Hello.
For those of you
who don't know me,
I'm Alice Bach, the Hallinan
Professor of Catholic Studies,
and the Director of
the Hallinan Project.
Let me remind you before
I say anything else,
there's no eating or
drinking in this auditorium.
Oh, yeah, no smoking, no weed,
no nothing, but basically,
what they really care about
is no drinking, and no food.
I'm delighted to
welcome you today
to the Hallinan Project for
Peace and Social Justice
final lecture of 2008.
First of all, I want
to thank a few people
without whom the Hallinan
Project would be even more
rickety when we try
to bring together
people of different
viewpoints than it is.
One person who is truly
amazing is Bassam [? Quom-- ?]
hey babe-- who manages
to bring people together
who don't even know they
might have things in common
until after Bassam has brought
them all together, and said,
give it a try, go ahead, do it.
He is an outstanding person
and knows more about networking
than AT&T.
Then, I would also like to thank
my Associate Director Rebecca
Mason.
Rebecca is going to
Ramallah, in shallah,
around the middle of January.
We're very proud of her that
she will be on the ground aiding
in the work.
But we also eagerly await
and pray for her safe return.
She will be writing to us,
and we will spread the word
about what she's finding in
Ramallah and the refugee camps
around Ramallah.
Today is an auspicious
day for this lecture that
ends events-- to end our
series of events concerning
the Israel-Palestine
conflict and the occupation
of Palestine, which has
lasted for more than 40 years.
As our final speaker, we have
invited Norman Finkelstein,
known for his passionate
defense of Palestinian rights.
And today happens to be the
60th anniversary of the United
Nations General Assembly
passage of Resolution 194,
which officially recognizes
the right of return
for the Palestinian refugees who
were expelled and dispossessed
of their homes and their
land during Al-Nakba,
The Catastrophe, the name
given by the Palestinians
to the systematic
expulsion of their people
during the founding of the
state of Israel in 1948.
For many years
Norman Finkelstein
has been a vocal critic of
Israeli policies concerning
the treatment of Palestinians.
His earliest major writing was
the international best seller,
The Holocaust
Industry, in which he
wrote of an iconoclastic
interrogation
of the new anti-semitism.
In 2007, Raoul Hilberg,
most distinguished historian
on the Nazi Holocaust and member
of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences until his death
in late 2007-- in August
I believe-- said in reflection
on Professor Finkelstein's
seminal work, "When he published
this book, he was alone.
It takes an enormous
amount of academic courage
to speak the truth
when no one else is
out there to support him.
And so I think that given
this acuity of vision
and analytical
power, I would say
that his place in the entire
history of writing history
is assured.
And that those who in the
end are proven right triumph.
And he will be among those who
will have triumphed, all be it
so it seems at great cost.
In his work image and reality of
the Israel-Palestine conflict,
Finkelstein critically engages
the earlier influential studies
of Joan Peters, Benny
Morris, and Anita Shapira.
In this work, Finkelstein
proves himself
to be one of the most
radical and hard hitting
critics of the official
Zionist version
of the Arab-Israeli conflict
and the historians who support
and uphold that version.
As my students can all
tell you, the introduction
to the second edition
of Image and Reality
of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
provides the most succinct
overview available.
If you read this
introduction about six times
before the final exam, you will
succeed with flying colors.
Finally, and perhaps
most important
for our understanding of
the occupation of Palestine
in Gaza today,
Finkelstein compares
at the end of the new edition
of this book, Israeli policy
in the occupied
territories against South
African apartheid.
It is not easy being
Norman Finkelstein.
He was denied tenure
at DePaul University,
because of a vicious
campaign set up
by those who were afraid of
his words and his speaking
truth to power.
In May 2008, Doctor
Finkelstein was
detained when he arrived at
Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv,
and interrogated by the Shin
Bet for 24 hours, deported,
and banned from entering
Israel for 10 years."
And this is what
Doctor Finkelstein
said to an Israeli
newspaper following
his deportation to Amsterdam.
"I've always supported
a two state solution
based on the 1967 borders.
I'm not an enemy of Israel.
I did my best to
provide absolutely
candid and comprehensive
answers to all the questions put
to me."
Doctor Finkelstein
has just completed
a new book entitled
A Farewell to Israel:
The Coming Breakup of
American Zionism, which will
be published next year, 2009.
There's another book of
Doctor Finkelstein's that I
would like to point out to you,
a lesser known book published
by the University of
Minnesota in 1996.
And I'd like to single
it out, because it
is an amazing connection
of personal experience,
historical data, and
political analysis,
very hard to coalesce
all of those things.
Finkelstein's parents were
survivors of the Nazi holo--
death camps.
And in this book, he
focuses on the daily lives
of the Palestinians,
to whom he had
become very close during his
time spent in the Middle East.
And he focuses upon two very
different Palestinian families,
one from the Christian
Palestinian village
of Beit Sahour
outside of Bethlehem,
the other from the
Fawwar refugee camp
outside of the Hebron.
And throughout this
book, for those
who have been into those areas
and those who have not yet
seen them, Finkelstein provides
unique insight into the names
and the faces
beyond the conflict,
and the human toll of that
so-called negotiated peace.
And since we don't hear very
much in the United States
about the people's lives.
Even though this
book is 12 years old,
it will open a lot
of doors to you
in hearing the words from
the souls of the people who
live under occupation.
Norman Finkelstein
received his doctorate
1988 from the
Department of Politics
at Princeton University.
For many years he has
taught political theory
in the Israel-Palestine
conflict.
He's currently an
independent scholar who
lives in Brooklyn, New York.
He's a tireless crusader
activist for the rights
of Palestinians and Israelis
in the land that stretches from
the Jordan to the
Mediterranean Sea,
a land that maybe
divided politically,
but cannot be
divided physically.
I am proud and honored to
introduce Doctor Norman
Finkelstein.
[APPLAUSE]
We have to wait three seconds.
Can you hear me in the back?
Raise your hand if you hear me.
OK, we're set.
Can you speak louder or more
directly into the microphone?
Well, I'm not using
this microphone.
I'm using the hand
micro-- the portable one.
OK.
I think, actually,
that might be too loud.
No?
OK.
Well, thank you for inviting me.
And that was a very
generous introduction.
I would almost feel sorry for
the person who's described,
but alas it's me.
And it's not been a bad life.
In fact, I think it's
been a wonderful life.
I have no complaints that
I can think of at any rate.
It happens that yesterday
is the 60th anniversary
of the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights.
And I thought that that should
be the theme for this evening's
talk.
The main human rights challenge
now facing the Palestinians
is in the Gaza Strip.
And so I'll, at least at
the beginning of my remarks,
focus on what's going on there.
Most of you know that about
1.5 million Palestinians
have been under a relentless
and brutal siege for quite
long time now.
It's hard to date exactly when
the siege began, but certainly
in the last couple of years,
it's escalated significantly,
and the deprivations have been
significantly exacerbated.
The head of the UNWRA,
United Nations Relief
and Works Agency, which
is the main United Nations
agency working in
the refugee camps,
marked the 60th anniversary
of Universal Declaration
with a statement which was
reprinted in the British
Guardian.
And I'll just
briefly excerpt it.
Her name is Karen Abuzayd.
And she wrote, "As we
approach the 60th anniversary
of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights,
the steadily rising
death toll in Gaza
highlights the painful
gap between its-- meaning
the declaration's
peaceful rhetoric--
and the desperate reality
for the Palestinian people."
And then, she goes on to quote
what distinguished human rights
personalities have to say about
what's going on now in Gaza.
So she says, "The former high
commissioner for human rights,
Mary Robinson, has
said that, 'In Gaza,
nothing short of a civilization
is being destroyed.' Desmond
Tutu, the South African Nobel
Laureate for Peace has called
what's going on in Gaza 'an
abomination.' The humanitarian
coordinator for the Occupied
Palestinian Territory,
Maxwell Gaylord said that
in Gaza there was a massive
assault on human rights.
And most recently, the European
Commission Louis Michel
described the blockade of
Gaza as 'a form of collective
punishment against
Palestinian civilians,
which is a violation of
international humanitarian
law.'"
And then, she goes on to look
at the most salient aspect,
the most outstanding aspect of
the human rights violations,
namely the casualty figures.
Fatality figures for the
occupied Palestinian territory
must surely make us
question our commitment
to upholding the right to life,
the most basic of human rights.
More than 500 Palestinians,
73 of them children,
have been killed this year alone
as a result of the conflict.
11 Israelis have lost
their lives this year.
So the kill ratio of this
year is about 50 to 1,
50 Palestinians killed
for each Israeli killed.
