Future Prospects for a Two State Solution

Hi everybody. Welcome to a new episode of A Asaskhad of Anything. Thank you so much for being here. I amm excited to tell you that my teacher, professor, Alexandra Jakson of Heibri University is back to the podcast He is the research feellllow of the Kogod Research Center at the Shleam Hartman Institute, Associate prorofessor of Ancient history at the Hebrew University a scholar of democracy, popular politics, public opinion and elections in the ancient world, but he also is a very serious thinker on the modern state of Israel on democracy on national identity, on nation states, on the rights of national minorities, in Israel in Western democracies and all the great problems and debates and discussions that we have on these issues. And today we're going to discuss Some of the big questions that I'm often asked and that I often have to answer. And some of those answers have even been pretty popular online. Today we're going to go right to the source questions of Is Israel, you know, an ethno state? W Zionism determined to and it could not have ended anyway, but in the current impasse in the current violence, in the current war and the current suffering of Palestinians. This is a favorite thought and idea of the Ati Israel crowd, most recently articulated by Professor Ommer Barov, Zionism could not have ended any other way But in this war, in this moment We're going to ask that question. We're going to tackle it. We're going to talk about the knak about displacements generally as empires fall. We're going to ask if it's unique, what makes it unique, if it is and whether it is or not and we're going to get to two states, one state, all of those questions So very excited to get into it. These are fundamental foundational questions that worry a lot of us. Before we do, let me tell you that this episode is sponsored. by Howard and Darlene Wolf who are a Jewish couple from Tampa, Florida, and they want to dedicate this episode to the millions of Americans who have an unbreakable bond with the Jewish state of Israel, including the seventy eight million Evangelicals Those beliefs and reasons may differ from our own, but who nevertheless stand shoulder to shoulder with the Jewish state This has become critically important as we see troubling trends at the edges of the political spectrum. from those who wish to distance themselves from the Jewish state, not so much the edges anymore, arguably, which makes it even more important. Regardless of our motivations, they write, whether religious or secular mean we hold fast to our relationship with America's most trustworthy ally and the Middle East only democracy. Thank you so much to the Wolves for that sponsorship and for that dedication I also would like to invite everyone to join your Patreon community and to subscribe to our Substack. If you want to ask the questions that guide the topics we choose to talk about, including the questions we're going to discuss here today That's where you join, that's where you ask those questions, and you get to take part in monthly live streams where I answer your questions live You can join us at wWW d. patreon d. com slash ask helpave anything Or hveygord. sububstack. com. thoseose links will be in the show notes Alex, how are you Fine, thank you. Thank you for coming back Um, I want to tackle this we'll just we're going to dive right into the history. And the first question I want to ask is Could our history have gone any other way? the settler colonial paradigm for analyzing Israel, the idea that their society is organized around particular kind of settlement pattern. can only end in total displacement, slash ethnic cleansing, slash genocide. could only end in, let's say, the American displacement of Native Americans, the Australian displacement of Aorigines Um, and Solarship of the anti Israel scholars wants to argue that Israel is that kind of a society It was born to subjugate It was born to this place, not to carve out, you, a small defensible place in the aftermath of empire I want to pose the question to you as open as possible C Zionism? have ended it any other way When you say it could only have ended in total displacement, this is what the theory says You know, I'm thinking total displace if if if Zionism is essentially about total displacement of the Palestinians, then it's it's an It's a total failure. You know, from the river to the sea, there are millions of Arabs that are Under Israeli rule or at least I would say in Palestinian authority areas they are And I would say Israel is the stronger the strongest side in the equation, okay and And so there is of course, more than a million much more than a million Arab citizens of Israel And then there are millions of Palestinians in the territories. And so if Zionism is about displacement And the number of Arabs in historical Palestine is more than ten times more than ten times more than than that the number of Arabs When you know, when the Balfel dececlaration was signed, when the Zionism enterprise started Whereas during the same time, the Arab Middle East was more or less totally emptied of its Jewish population that predated the Arab conquest and Islam hundredundreds of years Okay att least there the Jews cannot be accused of being colonialists, you know, in, you know, in Babylono By the way, I don't think that you could say There is something in the idea of Arab nationalism, of Arab independence, of giving Arab peoples their national independence There is something that inevitably leads to discrimination, persecution and displacement of non Arab and non Muslim minorities. I wouldn't say so. I think there is a lot of nastiness. aboutb Arab nationalism and should be denounced and should be condemned, but I don't think it's It's a reasonable claim to say that any Arab who ever thought that Arab people should be independent O and perhaps united in one great Arab. Federation or something like that that there was anything wrong about the idea. So in the going go now back to the Jewish of the Jewish history First of all, it is ridiculous to claim that Zionism is about al or anything like total you know total you total Smoto. There are millions of Palestinian Arabbs As a matter of fact who live in the territory which for decades is dominated militarily and politically by the entity, which is allegedly about you about displacement and ethnic lensing. That is simply a mathematical fact. Now of course, we all talk when people speak about displacement They think about the War of Independence about four AM seven forty eight. And that is the time when actual displacement took place. Now I want to go back to the history. of that period. It's usually said yes there was a partition plan There was a two state solution offered by the international community And we accepted it. The Arabs didn't accept it, they went to war. All this is true, but there is another Another fact that should is worth recalling When the once the General Assembly passed the famous partition plan The Zionist movement didn't just accept it. they did something else The Zion is the Jewish agency went to the security Council Mose Sharet, Sharok at the time. The future foreign minister went in the name of the Jewish regry to the Security Council and asked enforcing the partition plan Enforcing the Security Council has a right to enforce decisions. The General Assembly decisions, as you know are recommendations. But the Security Council has a right to enforce And they ask we ask the Zionist movement ask that this should include an international military force that should come to Palestine and enforce it because the British refuseed to enforce it. The British say we will not enforce partition Because the Arabs don't agree and we will not start fighting with the Arabs in order to propose solution, they were not they did not support it No, the Jewish agency said you decided that there should be two states And the Arabs are saying they're going to fight So please send international military force to this country in order with and with all kinds of, you know international