The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - "An Agenda Dressed Up in Violins?" - Debating Peter Beinart on the Right of Return and Other Matters

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro - four nice things about Peter Beinart 4:50 Will God punish Israel? Jeremiah, tradition, and belief 13:20 The critical-mass hypothetical: a 49% Hasidic America 22:03 Quebec, Czechoslovakia, South Africa - why not divorce? 41:35 The right of return: "You can cherry-pick anything" 54:24 1948: They were closer to the Holocaust than we are to COVID 63:40 Day one of a one-state solution: the list 79:53 "An agenda dressed up in violins" Claude Says: Peter Beinart - editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, New York Times opinion writer, and author of "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza" - joins Noam Dworman and Dan Naturman for an honest, occasionally heated conversation about the questions underneath the Israel-Palestine debate. Does Jewish tradition teach that Israel's survival depends on its ethics - and does Beinart, an observant Jew, mean that literally? Is there such a thing as demographic critical mass? Why is secession the answer everywhere from Quebec to Czechoslovakia, but one shared state the answer here? Is the Palestinian right of return a sacred principle, a practical question, or - as Noam puts it - "an agenda dressed up in violins"? Plus: South Africa and Mandela, Iran, the Olmert-Abbas offers, what Benny Morris actually wrote about 1948, Robert Jackson's "suicide pact," and what day one of a one-state solution would look like for a gay couple in Tel Aviv. Two people who disagree about almost everything - except the settlements - actually talk to each other. Peter's book: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza https://bit.ly/4ygbHH8 Peter's Substack: The Beinart Notebook https://peterbeinart.substack.com/

Dan Nadervin here with Noam Gorman, owner of the world famous comedy seller. We are coming at you remotely via Zoom, and we have with us our special guest, Peter Bynar, Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the Vumark School of Journalism at the City University of New York, contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, editor at large of Jewish currents. His fourth book, being Jewish after the destruction of Gaza, was published in 2025 and won the P.E.N. John Kenneth Galbraith Award for nonfiction. and he is also, we're all remote today. Noam is at his, is that his summer home in Maine. I am at my winter and summer home in Manhattan, and Peter's coming at us from wherever he's coming from.

And welcome. Welcome, Peter Beinart. It's been a long time coming. Okay, I want to say a few nice things about Peter Beinart at the top. First of all, I wrote them down. First of all, and Dan, you'll be interested in this. Peter was an early adopter of the comedian Modi. Long before Modi became a huge comedian in the world,

Jewish comedy world, a regular comedy world. Peter was a fan of Modi. I know this from some personal dealings. And you called that one correctly. Number two, you had a long interview with Coleman Hughes, and afterwards, he thought the world of you. I can tell you as a friend of Coleman, and he spoke extremely nicely about you,

and I trust his instincts on things. He had a very high regard for your vibe, even though you guys don't agree. Number three, to my chagrin, about 12 years ago, you had a debate with Alan Dershowitz, and although I wanted to say that Dershowitz wiped the floor with you, I had to admit. And I admitted it to our mutual friend, Fred Kaplan, at the time, that I thought you bested Dershowitz in that Israel debate.

I don't know if you remember the one or if there was only one. I don't know. But I would tell people they should go back and look at that. And number four, this is the most important. You know, and of course we don't agree on a lot, and we're going to talk about that. But I think I used to hear you say, and I used to kind of roll my eyes. They say, I'm criticizing Israel because I want Israel to be better. I'm saying this stuff for Israel's benefit.

And I, you know, I said, yeah, sure. But now that I become personally so pessimistic about Israel's kind of trajectory as a pariah state in the world and the repercussions that I think are likely to juice throughout the world, I have to be honest. And in saying, and Dan, and listeners know this, that I've been forcing myself to reconsider some past opinions in a new light, a more realistic life, a more practical light. I don't know what you want to call it. So I don't roll my eyes at that point of view as I once did.

So even though I never said that to you, I have to now retract it, you know, as a matter of honor. And so let me say, and, you know, this debate, I'm so fatigued of this topic, so fatigue of getting into fights with people that I and I'm sure we will fight but I I really I've been following you over the years and I've made certain notes to myself like someday I want to ask him this someday I want to ask him that so let me start with something that I underlined and I brought up here in my Kindle from your book the crisis of Zionism this is way back like 10 years ago that came out uh 2012 yeah it's important 10 years and and so this is this highlight here this is a wonderful thing about Kindle. This is from 2012 or 2013. And by the way, this is the context that I

highlighted this. I want to check it. You are an observant Jew when you go to an Orthodox temple, correct? I do try to be an observant Jew. I don't always succeed, but I try to be an observant Jew. And I go to a synagogue, which has a Michita. So I think by the standards of many people that would consider, again, these questions can be contested. but I think it would be considered an orthodox synagogue. Also, Noam, please note that behind Peter are books that, though I can't read, they seem like the Talmud or something behind you. I'm doing something called Daph Yomi, so it means a page of Talmud a day. It started at beginning of January 2020.

