Transcription
Okay, sorry. So let's say there are that many Jews in Israel. I'm giving that as one of the major examples. The other major example would be the United States. Same kind of thing. There are only 15 million Jews in the whole world, or somewhere around there. Some say 14, some say 15, some say 16. Okay. Now, 5.7 million. The estimates are, and these estimates are pretty good. They're based on a lot of evidence, lots of polling for uh decades, and the Israelis are, are uh, they're as advanced as we are in the United States, at least in regard to polling. Uh, and then there are other ways to measure this. The estimate is that only 20 to 25% of Israeli Jews are religious. The estimate is that of the ones who aren't religious, at least 50% of them are very anti-religious. They don't want any religious stuff in the state at all. Um, the most recent poll I've seen is a poll from this Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur was Saturday. It was three days ago, and the estimate was that uh, uh, at least three out of four Israeli Jews did not go to the synagogue, and maybe two to three out of four didn't fast on Yom Kippur. Uh, uh, uh, uh, those percentages are uh, beyond what they are in the United States, even. So there are many Jews who are not at all religious and who are anti-religious. There are other Jews who are very religious. So, again, it goes back to this major question: What really has held all these people together as Jews? And it's difficult. I'm not saying that I believe this is really the correct answer necessarily. I don't know the correct answer, but I'm saying that it's logical to argue that therefore the only thing that really has kept Jews together has been persecution because they're Jews.
Now, and that's not been universal. And that's not been everywhere all the time. And that's what is the argument against it. But I'm saying, okay, so there is, there is that. And so I'm saying anti-semitism itself, even though we have, as I'm sure you know, a huge literature on anti-semitism, even though we have a huge literature, we still have difficulty. I want to pick my words carefully. We, the collective we, we have, we should have great difficulty in making conclusions about anti-semitism. Yes, we know that there are rabid anti-semites who hate Jews. We know that we can identify them. We know that there are others who don't fit in that category, but they have some negative views of Jews too. And probably, as some psychologists and others have told us, there are people who never express that they have negative views of Jews, but really, in the inner recesses of their minds, and maybe of their hearts, and maybe of their guts, maybe they do. It's difficult to draw conclusions about this, except to say the following: Anti-semitism has existed. But after we say that, we then have to be careful in another way. Because it's existed doesn't mean that it's been ever-present all the time, everywhere. And it also doesn't mean that it's even been as ever-present all the time, even in some areas, as many propagandists want us to believe it is for other reasons.
For example, a major example, the Arab Middle East. We have, if we take the last centuries, we have a far longer time period, disjointed perhaps, but a far longer time period when Jews have fared very well in areas of the Arab Middle East and not faced oppression and not faced persecution. They faced some of it, but not nearly what they faced in Europe. After all, the Holocaust, the killing of over six million Jews, that didn't occur in Saudi Arabia. That didn't occur in Yemen. That didn't occur in Palestine. That didn't occur anywhere in the Arab Middle East. That didn't occur in Indonesia, which is the largest Muslim uh area. That occurred in Christian Europe. So I'm saying it's a very difficult. Anti-semitism, with all the literature and with all of the quote unquote experts we have, and all of the people who comment on it, and all the propagandists, anti-semitism is still difficult to understand. And the reason why we've had it is very difficult to ascertain. You, every, you raised a thousand questions for me. So thank you. Let me go back a little bit.
Now, there is an attitude or an argument, and a lot of people believe this, that anti-semitism is completely irrational. Right? Some. And then there's an argument that there's sometimes a cause and effect in Poland, like the guy I was just talking to, you know, economic middleman, all those kind of tangents, blah, blah, blah. What's your sense of all that? But again, it comes down to a definition of terms. How does one classify what's rational or irrational? I'll give you an example. It's clear, as I've said, that in some Jewish prayers, major prayers, the superiority of Jews is specified. If I take, again, Chabad Lubavitch, they have one major, major book of commentary. It was written by the first Lubavitcher rabbi. There have been seven of them since the 13th century. The rabbi who wrote it first was named Schneer Zalman. It's called the Tanya. And if you look at the very end of the first section of the Tanya, it talks about all of the non-Jewish nations, all the Gentile nations, that they're evil, that it has the most negative terms for all of them. Okay. Now, now, it's not necessarily irrational, then, for some non-Jews, when they become aware of this, and they became aware of some of the statements that are that way in the Talmud, the major commentary on the Bible, that are that way. One could argue, could argue, that it's not totally irrational that they say, "Well, that's a reason why I dislike or even hate Jews." There's a certain rationale. I, I'm not saying it's correct to use that rationale. I think it's incorrect. But the point is, it's not so easy to say that all anti-semitism is irrational, anymore than you can say it's rational. It all depends how you look at it. But you could look at it, as I've just indicated, in a way that you can say, "I don't believe it. I think that's wrong. I think that's a bad rationale. I think that's a dangerous rationale, but that's a rationale. There's some reason to it. You could look at it that way." Now, again, I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm not advocating looking at it that way. I advocate the opposite. But you understand what I'm getting at. This is also difficult. All of this is very difficult to deal with. And unfortunately, I'll come back to what I said before. In this huge amount of literature that we have on anti-semitism, there's too much. It doesn't pertain to all of it, but there's too much of simplistic argumentation about this or that. This is a most important topic. It's a most negative topic. It's a terrible topic, but it's a very important one. And therefore, we should do our best not to be simplistic.
