they watch all there there was a basement room in a very neglected part of the town and there was there a soldier in uniform the soldier was talking about terrible things about the executions without trial about destruction of houses about just stopping people in the street and beating them up what you could call Collective punishment and all kind of terrible things and uh and there were people protesting and said that's that's not that's not true our army is not doing such things and then the soldiers said yes the Army is doing such things I have done it myself and now I cannot sleep at night because I've done it I would suggest that the the uh disproportionate violence uh is much much heavier from the Palestinian side towards the Jews look what the Israelis are you're murderers uh at least trying to draw parody between the two sides if not just trying to make the argument that that the Israeli Army uh is really an army of murderers which is something I of children think f power not demonstrating [Music] [Applause] no no I am a mother and I say no shooting everybody has a right to assist this is not right Put the gun down no it is not right for you guys to be to be shooting anybody they don't have guns this is not fair yeah so remember remember where you come what wait wait wait [Music] actually the the wet was superficial one went like that and came to his arm so it didn't penetrate to his lung so that he was lucky [Music] Happ [Music] history is going to make us pay for this this is not going to pass like nothing we're going to pay for this there is a price to such crimes even if it takes time look at other countries what happened these are war crimes Israel is living by the sword and I'm not a Christian I'm not a religious believer at all but I think that Jesus was speaking very good sense when he said that the one who lives by the sword will die by the sword now the efforts of all who have labored before us bring us to this moment a moment when we dare to pledge what for so long seemed difficult even to imagine that the security of the Israeli people will be reconciled with the hopes of the the Palestinian people and there will be more security and more hope for all we have come to try and put an end to the hostilities so that our children our children's children will no longer experience the painful of cost of War violence and Terror another interpretation of Judaism is the kind of interpretation that you run into among the settlers of the West Bank which develops a Mystique of the connection of the Jewish people to the Holy Ground to the Earth we're not occupiers we are pre- occupiers we've been here before and we have been preoccupied with this land for the last 2,000 years we are here because today we're celebrating 40 Years of the return of the Jewish people home to Judea Samaria Gaza to our Biblical Homeland the land that God gave to the Jewish people this is our home this is our land our land is very important to us not simply because it's physical because it also has a I think for many of the uh religiously observant Jews Among Us uh a a spiritual element in that too under International humanitarian law the status of Israeli settlements in the occupied territory is unequivocal settlements are a violation of the prohibition in the Fourth Geneva Convention of transferring population from the occupiers uh population to the occupied territory so settlements are a violation of humanitarian law illegal Jewish settlements are any Jewish Community outside the land of Israel Jews don't belong in outside of Israel it's it's against Jewish law for for Jews to be outside of Israel they should live only live in the land of Israel and nowhere else the fact that Israel in its defense was able to gain control over this land does not mean that we owe anybody anything this is ours in every sense of the word after 67 we took land that in the Bible maybe is ours but it definitely wasn't empty there are people living here look at all these Villages this is their land there are sometimes claims uh of um [Music] expropriation we know that Arabs have won cases such as this when they can prove that the land is privately theirs these people people have to prove that the land is theirs now this sounds to us European like nothing very serious you just go and bring the papers but this is not so here because this country changed hands many many times and every time we changed hands the system changed and the land registration books are done by the British by the Ottomans and now they have to prove that it's theirs after 79 they found the legal Theory by which it they just come to thean farm and say we have discovered that this land is state land so we discover that it has all the time been our property and you have been just an illegal squatter so now we take back our property and uh we chase you out the land that we're sitting on working on living on is state land and uh and uh it doesn't belong to any private Arab uh land owner or villager they just declare certain land as being state land and then if it is state land then it is open for building of a Jewish settlement from which the original owners would be excluded not only that they cannot live there they cannot even H go to visit them because the fence will be erected in which they will not be allowed passage for reasons of security of the settlers who are going to live there Israel says this now is land that belongs to the state of Israel because we don't recognize your Deeds or if Israel says okay you know what you have your Deeds we don't care but this is land we're going to take anyway for public purposes to build a settlement to build a road or because Israel says okay you can think you own the land but we're not going to let you build on it because it's open Green [Music] Space you know the green the green uh Mountain in [Music] there yeah it was a forest it was very green you know and all the different mechanisms that Israel has in effect it's alienating the Palestinians from their land Israel's actually taken about 40% of the West Bank and it's frozen for Palestinian building 70% of the West Bank when the state of Israel was created in 48 there was still the the racial segregation in United States was still quite respectable institution so you could say that the state of Israel was left behind the standards of Israel are um essentially the standards which were prevailing in the Western World until the the end of the 50s before Martin Luther King in the United [Music] States but you know in that picture you see behind me the man with the white hair and it looks like a prophet with Martin Luther King is Rabbi Abraham Joshua hesel as many ways our role model of a rabbi and a scholar who's also social activist one of his most famous sayings was in a democracy some are guilty but all responsible is this a settlement up here yeah it's a ofra what if a Palestinian wants to go for a walk over there where in the settlement yeah are you crazy are there any people that are non-jews living in any of these settlements never never I cannot imagine that you could ask this question here in this town the third of the Palestinian third is being discriminated against in a very serious way because they are not represented in City Hall the only person in City Hall who's an Arab is the one serving the tea he's serving the tea and coffee and probably the one cleaning the toilet this is part of the city of jerus newand and the municipality doesn't give any any service Municipal service in in this place even garbage they didn't take the minimum service that the municipality have to give to the people is to take the garbage to collect the garbage I don't talk about the roads you can see the the road roads I don't talk about lights I don't talk about school services and Water Services even water people the municipality didn't give them the municipality said no be no beast at all no Beast there is no beast at all this is all done on purpose nothing of the occupation happens by chance no it happens on purpose it happens in order to make the Palestinians life a hell we have dehumanized the enemy as we have been dehumanized only short time ago we call them a two-legged animal we are reenacting without being able to control it we are reenacting what happened to us as if we've never learned anything there are Jewish only roads there are Jewish only communities if uh somebody in uh let's say Hein mhm to come up here and buy one of these beautiful houses could absolutely do so absolutely there's no law in the books preventing a non-jew uh from buying a home here well uh no uh um settlements are defined as closed military zones and now it's a funny kind of a closed military zone because you never know it you would walk in into a settlement freely without knowing that you're in a closed military zone as would I a citizen of Israel uh it's a closed military zone that applies to a Palestinian so uh not only can a Palestinian not buy or rent a house in a settlement he can't physically enter a settlement without a special permit there are certain areas defined as danger zones no go zones for Palestinians the orders given to soldiers any Palestinian entering those areas can can be shot at in some cases the ORD is any Palestinian has to be shot at if they enter those danger zones the areas around settlements in the areas around military bases and we have many cases of Palestinians injured and in some cases killed simply for approaching those danger zones you know there are Palestinian houses on the top of this tunnel and they are not allowed to drive their cars even to walk in the tunnel under their houses this only for Israelis you're not allowed to build settlements you're not allowed to build highways that link those settlements into your country you're not allowed to use the resources of an occupied power Israel takes a third of its water from the occupied territories which is illegal Looting of the resources of an occupied territory this segregation comes to you know comes most manifest in the summertime when the Jewish settlers have all this water uh and the Palestinians uh you turn open the foret no water no water one group going thirsty while another group a few yards away is living it up with swimming pools it's [Music] incredible [Music] when we talk about segregation we're talking about electricity we're talking about the road we're also talking about water there's one well here for 170 people The Village has requested repeatedly to have water hooked up to the settlement but that's been denied so the settlement that's less than a mile from here gets all the water that they want where the people here are limited to well water that's actually very low where are you staying nice hotel when there's hot water if you want you come to my house and take a shower long long right that's the operative word long hot shower yeah in terms of the access to resources to land and water a person's ethnic origin clearly determines how much water comes out of your faucet and and what access you have to land where you're allowed to build and and how you go about getting a building permit across the Spectrum in the occupied territories nationality is determining access to rights and benefits the occupation isn't something extra that happened in ' 67 because of the war it's really an extension of where Israel was going Israel has always claimed Zionism for 100 years has claim this entire [Music] country this Village cannot have electricity you see there are electric wires that an NGO put in but the Israeli military will not allow them to hook up to the we've got to get going here um I'm Dale spanski I'm the assistant editor of the Washington report on Middle East Affairs on behalf of the Washington report and the institute for research Middle Eastern policy the two organizations ation sponsoring this fourth annual event on the Israel Lobby it's my pleasure to welcome you here to today's conference before we get going I just want to take a moment to thank all the people that made today possible our donors such a Monumental undertaking would simply be impossible without their continued support and we are tremendously grateful for their generosity also before we begin we'd like to take a moment to acknowledge a special person who's not here today at least specifically and that is our late publisher Andrew Kilgore who died at the age of 97 in December before co-founding the Washington report in 1982 Andy had a distinguished career in the US foreign service serving in Jerusalem Aman Baghdad ton and many other cities he concluded his diplomatic career by serving as Jimmy Carter's ambassador deater from 1977 to 1980 Andy dedicated his retirement to the Washington report seeing the magazine as a way to provide Americans with a better understanding of the Middle East a region he loved dearly in particular Andy fought tirelessly to challenge the Israel Lobby's powerful grip on US policy despite his Advanced age Andy came into the office pretty much every day before his passing he participated actively in the planning of today's event he would often comment about how encouraged he was by the continued success of this event and it instilled in him a sense of hope for the future so he may not be here today but his presence is surely felt we do miss him dearly and we dedicate this conference to him as we were planning this conference one of the things that we pondered was how the outcome of the November election would impact this event I think most people viewed Hillary Clinton at least on this issue this issue to be a much better known commodity For Better or For Worse that's up to you to decide where nonpartisan we felt confident that the lobby would remain a pertinent And Timely issue uh in the early days of her presidency but Donald Trump of course is a much uh different entity uh unknown quantity uh in the political sphere and some have argued his independent streak would allow him to operate with greater autonomy from lobbying groups others would point to his speech at APAC last year as evidence that he doesn't really plan on challenging the lobby others would point to the influence of people like his son-in-law Jared Kushner as evidence that maybe the lobby doesn't need to do so much convincing within the Oval Office then of course there's also the theory that he himself really isn't sure what he's going to do with this topic um but regardless of where Trump moves US policy on this issue I think recent events have shown that this topic remains an incredibly important one take for instance uh the Anti-Defamation leagues recent defamation campaign against Keith Ellison during his bid to become the chair of the DNC the ADL and other pro-israel groups and donors sought to portray Ellison as an anti-semite uh simply because he openly questioned Israel's influence on US policy to the region on the topic of islamophobia just a few weeks ago Eli Clifton of L blog reported that in 2015 APAC donated $60,000 to well-known islamophobe Frank GNE and we'll hear more about the Israel lobbies ties to anti-muslim groups later in the day from wajad Ali president Trump despite proposing a 28% reduction in diplomacy and foreign aid has pledged that Israel will continue to receive the more than three billion in annual military assistance it currently receives and Israel of course is the top recipient of US foreign aid uh with Egypt being second and then last week as many as you know the UN released a report describing Israel's treatment of Palestinians as apartheid and predictably Israel balked at the report and the US Administration in turn swiftly pressured the UN to repudiate the report and unsurprisingly the UN gave in and removed the report from its website ralof the head of the economic and social commission for Western Asia the UN agency that commissioned the report resigned saying quote it was expected that Israel and its allies would exercise pressure on the UN Secretary General to distance himself from the report and that they would ask him to withdraw it and back here on Capitol Hill the 115th Congress has shown that it's business as usual when it comes to Israel in just the past two months about 30 bills and resolutions directly relating to Israel have been introduced by members of Congress that's more legislation on Israel than on China Russia North Korea or even countries where the US is engaged in active military conflicts such as Iraq Syria Afghanistan and Yemen in fact perhaps only Mexico has more legislation passed introduced than Israel and most of that is just dealing with immigration and Border issues such as environmental agreements so one can certainly argue that Israel is the preeminent focus of Foreign Affairs legislation on the hill and of course we'll be hearing more about how the lobby interacts with Congress from former Representatives Jim Moran and Nick rayall later this morning so all of this is just to say that despite the media's heavy focus on potential Russian interference in the US election Healthcare policy the Muslim ban Trump's tweets Etc the lobby is still at work and it remains an important and timely topic to discuss and that is evidenced by the fact that all of you are here today and that we've had our highest registration ever for this event this year and so before we begin just some housekeeping items for you for along the day today to our online audience we are streaming live we encourage you to send in your questions via Twitter atwr r m EA for those of you here you can join the conversation with the hash Israel Lobby con Co n and that information is on the back of your program the Wi-Fi information is also on the back of your program of course we ask that you keep your phone silenced if you're going to be making any kind of noise typing heavily or something like that if you can move to the balcony so as not to distract the people around you that would be great you can also take your conversations to the exhibition Hall next door and then check out some of the great vendors including the Middle East books Middle East books and more which is a part of the Washington report and the film you just saw will also be available for purchase over there there will be book signings throughout the day at lunch and during the reception they will be taking place by reception where you signed in there was there's been a slight change to the schedule of the signings there will be slides throughout the day to provide you the upto-date information about that during the Q&A you guys in your when you checked in should have gotten note cards and a pen use those note cards to write down your questions there'll be ushers moving about to collect your questions and bring them up to the moderator please don't come up and bring them up yourself because it can interfere with the camera shot and cause some problems of course just a reminder that please don't do any recording unless you have received prior permission we will have a reception following today's event over in the exhibition hall there's a red ticket in your badge that will be available for a free drink so don't lose that um and just two notes on schedule changes today uh Eric moroles was previously scheduled to attend here today but due to an illness he will not be able to attend and just this week Katherine Frankie uh from Columbia law came down with pneumonia so she will not be here today but no need to fear we have Maria Hood from the center for constitutional rights to fillan and she's wonderful and she came here last year for those of you were here you'll remember her and with that we're going to get going with our first Speaker of the day Grant Smith Grant Smith is the director of The Institute for research Middle Eastern policy again the co-sponsor of today's event he's the author of the 2016 book big Israel how Israel's Lobby moves America which covers the history functions and activities of Israel Affinity organizations in America Grant has written two unofficial histories of APAC and many other books his organization is constantly working on Freedom of Information Act requests and un covering important documents especially on Israel's nuclear program I can tell you that few if any people work harder on this issue than Grant between his frequent research appearance in Foya Court his writing his polling and his 5 a.m. emails Grant is truly a one man machine today he will be sharing polling data on USA to Israel conducted by his organization and by other pollsters and he will take the stage as soon as he assembles everything thank you Dale public opinion and polling uh is very important obviously but there isn't very much done in terms of asking about what the public thinks about core Israel Lobby programs but that's going to change today the uh polling that we are about to look at could and should provide input to elected officials who should then in turn act in the public interest polling about the Israel Lobby programs uh that we're going to look at reveals the growing gap between what the public thinks about particular issues and the government actions being demanded by the Israel Lobby last year I spoke here about the birth of the Israel Lobby in the United states its growth its size its composition and division of labor this was all based on my book big Israel in which I reveal a $3.7 billion nonprofit ecosystem on track to reach 6.3 billion by 2020 with 14,000 employees 350,000 volunteers but a paying member membership of approximately 774 th000 it is this nonprofit Lobby along with overlapping campaign Finance infrastructure whether it is uh large individual donors stealth political action committees that provide Israel with the US support that it would otherwise not have all of this will be on a brilliant display when 15,000 APAC members assemble this weekend uh to begin their annual policy conference so let's continue looking at the lobby and what Americans think of that program the following surveys I'm about to show you are Google consumer research surveys probably the single most accurate polling tool available in America today the famous Nate silver said quote perhaps it won't be long before Google and not Gallop is the most trusted name in polling so let's take a look at what Americans think about Israel's single most important program which is obtaining unconditional US foreign aid including Advanced American Weaponry cash for Israel's export oriented military industry packaged into 10-year memorandums of understanding orus these 10year M also is uh we're going to look at require keeping the entire issue of Israel's nuclear weapons program off the table the US has provided $254 billion dollar in known foreign aid to Israel more than any other country now there's been a recent attempt by Scholars such as Professor Hillel frish to to try to move the goalposts and claim that Japan Germany and South Korea uh are in fact bigger recipients however this argument's wrong Japan Germany South Korea are in a different category that of treaty bound allies the military Alliance expenditures with contributions by both sides have mutual obligations which make them not usefully comparable to us Aid with Israel which has no obligation s when informed of its relative size 60% of Americans believe that US foreign aid to Israel is either much too much or too much and this finding is also reflected in polls by Shi talhami and some Gallup polls this has been consistent over time in recent years 2014 2015 2016 showed similar levels of uh responses Americans responding to this poll have been informed that Aid has been around 9% of the total foreign aid budget but this question will have to change in the future as Dale has mentioned since the Trump Administration proposes cutting the state department budget while leaving Aid to Israel untouched so we should ask ourselves uh when uh that happens what will it be 10 20 30% we don't know yet the September 24 excuse me SE September 14 memorandum of understanding the US guaranteed in this mou security assistance over 10 years there are uh no Israeli obligations and up to 28% could be spent on Israel's own export oriented is Industries uh this is the latest in the series of 10-year commitments and the public has been told that this will guarantee Israel's qualitative military Edge when we pulled this right after theou signing the public uh responded 60% of them that they had higher priorities when question if the 38 billion uh was a good investment 60% said healthc care for US veterans education and paying down the national debt debt would be fire far better expenditures only 177% thought it should be spent on Israel the uh when Congress passes Aid to Israel uh and presents them to the president in bills to be signed both rely on a subterfuge that the US does not and indeed uh cannot know whether Israel has nuclear weapons however under the arms export Control Act procedures must be followed whenever the US provides foreign aid to no nuclear powers that have not signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty in 2012 under increasing pressure including from a journalist who's here today uh and Helen Thomas who's not with us the Obama Administration passed a gag order that punishes any federal employee or contractor who speaks out about what PE most people already know which is that Israel has nuclear weapons so in a public public opinion survey first of its kind most Americans would prefer an honest discussion about Israel's nuclear weapons 52% said Congress should take nukes under consideration officially Congress has said it does not take a position on this matter but under pressure from reporters a handful and legal action to block us a over its nuclear weapons program and dogged reporting this could change do you acknowledge that Israel hasn't their we I'm not you can go read the newspapers about that you can't acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weap it is a well-known fact that Israel has nuclear weapons but the Israeli government uh doesn't officially talk about what kinds of weapons and wear Etc the US government okay we'll move on Jam um that was Sam H who's here with us today in 1985 Israel and slobby were the primary force behind providing preferential US market access to Israeli exporters This was later rebranded as America's first Free Trade Agreement because us industry and labor groups were unanimously opposed to it an Israeli Embassy operative Co overtly obtained and passed a 300-page classified report compiled from proprietary industry data from the ITC to help APAC overcome opposition this was investigated as a counter Espionage matter by the FBI and as could probably be expected from such a process it replaced a balanced trading relationship with a chronic us deficit to the United States in fact on an infla inflation adjusted base this the US Israel Free Trade Agreement is the worst bilateral free trade deal ever with a cumulative deficit of $44 billion in this era of popular disapproval of trade deals whether it's the transpacific partnership initiative or the North American Free Trade Agreement when informed of the Israel free trade deal 63% of Americans would either renegotiate or cancel it alog together another bad deal that has been a long-term Israel and Lobby initiative is moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem since 1948 Israel has been attempting to persuade foreign embassies to relocate in Jerusalem which is under the original particip uh part uh partition agreement uh supposed to be International but leveraging Bob Dole's presidential aspirations in 1995 the Zionist organization of America and APAC championed a law that was passed that defunds state department overseas building budgets unless the US Embassy is moved US presidents have refused to do it but there are now many champions of the move in the Trump Administration Americans are not so excited when told in a survey question Israel's us Lobby wants the US Embassy in Israel move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem no other country in accord with un resolutions opposing such a move has done so 56% of Americans indicate the embassy should not move while 38% say it should There's A Renewed push to return to a policy of no daylight between the United States and Israel this policy particularly championed uh by former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Orin means that the US and Israel can disagree but not openly since that would encourage common enemies and renders Israel vulnerable of course such a policy mainly benefits Israel as a bargaining chit it can put in its pocket uh and leverage the appearance of us unconditional support in its own relations so there is an effort underway for that Americans when told and asked Israel and its us Lobby are the only parties making such a demand in a question Israel and its us Lobby want a no daylight policy of the president never criticizing Israeli settlements and giving Israel billions in Aid and diplomatic support at the UN most say 56% say the majority say there should not be a no daylight policy we have Maria L Hood with us today who can do a much better job talking about what boycott investment and sanctions are a movement to end International support for Israel's oppression of the Palestinians and the effort by the Israel Lobby to pass laws blocking this making it illegal uh across the country so I'll only say that Israel Lobby direct male fundraising campaigns are virtually une equivocally focused on stopping BDS as a fundraising and major program initiative right now uh it's highly visible it's a number one priority but Americans are ambivalent when asked 60% neither oppose nor support such laws with 21% opposing them and only 18% supporting them so Americans are not behind BDS are not highly uh on board with it and they also don't support the entire idea of single issue lobbying on behalf of a single foreign country I think this is the most important survey question because it gets to the heart of the entire mechanism by which the Israel Lobby has accumulated so much influence campaign contributions so here it is that system ranges from seed funding of political candidates to funding through coordinated stealth political action committees bundle campaign contributions pro Israel Mega donors Janet McMahon and two former Congress uh men will be talking about that I'm sure 71% of Americans do not support this system they're probably not aware however why lobbyists for Israel no longer talk about getting guns and diplomacy for Israel they talk about maintaining the US special relationship with Israel and there is a legal reason for that lobbyists for Israel including the old ERS such as Abraham fineberg and the founder of apek Isaiah Kennan in their writings and speeches were far more forthright in the early days they honestly stated that their goal was weapons money diplomatic support because Israel needs it there was no talk of because America needs Israel APAC received indirectly foreign startup money to launch itself and today the tight coordination with the Israeli government continues but the pr frame the public relations frame has changed now it's one of preserving special interests and common values use by 1970s no matter what the lobby did the justice department stopped pursuing questions about whether some of its actors were in fact foreign agents who should be regulated as such and since that year a growing number of Espionage investigations of APAC and even the ADL uh were open but then quietly closed for no justifiable reasons 1970 in fact was the last year the justice department took an interest in the Israel lobby as a foreign agent there were in-depth hearings in 1962 and 1963 pleading with the IRS to look at their tax exempt status but nothing happened however Americans appear to support a return to that simpler time when foreign agents were compelled to comply with disclosure laws and didn't have quite so much power over Congress and elected officials 66% in fact when asked favor returning to regulating such activities and perhaps perhaps this is driven by warranted investigative journalism uh about coordinated Israel Lobby and Israeli government officials that are still using every means possible including covert ones to win and and that includes an attempt to overturn a very beneficial the jcpoa Obama Administration deal with Iran which most most Americans favor but which Israel and its Lobby do not favor and so you do have good journalism that came out about uh surveillance of the negotiations with the Iranians about the Israeli government offering to do whatever is necessary with individual members of Congress if they would oppose passing this deal which uh the entire mainstream establishment Israel Lobby APAC the ADL the AJC were United in opposing so in conclusion solid more majorities of Americans pulled when using accurate survey technology believe that US foreign aid to Israel is too much um they don't really even approve of the means by which they're won and the funds and the US unilateral commitments that are made to execute uh however this is a passive majority none of these opinions and Views has recently been with few exceptions translated into direct action by their members of Congress uh so only active opposition rather than passive opposition which is clearly out there uh will Americans be able to get their government back into the business of representing them and and only by clearly asking about and polling and surveying and doing serious research about Israel Lobby programs and what Americans think about them will we be able to uh have a process that takes wing and goes viral so to speak in terms of engaging more Americans uh to get out of uh this passive mode and become active particip ipants once again uh with their government so with that I'm hoping our wonderful ushers who are here today earning some community service hours will circulate Adrien and uh Tabitha and Sebastian and there we have Sapphire if you have any questions please pass your cards to them uh we've got a very tight schedule so we're trying to keep our question and answer sessions uh getting to the most important questions first thank [Applause] you we have any questions yet yeah so one question off the bat here is so you use the term Israel Lobby in your polling how how can you be certain that Americans understand what exactly you mean by Israel Lobby When you mention it right so that's that's a good question we did some preliminary polling and these slides and a a subsequent report will be out soon but it turns out that if you ask people what is the Israel Lobby in the context of these questions about Congress and international relations uh they will actually say it's not the registration desk of the um uh hotel in Jerusalem the King David Hotel tell they'll say it's not a group in the Israeli uh canet which has a similar name they know what it is so I I can assure you that on the basis of having done some preliminary work we're not asking about an entity that is completely unknown at this point it's just uh one question about how the polling was conducted in the sampling so were these respondents simply uh voluntary self- selected was there any Regional age religious or other kind of that's great issues so there's been a lot of junk polling that's been done and when I pulled this presentation together I had a section on junk polling there's a piece of polling that was conducted by kellyan Conway many of you have heard about it a self- selected poll on Muslims which did not have a representative sample it had extremely sort of toxic implications and it's informing the government right now uh you can when you and I I suggest you download this slide deck you can certainly go to all of these hyperlinks at the bottom of this uh Google survey see every single response and look at the representative sampling that was done by Google to get these responses this is not uh a kellyan Conway or other type of poll which which has an agenda yes we're asking about the lobby because it's important and it can be done but this is a legitimate uh statistically significant survey so we just have another question kind of I guess asking you to address some conclusions based on these polls uh do you feel that they represent America's moving more away from a pro-israel stance do you think feel like we're at a Tipping Point right now especially the person points out that polls show that Democrats and young people are increasingly prone to be siding with Palestine I'm not sure we're at a Tipping Point I think there are a lot of people in this room including some speakers who are coming up very soon who've done an excellent job in bringing a higher public awareness about what the Israel Lobby is what its agenda is um but the the only way we're going to get a Tipping Point I think is if we manage to uh spread the word a lot further if we manag to continue growing alternative media if we continue to have brilliant journalism uh exposing some things and I include you know the Wall Street Journal which broken important story uh it's not just Mond Weiss which is a great place as well and I noce Philip Weiss is here today so be sure to say hi to him um there are others including one of my favorites antiwar.com where I write a lot of Articles and we're trying to spread spread the word because uh there is in fact not there hasn't always been a welcoming uh presence for this type of information in the mainstream media great and so a question here about not directly relating to polls but since you are involved in this what is the latest on your legal actions on Israel's nuclear Arsenal right so um we found that in order to get good information from the government you have to file a Foya and then follow it up with a lawsuit this afternoon when we're sort of wrapping up I know some of you have been very interested in a lawsuit we filed uh about Israel's nuclear program about its uh the compliance of forign Aid with Simington and Glenn amendments inside the arms export Control Act going to talk about that a little bit toward the end uh but I can tell you that lawsuit is ongoing and we're learning a great deal uh about fun functions of government by pursuing it so more to come on that great then a question um to broaden the conversation about military contractors someone asks aren't they behind most of the lobbying for usaid to Israel yeah I get I I get um a lot of things in my inbox saying you know Grant this is really about locked Martin this is really uh about the large defense contractors but if you look at their total revenue compared to the $3 billion a year $4 billion dollar a year we know about given to Israel uh it's a tiny tiny fraction if you go to the signing ceremonies forus which it's part of my job I do that you don't see a lot of Defense contractors attending those events and so I would have to say uh based on the data based on the book big Israel based on the book spy trade based on a lot of research and a lot of investment into this I don't think that they are a major part of the push to pass massive foreign aid packages to Israel in fact a lot of them really don't like and attempted to get the majority of the lastu spent on American Arms as opposed to being spent on developing Israel's export oriented in Industries APAC takes the lead on this this is their key core function arms and money in the form of Serial foreign aid packages from the United States it's not the military and defense contractors all right well perhaps it's a good transition to our next speaker our keynote speaker we have a question about Mir shamer and Walt's book they say that they claim that Israel Lobby is as American as apple pie do you agree with that assessment be careful he's not here yet is he um I have to I have to say you know I wrote an entire book called spy trade about the Espionage that was conducted to pass America's first Free Trade Agreement it wasn't as American as apple pie what happened to us industry it just wasn't um it wasn't as American as apple pie uh when two apack Executives managed to obtain information they thought they could use from Colonel Lawrence Franklin to Jin up an attack on Iran um I think that there's far more going on uh including coordination to to oppose the jcpoa that's a mix it's lobbying it's phone banking it's coordinated campaign contributions but there's there's a a foreign covert Act action component to a lot of these things and so to me it's not as American as apple pie sorry think we should wrap it up do we have one more maybe one more quick one okay um why does the IRS continue to Grant prois groups especially those that fund settlements tax exemp status I think that's a great question um recently a test case was that the Zionist organization of America lost its tax exempt status and so it had to go back and reapply this ancient organization which was really one of The Originals had to go back and apply to the IRS and make its case for why an organization uh that was purely about promoting Zionism in the US was tax exempt and we obtained all of the correspondents from the IRS about that and they asked the question more Klein and his team of lawyers evaded it and they were never asked again the question has never really been put forth and answer by the IRS Senator JW Fulbright made an attempt to ask about the status of APAC about the status of the Jewish agency at that time and a number of other organizations to the IRS after a seminal investigation in 1963 and they strong armed him and did not answer the question so it's an open question the one uh about settlement financing in particular that is the subject of litigation right now uh the problem's always standing uh you should probably ask a real lawyer like Maria Le hood that question in the following sessions great thank you very much [Applause] Grant and I ask everyone first of all the slides he presented will be available on our website if you didn't weren't able to capture all that information please remain seated we're going to bring up Janet McMahon to moderate our next key our first keynote of the day John M shmer thank you I'm speak hello I'm Janet McMahon the managing editor of the Washington report on Middle East affairs I was out at the registration table trying to help sign people in when Dale started speaking so I don't know if he told you but the Washington report will be 35 years old next month yeah and we have been following the Israel Lobby since our very first issue in 1982 so it's a special pleasure to introduce our first keynote speaker professor John mimer he is the r wendle Harrison distinguished service professor of political science and the co-director of the program on International security policy at the University of Chicago in March of 2006 he and Professor Steven Walt of Harvard published an article in the London Review of Books titled the Israel Lobby the article had originally been commissioned by the Atlantic Monthly but that American publication decided not to publish it after all so instead it found a home overseas the paper's publication caused an uproar in no small part because it shed light on what APAC operative Steve Rosen described as a nightflower that thrives in the dark and shrivels up in the sunlight Harvard posted the paper on its website but removed its logo and attacks on Mir Sher and Walt ranged from naive that from Nom Chomsky to and this will shock you anti-semites the following year their article evolved into the book The Israel Lobby and US foreign policy which has since been translated into 22 languages Professor Mir shimer by the way will be signing copies of his book at 12:15 at the registration table where he signed in I'm also particularly glad that he is joining us today because every year people ask us if he is going to be speaking at our conference so it's been a great pleasure this year to be able to say of course he is today he will be discussing what if anything has changed in the decad since the Israel Lobby was published please join me in welcoming professor John me [Applause] shimer thank you for the kind introduction it's a great pleasure to be here today to speak before this distinguished audience uh I would like to thank uh irme and the Washington report for inviting me to give this talk of course I thank all of you for coming out to hear me and the other speakers I would like to focus my talk on what has transpired regarding the Israel Lobby and the US Israeli relationship in the 10 years since Steve Walt and I wrote the Israel Lobby and US foreign policy my talks comprised of four parts I'll begin by briefly restating the core arguments in our book I'll then describe four major changes that have taken place regarding the lobby and the US Israeli relationship over the past decade I will then describe what has not changed and conclude by speculating about the future the central argument in the book is that the United States