kind of what President Trump is now doing trying to do in Gaza kind of an international board Now of course the Arabs said no, we want to fight They said the Arab representative said, no, we are against it because this is what the General Assembly voted for is merely a recommendation. We don't accept it And we want to fight, which is what they started to do immediately and they went out doing now Hello, assuming that the other side would agree to this They could say ye, we We did not think that partition was a fair solution. We thought all of Palestine should be ours. but No There is this international decision And we are afraid that the Jews may want to take more than their part We're afraid that the Jews you know may want to get rid of Arabs Okay so why on? so it's actually a good idea now that this decision is made And the Jews are going to have a state of their own It is a good idea to have an international force protecting therab population of Palestine This Zionist conspiracy Vis Mamara were to succeed then A, the Jewish state then would have been established exactly on the lines of the Pition plan, of course And there would be no way to take one square mile beyond partition boundaries, which would have meant a very different a much smaller Georg state than the one that we are now those who Now except the two state solution are asking us to go back to the green line, but that would have been much less than the green line for us as you know. And of course, there would there have been no refugee problem certainly not in substantial numbers because there is no way could create the refugee problem in any way when there is an international rule and an inter military force, That is enforcing the partition plan Now, you know, the Arab said no, there was no It was not a law of nature that they had to say no, okay. they Canada, the founding fathers of the Zionist movement should have known that The other side would always reject a compromise and they would fight against any compromise But that's not the only story There is another story but even more intriguing This was the open diplomacy But I read some years ago in the published documents of the Russian of this ex Soviet foreign ministry When those archives were open during the time of the liiberal liberal of the short lived Russian democracy They publish documents and according to those documents, the Jewish agency not just went to the Security Council. The Jewish agents actually went to the Soviets and to the Americans Field through diplomatic channels Both superpowers that supported partition, you know, this The Americans and the Soviets did not agree on anything at that time except They both supported partition and voted for partition. So the Jewish so I read the Soviet documents of the Soviet foreign ministry that the Jewish agency has asked us and they are telling us that they also ev us the Americas. They are asking both since the Security Council avenue was not. The British of course supported. The Brits supported the Arab. the airor position, of course Now the the the request then was made. directly to the Soviet and the American governments. And so of course, the Soviets said no. I assume the Americans also said no because because probably they didn't want to bother, but also because at that time that was the height of the Cold War and the Soviets and the Americans were not about to to be a common military force, you know, enforcing anything. But, you know, Again, that was a very serious effort not just you could not just a public relations exercise. you could suspect you the Zionists of being so sophisticated that they would know that the Arabs would say no and they wanted to score points, although This is something that I don't think even the Israeli propaganda is using. I think it's my personal contribution because I think nobody nobody remembers it But I'm telling you what I say you can find it in the records. It's very there is no question about the effects here so You know So that would have been the same Zionist movement with the same Zionist ideology and with the so no But only, you know they actually, you know, it's not that they were prepared. They were actually attempting to create a situation where they would not be able. take more than the partition plan boundaries or to displace their population. Now I asked a colleague of mine in the Hebrew University who is an expert on the on the history of the of the War of Iependence And I said to him, you know, It's interesting because that meant, of course, that they were prepared really prepared to It's not just with partition, but with boundaries of partition that are horrible. The truth is ind they're horrible And so u This is interesting, I said to him. He said, you know The truth is that the Zionist leadership was pleasantly surprised should why because the the Piece of territory that the Jews were offered was much larger than what and the peel their terms of reference was the peel partition, which there was a miniscle part of. Nan of state that was offered in it in the thirties. So they thought that was a and they were and they said they were They were very happy to be given this and they were not at all sure they would be able to hold it Okay becausecause that's another distortion. People somehow assumed that the Zionist was sure that they would win the war Okay, but that is nonsense and we happen to have kind of a scientific proof of that. How do we prove that? because we know the story that when they design of the future of provision government was debating the question whether or not to proclaim the independence You know, and the Americans were putting pressure to postpone it. on the decelaration of indndependence And you know, if we postponeed it then who knows, you know, postponing a thing like that is veryy dangerous, but the Americans were telling us The American administration told Musesher Tk beforefore he flew back to to this country That if you insist, if you proclaim independence, there will be a war and we think you will lose it And if you insist on going for independence now, don't come to us. This is what Marshall told me. Marshall was not a great. or even a little it was it was against the idea of O Israel, he thought that Truman was wrong to support it. but he told personally Chaleette, that you know, if you proclaim this state and you are in trouble, don't come to us to save you. because It will be only your responsibility if you go ahead with it. Now Charette went back And Charette was so frightened that he was in favor of Boning it And the eventual decision was made by a very small majority. in that provisional st provisional council a vision execut Now we know it is described that They invited the acting Chief of Staff Eiggeelia Din. the man who was was defecto Chief of staff of the future IDF. Okaykay I And he was asked, what are our chances if there is a war And he's quoted usually as saying, It is fifty fifty But what he actually said, if you read the quotation If I want to be optimistic I will say that the chances are fifty, fifty, but the truth is that the situation is very dire And in that situation, what Bengurion says, if we don't proclaim independence, we have even less chances if we go for independent So So the Zenist movement was not at all sure would win this one. I'm going back to my colleague, he told me because they after the adoption of the of the partetition resolution, they were not at all sure that they would be able to hold this territory or even to survive If there is a war, they will reallying they were willing to take it and to run away with it. Okaykay to to entrench the the partition boundary exactly as offered Now you in know. So there was nothing inevitable, at least there was nothing inevitable from the viewpoint of the Zionist movement itself of what it's the logic of its own action about the final result It was only made inevitable by the Araban systems on rejecting partition. By the way, the Arabs in forty seven did not just reject the partition, they also rejected the the idea of the m the unskoply United Nation