I'm going to ask you a simplistic question. Real simp, what is your definition for anti-semitism?
Well, anti-semitism is, um, it's hatred of Jews. It could be from dislike to hatred of Jews. And then it could be that in terms of attitude, and it definitely is that in regard to action. Now, I understand that some people say, "Listen, it's a wrong term to use just in regard to Jews, because Arabs are also Semites, and therefore anti-semitism should apply we to anti-Arab feeling as well." Well, um, uh, maybe there's a logic to that, but the point is, if you look up in a dictionary, an American dictionary or an English dictionary, and you look up the word anti-semitism, it's defined as dislike, the hatred of Jews. So, like it or not, anti-semitism applies to Jews. And if you, and that doesn't mean that you or I or anyone else has to accept that definition. We have every right to say, "I'm going to broaden it and say anti-semitism should apply to all Semites." But uh, we have the right to say it. But let me give this final example. When I wrote years ago, when I wrote about, before I looked it up in the dictionary, which means I didn't do what I should have done. When I wrote about anti-semitism and I was talking about Jews, I always wrote anti-Jewish anti-semitism in order to specify it. And one day, a friend of mine who was a scholar said, "Listen, Norton, this is redundant to say anti-Jewish anti-semitism, because anti-semitism means anti-Jewish." And he said to me, "Look it up in the dictionary." And I looked it up, and he was right.
Um, are you aware of this Yale, Yale conference on anti-semitism they had recently? Do you know anything about it?
Yeah, I know the guy who planned all of. There's just, there's some controversy about it. Do you know anything about it or no? We'll pass.
Yeah, I know something about it.
And I know something about the guy who was brought there to do all of this, named Small.
Could, well, there's some controversy that there's some people saying it's in the Israeli context. It's anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, blah, blah, blah, all that. Do you, can you get any feedback on that?
Look, it certainly is within the context, the broadest context of Zionist, pro-Israeli Zionist propagandizing. It is that. Now, is it anti-Islam, anti-Arab? I would say not directly. Could it be interpreted that way, indirectly in some ways? It all depends what it is that you're looking at. This specific conference, I wasn't there. I don't know. But I know things that have come out of the group of what is this, uh, uh, existence. It's not a department. I don't know what they call it, but it's some kind of part, uh, of a, of a Yale study conference or or group. And, uh, the person who was brought from Canada to head the group, I also have been on a panel with him. And, um, uh, I would say that I think indirectly there is some of that, but it's most, I would say mostly, as I said before, it's within the context of a rationale, of a rationale in support of Zionism in Israel. And since we're talking about anti-semitism, then of course, in terms of this conflict, it becomes extremely important because the, there are two major rationales for the state of Israel's existence. Two, uh, that have been emphasized. One is, of course, the ultra-religious one, and they are not independent of one another. For some people, they're both there, that God promises this land and this is our land and so on. But the other is really the most important. And the other one is the anti-semitic rationale. The rationale that Jews need a place of their own because of anti-semitism in this world. And there's a theory that goes back to Herzl in the early 1890s that anti-semitism is endemic. It's chronic. And therefore, it either, in any place you pick, it either has happened in the past, is happening in the present, whatever the present is, or will happen in the future. And therefore, Jews need to have a place where they're, where they start out as if not, uh, uh, the only population, the majority of the population, and they have to maintain themselves as the majority because if they ever go into the minority, then we can go back to this endemic anti-semitism. That's the rationale here. That's the rationale. Now, uh, and that's an anti-semitic rationale. And my simp, I'll give you a simple answer. I don't want to say simplistic to that rationale. My simple answer to that rationale is, you know, if we look at the state of Israel and where the state of Israel is, um, and then we look at the Zionist arguments every year in the United States and elsewhere, whenever the Zionists go out to collect money from individuals or from governments or any, the major argument is the major argument, not the major one, is give money and support, political support, weaponry to the state of Israel because those Jews in Israel are living in the most unsafe place for Jews in the whole world. Now, it can't be the most unsafe place for Jews and also, by the theory of the state, the Zionist theory, with a majority of Jews, be the only place that Jews are safe. It can't be the most unsafe and the only safe place at the same time. That, simply put, is irrational.
Well, so how, how, in your view, my, so then anti-semitism is used as a tool, say, at this conference for?
It's a tool.
Could you discuss it?
Well, well, it's more than a tool. It's the major rationale for the state of Israel's coming into existence.
Anti-semitism.
Yes. Okay. Um, well, do you know, have, do you have any stories you can tell me about that, what you know about that conference? You said you've heard some things.
No. No.
No. No. No.
Let me ask you then. Let's go. The Talmud. You talk, you and Shahak talk about that. That's been a minefield or, you know, anti-semites all throughout the history have dragged stuff out of there. Could you address that issue? Is it legitimate what's dragged out? Is it, is it myth? Is, you know, what's your sense of all that?
