for justice in Palestine it is our pleasure and honor to welcome you all today to this important conversation on the ongoing Israeli genocide on Gaza with the company of our esteemed guests Norman finlin and miss and Chris Hedges uh we would like to begin by extending our thanks and gratitude to the Princeton Muslim advocates for social justice also known as musjid the center for collaborative history and the department of near East studies for being our co-sponsors for this event thank you so much for your [Applause] support as we speak more than 70% of people in Gaza are suffering from catastrophic levels of hunger at least 25 people including babies and children have died of dehydration and starvation the United Nations Secretary General has said that that this is the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded anywhere anytime people have resorted to Scavenging eating grass and animal feed and drinking polluted water starving mothers are unable to produce enough milk to feed their babies miscarriages among pregnant women in Gaza have skyrocketed by 300% due to a combination of malnutrition and extreme chronic stress and fear Israel has murdered over 30,000 people in Gaza since October 2023 close to 14,000 of them being children every single University in Gaza has been bombed and destroyed obliterating the educational infrastructure only 12 of gaza's 36 hospitals are even partially functional more than 1 th000 children have had to undergo amputations of one or both legs without anesthesia since the beginning of Israel's genocide in Gaza these numbers reflect only a fraction of the horrors that Palestinians in Gaza have had to endure due to Israel's assaults and we now live in a world where Palestinians have been forced to Liv stream their pain and Trauma many of which many of us here have Beed witness to from our divices as this talk will remind us history did not begin on October 7th as we continue to hear as we continue to Bear witness to and protest against the ongoing genocide in Gaza it is more pressing than ever for people to learn and pay attention to the history of Palestine and of the violence that Israeli apartheid state has done unto the people and land of Palestine We Gather here today in an effort to confront the political reality underpinning some of these Horrors We Gather here to reflect on the ways that we as people who live in the United States a persistent supporter and funer of Israel is of Israel's aparte and genocide of Palestine can pressure our government to change course and finally We Gather here or at least most of us as people who will no longer stand by in silence as our government actively funds and partakes in upholding a parthe and genocide so before getting started I'd like to introduce a little about our speakers for this event Norman finlin is the author of many books including the h UST industry Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering and Gaza and inquest into its martyrdom he graduated from Bonton University's school for advanced studies in the social sciences and received his PhD from Princeton University's Department of politics he has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College ruter University Hunter College New York University and the Paul University continuing on Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer prizewinning former foreign correspondent who spent two decades covering conflicts in Central America the Middle East Africa and the Balkans he was the Middle East buau chief for the New York Times and the paper's Balan buau Chief during the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo he was later based in Paris where he covered Al-Qaeda for the New York Times in Europe and the Middle East he was a vocal critic of the invasion of Iraq and left the paper after being told by the editors that he was not allowed to publicly speak out against the war he has taught at Columbia University New York University our very own Princeton University and the University of Toronto he has also taught for over a decade in the college degree program offered by ruter in the New Jersey prison system he's also the author of 14 books including titles such as Wars of force that gives us meaning American fascists the Christian right and the war on America days of Destruction days of revolt and other New York Times bestsellers he's currently working on a Bo book about Gaza for Simon and Schuster with a cartoonist Joe AKO finally without further Ado it is my utmost pleasure to welcome Dr Norman finlin and Mr Chris [Applause] Hedges so I'm a journalist not an academic not a great historian like Professor Franklin in journalism if any of you are considering the profession is a very superficial profession we always say journalists know a little about a lot of things um and it is impossible although I spent seven years covering the Middle East to have any conception of what's happening in the Middle East in Palestine in Israel unless you read history unless you read The Works of the great historians uh such as uh Dr finklestein and uh Benny Morris and Elon Poppy and uh uh um and others and and so that context is key and one of the things that I have always found when I covered conflicts was that the aggressor seeks to destroy the context to make the reaction of the Imp oppressed incomprehensible if there is no context then when you see people burst through uh the the security barriers of their open air prison and Carry Out admittedly I think Norman and I will both concede uh atrocities you don't understand that long slow drip of Oppression humiliation and murder that has been carried out by the Palestinians trapped in their concentration camp context is key and that's why uh I have so much admiration for what uh Norman does as a scholar uh he's paid the price I always think of Julian benda's great book treason of the intellectuals uh where he talks about those intellectuals who hedge and uh essentially distort the truth uh to advance their careers and get Foundation grants in 10 year not that any of that would happen here um and uh and Norman didn't do that he he went out it was Joan Peters right was the Joan Peters who wrote this book that many uh especially Zionist Scholars used uh it was completely uh uh mendacious I don't think she was even I think she was a journalist herself I don't even think she was an academic but they used it to uh build the scaffolding of how the Palestinian people didn't have an identity uh that that was an empty land and and in his doctoral work he obliterated it I know Nom Chomsky we both admire immensely and gnome's very close to Norman uh and nor ner close uh to warned him uh but he was you know his Integrity coupled with his Brilliance that uh he he he refused to back off and he took on that uh very powerful uh Zionist uh uh those institutions from day one and he's paid a tremendous price for it um but what he's retained is uh his uh Integrity so I think we should begin Norman will come and speak I think the first thing we have to do is put where we are today uh in historical context and uh there's very few Scholars who can do it as well as Norman Ken [Applause] [Music] thanks well thank you for having me here today I attended Princeton for my graduate school and that's already For Better or For Worse it's a half century ago uh it's a you'll just direct me and I'll get it in a moment would you prefer if I use my this mic and this one and just shut this off you can't have both of because of the feedback yeah that's what I meant so I can but you have to shut this off because of the feedback let's see you now it works fine yeah okay thank you so it's now been a half century I played a little game with myself to remember the four build the buildings that remember obviously the graduate college housing uh Corwin Hall is that still here the political science dep Department what we called Woody woo but I don't think it's still around what's it now called what spia spia what does that stand for school of public and international Affairs uhhuh and of course where I spent my entire time when I I was here and I know that edifice still stands which is Firestone Library which at the time was the single biggest unit in