 Think, Tech-A-Wai, civil engagement lives here. Right. True. Bigotry in America. Here we are with Peter Hoffenberg, a welcome returnee to our table. And we're going to talk today about bigotry and anti-Semitism after the incident in Pittsburgh, Tree of Life at the Tree of Life. But it wraps around to a global issue. Before we do that. I'd like to take a moment and get your reaction to President Trump's withdrawal of the troops, American 2000 American troops from Syria. What's your reaction? Well, my reaction is, again, not as an expert. So welcome and lovely shirt, by the way. Thank you. You are looking very dashing today. I think the initial reaction is, once again, we have a chief executive who seems to make a decision suddenly, seemingly irrationally, because most of his experts have opposed this. So I guess the response would be in two directions. One is, as a presidential action, it seems very consistent with his behavior. Secondly, once there, the troops do provide a very significant strategic buffer zone. So the question is, one, who replaces that? And the great fear, of course, is Iran, or Iranian-backed troops. Secondly, who does this seem to favor in addition to Iran? And from my reading, which is rather limited, again, I apologize, it seems that it's particularly in Turkey's interest. So Turkey's fighting with the Kurds, we have been supporting the Kurds. Turkey has a very strategically significant role there. It's ironic, and more than probably late night talk show ironic, that this occurs in Turkey's favor at the very same time that General Flynn has been charged with supporting Turkey as a foreign agent. It seems to be that this has Turkey. But again, please, Jay, we're old friends. One more question. I'm not an expert. I'm just telling you my superficial views, sorry. Russia. Where does Russia come out on this? Russia also could play a significant role. And I think perhaps, for some geopolitical visionaries, Turkey and Russia would provide some kind of loggerhead intention, that Turkey would be allied with NATO and the U.S. and do its interests vis-a-vis trying to control other Russians. As a 19th century historian, this reminds me very much of old views of the world, which were great power views. Great powers controlled various regions. And it was up to other great powers to essentially say, you control that region, you stay out of my business. I think a lot of people quite naturally forget that the Second World War was not a world war until 1941. It included eight vicious years of regional conflict, Japanese expansion, particularly in China, vicious. I shouldn't say but, and a regional issue, Germany and Italian expansion, regional issues. And then in late 41, it became a world war. And I think some folks, like myself, worry a little bit about this because even if the conflicts are regional, they ramp up and the tributaries do go back. So it's a very, and I'm not, again, not profound in any means at all, a very dangerous situation. It's particularly dangerous for Israel in this case. I think very dangerous for American troops that are left, who now will be relatively small in number. And if we're really concerned about the Syrian people themselves, I wouldn't rely on the Republic of Turkey to be too concerned about Syrian human rights. I mean, I generally am favorable as an individual and as a citizen towards our previous president, but I think the long-term legacy of the Obama administration will be besmirched a bit by Syria. Something should have been done. So sorry, that's a long, wordy way of, but not an expert. I apologize. I just want to make a discussion relevant, maybe somehow touch that subject. So a friend of mine sent me a link to a video on YouTube. It was really, really interesting. It's about a defector, a Soviet defector. And he talked about active measures and disinformation there, KGB came in pain. And what was interesting was that the link was from a talk he gave, he's in the United States now, a talk he gave years ago. This is not something they just started doing. They're trying to divide, to find flaws in our society and divide us. And it strikes me that one of their targets, he didn't say this in so many words, one of their targets is racism. One of their other targets has to be anti-Semitism, don't you think? Well I think not only is that true, but again, I might say I am shocked that there's gambling in this establishment. Because if you look at one of the most infamous forms of disinformation or fake news, you can go back to the Tsarist secret police who wrote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, distributed that via Henry Ford and others. It's still available, not just for purchase, but free on certain websites. And that is perhaps the irre-document, in many cases, of misinformation from that region of the world. One of what I don't understand, and you're a history professor, 19th century, but also other periods I know, is I don't understand where it comes from. I know it's deep and it's ancient. Where does it come from? How could the snowball still be rolling? Well, I hope your viewers don't mind if we stay for a few weeks and have this discussion. And you ought to bring a little food and drink because it's hard to talk about anti-Semitism without a good pastrami sandwich. You ask a wonderful question and a question which is complementary in many cases to, and I'm not equalizing them because each of them is valuable, equal to, for example, misogyny, which has seemingly ancient and perpetual vibrance in society, certain forms of racism. So I want to answer your question and as I answer your question, I want to recognize that even though there is not any quality, there is an endurance and a longevity to certainly seemingly central hatreds, certainly