 for Palestine Studies under the auspices of the Soas Middle East Institute. I'm Dina Matar, I'm the chair of the Center for Palestine Studies. I want to pass over to Jilbert, who would be Professor Jilbert Asper, who will be chairing the session today. But before I do so, I would like to say that speaking as an individual and behalf myself and Jilbert, we are supportive of the current UCU strike for pensions and better working conditions for academics in the UK. But we are holding this session outside of the official strike hours and really welcome everyone who has managed to join us. I'll turn over to Jilbert, who will be chairing and he'll give us, you know, kind of what the talk is going to be about and he's going to introduce our speaker. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Dina. And a very warm welcome to our guest for this evening. It's evening here, not evening for her because she is based in Boston, the United States. So Leila Parsa is an associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. If I'm not wrong, she is also maybe not anymore, but you were chair of the political science department at the University there. Leila. I still am. You're still chairing it? Hello. Yes, I'm still chairing it here. Okay. And you're the author of Palestinian labor migration to Israel and co-editor of the Arab and Jewish questions geographies of engagement in Palestine and beyond, which is a book that was also an opportunity for having Leila with us. And we are this evening very happy to have her for the latest book, the book she edited under the title, Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Partition, a whole program in the title. So without further delay, please, Leila. The floor is yours for as long as you wish up to 40 minutes, but I understood that you will be speaking less than that. And so we'll have plenty of time for the discussion. And actually, it's good to leave plenty of time for the discussion because we have already 150 even more. I'm counting people joining on the Zoom event. So please. Thank you very much, Gilbert and Dina for inviting me and thank you for this incredible opportunity to talk about my book. It's been a real pleasure to edit this book and to have a number of people in it. And I think it's a topic that has been on my mind for some time as we see the crisis in which the Palestinian cause faces itself today. The aim of my book was to examine, re-examine the Palestinian attempt to fulfill their rights for self-determination through the creation of the Palestinian state. As we all know, the quest for a Palestinian independent sovereign state has been at the center of the Palestinian national struggle for a very long time. Ever since the PLO defines its goal in 1971, the establishment of a democratic state inclusive of Muslim Jews and Christians in Palestine, one that is free from Zionist imperialism. It was considered the creation of the state, the means to ensure Palestinian return to their land and to establish their national sovereignty. However, the continuous attack on the Palestinians in the 1970s and 80s and the inability to defeat Zionism has led the PLO to accept the international consensus on the 2C solution as enshrined with UN Resolution 181 as the only option to fulfill Palestinian rights. In 1988, the PLO chairman at the time, Yasser Arafat, officially recognized Israel and the Palestinian National Council issued the Declaration of Independence. This paved the way for the also pre-process in 1993 and implied that the Palestinian state was to be confined to the West Bank and Gaza. By 2022, the state of Palestine, within the boundaries or the space of the West Bank and Gaza, was officially recognized by 138 states and admitted into the United Nations as a non-member state. The problem though, this state is still under occupation and far from being sovereign or capable of protecting Palestinian rights. As many of you know, the Auster peace process reformulated rather than end Zionist colonization. Thereby undermining the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Israel continuous war and siege of Gaza, the presence of over 620,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem. The 703 kilometer long separation wall and the institutionalization of over 90 Israeli checkpoints have destroyed the viability of the Palestinian state within the 2C solution. And yet despite this destruction, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the international community, all of them remain committed to the Palestinian state. The Arab peace initiative and the internationally sponsored quarter map roadmap to peace in 2003, considered the creation of the Palestinian state not only arrived but also the only mean to end the Israeli Palestinian conflict. So the question that this book poses is the following. Why this attachment to the Palestinian state when it failed to meet Palestinian needs and rights. This state after all excludes the refugees from it, excludes the Palestinian citizens of Israel, has fragmented the Palestinian nation and at the same time has compromised the political or citizenship rights of those living in the West Bank and Gaza, given the authoritarianism and corruption of the Palestinian people. Secondly, the book tries to examine the alternatives to the Palestinian state project by analyzing the opportunities and costs of moving away from the pursuit of territorial sovereignty as a mean to achieve political liberation. Here I explore two underpinning questions. Next one, the extent to which the Palestinian schools can survive and Palestinian rights be protected without having a state. Secondly, I argue that the failure of the Palestinian state project requires us to re-articulate the relationship between self-determination and decolonization away from the 2C solution or partition. Such a re-articulation of the relationship between self-determination and decolonization requires us to transcend the partition model that has dominated all international attempts to solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It also entails defining the elements of a political solution that is democratic, vibrant and economical. So let's address the first question which I posed and which is focused in the first part of the book. Which is namely, why are we still attached to the Palestinian state? It's by the failure to deliver sovereignty and independence. And the answers are of course various. On the one hand, there is the realist argument, the real political argument. Many argue that given the international recognition of the Palestinian right to self-determination as stated, why give it up? Many further maintain that in view of the international consensus on the 2C solution, the reality of Israel's power, militarily and economically, the regional configuration of the Abraham Accords, it means that the 2C solution and the Palestinian state is the only option available. This realist, for the realist, the issue is how to reform the Palestinian Authority rather than to destroy the Palestinian state project. To understand this argument though, I argue that it is necessary to explore the political economy of the Palestinian state project. In this respect, the chapter by Adam Hania in this book is very valuable because it goes precisely into the need to understand the political economy of any political project. In this case, the Palestinian state. To understand who stands to gain and lose from such a project, both at the level of the Palestinians, but also regionally and globally. This Palestinian state has been sustained and financed by Palestinians and other capitalists who made their money in the Gulf. It is sustained by an international community, the EU and World Bank who are financing the Palestinian state because the state is unviable. So the sustainability and the future of the state is tied to how this regional and global capital is going to change and is impacted most recently with that. Secondly, I argue the reason why we remain attached to the idea of the Palestinian state is the fact that there is a problem with the quality of sound. Can you do something to improve it? Can you hear me better now? Yes, I think so. I hope everybody heard what I had said before. Well, with some difficulty, but yeah, I think the people managed to hear. Okay, so the reason I argue that we remain attached to the idea of the Palestinian state is that it affirms the Palestinian right to self-determination and thus the political presence in a peace framework that started off negating their very existence as UN Security Council Resolution 242 did. For many, this might sound trivial today, but it was not so in the 1970s when the Palestinians were trying to prove their existence and the national recognition of the Palestinian state, even within the framework of the peace process at the partition, de facto affirms Palestinian right to have rights to paraphrase. This is necessary if not a sufficient step to fulfilling Palestinian right to citizenship, return and equality in a world that is based on sovereignty of the nation states. However, as I explained as many said, such a state did not and