terms of collection of books in the entire United States I don't know if that's still the case other schools like you know Harvard obviously had several units but the single biggest unit was Firestone Library so those are the memories aside from um B and boen you can't hide we charge you with genocide cuz I was active in the anti-apartheid movement when I was here so thank you for receiving me what I want to do just by way of introductory remarks is to give what journalists used to call at least that's what we were told when I was in grade school the key questions and Chris Hedges can correct me were always who what when where how and why is that still what you taught in journalism that's right yeah okay I remember learning it in seventh grade in library class um I'm not going to do exactly who what when where how and why but I'll do something along those lines I'll begin with what happened on October 7th I would say that parts of it are pretty clear parts of it are relatively clear other parts of it are somewhat what obscure um there hasn't yet been a full-fledged International investigation of what happened and there are uh there have been uh investigatory bodies formed by the United Nations but to date the um Israeli government hasn't cooperated with them but what I think roughly and I don't claim to have any more any special knowledge here that many of you have because what happened on October 7th basically depends on digital evidence and I will freely confess since October 7th I haven't watched any digital evidence from October 7th on I occasionally look at a picture but I have not looked at the digital evidence not not by the Israeli side not by Al jazer I haven't watched it but from what I'm talking the digital evidence isn't uh definitive on things like numbers uh and also the other kind of evidence would be forensic evidence but there's been relatively little forensic evidence on October 7th what you could say is what most of you know approximately 1,00 people were killed uh the uh of those 1200 approximately 800 or more were civilians and I've asked many people whose judgment I respect because I don't feel the competence uh you can say with a certain amount of confidence that uh a clear majority of those killed were killed by Hamas and Affiliated groups uh and also there's one question which will come into play in a few moments apparently the militants from Gaza uh burst the gates of Gaza in three it's now called three waves the first wave were Hamas Commandos the second wave were other armed groups from Gaza and the third wave were uh Palestinians from Gaza who were not affiliated with any particular uh armed or militant organization now those are roughly the facts and people in the audience in the course of this evening can uh add to those facts amend those facts as I say I don't claim to be a particular expert on that particular topic and I I don't believe that the evidence is clear on that one basic question where I think the evidence is completely murky is what exactly was hamas's goal was the goal to take uh combatants uh hostage was the goal to take combatants and civilians hostage was the goal to take combatants and civilian host and civilians hostage and also to commit a large scale Massacre of civilians uh I don't believe the evidence is at all clear I think it's quite possible we'll never know what their goals were now there's a totally separate question I thought I had it on maybe I should lift it yeah okay for some reason maybe you want to turn up the volume yeah you should turn up the volume that's we'll figure that out I'm not able to do that is that better is that better okay um now obviously the factual uh side of a question is only one side of the question the other side is how do you morally evaluate it and I have to say that the first day uh October 7th it's seemed like it was a so to speak prison break or in my opinion concentration camp break that there were casualties on the Israeli side uh the figure that was given on the first day was about 50 to my recollection and uh as in any as in any break from a concentration camp I would of course be on the uh be on the side of those who broke through uh that was the first day but by the second day the third day the fourth day the numbers started to climb it didn't reach 1400 until about one week later but clearly there was some massive death that occurred a massive atrocities that occurred and then one has to figure out how to make sense of it now most people made sense of it by answering that question not the famous one of the 1950s of are you now or have you ever been a communist but the question was do you condemn what Hamas did and I have to say and I've freely admitted to it I found that to be a moral quandry why because I had spent the last 15 years C chronicling what had been done to the people of Gaza the fact that they had been locked up in a concentration camp that's not my opinion it was the opinion of Gora Island who is the head of Israel's National Security Council and who's a person Israel is off the Spectrum and he's off the Israeli Spectrum now uh uh Mr Island he's the one who's credited with probably the most insane remarks pertaining to the situation now in Gaza and he already said in March 2004 he described Gaza as a huge concentration camp and that was before that was before the blockade had been imposed in its strongest form which began and in January 2006 and then the blockade was then it was tightened even more in 2007 and I had read a lot mostly if not entirely un reports uh unad the un uh un uh commission the UN conference on trade and development the World Bank the international monetary fund and a slew of other International organizations and they were describing a situation in Gaza over a sustained period of time which was um inhuman and most of the young men who burst the gates of Gaza uh on October 7th they had been born into concentration camp and on as of October 6th the very high probability was that they were going to die in that concentration camp and I found it very hard uh to fastly condemn them I said condemn them because I don't have any difficulty in condemning atro uh the targeting of civilians I'll even be honest with you I do try to stick to the international law but let's say 400 of the combatants that were killed if they were combatants who were just attending a music festival I actually don't think their lives should have been lost so I have sympathy both for thei the the actual civilians who were killed killed but the category of combatants can also I think obscure some realities so if some Soldier was taking his time off to attend a music festival in my mind we can obviously disagree in it I would still con classify them as a civilian that's how I see it I recognize that's not the legal uh denotation but in my own moral calculus and so I have no problem condemning the act the uh atrocities but I did recoil at condemning the perpetrators of the atrocities and that was a moral struggle for me and those days were not easy because I couldn't find my way again I'll freely admit that even though I am fairly confident of my confidence in the facts of the situ ation I'm not very confident of my moral judgment I take of the life of the Mind very seriously and I know moral philosophy is a significant intellectual Endeavor and I wasn't confident that I was equipped mentally to pass a judgment here my usual recourse I'm not proud of it I'm not ashamed of it my usual recourse for the past 40 years was to defer to the Judgment of uh Professor chsky because he was in his intellectual equipment he was steeped in Western philosophy and not just Western philosophy in Hebrew philosophy um and he had my experience uh he had exemplary moral judgment but at that particular moment he wasn't available to me and I felt a sudden huge burden because I recognized many people were waiting to hear what I had to say and I really wasn't sure I knew what my gut feeling told me as I said I recoiled from condemning them even as I recognized atrocities of a significant magnitude had occurred and it happened that in recent years I had put the Israel Palestine conflict behind me and I did start to do fairly significant reading on the