Uh, like a lot of other things, well, that's not simple either. Like a lot of other things, some things that are, as you put it, dragged out, pointed out, uh, it's legitimate. Some things that are pointed out talk about superiority of Jews. Um, uh, it's not. And, uh, so in a sense, you can't say that's illegitimate. But sometimes even those statements are taken out of context. You have to put them in full context. After all, the Talmud was written over five centuries by different groups of rabbis. And by the way, there are two Talmuds. One's a Jerusalem Talmud, one's a Babylonian Talmud. But the important authoritative one, and when we say the Talmud, we mean the Babylonian Talmud. And that was written in Baghdad. In what's Baghdad? So just as an aside, let me say that if we had to pick the single most important place historically for [snorts] traditional, traditional Judeaic literature, the most important, it wouldn't be Jerusalem. It would be Baghdad, because the Talmud is the central. It explains the Bible. It's central to traditional Judaism. It was written in Iraq. What's Iraq? Okay. Now, now, now, so I'm going to point that out. I'm not against Jerusalem, but the point is, you know, uh, we hear all these terrible things about, okay, about Iraq. Well, we have to, we have to have a, uh, u, uh, uh, we have to keep things within historical context better than that. Okay. Now, now, lots of things are taken out of context. This happens here with the Talmud. After all, 63 very complicated, huge volumes. So there's stuff that has been taken. There might be a class coming in here. There's stuff that's taken out of context, and stuff that's in context is not, not might. There has been, there has been.
Well, with the book and Shahak argues that there's stuff that is still used by some traditional.
Yes, it still is used. It still is used. I just, sure it is. That's right. I have a tremendous dislike of almost, I, I despise these things I talked about that are that are negative. Exaggerate my feelings if you're talking about Israel. Shahak, he really despised it, and he knew a lot about it. A lot more than most people.
So, are you, were you in disagreement with, did you guys argue over that book when you were?
What? Over the Talmud?
No, no, no, no, no. Over the, the Jewish fundamentalism book. Were you on the same page at that point in time?
Listen, basically, we're on the same page, as you put it. Yes, there are some points here and there in which we had a few disagreements, but why shouldn't we? We're, you know, I, listen, you let me ask if there's a class.
Okay. All right. We were talking. We were winding up on the Talmud.
Well, um, uh, [sighs] it's a very complicated, important, significant, and in numerous ways troubling set of books. Let me say again what you know, but it needs to be emphasized. Written over from the first century to the fifth century of the common era. Different schools of rabbis. Lots of different kinds of ways the Talmud was written. The Talmud is significant and important because it is commentary on the biblical text, and traditional Judaism is built upon the commentary, because the commentary explains the text. Now, I don't know if this has already been pointed out, but let me point it out. When I say that it's the most significant, uh, study tool for traditional Judaism, I can illustrate it in a variety of ways. Let me illustrate it this way. If you would go into almost any, at least the great majority of yeshivas, where that is seminaries where people are studying to become traditional rabbis, and you stayed long enough, you would see that the professors or the teachers, the rabbis, and the students, they spend 75 to 80% of their time studying Talmud, more than Bible, because the Talmud explains the Bible. Let me give you one tiny example, tiny but illustrative. And of course, it's only one of thousands. There's one little line in the Bible that says, talking to about Jews, "You should not cook a kid in its mother's milk." That means a goat. That's all it says. Now, we have a whole huge, multi- multi-page explanation and debate about this in the Talmud, or discussion of it. Why? Because from that, we get a whole segment of the dietary laws for Jews, traditional Jews, that we couldn't know otherwise. That is interpreted as meaning that Jews should not eat milk dishes together with meat. And then there are other questions. What about fowl, chicken and turkeys? Is that meat? And there was a big debate about this, and then a vote on it. And it was decided chickens and turkeys are meat. Then there's a question, what about fish? And it was decided fish is not meat. So you can drink a glass of milk and you can eat fish. Now, I'm not going to talk about my judgment of all the decisions, and the decisions were often made by majority vote. How could that be? And why should that hold? There are answers to that in the Talmud. You can believe them or not. But my point is that that from that one line of "do not cook a kid in its mother's milk," without the Talmud, we would not have all this traditional stuff on all of this, what's kosher or not kosher in regard to milk and meat. You have to have the Talmud to understand that. So, I'm saying that's a tiny example, right? But
Sorry, I have to switch. What happened? See, I'm sorry. I apologize. But what happened was this last gentleman I.
Okay. All right. Look, here's the bottom line. You ready? Here's the bottom line. In traditional Judaism, the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, they are considered definitely Torah, meaning hashim. That's in Hebrew. That means this is the Torah, the holy books. Every word is the word of God. Now, for the rest of the Bible, there are some differing views within traditional Judaism. The thing that I've always had a problem with with Reform Judaism is if that's the case, and Jews should just give the moral and ethical teachings, well, Jews did that a long time ago, and those same moral and ethical teachings are in a lot of other religions. So, what do we need to have Judaism for in the first place if nothing else holds? But that's my own view. Okay? But I'm saying that's why the Talmud is so significant and important in traditional Judaism. And we're talking about traditional Judaism here. So, and there are things in the Talmud, as I've said, that I and others view as negative. And everybody who views those things as negative is certainly not an anti-Semite. Because if that were the case, then most Reform Jews would be that, that, that's clearly not, not the case.
