 American Perspectives continues now with Eurone Brooke. The executive director of the Einran Institute spoke recently about Israel and the Middle East conflict. This event took place at the University of Pennsylvania in April. It runs about an hour and 45 minutes. Plenty of time to ask questions in the question and answer period following the lecture. We ask the introductory comments be brief, out of courtesy to the speaker and to others in the audience waiting to ask questions. We have circulated index cards for those who wish to write down their question. And now I would like you to join me in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Eurone Brooke. Thank you Evan. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for coming. As military operations in Iraq wind down we're hearing an increasing chorus of pundits both American and Arab calling for the Bush administration to next devote its efforts to resolving the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Indeed the administration itself has chosen as this time to launch its so-called road map for the solution of this issue. The idea is that by pressuring Israel to compromise America is going to win friends in the Muslim world at a time when so many are angry at the United States over Iraq. According to the pundits it is America's support of Israel that has caused many an Arab world to hate us and motivated them to commit acts of terrorism against us. The hatred some add is after all because America has been unfit in its dealings with the Israeli Palestinian conflict. We have sent Israelis aid sold them weapons which they use to victimize the Arab population. We have been helping Israelis oppress the Palestinians they claim and for these sins we are feeling the retribution of the Muslim world. Now paradoxically to some extent this view is correct but for reasons other than those given by the critics of US policy. I would argue that America has not done enough to support Israel. America has been half-hearted in supporting its ally and that is one reason why we have been targeted by terrorists. Essentially with every helping hand it offered to Israel America has simultaneously undercut the Israelis. Since 1967 America's support of Israel has followed a consistent pattern. America's befriended Israel offered it aid, expertise, money and helped it become strong in the face of its would-be destroyers. Yet it has time and time again pressured. Now I'd say blackmailed Israel to back down, to make concessions to compromise on principles with its Arab neighbors and with the Palestinians. Of course Europe and much of the rest of the world have since 1967 become increasingly hostile to Israel and increasingly sympathetic to Israel's enemies. The West is in the process of abandoning its one bastion of western civilization in the Middle East. By weakening Israel, America and the West have betrayed their short-sighted unprincipled approach to foreign policy. I will argue that it is in America's own self-interest, morally and practically to support Israel against its Arab and Palestinian enemies. Now indeed the moral and the practical are in life in harmony as applied to this conflict and really in every aspect of life. The immoral is indeed impractical. It just doesn't work. Thus no practical solution to this conflict is possible divorced from morality. This conflict cannot be understood and no solution proposed without identifying the moral character of each party and treating that party according to what they deserve based on that moral characterization. Therefore I want to step back from the endless newspaper headlines and dig deeper into this conflict. I want to begin by asking a few questions about the conflict itself. Who is in the right? Who is in the wrong? Whom should America support? In my view we should support Israel because in this conflict Israel has right on its side. It is the moral side. Israel is acting in self-defense and any pressure on it to compromise is pressure on the good to compromise with evil. Pressure on a friend to take just a little bit of poison. The Arabs and the Palestinians I will argue are in the wrong and we should not support the establishment of a Palestinian state. You will see that by compelling Israel to compromise with its enemies America has made this conflict worse not better and has emboldened in the process militant Islam to strike against us. The so called peace process can lead only to more violence in Israel and to war elsewhere. Since the Oslo agreement Israel has suffered greatly for its overtures of peace but America and by extension the West are also suffering and will continue to suffer as long as Israel is viewed in the Arab world as weak. America's self-defense is intimately connected with that of Israel. It is right and proper for us to side with the Israelis. If we don't we will be fanning the flames and inviting further aggression. As the commentator Daniel Pipes wrote well before September 11th Israel's perceived weakness is now an American problem and the aggressive euphoria being expressed by the Arab speaking masses poses a direct danger to the United States. We saw the magnitude of that danger on September 11th. So let us now look at some of the history behind this conflict. In this conflict I want to ask as I said who is right? In essence does Israel have a right to exist? Yes without question. Now let me be clear Israel's right to exist has nothing to do with ancient or biblical history. It has nothing to do with religious or so called collective rights. There is no such thing as collective rights. Jewish, Palestinian or any other. Israel's right to exist lies in that Israel created itself out of nothing. Its founders created a free country in a region dominated by totalitarian corrupt regimes. Israel's right to exist is based on its moral standing as a free nation. Now when the first Jewish immigrants came to Palestine it was a barren and civilized place. As Mark Twain who visited Palestine in 1867 wrote Palestine was a quote desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over holy to weeds. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with a pump of life and action. There was hardly a tree or shrub anyway even the olive and the cactus. Those fast friends of the worthless soil had almost deserted the country unquote. Indeed at the end of the 19th century the population in Palestine was sparse, swamps were everywhere and over half the territory was desert. The new immigrants bought land and on that land they built cities. They dried swamps and they cultivated desert. They brought in irrigation, grew crops and in general conquered nature for their own means. They reclaimed land. They built villas, swimming pools and modern sanitation. They built universities, upper houses and theaters to an area of nomadic tribes and substance farmers. The Jews brought industry, libraries, hospitals, art galleries, higher education and the rule of law. In short they brought western civilization to a mid-eastern hellhole. They transformed Palestine from a backward and sparsely populated land into a thriving, relatively western civilized place. Like 19th century homesteaders in the American West, Israel's founders earned the right to the land. They supported themselves. They created a society in which life was not merely a struggle for substance, but one in which men could live in freedom and prosper. It was a society despite some flaws that built the foundations that protected and sustained human life. Thus in essence it was a moral society. Now what was the reaction of the inhabitants of the area who witnessed Israel's flowering? How did the Arabs of the Middle East respond? Most part with violence. Instead of thanking these new inhabitants for the economic prosperity and political freedom that they brought for the hospitals and universities that they built, from very early on the Arabs harassed, attacked and tried to rid the land of these new immigrants. Now you might suppose that they had legitimate grievances such as the widely believed story that Israelis who came to Palestine before 1948, the year Israel was founded, displaced the Arab population. Well this indeed is false. Israelis bought the land that they developed or settled on unclaimed land. Indeed before Israel's founding in 1948 there was an influx of Arabs into Palestine. They were drawn there by the unmatched jobs and standard of living. Generally by the economic opportunities available in the developing new state. With the drying of the swamps, the establishment of utilities and the building of hospitals, in addition to employment opportunities the general quality of life of the Arab population improved and with it there was a significant increase of expectancy within the Arab population. To the extent that the Arab population in Israel has been willing to accept the values that these Westerners brought with them, they have thrived and succeeded. The material evidence of this is visible in the relatively high standard of living to be found in many Arab villages and by the fact that many Arabs when they return from visiting Arabs in Egypt or Syria or Jordan, bless Allah for being born in Israel. These Arabs are far freer in Israel than in any other or any Arab country. They vote. They serve in parliament, even in the cabinet. Some serve in the Israeli army fighting to preserve their freedoms. This makes no difference to the rest of the Arab world. In spite of being offered a Palestinian state as part of the United Nations resolution that established Israel the Palestinians joined the armies of seven Arab states in war. Invading Israel the day it declared its independence in May of 1948. Since then Israel has been under constant attack from its Arab neighbors. They fought five bloody wars all in self-defense. Given that the Arabs are far better off as Israeli citizens than in any other mid-Eastern country, given that they have no real objective historical grievance against Israel, why did they not try and emulate Israel's success instead of attacking her? What is their motivation? Now when a person sees that a different culture