Time to boycott Israel? | Head to Head

with every peace talk israel has cemented its occupation jerusalem is not a settlement it's our capital crushing dreams of peace and palestinian statehood my guest tonight however thinks old maps the jewish state colored light the arab state dark can still create new borders but is he stuck in the past i'm maddie hussein and i've come here to the oxford union to go head to head with controversial author and academic norman finkelstein he's been called a self-hating jew by some supporters of israel and having once been a rock star of the pro-palestinian movement he's now attacked by many for his refusal to back a boycott of israel today i'll challenge him on how he can still believe a two-state solution is possible and why he's dismissed the boycott movement as a cult i'll also be joined by salma kami ayub a leading palestinian activist and human rights lawyer in london jeff halper the director of the israeli committee against house demolitions in jerusalem and oliver kam a columnist for the times of london and the jewish chronicle ladies and gentlemen please welcome norman finkelstein a controversial figure he's the author of several books including the holocaust industry and how to solve the israel-palestine conflict norman your new book is called how to solve the israel-palestine conflict given the u.s secretary of state john kerry is the latest person to have tried and failed to do so what makes you think that you have the solution to this conflict well first of all secretary of state kerry did not try to solve the israel-palestine conflict in a way that's reasonable for both sides he's basically or has been basically trying to impose the israeli position on the palestinians my own view is there's a reasonable possibility for solving the conflict uh there's enough international support for it there's enough uh popular support for it and now the key is for the palestinians themselves to mobilize in favor of that international consensus which is basically it's what's been for the past 30 years it's two states in the june 67 border and what's called the just resolution of the refugee question the palestinians as you well know better than me first said that they would back a two-state solution back in 1988 since then over the last quarter of a century we've had the madrid conference the oslo accords the y river memorandum the camp david summit the taba summit the road map the annapolis conference and lately the john kerry plan none of them managed to bring about a two-state solution and yet you say that's the most likely option in what fantasy world is this two-state solution ever going to happen there's a huge reservoir of support for the palestinians and the reservoir has now extended and includes for example i think large segments of the american jewish community which has grown disaffected from the state of israel and there are real possibilities of reaching american jews as well let me read to you what professor rashid khalidi of colombia university one of the world's leading palestinian intellectuals he says the two-state solution is now quote wizard of oz stuff and the people on the pro-palestinian side like yourself who still cling to a two-state solution he says quote need to have their heads examined well if that were the case then you'd have to say there's no possibility for any reasonable resolution of the conflict because if a two-state settlement as it's supported by the international community if that is wizard of oz stuff then one state is men on the moon stuff so you have two possibilities right now there is the two states as has been embraced by the international community and then there is the what you might call at this point the kerry initiative namely imposing israel's bottom line the palestinians one state is not part of the debate many people would argue that two-state solution yes you can vote on it every year in the un assembly you can win over american jewish support but the reality is that the facts on the ground have rendered it impossible unviable there are now too many israeli settlements too many jewish settlers too many palestinians all stuck living together in the west bank in east jerusalem and it's too late to disentangle it's too late to unscramble the omelet the palestinians during what were called the annapolis negotiations in may may 2008 they did present which what were i would say were very reasonable maps they presented the map for example which showed israel can keep sixty percent of the settlers in place sixty percent of the settlers in place in two percent of uh two percent of the west bank and the palestinian state would remain uh contiguous it would remain uh a viable state so you genuinely believe that half a million heavily subsidized heavily armed israeli settlers many of them religious fanatics will just leave without a peep to bring about this two states absolutely not they won't leave without a peep and there you have to know the details but tiffy livni who was then the foreign minister she was in charge of negotiations she didn't deny it was a reasonable map she said it's not that your map is physically impossible she said it was politically impossible that is to say no israeli prime minister could support such a map and still remain in office the problem is not one of physics the problem is one of politics well let's go to our panel uh who are sitting and listening to you speak jeff halper is the founder and director of the israeli committee against house demolitions in jerusalem jeff when norman says it is reversible it's not irreversible what's your view on that someone on the ground who faces these issues every day well we've said for a long time that it's irreversible in my view um what's happening on the west bank and that's why we think the two-state solution is gone it's it is reversible it's true i agree with norman logistically you know there's only a half you can look at it this way there's only half a million settlers in the occupied