 Once again, the eminent scholar Norman Finkelstein has triumphed in a riveting debate, this time against two fervent proponents of occupation. Spanning over four hours, this showdown marked a pivotal moment for the open-minded thinker show, constituting one of the most significant discussions on Palestine and the occupation dilemma since October 7th. The debate showcased the participation of four individuals, distinguished by exemplary content and moderation, earning commendation in this review. Yet two recurring elements stood out throughout the discourse. Finkelstein employed his trademark method of deliberate, measured speech, rendering it challenging for his adversaries to counter or fully grasp his philosophical insights amid the heated discussion on the expulsion of Palestinians from their ancestral lands. A critical revelation emerged from the debate, the acknowledgement by the pro-occupation debaters of the calculated strategy by European settlers in Palestine to displace the indigenous population purportedly in pursuit of establishing a homogeneous state aligned with the ancient Israelite faith. Remarkably, this admission proved to be the turning point leading to their defeat. The discourse illuminated the deliberate orchestration of the Nakba by European settlers, resulting in the forced displacement of countless Palestinians from their homes, a historic injustice that ignited enduring resistance movements shaping the region's tumultuous landscape for nearly eight decades. Of particular interest was Finkelstein's nuanced approach to dissecting the contentious issue of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. The examination scrutinized the unjust and politically motivated partitioning arrangement, shedding light on the true motives and influence of Western powers in favoring European settlers over the native inhabitants. The commitment of the open-minded thinker show to deliver impartial news and geopolitical analysis remains unwavering. We invite active engagement with our content through likes, shares and subscriptions, fostering informed discussions and awareness of developments concerning Palestine. There is some misunderstandings here, so let's try to clarify that. Number one, it was the old historians who would point to the fact, and Professor Morris's terminology, the old historians were he called, not real historians, he called them chroniclers, not real historians. It was the old Israeli historians who denied the centrality of transfer in Zionist thinking. It was then Professor Morris, who contrary to Israel's historian establishment, who said, now you remind me it's four pages, but it came at the end of the book. No, no, it's at the beginning of the book. Transfer. Yeah, transfer is dealt with in four pages at the beginning of my first book on the Palestinian refugee problem. It's a fault of my memory, but the point still stands. It was Professor Morris who introduced this idea in what you might call a big way. Yeah, but I didn't say it was central to the Zionist experimental experience. You're saying centrality. I never said it was central. I said it was there, the idea. By the way, it's okay to respond back and forth. This is great. And also just a quick question, if I may. You're using quotes from Benny from Professor Morris. It's also okay to say those quotes do not reflect the full context. That would be fine. So if we go back to quotes we've said in the past, and you've both here have written, the three you have written on this topic a lot, is we should be careful and just admit, like, well, yeah, well, that's... Just to be real quick, just to be clear, the contention is that Norm is quoting a part and saying that this was the entire reason for this, whereas Benny's saying it's a part of that. I'm not quoting a part. I'm quoting 25 pages where Professor Morris was at great pains to document the claim that appeared in those early four pages of his book. Now, you say it never became part of the official Zionist platform. It never became part of policy. Fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're also asked, well, this is true. Why did that happen? Why did that happen? It's because it's a very simple fact which everybody understands. Ideology doesn't operate in a vacuum. There are real world practical problems. You can't just take an ideology and superimpose it on a political reality and turn it into a fact. It was the British mandate. There was significant Arab resistance to Zionism. And that resistance was based on the fact, as you said, the fear of territorial displacement and dispossession. So you couldn't very well expect the Zionist movement to come out in neon lights and announce, hey, we're going to be expelling you the first chance we get. That's not realistic. Let me respond. Look, you've said it a number of times that the Arabs from fairly early on in the conflict from the 1890s or the early 1900s said the Jews intend to expel us. This doesn't mean that it's true. It means that some Arabs said this, maybe believing it was true, maybe using it as a political instrument to gain support to mobilize Arabs against the Zionist experiment. But the fact is transfer did not occur before 1947. And Arabs later said, and since then, have said that the Jews want to build a third temple on the Temple Mount, as if that's what really the mainstream of Zionism has always wanted and always strived for. But this is nonsense. It's something that Hussaini used to use as a way to mobilize masses for the cause using religion as the way to get them to join him. The fact that Arabs said that the Zionists wanted this possess us doesn't mean it's true. It just