Transcription
We're often told almost every day there is not an Israel lobby. And if you think there's an Israel lobby, that there's a Zionist lobby, a coordinated effort to undermine and obscure the facts and the truth about what's going on in Israel Palestine, you're a conspiracy theorist, you're malevolent, you're even racist. Uh, and the gentleman I'm speaking to tonight has been a voice of absolute and utter clarity um in demonstrating that is simply not the case. Tonight's event with circus 700 people here uh I like to think is a direct repudiation of the Israel lobby. It's a repudiation of the constant efforts to muddy the water, obscure the facts, and in many instances subvert free and open debate. In that battle between fact and propaganda, historical memory and state sanctioned forgetting, I can think of few figures more important than tonight's speaker. Professor Elan Pepe is one of the most courageous and incisive historians working today. A former professor at the University of Hifur, he's now director of the European Center for Palestine Studies at the University of Exat. He's best known for his groundbreaking book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which challenged mainstream historical narratives and forced many to confront the extraordinary truth about 1948, the Nakba, and beyond. His scholarship, rooted in meticulous archival research, is matched by a deep moral clarity and commitment to justice. At a time when speaking out often comes at significant cost, nowhere more so than on this issue, Elan has never wavered in his pursuit of the truth. On the issue of Palestine, past, present, and future, he is utterly essential reading. And tonight, we have the privilege of hearing from him directly. Please join me in welcoming Professor Elan Pepe. [Music] [Applause]
Elon was telling me in the green room, he's in such high demand, he was actually giving a Zoom call to Italians in the taxi on the way over. Uh, but we've got you in the flesh. Yeah. No tax, which is which is very, very good. I want to um start by referring to an article you wrote in 1999, which was what you viewed back then as an escalation in the indoctrination of Israelis. Um, and you believed that the next cohort of graduates at the end of the last century would become, I think the phrase was racist fanatics. Um tell me a little bit about the system of indoctrination that Israelis are presently subject to from cradle to grave and how has that changed in the last 20 25 years?
Yeah. Yes. I did write this uh research in 1999 uh predicting that in 20 years time. The great anyone who entered at a very early age the Israeli education of the 21st century uh could only graduate as a person that is uh subscribing to racism and and and fanaticism especially as far as the Palestinians and the Arab world is concerned. Now in many ways the indoctrination was the same from the very beginning of the Zionist project. You needed to not only convince the world about the validity of the Zionist project. You needed to convince the Jewish uh uh uh people as well about the validity. And then you had needed an indoctrination that would explain the hardships that they encountered as early colonialists and the uh antic-colonialist struggle that they encountered. So all of that contributed to the formulation of indoctrination that became state indoctrination since 1948. Um if anything change it is uh I would put it in this way. I think that up to the early 90s there was uh a very interesting attempt to reconcile universal values within the educational system with the uh ethnic racist ideals of Zionism. as if you could be uh a liberal Zionist, a progressive Zionist, a democratic Zionist. The whole notion that was uh sold to the world was about the Jewish democracy, namely you can be both an ethnic racist state but still a democracy. I think what really changed in the indoctrination was giving up on this attempt to uh square the circle. So there was a sense that this was not necessary that it was not working anyway because uh Israel was criticized because what it was doing not because of the way that it marketed itself and uh now I would say in the last 25 years there's very little stress on universal values. there is a very clear interpretation of Judaism that wasn't there before as as an ideological uh blueprint uh that is mainly focused on taking over the land, dispossessing the Palestinians, maybe even creating something that is even greater than greater Israel, that is Israel over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. uh and very little concern uh for uh the international reaction to Israel. There is even an element of contempt for secular Jewish life within Israel as being a kind of a show of weakness that might affect the ability of the state and the society to achieve its goals in the future.
And on that point about what's changed in the last two and a half decades, it seems to me that the state of Israel as it exists today, an ethnostate, um is something of a blueprint for um racial supremacists in Europe, people that want um eternally white, France, Britain, Germany, etc., etc. They take inspiration from the idea of of Israel. When did that become a norm? And I don't just mean anti-semmites agreeing with Zionist because we can talk about that later. That that has a real heritage, but people literally pointing to it as a as a as the template for a post-liberal state. That seems quite recent as well.