territories it's possible to move them what's missing is the will to do that and that's the problem if there was a concerted will on the part of europe and the united states to say to israel look it's over you go back to the 67 borders period it's doable that's true but that will is absolutely missing okay let's bring in oliver cam who is a columnist and leader writer for the times of london and for the jewish chronicle oliver you've had your differences i know uh with norman fingerson in the past but on this am i right in saying you agree with them that a two-state solution is still possible and the most likely outcome i think it's possible and i certainly believe it is overwhelmingly the most desirable outcome any other outcome is extremely uh destructive the problem is that the israeli-palestinian conflict is not merely a disagreement over borders it is and i do agree with norman finkelstein on this it is about politics rather than rather than the physics of it the problem is that there have been proposals for a two-state settlement 2000 2008 nothing has come of them and the two-state solution on which there is a large international consensus something approximating the pre-1967 armistice lines is now being deferred again because of politics within both sides and a u.s official told an israeli newspaper a few months ago that the kerry plan fell apart quote the primary sabotage came from the settlements he says yes i i'm not going to defend the uh the settlements but i don't think that the settlements per se are an obstacle to a two-state solution one can perfectly well see with land swaps um whereby 80 of the settlers remain in place that there's a um there's the possibility of a two-state solution satisfying the national aspirations of both parties and do you think 80 of the settlers should be allowed to stay under your vision of a solution well again you keep personalizing and saying my vision of resolution you've co-authored a book called how to solve the israel palestine right but the proposals that were made by the palestinians in annapolis in 2008 they said about 60 percent of the settlers can remain in place it will change a little because now they're more settlers yeah about 60 will stay in place but then there are other possibilities and you have to keep them in mind you mentioned correctly the large number of settlers there are being subsidized and then you have to ask a question what happens if the israeli government ceases its subsidies and then you have the fanatics and that's true and they asked one israeli former security chief for what do you do about those fanatics he says it's very simple all you have to do is tell those crazy settlers in hebron if you want to stay stay but we're leaving meaning the army is leaving you're leaving this country of all stuff you're never going to happen the israeli army is never going to abandon settlers well i don't know why while you make that assumption at the present moment that's the correct history at the present moment that's correct because not very much pressure has been exerted in israel israel has the first cost-free occupation the history of humanity the palestinians do the dirty work the europeans pay the bills and israel and the united states blocks for them in the u.n so why should they leave okay well let's bring incentive to leave let's bring in uh salman khan who is a palestinian lawyer and activist um what's your view are you someone who still wants to have that independent palestinian state that so many palestinians have said they wanted i think the one thing they were overlooking in this whole discussion about the logistics of whether the two-state solution is practical or possible is whether it's actually desirable from the palestinian point of view i think the problem that people need to bear in mind is that palestinian problem that needs a solution isn't confined to those palestinians living under occupation in the west bank and gaza so we need a solution that achieves rights for the palestinian diaspora for the refugees and for those who are discriminated against in israel and the two-state solution patently doesn't do that it's unfair because it only awards the palestinians 20 of their historic homeland and it doesn't actually address the wider issues which afflict the palestinian population so it's it's not right in principle and it's not workable what you want to look at is in the broad public in the international arena what's the furthest you can go and the furthest you can go in my opinion for now is what you might call enlightened public opinion an enlightened public opinion the current world is mostly the language of international law the language of human rights so you look at the most representative organizations in the world today and you look at what are their terms for resolving the conflict they say two states here's what i don't get with you norman you're someone who called israel a lunatic state you called president obama a stupefying narcissist devoid of any principles every bit as wretched as his predecessors you call the palestinian authority a gang of corrupt wretched collaborators and yet your solution to the conflict involves those corrupt collaborators doing a deal with that lunatic state under the supervision of a wretched narcissistic president how does that work hey i'm not so sure those of you who are clapping what would you have done during world war ii i'm no great fan of winston churchill i think he was a monster in many ways and what would you do with mr stalin but then you want to defeat the nazis and there was an alliance between mr churchill and mr stalin to defeat the nazis so what are you going to do you're going to reject them both and find and you'll have a nazi rule in the world you have to bring to bear pressure on the u.s government i think there are real possibilities now israel stock has dropped precipitously in the united states not just broadly but even the american jewish community norman do you not see the contradiction then