- Good evening, I'm Andrea J. Ovearan.
I'm the director or public programs here
at The Graduate Center and
I'd like to welcome you
to tonight's event, Is Zionism in Crisis,
a follow-up debate which
is part of our series,
Perspectives, with Peter Beinart.
Produced by the GC's
Public Programs office
and co-sponsored by the
Graduate School of Journalism,
the Perspective series
features dynamic thinkers
and practitioners examining some
of the most urgent political
and public policy issues
shaping our world today.
For a complete list of our
upcoming public programs,
I'd invite you to visit The
Graduate Center's website
where you will also find information
about our membership program.
Tonight, following their
impassioned conversation
this past fall, Peter
Beinart will re-engage
with Alan Dershowitz on
the topic of Zionism.
This time with Ethan Bronner
serving as moderator.
Let me just say a few brief words
about our distinguished participants
so that we can begin the discussion.
First, we're indebted to Peter Beinart
who has been instrumental in organizing
and producing this series.
He is a Schwartz Senior Fellow
at The New America Foundation
and associate professor of
journalism and political science
at CUNY's Graduate Center and
Graduate School of Journalism.
He is also senior political
writer for the Daily Beast
as well as the editor
of its blog, Open Zion.
A contributor to Time and the
author of the Icarus Syndrome,
A history of American
Hubris and, most recently,
The Crisis of Zionism.
We also have the honor of welcoming back
to our stage someone who, again,
needs no introduction, Alan Dershowitz.
Professor Dershowitz is a Brooklyn native
who has been called the nation's
most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer
and Israel's single most visible defender.
A graduate of Brooklyn
College and Yale Law School,
professor Dershowitz joined
the Harvard Law School faculty
at the age of 25 where he's now
the Felix Frankfurter professor of law.
He has published more
than a hundred articles
in major magazines and journals
such as The New York Time's magazine,
The Washington Post, and
the Wall Street Journal.
Professor Dershowitz is also the author
of 27 fiction and non-fiction works.
And can I just ask everyone
please to be quiet?
There will be a Q&A session at the end
where you can ask questions and respond
to our participants.
Finally, we are very fortunate to have
as our moderator this
evening, Ethan Bronner.
Mr. Bronner is currently
the National Legal Affair's
correspondent for The New York Times.
He served as Jerusalem Bureau chief
for the Times from 2008 to 2012,
following four years
as the newspaper's deputy foreign editor.
Mr. Bronner has also served
as assistant editorial
page editor of the Times
and worked in the paper's
investigative unit,
focusing on the September
11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
A graduate of Wesleyan
and the Columbia University
Graduate School of Journalism,
Mr. Bronner began his
career at Reuters in 1980
reporting from London, Madrid,
Brussels, and Jerusalem.
He worked at The Boston
globe for a dozen years.
Four of them as its legal and
supreme court correspondent.
He's the author of Battle for Justice,
How the Bork Nomination Shook America
which was named one of
the 25 best books of 1989
by the New York public library
and awarded a Silver Gavel
by the American Bar Association.
I'd like to remind
everyone to please turn off
your cell phones and noise making devices.
Also, please remember that McNally Jackson
will have books on sale in the lobby area.
Now, please join me in
welcoming Peter Beinart,
Alan Dershowitz, and Ethan Bronner.
(audience applauds)
- The idea that I'm gonna moderate, right,
is sort of amusing with these two guys
on either end of me here.
They're both among the most
articulate people out here
on these issues.
My goal will be to try to
rein them in a little bit
and keep them as honest as I can.
They've had a debate here some months ago
which tended to focus more on Iran.
We'll try to do a little bit more
maybe on Israel and
Israel, Palestine today.
A question that underlies this comes
from the title of your book,
whether Zionism is in crisis.
In a Clintonian way, I
want to know what Zionism
and what crisis are.
Peter, why don't I start with you?
From what I understood from the book,
and I'll do this briefly,
you have, probably, a more
Jewishly-infused sense
of Zionism than Alan does.
Although, I'm happy to
hear you tell me I'm wrong.
He, in fact, at the last
debate which I watched
said to you, "You want a Jewish state,
"I want a homeland for the Jewish people."
My first question is,
do you favor, in fact,
the separation of church
and state in Israel?
- I favor, not entirely.
It depends in some ways what you mean
by church in this case.
I believe--
- Not the one with the
cross in this particular--
- That's right, that's right.
Is that what you mean by shool and state?
I believe that the fundamental
and most important justification
for Israel's existence
is that this will be the
one country in the world
that has the protection of Jewish life
as its mission statement.
That it will be a refuge
for Jews in distress.
Therefore, I believe Israel
has to fulfill that mission
and should have a special obligation
to the Jewish people
which it can incarnate
in a preferential
immigration policy for Jews.
- Okay, I'm gonna stop
you there for one second.
I don't think you
disagree with that, right?
Do you disagree with
anything that he just said?
- I don't disagree, certainly,
with preferential immigration
over a period of time.
- Or that its goal is as
a protective place for--
- That's a too narrow definition.
Instead of asking me
whether I agree with him,
let me state my own
perspective at the right time.
My answer is, in part.
- I would dismantle the Chief Rabbinate,
which I think is one of
the worst innovations
in the history or Judaism.
For me, part of what it
means to be a Jewish state
is not only a state where the kids get off
for Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur, Pesach,
it's the two incarnate Jewish values.
We were born as a people in slavery.
Some of the most frequent
words in the Torah are,
"Remember that you were slaves in Egypt."
It seems to be part of what
it means to be a Jewish state
is to have that memory and
have it inform your actions.
- The other question for you
and then I'll get to you, Alan,
is you did also say in this
book that came out a year ago
that for the first time in history
many of the Jews'
greatest challenges stem,
not from their weakness,
but from their strengths.
The way you just described
the importance of Israel
sounded like it was a
kind of weakness-based
or fear, concern-based phenomenon.
How do you take your notion
that we need to actually
focus on the problems
the emerge from strength
and reconcile that with your understanding
of the Israel need?
- Because although a Jewish state needs
to exist in the world as a place of refuge
for Jews in distress.
Because Israel has emerged as a successful
and powerful country with
millions of non-Jews,
mostly Palestinians
living under its domain,
we now face this very unusual situation
in Jewish history in
which we have millions
of people under Jewish sovereignty.
To me, that tests the
core of what it means
to be a Jewish state because
if the Jewish tradition
of justice forged in
powerlessness cannot survive
the encounter with Jewish power
and it cannot help Israel live up to
its own founding liberal
democratic ideals,
then Israel fails as a Jewish state.
- Alan, you want to respond to that?
Do you have a different
sense of the significance
of how to view Israel there?
- I do.
First, I want to mention that Peter,
who, by the way his book is brilliant.
I really think everybody should read it.
And as I said once before,
read it very critically,
particularly read the
part about separation
of church, mosque, synagogue,
and state very critically
because Peter, also in his book,
doesn't really believe in the
conventional Jewish concept
of separation of church and
state in the United States.
He believes that the
yeshiva movement in America
is in trouble.
I agree it is.
And he would like the federal government
to pay for yeshiva.
- I don't want--
- It responds to the
point about only in Israel
should there be a merger of this kind.
I think he cares more about
the survival of Judaism.
Frankly, that's an issue
that is of no concern to me
as a lawyer and as an advocate.
If Jews want to intermarry and assimilate
and choose to disappear,
that's an internal problem.
I might bemoan it and maybe
the world will lose something
but I'm not gonna be
involved in that controversy.
- You don't support Israel
in order to fight that
assimilation in the world?
- No, I think if Jews choose to assimilate
that's a question of free will, choice,
and freedom.
As I said, I might de-moan
it, but I defend Israel
against its external
enemies, external threats.
My job is to protect Israel,
the nation-state of the Jewish people
along with many other
people, from external threats
so that Jews can obsess
about their internal problems
and drive themselves crazy, as they will.
I want to get back to the
point where we are divided
and fight among each
other and have these kinds
of arguments as long as
the Stephen Hawking's
of the world leave us alone
and don't try to destroy us.
Then we have our own issues.
Peter talks about Jewish values.
I don't know what that means.
I'm as familiar with
the Torah as Peter is.
I can quote from all the
wonderful parts of the Torah
and the wonderful parts of the Talmud.
But I also understand that
for every wonderful part
of the Torah and the
Talmud is at least one,
perhaps two, god-awful
parts that also represent
the worst of Jewish values.
So, Peter doesn't really,
I'm not speaking for him
but I'm speculating,
doesn't really want Israel
to represent Jewish values.
He wants them to represent
Peter's Jewish values.
I would much prefer that they represent
Peter's Jewish values than
Meir Kahane's Jewish values
'cause I like Peter's Jewish values
better than I like Meir Kahane's.
But I can't tell you that Kahane's
are any less authentic.
I think one of the big debates between us
is I'm an externalist and
Peter is an internalist.