means that there's some Arabs thought that maybe and maybe said it sincerely and maybe insincerely. Professor Morris later became a self fulfilling prophecy. This is true. This is Arabs attack the Jews. Professor Morris, I read through your stuff. Even yesterday, I was looking through righteous victim. You should read other things. You're wasting your time. No, no. Actually, no. I do read other things, but I don't consider the waste of time to read you. Not at all. You say that this wasn't inherent in Zionism. Now, would you agree that David Ben-Gurion was a Zionist? Right. Would you agree that my invite was a Zionist? Yeah. Okay. I believe they were. I believe they took their ideology seriously. It was the first generation. Just like with the Bolsheviks, the first generation was committed to an idea. By the 1930s, it was just pure rail politic. The ideology went out the window. The first generation, I have no doubt about their convictions. Okay. Zionists. Transfer was inevitable and inbuilt in Zionism. You keep repeating the same thing. As I said, Denny, Mr. Morris, I have a problem reconciling what you're saying. It either was incidental or it was deeply entrenched. Here I read it's deeply entrenched. Two very resonant words. Inevitable and inbuilt. Deeply entrenched, I never wrote it. Well, I'm not sure. It's something you just invented. Okay. But it was there. Inevitable and inbuilt. The idea. Okay. Let me concede something. No. The idea of transfer. This analysis presents a balanced and concise examination of the situation. It's evident that neither side fully adhered to the partitioning agreement, which lies at the heart of the crisis. Indeed, the notion of surrendering ancestral homes to settlers without resistance raises fundamental questions. Why did Europeans find it challenging to settle refugees within their own territories to prevent the current turmoil in Palestine? A more feasible approach would have been for world powers to establish a state for refugees on European soil, enabling them to realize their aspirations for statehood without enduring ongoing security challenges. However, Professor Maris' response lacked depth, failing to address the flaws in the UN partitioning plan and its political ramifications. His attempt to justify the appropriation of Palestinian lands based on alleged native aggression fell short, revealing a lack of substantive arguments. Professor Maris appeared more aggressive and intellectually deficient in defending the actions of European settlers in the 1940s. His rationale, centered on portraying native Palestinian aggression as justification for land seizure, lacked coherence and depth. His ideas seemed disjointed, leading to aimless ranting during the debate. This refined analysis presents a clear and objective assessment of the situation, highlighting key issues and shortcomings in Professor Maris' arguments. Can I actually respond to that? I think this is emblematic of the entire conversation. I watched a lot of Norm's interviews and conversations in preparation for this, and I hear Norm will say this all over and over and over again. I only deal in facts. I don't deal in hypotheticals. I only deal in facts. And that seems to be the case except for when the facts are completely and totally contrary to the particular point you're trying to push. The idea that Jews would have out of hand rejected any state that had Arabs on it or always had a plan of expulsion is just betrayed by the acceptance of the 47 partition plan. I don't think you understand politics. Did I just say that there is a chasm that separates your ideology from the limits and constraints imposed by politics and reality? Now, Professor Maris, I suspect would agree that the Zionist movement from fairly early on was committed to the idea of a Jewish state. I am aware of only one major study, probably written 40 years ago, the binational idea in mandatory Palestine by a woman. I forgot her name now. You remember her. I'm trying to. Yeah. Okay. Would you know the book? Yeah. She is the only one who tried to persuasively argue that the Zionist movement was actually not formally actually committed to the binational idea. But most historians of the subject agree. The Zionist movement was committed to the idea of a Jewish state. Having written my doctoral dissertation on the topic, I was confirmed in that idea because Professor Chomsky, who was my closest friend for about 40 years, was very committed to the idea that binationalism was the dominant trend in Zionism. I could not agree with. I couldn't go with him there. But Professor Maris, you are aware that until the built more resolution in 1942, the Zionist movement never declared it was for a Jewish state. Why? Because it was politically impossible at the moment until 1942. There is your ideology. There are your convictions. There are your operative plans. And there's also separately what you say in public. The Zionist movement couldn't say in public, we're expelding all the Arabs. They can't say that. And they couldn't even say we support a Jewish state until 1942. You're conflating two things. The Zionists wanted a Jewish state, correct? That didn't mean expulsion of the Arabs. It's not the same thing. They wanted a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, but they were willing, as it turned out, both in 37 and in 47 and subsequently to have an Arab minority, a large Arab minority. They were willing to have a large Arab minority in the country. And they ended up with a large Arab minority in the country. 