It is recent. And and you have to remember the uh the very idea of the Zionist project is was to solve a European problem of anti-semitism by imposing a European Jewish state on the Arab world at the heart of the Arab world against the will of the Palestinians. So from the very beginning you you there was an alliance that believed in this project that was fully aware that the only way of implementing this project was by force and uh that alliance to begin with included also the left included also the liberals to begin with. um a very important in in different stages in the way that this project of Zionism became a Jewish state in 1948 and then a state that was recognized as part of the western world. the alliance until I would say the beginning of this century. Uh probably the most important members of that alliance were was not the right, not the extreme right for sure, not populist fascist leaders. Actually in the 60s and the 70s it was the social democratic parties. It was the Democrat party in the United States. Sort of center and center left were very important members of the alliance that uh uh gave Israel moral validity, political validity and material assistance. Now once the Israeli behavior became even more aggressive and the whole Israeli political system shifted to the right in 2000, uh then even more friendly members of that alliance that provided immunity for Israel began to be a bit more critical and and that's when it was very clear that if you look at the state of Israel is standing on two pillar a moral moral pillar and a material pillar. The moral pillar was almost totally eroded already by the beginning of the 20th century. That is when the alliance shifted from having also democratic and socialist or social democratic uh members in it into relying heavily heavily on populist neorite parties uh fascist parties Christian fundamentalist became even more important than they ever were before. Uh so it was a matter of having the support of either very cynical sinister multinational corporation or military industries or security industries on the one hand or ideological movements or persons who uh believe that the creation of the Jewish state is God's will the fulfillment of a certain uh uh uh uh kind of messianic vision whether a Jewish one or a Christian on and the the other elements that were there and supported the Zionist project in the state of Israel became uh less and less uh uh assertive in this alliance and less and less confident that they were on the right side of history. So I think yes we we have now something else. Maybe I I just want to add that there is also something very historically structural here. Namely, however you look at it, the most anti-semitic and neo neoight fascist movements in Europe have something in common with Zionism. Both ideological movements for different reasons would like to see the Jews of Europe in Palestine. So, uh that that created an ideological alliance. Sometimes there were even more embarrassing chapters in the relationship between the leadership of the Zionist movement in the 1920s and 1930s uh with fascist forces in Europe and so on. But that was the exception, not the rule. But it it came out of the same uniformity of of interest. The idea is that Jews do not belong to Europe, not belong in Europe. they belong in a Jewish European state at the heart of the Arab world. So in a way this is the trajectory of history. Now now we have the real alliance, the real allies of a project that to begin with was invalid morally, politically and probably was not very practical unless you could ensure huge force behind it to create it and later on to sustain it.
The point about the support of the social democratic left and Israel all the way through to let's say 25 years ago. Of course, in the case of the Labour party, it's still ongoing. Um I want to probe that in a second. Uh but it's also really important to say that um support for Arabism was rightcoded for a very long time. Maybe touch upon that as well. But quickly, what was the relationship like between the Labour left and the state of Israel between say 1945 all the way through to the 1990s or until Oslo?
Yeah, that's a very interesting uh uh story which I write on the book because the Ethi government that came to power in 1945 in the last three years of the British mandate in Palestine 1945 to 1948 was not very friendly toward the Zionist project. uh famously it uh there were some sort of criticism related and rightly so to the way Ans beving who was the foreign minister did not always distinguish between the Zionist project and Jew Judaism at the same time one should say the same ethly government was not supporting the idea of a pal of the Palestinian nationhood and independence they had their own ideas that actually Jordan would be the Britain's best ally. And then within three or four years after the creation of the state of Israel, it was the left wing of the Labor Party that was Zionist to the bone and led the Labor Party to be far more pro-Israel than the Conservative Party in the 50s and the 60s. Uh why was it? Well, I try in the book to answer it. Uh uh it had to do with buying into the Israeli propaganda that Israel is a socialist haven. Bringing very important labor leaders in the 50s and the 60s to visit the kibuts and give them the idea that the kibbutz is actually the epitome of all Israel. Well, actually only 3% of the Israelis lived in the kibuts. uh totally ignoring the way the Palestinian citizens of Israel were living under military rule, not understanding the whole issue. So it was effective advocacy, moral blindness, uh and wishful thinking that there is within the west there is a better version of socialism. uh uh and you know and these were the most important people in the Labor Party in the 50s and the 60s and the very few people who bothered to see the place for themselves namely not to be guided by Israeli tours were very much opposed that kind of of policy. Um and uh as I mentioned in my own book uh people like Brown who was the uh the foreign secretary George Brown George Brown who you know in a very tame and kind of soft way dare to mention that there were Palestinians as well he was condemned as anti-semite and there was pressure on on on the British government to sack him only because he he he just recognized the palist Inians as as people. He didn't even say anything about the right of return or anything. So it it's very interesting. And and by the way, this was not just the the British Labor Party. The Social Democratic parties of Europe felt that the Jewish state absolves them from dealing with anti-semitism during the Second World War, from dealing with racism. uh and really this mixture of falling into a very effective uh campaign of advocacy on the one hand and having probably hidden or not so hidden Islamophobic and Arab phobic attitudes towards the Arab world. Uh because we have to remember the Labor Party was ruling a British whenever it was in power in government. uh it was not uh did not see the Arab world as a place that is entitled to independence and total freedom. They were very much into the mood of the cold war as well as the conservatives. So yes, the the left has a lot to to think about of about its complicity in the creation of the state of Israel and uh sustaining it in the first 10 15 years and totally ignoring the price the Palestinians paid for it.