To my knowledge, I think one
Israeli child has been injured,
none killed.
I could be mistaken.
I think it's one has only
been injured, not killed.
73 Palestinian children have
been killed in the past year.
Well, those are the raw figures.
And some may say, yes, what's
happening there is awful.
What's happening there
is an abomination.
But isn't it true that
Hamas, the Islamic movement,
is responsible-- the
cause of the violence?
It's a little
difficult now to go
through the whole record of
cause and effect in the Gaza,
and its relations with Israel.
But we do have at least for the
most recent period, a statement
by these Special
Rapporteur of the UN,
Special Rapporteur
in Palestine, namely
the statement by Richard
Falk which he issued
two days ago on December 9.
And he refers specifically to
the most recent turn of events.
And he says as
follows, "It should
be noted that the situation
worsened in recent days
due to the breakdown of a
truce between Hamas and Israel
that had been observed for
several months by both sides.
The truce was
maintained by Hamas
despite the failure of Israel
to fulfill its obligation
under the agreement to
improve the living conditions
of the people of Gaza.
The recent upsurge
of violence occurred
after an Israeli
incursion-- incidentally
the incursion occurred purposely
on November 4, election day,
on the assumption that people's
attentions would be riveted
elsewhere in the US-- the
recent upsurge of violence
occurred after an
Israeli incursion that
killed several alleged
Palestinian militants
within Gaza."
That's been the picture for
the past couple of years.
Again, time doesn't allow me
to look at cause and effect.
But each time Hamas has
introduced or agreed
to a truce, at some point
Israel has attempted
to sabotage the truce
and to instigate Hamas
into retaliating.
Now a reasonable question
obviously would be,
why does Israel do that?
Why is it so dead
intent on sabotaging
these truces, these temporary
truces, if one would assume
they're interested
in peace and they're
interested in preventing
rocket attacks
on their southern cities
of Sderot and elsewhere?
And in fact, just in the
past couple of days--
this is actually yesterday--
the Foreign Minister of Israel,
Tzipi Livni, she gave a
very clear explanation
of why they do what they
do, why they keep sabotaging
these truces, and why they
keep trying to instigate Hamas
into retaliating.
She said that, when
Israel accepted the truce,
it wanted to create a
temporary period of calm.
And she added that, an extended
truce or long-term calm--
an extended truce
or a long-term calm
harms the Israeli
strategic goal,
empowers Hamas, and
gives the impression
that Israel recognizes
the movement.
And that is in fact
an accurate statement
of the problem for Israel.
Israel is worried.
Israel only wants
a temporary truce.
It does not want
an extended truce,
because it's a fearful
that it may in some way
legitimize Hamas.
That is to say,
people will begin
to say-- international
pressure will begin to build--
and people will
say, well, it seems
that Hamas can be trusted.
You can negotiate
a truce with them.
They keep to the truce,
and therefore, we
have what seems to be the basic
precondition for negotiations.
And that's exactly what Israel
fears, that pressure will
be built. Pressure
will be brought
to bear on it to
negotiate a settlement.
It's what Israeli
political scientist--
he's since passed away,
his name is Avner Yaniv--
he called the threat of the
Palestinian peace offensive.
That's his expression.
The fear that the Palestinians
were becoming too moderate, too
reasonable, and
therefore Israel will not
have a pretext or
an alibi, an excuse,
for not negotiating with them.
So you have to keep
instigating violence in order
to show the
international community
that these people can't
be negotiated with,
and you can't reach a
settlement with them.
The main problem
for Israel, as it's
been for probably now
three or more decades,
the main problem for Israel
has been that Palestinians
have been too reasonable.
They've been too moderate.
They've been too willing
to negotiate a settlement.
And that's not a rhetorical
device on my part.
It's not simply a
propagandistic declaration,
but has an ample
documentary record
to support this statement.
In fact, the record is
remarkably unambiguous.
The record is remarkably
uncontroversial.
And this is that
record which I would
like to look at right now.
It's the foundation of that
dreaded Palestinian peace
offensive, which as the
foreign minister put,
always conflicts with
Israel's strategic goal.
Well, what does the
record look like?
Since we began with the
Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, which was
ratified on December 10
by the United Nations
General Assembly,
the obvious place to
begin in examining
the record, the
obvious place to begin
is the United Nations
General Assembly.
And as it happens, the UN
General Assembly each year
votes on a resolution
entitled Peaceful Settlement
of the Question of Palestine.
And coincidentally,
that resolution
was just deliberated on and
voted on about a week ago.
It's every year on November 29.
And I checked the
resolution for this year.
Each year the text
is roughly the same.
It's a long resolution
now because it's
been added onto over
a period of 20 years,
but the essence is
fairly straightforward.
I'll read you the
crucial excerpts.
"Affirming the principle
of the inadmissibility
of the acquisition
of territory by war.
Reaffirming the illegality
of the Israeli settlements
in the Palestinian territory
occupied since 1967
including East Jerusalem.
Reiterating it's--
meaning the UNs demand--
for the complete cessation
of all Israeli settlement
activities in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory.
Reaffirming its
commitment in accordance
with international law
to the two state solution
of Israel and
Palestine, living side
by side in peace and security,
within recognized borders
based on the pre-June
1967 borders.
The withdrawal of Israel from
the Palestinian territory
occupied since 1967,
including East Jerusalem.
And finally, the need
for justly resolving
the problem of the Palestinian
refugees in conformity
with its resolution 194 of--
as Professor Bach said-- 11
December 1948" namely
60 years today.
That's the resolution.
And each year, naturally,
there is a vote on it.
The vote this past year was
164 to 7, with 3 abstentions.
The whole world on one side, 164
countries, and the other side
voting against-- Israel, the
United States, Australia,
the Marshall Islands,
Micronesia, Nauru and Palau.
For those of you who don't
know, Nauru and Palau,
they're South Sea atolls.
Their combined
populations can fill
the empty seats in this
room, and there would still
be room left over.
Actually, we add on the
populations of Micronesia
and Marshall Islands, we'd still
have a few seats left over.
So it's basically the
United States and Israel.
The vote this year is
representative of the vote
for the past 20 years.
Time doesn't allow me to
go through all the votes.
I'll go back as far as 1989,
the same basic resolution
as everyone in this
room knows, calling
for a two state settlement
on the June 1967 border,
a full Israeli withdrawal from
the West Bank, Gaza, and East
Jerusalem, and a just resolution
of the refugee question
based on the right of
return and compensation.
If you take 1989, the vote
was 153 to 2-- 153 to 3-- 155
to 3, excuse me.
It was the whole
world on one side.
And other side was the United
States, Israel, and the island
state of the Dominica.
If you move up to more recent
years, the vote in 1997
was 155 to 2, 2002, 160 to 4,
2003, 160 to 6, 2004, 161 to 7,
2007, 161 to 7.
And as I said earlier, this
year the vote was 164 to 7.
Obviously, these are
not very close votes.
In fact, they are remarkable
in the consensus they draw on.
And they are remarkable
in how lopsided
and how overwhelming they were.
Well, some people may
wish to make the argument
that it's the General Assembly.
It's a political body.
And therefore almost
by definition,
the votes are politicized.
There's an argument,
obviously, that
can be made on those grounds.
But in my opinion
at any rate, it's
not a particularly
credible argument,
because these are
votes that have
been consistent over a
sustained period of time.
And they're also overwhelming,
regardless of which governments
have been in power in the
various states that have voted
on this resolution,
whether it's a left wing
government, a right
wing government,
or centrist government.
Regardless of the governments
that have been in power,
the vote has been
very consistent.
And it's been consistent for a
fairly obvious reason, namely
the principles,
the principals that
form the basis of
this resolution
are remarkably uncontroversial
under international law.
They're grounded in tenets
of international law,
and or grounded in the
United Nations charter.
And that brings me
to the second venue.
As I said, some
people would want
to make the argument that
we can't trust the General
Assembly, because it's
a politicized body.
Well, then the next
obvious place to look,
instead of looking at the most
representative political body
in the world, let's turn
to the most respected body
in the world, namely the
International Court of Justice,
the supreme legal body
in the world today.
And as it happens in 2004, the
International Court of Justice
was asked by the
General Assembly
to render what's called in
the technical literature
an advisory opinion on
the wall that Israel has
been building in the West Bank.
And in order for the
International Court
to render an advisory opinion
on the legality of the wall,
as it happened,
they have to first
to render an
authoritative opinion
on the fundamental
legal questions
bearing on the
Israel-Palestine question,
namely those issues
which we're told
are so controversial, so
intricate, so complex,
that they have to be
deferred to the final stages
of negotiations.