I care about the external
threats to Israel
You care a lot about--
- Let me ask you something
that external point.
Today, in contrast to when you were a kid
and the idea of Israel
was still in the air
and not yet real.
Today, Israel, I think it's fair to say
and let me see if you agree,
is the central project
of the Jewish people of the world.
It's the one thing that they
broadly have some link to.
Not everyone but if we were to choose,
it certainly isn't some
element of the religion.
If that's true, and you're
welcome to tell me it's not,
is attacking Israel's right to exist
a form of anti-Semitism today?
- Let me put it this way.
I have never met anybody
except, perhaps, Palestinians
who really give one good goddamn
about the Palestinian people.
The love of the Palestinian
people is largely
a function of the hatred
of the nation-state
of the Jewish people.
People who don't care about the Kurds,
who don't care about the Armenians,
who don't care about the Tibetans,
who didn't give a damn
about the Cambodians,
who didn't say a word
about the people of Rwanda
and the people of Darfur
suddenly have discovered
the Palestinian people.
The deep hatred that
people have of Israel,
I'm not talking about criticism.
I was very actively involved
in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
I remember how strongly we
felt about white South Africa.
It didn't come close to the kind of hatred
that many people feel today about Israel.
Let me put it this way.
Stephen Hawking would not refuse to attend
a conference in a country
that was equally oppressing
another country, say, China and Tibet
or Russia and Chechnya.
It's all about the fact that Israel
is the nation-state of the Jewish people.
You cannot understand the hatred of Israel
if you eliminate the fact that Israel
is the nation-state of the Jewish people.
- Let me stop you--
- Is that anti-Semitism?
You know, you name it, I'm describing it.
- Actually, that's not
what you say, right?
- I agree with Alan that
there is disproportionate
criticism of Israel given the scale
of the human right's abuses.
But there are other explanations for why
there is disproportionate criticism.
That part of the world, the Holy Land,
happens to be a place that a
lot of people care a lot about.
More than many of them for
their own religious reasons.
Christians or Muslims, more
than they care about Burma.
There are a lot of Americans who care
because America which gives
Israel three billion dollars
a year is much more deeply invested
in supporting Israel's policies
than it is involved in
supporting the policies
of many other dictatorial governments.
I also think, and this goes
back to South Africa point,
there on the left there
is a long tradition
of judging more harshly western regimes
than non-western regimes.
I'm not defending that tradition.
I think it's a blind spot of the west.
I think it's part of the
west's moral blind spot,
but you could see it in South Africa.
I'm not saying Israel is
the same as South Africa
but South Africa was not the
worst human rights abuser
in the world at that time.
It was not even the worst
human rights abuser in Africa
at that time.
So, why did it get so much attention?
Because there is this tendency
in the post-colonial third world
to focus on things that look
like western imperialism
and a tendency in Europe
to do the same thing.
Is there anti-Semitism
that motivates hostility
to Israel, disproportionate focus?
Absolutely.
But if you think it's only anti-Semitism,
you're not gonna know how
to respond to it effectively
because it's actually a lot
more complicated than that.
The proof of the pudding is
that the dirty little secret
of the anti-Israel movement,
of the people who don't want
there to be a Jewish state
who want there to be a
secular bi-national state
or whatever is a huge
percentage of them are Jews.
- [Alan] So.
So, Jewish anti-Semitism
is as old as history.
- If the animating
principle of that movement
were hostility to Jews per se,
I don't think it would be so easy
for so many of its most
active members to be Jews.
- How do you feel about the argument
that if you attack the
existence of the state,
not its actions, not its
policies, not its occupation,
the idea of a Jewish state,
that that is a contemporary
version of anti-Semitism.
Are you comfortable with that?
- No, because the problem is
that Israel has never defined
what it means to be a Jewish state.
Israel has never even
defined what it means
to be a Jew very effectively.
Israel has no constitution.
If I say, "I think Israel's
national anthem, Hatikva,
"which talks about nefesh
yehudi the Jewish soul,
"well, that's not very good because
"its Arab-Israeli citizens they don't have
"a Jewish soul.
"Maybe they should change
it to the Israeli soul."
Are you negating Israel's existence?
The point is that to try to figure out
whether someone wants to
negate Israels' existence,
you have to first come
up with a definition
of what makes Israel Israel.
I've said that, for me, the
fundamental core definition
of a Jewish state, for me, has to be
that Israel has to take responsibility
for Jews around the world in distress.
I think the conversation
about whether you want
to negate the existence
can only take place
once you've actually
defined what makes Israel
a Jewish state in the first place.
- I don't think we'll
ever succeed in defining
what makes Israel a Jewish state any more
than we'll ever succeed at defining
what is the essence of Judaism.
If you ask a thousand Jews,
if a pollster had asked a thousand Jews
in the year zero or 100 BC,
what is the essence of Judaism?
They'd all have a very simple answer.
Of course, who would doubt
it, animal sacrifices.
Of course, animal sacrifices
are the essence of Judaism,
look at the Torah.
The whole book of Vayikra is
full of animal sacrifices,
much of BaMidbar.
Judaism without animal
sacrifices, unthinkable,
inconceivable.
The idea that you can define
what is the essence of Judaism
or what is the essence
of the Jewish state?
What is the essence of the Jewish people?
That's why I use a much
more descriptive term.
Israel is the nation-state
of the Jewish people.
The nation-state of
people from Theodor Herzl
who has never been on the
inside of a synagogue,
to Acha Adam, who tried to rebuild
Jewish literary tradition
to David Ben-Gurion who
was a fervent atheist
who loved the Bible.
You can't define a common Jewish...
And Israel will exist beyond
the scope of our ability
to define it in a narrow,
reductionistic way.
- Meanwhile, my sense is
that your desire to define it
as a refuge for Jews in
trouble is getting old
'cause there aren't too many Jews left
out there in trouble.
All the Jews are basically there or here.
It's not a very troubled
population, right?
In other words, it seems
to me that it's safe
to call it a refuge for Jews in trouble
but we're moving beyond
that moment, it seems to me.
- Well, we don't know.
- Admittedly.
- There Jews leaving Israel from France
in the last few years.
- Okay, but, like two
thousand or something.
And Are they really in trouble?
- Well, not a huge number.
I think the point is that, I think,
given the long scope of Jewish history
it is a little arrogant for us to say
that because at this particular moment
we don't see the group
of Jews who need it,
that we can give up on the idea.
- No, I'm not saying to give it up.
But I'm saying that to rely on
it on it as the core mission,
it sort of a little bit easy.
Because, really, there's
so many other things
to deal with right now and that
is not a central issue
right at this minute.
Let me ask you something
else, Peter, which is this.
Because I think this is
where you guys differ.
Do you think that the hostility to Israel
stems essentially from what
it is or from what it does?
In other words, is it because
its policy and it occupation?
Or because its very existence?
- The answer is both.
I have never met a
Palestinian who was happy
that Israel was created.
Every Palestinian I've ever met
thinks that Israel's creation
was a historical tragedy
for the Palestinians.
They believe it's racist,
colonialist, imperialist,
ethnic cleansing, every
bad word you can trot out.
I think that's true.
And I think that people
on the left who try
to deny that are silly.
That is true.
But, I think it's also
important to acknowledge
that there are many Palestinians and many
in the broader Arab and Muslim world,
you can see it in the
Arab Peace Initiative,
who have come to say that they can accept
Israel's existence within certain borders.
Not because they're happy
that it was created,
not because they get excited
when they hear Hatikva
and the love Zionism but
because they don't want
their children and grandchildren to die
in more wars trying to destroy it
when they don't think they can win.
What I think is absolutely crucial
for those of us who love Israel
is that we act to strengthen those forces
among the Palestinians and
the Arabs and the muslims
and weaken those who are willing to fight
for a thousand years until we're all dead.
This Israeli government
is doing the opposite
and that's what bothers me.
- I agree with everything you said
up until the very last term.
Because when you say
this Israeli government,
let's remember,
Israeli governments are
not like US governments.
The United States
government is Barack Obama.
Whatever he says, goes.
If he gets--
(audience laughs)
In terms of executive authority.
- That's next week's debate.
- We'll get to the
legislature in a minute.
- From your mouth to God's ears.
- If John Kerry looks
at him funny, he's out.
If any cabinet member,
in any way undercuts him,
that's the end.
We have the strongest
executive in the history
of any nation-state.
In Israel, the cabinet consists of people
who hate the prime minister,
are trying to get his job,
who are reluctantly there
because of the insane coalition politics
that has been foisted upon Israel
by the multi-party system
and by the impossibility
of ever reforming a system from within
because you can try form outside
but you have to do it from within
and everybody always has
a stake in the outcome.
When you say the Israeli
government policy,
I know what Netanyahu would do if he had
the power to do it alone.
He doesn't have the power to do that.
- You do?
- I think I do.
I know him very well.
I've known him for 40 years.
I think I know what the former
foreign minister of Israel
would do if he had the power.
