Video: Avi Shlaim on Arab-Jews, Zionism and Israel
Transcript
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you come across as somebody who one can only describe as a real humanitarian my Arab identity was
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erased Arabic was really looked down upon as a primitive language and the
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language uh of the enemy and settler colonialism didn't begin in
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1967 it was a continuation o of process my Army the Army I knew became
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the brutal police force of a brutal colonial
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power the mainstream media has been justifying genocide in Gaza islamophobia
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and censorship are the norm we're changing that our journalism has reached
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over 300 million impressions on social media since October the 7th on TV our
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rolling news cover has featured key figures like husam zlet AI schlame Gideon Levy and Jeremy
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Corbin we need your support to reveal the truth and ensure our voices are
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heard so donate today at support. Islam channel.tv
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thank you for joining me on the Islam Channel podcast now today my guest is
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none other than the world British Israeli Professor AI
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schlame Professor schlame is an ameritus fellow of St Anthony's college and an
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Emeritus professor of international relations at the University of Oxford he
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is one of Israel's new historians a group of Israeli Scholars who put
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forward critical interpretations of the history of Zionism and
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Israel Professor schim was born to wealthy jewi Jewish parents in Baghdad
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in 1945 and like many Iraqi Jews his family were forced to move to the newly created
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state of Israel in 1947 Professor schlame welcome to the
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Islam Channel podcast it's a pleasure to be here no the pleasure is all ours I mean Professor schlame you are somebody
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who is uh world-renowned and I think our viewers will understand when I say world renown it's not a title to be taken
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lightly you are known across the Muslim and world you're also known in Western
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literary literary circles and also in Academia for the work that you've done but today's podcast is more about
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finding who is uh with all respect Avi schlame when we take away the title
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professor and uh you are very kind enough to gift me one of your books uh which is a fascinating read into the
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life of a of who you describe to be an Arab Jew a title which many will think
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well actually does that actually exist is there such a thing as an Arab Jew three worlds is the book that I'm
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talking about and our viewers will see the title in the uh graphic that we'll put as I'm speaking uh tell us how your
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family uh felt as Iraqi Arabs Arab Jews in fact uh before Israel was even
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thought of as a as as an idea so I was born in Baghdad in
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1945 to a Jewish Family MH and in 1950 we moved to Israel rather
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reluctantly as you suggested uh because we were Iraqi
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Jews we had very deep roots in the country uh the Jews were in Iraq uh for
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2 and a half Millennia um since the Babylonian exile
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we were in Iraq long before the rise of uh Islam so we are not newcomers and we
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are certainly not Intruders we were children of the
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land um and we were Arab
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Jews um we were Iraqis whose religion
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happened to be Judaism yeah but Judaism wasn't our main identifier
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um we are Iraqis to all intents and purposes yeah uh but our religion was
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Judaism um and we spoke Arabic at home we only spoke Arabic at home um our
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social Customs were Arab Customs um our food was many was uh
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Middle Eastern uh food yeah and uh we had many Muslim
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friends uh as well as Christian friends fisel I first the first king of Iraq who
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after the first world war had the job of unifying many diverse groups in Iraq
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into one nation yeah uh made a special effort to embrace the Jews and my mother
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who went to the alance isra alance Israelite un
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in Baghdad the School for Girls remembers when King fisel I first came
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to visit her school and um he uh he was accompanied by the chief Rabbi wow um so
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uh the Jews there were Jewish communities throughout the Arab world
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there were Jewish communities in Egypt in Syria in Lebanon but the largest
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Jewish Comm Community was in Iraq and it was also the wealthiest the most prosperous the most
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successful um community and it contributed um uh at every level to
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nation building yes so we had a a strong sense of belonging uh in
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Iraq um and um my mother used to talk a
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great deal about the Jewish contribution positive Jewish contribution to all
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aspects of life in Iraq and she also used to talk about the wonderful Muslim friends that we had in Baghdad yes and
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one day I asked her um did we also have Zionist friends and she looked at me as
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if this was a very strange question and she said no Zionism is an ashkanazi
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thing it's nothing to do W with us and ashkanazi would be um a a Jew from
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Europe okay as opposed to a Safar Jew that is a Jew from um from the Middle
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East or North Africa okay so in in in term just let's stay with Iraq and the