could not deliver Palestinian independence. I will share with you this map just to give you an idea for why it's not possible to this is a map of the West Bank over the past 20 years. It shows the settlements. You see, these are all the blue areas that show the settlements within the West Bank. It shows the wall that is being built, the separation barrier, what the Israeli call the separation barrier, what the Palestinians call the apartheid barrier. It shows you the bypass roads that Israel has been trying has been has built. I mean, this area shows you everything in gray is what Israel plans to incorporate into Israel from the West Bank. It's around 10 percent of the West Bank. This is how it expands into the settlements because the settlements will be incorporated within Israel. This area along the Jordan Valley will be demilitarized in any resolution of the Palestinian state, which means it's going to be either under Israeli control or international control, but the Palestinians will not have sovereignty over it. The Palestinian state will be within these orange area that you see here cut across by the red lines, which are the Palestinian roads, roads that Palestinians can use. And the blue lines that you see here, all these blue lines are the roads that the bypass roads that connect the settlements to Israel and which clearly fragment the West Bank into three, what I call three main battle stands for. You have the south, you have Jericho, you have the center and you have the north. And you have all the checkpoints. I'm just highlighting here a few of them, which are these yellow points, which prevent mobility from one area and is totally separated from Gaza. So this state is not a viable state and is just a way by which is sustained by finances in the region and globally that is interested in dissolving the Palestinian question by having a Palestinian state that is neither viable nor sustainable. So this cost of the state, the question becomes why, given that it did not, what does the book also do? It tries to look into some areas where the obsession with the Palestinian state has come at the expense of Palestinian rights. And one of them is, for example, the case of the people in the situation in Jerusalem. There's a chapter by Hani Asari that discusses how the pursuit of Palestinian statehood has led the Palestinian authority to forget about Jerusalem and Jerusalem is being lost demographically from what I would argue politically with great grievances to the Palestinians themselves, which prove their presence and their integrity to the Palestinian state project with the uprising in April. And there's also, of course, the situation of Gaza, the separation of Gaza from the West Bank and the continuation of this separation for the past 15 years aggravates the gravity of the futility of the Palestinian state and shows how much it's coming at the expense of the Palestinian people and is about maintaining power and liberation. So the question becomes then, and I think I'll stop sharing my too many windows going on. So the question then becomes why did this state project fail? And the reasons are quite simple for some, maybe more complicated for others, but it's really basically showed that the state product failed because it was part of a peace process based on partition. And it was really an understanding of sovereignty that acquiesces to ongoing imperial structures of domination and realpolitik, rather than being based on concept of international law and justice, that's to provide some equality. And secondly, the Palestinian project in the West Bank and Gaza failed because it was based on accepting Zionism rather than challenging Zionism. And in that respect, it moved away from the resolution 1514 that declared all form of colonialism a crime. It is a necessity to first decolonize Palestine, rather than simply create a state on top of an ongoing expanding colonial structure as the Austro peace process did. So the question then becomes, should the state be destroyed or rejected? And can the Palestinian cause survive and Palestinian state right protected without having a state? Undoubtedly, the Palestinian cause exists without a state. It has always been a struggle for justice and rights, the right to return and equality, the right to equality. The right of return is where protected by UN resolution 194 as the chapter of Susan Akram in this book explains. And the Palestinian cause concerns those who live outside Palestine as much as those who live inside Palestine, both within Israel or within the West Bank and Gaza. It is a struggle for the indigenous in an alienable right. And the idea that the state is a tool to fulfill these rights is something that got lost some of it. But many people or increasing voices have been starting to argue, forget the state, what we need to do is indigenous form of resistance, and we need to transcend the state. The argument in this book, however, I emphasize that the debate about the Palestinian nation being larger or more important in the state does not solve the problem of how to tackle the ongoing reality of settler colonialism or how to protect the rights of the Palestinians living inside the boundaries of Palestine. The question in my view is not whether the state should be transcended or not, but rather what kind of state or legal political structure is needed to end Palestinian dispossession and decolonize the ongoing apartheid. As I said, a number of times the Palestinian state project in the West Bank and Gaza Strip fulfilled its historical role. Its historical role was not to bring about liberation as many hope. Its role was to affirm Palestinian political existence as a national group with a right to set determination. The problem is how do we proceed from here. And this is what the second part of the book tries to do. It tries to explore the kind of knowledge and power needed to decolonize the present reality, to go outside the partition paradigm or the two-tier solution to try and think what kind of state do we need to establish and what are the challenges we need to confront in trying to establish a different state. As many of you know, there's a lot of discussion about the one-state solution and an ongoing debate about the merit limitation of a one-state solution. Should it be a binational state? Should it be a democratic liberal state? Should we reformulate the PLO slogan of 1971 that called for the establishment of a democratic state inclusive of Jews, Muslims and Christians in Palestine? The book addresses some of the challenges, the historical origin of this debate of the one-state solution, of the unitary solution to Palestine, as well as the challenging basement. But the focus of the book was really to identify the key challenges that need, that we need to confront in any attempt to transform the ongoing one-state apartheid reality into a political structure or a state that ensures the right of Palestinians. In this regard, I focus on formal issues and the book in its various section chapters focuses on these four main issues. The first issue is the need to re-articulate the relationship between the nation and the state. We understand the nation to be a more inclusive term and we understand also nationalism as the quest to create a state that embraces the nation. We need to rethink the relationship between the nation and the state and particularly we need to rethink the role of the state away from a restrictive nation-state model. The state should be a juridical legal order rather than an oppressive hegemonic machine that needs to be accountable to international law. We also need to define the nation in juridical or legal term rather than an ethnic term. The chapter in this book is particularly insightful because it shows us that the international law affirms the existence of a Palestinian nationality but would not accept the notion of a Jewish nationality. Maybe it would accept the concept of an Israeli nationality but then Israeli nationality does not exist today because Israel refuses to consider itself an Israeli nationality because it has to be the Jewish nation for the Jewish state for the Jewish nation. I think seeing that international law has some tools for us to use in order to reclaim the notion of the Palestinian nationality defined in legal terms, civic terms, rather than ethnic terms, can be a very good venue to try and revive a one-state model that is based on international law. I also think there is much debate about the constitutional form of the state and one of the chapters in the book by Mas and Masri also discusses the pros and cons of opting for the one democratic state, a binational state, but all of it emphasizes the importance of having a constitution that is well debated between everybody, an inclusive process maybe along the South African model that tries to create a constitution based on the diversity of the population and the equality of the rights. So this brings us then to a second question because if we want to create a constitution or a constitutional forum that will define the constitutional state, there are important questions that we need to address before being