The cycle will end in the next summer. So this has been accumulating masectote of the Talmud as I go through. Yeah, well, it's a multivaluble. series behind you. Yeah, but Dan, anybody can put a Zoom. Anybody could put a Zoom background in this day. Anyway, that's true. That's true.

So I'm going to read, and it's a little bit long, but I think it needs to be long. And this is what I underlined. Accepting that the Jewish condition has fundamentally changed requires looking at our tradition for guidance about how Jews should treat the people we rule, not just how we should endure treatment from the people who rule us. That guidance will not always be comfortable. Jewish tradition offers no simple lesson for how to wield power, and the lessons it does teach can sometimes be hard for modern liberals to stomach.

But it is striking that when describing the previous two times that Jewish sovereignty failed, the Kingdom of Judah's destruction by the Babylonian Empire around 5586 BCE and the Hasmonian dynasty's destruction by the Romans more than 500 years later, our tradition insists that physical collapse was preceded by ethical collapse. Again and again, Jewish texts connect the Jewish right of sovereignty in the land of Israel to Jewish behavior in the land of Israel. In the words of Jeremiah, quote, if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt. Then will I cause you to dwell in this place in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever. And my question, you know, let me finish it to be fair to you because you said something very interesting, then I'll go back. My question regards that, but I just want to the next paragraph

you should take some credit for. Today, too, Israel's physical survival is bound up with its ethical survival, whether or not Israel's nuclear weapons and anti-missile shields can protect it from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. They will be of no use on the day that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians march non-violently, all right, that didn't have it, to demand the very equality of social and political rights that Israel promises in its Declaration of Independence. And if American Jewish leaders continue to defend the Israeli government at the expense of Israeli democracy, they may find their own children and grandchildren cheering those protesters on, which they have.

But that's not my question. My question is, when you said that about Jeremiah, was there a question? subtext there that as a religious person that you believe that God has taken an interest in this and that if Israel does not clean up its act as it were that the heavens may punish Israel and take away its sovereignty. Is that what you meant? No, I mean, I can't, I could never claim to know the mind of God in any way, nor to, so that would be a step. too far. I think I'm only looking at what our sacred texts say about the Jewish past and trying to infer certain principles and other people can infer completely different principles.

I do believe God acts in the world, but I don't believe that I have any access to how God acts. So, okay, because I mean, just to push you on it, because I find this fascinating, not just with you, with religious people in general. If you are observant, meaning that you don't just study this as a matter of deep wisdom and logic, but you believe there's a supernatural element to it that warrants actually going and praying,

and that this is a lesson, and you bring it to bear in the introduction of your book as kind of a warning, am I wrong to say them be in some way, at least you think it's possible that we're getting on the wrong side of God, that Israel's getting on the wrong side of God here? I mean, it's possible to the extent that I think that that's the way,

that as I may, that I think Jewish tradition as I read it, and again, there are many people who are more deeply expert to me, but Jewish tradition as I read it when it looks at Jewish cataclysms, most, you know, kind of famously, the destruction of the two temples. It tends to put the emphasis on, Jewish sinfulness, often to a degree that's actually frankly really uncomfortable to me and to people today. But I do think that is the emphasis of Jewish tradition, is to ask Jews to look inward at what sins we may have committed and then to think about God in responding. Again,

that doesn't mean in any way that I have any idea what God holds in store for the Jewish people or the world. I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't, I wasn't able to predict who would win the soccer game that just finished. I can't predict anything in the future with any certainty. But I do think that when I look backwards at our tradition, I do notice that dynamic. So it's a worry, correct? It's a, it's a worry. Yeah. I do worry that, and look, I think that I don't know, you know, I'm pretty not, I'm not in the same place as Rahm Emanuel politically in a lot of ways, but I think that that was kind of the message that Rahm Emanuel gave to Israel. I mean, you know, he went there and he basically

said, listen, your army's great, your technology is great, but this international isolation is going to be a very, very serious threat to your capacities to survive as a country. And there have been a lot of people. I mean, I'm only one of tons of them, but including Israelis. I mean, a lot of Israelis of the kind of center left or left have been saying this for decades. Now, I don't think that, you know, it's only now that I think we're beginning to start to see that sense of kind of isolation, really.