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community the Jewish Community there uh you say they were integrated the cultures and Moors I suppose were Arab
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in all with all in all intents and purposes uh perhaps the dress and the lifestyle would you say then your links
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to the ashkanazi the European Jew were more in terms of being co-religionist as
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opposed to anything else in terms of how you viewed the world and your place in the
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world yes I would say that most definitely because we lived in Iraq uh
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we spoke Arabic um linguistically and culturally we had
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much more in common with other Iraq whether Muslims or Christian then we had
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with our co-religionists from Europe um we didn't know very much about
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their lives in Europe or their uh cultures so yes I would say culturally
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uh we were Arabs uh F first and foremost and um Jewish Judaism was
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second many people listen to this will will probably not know a world where there are large numbers of of Jews
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living in Arab and Muslim countries but I suppose this was the norm prior to
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1947 prior to World War II in fact where large numbers of Jews lived in Muslim
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countries as part of that Society is that something which was a
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norm for a lot you you mentioned you were in Jews were in Iraq before the Advent of Islam for two millennia and
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you site the B Babylonian exile which is a very very important um period in
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history for Jews so my question I suppose is the
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integration where you say it was very integrated those that seems to be
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something far off whereas is it as far off and as and as um I suppose more of
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an ideal now than it actually was back in those days um my Memoirs have um excited a lot
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of interest in the Arab world and the reason for that is that any Arabs or
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Muslims who were born after 1948 after Israel was established would
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have no idea of this reality that I describe in the book that all they know
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is Israel and the Palestinians the conflict yes um and um they wouldn't
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know that once upon a time the Middle East the landscape was totally different
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um and um uh that's partly the reason
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that I wrote my book and that is to recapture and reanimate a distinct
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Jewish civilization of the near East which was blown away in the 20th century
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by the cold wings of nationalism um so uh Iraq was a very
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good example of this kind of pluralism that I'm talking about in Iraq there are
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many minorities many minorities uh there were uh Christians
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there were calines the Catholics yes uh there were Tans there were
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yazidis um and uh there was a long tradition of religious tolerance of Let
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Live and Let Live by the different minorities so we as Jews we didn't stand
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out we were one minority among many Iraq did not have a Jewish Problem in
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inverted commas Europe had a Jewish Problem in Europe the Jews were the
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other mhm um in Iraq the Jews were not the other there were one minority the
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Jews did not live in ghettos um uh so um this was a very
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pluralistic World which was with a distant distinct culture political
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culture which came down from the Ottoman Empire the Ottoman Empire seems um
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centuries away yes uh but um uh and it doesn't have a good reputation but it
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has its saving Graces and although it was a Muslim empire it was multi-ethnic
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and multilingual and it afforded a large uh measure of civil and religious uh
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rights to all the minorities and the Jews thrived under the Ottoman Empire
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and the logic of the Ottoman Empire was pluralism um and
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um uh after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire when the European the colonial
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Powers uh reshaped the Middle East uh in
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their own image nationalism was the guiding principle so under the Ottoman
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Empire the logic was pluralism MH um whereas um in the post World War I
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landscape uh nationalism was a dominant force and nationalism is a very divisive
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Force it's Us and Them Jews and Arabs Jews and Muslims Israelis and uh
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Palestinians yes um so the um political
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culture of the Ottoman Empire the economical culture suited the region
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much better uh than the Nationalist framework of uh separate nation states
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with borders between them and a never ending conflict so an Algerian Berber
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under the Ottoman Empire could go all the way to Istanbul without a passport
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it was all open uh whereas um
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the PC settlement the that was imposed on the region by the Victorious powers
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in the first world war Britain uh and France um this didn't suit the region
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and its culture um and I call it the post-ottoman
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syndrome and the key feature of the post otoman syndrome is lack of
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legitimacy the rulers were handpicked by the colonial powers yes um uh they were
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not legitimate they were not elected the political systems were uh they were
