on Palestine book by Noam Chomsky Elon Papp and zero Frank Bharat audiobook by the Learners Library introduction chapter 1 the old and new conversations part 1 dialogues chapter 2 the past chapter 3 the present chapter 4 the future chapter 5 inside Israel chapter 6 inside the United States introduction how did you become an activist why Palestine these are the types of questions many activists will be asked at one point or another when talking about their life work and motivations with Adnan activist person while I often want to reverse the question and ask why aren't you an activist I usually decide with insight to try my best in answering this potentially frustrating question why because I think it is important to understand where the questions are coming from and it is as important to look inside yourself take a step back relive your journey pause and realize that you too not that long ago may have asked the same questions of anyone engaged in working toward a better world where equality Justice and freedom apply to all regardless of nationality ethnicity country of origin skin color political affiliation or sexual orientation how then does one become an activist the easy answer would be to say that we do not become activists we simply forget that we are we are all born with compassion generosity and love for others inside us we are all moved by Injustice and discrimination we are all inside concerned human beings we all want to give more than to receive we all want to live in a world where solidarity and companionship are more important values than individualism and selfishness we all want to share beautiful things experience joy laughter love and experiment together but we have a problem a big one we live in a society and an epic where we do not have time to think any longer we live in a time when taking a step back and a deep breath have become a luxury that many cannot afford we live in a world where the mainstream education system teaches you to obey and listen to Authority from the earliest age and does not offer you the chance to think for yourself and express yourself in ways that are outside the proclaimed Norm we live in a society where the nothing shopping watching TV has become something and that is something relaxing meditating sharing has become a void in need of being filled our minds our souls have slowly been corrupted by materialistic nothingness that has been created for us billboard in front of our eyes and printed tattooed on ourselves by advertising marketing and vulture capitalism the remote control of our world only has two buttons play and a fast forward while the one we are all looking for is the pause I became an activist through books after having worked since my early twenties in various menial jobs and like a good citizen doing my nine to five looking away at the ticking clock enjoying my life for the reasons I was told were needed to enjoy it fulfilling the potential that I had been allowed to have by society and its leaders I stopped I quit my job moved from the city I had been living in for the last six years and started studying again I read loads of books and realized that I wanted this period which was supposed to be temporary because of the dread of unemployment and boredom potentially creeping in to last forever reading and feeling enlightened by those books really played a big part in changing my vision of life and what it was supposed to mean I started with reading Chomsky and slowly became very interested in anything that had to do with Israel Palestine reading Edward said Mahmoud Darwish gasang konafani John Berger Tanya Reinhardt Elon Papp Norman Finkelstein Noam Chomsky Kurt Vonnegut arundadi Roy Naomi Klein all became part of my daily routine books changed me and I think that they are more than anything else one of the best tools we can use to learn reflect on and truly understand the world we are living in they are a bridge between languages continents and people a book will accompany you and will stay with you it will Mark you like nothing else you will go back to it quote it argue about it you will borrow one and lend one the written word in my opinion is therefore more effective and long-lasting than the spoken one as a tool for change I felt very lucky and privileged when in 2008 two of the authors I had read again and again on Palestine professors Noam Chomsky and Elon Papp agreed to work on a book with me our long email exchanges became Gaza in crisis Reflections on Israel's war against the Palestinians which found a broad audience and was translated into many languages after the book gnome Elon and I continued talking mostly via emails one day during a meeting with Elon in Brussels we both came to the conclusion that a follow-up to that book was necessary one thing that had indeed left me frustrated working on Gaza in crisis was how the email exchanges between gnome and Elon were not Interactive Nome answered a set of questions and Elon did the same the two authors had no way to respond to or argue with each other Elon and I therefore decided that if another book were produced it would have to consist of face-to-face conversations truly excited by the prospect I emailed gnome pretty sure that he was not going to be available due to his extremely busy schedule to my surprise gnome responded positively and a few months after I sent the email Elon and I boarded a plane for Boston to meet gnome in his office at MIT in preparing the questions and the topics we were going to address I thought that it was important to start with the past some commentators argue that you should always look forward think about the future that thinking about the past tends to be a stumbling block that impedes on the negotiations the peace process they are often on purpose missing the point the past as far as Palestine and Palestinians are concerned is 1948 the nakba and the ethnic cleansing of two-thirds of the population yes two-thirds try to put this in perspective and do the math with the country you are living in right now that was expelled from historical Palestine to make space for a new state Israel it is a not so distant past we are not talking about centuries ago it is a very present past for all Palestinians talking about it analyzing it is therefore crucial to understanding the current situation understanding Zionism is also key and the two professors have slightly different perspectives about the matter in discussing the present we focused on the role of civil society and the impact it can have on radically changing the narrative and actual policies on the ground the huge growth and the impact of the boycott divestment and sanction BDS movement cannot be underestimated in putting Palestine back on the map the BDS movement helped rejuvenate and rebuild the solidarity movement worldwide it offered a step-by-step guide with flexibility depending on the different national interests on how to turn from a defensive stance to an offensive one the BDS movement asserted let's stop trying to justify our actions let's Act this made for very engaging discussions the BDS movement is a subject of debate between Professor Pap and Professor Chomsky and both this book and Gaza in crisis allow room for differences between the two I do think there is something to gain by enabling this conversation that it can be constructive and reinforce the struggle for Palestinian rights finally and obviously we talked about the future the day after question what is actually meant practically by a free Palestine what kind of state is possible is a state the solution how will Palestinians Israelis share the country what Constitution will be drafted while it is important to focus on the present as things on the ground are getting worse every day having a clear strategy and political vision is crucial if we want people around the globe to see what is possible with that the conversation part was concluded and as far as I was concerned this was good enough Elon however thought we needed something more he offered to write what I think is an amazing and Incredibly timely and challenging original piece called the old and new conversations it is a rallying call to move forward change gears and totally rethink the vocabulary we use when it comes to the Palestine question to use semantics as an educating tool for change this piece makes in my opinion the book a much better and solid one it fills in the blanks and opens up the debate to the world but something brought us back to the present in a most forceful way another Israeli aggression in Gaza shortly after we submitted this book to the publisher Israel was at it again mowing the lawn as they horrifyingly call it the carpet bombing of an imprisoned population by its occupier with the support of most western states spurred Elon and gnome to write additional contributions working on the book again while Israel was indiscriminately carpet bombing a population of 1.8 million Palestinians was often very difficult when things are radically wrong writing does not feel like the most obvious response for an activist writing while feeling extremely angry and useless often does not produce the best results I was glad to see some of my close friends involved in Civil Disobedience actions all over the world it gave me strength and faith with good people like that around the struggle after all might not be endless but the writing was essential and I hope that this book will help challenge The Narrative of the powerful the pr of governments repeated in Loop by the corporate media that helps justify the crimes that allows them to be committed that paralyzes people the Palestine question is emblematic of what is wrong with the world the role played by Western States the complicity of Corporations and of various institutions make this case a very special one the fact that Israel actually benefits from violating international law and receives a red carpet treatment from the West means that we all have a role to play in ending the Injustice that the Palestinians are facing the Injustice in Palestine has ramifications throughout the world from Ferguson to Athens via Mexico it is clear that many governments are reproducing the tools that Israel uses to repress and oppress the Palestinians the replication of those same tactics methods and often weapons serves as proof that the Palestinians are now used as guinea pigs for experimentation and Palestine is a great Laboratory exploring the Palestine case is therefore crucial for understanding where we stand as human beings and what we stand for finding a solution to this question could then open the door to a New Vision to a new world to new possibilities for all of us Palestine is slowly becoming Global a social issue that all movements fighting for social justice need to embrace the next step is connecting the dots between various struggles around the world and creating a truly united front we are many we will prevail Frank Barat Brussels September 2014. chapter 1. the old and new conversations Elon Papp when Frank Barat and I sat with Noam Chomsky for a long discussion about Palestine we divided our conversation into three parts a discussion on the past focusing on understanding Zionism as a historical phenomenon a conversation about the present with a particular focus on the validity and desirability of applying the apartheid model to Israel and on the efficacy of the BDS movement as a major strategy of solidarity with the Palestinian people and finally in talking about the future we discussed the choice between a two-state and a one-state solution the principal purpose of these meetings was to help us all clarify our views in light of the dramatic changes not only in Israel and Palestine in recent years but in the region as a whole we assumed that many readers would agree with us that chomsky's take on Palestine at the present historical juncture is a crucial contribution for any relevant discussion on the issue we hope that this conversation helps to clarify the Palestine issue specifically highlighting the possible transition that is taking place in the solidarity movement with the Palestinians with wide implications for the struggle from within Israel slash Palestine we do not cover all the issues we selected those that seemed controversial and strove for the exchange to be a civilized one apart from one or two less tame outbursts for a movement that needs to be United the fragmentation of The Liberation movement itself its apparent lack of clear leadership and the ambiguity that characterizes the Israeli Peace Camp all contribute to this dissension nonetheless a dialogue among those who believe in peace must be possible we seem to be in the midst of a transition from an old conversation about Palestine to a new one I myself feel very comfortable in the new conversation but would not like to lose the comrades who are still happier in the older one so here in the first part of this book I aim to delineate the two conversations before engaging in a conversation with gnome on the issues that are at the heart of the matter the old peace Orthodoxy and its Challengers the need to look for a new conversation about Palestine stems first and foremost from the dramatic changes on the ground in recent years these developments are likely familiar to most of our readers and I will summarize them in the most updated form possible toward the end of this essay and assess their impact on the future conversation but I think the search for new ideas and maybe even for a new language about Palestine emerged out of a longer-term crisis the crisis was characterized by the inability to translate impressive gains outside of Palestine especially in transforming World public opinion about it into tangible changes on the ground the new search is an attempt to deal with several gaps and paradoxes that haunt the solidarity movement with Palestine as a result of this obstacle these days the ever-growing camp of activists for peace and Justice in Palestine is facing several paradoxes that are hard to reconcile let me first consider these paradoxes and then suggest a Way Forward both through my own analysis the analyzes of others and finally through a conversation with Chomsky the first Paradox is the gap between the dramatic change in World public opinion on the issue of Palestine on the one hand and the continued support from the political and economic Elites in the West for the Jewish State on the other and hence the lack of any impact of that change on the reality on the ground activists for the cause of Palestine sense rightly that their message of justice and their basic understanding of the Grave situation in Israel and Palestine are now widely accepted in the world but yet this has not alleviated the Palestinians sufferings wherever they are while in the past the activists could have attributed this Gap to a measure of sophistication behind the Israeli actions that hid well The Uncanny and quite often criminal Israeli policies this could not have been the case in our century the successive Israeli governments since the beginning of this Century rendered any sophisticated analysis of Israel quite redundant these days it is very easy to expose not only the Israeli policy but also the racist ideology behind it the activists efforts and this deplorable policy produced a dramatic shift in Western including American public opinion but so far this shift has failed to reach the upper echelons of society and therefore on the ground Israel continues unabated and uninterrupted its policies of dispossession and does not seem to be paying a price for its policies the second Gap indeed Paradox is the one between this widely held negative image of Israel on the one hand and the very positive image its own Jewish Society has of the state Israel's relative economic prosperity still promises that the most isolated state in the organization for economic cooperation and development is regarded by its own Jewish citizens as a thriving state that has ended the arab-israeli conflict and has only two struggle with residues of the western war against terrorism in the form of Hamas and Hezbollah but even that is not deemed a crucial issue in the wake of the Arab Spring Israel does suffer from social and cultural Rifts and cracks but they have been muted for the time being by the invention of a phony threat of an Iranian nuclear war and other such scenarios that also ensure the uninhibited flow of money to the Army and Security Services this sense of success of course is not shared by the Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Galilee and the al-nakub The nejith Who continue to suffer from expropriation of their land and demolition of their houses and are exposed to a new set of racist laws that undermine their most essential and Elementary rights the Palestinians in the West Bank are still humiliated on a daily basis at checkpoints arrested without trial losing their lands to settlers and the Israeli land Authority and barred from traveling to nearby Villages and towns due to the systems of apartheid walls and barriers that encircle their homes those who try pay with their lives or are arrested and the people of Gaza are still subjected to the barbaric combination of Siege and bombardment and shooting in the biggest open human jail upon Earth and of course one should not forget that millions of Palestinian refugees still languish in camps while their right of return seems to be totally ignored by the global powers that be the third Paradox is that while specific Israeli policies are severely criticized and condemned the very nature of the Israeli regime and the ideology that produces these policies are not targeted by the solidarity movement activists and supporters demonstrated against the massacre in Gaza in 2009 and the assault on the flotilla in 2010 yet in this Arena of open and public protest nobody it seems dares to attack the ideology that is Behind These aggressions there is no demonstration against Zionism because even the European Parliament regards such a demonstration as anti-Semitic imagine in the days of supremacist South Africa if you were not allowed to demonstrate against the apartheid regime itself but only against the Soweto Massacre or any other particular atrocity committed by the South African government the last Paradox is that the tale of Palestine from the beginning until today is a simple story of colonialism and dispossession yet the world treats it as a multifaceted and complex story hard to understand and even harder to solve indeed the story of Palestine has been told before European settlers coming to a foreign land settling there and either committing genocide against or expelling the indigenous people the zionists have not invented anything new in this respect but Israel succeeded nonetheless with the help of its allies everywhere in building a multi-layered explanation that is so complex that only Israel can understand it any interference from the outside world is immediately castigated as naive at best or anti-semitic at worst these paradoxes at times have frustrated understandably the solidarity movement with Palestine it is indeed difficult to challenge established powers and interests when they refuse to yield to the moral voice of civil societies and their agendas but there is always a need to think hard about whether more can be done in those spaces and areas in which non-elite groups have the power to impact and change the conversation in effective ways in 1982 in the wake of Israel's first invasion of Lebanon Edward said wrote an article titled permission to narrate in which he called upon the Palestinians to extend their struggle into the realm of representation and historical versions or narratives the actual balance of political economic and Military Powers did not mean he asserted that the disempower did not possess the ability to struggle over the production of knowledge whether such producers in or in the name of Palestine have heated said directly or were thinking along these lines anyway this project has indeed begun in earnest academic Palestinian historiography and the new history in Israel has succeeded in debunking some of Israel's more absurd claims about what happened in 1948 and to a lesser extent had been able to refute the depiction of the Palestine Liberation Organization PLO as a purely terrorist organization but it seems that the historiographical revision and setting the record right has not had an impact on a peace process that ignored 1948 altogether the absence of the narrative and the historical conversation about what passes nowadays as a peace process seems to serve the political Elites of the day well on either side of the divide and in the World At Large there is no incentive whatsoever it seems to transform the hegemonic discourse that seems to be acceptable exactly because it does not ask for a dramatic change on the ground as said proposed such hegemony can be challenged by language and narration we need a more guarded approach when offering this new perspective as we are not only challenging the hegemonic powers but also the convictions of many Palestinians and genuine Friends of the Palestine cause hence framing this challenge as a conversation may be more helpful I suggest enhancing this conversation by producing a theoretical dictionary specific to the Palestine issue that gradually replaces the old one the new dictionary contains decolonization regime change one state solution and other terms discussed in the following pages and later with Chomsky and others who try to find a way forward and out of an ongoing catastrophe with the help of these entries I hope to re-examine the hegemonic discourse employed by both the powers that be and the solidarity movement with Palestine however before presenting the entries in the new dictionary I would like to look more closely at the waning of the old one still dominating the conversation about Palestine among diplomats academics politicians and activists in the West I call this discourse the dictionary of the piece Orthodoxy in fact not my term but alas I cannot recall where I first heard it and I apologize for justifiable claims of unoriginality the challenge to peace Orthodoxy the dictionary of the peace Orthodoxy sprang from an almost religious belief in the two-state solution the partition of the land of Palestine by allocating 80 percent of the land to Israel and 20 to the Palestinians was thought to be a feasible Target that could be achieved with the help of international diplomacy and a change within the Israeli Society two fully sovereign states would live next to each other and agree on how to solve the Palestine Refugee problem and would decide jointly what kind of a Jerusalem there would be there was also a wish to see Israel more of a state of all its citizens and less as a Jewish state that retains its Jewish character this Vision was clearly based on the desire to help the Palestinians on the one hand and on real politique considerations on the other it was and is driven by over-sensitivity to the wishes and Ambitions of the powerful Israeli side and by exaggerated consideration for the international balance of power it is a language-born of American Political Science research and is meant to cater to basic American positions and stances on the issue most users of the language that surrounds the two-state solution as the ideal settlement are probably sincere when employing it this language has helped Western diplomats and politicians remain ineffective either out of will or necessity in the face of continuing Israeli oppression expressions and phrases like a land for two people the peace process the israel-palestine conflict the need to stop the violence on both sides negotiations or the two-state solution come straight out of a contemporary version of Orwell's 1984. yet this language is Advanced even by people who would find this kind of a settlement morally repugnant as Noam Chomsky has succinctly put it in the conversation in this book an unsatisfactory but who see no other realistic way to bring an end to the oppressive Israeli occupation in the West Bank and The Siege on the Gaza Strip the hegemonic language in the corridors of power in the west and among the Israeli and Palestinian politicians on the ground in Palestine is still that discourse based on the old dictionary but this Orthodox view is slowly losing ground in the activist world granted the official peace camp in Israel and the liberal Zionist organizations worldwide still subscribe to the view as do leftist politicians in Europe in some ways known and famous Friends of the cause still endorse it some it seems even religiously in the name of real politique and efficiency but the vast majority of activists are looking for a new way out the emergence of the BDS movement through the call for such action by Palestinian Civil Society inside and outside of Palestine the growing interests and support for the one-state solution and the emergence of a clearer albeit small anti-zionist peace camp in Israel has provided an alternative thinking the New Movement which is supported by activists all around the world and inside Israel and Palestine is modeled on the anti-apartheid solidarity movement this has become clear by the prominence of BDS as the main tactic on campuses during Israel apartheid week apartheid nowin acceptable and common term used by student activists on behalf of the Palestine cause this has been followed recently by a scholarly attempt to widen the comparative research on the two case studies apartheid South Africa and Israel slash Palestine within the Paradigm of settler colonialism settler colonialism is a conceptual fine-tuning on the theories and histories of colonialism settler movements that sought a new life end identity in already inhabited countries were not unique to Palestine in the Americas in the southern tip of Africa and in Australia and New Zealand white settlers destroyed the local population by various means foremost among them genocide to recreate themselves as the owners of the country and reinvent themselves as its native population the application of this definition settler colonialism to the case of Zionism is now quite common in the academic world and has politically enabled activists to see more clearly the resemblance of the case of Israel and Palestine to South Africa and to equate the fate of the Palestinians with that of the Native Americans this new model highlights the significant points of difference between the peace Orthodoxy and the New Movement the New Movement relates to the whole of historical Palestine as the land that needs support and change in this view the whole of Palestine is an area that was and is colonized and occupied in one way or another by Israel and in that area Palestinians are subject to various legal and oppressive regimes emanating from the same ideological Source Zionism it stresses particularly the link between the ideology and Israel's current positions on demography and race as the major obstacle for peace and Reconciliation in Israel and Palestine today it is an easier task to illustrate this fresh point of view since 2010 the Israeli legislation in the knesset demanding loyalty to a Jewish state from the Palestinian citizens codifying thus far informal discrimination in welfare benefits land rights and job hiring policies against the Palestinian minority clearly has exposed Israel as an overtly racist and apartheid state the green line that created different classes of Palestinians those inside Israel and those in the occupied territories is slowly disappearing because the same policies of ethnic cleansing are enacted on both sides of the line in fact the more sophisticated oppression of the Palestinian citizens inside Israel looks at times worse than the oppression of residents living under direct or indirect military rule in the West Bank finally the New Movement does not shy away from pushing forward a solution that is not the preferred one in the eyes of either the Israelis the Palestinian Authority PA or the political Elites of the West the one-state solution the activist and the scholarly depiction of Zionism as a settler colonialist movement and the state of Israel as an apartheid state also determine the mechanism of change for the Orthodoxy that mechanism is the peace process as if Israel and Palestine were once too independent States in Israel invaded part of Palestine from which it has to withdraw for the sake of peace the new approach proposes the decolonization of Israel slash Palestine and the substitution of the present Israeli regime with democracy for all it thus targets not only the policies of the state but also its ideology from this perspective the Israeli refusal to allow the 1948 refugees to return home is seen as a racist rather than pragmatic