20 percent of the population in 49 was Arab. They ended up for about five minutes before they were expelled. They agreed until 47 and then they were gone by March 1949. What happened in between the rejection of the partition plan and the expulsion of the Arabs? The Arabs launched a war. It wasn't random. There was a potential. It wasn't random. I totally agree with that. It was by design. You can say that, but in this case, the facts betray you. There was no Arab acceptance of anything that would have allowed for a Jewish state to exist. Number one, and number two, I think that it's entirely possible, given how things happen after war, that this exact same conflict could have played out and an expulsion would have happened without any ideology at play. There was a people that disagreed on who had territorial rights to a land. There was a massive war afterwards. And then a bunch of their friends invaded after to reinforce the idea that the Jewish people in this case couldn't have a state. There could have been a transfer regardless. Anything could have been. That's not what history is about. History is about Palestinian rejections into any peace deal. As I said, when the war was thrown into the court of the United Nations, they were faced with a practical problem. And I, for one, am not going to try to adjudicate the rights and wrongs from the beginning. I do not believe that if territorial displacement and dispossession was inherent in the Zionist project, I do not believe it can be a legitimate political enterprise. Now, you might say that's speaking from 2022 or 2020, where are we now? But we have to recognize that from nearly the beginning for perfectly obvious reasons, having nothing to do with anti-Semitism, anti-Westernism, anti-Europeanism, but because no people that I am aware of would voluntarily cede its country. You can perfectly understand Native American resistance to Eurocolonialism. You can perfectly well understand it without any anti-Europeanism, anti-Whiteism, anti-Christianism. They didn't want to cede their country to invaders. That's completely understandable. You're minimizing the anti-Semitic element in Arab nationalism. In all your books, you minimized it. No, no, no. Husaini was an anti-Semite. The leader of the Palestinian national movement in the 30s and 40s was an anti-Semite. This was one of the things which drove him and also drove him in the end to work in Berlin for four years, giving Nazi propaganda to the Arab world, calling on the Arabs to murder the Jews. That's what he did in World War II. That's the leader of the Palestinian Arab national movement. And he wasn't alone. He wasn't alone. Why is it that if you read your book, Righteous Victims, you can read it and read it and read it and read it as I have. You will find barely a word about the Arabs being motivated by anti-Semitism. It exists. I didn't say it doesn't exist. You agree that it exists. Hey, I don't know a single non-Jew who doesn't harbor anti-Semitic. We're talking about Arabs now. But I don't know anybody that's just part of the human condition. Anti-Semitism. Husaini was an anti-Semitic. And among the Arabs. So Professor Mars, here's my problem. I didn't see that in your Righteous Victims. Even when you talked about the First Intifada and you talked about the Second Intifada and you talked about how there was a lot of influence by Hamas, the Islamic movement. You even stated that there was a lot of anti-Semitism in those movements. But then you went on to say, but of course, at bottom, it was about the occupation. It wasn't about, and I've read it. Yeah, you're moving from different ages. No, I'm not moving. Across the ages. I'm talking about your whole book. Your whole book. The occupation began in 1967, the one you're talking about. I looked and looked and looked for evidence of this anti-Semitism as being a chief motor of Arab resistance to Zionism. I didn't see it. There's no term Jewish here because it wasn't the Jews of England or the Soviet. I think Jewish is prior to 1948. I think it's useful to refer to Zionists before 1948 and Israelis after 1948. We don't need to implicate Jews elsewhere. But the Jewish people that were being attacked in Arab states weren't Zionists. They were just Jews living there, right? On that, I was rereading Shlomo Ben-Ami's last book, and he does at the end discuss at some length the whole issue of the refugee question bearing on the so-called peace process. And on the question of 1948 and the Arab emigration, if you allow me, let me just quote him. Israel is particularly fond of the awkwardly false symmetry she makes between the Palestinian refugee crisis and the forced emigration of 600,000 Jews from Arab countries following the creation of the state of Israel, as if it were, quote, an unplanned exchange of populations, unquote. And then Mr. Ben-Ami, for those of you who are listening, he was Israel's former foreign minister, and he's an influential historian in his own right. He says, in fact, envoys from the Mossad and the Jewish agency worked underground in Arab countries and Iran to encourage Jews to go to Israel. More importantly, for many Jews in Arab states, the very possibility of emigrating to Israel was the culmination of millennial aspirations. It represented the consummation of a dream to take part in Israel's resurgence as a nation. So this idea that they were all expelled after 1948, that's one area, Professor Morris, I defer to expertise. That's one of my credos in life. I don't know the Israeli literature, but as it's been translated in English, there is very little solid scholarship on what happened in 1948 in the Arab countries and which caused the Jews to leave. Arab Jews, right. But Shlomo Ben-Ami knows the literature. He knows the scholarship. He also has