Norman Finkelstein and Chris Hedges discuss Israel, Gaza, Oct. 7 at Princeton

for justice in Palestine it is a pleasure and an honor for us to welcome you all today to this important conversation about the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza with the company of our esteemed guests Norman Finlin and Miss and Chris Hedges uh we would like begin by extending our thanks. and gratitude to Princeton's Muslim Social Justice Advocates, also known as musjid, the center for collaborative history, and the department of Near Eastern studies, for being our co-sponsors of this event. Thank you very much for your support as we speak, over 70% of people in Gaza are suffering catastrophic levels of hunger.

At least 25 people, including babies and children, have died of dehydration and hunger. The Secretary-General of the United Nations has said that this is the largest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded anywhere at any time that people have resorted to. Miscarriages among pregnant women in Gaza have soared by 300% due to a combination of malnutrition and extreme chronic stress and fears that Israel has killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza since October 2023, nearly 14,000 of them children. All universities in Gaza have been bombed and destroyed, destroying educational infrastructure. Only 12 of Gaza's 36 hospitals are even partially functioning. More than 1,000 children have had to have one of them amputated. or both legs without anesthesia since the beginning of Israel's genocide in Gaza, these figures reflect only a fraction of the horrors that Palestinians in Gaza have had to endure due to Israel's attacks and we now live in a world where Palestinians have been forced to transmit their lives. pain and trauma, much of which many of us here have witnessed from our own devices, as this talk will remind us that history did not begin on October 7, as we continue to listen and continue to witness and protest genocide in course in Gaza.

It is more urgent than ever that people learn and pay attention to the history of Palestine and the violence that the Israeli apartheid state has exercised against the people and land of Palestine. We gather here today in an effort to confront the political reality that underpins some of these horrors. We gather here to reflect on the ways in which we, as people living in the United States, a persistent and funereal supporter of Israel, are part of Israel and the Palestine genocide, we can pressure our government to change course and eventually we meet here or at least.

Most of us as people will no longer remain silent while our government funds and actively participates in genocide and genocide defense, so before we begin I would like to introduce you a little about our speakers for this event. Norman Finlin is the author of many books, including industry h UST. Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering and Gaza and research on his martyrdom. He graduated from the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences at Bonton University and received his doctorate from the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Ruter University, Hunter College, New York University, and Paul University.

Chris Hedges is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent who spent two decades covering conflicts in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. He was the Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times and the editor of the Balan buau newspaper during the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, then based in Paris, where he covered Al-Qaeda for the New York Times in Europe and the Middle East. He was an outspoken critic of the invasion of Iraq and left the newspaper after editors told him he was not allowed to speak publicly against the war. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, our own Princeton University, and the University of Toronto.

He has also taught for more than a decade at the university. degree program offered by Ruter in the New Jersey prison system. He is also the author of 14 books including titles such as Power Wars That Give Us Meaning to American Fascists, the Christian Right and War in America, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, and others New York Times. best sellers is currently working on a book by Bo about Gaza for Simon and Schuster with a cartoonist Joe AKO finally without further ado, it is a great pleasure for me to welcome Dr. Norman Finlin and Mr. Chris Hedges, so I am journalist, not academic, nor great historian. like Professor Franklin in journalism, if any of you are considering the profession to be a very superficial profession, we always say that journalists know a little about a lot of things, and it is impossible, even though I spent seven years covering the Middle East, to have any idea of what it is. happening in the Middle East in Palestine in Israel unless you read history unless you read the works of the great historians, like Dr.

Finklestein and Benny Morris and Elon Poppy and others, and that context is key and one of the things What I always found when I covered conflicts was that the aggressor seeks to destroy the context to make the reaction of the oppressed imp incomprehensible. If there is no context, when you see people breaking through the security barriers of their open spaces. air prison and carry out, I admit that I think Norman and I will admit to atrocities that you do not understand, that long slow trickle of oppression, humiliation and murder that have been carried out by the Palestinians trapped in the context of their concentration camp is key and that's why uh I have such admiration for what Norman does as a scholar.

He has paid the price. I always think of Julian Benda's great book, The Betrayal of the Intellectuals, where he talks about those intellectuals who protect and essentially distort the truth to advance their careers. and get grants from the Foundation in 10 years, not that any of that would happen here, um and uh, and Norman didn't do that, he came out, it was Joan Peters, right? It was Joan Peters who wrote this book that many, especially Zionist scholars, used. He was completely lying. I don't think she was. I think she was a journalist herself. I don't even think it was academic, but they used it to build the scaffolding of how the Palestinian people didn't have an identity uh that that was an empty land and and in his doctoral work he erased it I know that Nom Chomsky we both admire immensely and gnome is very close to Norman uh and nor ner close uh to warn him uh but he was, you know, his integrity along with His brilliance refused to back down and he stood up to those very powerful Zionist institutions from day one and he paid a tremendous price for it, but he What it has retained is its integrity so I think I should start Norman will come and speak I think the first thing we need to do is put where we are today in historical context and there are very few academics who can do that as well as Norman Ken thank you thank you for inviting me here today I attended Princeton for my graduate school and that's for better or worse, it was half a century ago, uh, it's something you'll just point out to me and I'll get it in a moment.

Would you prefer if I use this microphone and this one? and just turn this off you can't have both because of the comments yes that's what I meant so I can but you have to turn this off because of the comments see you now it works fine yes ok thanks , so it has already been. For half a century I played a little game with myself to remember that the four of them built the buildings obviously reminiscent of the graduate school housing, uh, Corwin Hall, which is still here, the Department of Political Science, what we call Woody Woo, but I don't think it still exists. what is it called now what spia spia what does that mean school of public and international affairs uhhuh and of course where I spent all my time when I was here and I know that the building is still standing, that it is the Firestone Library, which at that time was the only one largest unit in terms of book collection in the entire United States.

I don't know if that's still the case. Other schools like you know, Harvard obviously had several units, but the largest unit was the Firestone Library, so those are the memories other than um B. And well, you can't hide, we accuse you of genocide because I was active in the anti-apartheid movement when I was here, so thank you for having me. What I want to do just as introductory comments is to give what journalists used to give. call at least that's what we were told when I was in grade school the key questions and Chris Hedges can correct me were always who what, when, where, how and why is that still what you taught in journalism, that's right, yeah, okay, I remember learning it in seventh grade in library class um, I'm not going to do exactly who, what, when, where, how and why, but I'll do something along those lines.

