hundred years ago today extending for an entire week because it became news around the world a 67 word letter was written by British Foreign Secretary Balfour Lord Balfour to the leader of the UK Jewish community Lord Rothschild seemed simple enough 67 words but very important 67 words essentially when just to paraphrase for you you debt that don't know it simply said that Her Majesty's Government the UK government was favorably disposed to supporting a Jewish home in Palestine a Jewish home in Palestine and that they would undertake whatever support or efforts they could to bring that about and we'll talk about why they just couldn't make it happen and there were two sort of clauses that come after that's very simple letter two more Clause it says by the way this Jewish home we're talking about should not prejudice the rights of non-jews who happened to be living in Palestine and the rights were speaking about in this instance are religious and civil rights that's all they were talking about and then they said over it by the way for Jews living around the world in a diaspora this doesn't affect their political rights either and they're the three use of the word political was used the political right so we may try to parse through the language because it's I think an extremely it's an extremely ambiguous letter what I've just written what I just paraphrased to you first of all they never used the word state doesn't say Jewish state it says Jewish home it doesn't say Palestine it says in Palestine right so doesn't tell you the whole country don't know what the borders of the boundaries of would be it speaks to non-jewish community but it doesn't tell you who that would be it doesn't say Arabs it doesn't say Christians it doesn't say Muslims it just says all non-jews and then this other piece is sort of ambiguous why why do they go out of their way to say this home does not affect the political rights the rights of Jews who live everywhere else why would they have to go to the trouble to talk about that as well so we'll we'll get into that a little tonight but it's fair to say hmm that that this 67 word letter is the big bang that sets in motion the legal architecture that eventually becomes the founding of the State of Israel it actually starts with a letter that then becomes called a declaration and countries all over the world eventually many Western countries supported it affirmed it in the United States malcom it was called the lodge fish fish lodge fish lodge act was it passed so even in American Congress passed in around the world it was passed among Western countries and it sort of begins again this sort of movement that would and would culminate in the in Israel's independence and of course earlier than that resolution 181 which is the original partition plan which is rejected its long history here not all of it we can get into but it begins at this moment now if you look on these this stage with these four good-looking gentlemen you may not know this but they don't agree on everything just from looking at them you would think they would agree on everything but they don't actually agree on everything but I'll tell you when they disagree they do it in a very civil way you know this is just how we roll here on the talk show so you're gonna hear a really smart conversation and it's a civil conversation you'll walk away smarter and you'll say my god I'm so glad I went to 92nd Street Y now I know what the Balfour Declaration is about and I heard these interesting people talk about the ongoing conflict in the Middle East hmm neglected to say that not only does it begin the legal architecture that becomes this State of Israel it also may be the source of the conflict with Israel right here with the Balfour Declaration so to discuss this we have of course Israel's council general here in New York Danny ambassador Danny day on say hello to him for the second time and I'm sitting next to him a man that you see very often who is a global affairs analyst at CNN he's also a distinguished scholar of the Woodrow Wilson international center Aaron David Miller and Hussein Ibish who I would like for you to know more of he's a knight very nice guy in a valley eloquent guy and we're happy to have him on our stage he is the senior resident scholar of Arab Gulf States Institute Hussein Ibish and of course the radio personality that everyone knows as Malcolm phone line who will be leaving us at 8:45 to do some other show is here Malcolm is the executive vice chairman of the conference of Presidents of Major jewish-american those organizations Malcolm Harlan so Malcolm before we lose you maybe I'll start with you I actually did a TV show with you yesterday and I know when it comes to the Balfour Declaration this letter you think that it's been underappreciated underreported you actually wonder why we don't know more of it I mean many of you I can't see you you're all in the dark so I don't know how many of youths knew what I just told you before whether it was obvious 67 words piece of cake I know exactly what it means I know it's just what's its distinguishing characteristics are and its legal significance but you wonder why we don't know more about it 100 years later it's true I do wonder and it's not just true of the general audience we find that even Jewish students don't know who Balfour was other than there's a street in Jerusalem bound for where the Prime Minister lives and and the truth is that it its role is a far greater to significance than is generally appreciated because it's not just the letter and the Declaration but the enshrinement of it later on in the treaty in at Sanremo and Italy that marked the end of World War one where the Declaration was included the full-text it was enhanced when the British Mandate was given and the French and British had decided to carve up the region but this declaration applied to Palestine the the total Palestine was later lopped off and 22% remained the rest was used to create Transjordan but it was also enshrined in the founding document in the preamble of the League of Nations so those who say well it's only the vote in forty-eight other things they don't know the history the fact is that two presidents of the United States Wilson and Harding both endorsed it there was this unanimous resolution of both houses of the Congress the government of the Kaiser in Germany had 20 years earlier made a similar declaration the Government of Japan many others had signed on and of course with the league 51 countries endorsed the idea of a Jewish homeland so its significance is more than just the postal message that was sent to Walter Rothschild or a child as the head of the Jewish community in in England and there were a son a lot of other factors that contributed both to the Declaration and to the way it was interpreted Winston Churchill was one of those who who did a great deal to foster it and just one note I actually had the privilege of meeting Hamilton fish the first Hamilton fish that were I know of at least three his second Hamilton fish the second followed his father as a congressman representing West Chester for many years a great man and mr. fish told me about some of the politics and some of the debates that went on at the time and always felt that it was underappreciated both the Declaration but also the role of America which he actually started before the Balfour Declaration was was so declared so that's why I think this has far greater significance than his generally appreciate but it actually the the dynamics of it is is sort of interesting and weird right when you think about it I mean Britain didn't was it had nothing to do with Palestine at the time they were in the middle of World War one they were anticipating a victory they didn't have any control over the land he didn't he wrote to another Jew who happened to live in England he didn't write to you know the head of the Zionist international movement those are sort of interesting it was a Zionist leader clearly was a Zionist leader but there's there's an interesting historic dynamic to it you know you have two British guys writing to each other about something that at the time at least they were only imagining what they could but it was largely meant for American Jewry and Russian jury to get behind their Christ well that was one of the reasons right and at the same time he did negotiate with Sharif and promised them other areas but not pursue the Arab states right right because there was an earlier the that we eventually have the sykes-picot later right later but we will try to get into this I want this evening also to focus on the events of the Middle East today because we have four distinguished people who can talk about that and I don't want us to get bogged on entirely in the history of Balfour but I do think that it is extraordinary and I'm sure that Aaron and Hussein will have something to say about sort of the the the origins of Balfour because it is interesting how it's set up the language is interesting what was being said ambassador let me start with you though and ask because given what Malcolm