I think I know what Tzipi Livni would do,
what Ehud Barak would do.
But, I don't know what the
Israeli government policy is.
I think that Bibi Netanyahu would love
to have the statue of him in Jerusalem
as the man who brought about
the two state solution,
brought about peace,
kept Jerusalem united,
did a variety of things
that are impossible
to do in a reconcilable way.
But, I think to say that
the Israeli government
is doing exactly the opposite.
First of all, today's Israeli government
is not doing anything very different
from what the labor government did.
In fact, although, were I an Israeli
I'd be a person of the
left and voting the left,
I think the biggest
problems that Israel caused,
and I don't think Peter's
gonna disagree with me on this,
were caused by the labor government.
- You weren't arguing that this government
as opposed the one that's--
- Let's not talk about
what Benjamin Netanyahu
might want to do or what he told Alan
he would want to do.
Let's look at what he's done.
- No let's look at what
the government has done.
- Okay, let's look at what
his government has done
because he's been in power
since the beginning of 2009.
Last November, his finance minister
boasted that they had doubled
funding for settlements.
There was a big report
by business supplement
of (speaks Hebrew) last summer
which found that the five
most heavily subsidized
cities in Israel,
subsidized by the government
are all in the West Bank.
They're all Jewish
cities in the West Bank.
The most heavily subsidized
Jewish municipality
in the state of Israel is
the radical Jewish settlement
in Hebron which gets seven times
as much government money
as the large, poor,
historically Misrahi city
of Beersheba in the Negev.
That's the policy of
this Israeli government.
The policy of this Israeli government
was when Barack Obama gave a speech
talking about 1967 lines plus swaps.
He didn't even say
equal swaps, by the way.
He just said swaps which was the principle
that had been accepted by Ehud Olmert
in his negotiations that
Bibi rushed on a plane,
came in front of the white house
and basically told Barack
Obama to jump in the lake.
This is also the prime minister who,
when Mahmoud Abbas said he
renounced his own claim on spot
as a refugee, Benjamin
Netanyahu basically said
it's not important.
Now with the Arab league
re-offering their initiative,
basically Netanyahu is,
again, to the dismay
of many Israelis, not said
anything positive in return.
So, let's look at what he's done.
- Netanyahu's 100% right on the issue
of the '67 lines with swaps.
Not only that, but Barack
Obama now agrees with him.
Let me explain why.
If you start with the '67
borders and then have swaps,
here's the way you begin.
You begin with the
Palestinians owning the Kotel,
the Western Wall, owning
the Jewish quarter,
owning the access road
to Hebrew University,
owning the Latrun Corridor,
owning the areas that make
Israel eight kilometers
or eight miles wide at its belly.
Then you ask the Israelis
to make the land swaps
with the Palestinians.
I discussed this with
both Fayyad and Abbas.
They both had the same
answer, "We'll do land swaps."
But, as Fayyad put it to me,
"You're a smart lawyer Dershowitz.
"You know that in real estate,
"the only thing that's
important is location,
"location, location."
What do you think the Kotel and the area
around the Kotel which is about one acre,
what do you think that's worth?
10 thousand acres in the north?
20 thousand acres in the north?
When you start an exchange of land
with the Palestinians
having everything '67,
in total violation of Security
Council Resolution 242,
in total violation of
what everybody believed
the peace treaty was between,
the unilateral peace treaty, of course,
between Israel and its
enemies after the '67 war,
you're inviting absolute disaster.
You cannot start with the '67 lines.
- The argument was to
start with as a basis.
- How can you start with that as a basis?
What does that mean?
Does it mean the
Palestinians have the Kotel,
or doesn't it?
Does it mean they have the access road
to the Hebrew University, or doesn't it?
If you can't agree on land
swaps, it's the '67 lines.
And that's unacceptable.
- I want to ask you something else.
- But ask Peter that.
Does he think if we
end with the '67 lines,
is that a good thing?
- No, I don't want to
end with the '67 lines.
But, with all due respect,
this is all nonsense.
The point is, is there going
to be a Palestinian state
which is viable, which to be viable,
has to be on 95% plus of the west bank.
Everyone knows there's
gonna be a special regime
for the tiny little area of the Old City
in which all kinds of different formulas
have been talked about,
how you deal with the Temple
Mount and the Western Wall.
The basic question is
the Benjamin Netanyahu
and many on the Israeli right
basically have a vision in
which Israel controls area C.
That's 60% or 50% of the West Bank.
Then you basically say,
"If you want to take
"these disconnected cantons
on 40% of the West Bank
"and call it a state.
"You can call it an
empire for all we care."
- Then why do the Palestinians turn down
93 to 95% when offered by Ehud Barak,
96% when offered by Ehud Olmert?
They had an opportunity to accept that.
- Because, Alan, if I
want to sell you my house
and I say it's worth a million dollars
and you say, "No,"
you've rejected my offer.
If you say, "I'm willing to
pay 500 thousand dollars,"
and I say, "No," I've rejected your offer.
What people like you keep
leaving out in these narratives
is that the Palestinians also had offers.
Palestinians rejected Israel's offer,
Israel rejected the Palestinian's offer.
Gilead Sher who was
Barak's chief negotiator
at Camp David says that
Arafat had an offer
for about a 2.5% land swap,
international troops in the Jordan Valley,
Jewish control over the
Jewish neighborhoods
of East Jerusalem.
We know that Saeb Erekat has said that
when Olmert offered 6.3%
with a 5.7% land swap,
that Abbas offered a 1.9% equal land swap.
You can't simply tell the story
as the Palestinians say, "No."
The truth is there was a difference
in the amount of land they
wanted the Palestinians
to take control of.
There were differences on refugees,
differences on other issues as well.
That's why building
settlements is so catastrophic
because it makes the
possibility of bridging
those divides that much harder.
- We'll never agree on this.
No, we do disagree on this
because the other people--
- Who are the other people?
- Bill Clinton, Dennis Ross,
have a completely different narrative.
They say that Yasser Arafat walked away
without making a counter offer.
- Alan, with all due respect,
those are the only people you've read.
If you actually read the
literature more broadly
you would see that
actually there are a series
of Israeli negotiators.
From Yossi Beilin to Gilead Sher,
and including Americans.
- They all have an agenda and they're all
creating narratives that fit their agenda.
And I'm saying to you,
we'll never resolve this.
We'll never resolve what happened.
- I want to make clear.
I am not absolving Yasser Arafat
from a significant share of the blame
for what happened at Camp David.
- Or Jimmy Carter, who told Yasser Arafat
to turn down--
- Okay, if you want to
throw Carter in there, too.
The point is there was a difference
between the two parties.
Simply saying that it was a story
of Israel offering the moon
and the Palestinians saying no
and offering nothing in
return is simply not true
to the historical record.
- It is true.
No, it is true and it's true in '67
when Israel accepted
242 and the Palestinians
went to to Khartoum and
said no negotiations,
no peace, no recognition.
- Listen to this.
This is Barak's former
aid Tal Silberstein.
"10 years later," this
is what he said in 2011,
"There are still people who
say we gave them everything
"at Camp David and got nothing.
"That is a flagrant lie."
This was another Barak
aid who has come out
and said, in fact, that
this is a distortion of--
- I actually spoke to Tal Silberstein
days after this was over and I got
a completely different account of that
than the one that he
has written years later.
What happens is people rewrite history
according to their ideology.
My point is we'll never
know for sure what happened.
But if you look from '38 on.
'38, two state solution,
'48, two state solution,
Israel accepts it, Palestinians reject it.
'67,
'92,
2001,
2007,
it's a consistent pattern.
You can find a quote or two
that seems inconsistent with that
but you can't deny the pattern.
- Which leader, Mahmoud
Abbas or Benjamin Netanyahu,
rejected Barack Obama's
proposal for '67 lines
plus swaps?
- I would've, too.
- And which one signed
the Dershowitz Deal?
You have your peace plan, right?
I saw a picture in the Jerusalem Post
of Abbas' signature on it.
Where's Bibi's signature?
- Well, Bibi didn't turn it down.
- Oh, he didn't turn it down.
No, he didn't turn it down.
You offered it last fall,
what's he waiting for?
- Steinmetz turned it down
last week in front of you.
- Steinmetz said, "No,"
and so did Uzi Arad.
But I have to tell you
that Benjamin Netanyahu,
I think, would very--
First of all, Benjamin Netanyahu responded
by saying, "Let's have negotiations
"without any preconditions."
Having negotiations
without any preconditions,
it seems to me, is the right approach.
- Yeah, but you're saying once you start,
you freeze and that's
what you're demanding--
- And he's not said, "Yes," to that.
- I wish he had said, "Yes,"
to it, I agree with you.
- Who's missing the
opportunity, him or Abbas?
- Really both.
- What we don't know is whether
if Netanyahu accepted that,
Abbas would stick with it.
We just don't know.
I'm agreeing with you.