can produce a much better life, greater knowledge, greater mastery over nature, greater comfort and security, greater respect for the individual, then his own culture that person has two choices. He can adopt a new culture as a blessing or he can seek to destroy it and ultimately himself. The Arabs are guilty of what Ein Rand called hatred of the good for being the good. As she wrote in another context they do not want to own your fortune they want you to lose it. They do not want to succeed. They want you to fail. They do not want to live. They want you to die. As the commentator Ed Locke writes the Palestinians quote, hate the Israelis not because of their vices but because of their virtues, their ability to better their lives by embracing reason, science, technology and individual rights. Israel despite its own growing crop of religious mystics represents the triumph of secularism and freedom in the Middle East. Israel stands for the principle of progress, stands for the principle of life itself. Now this is what makes Israel a moral country. It's pro-life, pro-freedom, pro-reason, essential nature and this is also the reason that it is hated. Now according to the ethics of Ein Rand's philosophy, the philosophy of objectivism a good man is one who lives by the guidance of reason. He lives for the sake of his own happiness achieving his ends by his own effort neither sacrificing himself to others nor others to himself. A moral state, a moral country is one that protects a man's rights to pursue his own ends, that secures his freedom to act and protects his property. A country that offers this, a country that enables men Arabs, Jews, all men to thrive is indeed a moral country in essential terms. Israel is such a country and therefore has a moral right to exist. Yet many in the Arab world and the Palestinians particularly the Arab leadership and the Arab intellectuals have hated these westerners and the values they represented from the day they appeared in Palestine. They objected as they still do today to the very formation of an Israeli state. Although the Arabs are the aggressors, they portray themselves as the victims. Now I say no regardless of its victories, Israel is in the right it is the victim. It has always been the target of aggression. The wars it has waged and the territories it has conquered were all acts of self-defense. But the problem here is not merely that the Arabs claim to be the victims it is that America, like many other countries accepts that Israel and her aggressors are morally equal. That in this conflict both sides have legitimacy. Now I have argued that Israel is the moral party that as a state that protects individual rights and freedom alone is entitled to invoke a right to exist. American foreign policy should reflect that fact. Now while Israel's right to exist and its position as a moral country are valid in the interest of objectivity I would say that I have certain reservations regarding Israel. As I mentioned there is no such thing as collective rights to a state. And as a consequence a stake for Israel to long term identify itself and consider itself a Jewish state. Indeed Israel's biggest flaw is the lack of complete separation between state and religion. In addition its socialistic policies violate the individual rights of its own citizens and have driven many Israelis to leave the country. And of course held it back economically. However these detriments by no means undercut Israel's value as a country or the morality and righteousness of their position in the Middle East. This is especially true when compared to their neighbors. Now given this is a context how should we view the Palestinians and the claims that they not the terrorized Israelis are the victims. Well let's consider the evidence. Are they the victims? What can be said of the supposed historical grievances against Israel? Despite their claims that they are victims of a Zionist plot to strip them of their land the Palestinians were the aggressors in the 1948 war. They turned down the offer to establish their own state alongside Israel. A larger state than that which they now demand for themselves. Rejecting the offer they opted to join Israel's enemies in the goal of erasing it from the map. When the Arab armies invaded Israel in May of 1948 the Palestinians joined them. At the time what they saw was not the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. What they saw was the complete destruction of Israel. A secretary general of the Arab League Azam Fasha made clear in 1948 quote, the Arabs intend to conduct a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the crusades. Unquote. So the fact that there is no Palestinian state today is not the fault of the Israelis. Rather by rejecting the offer of establishing a state in 1948 and then initiating force against Israel the Arabs negated whatever rights they had to a state. Now what about the claims that the Palestinians were displaced turned into refugees by the Israelis? Well the large majority of Palestinians fled out of fear of the violence their own leaders were initiating. Many, particularly the community leaders, the rich and the intellectuals, fled before any hostilities began. It was not necessarily the Jews they feared but the conflict itself. In some cases Palestinians left their home because of coercion of their own leadership. And while Israel did occasionally drive out small numbers of Palestinians this was due primarily to unplanned military considerations and was an act of self-defense. The dominant attitude among Palestinians at the time was that they had been victims of their own leadership who had deserted them and had promised them a quick return home rather than victims of Israeli hostility. As the historian Yashor Parat writes, quote, the 1948 war was launched by the Arabs who rejected the United Nations partition solution. Those who began the war are responsible for its consequences including the expulsion of Arabs from places where they continued violence could have constituted a mortal danger to the young state of Israel fighting for its very survival unquote. Also note that Israel offered to take back 100,000 Palestinian refugees in 1949 but that offer was rejected by the Arab states. Since then these same Arab countries have done nothing to help these refugees. They treated them poorly and used their existence as a public relations and political tool. If the Palestinians had accepted the founding of two states in Palestine or if they had not fled their homes no refugee problem would have arisen. Indeed the Jewish leadership based all of their ensuing decisions on their assumption that the Palestinians would remain equal citizens in the new state of Israel. As David Ben-Gurion who would go on to be Israel's first prime minister told the leadership of his party in 1947, quote, in our state there will be non-Jews as well as Jews and all of them will be equal citizens, equal in everything without exception. That is the state will be theirs as well, unquote. So by looking back at history we see that the Arabs have been their aggressors. They have been the initiators of force. But some people argue that that was the past and the Palestinians have suffered enough that they have changed and that they now deserve their own state. Well let's go back to the evidence. In what way have they changed? Do they now recognize the right of Israel to exist? Have they accepted the fact that the initiation of force is not a means of negotiating? Absolutely not. The Palestinians have chosen the worst most lowly form of violence to pursue their cause indiscriminate terrorism. And for their leaders they have chosen some of the bloodiest terrorists in history. Yasir Arafat and the PLO have a long history of terrorism and violence. Over a span of 35 years Arafat and the PLO have been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israeli, American, Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. Arafat has orchestrated the kidnapping and murder of Israeli schoolchildren, hijacking of airliners, countless car bombings and death squad killings. In recent years Arafat has been using Hamas and Islamic Jihad as the arms of terrorism while he has pretended to be a peacemaker. Every Israeli compromise has been met with more and more violence. Violence used as a tool to pressure Israel to create even more concessions. Indeed a Palestinian state under current conditions spells doom for Israel. Because any such state would only serve as a beach head for terrorist activities against Israel. Arafat's ultimate goal is not a small Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Arafat aims at the whole of Israel. A Palestinian state is just the first step. The desire of the Palestinian leadership not to make peace with Israel and indeed to erase it from the map is made further evident when one listens to the radio stations sanctioned by the Palestinian Authority or when one reads the textbooks from which Palestinian children are being taught. As the commentator Daniel Pipes has observed school curricula, camp activities, TV programming and religious indoctrination all portray Israelis in a Nazi style way as sub-human beings worthy of killing. As illustration in a televised public sermon in June of 2001 a Palestinian religious leader read, quote, God willing this unjust state of Israel will be erased. This unjust state of the United States will be erased, unquote. It is well documented that the textbooks in Palestinian schools are filled with vile anti-Semitism. They are also filled with the rejection of any legitimacy for the state of Israel and that to quote such a book there is no alternative to destroying Israel, unquote. Or in a fifth grade Arabic language text, quote remember the final and inevitable results will be the victory of the Muslims over the Jews, unquote. And on a popular children's TV show on Palestinian TV a little girl sings in Arabic, quote, or sing my sister constantly about my life as a suicide warrior, unquote. As a teacher cheers on, bravo, bravo. Now these are just a few of the many, many examples of the fierce hatred with