I'll start with what happened on October 7th. I would say some parts are pretty clear parts. Some parts are relatively light, other parts are somewhat dark. There has not yet been a full international investigation into what happened and there are investigative bodies formed by the United Nations, but to date, the Israeli government. The government has not cooperated with them, but I think about it in general terms and I do not claim to have any more special knowledge than many of you have because what happened on October 7th basically depends on digital evidence and I will freely confess it from October 7th.

I have not seen any digital evidence from October 7th onwards. Every once in a while I look at a photo but I haven't looked at the digital evidence. Neither on the Israeli side nor on Al Jazer. I haven't seen it, but from what I'm talking. digital evidence is not definitive on things like numbers, and also the other type of evidence would be forensic evidence, but there was relatively little forensic evidence on October 7th, which you could say is what most of you know, approximately 100 people There were those killed, of those 1200, approximately 800 or more were civilians and I have asked many people whose judgment I respect because I do not feel the competition.

It can be said with some confidence that a clear majority of those killed. were killed by Hamas and affiliated groups and there is also a question that will come into play in a few moments apparently the Gaza militants broke the gates of Gaza in three, now it is called three waves, the first wave was Hamas commandos, the second wave was Other Gaza armed groups and the third wave were Palestinians from Gaza who were not affiliated with any particular armed or militant organization. Now those are roughly the facts and the people in the audience over the course of tonight can add to those facts and amend them.

Those facts, as I say, I don't claim to be a particular expert on that particular topic and I don't think the evidence is clear on that basic question where I think the evidence is completely murky: What exactly was Hamas' goal? the goal of taking combatants and civilians hostage was the goal of taking combatants and civilians hostage and also committing a large-scale massacre of civilians, uh, I don't think the evidence is at all clear, I think that it is quite possible that we will never know what their objectives were. Now there is a totally separate question. I thought I had it on.

Maybe I should pick her up. Yeah, okay, for some reason, you might want to turn up the volume. Yes, you should go up. the volume that is, we'll find out, I can't do it, that's better, that better, okay, now obviously the factual side of a question is just one side of the question, the other side is how it's morally evaluated. and I have to say that on the first day, October 7, it seemed as if it was a prison escape or, in my opinion, a concentration camp escape, that there were casualties on the Israeli side, the figure that was given on the first day was around 50 that I remember and, like any escape from a concentration camp, of course I would be on the side of those who broke through, that was the first day, but by the second day, the third day, To the fourth day, the numbers started going up, they didn't hit 1400 until about a week later, but clearly there was a mass death that occurred, mass atrocities occurred and then you have to figure out how to make sense of it now that most people made sense. of it by answering that question, not the famous question from the 1950s about are you now or have you ever been a communist?, but the question was: do you condemn what Hamas did?

And I have to say, and I have freely admitted, that I found that to be a moral dilemma why because I had spent the last 15 years chronicling what had been done to the people of Gaza the fact that they had been locked up. in a concentration camp that's not my opinion, it was the opinion of the island of Gora who is the head of the National Security Council of Israel and who is a person Israel is outside the spectrum and he is outside the Israeli spectrum now uh uh Mr. Island, you are probably the one who is credited with the craziest comments related to the current situation in Gaza and he already said in March 2004 that he described Gaza as a huge concentration camp and that was before the blockade was imposed on its strongest form that began and in Januaryof 2006 and then the blockade was further tightened in 2007 and I had read a lot, mostly, if not entirely, reports from the UN, the UN commission, the UN conference on trade and development, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and a number of other international organizations, and described a situation in Gaza over a sustained period of time. which was inhumane and the majority of the young people who broke into the gates of Gaza on October 7 had been born in a concentration camp and as of October 6 the very high probability was that they were going to die in that concentration camp and it seemed to me very difficult to condemn them quickly.

I said condemn them because I have no difficulty condemning atro uh attacks against civilians. I'll even be honest with you, I try. stick to international law, but let's say that 400 of the combatants who died were combatants simply attending a music festival, I don't really think their lives should have been lost, so I sympathize with them as much as I do with the actual civilians. who were killed, but I think the category of combatants can also obscure some realities, so if some soldier took his time off to attend a music festival, in my opinion we can obviously disagree on it, still I would classify them as civilians, that's how I see it, I recognize that that is not the legal denotation, but my own moral calculus, so I have no problem condemning the act of atrocities, but I backed away from condemning the perpetrators of the atrocities and that was a moral struggle for me and for those.

These days were not easy because I couldn't find my way again. I freely admit that, although I am fairly confident in my confidence in the facts of the situation, I am not very confident in my moral judgment that I take from life. of the Mind very seriously and I know that moral philosophy is a significant intellectual endeavor and I wasn't sure I was mentally equipped to make a judgment here, my usual go-to. I'm not proud of it, I'm not ashamed of it, my usual go-to. The recourse for the last 40 years was to defer to Professor Chsky's judgment because I was on his intellectual team, I was immersed in Western philosophy and not just Western philosophy in Hebrew philosophy, and I had my experience, I had exemplary moral judgment, but At that particular moment, he was not available to me and I suddenly felt a great burden because I recognized that many people were waiting to hear what I had to say and I really wasn't sure I knew what my gut was telling me when I said it.

I refrained from condemning them even when I recognized that atrocities of significant magnitude had occurred and it so happened that in recent years I had left the Israel-Palestine conflict behind and started doing some pretty significant reading on African-American history and I remember, like most of PE or a good number of people here will remember, that we had our own votes on slavery in the United States and they were very ugly. I went back and started reading about things like the Nat Turner Rebellion and Nat Turner. He was a slave, he was a very smart guy, everyone, black and white, said he's not Turner, he's a very smart guy, and he was torn by the reality of this huge chasm that separated his potential as a human being from the reality that he would be. a slave from the day he was born to the day he died and none of his potential would ever be realized and at some point Mr.