on the African-American history and I remember as most PE or quite a number of people here will remember that we had our own slavery votes in the United States and that they were very ugly I went back and I started to read about things like the Nat Turner rebellion and Nat Turner he was a slave he was a very smart guy everyone white and black said it's not Turner is a very clever fellow and he was torn by the reality of this huge Chasm that separated his potential as a human being from the reality that he would be a slave from the day he was born to the day he died and none of his potential would ever be realized and at some point Mr Turner who was a religious fanatic of the first degree Mr Turner gathered around him others they plotted a slave rebellion they went out and the order Nat Turner gave was kill all whites that was the order kill all whites and that's what they proceed to do they went from house to house chopped off the heads of babies that's literally true they beheaded babies they shattered skulls and it was ugly I would say in some respects not in terms of numbers but actions in some respects it was worse than October 7th the numbers vastly differed it was about 60 whites that were killed before uh they were suppressed so now I had in my mind an analogy the question now I turned to was okay let me see how the abolitionists uh the Judgment they rendered on Nat Turner and the first person I looked at was William Lloyd Garrison the editor of the Liberator and it was kind of if I can use the Expression it was a kind of Eureka moment for me uh Garrison said no question Horrors occurred during Turner's Rebellion horrible things happened but it's very noticeable when you read his a postmortem he never condemns Nat Turner read it yourself it's easily available what he does is he condemns his fellow whites he kept saying he begins his postmortem and ends it by saying we told you so we We Told You So we told you if you treat people like that at some point you will reap what you have sown and as I said that was a kind of epiphany for me uh a Eureka moment because I felt now I had the right framework for trying to understand what happened which is you condemn the what happened and don't pretend it didn't happen um on the other hand not uh William Lloyd Garrison just didn't have it in him knowing what it meant to be a slave he didn't have it in him to condemn Nat Turner and it was the same thing with me uh a large part of what I've written the last 10 and 15 years was just chronicling that horror not just the horror of being born in there the horror of no future the horror of no past the horror of no present were also those periodic mowings of the lawn what Israel calls its operations the period iotic Hightech massacres operation castled Operation pillar of Defense operation protective Edge um the horrors of life in a concentration camp compounded by the horrors of those periodic mowings of the lawn in Gaza and it's not entirely incorrect In fact I think it's close to reality for those who uh recoil at what Hamas did on October 7th from their point of view it was their mowing of the lawn you want to use that pathological that diabolical that utterly sick metaphor of mowing the lawn that lawn one/ half of the blades on that lawn one half of the blades on that lawn are children Gaza is about 50% children and about 70% refugees and the descendant of refugees from 1948 so if you find it amusing to talk about mowing the lawn Hamas was just as amused when it mowed the lawn on October 7th the Israeli reaction the Israeli reaction had three components to it the first component is straightforward it was blood lust Revenge we will Revenge what happened on October 7th and I'm sure everybody will recognize that's not exactly a sentiment alien to the hearts of most human beings the Revenge here however had a second aspect to it it was the outrage the in the fury that this these un mention these subhumans in Gaza had on October 7th outsmarted the Israeli Uber menion the Israeli Supermen Israel had particularly in my generation isra had the image of you can call it a James Bond writ large the Commando operations most of you will know I suspect that the current prime minister uh Mr netanyahu's brother was famously killed during the Commando raid on anbi and the whole country had projected this image of a cutting Ed James Bond Hightech super surveillance country and lo and behold on October 7th this rag tag Army of un menion of subhumans had outsmarted them outwitted them humiliated them and so the bloodlust Revenge was compounded and exacerbated by the desire to exact revenge for the humiliation that had been visited on the Israeli Hightech James Bond Society the second concern in the Israeli response was was the um fear of the loss of its deterrent capability deterrent capability or deterrent capacity which is a crucial component of Israeli military Doctrine and political Doctrine is very simple it's a fancy term but all it means is the Arab world's fear of Israel Israel has always failed or for yeah for all its modern history has failed that in order to keep the Arabs in their place we have to have them dread the prospect of Israeli retaliation the fear after October 7th I am fully willing fully willing to admit Israel did have a significant pro security problem on its hand the problem was it suddenly dawned on many Arabs and Muslims that hey maybe Israel isn't as Invincible as we thought and maybe there is a military option against them up until that moment with the ex uh single exception of the Hezbollah which had claimed or said openly in the words of um sad Nala the head of hea that uh Israel he famously said in the B after the battle of B chabil in 2006 he said Israel is a spider's web you just blow on it excuse me you just blow on it and it will uh disappear but that was definitely not the predominant view in the Arab Muslim world the world view was Israel was invincible militarily in invincible and suddenly on October 7th as I said it began to Dawn on the Arab Muslim world the popular level the popular level maybe it isn't all that strong I remember if I can just give a brief anecdote a few days ago a little what a week ago I I was on a debate with the Israel senior historian Benny moris and I mentioned this fact about Israel's deterrence capacity having collapsed on October 7th and the Arab world now thinking may maybe we can militarily defeat him I was very struck by his response he laughed I thought a kind of nervous laugh but that's my opinion and he said well we have nuclear bombs and what struck me about that answer was he didn't gloat about the Army he didn't say we have the IDF we have the Air Force we have he didn't he immediately reached for the nuclear bombs because had apparently or seemed to have sunk into him that the IDF isn't as powerful as we thought so the insane reaction by Israel after October 7th it was also an effort to restore its deterrent capacity to transmit to the Arab world the message if you mess with us we'll turn your country into Gaza and the third component there is the blood lust the deterrence capability or capacity the third component in my opinion is the most important one I don't want to trivialize the first two that is everybody knows the cliche that every crisis is an opportunity and the Israelis realized on October 7th as ma sadong used to say how to turn a bad thing into a good thing they were going to use what happened on October 7th to finally once and for all put an end to the Gaza problem for those of you who know the history the people in Gaza have always refused in quite militant ways to acques in their fate the fate of being born living and dying in a concentration camp and now because of October 7th Israel Enis that it's time for and you'll excuse the obvious analogy it was time for the final solution to the Gaza question and what was the solution I would say the solution fell on a spectrum at one end of the spectrum was to ethnically cleanse Gaza and that seemed to be their goal the first week or so when they thought they could sweep the entire population into the Egyptian Sinai those PL PL were foiled by the Egyptian president who said we are not going to solve your Gaza