said if we were in Israel today I mean anyone who has ever been in Israel during Yom hot smoot knows it's pretty wild it's pretty raucous I don't know whether I always think when I'm there I always think I wonder in the United States in 1820 whether July 4th was this nuts you know is it only because Israel's a young country that people go so crazy and it may be in 1820 and only because we were 2,000 years with that maybe is it true but it does there is an incredible patriotism and nationalism and love on that day do people what's happening what happened today in Israel did people walk around and say happy Balfour Day to you know it was marked but obviously you know you don't you can't have too many celebrations of that kind like you much more Independence Day but it was marked but also there are other must admit that there are other dates that are also marked the same way for instance November 29th the day in which the United Nations adopted the resolution to establish a Jewish state an Arab state in this way you Israelis know that date more than balford to a certain extent yes I think that there are streets named November 29th I'm not sure there are state states named streets named November 2nd on the other hand there are streets named Balfour as you said said both in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem so it's marked but you know it's I can say it's not a national day you can also celebrate something that for me was no less important without the under estimating the Balfour Declaration for instance the date of the first Zionist Council in Basel it's also a very important day in the historical events that brought about the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty but you know I want to say word if you allow meeting about something that you said about Britain not being the owner of the land and one Brit one British gentleman writing a letter to about to to another British gentleman about a distant land well first of all we have to remember that a few days earlier the Australian and New Zealand and troops were already combating battling and winning liberating for instance the city of Perth Shiva just yesterday the Prime Minister Netanyahu and prinster Turnbull from Australia participated in an arena reenactment rina announcement 100 years after the birth Shiva but but more important than that I think that one of the injustice that is being done to the Balfour Declaration is the attempt to portrait using that kind of argument that's an argument that kind of effects if you like as a colonialist declaration an imperialist declaration I hear Palestinian sources saying these days a country that doesn't own a land promises people that do not belong to that land a land that belongs to a third party well I think actually that the Balfour Declaration is one of the most uniquely anti colonialists documents in modern history in a time in an era in which the political thought was based around empires about the right to have colonies here comes an empire the British Empire and say a certain land does not belong to the empire but belongs to the ancient the historical indigenous people of that land that is anti-colonialist thought this is an anti-colonialist declaration that in some senses was the first anti-colonialist declaration that opened a path for the notion of self-determination of people and national liberation movements so on the contrary not only that is not the colonialist document is the exact opposite yeah I never said it was a colonial I don't say that you say it's widely it's widely assumed they may say that actually yes so I was gonna go to Hussein next but I want it but but before we do that I want to be clear I just think that what it does is legitimizes Zionism but it is you know I'm speaking now as a law professor you know it's 67 words and it does a lot for 67 words and there's an enormous amount of ambiguity and there's a lot of anticipation about what is the future of an anti : if what you're saying is right that it actually is thinking about self-determination it doesn't say it but that's what it's anticipated bading it's also speaking about the idea of a national home for Jewish for the Jewish people which is again a Zionist idea but that this is being done in a letter it's being done in a declaration you know the Declaration of Independence as we all know is not legal document it's the Constitution of the United States a declaration is merely the aspirations of other people it's not really doesn't have any legal effect so whenever I tell my students this all the time let's just get excited when you hear the word declaration it says I declare something it doesn't actually have the legal effect you actually have to do much more and clearly a lot more took place here after Balfour so who's saying let me just start off by saying I know aa bus today President Abbas I think had an op-ed in The Guardian didn't read it all right and hour ahead I was told also had something in the Washington Post okay you are yeah that's great so tell tell us what we're not you don't have to speak for those who've written these op eds I can't bother to read them good but what would you say what's your view of the the this big bang of the Balfour Declaration that's a bit more like it yeah well I would say that it is both maybe in certain ways underestimated as mr. Hanlon was saying but I think it's also frequently overestimated in the sense that there's an incredible amount of history between the Balfour Declaration and and from the practical application of the ideas or the permutation of the ideas as you say it doesn't commit to anything other than the creation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine that national home could be many things there are many different people could share parts of Palestine as national homes it's not it's not exactly an endorsement of Jewish statehood but it does as you say sort of get the ball rolling so it's it's very important as a moment but there's nothing decisive about it in spite of the fact that Britain it's not just one person writing to another it's a commitment of the power that was bound and determined to get hold of that territory and was about to seize it it was you not long after the ambassador pointed exactly he knew where this was going yeah I think everyone knew where it was going and so it wasn't exactly me saying what I think ought to happen in Belarus I mean that's the you know that's really aspirational this was a little bit different so it had it had a great deal of significance on the other hand as I say there's this tremendous series of contingent development and human choices and decisions and political developments that were including all of World War two and everything that happened during that including the Holocaust and everything that contributed to this outcome that we had in 1948 and since then that being said I really have to say that I I don't think I've ever heard quite as elaborate and intellectual contortion as taking the Valvo Declaration and turning it into an antique it's a clearly an imperial document and endorsing a colonial project the Zionist movement at the time described itself as a colonial movement it did not shy away at all from the idea that it was a colonial project it marketed itself internally and externally as a colonial movement the British Empire was engaged in an imperial project in the name of imperialism so it is by definition an imperial document endorsing a colonial project that's not really subject to debate that's factual and and based on the the self-identification self definition of the two projects at the time that is say the British Empire and the Zionist colonial project and now we can read in retrospect that we don't like these words imperialism and colonialism but we have to torch our history and redefine the realities of the people we're talking about in order to do it and I don't think we should bother to do that just to make ourselves feel good and to lie to ourselves so Wow okay but if we're still evil we shouldn't bother with that we might be honest but Aaron maybe maybe you can address this point cuz I had so many things that I was thinking of as Hussein was speaking one of which was that it's the point that Malcolm briefly mentioned which i think is important that is that there was some thought in the British that this would help mobilize American Jews and Russian Jews you know this this never stops the idea that Jews have a lot of power an honor to be here with the view I mean I think it it's paradoxical because it was steeped in the anti-semitic tropes of British imperialism and of English culture the notion that an international body of Jews had profound influence and if the Brits would only reach out to an element of them that they could in fact bring their influence to bear on primarily on the US government and you know up to but did you know there were only 12,000 Zionists in the United States at that time out of 3 million Jews so in terms of you know not calculating what the influence was you know the Balfour Declaration may have got an American