Turner, who was a religious fanatic of the first grade, Mr. Turner gathered around him, others planned a slave rebellion, they came out and the order that Nat Turner gave was to kill all the whites that was the order to kill all the whites and that is what they proceed to do they went from house to house they cut off the heads of the babies that is literally true They decapitated babies, they smashed skulls and it was ugly. Let's say that in some aspects, not in terms of numbers but in terms of actions, in some aspects it was worse than on October 7, the numbers differed enormously, there were around 60 whites who were killed before they were repressed, so now I had an analogy in my mind with the question I now have. who I turned to was okay, let me see how the abolitionists, uh, the ruling they issued on Nat Turner and the first person I looked at was William Lloyd Garrison, the editor of the Liberator, and it was like if I could use the expression, it was kind of Eureka moment for me uh Garrison said there's no doubt Horrors happened during the Turner Rebellion horrible things happened but it's very notable when you read his autopsy he never condemns Nat Turner read it yourself it's readily available what it does is condemn to his white classmates, he kept saying. he begins his autopsy and ends by saying that we told you so, we told you so, so we told you that if you treat people like that at some point you will reap what you have sown and, like I said, that was kind of an epiphany for me, uh . a Eureka moment because I felt like I now had the right framework to try to understand what happened, that is, you condemn what happened and don't pretend it didn't happen, on the other hand, no, William Lloyd Garrison just didn't have it.

He knew what It meant being a slave, I didn't have the ability to condemn Nat Turner and it was the same with me, uh, a lot of what I've written in the last 10 and 15 years was just a chronicle. that horror not only the horror of having been born there the horror of having no future the horror of having no past the horror of not having a present were also those periodic grass cuttings what Israel calls its operations the iotic period High-tech massacres operation castled Operation Pillar of Defense Operation Protective Edge um, the horrors of life in a concentration camp compounded by the horrors of those periodic grass cuttings in Gaza and it's not entirely incorrect.

In fact, I think it's closer to reality for those who recoil from what Hamas did on October 7. from his point of view, it was his mowing of the lawn that you want to use that pathological that diabolical that completely sick metaphor of mowing the lawn that lawn one/half of the leaves on that lawn half the leaves on that lawn are children Gaza They are about 50% children and about 70% refugees and descendants of 1948 refugees, so if you think it's fun to talk about mowing the grass, Hamas had just as much fun when it mowed the grass on October 7, the Israeli reaction had three components , the first component is simple, it was bloodlust, Revenge, we will avenge what happened on October 7th and I am sure that everyone will recognize that it is not exactly a feeling foreign to the hearts of most human beings, Revenge here , however, had a second aspect.

This was due to the indignation and fury that these subhumans in Gaza had mocked the Israeli Uber on October 7. I mention that Israeli supermen Israel had particularly in my generation. Isra had the image of what can be called a James Bond order. In general, the operations of the Command, most of you will know. I suspect that the current Prime Minister, Mr. Netanyahu's brother, was killed during the Commando raid on Anbi and the entire country had projected this image of a high-tech Ed James Bond super surveillance country and lo and behold. Lo and behold, on October 7th, this motley army of a mention of subhumans had outwitted them, humiliated them, so that Vengeance's bloodlust was compounded and exacerbated by the desire to take revenge for the humiliation the James Bond Israeli High Technology Society.

The second concern in the Israeli response was the fear of the loss of its deterrent capacity, which is a crucial component of Israeli military and political doctrine. The doctrine is very simple, it is an elegant term, but all it means is the support of the Arab world. fear of Israel Israel has always failed or yes, throughout its modern history it has failed. To keep the Arabs in their place we have to make them fear the prospect of Israeli retaliation. The fear after October 7. I'm completely willing, completely willing to admit that Israel had a major security problem on its hands: the problem was that suddenly a lot of Arabs and Muslims realized that, hey, maybe Israel isn't as invincible as we thought and maybe there's a military option against them until that moment with the former uh only exception of Hezbollah who had openly stated or said in the words of um sad Nala, the head of hea that uh Israel, said in the B after the battle of B chabil in 2006, he said that Israel is a spider's web, just blow, excuse me, just blow and it will disappear, but that was definitely not the predominant view in the Muslim Arab world, the world view was that Israel was militarily invincible and suddenly, on the 7th October, as I said, began to dawn. in the Arab Muslim world the popular level the popular level may not be so strong I remember if I can tell a brief anecdote a few days ago a little bit a week ago I was in a debate with Israel's chief historian Benny Moris and I mentioned this fact that Israel's deterrence capacity had collapsed on October 7 and the Arab world now thinks that perhaps we can defeat it militarily.

I was very surprised by his response, he laughed, I thought with a kind of nervous laugh, but that is my opinion and his. he said well we have nuclear bombs and what caught my attention about that answer was that he didn't gloat about the army, he didn't say we have the IDF, we have the Air Force, he didn't, he immediately looked for the nuclear bombs because apparently there were o It seemed to have dawned on him that the IDF is not as powerful as we thought, so Israel's crazy reaction after October 7 was also an effort to restore its deterrent capacity to convey to the Arab world the message of if you are wrong. with us we will turn your country into Gaza and the third component is bloodlust, deterrence or capacity.

The third component in my opinion is the most important. I don't want to trivialize the first two, I mean, everyone knows the cliché that every crisis is an opportunity and the Israelis realized on October 7, as ma sadong used to say how to turn something bad into something good, that they were going to use what happened on October 7 to finally put an end once and for all to the Gaza problem for those of you who know the history, the people in Gaza have always quite militantly refused to include destiny in their destiny of being born, living and dying in a concentration camp and now, because of October 7, Israel Enis, is the time. because, and you will forgive the obvious analogy, it was time to find a final solution to the Gaza question and what the solution was.

I would say the solution was on a spectrum, on one end of the spectrum was the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and that seemed to be their goal for the first week or so when they thought they could drag the entire population into the Egyptian Sinai, those PL PL were frustrated by the Egyptian president who said: we are not going to solve your Gaza problem, it will not be at our expense, that is one point on the spectrum the middle point of the spectrum was to make Gaza uninhabitable as Guor Island put it at one point the former head of the National Security Council not now but still prominent is an advisor to defense minister Galant said we will give him the people of Gaza have two options: stay and starve and choose to leave to make Gaza uninhabitable and the third point on the spectrum is simply carrying out genocide without any explanation and without any subtlety.

