 Peter Slesak, can you tell us something about yourself and why you've come here today? Well, look, I'm an honorary associate professor of philosophy at the university, but I'm here today because I've been a long-standing supporter of the Palestinian cause as a Jew. My parents were survivors of the Holocaust, both of them. My mother and grandmother survived Auschwitz, and I grew up with their stories, and it left me the strong senses we all have of the horrors that they suffered and the concentration camp and the anti-Semitism. Somehow I must have learned a different lesson from everybody else. Certainly the Holocaust is not an excuse to justify what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, which they do, and it's a disgrace. I mean, if you know the history of Israel, it's been a shocking expropriation of Palestinian land, and it started long before even 1948. The horrible ethnic cleansing was only the culmination of what had been designer's projects in Churchill. They cooked this up in the Balfour Declaration. It was a shocking attempt of designers with the connivance of the British government and elites to expropriate the Palestinian land explicitly. They tried to hide it. The Balfour Declaration pretended they were just talking about a Jewish home, but Weisman himself, back then, it's relevant to say back then, he said in private meetings and in writing, it was intended to be a Jewish state. Of course, there were people there. It wasn't a land without people. It was the mythology, enormous amount of mythology and deceit over the years to disguise what was then and what continues to be the tragedy of the Palestinian people. Especially after 1948. And so that was a major catastrophe. 700,000 people were expelled and lots of murders and 500-odd villages were demolished. Those beautiful old stone, beautifully architectured villages were destroyed, over 500. So it's been a tragic story for which the Jews are basically responsible. It's as simple as that. And if you know that, I guess you can't avoid the responsibility. I mean, you know, I said in my speech that Jews have this phrase during the Second World War. They admired and made heroes of what they call the righteous among the nations. These were the Gentiles, the Christians who stood up for them, who protected them against their own religion or their own people. So Jews celebrate the righteous among the nations. And my question is, where are the righteous Jews among the nations? Where are the ones? I mean, I know a few. The righteous Jews are the ones that are standing here for the Palestinians. And there are a few around the world. There have been quite a lot. I mean, in America, there have been rallies, Jews saying, not in our name. And that's not to overlook the crimes of the Palestinians, especially now in Gaza. There was a atrocity. And I had to say in my speech, one can't ignore that. And I was pleased at the audience. I'm telling them now that their side has not been entirely virtuous. And they responded very well. I appreciate that. And we have to stand up. It's shocking. I mean, you know, the Israeli government in the past, I mean, the whole occupation, but the Gaza blockade is a crime in international law. And now for 16 years, where's the world? Not a word. And now they're actually openly bragging about committing crimes against international law. They've now shut off all the electricity in the water. I mean, it was bad enough before this. So you'll have a gull under whatever his name is, the Israeli minister. He's bragging about, and you should see there, rhetoric, this unhinged savagery against the Palestinians. I mean, we're talking, you know, in Gaza, nearly half the population of kids, one point, some million of two and a half million are children. So this is a kind of savagery, which is disgraceful and sickening. And it's very hard to deal with it. The sad thing is that I don't think the Jewish community fully understands this. And so that's my job. I guess all those of us Jews who are here, we're trying hard to push back. And it's not easy. The Jews are, as you can understand, a bit like September 11 in America. After that, they were so, you know, crazy with both grief and outrage that they went and bombed the crap out of Afghanistan, which wasn't responsible for it. But, you know, Muslims were in danger in the streets. That's sort of overreaction. I think the Jewish community now is also livid unjustifiably in the sense that we have to deal with the atrocities that the Palestinians did in an appropriate way. And it's not as though it didn't come out of anywhere. It's not like it was unprovoked. They want to say it was unprovoked. But look at the history of Gaza. What do you mean unprovoked? So it's not to excuse it. I have to keep making the point to understand it, like this September 11, to explain it and understand its causes is not to justify it. I have to say that because I'm certainly not doing that. On the contrary, we have to understand where it came from. And it was like September 11. It was blowback. It was how long can you keep people in such dire conditions and what you expect them to passively put up for another 15 years? Of course, it was predictable and shocking. But I use the expression it's not a jailbreak because people in jail are guilty of something. But this is a break from a concentration camp. They're not guilty of anything. And inevitably people will resort to certain ways that we may not be happy with. But I mean, let me put it bluntly. We're to blame. That's a bit harsh, but I think it's correct. I think that's pretty much clearly the case. I mean, we meaning our governments, our media and the Jews. I'm sorry to say it so bluntly, but I don't think there's any other way to read the history of it and the recent history. Who can fix this then? Who can fix it? Oh, we can. We're the only ones who can fix it. I mean, the Western governments in particular, the Jews. I mean, look, it's up to us to obey international law and human rights. What else? That's all it takes. You know, it's not complicated. People say, oh, it's complicated. No, it's not complicated. If someone's in violation of international law, so it's not like I'm asking for a lot, or we on the Palestinian side are making extravagant or unrealizable demands. Just to obey international law means end the blockade on Gaza, end the suffering and that's not to mention the West Bank, which is they're shooting kids dead. On average, it was until now, it's even more in the last period. On average, two kids a week are shot dead. House demolition, 50,000 houses demolished. The water is being stolen. You know, this is what Zionism is all about. So the Jews have a big responsibility here but they're being obeyed and abetted by the, of course, America mainly and our governments and the media. So it's not very complicated to see but something may change. I mean, we didn't expect the South African apartheid to win and of course the word apartheid has now been used by three of major human rights organisations. So why are we putting up with it? Why is the world tolerating it? If it's the question. Thank you very much, Peter. Are you with that group, Jews against the occupation? Well, no, I set up a different group many years ago called Independent Australian Jewish Voices. That's kind of lapsed in various ways but there are those of us around it. I mean, that was actually had a big impact at the time because we had a letter in the newspaper with a lot of signatories. At the time, it was a good moment when we was during one of these crises and we got a lot of attention. So that was good. Was that in 2014? No, it was earlier. It was about 2007, I think. Right. And we had a lot of Jewish signatories because they felt the same way. So anyway, that's the issue.