started. He's from Morocco. He's from Iraq. And he's written on this issue as well. And they wrote that the Jews in the Arab lands were not pro-Zionists. They weren't Zionists at all. Certainly, Avi Shlime's family was anti-Zionists. And Avi Shlime, when he was interviewed by Maren Rappaport on this question, he said, you simply cannot say that the Iraqi Jews were expelled. It's just not true. And he was speaking as an Iraqi Jew who left with his father and family in 1948. They were pushed out. They weren't expelled. That's probably the right phrase. I think it's more complex than that. I think it was... Sorry, I interrupted you. No, you're not interrupting me because I only know what's been translated into English. And the English literature on the subject is very small and not scholarly. Now, there may be a Hebrew literature. I don't know. But I was surprised that even Shlomo Ben-Ami, a stalwart of his state, fair enough, at this particular point, he called it false symmetry. No, no, Stephen is right. There was a pull-and-push mechanism in the departure of the Jews from the Arab lands post-48. But there was also a lot of push. A lot of push. That's indisputable. There was push. And on the point of agreement, on this one brief light of agreement, let us wrap up with this topic of history and move on to modern day. I'm wondering if we could just say a couple of last words on this topic. Stephen? Yeah, I think that when you look at the behaviors of both parties in the time period around 48, or especially 48 and earlier, there's this assumption that there was this huge built-in mechanism of Zionism and that it was going to be inevitable from the inception of the first Zionist thought, I guess, that appeared in Herzl's mind that there would be a mass violent population transfer of Arab Palestinians out of what would become the Israeli state. I understand that there are some quotes that we can find that maybe seem to possibly support an idea that looks close to that. But I think when you actually consult the record of what happened, when you look at the populations, the massive populations that Israel was willing to accept within what would become their state borders, their nation borders, I just don't think that the historical record agrees with the idea that Zionists would have just never been okay alongside Arab Palestinians. But when you look at the other side, Arabs would out of hand reject literally any deal that apportioned any amount of that land for any state relating to Jewish people or the Israeli people. I think it was said even on the other end of the table that Arab Palestinians would have never accepted, the Arabs would have never accepted any Jewish state whatsoever. So it's interesting that on the ideology part where it's claimed that Zionists are people of exclusion and supremacy and expulsion, and that in diary entries, but we can find that expressed in very real terms on the Arab side, I think in all of their behavior around 48 and earlier, where the goal was the destruction of the Israeli state, it would have been the dispossession of any Jewish people. It probably would have been the expulsion of a lot of them back to Europe. And I think that very clearly plays out in the difference between the actions of the Arabs versus some diary entries of some Jewish leaders. Benny? Well, one thing which stood out, and I think Mouin made this point, the Arabs had nothing to do with the Holocaust, but then the world community forced the Arabs to pay the price for the Holocaust. That's the traditional Arab argument. This is slightly distorting the reality. The Arabs in the 1930s did their utmost to prevent Jewish immigration from Europe and reaching Palestine, which was the only safe haven available because America, Britain, France, nobody wanted Jews anywhere, and they were being persecuted in Central Europe and eventually would be massacred in large numbers. So the Arab effort to pressure the British to prevent Jews reaching Palestine's safe shores contributed indirectly to the slaughter of many Jews in Europe because they couldn't get to anywhere and they couldn't get to Palestine because the Arabs were busy attacking Jews in Palestine and attacking the British to make sure they didn't allow Jews to reach this safe haven. That's important. The second thing is, of course, there's no point in belittling the fact that the Palestinian Arab National Movement's leader, Hussaini, worked for the Nazis in the 1940s. He got a salary from the German Foreign Ministry. He raised troops among Muslims in Bosnia for the SS, and he broadcast to the Arab world calling for the murder of the Jews in the Middle East. This is what he did. And the Arabs, since then, have been trying to whitewash Hussaini's role and not saying he was the instigator of the Holocaust, but he helped the Germans along in doing what they were doing and supported them in doing that. So this can't be removed from the fact that the Arabs, as you say, paid a price for the Holocaust, but they also participated in various ways in helping it happen. I'll make two points. The first is you mentioned Hajj Amin al-Hussaini and his collaboration with the Nazis. Entirely legitimate point to raise, but I think one can also say definitively, had Hajj Amin al-Hussaini never existed, the Holocaust would have played out precisely as it did. As far as Palestinian opposition to Jewish immigration to Palestine during the 1930s is concerned, it was of a different character than, for example, British and American rejection of Jewish immigration. They just didn't want Jews on their soil. Objectively, it helped the Germans kill the Jews. In the Palestinian case, their