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foreign um they were not democracy there was no peaceful means of bringing about
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political uh change and the borders of the new Middle East were illegitimate
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because there were artificial borders cutting across live communities this is
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what I call the Post otoman syndrome which has produced NeverEnding strife
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and conflict and bloodshed um uh right until today so you describe a a a bygone
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world now that that that world has gone um for you obviously it's quite sad that's gone U for many they'll have a
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different view on that um but let's go back to yourself so I suppose in that atmosphere
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let's say around the 1930s the 1940s more and more I suppose the space
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would have been closing in on Arab Jews or Iraqi Jews in your
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case tell us about how your family or your parents felt in terms of their
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experiences which led to them having to I suppose flee Iraq into what maybe they
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viewed it as a homecoming but in your book you very clearly said say that for
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many of the elders in your community in Iraq they viewed Israel as a farway
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country of which we knew little
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um in the 1930s things in Iraq began to change
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especially after the Nazi party came to power in Germany in
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1933 and then there was um uh uh growing Nazi propaganda in
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Iraq um and um part of that propaganda was anti-semitic yes but I'd like to
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emphasize that anti-Semitism is not an Arab or a Muslim
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phenomenon it didn't grow in the Middle East uh anti-Semitism is a European
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malady from Europe it was transported to the Middle East and anti-Semitism in Europe
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has it its roots in the Middle Ages particularly the church it's the Christian Church which was a generator
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of anti-Semitism absolutely yes um uh and um it's interesting to note that in
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the 30s and 40s um when anti-Semitism was spreading
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in the Arab world mhm uh there was no Arabic literature which is anti-Semitic
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so anti-semitic literature had to be translated from European languages into
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Arabic for example Hitler's mine uh mine Camp uh so things began to change for
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the Jews in Iraq the environment became more hostile um and um uh we were caught
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between two forces um uh Arab
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nationalism uh and one manifestation of that was to reject the Jews as Outsiders
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as aliens um and uh the eal party represented their Trend in Iraq and it
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called for the expulsion of the Jews and the confiscation of the
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property um and on the other hand there was the Zionist movement which had
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embarked by this time on the systematic takeover of Palestine with British
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support going starting with the bord Declaration of 1917 the Zionist movement
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was taking over Palestine and um uh ex
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and uh and pushing out some of the Palestinians uh so there was a clash
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between two two national movements which affected the position of Jews
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uh in the Arab world things came to a head in 1948 when the state of Israel was
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established uh and there was the first Arab Israeli War U
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Zionism uh was an important factor here in understanding what happened because
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Zionism gave the Jews for the first time in two Millennia a territorial Dimension
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yes there was now a Jewish State nearby so for any right-wing Arab nationalist
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for any member of the eal party it became easier to say to Jews you don't
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belong here you're foreigners you're Outsiders you're not our friends go and
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join your brothers and also your brothers in Palestine are the ones who are expelling our brothers the
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Palestinians yes um so um uh
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the 1948 war was a turning point in the history of the Jews uh in the region and
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the Jewish community in Iraq which had been a very constructive element in
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Iraqi Society was viewed increasingly as a fifth column MH um and uh the Iraqi
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Army fought in Palestine when the war was over all the neighboring Arab states
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signed Army disagreements with Israel but the Iraqi Army withdrew without
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signing an army disagreement so officially Iraq is still at war with
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Israel uh today and after the war there was persecution of the Jews at the
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official level there was popular hostility towards the Jews after the war
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is that because they they held them to be responsible for or what was taking place in Palestine or is it because of a
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a more deep-seated host hostility as some would argue particularly those from a Zionist
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persuasion uh I think that um the main
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reason was official hostility towards the Jews because the Iraqi government
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was a failure uh it failed militarily on the battlefield in Palestine so was The
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Shame of the Arab defeat but more importantly uh it was not a good
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government which had failed domestically it failed its people and therefore the
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Jews were picked on as as a convenient scapegoat okay and the Jews and the
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zanis could be blamed for the Arab defea in Palestine and for the failures of uh