So most of you have
heard of this phenomenon
called the peace process.
And then, a subdivision
of this peace process
is this thing called
the final status issues.
How many people have heard
of the final status issues?
Who here is clever enough that
he or she can name all four?
Now, yesterday, I
was at Sarah Lawrence
and there was a clever
young man who named three.
So you have your
challenge for you.
Who can name four?
Technically, there are
five, but one has sort of
been cast aside.
Who can name the four?
Anyone?
There must be somebody
courageous enough
to make a fool of
him or herself,
to humiliate and
embarrass him or herself,
to demean and degrade--?
OK.
Go ahead.
I'll give it a shot.
I'll say refugees, East
Jerusalem, the settlements.
Thank you.
And I was thinking the final
resolution of the minor border.
Very good.
That was a good showing.
[APPLAUSE]
Let it not be said to
students at Case Western
are complete imbeciles, no.
That was very good.
The four main
final status issues
are borders, settlements,
Jerusalem, and the refugees.
It used to be the fifth
main issue was water.
But water has now been
pretty much subsumed
under the question of borders.
And those are the
issues which we're
told are so complicated
that we can't even
begin to discuss them until
there are what's sometimes
called in this lexicon,
confidence building
measures between both sides.
Well, the International
Court of Justice, the highest
judicial body in
the world, they have
to address three of four of
those final status issues.
Why?
Well, first of all Israel
is building this wall well
inside the West Bank.
It will ultimately appropriate
about 12% of the West Bank.
And so the question
obviously arises, to whom
does the West Bank belong?
If it were true that the West
Bank were disputed territory--
were it true-- then obviously
the legal status of the wall
would also be disputed.
Similarly, the wall takes
this circuitous route,
or as the International
Court of Justice put it,
the wall takes a
sinuous route-- that
means a winding
route like a snake--
takes a sinuous route that
incorporates about 60%
of the settlements and
80% of the settlers.
Now, were it true that the legal
status of their settlements
were disputed, then
once again obviously,
the legal status of the wall
would be open to dispute.
And finally, the wall cuts
right through East Jerusalem,
basically in such
a way as to put
the Arabs on one side and
Jerusalem on the other side.
And the question
again arises, what's
the legal status of Jerusalem?
Were it true that Jerusalem was
disputed territory, then again,
the legal status of the wall
would be open to dispute.
And so before the court was
able to render its opinion
on the legal status
of the wall, it
had to render an opinion on
all these final status issues.
What did it find?
Number one, the International
Court of Justice
stated under international
law, in particular Article 2
of the United Nations Charter,
it's inadmissible for countries
to acquire territory by war.
Israel acquired the
West Bank and Gaza
in the course of the
June 1967 war, ergo,
it has no legal title to
the West Bank and Gaza.
Those are-- and the
International Court
is very clear-- those
are Occupied Palestinian
Territories-- uppercase O,
uppercase P, upper case T.
And you'll find in many
human rights supports now,
they refer to OPT, Occupied
Palestinian Territories,
using the nomenclature of
the International Court.
Israel has no legal
title to one part
of one inch on the
West Bank or Gaza.
Those are not
disputed territories,
says the highest judicial
body in the world.
Those are Occupied
Palestinian Territories.
Number two, the question
of Jerusalem, well,
how did Israel acquire
East Jerusalem?
It acquired East Jerusalem in
the course of the June 1967
war, but under
international law it's
inadmissible to acquire
a territory by war.
Ergo, Israel has
no title whatsoever
to any of East Jerusalem.
It's Occupied
Palestinian Territory.
The court is a very
emphatic on that point.
It refers to the West Bank comma
including East Jerusalem comma
and the Gaza as Occupied
Palestinian Territory,
so as not to leave any ambiguity
about the legal status of East
Jerusalem.
Number three, what's
the legal status
of the settlers
in the settlements
in the occupied territories,
the 480,000 Jewish settlers now
inhabiting the Occupied
Palestinian Territory,
or residing in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory?
Again, the court is very clear.
Article 49 of the Fourth
Geneva Convention states,
it's inadmissible for
an occupying power
to transfer its population
to occupied territory.
Therefore under
international law,
all 480,000 settlers
are illegally
residing in Occupied
Palestinian Territory.
That's only half
the story, however.
The other half of the
story is what the vote was.
Now remember, bear
in mind, we're
told these are
controversial issues.
We're told that these
are complicated issues.
We're told that they're
so controversial and so
complicated, that
they have to be
deferred to the last
stage of negotiations.
You would think,
one would infer,
that the vote would be close.
But the vote was 14 to 1.
It was not a close vote.
It wasn't a close vote
for a simple reason,
because the issues on which
they were deliberating
are the most
fundamental principles
of international law--
the inadmissibility
of acquiring territory by war,
the illegality of settling
your population in
occupied territory.
The vote was 14 to 1.
The one negative vote was cast
by the American Judge Thomas
Buergenthal.
But even Judge Buergenthal
was very careful in how
he qualified his negative vote.
In the nomenclature of the
International Court of Justice,
you can deliver a
dissent, a declaration,
you can join the
majority, or you
could agree with the majority
and write a separate opinion.
Judge Buergenthal chose
not to write a dissent.
He instead chose to write
what he called a declaration.
And in his declaration,
he began by saying,
I agree with much in
the majority opinion.
And then, he concluded
his declaration
by stating, on the
fundamental question,
namely the question
of the settlements,
Judge Buergenthal said, I
agree with the majority.
There can't be any question
but that under Article 49
of the Fourth Geneva
Convention the settlements
are illegal under
international law.
And so what you find?
On these allegedly complicated
questions, the vote is 14 to 1
on all the issues.
And on the core issue,
namely the question
of those settlements,
the vote is 15 to 0.
Now, it's very difficult
to make an argument
that the court also is
stacked against Israel.
The British Judge Rosalyn
Higgins, she's Jewish by birth.
She married an Irishman.
And her legal articles
on the conflict
tend to be quite pro-Israel.
In fact, I think she
goes over the line.
But she voted with the majority.
Why did she vote
with the majority?
Because these are
not complicated
questions under
international law.
Thomas Buergenthal, he's
a Nazi Holocaust survivor.
He's the real McCoy.
But on the fundamental
question of the settlements,
he had to vote
with the majority.
All this talk we hear
in the United States
about these being complicated
questions, controversial,
the West Bank being
disputed territory,
Jerusalem being Israel's
eternal and undivided capital,
have no bearing whatsoever
on the actual documentary
record, the political
record, as registered
in the General Assembly,
and the legal record,
as registered in the
International Court of Justice.
Now, it's true that
the International Court
didn't rule on the refugee
question for the simple reason
that it had no bearing on
the question of the wall.
But here we have organizations
of equal stature,
which have registered opinions.
So if I were to ask
somebody in the audience
arbitrarily, if I were
ask you-- one, two, you--
if I were to ask you what's
the most respected human rights
organization the world,
you would respond?
UNWRA
Well, I'm talking about
a global organization.
The most respected human rights
organization the world is?
Yeah, most people would
say Amnesty International.
And then, after
Amnesty, most people
would say, Human Rights Watch.
Yeah, those are the
two most respected.
I didn't plant those
answers in the audience.
Most people would I think--
familiar with the field--
would cite them immediately.
And it happens that both Amnesty
International and Human Rights
Watch, the two most
respected and very
far from radical-- in fact,
Human Rights Watch you can say
is quite conservative-- the
two most respected human rights
organizations in the
world did render judgments
in the question of, or did
render position papers,
on the questions
of the refugees.
So in 2001, Human
Rights Watch stated,
"We urge Israel to
recognize the right
to return for those Palestinians
and their descendants who
fled from territory that is
now within the state of Israel
and who have maintained
appropriate links
with that territory."
Then, Amnesty International
a few months later issued
its own statement which read,
"We call for Palestinians
who fled or were expelled from
Israel, the West Bank, or Gaza
Strip, along with those
of their descendants
would maintain genuine
links with the area,
to be able to exercise
their right to return."
As you can see,
even though these
are separate organizations,
autonomous organizations,
and very independent
organizations,
the language is
almost identical.
Both contain the
phrase right to return.
And the reason the language
is almost identical,
the reason why both use the
language right to return
is once again, because
these are basic principles
of international
law, as it happens,
first enunciated in the
Universal Declaration
of Human Rights.
By coincidence, the declaration
was passed in December 10,
and their first practical
application of the Universal
Declaration was that UN
Resolution 194, namely
the resolution in
December 11 '48,
ratifying the Palestinian
right to return.
It's not something that
dropped from the sky.