Jew is interested in Zionism but they weren't that interested yet I mean I mean I'm a historian by training I'm embarrassed to say and I while I profoundly agree with Faulkner who wrote in requiem for a nun that the past is never over it's never even past I wonder Israelis and Palestinians have lived a thousand lives Israelis and Palestinians and Americans and and others have lived a thousand lives since Balfour and whether or not Balfour is the most determinative event that set into motion contingency of other events that led ultimately all that is interesting but I would argue and have I tweeted out today on the hundredth anniversary of Balfour that in fact the the real takeaway it seems to me from Balfour and the partition resolution and even American and support for the creation of the State of Israel it's precisely the opposite that every institution that cared the current state of Israel the incipient foundations of all those institutions were in place before Hitler started killing Jews and that it seems to me is in fact the real takeaway that you want to state then yes a smart national movement must remain cohesive a smart national movement has has to be pragmatic a smart national movement needs to rely to a certain degree on external powers for support but in the end the creation of the State of Israel was a function of self-reliance and self-determination and we didn't need Belfer well it needed external support and we could argue the counterfactuals that you know if there were no Balfour no partition resolution no American scored for Israel how would the Jewish state affair die I mean it's a fascinating counterfactual I'll never be able to to prove it one way or the other but I think the takeaway here and I'm thinking about three other national movements that happened to be in the news Kurdish nationalism Catalonian nationalism and of course Palestinian nationalism all three of those movements suffer from the inadequacies that the Zion early Zionists seemed to have compensated for and if in fact I mean the State of Israel was created largely by the will and skill of those Israelis and if there is to be a Palestinian state it will not come about as a consequence of some gift or some mandate or some imperative from the international community it too will be born of a hard-won hard hard-fought preferably and hopefully through negotiations in the in the ultimate act of of national sovereignty and I think that frankly it's not reliance on the international community that is the takeaway from Belfour it's precisely the opposite I wonder Malcolm and I talk to you Malcolm and you and Danny I'd like to address the ambassador about the idea that if given what Aaron said is true are people who say that really Balfour sets up the fundamental foundational problem which is that Palestinians simply don't accept the existence of Israel that this this is the this is the bow fur this is what bow fur tips off for us that it's the very existence of the state it may be true what Aaron says is that it didn't it wasn't it wasn't this into international agreements it took the will of the people to make it happen but the will of the Palestinian people are not focused on their statehood they're focused on Israel statehood or the the rejection of Israel State that's the reason first of all I agree completely with our own that the reason that I'd mentioned the date of the first Zionist Congress if I have to choose an additional date to hey we are the fifth day of the month of ER 14 May 14th as a significant date I wouldn't choose release November 2nd but they would choose the day in which the first Zionist Congress was convened 20 years earlier this is a puzzle Switzerland exactly but I want to say that what dr. Ibish said which there were things that were portrayed as being historical analysis actually there are the more actual things that were said in this stage since we began this is today's news what he said because what he said is exactly the reason why there is no peace in the Middle East the perception that the Jewish presence in what we call at Israel and the Palestinians call falestine is a colonialist presence that is the Palestinian the Palestinian a grasping of the situation as being as the Zionist movement being a colonialist movement the colonialist project is the reason there is no peace in the year 2017 much more important that what implication in had in the year 1917 and I always say I'm convinced completely that all the core issues in the conflict that mr. melih is an expert on and has deal with it hours and hours and hours Jerusalem borders settlement security refugees etcetera etc are technicalities technicalities that can be solved that will be solved if the day comes when the Palestinian national movement comes to the conclusion as the Zionist movement - in a lot to a large extent the majority did that there are two national groups that are indigenous to the land that we call is direct Israel and they call falestine and no one of them is a usurper no one of them is a land grabber no now there is a colonialist when that notion settles down all other issues will become technicalities because then there will be a predisposition in both sides to compromise you do not compromise with an injustice with an injustice in the in the best case you make an armistice a ceasefire the fact that the Palestinians keep educating to this very day that Jews are not indigenous to that land the Jews have no historical connection to that land that Zionist movement is a colonialist movement that is the main barrier to achieve peace small problem which is that's not what I said at all had I said that that would have been about that is the program yeah fine but I did not say that what I said talking about the Balfour Declaration tat the time of the Balfour Declaration described conceptualised marketed and promoted itself it in every as a colonial project that is a fact this no one can dispute that I mean that is just a fact that is not to say that sitting here in 2017 I or any sensible person regards Israel as a colonial imposition or a colonial presence or usurpers and all that is is added on completely falsely to my statement and it's not what I think at all on the other hand when looking back at the Balfour Declaration it's important to understand from from a Palestinian and a narrow point of view what it looks like which is not to say that that's what Israel in 2017 looks like but to take the majority of the people who live there and at least 90 percent probably much greater than 90 percent and describes them as existing non-jewish communities might be a little bit like calling the French people of France existing non-muslim communities in in the Gallic areas or something like that I mean there's an extraordinarily dismissive thing describing them in first of all declining to give them any identity secondly describing them in negative terms is not Jewish thirdly describing them as an amorphous set of communities fourthly as you mentioned ascribing to them not the national character that the Jewish people have in terms of the national home but having civil and religious rights which are individual rights that any individual gets it's pretty extraordinary and especially when you think that or when you reflect that Balfour had a memo shortly after that in which he said that Zionism right or wrong good or bad is of much more importance than the prejudices and desires of the 700,000 Arabs who happen to be living there and now you can understand that there is a dismissiveness about the wishes of the people who lived in that territory that remains a bitter pill but you no matter what you think about the need for Israelis and Palestinians to come to a reasonable accommodation which I strongly support and without seeing Israel is illegitimate or usurper an imposition which I don't nonetheless that history is a bitter from an Arab and Palestinian perspective and anyone who doesn't understand that is suffering from a a paucity of empathetic imagination well you know what let me just add to that and and Malcolm will step in you know that's what that's what I meant by the way weird but I'm hit weird because no but maybe not but but let me just say that it is true I think there's one of the letters Balfour has after the Declaration he literally says at some point I consider the Jews a special case he literally says there may be people this room and I would say of course he should say that and I'm saying may I'm not saying you should I'm just saying the same memo I was quoting yeah it's the same metal he actually says you know I get it we're blowing off the others but I just think given the history of these people and by the way if you if you if you love the Christian and evangelical support for Israel there was a little list also happening in Great Britain at this time there was a very romantic feeling among certain elites that we were reconstituting the Jewish people back to their right that's that was the way they saw it they viewed it that way and that may you could say of course the British took a position for those yeah