able to come to this point, one of which is of course a question of transitional justice. How will the oppressor and the oppressed live together? We need to tackle issues of historical injustices. We need to tackle issues of national trauma. We need to see how is it that we can talk in a way that does not legitimize the oppressor, but also does not negate their history. And again, I think there is much to be learned from South Africa, but I think the key point is that we need to think of decolonization as meaning more than decolonizing than that. I think decolonization means decolonizing colonial relationship. Decolonization is a process and not an end in itself. It involves internal decolonization, as Fanon reminded us, as well as decolonizing power relationship with the enemy. To decolonize Israel from within through indigeneity is one way by which many people and one chapter at the core concept of indigeneity and how indigenous resistance might be a better way to try to decolonize Palestine and decolonize Israel from within to affirm Palestinian rights. But there is also still a role for international law to play in this regard. And there's also a central role for transitional justice. Thirdly, there's the issue in any attempt to decolonize, and this is where the most difficult question for most Palestinians in my view is that we need to address the question of the right of others. In any attempt to create a single state in Palestine in a one-seat solution under whatever form, whether by national, federal, liberal, democratic, we need to address a question of what are the rights of those who are not Palestinians. This means we need to address the question of Zionism and Israelis. In other words, how to decolonize Israel without depriving Jews of their political rights as equal to Muslims and Christians, or more importantly, as equal citizens irrespective of their ethnicity or religion. This means we still need to deal with issues of history, with national trauma, with transitional justice, and equal rights. This is a very difficult question for Palestinians to address, especially now, especially with the continuous oppression that Palestinians inside 48 live, the Palestinians in the West Bank, Palestinians who are on the streets in Gaza, the denial of Palestinian refugee rights. So it's very difficult for many people to argue how can we talk about the right of others when our rights are not being protected. But I think it's a central question, and it's a question that we can no longer avoid, not only us Palestinians, but also as Arabs in the region. This is a question that pertains to the whole region, not just to the Palestinians. It is present in Syria, in Bahrain, in Iran, in Iraq, just to name a few. Namely, how do we protect the right of others, being, be they Shi'a or Sunni, be they Kurds or Arabs, without denying their history and by creating a new society. This of course then ties with the force dimension that needs to be covered in any attempt to think, how can we get to an alternative to the present reality. And this is the need for a new political will and a new political strategy among Palestinians. In other words, the Palestinians need to move away from the two-tier solution and articulate the model of a one-state solution. How to articulate that is going to be very difficult because the Palestinian representative institutions are weak. The PNA, the Palestinian national authority in the West Bank, represents only the West Bank and doesn't represent anybody about Muabbas and those around them because they have not been holding election. We have a problem that Hamas is not included, being included in a national Palestinian discourse. And more importantly, we have no serious discussion of reviving the PNA. In fact, the latest declaration by Mahmoud Abbas to make the PLO subservient to the Palestinian national authority is very scary and problematic because this means that the Palestinian authority is planning to liquidate the Palestinian question with the creation of pseudo-state in the West Bank. So the Palestinians are facing a number of challenges. How to revive the PLO? Should they revive the PLO and revive the one-state model that the PLO talked about in 1971, one that is more adapted to today's context in other words, provide a one-state model that addresses what are the rights of the others, including their collective and individual rights, and there is no unity among Palestinians over this question, as well as how can this state relate to the whole region. But I think what is clear is an anime attempt to go forward. What we see is that the force or the political community, the Palestinian political community that can lead this discourse for the one-state solution are the Palestinian citizens of Israel. We saw with the unity in DeFada in April the incredible ability of the Palestinian street to be unified in the Palestinian cause. We saw Gaza, West Bank, and inside 48 all unifying and reclaiming Palestinian rights to return and to equality. The Palestinian citizens of Israel are in a particularly and historically important juncture to lead the Palestinian struggle because they're the one who most understand the Israeli society and the one who understand the Palestinian society and who are at the forefront of emphasizing the importance of equality and equal political rights. This doesn't mean that they don't work with other Palestinians, but it does mean that their historical context, the historical juncture they are in puts them in a very good position to take the lead of the Palestinian cause. The way the refugees in the 1970s took the lead of the Palestinian cause or the way the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza took the lead or were the dominant force in the Palestinian national movement in the 1990s. So how can we move forward? I think this book, what it tries to do is put forward the important questions that need to be addressed. It doesn't always answer this question because the point is that we need to have a wide open debate about the difficult questions that we need to address. And I think it just shows that we cannot transcend the state, but we need to redefine its role and limits. It also shows that we need to deal with hard questions that we did not want to deal with forward and which the suicide solution allowed us not to deal with, namely decolonization and the meaning of liberation in the 21st century. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Just six o'clock. You were very sharp in maintaining yourself within 30 minutes as you expected. I remind the audience that the way you can put your comment, questions, and the rest is by using the Q&A device that you have at the bottom of your screen. We'll open the discussion. We have already two questions or three questions, one of them needing to be clarified. And we have a very, very, very good number of participants. We have 130 participants are following this event, so that's excellent. I mean, this is a very interesting book and I warmly recommend the book to anyone interested in the topic, which is dual, I would say, because part of the book shows the limitation of what exists and any kind of solutions within the framework of what exists. And a second part of the book is a kind of blueprint for the future of discussing what alternative, what other futures are possible for the region. So there are two books in one in some way, but they are linked because the first part introduces the second, that is, you start by criticizing the existing, the offered option, the options on the table in order to bring into the discussion new options. So the first to intervene is someone with a special message to you, Layla, because he says special greetings, Professor Layla, from your previous UMass Boston pain in the next student, Majid Birkhunein, and current source politics of these candidates, and now a student of Professor Mata. So he carries on saying, I want to say that I'm still trying to walk before Iran, as you always tell me. Thank you for this thought-provoking talk on your book. The questions comes from my position as an Arab citizen concerning solidarity and activism within the Arab world toward Palestinian self-determination. So the question is, as the Arab state either stand with the dead two-state solution or moves toward normalization, covert relations with Israel, which is the dominant in the news nowadays, what roles can Arab people play toward rethinking the question of statehood and self-determination, especially since we are witnessing a constant rise of authoritarian might against any activism or even mentioning of anything associated with Palestine. So the question is about the role that people in the Arab countries may play. Do you want to proceed question by question? I think that's better, maybe. Is that okay? Thank you, Majid, and it's great to see you, even if I cannot see you. And a very good question, challenging question. Yeah, I mean the role of Arab countries, we are at a very difficult juncture because we still are in the same debate of what is the role of the Arab street versus the Arab government. And I think it's never