central either intolerance or sometimes a reverse, like over-patronizing. Right? So to answer your question, which is multifaceted, as we like to say, and complex, let's take a couple of very basic answers to begin with and then play around with each of them. So one is the question of whether or not, as Robert Wistrick says, this is the longest hatred, which is not to say that it is a hatred, which is in fact longer than any other. What he wants to say is, apropos of your comment, it is an enduring hatred. So one approach is to try to understand the long-term causes of antisemitism and to see antisemitism as Hannah Ron, the great German Jewish philosopher, said, almost like lava. It's always there and in certain circumstances it explodes in a volcano, but the lava continues to be there. So that's one approach. And if that is the approach, then one might say that the Jew has always provided a face for, one, a sense of conspiracy. Jews have always been considered to be disproportionately powerful and disproportionately, shall we say, influential in local, world, national affairs. And to a certain degree that goes back to the idea, of course, that Jews killed Jesus, that there was some kind of conspiracy among Jewish elders and the rabbinate, the Sanhedrin, all right. So that's one component that some scholars would say, almost any society needs to find a face to represent its fears. And the Jews have provided a very, very flexible, variant face. So if your fear is capitalism, right, the Jew. This side, if your fear is communism and labor unrest, the Jew. If your fear is big banks, the Jew. If your fear is too much sex in movies, Hollywood, the Jew, all right. If your fear is the loss of Catholicism and tradition in France, the Jew. OK, so that's one, we would say, long deray. And that combines a sense of conspiracy and a sense that whatever it is one fears or whatever it wants to purge that, in fact, the Jew is present. So that's one approach. It's dynamic, too, because some of these fears we haven't had yet. So any fear could be caused for anti-Semitism. Exactly. Now the second approach embedded in your excellent question is, well, maybe there are some newer aspects to explain anti-Semitism. And what I would like viewers to think about is it's really not an either or proposition, right? There are aspects of what we call the new anti-Semitism, which were not present 150, 200 years ago, but they're not diametrically opposed. They dance together, two very good dancers who have always been there and now can actually dance a tango together. But you're suggesting it's not really a continuum. It reemerges. It's a continuum in the sense that the basic sense of what I don't like or what scares me. And that there is a conspiracy out there pulling strings to alienate me or to attack me, those are consistent. The new aspect sometimes in our circumstances, and I'm going to be very careful here, because like the term fascism or racism or this or that, that always gets thrown like a blanket, doesn't really do as much as any good, doesn't really do any process towards or progress towards resolving a problem. But one of the arguments now is that there is a new anti-Semitism. And that new anti-Semitism is tied to a few clear historical developments which may have many positive aspects to them, but their negative aspects are grabbed onto by anti-Semitism. And you're talking about racism. So say last 10, 15, 20 years. So for example, one of the common arguments is the new anti-Semitism is propelled by Israel's existence and Israel's actions. So then we have to be very careful, right? Is that, in fact, as we unpack it, very similar to some old views. So for example, in the American Political Discourse, the idea that the American Israel Political Action Committee, APAC, pulls the strings and gets the Congress and the executive to support Israel is really a return to this conspiracy argument, right? That there are powerful Jewish interests. OK. Now I want to be very careful here again. I'm not saying this to suggest that everything Israel does is good or beneficial, OK? And here's where we want to delineate, right? So is an attack on Israel, for example, consistent with some of these older views and consistent with the argument that Israel is a Jewish state or nation is illegitimate and has no rights to exist. Those all seem very close to a new anti-Semitism, a criticism of Israeli political actions and, in many cases, human rights violations without saying that that's because people are Jewish or that's because they're Israeli, but in a universal sense, is not anti-Semitism. So we want to be very, very careful. And unfortunately, the two extremes, as you well know, cling to their absolutes, right? So any attack on Israel seen as anti-Semitism or any attack on Israel is not seen as anti-Semitism. But the middle area, so that's an example. I am anti-Semitic. You are. OK, if I am. If you were, OK. You can't wear that shirt. Yeah, I mean, this is the Hebrew semi-shirt, you know? Yeah, OK. I know. Right. If I am anti-Semitic, I say, well, let's see. I want to attack Israel on the human rights issue. I want to criticize everything they do, and I want to really be shrill about my criticism. But that's not my real reason for attacking them. In other words, I'm shifting reasons. It's a pretend reason. The real reason is I'm anti-Semitic. So I mean, I think you do find that, don't you? You find people who it's the sheep and the wolf in sheep's clothing. Oh, there's no doubt. I just don't think that it's much of a value to cover everybody with that blanket. You could have a pure, non-anti-Semitic person who doesn't like the human rights condition in Israel. Right, I mean, be a reminder of the 1960s, somebody yelling, you know, America, love it