opposition to Jewish immigration was to prevent the transformation of their homeland into a Jewish state that would dispossess them, and I think that's an important distinction to make. The other point I wanted to make is we've spent the past several hours talking about Zionism, transfer and so on, but I think there's a more fundamental aspect to this, which is that Zionism, I think, would have emerged and disappeared as yet one more utopian political project. Had it not been for the British, what the preeminent Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi has termed the British shield, because I think without the British sponsorship, we wouldn't be having this discussion today. The British sponsored Zionism for a very simple reason, which is that during World War I, the Ottoman armies attempted to march on the Suez Canal. Suez Canal was the jugular vein of the British Empire between Europe and India, and the British came to the conclusion that they needed to secure the Suez Canal from any threat, and as the British have done so often in so many places, how do you deal with this? Well, you know, you bring in a foreign minority, implant them amongst a hostile population, and establish a protectorate over them. I don't think a Jewish state in Palestine had been part of British intentions, and the Balfour Declaration very specifically speaks about a Jewish national home in Palestine. In other words, a British protectorate. Things ended up taking a different course, and I think the most important development was World War II, and I think this had maybe less to do with the Holocaust and more to do with the effective bankruptcy of the United Kingdom during that war, and its inability to sustain its global empire had ended up giving up India, ended up giving up Palestine, and it's in that context, I think, that we need to see the emergence of a Jewish state in Palestine. And again, a Jewish state means a state in which the Jewish community enjoys not only a demographic majority, but an uncontestable demographic majority, an uncontestable territorial hegemony, and an uncontestable political supremacy. And that is also why, after 1948, the nascent Israeli state confiscated, I believe up to 90% of lands that had been previously owned by Palestinians who became citizens of Israel. It is why the new Israeli state imposed a military government on its population of Palestinian citizens between 1948 and 1966. It is why the Israeli state effectively reduced the Palestinians living within the Israeli state as citizens of the Israeli state to second-class citizens on the one hand promoting Jewish nationalism and Jewish nationalist parties, on the other hand, doing everything within its power to suppress and eliminate Palestinian or Arab nationalist movements. And that's why today there is a consensus among all major human rights organizations that Israel is an apartheid state. What the Israeli human rights organization, Betselam, describes a regime of Jewish supremacy between the river and the sea. The subsequent phase of the debate ushered in a more relaxed atmosphere, fostering the free flow of ideas and emotions. However, the focal point remained the contentious state of Palestinians post-establishment of Israel and the subsequent occupation sanctioned by the United Nations and the Western Collective. This stage of the discourse proved even more intriguing as both sides endeavored, albeit successfully, to assert their perspectives. Yet Norman's profound grasp of the subject matter shone through. He systematically dismantled the unfounded notion that European settlers in Palestine harbored intentions of integrating the native population into the political and social fabric of the purported Jewish state. Norman's presentation of factual evidence spoke volumes, bolstering his argument against the notion of settler's benevolence towards the indigenous population. The pro-Palestinian factions demonstrated a stronger grasp of factual evidence compared to their counterparts. The inability of the opposing side to justify the settler's intentions in Palestine revealed a significant gap in their argument. They struggled to contextualize the origins of the occupation state within the political spectrum while acknowledging the plight of the stateless Palestinian people at the time. Their attempt to portray Palestinian resistance as mere aggression failed to align with historical realities, undermining the credibility of their stance, witnessed the most impassioned segment of the debate unfold. Much less discussed to the point of amnesia is that there were very extensive attacks on Israeli military and intelligence facilities on October 7th. I would make a very clear distinction between those two. And secondly, I'm not sure that I would characterize the efforts by Palestinians on October 7th to seize Israeli territory and Israeli population centers as in and of themselves illegitimate. You mean attacking Israeli civilians as illegitimate? No, that's not what I said. I think what you had on October 7th was an effort by Hamas to seize Israeli territory and population centers. And kill civilians? That's not what I said. I would not describe the effort to seize Israeli territory as in and of itself illegitimate as a separate issue from the killing of Israeli civilians where in those cases where they had been deliberately targeted, that's very clearly illegitimate. All families were slaughtered in Kibbutz. Many of them left wingers, who helped Palestinians go to hospitals in Israel and so on. They even drove Palestinian cancer patients to hospitals. But you don't seem to be very condemnatory of what Hamas did. Well, I