which the Palestinian schools indoctrinate their youth. No surprise that Hamas and Islamic jihad have an easy time finding young Palestinians willing to give up their lives to make these ideas come true. Thus there is every reason to believe that the Palestinian leadership views a state in the West Bank and Gaza as just one more step towards the complete annihilation of Israel. Indeed, Arafat himself has repeatedly said to his own people that any compromise with Israel is just one step towards the ultimate goal of an Arab-Palestinian state that will take Israel's place. His continued sponsorship and use of terrorism and rejection of any deals offered him I think prove is the ultimate aim. By choosing the road of violence against peaceful free countries and preaching the virtues of violence to young Palestinians, Arafat and his regime have forfeited any claim any legitimacy that they might have had to a country of their own. Only a sick and cynical world could grant such a man the Nobel Peace Prize. But some say this is all the result of the occupation. Given a state of their own things would be different. Well, what can we expect if the Palestinians have their own sovereign state? Can we expect a peace-loving, freedom-loving Palestinian country? Will it share the West's respect for individual rights, the individual rights of its own citizens? If so maybe there's still some hope. Well let's consider the track record of the current Palestinian party. The temporary governing body of Gaza, Strep and the West Bank. Arafat is indeed the dictator of these areas and everything but title. Palestinians live in constant fear of having their property arbitrarily confiscated by Arafat's Kuwait police force. Laws prohibiting free speech are common and are enforced brutally. To silence those who oppose them, Arafat shuts down radio and TV stations. Indeed Palestinian media that was free to express itself under Israeli rule is now forced to tow Arafat's party line. When Palestinian journalists stray they are detained, tortured and sometimes murdered. Hundreds of dissenters of all stripes have suffered such a fate under Arafat's regime. A few months ago the media finally focused on another form of barbarism that Palestinian authorities are engaged in. The torture and murder of so-called collaborators. Just a few months ago a middle-aged mother of six and her niece were brutally tortured and murdered by the authorities for supposedly collaborating with Israel. How did they know that the women were collaborators? Because a relative again under extreme torture accused these two women. This has been going on for over 10 years in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip where even selling land to a Jew is reason for execution. Arafat's current regime is barbaric and oppressive. When can logically predict the conditions in an independent Palestinian state would be even worse since they will not be the focal point of international attention as they are right now. Now viewed in this context of dictatorial rule, the alleged right of the Palestinians to self-determination is groundless. No group has a right to its own state if what it seeks is a dictatorship. Arafat's Palestinian self-determination really means more of Arafat's despotism. It means granting legitimacy to a state that is utterly hostile to its own citizens. As Einran wrote, quote, the right of the self-determination of nations applies only to free societies or to society seeking to establish freedom. It does not apply to dictatorships, unquote. The only legitimate reason to found a new state is to escape tyranny and secure freedom. Thus America's founding fathers rightly fought for independence from England's oppressive rule. The United States was founded on the recognition of individual rights. A country's right to exist as a separate political entity is the right from the individual rights of its citizens. A regime like that in Iraq, for example, and much of the Middle East unfortunately, that denies its own citizens their individual rights has no right to exist itself. What Palestinians desire is the right to be rightless serves in a state run by a ruthless dictator. Now nobody has a right to create and maintain such a state. Palestinians would be better off staying on the Israeli rule as some Palestinians will admit when they feel safe to do so. Under Israeli rule their rights are protected to a much greater extent than they would under the Palestinian authorities, authoritarian regime. Indeed Palestinians will lie on the relative economic freedom and prosperity offered in Israel to make their living. They protest whenever Israel closes its borders because they are out of work. In contrast to what has been achieved in Israel the Palestinians have created very little of their own not under Jordanian rule pre-1967 and not since. Now Israel also offers Palestinians more precious values than merely economic ones. What Arab country gives its inhabitants the liberty to protest, to publish articles and books opposing the government as many Jews and Arabs do in Israel? What Arab country has free elections or a judicial system in which all are treated equally before the law? In what Arab country can so-called occupied people rely on the law and protest their fate all the way up to the Supreme Court as those Palestinians under Israeli control still can? None. Not a single Arab country. In Israel Palestinians have more freedom more economic opportunities than they have in any other Arab country and they could possibly have in a future Palestinian state. If the choices between a Palestinian state run by terrorists like Arafat and remaining under Israeli rule that data is by far the better option for the Palestinians. Now if the Palestinians were serious about having their own state, their own free state they would start by deposing and arresting Yasser Arafat for his crimes against his own people. In place of the terrorists now representing them Palestinians should send to the negotiating table representatives and honor individual rights. Leaders who plan to establish a free civilized country where violence is abhorred and suppressed. Palestinians should treat Israel as an older and wiser neighbor from whom they have much to learn rather than as an enemy to be destroyed. Only when Palestinians are willing to negotiate with Israel on such terms will they have earned the right to a state of their own. Now given this background information it should be no surprise I think that the peace process has been such a complete disaster. Just as the moral is practical so the immoral is impractical and at the heart of the peace process is the moral premise that there is a moral equivalence between Israel and her enemy. But as we have seen Israel and the Palestinians are not moral equals. Israel is in the right. The Palestinians are the aggressors and any compromise between good and evil means bleeding the good to feed the evil. Any compromise between Israel and the Palestinians hurts Israel and emboldens the radical militant forces within the Palestinians. Although the land for peace doctrine which is the essence of the peace process seems to offer a mutually advantageous settlement it is a deception. A necessary condition for peace is the cessation of violence particularly terrorism. But to attain the cessation of violence Israel is supposed to surrender territories crucial to its continued security. Territories that were won in a war instigated by Arab countries in 1967. To attain land however the Arabs are supposed to concede nothing. They need only withdraw the use of force. Like any aggressor they are in essence holding Israel hostage and like any victim Israel by paying the ransom gains no value than they did not already have a right to. The implication of such a trade land for peace sanctioned by both America and Israel over the last 30 years implicit in this idea is that Israel is in the wrong. Israel is the aggressor and owes restitution to its Arab neighbors. If Israel is in the right why must it concede? Israel won the contested land in a war of self-defense so why should it give it back? Far from securing peace compromises only weaken Israel and embolden its enemies. When Nazi Germany was appeased in 1938 by being allowed to claim Czechoslovakia as part of the Aryan people's homeland an earlier version of land for peace the result was to encourage Hitler to start a world war. America and Israel must recognize that peace cannot be achieved by surrendering to those who are relentlessly opposed to the existence of the state of Israel and who are hostile to the value of freedom in Israel and for that matter in their own countries. 