Video Infoblog with Transcript: Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi says Israel, US will face ...

Transcript

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[Music]

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welcome to on the Middle East Al monitor's podcast on the big stories in the region my name is Amron Zaman and I

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am Al monitor's Chief correspondent based in London as the war between Israel and Hamas enters its 12th day I

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will be talking to rajid khidi a widely acclaimed Palestinian American historian

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who is the Edward S professor of modern Arab studies at Colombia University in

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New York Professor holid is better place than most to explain the complexities of

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the Israeli Palestinian conflict and to unpack the competing narratives

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assigning blame in this recent bout of violence Professor H's most recent book

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is the 100 Years War on Palestine so welcome to our program Professor

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khi thanks for having me uh so I was uh just listening to your

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program with um fared Zakaria and uh you were saying to him

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that for decades you are being told you'll be subjugated you'll be second-class citizens you'll be

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dispossessed that we will take your land and will and the United States has

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basically not just supported but financed and armed that process and you

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said so people in the Arab world when they see no Horizon are willing to turn

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to Hamas so my question to you a professor is were you suggesting that

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people in the Arab world generally support Hamas and what it did on October

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7th and more broadly uh that Hamas was left with no other choice than to resort

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to just this kind of horrific violence to remind Israel and the world that

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there can be no peace over their heads over the heads of the Palestinians if so

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uh what has been achieved if anything on behalf of the Palestinian people through

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this act of desperation if that's what it is actually I wasn't saying anything

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of the sort what I was saying that the systematic closing of any political

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Horizon over the past at least two decades by the United States and by

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Israel and by that I mean political Horizon which speaks to

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the demands and and rights of the Palestinian people involving

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self-determination equal rights end of occupation end of land theft and

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colonization absolutely no response at any political level to any

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Palestinian rights by the United States and Israel has left the the field open

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or Advocates of violence if you demonize people who call for boycott divestment

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and sanctions as anti-semites if you prevent the Palestinians from going to the international criminal court if the

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United States vetos resolutions at the United Nations security Council and if the United States does all of this while

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arming Israel financing settlement expansion the money is raised in the

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United States from taxfree 501 501c3 quote unquote Charities which pour money

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into the occupied territories to expand settlements expand the theft of Palestinian land if you do all of those

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things uh and essentially close off the Avenue of peaceful protests boycott

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investment sanctions legal recourse and offer absolutely no political Horizon no

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mediation no negotiation no middle east peace Envoy for administration after

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Administration after Administration then you shouldn't be surprised if the result is violence if

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unceasing violence of occupation and land theft doesn't lead to violence we should

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be surprised in other words if the kind of humiliation and subjugation imposed on the Palestinians actually for 75

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years but certainly in the case of Gaza for 16 years of blockade and Siege and

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on the Palestinians generally uh over many decades but specifically in the absence of any political Horizon

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whatsoever over the better part of a couple of decades then one should not be

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surprised when violence suddenly finds support in the Arab world I was actually

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mainly talking in that response in the question you asked me about about why people in the Arab world are so angry

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today uh not so much that they necessarily support Hamas many of the governments that are taking positions

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today are fervent opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood are not supporters in

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any way manner or form of Hamas that's not the point the point is not Hamas the point is what have Israel and the United

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States doing on the issue of Palestine and why is it that Hamas emerges as the

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only uh apparent alternative for many at

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least for many Palestinians I think that's the point and do you think that point is understood by the Biden

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Administration judging by um uh its actions since uh October 7th absolutely

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not the Biden Administration is reading off an Israeli teleprompter the Biden Administration has adopted a position of

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complete alignment with the Israeli point of view this is a case of absolute evil I'm quoting the president this is a

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case where Hamas is worse than Isis make Isis look rational I think is what he

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said uh on his arrival in Israel or in his speech there um this is a case where

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expression of humanitarian sympathy does not allow the United States to vote for a resolution that would open

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humanitarian corridors an expression of humanitarian sympathy does not allow the United States to demand of Israel that

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it allow water and fuel and food and electricity into the Gaza Strip in other words empty meaningless statements about

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the humanitarian aspect combined with complete support for anti-human Arian actions by Israel means the United

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States is aligned 100% on the Israeli position uh so uh I I I I think that I

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think that the Biden Administration has completely nailed its flag to the Mast of whatever it is that Israel decides to