Yeah. Because it's very tempting when you look at historical figures like Nbe Evan, you know, the godfather of the NHS in this country. you think, you know, unadulterated good person, but you know, he was one of the archionists in the Labour Party supporting this thing. He and Harold Wilson uh Herald Wilson in particular, prime minister for the Labor Party in the late 60s, early 70s, uh uh really kind of comparing, can you imagine it? Maybe you can because this was a different time. He compared Israel to the struggle of the ANC in South Africa. He didn't compare apart at South Africa to Israel. I want just to make it clear. He he he he said to Jim Kaline who was a sec secretary of state uh we will not budge on Israel and South Africa. And I think the poor guy thought that finally Wilson meant let's take a harsh position towards a parted Israel and a part of South Africa. No, that's what he meant. He meant Israel is like the ANC. And he was honored uh with a special forest that the Jewish National Fund planted uh which existed until today. It's called Britain, the Park of Britain. But it's actually in in gratitude uh it was a gift to Herold Wilson for his pro-Israeli stances. And this forest is built on the ruins of five or six Palestinian villages that were destroyed in 1948. And the people were ethnically cleansed from these villages. Uh and um people were trying to alert Wilson to this but he totally ignored it as propaganda. He he brushed it aside as as propaganda. So yes, leading uh leaders including true socialist if you want in terms of national policies uh did still regard Israel more or less until 1967 as a beacon not only of democracy but also of socialism of social democracy. And it's incredible if you know what happened to the Palestinians at that time. But um uh this is an historical fact we cannot brush aside or ignore.
Let's talk about your biography a little bit. What was your childhood like in Israel? And when was the moment for you personally when you realized that this isn't normal? that most most states for all their sins don't operate in the same way that Israel does to a minority population.
Well, you know, in when you are born into an indoctrinated society, uh you you have a normal life so to speak within the indoctrination. As a child, you don't question what your teacher is saying. you don't question what your parents are saying or what the society is is is broadcasting. So while I I was in my boyhood and and uh as a young teenager I was unaware of anything outside the realm of what was uh u uh provided to me through the the institutions. Going getting out of it was a journey. It was not a moment of epiphany. It was not just one moment but it was it was a journey and um it had a lot to do with my decision to uh pursue a career as a professional historian because I loved history and uh and it was natural to wish to want to research your own country's history. I also found it quite reasonable to look for a very formative moment in that history 1948. It made sense the very beginning of things as I thought it was. So that was one pointer I think there was one kind of uh trigger that put me in a different direction and then also the decision to pursue my professional career as an historian outside of Israel. There are things you can see from the outside that you cannot see from the inside. And I was lucky also that by coincidence I had also an Arab supervisor that introduced me to to Palestinians on equal footing in a way that I could not have probably easily done in Israel itself. So all of that sort of produced a a wealth of knowledge from the archives through what I read and heard from people that totally negated the narrative I grew upon. And because I was interested in history from very early age, I knew the the Israeli narrative very well. I mean not every Israeli Jew knew the narrative of 1948. I was very well-versed in the Israeli version of 19 48. And every moment I became more independent in my thinking and my academic work, all the main arguments of that narrative was were faltering and falling apart uh and actually were exposed as she lies. And that is is it's quite difficult to accept it. you you don't easily accept it because of all the military actions that Israel did. The war of 1948 is portrayed in Israel as the purest, as the most noble one. You may have questions about 1956, 1967, but nobody questions 1948. That was the David against Golas and the miracle of of defeating seven Arab armies. and you start looking at the the facts and you don't see seven Arab armies and then you don't see a David uh you see a Palestinian David but you don't see an Israeli David and and slowly the myth the mythology and the myths are also you debunk them by research not by you know by by being argumentative. but that takes time. It takes time for you to to understand that there's something here which is even beyond challenging the narrative of 1948 that you have to go back to the origins of Zionism itself. So somewhere in the work as a as a doctorate students in the 1980s up to the mid 1990s I needed sort of 10 years to to get out of it and cross the Rubicon and then not looking back anymore being confident that uh I'm going in the right direction.
But uh did you lose friends and and fall out with family members?
I I lost many members family members. Some of them I didn't care at all losing. This was actually quite good. It was much life became much easier when certain cousins and nephews decided not to talk to me. I said, "Thank God I should have done it earlier." Friends were disappointing. Yes, a lot of them colleagues and so on. It took time to to find a a new reference group because what you need is a reference group. Everybody needs and it took time for the my Palestinian friends to totally kind of have confidence in what I'm doing. But once that happened, I was again in a protective social media. which was nice. But but yeah, you lose you lose it. you are challenging the tribe, you're challenging the the truism of the of the narrative. You are at best insane and at worst a traitor.
Why do you think Israel produces so few dissident thinkers like you? I mean, we see conscientious objectors, etc. Very incredibly brave people, but no, you're right. There's not that there's not that many of them. Why do you think that is?