I'd say it's still an open question. how it will end it is possible that enough pressure will be put on President CeCe to open the Rafa gate and expel the population it is possible that we are entering a period judging by all the international UN and humanitarian organizations in which a large part of the population Dying from hunger is a significant possibility. I don't know better than anyone else here for those of you who have studied these issues and tried to understand the way international organizations classify hunger. Starvation. The famine. It is a complex formula and I will never be able to memorize it.

What is certain is that, as Human Rights Watch said about two months ago and as all UN officials say now without exception, hunger is being used as a weapon, it is a calculated and premeditated attempt to starve the people. from Gaza, if you read the New York Times. yesterday they published a long article trying to persuade readers that the problem in Gaza is technical, how to deliver the goods, the roads are old, inspections can be prolonged, it is not a technical issue if we look at the statements of the authorities outside the EU. Head of policy, Mr.

Burell, if you look at these statements by Mr. Lazarini, the head of the United Nations public works and relief agency, if you look at the statements, even Gutier is the secretary general of the UN, it is a calculated policy, this is not. a technical challenge, it is a political policy of the state of Israel, as expressed by Human Rights Watch and later foreign policy chief Burell, it is a calculated weapon that uses hunger as a method and mode of war. I'll look at one last question and then I'll proceed to talk to Chris and the question is how do we evaluate right now the significance of what happened on the 7th?October.

I remember my good friend M. Rabani. He told me that it is a turning point and I was very hesitant to accept that because I had seen many massacres come and go and had a chronicle of them and at least at first I was inclined to another bloodletting and then we moved on. He was wrong. I have no problem saying that he would say that the After things changed number one, I think we have reached the end, at least provisionally, of any diplomacy to resolve the conflict. We are talking about two states at this point. It's completely ridiculous.

There is no diplomatic solution. Diplomacy on the horizon. On the one hand, Israel. is determined to gain a military victory and is not going to back down from that goal, if they manage to achieve a military victory then they will almost certainly and quickly move forward to gain another military victory for Hezbollah, so on their side it is quite clear. Although it is true to say that the way a military victory is defined has gray areas, on the other hand, the party of God, Hezbollah, has made it absolutely clear that we will not accept a military defeat of Hamas that will not happen and, as anyone here understands , those two objectives are Some are irreconcilable and it is also true that, after the horrors of the last five months, much of the Arab world has realized that The Muslim world cannot live with that State, it is impossible for that State has to disappear, it is a lunatic State and for that reason it does not seem that a short-term political solution is possible.

The other change, I think, is for the first time in my life, legitimation, legitimation, Israel is now facing a crisis of legitimate legitimation. Until this point, the State of Israel itself was not questioned within the mainstream, what was called into question was the occupation, I would say now, the State of Israel itself has been called into question for its legitimacy and I will only suggest two tests for that test. Proof number one is very surprising that the country in the world that decided to take up the cause of Gaza was South Africa. because South Africa has always been the model pointed out by critics of Israel as the preferable ideal single state for the people and it is difficult not to notice that the country that represents the single state ideal is now the main representative of the Palestinian cause in the at international level. court of law the second piece of the second indication for me I was very impressed and surprised by Senator Schumer's speech last week.

Senator Schumer has always been a fanatical supporter of the state of Israel, in fact, in 20110 he was already defending what Israel decided. What to do, he said we should economically strangle Gaza and, as everyone will remember or some of you will remember, Mr. Schumer and New Jersey Senator Menendez were the two leading Democrats who opposed the Iran deal; He was effectively the spokesperson for the state of Israel in our country and the speech was very interesting only on three points. On point number one, he was very careful to assign equal responsibility to both parties. He said that Hamas had to disappear and that the PA had to act at least under abs and then he said that Netanyahu. has to go and the far right has to go, he did exactly the same with his assignment of responsibility coming from Schumer Unthinkable Unthinkable and then it was very interesting how he addressed the criticism of Israel he said that it is not fair to call Israel a settler state or today the the jargon is settler colonial state, he said it's not fair because we have these longings from 3,000 years ago, uh, I won't go into that, um, but he didn't dismiss the statement for being anti-Semitic, for being lunatic, he felt the need to rationalize refute statement and then the second point was that he had to address the question of a state and it was very interesting, far from calling a state anti-Semitic, he said: I understand that many young idealists believe in the idea of ​​a state and all who live " "On the whole, I don't agree with it," he said, but I understand it and, in my opinion, that was a sign that Senator Schumer realized that a large part of his Democratic Party electorate considers that to be a legitimate goal and that you cannot dismiss it as anti-Semitic without dismissing a significant part of the democratic party base and that was an indirect understanding that Israel now faces as a Jewish state Israel is a Jewish state, not just the occupation Israel, a Jewish state faces a real legitimation crisis, okay, thanks Alan I want to ask about the difference.

I watch the debate with Benny. I thought the first two hours were really fascinating. Benny Morris is a highly regarded historian, uh, Israeli historian, um, and a lot of the

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ion came down to intent about the founders. State of Israel, but I want to ask about the difference between liberal Zionism embodied in figures like Teddy Kollock and Shimon Perez and all these guys from maybe even Rabine and others and what is this religious Zionism now Ben Gavier and uh and how do you see that? . uh, in terms of changing Israel, I mean that kind of process, certainly, when I was in Israel, you had the Labor Party, you had important aspects of the Labor Party, you had a peace movement, um, it's a very different country. , but I wonder if you could talk about it.

I think that transition is an excellent question and it is a very difficult question because at this moment Israeli society does not have the left, it does not have the center, it has the right, the extreme right and the extreme right, which is the entire Israeli spectrum and on a certain level, well, You know, for those of you who doubt that characterization, I'll give you just one test and then you can judge it for yourself. If you look at the most recent opinion polls, 90% of Israelis believe that. Israel is using sufficient or insufficient force in Gaza right now. 40% believe Israel is using insufficient force in Gaza now.

