible. Israel will never appropriately the West Bank, notwithstanding Ehud Barak, notwithstanding Ehud Olmert, Israel will never be an apartheid government. It will always exist under the rule of law. There will always be votes on the West Bank. There will always be elections. Will it be a perfectly democratic country? No, absolutely not. And that's why the Palestinians must sit at the negotiating table. When you want to change, the burden is on you to begin the negotiations toward that change. The unwillingness of the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table is, today, the major barrier to progress toward peace. There is no reason why the Palestinians shouldn't sit down and negotiate. Remember that the Israelis gave them a settlement freeze. For nine months, the Palestinians, with a settlement freeze, wouldn't come. - There was more building on the West Bank during the settlement freeze than there had been in 2008. - I understand that. That's not a reason for not negotiating. - The Palestinians negotiated without a settlement freeze with Ehud Olmert because he was within the parameters of '67 plus swaps. If Netanyahu would enter those parameters in which there would be a chance of actually reaching a deal, then the settlement freeze issue would not be nearly as big an issue. But when you're talking about negotiating with a guy who's not within your basic parameter-- - [Woman] Stop it, stop! - Let me just say one more thing here. I wrote an op-ed with you. I support the Dershowitz plan. The Dershowitz plan is that there should be a settlement freeze in at least part of the West Bank and there should be negotiations because, although I want the Palestinians to go to the negotiating table, I also understand that there is something unfair about them negotiating over the size of the pie when Israel keeps building and building and taking more of the pie over which they can negotiate. That is a legitimate objection. - Here's my final question to you. The Israelis have had an election. They voted for Netanyahu. What would you do? Would you undo the election? How would you bring about these results? Israel is a democracy. It voted for who it voted for. We don't get to vote in Israel. I have a deal for you. Next time there's an election, you and I will go to Israel and we'll urge people to vote for the peace party. And maybe we'll win. But, in the meantime we're dealing with a democracy. And a democracy represents the will of the people. So, what would you do to bring about peace? Would you overrule the will of the people? Would you impeach the prime minister? How do you bring about your desired result in a democracy? - When your talking about Israeli policy in the West Bank, Israel is not a democracy because the vast majority of people who live in the West Bank do not have the right to vote. If they did, it would be a radically different outcome. - You're missing my point. My point is within the Green Line, Israel is a democracy. They vote against your view and my view. What do we do? - We stand up as Americans and say this is bad for American national security and we stand up as Jews and say that all our honor is on the line in the question of how Jews use power. That the Jewish ethical tradition forged in powerlessness is disgraced if we turn around and turn against the very vision that inspired the world when we-- - You're arguing and Netanyahu agrees with that. - If you lose and you try to persuade them, then what happens? What do you do? - The United States is Israel's only important strategic partner in the world. If the United States president said that, "The relationship with the United States "is going to change if you do not support "the '67 parameters," believe me, the Israeli government would fall. - Bush one said that, Baker said that. There's been different elections and different results in different elections. There's no question who Barack Obama preferred in the last election. There's probably little doubt who the Israelis preferred in the last election. But in democracies, people who live in the countries vote. All I'm saying to you, again, and this is a continuation of my common theme, Peter, it's more complex than you think it is. In a democracy, it's just more complex and more difficult. There are no simple-minded solutions. - I don't think Peter's offering a simple-minded solution to be fair here, Alan. - If you don't believe in Israeli democracy. If you give weight to what the people voted for it's far more difficult than we sitting at City College telling the Israelis how to vote and how to negotiate and how to deal - You're the guy with the plan, Alan. You're the guy with the plan, so hold on. - My plan is a suggestion for people to accept or reject. - We have a right to decide what we think is best for the United States. I believe that America will always support Israel's security interest and give Israel a security technological advantage. But we, as Americans and as Jews do not have to fund and support the settlement enterprise which is destroying Israel's democratic character. We can have a president who says that very loudly. - The last point is that punctuality is next to godliness. It's eight o'clock, thank you all very much. - Thank you. (audience applauds) - [Peter] Good job.

Channel: The Graduate Center, CUNY

Views: 80,842

Rating: 3.9060543 out of 5

Keywords: Zionism (Political Ideology), Peter Beinart, Daily Beast, Ethan Bronner, Alan Dershowitz, Israel

Id: 7Ffa6qMUX6U

Length: 83min 39sec (5019 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2013