or leave it. OK, if you're is a very strong, patriotic, progressive, radical tradition in the United States, which says the US can do better. That doesn't mean you don't like the US, OK? And there's a tradition within Judaism and a tradition within Israel. I mean, the loudest critics of human rights violations in Israel are very often Jews among the loudest. It doesn't necessarily make them so. We're having, I think, what I hope will be a moment of sort of turning down the heat. You know, let's talk about these issues, think about these issues as what our end goals would be. And yes, you're right. There are anti-Semites in the other camp opposing Israel and there are Israelis who are intolerant of Muslims and Christians as well. So I think the idea is that let's turn down the heat. To be honest with you, I think that the most significant issue is the end to which we are moving in the Middle East. So for example, are we moving to a dual-state situation? OK, or are we moving to a single-state, unitary-state situation? Are we moving towards the removal of all Jews from the region? I mean, these are sort of, these are the $64,000 questions to ask. Now, another- Is a static result possible? Well, a static result is possible, but nothing stays static, which means that of all of the issues that, again, since you're my friend, we can be very honest, it will have a detrimental effect on Israel. Israel is changing. And if Israel is committed to peace and justice and a dual-state and a democratic society, which those of us who are political dinosaurs, as Woody Allen would have said, you know, I'm a social stereotype, I have been shunned on my wall. If that's the goal, then Israel also has to change and can't expect everybody else to change. But I think it's fair to ask. I mean, is the goal a single-state from the Jordan to the sea? If that's the goal, it won't be a Jewish state. And if it were a Jewish state, it would be Jewish state with a demographic majority of non-Jews. So, neither of those are necessarily viable opportunities. Is it the removal of all Jews? And I think we can accept that those who claim the removal of all Jews are anti-Semites. I think that's pretty clear. You're saying that for a long time. Right, right. And some people have, sure, absolutely. And other people are still clinging to the idea that, which I think Americans sometimes find difficult to believe, but most the world can recognize. Some people really don't want to live in the same state. They're willing to live as neighbors, you know? And I think that may be the case. The idea of partition, which somehow smacks as not very acceptable to Americans who want these large nation-states and are ready to kind of get along. But partition is the reality of most of world. Is partition practical, though? There has been partition in the past, didn't work. Now, that gets to, I mean, we're getting a little bit off of the topic, but I'm happy to talk to you about it. I just want to ask one more question. Well, I'm just going to say that it would work. Partition would work if both states are viable. And that's where I think that at least in many cases, legitimate criticism of the Israeli government is not necessarily anti-Semitism, which is to say, if we were to continue the settlement and property projects of the Netanyahu government, would the end result be a viable Palestinian state or not? And that I don't think is inherently an anti-Semitic question. That's inherently actually a Zionist question to have a viable Israel next to a viable Palestinian state, whatever name the Palestinians out of their sovereignty would like to call it. I would assume it'd be Palestine. If that's the goal, that's what I'm saying. The end goal has to be where we really put our minds to. If that's the end goal, then criticism of actions towards that goal are not inherently anti-Semitic. I mean, the easy one is no Jew from Jordan to the sea. That's easy. So the gray area and the sheep's question to ask is of those who want a unitary democratic state, what goal would they see or what future would they see for a minority Jewish community in that state? And among the Jewish demographics, the ascent would be orthodox religious families who have far more children than secular- Over time. Right, so that could be an exploding bomb, right? And that's a question I think you have to ask when people say, let's have one state. All right, how do you envision the Jews living in that state? And that's a question which is not unique by any means at all. If Jenna were here, he'd ask the same question. Look, you're gonna leave India, what is gonna be the role and future of a large, numerous, but minority Islamic community? And I think even though there are obviously, I mean, it's the most nuclear-potent border in the world, most people would argue that probably saved Islamic lives and reduced the internal violence within India by now that the process of getting there killed three million people, so horrendous. But the process of getting there should suggest to us what would have happened if they stayed, sorry. No, I mean, it's not the issues. You can't ask a story and flood out of this. With even without food, I'm going on. I want to have more with you about the future of Israel and whether Israel can survive. Survive is the operative word. I mean, it's all about survival and whether it, in fact, will survive. You know, depending on what we predict will happen. Or what these various forces will look like. I mean, I think Israel will survive. The question is what it will be like. But let's connect with BDL for a minute. BDL. Or BDS or? BDS, I'm saying. BDS, sure, sure. The Boycott Organization. Sure, sure. You know, I mean, I have my concerns that that could be a Trojan horse kind of thing where