Yeah. I wish I had a good answer for you. It's it's a very good question because you sort of thinking about 1950 and you say okay they couldn't know much there's no internet no television the world was supporting them and then you say okay after 67 there is television h after 1987 there is internet the world is sending them messages for sure after the beginning of the 21st century that what they are doing is criminal and yet so such a small number of them accept it. So so it's it's it's it's a very good question because it still continues. I don't think it's a it's difficult to understand how it was working in the early stages of statethood but why is it still today and one has to say this is not a dictatorship that people are afraid to challenge because they would be jailed or tortured for challenging the regime. This is a total unc unconditional support for the regime and actually it's very brave to challenge the regime. I think that it has to do first of all with a very effective indoctrination and manipulation particular of fear. There there is an objective feeling because there is a Palestinian resistance and Palis Palestinian resistance can be violent and can create this sense that you are not secure. So you want to be in in your own tribe. But this is not enough. So you manipulate fear. You not only manipulate fear. The worst thing and I think the one which really works is the abuse of the Holocaust memory. The most important mechanism the state of Israel uses through all its systems to make sure that people would not deviate from the basic attitudes and perceptions of the Palestinians of the conflict of of the of the region is to make sure that there is a sense that any deviation from that will open the way for a second holocaust. that this would be suicidal. There's no basis for it factually, logically, morally. But I can tell you as a product of the Israeli educational system, you get overdoses of manipulation of the Holocaust memory so that you are not uh uh you're not you cannot forget it and you are becoming addicted to it. I I really see it as as as kind of a like taking people making them junkies of this kind of of of fear. the number of Israelis that as children are going and visiting extermination camps which is fine which is okay they should but it's not so much visiting Avitz it's how they are visiting Awitz the all the visits are connected directly to the Palestinians and the military namely you see what would happen if you are not loyal to the country you will find you yourself again in a new ovitz unbelievable totally uh out of not there's nothing common sensical nothing logical but that doesn't matter and any one of you who I don't know how many of you visited the Israeli Holocaust Museum you can see that the end of the museum is the creation of the state of Israel so all the time there is this creation so I think that's one thing but there is if you unpack it more you have to ask yourself why for instance the second and third generation of Jews who came from North Africa are the most anti-Arab element in the state of Israel I mean people who are themselves Arabs are are now one of the most important group of of of racism not only supporting the racist government but also menacing saying a menace to anyone who dares to to challenge that. And then you you begin you have to go back to the history how they were dearabbized by the state and understood that the only way to be accepted as European Jews was to show total antagonism to their own Arab identity, culture and language. And the best way to show that you are not an Arab is to display hatred towards the Arabs. So, so you you have this kind of mixture of uh pro human engineering that some is directed to the population at large, some is directed to a certain section of the population, but all in all this this is the product of indoctrination. Now, why is it so important to say that? Because if we would have a member of the Israeli embassy here today or an Israeli academic who supports Israel, he would say nonsense. This is because this is an objective reaction to the fact that the Arab world wants to destroy us, that the Palestinians want to kill us, that Iran wants to obliterate us. This is this is why it's so important your question is so important because the Israeli narrative does not deny that this is the position but says that there is no choice but of course there is a choice and of course this is not because of the Palestinians or the Arabs it's because of the nature of the Zionist project that if you really believe that the only solution for the Jewish problem is to create a Jewish state over historical Palestine with as few Palestinians as possible. You need all the time to use violence to justify it and to be ready to be involved in that violence for generations to come because the Palestinians would not give up. the Arab world may change and therefore that's that's that's the kind of I don't know maybe Sparta in ancient time was similar or Prussia in certain moments in history but it's it's really this kind of DNA where you you you tend to believe there's no other way out of it but to display this kind of aggression and and animosity.
Yeah. Yeah, one of the big ideological claims of sort of the internet age is that the more we're exposed to something, the more we'll be persuaded. Um, and that was of course the central idea of things like Wikileaks, just put it out there, then that itself is a is a major political act and of course extraordinary journalism. And that will by virtue of just relaying those facts change minds. And the absolutely incredible thing about Israel is that the more exposure people have to the um atrocities that the Israeli state commits. The more exposure there is, the more supportive the population becomes of those atrocities, the more right-wing it becomes, the more it dehumanizes Arabs. And in your response, you've said that your precise phrase was abuse of Holocaust memory, it is central to the manufacturer of of consent for that. So presumably without the abuse of Holocaust memory that do you think that just simply wouldn't be possible? You wouldn't be able to execute that kind of strategy?
I I don't know because it is so so central to this whole issue that maybe they would have find other methods to do it but but it they would have recruited anti-semitism anyway for that. uh um you know the the it's very important to understand that um it ever since I would say the 1930s first the Zionist military structures and then the after 1948 the Israeli army was working very hard to convince soldiers and think about 1948 in particular when when they were attacking the enemy, the Palestinians, they were not attacking an army. They were attacking a village with all the population in it. Now, some of the people who were part of the troops were themselves Holocaust survivors. Now how do you convince them that the right thing to do is go into Dirasine or any other village, massacre children, babies, women and men and believe that this is self-defense. And this is necessary. The political officers of these units as we know used to ignite the enthusiasm of these soldiers but making sure that they associate a Palestinian village with Nazism, the Palestinian national movement with Nazism. I can give you two very good examples of how this manipulation is working in Israel in a very powerful way. Almost every Israeli household has something called the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Now, the first biggest entry is Hitler, which makes sense. The second's longest entry is Hajamin Al Husseini, the Palestinian leader of the 1940s. The second largest longest ant. So that the message is very is very clear. Or if you some of you might remember Minahim begging in 1982 comparing Yas Arafat in a bunker in Beirut to Hitler in the bunker in Berlin. But these are just two two examples of this. You needed to deumanize the native the indigenous in order to convince your own troops and people to genocide to ethnic lands and so on. Now, it's not an exceptional case in history, Aaron. It's not an exceptional case to to convince European refugees to slaughter Native Americans or native Australians, you also needed to dehumanize the indigenous population to say that they are not really human beings. They're savages and therefore you can do what you do whether even to the children and so on. So, it's not it's just a it's a version of that. I think for the case of of of of Israel, it was important not just to dehumanize as conventional settler colonialist movement would demonize the natives in order to justify their genocide or removal or imposing on them apartite. You also needed to add something else to make it sure because you were worried that maybe Jews who were refugees from Europe would find it a bit too much what they were supposed to do in order to to build a state because it was very clear that it was not a a land without people waiting for the people without land. It was land full of people who were building their own life and and future and the only way that people saw it was like a zero sum game. Either they are there or we are there and to obliterate them, you know, you needed this kind of dehumanization. But I think in the case of the Israeli education, the dehumanization had to go with the Nazification of the of the Palestinians. We had this bizarre example when Benjamin Netanyahu I think it was still with Theresa May trying to convince her that it was the MUI who gave Hitler the idea of of the Holocaust and things like that. I mean okay that's that's that's even for Israeli was going too far but um but nonetheless it's it's comes from the same place.