position the new activists voice their unconditional support for the Palestinian refugees right of return and they voice it more clearly it seems than some Palestinian leaders in other words the new approach proposes a paradigm shift for the solidarity movement which hopefully will gain Credence among those in power and in particular those who are engaged with the question of Palestine and peace this new paradigm offers a new analysis for the present situation and proposes a different vision for the future many elements in this new paradigm are old ideas that can be found in the PLO 1968 Charter and in the platforms of activist groups such as abna al-balid matsben the popular front for the liberation of Palestine and the popular Democratic front for the liberation of Palestine these positions have been updated and adapted to the current reality the issues brought up in the past by these groups were totally ignored by the Orthodox peace movement when it supported at least initially the Oslo Accords in the name of rail politique even at the time at the Oslo process seemed to produce some sort of change on the ground it was in essence a settlement that ignored the fate of the Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian minority in Israel and did not relate to either the racist nature of the Jewish state or its role in the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine the new movement has created a new dictionary that if used extensively can help shift public opinion on the subject below are some of the most illustrative and significant entries in this new language used to analyze the situation today in Israel and Palestine and describe a vision for the future by adopting a new discourse the activists can strengthen their commitment towards struggling against the ideology behind the current Israeli abuses and violations of human and civil rights whether they take place inside Israel or in the occupied territories I have divided the entries into three different temporal zones one zone relates to the way the alternative activist perspective views the past in general with its particular focus on how to define Zionism and Israel's actions in the past the second Zone relates to the new definition of Israel today mainly as an apartheid state and the implications for activism in particular outside of Israel and Palestine of such a definition this Sparks a very relevant conversation about the importance and role of the BDS movement and the various Israel apartheid weeks held on campuses around the world the third Zone relates to the Future what are the alternatives to the Dismal and ineffective attempts to move the piece process forward on the basis of a two-state solution this alternative view toward the future substitutes terms such as the peace process with decolonization and regime change and envisages some sort of a one-state solution instead of the two-state solution these three different perspectives on the past the present and the future were each the focus of the conversations Frank Barat and I had with Noam Chomsky we did not choose him as our interlocutor because we think he necessarily represents the peace Orthodoxy although he still subscribes to some of its basic assumptions but because we feel that his views on these issues are crucial for pushing forward the discussion on Palestine the new dictionary the past the reassertion of the Zionism as colonialism equation is critical not only because it best explains the Israeli policies of judaization inside Israel and settlement in the West Bank but also because it is consistent with the way the early zionists perceive their project and talked about it the Hebrew verb luhit nahal or luhitiashev and the Hebrew nouns a tantalot and hitiusva were used ever since 1882 by the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel to describe the Takeover of land in Palestine their accurate translation into English is to settle to colonize settlement and colonization respectively early zionists use the terms proudly since colonialism was very positively received by the public at the time and continued to until the end of the first world War when colonialism's fortunes changed in the aftermath of the second world war and colonialism connoted negative European policies and practices the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel looked for ways of dissociating the Hebrew terminology from the colonialist one and started to use more Universal and positive language to describe their policies despite this energetic attempt to claim that Zionism was not part and parcel of the universal colonialist movement there was no escape from understanding these Hebrew terms linked to the act of colonization to settle is deemed as an act of colonization in the scholarly and political dictionary of the 20th and 21st centuries so there is no way out of it even if the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel did not regard the expropriation of palestine's land quite often accompanied by dispossession of the natives as an act of colonizing everyone else did the analysis through the colonialist perspective also challenges the Israeli claim of complexity now desperately used by Israeli Scholars to fend off the inevitable comparison between the situations in Palestine and in South Africa the historical timeline is indeed unusual it involves a 19th century colonialist project extended into the 21st century but the features and solutions for this project are not unique it is a simple rather than complex narrative although its unique timing would undoubtedly require a complex settlement the analysis is clear even if the prognosis will demand some Ingenuity since decolonization in the 20 first century is indeed a complex project an important task in this respect is introducing to Western schools curricula and textbooks this understanding of colonialism and strengthening the research on it in universities If This Were to succeed the media would follow suit the task is not easy but if this message were conveyed effectively we could then hope that every decent person in the west as in the time of colonialism would not stand on the side of the oppressive ideology and instead would identify with its victims and deem their struggle as anti-colonialist this particular new discourse is likely to be branded by the Israelis as anti-Semitic but nowadays any criticism even a soft one of Israel is regarded by the state as akin to anti-Semitism so it seems this potential accusation should not dissuade us from using the terminology of colonization anyone who does not subscribe to the Israeli version of a two State solution is suspected of being an anti-semite official Israel demands an absolute support of its version so when powerful secretaries of state do not reflect this version exactly they are condemned as anti-semites the Israeli version is a Jewish state next to two bantustans divided into twelve enclaves in the West Bank and contained in a huge ghetto in the Gaza Strip with no connection between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and run by a small municipality in Ramallah operating as the seat of government official Israel insists that in the interest of National Security a Palestinian state if at all allowed would be modeled along these lines the present the apartheid state of Israel the scholarly literature comparing the apartheid in South Africa to that of Israel is only now beginning to emerge Brave Scholars such as Yuri Davis used the term quite early on his analysis in the 1980s was the first two expose Israel's land regime and legal practices within the green line as another form of Apartheid further research has highlighted both the similarities and dissimilarities it was the first visitors from post-apartheid South Africa who together with former U.S President Jimmy Carter frequently used the term although it seems from very early on that they realized the regime imposed on the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was in many respects far worse than that of the apartheid in South Africa the most recent research has noted how uniform Israeli legal economic and cultural policies have become on both sides of the green line the de facto and more invisible apartheid has been replaced by racist legislation in the knesset and open policies of discrimination it may be a different version of apartheid but the Israel of 2014 is a state that segregates separates and discriminates openly on the basis of ethnicity which in American parlance would be race religion and nationality since the reference to apartheid has become common in the corridors of power as well as among activists one can see why the inventive group of activists in Canada who initiated Israel apartheid week on their own University campus inspired so many others in the world to follow suit the phenomenon has become so widespread now also in Israel and Palestine because it resonates with what people knew is happening on the ground due to the growth of the ism the international solidarity movement it has provided an alternative source of information to the distorted reports of the mainstream media in the West in particular grabbing public attention in the United States When Rachel Corey a young activist in the ism was brutally killed by the Israeli Army the apartheid weeks are the main focal point of annual activity for the cause in Palestine and they have won over the campuses that were previously dominated by Zionist lobbying and Academia because of the kind of harassment Stephen Salida Norman Finkelstein and others endured as University appointees suspected of harboring pro-palestinian views College professors and staff are still concerned in the United States that they too may be subjected either to a prolonged process of promotion or be disqualified and refused tenure but the trend in the other direction is growing in campus communities as a space of debate have become more hostile toward those who support Zionism and more friendly to those who wish to show solidarity with the Palestinian cause this has not transformed yet into support from University administrations but the tide is definitely moving in the right direction the analysis of Israel as an apartheid state that resembles South Africa during its worst moment has produced another prognosis that is diametrically opposed to the raison dietri of the peace process most of the whites in South Africa were still quite racist when their regime of Oppression collapsed which means that change did not come because they were transformed from within the country they were forced to change by the African National Congress ANC struggle and international pressure while activists still struggle in and outside of Palestine to emulate the unity and power of representation the ANC enjoyed they can more easily see how to manage a campaign of pressure from the outside inspired by the anti-apartheid movement with South Africa the new basis for such activity is a realization that the change will not come from within Israel this is how the BDS campaign was born out of a call from Palestinian Civil Society to pressure Israel through these means until it respects the human and civil rights of Palestinians wherever they are the campaign which in many ways became a movement has its problems the absence of clear representative and effective Palestinian institutions has forced the activists to act within a leadership vacuum hence at times strategic decisions have seemed to overstep the boundaries of what is Tactical the campaign's relationship with boycott initiatives on the ground such as the boycott of settlement Goods in the West Bank or the rejection of any normalization with Israelis is not always clear but these flaws pale in comparison to the campaign's success in bringing to the world's attention a crisis that is at times overshadowed by the dramas that have engulfed the region since 2011. major companies have rethought their investments in Israel trade unions have ceded their connections with Israeli counterparts as have various academic associations including leading ones in the United States and an impressive number of artists authors and world-renowned figures including Stephen Hawking have canceled their trips to Israel one component of the campaign the academic boycott is still contentious as is clearly evident in the conversation Frank and I had with Chomsky Norman Finkelstein also publicly condemns this tactic but it seems that it is accepted by many others as part of the new dictionary of activism and recently led to the creation in Israel of a committee of boycott from within made up of Israeli Jewish academics with impressive membership numbers the present ethnic cleansing and reparations insisting on describing what happened to the Palestinians in 1948 and ever since as a crime and not just as a tragedy or even a catastrophe is essential if past Evils are to be rectified the ethnic cleansing Paradigm points clearly to a victim and offender and more importantly to a mechanism of reconciliation it clarifies the connection between Zionist ideology and the movements polices in the past and Israeli policies in the present both aim to establish a Jewish state by taking over as much of historical Palestine as possible and leaving in it as few Palestinians as possible the desire to turn the mixed ethnic Palestine into a pure ethnic space was and is at the heart of the conflict that has raged since 1882. this impulse never condemned or rebuked by a world that watched by and did nothing led to the massive expulsion of 750 000 people half of the Region's population the destruction of more than 500 Villages and the demolition of a dozen towns in 1948 the international silence in the face of this crime against humanity which is how ethnic cleansing is defined in the dictionary of international law transformed the ethnic cleansing into the ideological infrastructure on which the Jewish state was built ethnic cleansing became the DNA of Israeli Jewish society and remains a daily preoccupation for those in power and those who were engaged in one way or another with the various Palestinian communities controlled by Israel it became the means for implementing a not yet fulfilled dream if Israel wanted not only to survive but also to thrive whatever the shape of the state the fewer Arabs in it the better ethnic cleansing motivated not only the Israeli policy throughout the years against the Palestinians but also toured the millions of Jews who were brought from Islamic and Arab counties if they were to partake in the Zionist dream they had to be dear rubberized losing any connection to their mother tongue and proactively showing how unarab they were by daily expressing their self-hate as Ella Habib shohat has put it for everything that is Arab the Arab Jews who could have been the bridge to reconciliation turned out to be one of the highest obstacles to it ethnic cleansing's most preferred method is expulsion and dislocation but in the case of Israel this was not always possible this limitation forced the Israelis to be quite inventive in finding other means to continue with the vision of an Israel that has an absolute Jewish majority in it they found that if you cannot expel someone the second best option is not to allow him or her to move enclaving people in villages and towns and disallowing any spatial expansion of human habitats became the Hallmark of Israel's ethnic cleansing after 1948 and it is still used today very effectively when asked to explain why one new Palestinian Village or town was not allowed to be built between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean a Prohibition benefiting the other ethnic group that today constitutes half of palestine's population the official Israeli line is that Palestinians do not need the same spaces Jews do and are quite happy to be stuck in their homes without free access to Green spaces around them in the past any short aerial tour over the West Bank would have shown you how Palestinian Villages used to look comfortably spread over the hills of Eastern Palestine beautifully mingling with the natural landscape but they have been gradually strangulated especially if they lie in the vicinity of Jewish settlements or are locked between them as is the case in the Galilee at the same time the Jewish settlements on both sides of the green line form a very spacious Suburbia so the refusal to allow the repatriation of refugees the military rule on the Palestinians who were left inside Israel 1948-1966 the occupation and treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank the erection of the apartheid wall the silent transfer of Palestinians from Jerusalem The Siege on Gaza and the oppression of the Bedouins in the al-nakub are all either stages or components in an ongoing ethnic cleansing operation using the term ethnic cleansing is also about Justice at every given moment in the history of the conflict Justice was ridiculed when it was even suggested as a principle in the attempts to solve the conflict ethnic cleansing however ensures that the basic right of return for those who were expelled is not forgotten even if it is constantly violated by Israel it seems that no real reconciliation will be possible without at least recognizing this right a new dictionary of activism is based on applying the universal Concepts Advanced by reparations to the case of the Palestinian refugees the International Community has long ago established the mechanism for treating the victims of ethnic cleansing and reparations is often used as the remedy and solution reparations here exist in a spectrum of possibilities to allow the victims and the victimizers to build a new life these possibilities include the physical return of those who survived ethnic cleansing or financial compensation to those survivors who wish to build a new life elsewhere it also includes mechanisms for reintroducing the victims in the country's historical accounts and retrieving their cultural assets the major point of all these mechanisms is that it is up to the victims of the ethnic cleansing to decide individually which reparation they would prefer but there is more at stake here than just defining and properly conceptualizing the reparation Paradigm as part of the new recommended dictionary the idea of reparations and in particular the right of the refugees to return is rarely questioned in any other conflict in the world apart from Palestine the European Union and the U.S state Department have a principled position on refugees that accepts without any hesitations or qualifications the right of people to return to their homes after fighting has subsided the United Nations has a similar Universal position and made a concrete decision on the right of the Palestinian refugees to return unconditionally to their homes when it adopted resolution 194 in December 1948 it was adopted by the same UN General Assembly that decided on the partition plan and the creation of the Jewish state so putting the right of return at the very heart of any future solution is not a revolutionary idea that asks the Western World to betray its principles or adopt a unique exceptional attitude on the contrary it requires the Western World to be loyal to its principles and not exclude the Palestinians from the application of those principles yet the old peace Orthodoxy abandoned these basic human principles and did not even think of fighting for them well the New Movement does and will put them at the center of its struggle as long as the last Refugee wishes to return the Al Jazeera Palestine papers leak exposed how far the Palestine Authority was willing to go in order to appease the Israelis it showed the PA's Readiness to give up this right of return the new realities described at the end of this section reveal the emergence of a new political Elite in Palestine that may have a different view on the issue finally this ideology of ethnic cleansing also explains the dehumanization of the Palestinians a dehumanization that can bring about the kind of atrocities we witnessed in Gaza in January 2009. this dehumanization is the bitter fruit of the moral corruption that the militarization of the Jewish Society bore in Israel the Palestinians are a military Target a security risk and a demographic bomb this is one of the main reasons why ethnic cleansing is an ideology that is regarded by the International Community in the aftermath of the second world war as a hideous crime and moreover one that can lead to genocide since with both crimes you have to dehumanize your victim in order to implement your vision of ethnic purity whether you expel or Massacre people including children they have to be objectified as military targets not as human beings anyone who has been in Israel long enough as I have knows that the worst Corruption of young Israelis is the indoctrination they receive that totally dehumanizes the Palestinians when an Israeli soldier sees a Palestinian baby he does not see an infant he sees the enemy this is why all the military documents whether those ordering the occupation of villages in 1948 those instructing the Air Force in 2009 to resort to the to hear Doctrine the strategy that was meant to defeat Hezbollah in the 2006 assault on Lebanon with the carpet bombing of the eponymous Southern suburb of Beirut which is the Shiite stronghold or when bombarding Gaza depict the civilian areas as military bases in Israel since 1948 ethnic cleansing is not just a policy it is a way of life and it's constant practice criminalizes the state not just its policies more important when one has such a term in the activist's dictionary he or she realizes that ethnic cleansing does not end because it Peters out it ends either when the job is completed or is stopped by a more powerful force this realization turns on its head the logic of the peace process that has been attempted so far the process was meant to limit the implementation of Israel's policies onto the pre-1967 borders it has not of course succeed in doing that as the basic Zionist Quest is for control direct or indirect over the whole of Palestine any tactical concessions on this space have been only due to demographic considerations not a desire for peace and Reconciliation for this reason the direct control over the Gaza Strip has been abandoned and the Zionist left supports the two-state solution but this course of action is not working and as the recent more direct ethnic cleansing operations of Israel in the Negev the Jordan Valley and the greater Jerusalem area have shown the old plan a of direct expulsion is still used in order to complete the work that was begun in 1948. thus the peace process forces Israel to be more inventive in its ethnic cleansing strategy but does not require it to stop that strategy the new dictionary regards the end of the ethnic cleansing as a precondition for peace the depiction of Zionism as colonialism the analysis of Israel as in apartheid state and the recognition of how deeply embedded the notion of ethnic cleansing is in Jewish Society in Israel is the source of the key entries in our new dictionary shaping our view of the future decolonization regime change and a one-state solution the future decolonization and regime change the invalidity of the term peace process in regards to the Israel slash Palestine conflict became clear when people started to have access to what was really happening on the ground through the work of the ism as well as communication via the Internet satellite TV and other means people in the west could see the discrepancy between the various attempts to solve the conflict such as Geneva 1977 Madrid 1991 Oslo 1993 and Camp David 2000 and what was really taking place on the ground in this respect Chomsky was the first to observe that the process was never meant to reach a destination but only to perpetuate a situation of no solution Israel used it as a means to grab more land build more colonies and Annex more space the status quo was the solution the entry of decolonization in the dictionary would hopefully put an end to the coexistence industry which fueled a false dialogue financed mainly by the Americans and the leaders of the European Union most Palestinians have pulled out of this post Oslo Accords project and wasted millions of dollars what was particularly annoying and unhelpful was the Paradigm of parity on which the peace process was based it divided the blame between the two parties and treated them as equally responsible for the conflict while offering allegedly an equitable solution the blatant Miss balance of power should have discredited this solution a long time ago as a realistic approach to peace it was based on the wish to appease Israel without irritating it too much the end result was that the Palestinians were to receive whatever Israel was willing to give them this had nothing to do with peace it was a search after a comfortable capitulation by the native people of Palestine who lost it to the zionists who invaded the region in the 19th century but the new dictionary is not made of entries based on romantic or utopian Notions past injustices cannot all be undone this is very clear to the people who have been branded as unrealistic even by their friends not all past evils can be rectified but ongoing evils surely should stop and this is where the entry regime change becomes so appropriate according to the New Movement it is not Unthinkable to Aspire to a regime change in Israel nor is it naive to Envision a state where everyone is equal and it is not unrealistic to work for the unconditional Return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes the principle of regime change was abused by the United States and Britain in their attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan but won a new international legitimacy in the popular Revolutions in Tunis and Egypt regimes can change dramatically and drastically but they can also change gradually and in a bloodless manner although the upheavals in ex Yugoslavia and Syria serve as warnings of how badly regime change can go most of the historical examples in recent times are of non-violent or nearly non-violent regime changes therefore the last entry in the new dictionary a one-state solution is based on the hope that a Clear Vision of how the future relationship between victims and victimizers is framed will indicate also the nature of the change needed and the way to achieve it for many activists the two-state solution was dead long before the desperate admission of that fact by U.S Secretary of State John Kerry in April 2014. the strengthening of voices about the demise of the settlement does not mean that a clear alternative immediately has emerged a long process in search of the Alternatives has just begun some people activists and new political organizations have already articulated a clearer program an idea of what such a state would be their views are based both on old ideas that were developed in the past and their own new inputs others are still groping in the dark but the journey has commenced preliminary Milestones of this journey have been achieved the first Milestone was the reconceptualization of Israel and Palestine as one country not too present or future States Palestine became once more a country called Palestine and not just a geopolitical reality called Israel and the occupied territories and it is in this space that the new dictionary needs additional entries to clarify how people who live in Palestine and those who were expelled from it could live as equals and even live in ways better than in other parts of the Middle East maybe even better than in some parts of Europe a second milestone which was particularly crucial as again can be gleaned from the conversation with Chomsky in the second part of this book was the refutation of the allegation that the one state vision denies Israel's right to exist the new movement of activists does not possess the power to eliminate States nor are they interested in doing so Israel has the power to eliminate States the peace movement does not but it does have the moral power to question the ideology and ethical validity of the state and the destructive impact it had through the expulsion of half the country's population the third Milestone was the head-on challenge of one of the most basic assumptions of the peace Orthodoxy that partition of a country is an act of peace and Reconciliation partition in the history of Palestine is an act of Destruction committed within a framework of a un a peace plan or that Drew no International reaction or condemnation whatsoever thus the terms in the international dictionary from that formative period that signify positive peaceful values such as partition are in you speak to borrow George Orwell's famous term for such