Could you address, you had, I'm sure you've been called this, Jewish self-hatred?
Yes, of course. I've been called a self-hating Jew. Why? Because I'm critical of Zionism, and I'm critical of the Zionist character of the state of Israel, and I'm critical of oppressive Zionist policies towards Palestinians, which are clear, which can be documented, and so on and so forth. For those who are the apologists, as I call them, and the major propagandists, they will try to label Norton Mezvinsky and Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky and a host of other people who are critical as being anti-Semites. Now, they will usually do that, saying self-hating Jewish anti-Semites. Now, the great majority of those apologists who do that, they will do it to those of us who are Jews, who are not Israeli Jews. But if you take the increasing body of Israeli Jews who are critical in the same way of Zionism and of the oppressive policies, the apologists, you should notice, don't say that about Israeli Jews that now. So I'm saying that is, yes, of course. I've been called that for a very long time. If every time I was called that by one of these quote unquote Jewish spokespeople, if, if every time I was called it caused there to be a mark, a black mark on my back, well, if I took my shirt off, my, my back would be black in many, many, many layers. And the point is, they're wrong. I know they're wrong. And their problem with me is when they give it to me, I give it back to them, uh, as more than they give it to me. Why? Because they are so wrong about this. And by the way, that's done far, far more in the United States than in Israel. If you go to Israel and you sit down and you talk, then there's talk between those who are critical and those who are defenders, and that it's usually respectful, and they respect one another as long as the people, uh, are rational and so on. And you don't get, once in a while, you'll get it, but you don't get that kind of thing nearly so much in Israel as you do in the United States. And that's one of the major things I have against all of the Zionist apparatus in this country that either where the people either do it or the apparatus supports those people who do it.
Where do you fall on the, on the Mir Sherman walk book? I mean, Norm Chomsky.
I think they're right. I mean, I know Chomsky is critical of it. Noam Chomsky, whom I greatly respect. He's one of my great heroes. He's, I think he's a genius. He's one of the outstanding intellectuals in the world. His criticisms in regard to Israel and Zionism, uh, I have some questions here and there and maybe a few disagreements, but I think that he's done this more deeply than most others and so on. However, his view is that the so-called lobby is not very significant. That really, the United States has supported the state of Israel not because of the lobby, but because of what's been viewed as the interests of the United States and so on and so forth, as he defines it. Uh, that's my major argument with him. It has been for as long as I've known him, which has been for some decades. I believe the lobby is the major reason. The major reason, both the Israeli lobby, which is made up of Jews, and the Christian Zionist lobby. Those two lobbies, I think, are, are clearly and by far the two most important reasons why the United States has so blindly, politically, economically, and militarily since Israel came into existence, and most especially since 1967, backed the state of Israel. The, the, um, uh, the book, The Lobby, puts all that together in one book better than it's ever been put together in one book before. But there's nothing new in that book. That is, everything they talk about has been talked about and has been emphasized and has been documented by others. But to their credit, they put it together in one book. So I think very highly of that book.
Okay. I, I spoke with both of them. And, uh, one thing I brought up to them, to one thing is, we live in a society with good reason. You can't, you can't criticize the Jewish community. And the, is the Israel lobby is rooted, the Christian lobby exists, but it's a tangential, right, to the, the Jewish community. And so the issue that comes up a lot, I've talked with a lot of people, when the issue comes up, the question of anti, the issue of anti-semitism always, they've been called anti-Semites by a lot of people.
I know.
The issue of anti-semitism, the charge is always in the wings there. So if you say, if you call the ideological enemy Zionists or or Jews, is the most, or organized Jewry, or some Jews, what's the semantics of that? And what's the whole politics of all this?
The thing is, the difficulty they had, I think, is because it's mostly Jews who are behind the Israel lobby. It's enormous risk to try and criticize. Instead of walking on eggshells to get to the heart of the problem.
Let me say two things. One is the Israel lobby, as they define it. Yes, that lobby is made up of Jews. Walking on eggshells. It all depends on how you, not just how you look at it. That's not right. But how it affects you. Now, I understand what they're saying. I must say, if you ask me, do I like the fact that I personally, as well as others, have been called all these names? Of course I don't like it. Does it hurt me at times? Yes, it's hurt me at times. But has it deterred me? No. It not only has not deterred me, but it has actually inspired me to speak up more. And fortunately, during my whole academic life, I've been here. I was here at this university 42 years. During my whole academic life, academic freedom, where I've been mostly here, has been at the highest level of importance, the top of the priority list. And I have never been hurt professionally or academically by expressing my views. Now, others have been. Norman Finkelstein, unfortunately, has been. I have not. And since I have not, that has made me all the more vigorous in wanting to attack what I think is terribly wrong and terribly bad and terribly dangerous. And that's this kind of labeling of criticism without going to evidence at all. And so if anything, that has inspired me to do maybe to do even more than I might have done otherwise.
How did you get, how did you get away with it? There's so many people who, with being a vocal critic of Israel for all these years. How did that work? Don't you?