They were simply
reiterating the principal
which was first inscribed in the
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Well, that's a survey of
the global organizations.
Some of you say, well, but what
about those Arab organizations.
Just as a mention
before I get to them,
I mentioned to you earlier that
the vote this year in the UN
General Assembly was 164 to
7, in favor of that two state
settlement June '67
border and so forth.
I have the list here.
If there were an overhead
projector, I would show it.
Among the countries which
signed on were Iran and Iraq.
The perfidious Iranians,
the anti-Semites
who want to comment
a Holocaust, when
it came to the
General Assembly vote,
they join the
whole of humankind,
apart in the United States,
Israel, Nauru, Palau,
and so forth.
What about the more
local initiatives?
Well, there is an Arab League.
And in March 2002,
the Arab League
put forth a two
state settlement of
the Israel-Palestine conflict,
exactly the same terms
as the General Assembly.
Except remarkably
enough, the Arab League
went one step beyond
the General Assembly.
Because under
international law, you're
formally required to
recognize under Article 2,
the right of any member
state to live free
from threats or use of force.
That's the statement.
But the Arab League
went further.
It said if Israel agrees to
these terms for resolving
the conflict, we will not
only recognize Israel,
Arab League said, we
will normalize relations
with Israel.
We'll have economic
relations with Israel.
We'll have trade
relations with Israel.
We'll have tourism
relations with Israel.
They went beyond the
international consensus,
beyond what they
are legally bound
to do under international law.
What was the vote
in the Arab League?
Once again, the
vote was unanimous.
Every member of the Arab
League voted for the two state
settlement on the
June '67 border,
and a just resolution
of the refugee question.
The Arab League then kept
reiterating it's offer up to
and including last year, 2008.
Well, that then just leaves
the main protagonists
in the conflict apart from
Israel whose position has been
clearly stated, namely
rejecting all these terms
for resolving the conflict.
The Palestinian
Authority has been
on record supporting the
two state settlement now
since the mid 1970s.
And in more recent
years, you can
say in the last year,
or last year and a half,
Hamas as well has come on board.
Of course, this is a
disaster for Israel.
It's that dreaded
Palestinian peace offensive.
With Hamas now on board, how
do you explain your refusal
to settle the conflict?
And so whenever Hamas appears
to becoming too legitimate,
and whenever it appears as
if the pressure is going
to build on Israel to finally
resolve the conflict in terms
of international law, in terms
of the opinion of enlightened
humankind, Israel does what
it can to break the truces,
to instigate violence, and
to create a new pretext
and excuse to avoid a negotiate
and diplomatic settlement
of the conflict.
In my view, our main challenge
now-- the main challenge
is to make known, to publicize,
what the actual record shows,
because so many people are
so completely ignorant of
or confused by the record.
People recognize
there's a problem there,
and they recognize,
many do, that Israel's
committing significant human
rights violations and crimes
in the occupied territories.
But there still
remains this perception
that the conflict
is unresolvable.
And it's unresolvable
either because
of Palestinian
terrorism, because
of a clash of
civilizations, because
of a clash of religions,
because of ancient enmity,
and so forth.
But in fact, the only reason
the conflict is unresolvable,
it's because the United
States and Israel refused
to resolve the conflict.
That's the obstacle.
And our job is to show,
the conflict is resolvable
and what the
Palestinians are asking
is not the stars, the
moon, and the sky.
They're asking for their
minimum, basic, uncontroversial
rights under
international law, which
have been repeatedly
certified in all
the main political, and
legal, and human rights
bodies in the world.
And here I have to say, at
any rate in my own opinion,
we've been those who
are trying to achieve
a just and lasting peace.
We've been severely delinquent
in our responsibilities.
And there's a lot that we
can learn from the history
of the Zionist movement.
Because the Zionist
movement understood that
in order to achieve
its goal, you
have to win over public opinion.
You have to reach the people.
And the way you win
over public opinion,
the way you reach the
people, is by holding up
high your certificates
of legitimacy.
You show public opinion
that what you're requesting,
what you want, what you
desire, what you aspire to,
is legitimate.
And that's what the
Zionist movement did.
So 90 years ago this obscure
foreign minister of England
named Arthur Balfour
issued a declaration.
It was one sentence.
It wasn't a short sentence.
There were many subclauses,
but nonetheless, it
was one sentence.
But if I were to ask the people
in this room, how many of you
have heard of the Balfour
Declaration, raise your hand.
And if you look around,
we could say nearly 100%,
which is an impressive showing.
In 1947, the United
Nations General Assembly
issued in November '47 it's
famous partition resolution
allowing for the
creation of an Arab
and a Jewish state in Palestine.
And I were to ask you, how
many of you in this room
have heard of the
partition resolution,
how many hands would go up?
Let's see.
Basically the same, nearly 100%.
Now, you might ask yourself
how did that come to pass?
A one sentence statement by
a obscure foreign minister
nearly a century
ago, and the middle
of Cleveland, Ohio, nearly 100%
of the people have heard of it?
Or a General Assembly
resolution, one of thousands,
and in the middle of
Ohio, 60 years later,
nearly everyone in the
room has heard of it.
Well, the reason
you have heard of it
is because the Zionist
movement did its homework.
And it did its footwork.
It made sure you heard of it.
Because exactly as Abba Eben
said, Israel's most famous
foreign minister, he said that
referring to the partition
resolution, he said it was
Israel's birth certificate.
And he was exactly right.
Because the partition
resolution ascertained
that the state of Israel
is not a bastard child.
It's the legitimate offspring
of the international community.
It was a certificate
of legitimacy.
It said to the
world, what we want,
we are legitimately entitled to.
How do we know?
Because the birth
certificate was
issued by the highest
political body in the world,
the United Nations
General Assembly.
That's the way to win
over public opinion.
But then now, let's
look at our side.
This is a reasonably
informed audience.
If I were to ask
you, how many of you
know that every year, every
year for the past 20 years
and more, the United
Nations General Assembly
issues yet another
birth certificate
for the state of Palestine,
how many of you know that?
Look around the room.
It's not an impressive showing.
If I were to ask
you, how many of you
know that in 2004, the
International Court of Justice
issued an opinion in which all
of Israel's official positions,
all of Israel's
official positions,
were resoundingly rejected,
how many of you know that?
Look around the room.
What?
One of your speeches
is on the internet.
That's how I know.
That's the problem.
That, I think, is the problem.
In fact, the partition
resolution, as some of you
know, just barely passed
in 1947, 33-13-10, 33
for, 13 against, 10 abstentions.
And they got the 33 votes,
basically the Zionist movement,
through bribes and arm twisting.
The General Assembly
vote the past 20 years
has not been a bare 2/3.
It's been the whole world.
The body is much
more representative.
In '47, it was 60 countries.
Now, the UN General
Assembly is 192.
It's a much more
representative body.
And the vote is not close.
It's overwhelming.
And anyone has to agree that
a ruling by the International
Court of Justice carries a lot
more moral and legal weight
then a statement by the
foreign minister of England
at the turn of the
century in 1917.
So the certificates
of legitimacy
for the Palestinian rights
to self determination
and statehood are much
greater than the certificates
of legitimacy of the
Zionist movement.
But nobody knows.
That I think is
the main problem.
And I want to just leave off,
because the time is limited,
to addressing several
other questions briefly.
I spoke this afternoon
with Professor Bach
and several others.
And they gave me some
sense of the issues
I should be addressing.
So I want to just briefly
go through them quickly.
In my view, it's not possible
to win this case, which
happens to be a very
strong case, in fact
it's an uncontroversial case.
But you can't win
the case if you
try to defy international
public opinion,
if you try to defy
the political opinion
as registered in the
General Assembly,
if you try to defy the
opinion of the International
Court of Justice.
That is to say, these
occasional cause
calls for eliminating
the Zionist entity
or embracing a one
state solution, which
has exactly zero support in
the international community.
Those kinds of slogans,
those kinds of demands,
they can't possibly succeed in
achieving a just and lasting
peace within our lifetime.
Now, some of you may say,
well, that's the problem.
The problem is that
international community
has fallen behind
the times, that we
have to now aim towards, strive
towards, aspire to a one state
settlement.
In my view, if you
look at the record,
it's very difficult to change
international public opinion.
It's a very slow and long march.
All of international law, as the
lawyers in this room will know,
it's always built on precedent.
You have to find some
antecedent to rest your case on.
And so for example,
in November 1988,
when the then chairman of
the Palestine Liberation
Organization,
Yasser Arafat, when
he declared a state in
Algiers in November '88,
he was very careful in
making his declaration
or founding it on the
partition resolution.