deceptive realities partition signifies International complicity in the crime of Destruction not a peace offer consequently anyone opposing partition became the enemy of peace the more Sinister and pro-israeli elements of the peace Orthodoxy used to blame the Palestinians for being irresponsible warmongering and intransigent beginning with the Palestinian rejection of the partition plan in 1947. in hindsight we know partition was also an ill-conceived idea from a real politique point of view this may not have been known at the time but to offer partition now as a solution on the same premise that informed the 1947 resolution which was that Zionism was a benevolent movement wishing Israelis to co-exist as equals with the Palestinian native majority is an absurdity and a travesty the continued adherence to the interpretations Zionism gave to partition and liberal Zionism very recently gave to the Oslo process corrupts every human and Humane value cherished in the West partition in both 1947 and 1993 means a license to have a racist Jewish state in more than 56 percent of Palestine in 1947 and more than 80 percent if not more in 1993 this is where the senior Israeli and pro-israel Western political and social scientists are exposed in their utter immorality and indecency they claim and teach that a Jewish State reigning over much of Palestine provided there is a Palestinian entity next to it is a democratic reality it is a democracy that is maintained by all means possible to ensure an everlasting Jewish majority in the land these means could and have included genocidal policies and other brutal strategies to safeguard that the state embodies the ethnic identity of one group alone Israelis do not find it therefore at all bizarre or unacceptable that determining the results of a democratic process by first determining by force who makes up the electorate gets the desired result a purely Jewish state in a bi-national country this charade is still marketed successfully in the west Israel is a democracy because the majority decides what it wants even if the majority is determined by means of colonization ethnic cleansing and recently by ghettoizing the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip enclaving them in areas A and B in the West Bank and in isolated villages in the greater Jerusalem area the Jordan Valley and the Bedouin reservations in the nakub Israeli Jews need to safeguard the existence of the Palestinians threatened daily by their government and army before nourishing the project of coexistence if they want to help they can join the international solidarity movement and those within the land who wish to transform Israel and Palestine into a geopolitical entity in which everyone can live as equal persons and citizens conclusions Palestine and Israel 2014-2020 in order to move out of the Paradox as mentioned above the ideas of the old peace Camp have to be abandoned the International Community interested in helping Palestine needs to stand behind the attempt to turn Israel into a pariah State as long as Israel continues to pursue its policies of apartheid dispossession and occupation the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is a medical miracle it died several times was resuscitated for a while then collapsed again it holds on not because there is the slight chance it will succeed but because of the dividends its very existence brings to many involved the Israeli government understands that without this peace process Israel would become a pariah State and would be exposed to International boycott and even sanctions as long as the process is alive Israel can continue to expand its settlement project in the West Bank and the dispossession of the Palestinians there including in the greater Jerusalem area and establish facts on the grounds that would render any future settlement unfeasible and impossible because of the dishonest brokering of the United States and Europe's impotence in international Affairs Israel continues to enjoy immunity in this process the Palestinian leadership is divided on the question of how desirable the continuation of the process is senior members in the Palestinian Authority assert that the establishment of the PA was a very important National Achievement and therefore should be maintained others and it seems this includes president Mahmoud Abbas himself have begun to doubt the validity of the PA and the chances of reaching peace it is true that Hollow threats to hand over the keys to the Israelis were voiced in the past by Abu Mazen in order to exert pressure on Israel but it seems that the threat from Israel in spring 2014 was more genuine and the sense of Despair more real and therefore the attempts to establish a Unity government with Hamas which were resumed in Earnest that April may have a better chance of succeeding the new efforts at Unity were just one indication that quite a few of those who supported the process in the past and those who have been observers have prepared themselves for the eventuality that the medical miracle would not repeat itself and the dead would not be Resurrected most of those who try and understand as well as predict what will take place if indeed the process cannot be revived see any other alternative as disastrous the Zionist left as well as liberal pro-zionist bodies in the west talk about the nightmarish is scenario of a bi-national state not only because it would mean the end of Zionism but also would produce a far worse reality for both peoples as if things can get worse for the Palestinians the Israeli Zionist left has a bizarre explanation for its fear of a bi-national state or for that matter of a single Democratic state the Palestinians will become tree healers and drawers of water as the biblical phrase has it proponents warn us a warning made several times by Yuri avnery others describe scenes of a never-ending Civil War among the Palestinians the support for the two-state solution comes from a different angle it is perceived as the only settlement that has Global support even inside Israel and therefore should still be maintained quite a few of palestine's genuine friends continue to subscribe to this point of view for similar reasons although the way the center and right Wings in Israel imagine a two State solution differs from that imagined among members of the Zionist left or within parties such as hadash and tajamu in Israel and differs again among PA members and supporters of Palestinians in the enlightened World there is generally a consensual depiction of it that dominates the political conversation on Palestine in the world but will the consensus be there in 2015 more and more voices among various Palestinian communities and among non-zionist Jewish activists are replacing their unwavering support for the two-state solution with a search for New Alternatives it is on the ground that one can see clearly how Irrelevant this hegemonic and Orthodox discourse of peace is and how futile any future attempts to revive it will be the Zionist left has disappeared from the political scene in Israel for all intents and purposes and thus the only viable political alternatives are either a coalition between the right and a secular Center or a coalition between the right and ultra-orthodox Jews the emergence of a new and left-leaning political force in Israel does not seem likely at this time anyone who is still hopeful of such an eventuality underrates the mental process Jewish Society in Israel underwent following the creation of the state in 1948. it was put under an indoctrinating Steamroller that pressed together old Jewish phobias about hostile Gentiles in Europe with typical colonialist anxieties about the natives into a frightening local version of racism deep racist layers like this are not removed easily and definitely do not disappear by themselves as the case of post-apartheid South Africa has so clearly shown us counter-educational projects in the long run active resistance and huge pressure from the outside can transform a society like that in Israel however counter-education is a very long process and the immediate dangers emanating from the collapse of the Diplomatic effort have such destructive potential that they would render these educational efforts useless as for the resistance movement it is still fragmented it has produced five different Palestinian groups that developed discreetly since 1948 each with its own National agenda and has to navigate in an almost impossible historical reality forging Unity is another long-term process probably taking as long as it would take to immunize Jewish Society against the racist virus that affects it the BDS movement with all its incredible achievements and there are many has still not affected the political Elites in the west who are still providing Israel with immunity for its actions and policies in spite of positive developments a few Brave Israelis seek to confront their society's racism in all its political manifestations a systematic policy of ethnic cleansing in the Negev Jaffa acre Nazareth East Jerusalem the Jordan Valley and south of the Hebron mountains and its constitutional manifestations a racist wave of legislation in the knesset the BDS movement becomes stronger by the day and we may be witnessing genuine efforts at Palestinian unification on the ground anew State the greater Israeli state has been born this state has nearly completed the annexation of area C in the West Bank and offers the Palestinians in areas A and B incarceration in cages if they do not resist the new state or the threat that they will be treated like the population in Gaza if they do resist this model is offered to the Palestinian people throughout the new state in cages there is no room for spatial expansion no resources for development and progress and an absolute prohibition on resisting this new vision of a greater Israeli state whoever follows the index of racism and democracy in Israel recognizes this is a creeping reality a slide toward an age of more racist legislation expanded projects of judaization and an alarming increase in attacks on Palestinians under the slogan tag me here price tag that consists of the daily destruction of Palestinian property and holy places in the new greater Israel impotent local Palestinian councils and uninterested police forces watch helplessly as organized crime takes over the more deprived Palestinian neighborhoods and Villages between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean fed by the poverty and unemployment that has reached unprecedented levels this is a tough reality that could be and should be challenged but it is left intact partly because of the energy wasted in the feudal peace process as well as in power struggles among its victims over insignificant fiefdoms today in three areas a new conversation has to commence that addresses rather than ignores the reality the first area is the overall Israeli policy that has obscured the green line already in existence for many years and which basically treats all the Palestinians in the same way there are still advantages for Palestinians who are citizens of the state of Israel but these seem to disappear as the years go by as mentioned before this is happening not only because Israel is less interested in providing these advantages but also due to the growing recognition that a hidden apartheid system such as the one in Israel itself is no less oppressive than a direct occupation in the West Bank or prolonged Siege in the Gaza Strip when different forms of Oppression emanate from the same Source the struggle against it has to be focused have no illusions that in the near future we will all be guided by a clear and unified Palestinian strategy but whoever subscribes to the importance of the Jewish Palestinian joint struggle has to recognize a worldview that confronts the ethnic cleansing throughout all of Palestine and not just in part of it a genuine and clear conversation about the new options instead of a dead formula is imperative at this moment in history the reframing of the Arab Jewish relationship over the whole land of historical Palestine is a crucial project that has to commence whatever one proposes in terms of the future political entity it has to be based on full equality for whoever lives in or was expelled from the country each such entity or ideal Future model hopefully could be developed through the existing representative bodies and new ones that might emerge but for the sake of some sort of progress beyond the conceptual paralysis imposed on us in the name of the two-state solution anyone who can and wants to on every possible stage should offer a political ideological constitutional and socioeconomic structure for whoever lives in the country of Palestine and not just in the state of Israel the second area is the future of the Palestinian refugees as long as this question is discussed within the framework of the old peace Orthodoxy and the two-state solution discourse it remains marginal and its solution deemed Possible only as a return of refugees to the Future Palestinian state a totally different conversation about the refugee issue focuses on two subjects the first an analysis of the Israeli refusal to allow the return of refugees as yet another manifestation of how racist this state has become the second the need to consider the fate of the refugees in the light of the new Refugee problem in Syria which includes large numbers of Palestinian refugees within the framework of the Diplomatic effort that was based on the two State solution Israel's determined rejection of any return was legitimized as was the Israeli argument that return would not allow Israel to maintain a Jewish majority in the state this International legitimacy indirectly licenses Israel to employ any means it deems necessary to maintain a significant Jewish majority in the state in this respect there is no difference between an Israeli position that rejects the refugees right of return and the other Israeli projects of ethnic cleansing be it proposing to Annex Wadi era to the West Bank uprooting the Bedouins in the nakub or depopulating east Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley peace cannot be on the agenda of a state that exercises such policies against its own citizens a subject associated with the refugee question is the immediate fate of the Palestinian refugees in Syria Lebanon Iraq turkey and Jordan who fled the civil war in Syria Israel boasts of its humanitarianism by telling the world that it admitted dozens of wounded Syrian fighters to its hospitals but Syria's four neighbors who have no less complicated relationships with Syria absorbed hundreds of thousands of refugees even if Israel does not show any humanitarian interest in these refugees many of whom are Palestinians anyone who is part of the peace Camp inside and outside Palestine has to highlight the linkage between the Syrian tragedy and the Palestine issue the need to offer the old new Palestinian refugees a return to their original Homeland has to be endorsed as both a humanitarian gesture and as a political act that can contribute to the end of the conflict in Israel and Palestine the right of return in general should be placed at the heart of much of the activity inside Israel and there are early encouraging signs that the local agenda of activists there is moving in this direction the nakba took place where Israel is today not in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip any conversation about reconciliation with both communities should take this fact as a starting point a preliminary step is probably recognizing at least the right of internal Palestinian refugees about 250 000 today by conservative estimates to return to their homes or nearby the right of internally displaced persons to return is the issue on which the widest consensus can build inside Israel in the struggle against the ongoing ethnic cleansing the internal Refugee Hood presents a testimony from the past For What and against what the struggle is all about the refugees are already part of the demographic balance how these people will return and how other refugees will return is a question that has to be at the center and not on the margins of the public debate about Palestine in this century the third and last area is the absence of any socialist discourse from the conversation about Palestine this absence is one of the main reasons the so-called peace camp in Israel and the same is true regarding the lobbyists on J Street in the United States has no issue with neoliberalism this worldview is not opposed to Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories but has no position on the harsh economic and social oppression that does not distinguish between a West Bank inhabitant and an Israeli citizen it is true that unfortunately some of the Jewish oppressed classes in Israel in particular the Arab Jews who see themselves as Jews first subscribe to extreme racist views but their plight is another good reason not to give up on a world view that challenges the present economic not just political regime between the River Jordan and the sea the absence of this angle also weakens our ability to understand the Oslo Accords the creation of the PA projects such as people to people and the maintenance of the occupation by EU and usaid money as neoliberal projects economic Elites supported the peace process because it was perceived to lead to an economic Bonanza the importance of insisting on a socialist worldview can be gleaned from the example of post-apartheid South Africa which has proven so disappointing as it maintains an economic structure that still discriminates against the African Community there those who represent institutionally collectively or individually this worldview have a responsibility to make sure the conversation about it will not stop at the green line but will relate to Palestine as a whole and who knows it may kick off a serious conversation about the future of the Middle East in its entirety heading toward 2020 we will almost probably face a racist ultra-capitalist and more expanded Israel still busy ethnically cleansing Palestine there is however a good chance that such a state will become a global Pariah and the people around the world will ask their leaders to act and end any relations they have with it what they should not hear are the past slogans which are no longer relevant in the struggle for a more just and Democratic Palestine part 1 dialogues chapter 2. the past Frank Barat how important is the role of the past in understanding the present more and more people are asking the Palestinians to move on to forget about the past the nakba of 1948 the refugees how would you respond to that Noam Chomsky well it's not just on this issue it's quite standard for those who hold the clubs to say forget about everything that happened and let's just go on from here in other words I've got what I want and you forget what your concerns are I'll just take what I want that's what it translates as in this case too forget about the past means forgetting about the future because the past involves aspirations hopes many of them entirely Justified that will be dealt with in the future if you pay attention to them it's essentially saying let's dismiss just hopes and aspirations because we've got what we want Elon Pap I definitely agree with this I would say that in the case of Palestine and why we continue to receive requests to speak and give our views the clock of Destruction continues at every historical juncture at a much faster Pace than our clock of ideas on how to get out of this this stalemate continues however because the perception of those who manage the so-called peace process those who interpret the reality in Palestine and Israel and claim that they know what is the right solution is rigid and has not changed for years at its base is a formula for peace that insists on taking the past out of the equation of peace these peace Brokers claim that the relevant past for any peace process is the moment the process begins anything that happened before is irrelevant for that process so if you already have huge Jewish settlement blocks all over the West Bank you cannot think about dismantling them you may think about the exchange of territories but not about dismantling these settlements so the past becomes an obstacle in the eyes of the so-called mediators but the past is everything in the eyes of the occupied and the oppressed people and see I might add to that it's Universal President Obama says well let's forget about the crimes that were committed the invasion of Iraq let's just go on in others words let's continue the same way we've been proceeding that's the weapon of the powerful IP absolutely FB Zionism has become a word that has many definitions and interpretations some people don't know what it means anymore could you give us an overview of what this word has meant historically IP as you're saying Zionism has many interpretations it's more neutral definition would be ideology I suppose Zionism is a set of ideas that inspires people to do certain things and act in accordance to them what is important in my mind is how people in power interpret this ideology I'm less interested in how it is interpreted by neutral Scholars I'm interested in Zionism as an ideology that has an impact on people's lives on the ground as such it is an ideology and has been since almost the beginning of the Zionist project in Palestine that meant in very simple terms that Judaism as a national movement has the right and the aspirations to have as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians in it as possible such a reality was determined as a precondition for creating new Jewish life I think that throughout the years when you have an institution like a state which accepts this ideology as its ethical infrastructure that ideology becomes even more powerful in the life of people as such it is not that different from other National or cultural ideologies its uniqueness lies elsewhere Zionism today is an ideology of power that is quite peculiar in history as it is directed against one particular group of people usually ideologies have wider implications for people Zionism is very focused whether it can be substituted by a more Progressive ideology is a very good question the best way forward seems is for its victims and opponents to see how far they can progress motivated by a set of universal values of Human Rights and civil rights because most of what is interpreted today as Zionism violates and contradicts basic human rights and civil rights for anyone who is not a Jew in Israel rather than finding the alternative ideology as such the goal is to create positions that claim the right of people to Elementary human and civil rights FB is there a clear definition of Zionism today what is a Zionist today and see first of all I think that here again the past is relevant Zionism meant something different in the pre-state and post-state period from 1948 on Zionism meant the ideology of the state a state religion like americanism or the magnificence of France in fact even in this period the notion has changed I remember for example in 1964 I happened to spend some time in Israel and among leftish intellectuals Zionism was regarded as a joke a thing that was used for propaganda for children three years later most of these people were raving nationalists that changed in 1967 which was a sea change in the way many Israelis saw themselves and what the state was like fundamentally in the pre-state period it was not a state religion for example in the mid-1940s I was a Zionist youth leader but strongly opposed to a Jewish state I was in favor of Jewish Arab working class cooperation to build a socialist Palestine but the idea of a Jewish state was anathema I was a Zionist youth leader because it was not a state religion you go back a bit further my father his generation they were zionists but they were a hot homists they wanted a cultural center as a place where the diaspora could find a way to live together with the Palestinians that ended in 1948 from then on it essentially became a state religion one that shifted in terms of policies it's interesting to remember this in the mid-1970s it was clear that the Arabs were perfectly willing to make a political settlement Syria Egypt and Jordan proposed a two-state settlement at the security Council the USA had to veto it Egypt had already offered a full peace treaty with Israel it was necessary to raise barriers to block negotiations so the concept of Zionism changed everyone had to accept the right to exist of Israel states do not have a right to exist Mexico does not accept the right of the USA to exist sitting on half of Mexico states recognize each other but not their right to exist there is no such thing but Israel raised that barrier to require that Palestinians accept that their oppression and expulsion is Justified not just that it happened but that it is Justified of course they are not going to accept that so it was a nice barrier to stop negotiations now it's harder the support for a settlement is now so overwhelming that Israel has been forced to raise the barrier still higher the Palestinians now have to recognize Israel as a Jewish state that's the core element of most of the speeches that Netanyahu gives why that because that's understood to be impossible nobody should recognize Israel as a Jewish state just as we do not recognize the USA as a Christian state say Pakistan calls itself an Islamic State but the USA does not recognize it as one Zionism in the policy of the state of Israel has had to shift to impose still higher barriers to any kind of political settlement if something more is needed in the future they will invent something new Zionism as state policy is a shifting concept depending on what the state needs IP for me there is one constant dimension of Zionism that does not easily shift with time one can call it mainstream Zionism sometimes referred to as labor Zionism it's the colonialist or settler colonialist dimension of Zionism from the moment the more vague ideas of Zionism as the Revival of Judaism as nationalism became the concrete project of settling in Palestine Zionism became a settler colonialist project and still is one today maybe the means of colonizing Palestine are changing according to circumstances and the balance of power but not the vision itself within that act of colonizing also come perceptions of the Native or the indigenous population as being an obstacle for the success of the project I think that this part of Zionism stays at the heart of the ideology even before the state was founded the state just enhances the ability to colonize but does not change the vision of colonizing Palestine Palestinian perspectives on it however did change with time noteworthy is the position of Palestinian intellectuals and leaders such as asmi bashara who argues that the settlers today have a certain right and presence in Palestine when the first wave of settlers came as zionists it happened at a historical moment when quite often in the history of 19th century colonialism the local population could opt for resistance and successfully usually in an armed struggle push the colonizers back to their home countries when the colonizers are already a third generation and even succeeded in founding their own State the native population has to strategize differently and find ways of coexisting with this generation of colonizers the reason the colonialist impulse of the Zionist movement did not end at a certain historical moment lies in the territorial appetite and greediness of these settlers when they were offered part of Palestine in 1937 they regarded it as insufficient space for implementing their aspirations but they had a wise leader David bengerian who understood that it was tactfully beneficial not to spell out clearly these annexationist dreams so he told the Royal peel commission the Zionist movement was content with a small part of the country he continued this tactical and successful policy in 1947 and led his Community to accept a larger part of Palestine than that offered in 1937 but one that he still deemed as insufficient he told his colleagues he was very unhappy with the map offered by the U.N petition plan in November 1947 and promised them as indeed happened that they would have the means the opportunity and the plan to change these borders later on his successors still hope to recreate his winning formula today after Israel completed the Takeover of the whole of Palestine in 1967. but unlike Ben Nigerian in 1937 and 1947. they so far failed in obtaining the international legitimacy for the last territorial expansion and unlike him at least some of them were even seeking again unsuccessfully