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the Iraqi government so the Iraqi government cynically exploited
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anti-jewish settlement uh sentiment um in order to prop up its own position and
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it actually started persecution at the official level so Jewish civil servants
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were fired from the government uh Jewish Merchants had more and more restrictions
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placed on their activities and there were quotas imposed on Jewish students
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uh at at universities and I think that was the
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main reason for the eventual uh Exodus of the Jews from Iraq which leads me on
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to my next Point um you say in your book that when the Iraqi Jews arrived in
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Israel their experience fell short of the Zionist myth at the airport many
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were sprayed with DDT pesticides to disinfect them as if they were animals
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how did that how did Iraqi Jews feel coming to somewhere where it was meant
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to be the Homeland for the Jews yet when they arrive
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they're treated as though they were animals in your words um or perhaps in
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their words maybe that's that's been passed on to you and then taken to squalled and unsanitary Transit camps
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surrounded by barbwire and and guarded by policemen that must have been quite a
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harrowing experience uh it was a traumatic
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experience um and on a colossal
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scale because of the number of Jews involved uh in
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1950 when The Exodus began there were 135,000 Jews in
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Iraq by the end of 1952 there were something like 10,000
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Jews only left MH and they were not badly treated uh and
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approximately 125,000 Iraqi Jews ended up in Israel
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can I just interject there because there's one particular fact which we've not covered and which you mentioned that
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Baghdad where most Iraqi Jews lived half of Baghdad was Jewish in some respects
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it was a Jewish City yeah I just wanted to make that point because it's important that viewers realize how
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deeply embedded Jews were in Arab uh Society uh during the first world war um
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uh the Jews constituted a third of the population of Iraq wow and Baghdad was
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sometimes um regarded and as a as a Jewish
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city um and um uh the Jewish holidays and the the Sabbath and the Jewish uh
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High holidays um were um respected by the rest of the
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population uh and uh Banks would close and businesses would close and there was
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nothing unusual about that because um
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coexistence was the norm was the norm um it it was uh uh the norm um but
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going back to the Exodus of the Jews uh from
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Iraq uh it wasn't a handful of Jews who
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left Iraq it was the whole community and the experience of individuals on arrival
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in Israel varied but for the community as a whole the experience was traumatic
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it's like a tree being pulled out by the roots he was a really successful
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distinguished the most ancient Jewish community in the near East and suddenly
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it's completely erased almost without Trace wow and for those who were
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involved in this transition uh it was very
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painful uh I have a distant relative called bah Moshe he was a writer and he
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arrived in Israel in Israel he never found his place he wrote 10 books all in
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Arabic and one of them uh was called
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alq the departure or The Exodus from Iraq and there he says we we left Iraq
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as Jews and we arrived in um Israel as Iraqis oh uh so uh the Jews who arrived
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in Israel were not welcome with open
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arms um but they um
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um and their experience on arrival was um very harrowing as you put it uh and
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there was transport arranged by Israel from Iraq to carry them and they could
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only take one suitcase and 50 dins uh and when they arrived they
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arrived they were penniless and they didn't have a passport they couldn't go
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to any other country only to to Israel because they had a one way visa to to
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leave uh Iraq and on arrival in the promised land um they were treat with
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sprayed with uh DT DDT so you can just imagine how painful uh that was and how
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the right away it shattered any illusions that they might have had and
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from the airport they were taken to Transit camps that were where conditions were very very difficult um uh there
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wasn't proper housing there were Shacks there were tents there were um uh uh uh
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very temporary um uh buildings um the food was inadequate yeah and toally
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foreign very totally foreign to them everything was foreign the managers of
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the marot of the transit camps where all European Jews ashkanazi Jews who knew
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nothing about the background of these people their achievements their status
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in their own societies uh and they thought they should be grateful for anything that is
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done for them instead of instead of uh
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complaining um so uh it was a very very difficult period and then gradually um
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uh the Jews started leaving the marot and making their own way in Israeli Society but from the beginning they look