30 years of the land for peace doctrine have left Israel with at best a cold peace with some of its neighbors but also it has left it vulnerable to Arab hostility. Hatred of Israel has increased along with a decrease in the respect it once engendered. This process has accelerated since the beginning of the Oslo peace process in 1993. Indeed since Al-Fat's return to the West Bank and Gaza in 1994 Israel has seen nothing but an intensification of the violence and hatred against it. And what was the Palestinians response to the complete capitulation of the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in Camp David where Al-Fat was offered a Palestinian state on 97% of the land that he demanded? Well since then Israel has been in a state of undeclared war. Its 6 million civilians have suffered over 12,500 terrorist attacks. They have buried more than 500 victims a per capita death toll that is more than 6 times that of September 11th. Escalation of violence is the consequence of dealing negotiating, compromising with terrorists. It is a consequence of rewarding violence it is the consequence of the peace process. Since Oslo appeared and acted weak it has dealt with the Palestinians with kit gloves. It withdrew in humiliating fashion from Lebanon and it has shown ever weakening moral assuredness in its cause. How many last opportunities has Israel given? Yes or no? How many times is it sworn to end Palestinian terrorism? Israel's concessions, Israel's weakness rather than discouraging hostility have indeed made the conflict worse and have brought Israel much harm. Now much of this harm, indeed much of the compromise, much of the appeasement has been at the urging of Israel's so called ally the United States. Now there is a whole history of America pressuring Israel to concede, to compromise and to withdraw when it should not have. A whole history of the US harming Israel's interests. Now you can ask me about this history in the Q&A. I just want to focus on the last decade or so. In recent times there was America that prompted Israel to begin negotiating with Arafat in 1993. And since then it has pressured Israel to give more and more, culminating in the complete capitulation in Camp David two years ago. And over the last two years, every time Israel acts in self-defense against the Palestinian authority, it is the Bush administration that keeps holding them back and forcing them to retreat. This in spite of the fact that after every such retreat, terrorism spikes. It is outrageous that amidst of its own war on terrorism, the US is forcing Israel to negotiate and compromise with terrorists. In spite of the fact that when Israel is tough, terrorism against it declines, America continues to rebuke Israel when it acts in self-defense. Note how the US has pressured Israel into withdrawing from Arafat's compound twice during the last year. Or notice the scandal, about six nine months ago, over Israel's assassination of the Hamas terrorist leader, Salah Shaddaida. The Palestinian authority refused to arrest him, even though he was responsible for organizing and funding suicide bombings. The scale of his evil is comparable to that of bin Laden. As Israel rightly pointed out, this quote military action against one of the most dangerous Hamas terrorist leaders was a justified action of self-defense. The day after the bombing, which also killed 14 civilians, Israel called the mission a success. President Bush, however, sharply condemned it as heavy-handed and a barrier to peace. Bush was not alone in this condemnation. Echoing him with the leaders of Europe, the UK included, and the UN General Secretary, the British called it unacceptable and counterproductive. 48 hours later, Israel issued a mealy-mouthed apology for the attack. Now that, I submit, is not the face of a country certain of its moral right to defend itself. Nor is such criticism from the United States the action of a true ally. And not only is America doing an enormous injustice to Israel, but it is also committing an enormous injustice to its own citizens. By weakening Israel, America has damaged its own national self-interest. America has been propping up regimes around the Middle East that have supported terrorism and supported anti-American actions. Until recently, it has done nothing in response to Islamic terrorism against U.S. interests. And how could it when for years it has been telling Israel that it had no right to do the same? The U.S. has sacrificed its Western ally, the one island of civilization in the Middle East in the name of what? In the name of appeasement in the name of short-term gain. America has hoped for decades that if it is nice to the Arabs, they will support us. They have hoped that by pressuring Israel, by arming the Egyptians, the Saudis and the Jordanians, they will gain friends in the Middle East. They hope that all this would secure the oil supply and reduce the threat of terrorism. All this has all failed, as September 11th proved. Yet we continue to indicate our interest in trying to buy Arab sympathy with Israeli blood. The tragic fact is that America's relationship with Israel indeed made September 11th possible. Evident in our advice to Israel, in our advocacy of the peace process, in our endless calls for Israel to appease its enemies, evidence in America's action is our own moral weakness. Bin Laden had ample evidence to believe that the United States would not retaliate in significant fashion. After all, haven't we for decades told Israel to appease terrorists? If Arafat, the father of international terrorism, could be invited to the White House, what would America possibly do to its own terrorists? If America stopped Israel from retaliating against Arafat, how could it morally justify retaliating against its terrorists? If Israel is unjustified in assassinating a Hamas terrorist leader, how can America justify assassinating its terrorist nemesis? Now this hypocrisy, this double standard has only weakened America's moral confidence in its war on terrorism and emboldened its enemies. American pressure on its western ally to compromise and appease can be interpreted in only one way. That it, America, holds compromise and appeasement as supreme. That if attack that is likely to negotiate rather than retaliate. Indeed, just as we forbid Israel to retaliate against terrorist attacks, so again until very recently, we have done nothing in response to Islamic terrorism against the United States. September 11th was not the first terrorist act against America. Do you recall what we did in retaliation for the attacks on the USS Cole, or the U.S. embassies in Keynesia and the U.S. soldiers in the barracks in Saudi Arabia or the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 or the Pan Am flight 103 or the 244 Marines who died in Beirut in a suicide bombing in 1983? Do you recall what we did? Well probably you don't because we didn't do anything. Bush's announcement after September 11th again this week that he supports a Palestinian state and that he supports the roadmap further undermines his credibility in the fight on terrorism. How can he on one hand reward and arch terrorists and create a new terrorist sponsoring country and on the other hand claim to seek the eradication of terrorism from the world? This hypocrisy is not missed on the Arab world like people like bin Laden. A year ago President Bush proclaimed an ultimatum to the world. Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists. Although Israel is clearly with us we have all too often treated it as if it were against us. America, its critics say, oh September 11th to its support of Israel. Yes, America is short-sighted, unprincipled support of Israel has in fact done untold harm to Israel and untold harm to America's interests. Our failing was that we did not provide Israel the true victim of this conflict with enough support. Our failing was that we were moral cowards. We feared declaring one side of the conflict good and the other side evil. Now being moral cowards in politics means that we counsel and practice appeasement towards our enemies. Terrorists can sense our weakness. That they struck us is no surprise. Our failings have invited such attacks. Now there is no such thing as the peace process. Peace cannot be achieved by the just compromising with its enemies. Peace requires that the perpetrator of violence, the initiator of force stop all acts of aggression and prove over time and with unequivocal evidence that it has truly forsaken violence as a means for achieving its goals. Only then, only when violence is ceased can peace be discussed. Every attempt in history to circumvent this requirement has landed in disaster. If America is serious about its war on terrorism and its desire for peace in Israel, it must take decisive action to reverse the mistakes that have been made over the last few decades. The U.S. must make it clear that it does not view Israel and its Arab neighbors as morally equal. Israel is a free, Western and peaceful state. As such, it is America's only true ally in a region dominated by despotism. Only Israel shares America's values and can be counted on in a true crisis. The quality of our alliances with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, for example, is being made clear now of this current crisis. These are regimes we cannot trust. They have an awe turning a blind eye to Islamic terrorism against the West and in some cases are actually financing this terrorism. In the name of both what is right and what is practically necessary, America's moral evaluation must be made explicit and clear. The U.S. must allow and encourage Israel to destroy Palestinian terrorism once and for all. There must be no further concessions, no discussions with Arafat and other Palestinian terrorists. America should also make sure that Israel maintains its military superiority in the region. This can be achieved by eliminating military assistance that America provides Arab countries like Egypt. It is important to the U.S. that Israel be perceived by the Arab world as strong, indestructible and supported 100% by the United States. It must be made clear to the Arab states and to the Palestinians that they must reconcile themselves to the very existence of Israel. That they must stop all acts of hostility and show a real intention for peace. The onus must be put on the aggressors to show that their intentions are real. Thus the onus must be put on the Arab states. Ultimately, a strong, confident Israel is vital to U.S. interest in the Middle East. It is crucial to our fight against terrorism to the elimination of unconventional weapons in the high ends of despots like Saddam Hussein and to the protection of the flow of oil to the West. America's unequivocal support of Israel will send a message that we support our allies in deeds, not just in words, that we support the Western values that our allies share with us more fundamentally by supporting our allies on principle. We broadcast loudly that we oppose terrorism absolutely on principle and in action. But it is not enough for America to rely on Israel especially after September 11th. America needs to continue asserting itself in the Middle East. The U.S. that unequivocally supports Israel and pursues its own self-interest confidently and forcefully in the Middle East will actually gain respect in the Arab world. It will be perceived as a power that should not be fooled with. It will show the world that we are committed to the values of Western civilization and that we will defend them to our last breath and that we will not yield