commommittee Palestine that recommended, but the majority report recommended partition There was a minority report that recommended a federal Jewish Arab state a binational state with the Arab state, a Jewish state and the federal government And that was also rejected by the Arabs with exactly the same threats of war. They said we will fight for anything except they of course believed was the just solution because we are the majority The Arabs in Palestine, they are the masters of the territory because they are the majority and they are the indigenous population and Palestine should be an Arab state Anything else is an aggression, an invasion of our country and we will fight against it. So they rejected if they I think if the Arabs if the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states accepted they if they said, you know, no partition is not no we reject partition, but since there is the def facto situation of that there are two people in the land this is On this this is a premise on which both partition and the federal state based built of course, that are two peoples so now So the Arabs, if they said, okay, but We didn't want this second people to appear, but since they're here And for the sake of peace We accept not partition, but we accept the minority repeport, a binational federal state with a autonomous Jewish state at a larger Arab state and than a federal government with an Arab majority, which would have been, of course a de facto Arab state or Arab dominated state and And the Jews would not have, as this minority report says The Jews would not have a right to impose Jewish immigration because immigration, of course, is a sovereign decision of the. of the federal government, okay? You would not have a right to have Jewish immigration into your autonomous state within a larger state, of course. that is a So if I accepted this I don't believe that I'm not sure that there would have been a two thirds majority in the in the general simbly needed pass a partition resolution and Without this, I'm not sure whether the Soviet Union would feel It would be political possible for them to send us the weapons that allowed us to win the war of Iependence. We won the world of independence not with the imperialist weapons but with a progressive socialist weapons prove by comat stalid. So if anyone thinks that this is a better a better claim for independence, they should be happy about it. So So I'm going back to the claim that all this was already predetermined by the nature, ential character and nature off the Zionist movement Yeah, well, if you insist to fight your neighbour If you definitely insist on fighting your neighb neighbour despite the compromiseed solutions offer, then sometimes you lose, you know The result is not always tailor made I want to You know, I often go to college campuses I often get asked by students who hear that Zionism is colonialism Basically Zionism is colonialism, unless you're vaguely interested in actual history. because when you're interested in actual history There are a few differences between Zionism and colonialism. For example, the refugee nature of the people coming in Many colonialist projects absorb refugees, exceedingly few were founded by refugee populations. There's no metropol, There's no founding country that sent out those people Um ancient tradition of belonging to the place. One thing after another that makes Zionism If it is colonialism, it's such a weird outlier that the word is no longer diagnostically useful. You're just it's just a curse. You're just it's an epithet And thenen people come back to me and they'll say to me Ah, but it's not colonialism. It's settler colonialism. Patrick Wolfe, the scholar from Australia who wrote about this settler colonial theory in the nineties, but in fact, it's a settler colonial theory that theoretically is based on the Australian experience, but actually was about Israel and his argument was This is a special kind of colonialism of colonialists who come to stay And it's a colonialism that is Not a not an event that displaces that is a genocide, that is an ethnic cleansing but a structure that inherently slowly over time must, it's in internal logic And settler colonialism suffers from the exact same problem. It's a perfectly fine theoretical model to live in abstractly of in your mind then you have to actually look at the history. and when you look at the history, you suddenly run into problems. The fact that millions of Jews had nowhere else to go on this earth literally because all the doors of the earth were closed to them. The entire story of the invasion, the entire story of How a different leadership would have would have caused a very different kind of result. otherther than that, sure, it's structurally stable or colonialist, whatever. There's nobody has agency in history. It's white people showing up doing what they want to do and brown people have no No thought, no theory, no politics, no decision making They'rely Zionist. weren't aware that things would run this way that the forty eight W would be such a success One of the big reasons for the forty eight W's success from the Gewish side militarily speaking was that the Arabs never managed to put together a serious military effort. They couldn't draft enough men. They were not coordinated. thoseose different armies. The Egyptians cut out after the Rhodes conference. That was not only the Jews would be able to do that. I mean, I'm not sure who would have been able to do it if not the Benorians, you know iron and and And you know there were different militias, as we know, there are all kinds of potential for infighting and that. So ye There was nothing inevitable in anything All the inevitabities But I'd like to say a few words about Australia, not that I'm any kind of an expert on Australia, but I want to remind us that there is also a small country called New Zealand. And the story of Maoris in New Zealand is very different from the story of So even in the classical settle the colonial paradigm The end is the Australian end result is is not you is probably a result of Australian conditions where there An So the endas so there was no there was no genocide and there was no ethnic cleansing of Maoris in N Zealand and their status today is and the proportions are very different. So even there it's it should not be a question of some general you know slogan that covers anything, but you should look on the specific conditions, but As far as designist movement is concerned, you know Colonialism we talked about that a lot, but you know let's ask what is why is colonialism so wrong? Okaykay? So let's start with in a What is what is a deal but it's not just because it it's a woke dirty word, but it but, you know Why is it that you don't have to be woke? in order to accept that colonialism there is something in colonialism that is fundamentally Contrary to our values as modern people who accept some basic notions of freedom Human freedom and equality, okay and The problem with colonialism is that it is a project of of European powers dominate other peopless in this case of peoples of what is now called the Third worldorld beyond the seas. okay. There was a lot of domination of European peoples by European powers. This is not called colonialism, but colonialism specifically is that European powers go around and conquer territories in in the non European That's a non white world And they think that they have a right to rule those territories because they have the notions of the of civiliz of civilizational mission and of the imperial rule is for the benefit of the is for the benefit not just of the empire but of the subjects of the empire This is what all empires, European and non European thought and said throughout history. There is nothing specifically European about it. But we are talking about the European project of modern moralist colonialism No. If you say that Pimp O of the homeless people. of a homeless and persecuted people to have a state, to have a national home Morally equivalent to the desire of Portugal to take over Angola in Mozambique This