you think it's trying to do one thing when it's really trying to do another. I just like your view of its legitimacy and view of the fact that there are human rights in many places and BDS and its progenitors don't seem to care about human rights violations elsewhere, only in Israel. And the fact that it has a negative effect on world opinion and it gathers followers who could be straight anti-Semitic, too. So with BDS helping the situation or hurting it? Helping or hurting the situation. That's a very tough question. You should have told me this yesterday so I could think about driving it. I would say, well, I'm gonna give you a not very helpful answer. BDS, maybe you should see one of these. Yeah, let me explain. So the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction movement is a movement of about the last 10 years or so. And it is an effort to, obviously, boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. But it has certain points of contact. So there are BDS advocates who emphasize boycotting the settlements or what's called the Occupied Territories. So for in Europe, for example, the EU passed legislation that any item produced in an occupied territory has to say that on the label as the point of origin. I can't say Israel, for example. So that's one target. And then presumably the target would be just those areas and something, manufacturing, Haifa, or Tel Aviv, et cetera. Okay, another more recent point, and probably for your viewers who have been reading or listening to American events, is the current strategy to boycott Israeli academic institutions and Israeli scholars and students. There was a school in the Midwest. Right, and that recently, the last six weeks to two months has focused on a couple of very high profile incidents. There were two potential writers of letters of recommendation at the University of Michigan. One was a graduate student. One was a professor who waited until he had tenure to do this, who refused to write letters of recommendation for undergraduates who wanted to study at an Israeli university. And among those universities was Haifa, in which, in fact, if you ever go to a classroom in Haifa or walk the halls, you'll hear as much Arabic as Hebrew, if not more. They're Arabic professors. They're Palestinian professors. So their target makes one wonder. But the point there is to try to isolate Israel, not in an economic sense so much, but in a scholarly academic sense, which I think the BDS people agree will filter down. So for example, if somebody's kid can't get a letter, maybe the first reaction would be anger, not getting a letter, but the second reaction might be, well, let's see why that letter. It is a recent event, but there is a longstanding history of boycotting Jews and Israel. There was, of course, the Arab boycott. There was the Pepsi boycott, as everybody knows, and I'm wary of using this reference because you know the Jewish law that if you refer to Hitler, you lose the discussion. Yeah, if you refer to the show, you lose the debate, but I'm going to refer to the show without losing the debate, I hope, our discussion. Of course, the boycott of Jewish goods in Germany, that's how much of the show, one of the earliest stages. So there's also a tradition. So when you put the BDS down on a piece of paper and discuss it, you think about, yes, something should be done to try to get Israel to negotiate towards a piece. Some sense of justice. That's probably a good idea about any country. So the next question is why Israel? Some BDS supporters who I know quite well also are happy to put pressures on other countries, but the argument often is that Israel receives a tremendous amount of U.S. aid, and therefore we as U.S. citizens should have some say in how the money is used, kind of civil disobedience and redavid thorough argument. Okay, so that's one of the ways they respond to your significant and kind of natural question, which is, well, I look at the newspapers from Burma. I look at newspapers about China. Turkey, our alleged ally, has more journalists in jail in any other country in the world, which doesn't say necessarily very much, because other countries obviously kill their journalists. I mean, Turkey has it in jail. So one response is, and it's a very reasonable response, is why boycott, divest, sanction Israel? And one response to your question about why not other places is that Israel and U.S. have a very special relationship. Now here we get to the potential sheep wolf problem, though, because when you discuss a very special relationship, it's not just U.S. money going to Israel, but why is U.S. money going to Israel? And we get back very often to this APAC conspiracy argument. So I would encourage any of your listeners and viewers, if you go online, don't just read the article, read the comments to the articles. And very interesting enough, quite often, we eventually get back, you know, might begin with what are recognized Israeli human rights violations. U.S. has children at the border. So again, it's not unique to Israel. And then the argument as well, Israel gets a lot of U.S. support. Why do they get that support? APAC is pulling strings. So you can see emerging, right? There may very well be people who are sincerely, honestly recognized for human rights interests, and they may or may not consciously integrate themselves with others who really don't have those interests, but are using those interests as a hammer to nail. So what else about the BDS movement? So the BDS movement also participates with local American churches. So the Presbyterians, for example, have voted to support sanctions. The Society of Friends is currently debating here within Honolulu. Quite often, the BDS will invite a speaker, and that speaker will both speak on