Palestinian legitimacy for this act and see I think that's a correct characterization of what you'd call hardcore Zionism or more generally political Zionism which of course Ben gerion was a leading figure of but Zionism generally was broader like Ahad how am was a Zionist but not a political Zionist the groups that I was involved in admittedly were marginal like calvariski's league for Arab Jewish rapprochement they were zionists but anti-state they were class-based and in favor of Jewish Arab working-class cooperation it might sound strange today but it did not in the context of the 30s and the 40s IP the Jews were a minority then is it possible when the Jews are a majority and in power to develop such ideas and see well this is later a majority and a state in fact they were strongly opposed to it at the time so the concept changed what you are describing is a correct characterization of the mainstream of political Zionism technically the Zionist movement did not formally accept the notion of a state until 1942 but it was always in the background of political Zionism you just could not say it I think it's worth thinking through what the options were because that may be some kind of a guide to what the future could be FB nowadays A lot of people describe Zionism as a settler Colonial movement do you both agree with this definition and C the Jewish settlement in Israel was certainly a settler Colonial movement when you talk about what Zionism was it depends on how do you want to spread it the movement that developed yes is a settler colonial society like the USA Australia the anglosphere Israel is one of them it's not a small point if you take a look at the international support for Israeli policies it's of course primarily the USA but secondarily it's the anglosphere Australia Canada I suspect that there is a kind of intuitive feeling on the part of the population look we did it it must be right so they are doing it so it must be right the settler Colonial societies have a different kind of mentality we did exterminate or expel the indigenous population so there has to be something Justified about it Superior civilization or other ideas IP our chance to change International perspective and perceptions even in settler colonialist societies has to do with the past even if you go to the USA and Australia nowadays may be because the policies were genocidal and happened many years ago I do not think these societies will Resort easily today to settler colonialist practices they may deal well or not so well from our perspective with Crimes of the past they may find different ways of engaging with them as the Australians did when they initiated the sorry day or even a more Progressive Act of reconciliation in the permit given by the government of New Zealand to the maoris to return to their lands that were stolen from them all these acts are taken from what one can call the comfort zone of those settler societies that have diminished the native population to such an extent at the early stage of colonization that they have no fear the symbolic acts will change the socio-economic or even political realities of today for the Israelis of course the task is far more formidable they are still dispossessing because they failed in the early stage of the 1948 ethnic cleansing to eliminate the Palestinians as a people and thus every symbolic Act of reconciliation would have a profound and tangible impact on the socioeconomic and political realities on the ground most Israeli Jews do all they can to prevent this from happening where they are not sure about their success is in winning International and Regional legitimacy for their Acts and see it's true Israel has had the problem that it's a 20th century version of a 17th through 19th century colonialism that's a problem but my point was a little bit different there is a kind of an underlying mentality in the anglosphere in settler Colonial societies which is simply some kind of deep-seated part of the way in which people look at the world and that slips through however speaking about the future this is changing in the anglosphere since the 1960s mainly the effect of 60s era activism there has been a considerable Revival a significant one of concern for what actually happened in the past a lot of it was suppressed until then literally you go back to the 1960s when leading anthropologists were claiming that there were maybe only a million Indians native Americans around the country that's collapsed now attitudes are very different I think this is part of the background for the increasing criticism of the settler Colonial character of Israel these things are connected in sort of subtle ways IP I agree and I think that this shift in Perceptions in the settler Colonial societies is something we are still struggling with as activists I remember how I struggled to explain to my students in England that what they see in Israel and Palestine today is a daily implementation of 19th century colonialist ideology and discourse and see yes i p were the Israelis find it difficult is actually in escaping the description of the reality as colonialist when trying to do this in Hebrew any translation into another language of the Israeli terminology of settlement is bound to expose the colonialist nature of the project even those Progressive Jews who support Israel feel uncomfortable when this act of translation is taking place this Israeli predicament is also our predicament as activists we are dealing with a 19th century fossil that is very alive and kicking in the 21st century that's why I think the power of connecting the past to the future comes through the Paradigm of settler colonialism because settler colonialism is not only about the act of settling and colonizing but what happens afterwards and see driving out the indigenous population IP exactly FB I want to go back to the question of a Jewish state if the Jews are a people what is the problem of them having a state and why shouldn't we recognize Israel as a Jewish state IP I think that no one I know has ever objected or questioned the right of people to redefine themselves on a national ethnic or cultural ground there is no ground for objecting from the perspective of international law or International morality neither is the historical moment in which they decide to do it questionable however this particular group had defined itself in the past in our case as a religious group the problem lies elsewhere what is the price paid by this transformation and who pays the price if this new definition comes at the expense of another people this becomes a problem if a group is a victim of a crime and is looking for a safe haven it cannot obtain this by expelling someone else another group from this space that you want as your Safe Haven this is the difference between what you want as a group and what means you use to achieve it the problem is not the right of the Jews to have a state of their own or not that's an internal Jewish Problem Orthodox Jews might have a problem with this Palestinians have no qualms about the Jews forming a state in Uganda as some people proposed In 1902 to 1903 not one Palestinian in the world would be interested in this scenario that's the main issue how do you implement your right to self-determination and see the idea of a Jewish state is an anomaly it's not something that's happened somewhere in the world the question is based on the wrong presupposition take France it took a long time for France to become a state a lot of violence and repression took place in fact All State formation is a process of extreme violence that's why Europe was the most violent place in the world for centuries once a state is established any citizen is a citizen of the state no matter who you are if you are a French citizen you're French if you live in Israel and you are an Israeli citizen you are not a Jew so the Jewish State concept is a complete anomaly it has no analogs in the modern world therefore it's obvious why we should not accept it why should we accept this unique anomaly every state if you look at its history is created by extreme violence there is no other way to impose a uniform structure on people of varying interests backgrounds languages and so on so it's done by violence but once it's there at least in the modern State system anybody who is part of a state is theoretically an equal member of the state of course it might not work in practice but that's the concept in Israel it is totally different there is a distinction between citizenship and nationality there is no Israeli nationality you cannot be an Israeli National this came up in the courts back in the 60s and came back up again recently a group of Israelis wanted to have their papers identify them as Israelis not as Jews it went all the way to the high court which rejected it it reflects this anomalous concept of a Jewish state which has no counterpart in the Contemporary International political system IP paradoxically it is used by Israel in an attempt to stifle any criticism of the state and its ideology if you chastise Israel you assault the Jewish State and by association you attack Judaism that's a very interesting line of argumentation and defense this prohibition would not work in any case if you look at the struggle against apartheid in South Africa it is as if in the Heyday of the struggle against apartheid you were only allowed to criticize certain policies of South African society but not the very nature of the regime that's a great success for Israel that it obtained immunity from such a protest movement so far they defined the parameters of the game you are allowed to demonstrate against Israeli policies but if you demonstrate against Israel you demonstrate against the Jewish State and therefore you demonstrate against Judaism that is why it is very important to bring this to the fore of the discussion and see it's interesting that it is now the Israeli leadership itself that is bringing it to the fore IP exactly and see when Netanyahu says you have to recognize us as a Jewish State he is saying you have to recognize us as something that does not exist in the modern world there is no such thing again if you are French a citizen of France you are French if you are a citizen of Israel you are not Jewish it's crucial FB could Israel have formed without the Holocaust and see it's hard to debate such a question but I think it would have what Elon was describing before the national institutions that had been created they were strong there was a military force an ideology support for it in the powerful countries for all kind of reasons like in Britain and in the U.S a lot of the support for it was religious Christian Zionism is a very significant Force it goes back way before Jewish Zionism it was an elite phenomenon Lord Balfour Lloyd George Woodrow Wilson Harry Truman read the Bible every morning it says there God promised the land to the Jews that's in the powerful states there was already plenty of support in fact Britain as the mandatory Authority facilitated the development of the Jewish National institutions so my guess is that it would have happened without the Holocaust also it's worth remembering that the Holocaust was not a big issue in the 1940s on the contrary it became a big issue after 1967. if you take a look at the Holocaust museums the Holocaust studies programs its post 67. it's very striking in the USA so ask yourself a very simple question after the war there were many survivors of the Holocaust many of them living in concentration camps they were in camps that were essentially no different from the Nazi extermination camps except that there were no crematoria there were U.S government presidential studies that investigated and said that the people were living under the conditions of Nazi occupation simple question how many of them came to the United States virtually none if you had asked them where they wanted to go I think you can make a sane guess that they would have wanted to come to the United States half of Europe wanted to come especially Holocaust survivors they did not the American government did not want them the American Jewish community did not want them Zionist emissaries took over the camps they had a principle that able-bodied men and women between 17 and 35 had to be shipped off to Palestine the first book on this which has been a suppressed topic appeared a couple of years ago a Yosef grodzinski book IP only in Hebrew right and see it's in English too but it's been so suppressed that nobody knows about it it's deeply hidden but it does exist the translation of the Hebrew title is a good human material the idea was that the good human material was going to be cannon fodder nobody studied it but you can be pretty sure that coming to the U.S was what they would have chosen that's what the Holocaust meant you can see it in propaganda Truman is very much honored because he was trying to force the British to send Jews to Palestine nobody asks why Truman did not say okay let's take a hundred thousand Jews here this is the place where it would have been easiest to absorb them it can absorb anybody it's a country that is not densely settled the richest country in history they did not because the Holocaust was considered a way to damn the enemy but it was not a meaningful concept when the first scholarly study of the Holocaust came out by Raul hillberg it was condemned let's not bring out all that stuff we do not want that IP I do agree though I have a slightly different take on this it has a lot to do with historical timing it is absolutely true that without the Holocaust there were vested religious and strategic Western interests to have a Jewish presence instead of a Palestinian one or they would have called it at the time an Islamic one you particularly see it when you read the correspondence surrounding both the Balfour Declaration and its aftermath in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s a few British public Figures were trying to protect the interests of the indigenous Palestinians but already then they were saying that it was almost impossible to bring the other point of view to the Public's attention you were immediately stifled and rebutted and so on it was not just Christian Zionism alone that won the day for Zionism long before the Holocaust the impulse to allow indeed to push Jews to settle in Palestine was motivated also by British and Western islamophobia NC true IP it was anti-arab anti-muslim if you take a place where Christian zionists or secular British imperialists want to see Jewish presence serving their Empires or theologies and do not wish to see their an Arab or Muslim presence it becomes a powerful International Coalition that defeats a priori the indigenous people this was the powerful Coalition the Palestinians had to face when they first attempted to create a national movement and struggle for their right of self-determination and Independence the Holocaust had an effect on the historical timing but I think that the historical timing is important after the Holocaust there is the beginning of historical processes by which the power of islamophobia or arabophobia or Christian Zionism wanes call it the left call it progressiveness these forces eventually decolonize the Arab world and even Africa so Zionism without the Holocaust could have found it a bit more difficult to establish what it did establish in the same place it did and see I totally agree with this IP what gnome said about the DPS displaced persons is very interesting because when both the anglo-american Commission in 1946 and we can see it from Richard crossman's Memoirs and both on Scots United nation's special committee on Palestine afterward in 1947 when they tried to be sort of neutral and said let's see both sides points of view on Palestine many members of both committees claimed that visiting the DPS of course with good Zionist propaganda made them associate the fate of the Jews of Europe demographically arithmetically with the fate of the Jews in Palestine which put the Palestinian point of view in a very weak position who are you to be against our wish to solve the problem of the Jews in Europe as a whole you could not visit Vienna in 1900 and ask the Jews to come to Palestine it would not have worked then and see you're right but I think it tells you something very interesting about Western culture when they went to the concentration camps and were appalled they did not say let's save the survivors they said let someone else pay for saving the survivors IP exactly and see this tells you something about the West the deeply rooted Imperial mentality that affects the West like a plague yes there are these people living in misery we are the ones able to help them but we are not going to even raise that possibility somebody else who does not have the capacity they have to suffer for it FB was it only due to imperialist policies or also due to Western anti-essemitism and C zionists or not they would have reacted exactly the same IP I agree NC take say the USA which is the clearest case after the second world war they were in an absolutely unique position there was some Zionist pressure but it did not mean anything they just did not want them and the American Jewish community did not want them either FB was it anti-Semitic NC anti-Semitism partly but mostly why should we take the burden IP not them and not anyone else it did not have to be Jews and see in 1924 there was an immigration law in the USA that was aimed at Jews and Italians let's keep them out of the country they did not say it that way they said Eastern and Southeastern and Southern Europeans IP the pathology of Zionism is crucial when you are a historian you always have to remember that people did not know what was going to happen so when you look at Zionist discussions in the 1930s about Nazism and fascism you have to realize that these people are talking about Nazism without knowing what will be the final solution they are not appalled they say that they should talk to these people we have a uniformity of Interest here they want the Jews out of Germany we want the Jews out of Germany on this basis they even go into negotiations you do not correlate Zionism with Nazism when you say that you show that you are in the company of people and they had to understand which interests they were serving apart from theirs this comes to the four very strongly and see it's very striking it's important to stress that in the 1930s you could not see what was going to happen it was even true of German Jews there is a book in 1935 by Joachim Prince were Juden this is a humanist Zionist who said that Jews should recognize that they should be sympathetic to the Nazis because they have the same kind of ideology we do blood and land and so on we agree with that if we can only explain to them that we are really on the same side they will stop persecuting us this was in 1935. in fact you can go to 1941 the USA had a Consul in Berlin prior to Pearl Harbor and he was writing fairly sympathetic commentaries on the Nazis his name was George Kennan one of the framers of the post-war world IP yes Canon the strategist who thought that America should control 50 of the world's natural resources to have the standard of living they desired FB the refugee question is key for any Palestinian inside or outside Palestine don't you think that the first step the Israeli government should take is to accept its responsibility in creating the problem in the first place and then as Kevin Rudd did in Australia issue a public apology also should we as activists clearly state that regardless of the possibility or not of the refugees and their descendants going back to their original homes they do have this right and see I think that not only they should do it but it's come close to that there has been among the various informal negotiations like Geneva a move to say okay let's admit that they have the right of return while recognizing that they will not return to use an analogy I gave a talk in Arizona recently and I simply referred to it as occupied Mexico which it is it should be referred to that way it's occupied Mexico we conquered it in a violent brutal war of aggression we should do something about it that's why they have names like San Francisco San Diego Los Angeles and so on recognize it recognize what we did on the other hand we know we are not going to give it back to Mexico there are terrible historical injustices some of them you can try to do something about but just to unwind history is very difficult maybe in the longer term this could happen in Israel in fact in my view the only way there would be a realistic solution to the return problem is if the whole state system erodes in the region if you travel in the northern Galilee you can see that there is no basis for a line there I'll tell you in anecdote in 1953 my wife and I were living in a kibbutz in Israel we were students hiking around backpacking in the northern Galilee on a road behind us a Jeep came by a guy came out and started yelling at us you have to go back you are in the wrong country we crossed into Lebanon these days it's probably bristling with machine guns there should not be any line there over time I think there is a chance that these borders May erode the whole Sykes Pico Imperial Arrangement is beginning to erode and it could go further in the longer term when they talk about a two-state solution I do not think that this should be regarded as the end as I've said before states have no inherent legitimacy they have all been imposed by violence they are causing violence all over the world it's an inhuman social structure it should erode every time in that context I think you could imagine an authentic return not just recognition of an historical wrong but in fact interactions among people that are not based on States or religious or ethnic lines there are other grounds for people to interact with one another IP well I do agree with most of it but I think that there are three dimensions to this question one is tackling it as key issue in the peace negotiations the right has symbolic and practical aspects there is a Palestinian demand for an Israeli recognition of the right itself through a combination of acknowledgment and apology this may be in the form of an apology can open the ground for discussions over practicalities the second dimension is the implication of the Israeli position on the very nature of the state and the Zionist project the Israeli rejection of the right of return stems from a racist ideology hence for me as an activist struggle over or engaging with the issue of the right of return relates directly to the question of the moral validity of Zionism and the nature of the Jewish State today and see yes i p the reason they do not accept the return has nothing to do with practicalities it has to do with Jewish Supremacy and Jewish exclusivity and see yes IP so you struggle against it from an Israeli Jewish perspective not so much on the level of acknowledgment and apology which I think are important for the peace process to progress but on this whole other level the third dimension concerns the Palestinians alone it concerns the question of how to live an ordinary life under the shadow of the right of return slogan how does one navigate between perceiving the right as sacred with the knowledge it is not around the corner this translates into concrete questions do you really condemn Palestinians in the refugee camps in Lebanon for improving a little bit their homes without immediately accusing them of naturalization taught in or that they have betrayed the right of return because they have slightly improved there standard of living it's up to the Palestinians to strategize I am not going to do it for them but they will have to strategize and differentiate between for instance refugees in the West Bank the Gaza Strip the internal refugees inside Israel and also the refugees in Jordan Syria and Lebanon these three dimensions are very important for developing a novel approach toward this painful issue for me the basic point is what is a Jewish state can it really exist as such what would be a solution that is not based on a continued violation of basic human and civil rights and one that has to include the right of people to come back to their Homeland their right to visit their Homeland I think that's where we sometimes do not differentiate between what is right what we believe is Justified and what should be the issues we discuss inside Israel inside the Palestinian community and among the community of negotiators and mediators we should be beyond that argument of supporting or not the right of return we should talk about what it means this is what Israeli Society has to do have a serious internal discussion about its own racist nature NC in support of the observations that it is really a racist issue is the fact that Israel has been trying to block by law or by force commemorating the nakba or recognizing it IP exactly and see this has nothing to do with refugees this is pure racism justifying your own repression and violence I was in refugee camps not that long ago the people live in horrible conditions it's very moving I visited a family who lived in a small room as usual Middle Eastern style they offered coffee and so on but when they start showing you the keys of their Villages their houses pictures of their land when they start telling you idealized stories about what life was like in the Galilee you're right Elon it has to be dealt with realistically but it's hard to tell people like that you are never going to see your village again IP no you should not say that what I meant is that we should tell them that until they see their Villages they should make their lives better you are not undermining your chance of seeing your village by creating some comfort in your life now and see that's right IP you are not undermining your life as a Palestinian citizen of Israel by pushing aside accusations of practicing normalization because you have a Palestinian theater in Haifa such a theater was accused of tobby normalization for accepting a budget from the Israeli Ministry of culture in Israel you can open a theater in Haifa without taking money from the ministry these issues living life under slogans having moral or political Purity have a lot to do with the fact that if you are struggling for a different moral infrastructure for a future state it would be far more important to provide a different ethical base for this future state to which the refugees would return whether it is one state a federal state a bi-national state if you fight for a different ethical infrastructure for the State the whole issue of people wanting to change their lives either by coming back or by visiting becomes a different issue the conversation here is different and we do not condemn people for persisting in the last 65 years to dream about their return home they have this right but what do we do until that right is implemented to my mind this is no less important than protecting the right and see at a human level some steps should be taken like the Israeli women who bring Palestinian women to the beach it's very important I mean imagine those people that can see the sea but cannot touch it the fact that there are some efforts to overcome that that's the way things could begin FB I remember Professor Chomsky that you told me in a previous interview that Israeli policies will lead Israel to self-destruction the issue for example of bringing as many Jews to Israel as possible regardless of their real jewishness Russian Jews Ethiopian Jews the internal racism it creates between hearty Jews ashkenazis mizrahis is becoming very worrying and problematic can you reflect on that and see that's one kind of problem internal but what I had in mind was a different one in 1971 Israel made a decision which in my view was its most fateful decision in its history there was an offer from Egypt for a full peace treaty the Israeli government led by Golda mayor considered it and rejected it because they wanted to colonize the Sinai basically their choice at the time was between security and expansion a peace treaty with Egypt whatever one might think about that outcome would have meant Security in fact permanent security as Egypt was the only powerful Arab military force they understood that but they preferred to expand into the Sinai this was a fateful decision and it's been followed ever since ever since then Israel prefers expansion over security to say they prefer expansion to security means that they are going to follow the path of apartheid South Africa because that follows automatically step by step they are going to become isolated a pariah State delegitimized very much like South Africa they are going to