problem it's not going to be at our expense that's one point on the Spectrum the middle point of the spectrum was to make Gaza uninhabitable as guor Island put it at one point the former head of the national Security Council not now but he's still prominent he's an adviser to the defense minister Galant he said we will give the people of Gaza two choices choice one stay and starve and choice to to leave to make Gaza uninhabitable and the third point on the spectrum is to just carry out a genocide without any elaboration and without any subtlety uh I would say it's still an open question how it will end it's possible that enough pressure will be exerted on uh president CeCe to open Rafa gate and expel the population it's possible that we will be entering a period judging by all International un and humanitarian organizations in which a large part of the population will starve to death that's a significant possibility I don't know better than anyone here for those of you who have studied these matters and have attempted to the way the international organizations classify hunger starvation famine it's a complex formula and I can never commit it to memory what's certain is um as Human Rights Watch put it about two months ago and as all un officials without exception are putting it now starvation is being used as a weapon it's a calculated premeditated attempt to starve the people of Gaza if you read the New York times yesterday they had a long article trying to persuade readers that the problem in Gaza is a technical one how to deliver the goods the roads are old uh the uh inspections can be protracted it's not a technical question if you look at the statements by the EU foreign policy Chief uh Mr Burell if you look at this statements by Mr lazarini the head of the unra United Nations relief and works agency if you look at the statements even by gutier is the um uh Secretary General of the UN it's a calculated policy this is not a technical challenge it's a political policy by the state of Israel to as Human Rights Watch put it and then the foreign policy Chief Burell put it it's a calculated weapon using starvation as a method and mode of warfare I'll look at one last question and then I'll proceed to talk with Chris and the question is how do we assess at this point in time the significance of what happened October 7th uh I remember my good friend M Rabani uh he said to me it's a game changer and I was very hesitant to agree to that because I had seen many massacres come and go and I had Chronicle them and I was at least at the beginning inclined to another Blood letting and then we move on I was wrong I have no problem saying that I would say the following things changed number one I think uh we are at an end at least provisionally uh to any diplomacy to resolve the conflict we talk about two states at this point is completely ridiculous there is no diplomatic uh diplomatic Solution on the horizon on the one hand Israel is determined it's going to exact a military Victory and it's not going to retreat from that goal if they manage to achieve a military Victory then they will almost certainly and expeditiously move on to extract another military Victory from the Hezbollah so on their side it's quite clear though it's true to say how you define a military victory has gray areas on the other side the party of God the Hezbollah has made absolutely clear we will not accept a military defeat for Hamas that will not happen and as anybody here understands those two goals are zero some they are irreconcilable and it's also true to say that after the horrors of the past five months a realization has set in in a large part of the Arab world the Muslim World it cannot live with that state it's impossible that state has got to go it's a lunatic State and for that reason as well it doesn't see seem that a political solution is possible in the short term um the other change is I think for the first time in my lifetime uh the legitimization the legitimation Israel is now facing a legitimate legitimation crisis up until this moment the state of Israel itself was not called into question within the broad mainstream what was called into question was the occupation I would say now the state of Israel itself has been called into question its legitimacy and I'll just suggest two pieces of evidence for that evidence piece of evidence number one it's very striking that the country in the world that decid to take up the cause of Gaza was South Africa because South Africa has always been the model pointed to by critics of Israel as the preferable ideal one state for the people and it's hard not to notice that the country which represents the one state ideal is now the chief representative of the Palestinian cause at the international court of justice the second piece of uh second indication to me I was very struck and surprised by Senator Schumer's speech last week sen Senator Schumer is has always been a fanatical supporter of the state of Israel in fact in 20110 he already was advocating what Israel decided to do he said we should economically strangle Gaza and as you will all remember or some of you will remember uh s Senor Schumer and New Jersey senator Menendez were the two main Democrats who opposed the deal with Iran he was effectively the spokesperson for the state of Israel in our country and the speech was very interesting just on three points Point number one he was very careful to allocate equal responsibility on both sides he said Hamas had to go and the Palestinian Authority had to go at least under abs and then he said Netanyahu has to go and the far right has to go he made it exactly even his allocation of responsibility coming from Schumer Unthinkable Unthinkable and then it was very interesting how he addressed criticism of Israel he said it's not fair to call Israel a settler state or nowadays the jargon is settler colonial state he said it's not fair because we have these longings from 3,000 years ago uh I won't go into that um but he didn't dismiss the claim as being anti-semitic as being lunatic he felt the need to rationally refute the claim and then the second point was he had to address the question of one state and it was very interesting far from calling one state anti-semitic he said I understand that many idealistic young people believe in the idea of one state and everyone living together I don't agree he said but I understand it and that was a signal in my view that Senator Schumer realized that a large part of his Democratic party constituency regards that as a legitimate goal and that he can't dismiss it as anti-semitic without dismissing a significant part of the democratic party base and so that was a indirect realization that Israel is now facing as a Jewish State Israel is a Jewish State not just the occupation Israel a Jewish state is facing a real legitimation crisis okay thank you Alan I want I want to ask about the the difference I watch the debate with Benny I thought the first two hours were really fascinating Benny Morris being very reputable historian uh Israeli historian um and so much of the argument came down to intent over the founders of the state of Israel but I want to ask about the difference between liberal Zionism embodied in figures like uh Teddy kollock and uh Shimon Perez and all these kinds of maybe even rabine and others and what this religious Zionism now Ben gavier and uh and how you see that uh in terms of changing Israel I mean that kind of process certainly when I was in Israel you you had the labor you had significant aspects of the labor party you had a peace movement um it's a very different country but I wonder if you could talk about that transition I happen to think that's an excellent question and it's a very tough question because right now Israeli Society has no left it doesn't have a center it has a right a far right and an ultra right that's the whole of the Israeli spectrum and at some level well you know for those of you who are doubtful of that characterization I'll give you just one piece of evidence and then you judge it on your own uh if you look at the most recent opinion polls 90 % of Israelis believe that Israel is using enough or not enough force in Gaza at the