they were saying why shouldn't the Jews have their one country why not for the for the love of God after 2,000 years let them have their own country and so we treating them as a special case we recognized we're blowing off everyone else in a very dismissive way the other thing that I think is I wanted to add because you made me think of it I think everyone should hear is that the British were also thinking about the post-world War One era and they were thinking wouldn't it be nice in the post-world War era if there were more Westerners living here wouldn't it be nice if we move some people from the Lower East Side and from Russia it wouldn't have been nice that you know we're gonna be dealing with this era this whole old Ottoman Empire is a mess and you know wouldn't it be nice if some people from Brooklyn and from Kiev we're also living here now you could look at that and say well that's a colonial but they thought they thought for their own reasons wouldn't it be better to have some Westerners here Malcolm I think that there was so much here I can't even remember from where we started what I was going to say but but he's right about the references to colonial but we have to look at it in the context of the day these were that this was the language of the day and it didn't carry the significance that one would associate with colonialism today even though it was a reality and they did the sykes-picot and all of that the power of the Declaration was that it empowered and it engendered a lot of the zionist movements at field for the first time you know coming out after the pogroms after World War one after the Communist revolution so many things that had downtrodden the Jews and the persecution that had going on that this was the first sign of light that perhaps they could have a different future and for many of the Europeans it was the idea that that the Jews would develop that cause over under the control of everybody else for the last that 2,000 years it lay wasted and and barren and I think the population numbers are not quite as disparate as presented but the remember that the percent is that is the vast part of it was taken to Train Jordan that was a colonial move you took away as their as they created brought in somebody from Saudi Arabia created Hashemite Kingdom but it was a legitimate in the context of the day that that was what the powers and they organized the lega nation Iligan nations supported it that's why I said in the beginning that that what didn't start as a legal document ended it with some legal authority or political authority rather with the declaration but we should remember that you know if you look at the references and the statements that were made at the time both the United States in England many other places you know they talk about the 2,000 year history the 3,000 year history of the Jews in the area it's not evangelical because that creates a different context they weren't evangelicals there was a biblical sense a bit education people were good Christians read the Bible and and therefore connected it and talked about Hebrews not necessary Jews and talked about others that so you see the context in which the declaration or its fulfillment you look at the statements by about 20 presidents since the founding of the United States until the Balfour Declaration supporting Adams others as Jewish homeland a Jewish state all based on biblical tradition and the education they received this was somewhat different and and the status of the Arab residence they weren't Palestinians you know Palestine got named by the Romans when they wanted to change it from Judea and 2d Judea is the area they made up the name Palestine on after the Philistines and as they did Jerusalem to a unit Capitolina that was that's how the name came about and that's what was the purpose of calling it that was to denigrate and any Jewish connection to it as we see UNESCO doing today so they that's just a plug for those yeah where did that come from he's talking about the contemporary significance you can see the tradition aware UNESCO s efforts to denude 2,000 years of Christian history and 3,800 years of Jewish history comes from its there is a tradition but I just wanted to say that the Palestinians the Arabs in the area were denied representation by their own leadership by the Arab states they and there was no reference at all they negotiated with Arab leaders who never even raised the issue of the Arab residents in Palestine as is often the case today where they don't raise it and and and if so it's usually a you know an offhanded reference and I meet with a lot of Arab leaders and and while it's an annoyance they would like to resolve the the fact is that the population there had no and they did not organize to have the United representation and the first representation came decades later so we have to look at it in the context of the time I think his comments about the reference was right but not the context quick historical point Jordan was part of the Palestine mandate for six or seven seven weeks of the most I think it was six weeks okay just explain to the audience what the significance of that because the idea that there was this enormous Sundering of a of a United area that was conceptualized as the future Jewish state is is wrong right so everyone understands why six weeks is not you know but it's it's it's a hiccup I'm wondering is what they envisaged the original Palestine did include it for a lot more than six weeks it was part of it and then they lopped off that part you're right in in it once was established but that is not what the context of Palestine was considered to be it depends I mean it's an amorphous concept until the mandate that's right it isn't amorphous until the mandate I think I was wondering whether in the Ambassador and when we get to air in a second when he heard you talk about the Malcolm about the rights that were being granted to the non Jewish community I was thinking about when something the ambassador were saying about well look I look at this letter and I think that it's completely anti colonial because it's granting rights and it's talking about rights and I'm thinking about even when ben-gurion declares a state he instantly says everyone living here will have rights and Malcolm's point is to say yes Ben you don't even see that in Arab societies you see that in Israel and so you know that this was part of this earlier tradition that what we anticipate eventually having is a to democratic states or at least at the time of Balfour one democratic state where all rights would be would be would be respected and it's introduced with this idea now again not again it's civil and religious rights which suggests that it they were think they were thinking Jewish state and not just Jewish home but still it introduces something that wasn't true anywhere else in the Arab world well actually you know I think think that you you define the document at the beginning I'm not sure what word you use weirdo or something like that in the sense of the three parts that you describe actually I would say in some sense prophetic because those three elements describe exactly the current situation the state of Israel a Jewish home for the Jewish people in Palestine and Israel fools rights full civil rights for the non Jewish citizens of Israel and the fact that in no way that should jeopardize the the civil rights and other rights of American to Sergeant in Ian's choose British Jews or Jews else war so the three components of that document are exactly the current situation I also think Belfort wanted it to be prophetic now now III must I must add one thing I must start I must add that I think you if I read if I read the declarations not only by British leaders also by American presidents by French prime ministers that follow the Declaration and if you will allow me to take light on my iPhone not to answer emails but to quote exactly you will see that the most important point that they stress is the historical rights of Jews to the Land of Israel there is seldom any reference to the Almighty or to the Bible there are a lot of historical references to the historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and look I'm not naive I hope I understand that the British Empire and the other powers had interests and egoistic considerations of power of influence of economy of Commerce of any many many things but I think that the fact that they choose to stress to present the historical right the justice of the case is quite remarkable it's quite remarkable that they did not they did not speak about interests but they spoke about justice and justice it was I I really do need to add something which is it's prophetic also from from an Arab and Palestinian perspective in the sense that what has been realized our Jewish national rights the Jewish National Home and you state it doesn't say state but that's that's what exists now and some of the Palestinians as was mentioned enjoy civil and religious rights those who are citizens of Israel the majority living under Israeli rule since 1967 do not