We ought to try it.
I am critical of this government for not,
and I've said it over and
over again in writing,
that the Israeli government
should be more generous,
should start the negotiations.
But I think the Palestinians
have to come to the table.
Remember this, Israel won the West Bank
in a completely legitimate, defensive war.
And it's entitled under
international law and practice
not to end a military
occupation until there is peace.
242 said, Israel should return--
- We don't need to return to this.
We don't, we don't, we don't.
- You don't but you just need 30 seconds
to make the point.
Until there is peace and
recognized boundaries,
Israel's is not obliged
to return territories.
Israel has complied with 242.
With every country it made peace with,
Egypt and Jordan, it gave
them back every inch of land.
- No, it didn't.
- It really didn't.
- Gaza back to Egypt--
- He wanted to give it back,
they didn't take it back.
- But you said it gave
back every piece of land.
- They said, "Take it."
In fact, Begin didn't even want to accept
the Camp David accords
until Egypt took it back
and Jimmy Carter forced
him not to give it back.
If that doesn't constitute giving it back,
I don't know what does.
- Fine.
There is a difference in who is more
at fault, historically,
between the two of you, fine.
But there is not fundamentally difference
that there are flaws in both sides.
As we move forward,
- On the settlements, we agree.
- And on the settlements you agree.
As we move forward, how
do feel about the demand
by the Israeli government
that the Palestinians
declare Israel to be a Jewish state?
- They don't.
Here's the issue and
it's very, very clear.
This has been stated publicly
over and over and over again
as recently as last week.
Benjamin Netanyahu has
said the Palestinians
do not have to recognize
Israel as the nation-state
of the Jewish people in order
to sit down and negotiate.
It is not a precondition to negotiation.
He said
he doesn't think there will be a deal
unless that happens.
Let me explain why I think that's right.
It was right not to demand that of Egypt.
It was right not to demand that of Jordan.
And they made peace with Jordan and Egypt
without demanding that
they recognize Israel
as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
It's very different with
the Palestinian Authorities
because by failing to do that,
they are implicitly including
the right of return.
What they're saying is,
"We're not gonna tell you
"that we accept Israel as the nation-state
"of the Jewish people because we think
"that millions of
Palestinians have the right
"to go back and become
full citizens of Israel."
I believe, this is my prediction,
that if the Palestinian
Authority were to compromise
on the right of return and accept
the symbolic right of return, 20 thousand,
30 thousand, 50 thousand
people and give up
any universal right of return,
then the demand for recognizing Israel
as the nation-state of the Jewish people
would weaken and probably dissipate.
I do not believe that is the
ultimate barrier to peace.
I don't think that that
would be a condition
of any final negotiation.
But it certainly, we all agree here,
that it's not a condition
for sitting down renewing negotiations.
- The question, then,
that I throw to Peter
and to you, too, is why
won't the Palestinians
sit down and negotiate
with no preconditions now?
- I'm not here to defend
the Palestinians or are you.
So, let me ask you.
Are you troubled by the demand
or do you think it's an appropriate one?
Again, not as a precondition
for sitting down
but as an assertion that
there can't really be
a two-state solution
unless you guys see us
as a Jewish state or the
homeland of the Jewish people?
- No, I think this is an
obstacle to concluding a deal
that Netanyahu has thrown up
in large part because
he doesn't want to have
to face the political
consequences of what would happen
if he got close--
- So, you think it's a cynical demand?
- Yeah, I do because it was
not emphasized like this
by his predecessors.
Look, if the issue is
refugees, talk about refugees.
There's a huge amount of work
that's been done on refugees.
We have some reporting, for instance,
that in the Olmert-Abbas negotiations,
that the Palestinian's final offer was
for Israel to accept
150 thousand refugees.
Now, that's more than the 20
or 30 thousand that Alan said
but just in terms of the
demographic character of Israel,
you would lose more Palestinians
by giving back East Jerusalem
to a Palestinian state
than you would take.
So, if you want to have this conversation
about how many refugees,
have that conversation.
There's no need for the Palestinians,
you have to resolve the refugee question.
But you don't have to
tell the Palestinians
that they have to accept
Israel as a Jewish state.
They just have to accept Israel.
Israel can call itself whatever it wants.
- I don't ultimately disagree with that.
Remember that, also,
and this is a much more
difficult question.
Netanyahu has now said
that any peace agreement
would require a referendum.
As you know Tal Silberstein was sitting
with Ehud Barak everyday
and doing, literally,
instant polling to see
how far Barak could go
without losing the election.
Turned out he lost the
election in any event.
But, in a democracy, unlike
the Palestinian Authority
or Hamas--
- We're also talking
about a referendum, Alan.
- I understand that but
it's a different kind
of referendum.
- I want to challenge you
a little bit on this idea.
- But a referendum might
benefit from the Palestinians
being willing to say
the words nation-state
of the Jewish people.
It might help the referendum prevail.
- Let me offer an easy compromise.
There's nothing wrong, actually.
I think you could solve
this problem by saying,
"We recognize it as a
nation-state of the Jewish people,
"without prejudice to
the democratic rights
"of all its citizens."
- I agree with that.
- But they are not offering to do that,
you're offering them,
but they're not offering.
So, what I'm asking you is
why doesn't it bother you more
that they're not offering?
Why is it a problem if it turns out
that decades of efforts have
actually gotten nowhere.
The argument from the right is the reason
it's gotten nowhere is
actually they don't get
that this is what we want.
They still think the Jews are a religion,
that it's some big western European thing.
All of that talk is still quite common.
Does it not matter?
- It doesn't matter what
Palestinians think Judaism is.
Just as it doesn't matter
whether they think Zionism
is a legitimate enterprise.
The difficult issue is that
20% of the Israeli citizenry
inside the Green Line are what we Jews
have historically called Arab-Israelis
but are essentially
Palestinians citizens of Israel.
The problem that Israel has to deal with
is that those people don't want,
those Palestinian
citizens don't want Israel
to be a Jewish state
because they don't feel
their sons and daughters can grow up
and aspire to be prime minister
because they're not Jews.
They don't get excited looking at a flag
that looks like a tallit
and has a Magen David on it.
That problem, you can't ask
the Palestinian leadership
which is gonna create a
state in the West Bank
in Gaza to make that problem go away.
It won't go away.
Israel is gonna have to find a way
of finding its own identity
within its original borders
in a way that can be more inclusive.
- Peter, we were both furious when people
like Golda Meir would
announce over and over,
"There are no Palestinian people.
"Palestine is just Jordan,
"there already is a Palestinian state."
I mean, that's a terrible thing to say,
to deny people their peoplehood.
I have said since 1967,
- And you're allowing them to do that.
- That the Palestinian people
are a legitimate people.
They have a right to peoplehood,
they have a right to nationhood.
I think Israel should say that.
I think the Palestinians
should say that Israel
has the right to nationhood
as the nation-state
of the Jewish people with full
and complete democratic
rights of all of the people
who live there.
- If you make clear that
it's without prejudice
to the rights of all of Israel's citizens,
Jewish and non-Jewish,
I don't have a problem.
- When Canada takes the cross
out of its national anthem,
when virtually every European
country takes Christianity
out of their, quote,
secular national anthems,
we'll get on line and we'll get to Israel
and maybe Israel will
change to nefesh Israeli.
But don't pick on Israel first.
- I said that same thing in my book
in defending the idea that you
can have a democratic Jewish state.
I agree but there are
practical things that Israel
has to do in order to make
its own Palestinian citizens,
who its own government,
their own commission said
suffer discrimination and neglect
to feel the more truly--
- But, Peter do you think,
wait I just want to
ask Peter one question.
Israel has 20%, as you
know, of Palestinian Arabs.
Would it be such a terrible thing
if the state of Palestine had
20% or 10% Jewish population
and would you insist that Palestine
not have the crescent in its flag?
- I'm not insisting that Israel
not have the Magen David.
- It sounded to me like you were.
- Look, I love the idea of
Jews living in the West Bank.
I can read Bereshit as
well as anyone else.
I understand that people
might want to live
near Hebron or Bethlehem or places
that are historically very
important to these people.
- Bethlehem is in Israel
last time I looked.
Oh, you mean in the West Bank.
- Bethlehem is in the West Bank.
The issue is not Jews living there.
The issue is Jews living
under a different law
than their Palestinian neighbors.
If Jews are willing to
live under the same law
which means they cannot have religiously
and ethnically exclusive communities.
Means if a Palestinian
wants to go and buy a house
in Kiryat Arba or Ariel, they
have the right to do that.
Then, by all means.
- You think Israelis today
have the right to live
in small Arab communities
in the Affoula Triangle?
I mean, the tragedy is
that today in Israel
and on the West Bank,
there are exclusive Jewish
and exclusive Arab neighborhoods.
That's a big problem and that's the way
both sides want it.
That's not segregation or apartheid.
That's an unfortunate reality
as to the way things happen.