He said the partition resolution
called for two states.
Where is the Palestinian state?
He looked for a precedent.
And the same thing if you're
following the latest remarks
by the current General
Assembly President d'Escoto
Brockmann from Nicaragua.
Yes, he's been very aggressive
in his denunciations
of Israeli policy, but
he's always very careful
to couch his denunciations
in precedent, saying,
the 1947 resolution
called for two states.
And we have some
unfinished business here.
There's one state
that's yet to be born.
And so if you want to
argue for one state,
you have to be honest.
Honest enough to tell
the Palestinians who
are languishing under a
brutal and inhuman occupation,
that probably for this and
several more generations,
they will have to continue
to endure that occupation.
Because it's at least
several generations that
will be required,
before we can change
international public opinion
and change the consensus
for resolving the conflict.
And I'll leave you my own
view on how to press ahead.
I was recently, beginning
in August of this year,
I began reading in a fairly
conscientious way Gandhi.
He's an interesting fellow.
As human beings go, he's
very inspiring, very decent.
When Ghandi went to
speak, he did not
charge $40,000 speaking fees.
Gandhi was very careful
about the people's money.
I mean so careful that
it would be breathtaking
for anyone who reads him.
I was reading the
other day some--
I'm going through his collected
works now, which is a chore.
It's 100 volumes.
And somebody asked him to
purchase a watch, W-A-T-C-H.
And Gandhi replies, why
do you need a watch?
It's obvious when it's morning.
It's obvious when
it's afternoon.
And it's obvious
when it's night.
What more do you need?
I'm not sure how good he was
about keeping appointments,
but--
And he also could be kind
of cruel, I have to say.
I know it's a strange thing
to say about the Mahatma.
But in his later years, I think
he got a little bit crabby.
Somebody would write a letter
to him saying, Mahatma,
my daughter just got married.
We're going to have a wedding.
And he replies, weddings,
life, death, it's all the same.
Yes, and then somebody
wrote, my son died.
And he said, well, birth,
death, it's the cycle.
I don't know.
As young people used to
say, that's very cold.
But he's very inspiring to read.
And his movement to try to
free first the South African--
Indians in South Africa
from their bondage,
and then to free the Indians
from the British occupation,
he called his
movement satyagraha.
And I always liked
the translation.
There was a whole debate
about what to call it,
and Gandhi never liked the term
passive civil disobedience.
Because he thought what he was
involved in was very active.
It wasn't passive at all.
And so he rejected that term.
And finally somebody recommended
he call it satyagraha.
And satyagraha is translated
as hold on to the truth.
And I think, if I were to
choose a motto for the movement
we're involved in, and
also for decent movements
generally, I think the principal
we should be satyagraha, hold
onto the truth.
And that's our challenge,
to hold on to the truth
that what Israel has done to
the Palestinians is wrong,
to hold onto the truth of
Israel's refusal backed
by the US to respect
international law
and the considered
opinion of humankind
is the sole obstacle, the
one and only obstacle,
to ending the suffering
of the Palestinian people.
And as we hold on
to the truth, I
think we should also try
to bear in mind the wisdom
of the African American
spiritual, the one that
says to keep our eyes on
the prize and hold on.
Keep our eyes on the
prize and hold on.
And what does that mean?
How many people
know that spiritual?
There are some older
people in here.
I think it's a great song.
Unfortunately, one of the
people who sang it best just
passed away last week, Odetta.
How many people have
heard her sing it?
Yeah, she was good.
She was very good.
And she may be one of the
first persons I heard sing it.
What was it originally before
keep your eyes on the prize?
Who knows?
Keep your hand on the plow.
Keep your hand on
the plow, yeah.
But it changed to keep
your eyes on the prize.
And anyone have a good enough
voice for those young people
who haven't heard it?
Good, let's hear it.
Eyes on the prize,
or hand on the plow?
Keep your eyes--
just the chorus.
Keep your-- go ahead.
[SINGING] Keep your eyes on
the prize, hold on, hold on.
Hold on, hold on.
Keep your eyes on
the prize, hold on.
You have a great voice.
[APPLAUSE]
I regret not being on
the picket line with her.
But I'll tell you
something, you wouldn't
regret not being on the
picket line with me,
if you heard how I sang it.
That was beautiful.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
And we should remember
what the prize is.
The prize is not a
theoretical [INAUDIBLE].
It's not to be
intellectually provocative.
It's not holier than
thou, radical posturing.
The prize is much more
humdrum, prosaic by comparison.
The prize is freeing
the Palestinian people
from their bondage.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Remember what it's about.
And then, to hold
on-- and hold on
means being ready for sacrifice
and for the long haul.
Keep your eyes on the
prize and hold on.
A little sacrifice,
a long battle,
we should always bear in
mind for almost everyone
this audience, unless you're a
member of a targeted minority,
you live in a very free society.
We're pretty much able
to say what we want.
The consequences are
trivial as compared
to elsewhere in the world.
I wasn't happy when
I was denied tenure,
and I have my
bouts of self-pity.
And that's why I have friends
to chew their ears off.
But a moment's objectivity--
I have a very good friend
who's one of the greatest
people in the world.
Most of you won't know him,
because he's not here anymore.
He's elsewhere in the
world, Allan Nairn.
He was a great investigative
reporter on Guatemala,
on East Timor, and elsewhere.
And during my tenure battle he
was a source of both solace,
and more importantly, guidance.
And he said to me at some
point, you know Norman,
let's be honest.
It's small change,
what happened to you.
And that's true.
We have to be honest
about those things.
In most parts of
the world today, you
advocate for your most
basic elementary rights,
you don't lose a job,
you lose a body part.
You lose a limb.
You lose your nose.
You lose your tongue.
You lose your ears.
You lose your eyes.
That's what it's mostly
like in the world.
You also lose your head in
many parts of the world.
And you lose your life.
So we're not talking
about big sacrifices.
And hopefully, possibly, the
haul won't be that long either.
Keep your eyes on the
price and hold on.
And then, always to
remember the Caribbean poet,
a fellow named Aime Cesaire,
he had a very nice line.
It was poetic, and
meaningful at the same time.
He said, "There's
room for everyone
at the rendezvous of victory."
There's room for everyone at
the rendezvous of victory.
And the late Edward Said, in
the last years of his life,
he liked to quote that line.
And we should also bear in mind.
We want to nurture a movement
and not to create a cult.
The victory to which
we aspire is inclusive.
It's not exclusive.
It is not at anyone's expense.
Not at the expense
of its Palestinians,
and not at the
expense of Israelis.
It's to be victorious
without the vanquishing.
No one is a loser.
No one is a loser.
And we are all
gainers, if together we
stand by truth and justice.
You stand by truth and justice,
if anyone does, you don't lose.
We all gain.
"I am not anti-English,"
said Gandhi.
"I am not anti-British.
I am not anti any government.
"But," he said, "I
am anti-untruth.
I am anti-humbug.
And I am anti-injustice."
And I think we should
say the same thing.
We're obviously not anti-Jewish.
We shouldn't be anti-Israel.
And in my opinion, we shouldn't
be anti-Zionist either.
The prize on which our
eyes should be riveted
is human rights, human
dignity, and human equality.
We should not be asking
questions like, are you now,
or have you ever
been, a Zionist?
Those are meaningless
questions, in my opinion.
Instead, we should
be asking, are
you for or against
ethnic cleansing?
Are you for or against torture?
Are you for or against
house demolitions?
Are you for or against
Jews only roads,
and Jews only settlements?
Are you for or against
discriminatory laws?
And if the answer comes
against, against, and against,
shouldn't we then say, keep your
ideology whatever it might be.
There's room for everyone at
the rendezvous of victory.
And may we all, seekers of
truth, fighters for justice,
yet live to join the people
of Palestine, the godforsaken
people of Palestine at
the rendezvous of victory.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Well, now comes
the time that I get
to engage with the
people of, not Palestine,
but the people of Cleveland.
So I usually enter one caveat.
And the caveat is, since
people, as always, we're
very respectful of my
person, didn't jeer--
and I allow for
jeering, actually--
but weren't
distracting, I prefer
that the first questioners,
the first questioners,
should be dissenters, those
who sharply disagree, but were
respectful of me, endured
what I have to say.
And now, those who
wish to dissent
should have at least the
first two or three questions,
and then it's opened
up for everyone.
Mic on.
Let me just say, and
re-- first of all,
we're very grateful to you.
Wonderful evening.
Anybody is welcome
to ask a question.
Keep your question short,
respectful, and civil.
That's all we ask.
And since Professor
Finkelstein has
asked for people who
have questions that are
from other viewpoints, is that?