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do and has done so far uh I think the president's adoption of the

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Israeli I don't know what to call it the Israeli claims about their bombing of this hospital yesterday the A M Hospital

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in Gaza yesterday is a perfect example of this it would have been possible to say this is something that really requires investigation at the very least

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um the fact that he was slapped in the face by three Arab leaders who are normally reliable allies of the United

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States who refuse to meet with him is an indication not so much of their any conscience on their part but the fact

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that they realize that their public opinion is enraged by the American position and they cannot be seen to be meeting with this man or people from his

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administration that being the case um with the world's number one super power

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so firmly aligned with Israel then what can be done what what what can change

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how can you sort of shift the dynamic or are we just left with more

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violence well I think that the United States and several Western countries

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that are aligned with the United States have put themselves in a position where they are in in essence hostage as to

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whatever it is that Israel decides to do by saying Israel has an absolute right of self-defense which means that it can

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act in disproportionate fashion in violation of international Humanity Arian Law whatever meaningless gibberish

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they put out about humanitarian issues and international law is clearly contradicted by the fact that one of the

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essential principles of this is proportionality and killing at last I heard 3,300 people almost most of whom

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are civilians and perhaps half of whom are children doesn't seem to me to fit any definition of proportionality so the

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United States and its Western European closest Western European allies Germany France and Britain all of whose leaders

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are in or going to Israel of following in the in in the path of President Biden

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um frankly I think have put themselves in a position of isolation within the world Community as is shown by the vote

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in the security Council 12 countries voted for a very mild Brazilian resolution the only

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country to vote against was the United States even Britain abstained so uh I I

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I'm I don't have I have no answer to your question what is the way out of this I think the United States stopping

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doing what it's doing and Israel beginning to reflect on how it's going to deal with the Palestine issue would

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take us out of this I'm not terribly optimistic about either of those things happening or in fact probably even less

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likely given the rage anger felt in Israel Over precisely of Israeli

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civilians and the peace uh you know proponents being even more marginalized

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but uh shifting to this argument that the Abraham Accord Ward a normalization

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with Saudi Arabia which would have been the jewel in in the crown was one of the main triggers uh for this uh recent

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Spate of violence though Spate of course is the wrong word do you agree with that

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at all no no I I don't think that Hamas attacked as it

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did uh solely or even necessarily mainly to uh prevent the uh normalization of

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relations between Israel and and uh Saudi Arabia that probably was a factor

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uh I would say undoubtedly was a factor um but I don't think it was their primary concern uh I I I don't know what

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what precisely was in their heads I still am not clear on whether they even had a political objective or whether

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this was something PL planned by the hard men in Hamas um and and and had

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essentially military objectives with with very little uh uh sense of where they intended to go with it but I don't

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think that's the point I think I think it's clear that uh they were pushing

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Back Against The Narrative which Israel and the United States and its allies have been have been uh putting out for

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quite a while that the Palestine issue is not important that one can ignore it that um a future of peace and economic

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prosperity in the Middle East over the bodies of the Palestinians and ignoring their rights and their interests and in

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fact they're very existence was not only possible but desirable and Easy in fact um look at how easy it was to have

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relations between so-called peace treaties between countries that never were at war with Israel like Morocco and

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the Emirates and Israel look at how easy that was well Saudi Arabia would be the

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the Kingpin here and you know the it was clear that there was an interest on both sides in something happening at least

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that's what we hear heard from Saudi Arabia I believe things have changed as a result of this whether this was

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hamas's objective or not is not necessarily discernable let alone the point the point is

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the first and most ferocious denunciation of the bombing of the Ali Hospital came from Saudi

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Arabia the king kept blink and waiting for 10 hours before he received him not

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the king excuse me the Crown Prince Muhammad bin sedman the Crown Prince uh and the position taken by Saudi Arabia

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has been extremely extremely hard uh uh

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it is very clear position taken by Egypt has been equally hard position taken by Jordan the position actually taken by

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every Arab country uh even the vote in the security Council by the United Arab Emirates a country with diplomatic

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relations and extremely close security relations with Israel Over more than a decade uh was for the Emirates quite

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forceful well this is a function of the reaction across the Arab world and across all of the Civilized world except

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the United States and Europe which live in a an information misinformation bubble uh at what is happening in

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Palestine because Israeli lives should be considered civilian lives should be considered important obviously uh any