has a special relationship with Israel that has no parallel in modern history history and it is almost wholly due to the lobby what makes Israel's relationship with the United States extraordinary is not simply the fact that Israel has received more foreign aid than any other country or that Washington almost always backs Israel diplomatically what makes it truly special is that the aid is giving unconditionally in other words Israel gets this Aid even when it does things that the United States opposes like building settlements in the West Bank this discussion raises the obvious question why does the United States give Israel so much Aid and without any conditions Israel's supporters sometimes argue that it is because Israel is a vital strategic asset this is not a serious argument in fact giving Israel nearly unconditional support is one of the reasons we have a Terri terrorism problem others argue that there's a moral rationale for the special relationship Israel is said to be a democracy that shares our values the two countries certainly share some values but Israel is a Jewish state which clearly privileges its Jewish citizens non-jews are second class citizens in both theory and practice the United States on the other hand is a liberal democracy that works hard to treat all of its citizens equally it certainly is not a Christian state that treats non-christians as second class citizens indeed that kind of discrimination which is part of Israel's Essence is antithetical to the American way of life furthermore Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories is sharply at odds with us values finally there's the claim that the American people have such a favorable view of Israel that they demand their politicians back the special relationship this argument however is not persuasive if you look at the survey data on how the American public thinks about Israel as Grant made clear before I spoke there's no question that Americans have a generally favorable image of Israel in part because media coverage tends to be favorable but as poll after poll shows that support is not especially deep or wide so what explains the special relationship if there is no strategic or moral imperative and if most Americans do not favor it our answer of course is the lobby what exactly is the lobby Steve and I argue that it's a loose Coalition of individuals and groups who actively work to influence us foreign policy in a pro-israel Direction action it's not a centralized organization and the groups that make up the lobby do not agree on every issue it includes organizations like apek the Anti-Defamation League the conference of presidents the Zionist organization of America and Christians United for Israel just to name a few it also includes think tanks like weep and the American Enterprise Institute and Publications like the Weekly Standard and commentary it certainly is not a cabal or a conspiracy that quote unquote controls US foreign policy rather it's a powerful interest group like the NRA the farm Lobby the Cuba Lobby or the AARP and it operates pretty much the same way those other interest groups do very importantly the lobby is not synonymous with Jewish Americans surveys suggest that about a third of American Jews do not care that much about Israel others do not support the LOB positions and some groups that work on Israel's behalf such as the so-called Christian zionists are not Jewish in short the lobby is defined by its political agenda not by ethnicity or religion finally we argue that the lobbyist push policies that are in neither Israel's or America's national interests in particular we maintain that it would have been much better for both countries if the United States had long ago pressured Israel to stop building settlements and allow for the creation of a viable Palestinian state but this did not happen and it will not happen because the lobby makes it impossible for American leaders to use the leverage at their disposal to pressure Israel in essence that's the story Steve and I tell let me now switch gears and talk about what has changed regarding Israel and the lobby since the book was first published in 2007 I think that there have been four noteworthy changes first there has been a fundamental change in how Americans think and talk about Israel the special relationship and the lobby when we initially wrote our book there was much ignorance about these subjects and my sense is that most people who read our book or who have read our book thought there was a large element of Truth in what we said but that we had nevertheless exaggerated the Lobby's influence there was also a great deal of ignorance in the American Body politic about Israeli policies especially toward the PA Palestinians and little understanding of the special relationship this is hardly surprising because one of the lobb's main goals is to prevent an open conversation in the media about Israeli policy the US Israeli relationship and thew Lobby itself it was successful for a long time but my sense from talking to many people about these matters and from closely following the public discourse is that those days are over for example it's common place even in the mainstream media to talk about the lobby using just that word and I cannot tell you how many people have said to me that if anything Steve and I just scratched the surface in our discussion of the Lobby's power and influence I might add that there is now more discussion of Israel's policies and actions in the American Media and if you read the comments section that follow many newspaper stories you will see that there are a substantial number of Americans who are critical of Israeli Behavior especially toward the Palestinians and only someone who is blind and deaf would not recognize that the United States is deeply committed to defending Israel's Behavior at almost every turn in short there is much more awareness of these critical issues today than there was a decade ago what's caused this change I think that our original article and the book helped uh both attracted an enormous amount of attention indeed the lobby book made the New York Times bestseller list and because of the internet the article on which the book was based was widely read all over the world but I think that ultimately our arguments would not have had much impact were it not for a number of other factors first the actions of Israel and the lobby over the past decade have done much to substantiate many of the claims we made in the book just to take one example consider how Israel and the lobby responded to the Iran nuclear deal prime minister netan went to extraordinary lengths to sabotage the agreement going so far as to give a speech to a joint session of Congress on March 3rd 2015 that not only sought to undermine the deal but was also an indirect attack on President Obama of course he was aided by apack which went all out to defeat the deal this nasty fight between net Netanyahu and the lobby on one hand and the Obama Administration on the other hand played out in full public View the second Factor behind the increased awareness of Israeli policy and the lobby is the internet and social media there are now all sorts of places on the internet one can go to for information about these subjects the website Mond Weiss which I'm sure everyone in this room knows about is a case in point it posts a steady stream of stories that reveal important information about Israeli act Israeli policy and the Lobby's activities not to mention critical assessments of those matters Mond Weiss which is now 11 years old had 8 million visits to its site in 2016 of course there are other sites that provide value in valuable information like the electronic inata which is run by Ali abuba and the site for the Israeli magazine plus 972 another important source of information on the Internet is haret the liberal Israeli newspaper which often runs pieces that take a critical perspective on Israel as well as the lobby and in the age of Twitter important pieces that appear on these sites are immediately spread around the world to huge numbers of people these same pieces are also circulated on email lists that go to hundreds if not thousands of interested readers third there are a host of organizations that are willing to criticize Israel in the lobby irme is a case in point as it has played an important role in exposing the Lobby's activities over time there are also a number of organizations that are deeply committed to Israel which nevertheless are willing to take Israel to task when they disapprove of its Behavior they include J Street Jewish voice for peace Americans for peace now and the Israeli Human Rights group betum among others finally there are some important voices in the mainstream media who have taken to speaking critically about Israeli policy and the lobby the most important person in this regard is Peter binard who wrote a very influential article in the June 10 June 2010 issue of the New York Review of Books entitled The failure of the American Jewish establishment which is critical of the lobby for aiding and abetting Israel's misguided policies and the occupied territories he has continued to write and speak about these matters since this article appeared and before binard there was the late Tony jut who offered searing criticisms of Israel and its American Defenders of course there are a number of other key figures in the mainstream media who have occasionally taken aim at both Israel and the lobby over the past decade they would include Roger Cohen Thomas fredman and Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times as well as John Stewart of Daily Show of Daily Show Fame in some I think there has been a significant change in how Americans think and talk about Israel since our book appeared the second big change is that Israel's image in the West especially in the United States has suffered serious damage over the past decade this is due in part to the fact that information about Israel is more readily available now than it was in the past thanks in good part to the internet and social media but it is also a result of the fact that things have been changing inside of Israel in recent years for starters the political center of gravity in Israel has been moving steadily rightward for decades and it is now reached the point where govern government ministers occasionally make racist comments about Palestinians and write legislation that is directly at odds with basic liberal values the recent legislation Banning individuals who support BDS from entering Israel is the latest example of this phenomenon all indications are that this rightward shift will continue for the foreseeable future and Israel will become an increasingly illiberal country even towards its own citizens but the key stain on Israel's reputation is its brutal treatment of the Palestinians and the fact that it has become an apartheid state until recently Israel and its supporters were able to maintain the fiction that there would eventually be a legitimate Palestinian State living side by side with Israel but it is now clear that there is virtually no chance that will happen and greater Israel is here to stay and that greater Israel as Richard Faulk and Richard and Virginia T Tilly make clear in an important new UN study is already an apartheid state Israel and its Defenders vehemently deny that fact but even among Israelis It's Not Unusual to hear Israel described in as apartheid state for example two former Israeli Prime Ministers ahood Barack and ahood have said that if there is no two-state solution there will be uh Israel will to quote face a South African style struggle well there is no two-state solution speaking of South Africa there are a number of individuals who were well acquainted with the situation in that racist state before it collapsed who believed that the situation in Israel is worse John duggard the eminent South African law professor says that the crimes against the Palestinians are to quote him infinitely worse than those committed by the apartheid regime in South Africa end of quote he is hardly the lone voice in that regard for anyone who doubts how bad life can be for the Palestinians living under Israeli control one only has to consider what happened in Israel's three major assaults against Gaza over the past decade operation castled Operation pillar of defense and operation protective Edge because of time constraints I will focus exclusively on the first of those operations castled which took place in the weeks before President Obama was inaugurated in 2009 Israeli forces killed about 1,400 Palestinians of whom roughly 1,200 were civilians 350 of those civilians were children in contrast 13 Israelis were killed the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed in that operation is 108 to1 that's not a war in my lexicon that's a massacre I might add that 6,3 300 Palestinian homes were destroyed contributing to the 600,000 tons of rubble that littered Gaza when the shooting ended the UN commissioned an investigation in the wake of that conflict which was headed by the distinguished South African jurist Richard Goldstone the final report concluded that isra Israel had engaged in quote a deliberately dep disproportionate attack designed to punish humiliate and terrorized a civilian population end of quote it went on to accuse Israel of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity there are other signs of serious trouble in Israel especially worrisome are the racist attitudes among large segments of Jewish Israeli youth given these attitudes it is hardly surprising that a year ago today a young Israeli soldier shot and killed a wounded and defenseless Palestinian equally unsurprising there was a huge outcry in Israel when he was indicted and later convicted of the reduced charge of manslaughter press reports from Israel make it clear that many Israelis thought his behavior was justified and that it was hardly an isolated incident he simply had The Misfortune of getting caught on film the fact that the shooting was captioned on film virtually guaranteed that it would go viral on social media and further damage Israel's image the bottom line is that the days when Israel was seen as a morally upright David taking on an evil Goliath are over the damage to Israel's reputation probably started in 1982 when it invaded Lebanon but it has accelerated at a marked pace over the past decade the third big change involves changes within the American Jewish Community one of the most important developments in recent years is a shift in the balance of power between the mainstream organizations in the lobby that reflexively support Israel's policies towards the Palestinians and a more Progressive set of organizations that are determined to find a way to make peace between the two sides The Divide between those groups has long been present but the balance of power between them has always been lopsided in favor of the organizations that support Israel no matter what it does that situation however has begun to change especially with the rise of J Street which was created in November 2007 as a home for individuals with Progressive views on Israel it not only has a high profile but it also is willing to criticize Israeli policies in the occupied territories and actually take on the Hardline organizations in the lobby J stre is surely not as powerful as an organization like APAC but the mere fact that it has survived and is thriving shows that times are changing after all a similar organization called barera was established in 1973 but the mainline forces in the lobby quickly crushed it not only has J Street survived but there is good reason to think that it will grow in strength over time as increasing numbers of American Jews look to join institutions that challenge Israel's repressive policies towards the Palestinians in addition to these changes in the Jewish establishment there are changes taking place in the broader American Jewish community that do not bode well for either the lobby or Israel in particular particular it seems clear that younger Jews are not as committed to Israel as their parents and grandparents for example a Pew survey from 2013 found that among Jews who are 65 years or older 53% say that caring about Israel is essenti essential to being what Jewish means to me that's 65 years or older 53% in contrast 32% of American Jews under the age of 30 held a similar view that is a gap of 21 percentage points it seems likely that support for Israel and the American Jewish Community which has been weakening over the past decade will weaken even more in the years ahead as generational change continues lastly there's been an important change in Israel's support within the United States for purposes of background it's important to reemphasize that public support for Israel in the United States has never been particularly strong one way that the lobby deals with this thin support is to have significant influence both inside the Democratic and Republican parties in essence the lobby has worked hard to make sure that Israel enjoys strong bipartisan support and is not strongly backed in one of the major parties but not the other the lobby was successful in this regard for a long time but that bipartisan support has begun to erode over the past decade as support for Israel inside the Democratic party has plummeted at the same time it has grown substantially inside the Republican party in a Pew poll from this past January only 33% of Democrats said they sympathize more with the Israelis than the Palestinians while 74% of Republicans said they sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians this is a gap of 41 percentage points in short there has been a marked erosion in support for Israel within the Democratic party in recent years which raises serious questions as to whether the lobby will be able to maintain bipartisan support for the special relationship in the years ahead let me switch gears again and now focus on what has not changed over the past decade three things have not changed first the lobby is as powerful as ever one might be tempted to see the Lobby's defeat on the Iran nuclear issue as evidence that its power is waning but that would be a mistake the lobby does not win every time and it is most likely to lose when it is pushing the United States that to do something that might get it into a war the Iran deal fits squarely in that category it's failure to make make a deal with Tran would have sharply increased the chances that the United States would have attacked Iran's nuclear facilities where the lobby almost always wins is on matters relating to the Palestinians and financial support for Israel the fact that the Obama Administration could do virtually nothing to get Israel to move toward a two-state solution yet still opted to provide Israel with $38 billion in aid over the next decade is clear evidence that the lobby remains very powerful it's important understand that the key to the lobby success is that it focuses mainly on influencing highlevel policy makers and opinion makers as well as the Elites in both political parties not the rank and file I noted earlier that there has been a significant decrease in support for Israel within the Democratic Party party the reason that change has had little effect on policy is that the Elites in the Democratic party remain deeply committed to the special relationship they fear the lobby will Target them if there is any evidence they are wavering in their support for Israel one might think that politicians who were supposed to place the American national interest above the interest of all other countries would stand up to the lobby when it pushes policies that they know are not good for the United States former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates explains why this does not happen I saw most of Congress as uncivil incompetent at fulfilling their basic constitutional responsibility microm managerial parochial hypocritical egotistical thin skinned here are the key words and prone to put self and reelection before country the second big non-change is that US policy toward Israel Remains the Same as it has been for the past decade the special relationship in other words is firmly intact of course this continuity is hardly surprising giving that there has been no diminishment in the power of the lobby as many of you probably remember there was a brief moment during the recent presidential election where it looked like candidate Trump might favor more evenhanded a approach to dealing with Israel and the Palestinians but he quickly reversed field and made it clear that he would go to Great Lengths to be even more pro-israel than President Obama naturally Hillary Clinton made the same pledge thus there's no good reason to think that American policy toward Israel is going to change in a meaningful way anytime soon finally there is hardly any sustained criticism of Israel and the American foreign policy establishment this too is unsurprising since the lobby is as powerful as ever and as I emphasized it focuses most of its attention on keeping the country's Elites in line anyone who wants to be a serious player in the making of US foreign policy understands full well that if he or she criticizes Israel there will be a price to pay the result that there is that there is no serious debate about Israel or the special relationship in Congress the mainstream Media or prominent think tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations this is not to deny however that there is an open and vigorous discussion of Israel and its relationship with the United States outside of these establishment institutions let me conclude by talking about where we go from here I believe dark times are ahead for both Israel and the lobby there's no reason to think Israel is going to move toward a two-state solution greater Israel is here to stay and that state is and will remain an apartheid state that brute fact will become increasingly clear to people all over the world especially now that it is clear the Palestinians are not going to get a state of their own moreover the Palestinians who already comprise almost half of the population of Greater Israel will continue to resist their oppression which will Force Israel to escalate the repressive policies that have already badly tarnished its image the Palestinians most potent weapon in this fight will be BDS which is a global movement that aims to generate significant economic and political pressure on Israel that will ultimately force it to give the Palestinians equal rights Israel and its supporters in the West View BDS as an existential threat because it not only has the potential to delegitimize Israel but it might ultimately lead to Israel's undoing after all the Palestinians if they were given equal rights would cease Israel would cease to be a Jewish State as their eventually will be more Palestinians than Jews inside of Greater Israel and there are good reasons to think that BDS might succeed at least when it comes to delegitimizing Israel first it takes dead aim at apartheid which is a morally repugnant political system that is universally condemned apartheid South Africa eventually disappeared why should Israel be any different second the call to give the Palestinians equal rights is fully consistent with basic Western values it's a demand that will surely resonate in Western Europe Europe and the United States causing all sorts of problems for Israel and its supporters of course Israel and its supporters are counting on the lobby to sty BDS Over time however that will become an increasingly difficult task simply because there is no good defense for a parthe which is a reprehensible political system nevertheless the lobby is extraordinarily powerful and it will go to enormous lengths to protect Israel at every return it's difficult to say where this conflict will lead in the decades ahead many Israelis will surely be interested in expelling the Palestinians from greater Israel if they have the opportunity thereby eliminating the need for apartheid but that outcome is unlikely because there are now more than six million Palestinians living within greater Israel's borders and they would surely put up Fierce resistance if Israel tried to expel them from their homes moreover massive ethnic cleansing would be an enormous and everlasting stain on Israel's reputation it's more likely that Israel will simply remain an apartheid state and will help and with the help of the lobby just hunker down and accept the fact that most of the world considers it a pariah State finally there's the possibility that BDS will carry the day and greater Israel will become a legitimate liberal democracy if that were to happen which is not likely it would undoubtedly come after much Bloodshed as most Israeli Jews would fervently oppose this outcome since it would mean the end of the Zionist dream again it's hard to say which one of these outcomes will carry the day it will probably take another 20 or 30 years before we understand how this conflict will ultimately be resolved or maybe not resolved regardless of the outcome I am deeply sad to say that the decades ahead promis abundant trouble for Israel and especially for the Palestinians and the United States will not be spared either simply because the lobby will be working overtime to protect Israel and preserve the special relationship which is likely to harm America's intellectual life as well as its politics thank you thank you very much Dr M shim we have several questions I want to start with one of my own when you talk about the deteriorating image in the United States do you think that's because people think it's because Israel has a right-wing government and if it didn't have a right-wing government these things wouldn't be happening well I think at a very general level the deteriorating image is due to two factors one is exposure because of alternative media uh and number two because of what's Happening inside Israel and I think that in part that is what's happening inside Israel uh uh is that the politicians who now are beginning to dominate the Discord that's there are unattractive from a liberal American point of view and since the vast majority of American Jews are liberal they are deeply bothered by what these politicians are saying but I think that's not the key I think the key is it is becoming increasingly apparent that Israel is an apartheid state and that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is simply unacceptable to large numbers of people and my argument is that as time goes by that will be more and more the case okay so now we'll get to some questions from the audience here are two um related ones I think your 2000 Book 2006 book largely attributed the US decision to invade Iraq to the Israel lobby but many of the neoconservative policy makers involved in that decision were not particularly loyal to Israel including Donald Rumsfeld what is the evidence that the lobby was the primary cause and another question to what extent would you say that the Israel Lobby was responsible for the attacks on various Middle East countries such as Iraq okay with regard to the Iraq War our basic argument was that of course George Bush and vice president Cheney had to be in favor of the war and for it to happen and that neither one of them is part of the Israel Lobby uh our argument in the book and of course in the article as well is that the lobby was deeply interested in getting Iraq and taking Saddam Hussein down for a long time before the actual Invasion on March 19th 2003 and the lobby and here we're talking especially about the neoconservatives were pushing very hard for a war against Iraq and in the wake of what looked like a stunning military victory in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 we came to the conclusion falsely of course that we had the magic formula for taking down regimes and getting out of town quickly so that we could march on to the next Target this is what the Bush Doctrine was all about so what you had in 2002 in early 2003 was a situation where we thought we could win a quick and easy victory in Iraq Point number one and number two you had this uh group of neoconservatives who were deeply committed to taking down Saddam Hussein who had a huge amount of influence in the media and in the Bush Administration who pushed very hard and therefore we argue they were the main driving force but there's no question that they alone could not have made the war happen they needed President Bush and vice president Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and they all went along because they basically bought the neoconservative arguments which were of course not simply couched in terms of doing something that was good for Israel right they bought the argument and they thought that we could go in and win in quick and decisive Victory they were wrong we jumped into a quagmire and furthermore they were wrong in the sense that we had not won a decisive victory in Afghanistan we had won a temporary victory and the Taliban eventually came back from the dead so we had two huge disasters on our hand which still exist today one being Afghanistan two being Iraq and of course as a result of the Iraq War in part Syria has turned into a disaster as well okay here's a question about your professional career what has been the evolution or impact of your book and your principled outspoken views on your career has your University been un formly supportive of your academic freedom I I think that there's no question that for both Steve at Harvard and for me at the University of Chicago we've not been uh punished in any significant way uh at either Harvard or or at the University of Chicago and both universities have fully supported our right to speak out on this issue and other issues American universities are actually excellent when it comes comes to freedom of speech issues uh in almost all cases not every case but in almost all cases and we were taken care of uh in that regard Larry Summers was the president of Harvard at the time and he defended Steve down the line and the key officials at Chicago did the same with me uh it's very hard to say exactly how much of an impact uh writing that book had on our professional lives uh I uh I I would note that just in my own case I've written a number of other controversial argument uh pieces on controversial subjects that have gotten me into trouble uh for example I argue that with regard to the present uh crisis in US Russian relations uh that we the United States are principally resp responsible for creating that crisis uh the Ukraine crisis was not uh the result of Vladimir Putin's doings it had to do with the fact that uh the west and especially the United States were very interested in making Ukraine a western bulwark on Russia's doorstep and the Russians long made it clear that that was unacceptable and it was our policies that led to uh the crisis now you can agree or disagree with that but that view is a minority view I can tell you there probably about five people in the United States who believe that so there are a lot of people who are angry at me for that right and it's hard to tell how much of the trouble I have getting speaking engagements here and there uh or getting put on you know this board or that board is due to the fact that I wrote the Israel Lobby or due to the fact that I have you know been controversial on other issues as well but I think just in in general without going into any details there are surely uh a number of opportunities that we would not afforded because we wrote the article and the book well I think we're out of time I'm tempted to ask you more questions but I think we're on a pretty tight schedule so thank you so very much again my pleasure thank you thank you we did have we did have one question on BDS and so I'm saving that for our next speaker Maria Le Hood all right thank you for uh being patient with us we're having a break after this next panelist speaks so I ask you to please remain seated as we continue continue along with this morning's program as I mentioned earlier we had one speaker changed today and that is that Columbia law professor Katherine Frankie who was scheduled to speak uh came down with pneumonia but uh no need to worry because we have uh the wonderful Maria lahood here to take her place Maria will be addressing an immensely important topic as many of you know there has recently been a rash of anti-bds legislation introduced and passed at both the state and Federal levels these anti-bds bills have raised concerns about the First Amendment rights of Palestinian solidarity activists they have also kept the lives of lawyers such as Maria very busy Maria is a deputy legal director at the center for constitutional rights she has worked tirelessly to defend the rights of those who face legal push back for challenging Israel's policies she has defended Olympia food co-op board members for boycotting Israeli Goods represented Professor Stevens Sala who was terminated from a tenur position for tweets critical of Israel she also works closely with Palestine legal to support students whose speech is being suppressed for their Palestinian advocacy for those of you who were here last year you will remember her brilliant overview of the challenges faced by Palestinian Advocates on campus this year she will be discussing reach the recent legislation that threatens First Amendment rights of Palestinian activists and the legal challenges there too we couldn't be happier to have her with us here today and are so happy she aged to join us at the last second thank you very much thanks to ir irme and the American educational trust for inviting me to speak it's an honor to be here with you all Israel has declared that BDS is the biggest threat it faces as mentioned earlier it has recently banned BDS supporters from even entering in the country boycott divestment and sanctions is a nonviolent time-honored tactic to demand basic rights such as equality proponents of BDS simply demand that Israel comply with international law yet tens of millions of dollars are being spent to combat BDS to combat a peaceful means of seeking social change and respect for human rights students for justice and Palestine groups have been active all over the country educating their campuses this is despite being maligned as uncivil divisive anti-semitic or supportive of terrorism despite being investigated in disciplined when they protest despite the bureaucratic barriers they face when they try to form a club or bring in a speaker to talk about BDS recently the administration of forom in New York rejected students application to even form an SJP stating that it was polarizing and calling and that calling calling for BDS is a barrier to open dialogue and claiming that SJP groups other schools have engaged in misconduct each of these reasons violates basic principles of free speech and free association not to mention a University's mission to Foster intellectual and moral development and open inquiry despite widespread efforts to suppress activism for Palestinian rights it is on the rise on campuses and off the US campaign for Palestinian rights has a list of7 70 plus United States BDS victories students have passed divestment resolutions on campuses all over the country numerous churches and Foundations have divested from companies facilitating the occupation and the culture and academic boycott continues to grow six NFL players recently pulled out of an Israeli sponsored government trip to Israel as we know when there's no defense the tactic of a bully is to silence malign or intimidate the speaker according to the emergency committee for Israel which has supported the Nationwide anti-bds legislative effort legislative legisl legislating against BDS tells its proponents while you were doing your campus Antics the grown-ups were in the state legislatures passing laws that make your cause improbable thus far 16 states have passed anti-bds legislation of one form or another the Israeli foreign Ministry in cooperation with Israel advocacy organizations is reportedly behind the anti-bds laws several of these laws establish a public Blacklist of entities that boycott Israel and prevent the state from investing in them or Contracting with them the first such law was passed in Illinois in 2015 and it blacklists foreign companies that boycott and requires the state's pension pension fund to devest from them Florida and Arizona pass laws to create black lists of companies and other entities that boycott and the state is prevented from Contracting with them as well as investing in them Maryland currently has similar Blacklist bills pending which also apply to Natural persons and non-governmental organizations meaning that individuals churches foundations trade unions and other groups could be blacklisted for boycotting or divesting from corporations complicit in Israel's violations the bills are supported by the Jewish community relations Council but there's a large well-organized broad-based Coalition fighting them so they are lingering and in Maryland the legislative session ends on April 10 activists had mobilized against similar bills in New York so Governor CUO bypassed the legislative process which he called tedious and issued an executive order to create a black list of Institutions and companies that the state that the state must Avest from incidentally the executive order that Governor CUO signed was signed on uh the day of the celebrate Israel Day Parade in New York the American Jewish committee lobbied for the New York law and Governor Cuomo has been named co-chair care of ajc's Governors against BDS initiative thus far the state blacklists that exist in Illinois Florida and and Arizona no not Arizona in Illinois Florida and New York have only named foreign corporations not to say that others couldn't be added in Florida and New York Colorado has an anti-bds list that is completely blank in Arizona's list is due out April 1st so although the tactic The Blacklist tactic is pure mcarthy the actual reach thus far is quite limited but the chill can be much broader and although New York already has a blacklist earlier this month the New York State Senate fast-tracked three bills aimed at silencing Advocates of Palestinian rights with no Committee hearing and no opportunity for public input or debate and they passed with overwhelming support one bill is like the executive order in New York but expands The Black List to include individuals and nonprofits one bill would prohibit state funding for student organizations at state or city universities or community colleges that support BDS campaigns against Israel the other would take away State funding from colleges that use state aid to fund any academic organization that Advocates a boy Advocates a boy boycott of Israel several academic institutions have endorsed the call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and in 2013 when the American studies Association did so legislatur around the country proposed bills similar to this one but public outcry outcry prevented them from passing companion bills have not yet been introduced in the New York's assembly for these three bills but we're on the look out California passed a law requiring Pro prospective contractors to certify under penalty of perjury that they're not violating violating state anti-discrimination laws and if they have a policy against a foreign nation that they don't use it to discriminate the bills had originally explicitly prohibited Contracting with companies that boycott Israel but because of the mobilization against them and and constitutional concerns they were substantially revised but the law still names no Nation other than in Israel and no discrimination other that against Jewish individuals under the quote pretext of a constitutionally protected boycott or protest of the state of Israel unquote a few States Virginia South Carolina Massachusetts and Tennessee as well as Congress have introduced bills to expand the definition of anti-semitism to include criticism of isra for purposes of determining whether someone is discriminated against these bills adopt the an the definition of anti-semitism that's used by the United States state department to monitor human rights violations around the world which describes anti-Semitism relative to Israel as demonizing Israel applying a double standard to Israel and delegitimizing Israel in South Carolina the house passed a bill this week requiring colleges and universities to use this anti-Semitism definition and deciding whether their policies are violated to the praise of the Zionist organization of America activists recently defeated similar similar Virginia bills which would have amended Virginia's Human Rights Act to include the definition the Massachusetts bill was also defeated these bills are problematic on many levels including that distorted that the distorted definition undermines the true fight the fight against true anti-Semitism not to mention their sole focus on anti-Semitism to the exclusion of other forms of bigotry such as the rise in islamophobia in December the United States Senate passed by unanimous consent the anti-Semitism awareness act which would have required the Department of Education to consider the state department definition of anti-semitism in determining whether a university had discriminated in violation of title six of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 it died in the house but it certainly could be introduced again there is a current bill in Congress the combating the combat adding BDS act supported by a APAC and introduced by Senator Rubio that attempts to nullify the argument that state anti-bds laws should be struck down because they're preempted by federal law but the main argument against these state laws is not that they're preempted but that they violate the First Amendment there was also the 2015 trade promotion Authority law which requires the US government to discourage BDS or trade barriers against Israel in trade negotiations with the European with European Union countries and who knows who knows what else is coming at the federal level yesterday the Senate confirmed David fredman as US ambassador to Israel 5246 fredman has taken the position that the US should view BDS as inherently anti-semitic and take strong measures both diplomatic and legislative to thwart it but for all the anti-bds bills that have passed many more have been defeated showing the power of mobilization that organizing and writing and calling and meeting with your representatives makes a difference legislators have heard concerns that the bills are unconstitutional but they've also heard their constituent their con constituents passionate views about Palestinian rights it's important to remember that none of the anti-bds laws take away your right to boycott or to advocate for BDS nor can they under the US Constitution they do however punish expression of a particular Viewpoint BDS against Israel which is unconstitutional under the First Amendment the government cannot pass a law that abridges our freedom of speech or discriminates based on Viewpoint it cannot regulate our speech based on its content or message in a case stemming from the boycott of white businesses in Mississippi in the 1960s to demand Racial equality the Supreme Court made clear that nonviolent boycotts to bring about political social or economic change are protected under the First Amendment moreover the government may not deny a benefit to someone for for exercising their constitutional rights we must demand that our state and local lawmakers protect our federal right to protest and dissent and reject these unconstitutional laws and when they do pass we must not let them chill our protected speech but it's even more critical that we resist the distraction of focusing on our speech rights in the US and instead use the fact that our legislators are actually talking about BDS against Israel as an opportunity for us to talk about Palestinian rights and freedom we need to defend our right to engage in BDS but we must demand an end to the occupation to apartheid to settlements to the closure of Gaza to attacks on human rights defenders in the occupied Palestinian territory who are targeted arrested dained threatened and harassed for peacefully protesting for Seeking Justice and accountability it's also essential to be uniting struggles in addition to anti-bds laws it's and in response to recent protests across the United States a recent wave of anti-protest bills have been introduced in state legislatures which increase fines and impose jail time for protesters in response to Standing Rock protests North Dakota introduced bills that would exempt drivers from liability