in their thinking in your thinking because a few moments ago you told us you've told previous interviewers that i work with the limits of public opinion and yet you're telling us that shock horror public opinion changes u.s jewish public opinion changes public opinion changes all the time why can't people make a case to shape public opinion to change public opinion to get people on board why say this is what the public in america thinks and this is the only deal the palestinians can get why outsource the resolution of the palestinian conflict to u.s public opinion well i'm not outsourcing the u.s public opinion i think u.s public opinion at this point is the weakest read i think it's your european public opinion is quite powerful and you i think it's it's quite feasible that you can win over not only european public opinion but it's important to keep in mind also european governments i mean as we speak european governments are putting enormous pressure on israel now on the question of the settlements but do you see any european government can you name me one one european government that's even hinted at one state namely one european um forget it let's not mention european governments government i mean maybe one government in the whole world has the islamic republic of iran called for one state if you were around in the 1930s what would you said to gandhi you wrote a book about gandhi what would you say to mandela sorry guys give up the national liberation movement western public opinion isn't with you no no give up all of that national liberation except whatever western public opinion gives you it's a very defeatist because you're so way off base it's unbelievable uh you read you read mahatma gandhi mahatma gandhi's standard was always where public opinion is you don't go beyond public opinion public opinion in favor of independent india in the 1930s i don't think it was normal we were entering the era of decolonization this was after world war one and he said in that era yes that's something which is reachable something within reach he always calculated in terms of public opinion that you've got to stick with the two-state solution because that is where the limits of public opinion and i'm saying that's not how the world works when i said public opinion i did not limit myself to the united states i said the united nations i said 165 countries have embraced this solution the problem is they've only done it on paper and the challenge is how do you turn passive support into active support and i think there i agree with gandhi the way you turn passive support which exists including in the american jewish community the way you turn it into active support is you have to have mass non-violent resistance in the occupied territories like the first intifada which was remarkably successful although it was aborted it was a very successful first undertaking okay our panel agitated coming jeff halper you wanted to come in today there is no traction to a one-state solution the problem here is that we're thinking in a linear way we're assuming that the status quo of today the situation today is going to continue now how do we deal with it this is a very dynamic situation it's very likely it's it is certainly possible that the palestinian authority is going to leave the scene at some point i mean abu mazen himself is 80 years old it could very well be the palestinian that that that there'll be a political collapse if the palestinian authority leaves the scene and israel will have to reoccupy the palestinian cities and maybe gaza given a collapse then that opens up possibilities for one state solutions and other possibilities that don't exist today which is true you support the one-state system i support it and i think it's very do and not only is it doable but it's the only way out but it's going to have to wait upon a collapse in which in which the what we're talking about today becomes really irrelevant one of the issues on which palestinian public opinion is now switching and a lot of palestinian grassroots is coming behind is the idea of a boycott divestment and sanctions movement the bds movement of a kind of south african anti-apartheid style movement to isolate israel you said israel's occupation is cost free to impose a cost on israel is that something you support totally i was for bds before bds existed any sane person would be for it and yet a couple of years ago in an interview you've now infamously referred to bds as a cult you said the people who've joined bds are part of a cult and they're responsible for potentially historically criminal mistake yeah because there's a difference between a tactic and a goal the tactic is absolutely legitimate and as i said i've always supported the tactic the problem is the goal ending israel's occupation and dismantling the wall recognizing the rights of palestinian citizens in israel and respecting and promoting the rights of palestinian refugees which of those three goals do you object to bds put out its call in july 2005 to coincide with the first anniversary of the icj advisory opinion on the wall and the very first statement of the bds document says we support international law and they said the first right under international laws the right of peoples to self-determination and from that right of self-determination they then derive three other rights i say of course i agree with all of that but israel is also a state under international law israel still also has the right to self-determination and stated under international law and then you have two options one option is you have to recognize the reciprocal rights of israel under international law because you say you're anchored in international law or of course you have the right to say to hell with international law i think it's all nonsense i think it's all made by rich people against poor people international law only when it concerns my rights it's like saying i have the right to walk at the green but i'm agnostic on the red if you have a right to