on those values. Such uncompromising commitment to freedom and to Western values is the most powerful weapon we possess. Now ultimately peace will come to the Arab world, to the Middle East only when they adopt Western values. The values of reason, individual rights and freedom until the Arab populace is free. Free of political enslavement by their own governments and free from the mysticism of Islamic fundamentalism, no peace is going to be possible. Only when the Arab world experiences the equivalent of the Enlightenment, a rediscovery of reason will it rise above its Middle East culture. Whether they like it or not the solution to Arab poverty, to Arab political plight, to Arab frustration is the West and what it represents. Not the West's destruction has been loud and would suggest but the West's victory, the adoption of the West by the East. But for this to happen we in the West must first believe in our own values. If we continue to reject our own Western heritage we can expect little from the rest of the world. A rediscovery, a renaissance of reason is first needed here. We must rediscover our values and reignite the just pride we once had in them. The future of the world depends on it. Thank you. Thank you again Dr. Brooke. We'll now have about 45 minutes for Q&A and I'll just come around with the microphone so go ahead and stand up if you have a question and I'll get to you. The first one's always the hardest. Who's standing? Raise your hand. I am. Okay you're standing for a question I'm sorry. Go ahead. There's no such thing as collective rights but there is also no such thing as a guilt. Suppose there is an individual, a man of the mind, born among the Palestinians. What are his rights? Unfortunately whether we like it or not an individual born in a totalitarian regime or born to leaders that violate his rights will suffer from that annihilation. Somebody born into Nazi Germany whether it was Jewish or otherwise is going to suffer the consequence of the Nazis, of Hitler's regime. Both from the Nazis and from western bombing of German cities and Mara people, somebody Mara who lives in Palestine who is completely rational would seek the annihilation of the Palestinian authority. Somebody in that situation would seek to move to Israel if they could or to move to the west to the extent that they can. Israel will admit him under certain circumstances absolutely but more fundamentally such a person would completely understand Israeli aggression in its own self-defense and would actually start up a Palestinian resistance movement in his own regime and help the Israelis to do it. Look there were lots of people in Iraq who didn't share Saddam Hussein's fanatical despotism yet a lot of civilians died who might have been innocent. People who live in a country suffer the consequences of their own leadership and suffer it doubly so if they don't actually rise up and try to get rid of that leader. But even if they do and they fail they are still going to suffer when they get killed by an America coming into Iraq or an America coming into Japan or an America coming into Nazi Germany. That's life. I have to follow the mic. My question might sound a little bit off base but it really isn't because I disagree with you a little bit. What about the status of Jerusalem? The United States Senate, believe the Congress noted, to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and I understand you're secular. I am a Randist, I am a Libertarian, but I am not secular I am a Jew and I believe that Jerusalem is, all of Jerusalem, belongs to the state of Israel it is the capital and that's my own belief and I wanted to hear what you had to say. Thank you. I agree with you that Israel should decide what its own capital should be and as I said Jerusalem just like the rest of the West Bank was one in a war of self-defense and therefore unequivocally Israel has a right to that land if it chooses to keep it and if it chooses to establish its capital in the entire Jerusalem area it has every right to do that. It owes no obligation to the Christians or to the Muslims or to anybody else. I agree for secular reasons, not for religious reasons that I believe that a state has a right to determine its own capital and that Israel has a right to determine Jerusalem as its capital and again I think the United States moving its embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv was another sign of American weakness, another step towards the Arab world and the Muslim world against the United States. It just showed that the United States could be bullied by a few weak Arab countries. Now the guy in the back there has been standing from the beginning. Wait for the mic because No, they won't. They need the mic. Since we're in a medical center I figured I should add a little bit of medical information to your speech and being a graduate of Penn I feel almost an obligation to do that. I'm actually a resident in the Department of Orthopedics next door and let me just give you some facts and you can interpret them on your own. Since September of 2000 52 women have given birth at Israeli checkpoints 29 of those women aborted. Since September 2000 35 ambulance drivers have been shot and killed at checkpoints. Since September of 2000 95 human beings have died at checkpoints coming in and out unfortunately unable to reach hospitals or physicians to give them adequate care. Since September 2000 735 ambulances have been shot at and destroyed at checkpoints. You rhetoric regarding terrorism unfortunately seems unfounded because there doesn't appear to be any data that you cite. I did cite 12,500 information on what you consider terrorism in light of those facts. I think that I'm not going to dispute the facts that you presented. I don't know if they're true or not but I'll assume that they're true. I have no problem with those facts. Every drop of blood shed in those incidents and in many, many others that you didn't cite because clearly more Palestinians have died since December 2000 or any of those dates that you would pick than Israelis. Clearly more Palestinians have died. There's no question about that. Every drop of blood is the fault of the Palestinians themselves. Every drop of blood is the moral responsibility of the Palestinians' leaders who have brought them to the state. Every drop of blood is the responsibility of the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad suicide bombers. If you see an ambulance and the ambulance doesn't stop at a checkpoint and you know that Palestinians have used ambulances to do suicide bombings, you shoot at that ambulance. Absolutely. And I completely think that that is justified. If you know that without those checkpoints, without stopping people at checkpoints and searching those ambulances, you know that a building in Tel Aviv could be blown up. You better stop them at the checkpoint and you better search them and if anybody dies, if anybody dies it's on the hands of Yasser Al-Fad. And Yasser Al-Fad has had hundreds of opportunities to announce terrorism, to change his ways, to work towards peace and he has rejected and turned his back on every one of those because that's not what he wants. So the terrorism is absolutely one-sided. All of these incidents that you mentioned are acts of self-defense, of Israeli self-defense. I remember not that long ago, 15 years ago, there were no checkpoints in the West Bank. There were no checkpoints in the West Bank. The 12 year old codes are shot with M16s because they are placed... Well, let me answer that. There are some 12 year olds who do get shot by M16s. Why? Because next to them is standing a Palestinian with a Kalachnikov shooting at Israeli soldiers. It is the responsibility of the Palestinians who put 12 year old children in the line of fire on purpose so they will die while the TV cameras are rolling so that the West will get upset. It is the responsibility of Palestinian parents who send their children out there to be killed purposefully for this purpose. That is the atrocity. The atrocity is that the Palestinians put their children in harm's way on purpose. They are the terrorists. They were not. This is all propaganda and nonsense. 12 year old kids are not just shot because the Israeli tank can't get through. This is propaganda. You say the textbooks that the Palestinian children are preaching hatred for Israel. These young children can't discern between the truth and the non-truth. Then the renaissance in that world is going to be a long time in coming. Absolutely. The renaissance in that world is going to be a long time in coming. I think that you will see evidence of that. If I can make a prediction you can always call me on it afterwards. I think that attempts to create democracy out of nowhere in Iraq right now are going to fail. They might not fail short term. We might see a few years of democracy but long term they will fail. You cannot bring about political freedom divorced of its requirements. The West didn't get political freedom in the Middle Ages. The West didn't even get political freedom in the renaissance. When did the West get political freedom? After the enlightenment, after the whole generation went through a period that raised reason out of where the Christians had buried it during the Middle Ages, raised reason and put it on its pedestal as Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers indeed did with the founding of this country. That's what made freedom possible in the West. And for the Islamic world to become free, political free, which I hope they do one day, they need to go through an enlightenment. They need to go through a rebirth of reason. Reason which once was prevalent in the Middle Ages during the 9th and 13th century when they had their golden age. But it's since been lost and it's since been buried by their own Islamic fundamentalists. Just like the Christian fundamentalists in the Dark Ages buried reason for Christianity's sake the Muslim fundamentalists have buried reason for the Muslims' sake for the last, what, 700 years? It's going to take a lot more than a few Marines to establish democracy in a country