if they injured or killed protesters in a roadway as long as they didn't do it intentionally we need to keep making connections between strugglers between we need to keep making connections between settler colonialism State violence and racism in this country and in Israel the struggle for Palestinian Palestinian Liberation is tied to all struggles against oppression as Martin Luther King Jr said Injustice anywhere as a threat to Justice everywhere he also described the pivotal Montgomery boy bus boycott against segregation in the US as a refusal to cooperate with an evil system all over the world including in the US people are increasingly refusing to be complicit in Israel's violations of international law and are demanding the same of our government officials it's not simply a matter of our right to descent it is our moral duty cooperation with the occupation with apartheid is complicity BDS helped end apartheid in South Africa and it will eventually do the same in Israel the wave of anti-bds legislation just shows the power the movement for Palestinian rights has to expose Israel's violation of international law and eventually help bring them to an end thank you thank you very much so one question we have here is since many of these bills are so very clearly in violation of the First Amendment why are they still standing and what is the process to get them taken down and how long will that take well we have not yet brought a case to challenge them we are thinking what is is most Strate the most about the most strategic case to bring um but just because they haven't yet been challenged in court doesn't mean they're any less unconstitutional they are unconstitutional EXC so the people in favor of it when asked given these issues with the First Amendment and told about them how do they respond what is their defense how do they argue that it is in fact not a violation of First Amendment rights um I think some of the some of the claims are that BDS is inherently anti-semitic which it is not so that um I I don't you know I don't fully understand their arguments because it is unconstitutional and it is clear clearly a violation of of free speech I think it is um not so much an argument about that it's constitutional they are appealing to legislators um and and arguing that it is a fight against anti-Semitism which it is it is not there are many ways to fight anti-Semitism and you know stifling criticism of Israel is not one of them have a practical question here what are some ways that the average person can help fight against antibes laws well I think get involved wherever you are find out what's happening in your in your state and in your county um there are also County bills uh condemn or anti-bds County bills as well find out what you can do find out who's working on them you can always contact CC Center for constitutional rights at CCR justice.org or palestin legal at palestin legal.org or whoever is active in your community talk to again talk to your legislators um educate yourself educate them and fight against them one question here um I guess predicting are there any more bills being proposed other than the ones that have been introduced so far that people should be aware of you can go you can actually go to to WR to boycott. org and there is a map of where laws have been introduced all over the country and that's another way you can find out what's happening in your state um and get involved excellent and there are there are there continue to be um laws introduced in the legislature and because there's this Governors against BDS initiative there could also be more executive orders like the one in New York that was the same question that was just asked um one question here how do you counter the argument that anti-bds legislation does not abridge freedom of speech but only certain areas of conduct C certain kinds of conduct um in the case I mentioned out of the 1960s NAACP versus Clayborn Hardware it was you know a boycott can be considered more than speech it is conduct but a that boycott a nonviolent boycott for social change is protected by the First Amendment um there is perhaps you know it is possible that there is discriminatory conduct um obviously that can be precluded by law but BDS against Israel in response to the call by Palestinian civil society which seeks compliance Within international law and respect for human rights is not discriminatory EXC and one other question have you seen since these laws have been introduced any sort of decline in activity especially among students you have the canary Mission and all that stuff right and people are wondering if that has had an impact especially on young people you know unfortunately there there is a chill people misunderstand the laws people hear that uh BDS law laws are are penalizing BDS or criminalizing BDS or so there have been incidents where students um have not used you know School funds to pay for a speaker who supports BDS because they fear reprisal or they fear defunding there have been there are concerns among Church groups you know there are in New York for example um there are Church groups who run prek pre kindergarten schools that are paid for by the state so there are concerns that well if we endorse BDS or if we we're affiliated with you know the the larger church that that engages in BDS what does this mean for our state funding it it there are legitimate concerns again like I said thus far the blacklists are naming foreign companies only in part I think because of the increased constitutional concerns about uh limiting the free speech of US based con uh corporations uh it's kind of a technical question here legally speaking is there a difference between BDS action against Israel and BDS action against companies that operate in the West Bank I personally don't think so um you know there some of the laws do expressly include and you know Israel boycotts against Israel and boycotts against Israel occupied territory um you know there are distinctions that people make based on settlements um but I believe that there are you know international law violations across the board so I don't I personally don't think there is a difference right this involves the law of another country but I'll throw it at you and see how how comfortable you answering it can you elaborate on the new law that the Israeli keset passed to Target BDS activists so I you know I haven't I haven't looked at a translation of the law in Israel my understanding is that it prevents BDS supporters from who who require who need a visa from entering the country I have heard that it may be to get into the West Bank if you don't need a visa perhaps it will not um preclude your entry I do not know I haven't looked at it but the basic thrust of the law is to discourage BDS support ERS from going to Israel into Palestine and it's you know this isn't the only law in Israel Israel has also you know passed a tort law that provides for damages from any BDS actions um if they can be shown they've also cracked down on NOS who get uh most of their funding from from foreign entities which largely impacts uh organizations that are that are fighting Israel's um violations excellent and this is you know it's not just that there are there's also you'll hear later about uh crackdowns on Palestinian rights activism in the UK France has a law that has criminalized BDS that will soon be before the EUR European Court of Human Rights it is it is part of a global Trend to suppress speech and suppress advocacy on behalf of Palestinian rights question here a general question are Israelis more worried about image or the economic threat of BDS I guess you can take that into the lob yeah I don't I don't know what Israelis are more worried about I think at this point you know where we are in this in this movement is that the economic threat is not yet so serious but the delegitimate delegitimization threat is huge the isolation threat is huge the the notion of a you know parias state is I think what is the threat and you know sort of dismantling the international support for Israel especially United States support for Israel um is key and so I think you know at some point the economic concerns may become um more serious but right now it is the fact that it is you know calling out Israel's violations I mean I you know you mentioned that I represent uh former board members of the Olympia food co-op tiny little well 22,000 members but a co-op in Olympia Washington where Rachel Cory's was from um you know boycotted Israeli Goods took nine or so things off the shelves um from Israel and they were sued um for that so it's not about the economic impact it's about what it says about Israel uh a question concerning a a local issue here Maryland state law has introduced anti-bds Bill we have a very strong team that will be fighting against it can you tell us what's happening next if it passes I gu some advice for the Maryland contingent here well we're hoping it doesn't pass there are there are hints that it will not pass based on what's happened in the legislature so we will see but that is one you know especially because it includes individuals and and nonprofits that would be would be very good for a challenge so all right I think we've run through okay a heavy set of questions here uhk thank you very much thank you thank [Music] you so we're going to take a bit of a break here and we'll be back at uh 10:15 for the Congressional panel be sure to check out the exhibition Hall thank you very much it's so hard just read hand yes I get that all the time e e e e e spe spe e e e so e know e e e l you for anybody we get some audio here for anyone who's looking for coffee and beverages they're in the Next Room in the homman lounge to you sure e e e e e really e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e down test okay everybody we will be starting at 11:15 with our Congress panel so if you want to come back for those of you who are using balcony seating because we have such a great crowd today um please use the second floor for Transit only there are other events going on in the second floor so if you're going to go to the balcony please uh feel free to do that but uh don't uh hang around in the outside area the second floor and for those of you who ordered pre-ordered special ve vegan lunches and Halal lunches those will be served over in the bar although there's a mix in the AL Cove as well for lunch but uh we need to come together for our 11:15 thank you for e e e for okay everybody we need to start so please take your seats and while you do we're going to roll a very short clip of an interesting panel that took place every everyone has been talking about J Street well this is a J Street panel and we're just going to roll a very short clip about a former fundraiser speaking at J Street Stephanie sherro and her experience in obtaining startup capital for political campaigns can you cue that nart I started as a finance director I ra I I worked for candidates in the 90s as their Finance director and I would come on uh on a congressional race I'm a 20-some kid who also knows nothing beyond the state borders let alone overseas and you thought about where you're going to go to raise the money that you needed to raise to win a race and you went to labor and you went to the choice community and you went to the Jewish Community but before you went to the Jewish Community you had a conversation with the lead APAC person in your state and they made it clear that you needed a paper on Israel and so you called all of your friends who already had a paper on Israel that was designed by APAC and we made that your paper this was before there was a campaign manager or a policy director or field director because you got to raise money before you do all that I have written more Israel papers than you can imagine I'm from Montana I barely knew where Israel was until I looked at a map and the poor campaign manager would come in or the policy director and I'd be like here's your paper on Israel this is our policy we've sent it all over the country because this is how we've raised money and so you ask what does that mean that means these candidates who you know were farmers or School teachers or business women uh ended up having an Israel position without having any significant conversation say all Israel papers were the same they were identical very similar thank you hi for those of you who may be just joining us on our live stream video I'm Janet McMahon managing editor of the Washington report on Middle East affairs one of our main focuses is keeping track of members of Congress and the pro-israel pack contributions so many of them receive and I think Grant Smith made it clear this morning that the these pro-israel members of Congress increasingly do not reflect the views of the majority of Americans today I'm very happy to introduce two Democratic former members of Congress who do reflect those views fortunately I don't have to introduce them to each other since they have been colleagues and friends for nearly a quarter of a century we thought it would be fascinating and informative to hear a conversation between them about their experiences as congressman and how they continued to win re-election for decades despite the opposition of the Israel Lobby Jim Moran on my far right represented Virginia's eth congressional district just across the river from here from 1991 until he retired in 2015 he was the mayor of Alexandria Virginia from 1985 to 1990 when he defeated incumbent Stanford Paris as a congressman Jim was a staunch critic of moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem an issue which never seems to die and of the major role the Israel Lobby played in pushing for the disastrous US invasion of Iraq in 2003 of Irish descent Jim is the son of professional football player James Moran senior and the brother of Brian Moran the former chairman of the democratic party of Virginia he is currently a professor of practice at Virginia Tech's school of public and international Affairs Nick rahall to my immediate right is the grandson of Lebanese immigrants and the longest serving ever member of Congress from West Virginia whose third and fourth districts he represented from 1977 to 2015 he was one of only eight house members to vote against the authorization for use of military force against Iraq in 2002 that preceded the US invasion and he has repeatedly expressed concern about America's relationship with Israel stating Israel can't continue to occupy humiliate and destroy the dreams and spirits of the Palestinian people and continue to call itself a democratic State when Nick spoke at our conference two years ago he regaled us with his story about going on in APAC sponsored trip to Israel in 1995 and taking with him to Gaza several APAC board members who wanted to meet yaser Arafat they were just stumbling over themselves to get their pictures taken with him he recalled seriously though I think this is proof that Nick is willing to talk to anyone in order to advance the cause of peace and Justice Unfortunately today Congress seems to have few members who follow that lead so please join me in welcoming Jim Moran and Nick Ray Hall today let's get the conversation going by starting at the beginning how the two of you got elected in the first place in the short video that you just saw we heard political strategists and campaign fundraiser explain that in her experience funding from three groups was essential labor pro-choice and the Jewish community but before approaching the Jewish Community Stephanie schak said a potential candidate had to meet with the lead APAC person in his or her State who would make it clear that the candidate needed to draw up a paper on Israel even before hiring a campaign manager or policy director that's how we raise money she said so to raise money from the Jewish Community a major contributor to democratic candidates one needs the apack seal of approval Jim you defeated a five- turn in incumbent who criticized your opposition to the first Gulf War by saying the only three people I know who support Saddam Hussein's position are mamar Gaddafi yaser Arafat and Jim Moran he left out Nick he didn't know how and Nick you're an Arab American who got elected at the age of 27 to become the youngest member of Congress and you went on to be reelected 17 times how did you each do it go ahead buddy well in my case unlike my dear friend Jim Moran I had never held political office before my first run for Congress in 1976 uh I was unheard of except in my local Hometown where I had been active in local uh issues Civic clubs Chamber of Commerce etc etc my predecessor had served for 18 years and much to everybody's surprise at the last literally last second of the filing period that year dropped out of the Congressional race to run for governor I had previously filed for the Congressional race again as an unknown with several other unknowns uh the main political figures in the district not believing that the incumbent was going to drop out to run for governor well when he dropped out I decided and I was fortunate enough to be able to borrow money at that time on my own and use those borrowings to run for Congress at that time it cost me I think $150,000 dropping a bucket these days but uh the others there was another well-funded uh Democrat running as well four of us really were running for a seat nobody knew anything about either of us uh I proceeded to run a very aggressive campaign uh I had the backing of our senior senator at that time although not publicly in a primary but but I I used his name quite a bit Senator Robert bird I had worked for him previous which was my only experience in the political Arena and uh with aggressive media campaign I was able to secure the nomination my predecessor lost his race for governor he came back against me trying to lead the people to believe he was the incumbent in the eneral election on a right in campaign the Press caught on to it very quickly reminded the people his not the incumbent he gave up the seat we have a nice young guy running uh by my name Nick Ray Hall and I had pretty good press endorsement uh much to my surprise I had Democratic establishment support uh and I had my own money so uh APAC was not a factor my district there very few synagogues in my district in southern West Virginia very rural uh uh uh area of our country where coal is the main industry so running that aggressive campaign I got elected that first term uh basically without any outside groups I did not even have Labor endorsement they were again they were for another candidate uh that was an official of the United mind Workers Union in my primary campaign so I had no major group endorsements not labor not uh NRA not uh anybody uh had then coming incumbent my predecessor was still running against me my full first term again trying to lead mislead the public into believing he was the current Congress Congressman reelect your Congressman Ken Heckler was his name uh he came at me one-on-one in the primary two years later in 78 uh again I had to borrow some additional money had no major endorsements and ran actually I'm sorry my first re-election I did finally get labor endorsement and uh that was a big boost in defeating uh my predecessor uh actually a second time he then came out against me a third time 10 years later but I was well entrenched then and uh defeated him a third time but really APAC never was a factor in my early elections uh I was a homegrown boy so to speak and uh had gotten the Committees I wanted in the Congress uh T then speaker tip O'Neal my first speaker was very kind to me uh knowing I was a newcomer and in those days uh it was no longer newcomer sit on the back of the bench and keep quiet until you've been here 30 years tip O'Neal was very good about giving newcomers uh their Committee of preference and I use that to my advantage to continue to be reelected year after year so um when uh that comment was made by Stan Paris uh a Washington Post reporter called me uh in an unguarded moment of course no staff or anything around and uh not having the audition or even not not to mention the intellect of Professor Mir shimer so they asked me uh you know he says what how do you feel and Mr Paris said connects you to mamad Gaddafi and and Saddam Hussein I said oh Christ I'd like to punch that fatuous jerk on the nose is how I feel which the post printed and it's iry and uh it probably set me back a little because it the District of Northern Virginia is one of the best uh educated most politically engaged in the country um but it didn't uh it didn't cause any kind of mortal political wound uh basically the first election I I just worked uh uh because I I wasn't going to let myself lose and so I'd get up at you know 4:00 in the morning and I go down to Prince William County and I'd uh down in Prince William County on 95 if any of you familiar with the area they to because of the traffic uh they have buses that can use the HOV lanes but you had to in order to get a parking space let alone a place on the bus you have to get there by 5 a.m. so I'd go down there and I'd knock on the uh on the car doors and um I I have to well I'm not supposed to say car I'm supposed to be automobile doors because it betrays my Massachusetts accent so but I but I don't care now that I'm not running so I knock on the car doors and uh and and they'd roll the window I'd wake them up obviously because they'd have to get there at 5: in order for the bus that left at 6 so I'd wake them up and they turn and they'd give me a digital salute invariably for the first couple of weeks but after I kept doing it eventually they reached the handout and it was the same I'd I'd stand at a corner holding the sign uh and uh you know the same initial reaction but after a while they realized you know gosh this guy means it if he's willing to work this hard then uh maybe he'll work this hard for me so uh eventually uh that that worked uh uh but it was just through sheared determination and plus something else and I think Nick and I have in I know actually we have in Comm we like people and we enjoy running you know we go into a big room oh this is fun let's go meet so and so and and even people that didn't didn't agree with us you know we uh we how you doing and so on um and uh you know that that's the Kennedy Clan and there's a lot of folks who uh certainly tip was like that politics should be about liking people and enjoying doing something meaningful for them when you get the opportunity unfortunately uh it's it's more about money now uh frankly but but um uh it um before the process was so corrupted it really was just about who who wants to work the hardest and who enjoys meeting people the most so I think that's how I got elected the first time and then you kept both of you kept getting reelected and then you did have some opposition from the lobby as the years went by I together so how how did you keep getting reelected well I I can speak for my s i I did engage in some Herculean efforts to make some of my races challenging uh the U uh and I I don't need to go into all of those things that I said and did uh but uh yeah we had uh we had some close races um uh one of them particularly uh uh was uh at the time of the Iraq War because uh I was asked at a um at a forum uh actually by uh uh a Jewish woman who asked you know why are she said why are more Jews involved in opposing the war and I said well you know it's similar to um uh by criticism of Catholics uh uh war is wrong and and yet all we hear seem to hear from the pulpit is how wrong abortion is and and uh and somehow they Overlook some of the other uh wrongs that are taking place and if you know the Catholic Church came out in opposition to the war that's time 80% of the American people were in favor of going into interact I think it would make a difference and I said similarly you know if the leaders of the the Jewish Community particularly uh uh the the pro-israeli community uh uh were will had a different attitude and were willing to get uh more engaged against the War I don't think we'd have a war well so that was uh reported in a way that was uh the most uh uh uh critical you can uh you could imagine that they uh the conservative Rabbi in my district took it and ran with it and put it on the Jewish telegraphic agency and made a big name for himself and uh uh you know and the headline in the post was Moran blames Jews for the war in Iraq um uh but of course as Professor mirim uh mentioned in his terrific address uh the Israeli Lobby had a a an instrumental role it wasn't the only reason by any means that we went into Iraq but it was a contributing uh Factor uh I might as well get into some of the policy issue um they uh it was interesting in Tony Blair's uh uh book uh he he uh mentioned going down before England chose to side with the united with the Bush Administration uh in the Iraq War that he went down to the Crawford Ranch to meet with bush and it was Netanyahu who met him uh the um and and the executive director of AP Park uh in 2003 in an interview uh with a uh New York newspaper uh to credit that that it was that his greatest accomplishment was getting the authorization for the use of military force in Iraq so you know the the the Israeli Lobby did have a contributing uh influence to us going to war but um for other reasons I I things I can cite too to to support that uh but that particularly upset the Washington Post suggesting that uh and I'm sure I could have been far more articulate in explaining my uh my position but but um uh the uh it stung because I think many people did realize that this is something that uh you know uh Israel wanted us to do certainly Netanyahu did Chiron uh understood that uh understood what George HW Bush understood that this may not in the long run be beneficial to Israel given the Shia Sunni conflict and it's the ramifications that it caused and Chiron felt that Iran was should have been the one where the focus was but BB was uh pretty adamant that he wanted us to go into the war in Iraq anyways that that's a digression from the original uh question but um uh I'm just trying to get into a little of the policy here instead of the personal reflection on our political career uh but uh the the the point is that uh we've had we had some tough races uh I never lost a race and Nick never should have lost a race until the Koch brothers went after him uh in uh in the last race and finally uh beat him uh with the help of the uh Israeli Lobby frankly who always gave him a hard time uh Nick is one of the people who U uh you know I've always looked up to because it's hard not to admire people who show courage uh and conviction and uh Nick always has and was one of my heroes in the Congress frankly thank you Jim you're very kind with your words you know as I mentioned earlier tip O'Neal was my first Speaker you may recall his f saying was all politics is local and uh I really took that to heart uh during my entire time in the US Congress I always felt my duties were first to the constituents that honored me and humbled Me by sending me to Washington I always was back home uh every weekend and every Congressional break uh working the Grassroots continued from my first days of Standing Outside the coal mine Gates and meeting every coal miner as he or she went to work at 4:00 or 5: a.m. and when they'd get off the shift at 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. uh Factory Gates uh when we had large numbers of people working in both of those operations which is not true today but in those days we did and uh always was close to the ground back home and I I got to be known as the personal representative of my district uh I took to heart the fact that we in the house are the closest elected federal official star people nobody's ever appointed to the House of Representatives we have to always be elected regardless of any vacancy in uh where we served unlike the Senate who can be appointed Senators can be appointed uh so I I Really Work the Grassroots uh throughout my career my first running the muck of the lobby so to speak was I guess in 1982 uh tip O'Neal came to me first at the height of Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon when I saw was what was happening there I said to a local reporter back home which hit press throughout my district that Israel was acting as a monster that they were out of control the cherone had gone beyond the initial aim of that Israeli campaign that year in riding Southern Lebanon the PLO he was wanting to capture Beirut uh and that's when when I really uh started run-ins with the lobby well tip O'Neal came to me even after I'd said those comments and said Nick I want you to lead a Congressional Delegation to the Middle East and to Beirut and I'll give you a plane you know uh only my third term and I thought about it not very long of course but I said yes Mr Speaker I'll do it at that time he had a daughter-in-law who was a Lebanese ancestry and he was quite concerned of what was happening in Lebanon so I got six other members of Congress uh we went to uh six countries in the Middle East we happened to be in Beirut at the height that July 31st 1982 the height of Israeli bombardment uh I had arranged uh through contacts to meet with Arafat chairman Arafat in the bows of Beirut at the height of the bombing uh it took about four hours of reving around Beirut uh from about midnight to 4: a.m. we had to lose our State Department Security cuz certainly they couldn't know where we were headed uh and we had to really be secretive about it uh at least I thought that was the way it was going to be because I'd met with chairman Arafat two years before in a very private meeting that never hit the Press uh but this time we came out of that meeting and the members of congress with me were Mary Rose okar Pete McClosky uh murv damy late congressman from California um uh Ellie levitus a Jewish member was with us on the codell but he did not go to the Arafat meeting he made it clear he could not do that uh so those are basically the four of us that came out of that meeting about 4:00 a.m. and lo and behold the worldwide press is there aat had made sure that they was going to get the Press which was okay I I had nothing wrong with that but during that meeting we had gotten ARA to sign paper saying that he recognized Israel's right to exist that he renounced violence and that he recognized all un resolutions relevant to the Palestinian question something that he really we were just a decade early but that's something that came to fruition in Oslo but 1982 we were way ahead of our time uh and everybody in the Press said you're just being snookered by aaat he didn't really say or do that even though we showed a signed document where he he did say that but of course nobody wanted to believe him at that time and uh the next day we had meetings scheduled with uh uh uh the prime minister of Israel and with the defense minister Chiron at that time Bean was the prime minister at the time well they heard of our arifat meeting of course they canceled the meetings with us Elliot lus the Jewish member of Congress from Georgia on our codell sent word back to Bean and Chiron listen I'm a Jewish member of this Congressional Delegation I did not attend the Arafat meeting but I'm going to tell you you're going to continue your previously scheduled meetings with this codell or you're going to I don't care who they met with yesterday or you're going to have trouble from this Jewish member of Congress when I get back to Washington ban and cherome both rescheduled us we got in to see them having met with Arafat just the day before uh he got into shouting match and chiron's map in his office showed no division no border lines between uh Israel and Jordan or Israel in Lebanon it was the S Israel the greater Israel was his version of the uh uh land at that time we question about the use of americanmade cluster bombs supposed to be used only for defensive purposes why are you dropping them in southern Lebanon Chiron picked up a piece of paper and said here's what we do with agreements with no whatever we don't care what country it's with in times of War this is what we do with agreements he T picked up that paper and just ripped it apart we just looked around each other just shuddering at what he was saying uh so it was a very contentious and uh Angry meeting uh we went on and we met with other heads of state and we met with the president of Syria on this trip the King of Jordan the king of uh the president rather in Egypt and the king and Jordan uh so it was quite a whirlwind trip we had that summer of 1982 but while in Beirut I might add also uh as I said we met with aat at the height of the Israeli bombardment it was the next day that Ronald Reagan to his credit got on the phone to monuman and so said call ariol Chiron off enough is enough he going too far into Beirut now and that's when the bomb ceased uh that's what we need more of these days in a president of the United States is the courage that Ronald Reagan had I'm not defending every action of Ronald Reagan of course but that during that particular moment he did get on the phone and call and tell the Israelis to stop it uh so back home getting your question Dand I'm sorry for the diversion but back back home did I take Flack the lobby was in rageous the they got a gentleman from New York Ben Rosenthal to introduce a resolution in Congress to impeach me for treason and high crimes uh I went to tip almost crying say Mr Speaker I'm sorry what should I do about this he said Nick are you crazy you don't have anything to apologize and don't worry about this resolution it's not going anywhere so that he put my mind at EAS and uh wanted to hear all about the trip of which I relate to him a lot more than I have here and uh he was very pleased with the actions of our codell uh but back home they were on my side quite honestly uh that when I used the argument that hey I'll talk with anybody I'd rather talk than fight and uh you know communication does not mean capitulation of your views uh it it worked back home they the polls showed that people agreed with my codell they agreed with what i' said they agreed that we should be more objective in our policies in the Middle East they agreed on a Homeland for the Palestinians and a Homeland for the Israelis as I said back in those days before the two-state solution was ever uh in popular Vogue and uh my votes against forign a for example uh it all sold well back home and I think the lobby saw that and they never really came after me until about a decade later when they thought all this was down would subside and they could uh then it wasn't a major not like they came against Jim Moran uh yes they found uh uh a Jewish member of uh the Reagan White House I believe it was to come down to West Virginia buy a farm claim he was a West Virginia and ran against me with APAC money but again it was not APAC money to the degrees that they put up against Jim Moran and again I think it's because they saw me as a member of Congress of Arab descent saying ah he's just speaking because of his ancestry uh let him go that may have been something in their thought processes uh and but then I think the biggest thing was because of the local Rapport and the local support again all aptic is local that I had back home that allowed me to survive those early challenges of of APAC I think I'm going to intersperse questions from the audience as they come up so here's a good one that follows right on what you're saying and both of you can both of you describe your interactions with the other side of the aisle including both Israel firsters and those you find more agreement with such as Ron Paul so was there more bipartisan ship was there more working together or how has that evolved over the years or deteriorated well with Ron Paul his philosophy is basically that of kind of isolationism and and so uh uh he has um uh opposed uh American intervention militarily um but uh something that I I I think the public might be interested in is that uh there is um after votes members will go to an elevator that is off the floor on the Republican side and it's only members that are allowed so you can talk freely and I don't think it's bugged I don't the uh there's no microwave ovens or anything in it so it's interesting how often uh on two issues uh the primary one uh that we're referring to is on uh Israeli Palestinian uh related issues but it also oftentimes happens on gun issues uh and members will say hey that was a good Amendment you know I proud of you for voting the way you did then you look at them because you know that they often times spoke against you and certainly voted against you but I said well thanks a lot for your support not and they'll say well you know I can't you know I couldn't be with you obviously i' I'd be defeated but but uh you know you were you were right of course uh a comment was made um earlier uh that um you know people are not voting with uh the views of the vast majority of Americans on some issues often times they're not voting consistent with their own views uh but uh there's a political reality that they that they see and and um uh you know there are there are a lot of members who who know uh what the consequences would be and are not willing to face those consequences that's why I you know I single out Nick who would be the first one to take to the floor uh and uh and let her rip uh but it was always informed uh Dennis kusich uh was another one uh who spoke from his heart with a lot of Courage there are few others but frankly when you say the other side of the aisle this issue is not really now it has it's because of certain uh developments and I think there's some credit to the Obama Administration uh certainly Senator Kerry and and uh um and people like Keith Allison and so on that there has been there's actually a very substantial shift in views toward the Israeli Palestinian issue between Republicans and Democrats now uh but in terms of the the voting um the uh Apec has at least as much influence fluence within uh the Democratic caucus as the Republican caucus So when you say on the other end side of the aisle uh you know it it it happens that there are you know there's maybe half a dozen maybe well I guess it's close to a dozen now who will speak out they tend to be Democrats but but um it's nonpartisan in terms of uh uh of this issue generally uh speaking question um how you work on with our how do you work with people on the other side of the AIS people you can work with and not uh let me just add what Jim has said and I totally agree with what he has said uh there is a great deal more opposition privately in the Congress to US policy in the Middle East uh than is publicly stated uh members will come up to me as I'm sure they did Jim after many of these one-sided resolutions we vote upon that blamed everything on the Palestinians and say you know in the cloak room again like Jim is saying Nick I had to when I voted hold your nose and vote the way they did but they had to vote the way they did uh and and the real truth why they voted the way they did it's it's uh easier it's an easier path to follow for so many members of Congress they're not hearing from their constituency on the issue uh it's it's not a big issue back home uh it is a Poss if not already a possible good campaign financing vote uh to help them raise money without having to put up with the anger if they vote to other way which is much more of a repercussion severe repercussion against them of having to answer to phone call having to answer letters uh that may not that the lobby Will May generate from their District but more than likely it's going to be from other uh parts of the country so uh members of Congress are so often as well it's kind of a pavlovian reflex uh when they see something come up to the Middle East they're going to jump out there to try to out APAC APAC uh they don't want to be hassled in have to put up with what aac's going to direct they know is going to come their way if they don't do a letter uh so they and they don't want to be accused of doing a letter that APAC wrote for them so they jump out and write their own letter that actually ends up out apack and APAC in order to get ahead of the curve and and try to beat themselves on the chest and say what they did uh for Israel especially during the campaign uh uh or in preparation for a campaign which we're always doing in the house that that's a never ending process and uh you know the the money is a big factor there there's no question about it uh I think one of the ways that is most effective these days and to in working around it is and I think there is progress being made witness the 80 votes earlier this year on the UN resolution settlement question most of which were Democratic votes but you had like minority leader Pelosi in that Bunch you had Jan schakowski from uh Illinois in the 80 no votes the resolution I think everybody recalls it was disapproving our actions in the UN the Obama actions in the UN on settlements uh and there were 80 no votes yesterday's vote against David fredman as ambassador to Israel 52 to 46 the unprecedented the most number of no votes any Ambassador not just to Israel I think has ever gotten in the Congress of the United States uh so that's an indication yeah so what you need to do is look at those 80 votes earlier this year look at those 46 votes yesterday in the Senate thank them write them a letter email them don't let them know that they're I mean let them know that your their vote is appreciated by somebody out there uh so look at those two lists and and other votes that come up in which you note courageous actions from Members urge them to go to the Middle East at any opportunity and if you know of groups that can uh help send them there there are you have to get Ethics Committee approval these days of course uh but it can be done and uh urge your member of Congress to to go visit see the facts on the ground there's one other individual by the way going back to my previous uh uh description of my trip to the Middle East one other important individual that was on that codell with me who came back with his eyes opened was David bner from Michigan and he came back and Rose in the leadership of the house and kept saying it was because of that codell to the Middle East 1982 which I led that his eyes were opened as to what was happening in the Middle East so you got to get members of Congress over there not just on apack trips not not one-sided trips but get over there to see the reality on the ground in Palestinian territory so one thing you mentioned was that APAC often generates letters and responses from all over the country not just from one's own congressional district how I mean how can people in talk to the Congress person from their own district and make a difference from from the constituents in one District or does it have to be sorry how can constituents from a given District support their congressmen is that sufficient or does would it have to be a national effort where people from everywhere are calling and saying thank you and how can we build on that for get the national effort really for the most part unless you have a lot of money and are willing to contribute to their campaign people don't care that much about how somebody feels that they don't have to answer to within their constituency in the house and it's same case in the Senate but they are different broader constituencies of course in the Senate it's your own member of Congress the reality is and I know that Nick will agree there is virtually no downside in voting for Israel's policy whatever it may be or in this CA in this context we're talking about the Israeli lobes policy which includes is more than Apec of course there's no downside for voting with them generally speaking I mean you may you may get to tick off two or three people who you'll hear from but there's a whole lot of downside if you stand up to them because they're well organized within every congressional district they're generous they're well informed they're politically engaged and that's not a bad thing that's what everyone in this because this is not a a random sample people off the street that we have in this room but that's what needs you know the the best way if you oppose Apex power and influence and even tactics are you trying to warn me no you were just getting the sorry sorry because I just getting warmed up here I know the best thing is to understand why they are so successful and I have to share with you it bugs me no end to go see some of my friends sitting around at a coffee shop drinking you know good strong coffee and and complaining about something that just happened and so many of them will only talk within their comfort zone only talk