walk in the green it's because you have an obligation to stop but they're already hold on claim right they said they wanted to destroy israel militarily then you could say that's violating israel i'm not sure how demanding three rights which you agree with is israel state under international law it's recognized by the lawyers do you think it's an accident that israel is not mentioned israelis do you think it was an oversight oh we forgot about israel is they forgot about israel omar barghouti the founder of bds has pointed out that the majority of people on the boycott committee are two states that's absolutely correct which which bit of international law do they not recognize that israel is a state under international can you show me a statement where they say israel isn't a state under international law show me a statement where they say it i do they say have you ever asked have you ever asked the bds person where they stand on israel yes and what do they say we take no position selma you're not following international law by supporting this bds campaign the three calls of bds are completely in line with international law and the question of how you end up resolving the conflict whether you have one state or two states whether israel is is there still as a state or not is actually a political question that international law is silent on so there seems to be a lot of confusion about this role of international law and to my mind it actually seems to be an excuse to attack the bds and i find that a really extraordinary thing to do when the palestinians have very few tools at their disposal at the moment to promote their rights and to promote solidarity with their cause so i i want to ask you actually why would you use your platform given the context that we're in to attack bds so severe talking about dds with a capital b capital d and capital s what i was asked about was the tools that are available to palestinians and i said of course i endorsed those pools tools and of course i used them and endorsed them long before bds came along but under international law which you claim i completely misunderstand doesn't israel have the right to self-determination in statehood or are you telling me all the nations in the u.n the 196 nations which admit israel is a member of state are suffering from a delusion they recognize it politically it's a state under international law jeff however you support bds you're one of the rare few israelis who actually thinks yes it's right to boycott my own country in order to put a cost on it i believe no that's right you know we support bds because bds gives the people in solidarity with the palestinians those tools to push the governments if it hadn't been for the people we still have an apartheid south africa the people were the ones that that organized and pushed the governments to do what they should do governments will not do the right thing unless they're pushed by the people before i bring that's what bds is about before i bring norman back in oliver very briefly you wanted to come back there this is where the debate breaks down criticism of israel is legitimate comparisons to the apartheid regime to institutionalize racial discrimination are tendentious and a disgrace the moment you demonize israel in that way when you say are you aware that the anc which led the struggle against apartheid has endorsed bds and not all of them by any means norman do you regret now two years on calling the people who campaign for those three goals which you say you share palestinians who see no other way of ending the occupation than adopting an apartheid-like struggle do you regret calling the members of a cult i don't regret calling them members of the cult if they act like a cult you see yourself as a radical you said in a recent biographical film about your life called american radical that you see the world as a quote radically unfair place which requires a radical change and yet on israel palestine your position isn't radical at all it's safety first it's establishment friendly it's pro the consensus of the un security council and uh other opinions you're not radical on israelis and you're quite conservative you know that's like saying we're facing a meltdown on the economy in the western world so you have to deal what are you going to do about it okay i'm going to be real radical i'm going to advocate the abolition of money well that's a really radical position it really is i mean and according to marx that should solve everything because then we'll be in communism but what does that radical position have to do with the real world that's a cult i want to make the world a better place so i'm trying to look at the real material conditions in the real world the real political limits that are imposed upon us and figure out within those limits what's the maximum we could hope for i didn't say the minimum i didn't even say the moderate i said let's look at what the maximum is possible well we're going to leave it there we'll come back uh in part two we're going to take a break right now on head ted join me in part two where i'll be talking uh to norman finkelstein about some of the personal battles he's had to wage uh especially with the jewish community and we'll also be hearing from our audience here in the oxford union that's after the break welcome back to head to head on al jazeera we are talking to norman finkelstein the u.s author academic activist uh norman you're a well-known intellectual you've published several critically acclaimed best-selling books after your book the holocaust industry came out in 2000 you were accused of being a quote self-hating jew what's your response to that quite common yet very serious accusation well my response is a completely rational one let's say it's true for argument's sake and i'm a self-hating jew what does that have to do with the facts i mean if einstein was a self-hating jew for argument's sake that mean e does not equal mc squared what do the facts have to do with what i am or