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any any civilian death should be mourned but all people are supposedly equal and

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the hundreds of Israeli civilians who are exclusively mourned in the west have

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now been matched by 3,000 the the perhaps 900 or a thousand Israeli civilians in addition to hundreds of

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Israeli soldiers but the 900 or thousand Israeli civilians who died uh uh

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starting on on the on the 7th of of October are now matched by a a mountain

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of two or three times it will soon be four times as many Palestinians again in

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like the Israelis innocent civilians and the rest of the world sees that they do not see the difference between Hamas or

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other militants coming out of Gaza killing civilians and Israeli Pilots or Israeli Gunners or Israeli gunboats

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killing civilians killing civilians is killing civilians especially in these numbers the hundreds of Israelis who

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were killed civilians and the now thousands of Palestinians and the world

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sees that even as the American and European political position and their

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the media which seem to move in lock step with their governments uh May distort this well this is a pervasive

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problem I mean PE the Turks are bombing Northeast Syria you know people are

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dying in by the thousands in Yemen and Sudan everywhere and of course it

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doesn't get anywhere near the amount of attention but one argument that's put forward by

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um some people is that well you know because of the Holocaust the Israeli

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people the Jewish people are just so deeply traumatized that this is in their genes uh that that they you know they

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just can't overcome any of this and so for for them you know it's so so much

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worse quote unquote that you know the rest of the world needs to understand that where they're coming from it does

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but that doesn't give them a Le P to commit war crimes it is something that should be understood I mean one of in my

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view one of the great strategists of Liberation struggles a man named Ahmed

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said something like this many many years ago and told the PLO that their strategy was mistaken because against he he had

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he had worked with the fln neria fln was responsible for innumerable atrocities

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against French uh uh colon against French settlers in Algeria and he had

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been part of that effort he wasn't he wasn't setting bombs himself he was working with with France F in the

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information War uh that the fln was waging uh and he went to South Lebanon

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and he came back and said against this enemy which is a people suffering from these specific traumas this strategy

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won't work I I published in my in my last book The 100 Years War in Palestine

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I I repeated at length the ahmed's analysis and so there's

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there's a lot of good strategic Reasons I'm not just talking about moral reason I'm talking about strategic reasons for

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Palestinians toay and and and other supporters of Palestinian Liberation to pay attention to that fact the Jewish

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people are particularly traumatized people and the Holocaust is something that's in the minds not just of the

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generation that experienced of whom very few are survivors anymore but of the generations that that followed anybody

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who has any sense political sense not a sensitivity to what their colleagues

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will say political sense should understand that however the Israelis and

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and the Jewish people are the not the only traumatized people on the face of the planet the Armenians are traumatized

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people for equally good reasons uh the Palestinians for completely different

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reasons are also traumatized people and of course that suffering for some reason

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doesn't get the same kind of attention and that trauma and what that drives people to doesn't get the same attention

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or or analysis or concern that Jewish suffering and Israeli suffering

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especially and Israeli trauma uh gets I mean Holocaust survivors were killed

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civilians were killed in this attack and that's the kind of thing that's going to reverberate unfortunately for

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Generations so I'm I'm fully sensitive to to what you're saying but uh again

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trauma doesn't excuse murderers have been traumatized in their past rapists

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were traumatized in their P many of them are victims I hate to talk about this it's a horrible subject but we don't say

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well you're going to get off for this murder conviction because you yourself were traumatized in your youth uh uh it

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is it is something that people should be obviously paying attention to and concerned with it should not however I

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hate to say this be the only concern well of course the media's role is also you know can be very pernicious

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so zooming out a bit as a historian and particularly in the face of all this

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fake news false narratives that are spread so fast and effectively um you must feel an even

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greater responsibility responsibility than ever to record interpret analyze

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events for posterity uh and so much of the current debate is focused on who did what to who and and who did it in in a

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more brutal fashion um if you were to summarize how we got

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here um is is this a kind of a ground zero and I know it's kind of impossible

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to squeeze this all into a short podcast um I mean can you just run us through

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the timeline of how we got here yeah I mean it's a terrible mistake to be

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assume that the timeline begins on the 7th of October or that Hames uh has to

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be seen solely and and uniquely in light of what what happened from the 7th of October onwards I'm not suggesting we

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ignore that I'm simply suggesting that we look a little further back now I I

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have written at length about how far back we should look I suggest we should look back at least to the bfor Declaration at least to The