with people they agree with they don't get involved locally they don't even know who their Schoolboard member or they County Board member sometimes they don't even know where their member of Congress is but they've got lots of opinions but they're useless in terms of the political process unless you get engage particularly with people who disagree with you so you know that the the best approach to dealing with the influence of the Israeli lobbyist to understand why it is so powerful to organize to contribute it doesn't have to be a whole lot of money to know your member of Congress to get your kid to intern to reach out to your neighbors you know it's it's I don't want to get too cliche as here but it it's it's up to everyone individually and then collectively people need to be informed they need to have their eyes opened that's what happened with me I the uh initially uh Tom Davis who was then uh a supervisor in Fairfax County for the Mason District he uh and Al win who was a a county attorney in Prince George's County and David Clark who had just been elected to the city council and I was a vice mayor in Alexandria we were contacted back in 1982 by the Jewish Community Council of the uh Washington era they were actually based in Montgomery County to go to Israel oh that kind of sounds kind of fun and they said you know you'll enjoy meeting the people and how did they know that I would be elected mayor and then to the Congress Al win would be elected to the Congress Tom Davis would become chairman of the supervisor elected to the Congress um and David Clark became president of DC city council because they were watching ing they were engaged they understood how this political system works we all went I didn't I had came a you know an open mind and gosh I went into yadvashem and I was struck and I I stayed there I delayed the whole bus so I couldn't get it out of my mind and so on and I became a firm supporter of Israel not knowing anything else that was my Paradigm and in fact back in the very beginning then I was first elected uh there was a vote on the10 billion loan that shouldn't be used for settlements and you know I I just went along with it uh and I it was a wrong vote it was a horrible vote I can't believe I voted that way I didn't know anybody and it was a young Jewish activist who went to me came to me and he was all upset this is so wrong I said really and you're Jewish and he says I'm I'm a humanitarian this is wrong let me tell you what and I got to thinking and then I talked to a guy by the name of sabash shami that we both know and uh who got his way into the campaign the the uh and and I started thinking and reading more and talk and watching the votes and realizing that the people who had the most courage of conscience were invariably voting in the minority in this but if you asked them why they voted it wasn't because politics or campaign contributions they would explain exactly why they voted and it was the most thoughtful response as into this last night those are the people I wanted to identify with because Life's too short to just follow the herd and and um don't do that and then it was a guy by the name of Danny Abraham who uh he uh he sold Slim Fast he owned Slim Fast and ironically he sold it to to Tom and Jerry's ice cream and they uh uh B and Jerry's he was B and Jerry's you know go figure yeah but but uh Danny Abraham had this C of for Middle East piece in economic cooperation and he had this woman Sarah man who had worked for APAC and and she um she was very close to Hillary in fact she's the one that convinced Hillary to go down to Arkansas when Hillary wasn't sure do I want to go go with this guy or do I want to follow my w my Welsley classmate said anyway she convinced to go down to Arkansas the rest of his history but but Sarah you know started talking with me Danny Abraham brought me to to to um the West Bank talked to yaser Arafat I I asked him at the time you know they have to put this in historical context um like said this was right after rabine had been assassin I heard that you cried that they couldn't talk to you you were so upset when uh itak Rabin had been assassinated why he said uh itach was the only Jew who ever treated me like I was a man well that's fascinating so a lot of this is you know a struggle for dignity and being recognized anyways uh you know one thing led to another and and eventually you form your views but it goes back to the need to open people's eyes and when you open their eyes sometimes their heart opens up too and they do the right thing and and and uh the fact fact is that uh you know the Jewish community of the United States realizes that this is a true democracy and if you get sufficiently engaged uh it it will serve your purposes but I also want to say something I think that's very important if this issue is going to turn in the direction of justice and you can't have peace without justice but if it is going to turn the arcan history is going to turn as Barack Obama would say and U uh toward uh toward Justice a lot of it is going to be because young Jewish men and women who are on campuses and who are reading and who understand the importance of this Democratic process and are the have the are of the same ilk that disproportionately turned around the Civil Rights struggle in the the South it was they were the ones that came down from New England and Northeastern states and so on and many of them lost their lives they have to be engaged too and they will be engaged as long as sufficient information is out there and as long as people who know the facts on the ground have the courage of their convictions to share that information and understand that basically most people are good and when they know the reality of a situation they're going to do the right thing and then the Congress will [Applause] follow you want to add anything to that Nick I mean you've said that you you think the Israel Lobby is there are many lobbies and many special interests let me just say one thing to follow up on what Jim has said about the young people uh and getting them involved and that is so crucial I'm going to say something here that may be heresay and some are going to boo probably when I mention the name because I know they've been described as APAC light and and other descriptions but a group in town that has been very effective at involving the young people getting in to see members of Congress and I think provide a great deal of cover for members including these two votes I mentioned earlier group in town that I think is worth reaching out to and trying to get across the Divide is J Street uh I think they are a growing organization uh they're involving a y lot of young active people across this nation they're causing a stir in the Democratic party uh you saw for the example this year the first time I've ever seen in a presidential debate the issue of Israel Palestine come up like it did and be debated uh and they're they're they can get into members of Congress office uh and that's important so whatever Coalition building you can do and there may not be 100% agreement on any on a lot not a lot but a few issues but I think there is a common goal uh and it's important to stress upon members of Congress especially the newer members of Congress that APAC does not speak for the Israeli people they speak for the right-wing lud government a lot of newer members of Congress don't quite distinguish that uh whereas J Street let let me just tell you some of their positions I'm sure you probably know it they supported the Iran nuclear deal they opposed David Freeman as US ambassador they opposed the Trump anti-immigration policies including the ban on Muslims civil liberties the uh and increased defense spending at the expense of domestic brokens J Street opposed the Israeli settlement expansion uh and supported the Obama administration's decision to abstain from UN resolution 2334 that's that 80 vote reference I referred to earlier they opposed a 2015 Amendment to the US trade promotion bill that would have protected Israeli settlements from the BD s movement they have acknowledged they have acknowledged the painful side of Israel's creation which was a displacement of is the Palestinian people so I think there is there is a ground there for a reach out and a approach that says let's do this together and let's go to Congress together and I I think members of Congress will respond when they see Jewish and Arab working together instead of hurling insults each way uh I know we all know the American people are yearning for that to happen in our political environment uh which were not there yet or further back I think than when Jim and I were in the Congress but uh that you know that's what I think would strike a responsive chord if we want to EXP fan Beyond uh just this group is what I'm saying and Beyond just Arab groups working uh on behalf of a two-state solution for example J Street supports that uh and I think that's what we got to get back to so I throw that out as something that I think should be explored to to try to enhance our mutual goals okay here's another question from the audience I'm the son of an Irish mother and an Arab father and I'm from the Deep South originally so the two of you are as good as it gets would either of you consider moving to my district in Dallas Texas and running against Sam Johnson what's the district we may be interested what's the district I don't know you'll have to track this person down well I think our time that was a rhetorical question you want to I don't know I doubt it actually so I'd like to thank again Nick Rahal and Jim Moran for being with us today thank you J thank you thank you thank [Music] you say could I could I just give a little shout out here uh I just uh Shai tamari come in here he's um Shai is in the front row here he he's shaved his hair since he last word for me but Shai was my foreign policy person uh sha used to be a member of the Israeli Defense Forces uh and um uh he informed in large part my view because you need to know where people are coming from whose views differ from yours and that ability to empathize was extraordinarily powerful in terms of uh uh my understanding of why this issue was so important and and and worth taking tough votes on um it's people like Shai tamari who are going to as I say Bend The Arc of history in the right direction so thank you Shai for all you [Music] do I also wanted to thank Jim and Nick for their service to our country for so many decades not only for being here today our [Music] honor so I have just a few announcements before we break for lunch um there's been a change in the book signing schedule and Dr Hanan asrawi will be signing her books during the lunch break so we have from when we break till 5 minutes to one where there'll be book signings and the um quilt to Gaza will be having a raffle also during the day um let's see so everyone people who ordered who specially pre-ordered vegetarian or Halal lunches can pick them up through those doors there all the other lunches including Halal and vegetarian for people who didn't special order will be out in the hallway there and so I know you'll all want to be back here at 5 minutes to one to hear Dr Hanan awwi thank you very much very good job it was Yeahs yeah oh it was a very good format thank you thank you yeah I thought he was back in January Ved against thatl yeah I would start there I it is okay the gentleman that U Mr Moran pointed out he was part of his staff is he still here no he was sitting right there but let me [Music] see I didn't get I know who he is I know what he looks like is it still hot y got a tough reelection he he only won 519 so darl district is changing dramatically other way from how mine Chang [Applause] how Israel influences British politics we reveal from the inside how the Israeli Embassy penetrates different levels of British democracy in the first of four programs the battle for Britain's [Music] youth [Applause] following how Israel influences British politics I we reveal from the inside how the Israeli Embassy penetrates different levels of British democracy in the first of four programs the battle for Britain's youth following Decades of violence A new challenge has emerged to Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands called BDS BDS is here to St that's the global movement to boycott divest and impose sanctions on Israel and expose it as an apartheid state the Israeli government has responded with a campaign to Rebrand the country's image the reason we should fight BDS is because it's wrong it's a moral outage it's an operation run by the secretive Ministry of strategic Affairs they recruit mainly Former Intelligence Officers its main task is to counter BDS worldwide using an undercover reporter alzer's investigative unit exposes Israel's clandestine activities in London a city that's become a major Battleground DDS campaign in many ways germinated in Britain you'll meet the people working to challenge BDS at every level of British politics okay for I love is one of Israel's main targets is the labor party for the first time its leader is a champion of Palestinian civil rights they'd be very happy to see Jeremy Corbin no longer leader of the labor party sure it's a covert action that penetrates the heart of Britain's democracy can I give you some suggest you take down it is outrageous interference in British politics it shouldn't be permitted it's a battle of ideas seeking to change not only how Israel's portrayed but even how it is debated it's [Music] antic our undercover reporter grew up in Germany and creates an identity as a graduate planning to live in Britain Robin sets himself up in London as an aspiring labor party activist with strong sympathies toward Israel after over a month of attending party functions he stood out as a friend of Israel and before before long you recognized a familiar [Music] face I'm Robert ah okay ni my name is Shai Shai sh it's a meeting of the labor friends of Israel or lfi members of the British Parliament who Lobby for Israel yeah I take the district Shai later explained to Robin the problems the lfi is facing not a lot of young people wants to be Affiliated obviously when they will become MPS they won't be Affiliated and then that's it chain is is done CU for years every MP that joined the p man the thing that he used to do is going to join another fight he's not doing it anymore in the labor party see they're doing it [Music] automatically all of the 40 new MPS that just got in the last elections all of the ones with the CF Israel okay yeah soit didn't didn't happen obviously that you need to get more people on it's a lot of work actually Robin tweeted and wrote articles about Israel in the labor party building up his online identity he discovered numerous groups that support Israel and which identify themselves as independent Grassroots movements one is the Sussex friends of Israel they organized a march to protest against the pro Palestinian movement to boycott [Applause] Israel Robin had joined [Applause] them Shai later described the embassy's role in some of these movements a grass organization as sass friends of Israel into demonstration is Israel great and there is a b there is so many who believe in Israel so many Shai had helped establish a youth group within the conservative friends of Israel they have a young section of the conservative friends yeah see if I started with it one year ago and because of like my idea and then when I tried to do the same in the labor they had a crisis that was cor every idea specifically lfi young people doesn't exist that's the only place the moment it will become to 100 people 200 people then it started to become real organization but take a year if you ever buildt something like a group yeah I did several things like that yeah okay is Israel and here here as well yeah nothing think that I can share but yeah you share yeah because things that you know happen but we are it's good to leave those organizations independent but we help them to actually hey thank you very much have a nice evening right our investigation linked the embassy's senior political officer with a series of pro-israel groups the Parliamentary friends of Israel young conservatives lobbyists as well as Grassroots movements in addition Shai is involved with the youth arm of the Fabian Society an influential labor party Think Tank I's a good guy he's a good friend of mine when we engag with the Israel Embassy they gave us a program that was very neutral and you know I know sh I met Shai for the process and and Shai you know in himself he's very much he's very balanced guy and if you talk to Embassy they're not going toage you papaganda it appears the Israeli diplomat's mission is to build support for Israel at all levels of the labor party and there was lot of groups that educating the MPS no no one educating the of that's it specifically in the label Shai says he knows nearly all the Fabian Society activists this only AC painting with acting I know almost all of them yeah Mar was that Martin edar explains how foreign government support helps the Fabian membership's good in terms of Manpower and he's got great contacts on both sides of Palestine and in Israel as part of his experience he's a great guy as well he's a he's very he's very helpful and very supportive as well and he's very balanced I went on one of the trips of the conservative friends of Israel to the Middle East who was brilliantly well arranged very well looked after you got fantastic access you did meet Palestinians if all you did was rely on that one trip you would have a very one-sided point of view recently I saw something on on Facebook that you know like some really I think that you know the Israelis are not giving weren't giving Palestinians water or something during Ramadan I know that's HSE according to hit's newspaper Israel which controls all water sources in the occupied West Bank did cut supplies even if the reason was contested I've been to Israel going to the delegation seeing what systems actually like I know that's false and I know that'sand but you only will understand that if you actually go to the country our undercover reporter discovered that Shai mot played a role in another key labor party organization the Jewish labor mve movement or JLM Robin attended a summer barbecue organized by the JLM much of the small talk turned to the Israeli Embassy who do you know um Shai oh you know Shai yeah oh interesting I work with Shai oh you work with Shai I work with the Ambassador at this moment I wanted to also and formally welcome Ella to her new post as uh director Ella was by no means the person on that pile of CVS that had the most labor party and political experience but there was something that we felt on the JLM executive as trustees mattered far more which is that she's one of you she's seen this stuff from the inside she's fought the campus battles alongside you which is why we took the step of appointing Ella to this role because we think she's going to go on and play an incredibly critical role at the lead of the struggle against 87s in the labor [Applause] party um hi guys so I've been introduced I'm Ella I am jm's barbecuer in Chief um and new director and let's go out let's change the labor party the better and let's hopefully influence the future of this country for the better with a you know Progressive strong Fair [Applause] [Music] Society what came next Sur surprised our undercover [Music] reporter Shai had asked Robin to become part of the Israeli embassy's plan to attract young labor party members labor of Israel they're trying they want to establish young but the idea is to establish a kind of branch that work with young people so what I'm saying is that if you have fre time and you would like to get engaged I guess they looking for someone that really L run we need to start to think about so what can you do Shai then suggested that as well as setting up the young lfi Robin appli for a job at the Israeli Embassy he was invited to a private meeting at a London hotel it included Embassy staff and British supporters of Israel and his Israeli Diplomat takes Robin to one side we're looking for work for someone to work at the embassy I don't know if there something my interest here you we will allow them to continue with the live that they are spreading against Israel we will lose this fantastic Young Generation and maybe from here there will be the next leaders of the UK or other countries and they will think that Israel is a very bad country during another meeting with the embassy's senior political officer Shai tutors Robin on setting up a new pro-israel group how do you approach them so first of all I think you need something to sell right theoretically maybe lfi would agree to do delegation to Israel and that's always a good start second maybe you need an interesting speaker that's maybe the embassy can help or lfi can help if you volunteering you know to be the chairman of it you thetically needs to have someone that will do social media and someone that will take care of speakers or events or someone that will be the chairman of the delegation Isel and then you just you know and then people becoming you have a structure then it's not just your responsibility one day another six people responsibility somehow and they the committee of the organization and that's it that's the way you establish organization who should I contact what do you think Michael Ruben Michael ruin write that you have an idea you want to take it Forward what's his position in the lfi he's a parliamentarian officer recently start at lfi I worked for labor party before chair of Labor students I knew shy in my world at lab students we did a couple of things together last you talked about having a launch event like drinks receptions like Hing out you know like the upstairs a pu like this you know find a little bit of money behind your bar to get people there we can get some of our parliamentary supporters so people Ryan she can come along and sort of speak think there's people are chance to meet her and she's in contact with SH as well so yes the lfi appears to be looking Beyond Labor's present set of MPS moment is not not in a good place to say the least there are lots of people coming through who are moderate you know good views on Israel um I think we haven't really paid much attention to those people you know people are going to be in Parliament in 10 15 years time Robin tells him about the Israeli embassy's interest in recruiting him he gave an example of how a job at the embassy could further a career in British politics was president of UJS which is with un students couple years ago she works she's leaving new guards came in and they sort of thought at some point okay we're going to hire someone to like help with stuff and then all the anti-Semitism stuff jail V inre profile they probably who actually knows you know what they're doing that shy around about the same time the JLM reemerged under the leadership of Jeremy Newark who would later hire L Rose as the Director of the JLM the big story was about a young student in Oxford who made allegations that the labor party and most of the student left at Oxford was anti-semitic he didn't present any evidence at all the only thing he said was that they had promoted the the Israel aparto week which is a well-known event which takes place on campuses around the world the national chairman of Labor students at that time was Michael Reuben there were allegations on since have Labor Club so I I did the investigation I was chair of Labor students but like are some people ask some questions about it because that was kind of the first instant of anism and there was lots of media leaks and talks about how anti-Semitism was being covered up British newspapers repeatedly ran stories of anti-Semitism in the labor party one of the next targets was Malia butia the newly elected leader of Britain's National Union of students Birmingham desist Outpost because it has a large Jewish Society is in like n and student politics UK like anti-israel retoric is pretty bad you know like Zionism is an aw thing if you were to call yourself a Zionist we get ripped apart you know they sa antiracist they say they don't discriminate people anti-zionism go so far I would say it becomes anti-Semitism with each year of Israel's expanding occupation support for BDS has spread on college campuses around the world in Britain the Israeli Palestinian conflict defined the 2016 election for the N US Presidency but Israel where it exists now is that problematic to you Israel as it behaves uh is problematic to me you would feel it would be okay for you to say about yourself that you were anti-zionist yes I would she bad but you know Robbie Young have you heard of Robie young Mal's and US president president and Robbie is one of the vice presidents he's a labor student and he's really good in this he's been out on a trip so senior senior first he's really so there are some people in N which you quite balanc good another vice president Richard Brooks took the unusual step of publicly claiming that bu's criticisms of Israel amount to anti-Semitism we' never elected leader Us's internal structures usually allow vice president to go public crize presidental you do when you look at what tamalia buti has been saying she says it's her criticisms are a political one she talks about Zionism not about people who are Jewish yeah I think the really important thing here and something that student movement needs to face up to is that it is for Jewish students to Define what anti-Semitism is and in the run up to National Conference nearly 50 Union of Jewish student presidents of societies made it clear that they had concerns about some of the rhetoric Brooks never mentioned that weeks before that interview he'd been taken to Israel as part of a delegation from the union of Jewish students I got taken on a trip to Israel withs about months ago from there on confid to start serious a I was a conference she got eled yeah we were campaigning for a person running against itly want to win him work during the run up to the election Richard Brooks had held private meetings with Russell Langer the campaign director of the Union of Jewish students also attending the meetings was Michael Reuben when he was chair of last year I with so was me him and Russ froms would have our little secret bre means where we plan how to get moderate people good politics made a number of things elected to certain places what me quite CL last after being introduced by the Israeli Embassy as a young lfi volunteer our undercover reporter explores the possibility of outing the pro Palestinian and US president with the help of Richard Brooks so how can we get in touch with the people who are trying to oppose her speak me I'm helping organized yeah so okay cool so just drop you want have a conversation or if you want to speak to someone a certain geographical area I'll point you lot of people our investigation also revealed that the union of Jewish students who sent critics of Mal butia on trips to Israel has received money from the Israeli Embassy in 2016 shapir launched an unsuccessful bid for the presidency of the Union of Jewish students he also received donations from Israel to set up a new campus-based Think Tank he established the pinsker center with former University College student Elliot Miller the guy behind me into room with they also confirmed for the first time that the powerful American pro-israel Lobby APAC is channeling money to British campuses through the pinsker center Eliot Miller remains vocal in The Cauldron of London student politics Spectrum onus another narrative in episode two further evidence of Israel's involvement in Britain's labor party we pretty CL together well I love his kind of and the money Israel gives labor and peace to help improve its image it's more than 1 million a lot of money me e you e e all first e e e e than e e e e e e e e e e e spe e e e e for for e this to hello I hope you'll take your your seats our second keynote address is about ready to go so have it will you take your seats please I'm going to go ahead and start introducing I'm Dinda Hanley the Washington report on Middle East Affairs news editor and executive director of the American educational trust Dr Hanan asrawi has broken through the glass ceiling that can prevent women around the world from reaching the top she was the first woman to be elected a member of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 2009 she served as the official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace process from 1991 to 1993 and participated in the 1991 1992 Madrid peace conference in 1993 Dr asrawi founded the Palestinian independent commission for Citizens rights pic CCR to investigate Israeli and Palestinian human rights violations recording her experiences in this side of piece a personal account which she would just signed at lunchtime in 1996 ashrawi was elected and subsequently reelected many times to the Palestinian legislative Council in 1996 she also accepted the post of minister of Higher Education and Research in 1998 asrai founded and continues to serve as miffa in miffa in the Palestinian Initiative for the promotion of global dialogue and democracy it is night it is not hyperbolic to say that Dr ashrawi has also broken through the Palestinian sound barrier the wall of Silence in America's media which excludes Palestinian voices she is the Palestinian Iron Dome whenever Israel sends war planes troops and weaponized drones to attack her people we can count on Hanan shwi to be out there trying to stop the bombs and the Israeli propaganda her only weapon her articulate reasonable voice and demand for justice and fair play she will address the Israel Lobby and the peace process welcome Hanan thank you very much thank you this is indeed heartwarming and humbling I thank you all for coming thank you Dinda for your invitation thank you grant thank you uh uh Jan for picking me up also and all the people who made this possible I'm delighted to be here with you and I'm delighted to be part of this occasion this endeavor which in many ways is extremely timely and uh it does respond to a sense of urgency really a need to intervene and to shape policy and discourse and it's wonderful to hear all these not just distinguished people but very profound and persuasive people and courageous people really uh who are speaking uh truth to power and who are standing up for justice I don't want to waste too much time because I have a lot to say so you have to you have to let me know ahead of time as you know know this is a very significant occasion because we're talking about 7050 and zero 100 years since the bord Declaration and I do hope that the Brits will not celebrate it even though Theresa May invited Netanyahu to celebrate with her this is the colonial Legacy par Excellence um 7 years since the partition plan that did partition Palestine and created the state of Israel at that time on 55% of Palestine 50 years since the occupation of 1967 and zero time for the two-state solution so I'm asked to talk about the Israel Lobby and the peace process I will focus on the peace process because you all know that the uh Israel Lobby is never absent whenever anything happens related to Palestine it is there and when it comes to the uh peace process they have all always been a shaping Force intertwining intering intervening their presence and at the same time uh maintaining their I don't want to say control but their influence every step of the way they played a major role in shaping and influencing US policy particularly the peace process and uh since it's Inception there's a sense of ownership that the peace process is owned by the Israeli Lobby in many ways because they're looking out for the interests of Israel all the time uh there were various components of the lobby as you all know they're not monolithic they all had their impact here and there but the most significant impact is for the lobby groups the special interest groups that are closest to the Israeli government in particular and that tends to be the more Hardline extremist uh groups even though there were different voices but uh the greatest impact was by the more extreme uh voices most influential of course APAC and its Washington Institute for near East policy as you know as a think Tac that has probably had the most direct say in in terms of the peace process itself uh and other uh organizations Heritage Foundation and so on so you have all these organizations that move from the extreme right to the center like J Street that that was being discussed before uh the St and they all have a different type set of requirements and different ways of intervening uh there are different spheres and players there's a diversity in the the pro Lobby there's the private sector and as you know Adelson was trying to buy a president here but he's also buying a prime minister in Israel um mosc who bought settlements who built settlements in Jerusalem uh these are individuals in the priv private sector that that have had a direct uh impact and direct intervention using their money Haim Saban and as you know uh in Brookings and down to the left Danny uh Abraham who uh has accompanied the peace process all along from a more liberal perspective uh there are institutions and think t individuals linked to them the most significant and you'll hear me talk about him often not because I like him very much but because he has been the most persistent Dennis Ross and in and out and Martin indic and others then you have uh academic and cultural individuals and Spin Doctors who have been a a primary force in shaping public perceptions including you know Crow uh Crow Hammer desit I'm sure you're hearing him now um Daniel pipes there are lots of people who are Israeli apologists and Spin Doctors then you have religious organizations and institutions self-appointed Israeli apologists and Defenders who take the Bible literally many of them and this is the extreme uh Zionist Christian organizations they are extremely dangerous in the sense that they do have a literal biblical exeresis that gives Israel license to do whatever it wants and one of them told me once you Palestinians have no right to exist because you're standing in the way of Prophecy of the Fulfillment of the prophecy so I said it doesn't sound very Christian when you Advocate genocide and then there are toxic organizations as you know and they have been very effective in distorting the Palestinian message and reality like memory You Know M MRI you should be aware of this this is the most toxic organization it is run by eal Carmon who used to be uh the adviser to the military Governor then he became the adviser to Shamir on terrorism and so on and he used to interrogate me once in a while but now he has this organization with with tremendous funds and he monitors everything and then he has access to Congress particularly but to many decision makers and he distorts uh Palestinian utterance and and anything that is published we can talk about this later you have memory you have NGO monitor that attempts to bad mouth all Palestinian noos you have the PM watch which is also waiting for any Palestinian to open his or her mouth and uh they attack and then you have Publications I'm sure you're hearing more and more about Breitbart for example Gladstone these are extreme uh right-wing white supremacist some of them are really anti-semitic but Zionist very interesting this combination now they influenced substance structure procedure and priorities and objectives in the uh peace process they influenced terms of reference and they influenced also the players the and and predominantly the US role in in the peace process uh I would like to to mention that many of the individuals who were associated uh follow the uh what I call revolving door they use the revolving door as a charge against Palestinians that when people are arrested they are released later but here revolving door in terms of their role many of them were in the state department and it seems that uh like Dennis and Martin that they do go to the state department and then they leave and go to the Washington Institute or another pro-israeli Lobby then they come back through another door there in the state department now we have uh people in the White House who are not only uh lobbyists and Advocates but who are active supporters of settlements so it's not enough to have settlers in the Israeli coalition government now you have settlers in the White House this is incredible so they don't need to Lobby they are decision makers right so that's what's happening that that frames in terms of influence the peace process with this revolving door you you'll be surprised also that uh Israel's ambass ex Ambassador Dan Shapiro for example decided to stay in Israel uh and he's joined the institute for National Security studies which is something that also Dennis joined at one point or another Dan Ros so the it's interchangeable you know either there are influencing policy or they are making policy and that's why American policy was so distorted because they played a significant role in Framing and defining the discourse and perceptions but went beyond that to manipulating the verbal public space anything related to to the peace process and they generated a narrative based on myths and providing and provided alternative facts it's not kellyan who invented alternative facts we we've been victims of alternative facts all our lives no alternative realities uh and U they certainly willfully misled public opinion with their fabric I don't want to go into details about the spin about the hasbara as they call it uh but it has been very active in shaping public perceptions and hence attitudes so a a distorted pattern emerged that was totally waited in favor of the occupation generating a cyclical pattern vious cycle that totally subverted progress and led to the current impath which has been in the making for quite a long time since the beginning and they ensured that the peace process maintained its parameters within the domain of Israeli priorities and interests so so now we are back at the beginning I wanted to read you a quotation which uh from a paper in 1991 position paper by the Washington Institute for near East Affairs and guess who wrote this Martin indic this is March 4 1991 just before the peace for started when uh President Bush and James Baker were preparing for the 1991 Madrid process and some of the things he says I mean could have been said are being said right now that's why I call it a cyclical pattern he says um Israel now has a golden opportunity to deal with an indigenous Palestinian leadership in their territories before the PLO Phoenix rises again um it's true the Prime Minister leads an unruly Coalition of right-wing and religious parties unwilling to countenance territorial compromise in the West Bank but if that is a genuine offer of peace from the Arab side outside in uh he's acceptable to delivering a territorial compromise on the Golan heits and an interim deal for Palestinian self-government which leaves open the final status of the territories this is the ongoing policy I mean all you need to do is go to the uh Washington Institute website and you will find all these policy papers now there's another one I'm not going to read all these things but this one is the transition 2017 toward a new paradigm for addressing the Israeli Palestinian conflict David makovski and Dennis Ross Washington Institute and this is another blueprint that was prepared to give to your new president Trump and you have my full sympathy on how to address because they want to confiscate the language once again and confiscate the process once again and decide how uh it's going to proceed anyway so the peace process in terms conceptually the influence was on the terms of reference they made sure it dealt only with 242 338 not uh other uh uh resolutions uh because 242 338 deal with 67 they don't deal with 48 or the roots of the conflict if you call it the conflict they also made sure that there was no reference to sovereignty or statehood for the Palestinians no reference to the roots of the conflict including the refugees and so on 1948 181 resolution 181 no international law it must not apply only what the parties agree to in this a symmetry of power where you have occupy and occupied you go and talk and you agree and will agree with whatever you de side and of course the they used the Egyptian Israeli Camp David Accords in order to Define Palestinian uh uh objectives or rights as autonomous we need autonomy functional autonomy or self-government for the people as though the Israeli control is a given and therefore you deal with self-government for Palestinians no reference to Palestine as as a country or the Palestinians as a people or Nation you've had this construct Israel and Palestinians it's never Israel and Palestine it's never Israel and the Palestinians it's Israel and Palestinians that we found by the way side know uh and again I mean look Nikki Haley at the UN voted against Salam fad vetoed the appointment of Salam fad as deputy secretary General to gues why because the appointment had the word Palestine so we are guilty for existing we are guilty because we have an identity we are guilty because we are members of Palestine the Palestinian Nation now of course you've read URI sa's article on on Madrid too or Moshe alone his new article on let's give the Palestinians autonomy or netanyahu's speeches here and there particularly in Australia when he talked about the transitional phases and functional approach we will get to that later but you have enough literature to see where they're heading with that now on substance the priority of course for the peace process was Israel's security that was the primary objective and Israel's security is defined in military terms and maintaining military control now let is talking if you want a demilitarized State minus or entity then if you want a State minus then it has to be demilitarized and Israel has to have full military control especially and control over the borders the airspace territorial Waters um and and with two pres and of course they want the Palestinian Authority to be the security subcontractor um you know why Congress Congress in its overzealousness wanted to cut off all funds to the Palestinians H there was a resolution what's her name u h I forgot her name anyway she's the one who always comes up with these interesting resolutions about the Palestinian culpability a priority uh K Granger she's any of you from Florida you're really blessed with two k Granger and what's her name Russ letin yeah yeah yeah the hyphenated name it's it's that it's obsessive with them anyway but they've decided that they should cut off all funds from the Palestinian then APAC went to them and said no no no you can't cut off fun to the security forces you have to keep paying the Palestinian Security Forces because they're good for Israel's security really it's APAC that wanted funding for the Palestinian security Force so they want a subcontractor and that to them is the primary function of any Palestinian security Force but also funly enough this doesn't have to do with security but I always like to say this that the uh uh Congress and its overzealousness to protect Israel who was it I think Jim was talking about how or or Nick about how they are overzealous sometimes they want to outdo APAC Congress members yeah and their overzealousness to serve Israel and protect Israel they took resolutions that gave us enormous power they took resolutions that uh any organization which accepts Palestinian membership will be defunded by the US and they will not pay their fees they took resolutions that uh uh any uh um convention or agreement that we acceed to and so on will not be supported by the US so what's happening we told them fine we are going to join all of them this means the US will be isolated because it will have to leave all of them so can you imagine what happens when we join wpo intellectual property what will happen to all the patents and intellectual property of the US or when we decide to join the atomic energy commission but they say if you join these things and if you acceed to any uh um agreement or convention that you will be punished we will not fund you but thank you very much let's exceed and see what happens to the US when it has no say in any International Organization anyway that's overzealousness sometimes you go overboard where you punish yourself and not only that but we were supposed to be held this I said this before forgive me if I quote myself it became a famous quote I think that uh we are being held responsible for the safety of our occupiers that the Israeli