moment fully 40% believe that Israel is using insufficient force in Gaza now I find that irreconcilable with any notion of even a center in Israel let alone a left now some people make the in my opinion the extenuating uh argument to Alibi that the Israeli media are biased and that's why the people they don't know what's happening I find that and many respectable people say that but I find that most implausible uh Israelis have probably the highest per capita rate of usage of the web social media and things like that they know what's going on even if their newspapers are lying even if their television is lying they're on the web if I can read the London times if I can read The Economist they can read the New York Times and they can read 10,000 other outlets which are telling more or less okay I leave out the New York Times are telling more or less what's happening but um Chris raises a tough question because it's true uh only the oldest people in this room will remember Israel was a leftwing course for the longest time I know that sounds strange to you uh the head of Israel at the beginning was a party called the mapay it belonged to the Socialist International the leading opposition party was the mapam and the mapam was were totally slavish ideologically to the IET Union uh Israel was its founding was supported by the Soviet Union and that was true pretty much until 1977 when the what was called the lud came to power under manak and bean the problem with this left light this Left Right demarcation is the ethnic cleansing of 1948 it occurred under the left the mapai mapal the left in Israel they were the executors of the ethnic cleansing or take another example up until Gaza up until Gaza the worst blood leing were not those periodic mowings of the lawn in Gaza the were up until as I meant the present uh the worst blood leing and I was just talking about with Chris beforehand was in 1982 in Lebanon in 1982 and Lebanon the estimates are between 15 and 20,000 that's not a trivial number 15 and 20,000 um Palestinians and Lebanese were killed and Labor uh the the head of the government was bean and Chiron shiron and Mak and bean but the the labor party supported it I even remember back then when a major Marxist um uh academic named schlomo uh schlomo avanir uh some of you may remember he's probably around 100 years old now Shalom aeri uh he was supposed to appear at the Democrats um what was it called back then the not the it wasn't called DS yeah maybe it was called the DSA back then I think so yeah at their convention and he was kicked out because he was supporting the Lebanon war so horrible things happen under the labor governments uh though it's also true to say that they weren't nearly as uh ideologically Brazen as the current governments but everybody knows overwhelmingly who built the settlements it was Labor Whenever there was a switch between labor and uh labor and look Hood um labor it every time it came into power it built more settlements it built more settlements than look could so uh one one place where I will acknowledge a difference is and this is one of the reasons why I said and I don't say it gleefully I don't believe a diplomatic settlement is possible now I'm not saying that with any kind of Glee I'm just trying to be factual when you were in the era of Barak and then Omar omert that is the era of 2000 and then 20078 in that era what the Palestinians and the Israelis were arguing over over they were arguing over percentages which is to say Israel wants to keep 80% of the settlers in the West Bank Omar wants to keep 87% of the settlers in the West Bank um the Palestinians make an offer to keep 60% of the settlers in the West Bank it was arguments over details and percentages it's true they were still far apart but there was so to speak a common goal we're at the point where the current government in Israel won't even give a broom closet to the Palestinians we're nowhere even near where things once were so the idea when they say we're going to make two states two states out of what you're going to give them 10 ft of land four acres of land what are you talking about so at that level i' would have to say yes there has been uh a change between what was under labor and what's currently under the current government I want to ask about the United States is clearly complicit in sustaining the genocide I think 67 or 68% of the weapons stockpiles come from the US um and the obsequiousness of both parties uh towards Israel's demands I'm just going to quote Ariel shron and then have you comment um he um told uh Shimon Perez um quote every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and we'll do that I want to tell you something very clear don't worry about American pressure on Israel we the Jewish people control America and the Americans know it um it has been a question for many people why is Biden acquitting himself in the fashion that he is and and for that matter blinkin Jake suin and the rest I would say there are two elements one element is there is a strategic interest by the United States to seeing that Israel's deterrence capacity is restored after October 7th and our Administration does see Iran as a crucial Regional po power that has to be put in its place and there is the fear in the US Administration for its from from the vantage point of its own interests there is the fear that a victory for Hamas will embolden What's called the resistance front so that is I think a distinct and separate us interest however not a however I would say and in addition and here I'll freely admit to going into speculative terrain and some people may be offended by it it's my honest opinion and we can argue over facts um we are obviously in an election cycle and as everybody knows if you open up say the front page of the New York Times today the first thing they're always calculating is which party is getting more campaign contributions and today the times breathed a big sigh of relief Joe Biden is getting ahead now of trump I'm not sure if in just the current month or totals I I didn't read the full article uh there is a Jewish billionaire class and since October 7th it's gone mad that's not an exaggeration it is impossible to find an example in American history of not one but two IV League College presidents who were toppled in real time in your face CS the president of Harvard University was oued from office because she was insufficiently repressive suppressive of a speech and assembly on her campus that's completely unprecedented it was the grossest most egregious the most flagrant violation of academic freedom in our country's history there's nothing that even compares to it uh you I I have studied that history of written on that history there was in the at the turn of the century the robber barons when I say the turn of the century I mean from the 19th to the 20th century the robber barons got very upset because there was a lot of Labor Insurgency and there were just a handful of professors really you can count them in the fingers of your hand um who in their University posts were expressing some support for the labor insurgencies and the Rober Barons uh were ruthless in trying to get them expelled from the University and that was the beginnings of the whole battle for academic freedom of our country was the formation of the aaup the American Association of University presidents John dwey and several others played a very important role but this was simply breathtaking they without no hope SP not behind closed doors they toppled two ivy league College presidents they are that ruthless and they have that much power remember they're giving a $100 million at a shot that's an extraordinary amount of money for if there's anybody in this room from my generation we as kids used to watch this program it was a weekly program it was called the millionaire and it was about this philanthropist who would each week in it was a weekly he would give a million dollars to some do gooder and we would sit in front of our TV sets and oh my God a million dollars it was unbelievable it was like going to Jupiter and back and okay I account for inflation and I know I'm old okay a slice of pizza my day was 15 cents now it's $3 I I get