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Establishment by Britain of a settler colony at the expense of the Palestinian people intended to replace them in their

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Homeland um and everything that follows from that the expansion of that project

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uh ultimately to most and now to all of Palestine and the dispossession of the

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Palestinian people as a necessary inevitable consequence of creating a Jewish state in a majority Arab country

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you can't create a Jewish state in an Arab country without removing the Arabs

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or it's not a Jewish State I mean Hello um that was a that that was an that was

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inherent in Zionism as one of my ancestors wrote it's a wonderful idea but not

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here Zionism is understandable the connection of the Jewish people to the land of is is understandable it's it's

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it's perfectly acceptable however you doing this here has consequences which

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Zionism and its apologists have insistently have insisted we ignore we

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pretend didn't happen so that's the first thing the second thing is it's really worthwhile and I know I'm going

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to be swimming against the tide to say this to understand that as as I

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suggested earlier the closing off of any possibility of a political

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solution to this struggle between these two peoples necessarily is going to lead to

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violence if you don't allow anything else the repression and oppression

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and dispossession which is inherent in this project and which has been inherent in

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the occupation of the occupied territories of the West Bank the Gaza Strip and occupied arabes Jerusalem since 1967 will necessarily lead to

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violence you cannot repress an oppress a people without them eventually rising up and that that resistance will if you if

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you prevent it from taking political expression will become violent and what has in particular been happening in Gaza

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and with Hamas is well worth looking at carefully it's well worth looking at what happened for example in

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2006 after the uh elections of that year when Hamas and its opponents tried to

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form a coalition government when Hamas offered 100 years truce to Israel 100 years not permanent but 100 years is

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better than what we've had for the last 18 years certainly um and when this was

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turned down categorically by Israel in the United States which worked ceaselessly to split Palestinians to

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divide the Palestinians to separate Gaza from the West Bank to shut off any political alternative that would involve

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Hamas well the same people or at least the same country United States which

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brokered the 1998 Accords in Ireland which involved negotiations with the

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Irish Republican Army provisional Wing which had been involved in the most

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extensive violence not just in Ireland but in the United Kingdom refused to do

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the same thing with Hamas one of the people who was involved in an American effort to do this a senior American

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official a former Senator a former uh a former mediator in Ireland tried to do

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the same thing and was turned down flat by people in the US government uh

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you cannot talk to Hamas well if Hamas was willing to talk why wouldn't you have talked to them so when you slam the

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door in their face I'm not justifying anything I'm telling you how we got to where we are context is important if you

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pretend there's no context then you can paint any lying picture of the present you can start from the killings that

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occurred starting on the 7th of October history did not start with Hamas or anybody else on the 7th of October it

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didn't start with the siege of Gaza which started in 2007 it didn't even start with the rejection of the results

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of the Palestinian election and the formation of a Palestinian coalition government which intended with the

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participation of Hamas to negotiate it starts before that and you have to go back and understand all of those phases

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to see how we've gotten to this horrific moment where hundreds of Israelis and thousands of Palestinians civilians are

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dead but when you also look at that timeline what you see happening is that

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you know facts keep getting created on the ground and the Palestinians are

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losing more and more and more of it how do you reverse

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that well two things uh the first thing is you're absolutely right about what's

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happening on the ground um you're absolutely right that um the

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dispossession of of of populations and the and I'm afraid I I hope I'm wrong ethnic further ethnic cleansing of

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Palestinians uh is is occurring as as we speak um three villages in the West Bank

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were emptied of small villages in the West Bank were emptied of their population by by rampaging settler mobs

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which chased the people of those tiny localities out of their homes and then destroyed their homes uh so that's

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ethnic cleansing that's the Israeli government Israeli government is the occup is the

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occupying Authority it's responsible under international law for that the Israeli government is responsible for that as it is responsible it's declared

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its responsibility for trying to empty the northern part of Gaza of its population six 7 800,000 people have

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been forced to leave their homes um

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obviously what's happening on the ground is extraordinarily unfavorable to the Palestinians in that respect and I have

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to say in addition that since the 7th of October and since the the alignment of

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the United United States government and the American Media by and large with an Israeli narrative um enormous progress

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that had been made in the United States and in the west has been reversed uh

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progress in terms of Palestinian rights and understanding that the Palestinian narrative has has to be listened to at the very least I think we've gone