settlers and the Israeli Army can do whatever they want to us and we are responsible for their safety no Palestinian can react not even in self-defense because automatically the terrorist label comes out and like I post it it's on your forehead your tus because a 14-year-old dared attempt to uh strike at a soldier with carrying scissors she was carrying scissors but he was on Palestinian land as an occupation Soldier where ing bulletproof vest wearing a helmet and carrying a machine gun and uh at a checkpoint on her own land but she's the terrorist he's the victim and she was the one who was shot so anyway we are responsible for the safety of our occupiers the Israeli Army can go into areas a and I hate this designation but areas a in which they're not supposed to come in and they can arrest they can blow up homes they can do whatever they want at will but but should the Palestinian Security Forces try to stop them they're in serious trouble they cannot they're not supposed to stand up to the Israeli Army and should any Palestinian react to this intense Injustice then he or she is a terrorist now in terms of the regional dimension of course it has become very clear and it has come back to haunt us the now it is called the outside in approach and it's a very sexy term now I'm sure you've read this in in all the new proposed uh approaches to peacemaking outside in let's go to the Arabs let's go to the region let's put the API the Arab peace initiative on its head let's normalize with the Arabs and then we can deal with the Palestinians this was from the beginning the Israeli Lobby approach huh two tracks Palestinian Israeli track Arab Israeli track bilateral track multilateral tracks normalize bring the Arabs to uh uh normalization with the with Israel and then the Palestinians will fall in Step not just that but you transform the Palestinian issue into a domestic issue within Israel we can control we'll deal with them therefore it becomes a question of controlling the people uh in Palestine and we are uh a domestic issue I'm sure many of you have read the herzog's 10-point plan Herzog is supposed to represent the more moderate uh what has become uh the labor party in Israel that has been uh renamed as the Zionist Camp because they have to compete with liid on liid terms you know they have to show they are more rightwing and Hardline than theud now he has a plan 10-point plan again functional approach again gradual approach put the Palestinians on probation we can I will uh talk about this later but this is uh uh natan's constant theme that the Palestinians live in population centers fragmented and localized and of course the approach now is back to the Village League's approach if you remember many of you are young enough not to remember but some of you are old enough to remember the attempts to establish Village Le local localized communities community centers and so on but it takes takes us back even further where you can find collaborators who will collaborate with the occupation and then our lives it takes us back to the bord Declaration right didn't he say they want to establish a national home for the Jews but at the same time St uh um keeping in mind what the interest or the well the well-being without prejudicing the non-jewish communities in Palestine we are being now addressed as the non-jewish communities in Palestine excuse me I mean the majority and the basis were Palestinian Christian Muslim and Jewish and some atheists but they couldn't be officially atheists any that's a majority we're not the exception as being non Jew je is H now it's the minority that has become the defining Factor now we are the non-jewish community so we are back to 100 years ago um of course there were attempts at bringing together some Arab countries like the akaba meeting in order to come up with an agreement with Israel this time it was Netanyahu who scuttled it and the whole approach of course the substance is not ending the occup occup ation but carrying out administrative functions economic ease the quality of life argument which is now part of the green blood uh uh platform and I remember when they offered us in the early 1980s to run our lives they said you can have all the powers and responsibilities of the Civil Administration we said no thank you we don't want to work for the occupation we want the occupation to leave then we can run our lives excuse me so now this has become uh another uh Focus we are going back to the beginning and even prep peace process for maintain the Strategic alliance between us and Israel this was a a constant Focus uh of the peace process uh and it was brought to bear on everything that was done in that context it do enhan the power asymmetry and the imbalance until now the features of this Alliance was accommodate Israeli priorities and demands adopt their own diction and and perspective I was going to say fiction yes most of it is fiction and perspectives always frame the relationship in terms of the judeo Christian Traditions huh remember and shared values so I keep asking my American friends what shared values huh the values of occupation of enslavement of a people of impunity of oppressing a whole nation of carrying out extra judicial executions of demolishing homes of stealing other people's lands and so on are these the values you want to share with Israel is this the the judeo-christian tradition I don't know I mean really and to me it's very strange because automatically the moment you you find this Fusion judeo Chris you are excluding Islamic bu Buddhist any other tradition that does not belong to this club and to me uh Islam is one of the most tolerant religions because it doesn't deny the existence of the others it builds on Judaism and Christianity while Judaism and Christianity supposedly cancel each other out don't they anyway and of course the other myth is that Israel is the only democracy in the region you hear that all the time this is part of this Alliance even Teresa may talked about this huh when she criticized John Kerry for uh not vetoing the 2334 resolution on settlements how dare you criticize the only democracy in the region and our best friend our Ally um and the Palestinians of course are the alien the other the fearful the incomprehensible and even the orientalist glasses to quote Edward S the late Edward S have come out again and of course that is an automatic linkage between terrorism and Islam and now it's becoming much more evident see never surprise Israel with any American statement position or document related to the peace process this I know from experience and they will admit it the the American team they always coordinated with the Israelis first on any American position and they always cleared it up ahead of time with the Israelis and if you have the green blood Freedman plan also you should read it it was it is called the policy paper for uh Trump he was candidate Trump then it became Trump's policy paper on Israel you will see how toxic it has become and it was read by him uh as an APAC speech again never allow or express any public censure or criticism of Israel that's why they became so they reacted in such a historical manner sorry ah thank you they waxed realistic just for the mere fact that the US abstained on settlements when a few years earlier they had vetoed a resolution on settlements which violate international law and so on therefore they're not used to accepting any kind of criticism or censure let alone sanctions always always used the positive approach with Israel incentives rewards Advanced payments inducements and so on when we started the talks they immediately got the uh Zionism is racism resolution repeal uh nullified you know that and then they got uh diplomatic recognition trade agreements and so on another thing of course in incentivized ing Israel including Europe and I can give you many examples how Europe used this approach too conversely you use pressure threats and blackmail on the Palestinians exploit the weakness of Palestine and augmenting Israeli power and control of course this was the special contribution of a APAC zoa and others the Council of presidents and drafting Congressional resolutions that always adopted pun ative measures against the Palestinians especially if we joined organizations like the ICC and icj how dare you hold Israel accountable Israel is above the law hence the Palestinians are always on probation on good behavior we have to prove that we deserve our rights we have to prove that we deserve human recognition the test we have to demonstrate uh that we are worthy the test of Merit I'm sure you've read D which's horrible article posted on the Gatestone Institute website in which he says Palestinians must earn the two-state solution and of course he proceeded to give a fake version of History I have news for him the Palestinians don't think that the two State solution is a fair or just solution it was a major painful compromise by the [Applause] Palestinians so it's not our aspiration to give away 78% of our land it is a compromise that we made in order to give our children a future and a life in Freedom and dignity and to exercise our right to self-determination and now Israel and probably the world uh are not very keen on seeing it happen we I'll get to that later now always blame the Palestinians in the blame game I can give you many examples from the Clinton parameters even when there was discussion in Camp David in 2000 I was there we were told you will not be blamed give it your best shot and I remember yat told them we are not ready the talks have not progressed enough to have a summit in Camp David clay swisser is here I don't know if you remember right he said we are not ready and both melin Albright and Bill Clinton said give it your best shot we won't blame you what happened later the whole myth of the generous offer huh we were blamed when there was no offer I said show me show me a concrete offer on the table there were all these different uh groups discussing different issues and a fragmented way but there was no generous offer that the Palestinians and the Smith gained a life of its own actually now every time you hear an Israel apologist he or she will say you see the Palestinians refuse the generous offer uh and we have to earn it anyway always blame the Palestinians we said that again the road map remember the road map 2002 2003 Sharon placed 14 reservations on the road road map that totally nullified it negated it they came out and said the Israelis accepted the road map the Palestinians didn't the Palestinians accepted the road map knowing that it's not perfect or ideal but we knew that n that Shon was rejecting it so the issue was that Shon accepted it and no even footnote about the 14 reservations but the Palestinians didn't I don't know where they get their version of History again John Ker's initiative on 2014 you remember when he tried this initiative he tried to do more of the same thinking that he will get a different result or thinking that he might get one anyway he promised he said that any party that scuttles or undermines or rejects or whatever the the peace talks will be publicly blamed so what happened the Palestinians dutifully went to these negotiations knowing full well that we took a decision not to go Frankly Speaking because there were no terms of reference there were no clear objectives there was nothing to pre to tell Israel to stop settlement activities to uh respect signed agreements to release prisoners and so on and John ker said try your best and he was given a verbal promise an oral Promise by the Israelis that they will minimize settlements that they will release prisoners so what did they do immediately they escalated settlements they escalated violence they shot a few people on the on checkpoints and then they refused to release the last installment of prisoners so where is the blame both sides they're not ready what the Palestinian leadership lost its constituency for going to these negotiations when they weren't assured of of the substance and outcome and there is Israelis deliberately violated their commitments and obligations and they weren't blamed there were some leagues here and there that the settlements were bad now we have also ah in that context I have to mention this it's a very racist statements that makes statement that makes me very angry AB Ian said this the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity it has been used to bash the Palestinians and to feed these conceptions and distortions forever so every time you hear this I think you have to reverse this it's the Israelis that missed historic opportunities to make peace and totally destroyed the chances of Peace we're not on the defensive we don't have to prove that we make use of opportunity because we never had one and of course the other terms you know like the light motivs of our reality have been shaped by the uh um Israeli Lobby like Hamas Rockets raining down on Israeli towns and Villages have you heard this and it's repeated it verbatim by everybody in Congress and outside Congress nobody asks how many did they kill and nobody asked how many isra uh Palestinians were killed by the Israeli Army and nobody asked about the siege and the assault and so on it's as if people in Gaza decided to wake up one day and and manufacture these homemade pipes and throw them out out of the blue because they're terrorists by definition and again Palestinian uh terrorism incitement and violence now you cannot mention Israeli settlements without finding a false equivalence with incitement Palestinians inight uh Palestinians inight to violence Palestinians think that their prisoners are heroes and they are terrorists so you adopt the language of the Israelis that everybody who's a Palestinian is a terrorist but since 1967 Israel has imprisoned more than 800,000 Palestinians including myself and many others of my friends and so I don't think there are 800,000 terrorists people who did not acques to the occupation or accept to have the the spirit broken these are not terrorists Israel has killed more than 75,000 Palestinians since 67 who are the terrorists now again there are new preconditions the refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish State that's our fault either we become zionists or we are not fit for human company um again any criticism of Israel is conflated with anti-Semitism you've heard this before so this is one way of censoring and silencing criticism and the Palestinians are not a peace partner we don't have a peace partner among the Palestinians I can't tell you how many types of negotiations there were and needless negotiations from direct to indirect to proximity talks to bilateral to multilateral to long-distance talks to um what was it exploratory talks and at the end we even had epistolary talks Exchange of letters and we've been talked out Frankly Speaking but was a good peace process because Israel used it as a cover to create facts on the ground to negate the very substance and to destroy the objective of the talks so here we are now while the process is ongoing never allow any issue critical of Israel to be brought before the UN this is something ongoing again um massive lobbying I don't want to give you too many examples but we don't have time I know I've R over my time should I stop we got a million questions uhhuh okay so use the veto and at the same time protect Israel's impunity enable Israel but maintain Palestinian vulnerability we shouldn't have access to International organizations or international law to protect our rights and our lands but Israel has a full right to act outside the law uh no sanctions or punitive measures from any party on anywhere no accountability and so on and this generated a culture of entitlement exceptionalism preferential treatment and privilege in Israel which in itself justifies the subjugation discrimination violence and total captivity of the Palestinian people and especially the continued military assaults on Gaza because Gaza lives have been Palestinian lives in Gaza have been reduced to abstractions there are numbers uh they're not human beings um the murder of civilians doesn't count it's the fact that there were 70 soldiers were killed that's very important but they were being attacked bombed from the air 92 families totally obliterated from the population register it doesn't matter and yet you blame the victim because Hamas was using these people as human Shields and therefore they have the right to kill them and of course the occupier is claiming selfdefense they are defending themselves against their own victims I've never heard this logic before in world history then the structure and participants the Palestinian Jordanian delegation as you know now it's back again the whole issue of the Jordanian option the alternative Homeland the um confid Federation that is it's a Jordanian issue when they said no Palestinians from the PLO and no Palestinians from Jerusalem that's precisely because they didn't want a national address for the Palestinian Palestinians a localized address uh Village leagues communities and so on but not the right to self-determination and not Jerusalem um again there was a division of labor I will skip a few things but that the US the US is in charge of the Poli itical process uh but Europe and the Arabs are in charge of signing checks so the the decisions political decisions are up to the US it's a monopoly and the others have to work on nation building because you see we have to prove that we deserve a state even though it is a right enshrined in international law the right to self-determination and uh again proof of Merit even then for the US to participate directly in the talks it had to get Israel's permission they couldn't participate unless Israel invited them to participate or asked them to participate with their approval so Israel positioned itself as a gatekeeper to the peace process and the Europeans followed step they always had to give them inducements and advanced payments and rewards and so on to allow them to play role if you are the occupying power and you are the gatekeeper what kind of peace process is this where you exclude others procedurally the phased approach Conflict Management open-ended process you can look at all these documents I gave you uh and of course the deal we had to deal with administrative technical peripheral issues first postpone the real issues and get no guarantees on that no mechanisms for arbitration monitoring and verification although all negotiations should have those even though I still believe negotiations between occupied and occupied are illegal they violate the Fourth Geneva Convention by the way and it has to be done between equal parties but when you have a situation of occupation where one party ex exercises total control over the others any agreement will be illegal because it will be uh reached under Jess and with undue influence and force and then the whole issue of pocket and proceed this is happening with things like the the uh land swaps there was never any agreement on the land swap but somehow they decided that yes land swaps because they want to keep the settlement blocks no matter what all settlements are illegal whether they are blocks or whether they are outposts or whether they are uh mobile homes or whatever they are all illegal Al so we never agreed to having settlement blocks as being legal or remaining now they talk about it as a foregone conclusion or that there will be land swaps it was very difficult to accept the 67 boundaries now we have to give away Jerusalem the Jerusalem environment Ariel gion all these so they pocket and and proceed including the issue of refugees by the way and the process is a process for its own sake Now using prolongation and stalling it is the Denis Ros logic I call it where so long as there's a process God's in his Heaven as well with the world let the two parties speak and then Israel can do whatever it wants on the ground which is an endless process and it became an abstraction it became a tool for Israeli uh Power and and expansionism and so on and a cover for the occupation so negotiations became an objective not a tool to get somewhere now we are back at the beginning as I said I want to go through the at one point there was one point in which there was talk of 67 boundaries two states it started with George W bush and Clinton talking about two State 60s it wasn't by the way Obama who was bashed by Israel for mentioning 67 uh it was Clinton and George Bush it was George Bush actually who talked about 67 and the two states will'll be surprised uh and then now the cycle is completed we're going back to all the issues of the functional approach non Sovereign approach gradual approach uh and so on with the green blood I just want to mention quickly uh there are two things I cannot skip the fact that we are not a demographic problem for Israel please do not accept this we are a nation with our rights with our history with our culture and we abide by international law and I don't believe any other country in the world is allowed to discriminate against the people people because it wants to maintain the ethnic or religious purity of its own entity at all so we cannot be a demographic problem to scare the Israelis into giving us our little statelet or State minus as they say now they are busy superimposing greater Israel on historical Palestine okay what are the options if they destroyed and they are destroying the two State solution is it the ongoing state of apartheid that exists and of course they again they wax hysterical when people describe them as being aparte not what happened to remal because now the UN is the language of Israel at the behest of Netanyahu and uh Danny Danon and all these people who formulate that language you cannot use if this situation will continue then it will run its course as an ongoing Perpetual occupation conflict extremism or are we going to have a qualitative shift maybe we need to deionize Israel rather than zize the Palestinians I have to stop okay I will talk later about what green blood did but I don't I wouldn't hold my breath thank you very much it's a pleasure seeing you thank you out I answer [Applause] [Music] [Music] them we had such wonderful [Music] questions we had such wonderful questions I think we're going to send them all to her and uh because I want to hear the answers too um well I'm Dinda Hanley again and um I now have the honor of introducing Tom Hayes the independent filmmaker for from Columbus Ohio whose film two blue lines would screen this morning Tom Hayes visited the Washington report office in the 1990s he told my Father Richard Curtis about the film Refugee Road he'd made in the 1970s which focused on a chir family living in a refugee camp on the Thai Cambodian border that film inspired Americans to give those refugees a hand Hayes planned to do the same kind of film focusing on Palestinian refugees in Lebanon he was certain that selfless Americans would help Palestinians once they saw the film he was to call native Sons my dad warned him there was a huge difference between the two when it came to getting films about the Middle East funded and shown in the US in superb articles published by AMU in the link available at their Booth Hayes work wrote that he set out to test the hypothesis that there was some kind of too tight tourniquet on information about the Palestinian experience after filming people in the land his film about the inada Hayes noted that many of the Palestinians he had filmed or worked with were arrested beaten and four of them were shot he'd kicked a hornet's nest both in the occupied territories and back home in the States but harassment didn't intimidate him it motivated him and made him realize this is as much an American issue as it is a Palestinian issue his latest film two blue lines filmed over the past 25 years focuses on Israeli and Jewish voices who tell the truth and speak with human empathy and passion and we're selling it at our bookstore um my dad wrote in the Washington report reading his account in the link will make you Furious sad and immensely proud to be a member of the same species as Tom Hayes seeing his latest film will make you applaud the people who helped him break through the information blockade after screening selections from two blue lines Tom Hayes will discuss the challenges and changes in 25 years working on Israel Palestine issues watch [Music] that [Music] hello where you come from United States so dark this is all done on purpose nothing of the occupation happens by chance no it happens on purpose it happens in order to make the Palestinians life a hell we have dehumanized the enemy as we have been dehumanized only short time ago we call them a two-legged animal we are reenacting without being able to control it we are reenacting what happened to us as if we've never learned anything there are Jewish only Road there are Jewish only communities if uh somebody in uh let's say Hein mm had to come up here and buy one of these beautiful houses could absolutely do so absolutely there's no law on the books preventing a non-jew uh from buying a home here well uh no uh um settlements are defined as closed military zones and now it's a funny kind of a closed military zone because you never know it you would walk into a settlement freely without knowing that you're in a closed military zone as would I a citizen of Israel uh it's a closed military zone that applies to a Palestinian so uh not only can a Palestinian not buy or rent a house in a settlement he can't physically enter a settlement without a special permit there are certain areas defined as danger zones no go zones for Palestinians the orders given to soldiers any Palestinian ENT entering those areas can be shot at in some cases the ORD is any Palestinian has to be shot at if they enter those danger zones the areas around settlements and the areas around military bases and we have many cases of Palestinians injured and in some cases killed simply for approaching those danger zones you know there are Palestinian houses on the top of this tunnel and they are not allowed to drive their cars even to walk in the tunnel under their house houses it's only for Israelis you're not allowed to build settlements you're not allowed to build highways that link those settlements into your country you're not allowed to use the resources of an occupied power Israel takes a third of its water from the occupied territories which is illegal Looting of the resources of an occupied territory this segregation comes to you know comes most manifest in the summer time when the Jewish settlers have all this water uh and the Palestinians and he turn he open the foret no water no water one group going thirsty or another group a few yards away is living it up with swimming pools it's incredible hi uh my name is Shar I'm from Gaza the Gaza Strip a space only 22 m long and 5 m wide I'm Palestinian from Gaza which is um considered as a big shill [Music] that's about the fourth explosion all over the city dogs are barking this is around you always around you last night large numbers of people killed but now I hear the ambulance is [Applause] running can you imagine this feeling that I feel always when we are we are bombed patchy helicopter hoovering up there that's happening just at bedtime here 9:00 at night just when the kids go to bed this feeling exactly this feeling that you are in your room in your bed you're praying here we are again the Chopper's very close this time comes another bomb it's going to explode [Music] you're praying cuz you feel that your room only your room will been bombed from the whole [Applause] building here comes another one fired from a much lower angle right off to my left they're coming right down across the uh town it's 3:00 a.m. and killing is going on imagine States paying for all this it isas a we leading from Humanity through Nation ity to bestality I think the American Jewish Community is played a very dishonorable role in this whole thing you know Israel claims to speak for them and they accept that that Israel is our country in one way or another it's a Jewish country it speaks for the Jews it represents the Jews and so that makes them complicit in all these human rights violations there's an enormous American responsibility for this situation here so I don't think Americans can sit back and uh as if they were simply observing the situation from afar with a kind of lordly distance as if they had no uh part in it it's because of that American veto in the security Council that Israel is able to go on acting in the way it has which I think will lead to its own uh uh destruction if it's allowed to go on like this Mr Speaker the prime minister of Israel this occupation is not conceived as an Israeli occupation it's perceived as an American Israeli occupation and it's clear that Israel couldn't maintain this occupation for a month without the political and Military and financial support that the United States offers God will give strength to his people God will bless his people with peace thank you very [Music] [Music] much [Music] this film needs to be in every library in America and to be shown in every church and synagogue please get this film Tom Hayes thank you thank you for your thank you it's really an honor to be here it's been was such a delightful Breeze to actually hear a Palestinian voice in North America even for a few moments um I'm grateful to the Washington report and map and of course all of you for the opportunity to speak to you today um I'm neither Palestinian nor Jewish I have no DNA dog in the fight I have no ethn religious dog in a fight my route to Palestine was a roundabout via The Killing Fields of Cambodia but while I was working on uh Refugee Road I became sensitized to the refugee experience it became real to me and one morning after I finished that project kind of by a fluke of information I connected a report on what American newspapers called um an Israeli air strike on a gorilla stronghold in southern Lebanon with Rashad A Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon and making that connection uh was like being struck by lightning having some idea of what that means in in a refugee camp I'm American I'm trained just like everybody else so Israel good uh but I'm also keenly aware keenly aware that dropping large bombs into a refugee camp anywhere in the world is a crave an act of mass murder so I was rocked I me I was rocked with cognitive dissonance I couldn't feature Israel good doing anything so patently evil I just couldn't get my head around it and I particularly couldn't get my head around the fact that the papers were reporting it with such blinkered language that was my first whiff of the Israel Lobby so I started researching meeting people studying Arabic fundraising 18 months later I was in Rashida with a camera on my shoulder uh in those days 16 mm was really the only viable field acquisition format so the gear the film stock the lab it was all crazy expensive and those Capital requirements really served as sort of gates between filmmakers and unpopular topics um that gate is crumbling even as I speak Lebanon was a pretty rough shoot uh what with the Israel the occupation and the friskiness of the Amal militia but I got back intact set to work on the addit of native Suns Martin Sheen wound up narrating it for me and uh the film is uh available free on Vimeo I was in the midst of editing that film when I had my first real encounter with the Israel Lobby in its many lued shades The Columbus Dispatch our local rag ran a little blurb in the art section that said that the G Foundation was providing a grant of finishing funds to the community film Association that was handling my grants uh for a film by Tom Hayes about three Palestinian refugee families in Lebanon that was it no political statement No Israel criticism just a film about three Palestinian refugee families in Lebanon and my life and my family's life changed overnight it was a multifaceted EXP experience on the one hand Anonymous ADL types or jdl types uh began threatening to murder me and murder my wife talking phone calls at all hours of the day and night then our Windows started coming in started getting broken out our our home wound up looking like a police station in Northern Ireland with the heavy wire and blast tape simultaneous with the enthusiasts campaign and equally grave the um Columbus Jewish Federation apparently on the prompting of regional Benet Bri took an interest in the project and me the board of the film Association that was handling my grants began getting calls from the Federation they were told that they were using public funds for propaganda and that their personal assets like their homes would be seized because of it the upshot was I got a letter from the film Association saying that it was going to Forfeit the grants I already had on tap because I was allegedly engaging in propaganda I had borrowed heavily against my home without informing my wife on a large Grant from the Ohio Arts Council that due to this forfeiture was not going to pay out so I had to tell her it looked like we were going to be eating takeout Chinese in the gutter because of this film about three Palestinian refugee families in Lebanon the message was pretty clear if you speak about Palestinian refugees or assist in speaking about Palestinian refugees we will try to make you homeless too eventually an Arts Council administrator persuaded the film Association that it was not in their long-term interest to make me homeless but it was a White Knuckle time for us threats kept coming no visible police action 11 days before the premere Alex oday was blown in half entering his uh office for the Arab American anti discrimination committee so it's Premier night at The Drexel can I have a drink of water so it's Premier night at The Drexel Theater it's showtime and a bomb threat comes into the theater which 11 days after Alex was killed seemed like a pretty serious thing so the building was evacuated the bomb squad swept it and anyone who was willing to be searched was allowed in to see the film let's just step back for a second when I did a film about Cambodian ref refugees nobody threatened to murder me or my family um our home wasn't attacked there were no bomb threats at any screenings and I think this experience points us some truths about the Israel Lobby it's a hood comprised of many discreet threads that is pulled down tight over the eyes and ears and when necessary mouths of American people it's not as simple as pointing fingers at the Allin for defamation League or APAC this thing called Israel Palestinian conflict is much more than that it's a First Amendment issue I mean First Amendment issue is Bedrock part of our constitution my right to free expression was challenged with violence and terrorism I mean terrorized we were the spectrum of mendacious mechanisms we encapsulate in the term Israel Lobby are in fact an attack on the foundations of the United States by a foreign interest its aim is to keep our eyes closed our mouths shut and our wallets wide open critical to that aim is the prevention of Palestinian voices reaching American ears now by the time native Suns was done I was thoroughly engaged so I'd raise money go over a film come home dig out of debt raise money repeat and that's been pretty much my adult life I've been driven by the conviction that someone has to keep a record of the Monstrous abuse of the Palestinian people that record may not change the situation right now or even in my lifetime but it's going to be critical in future war crimes trials and in reparations trials along the way I've I've tried to make work that kicks open windows on the humanity of Palestinians and the and the Craven oppression that they're enduring and every time I go back it's worse which kind of impels me further and every time I leave Palestine I swear I'll never go back it it's a disgusting thing to Bear witness to Israel's abuse of humanity is a disgusting thing to witness but it doesn't take long back in the States uh for me to start feeling like I would rather be back in Palestine being in the states is like being dipped in a bath of [Applause] everything I read on this topic in the mainstream media everything I watch everything I hear on the radio which brings me to the particular irony of standing in this place right here the national Press Club as much a part of the Israel lobby as APAC I'm not suggesting some dark conspiracy of Zionist control no it's simpler than that it's more pathetically banal than that the ways that the jaws of the lobby snatch at those who won't acquas in silence to Israel's war crimes is part of my life experience career advancement issues for journalists militate against taking that beast on look at what happened to Helen Thomas it's uncomfortable cowardice is easier than courage cowardice is an essential nutrient for the Israel Lobby and this joint and those affiliated with it are nutrient Rich look at the voices we heard from the mainstream media during the last great Butchery in Gaza now we did occasionally get a glimpse of Professor ashra but there were virtually no Palestinian voices to be heard that's the national Press Club the exclusion of Palestinian voices in American Media is racist and racism is a weakness it occurred to me that this racism could be weaponized it could be weaponized against itself if Palestinians are not acceptable voices to address the situation of Palestinians what uh if the only credible voices to address the conflict are Jewish voices then what if I crafted a film in which Jewish Israelis people who actually have skin in the game told the truth the result is two blue lines the film feeds the Zionist snake its own little tail um the the the best thing that's happened with two blue lines is that it uh I was able to get it on Amazon video on demand and if it gets enough Hits on Amazon video on demand it will go on video on Prime where it will be free to a lot of people so just so you know um anybody that wants to see the film can see it though which I love because it's that's a tough thing um and you know this whole digital technology thing you know I think it's going to be key to crushing the Israel Lobby and and key ke in the liberation of Palestine and may be key in the liberation of humankind Facebook posts YouTube videos that poured out of Gaza during the last horror could not be stopped by the Israel Lobby and they affected a lot of people all over this planet the media creation environment has changed radically the means of production are now in the hands and in the phones of the people cost of media creation is plummeted means of dissemination has exploded it's easier now than ever to document and defend the Palestinian struggle accepting Gaza so if you're a filmmaker please screw your courage to the sticking place and get thee to Palestine document gather testimony share it with the world Cloud technology makes it easy to get it out you don't have to carry it through beneran you can just the the lid is off on this thing the carefully guarded lid is off one cautionary note was a time when a Palestinian who was cordial with cameras would wind up taking a beating and draw some prison time an acceptable risk level in the cause of Liberation but things have changed nowadays uh the Israel destruction forces require zero pretext to murder Palestinians so it's important to understand the depth of Jeopardy that you place Palestinian lives in when you share their faces so have a care you get to leave every generation of their family doesn't get to leave that said I think it's critically important that creative people get their butts over there artists have a role to play in The Bitter struggles for human uh rights and human dignity think stow's Uncle Tom's Cabin Twain's Huckleberry fin Payton's Cry the Beloved Country Davis's hearts and Minds I was 9 years old when my mother read me Cry the Beloved Country I was 39 when Nelson Mandela became president of South Africa that book may not have had any more than more may not have had any more impact than a grain of sand on the struggle against South African apartheid but a grain of sand on the move can start an avalanche and if enough of us grains of sand Shake our asses loose we can bury the Israel Lobby we can clear the road to Palestinian Freedom [Applause] self-determination thank you so much for this opportunity [Applause] a powerful movie and a powerful speaker and a powerful writer I hope you'll uh grab a link copy and we have a grant coming up good the next Ja Jack Shaheen is up next thank you stay in your seats we're staying all right all right our next speaker uh many of you know truly needs no introduction Jack Shaheen is an internationally acclaimed author and media critic his lectures and his lectures and writing include many many many things his books include A's for Arab archiving stereotypes in Us popular culture guilty Hollywood's verdict on Arabs after 911 he's been in this field for an incredibly long amount of time and we couldn't be happier to have him here today his book signing will be at 6 o' rescheduled from lunchtime ladies and gentlemen Jack Shaheen saving us time well colleagues guest speakers friends heartfelt thanks for your participation today it's extremely it's wonderful to be here I um my heart belongs with the russ Washington report mainly because the first speech I ever gave on stereotyping was in Beirut and the man who sat in the front row was Dinda hanley's Father Richard Curtis anyway to paraphrase Plato those who tell the stories rule Society flashback 1962 President John Fitzgerald Kennedy commencement address at Yale University quote damaging myths are doing our nation a great disservice the great enemy of Truth is very often not the LIE deliberate contrived and dishonest but the myth the myth persistent persuasive and realistic now journ you with me briefly this afternoon as I offer five suggestions as to how to contest those persistent myths about Arab Arabs and Muslims first a bit of history for nearly half a century I know I look much younger than I am but for nearly half a century I've tracked Hollywood's Arabs and Muslims almost always I found they appear as villains the Godless evil enemy other renewed and repeated over and over again these images are hardwired into our psyches as the Arab proverb reminds us by repetition even the donkey learns islamophobia has joined Arab phobia prejudices are escalating not diminishing today's villains are not just Arabs and Muslims from over there they are homegrown Americans with Arab roots and American Muslims including Muslims from countries like afgh Afghanistan Pakistan Iran before 911 dark complexioned actors portrayed Arabs from over there as villains they were listed in the credits I think this is interesting the credits always stated terrorist number one terrorist number two terrorist number three they had no identity no names but today thanks to the rise of islamophobia they are listed jihadist number one jihadist number number two jihadis number three now in my modest opinion the dramatic changes in villains took place right after 911 due primarily to one producer by the name of Howard Gordon who produced the series 24 this Fox television series aired about 10 weeks after the attacks until that time American Arabs and American Muslims were invisible on TV screens we did not exist in media land except for Danny Thomas in the 60s you know with the Danny Thomas Show and Jamie far lovable Jamie running around with dress in Mash that was it otherwise we we weren't we just were invisible and then suddenly Howard Gordon started showing Americans with Arab roots and American Muslims has homegrown grown terrorists out to destroy their country 24 was so successful that numerous copycat series copied that format from 24 shows that I hope none of you have ever seen like threat Matrix Su Thomas FBI the agency the unit and others and what's really hurtful about all of this is that Arab Americans and Muslim Americans like others at the World Trade Center and they were victims more than three dozen were killed more than three there's never been a story about the brave yeny who worked at a Marriott Hotel who lost his life saving people and yet here we are as victims of 911 and Gordon comes around and these other Image Makers and they make us the terrorists today more than ever these villains prow TV screens Arab and Muslim along with American Arabs and Muslims or terrorists they commit heinous acts like holding students hostage in a Hawaiian high school they blow up students in a coffee shop in Illinois they appear in popular series that I hope you don't watch such as Tyrant 24 Legacy Madam Secretary Hawaii 5o Chicago Justice six NCIS Los Angeles and a score of