Yeah, it comes from the same place. Uh, totally delegitimizing a totally legitimate antic-colonialist struggle against a settler colonial project. So, how do you dele delegitimize it? You you you say it's a continuation of the old anti-semitic tradition of Europe and the worst part of that tradition. How do we silence? How do people try to silence us here in Britain when we support Palestinians? They call us Holocaust deniers. It's the IH, the famous IH definition. So, it's the same structure. It's it's a kind of believing that you can use that the memory of that horrible event in Europe to justify the behavior towards the Palestinians and to silence those who support the Palestinians. The fact that we all here probably see it so clearly is not surprising. But the fact that our politicians don't see it or they see it and ignore it is beyond comprehension.
I think that's really clarifying saying that the sort of transposition of Nazism onto the figure of the Palestinian and the memory of the Holocaust and the abuses of that memory, those two things are utterly necessary. They're fundamental in the reproduction of the Israeli state and and it cannot continue to be reproduced without those things which makes I mean because it's constant, right? That makes it very explicable. I have one question for you, building on what we've already talked about. Obviously, you've got a tremendous archive of historical knowledge about all this stuff. If I said to you in the summer of 2021, Elan, there's going to be a major conflict in Gaza, you know, we're going to see 15, 16, 17,000 children die. But Netanyahu will still be in power. There won't really be any major political consequences. Is the IDF will still be on side, etc. Would that have surprised you? I suppose that's what I'm asking. Are you are you surprised by the extent to which the Israeli state apparatus has managed to hold on despite unprecedented bloodshed in its name?
Well, the I'll tell you what surprised me and what didn't surprise me. Unfortunately, neither the Hamas operation surprised me given everything that was going on in the Gaza Strip since 2007. what was going on in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 220 2020 especially since November 2022. So that did not surprise me. These unfortunately the Israeli reaction did not surprise me. I I always I wrote long before that that ethnic cleansing as a method of eliminating the native is not working for the Israelis. And I know from history when ethnic cleansing is not working then the settler colonial project will result to genocide. I I I I I predicted it. I was unfortunately I didn't want to to broadcast it because you don't want to make it come true if you talk about it too much but no I wasn't surprised. What I really was surprised was uh uh by the reaction of the west and especially of Europe and especially Western Europe. This is something I could not predict. I mean I I could not predict that a genocide with of that magnitude with that visibility with that kind of cruelty would not steer any of the important members of the political elites of the west to have a second thought about their support for Israel, about their responsibility for the suffer suffering of the Palestinians. It was this kind of spectrum that we have between total indifference to condoning the Israelis is is so narrow and shows such moral cowardness of of the politicians because I'm sure that they know what's going on. It's not that they don't know. They know what's going on and I'm knowing some of them not personally necessarily but you know knowing what they're doing knowing their positions it's very clear that they take a conscious decision not to get involved because they fear for their political career. not because they are particularly bad people who like to see genocide happening but they are the worst kind of people we know from all these philosopher who tell us that evil exists not only by those who perpetrate it but but also those who don't do anything against it and we are talking here about people who could do something against it this is this is something that that surprised me but even more surprising and I think we should talk about It is if you if you are able and I'm able from time to time to talk to intellectuals, academics, politician in this country and in the continent and in the United States who still support Israel, people who are educated, knowledgeable, very articulate and on every other subject in the world, you would respect the way they book, the knowledge that they bring with them and you learn something. When it comes to Israel, some of the most sophisticated articulate whether politicians or journalists or academics become such imbeciles who parrot the Israeli script without any criticism, without any of the faculties that they have whenever they examine anything else in the world. This is something that has to be analyzed. I wrote too many books otherwise I would have written a book about it. It's really something to write a book about it. This this I I call it uh it's moral moral stupidity. This is unbelievable. I mean the Germans are the worst. I mean I don't know if any of you had conversation with German intellectuals why they support Israel even today. This is so embarrassing. And it's even more embarrassing in German. I understand German. It it sounds even worse in German and and but but it's not better here in many ways and and and this is something that needs to be analyzed. It it's just you are willing to degrade yourself as a thinker, as a researcher, as a journalist, as a political in order to satisfy what? in order to satisfy a state that commits daily genocide. And you're willing even to destroy the international legal system for that and so on. You know, maybe 500 pages of lobbying for Zionism is not enough to explain 600 book.