I tried to be, I tried to be as objective a scholar as I could be. I obviously had to have some enthusiasm and vigor. I had to have a little strength in order to do it. But then I simply did it. And as I say, I really was always within the context and under the protection of academic freedom. Of academic freedom. And I fortunately have been for most of my, uh, for most of my academic career, I've been in a place where I've been defended in terms of academic freedom. As I've said, before I came here, I was a young instructor at City College of New York. Had I, really like City College, but had I remained at City College of New York, I might not have had the protection of academic freedom for my views being in the middle of New York City. I'm not saying it's certain, but I'm saying I might not have had the freedom that I have here. But on the other hand, I might have had. We've had critics who have been at City College. We've had critics who have been at New York University, and they also have had academic freedom. So, I've been able to do it. And as I've said, I never really let them stop me. And I learned something a long time ago in regard to these people. I learned that if they come at you and they say that, that the thing to do is to do your best to take it public, to face them with it publicly, because then they will often back off. In other words, whenever that would be done, whenever I next had a chance for a public appearance, I would name the people and name the organizations that called me a self-hating, anti-semitic Jew for my views. And I said, "This is what they said, and this is what they based it on, and this is why it's wrong." And I didn't just, I, I didn't want to only argue with them behind closed doors. I wanted to go public because I knew that most of the time, most of them understood that if you go public with that, that in the end will hurt them more than it will hurt you in this society of ours. And so that's how I would go at it. And that's how I would take it to them.
How important is it to express unpopular opinions? [clears throat]
Well, of course, it depends some what the unpopular opinions are here. For me, it's a, listen, let me put it to you this way. It's terribly important for me to express my opinions on what I consider to be important and significant topics that mean a great deal to me, and to express my opinion and to advocate, and it's important for me to do that regardless of what other people may say in attacking me for doing it.
Okay. Okay. In the book, the Shahak book and your book, um, there's discussion in that book that there's the argument, part of the argument that is there's a lot of censorship going, this maybe Shahak knows more about this stuff going from Hebrew to Hebrew, uh, in in Israel, the discussions of ancient texts and so forth. There's a censorship in the English speaking world. Do you recall?
Oh, yeah. There's in translations.
Yeah. Shahak had a big thing that he proved pretty well, too.
[clears throat]
That in terms of these Jews, of which the Lubavitch are a part, that some of the major people who dealt with theic views only pointed out the good things and they left out the bad things. That's, and to a great extent, that's true. But also, yes, of course, there is a lot of censorship and there is a lot of cheating in translations. And, uh, I'll tell you what happened for now. This is not as bad as it was before, but in the 1970s and into the early 1980s, Israel and Shahak and I put out, uh, a little publication. And for a long time, the National Council of Churches published it for us. We were the editors. Then we got another editor named Jim Fine. And we did translations of articles that appeared in Hebrew in the Israeli Hebrew press that were critical of Zionism and were critical of Israeli policies that were never translated into English and appeared in our press. The things that were translated from Hebrew into English were only ones that were from the other side. So we did that. Now, by the way, we have more things, especially with the internet. We now have much more of what Shahak and I did in the 1970s and into the 1980s. But that's part of censorship, too. Okay.
What do you think about this so-called lacoros view of Jewish history? Have you heard that? I've heard it a few times. The tearful, uh, the tearful, uh, crying view that, you know, the Jew is 100% under siege and persecuted always. Do you accept that? Or do you?
No, they, I already said before, no, that's just part of this thing about why we need, why we, the collective we, need to have a Jewish state and so on. Uh, no, that's all, that's exaggerated. Has there been anti-semitism over 2,000 years in the world? The answer is yes. But as I've said now many times, if you ask the question, has it been overwhelming all the time? Has it been sweeping? Has it been there most of the time, especially in the Arab Middle East? The answer is no.
Okay. Um, in the book, you guys make reference to, oh, the argument that's maybe maybe this is Shahak more than yours, I don't know, but, uh, he, you both said a check of the main facts of the Jewish history of the past 1500 years show a picture different than the one previously shown. The argument in the book is that there were massacres by Christians, by of Christians by Jews, uh.
There were those.
And, well, mock repetitions of the crucifixion of Jesus on Purim. Could you discuss all that stuff? The fact that there was, in fact, I don't know, hyper-criticalness on the Jewish side of the fence, that's basically, and I guess again, it's the same issue that the traditional view of Jewish history is that it's constant persecution. And, and the argument in this book is showed that Jew, there was a Jewish tradition to burn Jesus, to, you know, irritate Christians, and there were massacres of Christians.
The answer is yes, there have certainly been those things. The problem is though, that if we look at the numbers of Jews that are in this world and that have been in this world, and we compare them to the numbers of Christians and Muslims, not, not to talk about, uh, Hindus or Buddhists, the number of Jews is very, very small. And not only that, but Jews have been dispersed. And so Jews everywhere for 2,000 years, except for when after Israel, the state of Israel came into existence in '48, in all these countries, Jews were in a minority. So, as a minority, I mean, uh, so there were, there, you, if you want to count them up, you can count up probably more things committed against the Jews than Jews committed against others. But Jews committed things against others too. And not only that, but we also have, but you see, that's looking at human history as we have the records of human history. But then, then if we want to go to the Bible, and we want to go to the people who believe every word in the Bible is the word of God, and that's authentic history. What about this stuff? Can I stop for a minute?