others and the shows do not project our country's mosques as they are holy places of worship rather they are projected as a Haven for terrorists God we don't project synagogues or churches this way why do we focus on mosques as Ed mura reminds us what we do not see is often as important if not more important important than what we do see the sins of omission and commission now help eliminate these stereotypes and I'm not like the genie from Aladdin Aladdin lamp but I do have five suggestions the most important is this one Americans with Arab roots and American Muslims people like Ryder director Shireen who made the movie Shireen dad made the movie America am and other films as well as those involved with the TV series Mr Robot Emmy Award winners Sammy Ishmael and Ramy Malik well they've got to get their act together and form a coalition of activists some organizations have reached out to the industry but no one is more qualified no one knows more about how best to offer correctives than young Arab and Muslim American Image Makers they are part of the profession they are on the ground in Los Angeles and in New York and this group of activists could meet regularly with Industries Image Makers early on as soon as they learn that a new T TV show or film will be produced before the show begins production because once they go into production it's too late um for example this summer there's a new movie coming out called Aladdin it's going to be a liveaction Disney movie directed by Guy Richie now not one organization except the ADC not one individual except yours truly there may be others has reached out to contact Disney and Richie about Aladdin why so we could offer construction suggestions about how best to avoid St stereotypes that appeared in that animated version of Aladdin you know I come from a land from a far far away place for the Caravan camels Ram where they cut off your ear where you know if they don't like your face it's barbaric but hey it's home it's important that we work with Richie now to help him make a film that will be successful that makes a profit and that entertains and then Americans can go to if they have Arab roots or American Muslims and not be ashamed of their Heritage or fear that their children are going to be damaged by these stereotypes I mean why not why can't these Image Makers get together and try to Lobby to make a difference for too many years Arab and American Muslims have been relegated to playing terrorists but fortunately there there are some who have spoken out my friend ma jaani an Iranian American told his agent quote no more terrorists I don't need to play these parts you feel like you are sunning out my other friend comedian my friends are all comedians you know I tried I said you know I'm available but they didn't want they didn't want anyone with gray hair anyway Amed Amed had this to say he refused to change his name he said quote I'm never going to change my name it's my birth name my given name now consider the plight of this young actor from England his name is AMU aladi he's a 12-year-old when he was 12 he was cast as the son of a terrorist in Steven Spielberg's movie Munich I am 26 now he said said recently I've already been sent 30 scripts for which I've been asked to play terrorists on screen my proposed Coalition could hopefully end such typ casting second when I first started to explore this issue back in the mid 70s I I was alone with the exception of my wife and the cell phone is currently ringing there was no one around my wife God L her Bernice stood by me but I was the only you know there was no nothing was written nobody talked about this image nobody wanted to publish anything but now thank goodness there are graduate and students faculty members who write and teach about shows that humanize and vilify Arabs and Muslims now these Scholars need to expand their research efforts how by going outside the walls of academ going to Los Angeles going to New York meeting with producers producers and writers on a onetoone basis as I did in the early my book the TV Arab we've got to make our presence known and it's a great way to get something published so that's my advice to my colleagues in academ third more presence is needed in the media just as more presence is needed in politics right we need more than Keith Allison in Washington anyway presence prop where's oh it's a good quote wait a minute yes presence propagates power and the more power you have remarked producer Gilbert Gates the louder your voice is heard now thanks to producers and directors like step gagan Charles Roven and George Clooney I was fortunate to have my voice heard in a very very positive way on two feature films three kings and Serana the men and women that I worked with on those two features were absolutely terrific they I would say embrac 90% of the suggestions that I offered to eliminate stereotypes but my main goal was to help them make a better movie without offending anyone so they deserve a tremendous amount of credit but again my presence on the set made a tremendous difference and I say that because when I initially read the screenplays I thought they were the worst I can't use the words I can't use for anyway they were bad all right four years ago there are some some signs of encouragement four years ago members from New York University came to our home on Hilton Head Island and took away 5,000 Arab artifacts more than 2,000 films and TV shows now at NYU there is the Shaheen archive which houses this collection which is available it's available to Scholars and students and filmmakers worldwide and what's interesting about about this collection is they put together an exhibit called A is for Arab which is also the title of my new book which I will be signing at five or six o'clock six o'clock uh this A is for Arab exhibit goes all around the country to universities and it's available I think that just to cover the cost of postage my wife bless her heart it was her idea to create the Shaheen scholarships and each and every year we award scholarships to young Arab American students majoring in media to dat we've awarded over 70 media scholarships to encourage these young people to to become involved I you know young Arab American Muslim I was doing research I had to do research for this because this was something fresh and I told Dinda I wouldn't use any of my old notes so I found out that young Arab American filmmakers and Muslim Americans comedian like mabr aked Amman Dean obidala all three of them you know not only do they do standup standup acts but they produced movies feature films Jabron did four Jimmy vestwood American hero brown and friendly you know Amed aked did a great film called Just Like Us dinala did the Muslims are coming D I mean they're out there and I discovered there were at least 10 Arab American and Canadian women who actively make feature films and there are at least two dozen women from the Arab world from 10 different countries making feature films and documentaries women like Saudi filmmaker haa El manour who directed the 2012 AD Academy Award nominated drama wajda now we still have a long way to go but these young women along with their men male counterparts are leading the way replacing damaging portraits with inventive realistic images fourth I see the caution light is on Fourth I'll go quick um those that do Arab film festivals throughout the country are great they just do a marvelous job my only recommendation is that they bring in producers and writers if they can if their budgets zow honor them respect them and showcase them during their Festival and then finally the fifth and final suggestion major organizations such as the ADC which I've been a charter member since well I won't say when but I've been a major unit for a long time anyway they should become active and acknowledge more often Image Makers whose films enhance tolerance and Image Makers who that vilify Arabs and they should do this on a regular basis they should let the trade papers know so it gets ink used so social media such as Twitter and Facebook they we need to let them know that we know what they're doing and acknowledge those that are doing things to shatter myths stereotypes don't exist in a vacuum they injure people especially children and damaging myths also injure those who may look Arab blacks siks Native Americans Hispanics and others they give ammunition to recruiters for extremist groups like the Islamic State Isis they use these stereotypes to recruit members in their propaganda films history teaches us the more people in their faith are vilified the more they are them and not us there have been scores of TV series over the years focusing on Physicians and lawyers and broadcasters and journalists yet to my knowledge not one of these series ever featured an arab-american protagonist in medicine we have never seen the equivalent of a pioneering heart surgeon Dr Michael debaki or Dr George hatam George hatam there's a statue of him in China because of the wonderful work that he did there we have never seen the equivalent in law of a woman like zida Ben yusf the Chief Justice on the Florida Supreme Court or someone like our friend Ralph nater and in journalism we've never seen the equivalent of Arab Americans like le la fod national public radio's bureau chief in Cairo and the Shaheen scholarship recipient or Michael Salah the Miami Heralds pullit Sur priz winning journalist from the beginning I have always proposed that image makers project Arab and Muslim characters as threedimensional Humane individuals no better no worse than they produce than they project other people so why don't they include in future scenarios a doctor like Dr Victor Nar At Your Service a lawyer like Michael rafiti and a reporter like George hishi why not are we not part of America's landscape have we not made great contributions in these fields and others then we should be part of the visual Landscapes on television and in the cinema in conclusion perceptions impact public opinion and public policies I'll repeat it they impact opinion and public policies and given the rise of Isis and recent terrorist attacks here and abroad shattering stereotypes is more difficult today than ever before politicians and members of some special interest groups actively campaign to vilify all things Arabs and Muslims resulting in what more hate crimes more harassment more fear more deaths not Not Innocent Arab and Muslim Americans college students in North Carolina a Christian Lebanese and Tulsa an Imam and queens as well as the deaths of anyone who is perceived to be Arab or Muslim an Indian in Kansas a seik in Washington unfortunately there are those who do not see or care about the difference between siks and Sheiks media images can continue to teach us whom we should love and we whom we should hate yet in spite of the current barrage of hate rhetoric and racist policies and damaging images I remain an optimist I have faith in young scholars and Image Makers because I always believe the future belongs to them and to the men and women in the industry who are humanists in a recent interview or let me just give you two examples of two shows that I just saw one is a CBS sitcom called Superior Donuts um in this one episode there's a dry cleaning shop owned by F an Iraqi American someone sprays on F's window Arabs go home and when Arthur who runs Superior Donuts The Donut Shop sees that Arthur is Jewish by the way he takes a rag and he he removes that from F's window then he takes a can of spray paint and sprays on his window of the donut shop Arabs welcome Arabs welcome that's a tunning moment in in I think in in TV sitcoms there are other shows but in the interest of time I'll skip them and then finally there's Mandy Patinkin who stars in the series Homeland um he admitted for the first five seasons Muslims were the bad guys admitting that because it's an on the edge of your seat political drama the series was not helping the American Muslim Community and we take responsibility for it we are part of the problem he said but we also desperately want to be part of the Cure and then Richard Gear speaking out against the way Palestinians were being treated in the occupied territories to rebuke these pedlers of prejudice you like that pedlers of prejudice I think I stole it from someone I don't remember who but I like it to rebuke these pedlers of prejudice I think we should keep in mind two things first the wisdom of vaslav havl former president of the Czech Republic who reminds us that none of us as an individual can save the world as a whole but each of us must behave as though it was in his or her power to do so and finally yesterday I went to the African-American Museum whose moving displays reflect the damage that hateful stereotypes did for centuries upon the African-American people of our country and I thought when I was there of one quote from Dr Martin Luther King Jr King was in a jail in Birmingham Alabama and he said something like I think the people of ill will have used their time more effectively than have the people of good will he says to change all of this we should become movers and shakers so ladies and gentlemen Hanan Tom Jim Dinda John Mary Bill Abdul whomever whoever is in here please join me in becoming a mover and Shaker thank you very [Applause] much thank you very much Jack and now we're going to transition one more time please stay seated for our next speaker waja Ali like to invite wasat to come up W Ali is a journalist writer lawyer and an award-winning playright but of major interest to us is a fascinating report that he wrote along with his team uh while they were at the center for American progress back in 2011 we've asked him to come and talk about a seminal report about the overlap uh between some Israel Lobby organizations and donors uh that promote or otherwise distribute islamophobia in America please welcome wad Ali hello hello how's everyone doing that was amazing thank you for that overwhelmingly enthusiastic Applause and I appreciate that uh people on the top I recognize you I see you the people in the top let's get up for Godfather uh Arab Uncle extraordinaire Jack Shaheen where is he Titan all the way in the back uh thank you grant for inviting me to speak on this heartwarming uplifting topic of islamophobia um a topic I've been trying to avoid and get away from for the past 5 years and I feel like alpacino and Godfather 3 every time I try to get out they pull me back in thank you uh bucket list check I wanted to do that in front of an audience and I finally was able to do that I don't I really couldn't care less what happens the next 20 minutes I was able to do that uh I am Maat I am the last moderate Muslim left on Earth us moderate Muslims any other moderate Muslims two uh we are an endangered species we are the circumcised unicorns of America and currently we are very popular because people can't stop talking about us in fact if you play a drinking game and I don't drink CU I'm a good Muslim and if you drink and you're a Muslim God's watching um if you play a drinking game and take a shot of alcohol each time the Trump Trump Administration mentions Islam or Muslims you will die of alcohol poisoning by January uh if you're like my father and uh drink mango lusy instead you'll go into a diabetic coma uh we're always in the news raise your hand if you've heard the following and honestly if you've heard the following raise your hand President Obama is a muslim okay Sharia is a threat to America radical Islam has infiltrated America the government and every single mainstream Arab or Muslim American organization okay there's no such thing as moderate Islam traditional Islam is radical Islam okay a practicing Muslim cannot be a patriotic or loyal American now if you looked around you would see that the overwhelming majority of this audience raised their hands about five years ago when I used to do this experiment only about half of the audience used to raise their hands U these on Fringe and I repeat Fringe talking points how do I turn this on this 20-minute mark this you got should I just keep going very good I can't even say my name in 20 minutes so I'll try my best but these once Fringe talking points and they were really Fringe and extremists have now become part of the mainstream discourse where nearly 90% of a 600 person audience is raising their hands because they've heard it on mainstream media and literally from the mouths of mainstream politicians including the president of the United States of America Donald J Trump question how did these once Fring memes become mainstream and why and who is Behind These toxic divisive messages it was a great phrase you just said Jack Sheen pedlers of what was it the pedlers of pedlers of prejudice so to answer these questions in 2011 I was once a young man I was the lead author and researcher of the investigative report fear Incorporated the roots of the islamophobia network in America that was published by the Washington DC Think Tank Center for American progress don't worry I won't do the entire 13 38 page report but for those of you who have not read it in 2 minutes I'll summarize everything for you what this report was was an investigative report that exposed how at that time seven major funders had given over $43 million over a period of 10 years after 911 to a small key small very interconnected I would say incestuous group of individuals and organizations responsible for mainstreaming fear bigotry and hate against Muslims and Islam in America now for purposes of this conversation what is islamophobia great question we defined it as it manifested itself in America as the following an exaggerated fear hatred and hostility towards Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias discrimination this is the key the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America's social political and Civic life you guys still with me why is it relevant because For the First time ever we really dissected and exposed the network categorized it gave it a structure named the names connected the dots traced the funding and the money Trail and showed the Genesis of several fictitious anti-muslim talking points some of them that I mentioned that you now hear are mainstream news and spewed by the president of the United States of America so what is the islamophobia industry it's five pillars number one the color that every racist loves is green starts with the money the money Trail we see several funders and we gave seven funders I'll name a few Fair Brooks Foundation rosenal Family Foundation Russell Berry Foundation Becker Foundation uh we also had donor's Capital fund we also had SCA Foundation we also had the Bradley Foundation uh that give money question where does the money go primarily to Washington DC and East Coast think tanks Daniel pipes Middle East Forum David horvit Freedom Center in California Steve Emerson's investigative project on terrorism and Frank Gaffney Center for security policy by the way APAC just gave $60,000 to Frank Gaffney Center for security policy Frank Gaffney was so extreme that CAC the annual Republican conference excuse me conservative conference the who's who crem deem found him so extreme that they banned him and yet Frank gaff's discredited poll that he ran with Kellan Conway was used by Donald Trump last year to justify what at that time was the permanent Muslim ban that has now become the temporary Muslim ban that now has become the travel B B that isn't a Muslim ban but really is a Muslim ban now money goes to the think tanks that create the memes how do the means get distributed very good question the third pillar grassroot groups in America do not underestimate the power of grassroot groups in America and also I'm sorry to say this to my Evangelical Christian friends mega churches okay act for America co-founded by Bridget Gabriel who once said Arabs and Muslims have no soul awesome I cannot sell my soul to the devil good to know uh who was by the way just in the white house yesterday and tweeted it out one degree of separation out of the White House she worked specifically with Frank Gaff all the think tanks to mainstream the anti- shua legislation people literally hand deliver the anti- shua Bill to their local Congressman in States like South Carolina and also Evangelical Christians people like Pastor John heggy who runs Christians United for Israel in fact that quote I just gave where she said Arabs and Muslims have no soul she said that in front of a kufi conference Christians United for is is so much so that New York Times Reporter emailed me two weeks ago said man I was in Tennessee and I was just hanging around you know doing uh a research talking to people you know in the south in the Russ belt and these average Christians like just Average Joe's and Jose came up to me and said Islam is not a religion it's a totalitarian ideology and I'm like where do these people get this definition from these are just Average Joe's these definitions are literally hand delivered from the think tanks and spread through these Grassroots groups number four the media megaphone the blog isphere One news channel in particular anyone want to take a guess I know I'm sorry I'm sorry for being a stereotype but yes Fox News right-wing radio uh and books many of these people if you look at the back of their books they keep blurbing each other these people that I've just mentioned especially the think tank experts end up as National Security Experts on Fox news on Breitbart where Frank Gaffney by the way got a lot of play um on right-wing radio Sean Hannity also Mark Lavine uh who uh you guys might remember because Donald Trump cited him uh for the wiretapping that didn't happen but probably did happen but didn't happen you guys with me and then finally number five politicians literally word for word the talking points that emerg from Center for security policies 2010 report Sharia a threat to America were word forword talking points for mainstream political politicians I'm talking about nearly every single Republican presidential candidate in 2012 except M Romney because he's Mormon ran with this and every single major political politician especially from the Republican party I'm talking about Donald Trump and Ben Carson word for word their talking points on Sharia can get traced to the document that was released by the think tank so money think tanks grassroot groups media politicians congratulations you don't have to read the report now you guys still with me all right 13 minutes left in order to make this somewhat conversational and different Grant sent me five questions and said in 20 minutes answer these five questions uh which is like thesis questions and enough for an hourong keynote and I actually know wrote him an email and then I said you know Grant why don't I just respond to the questions that you gave me in front of this audience I thought that would be interesting and he said yeah just do that so in 12 minutes let me do that five questions if I get to three if I get through three it's a win number one the revenue of the organization's profile in fear Inc seemed to have flattened since 2011 with an email appeal for funds from the Middle East Forum GR growing in frequency and Desperation in tone anyway that's Grant do you think the exposure these organizations received in fear Inc had anything to do with this is fear Inc a lesson for investigative journalists first yes I think it is a lesson second I question whether or not these groups have all become flattened as a result of the Trump presidency in the one degree of separation that exists between Steve Bannon Kellan Conway Steven Miller Jeff sessions Mike pompo and most of the islamophobia industry players mentioned in fear Inc Mike pompo by the way received an award from act for America and let's not forget that Jeff sessions a Top Cop received an award from Frank Gaffney Center for security policy and publicly praised David horvitz in his confirmation hearing just throwing that out there uh I would look forward to the 2016 and 2017 returns to prove whether or not it has been flattened it will be very Illuminating fear Inc definitely did have an impact though uh I haven't mentioned the story publicly but a week before fear inc's release this was about 5 years ago we sent a heads up email to the eight funders that were mentioned in fear INC now if you were paying attention to me I said seven funders so the question should be how did it go from eight to seven very good question let me answer that uh there were originally eight funders mentioned one of the funders realized what he was funding came back and said I'm so appalled and shocked I thought they were doing National Security work I had no idea what the real ideology was please take this as my pledge to remove $1.1 million from the islamophobia industry you can Applause that I can't name this fun but this was a Jewish American fun okay number two a board member from another group that was listed called us up and said he loved hearing about this report he said man I hate David horovitz and the other people mentioned please take my name away from this and I said look we followed the money Trail it went to your organization you're on the board and then he paused and he said it's my crazy right-wing Aunt so even within some of these organizations it's important to know that there's Discord okay there's Discord also we know that the Bradley Foundation pulled out of gaffney's Center for security policy in 2012 which we think was a direct result of fear Incorporated another group Russell Berry Foundation has been blasted for its funding of Steve Emerson and I know for a fact it has cost TR tremendous dialogue and debate and Discord within this organization as well two former high ranking government officials one adviser one a senior adviser to President Obama and another Republican adviser to the Bush Administration both told me they hand delivered fear Incorporated to people in the White House specifically the Obama advisor said it was the only think tank piece he ever saw brought into the White House most Think Tank reports as you know die a lonely miserable death uh the the other lesson is the use of grassroot groups and social media communities we deliberately strategized for this to go outside the academic and Capitol Hill Beltway and that was a major reason for its success in the second question I'll answer I'll give you exactly why and how we did that finally connect the dots in plain English there's no need to use high futin academic Geeks speak that no one cares to read or understand make it smart make it digestible use infographics make it easy for people to understand final point and the reason I think it was successful is we sought alliances we sought alliances from non-traditional players we actually worked beforehand with Republicans who were very high ranking who were disgusted at the time by this extremism that had crept in and now has taken over their party getting multiple Messengers worked get multiple Messengers to carry your water often times this is my own critique we work in our own silos or are paralyzed by absolutist litmus tests that create certain Echo Chambers and Bubbles and isolated cocoons that ultimately limit our Effectiveness question number two funding from opaque donor advis funds Jewish federations and large individual donors always greatly outnumbered quote the right-wing funders identified in fear Inc while quote right-wing foundations no longer seem to be significant sources of revenue do you think the islamophobia outfits will ever lose their far more important backers so for the purposes of today's conversation there are many ideologies and footprints in the modern American islamophobia industry a large footprint sadly and I say this with sadness belongs to Jewish American groups and I've said this in front of Jewish Americans um the Israeli Lobby is not monolithic neither is American Jury in fact most American Jews would be horrified by these politics but a rather small but very influential wealthy and very committed portion nonetheless still fund and support these Endeavors why and I think these two quotes from Daniel pipes of the Middle East Forum you guys all know them shaking your head uh are very Illuminating here's a quote from 1990 National Review Western European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brownskin peoples cooking strange foods and maintaining different standards of hygiene all can't even make this up all immigrants bring exotic customs and attitudes but Muslim Customs are more Troublesome than most end quote 2001 speech to the American Jewish Congress The increased stature and affluence and enfranchisement of American Muslims will present true dangers to American Jews it's a zero sum mindset for some of these people where the rise of Muslims and I would say Arabs and those who look Muslim is somehow directly tied to the marginalization of Jewish Americans and somehow a direct direct threat to Israel even though American Jews and Israel are not always as you know completely connected all for nothing zero sum for sake of national security for sake of supporting counter Jihad for sake of Israeli security for sake of finding a quote existential threat we must marginalize limit humiliate and for some eradicate this violent horde called Muslims or Arabs or the Muslim even the moderate Muslim can not be trusted because the moderate Muslim is doing something called Takia be honest who here knows what takya is very few if you ask most Muslims I've done this I've gone to Muslim majority countries I said what's Takia most people don't raise their hand they think it's a new Taco released by Taco Bell Takia sounds delicious okay but taka was really was misdefined by Frank Gaffney in that 2010 report Sharia threat to America as religiously mandated lying specifically saying that even that peaceful moderate Muslim we like we we're not against all Muslims only the radical Muslims later on but do you know that all Muslims do Takia and they hide their true agenda and what's their true agenda a violent militant Jihad to impose a totalitarian ideology of Islam and Implement Sharia which they Mis Define in a way which is unrecognizable to any Muslim as a military political legal doctrine that seeks to supplant the Constitution and make every non-muslim submit under the sword you guys still with me some rationalized funding the islamophobia netw work as helping the Luca brazis right it's a great Godfather reference Google it the people who are willing to do the Dirty Work This is a game that's played in the sewers we don't want to do it but still it's an existential threat so we're going to empower the Luca brazi Hitman to do the dirty work for us for security and for defense example Nina Rosenwald of the of the Rosenwald family fund ARS to the Sears robu walth whose father actually used his money to help Jewish refugees she however who is an aist and ass social in New York uses the money to oppress and demonize Muslims through institutions like the Gatestone institution and funding to the islamophobia industry APAC giving $60,000 to Frank gaffney's Center for security policy after that was outed as a hate mongering Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and even marginalized by the Republicans we also saw the Israeli Ambassador accept an award just a few months ago from Frank Gaffney CER for security policy Jewish groups are still funding Pamela Geller and even the ADL which knows better r on Steve Emerson who was discredited to smear Keith Ellison just a few months ago this has also gone International and if I have one thing to say if anyone has money I've been begging people to do the sequel to fear Inc the transatlantic connections finally finally finally this month people made the financial Connections in mainstream papers New York Times between American islamophobia industry and what's been happening in Netherlands in France in Belgium you guys have been following the rise of the far right the death march of white supremacy gear Builders leader of the Freedom Party of Netherlands would just L lost in the Dutch elections yay who believes we at war with Islam wants to ban Quran wants to ban the mosque and the Dutch Court found him guilty of inciting discrimination nonetheless David horvitz mentioned in the American islamophobia industry contributed nearly $150,000 to Mr Wilder's party uh for over two years of which nearly $120,000 came in 2015 making it the largest individual contribution in the Dutch political system that year wers is quote a hero and quote a Paul R of Europe to David horvitz and Daniel pipes of the Middle East Forum has also supported gear Builder's legal fees cman Steve Israel excuse me Steve king um of Indiana said I didn't mean to say that totally didn't mean to say that Steve King uh tweeted out recently um Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny we can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies gear vilder lived in Israel for two years has visited the country 40 times in the past 25 years in 209 told an audience during a report that quote we and the West are all Israel and he has also said Israel is the West's first line of defense against what he perceives to be the threat posed by Islam the good news is most American Jews are repulsed by this but the far right is doubling down especially in the age of trump and this is happening across Europe question three in two minutes I'll do it why did APAC hit back so hard against cap why did cap scrub follow-up reports of Israel funding sources from its website what do you make of it so I'll share for the first time I can only speculate uh while writing fear Inc I can tell you there was a strange push back within cap for example I know that cap had a budget to do an allout press break breakfast something just like this but uh and by the way everyone was paid and there was money left over in the budget are you guys still with me okay but uh and and by the way it was supposed to be originally a 25-page report and when I started my research I told them a great Jaws quote we're going to need a bigger boat after all of that we still had money left over I was told by someone senior in cap the week the report was about to be released that they were going to bury the report on that Friday on an afternoon caller right before the storm was about to hit in DC I was literally told if you don't use your networks to push this out I fear it might just die so then I became a marketing Outreach guy in addition to researcher writer and I used all my grassroot connections all the NOS the think tanks the leaders in different communities I used Facebook and Twitter I gave a people a heads out it's coming I used the online community blogs and I also coordinated an oped with guardian and a few other wrting did as well it came out it triggered it went viral okay and it took a life of its own Eli Clifton co-author and I had tremendous push back with including memory in the report which we thought was a slam dunk memory if you don't know is the Middle East media and Research Institute a middle eastern press monitoring agency created by 10 seconds created by former members of the Israeli Defense Forces that supplies translations relied upon on many by many members of the islamophobia network we traced it that includes Spencer pipes gaff act for America we found it very strange that we had to prove that it needed to be included even though we found the direct quotes around that same time memory had received State Department funding nobody was fired all of us who worked on fear Inc found out that we could no longer work on islamophobia or broader medist related topics if we chose to stay there there was self-censorship APAC proxies such as former communication director Josh block had ties to senior figures at cap and we believe were able to influence then that these were third rail topics and we believe at that time they were effective in scaring caps leadership but at that same time as you remember Andrew brevik the white Christian nationalist in Norway killed 76 people left behind a 1500 page Manifesto which directly quoted nearly every single person mentioned in the islamophobia report and he shared their ideologies and slowly but surely more and more this became mainstream and then then about three to four to five to six months afterwards cap started promoting the piece and owning it I'm out of time I had two more quick questions uh but that's my time I want to respect the time if you want me to answer it I will five minutes answer it and send it question cards okay send in the question cards please send in question cards I'll finish in three minutes four will there ever again be positions at mainstream think tanks or news outlets for such work or should aspiring investigators wishing to follow in your footsteps look for other purchase purches purches why are so few people able to follow so this is what I say uh don't give up hope you really shouldn't give up hope look there's 600 people here right now right I think opportunities are now there more than ever especially with Donald Trump in the white house especially with Steve Bannon as his right-hand person especially with the fact that they were so transparent and open about their ideologies and their connections they're so overt with their extremist agenda you can now just grab and taste it like islamophobia tastes disgusting right and so much so that allies who otherwise were on the sidelines and said oh you Muslims and Arabs you always comp plane as a result of the election of Donald Trump people are saying you guys were on to something how can we help KAS pointed the people who came out in masses organically uh to dullas to JFK to SFO right when the Muslim ban happened and welcomed visitors to our shore that's something huge um I was only partially kidding about fear Inc remember I did like four and a half years ago five years ago it was like the most miserable professional experience of my time took six months of my life but fear in is now more relevant than ever for better and for worse uh Peter Bard in at the Atlantic did two huge pieces that came out last week which essentially let out the same cases of fear Incorporated right Atlantic did it Vox did it these are now mainstream talking points it's not just the Liberals not just the progressives Not Just Jack Shaheen it's not just all of us who are Muslim and the arabes uh it is mainstream international news especially with the rise of Leen in France with ukip and with geared Builders so this is something I think that people should take a lot of heat in and there's an opportunity and an opening here to really play this well strategically because it's all out there right it's not a conspiracy theory I wish it was um and also that level of Journalism and that level of investigative journalism as we are seeing is very necessary and there's been a huge spike in subscriptions and a huge spike in donations when it comes to both local state and National newspapers doing this work and uh the good news is these people are being outed and my request again for the next two three years is someone please fund the research for the transatlantic connection between us islamophobes and European islamophobes with the refugee crisis not going away with the death march of white nationalism I'm telling you hint hint wink wink there are massive connections do fear Inc two this would be very helpful final question men you're asking who is currently backing major islamophobia campaigns any updated insights I know there's a new report and new research coming I can't mention the people who are doing it but it is still mostly the same Nexus of players but now throw in the weight and the power of the White House and also the resch of radical right-wing anti-government groups uh radical anti-immigrant groups and white supremacist groups who by the way not only hate Muslims and Arabs and those who are Muslim but also African-Americans Latinos women and not surprisingly but ironically they are also very anti-semitic uh this has become intersectional hate has become intersectional which was inevitable keep an eye out for the Jewish communal fund a mainstream philanthropic fund that describes us as quote dedicated to the welfare and security of the Jewish community at home and abroad it's a Donor advised fund meaning donors to the fund deposit money and receive an immediate federal income tax deduction and the fund directs the money to eligible 501c3 non-for-profit organizations however quote the Board of Trustees of the Jewish communal fund retains the right to deny any Grant request where the purposes and activities of the recommended charitable organizations are deemed to be adverse to the interests of the Jewish Community quote but with that they have given funds to Pamela Geller David horvat's Freedom Center Middle East Forum Steve Emerson's investigative project on terrorism and Frank Gaff CSP the uja Federation of New York holds a quote controlling financial interest in jcf so if you look at their mission statement it seems by funding these groups this is somehow in the interest of the quote Jewish American community and there's reports coming out within Jewish American groups I got a uh a report that I I think was uh still I can't talk about it's embargoed but there are Jewish Americans in New York who are actually pushing these communal funds to stop and to divest from these organizations again uh it is not mainstream American Jury it's that same small wealthy interconnected group that is unfortunately doubling down in the age of trump and I would say and I've said this in front of Jewish organizations to their detriment last year I was invited to a I was like the first Muslim invited to a synagogue in Florida this particular synagogue and I warned them then I said they first come after Muslims they'll go after undocumented immigrants because it's the lowest hanging fruit they'll go after blacks they'll go after Latinos and that Bus and Train is never late they're going to go after Jews and you're seeing the rise of anti-Semitism in America and I think there are many Jewish allies now who are waking up and realizing we have to work together against this hate I would also keep an eye out on grassroot groups such as act for America do not underestimate act for America especially esally how they work with local churches in the South and in the Rus belt act for America and mega churches you need a local strategy here do not underestimate the power of local proactive Community Building because they are going to their local uh councilmen saying under zoning ordinances we can't have this mosque it's too loud not enough parking so zoning is being cited now as a pretext to shut down mosques and churches and Church community members who are not malicious people with horns on their heads you know know with Trident and Fork tongues I went on the campaign Trail and talked to many Trump supporters but they are being fed deliberately pedlers of prejudice and you have to fight back against that and appeal to people's Goodwill and last thing I'll finally say is there's a great quote of the Prophet Muhammad that even if you see the day of judgment coming plant a seed and many of us think that one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a Cheeto colored man with small fingers uh but uh plant a seed have hope you know I can't I have two kids two American Born Muslim kids ibraim and Noba and I refuse to tell them that their legacy will be you'll be a fantastic victim you'll always suffer I'll tell them that they can throw down and own the American dream and be a protagonist of the American narrative and inshallah when they make it they'll look back and lift up all the other marginalized communities who also have a stake and a right in the American dream thank you for your time thank you we're going to take a break and then we'll come back at 2:30 for Khalil jashan so please take a break visit the exhibition Hall thank you what about mli apologize for mli I can talk to you right after if you want apologize itan apologize gladly talk to me afterwards I'll have a conversation with you brought you didn't the paltin brought it I have no problem saying Palestine or palestin is but thank [Music] you was yeah I didn't mean any disrespect I don't know anything about the issue m you got some that's e e go e e want that spe I'll very spe e spe e e and I e spe e e hi J's going to get started please take your seats we're about to start again for the 3:30 I thought I'd put my thing here and then I can just put it up okay like this no I'll put mine up first that's him oh right and then I'll put his up so do you want to sit here yes and and uh speaking from the podium q and from the that's what we've been doing you prefer that yeah that's fine