is this is this is the essence of the claim And also to settle it with because there are a lot of Portuguese people then who came and settled in Angola and Mzubik I think this is fundamentally ridiculous. The claim is fundamentally ridiculous the difference between Zionism and the classical cases of European colonialism is exactly the difference in the things that Stong European colonialism into a thing that is reprehensible from our point of view, although it was not, it was accepted during that time. But we are saying now we don't accept it. A lot of things were accepted in the past, People in the past thought that absolute monarchy was okay. We don't think so, okay But, you know, cause absolute monarchy and colonialism, very different things, but they what they have in common is that they They offend against our notion of fairness That is, I think for modern people that are always based on freedom on assuming that people should be free adequate Okay. that in the words of the American Declaration of Iependence That all men are created equal There is some fundamental equality between people's people andN's pe's national groups Because it comes it all comes back to the fundamental quality between that human beings there is something about a human being as such. does not allow subjecting them to a regime that and to which they are inferior This is this offense against the principle that human beings are fundamentally of equal value and therefore should be equal in As far as their rights are concerned now, they obiously The Zionist movement was an attempt To make Jews equal then break the Jewish people equal. ain for them il what the separate go back to the American Pion Dependence the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature is God entitled them Because the idea that peoples have an equal right to independence was already there in the late nineteenth century So The Zionists were a bunch of people who said We want for our people, for the Jewish people. We want for them the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature, nature's God ent title All Poples and the Israeli Declaration of Independence says That it is a right, it is a natural right of the Jewish people to be like all other peoples O M Bir Sutatsmobibin Natorbi to be sovereign in their own independent state. Actually you put those two phrases they are very complementary Of course this then created a conflict. with the Arabs of Palestine. Of course it did Because when you when a homeless people insist on having a national home by definition They cannot have it. they cannot have it in the Ukraine or in Poland Okay, O in in theon Morocco in or in in Iraq they then want to have it in the historic homeland and then there is a conflict between them on the people who live in that historic because the historic homeland unsurprisingly has not stood empty countries don't usually stay empty okay So there is a tragic conflict and then has to be resolved. But before we even discuss How exactly is the Bol? Because those who speak of a binational solution or binational state Also think in terms of a solution between two peoples, okay Before we even discuss what is just what is a realistic solution to this problem To say that the Zionist movement is fundamentally something that is analogous to the Portuguese or British or French imperialism and colonism that by the way, did many useful things, but you absolute monarchs also did many useful things. We none of we don't accept absolute monarchy as a legitimate form of government, and we don't accept foreign domination as a legitimate form by the way, you know Those countries are for colonialists. don't you think that of course most of them had been under foreign domination Before the the colonial empires were not the of course, you know, most peoples that were colonized or most people, I can tell you from Roman history, that most peoples conquered by the Roman Epire had been under someone else's rule before the Romans took the war. This is this is the character of the international relations, okay, the pre modern area that if you're not an empire, are you will soon become a part of some other empire And if you are not part of this empire, another emperor will take you. So o what we say now Our intuition is that you cannot impose One people's rule over another people and doesn't matter whether these are more developed or less developed this is immaterial because we fundamentally do not accept that any group of people should enjoy the kind of superiority and supremacy that is implied in the idea of an imperial including colonial rule. too say the desire of the Jews to have a national home of their own is analogous to this to the idea of one of a European empire dominating an African and Asian people is morally ridiculous The claim is ridiculous. o. and all the rest is propaganda Um, I want to move on to a new question that I'm often asked on college campuses. And the question is simple, is the Nakba A unique crime terrible rupture in history. It is Usually the student gets up and they think they know that they think they have something very powerful and they're going to defeat the Israeli speaker and they say Well what do you have to say about the Nakba That's it. now I'm destroyed And it is often compared to the Holocaust One was this formative trauma of one people. The other was a formative trauma of another people And the comparison is made basically to say, the Holocaust is not special Palestinians had a Nakba And they're Nakba, as we've heard. very recently from all kinds of political leaders is ongoing. The Nakaba continues to this very day is the Nakba an experience experienence by many others. You have the fall of empire, you have the rise out of empire of dozens of nation states And you have mass displacement, Ewhere Rant When there is a national conflict of this kind, a violent passational conflict with own old all out war between two national groups in the same over the same territory in the same territory. A displacement is a rule rather than the exception. That doesn't mean that it's not a tragedy peopleeople involved end objectively from the human viewpoint and it's not a trauma. And it does not mean that this trauma does not influence the Palestinian mindset and the Arab attitude. that doesn't you know Many horrible things are very common, doesn't doesn't And it doesn't even mean necessarily that Israel should be criticized. That's I will refer to it. I'm not dodging it, but you know In any case When you have a nash a conflict between two national groups over a single piece of territory You will virtually always have a massive refugee problem in the end and this does not mean that it's not a tragedy. okay? And it doesn't even necessarily mean that it's not a crime. that that should be looked at. the circumstances then should be looked at to say that there is anything anything exceptional and to compare it with genocide, which is a with the Holocaust which is an ideological genocide. There was no conflict of any kind There was no armed conflict between the German state and the Jews. of Germany or of Poland or anywhere It was an ideological decision to wipe out a group totally wipe out a specific group because it It is this specific group that will be wiped out So this they so it's a stup it's a really stupid and dishonest comparison, but, you know This is nothing like the Holocaust doesn't make it not a tragedy And now we have to discuss the circumstances of this particular tragedy If you want to compare it the most reasonable comparison, the closest comparison is Cyprus. That's a very close small country just near us where they held a conflict between Greeks and Turks this is a binational, you know an island populated by two national communities, not very friendly with each other national ethnic and also religious and that often is those two things very often go together of course And and by the way, the conflict in Cyprus was nothing like the conflict in this country from the viewpoint of its intensity. but The result was that there are no Greeks in the Turkish