that but $100 million is a lot of money and or $50 million in the case of the donor to the Wharton School uh at the University of Pennsylvania and for Biden that's a a concern if he says something too critical of Israel they'll just give the money to Trump because Trump they know he's an ace in our you know Ace in the Hole he's going to do for whatever we want on Israel so I do think that that is a significant factor in Biden's calculation and what they did was they tried to do a kind of good cop bad cop Biden sticks by Netanyahu uh Chuck Schumer is cautiously critical of Israel in general and Netanyahu in particular because each of them had a designated role in the division of labor Biden needs to keep the billionaire class Schumer has to appease that restive base in the Democratic party which is not happy with what's going on so that's how I see I try to understand what Biden is doing let's talk about Gaza itself um I was in Saro during the war that was 3 to four 00 shells a day that resulted in about four to five dead a day and two dozen wounded a day I I ju oppose that with Gaza where it's hundreds of wounded and dead a day I think there's a pretty strong case to be made that the numbers released by the health Ministry in Gaza are a severe undercount given what are presumably tens of thousands of missing um and also the the the bombing itself Gaza is only five miles wide 20 miles long is of such intensity that it's uh from my own experience hard to believe it's 30,000 uh but I I want to talk about the uh reaction of the except with the exception of Yemen and houthis there is really no resistance and and uh your parents uh were both uh you know you are survived the Holocaust and your mother was in aitz right was that correct father your father and um my mother was in midic inid and so in in some ways it it does replicate the Holocaust in the sense that the rest of the world does nothing um we we are watching this Slaughter being live streamed uh and other than rhetorically and it's worse because of course you have the rhetoric but then you have the AR shipments now largely through Cyprus uh being helicoptered in uh the UK and there are some countries Canada just announced that they'll cease sending weapons I think the Netherlands have stopped right Norway but but nevertheless it's being sustained but I want you to to because that's also that period of History you know well to to draw comparisons in terms of of what we're seeing and and and the reaction I would say um there are many factors uh in trying to make an analogy the fact of the matter is that Hitler couldn't have done what he did without a war he couldn't have possibly carried out the final solution had he not had the cover of a war and the fact that it was being executed at least in theory it was being executed so to speak behind find closed doors now if you were in the German Army if you were in the verar you were on the front and 50% of the Jews were killed on the front they weren't killed in the concentration camps they were just lined up and shot down so that's in my opinion a very thin Alibi that you didn't know what was going on but at least you can call it an alibi you can grasp something here there's no alibi it's being done right out in the open there's no nowhere to hide uh in this current round and a significant a significant number of un officials are saying it out loud it took them quite a while to say it uh but now they're saying it out loud this is a genocide uh massar Mass starvation is if that's a cell phone I carry my Star Trek laser phaser phaser and I said it not on stun but I said it on kill so which is what I tell my students yeah M um so uh in that respect it's actually worse now because it's been just out in the open and we have the facts we have the figures we don't have just the Hamas Ministry of Health there have been three very systematic stringent exhaustive studies done and they said the hamus Ministry of Health numbers are right it's not it's not a speculative fact now I just want to say that what there what they record is only out of the mor hospitals yeah so the that's to the extent that we use the Hamas numbers they've been confirmed by three independent uh stringent studies now when I was in a debate with Benny moris and I mentioned the figure of 30,000 he said oh we could have killed 500,000 if we wanted to I said that's not really true because there's a a gap that separates the wish from the deed it's called politics and the International Community it exists and it puts constraints we all wish there were much more significant those constraints but I said considering uh what you've accomplished when you look at the numbers more children killed in Gaza since October than every single sing Le War Zone in the world added together times four that's not a small achievement more journalists killed than the all of World War I that's not a small achievement more Medics killed than in any other conflict Zone in the world in any year's time the density of the bombing unparalleled in the 21st century the intensity of the bombing it exceeds the bombing of Dresden so even though you haven't gotten your 500,000 I would say you're doing pretty well as genocides go you're doing a pretty good job now some people want to say well the I just icj said only a plausible case of genocide um I would say and they try to claim it's a low standard plausibility I would say to any person in the room if I were to you say to you there's a plausible case that you murdered your neighbor you would take that claim pretty seriously you went dismiss it well what do you mean by plausible no it's just such a stupid argument plausible means credible that's a pretty serious charge what is plausible mean let's say there's a regional athletic competition okay and you win the competition it's to go on to be the Olympic team and you win the competition now it's true it doesn't mean you've won yet a gold silver or bronze medal that's true and it doesn't yet even mean you made the team but if you qualified in the regional to be on the team that's a pretty impressive achievement so if you qualify for having committed a genocide plausible uh case of genocide I would say that's a pretty impressive achievement so when you try to poo poo it yes it's true the uh minister of Antiquities he wanted to Nuke Gaza and that was not permissible but that's not because they don't want to it's the limits imposed by The Intern National political system what we know is they've gone as far as they want to go before they're sto because we know exactly what they wanted to do it's one of those rare cases of truth in advertising secretary defense SEC defense minister Galan said we will not allow any food fuel water electricity into Gaza well it doesn't require rocket science to understand what's the consequence of that now you're going to say but they're letting it in yeah but go back and remember they let it in when Biden said you have to let something in and at this moment in time they're not letting it in starvation is being used as a weapon so all things said I would say they're doing a very good job if their goal is a uh genocide well they cut the the humanitarian Aid shipments last month by 44% yeah between the the icj opinion and now the amount of the icj opinion International court of justice justice opinion one of the two provisional uh requirements imposed on Israel was to allow more humanitarian Aid to get in in fact it was reduced by half between February and March and I just going to I forgot I want to just say one last part I show I talked to The Bleak part of the present picture there are some extraordinarily inspiring things number number one the incredible courage uh tenacity conscientiousness of the young people who have been coming out day in and day out in support of the people of Gaza it's absolutely it's absolutely breathtaking I figure at some point it's not going to it'll get boring people will move on and the young people keep coming out and coming out and coming out I went to a demonstration about two weeks ago it was at NYU New York University in Washington Square Park it was pouring rain and and and I see you two right I I didn't see anybody over 25 there but there