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backwards on that and I don't know when and if that that that reversal can be can can can somehow be overcome um I do

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not think though that Israel or the United States have any sense of how

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politically meaning I don't want to say it this way I don't think the United States and Israel understand that they

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there is absolutely no political uh uh Horizon in what they're doing for them

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for the United States in the Arab world or for Israel in the Middle East this is a nihilistic approach uh which which can

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bring nothing nothing but harm to all concern but but what makes it apparently even more complicated is the fact that

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um what Hamas did you know and taken out of the context that you just described

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to us as a historian um is conflated with islamist extremism large where you

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have President Biden uh comparing Hamas to Isis can you Professor tell us

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whether that's a fair comparison or not I I mean let me start by saying this is

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a script that Netanyahu Unearthed from his mentor Ariel Sheron who first wrote

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it in the wake of the 2001 attacks Israel was searching for a strategic a reason for it for it to

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remain a strategic Ally of the United States and latching on to the war on terrorism and latching onto the war on

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islamism and Islamic extremism and and specifically alqa initially and later Islamic state was the means that was

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used to conflate the kind of nihilistic Islamic terrorism that dases Islamic

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State and before them alqa represented with the uh National Liberation

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Palestinian AF at National Liberation which includes some of the same methods in other words methods that involve the

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tax on civilians and saying using this this this blanket term terrorism uh

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Sheron and his and his information people brilliantly managed to uh uh

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hitch Israel to the American cart of the the war on terror and Netanyahu is just

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rereading from that script and the Biden Administration which as I said they're reading from an Israeli teleprompter

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this is not an American idea and it has particular resonance in the United States because the United States

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suffered from the terrorism of alqa back in 2001 it has particular residents in

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Britain and France countries which have suffered from that kind of terrorism from d and Al extremists um the fact

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that what Hamas is trying to do is not some kind of global struggle to establish some kind of Islamic State is

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not some kind of nihilistic and and and and aim unrelated to territory but is an

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attempt to do something in pales about what was done to Palestine through

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Zionist settler colonialism is completely lost in this you mentioned

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going back to you know the reaction from the Arab states how the Saudi Crown

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Prince left blink and waiting and there very strong uh reactions uh in general

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from all of these countries do you see this leading to them maybe downgrading

28:25

their relations I mean where they exist obviously for Jordan for Egypt for countries like turkey to downgrade their

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existing ties and could that over time be the real challenge for Israel that they are once again surrounded as it

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were by a sea of hostile Arab and middle eastern states could that be the price

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they pay that's inevitable I think you put your finger on one of the major results

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of this Israel is going to be a pariah again after a process whereby it it it

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it managed to gain a measure of Acceptance in spite of what it was doing to the Palestinians but I would go

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further than that I think that this applies to the United States given that it is it is linked at the hip to Israel

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uh by President Biden and his rhetoric and his policies and his actions the

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United States will lose in the Middle East overall as a result of this not just in terms of its relations with

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individual countries like turkey or like Egypt or like Saudi Arabia but in terms

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of the opportunity this this offers to Rivals of the United States like China

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like Russia uh like I think in in time countries like India uh and Brazil and

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others to play a larger role in world politics to play a larger role in specifically in the Middle East because

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the United States has alienated uh countries to such a great extense now it remains as you suggested at the top of

29:52

this podcast the leading superpower that doesn't end

29:58

just because it's alienated countries but I would argue it's it's given an enormous leg up to every rival of the

30:04

United States and to all countries in the mid least it has alienated them and pushed them away from the United States

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and towards other Alternatives which many of them have already developed I mean you look at Turkey you look at Iran

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you look at Saudi Arabia you look at Egypt they all have developed excellent relations with the countries that I

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mentioned whether China or Russia or Brazil or India they understand that there are developing other polls in the

30:28

Global uh uh uh uh in the global situation and this will push them further in those directions well if I'm

30:34

the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and I see what happened you know despite Israel's might and you know

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extraordinary intelligence capacity military capacity I would be very

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uncomfortable thinking what might happen at home or if I were any other

30:52

authoritarian I mean the other thing to watch is authoritarian governments which rule

30:58

against the public opinion of their of their peoples which rulle through repressive means being forced for the

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first time in a very long time to take their people's opinions into into

31:10

account uh Jordan and and and Saudi Arabia and Egypt refusing to meet with an American president doesn't happen