- Now, let me ask you
something else, Alan.
The question on whether
is Zionism is in crisis,
underlying this discussion.
How long can the occupation go on?
And do you feel that Zionism has a future?
- Well, first of all,
there are two occupations.
Let's be very clear about that.
There's a military occupation
and there are the settlements.
And they are completely different.
Their status is completely
different in international law.
I, right from the beginning in '67,
was a strong supporter of the Allon Plan.
What was the Allon Plan?
The Allon Plan required
that Israel would annex
parts of the West Bank as military,
appropriate military
response to a defensive war.
But it would not create
civilian settlements.
So, I'm in favor of a
continued military occupation
of parts of the West Bank
until there's real peace.
I think Israel made a mistake
in ending the military occupation of Gaza.
- Let me ask you differently.
How long can the settlements stand there?
Even if you don't want them there.
- If I had my way, I
would not have permitted
Ma'ale Adumim and Gilo.
Ma'ale Adumim and Gilo are a
reality, they're gonna stay.
- But what I'm asking is not,
"Did you not favor them?"
But how serious an issue is it.
It's one thing to say,
"Look, it happened and
we'll have to live with it."
It's another thing to say,
"Everything that Israel's
supposed to stand for
"is challenged by its
continued existence."
That's what Peter says.
- First of all, I don't
think Peter believes that.
I don't think Peter believes
that Israel's existence
as a Jewish nation is challenged
by Ma'ale Adumim and
Gilo, continuing to be.
In fact, he's written that.
Continuing to be part of
Israel as part of land swaps
as part of an agreed upon resolution.
Now, they're a hard issues,
the Ariel bloc, the Ezion bloc.
To my mind there ought to be land swaps
that, as much as possible,
the areas that are within
the security barrier
of Israel ought to be exchanged for areas
in the north of Israel.
There should be, in my
mind, equal land swaps.
I favor completely equal land swaps.
But the reality on the ground
is you're not gonna move.
It would be much easier
to end the occupation
and to create a two-state solution
realistically, in Israel, if
you don't have to dismantle
the very large, near
Jerusalem settlement blocs.
Having said that, I
would abolish immediately
all the settlements
outside the security area,
all the unlawful settlements,
all the new settlements,
all of that.
- Do you imagine it's still doable?
- Absolutely.
- Until how long?
- I think that John Kerry
makes a terrible mistake
when he says that there
is a time limit on that.
Look, Israel proved,
everybody said that we'd never
be able to have an evacuation of the Gaza,
even though there are only
nine to 10 thousand people.
It happened.
It was difficult.
Israel screwed it up to a fare-thee-well.
It treated the people
who left Gaza horribly.
It sent a terrible message to
the people on the West Bank
that we will treat you
horribly, too, if you leave.
If they had only really done a good job
in evacuating Gaza, I think
it would be much easier
for them to evacuate the West Bank.
But I think it's doable.
I do not think the settlements
are the major barrier
to peace, though they are a barrier.
- Peter?
- We won't know until Israel tries.
But what really worries
me in the Jewish community
is the sense of complacency.
Again, to continue to massively subsidize
more and more people to
move to the West Bank
and think that basically the deal
is still always gonna be
there for the end of the day.
Nine thousand settlers,
that was the biggest
Israeli military operation
since the Yom Kippur War
to remove nine thousand
settlers from a place
of Gaza which is not nearly
as biblically significant
as is the West Bank.
Everyone agrees that
you're basically talking
about at least 100 thousand
settlers from the West Bank now
in a situation in which those communities
have become much more deeply
entrenched in the military
than they were before.
You have settlements like Ariel
which at 20 thousand people,
they now have a full-fledged
University there.
Bibi called it the heart of our country.
It is not compatible with a contiguous,
viable Palestinian state
as even Shlomo Ben-Ami,
Barak's foreign minister,
has acknowledged.
Efrat is considered one of
the most consensus settlements
in Israel.
The Palestinians cannot accept it
'cause it sits right on Route 60
which is the main north, south artery.
It's not even to mention the potential
of moving into E1, which
this Israeli government
has been moving forward
on, according to reports.
Which would basically sever East Jerusalem
from the rest of the West Bank.
- The Olmert government
also favored adapting E1.
- Well, then shame on them but at lest
they were negotiating
towards a deal seriously.
The point is that
it is not hard to imagine
a situation, even if you look at polling.
Polling still show Palestinians favor,
by a small margin, the two-state solution
over a one state solution.
But they don't believe
the two-state solution
will ever happen because
of settlement growth.
What you're doing is you
are pushing Palestinians
towards going for the one
state option en masse.
Once they do that en masse,
there will be a tipping point
that we can't recover from.
If Palestinians, en masse,
start demanding Israeli citizenship
in a secular bi-national state,
Israel will have no answer for that.
The world will ultimately get behind them
and it will be the end
of the Zionist project.
- Well, I just don't agree.
I think that it would be far better
if the Palestinians
were to accept the peace
of the kind that was offered by Olmert,
which included the major settlement blocs,
many of them remaining within Israel,
carving out around the security barrier,
accepting the reality on the ground,
which was unfortunate but put there
by the labor government as much
as by the right wing governments,
having major land exchanges,
which would give--
Here's a real problem for
Israel and for democracy.
Many areas in the north of Israel
around the Affoula
Triangle are populated 98%
by Palestinian Israelis.
But,
82 or 83%, according to polls,
don't want to become part
of a Palestinian state
even if they're given that option.
They want to remain Israelis.
Now, that may change.
If a Palestinian state
is successful and viable
and economically effective.
But right now, even the
land swaps are difficult.
And it's not because of
the settlements alone,
it's because what are you gonna swap?
You have to swap land
that has people on it.
- This is precisely the problem.
Israel doesn't have
very much land to swap.
Once you start going above
two, three, four percent,
there is no high quality land
that doesn't have people on it.
You're gonna have to be moving
people against their will
inside Israel in order to
accommodate all the land
that you need to take in the West Bank.
This is why it's a very,
very difficult proposition
which we should not be making worse
by continuing to subsidize settlements.
- I'm not sure it's being made any worse.
Remember, the settlement
building, for the most part,
is building up not out.
The settlement building,
for the most part,
are taking existing settlements
and increasing their depth.
I oppose all that but
I think it's a mistake
to think that that has
been the barrier to peace.
Remember, peace was not
coming in '64, in '65, in '55.
It was no peace before '67
and there are many
other barriers to peace.
- Basically, you think
that the bigger problems
are external not internal?
- I do, I do, right.
- And that's largely the
difference between you.
Do you think, Peter, that in the name
of a two-state solution,
American policy should be
to encourage Hamas-Fatah reconciliation?
- I think that Israel is
already negotiating with Hamas.
That's the way we entered the Gaza war
with Israeli negotiation with Hamas.
- That's not the same thing.
- No, it's not.
But the point is that Hamas,
I think it's a vile movement
that is doing terrible things
to the Palestinians in Gaza, exists.
And Israel is not going to
destroy it as a movement.
We can politically weaken
it by strengthening
those Palestinians who are
willing to accept the idea
of a two-state solution.
But, for the Palestinians to be able to be
the most legitimate negotiating
partner they can be,
there needs to be Palestinian democracy.
There need to be elections
in the West Bank in Gaza.
I do favor a Palestinian unity government
that can be the beginning of
moving toward those elections.
Otherwise you have Palestinian leaders
who look like puppets.
- I have a completely different view.
This is gonna take maybe
more than 30 seconds.
Why is Israel moving to the right?
Israel is moving to the
right because Peter and I
devoted our lives to trying
to save Soviet Jewry.
We were very successful.
I spent all of the '70s
in the Soviet Union
going back and forth
negotiating the release
of many dissidents and Jews.
So, the Jews from the
Soviet Union came to Israel
and became right-wingers.
- To be fair, I spent the
'70s in elementary school.
(audience laughs)
But I was very inspired
by the work you did.
No, I mean that.
- You were very much
part of that movement.
You know, there's no free
lunch in a democracy.
You bring people in, that's part
of what Israel is supposed to do.
We saved a million Soviet
Jews and what did they do?
They built settlements because
they, Israel is a democracy.
The same thing is going to be true
in Israel now, as well.
Hamas, we wanted democracy.
So, there's gonna be a democracy
and there's gonna be a vote.
And the vote will be
never to recognize Israel
under any circumstances
and to do everything
to destroy Israel and to
reaffirm the Hamas Charter.
I mean, that's democracy.
1932 was democracy in Germany.
Democracy is not a
guarantee of a good outcome.
The result may very well be
a more democratic Palestine
and a Palestine that will make it much,
much harder to make peace.
Just as Israel has had
a more democratic Israel
and that democratic Israel
has pushed to the right.
So, democracy, in the end,
may be a barrier to peace.
That is a tragic reality
of the real world.
I'll never forget, you're gonna accuse me
of name-dropping again,
and I plead guilty.