what i'm not if i were a self-loving jew would that mean everything i say is true so do you think sometimes you maybe are your own worst enemy you are quite provocative you're quite controversial do you think that that is part of the problem with norman finkelstein that you pick fights with everyone and anyone and you end up doing yourself down well first of all i don't think politics is a popularity contest that when you get too popular with the people there's probably some problem and there is part of me that does believe that i am not happy at all if there's any hostility from the people who are actually suffering namely the palestinians and i can see ms carmey is not pleased with what i'm saying and that does bother me i have to tell you the rest of people i couldn't care less your book the holocaust industry argues that the memory of the nazi genocide in which most of your family perished has been used to excuse israel's behavior in the occupied territories to justify u.s support it's an argument a lot of people make it's an argument i'm sure many people in this room would agree with people watching at home but some people would say you phrased that argument in such an overly provocative even offensive way look at the chapter headings the book here the double shakedown hoaxers hucksters and history how can you say that doesn't play into anti-semitic stereotypes well it's kind of funny i mean this is a personal story and i hope my publisher is not going to be offended but when the book came out it was really it was originally called theory practice and examples the three chapter headings and he says that's so boring we have to make it more exciting there's many people and those chapters said headings were cited by my university when it denied me ten years so i blamed him for the whole thing but um that aside and a more serious note when the book came out in 2000 i mean it evoked a kind of hysteria and now what i say is a kind of commonplace so if you take the case of the former speaker of the israeli knesset avraham berg he writes the book in the holocaust he refers to the showa industry now when i used the expression the holocaust industry it elicited all these horrors and shrieks and what he is saying anti-semitic holocaust denier and now it's even a commonplace among israelis to refer to a yeah in your own words you once said i've never been able to get a permanent teaching job in the u.s what do you think that is i'll simply say the facts as i understand it speak for themselves if you take the example of the last place where i was employed which was a university in chicago when they denied me tenure the statement that they delivered upon denying me ten years said that uh finkelstein has been a excellent teacher and a prolific scholar so if i was an excellent teacher and i was a prolific scholar i shouldn't have been denied tenure why were you um well um i think people have to draw that conclusion on their own many jewish people claim that you are anti-semitic then i think that would be a problem for the palestinian people i think who would see who have seen you as a champion over the years you were as you say very popular some people one person called you a rock star i think that would be a problem if it turned out that you're actually anti-semitic actually i think that would be a problem also my own view is that i do more personally to fight anti-semitism by my example in the arab muslim world than probably almost any other jew that i know oliver norman says that just by his example just by writing this book highlighting these issues he's actually done more to combat anticipation than most other jewish public intellectuals what do you say to that that's not the view of of historians who reviewed his book peter novick the author of the holocaust in american life um described it as pure invention and compared it to the protocols of the elders of zion my criticism of norman finkelstein is slightly more prosaic i have no problem at all with writers being provocative it's what i am paid to do but you're not very good at it you're a hack writer you made a factual error well you're certainly entitled to your opinion i don't know of any expertise i don't know i don't know of any expertise you have in the topic you're understated by a large number the number of holocaust survivors that's the last question okay very briefly i would like to answer very briefly please i don't claim it all to be an authority in the nazi holocaust the book the holocaust industry is not about the nazi holocaust it's a book about how the holocaust has been rendered in popular opinion and in so-called scholarship the figure i got of under 100 thousand survivors of the nazi holocaust it didn't come from me it came from raul hillberg i think you'll agree if you have any knowledge of the nazi holocaust which is doubtful but if you have any knowledge in the nazi holocaust you'll know that the world's leading authority the nazi holocaust bar none was raoul hillberg he was in a class all his own where all hillberg praised the holocaust industry in fact he said my conclusions in the book were conservative now raul hillberg was begged by the u.s holocaust museum and his close friend elie wiesel to remove his name from the book and he said no i refuse to remove my name from the book because what finkelstein wrote is true he said finkelstein's place in history as a historian is secure and what was done to me was a travesty so when you come along and say you're a hack writer i attach as much value to that as i attach the to the dust on this floor let me ask you this let's carry on you both made your points forcefully how do you make sure that you criticize israel there's an open question kind of i think people will be interested in knowing your take how do you make sure that your criticism of israel doesn't cross into anti-semitism because some people do there are people who are anti-zionist and are anti-semites there are people anti-zionists who are not anti-semites i'm just