 The title of the conference is Wait for the Barbarians, and if we think in terms of barbarians as the average television watcher, you know, we consider the barbarians to people of ISIS, to people who are doing those terrible things. But how civilized is the West? How are they barbarians and are we civilization? How civilized do you consider Western society? Well, I never bought Huntington's idea about the War of Civilization. Civilized West against the Sabaj and Barbarian East. I never bought it. Just as I never bought Fokuyama's very optimistic idea about the end of history. I think the barbarians in the games are called the fanatics, and unfortunately they are everyone. Not in equal strength. Not with an equal degree of violence. But obviously Europe has a very sinister history. And European civilization contains some very dark genes. From time to time it's not a bad idea to remind the Isis that the small continent of Europe, almost the smallest of all the continents, Europe shed more innocent blood than all other continents put together. From Alibar to Genghis Khan to ISIS, all other four continents put together shed less innocent blood than Europe. It's all now in the blood of others. So it's a reminder. The warning is that Europe is not above the danger of a new wave of fanatics on the barbarians. No one is in Europe. I tend to think that there is a fanatic gene in almost every human being. There is a fanatic gene in almost every culture and civilization. When you will give the keynote at our conference, we will have the pleasure that your latest novel will be published in Dutch as well. I willing to say already a little bit about the plot of your novel or will you keep that a secret? Well, Jonas is actually a piece of chamber music. It's about three very different human beings. The old men, the middle-aged woman, and a young idealistic student. They come back to spend one winter under the same roof. And they start as fierce antagonists because they represent different worldviews, different personal experiences. And miraculously, to all the end of the novel, they almost love one another. I say this very carefully. They almost love one another. Now, in many senses, this is also a novel about treason and loyalty, a loyalty and betrayal throughout history. And one of the characters in the novel, he reminds the others that throughout history, many, many people who happens to be ahead of their time were labeled traitors by many, many of their own compatriots, all the way from the prophets to modern statesmen like Abraham Lincoln, or Charles de Gaulle, or Michael Gaucho, or Anu Asadat, or Yitzhak Rabi, who paid with his life. Anu Asadat also paid with his life. So, sometimes a traitor is simply a person who changes in the eyes of those who do not change and who despise change and who cannot tolerate change and cannot understand or imagine change. This is part of the novel. I said three antagonists, a fewish, three antagonists under the same roof for one winter. But this is not the whole story. There are many, many ghosts in this house. I don't mean ghosts corrupting white sheets and making funny noises at night, but I mean ghosts whose presence is very prominent in the house. Judas, Jesus, Abrabanel, the father of the angry woman in the novel, and many others. And the ghosts are very active in the room. In fact, they debate and fight between themselves. Judas is interesting to me, but they give up on many, many, many years because the character of Judas is, for the last two thousand years, the Chernobyl of Western Anti-Semitism. In many European languages, the word Judas simply means traitor. They give up in the dictionary. And in the minds of many, many, many tens of millions of simple-minded Christians, there is no clear, separating line between you there and you there. There are very similar words, and the distinction is not easy. So the novel tries to move right into the radioactive power of anti-Semitism. The capacity to change your mind is that also part of the cure of the phonetic? Yes, yes, the capacity to change your mind and even more important, the capacity to see yourself in a way in which others may see. The capacity to see the world through the eyes of the other, not necessarily in order to agree with the other. Certainly not in the urge to turn the other cheek to your enemy, not at all. I am not at that basis. But to imagine the other, to put yourself in the shoes or under the skin of another, this to me is a very powerful anti-dodge to phoneticism, to fundamentalism, to cruelty. Okay, for people who did not make up their minds yet, so they do not know if they should go to the next conference, yes or no, what would you tell them? Well, I tell them that I am not the bearer of a new ghost from the Holy Land, I am sorry. I don't have new covenants, I don't have a new testament, I don't have ghosts. I have one or two minimalistic suggestions on how to be a slightly, slightly better human being. And those suggestions I am going to expose to you all these months, along with the painful story of my parents' unrequited love for Europe, which I have inherited from them, which I carry in looking at my genes and soul and in my emotions. I know that you are very, very welcome to be our guest. Thank you. Thank you.