okay and then if I sit over here but it's easy for people to hand me sure cards with questions you're getting written questions yes and then I have a couple myself if we want to hello for anyone just joining us I'm Janet mcmah managing editor of the Washington report on Middle East Affairs when I first interviewed our next speaker in 1991 Khalil jashan was the executive director of the National Association of Arab Americans or NLEA which lobbied Congress and the executive branch on behalf of immigrants and their descendants from 21 highly diverse Arab states a Lobby he explained must keep track of every decision every piece of leg legislation and plug into the process on day one npa's research arm monitored everything in Washington Khalil said hearings votes speeches Think Tank activities Etc that's quite an undertaking I didn't ask at the time but I suspect that his organization operated on something less than apex's staff of $451 an annual budget of $89 million is that a fair very fair today Khal who was born in Nazareth Palestine is executive director of the Arab Center Washington DC a position he has held since its founding in 2014 he previously was a lecture in international studies and languages at Pepperdine University and executive director of its sver College Washington DC internship program he also has served as Executive Vice President of the AR American Arab anti-discrimination a committee or ADC vice president of the American Committee on Jerusalem and National director of The Association of arab-american University graduates khil has brought his wealth of experience and expertise to the Arab Center a non-profit independent and nonpartisan Research Center focusing on the Arab world those of us who live in the DC area have also benefited from the center's many excellent and thought-provoking programs on timely and important issues one of the issues we seem to hear about incessantly this day these days is fake news at this Gathering Hal will discuss the is Israel Lobby and fake peace processing please join me in welcoming halil [Applause] jashan thank you Janet i' would like to uh Begin by thanking the American educational trust and the Washington report on Middle East Affairs for organizing this great event for the fourth year and for inviting me this time to participate in this very specific panel uh important panel dealing with peacemaking in the Middle East I have great personal respect uh for this organization its Founders and current leaders for their principled positions an unwavering commitment over the years to real just and Lasting peace in the region actually for more than 37 years uh since I uh first came to town and and met dick Curtis and Andy Kilgore and we worked together from the very beginning so I'm indeed personally very honored uh to be with you today uh on June 5th uh 2017 in 72 days uh precisely the world marks the 50th anniversary of the 1967 occupation of Israel uh of the uh by Israel of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank uh and Gaza including uh Jerusalem the occupation initially portrayed uh by Israeli leaders at the time as a temporary measure uh has become clearly for all those who particularly visit uh the area for all practical purposes it has become permanent of course notwithstanding The Arrogant statement uh at the time uh defense uh Minister uh mhi Diane in an interview in 1967 on the last day of the war on the BBC that became Infamous uh as he displayed his intoxication with his own peric victory at the time and uh saying and I'm quoting him we are waiting for a phone call from the Arabs end of quote looking for a peace deal uh needless to say uh the phone never rang for good reasons and clear reasons Diane is no longer with us but Israel's military occupation remains as pervasive and as deeply entrenched as ever to the detriment of Arab Israeli and American interests alike realistic expectation of just peacemaking today has become an expression of utter naivity and a total disregard of facts on the ground the situation in Palestine as we speak today is quite dismal most experts uh agree that the economic and I'm sure you've heard today from different people uh on this subject most experts agree that the economic humanitarian political and security situation in occupied Palestine is quite untenable the protracted dehumanization internal colonization and dispossession of the Palestinian people cannot be sustained indefinitely this is not stemming purely in a selfish way from Palestinian analysis or interest but even some Israeli Scholars and officials have come to the same conclusion as a matter of fact I was surprised this week uh to read an article on Tuesday uh this week by former mad Chief Tamir Paro no pnck by any stretch of the imagination declaring uh on the 21st of March that and I'm quoting him Israel has chosen not to choose hoping the conflict will resolve itself perhaps the Arabs will disappear maybe some Cosmic Miracle will happen one day we will become a bational state because it will be impossible to untie the gordian knot between the two peoples this is not the way to decide Paro stated in harit Israel has one existential threat it is a ticking bomb we have chosen to stick our head in the sand creating a variety of external threats Israel he concluded must deal with the demographic reality and decide which state we want to be life and I hate uh that he borrowed from uh Trump but life with alternative facts Harbors a disaster for the Zionist Vision I'm glad he did actually because it kind of puts it in terms we're familiar with uh in this town serious predicament indeed but who's responsible for this predicament in order to be fair objectively speaking that is there is an abundant amount of blame to assign to all the parties uh to the conflict one uh Israel Israeli in transitions an insatiable appetite for land particularly other people's land land that doesn't belong uh to Israelis I think has been one of the main reasons for the impediment that we are facing today two on the Palestinian side I believe that weak leadership and lack of vision and political will to end Israeli occupation instead of contributing to it in many different ways has also contributed to the protracted nature of this predicament three the Arab world the Arab world cannot Escape some responsibility for what's happening today particularly with its current preoccupation with internal narrow interests and Collective resignation from the historic Arab commitment to the Palestine cause was for the world Community itself including the United Nations and it has given us more evidence the past few days in terms of even refusing to condone or or to to to support a an internal uh report by a UN agency with regards to discrimination and aparade in in Israel neglecting its responsibilities under international law by the United Nations and its agencies I think has also contributed to this predicament last but not least which is the subject of our discussion today is the US and US policy the United States by losing track of its own national interests despite the warning that our first president warned us of not to fall in love or to hate any other Nation where you can become a slave to that love or hatred relationship and you lose track of your interest we have done exactly so in that bilateral relationship between Washington and and Tel Aviv by losing track of its own National interest by reducing itself to a biased active party in the Arab Israeli conflict thus the United States disqualified itself from playing any constructive role in any potential political process with all due respect to people who are addicted to peacemaking Allah us uh in in the Middle East as we all know the US of course is not a newcomer uh to Middle East peacemaking uh the US has been dabbling with uh trying to find a solution a political solution to the Palestine questions since 1937 11 years before the creation of the state of Israel this is one of those unique weird conflicts where peac making started 11 years before the actual conflict started uh in the sense that the uh intern AAL Community began to anticipate uh trouble uh Brewing uh in Palestine as they began to talk about ending the Mandate and the appeal commission uh was formed and proposed its partition plan first partition plan in 1937 followed 10 years later by the other partition plan uh that was considered by the uh United Nations so Arab Israeli peacemaking as far as the United States is concerned has been an American national sport for every us Administration since 1948 uh for those of you who are not aware of the history of peacemaking in the Middle East uh the threatened uh peace plan that is supposed to be released in about 3 weeks or so I'll talk about it in a few minutes is going to be the number 76 the 76th attempt at resolving the Arab Israeli conflict since 19 uh 30 37 many of these plans were American uh plans that were proposed almost every Administration you you guys might remember alltimers remember the Johnson Administration The Carter Administration the Reagan Administration the Rogers plan name it every Administration since 1948 has had a plan named after its secretary uh of state yet where do we find all these plans this huge Cemetery of Peace processes in in the Middle East and it behooves us as as as students of history as political activists as active citizens uh as historians as political scientists to ask why why this huge Cemetery why this dismal failure over the years and uh as I said Washington has proposed more peace proposals during this period than any other stakeholder in the conflict yet in Practical terms the American contribution to affecting a peace solution to the the Arab Israeli conflict has been lackluster at best lacking in Vitality political force and moral conviction above all since its Inception APAC has been the great facilitator The Advocate the enforcer of Israeli policies and American peacemaking efforts between Israel and Palestine as part of and parcel of its of course larger agenda dealing with us uh Israeli bilateral relationship apex's platform on Middle East uh pieace is essentially very simple although the organization has been gradually for those of you who have been noticing uh downgrading its commitment to a two-state solution uh kind of quietly the past couple of years the term is has disappeared at least from the front page on the website it's still in there but you have to look for for it these days in order to reflect basically or out of Defence to change in Israeli policy uh downplaying if you will uh the two-state uh solution so apac's lobbying efforts remain focused on essentially at the risk of oversimplification I would say a four-prong approach one two states for two people it's still there it's not the number one kind of priority but it's still in the background in other words but their definition of it is slightly different than most of us in this room if not all of us a Jewish state of Israel Jewish state of Israel living in peace with a demilitarized Palestinian state two only direct talks between the parties can lead to a real and Lasting peace okay fine depends what you mean by real and Lasting peace but that's another story three the US can play an important facilitating role but it cannot dictate the terms of Peace APAC wants to have its cake and it wants to eat it too it wants the US to dominate the process as the sole legitimate Peacemaker in the Middle East but it doesn't want it to dictate I I don't know if Trump will change that you know he keeps saying if you pay the bill you have the right to dictate but we'll see I I doubt it four Arab states must take an active and constructive role by normalizing relations with Israel this is a very important and dangerous item that was added more recently on apac's agenda in an attempt to finally kind of liquidate if you will the Palestinian cause and replace Palestine as the core of the Arab Israeli conflict with basically Arab Israeli peace peace between Israel and Arab states where there is no territorial compromise is involved and there is no solution to the Palestine problem in other words let's talk just for a couple of minutes about the the failure of past us efforts why I think basically as as as an observer of this these series of processes uh fake or otherwise most of them are fake I would I could summarize probably the reasons into five main reasons one American lack of even-handedness and bias toward Israel from the very beginning for various domestic political cultural and ideological reasons Washington is not has never been and will never be a neutral Arbiter or mediator in the Arab Israeli conflict ladies and gentlemen two vague objectives with regards to ending Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories establish ing a Palestinian State confronting all the permanent status issues such as boundaries Jerusalem refugees settlements water without these core issues being at the heart of a process that's not a genuine peace process and that's why many of these processes we have seen they might have started on the right track but they quickly ended up being fake peace processes rather than realistic ones three the open-ended and protracted nature of American peace processing lacking clear and enforceable mechanisms and timelines I missed uh hanan's uh uh Speech earlier but she has made this point year after year clearly for for many many years in her book in her presentations in her interviews this absence of mechanisms enforcement mechanisms and Tims have been the enemy of peacemaking and negotiation ations in the Middle East as a negotiator four consistently allowing Israel to dictate the terms of reference governing the process and vetoing any attempt whether by the Palestinians or the International Community to change that pattern that has dogged us from day one and will continue I think unless there is a serious change uh in policy by what whatever uh party is trying to mediate the conflict in the future and fifth acquiescence to Israeli demands at every difficult juncture in the process how many times have we seen and witnessed throughout these negotiation processes where the Israelis would say no it doesn't matter who it is Rabin or Shamir or shaon or Netanyahu whenever an Israeli leader comes in and says no the US tucks its uh tail between its legs and and takes a step back and lowers the ceiling of the terms of reference and the expectation that has been also detrimental to attempts at peacemaking in the Middle East what's next with the rest of the balance of my time let me just quickly speculate about what I anticipate over the next three four years uh three or four weeks with regards not years otherwise we'll be here till next week um with regards to uh the rumored I call it the Trump Kushner green blad plan so there's a new one for you number 76 okay as all of you are aware president Trump dispatched his Envoy to the middleast peace process Jason greenblat uh to the region for about four days uh to listen learn and explore according to the White House with various sides the potential for resumed American Le process as as if after all these years okay we still need to listen to learn and to explore okay we are told that the White House Energizer money Mr greenblat who lacks any diplomatic experience by the way convinced the parties that Trump's of Trump's seriousness and solicited enough support in principle to justify the just concluded yesterday talks secretly held here in Washington between an Israeli security delegation and the uh Administration uh with regards to what is possible down the road particularly with regards uh to settlement of course Netanyahu who is in China was quick to say no change in settlement policy so make sure that nobody misunderstands what his delegation uh did here uh in town in addition of course the Arab side uh has also responded positively to the Trump Administration and you're going to see a rash of Arab leaders uh coming to town uh King Abdullah of Jordan uh after of course the Arab Summit in Aman before is of course president Abdul fatahi of Egypt and then of course Mahmud Abbas of Palestine uh to follow by mid uh month mid April the admin ministration is talking about a draft paper okay what's in this draft paper of course as you know most plans that Trump has come up with whether during the campaign or since his arrival at the White House are still secret we don't know any of his plans he doesn't announce anything but there is a draft paper people in town are talking about it let me tell you what I heard through the rumor mill uh in town as to what it involves and compare that with what I said said earlier about the detriment to peacemaking in the Middle East because it looks like that this Administration is about to repeat the same mistakes but maybe in a more intensive way than what we have done over the past 58 years okay so there is no change at all okay one Trump basically in his in his paper tells his counterparts in the Arab world and in Palestine and and and Israel he wants to assure them that he is seriously committed to Arab Israeli peace and will personally personally get involved in the process if that doesn't convince you to stay home I don't know what what what will that's the scariest part of of the plan two the paper talks about pursuing sustained security for Israel and a provisional entity there we are after all these processes we're back talking about like 15 20 years ago a provisional entity for Palestinians without even a definite article not a two-state solution Retreat because after all he's for one state two states whatever you guys want and hits hints only hints in the paper at working within FR within that framework okay I mean even Oslo did not get that low in double speak okay three the Palestinians will be promised continued financial and technical support in return for full cooperation with Israel if they end incitement and they resume their counterterrorism cooperation with the US and with Israel Palestinians will be asked of course also or do are being asked in the paper to cease all this comes from pressure from Congress actually all legal campaign against Israel in international courts and fora at this time no complaining about Israeli occupation anymore four the plan seeks a phased and transitional approach not an end of conflict Arrangement another major Retreat from previous processes that failed five the plan expresses General concern about continued Israeli settlements but falls short of calling for a freeze indeed the Israeli delegation negotiating here in town that I mentioned earlier with the Trump Administration talked about quote a construction slowdown but insisted without distinguishing inside the settlements or outside the sometimes they do that they go into these technicalities but this time even without bothering to distinguish just a construction slowdown but insisted that settlement frees particularly in jus Jerusalem I'm quoting Mr Netanyahu and his team here is off the table okay so tell me who wages whom six the Arab peace initiative that came few years back in the early 90s from Arab sources the Arab League Saudi Arabia and so on the Arab peace initiative will be given this time a central role a central prominence in this plan in order not not again to to to balance things but in order to refocus the process away from being focused solely on Palestine which is the problem at stake okay I mean we're not going to go have a peace process about Palestine and discuss Puerto Rico okay it's not relevant so remove Palestine as the core of the process and put the Arab peace initiative instead my advice to you is to watch the deliberations of the Arab Summit the 28th Arab Summit that will be held on the 29th of this month because that is going to be where the preparation is going to take place before announcing this plan so ladies and gentlemen lots of mistakes have been made the reasons are very clear to any objective student of peacemaking in the Middle East lessons have not been learned so don't blame me for not being optimistic about this next plan over the next few weeks thank you if people have questions and want to write them on the cards and pass them to the ushers then they'll bring them up here and I'll start by asking what might be a very naive question what is the origin and the general acceptance of the idea that the US has to be involved for there to be a viable peace process where did that come from arrogance uh if you allow me to be uh Frank about it uh basically the US uh in in in order to assert itself as the protector of Israel has declared itself many years ago when when these peace processes peace plan after peace plan was emerging and as Israel kept basically uh turning uh down these offers and and uh the US decided to arrogate to itself the role of the sole legitimate Peacemaker in the Middle East and has refused to even allow our closest allies Europe whenever the French popped their head shut up carry the dust the pan and the broom and clean after us that's what Europeans have been told and unfortunately they have abided by that that's my one of my criticisms of uh European uh policy it's much more Progressive policy uh on Palestine than the US policy but they're not willing to take initiative so the US uh prevented also the UN from doing so and and we are facing the same question today should there be a peace process over the next few weeks again rest assured that the US will not allow any other party uh to share in in basically directing if you will or mediating or part participating in the management of that process do you think that this idea originated with the Israel Lobby or with other with just the us as wanting to be a superpower or frankly the Israel Lobby and its influence let me tell you something uh my first lesson as a lobbyist when I arrived in town a young somewhat still uh innocent young man uh my first meeting with a Senator Senator had field I was not with any Arab American organization yet at the time and I was basically serving as an academic advisor to a group of church leaders in this country uh I participated with them in advocating for uh basically peace and Justice uh in the Middle East and they asked me to accompany them as a resource person to meeting with a series of leaders in Congress the late Senator Hatfield of or listen to us and then asked me to stay after the group decided to leave I did he looked at me he said what are you going to do I said well I'm moving to town and I'm going to work on behalf of Arab causes and particularly my cause the Palestinian cause and he looked at me like I to you know established eye contact with me and he said young man this is a very difficult task you're embarking on and he said and I will never forget these words as long as I live he said in this great distinguished institution of the United States Senate when the Israel Lobby says jump 90 plus of my colleagues say how high they never ask why so with that type of control particularly in Congress you can't tell where the idea came from whether it's volunt teed by these people who are more than willing to sell out morally and politically or from the lobby or how the the two kind of feed if you will on each other the second Point quickly the issue of the two-state solution why is it that most of the time in recent history I have a higher percentage of keset members in Israel that support the two-state solution than I do in the US con Congress of America ask yourself that question we've never exceeded 60 70 80 members of the US Congress out of 435 both houses right in Israel the number was at 70 or 80 at one point out of 120 it shifts and people mean different things of course by state two states they're not all in harmony but it's it's a good question to ask I think as a American citizens it behooves us to ask and to understand the answer to that question thank you okay let me ask you this final question then how do we move from Conflict Management to conflict resolution BDS the Arab initiative what other roots are available to us I don't think so we haven't moved yet uh it'll probably unfortunately take much longer uh to do so uh but BDS is is a very interesting concept cep that it's having uh its Effectiveness uh and its impact uh at least on on the Israeli psyche uh some Israelis have problems uh support it in terms of targeting the settlements some Israelis do not because they see it as a disguised attempt to boycott all of Israel together and and uh but it's beginning to have an impact I mean today uh it is not accidental that the prime minister of Israel and most of its National Security leaders view the BDS as the number one National Security kind of threat uh to the state of Israel because it's exposing it worldwide in no uncertain terms uh to the fact that occupation got to end occupation cannot be tolerated and and the more clarity there is associated with that I think the more effective the campaign would be and the more attractive it would become particularly here in the US well thank you very much I thank [Applause] desan next okay we like to thank our incredible speakers who came from around the world to talk about the Israel Lobby we're we're doing a little inotes thing here um their talks will be available in the next edition of the Washington report which is celebrating its 35th Anniversary with a new look and a new URL washhington report.my thank you reporters for showing up to shoot and write about this newsworthy event thank you to our hardworking staff exhibitors and advertisers as well as was this room full of attendees including a record number of students from across the country diplomats and Community leaders as well as the Delaware neighbors against occupation who chartered a bus to come here thank you to our generous donors without you this remarkable day couldn't have happened finally I'd like to remind you that this conference has been dedicated to Washington reports publisher Andrew Kilgore who died in December convinced that this conference would be a game Cher to you our audience please make his hopes come true and loosen the grip of the Israel Lobby on American policy thank you grant uh for those of you who have stopped sending in question cards because uh some of the uh speakers uh weren't able to take those don't don't be gunshot send some in Elon Pape and Clayton swisser will try to answer as many as possible I too would like to thank the donors many giving 105 $20 once they heard that this conference was coming in addition to those who gave much more and I also applaud some Grassroots organizations one of my favorites North fielders for justice in Palestine Israel who have come here very uh excellent work in my home state of Minnesota it takes time and money for people to come here personally and be here uh and whether you're a student retire have a job don't have a job everyone who came here today did so because they care and next month uh for those of you who keep asking me uh irme will be filing an appeal in our lawsuit to block usaid to Israel over its clandestine nuclear weapons program so I encourage those of you who want to follow that to sign up for the email list at irm.org they're representatives from many great organizations here today uh and as we look around for Coalition partners and worthwhile projects to engage in whether humanitarian relief uh policy research Grassroots action I just encourage everyone to consider how you work will Challenge and run and transcend the Israel Lobby the biggest and longest running obstacle to peace in the Middle [Applause] East all right this is the last time you have to see my face today so for our final keynote it's a man that is well known to all of you Elon Pape and as Hanan asra we mentioned earlier today in an age of alternative facts I think we can all agree on the importance of being able to discern truth from fiction while alternative facts may be a new term in American politics the idea behind it is far from original as we all know for decades Colonial Powers have developed and propagated false narratives to legitimize the subjugation of indigenous peoples like colonists before them Israel has relied on alt history of or distorted account of History to justify its policies towards the Palestinians if the so-called conflict is ever going to be resolved the events that led to the creation of Israel namely the nakba must be reckoned with this reality that an honest understanding of the past is necessary to pave A Better Tomorrow is the reason we invited historian Elon Pape to today's conference Elon Pape has written prolifically prolifically and with honesty and courage on the the history of Israel and the events that facilitated its creation his 2006 book the ethnic cleansing of Palestine with its painfully honest title created controversy but is nonetheless a seminal book on this issue Professor Pape chose the title knowing that it would be provocative but that it was also true to the research presented in his book as I told him at dinner last night one can say that in choosing the title Professor Pape was being more Timeless than Timely as I'm sure as the West can slowly comes to better grips with a reckoning of the history of Israel future Generations will find the title of his book progressively less controversial at least I hope ethnic cleansing of course is just one of many books Professor Pape has written he has an upcoming book entitled 10 myths about Israel which will released shortly and will surely be a valuable resource to those looking for a critical and honest assess mment of pro-israel narratives Professor Pape is currently professor of history and director of the European Center for Palestine studies at the University of exitor in the UK he was born in hia and prior to coming to the UK he was a senior lecturer in political science at the University of hia his keynote today will focus on how an honest assessment of history is necessary in order to resolve the seemingly intractable conflict Professor Pape some water water thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you very much really honored to be here and thank you for the warm and empower ing reception uh I told my dear friend Clayton that we have traveled further than anyone else for me it's midnight for him it's 2:00 in the morning uh and yet we were put at the end of the conference and we wondered what was the hidden agenda either I either they thought we can wake you up after a very long and exhaustive day or they thought that you are sleepy anyway so you won't notice the provocations that both of us are going to present to you so we'll see which one of the two narratives is is valid Bill Quant uh in a series of articles in the Journal of Palestine studies very cleverly charted uh what makes an American president's Legacy about Israel and Palestine valid and he pointed to three major factors that inform such a legacy one is the personality of the president the second one are the lobbies and by the lobbies he meant both the Israeli APAC Lobby the both APAC and the Christian Zionist lobbies and the third group he called them the professionals the people who work in the state department in the National Security Council uh in the intelligence community and who not who are there not necessarily just because of their political affiliation to the presidency but also because at least allegedly because of their professionalism this yeah thank you he concluded and I think he's right that the president's personality although it is very important and I don't have to tell you this uh today uh he wrote it before he thought that personality could be that important in a president uh but he concluded that the personality of the president did not have a huge impact on American policy towards the Palestine question it did have some impact but not a fundamental impact he did agree with everyone who spoke before me that the Israeli Lobby had a huge impact on American policy towards Israel and Palestine but also tended to uh Grant or credit the professionals with an equal impact on American policy towards the Israel Palestine question and I would like really to focus on that third group because everyone else was talking about the lobby and I don't need to repeat the wise words that were already said in fact what I'm going to argue today this afternoon is that as as much as the lobbies are important in affecting and influencing American policy there is a basic and fundamental misunderstanding of what the conflict in Palestine is all about including among those American diplomats politicians who see themselves champions of Palestinian rights uh the level of I wouldn't call it ignorance because these are very educated well- read people so ignorance would not be a fair uh concept here the level of blindness or the the the the level of ignorance in the sense of ignoring certain chapters rather than not being able to to to understand reality this level is so high that it really makes it impossible even when you have a period in which the lobbies are not strong or even when you have a president who is more Pro Palestinian than anyone before him the level the depth of that ignorance is so significant that it would not allow the two other factors even if they are diminished or weakened to influence fundamentally the American policy and in association the reality on the ground now what is missing and uh this is what I would like to point out what is missing is an understanding of the nature of Zionism the nature of the zanis project in Palestine not as a nostalgic Journey into the past but as a current analysis the late uh and amazing scholar of settler colonialism Patrick Wolf said famously that settler colonialism is not an event it's a structure Zionism is not an event it's a structure and it is a settler colonialist structure it was a settler colonialist structure in 1882 and it is a settler colonialist structure in 2017 and you don't appease a settler colonialist project by dividing Palestine into two states that will never appease the settler colonialist project the only way to challenge a settler colonialist project is to decolonize the settler colonialist project and this uh challenge has not been digested by American policy makers including those who regard themselves as open-minded balanced if you want objective about the situation because and I don't blame them because to talk about decolonization in the 21st century is abnormal colonialism in our mind belongs to the 19th century decolonization belongs to the first half of the 20th century but in the 21st century if we will not re uh resell or return to these fundamental concepts of colonialism and decolonization we will not move forward towards a solution in Israel and Palestine I will give few examples of how the narrative the discourse the conceptual framework of settler colonialism can lead us to a different view on the reality today not just about the reality in the past I will begin with the something that even here I think is sometimes accepted maybe not intention intentionally maybe unconsciously but is part of the American heritage of dealing with conflicts such as Israel and Palestine and this is the idea that in palestin you have a conflict between two national movements and then everything else comes out of this analysis if it's if these are two national movements we have to satisfy both of them we have to divide the land between both of them uh they share responsibility for the conflict equally uh they should uh uh we should find a way of settis satisfying their aspiration equally now it doesn't matter of course that when you translate this Paradigm of parity to uh percentage of territory or demography of course it was never suggested by any mediator whether they were Americans or non-americans that the land would be divided 50/50 that was never on the cards but even the idea of 22 and 78 or the 55 and 45 of 1947 was based on this false analysis that what you have in Palestine is a genuine struggle between two national movements Zionism is not a national movement it's a settler colonialist movement and the Palestinians before they become a nation they are first and foremost the native indigenous people of Palestine who sometimes [Applause] who sometimes chose nationalism as the best vehicle to defend their native indigenous rights and probably would have to find a different vehicle in the 21st century to protect their rights much more an agenda of Human Rights and civil rights than National rights because the national rights have been understood in the world as a wish to have a small band to stand next to Israel and this is not going to work another point which is important when you use the settler Colonial uh perspective on the situation in Israel and Palestine a basic American assumption and not just an American assumption a United Nation assumption in fact an international assumption is that the conflict in many ways began in 1967 not because people don't know what happened before 1967 but because in 1948 the International Community through the United Nation legitimized the idea of a Jewish State over 78% of Palestine so even palestine's friends advised the Palestinians not to bring the future of the 78% of Palestine namely Israel into their negotiation the best they were told you can hope for is to have a state over 22% of uh Palestine now this idea that because the United Nation legitimized a state which is of course an important fact which you should never ignore but this idea of course brings us to A Narrative of why there is a conflict which has little uh relevance or connection to the reality on the ground the conflict did not start in 1967 and the reason that there is still a conflict today is not because of the events of 1967 in fact our historical research these days show something many of us who lived in Israel knew anyway but it was always good to corroborate this by new documentations and archives that Israel planned the occupation of the West Bank long before 1967 in fact from a Zionist perspective it made no sense whether you were on the left in the Zionist movement or the right of the Zionist movement it made no sense whatsoever to allow the trans jordanians namely the jordanians to Annex the West Bank while the Zionist movement had the military power to take it over the reason they allowed the jordanians to Annex the West Bank was because they wanted to neutralize the Arab Legion in the 48 War so that the most efficient Arab Army would not be part of the all Arab Coalition That was supposed to save Palestine from the Zionist Conquest but in any case uh many among the Israeli generals and politicians regretted that decision and from 1948 onwards created a Lobby that pushed the Israeli government to seek the opportunity to occupy the West Bank in fact since 1963 and a book of on this will come out in the summer called the biggest prison on Earth since 1963 the Israelis systematically and methodically prepared the occupation of the West Bank and Jamal Abdul Naser provided them the opportunity that they were looking for uh in June 1967 and the Israelis were very well prepared for taking over the West Bank they already had a military rule imposed on the Palestinians citizens in Israel and all they had to do was transmit this military rule from Israel itself and impose it on another group of Palestinians but maybe even more important if you understand Zionism as settle colonialism in Israel as a settler colonial state you understand that any depiction of the Israeli Society is being torn between two camps a liberal camps that wants to withdraw from the West Bank and the g a strip and believes in a two-state solution and an intransigent inflexible Camp a war camp that does not want to give up the the territories that this depiction is true only as far as the general public is concerned but is not relevant to the DNA of the Israeli political military and strategic Elite they are united and they were United since 1967 in their determination to do all they can to keep the West Bank as part of Israel and find ways of not incorporating the population that lives there and they had a similar strategy towards the Gaza Strip as well the peace process was not born in Washington it was born in Tel Aviv as means of creating this charade of an internal Israeli debate that bring hope for anyone who believes that these two national movements could be coached through the intervention of a mature mediator into a reasonable uh peace treaty one that you can easily find in a textbook in the political science departments in American University which is drawn from the world of business where as modin alright used to put it everything visible can be divisible so you divide land demography and she warned us when she was the Secretary of State that everything which is invisible is indivisible namely don't talk about Justice morality the refugee problem the nature of Zionism and the nature of the state of Israel because there's nothing we who learned this in the Departments of business and political science can offer in front of such realities so what can be done in order to move move forward the discussion so as the misat so as that the mismatch between the discourse that we have been using for years about the conflict its origin its nature the reasons for its continuation how do we move from this mismatch to a conversation at least a conversation that is far more relevant to the reality on the ground and every passing day with these unilateral Israeli policies on the ground you don't even need to talk to people about settler colonialism because the one Israeli state is already there the one aparte state of Israel came into being around 2001 but maybe we haven't noticed that but it's there it is there and it's going to be more and more legalized as an aparte state with every passing day and we will continue to talk if we will continue to talk about a two-state solution if will continue to talk on the basis of the assumptions of the previous peace uh process there is nothing we could do to change that reality in which uh 6 million Palestinians would live under continue to live under an oppressive regime in various forms so what can we do one thing I think and I know it's it's difficult for some people is to realize that the two-state solution is dead many of many of us still sleep with the two-state solution but we you're sleeping with a corpse many of us still Dy with a two-state solution but you are sleeping with a dead body it's time to go to the morg together and watch together the the the the corpse of the two-state solution and hopefully we will all be invited to the funeral so that we can get over it and move on secondly and not less importantly we should understand that decolonization is not a process that can be forced from the outside but you can force from the outside is the end of occupation the end of Oppression the end of the uh atrocities that are done in the name of apartheid but you cannot force reconciliation between the settlers and the natives from the outside but as long as you are not sending the message as we did send the message to apartheid South Africa that the end of aparte is a precondition for a process of reconciliation whereas in Palestine we always said reconciliation first and then the end of aparte as long as we don't send this message either as a civil society or as a political and intellectual Elite we will continue to have this mismatch between the way we talk about the reality and the way the reality unfolds on the ground and I think this clearer division of labor between the outside and the inside from the perspective of decolonization not from the perspective of peace process from the perspective of decolonization is very urgent has urgently be adapted has to be urgently ad adopted by any one of us who is either a student of the conflict or is involved in it or is interested in it or wants to show solidarity with its victims because if we in the universities in the press in the political Arena if we will not use the right dictionary and the right language to describe what goes on on the ground then we will continue to provide an umbrella of immunity to the settler colonial state of Israel to try and complete what it started in 1948 namely to have as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians in it as possible and believe me I know what I'm talking about I was born in Israel in 1954 I was I'm a product of the Israeli educational system probably not they not very not a very good product of the Israeli educational system quite a flawed product of that system but there sometimes as someone who who was part of that system who was indoctrinated in this system uh when you hear the discourse abroad about the possibilities that are open in the Jewish Society for change uh when you hear that there's a two-state solution around the corner somewhere in