like Iraq with all the best wishes and best efforts that we can have. You need to change the underlying ideology, the underlying philosophy of that entire region. They have to accept, as I said in my talk Western values of reason and individual rights in order to find, to found a truly free country and note that even in the West today we don't respect reason and individual rights. So how do we expect anybody else to have any respect for them? So it's going to be a long time, is the quick answer. Some reports have it that air fat is one of the world's 200 or 300 richest men with a fortune in the billions pilfered from the coffers of both European Union and America. How do you believe we should go about this whole issue of air fat and the money that he's taking for his own gain? That's a good question because I was quite, I didn't know the details of this but I just, I think it was three or four weeks ago Forbes magazine ran the 400 richest people and they had a little box about Yes or Off, and according to Forbes they estimate his wealth at a minimum, I think it was $300 million. How do you get $300 million as the head of their Palestinian Authority if you're not either getting paid for killing people by somebody or you're not stealing it off of the money that's supposed to go to your people. There's no other way to do it. He hasn't produced anything. There's no Palestinian Microsoft that Yes or Off is the head of and therefore made a lot of money. He hasn't created any wealth. He has not been productive in that sense. So he's stealing it and has been stealing it or getting paid again for the terrorism that he's engaged in for the last 40 years. What is it? Almost 40 years now. So what should we do with Yes or Off? Well I think we should do with Yes or Off was the Israelis have wanted to do to Yes or Off for the last 40 years. I think it is a mistake to talk about kicking him out of the West Bank and sending him to some Arab country. He's been in another Arab country in Tunisia for many, many years and created havoc from there. The only thing that can be done with Yes or Off and the only just thing that just requires is to arrest him, try him and hang him publicly for the world to see what is done with terrorists. So nobody should ever mistake what the West will do when it catches terrorists. I mean there's no difference here between what the Israelis did to Aichman in 1960 and what they should do with Yes or Off is exactly the same. And they should make a public trial out of it to show all of his crimes and why this is the only just thing that should be done. I remember reading shortly after the Six Day War when in the history of the world have the losers dictated the prospects for peace, except for this particular situation. I thought it was very well put. The other thing I'd like to say is I was visiting friends on a keyboard when they had a terrorist infiltration and I understand what that fear is like. It's the most incredible thing that I've ever experienced and I don't really wish to ever do it again but if these people have to live with us on a daily basis my hearts go out to them. My question though is why is Jordan not considered a Palestinian state? I've never really understood that as I would like to. So why is Jordan not considered a Palestinian state? Before I say that let me just say I agree with you completely having lived in Israel most of my early life. I know what it's like to go through when terrorists infiltrate and so on and that's the reason why they have the checkpoints in the West Bank. It's the reason why people are dying at the checkpoints because Israel has to protect itself. He's gone. As with regard to Jordan look Jordan should be a free country. It should not be ruled by king or any other despot and the fact is that ethnically most of the population, well over 50% of the population of Jordan is Palestinian and I think Jordan should be open to accepting more people who would want to move there and if it was free it would in a sense become the Palestinian state. The only reason Jordan is not a Palestinian state is because a long long time ago the British promised it to the Faisal family because they made a mistake after during World War I. They promised Saudi Arabia to two different families. To the Saud family which rules it today and to the Faisal family and as a consequence they had to give these guys something else and they gave them just a little history like they gave them Jordan, king Abdullah and then they gave them Syria and the Syrians didn't like the Saudi Arabian coming to rule over them and they kind of kicked them out so you know what they did with him? They made him king of Iraq and he was king of Iraq until the early 1950s. The only reason Jordan is a Hashemite empire and not a Palestinian state is because the British gave it to the Hashemites gave it to a particular tribe in Saudi Arabia who actually ruled over Mecca and Medina, the holy cities of Saudi Arabia when the Sauds kicked them out. So it's history. There's no reason. It should be a Palestinian state. Oh no because nobody talks about history. We don't know history but we ignore history. History is unimportant. The only thing that we care about is how do we get by tomorrow? How do we survive tomorrow? Cut the next shortcut that we can tomorrow. Our school system lacks history education. Our universities don't really teach history. The Middle East is in bad shape but so is this country. I wanted to ask you a fundamental question. You talked about collectivism and individual rights and yet it seems to me that in the Iraq war we saw 20 year old American soldiers dying and I think in some cases they said for something greater than themselves. This has certainly been the history of the Israeli states since 1948 and before that young men and older men and women have died for something greater than themselves. And on the other hand you have laissez faire capitalism and you have the Carlisle group which regularly trades with Saudi Arabia a source of terrorism throughout the world. You have the recent Yossi Guinnessar stick scandal in Israel and I'm wondering how you can justify and I do love your defense of Israel but how you justify the laissez faire individual capitalism given the fact it seems to me that it is this collective identification with either America or in my case I consider myself a religious Jew the identification with the Jewish people that gave rise to Israel and it seems to me that there is an element of validity to a collectivist view. Okay, why do soldiers go in a battle and why is it from a purely individualistic selfish egoistic perspective that they are willing to risk their lives for their country? Why is that? Well first of all they don't always do it for the right reason many people go to battle for the wrong reason and they do it for collectivistic reasons which I think are the wrong reasons and they do it in many places in America and in the United States many of the soldiers indeed do it for collectivism and I think that's wrong how could I justify it from an egoistic perspective? I like the Marine, I watch before the Iraq war as the Marines were being interviewed and when they were asked why are you fighting? Anybody remember what they said? They said I'm fighting for my kids, I'm fighting for my wife I'm fighting for my family, I'm fighting so for my kids won't have to live in a world where Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, not to me that is egoism. They are fighting for the values, the people in this case, the values that they view as the most important values in their lives, their kids their wives, their close family and I think if you took it to a more abstract level if these were slightly more intellectual soldiers as I wish they were and hope one day they will be they would say I'm fighting because in a world that has weapons of mass destruction in the hands of despot that is a world I do not want to live in that is a world that I can't go into more without thinking whether it would be blown up or not. That is a world in which my life is not worth anything. That is a world in which my freedom is not worth anything. I am fighting for my life. I am fighting to be able to be free. I am fighting for my values for the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not everybody's right to the life, liberty, mine but of course mine involves everybody's. If I'm going to fight for mine I'm going to fight for everybody's because it would be meaningful just to fight for mine. So I think there are plenty of rational soldiers out there who maybe can't articulate it but who are completely agroists or who are in Iraq because they understand that Iraq poses a threat to them. To them and the things that they hold dear including these abstract values that maybe they can't put words to but neither can our intellectuals but that's what's behind what they say. They are fighting for the American way that's what they mean. They're fighting for freedom. And you could say look I would rather commit suicide in a sense than live under a Nazi dictatorship. That is the selfish thing to do. Well I would certainly fight against a Nazi dictatorship and risk my life then live under it and for that matter I would be willing to fight and risk my life daily to prevent militant Muslims who would blow themselves up in a second from possessing nuclear weapons or chemical weapons or other types of weapons. So when there's a real threat to their values it's completely egoistic to fight for them. Collectivism on the other hand is what leads Nazis to fight for Nazism. It's what leads Arians to fight for the Aryan nation. It's what leads Christians to go on a crusade and it's what leads Osama bin Laden to go on a Muslim crusade against the West. It is those feelings of doing it for some greater good other than oneself. That that's the only way you could explain the kind of suicide missions that Muslim fundamentalists are involved in. Collectivism as the principle defining the reason one fights has always led to complete and utter disaster and I believe that even in Israel to the extent that they fight