really gather steam because of the shift in the United States. Yeah. The final thing that just interested me about this, and I hope you appreciate that, you know, I'm taking an interest as kind of sleuthing the way you might with somebody else, is that you use the word tradition rather than the religion, but then you quote the religion. To me, tradition is what people who are not religious will say,

well, that's our tradition. You know, I believe in the traditions. I don't believe in the mumbo-jumbo. I don't believe in God. I don't believe the word of God is actually holy. You know, I guess the way I think about it, and this will be controversial, is that I don't think Jewishness, meaning, is particularly sustainable without Judaism. For me, when I think about tradition, it's true. There's lots of other stuff that becomes part of Jewish tradition. But to me, the beating heart is Torah. And I personally am very passionate.

pessimistic about the possibility of an enduring Jewishness without Judaism. That's a very, that's not, you know, there are lots of people who share my politics who would completely disagree with that. But when I think about tradition, I think about it as Torah at its core. But you can have Judaism without belief in God. People have Passover satyrs that really don't believe any of it. I fast on Yom Kippur and I'm not really a believer, but I do it. I don't know how many generations that can be sustained, but that's a it's a super interesting question.

You know, Judaism, and again, I want to make it clear, there are a thousand people you could have on this podcast, a million more knowledgeable about Judaism than me. But the way I read our tradition, what Judaism emphasizes is action. It's action, it's fidelity to the law. It's following the law. Belief as belief, pure belief, I think, is something that I think is less important in Judaism than it is in. Christianity, certain Protestant Christianity. So if you are doing the Mitzvote, as many Mitzvot as possible, I think that's more important in terms of your relationship to Judaism than when you say, in the abstract, do I believe in God? All right. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to score it

for myself, but I think I'm slightly onto something there. Anyway, may well be. So many of the arguments that I'm going to make to where I differ with you, come down to practical. matters. So let me set it up. And forgive me if I'm a little disjointed. I tried to make notes. There's so much I want to ask you about. I believe very much that there's a concept of critical mass, which has to be brought to bear in issues of human relations and human politics. I don't give me an example. Tell me if you agree or disagree. America, with a few hundred thousand Hasidic Jews is wonderful. It's America is benefits from them is it's diverse, it's rich, and all around America operates very well with some small number of Hasidic Jews. If America were to

become 49% Hasidic and 51% non, we would enter a kind of political hellscape in America that would be predictable. And if America were to become 51% Hasidic and 49% non, then it would be even more a daunting proposition for America. Do you agree in general with this kind of analysis that, you know, this is kind of similar to our immigration debate? Very few people are at zero or 100. Everybody's just saying, you know, what's too much, what's enough? Let's not pretend that different levels don't create different realities. and the realities are somewhat predictable. Nothing's perfectly predictable.

So do you agree with that? I think that, you know, that cultural and demographic change can produce a very, very powerful backlash. We're seeing it in the United States now. We saw it in the United States in the early 20th century when Catholics and Jews came

and fundamentally transformed what was a white Protestant, northern European country among white people, particularly. But I think that how that plays itself out is not, I'm not as deterministic as you are. I think a lot of it really depends on what's the story of the nation that takes hold.

And the story of the nation of the United States has been able to change radically in order to respond to wrap massive demographic change and to expand the notion of Americanness. And so I'm, I'm not, I think I'm not as pessimistic as you are about the idea of their, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, I'm in the ability of people, if they believe in the core principles of a nation to actually, to hold together and actually for the nation to become much stronger, even if there's more diversity of religion, race, et cetera. I know, I, I, I, maybe I didn't ask question. My question is, is more about whether or not you agree with the concept.

that, as I said, critical mass, that amounts matter. Like even in Israel, they're suffering. As the religious population grows, this is causing reverberations. And, you know, in the Arab-Israeli conflict, as we contemplate talking later on about what a one-state solution, a two-state solution, the idea that you can introduce any amount of people to any amount of people, and it's all the same as, you know, you know like you've said and i'll let you answer you know well the two million arabs in israel you know this gets a lot this they get along pretty well and and i'm like but yes but what if what if there was an equal number of arabs the same very same people i don't mean like bad arab

like the very same disposed arabs but who didn't understand well we are an extreme minority here or you know extremes wrong we're we are a permanent minority here and we can't really pretend that we're going to start throwing our weight around. But if we can get to 48%, 49%, 51%, then obviously we can, sky's the limit. And that's why, you know, I chose the Hossids because I don't want to live in it.