become so clear how the cleavage between the Arab governments and Arab street, because the Arab governments are bluntly now, especially after the Abraham Accord, saying Israel is the reality we need to deal with, we want to do business with, we can do great business, and this business model is most likely going to expand. So this, but also it shows you something very important, it shows you that authoritarian regimes and colonial regimes ally together. They're not different. So that if you want the massacre all down, and you know that you're dealing with a structure of based on domination on exclusion. So here what comes the role of the Arab street and the Arab streets role becomes in insisting on being anti-normalization in being opposed to these treaties in not cooperating with Israelis. I think that's something very important because as a strategy for the Palestinian BDS, the Boycott Divestment Sanctions remains only tools that everybody is an agreement among the BDS is not a movement, the BDS is a strategic tool, which is very important. And I think it can have an effect and Israel is very much worried about it because it takes away from Israel its legitimacy. Now, I can understand that people in the Arab world might be very scared of opposing their oppressive governments. But I think on the issue of Palestine, although certain Gulf States have become openly pro-Israel, I think they understand that they cannot oppose the grassroot or the popular opposition to Israel. And there is lots to do with that. So I think that's what I would encourage to do lots of work of anti-normalization. And speaking truth to power, just like say the facts, why should we do business with Israel when Israel is not out of the West Bank? Why should we make business with Israel when they are still putting people in prison? Indeed, thank you. And I mean, it has been noted how it's easier for the United Arab Emirates with a very limited population, autonomous population, with a vast majority of migrants to do what they are doing, much easier for them than for the Saudi Kingdom, where you have a massive population. That shows indeed what you're saying about the grassroot or the Arab population's feeling about the issue. The second question is from Halazade. She actually asked two questions, but the second one I asked for clarification because it isn't clear. So we'll deal with the question that is clear. It says, base, well, thank you for your lecture, base on your expertise. Do you think that if the Palestinian question is ever solved in a way that agrees with the majority of Palestinians that it might significantly change the Arab identity? Still back to the question. The Israeli Palestinian conflict has arguably become intrinsic to Palestinian selfhood and the crux of pan-Arabism, especially in regards to Syria and Egypt. What might happen to conflict molded identities in the Levant once the conflict is over? So Palestinian identity being defined in relation to the conflict with Israel, I think also people will have a debate for it. I mean, definitely the enemy that the Palestinians have had for the past 100 years has been Zionists and Israel. And Palestinian attempt to affirm their existence has been uphill battle. I mean, people should very well know that in the 70s and 80s the attempt to eradicate the PLO and finish the PLO was very hard. So I don't think Palestinian identity is just tied to the conflict. It's tied to the land. It's tied to the right to return. It's tied to the question of equality. Palestine is still an issue internationally because it evokes issues of how do you deal with the colonizer and the colonized, how do you achieve justice for all? Now you're raising the issue of what is, how is the Palestinian question today related to the region? And I think that's a very important dimension because the Palestinian question has never been separate from the Arab question. What has the relationship between the Arab and the Palestinian question have ebbed and flowed? So for example, when the lack of a happened in 1948, everybody all the Arab countries said Palestine and the Arab world is one and unique. And there was this argument of Arab unity was going to liberate Palestine. After 67, we had the discourse of Arab unity, but we had the practicality of each state wanting to get the land back that it lost Egypt with Sinai, Jordan, making peace once the Palestinian made peace Syria with the Golan Heights. And by the 1990s, is this true? And I would say both 200, 2000, there is the health has happened within the West Bank Gaza, maybe a narrowing of the identity that we're Palestinians would pose under Israeli oppression. But for many Palestinians who live outside the West Bank Gaza, Palestine is larger than the West Bank Gaza. Palestine is not even the West Bank Gaza. So, and I think the struggle is a struggle for independence. Now what happened is true that after the Arab uprising in 2011, it showed that the Palestinian that the Arab world is as caught in questions of inequality and oppression as Arab state as Palestine. Because if you see the magnitude of what has happened in Syria, one could argue the refugee crisis of Syria is even much bigger than the Palestinian question. What the Syrian refugee and the Palestinian refugees share is they share the outcome of having lived in an oppressive regime that denied them the rights. So it is true now other states have much bigger problems to deal with than Palestine. But Palestine has always been used by states for their own advantages. And also Palestine has always evoked for the Arab citizen this quest for justice, this quest for struggle, for liberation, this courage, how much, how courageous they are that they fight against Israelis when people in Syria could not fight against the regime of people in Syria. So I think what now has become clear is people struggling in the Arab world and Palestine are the same. They are struggling for dignity and equality. If people are much less focused about capturing the state and much more concerned about how to create a state that is accountable to its citizens. So in that aspect, I see something very important. And also I think that there is a less myopic understanding of identity. The identity is much larger than being just a little from a little village in Syria or a little village in Palestine. Identity today, we as Palestinians have multiple identity and ordering this multiple identity is something very important and rich because also that's a way by which we reclaim also the Jews of the Arab world. We reclaim the Shia of the Arab world that they are part of us. They are not, there is not just one entity of how it is to be Palestinian or Arab. So I think we see again, it is one could argue that now Palestine cannot be liberated before Arab countries are liberated. But I look at it more that the two are tied together because it's a struggle of equality. People struggling for the rights versus governments who are oppressing them. Thank you, Layla. The next question is from Mohammed Aisa. In order to achieve the four prerequisites before reaching a state for all people in historic Palestine, would the states that normalize relations with Israel be the leading force for a change? I'm not sure what is meant by the question, but do you want to comment on that? I assume, I assume you're saying do Arab states need to change before we can create a one state in Palestine? If that's what you meant, I mean, yeah, ideally that's it, but I think it's all tied. If you move from a discourse of nationalism to the discourse of of citizen rights, I think there's much scope and opening for people to organize and mobilize. I think that's what's very important to emphasize. I mean, yeah, Arab states are all an agreement that they need to change. I mean, the level of oppression that is in the situation in Lebanon is catastrophic. The situation in Syria is awful. Situation in Iraq are awful. But in all these places, which is a big chaos, there is the two forces, forces of government which are oppressive versus forces of civil society trying to make a living and also trying to negotiate with the state how partial we will be involved or not. But it is not sustainable. I can't think that Syria is sustainable, Iraq is sustainable, even Egypt is sustainable, or even the Gulf. I mean, I look at it that the Arab uprising was the first revolution, if you want, like every revolution there's a counter-revolution, but it's not over. I mean, I can't think the situation in the Middle East would stay as it is for the next 20 years because the demographic, just the demographic explosion, the problem of drought, the problem of you cannot escape the problem of how you're going to create a more inclusive government just in order to run these governments. Yeah, the question might be interpreted in a different way, that is whether the states that have normalized the relation with Israel, can they help in achieving the goal of one state? Can they contribute? I think, yeah, I really think so because they're normalizing the Jews. I think so, paradoxically, that by you normalizing the Jews in the Israelis in Dubai or