enjoy those rights and in fact live under foreign military occupation and don't have those rights none of the Palestinians have realized national rights and those haven't even really been recognized by Israel as legitimate but the letters of mutual recognition are very lopsided in that regard now you can blame we've already heard some of this Palestinians for that reality or not it's it's sort of beside the point it is prophetic in the sense that the reality we have today is one where Jews enjoy national rights in Palestine and Palestinians equal in number do not for whatever set of reasons it is prophetic in that regard as well Aaron we need to get you back in here within 20 years of the Brits would be doing everything they possibly could do restrict Jewish immigration to Palestine we should explain that right to juggle they're the exigencies of the the fight against the Nazis soon to be in 1939 with the realities of their own strategic interests right so the very country that's responsible for the Balfour Declaration with the white paper and nice organize this is why the notion of identifying any single historic event can't be looked at as either prophetic or redemptive it's just tied into so many other contingencies which drive the car off the highway in any number of except that the Balfour Declaration is the first attempt to to legitimize the Zionist movement and to actually speak a foreign Western country spoken declarative terms open declare terms for the very reasons the Ambassador said that we would support a home for the Jewish people and that had never happened before right now remember this was during an era and this is probably why they put in that second clause about not affecting the political rights of Jews around the world this is a post enlightenment era where Jews have been fighting throughout the Middle Ages to get emancipation in their own countries so one of the reasons they introduced this idea was to say whoa just because we want to support a country doesn't mean you could start beating up on your Jews in Brooklyn right it doesn't mean that there were two reasons one was that there were Jews who opposed there was also an anti Zionist who were afraid because of the consequences that they would have a dual identity dual loyalty charge etc and there was a fear that countries would say to their Jews you got a state now get out it's time to go so there are various reasons why that concern what the reference was there that it wouldn't prejudice it so it would sort of calm the fears of people well in fact it did happen that the the Polish regime in the in the mid to late 30s was very anti-semitic and extremely supportive of revisionist Lionism at the same time I mean Nazi spy who also wanted to deport the Jews but they wanted so the Arabs would kill him there but they but they did work and if you remember slaughter discussions in Berlin with the mufti and etc but the slogan went from Jews go to Palestine throw to Jews go out from Palestine well let's let's move away may I quote briefly for instance president adding the Jewish people are to being able to recreate and reorganize the national home in the land of their fathers which he'll give to the house of Israel it's long denied opportunity to reestablish a fruitful Jewish life and culture in the ancient Jewish land no reference to the Bible or prime minister can burn of France it would be a bit of justice and of reparation to assist by the protection of the Allied powers in the Renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that land from which the people of well exiled so many centuries ago again no reference to to the Bible but to history to historical fact maybe explain to the audience the significance of the fact that it wasn't framed in religious terms but merely in people hood I mean why can it be both I think that for me I think that an historical fact is more relevant than a religious one because they're religious it depends on faith the historical fact is status is such a fact right and you're just there is another thing which is that it's very important that we keep this on the historical political register because historical and political arrangements can be negotiated religious the will of God is very hard to parse heard from governor Huckabee I'm not sure it's 100% related to our topic but I think it's worth well known Jew by the way Huckabee said told me once that your approach to Israel depends where you get your news from if you get your news from CNN then you've made the anti-israel if you get your news from Fox News you may be Pro Israeli we in the South get the news about Israel from the Bible speaking of CNN Aaron that's your place take us take us to where we are today you know you've worked on so many administration work on trying to bring peace to the region you've watched thank you and and thank you all for these questions you've watched negotiations be you know completely fluid frittered away is there something that you could add to this discussion now in a kind 100 years later from balford to say here's what would be here's what it would take you know i i'm agree i'm a great fan of Michael Jackson and I really misses music but in one of his better so man in the mirror he argued that or saying that if you want to make a change in your life the place to start is by looking in the mirror and you know I've spent the last 13 years since leaving government looking in the mirror I haven't abandoned hope right Elie Wiesel was right without hope there's no life but I have abandoned my illusions and I think Americans and it's one of our more wonderful and redeeming qualities we love to fix things and I think we have a view of the world that causes a certain amount of skewing and distortion of reading reality accurately I mean we we sit here with non-predatory neighbors to our north and south and fished or east and west would one historian brilliantly call their liquid assets and these these two oceans these liquid assets do more to explain in my judgement why we behave the way we do our arrogance because we really don't have to listen our margin for error is is huge our idealism because our history has its dark dimensions but by and large we reinvent ourselves a new deal new frontier I mean this is this is a classic American trope explains our pragmatism we somehow believe that we are the fix-it people and I think we have freed ourselves to the degree that and that any nation can free itself from the forces of history and geography most of the most of the nations we deal with in this world will never free themselves from the forces of history and geography Israelis Palestinians Chinese Russians Egyptians they are all they are all hostage to these forces and because they are and we're not we somehow have lost any sense or sensibility about the mentality of the small power when John Kerry talks about Vladimir Putin and says he's behaving as if you were living in a twentieth century world or in 19th century world I mean I'm not sure I am Vladimir Putin in Russia but I mean Putin's objectives are a reflection of Russian history Jerry so my point is that we love to fix things and I fear as we stand on the verge of another administration's efforts to fix things that we won't be able to I mean my bottom line on this and the two-state solution is very simple we're gonna remain trapped for the foreseeable future between a two-state solution that is too important to abandon but one that is impossible to implement and it is within that space that margin those parameters that the story at least from our side is going to play out so I am NOT without hope I am however not willing to embrace the sorts of illusions that kept I only speak for myself and not my colleagues or the half-a-dozen secretaries of state I work for click I won't I won't entertain those illusions any longer and by the way there's nothing to do with being pro-israel or not pro-israel the reality is you know where you stand in life has a good deal to do with where you sit and we sit in a fundamentally different place than Israelis and Palestinians and to the extent that we understand those differences and I think intellectually we do we really we're on different planets in many respects and that's very hard to then craft and fashioned into a policy well we've seen this even with president george w bush with this promotion of democracy in parts of the world right this this this aspiration we do it you know surely if we could just apply it it's just us it's the magic bullet we just simply insert implement the very things that work for us it'll certainly work for someone else you know produce democracy in a post arab spring' world and what do you get you don't get democracy in a post Arab Spring world is there anything that could have happened and then I'll get to Hussein in a second but I'm just curious for all three of you to some degree is there anything that could have happened in the last 20 years or so during the many efforts in more recent times Oslo that would have made it more implementable which is what you're saying is that we just can't