I'll never forget a
conversation that I had
with Bill Clinton about this.
When he was president, we
were sitting in the home
of somebody having dinner
in Martha's Vineyard.
I think maybe your in-laws
were even there with us
or your mother and her
husband were there with us.
A guy started attacking the
Israeli government's policies.
Bill Clinton responded by
saying, "You don't understand.
"It's so easy to negotiate
for me to deal with Jordan,
"just call King Hussein, 'Do
it or I'll cut off funding,'
"call Mubarak, 'Do it.'
"You can't do that with Israel," he said.
This is exactly Bill Clinton's words,
"Israel is a democracy, damn it."
And that's the truth and it's very hard.
People say democracies don't
make war with each other.
Democracies also find
it harder to make peace
because you need consensus.
And it's a very difficult
reality that we're facing.
- So, where do you come down on this idea
of Hamas-Fatah reconciliation?
I understand there's a risk there.
On the other hand, Peter's
point that unless you have
some kind of unified policy,
what are you gonna negotiate with?
How do you view it?
- I did not favor reconciliation
between the democratic
governments of Spain in the 1930s
and the monarchist king of Spain.
It depends on who you're negotiating with.
I do not want to see an end result
which is a Palestinian
Authority that is devoted
to the destruction of Israel.
Frankly, I care less
about whether Palestine
is a democracy than I do
about whether Palestine
is willing to make peace with Israel.
So, that's my first priority.
Democracy, again, that's
Palestine's problem
whether they want to be a democracy.
I care about whether they want
to make peace with Israel.
- That's what I'm talking about.
I'm not asking you for the
welfare of the Palestinians.
I'm asking you, you want to cut a deal
for your Jewish state.
Is it helpful or not helpful--
- At the moment it's not helpful.
At the moment, it would
be much better for Israel
to make a deal with the
Palestinian Authority
not to empower Hamas to overthrow
the Palestinian Authority
in the West Bank.
Look, you can ask the
same question about Syria.
What's the outcome I wish for in Syria?
Do I want the rebels to win?
Do I want to butcher Assad to win?
These are very complicated problems
and we cannot solve them by
slogans, bumper stickers,
or simple-minded resolutions
in favor of democracy
and in favor of Arab Spring
and in favor of this.
We have to look at the
realpolitik of what's going on
and it's very complex and unpredictable.
- We're gonna talk for
another four or five minutes,
then I'm gonna have you guys ask question.
- I just want to say one small thing.
I think defining Palestinian politics
as Mahmoud Abbas against
the leaders of Hamas,
and this is something really important.
I think the question is does
Israel want to make peace
with leaders who have legitimacy
in their own population
because they're a
democratic processes or not.
And Alan's right, there are risks to that.
There are huge risks to that.
There was a big risk
when the Egyptians voted.
They voted for the worst
possible candidate in Morsi.
But it's a mistake to
see that it's only Hamas
and Fatah for this particular reason.
The most popular Palestinian leader
is Marwan Barghouti, he's been
in jail for many, many years.
If you really wanted to have elections
and have the most powerful,
credible Palestinian leader,
I don't think it would
be Abbas or Jalemashon.
I think the question
Israel has to ask itself
is does it want Palestinian leaders
who have the democratic
legitimacy to be able
to make really tough decisions?
It's true, there are no guarantees.
There are no guarantees but, ultimately,
Israel will be better off if it doesn't
have Palestinian leaders who it itself
makes look like puppets because
they don't have the democratic legitimacy
that comes from voting
amongst the Palestinians.
- I think you're right.
On the other hand there
is an issue right now
in the atmosphere of the
last two and a half years
in the region which is
that one side could well
overwhelm the other in the
Palestinian political--
- Yes, and that's why I think--
- And that there's the risk--
- Right, it's a risk.
That's why I think what you
need to do at the same time
is pursue policies that show
that Palestinian leaders
who do support the two-state
solution can deliver.
- I don't disagree with that.
I think that Israel missed
opportunities with Fayyad.
Yet, it was the Palestinians
who got rid of Fayyad,
not the Israelis who got rid of Fayyad.
- He resigned.
- Well, but he was not popular
because he was seen as too western.
He was seen as too pro-Israel,
too pro-economic growth.
Again, more complex.
I think we ought to eschew, kind of,
simple-minded, blame
Israel for everything,
or blame the Palestinians for everything.
There's enough fault to go around.
But the most important
point is this is so much
more complex than most
arguments and debates
make it out to be.
What we need is wise leadership.
And I'm not sure that we
have the wisest leadership
in terms of any of the participants here.
We need wise leadership prepared
to make considerable
sacrifices on all sides.
- Here's my last question,
then I'll turn it to the audience.
Do you think that the Americans,
Secretary Kerry and you
guys sitting up here,
actually want a deal
more than the Israelis
and the Palestinians who live there now?
- It's a very interesting question
because the circumstance for a deal
in Israel and Palestine are not optimal
for two reasons.
One, Palestinians on the
West Bank don't have it
all that bad.
Certainly not compared to Gaza.
The GNP has grown on the West Bank.
If you go to Ramallah, as
I've gone on many occasions,
it's a beautiful city, high tech.
Things are not bad for
many, many Palestinians.
Things are very bad for some Palestinians
who live near the security barrier,
whose farms and houses are
divided by the security barrier.
No doubt about that.
But, you know, usually peace comes about
when both sides find it intolerable.
Israel is living during a
very good time, prosperity,
there's been very little terrorism.
Most of the the attacks on Israel
have been against people who
are largely disenfranchised,
the people of Sderot
who are not particularly
politically influential.
It's a variation the Tsuris
Theory of Jewish Survival
that we need tsuris to survive.
Maybe we need tsuris to make peace.
I'm not sure that the
optimum conditions for peace.
Also, I think the Obama administration,
although I'm a supporter
and I voted for him
and I consider myself a
friend of the administration,
made mistakes early on in the beginning
that got out in front of the Palestinians
on the '67 lines.
- Peter, it does feel
that there is not a sense
of urgency.
The urgency that you guys
project on this stage
is lacking in the Israeli
political discourse
and in the Palestinian
political discourse.
What to be done?
- I don't think one can
equate the situations
among Israel and the Palestinians.
- I'm not equating them
but they both lack urgency
in that sense.
- Palestinians have lived
without citizenship,
without the right to
vote, under military law,
and without basic freedom--
- Of course they have the right to vote.
They vote in Palestinian elections.
- When Israel decides.
But, Israel, last year
arrested the speaker
of the Palestinian
parliament near Ramallah.
- Remember the last election took place
over the objection.
- They have no state whose government
for which they can vote.
- Fine.
- So?
- There is also a sense of
despair among Palestinians
and many Palestinians are
living off foreign aid
coming through the Palestinian Authority.
I think if you talk to any Palestinian,
sooner or later there is
gonna be another intifada
because people will not live indefinitely
without the basic human rights
that all of us would want.
On the Israeli side, I think
Alan partly got it right.
This is what makes me so, so afraid.
If Israel pretends that the
Palestinians don't exist
because the Palestinians
are not killing them,
because there is not much terrorism
coming from the West Bank,
then the message you send
to Palestinians is,
"The only way we can get
"your attention is to kill you
"and to commit acts of
terrible terrorism."
That's what's so frightening to me.
That's why it's so important that people
in the United States who
have influence with Israel
try to use this moment before
the next intifada breaks out,
to act before, God forbid,
people get blown up again.
- Let me tell you why
I think that's wrong.
- Whoever wants to ask a
question, think about lining up
on the microphone.
- One last point.
The last intifada started
right after Israel offered
92, 3, 5, 7, whatever
you want to think percent
and Arafat started it.
Obviously, Sharon gave him an excuse
by going up to the Temple Mount.
That was a planned, calculated, intifada
designed by Arafat.
- That's not what the Missile
Commission says, Alan.
- That's not what who says?
- The Missile Commission which was sent
to investigate the cause of the intifada
said the opposite.
- I understand that,
but that's the truth.
That's the reality and
that's what happened.
When you get commissions sent
to try to share the blame.
The Peel Commission also shared the blame
as to who started the
1939, '37, '38 '39 riots.
The reality is that Arafat
planned that intifada.
I think the First Intifada
was more spontaneous.
I don't disagree with you.
That I think there's always
that sort of Damocles
hanging over the head.
It's amazing we've had a whole discussion
without mentioning the one
issue that Israelis talk
about all the time and
obsess about and think about
and what's putting the Palestinian
issue out of their head.
And that is Iran, Iran, Iran, and Iran.
That's what's obsessing--
- It's not true, Alan.
It wasn't a major
election issue in Israel.
- It's because there's nothing to vote
about involving candidates.
But when you talk to Israelis
they are very worried
about a nuclear-armed Iran.
They're very worried about the Syrian,
whose gonna win in the Syrian--
- Social protests were not about Iran.
- Israeli politics, it's driving Israelis.