wondering what your view is i am and i'm not trying to play the holocaust card but i am the son of survivors of the nazi holocaust real survivors auschwitz majdanek every single member of my family's on both sides was exterminated during the war i'm very sensitive that charge the holocaust denier charge i think is like completely insane when it's applied to me because anyone who knew me growing up would say if anything i was a holocaust a firmer not a holocaust denier i never stopped talking about it as to your question i think the problem is what do you do with motives how do you define a person's motive and i don't know how you define a person's motive yes it's true that sometimes people are going to be making statements because they they harbor anti-semitic sentiments or hardcore anti-semites and then the only thing you can do in my opinion is try to refute it in the basis of facts jeff halper wants to come in jeff halper from the israeli committee against house demolition i just wanted to to register a reservation about linking criticism of israel to anti-semitism israel is a country and in fact israel the whole idea of zionism was we're not jewish we're hebrew we're israelis jews are something else the jewish you know most jews never went to israel you can't make israel representative of jews and you can't hold jews accountable for what israel does so i i really think this we're playing into what israel calls the new anti-semitism that was invented by the israeli government that says any criticism of israel is anti-semitism i think we have to to negate that and therefore i just wanted to say here that i was a little uncomfortable with the idea that somehow criticism of israel has anything to do really with anti-semitism jeff is it easier in your view as an israeli do you think it's easier to criticize israel inside of israel than it is from outside of israel is there more criticism of the israeli government at home than abroad in israel just like in any other country to criticize your government is a normal thing i mean if you criticize the cameron government here you're not anti-british and i think israelis you know this is a this is a whole conversation that has to do with more with the diaspora than it does inside inside israel okay well let me let me put that point to olive oliver you write for a newspaper in the united kingdom do you agree with what jeff's saying about what happened the criticism inside of israel is much more ferocious and open than outside of israel i've never met someone who believes that criticism of israel of israeli government policy much of which i've done myself is inherently anti-semitic but the israeli foreign ministry about five six years ago consciously and deliberately developed a concept that's called the new anti-semitism that says exactly that let me just bring in salman khan here who you're a palestinian based in britain do you feel as someone who wants to kind of campaign for your people's rights campaigning against occupation do you feel inhibited in what you can and can't say about the conflict i think there is a certain inhibition for palestinians and for those who are in solidarity with palestinians which is that whenever we want to talk about the nature of zionism or for example the nature of the state of israel as it is currently constituted we run into this criticism that we're either anti-semitic or that we're not respecting international law or that we're calling for the annihilation of the israeli people when we're not and we want to be able to have a legitimate debate about the principles that underpin the state of israel and why they have caused so much suffering for the palestinians and how the continual the continuance of zionism is going to continue the conflict in fact and continue the dispossession of the palestinians but whenever we but when we try to do that i'd say there are definitely people that shut down the debate by leveling this charge of anti-semitism or de-legitimization of israel as well as as it's been called okay and let's go to our audience here who've been waiting very patiently here in the oxford union raise your hands high and wait let's go to the gentleman here in the front row let's start with you in the red tie i'm a palestinian born in nazareth pre-nakba years therefore i consider myself an akba survivor as an architect i use my metaphor you never plaster over a crack which begs my question and that is why do you and other colleagues eminent people try to plaster over the cracks of the palestine issue an issue that has started in the mid 1800s and manifested itself in the great tragedy in the 20th century the palestinian nakba i think going back to 1800 or going back to 1600 it's sort of like to me it's like what the zionists say let's go back to when there was this judean kingdom in palestine said well maybe there was maybe there was and i don't know and frankly i don't really care because i just don't think it has much to do with trying to achieve a reasonable resolution of the conflict now the current political consensus calls for they use the term adjust resolution of the refugee question based on 194 which is not exactly implementation of the right of return and then we have a question the question is what's the maximum a political movement can extract politically from that legal right if we can mobilize a powerful enough movement we probably can extract more from that right i'm going to go to the gentleman in the white jumper there on the third row back is there surely no strategy that palestinians in civil society or their leadership could adopt to actually convert the cult-like international community support for a two-state solution into something towards a one-state solution well at this point palestinian political will for perfectly understandable reasons that will has been depleted palestinians feel hopeless they feel cynical everything you can imagine palestinian people like everybody else are normal and after suffering from so many defeats there's