I prefer those who were
respectful, but found
it difficult to digest
what I have to say,
they should be
allowed to go first.
We prefer if you come up and
speak into the mic please.
Mr Finkelstein, I'd like to ask
you a question about something
that you have said
in a past lecture.
You say in May 8, 2005 lecture
at the University of Illinois,
that Alan Dershowitz's book,
The Case for Israel is sheer
unadulterated from the
first uppercase letter
the last period,
a complete fraud.
However, the New York Times
said about the same book
that Dershowitz knows
how to construct
an argument,
especially effective
at pointing out the hypocrisy
of many of Israel's critics.
This book is also praised by the
Washington Post, London Times,
Jerusalem Post, and [INAUDIBLE].
Can you please explain
how you and the Times
came to such
different conclusions
about the same book?
Well, that's a perfectly
reasonable question.
And here, I would
say that each person
has to use his or her
own judgment, his or her
own reasoning faculty.
I reached my conclusion
after reading the book
carefully several times.
I probably read it more times
than Professor Dershowitz read
it.
And I examined the sources,
checked his citations.
And I reached the conclusion
the book was a complete fraud.
And I said as much
when I publicly
debated him on Democracy Now.
I agree with you, or what would
be implicit in your question,
had I limited myself to simply
declaring the book of fraud
or a fake from the
first uppercase
letter to the last period,
had I limited myself to that,
you would have probably
excellent grounds
for questioning my judgment.
But I recognized that a
responsible person cannot limit
him or herself to simply an ad
hominem attack or an epithet.
You have a responsibility
to document it.
On Democracy Now, I debated him
up for approximately two hours.
And I tried to cite some
of the documentation.
You can watch the program
and decide for yourself
how effective he was
in rebutting my claims.
But then, I went one step
further, which is I sat down,
and I wrote a book approximately
320 pages in length
in which I literally went
through each and every one
of his claims, literally.
I know it sounds boring,
and it sounds tedious.
And what I did was, I
juxtaposed his claims,
not against what Professor
Finkelstein says,
not against what the
Palestinian Authority says,
not against what the
Arab League says,
I simply took each and
every one of his claims
and juxtaposed it against
what mainstream human rights
organizations have to
say, most importantly,
the Israeli human
rights organizations.
So I quote what B'Tselem, the
Israeli Center for Human Rights
in the Occupied
Territories has to say,
what PCATI, the Public Committee
Against Torture in Israel
has to say, what Physicians
for Human Rights in Israel
has to say.
I juxtaposed the two.
And I show that in
each and every one
of his claims from
the first to the last,
he's completely falsified what
the documentary record shows.
Again, you have to
use your judgment.
And that means, if this issue
is important enough to you--
and we all have 1,000
things in our life--
but if it's important
enough to you,
you sit down, read
the book, juxtapose
when I say or the citations I
use against Dershowitz's, and
decide for yourself.
But bear in mind, there's
one very big difference
between Professor
Dershowitz and myself.
Well, many, but one thing that's
germane here this evening.
The big difference was,
I have complete faith
in the reasoning faculty
of ordinary human beings.
We're not talking about
particle physics here.
We're not talking
about rocket science.
Most ordinary people,
having the abilities
of Cartesian logic, elementary
reasoning, and evidence,
can judge for themselves.
So I proceeded to write a book.
The big difference between
Professor Dershowitz and myself
is, I did not try to
suppress his publication.
I'm not afraid of the truth.
I'm happy to throw my
book out there, and let
people decide for themselves.
It was Professor Dershowitz who
mounted a campaign threatening
in his words.
He said, if University
of California Press
publishes his book,
I'm quoting him now,
"I will own that
publishing house."
He then went as far
as the terminator.
He went to Arnold
Schwarzenegger,
the Governor of
California, to try
to block publication
of the book.
And to the credit of
Governor Schwarzenegger,
he formally replied
that this was
a freedom of speech issue
and academic freedom,
and he wasn't
going to intervene.
Whether Schwarzenegger knew was
talking about, I don't know.
But it was still a victory.
I'm not afraid to test my claim
against what the record shows.
And I might add, my publishing
house was very cautious.
My book went through nine
outside readers, and five libel
lawyers, because they were
very fearful of Professor
Dershowitz's libel threats.
Not because they thought
they would lose the case,
that wasn't the problem.
The problem is with
most libel cases,
they're never settled in court.
They're settled out of court.
And they're very expensive.
And so my publisher said, if
Professor Dershowitz sues us
in New York-- they're in
California-- they said,
we don't even have enough
money to fly our staff out
to New York.
You know, it's a university
publishing house.
I now have to sort
of-- not sort of-- I
have to throw the
ball in your court,
and say, you read the book.
You look at the evidence,
and to do what I think
is the right thing to do.
The right thing to do
is not to believe me.
I don't believe in that.
You shouldn't believe me.
I always like the credo that
Karl Marx-- he was once asked,
what's the credo you live by?
And he said, de
omnibus dubitandum--
to doubt everything.
And I grew up in a generation
where a lot of people
liked to wear this black
button with the words, two
words, question authority.
And I think that's a wise
way to conduct one's life.
So you shouldn't believe
the New York Times.
You shouldn't
believe Dershowitz.
And telling you, coming straight
from me, don't believe me.
Use your own brain.
Go read the sources and
decide for yourself.
[APPALAUSE]
Hi, Professor.
I missed part of
your speech, so I
don't know how much I
disagree and how much I agree.
But just to give
you a background,
I'm a Jewish Zionist,
and at the same time,
I don't feel that
the issue needs
to be as polarized as
you experience it, people
like Dershowitz and
perhaps yourself.
In that, a lot of what you
say, I very much agree with.
And if we're looking
at where I think
there is an area of
cognitive dissonance for me,
and my question really is, is
it an area for you as well,
has to do not with
two state solution,
because most Jews
in the United States
and Israel are for that,
or even the boundaries.
It has to do with the right
of return for Palestinians.
And obviously the
cognitive dissonance
is that there is grave
injustice that I can see,
and a lot of people can see
in expelling Palestinians.
At the same time,
we imagine what
it would be like were
Israel to open the gates
and have a tremendous
influx of non-Jews.
It would eventually
become a non-Jewish state.
There's my cognitive dissonance.
And I would ask of you, because
you were presenting it as this
is all very simple situation.
But I wondered if you
had cognitive dissonance
on any of this as well.
Well, first of all, I know
people in the audience
may disagree with me.
And I'm not trying to-- I'm
not out to win a popularity
contest.
I want to settle the conflict.
And settling the conflict
means trying to honestly deal
with these questions.
I think that's a
reasonable question.
I'm not sure if I
would use a fancy term
like cognitive dissonance.
You know, I try to steer away
from this terminology, which
tries make this conflict sound
more complicated than it is.
It is a difficult question.
One has to make a distinction,
however, my opinion,
between what is your
legal right, and then,
how do you resolve the
question Practically what does
that mean for our purposes?
If you'll allow me a
small illustration.
I'm not comparing--
please bear in mind--
I'm not comparing
magnitudes of suffering.
I'm trying to simply
illustrate a point.
Magnitudes of suffering, there's
no comparison, obviously.
I was, as you know, I was
denied tenure at DePaul.
DePaul's case was
not very strong.
In fact, DePaul's
case was preposterous.
And my lawyers said-- I
had wonderful lawyer who's
a close friend of mine, Lynne
Bernabei-- and she said,
you know, Norman, you go to
court, you can win the case.
And you'll win your right
of return to DePaul.
See, that's an
open and shut case.
DePaul acknowledged you are an
excellent teacher and scholar.
How can they deny you tenure?
But she said,
Norm, do you really
want to spend the next
six years in court?
Because you'd have-- that's how
long tenure cases usually take.
By the time I got tenure,
I'd be already too late.
I'm not a spring
chicken anymore.
And it would also mean
consuming valuable time for me.
And I rather work on my
political commitments
than on this academic
freedom issue,
because I never believed
in academic freedom.
I just think it's nonsense.
It's a myth.
So she said, OK, if you
don't want to go to court--
and she said, I agree
with you-- then we
have to aim for a settlement.
And we got a settlement.
And the settlement had
to have two components.
Number one, our settlement have
to have a public recognition
by DePaul.
They had committed an
injustice against me.
They dragged me through the
mud the last year, maligned
my name, slandered me,
character assassinated me.
They have to acknowledge,
no, Professor Finkelstein was
an outstanding professor
at this school.
And they did.
The statement said,
we acknowledge
Professor Finkelstein was
an outstanding teacher
and a prolific scholar.