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down upon yeah because they were um Oriental Jews they were uh Arab Jews and
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um the dominant ethos in the country was very Ashkenazi so they were not accepted
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as equals but regarded as rather primitive and and backward well just on
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that point I think it's really apt to quote you directly from the book you say
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we were Jews from an Arab country that was still officially at war with Israel
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European Jews look down on us as socially and culturally inferior they
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despise the Arabic language I was an Iraqi boy in a Land of Europeans now you
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go further on in your book and you describe your childhood growing up in in
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Israel and how your father still kept hold of his arabness whereas at times
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when you write that when you were playing with your friends in Israel you
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were somewhat embarrassed because you had an Arab far or an Arab cultural
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culturally Arab uh father and you were being brought up in this new identity an
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Israeli identity which was obviously heavily influenced by Europeans that must have been very conflicting for you
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as a young boy uh tell us about that this is the opening scene in my Memoirs
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that I'm a boy about 10 years old playing in the street with my friends we
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were wearing shorts and sandals and Along Comes My father and he wears a
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three-piece suit with a tie yes he looks completely foreign and alien and he
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comes up to me and he starts speaking to me in Arabic and I remember still how
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acutely embarrassed I was and how I went read in the face and replied in
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monosyllables and I wanted to say to him Dad it's okay to speak Arabic at home
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but in front of my friends I would rather you spoke to me in Hebrew um but he couldn't speak
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Hebrew um uh and um uh it's only later
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that I understood I I I immediately uh felt the pain in myself
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but I didn't TR realize how painful this the experience was for my father Yes and
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this is the result of being uprooted from our country ending in a different
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country uh with a different language at which neither my father nor I felt
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really at home did that put a strain on your relationship further on as you were
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growing up in in in in now Israel as an Israel Jew you you mentioned to me when
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we were speaking before that um uh people's culture was completely wiped
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away you had to conform to feel you fitted into the new Society at home what
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was it like with your mother and father uh were you an Arab at home and and and an Israeli outside of home
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oh uh to some extent uh this was so mhm uh and my
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sisters and I went to school and we learned Hebrew very quickly so we will
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speak Hebrew between ourselves at home my parents spoke Arabic and they spoke
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uh in Arabic to us but we would reply uh in um in Hebrew do you still know that
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Arabic to being quite a unique dialect of Arabic it was a distinct Iraqi Jewish
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uh dialect and that is the dialect that we spoke at home wow and and okay so
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tell us Professor you're you're now in in school and and you write again you
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talk about in your book how there was a systematic process at work to as you
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viewed it delegitimize your heritage and erase the cult cultural roots your
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cultural Roots um tell us about what school and and college and university
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which some of our viewers who probably be going through that right now what was it like for you as now an
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Israel um perhaps stripped of your Arab identity maybe at home you you are still
34:19
keeping those cultures alive but essentially your friends would be Israeli perhaps mainly European what was
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that process like like your education um
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the dominant character the dominant factor in my um
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period in Israeli Society was a sense of
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inferiority I carried a huge chip on my shoulder because I was an Iraqi boy okay
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and I felt inferior uh and I didn't feel equal to the the other boys and girls in
34:58
the class who were European who were Ashkenazi Jews I felt this sense of fear
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inferiority very acutely and it was debilitating and at school I didn't do
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at all well I never engage okay uh and I perform very uh poorly and I was cut off
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I was a Daydreamer um and uh that really held me back and uh and impeded my my
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development uh at uh at school uh but looking back I understand
35:36
better the processes at work here uh because identity is not a fixed
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thing identity is very fluid and identity isn't something that we
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entirely choose or shape for ourselves Society to large extent shapes our
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identity for us and Society isn't always benign MH uh in this case it was
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Ashkenazi zanis society which had its own norms and its own values which were
36:14
imposed on me uh so my Arab identity was
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erased Arabic was really looked down upon as a primitive language and the
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language uh of the enemy MH um um my Arab culture
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was treated with contempt um uh and a new identity was
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imposed on me that that of a new Jew uh or rather a new Israeli yes