going to be a large element of cynicism hopelessness and the every man for himself mentality but are there possibilities here i think there are very big possibilities let's take one example if palestinians were to march on the wall with a million palestinians we'll say holding up a sign enforce the law dismantle the wall you said i'm not a radical and in some sense there's an argument there because i'm trying to find a slogan a solution which will resonate with most of world opinion and force the law has a real possible resonance so i think there are possibilities if palestinians find the inner strength and i admit it a lot of self-sacrifice in order to achieve the goal if they went up in with million people stood up with signs saying one person one vote that wouldn't have an effect on the world no i don't think it will have because if you hold up a a sign that says you want to dismantle the israeli state you want one state yes it will have exactly zero resonance in the international former prime minister of israel said if palestinians were to say one person one vote israel is finished let's go back to the audience lady here with the scarf um would you not i mean say that at this point maybe it's a blessing in disguise that the two-state solution is falling out of public opinion because the unforeseen circumstances that might come from that will be like um oppression of the palestinians and the israeli state and more division between the palestinians and the israelis that will in the end cause more human rights violations in israel itself i don't know how the disappearance of the only at this point practical possibility for achieving some degree of justice in the conflict the fact that it's not going to be possible why that would be a positive development the fact that something is bad doesn't mean that something good is then on the horizon it could be worse let's go back to the audience gentlemen there thank you um i think that the two-state solution that you are now proposing is basically is used kind of like to protect the israeli interest on on the ground now by keeping the settlements without addressing the issue of the palestinian refugees and the issue of jerusalem okay it's a kind of paradox this kind of discussion because i think it's forgotten that it was the plo executive committee that endorsed the two-state settlement it's like history is all being effaced and whitewashed and now it's as if you're saying i'm some sort of collaborator or traitor because i'm endorsing the position which the palestinians endorsed during the height of their self if you read shafiq al hud a respected former member of the plo he said we endorsed the two-state settlement during the height of our confidence and our belief in ourselves namely during the first intifada if the polls which clearly show that every year the number of palestinians who support one state solution goes up year after year after year and by age the younger you get the more support there is if tomorrow the polls show next year or two years majority of palestinians both in the west bank and abroad want one state solution one person one vote will you support them in that uh in 2001 2002 in the occupied palestinian territories the majority of palestinians support the suicide bombings now i could i can understand why they support the suicide bombing i can understand the rage the anger and everything else but in the name of supporting palestinians am i obliged to support the suicide bombings are you really comparing support for suicide no i wasn't what i was saying what i was saying was what i was saying was the fact that the majority of the people might support a particular position doesn't compel me as a separate individual to embrace that if i think it's unrealistic fine i'll take that as a note we're going to go to the gentleman right there at the back with his hand up yes you sir you can stand up yep you i wonder do you agree with professor norm chonsky who you know thinks that language has a particular significance here and that the peace process being whatever john kerry says the peace process is you know proves extremely corrosive or that settlement sounds non-invasive where in fact the reality is something rather more sinister it's obviously not been a peace process it's been an annexation process so the peace process at least the current phase of it the current phase of it is said to have been initiated at oslo in 1993 and then you look at the results there are about 250 000 settlers in the occupied palestinian territories in september 1993 the figure is now 20 years later now it's about 550 000 so judging the process by the results there hasn't been a peace process there's been an annexation process and the israelis and the americans used the peace process as a fig leaf to conceal the annexation process that's correct the gentleman here on the second row with his jumper on thank you i'm a palestinian now i'm confused i think you are confusing all of us are you a pro palestine or are you palestine absolutely no i'm pro-justice i have no interest in palestine right or or are you an israeli peace negotiator here i'm not because i'm not is what you are saying no interest this question then you can come back you are causing a division amongst the international pro police and activists by not accepting or by not re or by not respecting what they are demanding for once their solution can you show me any evidence that jaata scintilla a tittle of evidence that the palestinians uh in the majority or their civil society organizations support one state where where is that from show me the evidence someone briefly speak and then we'll go back to the audience spent any time on the ground in palestine or in the diaspora palestinian communities this issue would be obvious to you when palestinians are asked explicitly what do they think is politically viable they've been fed on the two-state idea for so long many of them will say two states we you know we can't imagine anything else but if you