I find it irreconcilable with any notion of even a center in Israel, much less a left. Now some people do the same thing in my opinion. I think the mitigating argument for the alibi is that the Israeli media is biased and that's why people don't know what's going on. I think that's what a lot of respectable people say, but I find the most implausible thing is that Israelis probably have the highest per capita rate of web usage, social media and things like that. They know what's going on even if their newspapers lie even If their television lies, they are on the web, if I can read the London Times, if I can read The Economist, they can read the New York Times and they can read 10,000 other media outlets that count more or less well.

I'm leaving out that the New York Times pretty much tells what's going on, but Chris poses a tough question because it's true, only the oldest people in this room will do that. Remember that Israel was a leftist course for a long time. I know that sounds strange to you. The head of Israel at the beginning was a party called Mapay, it belonged to the Socialist International, the main opposition party was Mapam and Mapam was totally. ideologically subservient to the EIT Union, Israel was its foundation with the support of the Soviet Union and that was true practically until 1977, when what was called lud came to power under manak and bean, the problem with this leftist light, this demarcation from left to right is the ethnic cleansing of 1948 it occurred under the left the Mapai mapal the left in Israel they were the executors of the ethnic cleansing or let's take another example up to Gaza up to Gaza the worst blood shed was not those periodic mowing of the grass in Gaza They were until, as I was referring to the present, the worst bloodshed and which I was talking about with Chris earlier was in 1982 in Lebanon in 1982 and Lebanon the estimates are between 15 and 20,000, that is not a trivial number 15 and 20,000 um Palestinians and Lebanese were killed and the Labor Party, the head of the government was Bean and Chiron Shiron, Mak and Bean, but the Labor Party supported him.

I even remember back then when an important Marxist academic called Schlomo, Schlomo, Avanir, some of you may remember. He's probably around 100 years old now Shalom aeri uh he was supposed to appear in the Democrats um what was his name back then? No, it wasn't called DS, yes, maybe it was called DSA back then, I think so, in his convention. and they fired him because he supported the war in Lebanon. Such horrible things happen under Labor governments, although it is also true that they were not as ideologically brazen as the current governments, but overwhelmingly everyone knows who built the settlements.

It was Labor Whenever there was a change between Labor and uh Labor and look Hood um Labor, every time he came to power he built more settlements, he built more settlements than I could ever look at so one place where I will recognize a difference is and this is Una One of the reasons why I said it and I don't say it with joy is that I don't think a diplomatic agreement is possible now. I'm not saying that with any kind of joy. I'm just trying to be objective when you were in the era of Barak and then Omar Omert, i.e. the era of 2000 and then 20078, in that era what the Palestinians and the Israelis were arguing about, they were arguing about percentages, i.e.

Israel wants to keep 80% of the settlers in the West. Bank Omar wants to keep 87% of the settlers in the West Bank. Palestinians make offer to keep 60% of settlers in West Bank. They were

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ions about details and percentages. True, they were still very far apart, but there was so much that we talk about a common goal, we are at a point where the current government of Israel will not even give the Palestinians a broom closet, we are not even close to where they were before things, so the idea when they say we're going to do two says two states of what you're going to give them 10 feet of land, four acres of land what are you talking about, so at that level I would have to say yes, ha There has been a shift between what was under manpower and what is currently under the current government.

I want to ask if the United States is clearly complicit in sustaining the genocide. I think 67 or 68% of the weapons stockpile comes from the US and the obsequiousness of both sides towards Israel's demands. to quote Ariel Shron and then have you comment um he um said uh Shimon Perez um quote every time we do something, tell me the Americans will do this and we will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about the Americans. pressure on Israel we, the Jewish people, control the United States and the Americans know it. It's been a question for a lot of people why Biden is behaving the way he is and actually blinking, Jake Suin and the rest, I would say there are two elements: one element is that there is a strategic interest on the part of United States to see Israel's deterrence capability restored after October 7 and our Administration sees Iran as a crucial regional power that must be put in its place and there is fear In the US administration, from the point of view of its own interests, there is a fear that a Hamas victory will embolden what is called the resistance front, so I think it is a distinct and separate interest of the United States, but not whatever I would say.

Also, and here I freely admit that I have entered speculative territory and some people may be offended by it, it is my honest opinion and we can argue about the facts. Obviously we're in an election cycle and, as everyone knows, if you open up, I made the front page of the New York Times today the first thing they're always calculating is which party is receiving the most campaign contributions and today the times gave a big sigh of relief. relief Joe Biden is now getting ahead of Trump not sure if in just the current month or the totals I didn't read the whole article uh there is a class of Jewish billionaires and since October 7th they have gone crazy that's not an exaggeration it's impossible to find an example in American history of not one but two IV League College presidents being overthrown in real time in your face CS, the president of Harvard University was removed from office because she was not repressive enough to suppress a speech and a meeting on your campus that is unprecedented, it was the most flagrant, most egregious violation of academic freedom in the history of our country there is nothing that can compare to it, hey, you, I have studied that written history about that history that existed at the beginning of the century, the robber barons, when I say the turn of the century, I mean from the 19th century to the In the 20th century, the robber barons got very upset because there was a lot of labor insurgency and there were only a handful of professors, you can really count them on one hand, who in their university positions expressed some support for the labor insurgencies and The Rober Barons were ruthless in trying to get them expelled from the University and that was the beginning of the whole battle for academic freedom of our country, was the formation of the AAUP, the presidents of the American Association of Universities, John Dwey and several others, played a very important role. important role, but this was just awesome, without any hope, SP, not behind closed doors, they overthrew two presidents of Ivy League universities, they are that ruthless and have so much power, remember they are giving $100 million at once , which is an extraordinary amount of money. because if there is someone in this roomMy generation, when we were children we used to watch this program, it was a weekly program, it was called The Millionaire and it was about this philanthropist who every week on it was a weekly program to whom he gave a million dollars. some do better and we would sit in front of our televisions and oh my god, a million dollars, it was incredible, it was like going to Jupiter and back and it's okay, I take inflation into account and I know I'm old, it's okay , a slice of pizza, my day was 15 cents now it's 3 dollars.