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self-confidence strong proud Israeli and I never fully I never felt fully
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comfortable uh with this new identity so there was a sort of conflicting elements
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in in me internal turmoil um but I never felt that I had
37:12
any great talents or any great promise which were ignored by the society I
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accepted the evaluation that was prevalent that I was of an inferior uh
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breed um and at school uh we were indoctrinated with
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Zionist ideals um and um we were
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taught uh Jewish history but only the history of the Jews in Europe in Europe
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yeah we I we weren't taught anything about the history of the many Jews
37:51
hundreds of thousands of Jews in the in the uh Middle East in this history to
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use a phrase used uh from to to borrow a phrase from the American Jewish
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historian Salo Baron this history was the
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lacrimoso the lacrimas version of Jewish history is a history of the Jews in
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Europe uh which is um hatred um
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discrimination violence bloodshed persec tion culminating in the
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Holocaust MH um and uh it's debatable whe this is
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a true picture of European Jewish history but it most emphatically is not
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true of our history yes but I didn't know that as a boy when I became a
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historian I realized that and when I wrote my Memoirs I asserted my right to
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uh write our own history MH as I experienced it and as I understand it
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rather than to accept the conventional Israeli Zionist version of the Jews in
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the um uh uh Arab world so that's an important contribution that I hope to
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make in in my book um to say that the
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eurocentric focus of Israeli history and zanis history doesn't really have apply
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to us we have a separate history that we can be proud of and I am now proud of my
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um uh Arab um uh
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Heritage you describe yourself as an Arab Jew and you as you said you feel
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very proud of that and I'll come on to that term perhaps later on in our conversation especially in in light of
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recent uh events taking place which we will discuss as well but I want to talk about you then left Israel and you came
39:59
to the UK you ostensibly came to study and to and you made your life here you
40:04
met you had a family you you talk about your first girlfriend um how was it for
40:10
you as uh somebody who's and and that's what the three worlds title is about
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your your your Arabic Heritage your Jewish Israel Heritage and then come
40:22
into the UK and you are a British national as well tell us about
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that um I was 15 years old um I was
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about to be thrown out of high school because of low grades and because I
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failed English outright well nobody would believe that you know but please car it is true and English is my third
40:47
language my first language was Arabic my second language is Hebrew and my third
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language um is uh English and and English is a very difficult language and
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I learned it the hard way it was a struggle but I went to school here for
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uh 3 years I lived with a Headmaster it wasn't a bundle of fun but
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that was the turning point for me I focused on my studies my family had made
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a sacrifice in sending me to study in England it was a privilege and I had to
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justify that Sacrifice by doing well well at school so I um did well at
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school I got four a levels and I got a place at Cambridge to read history but
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uh I didn't go straight to Cambridge from school I went back to Israel when I was 18 and I did two years military
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service I first I served in the IDF MH um and um I served loyally and proudly
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in the IDF because I had been subjected to indoctrination which started at school
42:03
and continued uh in the Army uh and I uh was when I was inducted
42:12
into the Israeli Army uh I accepted that we were a small peace
42:21
loving country a democratic liberal country surround Ed by our
42:27
predecessor Predators who wanted to throw us into the sea and we had no
42:34
choice but to stand up uh and fight so that was my view uh at at the
42:41
time uh and um when The Six Day War
42:46
broke out when the crisis broke out in May
42:52
1967 I was a first year history student at Cambridge and I went down to the
42:59
Israeli Embassy in London and I gave my details and I said I wanted to go back
43:05
and serve in the war that we all knew was coming yes and they took my details
43:11
the war was over in six days and I uh never heard from them and I never did
43:19
any reserve duty uh so I've stayed in England uh ever since uh and it's only
43:28
after I had left Israel that um I got over my
43:35
inferiority of being um uh an an Iraqi
43:42
boy just go back to your family then tell us I mean you've brought us quite
43:48
close to contemp contemporary events which people will kind of start making
43:53
links to certainly 1967 then the the crisis in 73 and then the in and
43:58
everything else we've seen since the 1980s tell us about your family though
44:04
back in Israel you're obviously in the UK you're studying you've got a place at Cambridge how did your father and mother
44:10
feel there must have been terribly proud of you seeing despite all the disadvantages
44:16
they probably felt having lost all of their material wealth in Iraq having to
44:21
go as they saw into Exile into a foreign country they must have thought well actually here's our child now having a chance to
44:29
make it into the world
44:35
um my father and my mother were an Odd
44:40
Couple uh uh my father was a lot older than my mother yes uh and it was a force
44:47
marriage uh she was a school girl of 17 and he was a very wealthy Bachelor who
44:54
was 42 years so MH um uh and they got married and they had a pretty happy
45:02
marriage for my mother there compensations in marrying such a rich man of course living in a palacial house
45:10
with a lot of servants and a a very luxurious uh lifestyle she never worked
45:17
she had servants we had nannies uh and all this world collapsed
45:23
very suddenly in 1950 and we ended up in Israel my father has lost most of his