whatever, you are opening a discussion that was taboo in the past and it can go either way, it can go into, okay, let's normalize, but it also can go, yeah, the Jews are also part of the Arab world, the Jews were a very important part of Iraq, very important part of Egypt. You can play it both ways, so I think this normalization of Jewish presence in the Middle East can allow us to talk more about what is common between us or not, and I think this is an important question. It's a difficult question, but it's an important question because you could say, yeah, what unifies us that we are both part of the region and should have equal rights, or you could say, no, only the rich and the alliances of the rich works and the poor have no place to play. Okay, the next question is by Janine Horani, how does the concept of decolonization differ in Palestine compared to other settler colonies like the United States and Australia, where sovereignty is considered to be a central tenant to decolonization? This is a very good question, yeah, decolonization means sovereignty, but if you look at those who declared colonialism, the UN resolution that I mentioned in 1516, that made, mentioned colonialism as a crime and affirmed the people's right to self-determination and sovereignty. They also envisioned that sovereignty can take various forms, okay, that it requires changing the world order rather than keeping the world order as such. So we need to think of decolonization, sovereignty lies with the people, not just with the state, I think you have to define it like this, and decolonizing Palestine is very different from the context of America and Australia, because of the indigenous people there, largely because Zionism is a settler-coronial project that came too late. It could not eliminate the Palestinian natives, it tried, but it could not eliminate the Palestinian natives, and the reality on the ground is that Israel today in the land, it controls from the river to the sea, it is in control of 6 million Arabs, Palestinians, and 6 million Jews, and the 6 million Palestinians, it now has them under control because it divided them into three areas, those in the Gaza Strip are under a big prison, those in the West Bank have a little bit of rights, have some so-called claim sovereignty, and those inside 48 who have, you know, Israeli citizenship and equality, but are treated as second-rate citizens. But still, this doesn't solve the problem that Israel is controlling, how much the population it has under its control are people without full equal rights. So this is going to come and halt it, and I think this requires to think of sovereignty outside just a confine of a state, you know, like we, you know, you can think of Palestine as being inclusive of, you know, Israelis and Palestinians, and sovereignty lies with everybody who lives in that land. The question then becomes how you're going to create a constitution, and I agree on the constitution, the way South Africa did, like South Africa said, the boundaries of South Africa, the boundaries we know, although they lived in Ban Tustans, okay? The point is that we don't want to live in the Ban Tustans, we want to have the choice to be free anywhere we go, even if we choose to live, it's still in the Ban Tustans. In the Palestine-Israel context, you can say, yeah, West Bank, because we're always living in the West Bank, but in one state, we can move easily and be part of a federal state where we agree on foreign policy and domestic, you know, domestic policy and have our local autonomy. I think that's decolonization. Sovereignty lies with the people, not just with the land, and it is a function of how the people in the land agree on what is equal rights for whom. Thank you. The next question by Nasser Najjar. In my opinion, the answer to the Palestinian crisis lays in the West. Therefore, I have two questions. One, is it possible to start a Palestinian lobby in the West? Two, the West looks after its interest. Unfortunately, moral doesn't have place in politics. Zionism offers Israel an advanced military base in the Middle East, or means offered the United States. What the Palestinian can offer to change the West's position? Okay, first of all, it's not true that there's not a Palestinian lobby whether it is in the UK. Sorry. Yes, you. Sorry about that. No, there is a Palestinian lobby. I mean, if you think about it, today everybody knows who are the Palestinians. 30 years ago, no, I mean, 30 years ago, the Palestinians were still a bunch of terrorists. Today, everybody knows that there's something called Palestinians that has support in Europe for the Palestinian cause. There's condemnation in Europe of Israeli policy. Even in the United States, which had always a very strong Jewish lobby, the Jewish generation, new generation are much more pro-Palestinian than the previous one, and are very much able to make a separation between Jewishness and Israel, and are very much concerned that Israel is violating international law and violating Jewish concept by still occupying the West Bank and Gaza. So, there are cleavages internationally. Now, so that's one thing to say. So everybody knows that Palestinian cause exists and knows that it is a question of injustice. The question is, how does real politic or balance of power consideration allow us to move that in favor of the Palestinians? And that's a tricky question, because right now the international community has bigger problems to think about than actually Palestine. You know, we're busy with Ukraine. The U.S. is concerned with the rise of China. The U.S. is retreating from the region. It's a fact. The U.S. is realistic and aware that the only solution is the one solution, but they don't want to talk about it because that's too complicated. So, I think we are living now in what we call the limbo land, limbo period. We are living in a period of, I think, another 10 years where we don't know exactly what to do. And this means that we have lots of work to do on the ground, work among us as Palestinians to clean our mess, but also work with alliances in the region to help and work on issues of justice and equality and opposing oppressive regimes, because this is an important thing. And internationally to keep the Palestinians alive, it's a question of justice, but it's not, yeah, I'll start with that. Okay, a question by Yara Safadi. My question would be around the solidarity of cultural institutions, film and art with the Palestinian struggle. Do you believe that this can only go through the BDS guidelines of the boycott of Israel? That's a tricky question. It is meant to. That's a tricky question. I think, yeah, you should abide by the BDS, because I think with regards to cultural production, the BDS has not deprived people of being culturally creative and talking about Palestinian cause. And I'm not sure also how much cooperation with the Israeli side can really add to Palestinian or Arab production. I think over the past 20 years, we've seen an incredible explosion of artistic creativity and articulation of politics through art, whether it's through film or photography or architecture, which I think we should capitalize on. I don't see there as an advantage in seeking cultural cooperation with the Israelis. And also within Israel, there's some movement that they are in favor of BDS, if you take groups like Sokrot, who are doing all these memorials for the Nakaba, who are working with the destroyed villages, all that. They are also very artistic and creative. And they are also adhering to the principle of the BDS and that you need to give voices to the Palestinians. Thank you. Next question from Nancy Murray. Your book is so very important. Thank you for assembling such penetrating essays. My question, in your essay in the book, you mentioned that the two-state solution is still favored by the majority of Palestinians in the West. Given power relations on the ground, what will it take to change this and to move towards a process of decolonization? Thank you very much, Nancy, for your kind words and thank you for this very good question. How to change the power relations on the ground? That's what we are all concerned with. What I can say is I think the continuous having things like the unity in Tifada was a clear manifestation of how things can change on the ground. And I think one of the reasons why the Palestinian Authority was clamped down so badly on the Palestinian activists at the Mizar Banat was precisely because it's scared of these Palestinian mobilizations. So I think the way you change power on the ground, you have more than one venue. So inside Palestine, you do it through the activism and the legal work that the Palestinian citizens of Israel are doing through Palestinian resistance on the ground, the new generation which are challenging the Palestinian Authority. I am of the opinion that we need to have new elections and a new platform, which I think is going to happen. And also international solidarity. I don't undermine international solidarity. You know as well how much in the U.S., the discourse around Palestine has shifted over the past 25 years in favor of