I get it, but $100 million is a lot of money, or $50 million in the case of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School donor, and for Biden that's a concern if he says something too critical. of Israel they're just going to give the money to Trump because Trump knows he's an ace in our Ace in the Hole, he's going to do whatever we want with Israel, so I think that's a big factor in Biden's calculation and what they did. It was trying to do a kind of good cop, bad cop. Biden supports Netanyahu. Chuck Schumer is cautiously critical of Israel in general and Netanyahu in particular because each of them had a designated role in the division of labor that Biden needs to maintain. the billionaire class Schumer has to appease that restless base in the Democratic Party that is not happy with what is happening, that's how I see it, I try to understand what Biden is doing, let's talk about Gaza itself.

I was in Saro during the war that broke out. From 3 to 400 shells per day, resulting in between four and five deaths per day and two dozen injuries per day. I oppose that with Gaza, where there are hundreds of wounded and dead every day. I think there is a pretty strong case to be made that the figures released by the Gaza Ministry of Health are vastly insufficient given what are presumably tens of thousands of people missing and also the bombing of Gaza itself is only five miles wide. and 20 miles long and it's of such intensity that in my own experience it's hard to believe it's 30,000, but I want to talk about the reaction of everyone except with the exception of Yemen and the Houthis there.

There's really no resistance and uh your parents uh were both uh you know you survived the Holocaust and your mother was in aitz right, that was the right father, your father and um my mother were in midic inid and so, in a way, that's right. . replicate the Holocaust in the sense that the rest of the world does nothing, we are watching this Massacre broadcast live, and other than rhetorically, and it is worse because of course you have the rhetoric, but then you have the AR submissions now on much of it through Cyprus. uh being transported by helicopter in the United Kingdom and there are some countries, Canada just announced that they will stop shipping weapons.

I think the Netherlands has stopped doing it, like Norway, but nevertheless, it is being maintained, but I want you to do it because that is also that period in history. I'm good at making comparisons in terms of what we're seeing and the reaction. I would say there are many factors. When trying to make an analogy, the fact is that Hitler could not have done what he did. did without a war, could not have carried out the final solution if it had not had the cover of a war and the fact that it was being carried out, at least in theory, it was being carried out, so to speak, behind closed doors, now if they were in the German army, if they were in the verar, they were at the front and 50% of the Jews were killed at the front, they were not killed in the concentration camps, they were just lined up and shot down, so, in my opinion, that's a very weak Alibi that you didn't know what was going on, but at least you can call it an alibi, you can pick up on something here, there is no alibi, it's being done openly, there's nowhere to hide, uh, in this round current and a significant a significant number of UN officials are saying it out loud it took them a long time to say it uh but now they are saying it out loud this is a genocide uh massar mass starvation is yes that's a cell phone I carry my Star Trek laser phaser phaser and I said it not about stunning but I said it about killing so that's what I tell my students yeah mom so in that sense it's actually worse now because it's come to light and We have the facts, we have the figures, we don't just have the Hamas Ministry of Health.

Three comprehensive, rigorous and systematic studies have been conducted and they said that the Hamas Ministry of Health figures are correct. It is not a speculative fact. Now I just want to say what? there, what they record only comes from the hospitals plus, yes, that is to the extent that we use Hamas numbers, they have been confirmed by three independent, rigorous studies, when I was in a debate with Benny Moris and I mentioned the figure. Of 30,000 he said: oh, we could have killed 500,000 if we wanted to. I said that's not really true because there is a gap that separates desire from fact.

It is called politics and the international community exists and places limitations that we all wish there were. Those limitations are more significant, but I said, considering what you've achieved when you look at the numbers of more children killed in Gaza since October than each of the world's war zones put together by four, that's no small achievement, more journalists killed. that the entire First World War is no small achievement. More doctors killed than in any other conflict zone in the world in any year. The density of the bombing is unparalleled in the 21st century. The intensity of the bombing exceeds the bombing of Dresden, so even though you haven't received your 500,000, I'd say you're doing pretty well as far as genocides are concerned, you're doing a pretty good job now, some people want to say, well , I just said that the ICJ is just a plausible case of genocide, um, I would say. and they try to claim that it is a low level plausibility.

I would tell anyone in the room that if I told you that there was a plausible case that you murdered your neighbor, you would take that statement very seriously, you would dismiss it, well, what do you do? you mean by plausible no, it's just such a stupid argument plausible means credible it's a pretty serious accusation what's plausible means let's say there's a regional athletic competition, okay and you win the competition, you become the Olympic team and you win the competition Now it's true, it doesn't mean you've won a gold, silver or bronze medal yet, that's true and it doesn't even mean you've still made the team, but if you qualified at regional to be on the team, that's quite an accomplishment. awesome.

So if you qualify as having committed genocide, it's a plausible case of genocide, I'd say that's a pretty impressive achievement, so when you try to poop, yes, it's true that the Minister of Antiquities wanted to nuke Gaza and that didn't happen. It was allowed, but that's it. not because they don't want to, they are the limits imposed by the national internal political system, what we know is that they have gone as far as they wanted before being arrested, because we know exactly what they wanted to do, it is one of those rare cases of truth in the advertising Secretary of Defense SEC Defense Minister Galan said that we will not allow any food, fuel, water, electricity to enter Gaza.

Well, it doesn't take rocket science to understand what the consequence of that is. Now you're going to say, but them. We're letting it in, yes, but go back and remember they let it in when Biden said you have to let something in and right now they're not letting it in. Starvation is being used as a weapon, so all that said, I would say. They are doing a very good job if their goal is genocide. Well, they reduced humanitarian aid shipments last month by 44%, yes, between the ICJ opinion and now the amount of the ICJ opinion. International Court of Justice.

Justice opinion one of The two provisional requirements imposed on Israel were to allow more humanitarian aid to come in, in fact, it was cut in half between February and March and it was just going to do so. I forgot it. I just want to say one last part. I show you that I spoke with The Bleak. part of the current picture there are some extraordinarily inspiring things number one the incredible courage uh tenacity conscientiousness of the young people who have been coming out day after day in support of the people of Gaza is absolutely impressive, I imagine that at some point point, it's not going to be boring, people will move on and young people will keep going out and out and out.