Yes.
I'm now the president of the International Council for Middle East Studies, which is a relatively new academic think tank in Washington that deals with the Middle East. And, uh, our board of directors is made up of, um, uh, some of the, uh, most distinguished and best Middle East scholars, um, in various parts of the world. Uh, the greatest number being in the United States. And, um, we've been in existence somewhat over a year, and we're doing a variety of things, and we have a major book project ongoing now, and we're doing some other things as well. We're in Washington D.C., and we're located in a very prestigious place called the International Law Institute, which is in the Georgetown area. As I've said, I'm the president of the group.
What's your goal? The purpose?
Our, well, our mission, as I'll put that, is both our mission is to educate. And we mostly are, we are interested in educating Western and especially United States audiences.
About Israel.
Not, no, not just about Israel. Uh, yes, some about the Arab-Israeli conflict and about Israel, but about the Middle East generally. So that means, you know, we pick various things in the Middle East.
Okay. Let me ask you this. I asked Finkelstein this, and, okay, that's a good question. Why are most American Jews in the vanguard of civil rights, the civil rights movement in America, have been, but turn a blind eye to the civil rights issues with the Palestinians in Israel?
Yeah, be, uh, it is a very good question. It's again, one of those questions that is not easy to answer. Uh, but, uh, you can answer it this way, because this is demonstrable. This is demonstrable. The, the one area that is separate from the others, and is the blind area, is this area of the state of Israel, Zionism, and the Palestinians. That is true for a goodly number of Jews. If we're talking about, you're talking about the United States right now. That's true for a goodly number of Jews in the United States. But then we have to go a little further. For that goodly number of Jews, that means some of them are very conscious of this, and they will try to come up with rationalizations that I think make no sense and so on. There are others that are not so conscious of this, but when they're made conscious of it, they really do not want to talk about it because they don't want to be in the category of Jews who are going to be identified as being critical of Israel, because they are concerned for personal reasons, for business reasons, for professional reasons, of what you were asking me about when you asked me about my being called all of these names. So you have to break that group up in that way. But having said that, we also have some numbers, we don't know how many. I certainly, a minority of American Jews who are not that way, who are terribly concerned with human rights for Palestinians and say so. And that number is growing. And that number, especially, is growing on the campuses, younger generations. That means people, in one sense, who are further away from the Holocaust and from that syndrome of the Holocaust that hangs over all of this than, than were and are their parents and/or their grandparents. And good evidence for this, that this is something on the campus, to a great extent, is that if one reads the literature that's put out sometimes daily, often weekly, certainly monthly, by the major American Jewish organizations, there in their literature, it's not an overstatement to say that for the past couple years, the campus has been pinpointed as their number one problem. And it's their number one problem because of what they call growing anti-Israel sentiment, which is really criticism of Israel. And yes, that means sentiment coming from people who are on the campus who are not Jews, but that also means coming from people on the campus who happen to be Jews.
And that's also called anti-semitism by these people, right?
Yeah. They, yes. But that's their biggest problem. And their biggest problem is there are more and more people, still a minority, more and more people who are like Norman Finkelstein, and are like Noam Chomsky, and are like Norton Mezvinsky, who point this out and who turn the argument around against the people doing this.
Okay. You, you mentioned the court, you called it the Holocaust syndrome. Could you elaborate?
Holocaust syndrome?
Elaborate on how, how the Holocaust has influenced Jews in America and Israel, the whole message.
Well, certainly the major influencing factor for the success of the Zionist movement has unfortunately been the Holocaust. And I would say it's a misuse of the Holocaust. The Holocaust was one of the worst, most horrible, catastrophic happenings of the mid-20th century. No question. Over six million Jews killed. But it's been used to, to garner support for Zionism and for the Zionist character, as I call it, of the state of Israel and for what the state of Israel does. And I'm saying that's a misuse of the Holocaust. It's a misuse. And Norman Finkelstein's book, The Holocaust Industry, is a good book that puts a good deal of this. Uh, and I think, uh, puts it correctly. There have been a lot of other things that have been written about this as well. Uh, the documentation is clear. Just let me give you one example. We're talking the United States. Every year when we have what's called the all-in-one drive, the all-in-one drive is the largest drive to collect money from individuals. This is apart from the government, to collect money from individuals. Money and also some other support, but to collect money that goes to the state of Israel to support Israel and to support their policies. It's not a coincidence that the all-in-run drive almost always comes right at or right near Holocaust week. And if you look at the major arguments used, the major arguments are what I say are misuse of Holocaust arguments. Because of anti-semitism that's existed and because of the Holocaust and what it has meant, you should give money to the state of Israel. So I'm saying it's a, that's just a clear example. There are many other examples.
Okay. How does the ADL fit in all this? The Anti-Defamation League. What's their goals? Have they changed? What's your perspective?
Yeah. Some years ago, the Anti-Defamation League, years, decades ago, was an organization that really was dedicated to be concerned with defamation generally. Yes, anti-semitism was a kind of major thing. Generally, in the most recent decades, especially under Abraham Foxman, who still is the current director of the Anti-Defamation League, um, uh, it's simply an organization. Has simply become an organization that is only concerned with doing its best to try to silence any criticism of the state of Israel or Israeli policies in the United States. To any, any serious criticism, they simply try to silence it, and it's called anti-semitism. And that's now. They do a few other things, but not much. And they're the lead organization in this. And, uh, my view of that, I don't even have to say, you know, by now, my view of that is most negative.