45:31
wealth and my mother who was in her late 20s uh very intelligent very resourceful
45:39
my father was 50 years old he couldn't speak Hebrew um he tried some business
45:45
ventures that failed and he was unemployed and when the money ran out my
45:51
mother had to go out to work she worked as a tel eist in the Town Hall in
45:57
Ramadan and she became the bread winner we lived in a small flat we were not at
46:04
all well off and um this created tensions between my parents which
46:11
eventually led to uh their divorce so the move from Baghdad to Ramadan uh
46:18
didn't um do well for U my family yeah again another very sad
46:26
moment and and you say you talk about that as well in your book and I I wanted to M give you the opportunity to say
46:33
that because sometimes when it comes to certainly these issues uh family breakups it it can be very uh very
46:41
sensitive but you put it in a very delicate manner um in terms
46:47
of internationally what's going on for example um 1967 you you sign up to be an
46:55
IDF volunteer or or in the Army in some respects 6 days and the wars finished
47:01
1973 there's another crisis that's taking place but you're obviously living your life in the UK your fam's obviously
47:08
now thousands of miles away in in Israel growing uh obviously having their own
47:14
experiences when you had these crises 67 you say very clearly you wanted to go back and defend Israel 73 it was more of
47:22
a a crisis and you know the there was a peace treaty towards the end of the 70s
47:28
did you then have hope that actually things will be different now you know Egypt a huge massive
47:35
contributor to Arab culture has the largest population certainly at that time as well that's where the heart of
47:42
the Arab world was now having a peace treaty with Israel and perhaps things might be looking up for the Middle
47:50
East uh the June 1967 war was a turning point in the
47:57
history of the region and it was a turning point in my personal uh history
48:03
because in the mid 1960s I sa served proudly in the IDF
48:11
because in my time the IDF was true to its name it was the Israel Defense
48:18
Forces but after the June 67 War Israel
48:25
captured Ed the Golan Heights the West Bank the Sinai Peninsula it traveled its
48:32
uh territory yes and it became a colonial power and my Army the Army I
48:39
knew became the brutal police force of a
48:44
brutal colonial power and Israel embarked on a new phase
48:52
as a settler colonial state by building illegal civilian
48:58
settlements um in the West Bank and Gaza and the Golan Heights was there a
49:04
fundamental change in in who was or the group of people or maybe the
49:09
intelligencia in Israel to consciously make that decision as you would put it
49:15
to move from being a country with a lot of enemies but having legitimacy
49:20
nonetheless to a country which is now occupying 3 million Palestinian which
49:25
you you mention in your book I mean I'd like to quote some of it right now actually the idea of a two-state peace
49:33
settlement based on partitioning Palestine being dead which is more your contemporary View and the settlement
49:39
Enterprise which over the past 50 years has planted more than half a million Jews some of their mesic Fanatics in the
49:45
midst of 3 million strong Palestinian Arab population of the West
49:51
Bank is did you sense that shift although you were in London but did did you sense that shift that the founding
49:58
ideals are now completely changing uh I did
50:03
uh feel and notice the shift um from the
50:10
late 60s onwards uh and the clearest
50:16
manifestation of the shift was the building of Civilian settlements uh on
50:21
the West Bank in Gaza MH uh the settlements are
50:27
illegal and the settlements are the main obstacle to peace MH uh and that's
50:34
because Israel became overtly a colonial power uh that's when my disenchantment
50:42
with Israel began the uh uh Egyptian Israeli peace
50:49
treaty of 1979 following anas Sadat's visit to
50:54
Jerusalem yes um was a very hopeful moment but it wasn't the beginning of
51:01
reconciliation between Israel and the rest of the world um it was an attempt by Israel to
51:08
disengage Egypt the most important and the most powerful Arab country from the
51:16
circle of hostile States uh um and it wasn't followed by
51:23
an attempt at peace with the Palestinians and indeed there was no progress towards peace uh with the
51:30
Palestinians so I realize that despite this peace first peace um agreement M
51:39
the core of the problem was a Palestinian issue in essence the Arab
51:45
Israeli conflict is a clash between two national movements Jewish nationalism
51:50
and Arab nationalism uh so the Palestinian issue was always the core and the Heart of the
51:57
conflict and the region can have no peace and
52:02
security um unless the Palestinian problem is resolved so another point of
52:10
optimism was when the Oslo Accord was signed between the PLO and Israel in
52:17
1993 and this was a historic moment for all the limitations of the Osler cord it
52:23
was the first pie agreement between the two principal parties to the conflict so
52:30
I was really hopeful I was euphoric I thought this is the real deal okay and
52:36
that a Palestinian state is bound to emerge at the end of the process there
52:43
was going to be a transition period of 5 years and I was certain uh I was
52:49
confident that the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories would be
52:55
gradual control but irreversible I was wrong the process was reversed uh it hak
53:03
Rin was um assassinated by Jewish fanatic the leud came back to power
53:10
under Benjamin Netanyahu this was in 1996 and Netanyahu had never concealed
53:18
his hostility to the Osler Accord and he spent his F ter first term in office
53:24
from 19 96 to 1999 in a systematic and successful attempt to dismantle the O
53:32
the Oslo Accords and his life's Mission has been always and still is to prevent
53:40
the emergence of a Palestinian uh state in terms of you as a as a British
53:48
Israeli and your relationships with perhaps Zionist Jews in this
53:53
country did this this changing of your view of your perhaps links to Zionism
54:01
which now I mean I've got quotations now you're in a completely different place but that it would have been a gradual
54:07
movement I suppose did that put strains on your relationships with um uh
54:13
zionists uh supporting Jews perhaps here or in
54:20
Israel My Views about Israel and Zionism have changed they weren't always as
54:28
radical as they are now now I see very clearly when I look over the last
54:33
century that Zionism is a settler Colonial movement yes yes you said that
54:39
and Israel is still a settler Colonial movement and settler colonialism didn't
54:46
begin in 1967 it was a continuation o of that um uh process
54:56
um the Jewish intellect American intellectual n chsky once said that
55:03
settler colonialism is the most extreme and vicious form of imperialism and the
55:10
Palestinians have been at the receiving end of since 1917 of uh Europe of Zion settler
55:18
colonialism on the one hand and Western imperialism on the other hand first
55:25
during the British mandate and since 1948 with America uh so now I see very
55:33
clearly that Israel never wanted to be part of the
55:38
region MH and that is why Arabs were justified in seeing uh Israel as a
55:46
western Enclave in the uh in the Middle East and if we look at the war in in
55:55
Gaza which is Raging today uh it's presented by Israel as a
56:01
war between Israel and Hamas but I see it in broader historical
56:07
terms okay as a war between um Israel as
56:12
a settler colonial state uh backed clo tied closely to
56:18
American imperialism against not just Hamas but against the Palestinian people
56:25
Al together with the aim of preventing uh the emergence of a Palestinian
56:32
state would it be fair to say then your transition would have been
56:38