for purely collectivistic reasons that they that weakens them and ultimately will lead to their destruction and the more they move towards an individualistic society where the Israeli soldier can say proudly that he is fighting for his values for freedom for individual rights for capitalism the better the soldier will be and the healthier Israeli society will be and the longer it will survive. At Community College of Philadelphia and last week we had a guest lecturer from Penn, Professor Ian Lustig who informed an audience that the United States Congress is controlled by the Israel lobby compared Israel to a drug addict and it kind of went downhill from there and some enraged students started talking about their claims that there never was a Jewish temple in Jerusalem and it became more interesting after that. What I'm interested in is the kind of the general political tone being set from the White House since at least June 24th of last year when the president has started using words like occupation and settlement on a consistent basis one never hears about the Polish occupation of Silesia and Pomerania and East Prussia or about settlements and it seems that that kind of rhetoric has the effect of delegitimizing the state of Israel as a whole now when I discuss this with my conservative Jewish friends they say don't worry he's just saying that but actually the White House has so many conditions on the Palestinian state that they'll never be able to achieve it and it's not a realistic concern but yet one hears about the timetable by 2005 there will be a state come hell or high water so are these people right? Is the White House being too clever? let me put it this way even if the White House is being clever here they're making a fateful mistake a mistake which we will pay the consequences as I said in my talk whenever they appease terrorism whenever they appease the terrorists even in words not in actions they are emboldening the terrorists every day the George Bush goes out there talking about the road map some junior bin Laden is gaining strength the terrorist is saying wow if only we can survive long enough if only we can make our claims strong enough if only we can kill enough people they will ultimately listen to us and they will give us something but let me say that I don't believe it's just a game I believe that this administration really wants to solve they want a Palestinian state they want to solve this problem and I think this is administration is a bizarre combination of some very good and some very very bad stuff they've done some good stuff since September 11th and they've done some awful stuff since September 11th they've gone to war which I think is a good thing and then they've executed a war in a way which I think sends the wrong messages to the world everything they do is this mixed bag of contradictions and I think as a consequence they're not really winning the war I think it's this contradiction that prevents them from winning it for example this administration fears in my view naming the enemy on the war on terrorism which isn't terrorism I mean that's a joke there's lots of terrorists around the world that we're not at war with with war with one group of terrorism and indeed it's not even a war against terrorism it's a war against an ideology that is using terrorism right now as a tactic might use other techniques in the future like all out war just plain old war the war is against militant Islam that is the ideology that is attacking us that is the ideology that preaches our destruction and that is an ideology that sends these terrorists out to suicide mission why won't they say it why won't they say it how can you fight a war when you're afraid to name the enemy imagine fighting World War two without saying we want to destroy Nazism instead of that we say we just want to capture Hitler and a few of his leaders will kill them and we don't hate the German people we like the German people they're okay and indeed moderate forms of Nazism are okay it's just the extreme form that you know we don't like but we're not war with even that we're not in war with it that's the equivalent you know project that on Japanese imperialism on any form you cannot fight a war like that and indeed I think I think we're not I think our war in Afghanistan was a pathetic example of a war and indeed I think we did not achieve any of our real targets other than doing away with the Taliban regime you know we didn't get the major terrorists out of that war and I think even the war in Iraq is going to come back to haunt us because we did because we fought what I consider compassionate war and I think it's a moral abomination going back to the ambulance question it is a moral abomination for one Marine to die because we would not kill civilians one American to shed blood because we didn't let the helicopters fire from far enough because we weren't sure if it was a civilian target or not one Marine to die because we wouldn't shoot at a mosque do you know what they did last week at a mosque the three Shiite spiritual leaders well one of them slaughtered the other two they were butchered in a mosque not just in a mosque in the holiest mosque to the Shiite religion there was bloodshed on the floor and we won't shoot at a mosque and a Marine dies and that to me is a moral atrocity of this administration for what what are we doing this for to make the Arab street love us you think they're going to love us because we only killed a thousand civilians and not two thousand civilians of course not if anything they lose respect for us because we don't fight a war the way wars are supposed to be fought there's no such thing by the way as MSNBC and C-Span all these as MSNBC and CNN and Fox say there's no such thing as the rules of law of war war is the negation of rules it is the reversion to pure brutality there's no such thing as acting nice in a war that's a complete denial of what war is about was about killing people there's no way to kill them nicely there's no way to execute a war with compassion and when you do you send again the wrong message to the rest of the world you send the message of moral weakness and cowardice and I think that we are going to suffer the consequences of sending such messages into the decades to come and man in the back has been patiently waiting to ask a question for a long time without arguing much of your presentation because I firmly believe in a strong moral case for Israel and you made much of it and perhaps I did miss this at the beginning because unfortunately I was late but could you comment about the following the fact is that whenever we feel about a Palestinian state many in Israel many Israelis find great difficulty in fulfilling their humanity their rights their and ran principles of self respect and what they're about in ruling over a million people who don't want to be ruled over by them now I certainly agree with you I don't know the depth of the history but Jordan didn't want them either I know that and he sort of tried to give them to Jordan but the fact is that why is Israel willing to negotiate to talk to try to make some kind of compromise is because they don't want to rule over these people I would also just like to comment because I recall very well I believe I was in Israel at the time of that killing of the terrorist leader which certainly was an admirable end and one which I would under circumstances have to support but at the same time it was more than just collateral damage that 14 civilians were killed it was obviously known that civilians were going to be killed because of where he was and the amount of ammunition that was dropped on him and I think that was the criticism not killing this man but when there perhaps were other opportunities or other ways or maybe that opportunity should have been missed but anyway I'd like to get back to that as part of that whole context namely the individual within Israel that once to retain whether this lecture is part of that or not once to retain the Jewishness of the Jewish state and their sense of also being a free Western thinking individual who doesn't want to rule over people do not want to be ruled over by him in your second comment and then I'll get to the broader question if Israel had been able to kill Shaddaidah they would have done it previously that is he was at the time at the top of the target list for years and they were not successful and I would argue and I know this sounds inhumane and so on but I think it indeed is humane that even if a hundred people would have died and Israel would have known that a hundred people would have died it would have been justified or a thousand people it would have been justified the fact is that when Israel is tough when Israel is strong they don't come back it's when Israel is weak and leaves the territories it's when they come back when we held those territories when we were tough with them they did not attack Israel they are emboldened by Israel's weakness just like and when Israel apologized for killing the 14 civilians it again emboldened them because now they know that if they surround themselves with women and children if they drive everywhere with women and children if they only walk around in crowds Israel won't do anything to them and indeed Shaddam Hussein I think has escaped because he learned that lesson and somebody in London certainly escaped Afghanistan because he learned that lesson because he according to the New York Times at least on several occasions they knew where he was and he was surrounded by women and children and therefore they didn't attack him so you get the you know evil will perpetuate itself because it has no problem using women and children to its own devices but you know think back on just to finish this point about civilian casualties think back on what the United States did in World War II in order to win that war before Nagasaki and Hiroshima even before the atomic bombs that killed what 100,000 civilians even you know months and months before that the United States bombed Tokyo and every other major city in Japan killing tens of thousands of