part of Cyprus and there are no Turks in the Greek part of Cyprus And we should just we should just say that's There were something like two hundred thousand displaced persists and they're not allowed to return under thousand is a is a very large percentage of the whole Greek population of of u The whole Greek population is is less than a million. Okay. So it's a very large And the difference is that and also the Turkish part of Cyprus is simply emp has been was empptied of of its Greek population. Now It doesn't matter now who I don't know, know you can argue about who exactly why the Turkish army entered because there was some Greek provocations. maybe our Turkish friends were right or maybe they were wrong, just know they invaded and there are no Greeks in Turkish part of Cyprus and even before that there had been no Turks in the Greek part of Cyprus. this is the end result. Now The difference being that the the the Greek site the Greek Greeko Cypriots While they still insist on the right of return as much as the Palestinians, it's part of the official The official position And they even and they even have a They have a security Council resolution in their favor it, doesnes't it They didn't do it. They didn' keep those people in refugee camps They insist they said they they are still saying that they have should have a right of return. If there is a peace deal, they will they need to have a right of return. But in the meantime, of course They were they became part of the of the Greek society in the Greek part of Cyprus, which is why we don't hear about this. And we don't have terrorist organizations that blow up, you know busasses and pizzareas and murder cypriots all over the world because of this refugee problem because it was a refugee, the refugee problem emerged, but it was It was then it did not stay an ongoing refugee problem I'm emphasizing that they insist on the right of return because the when we say there are Jewish refugees from Arab countries the Palestinians tell us but you wanted that And so it's natural that you accommodated them. they became part of the Israeli society Now we don't we don't insist on the right of return of Jews to Iraq as you know the Greek the Greeks and Cyprus insist on the right of return. of Greeks to the northern part of Cyprus, but in the meantime they don't keep them in refugee camps, they keep them as Treat them as human beings as fellow citizens okay. So that is that is a difference. No. What happened in this country in forty seven forty eight was it there was a There was even before the Arab invasion, the invasion of Arab countries There was a had been for several months ethnic civil warar between rival ethnic militias call them Kufiot, we call them gangs, but okay, these were ethnic militias of the Arabs and against them was fighting the main ethnic militia of the Jews, which is A Gana. and the Israel and the Israeli leadership then insisted on all other militias joining this and have a unified army, which is a very large part of the reason why we won this Now there was a war between rival ethnic militias of two rival ethno national groups having an all out war And it was between two peoples in the same country, but it's not just the same country. The warars within the same setettlements In Jerusalem, because it was Jerusalem itself was Jewish Arab in Kaifa Tel Aviv Yo in Jff between Jff and Tel Aviv. So it was a very large part of the fighting was in the same localities or between neighboring localities when there were Arab villages around the Kibuts, okay, and it was attacked from those villages and the wool was over the roads between ities, for example Jerusalem was under siege. It was surrounded by Arab forces and by Arab villages in what is in the corridor that leads from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on both sides of that trter when Jerusalem was under siege and eventually by the Jordanese army the Jordanian army So there were supplies coming to besiee Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The famous there are a lot of songs about that And it is not just the arab forces of fight firing on them on both sides But they were firing from the Arab villages that were on both sides of this tritory because this is the nature of the country, that it is a that it is a mixture of Jews and Arabs Yeah, and those villages are no longer there This is true. When you have an ethnic civil war in the same country that is really between two groups that are intermixed to the degree a small piece of land have to remember, it's not like British India, you know. this is very small piece of land in which the Jews and the Arabs are intermixed in the way they were intermixed in forty seven and every locality every Lb locality is used for attacking the Jews by those Arab militias And of course, the Jewish localities are of course used as they used for to support. They also were supporting, of course. they were from there came the Jewish soldiers and they also not I'm not now criticizing. it's not a question of there was actually the truth is that once you decided to have a war like that, once and that was the Arab decision, not the Jewish decision. And there was nothing inevitable about it. But once you decide that you conduct a war like this, then the massive refugee problem is totally inevitable It doesn't matter whom you may think the Arabs were right because they didn't you know they were under no obligation to give up any part of their country in which they were a majority to another people and they didnt they were not obliged to think about the Jew Jewish problem or Jewish distress and the Jewish historical connection to the land and the Jewish peoplehood They just said it's ours. we live here. We've been living here. Okay, and anyone else who wants to take over is a foreign invader, you can accept it But having accepted it, you cannot say that a war like that could have produced any other An other results. Okay, doesn't mean that they were That's every We know that many we actually know, you know, Benny Morris told me the men who were started exposing the fact that you know many Arabs were driven out rather than just stning awake And he told me In the overwhelming majority of cases, people did run away He said the places where there was the places where there was actual placement were a very small minority of cases. I heard him and thought, ye, this is not what many people understood from what you were arguing, but this is This is a truth But it is A, it is true that there were in quite a few places. there was, of course, a deliberate decision to to remove those those places that were considered the Die and Wars constituted a die military threat And it is also true that in the end, the Israeli decision was not to allow them back Benny Morris is saying that doesn't matter. He says They were all displaced Not that they were all driven out. mostost of them were look when people escaped This is, of course, the result of fighting They didn't they didn't make an ideological choice to escape They escape because of course, when you are fighting around a way of this kind of fighting, you have a very good reason to run away. This is what this is what happens in wars that there is there is always a wave of refugees. Question is why Israel did not allow them back The truth is, of course, that Tzle did not want to allow any of them back. but It is also not true that they the displacement of those all those who were displaced was a kind of in a decision that was a result of only was I will say, an automatic result of the Zionist ideology Our of design is demographic considerations that were certainly there. becausecause the truth is that after the fighting ended There were negotiations of the Rdos negotiations, the truce negotiations between the sides And under American pressure, of course, not voluntarily, the Israeli government proposed taking back one hundred thousand refugees was that was an Israeli position And you have Moses Sarered's speech in the Keset as the I' foreign minister saying, yes We think that most of the refugee