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every day it's happening because they're suddenly watching what's going on in the mosques and in the streets and in the

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universities and in their newspapers and among their in intellectuals even if

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they use their secret police even if they use their enormous repressive capacities they have to pay some

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attention to public attention sorry to public opinion and that is exactly what's happening and to your point on

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the United States of course it becomes much harder to sell the Ukraine war to the global South when uh you know the

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global South doesn't feel the same way you do about what just happened in Israel um one final well almost final

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question is this uh you know when the violence end and hopefully it will very

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soon uh with you know the Palestinian Authority uh admittedly so discredited

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with Hamas viewed as a terrorist organization who you know if the time

32:15

comes do we sit down with who who will be at the table on behalf of the

32:21

Palestinian people I mean this is one of the great

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problems that the Palestinians have to face that they have a an

32:35

absolutely unfit leadership on every level uh whether we're talking about

32:41

Palestinian Authority in Nala which has almost no legitimacy with the overwhelming majority of Palestinians

32:47

which is not seen as representing them and which has not allowed elections to take place since 2006 or whether we're

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talking about Hamas which rules ganza with an iron hand which is not

33:00

enormously popular with the people over whom it ruled um before this these events took place before the 6th of

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October and which in my view has no political Vision um we are talking about

33:13

a a vacuum a leadership vacuum and this is the problem that which you which you

33:20

just put your finger on who will go to the table if there is a table I don't expect there to be one but were there to

33:25

be a possibility of a resolution who would represent who

33:31

represents the Palestinians I mean President Biden has been very clear he's told us that you know as far as we're

33:37

concerned Hamas doesn't represent the Palestinians well as far as most Palestinians are concerned the

33:43

Palestinian Authority doesn't represent the Palestinian so who does this is a Palestinian problem exacerbated by the

33:48

interference of external actors to the nth degree Israel has worked to keep the Palestinian separate the United States

33:54

has worked to keep the Palestinian separate Arab and other Eastern countries have each played their clients

34:00

in ways that keep the Palestinians separate but the Palestinians have overcome this kind of external intervention in the past in the 1930s in

34:07

the 1960s in the 1980s they they they managed to overcome that um it will be

34:12

their problem going forward and it is to my way of thinking one of the great problems that the pal one of the greatest problems that the Palestinians

34:19

have my final question um and I know you've been asked this endlessly but do

34:24

you fear there's a risk of a broader configration and at some point of Iran being involved

34:31

dragged in or you know is trying to drag the United States in to attack Iran

34:39

because it can't do it on its own I I do fear um a wider configeration I am very

34:46

afraid of an escalation between Hamas sorry between

34:51

excuse me I'm very afraid of an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah

34:57

um they have it seems up to this point I dare not say this managed to keep the

35:04

level such that it doesn't rise beyond that my intuition I hope I'm right is

35:13

that neither Israel nor Hezbollah nor the United States nor Iran desires an escalation beyond the

35:23

level that it is currently at however events outside their control for example

35:29

yet another huge massacre in Gaza a Israeli ground offensive that goes on

35:35

for a very long time killing thousands and thousands more Palestinians or other events that are out of control of any of

35:42

the actors or most of the actors could provoke such an escalation and one thing could lead to another I mean the

35:48

apocalyptic scenario is that an Israel Hezbollah War which would devastate

35:54

Lebanon brings in Syria and Iran and and that might bring in the United States

36:00

and then we're in then we're in a real pickle that then then the world the world is in trouble because Israel is a

36:06

nuclear armed power the United States is a nuclear armed power if Iran gets seriously involved in this I don't think

36:12

there are necessarily any red lines and then we really have to worry however my

36:17

intuition and I hope I'm right is that these four actors will stay away from

36:24

that precipice they may not be able to prevent it because any other anybody could push them into it or any one of

36:30

the four could act in a way that has unintended or perhaps intended consequences but barring that I my

36:37

intuition is that we might not see that apocalyptic inshallah I hope we won't see that apocalyptic scenario Professor

36:44

I know you have family in the West Bank I overheard in your conversation with fared Zakaria I hope they all stay safe

36:51

all your loved ones say sta thank you very much for joining us today thank you

36:57

and this brings us to the end of another episode of on the Middle East much to

37:03

reflect on after this conversation with Rashid khidi thank you for joining the

37:10

conversation goodbye

37:19

[Music]

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