civilians because they thought it would shorten the war they didn't do it it wasn't collateral damage oops we missed the military they killed civilians because civilians became a military target because that would shorten the war and guarantee American victory nobody in America made a peep out of it nobody objected to that because we lived in a time when we had a lot more confidence in our moral righteousness and I don't think that was wrong what we did when we flattened Dresden in Germany I don't think that was wrong if it saved American lives if it led to a shorter World War II and I think the same is true in Israel if Israel to kill a terrorist group has to kill civilians in the process so be it their blood is on their terrorist leader's hands not on their Israeli's hands now with regard to the broader question there is no question that Israel supports compromise and appeasement and supports dealing with the Palestinians I mean you know in that sense they're often ahead of the Americans indeed I believe that the biggest enemies of Israel the most significant enemies of Israel teach at the Haifa University and Tel Aviv University just as I believe the biggest enemies of the United States teach at Penn and other places like this so I think Israeli intellectuals are its biggest enemy just like American intellectuals are America's biggest enemy they have bought into the altruistic collectivistic philosophies that are destroying the West and by doing so they are going to commit suicide either commit suicide or lead to a much bigger war long term in the Middle East just as I believe that the West is committing suicide by more and more over time accepting altruism altruism is the idea of self-sacrifice as the moral standard and collectivism is the idea that groups matter not individuals that everything should be sacrificed to the group that by adopting altruism and collectivism in the West we are abandoning our roots in the founding documents of this country and as a consequence are committing suicide far West and I think Europe is a few decades ahead of the United States on the march towards the Abyss but we're not that far behind them and Israel is there with us as well so let me put it this way if Israel truly truly believed in Iran's values then they wouldn't like the occupation nobody likes an occupation but they would recognize that occupying these people at least for a while and probably a long while unfortunately is necessary for their own survival and therefore they would do it and they would realize that the only way to change the Palestinians to the point where you will be able to grant them their own state maybe one day or grant them full citizenship in Israel one day is by occupying them maybe for a generation maybe for two and reeducating with Western values trashing those books that they're studying with now and replacing them with real history and real values and a respect for reason science and individual rights but as I said at the end of my speech Israel is not going to come to that conclusion neither we in the United States are going to come to that conclusion until we adopt reason science and individual rights as our motto as the values that we are willing to fight for and we're not we have a mooky perception of what democracy is the way we're going to bring to Iraq where all these collectives these ethnic groups are going to be represented at the table the founding fathers didn't talk about the Irish Americans and Italian Americans and Jewish Americans on the table they talked about individual rights if we went to Iraq and preached individual rights maybe we would have a chance but going to Iraq and talking about Shiite rights and Kurdish rights and Sunni rights and not only that they're getting to the absurdity of declaring the rights of the 22nd smallest minority you know the Zureans or these tiny little groups they all have rights because they are a group they are a collective so we in the west have abandoned the values no wonder we are weak no wonder we are committing suicide no wonder we advocate for the Palestinians and of course the more collectivistic the more altruistic we are the more we commit suicide I love the French I'd have one French you know oh you want me to pick that's right I don't know who had the handle first you know the one you're next to I guess I have no preference Thank you for coming here today and speaking here I just had a question you answered a little bit of that in the previous question but I'd like you to elaborate on that if you could a bit I agree with you that Yasser Arafat is not going to be a vehicle for peace and he does need to be removed but from there you implied that Yasser Arafat equals Palestinians and on that basis tonight there is no sense of the right of a Palestinian state to exist now how can you justify sealing the fate of a people based on the actions of the despots controlling them and I mean if Osama bin Laden used that kind of reasoning and he did and we got September 11th being so poor but he didn't because Osama bin Laden has no grievance against anybody he just kills for the sake of killing he has no justification and if you could argue that 80% of the Palestinian people are freedom loving individual rights loving they want to live next to Israel they want to live in peace then I would be with you and say let's form a coalition with those 80% kill Arafat and the leadership and give them one absolutely but they don't they're not that way oh you can finish yes being morally superior to Osama bin Laden how can we resort to the same logic as he does and what do you suggest if we don't have a Palestinian state what do you suggest we do with the Palestinians as I said I don't think we're on the same moral plane as universe as Osama bin Laden indeed because he is initiating force and we are using force and self-defense and that puts at the extreme opposites in terms of the morality of what we are doing now the question was what should what do we what are the other people within the Palestinian leadership let's interpret it that way the question and then I'll go what should we do with the Palestinians look Yasir Arafat has spent the last 35 years killing anybody who opposed his views within the Palestinian leadership I mean he's purged them left and right over and over again the people today who are within the Palestinian leadership are Yasir Arafat cronies so it's not like there's somebody else to take his place and indeed this prime minister that they've chosen right now is a perfect example of that he's been a member of the PLO from the beginning he's been a part of it as a terrorist organization from the beginning he has supported Yasir Arafat from the beginning and throughout he has advocated for the you know for the elimination of the state of his or quasi from the beginning he pretends to be a peacemaker as a pragmatist just like Yasir Arafat pretends to be a peacemaker and a practical man he indeed wrote his dissertation at I can't remember the university but he wrote his dissertation on basically quoting Holocaust deniers so you can add to that that he is an anti-Semite I refer you to Jeff Jacoby wrote an excellent op-ed in the Boston Globe I think it was a week or two ago about who this guy really is you know this is just another Yasir Arafat in sheep's clothing that's all there's no difference and as I said if it were true that the overwhelming majority of the Palestinian people were peace loving individual rights loving they would have killed Yasir Arafat a long time ago and replaced him with somebody and came to Israel with a peace plan which was based on freedom and mutual coexistence so what can we do with the Palestinians well as I said I believe that at least for a generation you know maybe sooner I don't know but at least for the near future Israel has to re-occupy the West Bank and Gaza it needs to go in there and eradicate all terrorist activity it needs to destroy the infrastructure it needs to destroy the leaders it needs to prison however many it takes to stop the terrorism and it needs to replace the textbooks it needs to replace the teachers if necessary it needs to change the environment within the Palestinian world within the West Bank and Gaza just as it did to some extent and with some limited success in the 1970s but unfortunately Israel made a very big mistake in the 70s and that was that in order to establish an opposition to Yasir Arafat and Palestinian nationalism it helped establish militant Islam through the Hamas movement which Israel helped fund during the 1970s and of course is suffering the consequences of that to this day just like we in America funded Osama bin Laden in order to fight communism we suffer the consequence of that bad decision to this day so what they need is a secular pro-individual rights, pro-freedom educational system in the Palestinian territories they need to let that function for a while and see what happens and if the Palestinians politically mature to the point which Israel is 100% convinced that they have no intention of annihilating Israel that they will form a truly free representational individual rights respecting country then I have no objection in principle under those conditions to forming a Palestinian state but those conditions are necessary to form such a state and until those conditions come any forming of such a state is an act of suicide so I am not very optimistic for two reasons well for one major reason because I don't think Israel will do it and the reason I don't think Israel will do it is because Israel is being corrupted by bad philosophy just like the rest of the west as I noted and it's in a sense more corrupt because Israel tends to be more intellectual and you know the more corrupted becomes the more dangerous of a place it's going to be but in that sense I'm pessimistic about the west in general and I think the only hope for the west and for Israel is as I said to return to reason and individual rights and I think the only philosophy advocating consistently for reason and for individual rights so until we take over the world things are not looking good thank you