don't do selective condemnation. I'm not talking about selective. Specific condemnation of this specific assault on civilians. I would, for example, condemn Israeli assaults on civilians, deliberate assaults on civilians. I would condemn them, but you're not doing that with the Hamas. You know what the issue is? I've been speaking in public now, I would say since the late 1980s and interviewed and so on. I have never on one occasion ever been asked to condemn any Israeli act. When I've been in group discussions, those supporting the Israeli action or perspective, I have never encountered an example where these individuals are asked to condemn what Israel is doing. The demand and obligation of condemnation is exclusively applied. And my personal experience over decades is exclusively applied to Palestinians. Israel is condemned day and night on every television channel and has been for the last decade. I'm telling you about a personal experience lasting decades. You said quote. Oh, no. I'm trying to quote what you just said. I shouldn't have said anything at any point. You should say, Professor Morris. Yes. You just said, I would condemn any time Israel deliberately attacks civilians. Yes. Okay. The problem, Professor Morris is over and over again, you claim in the face of overwhelming evidence that they didn't attack civilians. That's not true. I've said Israel has attacked civilians. Professor Morris. In Kybia, Israel attacked civilians. Right, right, right. Professor Morris. And I've written extensively about it. Okay, I know that. In Qatar, Kassim, they killed civilians. Yes. And now let's... You're just dominating. Okay. You're selecting. Okay. As a cherry pick. If I were you... Before you do the cherry pick. Let's fast forward when you were an adult. What did you say about the 1982 Lebanon war? What did I say? You don't remember? Okay. Allow me. Wow. Okay. So it happens that I was not at all by any... I had no interest in the Israel-Palestine conflict as a young man until the 1982 Lebanon war. Yeah. Lost the passage. I'll find it. Okay, real quick. Well, he's searching for that. Yeah, allow me. You bring up something that's really important that a lot of people don't draw distinction between in that there is just causes for war and there's just ways to act within a war. And these two things principally do have a distinction from one another. Correct. However, while I appreciate the recognition of the distinction, the idea that the cause for war that Hamas was engaged in, I don't believe if we look at their actions in war or the statements that they've made, it doesn't seem like it had to do with territorial acquisition. No, no, no. No. The point... Like taking land back. No, the point I was making was what was Hamas trying to achieve militarily on October 7th? And I was pointing out that the focus has been very much on Hamas attacks on civilians and atrocities and so on. And I'm not saying those things should be ignored. What I'm saying is that what's getting lost in the shuffle is that there were extensive attacks on military and intelligence facilities. And as far as the, let's say, the other aspects are concerned because I think either you or Lex asked me about the legitimacy of these attacks. I said, I'm unclear whether the efforts by Hamas to seize Israeli population centers in and of themselves are illegitimate, as opposed to actions that either deliberately targeted Israeli civilians or actions that should reasonably have been expected to result in the killings of Israeli civilians. Those strike me as, by definition, illegitimate. And I want to be very clear about that. I have where I... Illegitimate means you condemn them. Illegitimate means they are not legitimate. I have a problem... Condemning your side, yes. No, not condemning my side. I have a problem with selective outrage and I have a problem with selective condemnation. And as I explained to you a few minutes ago, in my decades of appearing in public and being interviewed, I have never seen... I've never been asked to condemn an Israeli action. I've never been asked for a moral judgment on an Israeli action. Exclusive request for condemnation has to do with what? And just as importantly, I'm sure if you watch BBC or CNN, when is the last time an Israeli spokesperson has been asked to condemn an Israeli act? I've never seen it. I don't think we condemn the Arab side either, though, right? I don't think there's any condemnation. No, but now that we're talking about Israeli victims, all of a sudden, morality is central. Well, I think the reason why it comes up is because there's no shortage of international condemnation for Israel. As Norm will point out a million times that there are 50 billion UN resolutions, you've got Amnesty International, you've got multiple bodies of the UN, you've got, in this case, for the ICJ, so there's no question of if there's condemnation for Israel. But sorry, if I can interrupt you. In 1948, the entire world stood behind the establishment of a Jewish state in the entire world. Okay, but I think you know what I mean by that. The Western democracies, that's what you're saying. Western democracies supported the establishment of Israel. My quick question was you said that you believe that there's a very short one, you don't have to. You think that there's an argument to be made that the people in Gaza that Hamas and Islamic Jihad who ever participated had a just cause for war. Maybe they didn't do it in the correct way, but they maybe had a just cause for war. I don't think there's a maybe there. Do you think that Israel has a just cause for war? No, of course not. Okay, all right, you can say your