the Palestinians. Now, one could argue well, okay, it shifted in favor of the Palestinians when American power is diminishing, but I still think it's not negligible. It's quite important that there is a shift in support of the Palestinians. So to decolonize, we decolonize over there, we don't decolonize here, here we support those who are over there. How do we decolonize there is having more work like with people with Zocrot, having more work with people with Badil and all that, having work with, you know, how do we encourage and support people on the ground to remain resilient and create infrastructure of support for one another. And I think there's still going, a lot of going on. What we're missing the Palestinians, us as Palestinians, is a political strategy. And the reason why we're missing political strategy is because the Palestinians do not know how to deal with the Palestinian Authority. Because there's the fear of a civil war. On the one hand, as much as the realization of the Palestinian Authority lost legitimacy, people are so scared of, you know, a state of nature, hubs, if the Palestinian Authority goes and the Palestinian Authority is capitalizing on this. So I think we're going to have a process of some few hard years ahead. But decolonization starts by reclaiming control over the land and unifying the people for a progressive agenda. That's how I see it. Thank you. Next question, Iris Michou. Thank you very much for your insight and excellent lecture. The lack of acknowledgement around Zionism and settler colonialism scenes ever present in political discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at least here in the U.S. So probably someone writing from the U.S. How do you see the contributions from the U.S. as mediator and others impeding or supporting solutions considering that the U.S. itself is built on settler colonialism? And thereby, how can it be an effective mediator or support decolonization? How can this international denial or minimization around settler colonialism be overcome on the political front? Is it possible to find a solution without the explicit acknowledgement? Yeah, it's power. I mean, you know, you forget. I mean, as you know, settler colonialism was that the term we used to explain Palestine up until 1993. Everybody talked about the settler colonialism. The 1960s and 70s were always struggling against colonialism globally, right? I think what happened with the discourse of settler colonialism, it was put in penances or avoided during the Austo-Pistols because we thought we're going to have this peace. And once we realized that and everybody realized that the Austo-Pistols did not bring about a viable to solution or a Palestinian state, the discourse of colonization came back again. Now, how does the U.S. So I think it's important to maintain it. And I think it has resonance. It has resonance much more than we think among the average person because people see it that it is colonization. Now, do we need the U.S. to acknowledge it as colonization? I don't think I mean, I think it's a power relationship that U.S. knows that it's colonization and knows that it is very, you know, the question for the U.S. is what is strategic interest in the region or not? And for me, what is clear, the fact that the U.S. wanted to have this nuclear deal with Iran is a way by which the U.S. is trying to contain Israel's power. I mean, the reason why Israel is so angry at this day because right now in the region, the three powerful countries are Iran, Turkey and Israel. And in the U.S., given that its policy now is to retreat from the region because there must be problems to deal with, I think what it's trying to do is try to create a balance of power in the region. And the balance of power is between Iran and Israel and Turkey because it doesn't want any of those three to be more powerful than the others. So that tells you already that there's a shift happening. How can we move from this shift to our advantage? That's a challenging question because many people know that the Iranian regime is not much better than Israel in certain aspects. It might be pro-Palestinian, but it's still authoritarian. But in any international relation or any conflict, you need to understand what are the power dynamics and the power dynamics in the region are changing a bit. So the question is how we as Palestinians or we as compressive forces are going to use it to our advantage. What is clear is that with the Palestinian Authority, it's not going to use to our advantage. What is clear among us Palestinians, we need a new strategy. But again, don't forget that in 1948 when the Nekba happened, Israel thought there is no Palestinian question. It was over. The whole discourse of the 1950s and 60s, liberation is going to happen to Arab world. Neksa happened in 1967. Nobody heard of Fatah. And then you have 68 and you have the Karabi battle. And within just six years, people forget within six years just because it was a right international junction from 68 to 74. The PLO moved from being a terrorist organization to being invited to the United Nations to speak on behalf of the Palestinian and is admitted into the United Nations as a non-member, like the Vatican. It's an incredible success that happens only in six years. But it happens because it was at the right junction. We were at the junction of anti-colonial struggle worldwide. We were at the rise of the global south, what we call the third world, you know, the United Nations declared Zionism to be a racism. So it's the junction that we need to be now. I think we are in different, again, we are heading towards a new junction that can be missing. I mean, we have been in a very low sense that the failure or the oppression against the Arab uprising. But I do think that things are changing because of this course of the new generation is changing. They're no longer obsessed with Arab unity. They're much more obsessed about equality and accuracy. And I think that gives a new form of organization. And this echoes with the US. But in regard to the US as solving the Arab Israeli conflict, this is not on its mind. Because also the region made it easier. I mean, the Abraham Accord made it, why should we care about Palestine and Israel? So the US can, Israel wants to manage the problem. And Israel is managing the problem. And the US position is, okay, keep it managed. I don't want too much fuss. And this is very much real political situation. Yeah, Leila, the question could also be read about how, how can the United States, which is a settler colonial society generally, be kind of honest broker in the issue of Palestine. And beyond that, maybe the acknowledgement, the term acknowledgement refers to this acknowledgement of the settler colonial nature. But then, is there anyone who denies that the United States is a settler colonial society? So that's the big difference with Israel. And maybe you could give a little comment. Yeah, I see the United States knows that is settler colonial. For the Zionists, they claim, for them, Zionism is not settler colonialism. The progressive Zionists, they would come as far as say, okay, it is not only settler colonialism. There is more to Israel than just being settler colonialism, because it's the haven, the safe haven for all the Jews after the Holocaust and after the problem of anti-Semitism. This is true. This is very important. But this is also why it makes the option for a one-state solution in Palestine complicated, but also easier. Because if you accept that Zionism is not just settler colonialism, but also about creating a safe haven, then you can find a way to deal with it. Now, as regards to the role of the US, can the US be an honest broker? I don't believe in politics and politics as honest brokers. There's power. The US has been, during the Cold War has tried to, I mean, we forget the US has been central to the resolution 194 in 1948. It's the US that made it pass. But it's also the same United Nations power that voted for 242, which denies the interests of the Palestinians. It's all a function of where the interest of the superpower is. What I see is that the US is a declining superpower. And I think that all of the US in trying to solve this conflict, I mean, I don't see how much, I mean, they tried really hard. But if somebody doesn't want to put a hold to Israel's power, you cannot solve this problem. This Israel problem cannot be halted without holding Israel accountable. And you're only going to hold Israel accountable if there is a gain. In South Africa there was a gain because the boycotts really worked for very long and they started much longer. It actually has been, and there was also a black community in the United States that was very effective in mobilizing for South Africa. So we need to wait for the right juncture, just as the right juncture allowed us to declare the state in 1988 or the First Intifada. So I hope this, I mean, you want me to firm, I mean, I don't believe in honest focus or not. I believe in how one power can make itself necessary or not. The Palestinians are in a bad situation today, as bad as 1948. But I also know in 1948, 20 years