Israelis care deeply
about that and they worry
and they obsess about it.
That's what's on the
mind of many Israelis,
the external threats and
the Palestinians today
do not pose an existential
threat to Israel.
- Okay, so, we will turn
it over to you guys.
- You stood up so just the usual warning.
Please don't make an enormous speech.
Feel free to say something
but make it a question.
- [Man] Thank you both for
an interesting discussion.
Professor Dershowitz, I
was in your one hour class
about eight years ago.
You stood up in class and said,
"This is actually really hard for me
"'cause I'm actually quite a shy person."
I shook my head then and
I shake my head again now
because I'm not quite sure that's true.
But my question is, you
all address the crisis
of Zionism from the perspective
of what's going on in Israel.
I know, Mr. Beinart, you've
written a bit about this
in terms of describing your own change
in thinking on Israel.
What about the crisis of
Zionism from the perspective
of young American Jews?
It's not merely that young
American Jews, I think,
view Israel's treatment of Palestinians
through a lens of some illegitimacy.
But it's also that they look at Israel and
what's going on domestically
in Israel among Jews
as something that they
don't identify with.
I understand that the Jewish community
in the United States is no more monolithic
than it is in Israel.
But I was wondering if you guys could talk
a little bit about how
that's a crisis in Zionism.
How young American Jews
and how they see Israel
is creating separation between
the Jewish community here
and Israelis there?
- Peter, it's kind of a
specialty of yours, so, um...
- The single biggest reason
that younger American Jews
are more distant from
Israel is because they're
more distant from all things Jewish.
Because we have produce one of the largest
and wealthiest and most
Jewishly illiterate populations
in the history of the Jewish people.
And because we have done so,
we have created a generation
of people who are distant
from Israel because Israel
is simply another thing.
If you've never had any
experience of Simchat Torah
or Shavuot or had
meaningful Jewish experience
in the United States, you're not gonna be
that connected to Israel.
That's part of the problem and that's part
of why my book is about Jewish education
and why I think it's so important.
What's interesting is if you look
outside the orthodox community
at the most religiously committed
young American Jews, too,
the young reform, reconstructionist,
conservative rabbis,
the people in the
independent, Midian movement,
these people who are
very Jewishly affiliated,
they're also becoming more
alienated from Israel.
And there it is because
they don't see their vision of Judaism.
Alan's absolutely right,
Judaism is an ocean.
People interpret it in
completely different ways
but they are trying to
reconcile Jewish commitment
with liberal democratic ideals
and they don't see Israel's policies,
especially in the West
Bank, as doing that.
Even therefore if they may be connected
to Israeli society, they spent time there,
they speak Hebrew, they are alienated
from the Israeli state.
That, I think, is something
which is gonna have
big repercussions for
Israeli-American Jewish relations
in the decades to come.
- Alan, you disagree?
- I completely disagree on this one.
(audience laughs)
I think if you start
introducing more Judaism
into young people, have more of them
go to Jewish day schools,
have the federal
government pay for yeshiva,
what we're gonna have is a lot more Jews
who care deeply about Israel and are,
I agree with you up to now,
but are deeply committed
to the Israeli right.
That's what happens when you
get kids who go to yeshiva
and kids who get orthodox
Jewish education.
for the most part, they don't
produce the Peter Beinart's
of the world.
They produce the people who booed me
at the Jerusalem Post conference last week
when I talked about the two-state solution
and when I talked about
ending the settlements.
You might think I'm not
liked by the hard left.
I'm hated more by the Jewish right,
the extreme Jewish right.
The very people who are Jewishly educated.
Jewish education is also
a double-edged sword.
Many of my student who were in your class,
who are the strongest Zionists,
are not Jewishly educated.
They care about Israel because
of human rights issues.
You may remember, I think in your class,
Mitch Weber who was one of
the leading Zionist voices
on the Harvard campus,
who was a completely secular, atheist Jew,
who married a woman who's not Jewish,
whose whole life is devoted
to caring about Israel.
So, I don't see the close connection
between religion and Zionism.
It didn't start that way.
Herzl, Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir--
- You don't see a risk
of increased separation
as a result?
- I don't.
I think the answer is very different.
I think in 1967 Jews were
able to beat their chest
and say, "Wow, we're proud to be Israel.
"Look how tough Israelis are."
It was a source of pride.
Today, it's a source of embarrassment.
- Because of the occupation.
- No.
- Because what?
- Because of their friends.
- Friends?
- Because of Stephen Hawking.
Because of the Brits.
- That's about the occupation.
- No, it's not.
It's not about the occupation.
If the occupation ended tomorrow,
you would find the same hatred--
- You think Stephen Hawking
wouldn't go to Israel?
- Absolutely.
- He was there twice five years ago.
- I understand that.
He accepted the invitation two months ago.
What happened?
Did the Israelis start the occupation
in the last two months?
He got a lot of pressure in two months.
What we're seeing is
today, if you go to dinner
at a University dinner and you speak up
on behalf of Israel, favor of Israel,
it is an embarrassment.
It's not an embarrassment
because of what Israels do
it's because of that what Israel is.
And the DBS Movement is growing.
And the DBS Movement does not
talk about the occupation.
The occupation DBS talks about
is the occupation of '48,
the occupation of from
the ocean to the sea.
- It's definitely true
that there are a lot
of people who don't want Israel
to exist as a Jewish state
and that they have many important people
in the BDS Movement to take that view.
But if you don't believe
that their efforts
are being fueled by people's anger
at what happens in the West Bank and Gaza,
you're just not connected to reality.
This is the problem with
the Jewish community
We go to Israel all the
time and it's wonderful.
But what we don't go, on
birthright, our synagogue church,
we don't go to experience Palestinian life
in the West Bank.
As a result, we are
disproportionately ignorant.
It's actually the non-Jews
who go and see those things.
When you go and see those things,
I was there last week.
Believe me, there's an
Israeli flag on my kid's wall.
I love Israel.
It is deeply, deeply upsetting
and deeply angering to
see the way that people
are forced to live because they lack--
and it's that anger which is leading
to the BDS anti-Zionist
getting more and more support
and leading to some of those Jewish kids.
- But that's you.
But the people in the BDS movement
have never been to Israel.
They've never seen the West Bank.
There just being politically correct.
They're being lemmings who are being led
the way the ignoramus, Stephen Hawking,
who doesn't know anything
about the Middle East
was led by pressure by
his fellow academics.
That's what it's about
today, it's an embarrassment.
- Sir, your question.
- [Man] I'm very surprised
that the three of you
haven't mentioned anything
about the Israeli
Declaration of Independence.
It's the foundation of their government
just like Jefferson's
Declaration of Independence
is the foundation of ours.
And it could lead to another
way out of the problem.
It may not be able to make,
it may not want to make a second state.
The problem could be decided
inside of Israel by using the
Declaration of Independence.
- What about the declaration?
- [Man] Israel has a
Declaration of Independence.
- I understand that.
- [Man] It's the foundation
of their government
like ours is the foundation of ours.
- The problem is that that
Declaration of Independence
promises a Jewish state, sorry?
- Go ahead.
- A Jewish state that
offers complete equality
of social and political
rights to its inhabitants
irrespective of race, religion, and sex.
The only way in which you
can resolve that tension
between equal citizenship and also a state
that offers a refuge for the Jewish people
is within a two-state solution.
In the context of a one state solution,
it will not be a state that offers refuge
for the Jewish people.
I think it ultimately will
probably be civil war.
But the point is, you can live up
to Israel's Declaration of Independence
or at least get much closer
to it within the context
of a two-state solution.
Right now, Israel has been
violating those core principles
in its Declaration of
Independence for 45 years
by controlling millions of people who are,
by virtue of not being
Jewish, lack citizenship
and the right to vote and
live under military rule.
- And have refused to accept
the two-state solution
since 1938.
So, again, you don't blame just Israel
for the lack of a two-state solution.
- Sir?
- [Man] In the previous discussion,
Time was not made for
comments from the audience.
But something that
happened there, I think,
is illustrative of why there's
been so little progress
with peace process in recent years.
The discussion was billed as one about,
is it possible to find
a peace process in a two-state solution?
Halfway through the discussion,
which initially was
going in that direction,
Mr. Dershowitz said, "If you ask Israelis
"what are the three most
important things to them
"it's Iran, Iran, Iran."
- Halfway through?
I think it was the last 10 seconds.
- [Man] No, No, he changed the discussion
to nothing but Iran.
- 10 seconds before it
was over, be accurate.
- [Man] No, today it
was 10 seconds before.
So, it was nothing but Iran
for the rest of the evening.
- You know, you're just lying.
Iran came up
- Can I finish?
- at the last point of the last question.
- I think he means the last event.
- [Man] We're talking about last time.
- Oh, last time, I'm sorry.
- [Man] We couldn't talk last time.
- You're talking about last November?
These people weren't here.
- Plenty of them were.