problem, we think the refugee problem is the responsibility of the Arab leaders, the Arab governments and the Palestinian Arab leaders who rejected partition and tried to destroy the state of Israel This is our view, but If there is a peaceful solution, we're willing to contribute our part to solving this problem taking back one hundred thousand refugees. That was the Israeli offer. The Arab position was A, you take all of them back and in exchange for that, we promise that we refuse to recognize the state of Israel because it's an illegitimate state. Okay? And so that was not tem that was not some tempting enough for the Israelis side this position. Again Let us assume that the Arabs would say, no, a hundred thousand is not enough three hundred thousand And then we have at peace Wever piece wever peace with the on the green line, okay peace treaty, that was then the possibility to have a peace treaty No because Israel was actually negotiating with Jordan and was willing to sign a peace treaty with recognizing Jordanian sovereignty over the West Bank and over East Jerusa So if the Arab leaks set Okay, we had a war. We tried to prevent this, but it's now it's effect Israel is a member state of the United Nations Now we have to get the best possible deal for the refugees, for those poor people who are victims of Let us say they're victims of war, okay And they of course are victims of their decision to fight, but let's say they're victims of the circumstances So let's let's try to get the best possible deal for them. The Jews are saying we will take back a hundred thousand We don't have to accept the first offer, okay We say three hundred thousand. so We know what would have happened. There would have been that a peace treaty signed withith Israel accepting a hundred fifty thousand, okay Palestinianra, that would have gumbled the Arab minority in Israel Because the Arab minority in Israel by the end of fighting was more or less one hundred fifty thousand people And if that happened, then then I think Israel Israel within the Green light would have been and if maybe not a a full fledged binational state But I would say it would then be much less of a Jewish state that it is no And certainly, it would not be a purely Jewish state, which is allegedly The whole point of Zionism which is a joke because there is nothing pure. Anyone who knows anything about Israel knows That it is it is not even as it is, okay, it is very far from being anything like a pure Jewish state. It is a state with a very large Arab National A minority, whereas the Arab states in the Middle East are the ones without the Jewish substantial or any Jewish minority, okay So But again, you know, when you think about you know what could have happened There is nothing unrealistic about what I'm My my hypothetical There is a war and we are defeated and yeah, now we want to make the best possible deal. you know, this is this is this very often happens. okay And so that was quite off quite so there was no ideological decision of Israel saying since we want of course The truth is We didn't want to take any refugees back because ' a bit for bothosed because we wanted to have we didn't want we were afraid that the Jewish majority would be undermined And because they of course, naturally, they were suspected of being a potential tw column naturally in a situation like that But if Arabs say, okay, now there is now time for peaceces come We're accepting this. We don't have to accept retrospectively that you were right and nothing like that. We are We are trying to get the best possible deal What is now this is what Egypt did in the end, okay, got its territories and signed a peace to it. So if the Arabs in forty forty nine accepted the Israeli offer, but they didn't have to accept it as is they of course They were expected to improve in it. Those, you know, when Israel accepted the hundred thousand And in this number, they fully expected the other side to then to to ask for more. That' what happens in negotiations Try to imagine how it could have so what would then have happened to the alleged ethnic purity, which is a joke in itself You know, the exclusively Jewish state purely Jew All this childish nonsense, what would have happened to it Even as it is, it is nothing there is nothing pure or exclusive The truth is that there are Jews, certainly there are Jews who have an ideology of Jewish supremacy and Jewish expllusity. yeah, sure. this is a This is this only prove that we are a people like other peoples because you know, this is a very common occurrence, but The key point is that if you're an Israeli And you look at this history and you listen to these theories about just how evil Zionism is and why it's evil and what kinds of structural frameworks academia tries to teach. You have to ignore the entire experience every Arab decision ever made. As you had a, you know, in the fall of the Ottoman Empire you had and you touched on this with Cyprus, but The nineteen twenty three Treaty between Greece and Turkey in which two million people switched sides by forced ethnically displaced from places where they had lived. in the Muslim case in Greece for centuries, in the Greek case in Anatolia for millennia And it's compulsory and they have to move and it was even considered peaceful. We're not talking about the horrific, you know two million death toll of the twenty million displaced when British India collapsed into Pakistan and India. and Hindus and Muslims switch sides in these mass migrations. We could have a whole episode on British India because I think it's a very interesting analogy becausecause there there was a partetition that was accept that the Indian uh the Hindu uh The Indian National movement that was I the majority, accepted partition, although it thought just as the Arab did palisent out that it was a great injustice. They did not accept it because they thought It was something fair that there are two people. they did not accept the idea that Muslims were a separate nation. o. So they said that this is a British colonial conspiracy against freedom of India, the unity of India They thoughtelt it was a great injustice, but they accepted it because they said That was the only way to prevent a war. They accepted it for the sake of peace And then there was this thing that you refer to that was a result of a There wasn't there was not an all out war, but the locals there was local fighting and thisming India This local fighting led to the disaster that you have mentioned the millions of refugees and argue that there are different assessments But it's up to from half a million to two people who were killed killed in the that's a lot of people even in the British India. Okaykay So when you say Those who say the Zionist movement, there was something morally wrong about the Zionist movement becausecause the Zionist could have predicted or should have predicted, should have understood The desire to have a national home in Palestine would lead to the kind of Arab opposition It was natural and therefore they should not have gone for it because they And they are responsible for the result because they could have predicted it I want to tell you that You can say by the same token that those who that Bahatma Gandhi shouldould have known that demanding independence for British India for India was bound to lead to this horrific bloodshed between Windows and Muslims And why Is it reasonable to say that two should have predicted it? Because the British were telling him that this is would happen So Winston Churchill personally who was an imperialist, as we know, He was against giving independence. and he said he said that independence to India means the greatest massacre in human history. This is what it predicted It was not the greatest because there was an agreement, but it was bad enough. He said. If we leave India, if Britain leaves India The horror that will unfold there will be such that we will e The voices of the slaughtered and the tortured will reach us in to London, all the way to London And we will know that we have betrayed our responsibility, our