I went to a protest about two weeks ago, it was at New York University, New York, in Washington Square Park, it was pouring rain. rain and and and I see you both, right? I didn't see anyone over 25 there, but there were umbrellas so it was a bit. I was, I don't know, I was like in I was like uh grandma in munchkinland it was and it was on a Saturday it was pouring rain we started at 12 we finished at 5:30 and you know what then we went or a large number of us went down to the subway ended up at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street and on one side of the train platform and on the other side they were still screaming at full energy level and I remember I was with someone and he told me and you know they have no interest in this, no gain, no gain, you know, the expression, of course, you know. it's um from your generation Friends with Benefits uh this was solidarity without benefits it was really something deeply inspiring a second data point is South Africa when people were talking about invoking the genocide convention I said oh forget it what are you talking about talking about which state is going to come out in defense of Gaza against the United States, that is ridiculous and South Africa's performance has been impressive.

I don't know how many of you have read the application they submitted. The original application was 84 pages long with literally hundreds of footnotes. It was so comprehensive and so impressively documented that they must have had a very large team of people to produce that document and they continue. I don't know how many of you follow it literally every three weeks. We are back at the ICJ demanding that the ICJ do more and they have all the documents with footnotes. Israel just released their response two days ago and Israel was angry now at South Africa, it's getting out of hand, they should be worried about being nuked.

I'm scared, um and the third thing, which was totally, I always freely admit when I'm wrong because I like being wrong for a good cause, uh, when people ask how do you think things will go at the international court of justice. He said maybe you could win with a vote of 8 to 7, that's the maximum and I didn't believe it. I thought it would be six in favor, um, 64 and the rest against, and lo and behold, the vote turned out to be 15 to 2 in the US she was the chief justice dunu and she voted with the majority how do you explain that you know that there was a song in the famous 60's song Something's Happening Here and when 15 ICJ judges voted to say that Israel is plausibly guilty of genocide and the American judge, the president, agrees with that, that's pretty impressive as an indicator of things, and I would freely say that if there was a Nobel Prize, if there was a Nobel Peace Prize being awarded now, first of all, I would give it. to the doctors in Gaza, many of them from abroad volunteer to go there, a death zone that is very impressive.

If I had, I would feel the moral pressure, but I think the fear would overcome me. Secondly, I would give it to him. the South African delegation and third, I would give it to the hoies oh, um, I'm not saying that as a throwback to my days as a maist, I'm saying that as a human being, remember that in the 1990s there was this whole Doctrine that was propagated by liberals like Samantha Powers it was called responsibility to protect r2p what the Houthis are doing the idea was that you have a responsibility to protect people who are being threatened with genocide is that not what the Houthis are doing protecting they are fulfilling responsibility to protect the genocide convention says that every signatory has a responsibility to prevent genocide, that's what things H are doing, so now you might ask why they're doing it, you might speculate, but I think there's a very good reason why they are doing it.

If you know why, because what is happening in Gaza happened to them between the 25th and the 15th in 2018 because of the Saudi blockade, around 880,000 Yemenis are dying of hunger, they understand famine, so in my opinion they would be the third party beneficiaries of that price, so we are. I'm going to open up the questions, keep them short, no speeches please, yeah, so it turns out we're probably going to have to leave this building in about 20 minutes because campus security wants us here by then, so what are we going to do? ? What you have to do is raise your hand, yeah, raise your hand if you want to ask a question, uh, I'll come see me, young man, I'd like to call him first, I just fell on my back, if you don't mind, okay, I got you, too after.

I ask this question, the second floor will have its own question and the third floor will have its own question and I think that will be it for tonight, okay, I fully support the hoes as a Jew, you said that. Norma, yes, totally, says the Houthi flag. God is the greatest death for America, death for Israel, acurse for the Jews, victory for Islam, how is this reconciled? I have no problem reconciling it for this very simple reason, Reon, and you'll allow me, you can disagree, I have no problem with that. from my first conscious moments in my own life, okay, my parents hate Germans, they didn't hate Nazis, they hated, they hated Germans, in fact, I vividly remember my father once recommending a book to me about the Holocaust.

Nazi and I asked him. You know what makes this book special and he told me: I liked that the author didn't talk about Nazis, he talked about Germans. Now my parents were very decent human beings. The apple didn't fall far from the tree, but I could understand it. feeling the only Jews the Houthis have ever known are Israelis, it is a sad fact that they do not know this, they have never experienced any other type of Jews. I remember once asking my mother, out of curiosity, if you ever met, ever came. I contacted a German who was decent and she told me that she thought a lot and said: I remember a German soldier who had a kind of guilty look on his face, that was all he could remember, so I'm not surprised that she Hate to all Germans.

I wish the Houthis were more demanding in their slogans, of course I wish, but do I understand where he is coming from? Yes, and that motto of theirs will influence my appreciation of the fact that they are the only people in the world. resorting to the Armed Forces to stop the genocide in Gaza I have to wonder how my parents would have felt if this motley army was situated at a point on the world map where they could influence the outcome of the final solution and these The people on this shelf labels people dating back to the Middle Ages.

They were investing all their physical resources and moral energy to stop the extermination. How would my parents react? Would you ask me what their political slogans are? I don't think so, that's my honest reaction. I am not trying to be rhetorical with you, you asked me a specific question, this is how I reason and we must be clear that this blockade that the Houthis have imposed is circumvented by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, which has created a land corridor to supply Israel with its vacuum cleaners and consumer goods next question: yes, please do it with your characteristically slow and direct way of speaking um Israel, I don't understand the relationship between those two statements, but it's okay, I want to talk to you honestly If it goes somewhere and I think there's a problem lurking now, if it goes anywhere it's your own fault, you've gone too far, they said it's a book now. wrote in 2008 that it was taken the title was taken from something written by Gideon Levy referring to operation castled and the title was this time we've gone too far and castled is now a pale, pale, pale comparison to what happened to the people from Gaza and I'm not saying it with Glee, I'm just saying that if you go somewhere it's of your own creation and there are Israeli moral philosophers like Yeshu Libowitz who warned Israel precisely about the self-destructive path it was on, so we have If you have any more questions, well, raise your hand and they'll bring the microphone up to whoever's here. um um, thanks for that response.