implement it could something have happened that would have made it easier to implement even if it wouldn't have succeeded leadership I mean you know Mark said that men he was writing in the 19th century make history but really is the plea so men and women make history but rarely as they please so I'm not naive enough to believe that individual agencies completely separated from the circumstances in which human beings operate but breakthroughs in this conflict have been which have been rare are a function of largely men on both sides who for any number of reasons and the moral imperative frankly was not the driving force for any of them they were political strategic requirements from beggin to Cherone that essentially demonstrated and dictated that their policy so my view and I I mentioned it too early if there's no rewind buttons on history but if I could change two things I think we'd be having a much different conversation tonight number one Rabine would not have been murdered and number two Bush 41 and Jim Baker for whom I worked however controversial their policies may have been in the Jewish community Malcolm's gone that we could relive those moments he and I and on loan guarantees Bush 41 would have not lost to Bill Clinton and he and Jim Baker would have been given another four years my own view is with Rabine and those two we might have had one agreement one either between Israel and Syria and I fear now kind of Lenny what would have happened how did the Israelis given up the Golan Heights I've written about this in The Wall Street Journal is it that would have been a part of that agreement well my own enthusiasm for that deal was never that that great but when I think about the consequences of what where we would be now but you with a lot of scope we wouldn't be where we are right and that's that's certainly something to consider so either and agree between these Raley's in the Sirians probably less likely and I think Hussein would probably agree and agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians but more likely right well I think yeah that one would have to come first yes I mean the Israeli Jordanian peace treaty would never be in existence today hit Oslo however failed to process it was hadn't preceded it right because Hussein was not in a position to sign any deal with the Israelis unless our thought was involved in that process as well so no rewind buttons on history those two things I would change I just with just one last point on leadership you know John Keegan the military historian we're here he would say that six men between the years 1930 and 1950 fundamentally for good or ill were responsible for most of the death destruction devastation and prospects for peace and prosperity for much of the Western world six individuals it's a frightening and terrifying an extraordinary wondrous thing when you actually have leaders who can lead for good not for ill and that is what we do not have not just in the israeli-palestinian arena but in the Middle East at large and that is that is going to be a serious challenge for us going forward ambassador you said already drone on no no though you happen to work for one of those leaders well I think that I will pessimistic than Iran I think my my understanding is that the conflict between Israel scientist and Palestinian Jews and Palestinians called whatever way you like was inevitable and almost intractable the day the first Zionist Jew arrived to the shores of the Land of Israel in order to re-establish Jewish sovereignty in our ancient homeland that day this conflict was inevitable and it is conceptually intractable many hence that's the I would like to say just one more thing again a pessimistic note unfortunately if we should if we talk about the tragedy that is linked to the Balfour Declaration is not the Palestinian tragedy but is the fact that the Balfour Declaration was not implemented before 1939 now to explain that before that the Jewish state wasn't established before the Holocaust I mean that certainly is a tragic reality right I mean I think there's a room in this world for more than one tragedy frankly and when an individual suffers the catastrophe it's a tragedy is the catastrophe when that first Zionist Jew showed up no I I don't agree with that I'm I'm the least pessimistic person on this stage amazingly enough because I I certainly don't think this conflict is intractable at all I think it's very difficult to solve but because these are human societies with interests that are I believe negotiable and I believe there's a reasonable compromise to almost every not two in fact every non-religious issue of contention there and and that it is in mutual interest to come to such an agreement that eventually they will and peoples rarely continue fighting indefinitely until the conflict becomes obsolete or one side simply disappears I don't think that's going to happen in this case my sense is there'll be some kind of mutually acceptable accommodation sooner rather than later I think Aaron is right about the two-state solution being a little too big to fail but too big to implement if we could put it that way but there are two things two caveats to that which makes me slightly less pessimistic one is there's a great deal that can and should and must be done within that context right there is no reason to continue to foment hatred to entrench the occupation to build more settlements to have violence to have it's all this nastiness the occupation can be eased you can have much better relations between Israelis and Palestinians it is very good that Hamas grip on Gaza is being loosened and hopefully it will be done away with entirely and all kinds of things can be better rather than worse without actually resolving the conflict which I agree is not in the immediate future but we can work towards that date the second thing is that history changes quickly and things that were not thinkable very quickly become not only thinkable but apparently inevitable with hindsight and history when it moves moves more rapidly than one would ever have imagined and that can happen anywhere even in the Middle East ambassador what about this idea that short of even in creating ending the occupation and creating immediately tomorrow a Palestinian state that there if you could just change the atmosphere between the people and you know I'm wondering when we're talking about Hamas because Hamas is always sort of a is the is the outside player in this because it's all you know how can you you can't even negotiate a deal with the Palestinian Authority unless Hamas comes along but if you could create the kinds of negotiate with the PLO that's who you well you know then I have a problem for the first time since I was discharged from the Israeli army more than 40 years ago and and then since I became a diplomat 16 months ago I'm not free to say everything I want to say the first time in my life I have to represent nevertheless I will say that in the year 2014 in a very unfortunate timing because three weeks three days later actually the three kids were kidnapped and murder in Gush Etzion the three teenagers and the whole era deteriorated into hours and then war in June June or July 2014 I published an article in The New York Times and in our it whose name was peaceful non reconciliation now and the tests I presented there and I'm allowed to describe was that reconciliation unfortunately is not possible right now and in the foreseeable future and the non reconciliation should be done in the most civilized possible world way and I presented the series of steps that I think that my country mainly Israel was responsible in doing dr. abyss referred to is as easing the occupation I would use a different terminology but I suspect we mean quite similar things I am a great advocate of that of normalizing as much as possible the abnormal situation it's not the solution for the aquatic conflict it's not as glorious as achieving peace treaty you don't get a Nobel Peace Prize for that kind of actions but can have a very serious effect on on the ground and a very positive moral attitude the interesting thing is that following the publication of the article in in the New York Times in Eretz I received and until the kidnapping of the three teenagers I receive obviously a lot of phone calls but the work two phone calls that made me very optimistic both of them were from robust security authorities which was the main shortcoming the main deficiency of my suggestions because the instant the instant reaction was okay but what about security of there are no checkpoints and even no no barrier etcetera etcetera a one was not surprising so much was former minister of defense and foreign affairs minister and vassal to Washington professor Moshe Arens I was not surprised because I did he shares that kind of use and he's a staunch opponent of the two-state solution the other was the former Shibata former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin a staunch supporter of the two-state solution and he also applauded he also praised the suggestions because he said that the most