To to explain that why is it still so effective in the face of the genocide? Why is lobbying so effective? It must be. It has to do a lot with Islamophobia. I'm sure it has to do a lot with the fact that because of Zionism, Europe never dealt with racism. Never dealt with racism. Because if you ignore the racism against Jews by saying we don't have to deal with racism against Jews because we created a lovely state for them in the Arab world, then racism stays part of the European society. And Israel reminds Europe that racism is not over in its laws, in its constitution, in its educational system and so on. So that's that's definitely part of it. But there's still this fear or among politician and maybe and I would finish by saying that maybe it says something about the essence of politics these days. I don't want to to generalize but I will. Most of the politicians in the west are self-centered regarding electoral the the the electoral base. They regard them as as a base that would ensure the reelection not a group of people who have concerns to which they have to attend. It's of course there are exceptions but but generally speaking I don't recall a period in modern history when politicians were of such a low caliber and it became an occupational solution in times when unemployment is I it's it's quite incredible this and the gap between the rhetoric in England it's particular because they speak nicely the the gap between the rhetoric and what they really do is so huge so so maybe that's also part of it which gives me a little hope you know because I do believe that eventually human societies would be fed up with that kind of politics and every even a baby step A small move towards better kind of politics which are based on justice on moral values is a small win for the Palestinians. The more just our societies, the more moral our politics are, the more our governments would understand their role and responsibility for defending the Palestinians and go beyond what they are doing now. in order to make sure that Israel cannot complete the elimination of the Palestinians. [Applause]
One refrain you get a lot from some of the people you're talking about, sort of pro-Israel voices, that say, "Well, why do you care?" You know, why do you care? Besides the fact of course there's a genocide 16 17,000 children be killed etc. Why do you care? And one thing I say is well I believe in universal values and the success of an ethnationalist state which is the blueprint for the far right on our own continent undermines the possibility of successful multicultural states in Europe. I'm half Iranian but by the by by virtue of how citizenship is constructed in Israel. I'm not really British. I can never be British. I can't be. I really belong in Iran, just like Jews in Europe really belong in Israel. And I still don't think it's hit home with the liberal intelligence here in Europe. What what that means, take it to its logical conclusion. It means an ethnationalist Europe where everybody of any kind of foreign um heritage whatsoever goes back home. And that is a living political entity which has the full backing of our governments across Europe. Utterly extraordinary. uh you say we are at the end of a very bad chapter in humanity, not the beginning of a bad chapter as in you're an optimist which or you're optimistic about the situation. Can you just unpack that a bit because I think most people who've heard that and I'll repeat it. We are at the end of a very bad chapter in humanity, not the beginning of a bad chapter. Most people think it's the other way around.
Yeah, I I think it's important to say that uh uh with a caveat that bad chapters in human history from a political, economic, human aspects are the worst part of the bad chapter. The end is worse than anything else. Such was the end of apartheite South Africa. Such was the end of many other rogue regimes in history. The last years of the regimes were the worst in terms of what the regime was doing in order to survive. Losing all inhibitions and I think that's what we are seeing here. But that that's what I mean. I mean we are not at the beginning of a new chapter. We are at the very end of the chapter that probably began with the Nakba of 1948 if not before that. a chapter by which international immunity was given to a project of dispossession and elimination of a small nation called the Palestinians because that project served different sometimes conflicting interest of a global alliance that consisted of Christian evangelicals ideologues, neoconservatives as we said before socialists and liberals as Well, that chapter is coming to an end. And we can see the indications. Now before I will unpack the indications that this is the end, I I want to warn again what I started with. This is not a big good news that you bring to the people of Gaza today by telling them that this chapter is about to end and the next two three years are going to be the worst of this chapter. this is not what they want to hear from us and rightly they would demand of us to try and stop the chapter now and not wait for it to to continue but if I'm looking at a bit in a larger larger context I'm saying that's where we are which does not at all contradict the fact that I would have have to be very honest with people on the ground in telling them that at least as far as I can see I don't see yet the dynamics of change that would stop the Israeli carnage. Not from the inside, not from the outside. I have to be very honest about it. But I do see the the the indications for the end of this chapter. For instance, I don't remember a period in history where so many millions and millions of people first of all know what happens in Palestine and support the Palestinians. We have never been in that. And and anybody who knows the history of the solidarity movement with the Palestinians would know that we are in a unique moment that we don't know how to exhaust yet and and and and use it. Maybe that's something to discuss as well. But there is a huge support for the Palestinians. There is no huge support for the Palestinians and the political elites. They're true. but in the societies, the global civil society has never been so united in its support for the Palestinians. So this is a force to reckon with. Unfortunately, forces like this don't easily get to be the powers that be. They don't become the powers from above and usually are not interested in becoming the political elites that they would have to not only for the sake of Gaza, not only for the sake of Palestine, but also for the sake of fighting global warming, also for the sake of fighting poverty, also for the sake of building a world where people who seek refuge and living and im and immigrate are not a problem but an asset. For all of that, we need uh uh the civil so the good energies in the civil societies to become the policy makers and not just the people who the policy makers ignore or use in order to be elected. So so that's that's one indicator the huge solidarity which is also translated to small actions that we think are not important but accumulatively will be very important. Student movements that force their university to divest are going to be written into history as being part of a movement that eventually turn boycott into sanctions. The same happened in the case of South Africa. Any action of the BDS movement is important is not wasted. It takes too long. It is not accumulatively effective enough but it will