were umbrellas so it was a little I was I don't know I was like in I was like uh grandma in munchkinland it was and it was a Saturday it was pouring rain we started at 12 we ended at 5:30 and you know what we then went or large number of us descended into the subway it ended at New York Public Library at 42nd street and on one side of the train platform and on the other side they were still shouting still all the energy level and I remember I was with somebody and he said to me and you know they have no stake in this they G no gain there's no gain you know the expression of course you know it um of your generation Friends with Benefits uh this this was solidarity without benefits it was really a deeply inspiring thing a second data point is South Africa when people were talking about invoking the genocide convention I said oh forget it what are you talking talking about what state is going to come to the defense of is come to the defense of Gaza in the face of the United States that's ridiculous and the South African performance has just been breathtaking I don't know how many of you have read the application they submitted the original application it was 84 pages with literally hundreds of footnotes it was so exhaustive and impressively documented they must have had a very large team of people produce that document and they continue I don't know how many of you follow literally every three weeks they're back at the icj demanding that the icj do more and they have all the footnoted documents Israel just released its response two days ago and Israel was bristling now at South Africa you're getting out of hand they should be worried about being nuked also I'm afraid um and the third thing which was totally I always freely admit to what I'm wrong because I like to be wrong for a good cause uh when people ask how do you think it's going to go on the international court of justice I said maybe maybe you could squeak by an 8 to7 vote that's the most and I didn't believe it I thought it would be six for um uh 64 and the rest against and lo and behold the vote turned out to be 15-2 the US was the president of the court dunu and she voted with the majority how do you explain that you know there was a song in the 1960s famous song There's Something Happening Here and when 15 judges the icj uh vote to say Israel is plausibly guilty of genocide and the American judge the president goes along with that that's pretty impressive as an indicator uh of things and I'll freely say if there were a Nobel laurat if there were a Nobel Prize peace prize to be given out now first and foremost I would give it to the doctors in Gaza so many of them from abroad volunteer to go there a death zone that's very impressive could I have done that I would feel the moral pressure but I think the fear would get the better better of me second I would give it to the South Africa delegation and third I would give it to the hoies oh I um I'm not saying that as a throwback to my days as a maist I'm saying that as a human being remember in the 1990s there was this whole Doctrine which was propagated by liberals like the Samantha Powers type it was called responsibility to protect r2p what are the houthis doing the idea was you have a responsibility to protect people who are being threatened with genocide isn't that what the houthis are doing protecting they are fulfilling the responsibility to protect the genocide convention says every signatory has a responsibility to prevent genocide that's what the H things are doing so now you might ask why they're doing it you could speculate but I think there's one very good reason why they're doing it you know why because what's happening to Gaza happened to them between 25 15 in 2018 because of the Saudi us back blockade about 880,000 yemenis starve to death they understand starvation so they would be the third in my opinion recipients of that price so we're going to open the questions keep them short don't give speeches please yeah so um turns out that we'll probably have to exit this building about 20 minutes because campus security kind of wants us out here by then so what we're going to do is raise your hand yeah raise your hand if you want to ask a question uh I'll come over me young man I'd like to call on him first just fell on the back if you don't mind okay gotcha um also after I ask this question second floor will get their own question and third floor will get their own question and I think that'll be pretty much it for tonight okay I totally support the hooes as a Jew you said that Norm yeah toally the houti flag says God is the greatest death to America death to Israel a curse upon the Jews Victory to Islam how do you reconcile this I have no problem reconciling it for this very simple reason Reon and you'll allow me you can disagree I have no problem with that from the from my first conscious moments in my own life okay my parents loathe the Germans they didn't loathe the Nazis they loathed they hated the Germans in fact I vividly recall my father once recommended me a book on the Nazi Holocaust and I asked him you know what makes this book special and he said to me I liked it that the author didn't talk about Nazis he talked about Germans now my parents were very decent human beings the Apple did not fall far from the tree but I could understand that sentiment the only the only Jews the houthis have known are the Israelis it's a regrettable fact that they don't know have never experienced any other kinds of Jews I remember I once asked my mother just out of curiosity did you ever meet did you ever come into contact with a German who was decent and she said to me she thought hard and she said I remember one German Soldier he had a kind of guilty look on his face that was all she could remember one so it doesn't surprise me that she loathed all Germans do I wish the houthis were more discriminating in their in their slogans of course I wish it but do I understand where it comes from yes and will that slogan of theirs color my appreciation of the fact that alone among the world's peoples they are resorting to Armed Force to stop the genocide in Gaza I have to ask myself the question how would my parents have felt if this ragtag Army happened to be situated on a point in the world's map where they could inflect the outcome of the final solution and these people this rack tag people hailing back to the Middle Ages they were investing all of their physical resources and moral energy to stopping the extermination how would my parents react would they ask what are their political slogans I don't think so that's my honest reaction I'm not trying to be rhetorical with you you asked me a concrete question that's how I reason it through and we should be clear that that blockade that that blockade that the houthis have imposed is circumvented by the UAE Saudi Arabia and Jordan which has created a land Corridor to supply Israel with its vacuum cleaners and consumer goods next question yes please do in your characteristically slow and pointed speech pattern um Israel I don't understand the relationship of those two statements but [Music] [Applause] okay I I I want to speak honestly to you if it does go somewhere and I do believe a problem is lurking now if it does go somewhere it's of your own making you've gone too far they said already a book I wrote in 2008 it was taken the title was taken by something written by Gideon Levy referring to operation castled and the title was this time we've gone too far and castled is now a pale pale pale comparison to what's happened to the people of Gaza and I don't say it with Glee I'm just saying if you do go somewhere it's of your own making well and there are Israeli moral philosophers like yeshu libowitz who warned Israel precisely the self-destructive path that it was on um so we have any more questions oh good so just raise your hand and they'll bring the mic to anyone down over here um um thank you uh for that response uh I was wondering if you can talk to the fact that that response has to be in order for it to be uh powerful and legit it has to come from a Jewish standpoint and I wanted to ask you what could uh be possible for those who do not have that experience to respond