campus and at one of the local churches. Again, the churches have an interest in human rights. Some of them, though, probably also include members who are not particularly interested in the sanctity. Yeah, or sanctity of Jews. I would say that perhaps one of the most important components, though, of church participation is a reminder about the significant number of Palestinian Christians. So this is not just a Jewish-Muslim issue. It is the question of Palestinian Christians. It doesn't seem like a refined kind of analysis. Just jump on the bandwagon with BDS. But what about the other side of that? BDS is growing, and I told you about this defector. He spoke of generations of 15 years. Why 15 years? Because 15 years is a period, it's a generation of education. And that's what the Russians, according to the sky, believe. So when you have anti-Semitism in whatever form, whatever wolf's clothing, Helen of Troy, whatever it is on campus, you're going right to that 15-year educational generation. And my feeling, I'm the simple son here. My feeling is that it's growing on campus. It's on so many campuses. It's ubiquitous in this country, much more so than five or 10 years ago, am I right? You are right. And so is a growing movement to celebrate Israel, celebrate Judaism, have Jewish classes on campus. In a way, we're back to the old debate. What's the best way to respond to bad information? The best way is still good information. Not censorship, and I wear two different key podes on this one, because even though I participate on campus in trying to at least know about BDS, where it is appropriate, I do support their rights to academic freedom. And the BDS movement, the anti-BDS movement has swung, in my mind, too far in the opposite direction. Two examples. The Israeli government really has a lot more to worry about than funding anti-BDS efforts in the United States. And the U.S. government is putting, the Israeli government is putting resources into that. And I think that's a shanda. That's not appropriate. And secondly, there is a, Ben Cardin from Maryland has proposed a bill which is going through Congress. Everybody wants to get away from Christmas, so I don't know if it's gonna get through now, but essentially makes illegal anybody who participates in the boycott or express it himself. Okay. Is that a chance to pass? Well, it depends upon who you ask, right? So I can tell you that if it does pass, we're gonna have a flood of anti-APAC, anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli PR. If it doesn't pass, I hope we have an equally strong celebration of both American civil liberties and the fact that APAC does not pull all the strings. But you asked me about the growth of BDS. And yes, compared to 15 years ago, there are more students and faculty members active in the BDS movement. There are far more students participating in Students for Justice in Palestine. All that's true, okay. But the other side is also true that the 10 chancellors of the UC campuses, all the UC campuses, just signed a public letter saying that expressions of violence, expressions of intolerance, et cetera, towards Jews in Israel are not acceptable and that they will not participate in the boycott. The official UC position is not to participate in this boycott. So you really have a yin-yang dialectic going on here. It makes much better press to talk about UCLA hosting the Students for Justice in Palestine. But again, the US, I'm sorry, the UCLA Chancellor made it quite clear that yes, it is an academic freedom issue, but the academic freedom is not tantamount to institutional support. If we start controlling from outside, now the fair game would be, and this is my challenge, the BDS movement, the fair game is Israel hands off, but Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iran stop sending money to support these movements as well. So the Saudis- That would be more constructive. Well, I'll do that, but I would also advocate that Israel just turn the spigots off. I mean, really, if Israel has a lot, if Israel's worried about students at UCLA, I think it's a little better to look closer to home and think about what's going on at home. The US is not going to abandon Israel. That's not going to happen. I know there's three new Congress, three new reps that were elected and people are getting their bowels in an uproar. Those are three out of several hundred. They're Muslim reps, those are the ones you're talking about. This is a democracy. This is a democracy. The only difficulty with one of them is she switched her position after getting elected. But I don't think she's actually the first politician to switch positions after getting elected. Okay, I think this again is a misguided or misefficient allocation of our human resources and money and time. Decide what you want. You want the single state, the dual state, et cetera, and advocate for that, publicly advocate. I have a very dear friend, Yehuda Bauer, who's a scholar at Yad Vashem, and I'm going to just echo his view, which is everybody else should get their stinking figures out of this issue. The US, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, everybody and force the Israelis and the Palestinians. That's the old problem in the Middle East, isn't it? It goes back to Syria, doesn't it? Everybody has always had their fingers, including the Greeks in the last region. Peter, we got it out of time. Okay, thank you so much. That's always a great pleasure. So we continue this as more. Absolutely, and I have another one of these so I don't even have to do a lot of them. Okay, I'm going to get a few. Okay, yeah, it was lovely, of course. And a very late Happy Hanukkah. Happy Hanukkah. Yeah, but early for next year. Yeah, very nice. Thank you very much. Thank you, Peter.