important thing not least is to detoxify the atmosphere and later we will discuss a two-state solution not two-state solution actually those reactions made me very optimistic two persons that believe in completely different outcomes to the conflict think that what should be done now is that that is the second best to achieve in the solution to the conflict but as I said it didn't happen not only then that doesn't happen now as a person personally I still believe in that in that course of action before we take some questions from the audience I'm just curious maybe Hussein in an errand if there was one thing and again for some Palestinians would be the end of the existence of Israel but if there was one thing that would make a difference for the Palestinians to be more forthcoming and renouncing violence and in many ways doing the things that the Ambassador wants Palestinians to do and again not ending existence what would it take one is there one gesture that again there's it amidst all you're the only optimist on stage yes give us one thing that would make a baby its it would be well there would be two things combined into one and it would be a declaration a commitment by the the state of by the government of Israel on behalf of the State of Israel that Palestinian statehood is an Israeli goal a strategic or a recognition of the Palestinian right of statehood and the quiver of what the Palestinians provided to the Israelis in the letters of mutual recognition the right of the Israeli people in the Israeli state to live as a state independent freedom independence and free of threats and coercion and all of that that's one you know there was a solemn recognition that Palestinians have a right to an independent state that's one and the second would be a freeze on settlement activities outside of the major blocks all right and if you could have that then you would have a situation in which at least Palestinians could honestly believe that in the long run if they're serious about peace the other side agrees with the fought with the ultimate goal this is something they don't believe anymore now and with regard to the settlements it would say well at least the strategic situation is not changing under our feet every day and so that you would have both words and deeds and it would make a huge difference do you think that the response to that would be forthcoming as a response that would be renouncing violence uh would be no longer paying stipends or salaries to people who - oh you could definitely go job would you get that oh you could definitely get the second part I think that it's actually not that difficult to get them to stop paying salaries and stipends and death benefits wishing in healthcare to people who kill Israel well it's to its support to families and it was built into off slow but then the rules were changed over time it would not be hard to get them I don't think it would be hard to get them to go back to the arrangement that existed for during the nineties the tailor force act during the 1990s and early naughts I don't think that would be that hard to do especially if they're a quid pro quo look you're going to have angry radical violent Palestinians out there and there are also radical violent angry Israelis but in particular given the overall circumstances and especially the occupation the people are going to exists who are like that it is necessary that these people are not going to be given a veto that they're not going to be allowed to spoil things the way that the the the the terrorists who kidnapped the teenagers it the way that Goldstein did on the other side the way that strategically terrorists on various sides have to have done to destroy political progress we usually have to take the veto away from them and that has to be both unilateral and bilateral and kind of coordinated the second thing is that of course Palestinian society has to do a much better job not only of building its institutions but of fostering attention to building itself rather than you know combating somebody else it's very hard to do that under conditions of occupation it's asking a lot especially historically but it is the wise course if in a galaxy far far away those two elements would would be articulated by an Israeli Prime Minister I think what you would get is probably the first serious set of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians since the last serious effort I mean I advised going ahead with Camp David and was the second dumbest idea I had in government you would get a negotiation to test the proposition to test the proposition that the six core issues that drive the israeli-palestinian conflict security borders refugees Jerusalem recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews you get a serious negotiation to test the possibility that you could have resolution of those issues a conflict and in agreement and the the abandonment of irredentist that's what a conflict ending agreement means but even those those two statements if you could even secure them would not be enough to to create a transformation well I would say they knew it it would open the door yeah to test the possibility that one is one other thing it would open the door to is much greater dialogue and potentially better relations between Israel and some of the Gulf states so ambassador when you go home are you gonna call Bibi and tell him this no actually I will call these two gentlemen and tell them that would they just suggested happened in the barrel on speech Prime Minister Netanyahu explicitly said that this the policy of the state of israel is the two-state solution the establishment of independent Palestinian state as the national home of the Palestinian people and the State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people and then a few weeks later he froze not just in the so-called blocks but the entire West Bank Judea and Samaria the construction of settlements of houses for 10 months and he didn't change unfortunately I must even if what I said wouldn't be true and it is obviously as we all know still we have the third element that Doctore didn't mention and is the recognition by the Palestinian national movement by the Palestinians of the future of Israel as the Jewish state as Aaron Miller said without that third element the prefers to are shallow and and and not sincere well obviously that's something that now has to be dealt with but it is important to understand that this was not a demand that was ever placed before the Palestinians before Annapolis and really not into a premise turnitin I came back into office for the second time it's really a new additional hurdle Palestines for decades we're told rekik renounced terrorism recognize Israel do it formally do it in writing not in a barrel on speech but in writing formally which is what I was saying the equivalent of the letter of recognition that was done by the PLO in 1993 and it's never been backtrack on or renounce and it shouldn't be an it's not going to be so that's what I'm talking about the the question yeah that formula might be new but is a result of our understanding after all so that we are being manipulated I say you say a recognition of Israel you mean with the right I mean the Palestinians with the right of return the so-called right of return that converts Israel in a well in a bi-national state and the Palestinian state clean of any choice nobody expects Israel knows no Palestinian go shaders have ever expected Israel to simply let any refugee who wants to come back the question is a matter of negotiating the numbers and in fact at several occasions they did start to talk about the nation of the Jewish people so close so I believe that at the end of the process it will not be difficult to find language about self-determination of Jews in Israel with other rights protected and Palestinians in Palestine I think that that's something that can be certainly be done at the end of the process but there's a couple of conditions Israel is a position of feasel in the negotiation there is that if we are talking about changing the atmosphere that could change the sphere dramatically I understand that what I'm wait wait wait there's something very important Israel does not define in any coherent way what the Jewish character of Israel is there are different laws that define Jewishness in Israel for different purposes of law returns one thing marriage is another the nationality and ID's something I mean it's really now there isn't it's simple definitely so Palestinians don't know exactly what it is that they're supposed to be endorsing here it's kind of it would be very fish you could be an excellent Talmudic scholar they call it pit bull we say we do here with the with the finger this way and we call it pill pool I have no idea what that means now to return to my point that's fine to return to my point the second thing is there is the matter of the 20% of citizens of Israel who are Palestinian Arabs and I think it's sort of very difficult to ask father Syrians to endorse something where the language isn't clearly guaranteeing