back to the houthis and supporting the houthis so what what kind of um response do you imagine could be possible from another standpoint that could that does not fall into that you know uh kind of Deadlock of how come you're supporting theis I think it's simply a fact of life that certain P persons have certain kinds of I won't call it immunities but they have certain kinds of what you might call rhetorical privileges which others don't have and I want to be judged by the facts and if you disagree with me you're free to disagree with me and I would hope that Beyond disagreeing with me you will make an argument and not just a slogan but I also recognize that I do have I can't say my life has been exemplary of immunities um on the other hand I recognize that I am able to imp public at any rate make arguments that the two young women sitting in the front row now are not able to make and who are more easily dismissed and that's I don't think you can get around that it's just so to speak the nature of things you're choosing I think we need need the mic I see he has the mic back here so go ahead oh there so uh I'm filled with emotions I'm from Gaza I'm from hunis uh 45 people from my family have been killed on Friday morning 6:00 a.m. after the morning prayer my nephew 17 year 17 years old was killed in a tent that is in the safe area that was designated by Israel after they were driven out of their uh town and other people were injured so just going back to the hes I don't understand why uh whoever are asking whoever is asking a question about the H is they're not outraged about what Israel has done and is doing um if they were outraged about that they wouldn't even see the hes as a problem because the main problem in the Middle East right now is what it is is Israel are what it's doing Israel is the one who's killing Israel is the one who's bombing Israel is the one who's doing everything that is against civilization destroying hospitals schools universities houses Villages uh cutting trees doing everything unimaginable and we're still asking about what the huis are doing what are the huis are doing what are they they're just stopping some ships from passing through the Sea and the ships are going to support a genocide how big of that how big of a problem is that compared to what Israel is doing thank [Applause] you okay so I'll go middle here and then left side next if that's okay with all of you okay um could you talk about the icj and why that decision had so little impact in the grand scheme of things why that decision had so little impact I can't really agree with that because um legal opinions and legal decisions unless you have force behind them they're basically uh weapons in a political or ideological struggle and that was a very powerful weapon that the icg J handed to the solidarity movement with the people of Gaza the fact that I said earlier Israel was facing a legitimation crisis um the fact that Israel now has pinned on it The Scarlet Letter of genocide has radically or potentially will radically reshape opinions of Israel they're going to have to carry that with them that they were plausibly uh accused of a genocide and that's for us it legitimates or let me just put it to you in Reverse many people were worried in if the icj had voted in Reverse namely there is no plausible case of genocide that would have been a political disaster Israel would have won 99% of the god of the uh propaganda war or the war for public relations War so that fear was not only dispelled but now you had a very potent weapon in the quiver of those struggling for justice that the highest judicial body in the world the president at the time of which was an American had said well we looked at the evidence there's a plausible case for genocide here it's an existential issue as Norman laid out in his book The Holocaust industry because they Israel has weaponized the Holocaust weaponize the genocide that was carried out against Jews and this ruling potentially removes that's correct that protection I just want to quickly highlight that it's not just genocide but within the United States uh there are five laws that every day the state department is violating as it approves ships and cargo planes full of weapons the foreign assistance act which forbids the provision of assistance to a government which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights the arms export Control Act which says countries that receive US military aid can only use weapons for legitimate self-defense and internal security the US War crime act which forbids forbids grave breaches of the Geneva conventions including the willful torture killing uh or inhuman treatment uh the Ley law which prohibits the US government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign Security Forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights and the genocide convention implementation act which was enacted to implement us obligations under the genocide convention and Israel would push for that uh and provides for criminal penalties for individuals who commit or incite uh others to commit genocide so what what is happening is a grotesque violation of but not only international law but domestic law and I think that this is uh this uh this refusal I know in the debate Benny Morris was saying well the laws don't matter laws don't matter laws do matter because uh if if if we don't have any kind of legal mechanism by by by which we can restrain these forces then we create a kind of Hoban world and I think that is I'm very as some of you know very close to Julian Assange and just came back from the hearing in London and one of the things that terrifies me having sat through those hearings in London is is the the way the British legal system and the American legal legal system is ignoring its own laws and this sets a kind of Precedence that is very very dangerous um so yeah the law does matter and I I found that an interesting kind of exchange between you and Benny uh because he was essentially saying it doesn't well Professor Mars says the laws don't matter or law doesn't matter when it all depends on Whose ox is being ground so on October 7th if you really truly believe that international law is an irrelevance if you believe that then Hamas did nothing wrong in October 7th because the wrongness of its deed Springs from the fact that International new humanitarian law IHL as it's called distinguishes between civilians and combatants it's What's called the most fundamental principle of IHL International humanitarian law the fundamental principle is the principle of Distinction you have to distinguish between civilians and combatants civilian sites and Military sites but if you don't believe believe in the law as I said to Benny moris Professor moris then don't complain about what happened in October 7th you can't have it both ways the law only becomes operative when you are the victim but becomes inoperative when you are the perpetrator um oh thank you I think it was in like in February 15 or something like that Jared Kushner Trump's uh son-in-law he said something along the lines that the waterfront properties in Gaza are going to be very valuable and he also recommended you know to get people out of there and clean it do you think that that will give was an idea of a potential what a potential second term policies for Trump are going to be well Jared Kushner is an example of why we have to get rid of affirmative action for rich people he's a terrifying imile and he went to Harvard because of his father who's a sick crook uh got him into I think the only good thing Chris Christie ever did was lock up his father um it was beyond all else it was just so stupid to be I am so so sorry but like we are at time right now and we're going to have to close out I wouldn't I don't want to interrupt you I really hate doing this but we have to I'm sorry no problem okay the campus I hope you enjoy [Music] [Applause] it thank you so much for watching The Real News Network where we lift up the voices stories and struggles that you care about most and we need your help to keep doing this work so please tap your screen now subscribe and donate to the real News Network solidarity forever