ask them about the reality that they actually want it's in accordance with the one state idea and if you presented them with a strategy to achieve it they would absolutely support it we're going to go back to the audience now gentlemen here in the front row as you've said the majority of israelis and palestinians as far as we know do support the two-state uh solution however do you think that some of your um support for groups that support violence and rejection like hezbollah um actually doesn't support that majority of what you call um and i i would agree is progressive public opinion actually undermines that and supports the rejectionist well first of all there's too many things attached to me which don't reflect my own opinions i don't believe a majority of israeli supported two-state settlement there isn't a scratch of evidence to support that what the majority of israelis will support is probably around 70 percent will support a settlement of the conflict where israel annexes the settlement blocks the major settlement blocks and annexes most of jerusalem and nullifies the right of return that's what you find maybe as many in certain polls as many as 95 percent but when you talk about actual settlement on the june 67 border and palestinian capital in east jerusalem a significant palestinian capital in east jerusalem the support goes down to 10 or 15 percent i think the point your critics would make is a group like hezbollah ain't so enthusiastic about the two-state solution and yet you're willing to come out and run them in public yeah there's no confusion here i never said i support hezbollah has the right and it did to my uh to my thinking displaying an enormous amount of courage and heroism and discipline they expelled foreign occupiers from their country and why shouldn't we celebrate those occasions i mean in any other country in europe the people who are part of the resistance people who expel the nazis from their country uh we all celebrate the resistance why shouldn't we celebrate it uh because they're muslims let's go back to the audience lady there in the audience second block now you just said that you support violence before you said you support an anti-violent resistance could you please explain the contradiction i don't consider it a contradiction in certain circumstances in my opinion and i've studied gandhi pretty closely gandhi's tactics can work in certain circumstances they can't work in other circumstances if you're in the middle of a forest in india and the indian army is coming in and just wiping you out nobody in the world cares because nobody even knows what the heck is going on in that little forest in india so nonviolence is not going to work there but in a place like israel-palestine where for historic reasons palestine is very much in the eye of the world it's very much on the international agenda in places like that yes i think non-violent resistance can work i do not think it could have worked in south lebanon nobody gave a darn about israel's occupation of south lebanon just like nobody gives a dawn about israel's occupation of the golan heights final question to you before we finish you once said to some fans of yours please don't put me on a pedestal because you'll end up being disappointed do you think that's how a lot of people not just in the jewish community but these days in the palestinian community feel about you disappointed betrayed even i'm the same person as i always was the only difference is it's not me that's changed it's the international community public sentiment there's been a huge change not least among the american jewish community and now you have something to work with you have real possibilities real hope that something can be done and so uh now i seem so moderate but the difference between me and many people in the bds is i'm really happy about that fact we finally have a breakthrough in public opinion we have somebody to talk to and other people think well no that's not good let's strike a more radical pose let's try to be really radical let's be really chic and let's be especially when you've got tenure you can be really radical and so they start striking all of these radical poses which have no connection with reality and they're so defeatist of the cause we have a real possibility now the thing we struggled for so for decades we now have a public that's willing to accept the terms of a settlement which as i said the palestinians themselves endorsed in 1988 and now we have a chance and people are saying ah two states passe liberal zionist we need something more radical and that to me is very frustrating because i think now we have real possibilities norman finkelstein thank you very much for joining us on head to head tonight thank you all for being here the debate will continue online join us next week here for head to head good night you

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 1,006,067

Keywords: palestine, Head To Head, Norman Finkelstein, Israel, Jews, al Jazeera, Occupation, palestinians, aljazeera, aljazeera english, al jazeera english, Time to boycott Israel?, boycott Israel, boycott israeli products, bds, Israeli land annexation, two-state solution, Israel-Palestine conflict, Boycott, boycott divestment and sanctions, boycott divestment and sanctions (bds) movement, Zionist, liberal Zionist, Finkelstein, Salma Karmi-Ayyoub, Jerusalem, House Demolitions

Id: 8YFfQnwuVLo

Length: 47min 30sec (2850 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 12 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

That was such a pleasant beating. Finkelstein really is an inspiring figure.

[u/5000927]

Hack calls Finkelstein a "hack"

[u/fuckoffplsthankyou]

Love me some Norman.

[u/[deleted]]

Very interesting talk. Thanks! This needs to be watched more.

[u/[deleted]]

This show fucking sucks. It's just a bunch of bashing every time I've seen it.

[u/wordsarewoven]

11:20 was another great moment for me. He succeeds in making a fool of almost the entire audience.