the rights of those people and so you really need to find the right language for this but you're not disputing the fact that the 20% of Arabs that live in Israel live a much better life than any other Arab anywhere any other Arab anywhere of course I dispute that I absolutely dispute that I think people who are you referring to the people who are living in the United States for example people in Abu Dhabi live a wonderful life and most Arabs who want to go somewhere want to go to Abu Dhabi and not to Israel I don't I don't want to insult the Abu Dhabi in front of friends but but seriously yes sirree absolutely okay absolutely are you I mean yeah I I must say I don't think you've been there yeah I'm I said have you been there unfortunately well there you go unfortunately dr. a the language you say that our language is not clear unfortunately the language of the Palestinian leadership has been explicitly clear they both President Abbas and the other leaders said we will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state they didn't say under this characteristic of Jews expect that even to the proposition and adamant position yes and in fact I think you can expect that to continue until we get towards the end of the process when I am sure that a language that recognizes self-determination of both peoples in both states we those little caveats can be nice but you as you're asking for something that changed the atmosphere I'm suggesting something that changed dramatically they probably it probably would change the atmosphere but Palestinians have this experience of having been asked for decades recognize the State of Israel and they did it and very little has come of that irony having fun get the mic yeah let's let's take some questions from the audience and we'll say goodnight let's just start with this one speaking about speculations what do you think the region would look like now if the Arabs had accepted the partition of 1948 which is essentially resolution 181 impossible to know really absolutely impossible to know would it have taken would it have worked would anyone have been satisfied with that I mean obviously it's very interesting in retrospect it's obvious that they should have done that and tried somehow to salvage what they could but I honestly I think just a serious evaluation no people have ever been wise enough to make that kind of speculative leap and individuals can do that individuals can be that wise but collectivities I think can't and the fact that this was a very large majority that the proposed Jewish state still would have had a plurality of Arabs in it that it would have been gerrymandered in this bizarre way and that people just there was just no way you could have convinced I think any society in the position of the Palestinians at the time to go for such an agreement would it have been wise to do that of course it would have I just can't imagine how politically a a people with a national identity would ever have agreed to such a thing unfortunately I agree with the words that I really can not know if the nationalistic forces the religious forces that would have worked on both sides to change the status quo would have been strong enough to really change it or not god no god no gorian understood that if an accepting partition there was a reasonable chance that as a consequence of the uncertainties and contingencies of history that more would fall into Israel's hands later I don't know what will it take for Israel to achieve legitimacy on the world stage and for anti-israel bias to dissipate I think that Israel has legitimacy it has its opponent it has it adversaries and he got it haters obviously but I can say without no reservation Israel was never less isolated in the world on these days we have problems but never less isolated in the world new alliances I challenge each person in the audience when they return home to take a globe spin it put their finger in a random place on the globe if it's not an ocean and certain countries in Western Europe I must admit you will quite surely put find your finger in a country in a state with which Israel improved dramatically its bilateral relations in the last five to ten years I mean that's it's really quite remarkable and in a period in which there is no not even a so-called peace process I think these Raley's have some form of diplomatic representation and in a hundred and thirty eight out of the 193 countries that are represented the United Nations that's really quite by the way China today change this vote in in a traditional resolution in UNESCO from a four Pro to abstention was about you know some Israeli bashing typical of UNESCO the only obstacle in my view to widespread recognition of Israel's legitimacy in normal is including in the Arab world in the Middle East is the occupation and the conflict with Palestinians if it can be resolved as no barrier at all and right now he's gonna say that's that's at the level of individual I don't think you'll find that at the level of governments except for rogue regimes like the government of Iran perhaps the Syrian government some as I say they're always out lying rogue regimes but in terms of the mainstream I think people are especially throughout the Arab world are truly done and ready yeah eager to have this over with it's it's a very dangerous political variable and albatross and a gift to extremists that is very dangerous the textbooks that we seen in Palestinian Authority what we hear about Jews being monkeys and apes this that in any text boy in any Palestinian textbooks there there are older textbooks that have anti Israeli stuff that Palestinians used until they had a ministry here to look at the studies by Nathan Brown and others that find that yeah and there are real problems with both Israelis and Palestinian textbooks they tend to be the exclusion of the other side so narrative not anything you're referring to now there are extra lidge's extremists who preach all kinds of hatred and who are radicals that's a big problem it doesn't really come out of most governments with the exception of the two that I mentioned particularly out of Iran well it's a problem I mean I you know I look at the last 50 years of the Erb Israeli conflict and I see that the confrontation line has changed remarkably fundamentally in egyptian-israeli peace treaty despite all of its imperfections endure not only the death of the man who signed it but a year-plus of Hamas rule you have an Israeli Jordanian peace treaty never did anyone ever believe that King Hussein would be the second Arab head of state to sign a full treaty of peace you've got a decade of quiet and a minimal amount of deterrence on across the Israeli Lebanese border you have a lot of complexity with respect to the Golan Heights which used to be the quietest space on the planet since Henry Kissinger negotiated gauging agreement in June of 1974 that's complicated but I think what to me what is so remarkable is the Arab world enters a period of incredible tension and absence of authority in some respects instability it's the three non Arabs that impressed me the most if you want to talk about function versus dysfunction it's Iran Turkey in Israel the three non Arabs who have relative domestic tranquility tremendous economic potential military and intelligence organizations that are quite capable now the rising of the three non Arabs come replete with all kinds of asterisks in each of their cases but it's a remarkable testament to the durability of their systems and the crisis of the Arab states right it's really true yeah with those do you want to add if I met her once and decide I'm not I know it's very popular living for Israeli diplomat I think diplomats in particular to talk about the incitement to murder in in the Palestinian education system it's a 38 I'm much more worried about a different tendency in the palestinian camp encapsulated by an example that actually III personally witnessed a few months ago the Secretary General of the United Nations mr. Antonio Guterres was in a synagogue in Manhattan I was present and I heard him saying a quote the temple that was destroyed in Jerusalem in the year 70 of the ABC AC was a Jewish one unquote now therefore this no political conclusion nothing those were his exact words and a well-known historical fact the following day the Palestinian envoy to the UN presented the strong protest to the Oh general he demanded him to retract his words he described them as an affront to the Palestinian people that is the problem much more lethal and much more a much higher barrier to thought to solve the conflict that I would call what we call the petty incitement the petty incitement can't be lethal in the short term this can this one is as being a tremendous barrier to the to resolve the conflict in the long term it's much later all right The Tonight Show comes to an end the talk show rather sorry I would like please please say a talk show goodbye to our friends Hussein Ibish Aaron David Miller and ambassador Danny died on thank you and for Malcolm hone line who is on radio right now you