responsibility as the as the as an impossible adult okay who will prevent the Muslims in no. Never mind whether we accept or not accept the imperial logic, but It is obvious It could have been predicted that it was predicted Does anyone say the idea of Indian independence was wrong because it inevitably led to this Does anyone say that the idea of Greek independence, the Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire? This is the first liberation, modern war of national liberation with massacres and with ethnic cleansing, all the good things that accompany national wars. But does anyone say that the idea of freedom for Greece, the one that Lord Byron fought for and many other good people was wrong because it was could have been expected. And it was predicted, of course, by many reasonable people that it eventually it will lead to all those the collapse of empires, okay, but also, you know, in Greece and also in in Turkey itself that was populated by Greeks. because the transfer, the famous, the infamous transfer between Greeks and the Turks was a result of the fact that over hundreds of years the Ottoman Empire was ruling areas populated by Greeks and surprise, surprise The result of it was that there was a high mixture of populations. in Europe and in Asia. And in the end, those two groups came to fighting And then happened what happened So does anyone say that the idea of Greek independence was was wrong and by the same token of the idea of Turkish independence because other Turk was was fighting for a national state for there once said, we don't have an empire, but we do We very much insist on having an independent Turkish nations Do we say that Greek independence? I mentioned Cyprus G independence, you know any any imperial situation not any, but I would say that it's a very common that when empires collapse There is infighting between peoples subjects pupils, if only because It is almost impossible to have strict ethno national boundaries. who are under one imperial rule Do doesn't make sense. It never happens. And when the empire collapses, it is very likely that these people will fight over the at least all the boundaries So to say, you can none of this concludes criticizing The historical Zionist movement or the Israeli state or the various Israeli governments. These are very different. o. There is not one Israeli state and one Israeli government or one Israeli position on this. You can argue, you can None of this that you' a national movement in a nation state doesn't mean that you're a nice guy Not at all that you are nice guys, nice people. to say that The desire of the Jewish people for independence is fundamentally flawed. is fundamentally immoral because it could have been predicted that it would lead to the things that happen almost Al when empires collapse and people gain their independence and their neighbors then argue with them about exact boundaries is, you know, it's not it pretends to be, it poses as a universal moral K kind of a perfectionist moral prescept But in fact, It is something special invented spepecially for the Jews. Okay. There is nothing there is nothing universal about this rule that I'm trying to formulate, you know If you wanted to formulate it's kind of a universal rule Now this rule it is nobody wants, nobody tries to apply it universally It is a specific kind of an exception, a bill of attainer, something that has been specifically tailor made for the Jewish people. It is only the Jewish desire for independence that israong Not any other desire for deependence. And it is only nationalism in the sense of Nationalism, you know, in Hebrew, nationalism is whereas sometimes it's pejorative, sometometimes it's not, but the idea that pe should ever should have a right to national independence and that my people should have this right And we are asking for it and we're willing to fight for it if necessary, if there is no other way. If this is wrong for the Jewish those who say it's wrong for the Jewish people. don't think that it is wrong for any other people. Whatever the results that are that are that are that come from it So don't I don't accept it as any kind of a radical It's not a radical universalism tends to be a radical universalism, but it is it is actually it's an anti Jewish particularism Yeah you take you take all of that history, you add to it The other unique things with the Israeli Palestinian situation, which is the institutional design of Ora where refugee status is inherited, where integration is something that is rejected on moral grounds. Palestinians have to live in Lebanon for five generations for most of that time, legally not allowed to own real estate so that God forbid, they don't end up becoming simply settled Lebanese. You add to that The complete silence on the question of Jewish refugees, right from the Arab world. You add to that all the cases of refugee nobody thinks need to be reversed from the Germans in Europe after the war. You add to that the whole story of the Ottoman Empire's collapse where it's the Greeks, it's the Armenians, it's the Jews throughout the Arab world, throughout the Ottoman former Ottoman Empire who take the brunt of that collapse because what replaces the Ottoman Empire are these either nationalist ideas or very exclusivist nationalist ideas or Islamic ideas. And so all the non Islamic minorities suddenly face these returns or expulsions or all of that situation and the Palestinians are set aside as a unique case You know, people who listen to this podcast will know because it was just a few episodes ago where we talked about Jordan afterfter forty eight annexing the West Bank, claiming it is Jordan. The reason it's called the West Bank is that they were sitting in Aman and they looked at it and it looked like the West Bank of they were the east bank of the Jordan River. And they're the West Bank of. It's a Jordanian name for a territory. they claim for a Ger Jordan. And the Palestinian elites in the Jericho Conference accepted that Jordanian citizenship, accepted the Jordanian king And nobody thought this was a bad thing. Well, I mean, obviously there were some ideologues, but most people didn't think this was a bad thing rightight up until sixty seven where it had to be a Palestinian nationalism. It had to be Palestinian independence. The idea that you would be ruled by anybody other than Palestinians, ruling Palestinians was a catastrophe. I happen to think Palestinians have to have to rule themselves. You know, it did since you introduced me as some kind, in some sense a leftist I sh, I said I am not a leftist in the sense that the leftist left under the leftist definition of being a leftist, I'm not, but I'm certainly a leftist under under the Israeli right wing definition of being a leftist that that that I'm certainly guilty of. I will tell you that I think that we should not make our lives too easy as I say in Hebrew. there must be a better English for it. We should not You know, Pblem, the difference between the Jordanian taxation of Judean Sameria. And there is really non annexation of or the kind of anneensation that the smooth riches want to have without giving citizenship to the people live there exactly this The Jordanians annexed the West Bank. they pretended There was some kind of a palestinian self determination because of the Jericho Conference. Jericho Connce was a fake. It was a fake And It was a fake so the Domination by the Jordanian citizenship which was confirmed on the people who live there was not fake It was a real Jordanian citizenship and there were Palestinians being ministers and prime mininisters of the Ashmed Kingdom It has its own complications, but in principle by the way, the international community did not recognize the annexation but did not become You know, a reproach of the kind that is when people say Israeli occupied because there was no Jordanian occupation because they want to make it part of the Jordanian state and they knew without being great liberals or great Democrats, that if you want a territory part of your state give citizenship to its