after that, something really big came out of it. And when I go there and I see people that I know something is cooking, we still do not know what it is. But I always say people accept oppression if they eat, but you don't accept oppression if you also don't. Okay, thank you, Leila. The next question is by Jonathan Adler, who apologizes for the length of the question. Well, it's not very long. I wanted to ask if Professor Farsak might address the seemingly large distance between the one state proposals that the authors, the authors discuss and the political beliefs of most Palestinians. As Professor recognizes in her article, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza still remain keen on their own state, albeit one that would extend over just part of Palestine, despite the current reality of apartheid. Most advocates of a one state solution are found among Palestinians in the diaspora and Palestinian citizens of Israel, but here too, they do not constitute a majority. A 2017 survey, Maha Nassar notes in her article, defines support among Palestinian citizens for a one state solution, but the two state options remain the most popular at 83%. And in the recent past, some of the most vocal advocates of binationalism among Palestinian citizens also call for partition, a democratic binational state that guarantees full equality between Arabs and Jews within the green line with an independent Palestinian state in the occupied territories. In this slide, does the unity in Tifada potentially offer a new direction for shared struggle across geographical and political fragmentation? That's a very good question, a long question. Yeah, I think the unity in Tifada is very important because it did show that there is a popular that despite this fragmentation, despite this belief in the two state solution, there is an agreement on the core issues of the Palestinian issue and the core issues is the question of land and rights. Now, you ask a very important question like all the Palestinian thing that two state solution is the only solution. And yeah, I made surveys in Palestine, and but they come to it from a position, from a defeatist position, that this is a realist position if you want. Everybody says, well, yeah, the solution is the best we can get. This is why we have still the support for it. It's not ideal, but it's the best we can get because Israel will never accept anything else. Well, of course, Israel will never accept anything else. But this is not the point of Israel accepting anything else. The question is, how do we improve what we have to get a one state? And I think it is the tension between realpolitik versus what is right. And can you turn what is right into politically viable option? For me, the realpolitik is that we have now 12 million people living between the river and the sea. Six of them are Jews with equal rights, and six of them are Palestinians with truncated rights. The Palestinians are growing faster than the Israelis. In 20 years time, what are you going to do? How are you going to deal with the rights of these people? How are you going to keep them fragmented in this way? You know, people from if you read South Africa, the banter stands survive 30 years. You know, and people are as happy in the banter stands as people on the West Bank. Some of them are. But there's only so much you can deliver because it's not viable, viable economically and viable politically. So I think Palestinians who are against the one state usually they come to it because they think it's not realistic. And what I'm trying to say in this book and other is that you can make it realistic because the demographic reality on the ground and the regional changes shows you that people are having in this course of rights, which is about holding the state accountable rather than just attached to any ideology of nationalism or pan Arabism or identity politics. So I think that that is where we can see an angle and we are in this course of rights. And in American understand that, you know, people should not be oppressed. It's as simple as that. So how you, you know, they're going to say people should not be oppressed by the P.A. just as I should not be oppressed by Israel. The question is how you're going to enable them to organize effectively. And this is a difficult question. But that if you see every Palestinian is in favor of a one state solution, they just think it's not viable. This is why they don't indulge in it. And I also think they don't indulge in it because it does pose a very difficult question, which is the question that we need to deal with Zionism. The advantage of the two state solution is that you don't deal with Zionism. It is there beyond the green line. We don't need to talk about the Jewish rights or Zionist right or whatever. And we live here. It's not fair, but we wait until we're powerful enough. And then even if it's in 100 years and we're going to conquer by the time all the argument is Israel is a crusade state is going to collapse at one point. Okay, these arguments are, in my view, defeatist and not playlist because there's the ethical question. What do you do with injustice? You keep quiet? Or do you do something about it? And what are the right? Can I live alone? Or do I need to live with others? And how do I live with others on an equal basis? These are the difficult questions. But that is true. We as Palestinians now we're much more concerned with it among us because we need to solve the problem with Hamas and before coming and talking about Jewish rights in a future state. But it doesn't mean that it's not happening. Thank you. The next question is by our Sawas colleague, Yair Wallach, who asked, in this transition to a one state struggle, who that is which Palestinian body has the legitimacy and agency to make this decision and argue for it, given that all organized forms of Palestinian politics, whether in the best bank or Gaza inside Israel, currently work within a two state paradigm. Yeah, I think that the Palestinian constituents who are best placed to lead the one state movement are the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Now, the official discourse of the Palestinian citizens of Israel is that, you know, if you took what they say in the parliament in Knesset, is that their support of a two state solution because a two state solution is the international consensus on the conflict. But this doesn't mean that they cannot change their mind. I mean, I think your question is, I think they are the best placed to lead this movement. But what needs to happen is a Palestinian discussion. You need to revive the PLO or create something different than the PLO where you can have discussion of Palestinians. Like it happened in the, you know, people forget that in the 1970s, Palestinians were also not in the West Bank or Gaza and they still met and it was the era pre-zoom and pre-internet, but still met and still discussed and still took decisions. And, you know, Palestinian National Council met regularly, believe it or not, which now has been 15 years has met. So I think, yeah, it's tied with how you're going to revive the PLO. Who's going to revive the PLO or are you going to create something alternative to the PLO? But what is clear for me, the liberation with Palestinians is going to happen from within Palestine. It cannot happen from outside. Because there's the constitutional mass of Palestinians and there's also the reality of confronting the occupation continuously. And the realism about, oh, the discovery of how can we deal best with it. But it's not easy. I mean, I'm not saying that it's easy, but I do think, you know, I always like to use this example, you know, people in the 1970s and 80s, it was blasphemous for any Palestinian and Zilber will verify it and also any Arab to talk about a two-state solution. Everybody was convinced the only solution is the one state. And I always say, Arafat needed to prepare his population for 14 years that the only options available for us as a two-state solution. Now we are at the junction that we tried the two-state solution and it failed. I mean, I think it's the failure of Zionism and sustainability of Zionism that did not make the two-state solution succeed. Now that we tried the two-state solution and it failed, the only option is the one state. Now, of course, the fact that we know that the one state is the only morally acceptable solution doesn't mean it's going to happen tomorrow. But it is important that we know at least what we want before we decide how we're going to get there. And I think any person talking about two-state solution talks from it from a defeatist or a realist position rather than from an ethical animal or revisionary. Zilber, I'm just cognizant of the time, so I mean, I don't know if you want to read something. Yeah, precisely. That is what I was going to say. Since we still have a few questions, I suggest that I read them to you all. You take notes and then you wrap up. You conclude. And of course, we can't take any further questions. And while I'm talking, someone added one, what we'll see. There is, and I'll maybe summarize a few questions, like