be able to survive only as long as the U.S supports them it's very interesting to look at the history of South Africa you could pretty much replace the word South Africa with Israel all through the history back in 1960 roughly the apartheid regime recognized that it was becoming an international pariah we now know from Declassified documents that the foreign minister called the American ambassador and told him that he knew everyone was Voting against them but that as long as the U.S was backing them they did not care that's pretty much what happened by 1988 and a few years beyond the U.S was still supporting South Africa strongly Thatcher II but it was mainly Reagan and the U.S South Africa was okay when U.S policy shifted apartheid ended Israel is moving in exactly the same direction by now their sole support virtually is the U.S they are becoming delegitimized they are worried about it but it is going to continue it's inherent with a policy of expansion disregard of international opinion violations of international law you can get away with it as long as you have the biggest thug on the Block protecting you but that's a weak support because it is going to erode in the U.S too just like it did with South Africa you can already see it happening the U.S anti apartheid movement really started in the 80s 20 years later than it did in England but it did develop and it was significant and it changed policy IP I think that what you are saying is correct to a certain extent there is one big difference between South Africa and Israel usually people that do the comparison say that unfortunately it will be much more difficult to dismantle Israeli apartheid then the South African one and see it's not apartheid I think the state is going to collapse IP it is a demand for a regime change and see it's very different from apartheid it's really an issue of delegitimization and isolation IP what I am saying is that the white community in South Africa was from a socio-economic point of view quite homogeneous whereas the white supremacist group in Israel is polarized economically and socially if you add to this what gnome was talking about the international delegitimization of Israel you have two powerful processes one from the inside and one from the outside that really questions the viability of the state if you belong to the master race but within the master race you have such a polarization in how the economic cake is being shared you are in trouble the Israelis now have to Brand two commodities they have to Market to the world the legitimacy of the state in a world that finds it very difficult to accept it but then they have also a domestic branding to do they have to explain to the poor and marginalized Jews why belonging to the master race has not improved their socioeconomic standards of living why do they still live in impoverished development towns why is their culture not represented in the european-dominated and hegemonic culture Israeli strategists will tell you that they have dealt with this by having a common enemy a security issue by having a war on Islam the explanations and excuses have changed with time but the polarized socio-economic reality remained the same that's where the Israelis will find it difficult there is a limit to how much you can justify a socio-economic marginalization and polarization this became a more acute problem because since 2008 the middle class in Israel is being pushed down to being the lower middle class which means that a larger number of people is prevented from getting its share of the National Cake despite their belonging to the right ethnic group in the past and until recently the ability to keep enough people convinced that their ethnic Association also benefits them economically depended largely on the huge amounts of American Financial Aid to Israel it is not very clear how much longer such massive Aid will be continued the tendency to review critically how much America is spending abroad does not come only from Anti-Imperialist critiques in the United States and the people who would demand a reduction in the aid to Israel are not necessarily pro-palestinians the question would be whether the Jewish state is still a strategic asset or financial liability these processes will work to weaken the Zionist state in the long run but my great fear is about the near future as I heard and learned from veteran ANC leaders and activists the apartheid regime became particularly Fierce and vicious in its last years it is the perspective fall of Zionism that brings us to a very dangerous period in the history of Palestine we all have to be very alert and on guard about what is going to happen in the next few years rather than in the long term you can be a bit more optimistic about the long term in terms of justice and changes in the reality and see I would not push the South African analogy too far because there are striking differences one difference that cannot be acknowledged in the USA for obvious reasons is that it was the Cubans that destroyed the South African regime it was they who drove South African aggressors out of Angola Namibia broke the mythology of the white Superman it was black troops that were driving them out it had an enormous effect it is going to take a long time before this enters the U.S consciousness the other thing is what you talked about the homogeneous white community which meant that there was a crucial class issue it was possible to reach a settlement in South Africa the kind of which is impossible in Israel the final settlement was let's keep the socio-economic system and have some Black Faces in The Limousines you cannot do that in Israel IP making the parallel between South Africa and Palestine has advantages and disadvantages you already have a Palestinian bourgeoisie inside Israel you did not have African heads of medical departments in South Africa take the Galilee for example they're the intertwined communities are slowly becoming a fact of life it already has a reality that reflects the future the nature of the state is still ethnic and segregationist but the transition to a state that recognizes the reality that already exists on the ground does not have to be as dramatic or drastic as it was in South Africa in other parts of the country especially in the West Bank and greater Jerusalem area dismantling the present reality and replacing it by a more just one would be very similar to the process occurring in the transition in South Africa from apartheid to a post-apartheid state so there is no harm is studying closely the South African case so as not to repeat the mistakes made there and also be aware of the differences that would require original thinking for the case of Israel and Palestine NC South Africa was different because the white population needed its black counterpart it was its Workforce Israel does not want the Palestinians South Africa actually supported the bantustans they wanted them to develop because they had to reproduce the workforce and to be internationally recognized in details it's not going to be a similar process even though there are some similarities what I mentioned before Israel determined that they will be a pariah state but that it did not matter as long as the U.S backed them that's very much the South African position that is why I have often written since the 1970s that the people who call themselves supporters of Israel are in fact supporters of its moral degeneration and probably ultimate destruction IP absolutely this conversation between Noam Chomsky Elon Papp and Frank Barat was recorded on January 14 2014 and has been condensed and edited chapter 3. the present FB what is the role of activists standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people should they be pragmatic in terms of their advocacy or should they lead the way and adopt more ethical and radical positions should we focus on occupation or on the nature of the state of Israel and see if their goals are to help the Palestinians while they should of course take positions that are ethical they also must be pragmatic they have to ask themselves what is going to help and what is going to hurt them Palestinians take the anti-war movement about Vietnam for example there were young people who were properly outraged by the war and thought that the ethical attitude to have was to carry out acts of Destruction against U.S property corporations destroy armaments and so on that's ethical but it was harmful the Vietnamese were strongly opposed to it they did not care about the fact that people in the U.S felt good they cared about what happened to them on the ground and the effects on them were harmful since it provoked a huge backlash and strengthened support for the war those are the kind of choices that you always have to make when you are considering acting in the interest of someone you have to ask what is going to help them not what is going to make me feel good call it pragmatic if you like but I would call it ethical you are concerned with the effects of your actions on the people you are standing in solidarity with look at the South African solidarity movement they actually lived up to this condition pretty effectively by and large looking at their actions they selected actions which both harmed South African apartheid and enhanced support for the anti-apartheid struggle in their home countries that's what we should be doing and that can be done take Israel a couple of days ago we read a report about settlements in the Jordan Valley which have had their profits reduced by European boycott movements that doubly makes sense it harms the occupation and it is quite intelligible to the audience at home it's an educational process you are trying to get people to understand that these are criminal activities and that you are using creative ways to undermine those activities those are the kind of actions that make sense there are other actions that are harmful first because they have almost no effect on the policies but they also predictably create a backlash of opposition which simply strengthens the crimes for example ten years ago at the time when Sharon invaded the West Bank and there were these massive atrocities in genin there were protests here was a faculty petition condemning it I signed it mainly out of Sympathy for the people who were doing it but I thought it was badly designed it had Provisions in it which were guaranteed to be unintelligible to the general population and to create a backlash they insisted on including something about the fact that the university should divest from Israel no background was late for that nobody understood why not divest from Harvard the result was exactly as I thought there was this huge reaction dwarfing the petition for the next couple of months the issue at Harvard was not genin this was forgotten the issue became is their anti-Semitism at Harvard so then you spend a couple of months arguing about that the net effect for the Palestinians was predictably harmful these are the type of things you have to think about you have to ask what the consequences are going to be for the victims that should be the highest priority all the time tactical decisions are important they are not trivial human lives depend on them you have to think carefully about what the effects are and the multiple Dimensions involved 1. what does it have to do with the policy of the State how does it affect that the other is what about the audience here at home that you are trying to mobilize to become more active themselves through Civil Disobedience and everything else there are people who I very much respect mostly religious Christians who are very dedicated they think it's very important to break into military installations and smash all these kind of missiles I can understand why they are doing it but the net effect turns out to be predictably harmful for one thing the workers in the plants have no idea what the protesters are doing except taking their jobs away no background has been laid explaining why they are breaking the missiles there are no educational efforts in the community to make people understand that this is something sensible to do the net effect is that you spend enormous amounts of time and money wasted in court cases testifying and so on and then a couple of people go to jail and nothing has been achieved those are the kinds of questions you have to ask all the time IP I think there are three elements here which are very important too consider the fragmentation of the Palestinian existence the accountability of the Zionist ideology for the reality we face today in Israel and Palestine and finding the right balance between ethical positions and concrete actions the first point is to relate to the biggest success of the Zionist project which was to fragment the Palestinian existence in this respect they suffered more than the Vietnamese or the South Africans although not in terms of human cost at least in the case of the former the Palestinians have gone through history ever since 1948 as a fragmented group and thus different Palestinian groups are exposed to a ton of different Israeli policies as an activist when you have a fragmented group with no clear leadership no clear address to which you can refer to get clear guidance of what are the National priorities of the people you support it is not always easy to come with the right or adequate response in other words it is very difficult to adopt a clear ethical position that respects the interests of all the Palestinian groups concerned for instance it is obvious that when you live under occupation in the West Bank or when you are a refugee in Lebanon you may have different priorities as far as the Israeli policies against you are concerned and therefore you would ask the solidarity movement to do two different contradictory things the second point is the role and accountability of Zionism I think what activists were looking for is a kind of framework which tried to contain as many of the Palestinian communities of suffering as they could knowing that in some cases some policies will be less adequate for one group and more adequate for another this is where I see activism doing the right thing in the last few years where it takes Zionism not so much as an ideology or a scholarly riddle that has to be deconstructed but refers to it mainly as the source of most of the evil that torments Israel and Palestine the Palestinians are subjected to different sufferings because of Israeli policies but there is an ideological Source behind it sticking to such a framework as activists is highly important to my mind as I have pointed out earlier there is anomaly in the way Zionism has been until now protected from any serious challenge or rebuke activists in the west were allowed to demonstrate against apartheid in South Africa and did not limit their actions against just one or other policy of the South African government there is a greater willingness among activists too confront the ideology behind the policies finally there is the need to strike the right balance between the ethical positions and concrete actions at the end of the day it is the concrete actions of the activists that help the people on the ground but this is not always easy to do this is one of the predicaments facing the BDS movement the campaign can be very helpful when it is focused on the evils perpetrated in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip but this is also a movement that galvanized thinking people from all walks of life who do not want to support just one particular Palestinian group but would like to face the oppression and violation of human and civil rights wherever it occurs and point to its source it is of course important to maintain the general discussion the BDS campaign has generated about Israel's nature and policies and to use it when it can be helpful I can give two different recent examples to show the different roles BDS can play the operation attempted by Israel to cleanse the Bedouins in the nakub the power plan was thwarted not by BDS pressure but by the very clear message the Bedouin Community sent to the Israeli government of the possible dire consequences of the attempt to forcefully remove a community which had serving members in the Army the police and on its margins connections to the Arsenal of the Criminal World in short there were loads of weapons around in a new developing case regarding the attempt of the Israeli government to cleanse the Palestinians from the old city of akka acre the only effective means will be a strong International campaign spearheaded by a cultural boycott hear the connection between the racist ideology of Zionism and the actual policies on the ground is part of the tasks of a concrete BDS campaign the ability to take this case by case and the Israeli government is providing us with many of them recently is crucial we need to make sure we do not stay at the level of slogans you know what you are talking about and are very concrete about the kind of atrocities that you are facing in most cases you can leave it to an academic debate later on to explain the general context but as an activist there has to be a direct address to the community of suffering even if you do not have National leadership and even if the reality is fragmented and see I think that's correct and in this respect I think the South African anti-apartheid movement was a pretty good model they tended to be pretty concrete let's suppose allowing sports teams to participate in international events because of their racist conditions let's oppose racist hiring in universities all of that makes sense it's directed against particular policies and it's clear what the general background is it's also intelligible to the audience at home but there was another aspect of the South African solidarity movement which is very critical by the 1990s the apartheid regime had virtually no international support only two countries the USA and Britain they supported apartheid strongly right to the end particularly Reagan that was sufficient for the regime as long as they had U.S support they did not care like Israel right now that meant that a crucial part of activism had to be directed against the USA and secondly Great Britain that's very critical it's critical now too part of the intellectual weakness of the BDS movement is that it is directed against Israel but not against the USA U.S policies are absolutely critical Israel understands like South Africa at the time that they can be a pariah State the whole world can be against them but that it does not make a difference as long as the USA backs them that was true in South Africa and it's true in Israel the U.S solidarity movement has to focus on that what are we going to do to change U.S policies that is quite critical IP although of course there are elements of U.S policy and Israeli policy that are not easily distinguishable and see that's part of the problem the USA supports Israel not out of benevolence but because it's useful for U.S policies so yes they do overlap a lot also cultural relations Christian Zionism for example is part of the demographic base of the Republican Party extremely anti-semitic but pro-israel all these things have to be addressed IP I also meant the industrial complex the academic complex it's not very autonomous in Israel it's part of the American milieu in many ways NC not autonomous you're right such that Israel's major military industry Raphael moved their management headquarters to Washington because that's where the money is IP sometimes you target israeli's Elites and you condemn them for there complacency or their direct involvement in the atrocities you are also in a way targeting the octopus that is America in this respect and see if you make it clear not if you do not talk about it IP I agree you have to clarify that's a good point FB can pressure from the bottom up from Civil Society through the boycott movement and other tactics change U.S policies and see I think that U.S foreign policy as in every other case will have to change because of pressure from the bottom take South Africa it was popular pressure which finally induced Congress and even businesses to begin to pull out of South Africa it could not get to the executive Reagan vetoed Congressional sanctions but there was enough popular pressure for Congress to override the vetoes Reagan had then to violate the Congressional legislation popular pressure did make a difference that's the same on every other issue civil rights women rights whatever it may be that's what has to be done here too now does BDS contribute to that it could in fact it has not much it might have even been harmful the way it has been conducted but it could if there is groundwork laid by educational programs among the public which makes these actions understandable helps explain what's happening and if you can work it out is directed specifically toward the USA so for example the Jordan Valley I do not think this has been done in the U.S it should be boycotting products of the Jordan Valley first of all it harms the Jordan Valley settlement project but much more significantly it brings out here that the USA and Israel have a policy of depopulating the Jordan Valley which is a real ethnic cleansing kicking the Palestinians out whose population is now down to sixty thousand compared to a couple of hundred thousands in 1967. there is a systematic policy of displacing them replacing them by Jewish settlements which leads the way to a form of annexation which would completely imprison any Palestinian entity that might arise somehow in 30 of the West Bank the U.S is backing these actions and policies something simple like boycotting products is an entry point to Bringing out all of these issues among the general public that's intelligible in fact it's already been pretty successful one of the major successes to a large extent thanks to Young Palestinian activists has been in the colleges the atmosphere in the universities around these issues has radically changed not many years ago if I was talking even here at MIT on israel-palestine I would have had to have police protection now it's totally different if we were to give a talk tomorrow we would get a huge audience engaged you could not get a hostile question that's an enormous change and that can be extended activism among young people has sparked broader popular movements it's true for the Civil Rights Movement the anti-war movement that can have a large effect and it's a matter of considerable concern for the Zionist organizations they are talking about it writing about it they are worried about it they realize that they are losing the youth that's going to affect the population pretty much like in other cases it can make a big difference it tends to be played down in Elite discussions but if you look closely even in the documentary record you can see the effect take Vietnam again one of the most interesting parts of the Pentagon papers which is never discussed because it is too inflammatory is at the very end the Pentagon papers end in mid 1968 right after the Tet Offensive a big Uprising in South Vietnam which goes on for a couple of months the president wanted to send more troops after the Tet Offensive The Joint Chiefs of Staff were opposed they said that they were going to need those troops for civil disorder control in the USA they said there will be uprisings among young people women students minorities we are just going to have to suppress them we cannot send more troops and they did not that's not insignificant it's because of mass popular activism if that can be done in the Palestine case I think it can change U.S policy which is not Graven in stone there are a lot of factors that can of course impel it but they are pretty thin if you look at them for example if the significant domestic lobbies in the USA the business lobbies which just overwhelm everything else if they came to the opinion that U.S policy in support of Israel is harmful to their interests they would change it very quickly that can be done IP I think we are talking about two levels of activism here first the level of more organized activism on the ground such as the BDS movements and the Israeli apartheid weak projects on campuses that started in Canada in 2005. they were in a way narratives created invented by young people because there was no guidance from the PLO no clear leadership that told people how they would like the Civil Society to act on their behalf the South Africa and anti-war movements inspired people what they do as gnome rightly says and I think it is a great success is to change the language on campuses on universities things that were taboos are now totally acceptable it is far more embarrassing to be a pro-israeli activist today than it was 20 years ago it is a great success that does not necessarily translate immediately into a change of American policy on the ground but it is part of a larger process the second level of activism is an internal recognition of the complex nature of its possible effect there is no Clear Vision or way of assessing the impact activism had in the few cases in recent history which ended long chapters of human abuse take for example South Africa it is difficult to measure the impact of activism and even the efforts of The Liberation movement on the ground that the impact of the fall of the Soviet Union played in toppling the apartheid regime it is hard to conjure what will be the equivalent historical event in the case of Israel but that event has to be a catalytic one whether it is the fall of Saudi Arabia or something else whatever it is going to be we should not bother guessing the future the relevant question is while one waits for the fundamental change in American policy can one win small battles Visa visits policies are there loopholes that would enable activism to convince the American policy makers to condemn or even stop isolated atrocious cases such as preventing the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the nakub acre or the greater Jerusalem area targets probably have to be a modest in comparison to the big picture although there is nothing modest in trying to prevent the continued starvation of the Gaza Strip I am optimistic and I do believe a catalytic event will occur that would fundamentally change the picture in the meantime I totally identify with what gnome said about the suffering of the people on the ground and you know it as much as I do Frank when you come to the Jordan Valley and I was just there a week ago how difficult it is to lift Spirits there by telling how impressive has been the shift in Western and American public opinion this does not alleviate their suffering in any way you rightly receive stale looks when you tell them enthusiastically about the BDS campaign they still are denied access to their water and land and are facing the danger of an imminent expulsion and see yes i p I think expectations on the ground are far more concrete and immediate can the solidarity movement outside persuade the American Consul in East Jerusalem to come and see with his own eyes what they are subjected to by the Israeli occupation we need to strike the right balance between our success in changing the conversation in the west through the actions of the BDS and the apartheid weak initiatives and achieving some old activist style tangible results on the ground and see yes i p the sense for the need for tangible results is particularly acute when you talk to people in the Gaza Strip and see that can be done by activism here there could be campaigns here that would get people to pressure the American Consul to go to the West Bank it was actually done in the South African case I do not want to go too far off on South Africa but there is a crucial aspect of the end of Apartheid that is totally suppressed here and in Britain for reasons of ideological fanaticism apartheid was substantially ended by Cuba the scholarly record on this by now is just overwhelming the Cubans sent military forces mostly black soldiers who drove the South Africans out of Angola forced them to leave Namibia broke the mythology of this white Superman which had a big effect on white and black South Africa and the South Africans know it when Mandela was led out of jail his first comment was to praise Cubans for their inspiration and their help because they played a huge part in ending apartheid you cannot say that in the USA or in England because we have a kind of religious fanaticism that says that we are not allowed to tell the truth about these matters but that was an overwhelming factor and of course it's missing here we should think about other models but it is important to break through the ideological constraints in the west which prevent recognition of what in