be. There's no doubt about it. That's another indication. No less important is the fact that young generation of Jews all over the world stop associating themselves with Israel and Zionism. They don't associate the Jewish identity. Even secular Jews, even secular Jews in America do not associate the Jewish identity with Israel. Not only that, they feel that part of what they should do in re-establishing what it means to be a Jew in the West is to be part of the solidarity movement with the Palestinians [Applause] and and this will be this will be an important element in in the future. Not to mention about the dynamics inside Israel. There is a a social implosion inside the Israeli society. The secular Israelis and the more religious traditional traditional Israelis do not have anything in common. They don't find the cement that they used to find in the past which is the external enemy. This is not it seems not to be enough to create a social cohesion. And the number of Israelis who leave is huge. We don't know the number but it's huge and it includes the economic elite of the country. The military despite everything that it's doing doesn't enjoy the confidence of the society. people are not blind that after all what Israel did in the last year and a half was to find two militias that had no aeroplanes, no tanks, no artillery and could hardly defeat them and things can
change. So, so the invincibility of the Israeli army is in question, and that's part of the end of the chapter. Uh, economic viability is not what it was. Uh, the people don't remember this, but Biden gave Israel 20 billion dollars, billion dollars. They wasted it all. It's gone. And I, I, nobody wants to say anything positive about Trump, but I do think he checks the the the account, the American check account, the the current account. Uh, and if he would be told that you need to pull out 40 billion from the current American account, I'm not sure that he will do it. And again, that's the last positive thing. Don't worry, not going to say anything positive about it. But, but it will, it will have an effect. It will have an effect. Um, so these are very important uh, uh, processes.
Will what's happening on the Palestinian side is not easy to to decipher and analyze in that respect. How, what is their role in bringing an end? Because so far, what they're doing, which is totally understandable, is to be resilient, not to disappear in front of a, a huge machine that wants to destroy them. So, so they are resilient and they're staying. Uh, that very fact itself would contribute to the end of the chapter. But it's not enough. It's very clear that there needs to be a proper national movement, a proper organization, a proper representation. It's very interesting, you know, the, the, the young Palestinians, uh, in this country, in the West Bank, in Gaza, uh, in the world, they're an amazing human capital in terms of education, creativity, uh, activity, activism, and so on. But they, they understandably shun the role of political leadership. They're not interested in political leadership, which is a problem because if there's no vacuum in history, if you're not going to be the political leaders, someone who will not be mentioned, I sound like a reporter now. Uh, someone who won't be mentioned would be your leader, uh, and he would sit in Ramallah. Uh, this is very important. This is also very important. So, so we are not just onlookers of this end of chapter. We can also, each in our own way, contribute to accelerate the end of that chapter. But I'm, I'm convinced it's not a question of will this chapter end, but when will it end and how will it end? These are questions, of course, one cannot easily answer. I, I'm just going to finish.
[Applause]
I love, I love these long sort of periods. Historians thinking, you know, when I speak to sort of anti-Erdogan Turks and they talk about actually there were features of the Ottoman Empire in the 1850s, they think that would be great if we had it back and, you know, maybe it all went wrong, you know, the various treaties 100 years ago and whatnot. Really fascinating. Um, I think the broad analysis you have with regards to the collapse of American empire, particularly in West Asia, that's obviously something which the Israeli state has been dependent on for a very long time. Clearly, Israeli civil society has massive contradictions now, and you call it in, I think, more than one of your books now, but in, in one of the most recent books, the state of Israel is being replaced by the state of Judea, a more theocratically inclined state. Um, and of course, the economy of Israel has just been in, in freefall for the last two years. So these are all massive factors that undermine that, that project, that state. What can the people here do? What can they do other than, you know, buy your fantastic books and give them to people as Christmas presents? I love doing that. Radicalizing people at Christmas, you know, I think that's fantastic. Other than that, or maybe even including that, what, what can they do in your opinion? Because we can talk about the big structural factors, and I think your, your analysis is right in that respect, but clearly agency matters as well. It's, you know, I'm sure many activists in, in the audience. I can't see anyone because of the lights, so maybe they're all not activists, not that you can tell who is an activist or not. Um, so I don't, I'm never in the, in the position of telling activists what they should do because activism for Palestine in this country is incredible. Really, people are doing wonderful things. Really are. I don't think there's one Palestinian who has any, uh, criticism on the way, uh, the solidarity movement in Britain recruited itself since the 7th of October, standing alongside the Palestinians. So I don't have any wise words to say to the activists, uh, what we should do. I think one can identify areas where one might, uh, be more effective and work on it, uh, with the hope that maybe this would, uh, bring a quicker end to that horrible period we, we're living in, because, uh, I, I, many of you would know that probably from, from even a psychological point of view, the fact that the people of Gaza who thought that the ceasefire was coming and there's some sort of lull in the carnage, were only now learning again that this is continuing. I mean, just imagine being in that kind of, of, of inferno, uh, uh, and that can, can be very dis-, kind of disempowering for anybody who, who feels like, what can I do to stop that? And it's not, it's not easy to to find any wiser words of how to do it. However, I, I do think that, um, uh, words are important, language is important, and I think we are a bit too easy on our media, not alternative media, on the mainstream media. Uh, they're getting away too easily with the false language that they are using, with the irresponsible coverage of the events, uh, and the total, uh, uh, ignorance or or intentional ignorance when it comes, uh, to Palestine. I think some more pressure should be put on that, on that media, uh, uh, demonstrating. I don't know, whatever activism can do. I think it's very important to, to hit hard on that particular part of the, uh, of the establishment, uh, that praises itself as being professional and objective, especially the BBC, and, uh, is really, uh, serving, knowingly or unknowingly, uh, the shield of immunity that allows the genocide to to continue. Similar things, I think we should do.