I was wondering if you can talk about the fact that that response has to be for it to be powerful and legitimate it has to come from a Jewish point of view and I wanted to ask what might be possible for those who don't have that experience to respond to the Houthis? and support the Houthis, so what kind of um? Do you think the answer might be possible from another point of view that might not fall into that kind of impasse of how are you supporting this? I think it's just a fact of life that certain people P have certain kinds of I won't call it immunities, but they have certain kinds of what we might call rhetorical privileges that others don't have and I want to be judged by the facts and if you're not agree with me, you are free to disagree with me and I hope that beyond disagreeing with me you will make an argument and not just a slogan but I also recognize that yes I have I cannot say that my life has been exemplary of immunities um for On the other hand, I recognize that I am capable of imposing on the public in any case, making arguments that the two young women now sitting in the front row are not capable of making and that are more easily dismissed and that is, I don't think you can avoid that it is , so to speak, the nature of the things you are doing. choosing I think we need the microphone I see you have the microphone back here, so come on, oh, there, so I'm full of emotions.

I am from Gaza, I am from Hunis. 45 people in my family were killed on Friday. tomorrow 6:00 a.m. after morning prayer, my 17 year old nephew, 17 years old, was killed in a tent that is in the safe area designated by Israel after they were expelled from their city and other people were injured, so just we came back. to the hes I don't understand why uh, whoever is asking whoever is asking a question about the H is that they are not outraged by what Israel has done and is doing, um, if they were outraged by that, they wouldn't even see the hes . as a problem because the main problem in the Middle East right now is what Israel is is what Israel is doing Israel is the one who is killing Israel is the one who is bombing Israel is the one who is doing everything that goes against the civilization destroying hospitals schools universities houses Towns uh cutting down trees doing everything unimaginable and we are still asking what the huis are doing what the huis are doing what are they simply preventing some ships from passing through the Sea and the ships are going to support a genocide how big is it that, how big the problem is compared to what Israel is doing, thank you, okay, so I'll go to the middle here and then to the left side if that's okay with everyone, could you talk about the ICJ and why?

The decision had so little impact in the grand scheme of things why that decision had so little impact. I can't really agree with that because, um, opinions and legal decisions, unless you have force behind them, are basically weapons in a political or ideological sense. struggle and that was a very powerful weapon that the icg J gave to the movement of solidarity with the people of Gaza the fact that I said before that Israel was facing a legitimation crisis the fact that now Israel has given it The scarlet letter of the genocide radically or potentially radically change opinions about Israel, they will have to carry with them that they were plausibly accused of genocide and that is for us what legitimizes or, let me put it the other way around, a lot of people were worried. if the ICJ had voted the other way around, i.e. there is no plausible case of genocide, that would have been a political disaster, Israel would have won 99% of the propaganda god war or the PR war, so The fear not only dissipated. but now there was a very powerful weapon in the quiver of those fighting for justice that the highest judicial body in the world, whose president at the time was American, had said: well, we look at the evidence, there is a plausible case of genocide here. an existential question as Norman laid out in his book The Holocaust Industry because Israel has weaponized the Holocaust, it has weaponized the genocide that was carried out against the Jews and this ruling potentially eliminates that protection.

I just want to quickly highlight that it's not just genocide, but within the United States there are five laws that every day the state department violates by approving cargo ships and planes full of weapons, the foreign assistance law that prohibits the provision of assistance to a government that engages in a consistent pattern of serious violations of internationally recognized human rights the Arms Export Control Act that says countries that receive US military aid can only use weapons for self-defense and security internalizes the US War Crimes Act which prohibits serious violations of the Geneva conventions, including intentional torture, murder, uh or inhuman treatment through the law which prohibits the US government. use funds to assist foreign security force units where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of serious violations of human rights and the law implementing the genocide convention that was enacted to implement States' obligations United under the genocide convention and Israel would push for it and it provides criminal sanctions for people who commit or incite others to commit genocide, so what is happening is a grotesque violation, not only of international law, but also of internal law, and I think that this is uh this uh this negative I know in the debate Benny Morris was saying well the laws do not matter the laws do not matter the laws do matter because uh yes yes yes we do not have any type of legal mechanism for because we can contain these forces, then we create a kind of Hoban world and I think, as some of you know, I am very close to Julian Assange and I just returned from the hearing in London and one of the things that terrifies me Having attended those hearings in London, it's the way that the British legal system and the American legal system are ignoring their own laws and this sets a kind of precedence that is very, very dangerous, so yes, the law does matter and I found that a interesting kind of exchange between you and Benny uh because he was basically saying it's not okay.

Professor Mars says that laws don't matter or the law doesn't matter when it all depends on who is grinding the ox, so on October 7th if you really believe that international law is irrelevant if you believe that Hamas did nothing wrong on October 7th October because the wrongness of his act arises from the fact that the new international humanitarian law (IHL), as it is called, distinguishes between civilians and combatants. most fundamental principle of IHL International humanitarian law the fundamental principle is the principle of distinction, we must distinguish between civilians and combatants, civilian sites and military sites, but if you do not believe in the law, as I told Benny Moris, Professor Moris, then no Don't complain about what happened on October 7th.

You can't have it both ways. The law only comes into effect when you are the victim, but stops working when you are the perpetrator. Oh thanks. I think it was February 15th or something like that. So Jared Kushner Trump's son-in-law said something like the beachfront properties in Gaza are going to be very valuable and he also recommended that they get the people out of there and clean them up. Do you think that will be the case? Giving was an insight into a possible second Trump term. Jared Kushner is an example of why we need to get rid of affirmative action for the rich.

He's a scary impersonator and he went to Harvard because his father who is a sick criminal got him into I think the only good thing Chris Christie did was lock up his father um it was beyond everything else it was so stupid to be I'm so sorry, but it's like we're in the moment right now. and we are going to have to close. I would not do it. I don't want to interrupt you. I really hate to do this but we have to do it. Sorry, no problem. Well, the campus. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you very much for. watching The Real News Network, where we lift up the voices, stories and struggles that matter most to you and we need your help to keep doing this work, so tap your screen now, subscribe and donate to the real News Network solidarity forever.