fact happened that's pretty important IP there was a beginning of this model although it has not matured in a similar way in the early days of what was called the Arab Spring I remember the Israeli bewilderment at seeing young secular Egyptians who manifested and believed in everything the Israelis at least allegedly believed in as well whether it is liberalism democracy and so on and yet we're very clear about Palestine including in the signs that they were carrying this combination of Highly committed young Arabs to both the idea of Palestine and democracy frightened the Israelis who would be much more comfortable if the pro-palestinian sentiment were packaged in an anti-democratic way and see Israel's mythology is The Villa in the jungle and then it turns out the jungle was watching The Villa IP I am a historian I am not impressed by a few years and I think we should be very careful when saying that we know exactly where the Arab Spring is going but it has a potential a kind of out of the box factor that has not been there before the unknown factors and actors disable us from predicting too well the future trends we are familiar with the Arab regimes the Islamic opposition and Western policies but the balance between them can all be reshuffled by the appearance of a new Force NC at the moment things are kind of in limbo but in the early stages of the Arab Spring there was a very significant solidarity developing between American European and Egyptian activists the Arab Spring began around the time of the Wisconsin uprising there were messages of support from Egyptian labor leaders to Wisconsin activists and conversely occupy people went to Egypt another aspect of the Arab Spring which cannot be discussed in the USA for ideological reasons is the role of Labor the militant labor movement was very significant one of the lasting achievements is a substantial boost in the opportunities for labor organizing which had been crushed under the previous regime again that's the kind of topic that you are not supposed to talk about here but it's important FB what do you make of the American studies Association passing a resolution endorsing an academic boycott of Israel how important do you think that is and see well that's what I had in mind when I was bringing up the Gen in Fiasco it's very much like it it was not prepared it was guaranteed to create a backlash that would overwhelm it it was not thought out properly the result is that there has been a shift from concern with Israeli crimes and U.S support for them to the issue of academic freedom very much like what happened in 2002. shift from focus on genin and the crimes there and the U.S background to a discussion about anti-Semitism at Harvard the net effect of the ASA resolution predictably has been a huge discussion in the USA about academic freedom that's harmful to the Palestinians you have to think these things through what is the effect going to be of the resolution that you are putting forth if you have not created an understanding among the population you are trying to reach an understanding about what the significance of this is going to be harmful so anybody who looks at the resolution will ask immediate questions the resolution began whereas the USA supports Israeli crimes therefore let's boycott Tel Aviv University that's not what is supposed to follow it should say whereas the USA supports Israeli crimes let's boycott Harvard well that's not a good proposal either but at least it would be logical think around a hundred University presidents already immediately issued condemnations and there is a big debate around academic freedom what good does it do to the Palestinians it diverts attention away from the issue and of course it does not affect Israel in any way at all I would contrast that to the boycott of the products of the Jordan Valley that's significant first of all it has an impact and secondly people can understand it it can be an entry wedge toward bringing out the major issues like what Israel is doing in the Jordan Valley altogether how come they are able to get away with it only because of U.S support that opens opportunities that have all the right characteristics it harms the Israeli government policies significantly and it also opens the way to creating the kind of popular understanding and activism in the U.S that can change policy on the other hand the ASA resolution had the opposite effect IP here I don't entirely agree with gnome I am now spending a sabbatical year in Israel and I see on the ground the reactions to the ASA and similar kinds of declarations I do think it has some positive effects in Israel for instance it takes the intellectual academic Elite of Israel out of its comfort Zone they are worried they may not read the Declaration pedantically but they understand that what they are seeing as far as they are concerned is a kind of a domino effect by which societies of American academics are going to find ways or look for better or more efficient ways to convey a message to them that they are unhappy with the Israeli academic basic position on Israeli policies and so on there is also very little danger for backlash from Israel in the sense that the present political and cultural Elites in Israel are so entrenched in there fanatic positions that they cannot dig deeper or become more intransigent than they are today as for the liberal Zionist elements within these Elites I think campaigns like this embarrass them in a positive way it forces them to adopt clearer positions on the oppression and occupation they are being reminded in a very forceful way that their self-image of Israel as a Democratic Society is questioned by people they respect and societies and associations to which they want to belong that is the way of sending a wake-up call to them secondly although there is a backlash on the part of the American presidents of universities and so on I do think it comes to the issue of democratization in the academic system in a similar way you could say that a civil society action against Israel will not be endorsed by Capitol Hill in fact they might go and do the opposite declare a counterposition I know it is not a democratic system it is not supposed to be it is a production of knowledge system but it is also a human organism which has two kinds of memberships members who are running the system and members who are part of the system the latter are the ones who have a view about Israel they have other ways of expressing it they are also using academic societies for that purpose the fact that this is not reflected in the positions of the heads of universities is not necessarily A Bad Thing it is a kind of tough conversation that we are having with each other in modern Academia and see I mentioned the hundred University presidents but it's the academic world for example if you read The Chronicle of Higher Education there are articles critical of the ASA resolution by long-term militant activists people like Linda Gordon and others who have been at the Forefront of activism in all kinds of issues they are the kind of people who are critical of the resolution now there could have been a sensible resolution if the resolution had said let's boycott in some fashion Barry lawn because of the aerial campus in the middle of the West Bank that would have been comparable to the Jordan Valley boycott it is understandable it makes good sense they are directly involved in the occupation as an academic institution and it also brings out the basic fact about what the occupation is doing why is there an aerial campus it splits the West Bank in two maybe in five by now all of that is important to bring out when you say let's carry out these actions against Israeli institutions why not against U.S institutions which have a much worse record I mean it's not just the university presidents the ASA resolution is not going to affect construction workers it reaches the academic world and in the academic world it shifted attention from Israeli crimes and crucially U.S support for them to the general question about academic freedom in that respect it's rather like what happened in the genin case I think those things have to be thought through carefully Israeli institutions are not more blameworthy than American institutions much less focusing on barilon or any others directly involved in the occupation could have been much more effective IP the Hebrew University is expanding on the land of isawea and see then that should be brought up that would make sense IP I agree with gnome that it would be good to have a thorough study on this asterisk we still don't have a clear study that tells Ordinary People in the United States why the Israeli Academia should be targeted there is a need to present a Clear Proof to people about their complacency the level of their collaboration with the occupation and the oppression although BDS was an initiative of the Palestinian Civil Society it emerged parallel to similar initiatives in the west by pro-palestinian activists they were looking for ways of sending messages to Israel to show that enough is enough if you are an academic or a trade Union activist you use your peer group and you say we have to do something as academics journalists artists filmmakers you also have to know better what are you targeting and why you are targeting it in this I don't see as much harm as gnome does but I do agree that as I said before amor concrete and transparent action is needed you explain to people why you are doing what you are doing and do not leave it on this General level which says everybody's a criminal and so on and therefore by association should be targeted I think there could be a constructive criticism rather than killing the impulse this is a very successful impulse when you view it on the ground in Israel you can sense the apprehension that the next step would be as suggested by jabril rajab to take Israel out of the world or european Football Association there you hear clearly that Israeli Sports people know that the only reason that may happen is the way their state is treating the Palestinians in general and Palestinian footballers in particular no discourse on anti-Semitism is heard in this context and see that would be like the South African case it picks out actions that are unacceptable on the part of the state and intelligible on the part of the audience you are trying to reach the ASA was the opposite FB I agree that thorough studies on the implications of Israeli institutions in the occupation and Israeli crimes need to be done and see for some of it it's kind of obvious the aerial campus you hardly have to study it IP the more General one is more difficult to understand and see the Hebrew University one will take work FB still from what I understand and from what I have read it looks like most of them are indeed complicit in the occupation and in Israeli crimes so even though I agree that more studies will be useful and are important I do think that the educational process is happening during and after a resolution like the ASA one is passed the debate in the U.S is on academic freedom but people are also asking questions like why is the ASA a respected institution asking to boycott Israel this question might not have been raised if the resolution had not been passed IP I think what gnome is trying to say if I understood correctly at least this is what I think is that it is the other way around you have not yet won the argument that Israel as a political entity is problematic you have won the argument that Israel should not occupy the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but that is something else if the whole boycott movement were focused on getting the Israeli Army out of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip I think there would have been less argument about it as you know I supported and I think there is a problem with the state of Israel as it is not just with what it is doing in the West Bank but also what it is doing in Haifa in the nakub and in acre this is not yet clear to many people in the West I think that people there are not aware that they are facing a bigger Injustice than just the Israeli policies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip BDS so far has been an Impulse not a strategy I think it is an Impulse that needs to be accompanied by more thorough analysis study and explanation and see I would only add to that that critically the USA has to be brought into it IP yes I agree and see it's the crucial support for Israeli actions very much like in the South African case where it was the U.S that maintained apartheid until the end FB how would you bring the U.S more to the front it seems to me like people do know right now that the U.S is complicit in Israel's crimes how would you even start boycotting the USA NC take say the negotiations that are going on the solidarity movement ought to be focused on that negotiations which are organized by the USA which is a participant in the conflict that makes about as much sense as if Iran was called upon to mediate the Shia Sunni conflict in Iraq people would just laugh the very fact that the U.S is organizing it should be viewed as a joke that's not understood it should be understood it's not just three billion dollars in military aid it's also the vetoes and the ideological support that's crucial support in the USA the Striking case in the USA is the way the Cuban role in South Africa has been suppressed to this day you read articles by Scholars that are suppressing it these are things you have to deal with this conversation between Noam Chomsky Elon Pap and Frank Barat was recorded on January 17 2014 and has been condensed and edited asteriska study by the alternative information center from 2009 academic boycott of Israel can be found online chapter 4. the future FB is an Israeli spring possible and C for the last 10 years especially there has been a very strong shift in Israeli mentality and politics toward the right nationalism toward more extremism there is a kind of circling the wagons mentality which was also true in South Africa toward the end the world hates us because they are all anti-semitic so we will do what we want nothing is their fault everything is somebody else's fault a lot of brutality I mean sometimes unbelievable the scenes for example during cast lead the brutal attack on Gaza with Israelis sitting on beach chairs on the Hills applauding every time a bomb fell this is beyond obscenity but unfortunately it is a large part of the population there are counter Tendencies but they are as far as I can see pretty Limited when there was the Rothschild demonstration the Tent City kind of occupy type thing except if you look at it it is pretty narrow it is I want something better for me I want to be able to get in apartment in fact there was a decision by the organizers that they could not mention the Palestinians so it is just what can I get to make my life a little better it is true that Israeli Society has been shifting from what used to be a kind of more or less scandinavian-style social democracy to a kind of an extreme version of neoliberal kind of a caricature of neoliberalism pretty much like the U.S with sharp inequalities wealth and privileges there is a strong effort to have an appeal to Western Youth and Youth culture and so on with the secular mood of Tel Aviv in Tel Aviv we have gay bars and things like that it may be the gay center of the Mediterranean I think is it becoming an ugly and kind of suicidal Society they are very concerned about what they call delegitimation and that is true they are delegitimizing themselves it is a choice I think I may have mentioned that before my own feeling is that this is virtually inevitable since 1971 when they basically made the decision to reject Security in favor of expansion and then lots of things followed more or less not automatically but fairly predictably and they've been happening there are slight changes how significant they will be I don't know in the repression of the Palestinian population for example the most extreme racist laws in Israel are those concerning the land about 92 percent of the land was in the hands of Karen came at the Jewish National Fund which is an organization that had contracts with the state of Israel that required them to work only for the benefit of people of Jewish race religion and origin that was the phrase that with the whole array of administrative Arrangements bureaucratic structures meant that in effect they control over 90 percent of the land which meant that it was Arab free basically there is a crack in that structure about 10 years ago I think it was in 2000 the Supreme Court did invalidate it in principle with regard to a particular settlement they said they could not keep Arabs out and I think after five or six years the Arab couple who was trying to live there were finally allowed in butt Elon you would know better than I do I do not think it had any noticeable effects anywhere else and now legislation in the parliament is trying to undercut it is one example of policies that are pretty rigid there are some things that are going on that really Shock Me I learned recently from rookama Martin a wonderful woman who is the head of the Israeli Physicians for human rights organization and you probably know this that in Israeli hospitals in maternity Wards Palestinian women citizens have to go to different Wards than the Jewish women things like that go on all the time I don't think it is a very pretty picture you can't separate Israel itself from greater Israel with their planning which is being implemented in the West Bank people forget about the Golan Heights but that is illegally occupied in violation of explicit Security Council orders the world likes to forget that is Syria basically and of course Gaza remains a horrible prison brutalized now it is even worse because of the Egyptian Military regime which is closing off the tunnels and threatening to punish Gaza the whole picture is extremely unpleasant to use a very mild understated word and I suspect it will get worse IP yes I fully agree I think it is an important question that you pose because for anyone who is watching from the outside who is an activist who is interested in analyzes of a possible change from within the answer to this question will dictate one strategy in the future if you come to the conclusion which I think was at the heart of the strategy against apartheid in South Africa that change from within is not imminent it is not going to take place of course then the pressure from the outside becomes the major Hope for Change or military defeat which was an option during the age of The Liberation movements but is probably less relevant today in this connection it might be helpful to mention two other related issues or rather two disappearances one is The Disappearance of liberal Zionism as a significant actor on the Israeli political stage there seems to be no room in Israel for those who try to square a Universalist point of view be it liberal or socialist with the racist definition of Zionism the second issue is The Disappearance of the green line after 45 years of occupation and with it has gone the distinction between what is here and what is there the most recent indications for this is the creeping annexation of area C by the Israelis and the suggestion of the Israeli foreign minister of igdor Lieberman to Annex the Palestinian citizens of Israel in Wadi era to the West Bank this brought to the fore more clearly the Israeli ethnic policies of dispossession and occupation and showed that these policies were not limited to a certain area or one group of Palestinians these two additional developments accentuate the conviction that we should not expect to change from within Israel there are few movements that try to challenge it from within there is even a younger generation that is trying to do things that have not been done before like the anarchists against the wall new profile and the like but they are very small in numbers and they do not expand at any Pace that would make you optimistic that they represent a more massive movement it may also be useful to mention in this context the 2011 Israeli social justice protests it shows changes in the agenda of the Israeli middle class but alas they are still not connected in any visible way to conflict with the Palestinians one of the main reasons that until 2011 it fared much better than in most Western countries even after the 2008 financial crisis was the way the overdraft banking system worked in Israel regardless of your salary you had a license to spend from the bank it meant that a member of the middle class could live well beyond their means and their actual salaries this Fiesta has now come to an end and the bitter reality has unfolded the average middle-class salary does not allow for a decent standard of living and in particular decent housing this realization was the main impetus behind the 2011 protests the banks have stopped doing this overdrafts and Israelis had to start to live according to the not so high salaries and they could not afford what is the most expensive item in the market accommodation and that was the major motive for the protest movement what it means in macroeconomic terms is that the middle class is dragged down and the rich become richer in the long run it can have impact on the questions we discuss a society without socioeconomic integrity and solidarity can collapse from within and not even a strong ideological indoctrination would keep it intact NC in comparison to South Africa there really are differences in this regard in South Africa the oppressed population the black population was 85 percent of the total population they were their entire Workforce they depended on them also there was a huge Cuban Force driving South Africa out of its neighboring countries that it was trying to integrate apart from that there was in the 1980s and after Soweto in 1987 a very Fierce militant black activism from within there is nothing comparable in either of those two things in Israel IP no not really FB let's come to Palestinian society and Palestinian politics haidar Eid a professor in Gaza recently wrote for al-shabaka that are the only Way Forward may be to disparticipate in the current Palestinian political system there is no space for radical change in the current system and that Palestinians should rebuild from the bottom up organically a real political alternative do you agree with this idea of disparticipation and then should not we apply this idea to Europe and the West too our government's being Democrats Republicans the left the right do not represent us and this idea of disparticipating from the current system might be a way forward to rebuild something much better and see saying this for someone who is actually living in Gaza like a cry of desperation is pretty understandable as I said I was there recently the situation is very harsh but what does it mean I mean what do you dis participate from in the west I don't think it means much either it is true our governments do not represent us but there is plenty that can be done about that we don't live in fascist States there are lots of opportunities state power is there but its capacity to repress is not really great it is a pretty fragile structure and it can be influenced and affected separating yourself from it I don't know what that means does that mean going to Montana getting a plot of land and raising your own food there are interpretations of that notion which makes some sense like localism in agriculture developing local production Urban agriculture a lot of things that can be done that kind of extricate people from the dominant social economic forces but there are plenty of opportunities within the existing framework within institutions for major changes that do not exist in Gaza I don't really think these are comparable Notions IP it is important in this context to pay attention to the sentiment on the ground and mainly the wish to rely Less on existing political structures as they have highly disappointed the Palestinians wherever they are if we want to respond to this sentiment we can cautiously at least say we are looking for new thinking on how to reframe the relationship between Jews and Arabs between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean but this should not be done against the existing structures but in conversation with them engaging as many people as possible in new thinking can be very helpful whether they are from the fatah Hamas or Israeli political parties a good departure point to agree on how to analyze or depict the present reality if these structures are not relevant to that new reality they will disappear anyway I do not have to declare the need to dismantle them I will give a few examples Israelis can either deny the fact that they live with the West Bank longer than they lived without it and therefore territorially this is the space Israel and the West Bank as well as the Gaza Strip in which they have to find a solution not just in the West Bank Palestinians can deny that there is already a third generation of Zionist settlers on the ground but they will have to accept that they miss the historical opportunity if ever there was one to get rid of the first wave of Invaders there are also two different tasks ahead the Israeli wish to keep the status quo and the Palestinian crave to change it the former have a lot to lose in terms of Privileges and power the latter everything to gain thus the need to pressure the former is the key for peace or reconciliation maybe another way forward is the one gnome hinted at somehow finding a way of convincing the Israelis they are heading on a suicidal track and add to this showing their own responsibility for that state of affairs they are building walls arming themselves to death and yet their insecurity is growing this is where one should look for a way of not giving up the utopian ideal of a non-state future and the need to find a political structure that as soon as possible would bring an ending to the suffering on the ground and see I suspect that there is a not too hidden sense among the Israelis of the fragility of their future one indication is that there are a number of people who are trying to get a double passport IP absolutely and see I don't know what the proportion is but it is large IP true it is a lot and see worse come to worst they will come to New York IP not the Arab Jews they've got nowhere to go and see I read somewhere that the most rapidly growing Jewish community in the world is in Berlin IP yes it is absolutely true it is a bit ironic and see I think we have to ask ourselves what Israel is planning and will be able to implement as long as the U.S supports it and ask ourselves how do we react to that not too distant future what you said about area C and Wadi era I think is right to the point here it seems that what they are clearly planning is greater Israel which will of course include the Golan Heights and will separate Gaza from the West Bank which is a crucial violation of Oslo and everything else but they don't care about laws as far as the West Bank is concerned they have certainly planned to take over everything within what is called the separation wall the annexation wall greater Jerusalem is maybe five times greater than what it ever was in history and systematically kicks Palestinians out there are practically no Palestinians institutions left then come these corridors to the east of greater Jerusalem one goes through the town of maladumim which was built primarily in the 1990s just as a way of bisecting the West Bank the lands of melodumum go Way Beyond the settlement they practically reach Jericho which bisects the West Bank they haven't yet succeeded in filling in one area that is called E1 so far every American president has blocked that pre-obama he has said nothing about it except that it wasn't helpful so they may be able to fill out that encirclement of Greater Jerusalem these corridors are to the north one going to Ariel which we talked about one to kaduman that would cut through much of the rest of the area it looks as if they were planning to take over area C and they deny it but there have been large Parts later that have been taken over the Jordan Valley which Israel claims it occupies only because of security is now in fact inaccessible to most Palestinians since Israel has used the security issue to build more and more settlements looking at the plans that are being implemented there are definite intentions to take over the Jordan Valley it will mean that this greater Israel if it looks something like this will have a very few Palestinians in it they won't have what is called the demographic problem too many non-jews in the Jewish