Um, can you give me feedback? Do Amalecch, Amalecch in Jewish tradition? Could you discuss that? Are you?
Amalek? Yeah. Well.
That's it. It's anti, the origins of anti-semitism. Jacob, Jacob Neusner called Amalek an anti, the first anti-Semite.
No, wait a minute. Yes. But Jacob Neusner knows better than that. He's a pretty good Judeaic scholar. I don't know why he said that. Look, this is one of the great problems of, uh, uh, one of the many great problems in the Bible. God says to the early Hebrews or the Jews, "Here is Amalek, this nation, wipe out Amalek. They're evil. Wipe them out. Kill all the men, all the women, and all the children." Now, one can then ask the question, listen, this is God. God created the world. God creates everyone. If Amalek is all evil, why did God create Amalek? But what about wiping out all the men, all the women, all the children, even the children two days old? Have they committed sins? So I'm saying there's a, Jacob Neusner knows this. There's a tremendous problem with Amalek. If you say Amalek was the first anti-Semites, well, then you're saying the first anti-Semites happened to be a nation that God created, and then God said, "Wipe them all out." Oh, what is that? Well, the thing that troubles me, there's a, there's a few places in Deuteronomy and stuff where God in the Torah, in the Old Testament, says to.
Go wipe them out. There's one place where it says wipe out these people and the only ones to save are the young women.
But there's the Holocaust. There's the template for the Holocaust. Could you discuss that?
Look, a template. That's the, that's the opposite template. That's God telling the Jews, "Go commit a Holocaust." Well, you're asking me to explain it. [laughter]
What do you know about? What's your take on it?
My take is, of course, negative. Do I believe that an all-merciful, good, just God would should, would say such a thing? No. Let me cite something from Israel Shahak for you. It pertains. Some years ago, of course, when he was alive, we went to Prague together, just to take a week off in the summer. We used to do this in the summer. We used to go to various places. He was great to go with because even if it was a place he hadn't been, he could take you to any museum or any church and point out every painting and fresco and give you the whole history of that painting or fresco. He was a genius. We're sitting in Prague, outside beautiful Prague. We're having dinner, and a friend of ours, a woman had come, and she was having dinner with us, and she asked Israel Shahak, "Do you believe God exists?" And Israel Shahak gave her a very philosophical answer, simply that she didn't understand. I had to spend the rest of the evening, after he went to sleep, explaining what he meant. Um, he said, "I don't really know if God exists." That's the agnostic part of an answer. But he said, "If God does exist, then I'm an enemy of God on human rights grounds." Israel Shahak was a great human rights ad, uh, advocate, and he was pointing to really these things about killing all these people, and what about, uh, uh, uh, famine in this world, and children who die. So he said, as a human rights advocate, I'm an enemy. That was a philosophical answer. That's connected to this. So if you had Israel Shahak here, and you ask him this kind of question that you ask me, if you think my reaction is vigorous, it would be not much at all compared to the reaction you'd get from him.
How about Jacob and Esau? Is Esau?
Jacob and Esau. That, that, as I understand it, Jacob is the traditional Jewish branch, and Esau is the traditional non-Jewish branch. And.
No, not necessarily, not necessarily branch. Uh, Jacob, of course, was, he's one of the patriarchs. The, if you go to chapter 12 of the book of Genesis with Abraham, God promised the land of Abraham and all good things through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Those are the patriarchs. Esau was the rough and tough son that, uh, was sort of evil in some ways. But, uh, that's not necessarily a, a branch of evil. Uh, we have a bigger problem of branches, uh, or what are considered branches.