there is one which is about your policy advice for the PLO in regard of decolonializing. I mean, the question to be frank is not clear. There is one by Julio Moreno. Thank you for this. You mentioned BDS as a practical strategy in regards to the idea of decolonizing the nation state. Can you mention any practical steps towards decolonizing the nation state? Sadia Nawaz asks, how can the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza bring their counter narrative to the forefront to challenge the master narrative disposed by the Israelis? Mayat Abid. Okay, she's saying hello. Yuri Zwalin asks, is South Africa an example or model how to function in this way without coming in the same dead ends as today's South Africa? And again, the same as Palestine, the first place to change our whole world understanding of nation state or will it come at the end at its expense? Zoe Olsen Groom asks, how do we counter attempt, how do we counter attempts to delegitimize the BDS and wider Palestinian solidarity movement? Antonia Baume says, thank you for your excellent lecture. Have you heard about the proposal for a confederation developed by Palestinians and Israelis together in Palestine? If so, what do you think about it? Layla Hilal, this is a follow up question to the question about Palestinians elections. Can you elaborate what you mean by a new platform that you foresee on the horizon? What does it look like? Rob Ball is asking with the comments debating recognition of Palestinian state this week, could you give your support to this? I see it as a necessary stage and people must then learn that a fair two state solution is not on offer. Karen Howell asks, is there any way forward with the Palestinian Authority? This seems to be the first hurdle for many Palestinians. And the final question that will be the last question for this evening and you'll have something like 10 minutes to discuss all this. You say Palestinians in 48 are the group to lead movement for the movement for one state. But what importance still lies in the growth of the Palestinian support in the USA? The floor is yours. These are very good questions and a lot of questions. So thank you very much for this active engagement by the community, by the audience. I'll start with the decolonizing the nation state. You start decolonizing the nation state by saying that the state does not belong just to one nation. The state belongs to all the citizens living in it. When you separate ethnic rights or religious rights, you don't privilege them. I think that decolonizing the state means taking away privilege. Privilege according to ethnicity, privilege according to nationality, privilege according to class, is emphasizing that the state is a radical structure, which role is to defend protected people's rights. So that's how I see it. Now, the idea about the confederation or about the Palestinian state being one stage, one step. Yeah, I think that's what I also said in my book and in my presentation. The idea of a Palestinian state has proven also historically to happen in a necessary step. The problem is that we thought the Palestinian state will deliver liberation, but it could not deliver liberation because it happened in the context of partition and colonization. If the Austo peace process was negotiated differently, if the peace process said Israel retreats from the West Bank and Gaza and has nothing to do with the Palestinians and doesn't build settlement, it would have been a completely different outcome. Because I really think that the solution could have worked, but Israel was not interested because Israel also had a crisis within itself is, is this a slippery slope for us? Or is this the best option for us? The fact that Rabin was killed is a precise way in which many Israelis were against the idea of making any compromise with the Palestinians. But so that the Tuesday solution has been a necessary step to prove Palestinian political presence and to emphasize the rights and everybody today knows about Palestinian rights. And the fact that the common is the Palestinians state is actually a very good point. The problem is not this. The problem is the notion of a Palestinian state is right. Then physically it's not existing because Israel is not allowed. So how do you proceed? Do you go towards the confederation as somebody's just proposed? Yeah, this is an idea which is now being proposed, which is not a bad idea. And I think maybe, you know, I don't think Israel would accept it, but the confederation is definitely a step towards the one state solution, because what is the one state solution? Is this one state that says everybody in the states has equal rights? Are you going to make it like Belgium, the Flemish and the French have their own educational system, police, local taxes? Why are you making it a United States or a British system? That's really what that debate is about. And this is not a minor debate, it's a very tricky debate, but it's a very important debate. We are working now in this time where we achieved recognition and recognizing a Palestinian state is good, but a Palestinian state does not live in liberation because Israel does not want the Palestinian to be independent. How do you deal with that? The way you deal with that is not going and either you force Israel to retreat and do nothing, do, you know, leave the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel does not do and not will settle, which Israel does not do or liberate Gaza, which Israel is not doing. Or you force Israel to say, you know, you have to do something, but Israel is not going to do anything if it doesn't see there is resistance. So the only two the Palestinians have are resistance in Palestine in their various constituents and also abroad. And the international solidarity is very important. So here I come to the South African. I know South African has been getting a very bad name lately. I had liberation, but what kind of liberation? There's so much economic inequality. I still do think that the South African model is a very important model because it was based at first you achieve political equality because it's impossible to achieve economic equality before you have political equality. It's not the idea, but you go to South African, people tell you, I'd rather have the South Africa today than the South Africa I had 30 years ago. So we should not, you know, of course, South Africa could have been done better, but this is again the realism and economic dynamic, how the political economy matters. Like I can tell you, our future will be very different the day that we we're going to shift away from petrol dollars. It's going to be very different from a climate is going to cause for us climate change is going to cause for us and some serious problem that is going to change completely our political systems anywhere we are. So I am not very much against the South African movement. I think it would be there's much to learn from it because now we see what they did. And the South African are very much invested in the question and I think are the strongest supporters. So, you know, to summarize, I think these are very all very good questions. I think the Palestine question is not that the Palestine question is alive and kicking like never before. What is frustrating many people is that everybody knows Palestinian rights and yet Palestinian rights are not being fulfilled and they're not being fulfilled because the powers are not putting the effort that they need to make it work. And the reason why they're not doing it is because, you know, either it's not important enough. Okay. And also because of how the Arab street and the Arab region changed completely and is for Israel because right now the Arab regimes are much more focused on their survival. We have been always concerned about their survival. But before their survival demanded that they show a pro-Palestine position. Now their survival according to some implies that they need to have alliances with Israel versus Iran. But this does not change the problem that domestically who is having right and who is not having right and who is eating is not eating. And so long we need what needs to happen is solidarity that people's struggle for freedom are unified are not fragmented. And it is the power for who's going to try to say, you know, a problem is different from the West Bank. West Bankers, you really want to come like Gaza because I can make you like Gaza. So the West Bank is no, no, no will be much better behave. But in the end, you know, two wrongs do not make it right. So I'll stop at that. So I'm sorry if I could ask all your questions, but I very much touched by all these questions. And I thank you. Thank you very much, Leila. Yes. And you are more than excused because you are very kind in granting you this time just before lecture. So that's really heroic. Thank you very much. That was a great session. And we hope to have you again for many more sessions. All the best. Thank you Leila, that was great. Thank you to Aki and Dina and everyone. Yeah, thank you Dina and Aki. Thank you very much. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.