State a horrible concept but they won't really have it and in fact if it becomes integrated into Israel as I am sure they've planned it will actually decrease the proportion of Palestinians now they have got to do some hand-wringing about land Swap and I suspect it will be just like you said where this is happening in the northern Galilee with a very heavily Arab population the population apparently doesn't want it not because they love Israel but because they don't want to go from being forced out of a wealthy first world developed Society into what one of them recently called a punching bag in an article on horits which is what Palestine is turning out to be a racist Society will force them out even if they don't want to leave it will be presented to the West as a very gracious Act of letting the Palestinian State have a piece of Israel the peace that we don't want because there are too many Arabs there and maybe you know giving them a little bit of land in the negative that looks like the picture on the ground and if so that is the picture we have to face FB following up on this and talking about a new reality for you Professor Pap the new reality is already one regime one political system governing both Palestinians and Israeli Jews a common state reality you are urging us to Advocate and fight to change the nature of the system the rules the internal laws Etc Professor Chomsky you've been an advocate and you've written about a common state one State a bi-national state for decades do we need to go through two states because of the consensus to eventually get to one state and see yes that is because the way I see it Israel and the United States do not want one state and will never accept it they have a preferable alternative from their point of view to take over what I've just described this greater Israel which is not going to have many Palestinians in it in fact a smaller percentage than in Israel today the big Palestinian concentrations are going to be outside population concentrations will be outside the plan for them is I think they can mostly rot or maybe flee there will be a standard neocolonial structure in which there is a center for the elite so you go to Ramallah nice houses theaters bars where westerners can come and see how lovely Palestine is which you find in every third world country the poorest country you want in central Africa and you can find these sectors there that are for the elite which look like Paris or London in fact if you go back to the 1990s Israeli industrialists openly and literally urged the government to shift from what they called a colonial program to a neocolonial program which means establish this third world style entity with most of them rotting but with some kind of a center for Rich Palestinians the privileged ones the elite and so on if that is correct then there are really two options one is either this which will have very few Palestinians they will be somewhere else and the other one is two states two states is a rotten solution but at least it has the Merit of having overwhelming International support that has been blocked by the United States for 35 years now but has overwhelming international support I don't feel myself that the settlements are irreversible I'd be interested in elon's opinion but my feeling is that Israel could do what it could have done if they wanted to in Gaza they did not have to force the people out of Gaza and that was a game that they played to impress the West they could have said on August 1st the IDF Israeli Defense Forces is going to leave Gaza you climb into the lorries we are giving you we will take you from your subsidized homes in Gaza to nicer subsidized homes in the West Bank then they could do the same thing for the West Bank say the IDF is pulling out there you can go and a lot of people in the West Bank reckon that it is a nice place to live and they have subsidized towns Pleasant suburbs Tel Aviv and Jerusalem they've got super highways taking them right into Tel Aviv without seeing any Arabs and so on if some people want to hang on to every Rock I don't see why they should not be allowed to do it they can be in a Palestinian state that is a conceivable possibility I think the chances are not very high in fact pretty low but that seems to me the only realistic alternative to this greater Israel picture now if some kind of two-state settlement no matter how rotten it is is established my guess is that the borders are going to erode because if you know the country at all there is no way to draw a line it would not make sense whatsoever in fact when there have been relaxations of tension in the past there has been some erosion of the sharp boundaries and commercial cultural and other kinds of interchange began to take place we don't know where it could lead but it could lead to closer integration you know a kind of longer term that we are all talking about thinking about some sort of a federal integrated Society as I said earlier I don't worship the Imperial borders I don't think they have to be maintained either but I just don't see any other alternatives to those two alternatives talking about one state is kind of interesting to keep at the back of your mind but it is just not one of the options I think these are the two options and I think it is misleading from people on every side the Shin Bet Palestinian leaders International commentators to talk as if the choices are either two states or one state those are simply not the choices the choices are greater Israel or two states and greater Israel doesn't have Palestinians or a few Palestinians IP I see it a bit differently I think that the balance of power on the ground and the kind of relationship Israel has with the United States and the International Community ensures that the alternative of two states will always be implemented more or less the way Israel understands the two State solution this version actually means the creation of a greater Israel despite the international support for allegedly two distinct States the end result will not be two very different models they would be different in the sense of international legitimacy and in the two-state solution the Palestinians will enjoy some symbolic Independence and could display some Insignia but the basic relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians would not change I do not see much logic in supporting something that would actually legitimize the greater Israel option the two-state solution in 2014 can only go one way toward the international legitimization of the two state solution the International Community is looking for someone like Abu Mazen to accept an Israeli notion of a two-state solution that it purports and this if successful can perpetuate a greater Israel through International legitimacy against the already existing greater Israel one has to conduct a campaign of regime change based on human and civil rights equality and hope the regional and international developments would help it to mature what the International Community is doing right now reminds us once more of the famous Jewish joke of someone looking for a key he lost where there was light but not where he lost the key and see we may have a slightly different expectation of what might happen I don't think anybody can know but I think we ought to be able to agree on this the standard discourse is highly misleading there is no choice between two states and one state that is not a choice and again this standard discourse is on all sides you hear it from the Israeli leadership and the Palestinian leadership I was surprised by what Ian lustick wrote asterisk but this is almost Universal there is no one state option what's left is two possibilities either the one option of Greater Israel or some other version of it which will be called two states or maybe something like the international consensus the question is what are the probabilities that the international consensus or something like it can be realized not just the Israeli version of it about that I don't think we know my feeling is you might be right maybe it's water under the bridge but it is also possible that this Still Remains a live option exactly what it would be like maybe something like the Geneva proposals which were not wonderful but they are not the greater Israel version if this could be possible it would be different from greater Israel for one thing the Jordan Valley would not be included same for most of area sea and it would include some kind of shrinking division of Jerusalem with Palestinian institutions there and it would not be land swaps with Wadi era but maybe with fertile land near Gaza which could give Gaza some opportunities those are not huge differences but I think they are differences and how realistic that is I don't know my own feeling is that if U.S policies shifted it would be realistic again I don't think we can push the South Africa analogy too far because at this point there are too many differences like the huge internal black activism inside South Africa no possible counterpart to that in Israel the military defeat of South Africa by Cuba there is nothing like that but some things are similar like U.S policy Europe can also take a position here too Europe is pretty timid it doesn't want to bother or interfere with the boss's priorities but they don't have to be like that part of the third world is also becoming more independent the U.S is still overwhelmingly powerful but in the whole world the power is being diffused and it might make a difference these countries are not enormously powerful but still things could happen in the Arab world I don't think the Arab Spring is finished there are other things that are going to break open and at least such developments might lead to possible realizations of a bad but preferable two-state option I think this is a matter that we cannot predict IP there are other things we can do there are two ways of looking at the one state two-state dichotomy one is to say that this is an argument about what is the best solution in the future the other way of looking at it is a way of describing the reality today for instance if Palestinians inside Israel support the two-state solution it means they still accept arafat's contention during the days of Oslo that they are not part of the equation or the solution and moreover that they prefer to participate in the present Israeli system and not follow the agenda of the other Palestinian groups but if they adopt haidar eid's position that means that even they do not have the political power to change the reality now on the ground they still have the right as Edwards said put it in 1982 to narrate their own version of the past and future but of course I have to concede that it is not easy to get a clear picture of the Palestinian attitudes especially those who live in historical Palestine on this question Palestinians living in Israel may want the PLO to represent them but declaring it will be suicidal for them at the same time they are fully aware of the limitation of their representatives in the Israeli knesset to cater for their needs in between these predicaments they nonetheless begin to adapt to the new realities the intensifying cultural political social and economic connections between Palestinians living on both sides of the green line and even with the exilic communities abroad shows that on a small scale and without broadcasting it they refer to the reality as one state and also seem to share a vision of it from a different angle a similar development is taking place on the Jewish side the veteran Settlers of the West Bank have been there as long as most of the Jews inside Israel they are either redeemers of an ancient land in their own eyes who want to continue the dispossession of the Palestinians or they are settlers wherever they are who have to come to terms with the local people what matters is not how many Israelis support the two-state solution many of them do but how they regard greater Jerusalem kiriat arba and Ariel and the Jordan Valley the vast majority regards this is a part of a Jewish state in a two-state solution and in such a scenario nothing is left for the other state and what they mean is a support for a one-state version in which Zionism continues to Prevail as a racist ideology or if convinced they would eventually accept a different Democratic basis for such a state from my perspective thus a support of a one-state solution is activism that promotes the whole space as one land and the people as one people what we should not succumb to is the Zionist version of the two states that limits the idea of a Jewish Palestine with few Palestinians in it to adjust 80 percent of Palestine I still think the principal motive behind Israelis support for the two-state solution is not reconciliation with the Palestinians but a wish to control as much of the land with as few Palestinians in it as possible and see it is a different scenario and perspective let me go back to your distinction between what can be done in the inside and what can be done on the outside what I think about the issue concentrating on the work that can be done on the outside I can't do anything about what Palestinians will decide and you quite properly are asking what can be done from the inside I think these are kind of complementary I don't think they have to be conflicting but from the outside my perspective I think the task here and in Europe is to delegitimize the occupation which is possible delegitimize Israel insofar as it is involved in the occupation press forward as much as possible to get the U.S to drop its unilateral opposition to diplomatic settlement along the lines that were laid out 35 years ago and see what the options are to create some alternatives to this greater Israel picture which we see developing IP but also delegitimize Israel when it mistreats the Palestinians inside Israel and see yes we should of course be opposed to internal oppression in every country but these are kind of separate things like when people talk about apartheid it is a little bit misleading I mean inside Israel there is repression but it is not apartheid in the occupied territories it's much worse than apartheid black South Africa was not like the occupied territories IP but that is separation even the Israelis cannot keep the separation for too long you can see that the same units that have been used to disperse demonstrations in the West Bank are now used to disperse demonstrations in the Negev the same laws or rather emergency regulations that were applied only in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are now sort of seeping through into Israel because the nature of the relationship is changing and see it is correct but if greater Israel does get established they won't care about what's happening outside it they may occasionally send the IDF there to smash up nablis but it is irrelevant it is your business you rot over there we are going to take care of the things that happen inside with not many Palestinians I think a Thrust of activism is trying to expose that expose it not suppress it and it is being suppressed by the one state slash two State discourse so not suppress it expose it and struggle against it IP on this I agree FB South Africa got rid of institutionalized or legal apartheid in the 90s but when you look at South African society today and I think Professor Chomsky you mentioned that yesterday it is putting a few Black Faces in power and keeping the same system in place so looking at let's say a common state or one state if it was ever to happen how do you make sure you do not reproduce the South African experience and see you see that presupposes that Israel would ever want to take in the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza and I don't think they will that is the crucial difference from South Africa South Africa had to incorporate the black population they had no choice first of all it was the vast majority of the population and secondly it was their Workforce they could not say okay we will let you go rot somewhere and then they would disappear but Israel can that is the greater Israel option there are some people even on the right that would say let's take them all over but I think what they are going to do is what we've been describing create this greater Israel which won't have a lot of Palestinians and repress them inside the country but then the South Africa option doesn't arise what happened in South Africa let me say was a kind of recognition around 1990 by International Capital by South African businessmen that were privileged South Africans by the United States that this cannot go on for reasons that don't exist in the Israel case as we mentioned and therefore they made an agreement which Mandela authorized when he became a freed leader that they would end formal apartheid and keep the socioeconomic structure which for most Africans did not change a lot maybe it's actually worse for them but that is not going to happen in Israel slash Palestine because they do not want the population IP I think in a bizarre way it is maybe I am going too far with this kind of a silver lining and I'll explain what I mean it is very clear that the South African post-apartheid model cannot work in Israel in other words you cannot buy the Israelis by persuading them to give up their racist ideology in return for maintaining their economic privileges this is not going to work in a very bizarre way Israeli apartheid if we can call it that or racist ideology is far more religious and dogmatic than the white supremacist one in South Africa although it had its churches and its own version of Theocratic and religious justifications basically it was a matter of keeping the Privileges intact and once they were secured in the post-apartheid system you win over quite a lot of people among the white population which is not going to work in Israel you will not convince the high-tech sector in Israel that they can be as rich as they are now but they have to live in a more democratic system why can I say it is a bit of a silver lining unless I am totally pessimistic about the ability of the younger generations to come to Aspire for a better world this would be a striking example in the 21st century of something deplorable unacceptable because it means you have a segregationist society that is only interested in this core racist ideology and that it is easy to see in such a situation and I think that is why these differences are so important and see I don't know if I am saying something different but I would stress again that one crucial difference between Israel and South Africa is that Israel is separationist and South Africa was not South Africa had to incorporate the black population Israel wants to get rid of them they can do this by drawing the lines around this greater Israel expelling Palestinians in it what they are in fact doing and slowly is step by step constructing this monstrous thing greater Israel that will not have a lot of Palestinians the compromise you mentioned in South Africa won't be possible IP no it won't work in Israel this conversation between Noam Chomsky Elon Papp and Frank Barat was recorded on January 17 2014 and has been condensed and edited asterisk c e and s lustic two-state illusion op-ed New York Times September 14 2013. chapter 5. inside Israel FB Elon you are a historian you've published numerous books among them the famous and controversial for some people ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 2006. in 2007 you moved to England where you are currently teaching history at Exeter University you are part of what is called by some people the new historians who give a new analysis and Narrative of the history of Zionism and the history of the creation of Israel you've taken some radical positions against the state of Israel why and when did you decide to stand on the Palestinian side and what were the consequences for you being Israeli IP changing one's point of view on such a crucial issue is a long journey it doesn't happen in one day and it doesn't happen because of one event I've tried in one of my books called out of the frame to describe this journey out of Zionism to a critical position against Zionism if I had to choose a formative event that really changed my point of view in a dramatic way it would be the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 1982. for us who grew up in Israel it was the first non-consensus war the first war that obviously was a war of choice Israel was not attacked Israel attacked then the first intifada happened these events were eye-openers in many ways for people like myself who already had some doubts about Zionism about the historical version we learned at school it is a long journey and once you take it you are facing your own Society you are even facing your own family and it is not a nice position to be in people who know Israel know that it is an intimate and vibrant Society so if you are against it you feel it in every aspect of your life I think this is one of the reasons why it takes a bit longer for the people like me to come to the point where you say there is no return you have to subscribe to these views whatever the repercussions are FB I find what you are saying about Israel very interesting most nation states are very good propagandists but Israel has taken this to another level I know someone whom you also know narit palid El Hanan who has written a book about the way Arabs are portrayed in Israeli school books to show the world the amount of brainwashing and propaganda in Israel that starts from a very early age can you tell us more about this society as you've experienced this yourself as well IP indeed it is a very indoctrinated Society probably more than most Western societies and more than the non-western societies it is not because of coercion that people are indoctrinated it is a powerful indoctrination from the moment you are born to the moment you die the people in power don't expect you to get out of it because you seem to be swimming in this fluid says in her books is that you could compare becoming an anti-zionist to a religious person becoming an atheist and still believing that maybe God is there and maybe he will punish him and punish you for being sacrilegious and so on one should think about the way you are brought up to believe that there are some truisms of life that if you challenge them you need to clean yourself up to the bottom to be sure that you are able to move on because otherwise you have all these doubts all the time it was so powerful but I think there is a difference between my generation and the present generation of nurit sons and my own Sons they know more than we did because of the internet and what goes on I think it is more difficult for the Israelis now to rely just on indoctrination although they are doing a good job there are very few among the Young people of Israel who challenge Zionism I hope that the world has become more open with what happened in the Arab world as well you thought that these were closed societies who would not know what is going on so I hope this is going to change but for us we were like in a bubble we did not know that there was a different existence it was very difficult to get out of it FB I guess the older generation your generation and narits the amount of cognitive dissonance as well when you've believed in something so strongly all your life even though the facts show after a while that you are wrong it is so hard to accept that you were wrong for let's say 30 or 40 Years of your life you see that all the time at events when you always see the same people coming to every single Palestinian event I always think they know as much as I do about Palestine and they know the facts how come they are still defending Israel so strongly I think because this is such a personal and emotional Journey it is very hard for them to come to the realization that they were wrong and all their lives have been in a way a myth IP yes and I think we should also point out that like in any colonialist situation where you have an anti-colonialist struggle there is a lot of violence in the air when you are brought up in a certain way and the policies and actions of your own government push the other side to take some violent actions as well then you think that objectively your point of view is correct because you see that there are suicide bombers violence missiles sent from Gaza we also have to understand that this need to get out has been debated and examined within the context of permanent violence it is very difficult for Israelis to separate between the violence and the experience and the reasons for that violence one of the most difficult things is to explain to the Israelis what is the cause and what is the effect what brings that violence about and not to regard this violence as just coming out of the blue and therefore they have no other choice than being where they are FB that is the problem of knowledge and education I think it also comes from the fact that mainstream Media or the education system in Israel even more is not doing its job when you hear people here saying what do you want Israel to do Hamas has been sending 150 Rockets a day to stare it they have to react I think in a Time when history is very short term we are not talking about six months we are talking about last week the circle of violence will never stop because the job is not done the education part is not done IP that's true and I think one of the major challenges is to find space for Israelis and Western people to be able to understand how it all began even the first Zionist settlers when they came and realized that what they thought was an empty land or at least their own land was full of Arab people they regarded these people as aliens as violent aliens who took over their land it is this infrastructure they have built about the other side that feeds all the Israelis perception and visions it is a dehumanization of the Palestinians that begins in the late 19th century how to explain to people that they are actually a product of this alienation it is one of the biggest tasks for anyone who engages in alternative education or is trying to convey a different message to the Israeli Jew Society FB I'd like you to talk about what historically was the first Palestinian intifada of the late 30s and the revolt against UK imperialism IP I think it is important to go back to even earlier than 1936 in order to understand it you have to go back to the late 19th century when Zionism appeared as a movement it had two Noble objectives one was to find a safe place for Jews who felt insecure in a growing atmosphere of anti-Semitism and the other was that some Jews wanted to redefine themselves in a national group not just as a religion the problem started when they chose Palestine as a territory in which to implement these two impulses it was clear because the land was inhabited that you would have to do it by force and you had to contemplate the depopulation of the inhabitants of the indigenous people it took time for the Palestinian Community to realize that this was the plan even the Balfour Declaration did not awaken the people when it was adopted in November 1917. it did not bring the Palestinians to revolt against the British policy or the Zionist strategy by 1936 you could already see the beginning of the real result of this strategy Palestinians were evicted from Land purchased by the Zionist movement Palestinians lost their jobs because of Zionist strategy to take over the labor market it was very clear that the European Jewish problem was going to be solved in Palestine all these factors pushed Palestinians for the first time to say we are going to do something about it and they tried to revolt you needed the might of the British Empire to crush that revolt it took them three years they used the repertoire of actions against the Palestinians that were as bad as those that would be used later on by the Israelis to quell the Palestinian intifadas of 1987 and 2000. FB this Revolt of 36 was a very popular Revolt it was the vafala The Peasants that took arms also in reading your books I've realized that this Revolt being so violently squashed did help the hagana in 47-48 the Palestinians were really weak at that time because all the leaders all the potential fighting elements had been killed or had to go into Exile in 1936. IP absolutely the Palestinian political Elite lived in cities of Palestine but the main victims of Zionism up to the 1930s were in the countryside that's why the Revolt started there but there were sections of the urban Elite that joined them like you said I pointed out in one of my books that the British killed or imprisoned most of those who belong to the Palestinian political