And then the second component
was a financial component
to the settlement.
Now, I never gave up
my right to return.
I still think I had the right.
But all things considered, I was
willing to reach a settlement,
which I thought under the
circumstances was reasonable.
And I say the same principle
with the Palestinians.
They have the right.
It is incontestable.
I can tell you from
personal knowledge.
As I said earlier,
Human Rights Watch
is a conservative organization.
And when the issue of the
right of return came up,
a member of the board of
directors for the first time
hired a private lawyer to try
to prove the Palestinians didn't
have a right of return.
And it created a huge
schism in the organization.
But at the end of the
day, they researched
a dozen other examples of
refugee generation in the war.
And they said, there
can't be any question.
The Palestinians have
the right to return.
So we can't contest that right.
Acknowledge the right,
and then, if you
think that it's unfeasible,
you believe, then
you have to make the
Palestinians an offer which
they're willing to accept.
Nobody has the right to
tell the Palestinians
they have no right.
If you think that Israel
can't meet that demand,
then you have to make an
offer to them, a settlement
offer, which just like myself,
they're willing to accept.
But what I will not
accept is anybody
telling the Palestinians as a
precondition for negotiations,
that they have to
give up the right.
That's their right.
[APPLAUSE]
At one of the schools where I
taught, at Brooklyn College,
when I was fired in 1992,
some students who were upset.
And they went to one of the
radical professors on campus,
and said, you know,
don't you think
you should fight for
Norm's right to stay?
And he said, well, I think
Finkelstein would be happier
elsewhere.
And I thought to
myself, hey, I thought
I was supposed to be
the one to decide that.
We have no right
tell other people
what to do with their rights.
Our responsibility is
to support their rights.
And then, if somebody thinks,
the other side thinks,
it can't work, OK,
make them an offer.
And I can't say I'm fully
cognizant of the Arab
or the Palestinian mind,
whenever that means.
But my experience has
been, Palestinians
are perfectly reasonable.
Make a reasonable offer,
and let's see what happens.
But let's just be clear,
the Israeli position
now is a nonstarter.
The official Israeli position
is to quote Ehud Barak in Camp
David, "We will not
accept any moral, legal,
or historical
responsibility for what
happened to the Palestinians."
That's like DePaul
refusing to acknowledge
what happened to me.
No, that's a nonstarter.
I can tell you from
personal experience,
I'm not allowed to discuss
the terms of my settlement,
but had DePaul not
issued that statement,
we're going to court.
Yes, I want my dignity restored.
I want my humanity restored.
And the Palestinians
have that right as well.
You can't tell them they have no
historical to be in the country
where they were born, and
where all of their ancestors
were born.
And now, you're going
to come along and say
they had no right to be there.
No, you're not.
Be reasonable.
Be reasonable.
Be respectful of other people's
feelings and sufferings.
My closest friend in the
occupied territories,
and one of my closest
friends for life,
Musa Abu Hashhash, he's the
Hebron field representative
for B'Tselem, the Israeli
Information Center
for Human Rights in the
Occupied Territories.
And he grew up in Fuwwar Camp.
And he said to
me, you know Norm,
I'm conservative on
the refugee question.
And he took me to the room
where his family grew up.
The room is about a little
bigger than this podium.
And no, he's not going to
accept that you're simply
going to abolish
the whole history,
and pretended it didn't happen.
That's a nonstarter.
Be reasonable.
Respect other people's dignity.
Respect their suffering.
And I'm fully confident that
you could achieve a settlement
with the Palestinians.
But not under terms that
Israel's now presenting,
namely, we don't even
begin negotiations
until the Palestinians
give up their rights.
No, they don't.
Nobody has to give
up their rights.
And nobody has the right to tell
them to give up their rights.
Our responsibility is
to defend their rights,
and then see what happens.
[APPLAUSE]
Mr. Finkelstein, in 1948,
the UN approved the partition
of the state of Israel into a
Jewish state and an Arab state.
Jordan to the west
and Egypt to the south
had both previously been
created, and attacked first
upon the creation of
the state of Israel.
Egypt and Jordan
had the opportunity
between 1948 and 1967 to
create a Palestinian state.
Why was there not
the same response
when the region was under
Jordanian and Egyptian control?
You know I won't just say--
young man, I'm not in any way
trying to be insulting.
I'm way past that.
I want to end the conflict.
And I want to be reasonable.
But it does trouble me.
And I'm want you
to think about it.
You come here with
canned questions.
I gave a lecture.
You know, I spoke
for around an hour.
And there was a large amount of
material in what I had to say.
You don't even listen.
You just come in here
with a prepared question
that has nothing
whatsoever to do
with what I was speaking about.
It's as if I were giving a
lecture on particle physics,
and you're coming here
and talking about botany.
You don't even listen.
You really have to-- my
opinion-- open your mind
and listen.
You're not looking
at an enemy here.
And you shouldn't
come in-- my opinion--
you shouldn't come in with
these canned questions which
Hallel gives you, or some other
organization, to prepare you.
Listen, and think for yourself.
And then, I think we
can make some progress.
Think for yourself.
Where was I unreasonable?
What statement of mine
was factually untrue?
What did I misrepresent?
How did I try to pull the wool
over the eyes of the audience?
I could sit down here
now and speak to you
at great length
about what happened
in 1947 and thereafter.
But I didn't provide
any background material
to give an answer to
a question like that.
I didn't lecture on the topic.
It's absolutely meaningless now
for me to answer that question.
Most people in the
room don't even
know what you're referring to.
I don't understand how you
engage in a dialogue that way.
Do you want me to
start telling you
that in 1947, Israel had already
struck a deal with Jordan
to absorb the West Bank?
Do you want me to tell you that
Egypt never annexed the Gaza?
Egypt never annexed the Gaza.
That between 1947 and 1967,
the position of the Arab world
was still to restore the
rights of the Palestinians
to the whole of Palestine.
After 1967, when that became
an unrealistic demand,
the Arab League's, or
the Arab countries,
beginning in the early
1970s then in concert
with the entire
international community,
came to accept the
two state settlement.
And that's the genesis of
what we have now today.
I could go through
the whole history.
With all due respect, from
well before you were born,
I was reading about it.
And the number of books
I read sometimes I think
could fill this whole room.
It's actually rather depressing.
The world is a very big place,
and my entire adult life
was devoted to learning
about one tiny corner of it.
But I don't see the
purpose of doing that now.
First of all, I doubt you even
know the scholarly literature
on the topic.
It's easy for me to
make rings around you.
I could cite a 1,000
difference resources.
I could make you look foolish.
I don't see the point of it.
Why don't you listened to what
I have to say, and answer?
With all due respect, it's
a very pertinent question.
I'm not sure.
Why is it pertinent?
Explain to me why
it's pertinent.
Since 1967, the world has
been on a constant onslaught
against Israel,
stating that they
must give back the 1947 creation
of the state of Palestine.
Fine.
However, in 1947, when the
original partition plan
had been approved, there
was just as much opportunity
to create a second
state in the region.
Why was there no
pressure at that point
to follow through with what
the 1947 partition stated?
Well, I told you why.
From between 1947 to
67, the Arab states
did not accept the legitimacy
of the state of Israel.
And now that as it were,
progress has been made,
it seems you want to
turn the clock back,
to when they didn't accept.
I acknowledge,
progress has been made.
The Arab world, all 22
members of the Arab League,
have agreed.
Now, are you upset by that fact?
Would you rather they
deny Israel's existence?
Would you rather they
call for the elimination
of the state of Israel?
Do you prefer that?
I don't understand why.
If you're truly interested in
resolving the conflict, not
looking for pretexts,
not looking for excuses,
not looking for
alibis, it seems to me
you would welcome
a change of heart,
and a change of
heart which has now
endured for nearly 30 years.
That would seem
for those who seek
a diplomatic settlement,
that would seem to me grounds
for rejoicing.
But if you don't want a
diplomatic settlement,
if you're looking for
all sorts of excuses,
because you want to steal
other people's land,
because you want to
control their lives,
because you want to render
lives so intolerable
and so unbearable that they'll
finally pack up and leave
and go wherever they can.
If that's your
goal, then yes, more
than anything else
in the world you're
going to dread the
record I've just
gone over, because that
record is your big problem.
The problem is, for
whatever reason,
the Arab world,
the Palestinians,
have expressed the
willingness to accept
the international consensus
and resolve the conflict.
And unfortunately, that's
what Israel dreads.
And that's apparently
what you dread.
Because you don't want to
talk about the last 30 years.
You want to go back.
I could go back too.