If we take, um, uh, if we take the sons of Abraham, because of course there's a promise of land, um, uh, and, uh, if you read the Quran, you see that the Quran says that, uh, uh, even though the Bible is also a holy scripture, they say, "Well, the Jewish scribes cheated," >> and, uh, the promise of the land wasn't a promise. Abraham down that chain. It went the other way to the other son, and the other son is supposedly the father of all the Arabs. >> May I read you this quote? This is from a guy named Adam Garfangle, and it's just because I, I was just reading. He wrote a book called "Jeentricity." Did you ever hear of it? >> Yeah, I like this stuff and it intrigued me, and I'd like your feedback. He said, "To the re-rabbinic way of thinking, anti-semitism is evil, but evil is real. It has no specific root cause. It is part of the cosmic drama. God has created it for reasons of his own, all bound up in the biblical message from the book of Numbers that Jews are a people who live alone and are not to be reckoned with among nations." Orthodox Jews have traditionally seen anti-semitism, anti-semitism enigmatically through the story of the book of Esther, the Passion Haggadah, and even more basically through the perplexing commandment to blot out the memory of Amalek. And then he says, "This traditional view of the cosmic purposes of anti-semitism had been almost universally held among Jews before modern times." Do you accept that? Is that true? >> Aside. >> No. Um, let me look at it again. It's not necessarily true at all. That God has created evil for reasons of his own. No. Uh, the traditional view is God is good. So, God wouldn't necessarily have created evil for a reason of his own. It, it's more correct to say a little differently. We don't know why there's evil in this world. Uh, if you want to say a reason of his own, well, uh, I wouldn't put it that way. All bound up in the biblical book of Jews are a people who live alone and are not to be reckoned with among nations. Not necessarily. So, um, uh, uh, even if I take Schneerson, uh, Schneerson, uh, doesn't necessarily say Jews should live alone. In fact, uh, he created a Chabad, consists of, uh, uh, part of it is about 6,000 rabbis that go around the world where Jews are dispersed to find Jews, to bring Jews who are not very religious one step back closer to God. And for Schneerson, uh, that's fine. And Jews live in those places. They're dispersed. They don't have to live in, uh, uh, in one place. Not to be reckoned with among nations. Not necessarily. Orthodox Jews have traditionally seen anti-semitism enigmatically through the story of the book of Esther. No, the, the book of Esther is a far more complicated book than that. The Passion Haggadah. Well, I don't know what he means. U, uh, no. >> Well, that, what I find, let me ask you another question, why I >> To blot out the memory of Amalek. No, not to blot out Amalek. You don't blot, you kill Amalek, but the memory stays. Cosmic purposes of anti-semitism. No, I mean, this is >> reject. I, I reject that. >> Okay. Can I ask you, what about Goldstein, this guy who shot up all the Arabs? He was a Chabad. >> Yeah. Yeah. Baruch Goldstein. >> Chabad guy, right? >> No. Well, well, no, wait a minute. No, I said Rabbi Ginsburg, who was Chabad, has defended Baruch Goldstein. Baruch Goldstein was a, was a follower of Meir Kahane, uh, who was an extreme, uh, Orthodox rabbi, not necessarily Chabad. I knew Meir Kahane well. Um, uh, so no, that, uh, uh, and by the way, um, that's something that if you ask Chabad people, if you ask Ginsburg, this is a problem. Ginsburg supports Baruch Goldstein, written a lot and talks about that, so that's one Chabad. But if you ask a lot of other Chabad people about what Baruch Goldstein did, they'll say, "No, that was wrong." And they're telling you that sincerely. They are not just rationalizing or lying. Why they wouldn't criticize Yitzhak Ginsburg, that's another question. It's connected, but it's another question. But they would not back that. That was killing innocent people. And I would have to tell you that that act, that act of going into a house of prayer, even though it is was in, uh, the place we call in Hebrew, Ma'arat HaMachpelah, that is the Cave of the Patriarchs, supposedly traditional Jews believe that the three patriarchs and their wives are all buried in that cave. That's what they believe. And so, uh, here, and for Muslims, well, there's a, it's a kind of religious place, they had a little mosque there. But if you would ask, if the Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, were alive, I don't know this for sure, but if he were alive and you would ask him, if he was alive and you would ask him, "What about this?" He would say, "No, it was not right." >> I've only got four minutes. Are you ready to go? Um, is modern Israel a genuine democracy? >> No, of course not. It's a very democratic place for Jews, comparatively, and it's a very anti-democratic place for non-Jews, and it's clear in the laws. The laws of the state of Israel, and there's no constitution, nothing above the law. So the law is public policy. The laws clearly give rights and privileges to Jews, not given to non-Jews, even though 1.3 to 1.4 million of the citizens are Palestinians who are not Jews. And then, and that's not to talk about the almost 2 million Palestinians in the West Bank who are terribly oppressed, much more, and the ones in Gaza, a million and a half, who are terribly oppressed, who can't even become citizens. It's no, that's just one of the extreme arguments that's incorrect, that's wrong of Zionist propaganda. Israel is not a democracy. You can say again, as I've said, it is a democracy for Jews, overall. There are some problems there too, but overall, but it's not a democracy whatsoever for non-Jews. >> We touched on this a bit, but have you had any personal costs for your stance over the years? Have you been ostracized or blackballed or any troubles? Anything in >> I've been threatened. I've been threatened with death. I've had cars drive by me, not recently, drive by me and people have opened their windows and yelled at me that, uh, I could be killed. I've had my apartment in New York, long, long [clears throat] time ago, but only once, broken into. Do I know it was broken into by these people? No. But curiously, they stole all my suit jackets and left all my suit pants. Do I think there's a chance that that was done by? Yes. So, the point is, yeah. Do I receive poison pen letters? Of course. Uh, almost every time I would give a speech in Connecticut, I'd get a few poison pen letters. I've had people go to the various presidents of this university while I've been here, and they have tried to talk to presidents and defame me because of my views. So, yeah, I've had plenty of that. Every time I get it, I go public. Okay. Is there anything? Oh, Gush Emunim, can you? I only have about a minute left. Can you summarize them in a minute? >> Well, or the >> They're part of, they're the major part of those ultra-Orthodox settlers in the further out regions of the West Bank that have done this great service, I put "great" in quotation marks, for one Israeli government after another because they've divided the Palestinian population, and they are extremely anti-Palestinian. They are virulent. They are among the worst, in my opinion, of, uh, ultra-Orthodox Jewish oppressors of these Palestinians, and they therefore should be at least roundly criticized for that. Thank