Elite and military or potentially military Elite they created a Palestinian society that was quite defenseless in 1947 when the first Zionist actions with the knowledge that the British mandate came to an end had commenced I think it had an impact on the inability of the Palestinians to resist a year later in 1948 the ethnic cleansing of Palestine FB your work as a historian has helped to dismantle most of the myths about Israel one of the myths is that Israel was created because the Bible gave it to the Jewish people could you to tell us a bit about Theodore herzl who is known as one of the founders of Zionism was not religious at all and did not speak even speak Yiddish IP that's right Zionism had one element that is usually forgotten by historians this was a wish to secularize Jewish life if you secularize the Jewish religion you cannot later use the Bible as a justification for occupying Palestine it was a bizarre mixture which I like to call a movement made by people who do not believe in God but God nonetheless promised them Palestine I think this is something that is at the heart of the internal problems of Israeli Jewish society today it is also important to understand that even before herzl there were people who thought about themselves as zionists but were aware of the existence of Palestinians in Palestine they were thinking of different kinds of connections to Palestine and solutions for the insecurity of Jews in Europe like a hot high am real name Asher Ginsburg who said that maybe Palestine would just be a spiritual center and Jews if they feel insecure in Europe should settle elsewhere outside Europe or settle in more secure European societies one important group of people that did not allow them to do this were Christian zionists that already existed in those days who believed that the return of the Jews to Palestine was part of a Divine scheme they wanted the Jews to return to Palestine because they could precipitate the second coming of the Messiah they were also anti-semites a two-for-one deal as they could also get rid of the Jews in Europe at the same time I think it is an important period to go back to to understand how British imperialism Christian Zionism and of course Jewish nationalism played together as a formidable force that left very few chances for the Palestinians when it all came together in the late 19th century FB like you said you have to add anti-Semitism as well when you hear Lord Balfour and the politicians at the time they wanted the Jews to live in Palestine because they did not want the Jews in England or anywhere else in Europe history is crucial we talked a few hours ago about knowledge and the way it is transmitted can you tell us about how history and knowledge if it is properly taught can Enlighten people and can may be better the struggle IP I think we've already pointed it out if you don't have a historical perspective understanding and if you don't know the facts you accept the kind of negative depictions that the world and the Israelis have of Palestinians I'll give you one example of what is so-called Palestinian terrorism that in the Israeli perspective and in some Western perspectives comes out of the blue we don't know why these people are violent maybe it is because they are Muslims maybe it is their political culture it is only when you have a historical understanding that you can say wait a minute I understand where this violence comes from I understand the source of the violence actually settling in my house by force is an act of violence maybe they were wrong maybe they were right to try to resist by violence but it begins by the very invasion of my space the place where I live this invasion is accompanied by a wish to get rid of me what else can I do I think the historical Dimension is important first for a better understanding of why the conflict continues the second reason is that we will never succeed in changing political views about the Palestinian issue if we don't explain to people how knowledge was manipulated it is very important because you need to understand how certain phrases are being used like peace process how certain ideas are being broadcasted like the only democracy in the Middle East like Palestinian primitivism and so on you need to understand how these languages are means of manipulating the knowledge that is there so as to form a certain point of view and prevent another point of view for coming into the space it's a two-fold issue you need to understand the history of the place but also the way the narratives have been constructed and how they are being manipulated and used a crucial aspect is to understand how to challenge this the main narrative that the Israelis are still successful in portraying is this idea of a land that even if it was not empty was full of people who had no real connections to the place and are illegitimate they lose legitimacy because they are not there then they lose legitimacy because they are a bit of Bedouins and Nomads so they don't really care then they lose legitimacy by being violent or being Muslims after September 11th there is all the time this laundry list of words and ideas that try to convince you that whatever the Israelis are doing if you are unhappy with this it doesn't matter because there is no one on the other side that has anything legitimate to offer it all depends on the israeli's kindness if you check very carefully the language of Peace since Oslo even before but it has been more accentuated since Oslo it is all about Israeli concessions the language is concession Israelis will make concessions to Palestinians and then there is a chance for peace if this is the departure point there will never be any reconciliation I invaded your house but I am generous enough to let you come back and take the sofa with you to the new place that is hardly a dialogue that wants to settle a conflict it is almost more humiliating than the act of invasion itself FB historians are subjective right for example how can you and Benny Morris agree on the facts of 47 slash 48 but come to very different conclusions how do you deal with that IP first of all I think there is a factual infrastructure we all have to know it and in this respect it is good that Benny Morris at least headed the charge to voice this idea that you should stop the nonsense of saying that Palestinians left voluntarily in 1948 this was a factual debate did they leave voluntarily or were they expelled what you feel from this debate when it continues is that this is not the most important issue because before historians appeared in Israel we knew that Palestinians were being expelled we just did not believe the Palestinians there were five million Palestinian refugees who kept telling us we were expelled and we said no you are Palestinians when you say it we don't believe you it is only when the Israeli historians came to say you know what they are right they had documents that confirmed what the Palestinians were saying that suddenly they were telling the truth this was only a first step the more important thing was not what happened but what to learn from what happened what are our conclusions this is a moral and ideological debate the artificial attempt to say that historians can only deal with what happened and not say anything about what the implications our constitute false approaches that can be seen in Morris's own work he writes in his first book that he is a bit sorry for what has been done in 1948 and in his last book he is sorry that the Israelis did not complete the ethnic cleansing he has not changed one fact in both books they are the same facts but the books are being written very differently one book doesn't like the idea of an ethnic cleansing the other book endorses it not only justifies it in the past but endorses it as a plan for the future Florence Bharat it's time for a musical break Elon you've chosen two tracks that you wanted to listen to could you introduce the first one and maybe tell us the reasons why you've chosen this one IP the first track is a song by Cat Stevens it is called Peace Train I've always loved Cat Stevens I am a product of the 70s and he is one of my musical Heroes I also like his very bold move by converting to Islam and not being terrified by everything that was said about him I think there is some honesty in this guy this song for me was encapsulating although I'm not sure he meant the same things that I mean but that doesn't matter it encapsulates what I was always longing for to have this Peace Train coming to Israel and Palestine you have to understand who is the driver and who are the passengers I wrote in one of my articles I can't remember which one that there is a difference between a Peace Train that takes us all to a better destination which is the peace process that we don't have and the Peace Train that runs over everyone on the way to the so-called peace which I think is our present peace process so it is a very powerful metaphor for me FB you move to Exeter in the UK in 2007 but still go back to Israel very often how has the situation evolved in Israel in the last few years IP the task of changing Jewish Society from within is formidable this Society seems to be more and more entrenched on its positions the more I think about it the more desperate I am about succeeding in changing it from within on the other side there is a growing number of young people who seem to grasp reality in a different way there are very few but I do not remember having such a young generation before in Israel so although the short-term future does not Harbor any chance for a change from within there are signs that with pressure from outside there is a group of people there with whom one will be able in the future potentially to create a different Society if you compare Israel today with the Israel I left or the Israel I grew up in the trend is to become more chauvinistic ethnocentric intransigent which makes us all feel that peace and Reconciliation are very far away if we only rely on our hope that Jewish Society will change from within FB should we therefore put all our energy on applying pressure from the outside or should we still try to talk to Israelis to help them change their views IP the reason why we are all debating this is because on the ground the machine of Destruction does not stop for one day we therefore don't have the luxury to wait any longer time is not on our side we know that while we wait many terrible things are happening we also now there is a correlation between those terrible things happening and the realization of the Israelis that there is a price tag attached to what they are doing if they pay no price for what they are doing they will even accelerate the strategy of ethnic cleansing it's therefore a mixture we urgently need to find a system by which you stop what is being done now on the ground and to also prevent what is about to happen you need a powerful model of pressure from the outside as far as people from the outside are concerned International Civil Society I think the BDS movement is as good as it gets still it can't be the only model or factor there are two additional factors to make it a successful process one is on the Palestinian side the question of representation needs to be sorted you need a good solution secondly you need to have a kind of educational system inside that takes the time to educate the Israeli Jews about a different reality and the benefit it will bring to them those factors all work well together and we have a more holistic approach to the question of reconciliation things could change Florence Barat as a teacher wouldn't you be more useful teaching in Israel than abroad could you be the teacher you are in the UK in Israel IP I don't think I want to be a teacher in a university anyway universities are not the best place to teach people about the realities of life or can change their point of view universities are sites for careers now not for knowledge and education I am teaching in Israel as well in my own way through my articles through the tiny amount of public speaking I am allowed to do I would like to continue this I feel like what I am doing in Britain is working on the pressure from the outside less than education you cannot sustain a BDS campaign without explaining to people why it is necessary to give them the tools and the background they need to understand it to legitimize it we do not cease to be Educators as well as activists all the time it's important to try to combine and find the time for the actions that you take and the educational process we can't be too impatient if people do not get it straight away we have to be patient and explain our positions again and again until people understand them FB I am very interested in the question of solidarity about its real meaning what does solidarity mean for non-palestinians whom do we stand in solidarity with what about if whoever represents the Palestinians decides that they want a state on 11 of historical Palestine and that they want a neoliberal capitalist state how am I supposed to stand in solidarity with that IP first of all the solidarity is with victims of a certain policy and ideology even if these victims are not represented you are in solidarity with their suffering and you support their attempt to get out of this suffering now you raise an interesting question I think that part of solidarity is like a good friendship as a good friend you can tell your friend that you understand what he is doing but that you think he is wrong those of us in solidarity with the Palestinian people we find ourselves when it comes to our debates with good friends that still support the peace process the two State solution disagreeing with them part of our role is to tell them that we think they are wrong the Assumption in your question is not realistic not one Palestinian will ever agree with that still if that happens yes maybe we will have to rethink the whole idea of solidarity those debates are organic and stem from the situation we are not inventing them if you have a position between one state or two states or what kind of means the Palestinians should adopt you connect to issues the Palestinians have themselves you're therefore not an outsider you will be betraying your solidarity if you stopped having a position on the current and important debates I know that sometimes there is a nationalistic position saying that because you're not Palestinian you cannot comment and are not entitled to have an opinion for me movements are made of people and people are different from one another not everybody is going to play according to the same rules I think that solidarity is also agreeing on what is right and what is wrong to do what are the boundaries of the involvement of people from the outside there is no dogmatic answer to this usually when someone says something like you cannot Advocate one state if you're not Palestinian or Israeli it's usually to stifle a debate we should not waste too much time on this question by now I think that everyone involved knows what solidarity means and what it entitles you to do FB let's talk about the solution is there really a debate right now about this the two-state solution as far as the institutions are concerned the governments still seems to be the only solution on the table when you mentioned one state people either call you a utopian or say that you are against Jewish self-determination even the so-called Palestinian political leaders despite what's happening on the ground still support a two-state solution the more rational and Humane solution which would be one state is still not debated and thought about enough in terms of the practicalities of it the how to get there IP I think two things are taking place one is the issue of Palestinian representivity the people who claim to represent the Palestinians from the West Bank became the representatives of the whole Palestinian people as far as the West Bank is concerned you see why a two-state solution is attractive it could mean the end of military control in their lives one can understand this but this disregards the other Palestinians the refugees the ones from Gaza and the ones that live inside Israel that's one of the difficulties you have certain groups of Palestinians that in my opinion wrongly believe that this is the quickest way to end the occupation I don't think it is you're right when you are saying the Oslo agreement ensured the continuation of the occupation not the end of it the second reason is that the two-state solution has a logical ring to it it's a very Western idea a colonialist invention that was applied in India and Africa this idea of partition while the non-western world is a far more holistic world the idea of partition became a kind of religion to the extent that you do not question it anymore you work out how best to get there to my mind it makes very intelligent people take this as a religion of logic if you question the rationality of it you are criticized this is while a lot of people in the west stick to it nothing on the ground would ever change their mind of course you're right five minutes on the ground shows you that one state is already there it's a non-democratic regime an apartheid regime so you just need to think about how to change this regime you do not need to think about a two-state solution you need to think about how to change the relations between the communities how to affect the power structure in place FB right so as you're saying why are very intelligent people very rational ones still saying that the two-state solution is the compulsory step the first unavoidable one towards something better I went to lectures about this but I still don't get it how would this work in practice IP again it goes back to a rationalist western way to look at reality it says that I can only advocate for what I can get not what I want at this moment in time it seems that you have such a wide Coalition for a two-state solution so you go for it you do not evaluate its morality its ethical Dimension even if it's likely to change the reality later on this whole idea that this is a very reasonable approach is of course reasonable to a point but it's totally insane because it has nothing to do with the conflict it has to do with the way Israel wants the world to accept this idea constructed in 1967 that it needs most of the territory that it occupied then but that it is willing to allow some autonomy to the Palestinians in that territory that's the debate in Israel it's never about the principles the thing that Israel has always needed is international support they need their policies rubber stamped by the International Community they also need a Palestinian representative in 1993 the PLO surprised them when it agreed to have a small autonomous area on a small part of the West Bank and leave all the rest to Israel that's the two-state solution that everybody wants to convince us is the only way forward the problem is that not one Palestinian can live with this hence the continuation of the conflict FB Edward said died 10 years ago he was one of the last Palestinians with Mahmoud Darwish that the majority of the Palestinians looked up to I know you knew him well can you end by giving us a few words on Edward said and the role he played during his life IP we miss him very much I don't think only Palestinians looked up to him for inspiration he was one of the greatest intellectuals of the second half of the last century we all looked at him for inspiration on questions of knowledge morality inspiration activism not only on Palestine we are missing his holistic approach his ability to see things from above in a more wholesome way when you lose someone like that you have people that are taking the fragmentation that Israel imposes on the Palestinians and act as if this is a reality itself what we need is to overcome the intellectual physical and cultural fragmentation that Israel imposes on us Palestinians and Jews and to strive to come back to something far more organic and integrated so that the third generation of Jewish settlers and Indigenous native people of Palestine could have a future together Florence Bharat final question now Elon are you working on a book right now IP I've got several in fact one of them is coming out next winter it's called the idea of Israel Verso it's a history of the production of knowledge in Israel in 2015 my book on Israel's history of the occupation of the West Bank called Mega prison of Palestine will come out this conversation between Elon Papp Frank Barat and Frank's brother Florence Barat was recorded on October 20 2013 and has been condensed and edited chapter 6. inside the United States FB what is the definition of negotiations in Israel U.S language and why is the Palestinian Authority playing along NC from the U.S point of view negotiations are in effect a way for Israel to continue its policies of systematically taking over whatever it wants in the West Bank maintaining the brutal Siege on Gaza separating Gaza from the West Bank and of course occupying the Syrian Golan Heights all with full U.S support and the framework of negotiations as in the past 20 years of the Oslo experience has simply provided a cover for this FB why is the PA playing along with this and going to negotiations Time After Time and see it's probably partly out of desperation you can ask whether it's the right choice or not but they don't have many alternatives FB so in your opinion it's pretty much to survive that they indeed accept the framework and see if they were to refuse to join the U.S run negotiations their basis for support would collapse they survive on donations essentially Israel has made sure that it's not a productive economy they're a kind of what would be called in Yiddish a Schnur Society you just borrow and live on what you can get whether they have an alternative to that is not so clear but if they were to refuse the U.S demand for negotiations on completely unacceptable terms their basis for support would erode and they do have support external support enough so that the Palestinian Elite can live a fairly decent often lavish lifestyle while the society around them collapses FB so would the crumbling and disappearance of the PA be a bad thing after all and see it depends on what would replace it if say Marwan barguti were permitted to join the society the way say Nelson Mandela was finally that could have a revitalizing effect in organizing a Palestinian society that might press for more substantial demands but remember they don't have a lot of choices in fact go back to the beginning of the Oslo agreements now 20 years old there were negotiations underway the Madrid negotiations at which the Palestinian delegation was led by Hyder Abdul Shafi a highly respected left nationalist figure in Palestine he was refusing to agree to the U.S Israel terms which required crucially that settlement expansion be allowed to continue he refused and therefore the negotiations stalled and got nowhere meanwhile Arafat and the external Palestinians went on the side track through Oslo gained control and Hider Abdul Shafi was so opposed to this he didn't even show up to the dramatic and meaningless ceremony where Clinton beamed while Arafat and Raven shook hands he didn't show up because he realized it was a total sellout but he was principled and therefore could get nowhere and will get nowhere unless there's substantial support from the European Union the Gulf States and ultimately from the United States FB in your opinion what is really at stake in what's unraveling in Syria at the moment and what does it mean for the broader region and see well Syria is descending into suicide it's a horror story and getting worse and worse there's no bright spot on the horizon what will probably happen if this continues is that Syria will be partitioned into probably three regions a Kurdish region which is already forming that could pull out and join in some fashion the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan maybe with some kind of deal with turkey the rest of the country will be divided between a region dominated by the Assad regime a brutal horrifying regime and another section dominated by the various militias which range from the extremely malicious and violent to the secular and Democratic meanwhile Israel is looking on and enjoying the spectacle for the United States that's fine they don't want an outcome either if the U.S and Israel wanted to assist the rebels which they do not they can do it even without military intervention for example if Israel were to mobilize forces on the Golan Heights of course it's the Syrian Golan Heights but by now the world more or less tolerates or accepts Israel's illegal occupation if they would just do that it would compel Assad to move forces to the South which would relieve pressure against the rebels but there's no hint even of that they're also not giving humanitarian Aid to the huge number of suffering refugees not doing all kinds of simple things that they could do all of which suggests that both Israel and the United States prefer exactly what is happening today meanwhile Israel can celebrate its status as what they call a villa in the jungle there was an interesting article by the editor of horits a love Ben who wrote about how Israelis are going to the beach and enjoying themselves and congratulating themselves on being a villa in the jungle while the wild beasts out there tear each other too shreds and of course Israel in this picture is doing nothing except defending itself they like that picture and the U.S doesn't seem too dissatisfied with it either the rest is Shadow Boxing FB what about talk of a U.S strike then do you think it's going to happen NC a bombing FB yes and see well it's kind of an interesting debate in the United States the ultra right the right-wing extremists who are kind of off the international Spectrum they're opposing it though not for reasons I like there opposing it because why should we dedicate ourselves to solving other people's problems and waste our own resources they're literally asking who's going to defend us when we're attacked because we're devoting ourselves to helping people overseas that's the ultright if you look at the moderate right people like say David Brooks of the New York Times considered an intellectual commentator on the right his view is that the U.S effort to withdraw its forces from the region is not having a moderating effect according to Brooks when U.S forces are in the region that has a moderating effect it improves the situation as you can see in Iraq for example but if we're withdrawing our forces then we're no longer able to moderate the situation and make it better that's the standard view from the intellectual right over to the mainstream the liberal Democrats and so on so there's a lot of talk about should we exercise our responsibility to protect well just take a look at the U.S record on responsibility to protect r2p the fact that these words can even be spoken reveals something quite extraordinary about the U.S and in fact Western moral and intellectual culture this is quite apart from the fact that it's a gross violation of international law Obama's latest line is that he didn't establish a red line but the world did through its conventions on chemical warfare well actually the world does have a treaty which Israel didn't sign in which the U.S has totally neglected for example when it supported Saddam Hussein's really horrifying use of chemical weapons today this is used to denounce Saddam Hussein overlooking the fact that it was not only tolerated but basically supported by the Reagan Administration and of course the convention has no enforcement mechanisms there's also no such thing as responsibility to protect that's a fraud perpetrated in Western intellectual culture there is a notion in fact two Notions there's one passed by the UN General Assembly which does talk about a responsibility to protect but it offers no authorization for any kind of intervention except under conditions of the United Nations Charter there is another version which is adopted only by the West the U.S and its allies which is unilateral and says are 2p permits military intervention by Regional organizations in the region of their Authority without security Council authorization well Translating that into English this means that it provides authorization for the U.S and NATO to use violence wherever they choose without Security Council authorization that's what's called responsibility to protect in Western discourse if it weren't so tragic it would be farcical this conversation between Noam Chomsky and Frank Barat was recorded September 6 2013 and has been condensed and edited originally published September 7 2013 at ceasefire magazine