question. Okay, first of all, on this issue of double standards, which is the one that irks or irritates Mouine, you said that you are not a person of double standards unlike people like Mouine. You hold high a single standard and you condemn deliberate Israeli attacks on civilians. And I would say that's true for the period up till 1967 and I think it's accurate your account of the first intifada. There, it seems to me you are in conformity with most mainstream accounts and the case of the first intifada you also used surprisingly, he used Arab human rights sources like Al-Haq which I think Mouine worked for during the first intifada. That's true. But then something very strange happens. So let's illustrate it. Wait, does something strange which happened is the Arabs are rejecting these offers? That's what happened. By accepting the Oslo agreements. If we have time, I know the record very well. I'd be very happy to go through it with you. But let's get to those double standards. So this is what you have to say about Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. You said Israel was reluctant to harm civilians sought to avoid casualties on both sides and took care not to harm Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. You then went on to acknowledge the massive use of IDF firepower against civilians during the siege of Beirut which traumatized Israeli society. Mars quickly enters the caveat that Israel, quote, tried to pinpoint military targets but inevitably many civilians were hit. That's your description of the Lebanon war. As I say, that's when I first got involved in the conflict. I am a voracious reader. I read everything on the Lebanon war. I would say there's not a single account of the Lebanon war in which the estimates are between 15 and 20,000 Palestinian and Lebanese were killed overwhelmingly civilians the biggest bloodletting until the current Gaza genocide. Biggest bloodletting I would say I can't think of a single mainstream account that remotely approximates what you just said. So, leaving aside I can name the books voluminous huge volumes. I'll just take one example. Now, you will remember because I think you served in Lebanon in 82. Am I correct on that? So, you will remember that Dov Yarmia kept the war diary. So, with your permission allow me to describe what he wrote during his diary. So, he writes, the war machine of the IDF is galloping and trampling over the territory demonstrating a total insensitivity to the fate of the Arabs who are found in its path. A PLO run hospital suffered a direct hit. In 2018 there was the great march of return in Gaza by all reckonings of human rights organizations and journalists who were there it was overwhelmingly non-violent. It was organized by the Hamas. Whoever organized it was organized by Satan. Satan. I agree. Let's go for the big one. The Big McGill. It's Satan. Overwhelmingly non-violent. It resembled at the beginning the first intifago. Not bombs. They tried to make holes in the fence. Obviously. Let's continue. But I'm not sure Israel behaved morally in that context. I'm willing to grant you this. Please. Allow me to... Allow me to finish. I don't know anything about this. I'd like to hear. So, as you know, along the Gaza perimeter there was Israel's best trained snipers. Correct? I don't know best trained. There were snipers. Okay. All right. Because, hey, laugh. It's hilarious. The story is so funny. You're lying about it. It's so funny. Okay. Okay. The problem, Mr. Morelle, is you don't know the English language. I can read from the UN website itself. In regards to the Great March, they said, well, the vast majority of protesters in a peaceful manner, during most protests, dozens have approached the fence attempting to damage it, throwing stones and molotov cocktails towards Israeli forces and flying incendiary kites and balloons into Israeli territory. The latter result in extensive damage to agricultural land and nature reserves inside Israel and risk the lives of Israeli civilians. Some, in this shooting rally, throwing explosives. Talk fast. Talk fast. You got the months wrong. You got the months wrong. We're talking about the beginning in March 30, 2018. You just described that march is mostly peaceful. Okay. Allow me to finish. So there were the snipers. Now you find it so far-fetched, Israelis purposely, deliberately targeting civilians that's such a far-fetched idea. An overwhelmingly nonviolent march. What did the international investigation- What was the march? It was a campaign. Whatever you want to call it. Whatever you want to call it. What did the U.N. investigation find? Well, he just read a few. I read the report. I don't read things off of those machines. I read the report. What did it find? Brace yourself. You thought it was so funny, the idea of IDF targeting civilians. What did it find? Go look this up on your machine. I already know what you're going to say. You're going to say you found only one or two of them were justified killings. Targeted journalists. Targeted medics. And here's the funniest one of all. It's so hilarious. They targeted disabled people who were 300 meters away from the fence and just standing by trees. If it's true. Just quick pause. I think everything was fascinating to listen to except the mention of hilarious. Nobody finds any of this hilarious. And if any of us are laughing, it's not at the suffering of civilians or suffering of anyone. It's at the obvious joyful camaraderie in the room. So I'm enjoying it. And also the joy of learning. So thank you. Can we talk about the targeting civilian thing a little bit? I think there's like an important underlying. Not