Yeah. Yeah. [Applause]
Even UNICEF, when it public, when it has a, I don't know if you saw that, when they have, uh, their own kind of statement on the BBC, they mention all kinds of places where to which people should contribute so that UNICEF can work. It doesn't mention Palestine, as if children have no problem in, in Palestine. It's part of their, of UNICEF's wish to be in the good books of the BBC. Unbelievable the things that are that are happening. Universities as well. You, you know, we, we keep thinking that the only thing you can do in university is demonstrations and, and activism, that direct kind of challenges the management. But no less important is how we teach Palestine in universities. In most universities, we're still, and high school, we're still teaching through the eyes of political science, international relations, something to do with the conflict between two sides that has to be managed, has to be reconciled, whereas Palestine should be taught only within the framework of colonialism, anticolonialism, and genocide. That's, that's where students from a professional point of view should enter what politics is all about, and this is not happening. Most of the, of, of the histories of Israel are taught within the department of Jewish studies. That's not what where you should study Israel. You should study Israel not in Jewish studies, but in studies about settler colonialism, colonialism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing. That's, that's the place. Now, these things seem to take longer, but they don't. Actually, if you are, if you are targeting where knowledge is produced and disseminated, I think there could be more effective ripples of it afterwards. Um, but otherwise, I, I think that we are all doing what, what we can, and it's very frustrating. I know that this is, is happening. And finally, I would say the one thing that I think I, I, I'm actually quite positive about it, and it may sound bizarre, but the one thing that really frightens a lot of Israelis is if Israel would be thrown out of UEFA. Seriously. Seriously. Seriously. I don't think people understand what it means. I really don't think. Think about cricket and rugby in South Africa. Sport is very important, and sport is something that reaches you every walk of life. Every walk of life. And this is a very important message. And, uh, I wish that the British, the English national team would have learned from the Norwegian national team. The Norwegian national team was willing to play Israel eventually, but they, at least they came out, one player after the other, including the coach, including the head of the Norwegian Football Federation, and they said, we're doing it with a very heavy heart. That's the beginning. They don't have to do everything in one go. We do it with a very heavy heart, knowing what Israel is doing, and we would have rather that UEFA would have not allowed this game to take place. Now, this is not enough, but it's one step in the right direction. I wish that this would be done here, uh, as well, uh, because, uh, uh, football players are important, uh, and they can have an impact as well. So we, we need to think more and more, maybe out of the box. Uh, uh, and we need to work urgently. We need to work urgently not only because of what goes on in Gaza today, but because of what the Israelis are planning for the West Bank and what they are planning for the Palestinian citizens of Israel. This is not over. We are not, in that respect, we're not in the end of the project of Messianic Zionism, which I call the project of the state of Judea. We have a messianic political elite in Israel that really believes it lives in an historical moment where it can do everything the previous political elites failed to do. And that is recreating the ancient kingdom of Israel as they believe existed in the biblical time, that probably stretches not only over historical Palestine but even beyond. That's why they are contemplating settlements in the south of Syria, settlements in the south of Lebanon. They really believe that this is kind of an historical moment, and Trump plays his role in this messianic vision. It will not happen. But while they will attempt to do it, more bloodshed and carnage will happen. And any way we can alert people with power to stop it is better. And finally, finally, the global South needs to be recruited. The Muslim world needs to be recruited. Malaysia and Indonesia have to be recruited. Powerful economic powerhouses like Malaysia and Indonesia with a lot of, uh, impact on world politics can do much more than they are doing. Uh, uh, and, and hopefully, that kind of alliance, uh, that supports these actions would be countered by another global alliance. And this, if this is my last sentence of this one, let's, uh, give, uh, really praise the Colombian government for seeding its relationship with Israel. The first sanctions, the first state in the world that imposed sanctions on Israel, not boycott and divestment, is the government of Colombia. And, uh, I hope others will follow.
Now you're going to sign some books, Ilan. He has to run at 10:15. Um, once more, applause for Professor Ilan P. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.