I can go back and say, well
Israel's top historian now,
Benny Morris, he says,
quote that "Expulsion--
what he calls transfer--
was built into Zionism."
It was built in.
It was inevitable.
And then he goes and
says, that the chief motor
of Arab resistance
to Zionism was
the fear of territorial
dispossession and territorial
dislocation.
Well, I ask you, why
should the Palestinians
have accepted a movement,
accepted a movement,
which according to Israel's
leading historian now, built
into it was their expulsion.
He says it was
inbuilt into Zionism.
It was inevitable.
It seems to me then,
the Palestinian position
was perfectly reasonable.
Does anyone think
any country has--
any people has
the responsibility
to commit to politicide?
And they resisted why?
Exactly what Morris said, the
fear of territorial expulsion,
territorial dispossession.
That seems to me reasonable.
And the Palestinian position
was completely reasonable.
But time has passed, and now
there's a formula available.
You have to ask yourself
the question, why
do Israelis and the Israeli
government, and their alleged
supporters, why did they
dread that record so much?
Why is it I'm talking
about 1967 to the present,
and you don't want
to hear from it?
You want to go back to '48.
You don't want to hear
that the other side is
willing to settle.
Why don't you want to hear that?
I don't understand that, unless
you don't want a settlement,
a negotiated settlement.
And then, the only alternative
is to annihilate them.
Yes.
Only two more
questions [INAUDIBLE]
OK.
I think you were next.
An Israeli historian has said
that Israeli state was modeled
after the-- the Israeli
state of society
was modeled after
America pioneers.
Now, he meant that in a benign
way, but in your opinion,
do you think-- is it a
part of a manifest destiny
that Israel is a settler,
illegal settler colonial state?
And we know America's not
going to give back the land
to it's indigenous people.
And that now, tt the whole
critique of what he wrote
was that America sees the
state of Israel in its own eyes
as being some sort of
people being dispossessed,
and architects of Zionism
[INAUDIBLE], and so
forth, people returning.
Go to a land because
they've been oppressed,
and these programs and whatnot.
Now, do you see-- it's a
long question-- do you see
Israel, the state
legal of Israel,
in a two party state nation
living side by side with people
they despise?
Who, Obama's chief of staff, who
I think has dual citizenship,
father was in a terrorist, I
forget, Irgun or whatever was--
Do you actually
believe-- and I'm
justi-- I'm not opposed
to what you are saying--
but realistically, do see
them ever living side by side
peacefully, harmoniously,
egalitarianly,
with people they despise as
the American settlers despised
the indigenous people and
looked at them as savages?
And one more question, in
the same line, Obama recently
in doing his campaign, went
to APEC, promised $30 billion
to the anti-Zionist for
the action committee.
$30 billion to the state
of Israel over 10 years.
Now, Biden wrote a thing
called a greater Zion,
I don't know if it ever
passed-- basically,
where Israel would control the
whole so-called Middle East.
What's your question?
Hold on, I'm getting to it.
I've got the mic.
Hurry up.
Now my question is do you
realistically believe--
you really realistically believe
that the legal state of Israel
will live peacefully
side by side?
And would America
will allow that?
And what does America and the
state of Israel have with Iraq?
What are their roles with Iraq?
And what role does Israel,
the legal state of Israel,
play in that?
Thank you for your question.
Actually, I happen
to think those
are legitimate and
important questions.
On the first question, namely,
can I actually conceive
them living side by
side, as you said
in an egalitarian fashion,
mutual respect, and so forth,
[INAUDIBLE]
Right-- excuse me?
You know, there are two aspects.
So I'll speak now
as an American--
American in our own history.
There was once a point
when Martin Luther
King was agitating, sit downs,
sit ins, civil disobedience.
And somebody said to him,
you know, you keep this up,
you're going to alienate
all these white people.
And how do you expect
to get along with them
and live with them in peace
when you're constantly
creating all of this ruckus and
creating all of this mayhem?
And he replied that--
he says, you'll
never get white
people to love you
that way, it was said to him.
And he replied, that
first I want white people
to stop lynching me.
And then I'll worry
about them loving me.
That seems to me--
Put the mic on.
Allow me just-- that seems
to me the right sequence.
The first thing is to resolve
this problem of the occupation,
to restore the legal
rights of the Palestinians
and to end Israel's
illegalities,
its gross violations,
and criminal acts,
many criminal acts in
the occupied territories.
Once we've solved
the legal question,
then we move on to
the question of love.
And I think it's fair to say,
you might want to disagree,
but I think it's
fair to say, OK,
white people and black
people in the United States
don't love each other.
But there have been
in a relatively short
historical period,
say 50 years, in terms
of interpersonal
relations, leaving aside
the legal questions, there
have been improvements
in the United States.
You have to acknowledge,
however cynical you
are about the Barack Obama
impending presidency--
and nobody is more
cynical than I
am on that score--
it nonetheless
has to be acknowledged that
it's a tremendous testament
and tribute to the
American people,
when you consider what
the United States was
like 50 years ago,
that they could see it
in themselves to vote for an
African American as president.
Things change.
When Rodney King after the
LA riots, he famously said,
why can't we all get along?
When I first heard that
line, I thought, my god,
talk about insipid lines.
This is like Dorothy
in Oz, or Kansas.
But then after I
thought about, I
thought that was
really the right line.
Can't we all get along?
And I think the
answer is, I retain
the faith, I preserve the hope.
We can all get along.
But I agree with you.
It's got to be get along on
mutual respect, mutual honoring
of each other's human dignity.
Anything else, in my
book, is unacceptable.
And it's a struggle.
It's a struggle to get the
other side to recognize you,
not just in a patronizing way,
not just in a condescending
way, and not just in the way
of a liberal philanthropist,
but as an equal who
has something equally
to contribute to this world.
It's a struggle.
But I think it's possible.
And I think our
own experience here
should tell us it's possible.
And I also agree
with you, however,
that if Israel
continues to carry on
as it does, a murdering and
marauder state which treats
the Arabs like fish in a barrel,
that goes on these expeditions
periodically in
places like Lebanon,
and every time the
Lebanese people build up
their country after another
onslaught from those vandals
and marauders, Israel goes in
again and levels the country.
When you have
pathological creatures
like the current leaders
of the state of Israel
who now refer to what they
call the Dahieh concept--
Dahieh refers to the
part of south Beirut
where it was in the last
war completely leveled.
It's a moonscape.
That's where the Shia live,
the Hezbollah supporters.
It was simply level.
I was in the Dahieh
less than a year ago.
And now these Israeli
vandals and marauders,
they talk about in
the next war, they're
going to turn all of
Lebanon into Dahieh.
No, you can't live
with people like that.
You can't coexist
with people like that.
These people need to be
stopped dead in their tracts.
But if they behave respectfully,
and they honor and respect
their neighbors, I'm optimistic
you can achieve a settlement.
This is the last question.
On the question of the one
state solution, I mean,
as you eloquently bring out
in your books, et cetera,
exposing the state of Israel
from the very beginning
in it's establishment of
actually forcing 100s of 1,000s
of Palestinians, killing
them and forcing them out
of their country.
And you made a statement
that the one state solution
has no international support.
I guess what I would say is, I
think the people of the world
want to see the
end of the Israel,
just as they want to see the
end of US occupation in Iraq.
And many people want to see
the end of the US state.
I would just want to say, I
think international support,
for example in Vietnam
and the struggle
of the Vietnamese
people, they got
a lot of international support,
especially when they actually
defeated US imperialism.
And I do think that if we
look at the question of,
you can't have any
kind of commonality
until you get rid of
the state of Israel,
and then just establish
a democratic state.
That's the question.
With all due respect,
I doubt there's
anyone in this room who's
more sensitive, cognizant of,
and appalled by, the crimes
of the state of Israel.
However, let's maintain
our proportions.
What Israel does in a
year, the United States
does in the world in an hour.
And so if you want to eliminate
states because of the murder,
mayhem, and all
the other horrors
they inflict on the world, let's
talk about the United States
first.
We want to--
I do want to talk about it.
When you agree with the
destruction and elimination
of the American entity,
and after that's done,
OK, we can move on to
Israel, until then, I
think it's very
presumptuous of Americans
to talk about all the
crimes that Israel commits.
I mean, go to 9/10
of the world, they're
not talking about the
crimes of Zionism.
They're talking about the
crimes of the US government.
And yet I myself
would say I'm not
supporting the destruction
of the United States.
I wouldn't mind, you know, if
we take some of those leaders
and do what happened to
those folks in Nuremberg.
That's why lampposts
were created.
But the destruction of the
United States, forget it,
you lost me.
Good night.
[APPLAUSE]