necessarily that I just I think it's important to understand. Yeah, I think it's important to understand. There's like three different things here that we need to think about. So one is a policy of killing civilians. Do we so I would ask the other side. I'm going to ask all three because I know there won't be a short answer. Do you think there is a policy top down from the idea of to target civilians? That's one thing. A second thing is. He said yes. But then the second thing is or there's there's two distinctions I want to draw between. I think Benny would say this. I would say this. I'm sure undoubtedly there have been cases where IDF soldiers for no good reason have targeted and killed Palestinians that they should not have done that would be prosecutable as war crimes as defined by some have been prosecuted. And I'm absolutely sure. Practically none. I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure that we would all agree for soldiers that that happens. But I think that it's important. I think that it's important that when we talk about military strikes, we talk about things especially involving bombings or drone attacks. These are things that are signed off by multiple different layers of command by multiple people involved in an operation including intelligence gathering, including weapon hearing and there also have typically lawyers involved. When you make the claim that an IDF soldier shot a Palestinian those three people, the three hostages that came up with white flags and something horrible happened I think that's a fair statement to make and I think a lot of criticism is deserved. But when you make the statement that four children were killed by a strike the claim that you're making the claim that you're making is that multiple levels of the IDF signed off on just killing I have no idea what politics are. That's great if you don't understand the process then let me educate you. I can tell you, I do understand the process. I'm telling you, I'm trying to explain you right now. You're studying the IDF. Aside from Wikipedia Can you tell me what your knowledge of the IDF is? You can talk to people who work in the military What's your knowledge of the IDF? Audience can look this up. Do you think that bombing and strikes are decided by one person in the field? Do you think one person in the field is a pilot doesn't do it? Yes, strikes don't have a higher apparatuses that are designed to figure out how to strike and who to strike. So when you say that four children are targeted you're saying that a whole apparatus is trying to murder four Palestinian children which is a ridiculous argument because really it's impossible at the command level it's impossible at the command level but you said that they couldn't have done it at the bottom if it weren't also at the top. You don't understand the strength of the claim that you're making You're saying that from a top down level that lawyers, commanders, and all these people are signed off do not tell me what I don't understand or Palestinians. It's true I don't spend my nights on Wikipedia I read books I admit that as a signal I know books are a waste of time with all due regard there I completely respect I completely respect the fact and I'll say it on the air as much as I find totally disgusting what's come of your politics a lot of the books are excellent and I'll even tell you because I'm not afraid of saying it whenever I have to check on the basic fact the equivalent of going to the Britannica I go to your books I know you got a lot of the facts right I would never say books are a waste of time and it's regrettable to you that you got strapped with a partner who thinks that all the wisdom all the wisdom I'd like to respond to what you were saying I think the question that we're trying to answer I think you don't understand Israel let me finish please I think we're all agreed that Palestinians have deliberately targeted civilians whether we're talking about Hamas and Islamic jihad today I prefer the word murdered and raped rather than targeted targeted is too soft for what the Hamas did I'm talking about this now I'm trying to answer his question historically there is substantial evidence that Palestinians targeted civilians whether it's been incidental or systematic is a different discussion I don't want to get into that now for some reason there seems to be a huge debate about whether any Israeli has ever sunk so low as to target a civilian no we've agreed both this has happened here and I think what we're saying is it's not policy which is what you guys are implying kill civilians deliberately if I understand you correctly you're basically making the claim that none of these attacks could have happened without going through an entire chain of commands strike cells that are involved in drone attacks or plane attacks my understanding of the Israeli military and you could perhaps you've served in it you would know better it's actually a fairly chaotic organization no that's not true especially not the air force the culmination of this debate is truly heartening shedding light on a pivotal aspect of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and providing a clearer understanding of the occupation and resistance the ongoing turmoil in the region may persist unless concrete steps are taken to establish a permanent homeland for Palestinians without addressing the concerns of the indigenous population and fostering an atmosphere of justice the possibility of resistance will only intensify thank you for engaging with this perspective and we encourage continued discussion and awareness of the situation in Palestine until next time peace