- Sir, your point is?
- [Man] This mirrors what
Benjamin Netanyahu does.
Iran, Iran, Iran all the time,
existential threats, red lines,
and nobody gets a chance to talk to him
about the peace process as a result.
When they do he says, "No preconditions,"
and that's it.
And that is a good reason or part
of the reason why nothing's happened
for the last two, three years.
(audience applauds)
- I guess the point is
that we should ignore Iran.
I don't get it.
I mean, I don't get it.
If you're the prime minister of Israel,
your main responsibility
is to protect your citizens
against the threat of nuclear war.
And if I were the prime minister of Israel
I would be focusing on Iran 23 hours a day
and looking to make
peace in that 24th hour.
But I would keep my priorities straight.
The priority is external
destruction of Israel.
Israel's soul will take care of itself
as long as its body is kept intact.
The Jews tried to keep their soul alive
in the '20s and '30s.
They learned a very important lesson
they should've learned from the Psalms.
Which says (speaks Hebrew).
"God will give the Jewish
people o' strength,
"and only then will there be peace."
The only way Israel can make peace
is if its physically strong.
If it is stronger than all
the Arab armies combined.
If it can protect itself against
an Iranian nuclear threat,
then it will have the
ability to make peace.
I want peace in Israel but
I want Israel to survive
more than I want peace in Israel.
- [Man] Israel has a couple
of hundred nuclear weapons
and Iran may or may not
be trying to build one.
- I also think that Iran
is a major challenge
and I think Iran getting a nuclear weapon
would be a terrible thing.
Not only for Israel but
for the whole region.
But the message of the Gatekeeper,
if any of you have seen it,
which was interviews with six
former heads of the Shin Bet,
is precisely that
Israel's ethical character
and its physical security are intertwined.
This was the bet that
Israel's founders made
when they yoked Zionism to democracy.
That, ultimately, if Israel surrenders
its democratic character,
it will not be able
to survive physically
because in today's age
any non-democratic government
is living on borrowed time.
Any non-democratic government
has a huge legitimacy problem
in today's world.
That's why you can't distinguish so easily
Israel's democratic survival
and its physical survival.
- I don't disagree with that.
The worst-case scenario,
Israel is still among the top
five or 10% of the countries in the world
in terms of democratic value,
in terms of the judiciary,
in terms of the rule of law,
in terms of equality for
women, equality for gays,
Israel's soul is not
in grave turmoil today.
- Alan, Alan, Alan.
- It could improve.
It could get better.
Israel on the West Bank,
the worst-case scenario.
Israel on the West Bank is more democratic
than any Muslim or Arab
state in the world today.
There is more democracy on the West Bank,
more freedom of speech,
more freedom to criticize,
more freedom to get an education.
I think Israel on the
West Bank it's a three
or a four on a scale of 10.
- You need to spend more time there.
- I spend a lot of time on the West Bank.
- No, go to Shuhada
Street and see in Hebron
where Palestinians are
literally not allowed
to walk on the street even
if they live on that street.
And tell me that Israel's soul in Hebron
is doing well.
- You don't look at
one place in isolation.
(audience applauds)
You look at the entire context.
- Got five more minutes, go ahead.
- [Man] I think you both
pointed out very well
that's there's resistance
to the peace process
from the both sides.
Let's say nothing happens.
Where will we be 20 years from now?
- That's a version of a
question I tried to ask you.
How long can it go on before
your sense of crisis grows?
- Both Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert
have answered that question.
- With the word apartheid.
- With the word South Africa
and the word apartheid.
That Israel will be one state
which permanently has millions of people
who lack basic rights because they are not
of the right nationality,
ethnicity, religion,
whatever you want to call it.
And those people with the
backing of much of the world
will be involved in a process
of overturning the entire
existence of the state
and turning it into what they can call
a secular bi-national state in which,
I personally believe, will
be a bloody civil war.
That's exactly what I fear.
- Israel will never be a
bi-national secular state.
If it becomes a bi-national state,
it will become a bi-national Muslim state
because the Palestinians will
never allow a secular state.
If they do get a majority, they
will turn Israel Palestine.
They'll name it Palestine.
Or maybe they'll name it something else.
That will have a more
Muslim meaning to it.
- But it won't be a vote.
The Jews will have the guns.
- I understand but you're talking about
it being a secular bi-national state.
What makes you think it will be secular?
- I agree with you, by the way.
- I don't accept you hypothetical.
I think within 20 years,
we're gonna see substantial
progress toward peace
because I think the demographic
issues are impossible.
Israel will never
appropriately the West Bank,
notwithstanding Ehud Barak,
notwithstanding Ehud Olmert,
Israel will never be an
apartheid government.
It will always exist
under the rule of law.
There will always be
votes on the West Bank.
There will always be elections.
Will it be a perfectly democratic country?
No, absolutely not.
And that's why the Palestinians must sit
at the negotiating table.
When you want to change,
the burden is on you
to begin the negotiations
toward that change.
The unwillingness of the Palestinians
to come to the negotiating
table is, today,
the major barrier to
progress toward peace.
There is no reason why the Palestinians
shouldn't sit down and negotiate.
Remember that the Israelis
gave them a settlement freeze.
For nine months, the Palestinians,
with a settlement freeze, wouldn't come.
- There was more building on the West Bank
during the settlement freeze
than there had been in 2008.
- I understand that.
That's not a reason for not negotiating.
- The Palestinians negotiated
without a settlement freeze
with Ehud Olmert because he
was within the parameters
of '67 plus swaps.
If Netanyahu would enter those parameters
in which there would be a chance
of actually reaching a deal,
then the settlement freeze issue
would not be nearly as big an issue.
But when you're talking about negotiating
with a guy who's not within
your basic parameter--
- [Woman] Stop it, stop!
- Let me just say one more thing here.
I wrote an op-ed with you.
I support the Dershowitz plan.
The Dershowitz plan is that there
should be a settlement freeze in at least
part of the West Bank and
there should be negotiations
because, although I want the Palestinians
to go to the negotiating table,
I also understand that
there is something unfair
about them negotiating
over the size of the pie
when Israel keeps building and building
and taking more of the pie
over which they can negotiate.
That is a legitimate objection.
- Here's my final question to you.
The Israelis have had an election.
They voted for Netanyahu.
What would you do?
Would you undo the election?
How would you bring about these results?
Israel is a democracy.
It voted for who it voted for.
We don't get to vote in Israel.
I have a deal for you.
Next time there's an election,
you and I will go to Israel
and we'll urge people
to vote for the peace party.
And maybe we'll win.
But, in the meantime we're
dealing with a democracy.
And a democracy represents
the will of the people.
So, what would you do
to bring about peace?
Would you overrule the will of the people?
Would you impeach the prime minister?
How do you bring about your desired result
in a democracy?
- When your talking about Israeli policy
in the West Bank, Israel
is not a democracy
because the vast majority of people
who live in the West Bank do
not have the right to vote.
If they did, it would be a
radically different outcome.
- You're missing my point.
My point is within the Green
Line, Israel is a democracy.
They vote against your view and my view.
What do we do?
- We stand up as Americans
and say this is bad
for American national
security and we stand up
as Jews and say that all
our honor is on the line
in the question of how Jews use power.
That the Jewish ethical tradition forged
in powerlessness is
disgraced if we turn around
and turn against the very vision
that inspired the world when we--
- You're arguing and
Netanyahu agrees with that.
- If you lose and you
try to persuade them,
then what happens?
What do you do?
- The United States is Israel's
only important strategic
partner in the world.
If the United States president said that,
"The relationship with the United States
"is going to change if you do not support
"the '67 parameters,"
believe me, the Israeli
government would fall.
- Bush one said that, Baker said that.
There's been different
elections and different results
in different elections.
There's no question who
Barack Obama preferred
in the last election.
There's probably little doubt
who the Israelis preferred
in the last election.
But in democracies, people who
live in the countries vote.
All I'm saying to you, again,
and this is a continuation
of my common theme,
Peter, it's more complex
than you think it is.
In a democracy, it's just more
complex and more difficult.
There are no simple-minded solutions.
- I don't think Peter's
offering a simple-minded
solution to be fair here, Alan.
- If you don't believe
in Israeli democracy.
If you give weight to
what the people voted for
it's far more difficult than
we sitting at City College
telling the Israelis how to vote
and how to negotiate and how to deal
- You're the guy with the plan, Alan.
You're the guy with the plan, so hold on.
- My plan is a suggestion for
people to accept or reject.
- We have a right to decide
what we think is best
for the United States.
I believe that America will always support
Israel's security interest
and give Israel a security
technological advantage.
But we, as Americans and as Jews
do not have to fund and support
the settlement enterprise
which is destroying Israel's
democratic character.
We can have a president
who says that very loudly.
- The last point is that punctuality
is next to godliness.
It's eight o'clock,
thank you all very much.
- Thank you.
(audience applauds)
- [Peter] Good job.