from and I say this very Loosely a Zionist to an
56:45
anti-zionist um uh yes but there was a way station on
56:53
the way absolutely I I was a Zionist uh until the time that I
56:59
finished my military service MH um then
57:04
as a young scholar um I realized that the
57:12
Zionist um movement had achieved its
57:17
principal aim which is an independent Jewish state in Palestine by
57:25
1967 so on the eve of the Six Day War there was a viable um Jewish state in
57:34
Palestine and for me this was mission accomplished and after the war I wanted
57:41
Israel to trade land for peace which is what the UN decreed that Israel will
57:47
give back the occupied territories and in return uh get peace from its Arab
57:54
Neighbors yes but Israel chose occupation over peace and Israel has
57:59
become addicted to uh occupation uh and Israel today is an
58:08
apartheid state there is no question about that uh Israel there was a report
58:16
by bet selem the Israeli human rights organization a couple of years ago uh
58:23
and all it previous reports were about Israeli human rights violations in the
58:29
occupied territories this time it said you can no longer distinguish between
58:34
the occupied territories in Israel proper it's one regime from The River To
58:40
The Sea and it's an ethnocentric regime it's a regime in which one ethnic group
58:48
dominates the other there is another word for this situation which is
58:53
apartheid so Israel is an aggressive aparti uh
59:00
State um and Israel is a Jewish Supremacy State Israel is officially a
59:09
racist State because the nation the Jewish nation state law of
59:15
July uh 2018 which is a basic law not an order piece of legislation but a basic law it
59:22
says that the Jewish people have a unique right to
59:28
self-determination in Israel which means that no one else has the same right and
59:35
the policy guidelines of the present government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu
59:43
which has some Jewish fascists in it and real extremists the policy guid say that
59:50
the Jewish people have an exclusive right to self-determination
59:55
with uh in the land of Israel and the land of Israel includes the West Bank uh
1:00:02
as well so that's that's why I'm an anti- Zionist because I believe in equal
1:00:09
rights and uh I would like a settlement of this conflict it can be a two-state
1:00:18
solution um with an independent Palestinian State that's what I always supported in the back
1:00:25
in the back in in the past but Israel has destroyed the two-state solution by
1:00:30
building settlements by annexing East Jerusalem by building the separation barrier on the West Bank so the
1:00:38
two-state solution no longer exists and I am an anti-zionist and my solution to
1:00:44
the conflict is one is the only Democratic solution it's
1:00:50
one um one state from the Jordan River to
1:00:56
the Mediterranean Sea with equal rights for all its citizens regardless of um
1:01:04
religion and ethnicity and the most important for thing for me is equality
1:01:11
that there are no different classes of um citizens with Jews having all the
1:01:17
rights and privileges um and Arabs having none or degrees of right um
1:01:25
equality is a uh essential part of democracy and I
1:01:32
would like equality and this is the best solution in order to achieve both
1:01:39
democracy and equality for everybody it's very interesting you say
1:01:44
that because I see your face light up I see I
1:01:50
see almost a longing to bring back that world that your parents lived
1:01:58
in I suppose it's probably a longing to get back to the Baghdad where in essence it was a Jewish
1:02:06
City you speak about so lovingly in your book as well and this solution whether
1:02:14
it's this solution or or the two-state solution some say even three
1:02:19
states whatever the solution is the fact that Jews and
1:02:25
Arabs and you are a Living testament to that lived together for
1:02:32
centuries as equals as brothers or as
1:02:37
compatriots demonstrates that what's going on in the Middle East right now with the Gaza war with the incredible
1:02:46
loss of life of Palestinians the horrific attacks that took place in
1:02:52
Israel and the conflict that's taking place within Israel as well for it to be
1:02:58
a solution that perhaps puts a bom on all of that is that me being too
1:03:05
idealistic or is that the only solution that you actually
1:03:10
see to take this whole conflict out of the histor out of history and out of the
1:03:18
picture of History once and for all uh you are quite right uh my vision for The
1:03:25
Future Has It roots in my experience in the past in Baghdad and I say this in
1:03:32
the book because the book only covers the period until I was finished school
1:03:38
at the age of 18 but then there is a long epilogue which traces the evolution
1:03:44
of my um views on Israel Palestine uh until the present ending
1:03:52
with my advocacy of one state solution today but that's all Anchored In my own
1:03:59
experience uh in Iraq because for my family and me um Muslim Jewish
1:04:06
coexistence was not a distant dream it was the everyday reality there was
1:04:13
nothing remarkable about it it's uh
1:04:19
nationalism and it's uh particularly Zionism that made Muslim Jewish
1:04:25
coexistence impossible uh that divided the region between Israelis and Palestinians
1:04:34
Israelis uh uh and Arabs but I think there is nothing inevitable or
1:04:40
pre-ordained um or inescapable about Muslim Jewish
1:04:49
antagonism uh the driver of our departure from Iraq
1:04:55
was not cultural or religious it was political it was nationalist
1:05:01
forces um and that is why uh I think
1:05:06
that we need to move Beyond nationalism Beyond Zionism uh towards a better
1:05:15
world uh and I've said before that I'm proud of my Arab Heritage I'm equally
1:05:22
proud of my Jewish heritage uh the main pillars of Judaism are truth
1:05:29
justice and peace and I look at the present government in Israel and I can't
1:05:34
detect any sign of these values um the essence of Judaism is
1:05:43
nonviolence and the present Israeli government is the most
1:05:48
xenophobic overtly racist aggressive um islamophobic obic
1:05:55
government in Israel's history and we can see the result of that the length to
1:06:02
which they go to carry out the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and in Gaza they've gone
1:06:09
beyond ethnic cleansing to perpetrate perpetrating
1:06:15
genocide um so uh I think from the to
1:06:21
move beyond the Dismal picture of what the Middle East looks like today and it's never been more dismal in my
1:06:29
experience um uh we need political imagination uh uh not empty formulas um
1:06:37
the two-state solution is just a form of words it's meaningless um we need political
1:06:44
imagination and my past and the fact that I lived in happily in an Arab uh
1:06:52
Society enables me to think um more imaginatively about the future uh for
1:06:59
our region Professor schlime I I'm very
1:07:05
moved by your words you come across as somebody who one can only describe as a
1:07:11
real humanitarian uh to sit with me and to to
1:07:17
talk about these experiences so vividly to bring this to
1:07:23
our audience about your life and how it shaped you as an individual is something that will
1:07:29
stay with me for a very long time thank you so much thank you very much it's
1:07:34
been a pleasure to talk to you folks uh that was professor aish
1:07:40
schlim and I must say it's an incredibly moving experience for me to sit with
1:07:48
somebody who has three Worlds the chapter title of his book and the three
1:07:54
wordss that he described in very digest format today with me is something that
1:08:00
you should all pick up read I'm pretty sure you can buy from any bookshops either
1:08:05
online uh if you wish that's all for my podcast today with Professor a islim thank you for
1:08:11
joining me and I will see you in the next one salamu
1:08:19
alaykum