the globe you you find it very frustrating because your in your daily e experience you know how far away from the realities is this conversation now analyzing correctly does not mean that will be an easy ride forward and I'm finishing um uh analyzing or having the right uh uh uh uh analysis doesn't mean mean that the prognosis uh would be easy I'm not going to say here that the move into decolonization into um probably the path on a one-state solution with various models that are possible is an easy Journey it is as difficult as any uh Journey we had to take as a human society when we faced an indoctrinated racist so society that has to be deprogrammed has to be decolonized in the mind because we before we can decolonize it on the ground what I the only thing I'm saying is that for 50 years now we didn't even try to do that because we claimed that the only urgent need we had was to convince the Israeli Society to give up the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and then we can lead to the path towards reconciliation and peace well this was a waste of time this was a waste of energy 50 years are a lot of time in a peace process that was based on the wrong assumptions and had reaped the bitter fruits that anyone with his eyes and his head could have seen were the only possible consequence of such a misconception and misunderstanding of what the conflict is about finally I would say this nothing of what what I said can at all be material can materialize without of course a new uh unification of the Palestinian uh political scene we need a different Palestinian thinking we need a United authentic representation of the Palestinian people which we don't have today that should give us the lead we will have to get rid eventually of the existing political structure in Palestine in order to be able to lead us settlers and natives together into a future that has normal life in it as you and other people in the world enjoy thank [Applause] you thank you very much so most of the questions here revolve around one point here and that's what exactly a one-state solution would look like would look like so one person asked what happens to the Palestinians another asks how do Israelis settlers Palestinians refugees coexist what happens in that first day week year decade right yes well building a different political structure from the one you have is a long journey and any attempt to answer all these questions would be wrong because first of all as I said you have to remove the one conversation that does not allow you to invest the same energy as you've invested in the last 50 years in the wrong uh solution so I would put it I would say this this two points about this one is as I think there is already a one-state solution we don't need to build a one state solution what we need is to change the regime of that one state we need to make it a democracy because now it not it is not a democracy now you build it by a slow movement from below and not by big revolutions as the Arab world has learned unfortunately and painfully uh in the last six or seven years it is time I think for acad mics pundits and people who have the time and the energy to try and begin to build models of a joint curriculum a joint Judicial System uh a joint political uh uh solutions for questions of symbolism such as names the identity of the state and so on I don't think it's time for a political movement to do it as yet it's too premature I'm just saying we have to start this conversation and there are more and more movements from below that de Define themselves as a one state movements uh we talked about the BDS a lot today but there's also an ODS the one Democratic State movement From Below now uh this these group of people whether they are activists whe whether they come from different walks of life begin to give answers to the question that you are asking but I think more than anything else I'm I'm always surprised when I'm sort of uh uh listening to John K Rel listening to John Ker's last speech if you remember he he he was in a very dramatic voice he he explained to us that uh without a two-state solution the only possible scenario is an aparti Israel and I wanted to say hello John uh how are you looking up um the one state aparte is already there so your warning is not about the future you're actually describing the present secondly couldn't you find one moment in your speech maybe two sentences in your speech to say that actually having a democratic state for Jews and Palestinians between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean is not a doomsday since scenario couldn't you just say wouldn't it wonderful to have settlers and natives living as equal citizens in the same state why do you have to describe this as a doomsday scenario the only people in the world who would describe this as a doomsday scenario are zionists because they think that when the Jews are not a majority the only possible thing that pal the only possible thing Palestinians can do is to kill them well I lived in hia all my life I live in the galile I was in political outfits and academic outfits where the Jews were the minority and nothing bad happened to us and the idea that Palestine cannot be a political outfit if the Palestinians are the majority and the Jews are minority is a racist idea that should be challenged strongly so question about the role of the Palestinian Authority in a official rather than a def de facto one state how would the Palestinian Authority go about disbanding and what would that look like right well I think anyway Israel is going to eventually disband the PA so it's not my my agenda um I exactly I'm not a prophet I don't know exactly how it will unfold but I have no doubt that the way Israeli politics is going and the way American politics is going and the level of the decreasing level of interest in the International Community about Israel and Palestine given all these factors I have very little doubt that there will be a moment where the reality that already unfolded namely that is Israel controls the West Bank uh and in many ways controls the Gaza Strip despite of what the Hamas may may feel uh that this de facto reality would be declared as a the reality uh there's one interesting and significant development in the West Bank that people have not noticed in the last few months Israel has removed half of the checkpoints in the West Bank so when I noticed that I said is it because an American president is coming because the last time they did it is was before Obama's visit and then they returned the checkpoints two days after he left no they have removed most of the checkpoints from area C because they regard area C which is 55% of the West Bank as part of Israel and they don't want Israelis to move around a state which has checkpoints it doesn't look nice it doesn't feel nice so the checkpoints are only in area A and B and between between area A and B and C now the next step is to do the same for area B maybe area a would remain greater ramala as as a Palestinian Enclave I doubt whether at that moment in time there would be enough Palestinians to say this is what we were fighting for a nation state in area a I'm very blunt with you because I think I don't want to spend another wasteful year of talking the wrong language about a reality that I know very well and this language has nothing to do with that reality so it's not a matter of saying the PA should go or shouldn't go the PA belongs to a narrative and a story that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground and that story is going to change in fact it's already changing it's just a matter when people people are willing to use the right words to describe a reality that they don't like for various reasons to acknowledge couple of questions about BDS one person asks would you say that BDS is the only way to achieve decolonization and what are the possible outcomes of the movement yeah well I think one thing we shouldn't do is confuse BDS with a vision we need the Palestinians to redefine what the liberation of Palestine means in the 21st century we cannot rely on nostalgic ideas of the 1960s neither do I think the political Islamic movements have a vision that is going to work so we need a redefinition of the Palestinian Liberation project and sometimes people I think confuse the means which is the BDS was the need to rethink the vision the project of Liberation now however as I said before the outside world cannot be indifferent to the suffering of the people just because we are in this limbo between a project the two- State solution that is irrelevant is not going to work and as I said is in the mor for a few years but we haven't noticed and a new project we will take quite a while to build because we need a unification of the Palestinian side we need a more authentic representation we need a lot of things to happen for us to be on the road uh uh towards this new vision but we don't have the luxury of remain idle and indifferent why the clock of Destruction which is faster than the clock of reconstruction is working and therefore the BDS is so important because the BDS is there to say yes there is a void of leadership yes there is a chaotic moment in history where there is no peace process and there's no alternative to that peace process but that doesn't mean that we as the International Community have nothing to do and can nothing and can do nothing in order to stop the suffering of the people on the ground and the greatest thing about the BDS was that it introduced to us again the two groups that the OS law process brutally excluded from the future of Palestine the Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian minority in Israel and we should be thankful to the BDS for reminding us that the people of the West Bank and the people of the Gaza Strip are only half of the Palestinian people and that these two territories are only 22% of Palestine and you don't cure an illness by dealing with the hand if the whole body is [Applause] ill so earlier today in his keynote Mir shimer uh suggested the idea of a expulsion is unlikely um but lots of people here seem to be worried about it because I'm getting lots of questions about this so one person asks what exactly is stopping another Mass expulsion one person says Netanyahu realizes the two-state solution is dead but doesn't want one state with Palestinians so how you know what's stopping him from right trying that again as 48 I I think John is right in the sense that it's difficult to envisage an ethnic cleansing on the scale that Israel committed in 1948 uh expelling half of palestine's population demolishing half of palestine's villages and destroying almost all the Palestinian towns apart from Nazareth yes I agree this is difficult but I think what is what is important to understand that ethnic cleansing is a paradigm as much as settler colonialism is and the Israelis perfected the notion of ethnic cleansing and adapted it to the 21st century much better than any other political movement that I know in history for instance they found out that actually you can achieve the same goal of having a a space without the people in it by not owing people to leave the place in which they live you don't have to expel people from Villages you can Enclave them you can Siege them in villages and you get the same result namely you don't have demographically to include The Enclave imprisoned incarcerated people in your demographic balance which is the most important thing for a Stettler Colonial uh State and even liberal people around the world somehow agree that Israel has the right to talk in these racist terms as if this is acceptable so you don't need massive expulsion in order to Annex area sea for instance you can and they're already doing it I don't know how many of you have been to anata how many of you have been to the shuafat refugee camp how many of you have been to Tulare a whole town that is surrounded by a fence with one gate to the town in the hands of the Israeli soldiers it's a big jail and the only reason people are incarcerated in this jail is because they are Palestinians for no other crime now this is the model Israelis on the left like because they are against expulsion they are against expulsion they they say expulsion is the Israeli right-wing notion our notion is separation or as they call it in Hebrew ha which means in English aparte ha segregation more literally we really believe that it's much better for the Palestinians to be incarcerated enclaved in homogenic Palestinian areas they don't even need green lungs the Palestinians because they're not a western modernized society and we can keep it forever like this because we have hundreds of thousands of Israelis who are part of the police state that manages this is not an occupation that manages the colonization of Palestine whether it is in the nakab in the galile in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank so this there's no need for Mass expulsion you have built an amazing uh amazingly big apparatus that so many Israelis are involved in that you have the manpower to police daily the control over 6 million Palestinians within the one state that you have created 15 16 years ago and still even sell this to the world as a democracy that unfortunately had to occupy a certain area but of course is looking for the right Palestinian partner to get it back to them we are still hearing this today unbelievably thank you [Applause] question about terminology here one person says why didn't you choose to label the Palestinian suffering as genocide instead of ethnic cleansing and this person contends that Palestine is the classic example of the un's definition of genocide because I think there is a difference between genocide and ethnic cleansing I did use the term genocide for Gaza I called it incremental genocide and this was reiterated by the United Nation report last year that talked about the de development of Gaza in 2020 which means the Gaza Strip uh is under such circumstances that massive death of people and young people is inevitable so it becomes an incremental genocide but for me genocide is also uh a term that talks about intention and ideology and racism now there is kind of between but that's a bit too scholarly and I'm I I don't like to use it in a world of activism but I'll do this there is something in between the term of genocide and ethnic lensing that again if I'll refer to Patrick Wolf who I mentioned before petrick wolf is for those of you who haven't read his work I really recommend this uh he has an amazing article called uh the logic of the annihilation uh of of of the Native maybe I'm a bit as I said it's 2:00 in the morning for me so maybe it's not uh annulation where's Andrew Andrew are you there the elimination I knew it was wrong thank you he's my student so he he knows he has to be awake and answer these questions even at midnight if I ask him okay yeah so so the the title is uh uh the logic of the elimination of the Native and he refers to all the settler Colonial societies including in this country uh in the south of America in Australia New Zealand and so on in which he explains quite simply and very convincingly that the people who escaped or fled from Europe in the last three or four centuries because of all kinds of persecutions and re looked for a new Homeland encountered native populations that they believed they had to eliminate for the success of building this new Homeland here it resulted in genocide the same happened north of the border and South of the Border also in Australia it ended in genocide in South Africa in Palestine in Algeria uh the methods of eliminating the native as an obstacle for creating the new Homeland was not genocidal but it was bad enough it was bad enough so yes you can talk about the elimination of the Palestinian as a natural consequence of the logic of Zionism of all its Shades and and colors however elimination in the 21st century with International focus on human rights and civil rights with the internal wish of the Israelis to be part of the democratic world and maybe even genuine Israeli Mo impulses of democracy elimination becomes something far more complex than what I associate with genocide and in fact we saw the need for an accurate conversation when the the terrible events unfolded in Syria in 2011 we as activists on behalf of Palestine in the west struggled to keep Palestine as an issue when people said to us but how can you compare what happens to the Palestinians with what happens in Iraq what happens in Syria and we were trying to say yes but you know we are talking about the same brutality the same inhumanity but we're talking about a span of 100 years not four five years and this incremental in humanity happens every day and when it happens on the daily basis it's not very dramatic it doesn't catches the media's attention and you can put it aside compared to the huge massacres and horrible things that are happening in Syria and Iraq and this is where the IDE a of settler colonialism as a structure is is so important and this is why it's not necessary to talk about genocide as much as it is necessary to say that the DNA of the settler colonial state of Israel is to continue the project as I put it in simple terms of having as much of Palestine with as few Palestinians in it now they have the whole of Palestine in the last 50 years they don't have a geographical ambition anymore Israelis of all kinds do not want to occupy Lebanon Jordan or Egypt they are satisfied with the borders that they have today they have a demographic issue not a geographical issue and when they deal with a demographic issue they found a formula that one should say is working unfortunately and that formula says you can police 6 million Palestinians and still the world will believe you that this is a temporary oppression and still the world will believe you that you will stop this oppression once peace will arrive and you still can convince the world that you are the only democracy in the Middle East and the oppression of 6 million people is not IR relevant item when you analyze a country as a democratic State this is the importance of analyzing what's happening in in Israel as as a settle colonialism that can sometimes resort to genocide some sometime resorts to ethnic cleansing and quite often resorts to a charade of peace that provides it a shield of immunity from any genuine rebuke and condemnation in the global [Applause] Community unfortunately that's our end here of the Q&A we're out of time we could have done this all day here I have so many questions in front of me but we do not want to be rude to Clayton swisser who has very important and interesting stuff to tell us so once again thank you Professor Pape thank you thank you very much thank you thank you thank you very much thank you simp living testimony to what you have been say Clayton swishers in the room please come up they're gonna move this off a little bit okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that was great Clayton swisser is an American journalist and author and he's currently working as director of investigative journalism at Al jazer he'll be our final speaker he's a former Marine reservist and federal criminal investigator I know you're going to have a lot of questions for him so please make our ushers uh Sebastian and Adrian and Sapphire work hard for their final half hour uh Swisher's first book The Truth About Camp Davis was published to extremely favorable reviews and foreign affairs in 2011 he used his investigative skills to secure 1600 confidential documents of the Israeli Palestinian negotiations and he broke these for alzera in what became known as the Palestine papers the largest ever leak of confidential documents ments related to Israel Palestinian negotiations uh his second book is the Palestine papers the end of the road uh in 2016 uh Mr swisser managed a six-month undercover investigation that produced alzer's amazing four-part series uh called the lobby uh including on apex activities in the UK the Israeli embassy's interaction with allegedly independent prois groups and unfounded accusations of anti-Semitism lodged against labor party me members uh including efforts to take down UK lawmakers deemed hostile to Israel uh his Series this investigative journalism led to the resignation of Shai masat a senior political officer at the Israeli Embassy and a full apology by the Israeli Ambassador for what had taken place what we want to do in this last section is get as many questions to Clayton as poss possible and he's going to he's going to stand here and answer every single one of them in the time we have left but we're going to roll I don't want to impersonate him here uh we're going to roll a couple of clips that we selected uh from his investigative series can we do that in art e I was actually seeking some reassurance that a two-state solution if that's what they were promoting was still possible this is a a big picture situation and we want to solution because you know the party saying I'm not going to defend if you are defend is's right to exist we don't to be very very careful not feelings about this so no don't we all want a two State solution based on coexistence make your effort and I we no I'm asking you about settlements they've totally atomize the whole of the West Bank I'm asking you I'm really genuine interested how is do two State solution St how can it come about if the whole the West Bank what in terms of the West Bank is atomized where will the state be I that's a genuine genuine question where will the state be the activists who came to ask her tough questions about the settlements actually that was her main point she didn't ask her about Judaism or the existence of Israel she just wanted a straight answer how does anyone who supports Israel justify settlements we go over there we witness but nothing changes I was quite interested in whatever funds they had and influence they had how would this bring about a two-state solution that was my very basic question you got a lot of money got lot of prestige in the world I don't know you that Sor got lot I think so I hear that you know it's a stepping stone to good jobs a friend of mine son's got a really good job off for University on the basis of having work for friends of Israel if you just believe rumors rumor of it's antic it's not anac it's not sorry it is it's not anyway that's my view and I think we have to agree to differ no I don't think we do have to agre I'm agreeing to differ I want to I'm ending the conversation because I am not really um wishing to engage in conversation that talks about get involved with this and then you get a good job in the in oxf or the city or that is antici but do you think that evening at a rally to combat anti-Semitism organized by the Jewish labor movement Joan Ryan described her day at the stall but we have also had three incidents of antisemitic harassment on our stand to the people who are stuffing that stall today and that I think tells you something about why we need to be having this against anti-Semitism really by the following day word had spread about Jean's exchange at the lfi stall [Music] I am very shocked about the way she described my words to other people I feel very anxious and that she should be misinterpreting me totally to other people I find that very very worrying going from my comment which was what it was to then saying he got a big job in banking Maybe she believes her own Trope after Jean had left the conference she was contacted by a labor party investigator he would only say that it was about a serious incident I was thinking had I seen a fire take place had I seen someone throw a bottle had I seen a fight breakout I was really racking my brain thinking what incident had I seen was I awake A Ware of was I a witness to something and almost by return came an email that it was my conduct that was being investigated I was totally shocked that was like a real bombshell by now the senior political officer at the Israeli Embassy had become a trusted Confidant of our undercover reporter it's quite funky yeah I'd rather go for this one Shai invited Robin to attend a meeting organized in part by the city friends of Israel a group he earlier said that he was establishing look like you got to over isra yeah quick get along yeah that's amazing how you did that hello sir thank you Maria stolo was also there discussion turned to Donald Trump so unpredictable person the only thing that you know you can I mean From perspective you can think that he like steud in his area the fact that his daughter is a Jewish she converted to Judaism the meeting had been coordinated with APAC the American Israeli public affairs committee perhaps Washington's most powerful Lobby group it is not widely known that ape has a presence in London as a European and somebody who lives in the western world and enjoys its individual freedoms I also View and I hope most of you do as well I view Israel as the Battleground where modernity and Western values meet the forces that want to destroy uh that way of life Focus campaign Joe Richards from Apex Wall Street division summed up their operations today uh we're a pretty robust organization where we have one single Mission which is to make sure that the United States and Israel remain very close together in their relationship in many different ways and the way we do that is by relationship building with our 535 members of Congress 100 in the Senate 435 in the house apac's guests explain to Robin their interest in Britain the real strategic goal is to get the UK to behave more like the US than Europe when it comes to Isel kind of pull them the US sphere by this point Robin was well aware of the Israeli diplomats close ties with America's pro-israel lobby I went to AP cler because I I organized the British delegation to AP it was me and the British Don is like 30 40 sponsoring the CFI CFI conservative as well some of them the labor as well and we all went together to AA but the B we have a donor meeting with this of strategy he met us basically to teach us you know give us some ideas of Britain Shai then announced another audacious plan involving a front company set up by the ministry of strategic Affairs whose mandate is to fight BDS so the Strategic they asked me they establishing a new company a new private company that basically will work for the Israeli government like kind of outside company whatever the ministry of strategic Affairs has called it a secret War potentially involving what this prominent Israeli reporter described as dirty tricks when I say dirty tricks they can smear people activists BDS activist or others they can um hack their emails in order to collect information about what they are up to they can you know trash people it's going to be an office of 20 people so the position that they suggested to me to do is to be the for the international around the world so it's good sometimes because you know it's good to work with a the other and good and the last position that I applied for that there is a slightly chance that will get it actually is to be the the head of the foreign office Department of the intelligence Department in Israel I'm not a career I am political posst I came just for one position to assist in political issues specific sometimes you need someone to take care just of them focus on them that's what I do at EAS and with the trust of his dinner companions Shai floated the idea of a parliamentary plot can I give you a suggest you would take down well you know if you look hard enough I'm sure that there is something to yeah I have some talk about it no she know we can't be the one ask the question to remind me min this exchange between the political officer of um the Israeli Embassy and a parliamentary staffer about taking down is the phrase used Alan Duncan is outrageous it's shocking this is uh clearly a deliberate attempt by a foreign government to interfere in the workings of British democracy and to secure the destruction of the career of a minister in the British government thank you very much and I'd like to thank the organizers for um giving this uh film it you know some some more attention it was uh put out by out ofera in January and um at the outset I should say that uh we had an incredibly courageous and daring uh under cover uh Robin who if you see the U uh the film all four parts you can get on YouTube um he he really kept his cool and um and his wits and um it was extraordinary journalism as a result um and uh yeah I had a great team that worked on it I'm I'm happy to be here and um uh answer any questions that you guys have I I I thought that at the beginning and and I I I don't want to have too many remarks because I think it's it's late in the day and actually it'd be good to get to your questions um but I would just uh if you do watch this series just for a moment go through the intellectual exercise of removing the word Israel and thinking if this were any other government okay if they were behaving in such a way doing a Brazen broad daylight covert influence campaign astroturfing setting up you know NOS that are friends of Israel but actually they're funded by the embassy or created by the senior political officer of the embassy who they tried to who they tried after they threw him onto the bus to pawn him off is like he was like a summer intern or something um just imagine what the hysteria would be um it actually it was kind of painful when I I tried to imagine what would the reaction be in America because they really got their backs up in Britain over this they they know where this ends they know which direction the APAC train goes and they don't want that to happen in their country and incidentally that's why the ministry of strategic Affairs sees London as ground zero and that's why they were I think probably very careless I think they didn't even acknowledge that um and and and and arrogant to a degree and how aggressively they were doing this um because it's it's lost ground to them here it's it's friendly right they don't they don't need to be so Brazen um in some respects um so if you do watch it just imagine if this were another country particularly I I've been abroad for 10 years but every time I I look at the news here it's hyperventilation about you know Russia and and Etc just imagine if if Russia was doing this what what what would be said um the the clips that were selected by the organizers um that was Jee Fitzpatrick um uh her um her very painful experience it was the first labor Party Conference she went to and it ended in her a spectacular scene that by the grace of God our camera captured and by the way it was interesting to note that they they accused us later of cooking that up which was you know part of the the smear of uh you know that that follows a production like this um but Jee Fitzpatrick um had this exchange with an MP Joan Ryan and just moments before if you watch the film Shai mot from the Israeli Embassy was talking to Joan Ryan about giving a million pounds to the labor friends of Israel so her assertion that they have a lot of money was really U and and and the newspapers in Britain describe the lfi as powerful so how you know how she goes from zero to anti-semitic it's it's um it's a very painful thing to to have to go through so for activists in Britain Ian imagine if we hadn't exposed that she probably would never have gone to an event again it took some great degree of convincing to get her to talk about this first to find her and then to get her to talk about this she was you know um hurt by the whole thing and these are some of the tactics that they use to you know reputationally kneecap you from discussing the issue and it's apart from being you know morally outrageous it's um it's it's offensive on so many levels in that regard but it's actually um it diminishes the actual scourge of anti-Semitism when you just throw that around casually because you don't like the questions you're getting on two-state solution so I I I mean to the credit of the labor party they actually exonerated her um and it was uh we we interviewed her after she gave us you'll see in the film she shared with with us the investigator's letter clearing her so due process did work in that case and um we thought it was important to to include in the film um I I think we should just go to some questions because I mean you guys have I know many of you have seen the film if you haven't you can you can see it on YouTube aler just type in aler the lobby and all four parts are there there's a great comment uh I guess they want you to respond to this it says quote how quickly the British government dismissed and quote forgot about unquote this offense after the Israeli apology has any government agency pursuing this to your knowledge yeah um so that I I've I've few people have asked that um it it was not covered up in Britain I can tell you I stayed there the whole week and went to air it was on the front page of several newspapers it was in every single British newspaper um it was I mean the day the story broke BBC The Establishment media Sky it ITN they were satellite trucks in front of the Israeli Embassy live particularly because of the you know the threat to take down sir Allen Duncan so they they did not paper over that at all it probably here I I if I recall there was something uh about uh uh Trump's alleged um activities indiscretions in Russia of a sexual nature that came out about the same time so maybe that was missing from the debate here but if you look and review the media um second in terms of impact they the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs committee did they're forming a committee to study foreign influence as a result of this film March 30th is when they they called for uh evidence so that's just in a couple days from now um these as was mentioned the the senior political officer was sent home disgrace uh Maria stolo the Parliamentary officer who entertained the plot was forced to resign um under pressure from number 10 Downing so and and Boris John even said when he was asked um I think by Winston Churchill's grandson on the floor of the parliament about this what are we doing he said well whatever cover shy mot had has well and truly been blown so we should just move along now so the definitely the May Government tried to move it along but um they had they had picked the wrong victim in in sir Allen Duncan um and and he has a lot of supporters so uh the Tories are are keeping this issue and rightfully I mean it's it's outrageous um to try to get to the bottom of it um so it did it did have impact there uh you know here the domestic news cycle me anyone's guess great um can you talk a bit more about the extent of APAC or other groups link and linkage to these British groups generally speaking um APAC that was one of the surprising things for us to see that um that they've they've got an office in London that they're trying to take their message there and that's just not going to work I mean it's just it's just and I mean it's it's just it's classic American thinking you know that you know we'll just take it there and they'll do it and no it's it's a just it's a different landscape there and um you know the role of money in politics okay we have this Abomination that you're all aware of called Citizens United and unlimited it doesn't exist there um they they they have uh they have much more um ability and space to discuss this issue than we have here in the United States um so yeah I mean it's of course we sent we sent uh when when he was invited to it we're like yeah that's something you should definitely attend um and when we you know there's a congressman um I'm forgetting his name now from South Carolina who went there to speak and um and APAC you know put him on you know the the dog and pony show and and he was talking about the good um uh the good relationship between Congress and APAC and um I don't think I don't think there's any British politician who aspires to see Britain reach the stage that we are here in the United States in fact if anything they they they value their sovereignty and they want to have less of that um as a result of our failed experiment it this question says the British government saw Israel as a foreign country would this happen in the US where it's not necessarily seen as a foreign country but an extension of the US please comment there's a paradox there um uh so in Britain MI5 and in some part of MI6 those are the the domestic security um sorry MI5 is the domestic security MI6 is the foreign they're responsible for Counter Intelligence and when I spoke with people um they indicated that because Israel is an ally they're not really watch watched um in the same way uh in in the United States that's that's you know that's not the case um the Israeli government the embassy its activities are watched are monitored and they do step out of line and people do get arrested from time to time they do get expelled from time to time and we have something in the United States called the foreign agent registration act which sets a bright line of you know at what point you are working for or against a piece of legislation on behalf of a foreign government you have to declare you guys know this from Michael Flynn of course um so so there there is a a a line and if you touch that it's very dear consequences in Britain they don't have that um so they don't uh the British Services don't monitor the they just because they view them as partners it would be an embarrassing thing we wouldn't necessarily want to bring that to light but because it was so flagrant in this case they are investigating it um so I hope that answers a question uh another question did you receive any sort of uh blowback for your work any retribution I mean I um I did the Palestine papers I did the Arafat investigation I did Camp David I mean there's there's the usually the usual trolls who but you know we just tune them out I mean if I can say anything it's it's it's other journalists and I realize jazer has good resources because these kinds of things um they take time they're expensive um but I I hope that there's more journalism in this regard because um exposing Injustice is it's a part of our job and um a lot of people assume that you can never do something like this and they just do that they make that assumption because they never tried and actually when um when we had the grounds to start this case um we didn't know if it would succeed you know and and uh you know you don't know of course until you step up to the plate and try and in this case it did succeed so I hope that um there'll be more journalism of this kind and people don't be intimidated in fact when when we put this stuff in there um particularly like what happened with Gene Fitzpatrick um exposing those tactics of trying to silence debate journalists again like I said reputational kneecapping it only bothers it only affects you if you let it if you expose people that you know doing this deliberately in an underhanded way it actually it speaks more negatively about them and the ministry of strategic Affairs has brazenly said in their own knesset testimony that they're going to discredit people okay it's Israeli journalist right about this so um the idea they're not they're not doing this from Tel Aviv they're doing this in the United States they're doing this in Britain um and I think that that's a matter of extreme public interest and journalists should be reporting on it excellent uh we've got a hard stop in about five minutes for the uh reception but there have been rumors of a certain young uh person circulating Washington DC with lots of cash hosting parties um do you plan on doing or have you done an undercover series on Gatekeepers in the US who do the same thing here so uh well one I wouldn't be a good investigative journalist if I talked about projects that we do or don't do um I I I knew you were G to ask that yeah I'm I'm aware of the tablet article uh interestingly they never contacted aler for comment we we always do that by the way um anyone that we feature and undercover footage um but I do think that such a program could be done here in the United States I think it'd be done anywhere if a journalist puts if the if the editorial people at an organization have the will to expose something there's nothing to stop them from it next Point says um publicly Benjamin Netanyahu has talked about technology relations with Russia he met uh Vladimir Putin in September 2015 uh I'm not sure where this question is going but uh do you have any comments on these ties I don't even understand that question so I'm not even going near it okay um let's see if we have anything else that's directly related um um why hasn't Al jazer I can't read this question I'm sensing this is fan mail okay can't read it sorry um write clearly people please I think uh is there any shocking thing connected to this series that you simply couldn't air on Al jazer and this is a two-part question what led you to this story sir that's I'll say I mean I yeah there was things that we couldn't put in that I I um had we had sufficient evidence everything on in there first off this kind of work it requires not just lawyers very good lawyers um to make sure that you're on the right side of the law that you're able to withstand public scrutiny and um and we had that from inception to broadcast and you know it's it's it's something that was was built into the program um sometimes you get good information but if you don't have a second Source it's it's tenuous your legal risk goes way up and you have to make a decision do I um put that in because it's probably or do I leave it out and maybe another day it'll become relevant again and so there there was an element of that in a few instances and I'm not going to talk about it because if I couldn't put in my film I'm not going to talk about it here at the Press Club um the other uh yeah what what led you to this story if you can talk about that so again the the Israeli government is is quite open about its counter measures against the boycott divestment and sanctions movement last spring they said in in in a i inss is I I forget it was a conference in Tel Aviv they talked about eliminating Omar bargi okay and it was it was a vague vaguely worded eliminate politically eliminate by the way they talked that way about yasur arat and okay so when they when they say they're going to eliminate someone that that doesn't mean just you know take away his ability to travel which they did actually um so they've also been quite open about the amount of money they're spending and they're hiring former um people from the security services shinb bet shabbach they're bringing people in with a security background to counter BDS and treating it as an intelligence matter as an you know information War um they also talk about smearing and and and and and we heard from yoc Melman a security expert who's former military intelligence about how they will try to discredit people through hacking and and other you know unsavory tactics um Britain is a as a center of their focus and um now in the in the in the very beginning we um are undercover uh got very lucky frankly and that's a lot of times what's like in life luck is required and that the person who made his um introduction at the very beginning he started going to these events and he's Mr at the labor party he's Mr pro Israel he stood out pretty soon is wow there's not many of you and um MSY they they spotted him as someone that they could work with and they actually wanted him to work from the embassy they if you watch the when you watch the series they were pitching him they were trying to recruit our undercover I mean the lawyer we're talking about what the hell do we do he's going to work in the embassy he's wearing our wire I mean how are we going to get him in I mean all sorts of tactical questions we had to go through like in the end we decided you know play it along but but we can't accept in the end because it just I don't think it's ever been done but not that just technically we couldn't we wouldn't have been able to pull it off I don't think any anyone can um but he met shy mot from very early on and from very early on shy mot um wanted to co-opt him wanted to get him to do things and was teaching him how to set up organizations and coaching him and yeah talk on please I mean it worked it worked to our favor you've got to watch the entire series uh Clayton Fisher amazing amazing work swisser sorry uh we've got please thank you now the real event begins it's our networking reception uh everyone has a red drink ticket in the back of your badge please redeem it at the bar in the AL Cove or on uh the pathway to the exhibition Hall are you staying for the hour yeah okay I'm Mary [Music] Ellen yeah