inhabitants. There is no other way in the modern world to rule the territory. If we were China and they would t bet I'm sure that even the extreme right would be would say, yeah, well, in fact, no, they don't deserve anything but why not give them? if we Imagine if the proportions were like in China and Tibit, but everybody knows what the proportions are Therefore fundamentally And by the way, you don't even have to recognize that the Palestinians as a nion group,ever I think they do have We can discuss this I think that the principle of national self dination should apply to that Suppose I'm wrong on that And someone claims that this principle is not a good principle or that it should not apply to it E then There is no way that Israel can rule those territories forever without giving them the citizenship of the state of Israel and claim that this is any kind of a legitimate ruled from the viewpoint of the basic principles of the world in which we live No. This is now this what I said now was the leftist part of it. The difference between me and some of the people who are really leftist in Israel is that I say, this is true While the Palestinians have a right to self determination and they even more than that they have a right not to be ruled by a country that doesn't give them a citizens citizenship The difference is that I say, I don't have to put my head on the block for the sake of Palestinians self determination O even of Palestinian civil equality, which is more basic I say that there is Israel should be willing to go for it. I support a two state solution But the other side doesn't have an automatic write. get territories and then use them in order to for another seventh of October And as long as there is a grave danger, And this is the lesson of Oslo. I supported Osla on but but the the danger that a territory that you hand over to the other side then becomes a base for a tax on Israel And those attacks can create the kind of disaster, the kind of danger that we have experienced Be it's a small country, again, it's one of So this is the difference between me and many people whose basic premise I accept there are two peoples. they both deserve national independence States for two peoples is a just solution But the onus of reaching the solution is not only on us. I refuse to accept that the Palestinians have an automatic right those territories regardless of how they can then expect it to use that they if and no kind and by the way, it's totally universal. There is nothing There is no kind of Jewish exceptionalism in what I am saying. No people No country is under any obligation to hand over territory if the security risk that isn' ten this is unreasonable. And I think in practical, I think unfortunately, the Palestinians, not just Hamas, the Palestinian National movement During the Oslo years proved There are very good reasons for Israelis to fear There is what would result from giving up territory and handing it over to the Palestinians And in practical terms, I would say But while the two state solution is and will remain, I don't see any other alternative. Do it Pinciple, this is a just solution and I'm against anything that makes it more difficult like the settlement But I think that the solution will become feasible. I hope it will become feasible I think practically it may, I hope it will maybe I'm I think it will become there is a good chance that it will become feasible once the Iranian there is a regime change in Iran because as long as Israelis have a very good reason to think that any piece of territory they give up doesn't only It is not only that they will cause us problems because after all, we are so much stronger They will there is a danger that a regional power like Iran will turn it into a kind of fortress which they created in Gaza after Israeli withdrawal. This is lot the problem that it's not only between us and the Palestinians. If it's only between us and the Palestinians, you could say Israel is so strong, so much stronger then that is also questionable because you are stronger, but you are not allowed to use this strength because then you're accused of genocide But the main problem, even worse is that there is a regional power has been here for decades A regional power, much more powerful and more sophisticated than any of the enemies that we had during the Arab the Arab Israeli conflict That is determined Turn any piece of territory that is close as close as possible to Israel to the descenders of the Israeli population into the kind of Jihadi fortress. that they turned Gaza into with the help of Qatawi money and and Iranian military support When this and I'm sure it will happen, but nobody nobody can promise us exactly when I hope I saw this possible There is a good chance for that There is a good chance in Iran that there will emerge a government that willate not be hostilile because all the Iranian Israeli hostility is just craziness on the part of the ideological craziness on the part of Vatolus If this disappears, I think there is a good chance that all the This the the the um All the conditions in the Arab world would change because now the radicals in the Arab world All of them rely on the Iranians and the moderate or the relative moderate on those who potential of becoming moderates, all of them are afraid that they will be accused of betrayal if they don't allow Jihad to proceed. So I think that If this this is removed There is a hope, a hope There's a hopper chance W will become rational, it will become possible for a responsible Israeli government that does not want to take unreasonable security risks and no people can be expected to take unreasonable security risks. That is say security, that means the lives of Israelis, okay and a lot of Israelis Once there is a change and there is a that there is a more or less safe, there is never a hundred percent safety, but there is a reasonable degree of safety. in giving up those territories in exchange for peace If there is a readiness, hopefully on the other side, I think if the Iranian supporters are rem mooved, there is a chance that the Palestinians in the end will accept it They didn't you know, all the negative experience does not prove that it will never happen. National conflicts are never eternal, but they may be very low. Okay. So there is a chance that this, I don't believe the conflict is eternal. but I has been going on for quite long quite some time But I think that there is a There is a horizon, there is a prospect of change in Tehran that may lead to a change that would will make it feasible for us. to start again seriously negotiating kind of solution that is in principle, the only one that is possible given that fundamentally This is the lnd between the river and the sea is fundamentally is populated by two peoples just affect It's a fundamental fact of life Alex, thank you so much. We're going to end it there because it's gone an hour and a half and at some point, you got to cut an episode. We're going to get letters and they're going to range from But how actually do you build a two state solution from given the situation, given Palestinian politics, given everything we've seen given october seventh, given the situation of Gaza all the way to what are you crazy, you crazy stupid crazy person And we'll circle back. And we'll dive in the history of two states A tack what I'm saying is crazy. All my modest objection is that the other possibilities are even crazier. And o that's the best you can say for yourself in in a situation like that So we will circle back to that. Thank you so much. Part of the purpose of this podcast is to open a window into an Israeli conversation because I'm going to tell people something crazy. Israelis know what's happening to them better than other people with strong opinions about what's happening to them And so Alex, you are one of the most I have found serious public intellectuals Israel has and also you give real deep historical dives and answers to the fundamental questions. And it's an honor to have you. Thank you so much for joining me Thank you very much