It's obvious to me what it would mean to live in a country that was 48% or 51% Hasidic. We all know what that would mean. It's not the country you want to live in. And so I'm just saying, do you accept the notion of a critical mass that has to be, as a practical matter contended with. I mean, I think it depends a lot on the circumstances

under what conditions people are living alongside one or other. So when it comes to Israel-Palestine today, I see that there is one state between the river and the sea. It's more than 50% Palestinian, and most of the Palestinians don't have citizenship. And I think that's a more dangerous set of conditions for everybody than this deeply divided place, in which everyone lives equally under the law.

I think that there are, I think you can see under conditions of legal equality, I think countries can sustain deep, deep divisions of race, religion, and other things, in part, and I think it's important, in part because that equality under the law makes people's identities more mobile. One of the reasons I think that you might have chosen Hasidic Jews is we think of Hasidic Jews

as basically their identities never change. But if you think about Catholic Americans, for instance, who were considered an existential threat to the United States, what it meant to be Catholic in the United States was different in 1980 than it was in 1920. And when I think about an equal Israel-Palestine, I think that the political significance of being Palestinian or Jewish can change over time. I think under equality under the law, politics would not remain binary. I always remember this image. They were doing this Jerusalem. Pride Day, this Pride Day parade in Jerusalem, right? And they had the chief rabbi, the patriarch, and the Imam all joined a joint press conference because they didn't want a gay pride parade in Jerusalem.

Now what was that? Those were people who were coming together because they had identities different than Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim Christian, that brought them together. And I think under equality under the law, Jewish and Palestinian stopped being the only access of politics, which is why I think this can work more than you. better than I think you think it would work. So you, so, and then I got the next thing, then let Dan, so you, you, part of what you gird or you, you rely on for your worldview here is that you think that the extreme

religious and extreme cultural points of view, anti-gay, you know, on both sides, will dissipate and, and, and, no, no, I don't think. they'll dissipate, my point is they can be cross-cutting kind of forms of identity. So we already saw this with Palestinian citizens of Israel. One of the reasons that the joint list broke apart, and Mansour Abbas and Rahm, the Islamist party, moved away and joined Naftali Bennett's government a few years ago was because of divide on the role of women and LGBT issues. My point is that under conditions of political equality, Jewish trades unions people and Palestinians could form a party. Jewish business leaders and Palestinians who all want to exploit their workers together,

right? It's like, you know, the Woody Allen has that line. He says, I won two weeks in interfaith camp where I was sadistically beaten by boys of all races and creeds, right? Like, this is, I imagine, politics where it's not that religion will dissipate. It's that Jews and Palestinians who are religious might bind together and Jews and Palestinians who are not religious might bind together. And I think that's a much healthier politics. Dan, what do you want to say? Well, assuming a stayed with everybody equality under the law and say there's a majority of people that are a Muslim Arab what's the immigration policy going to be and you know one of the raison

detrae whatever I don't know how you pluralize that of Israel is is to uh for refuge to any Jew that wants to come and and a majority Muslim state probably won't uh will probably uh know that right of return and well can we just can we pause dan's question was because i want to because that's going to bring us into the right return so i just want to i just want to tie this one up and then we'll go to the right yeah sure sure sure so you know and and by the way i'm no expert on this stuff so you know if i say something stupid you let me know but it seems to me in my lifetime secession is where it's at you know canada cyclically, the French, and these are people very, very similar.

I don't even know what their differences are, except the length. Same religion. Different language. Yeah. I think the French wanted to secede. They voted overwhelmingly to secede, but it lost the by one point or one point one point. Belgium has trouble. Czechoslovakia, the same people, same church, everything, as far as I understand it, they decided to split up. Yugoslavia, I mean, the list is very, very long just in my lifetime of pretty similar peoples

who wanted to secede or came very, very close to seceding. And yet, you think that these two people who are completely opposed in their religions, completely repose in their culture, and have deep, deep, deep, experiential animosity towards each other, deep bitterness. These are the one people who should take the opposite path and actually even though they're now apart look to live in the same government. The French and the French Canadians can't manage it with the English-speaking Canadians, but the Palestinians, a group that's like 30%, 40% Hamas, they're going to get along with Israel. I find that hard to believe. So I guess a couple of responses.

First of all, I think your rendition of the state of the world and mine are different. I think there are many, many extremely diverse and divided societies where there has not been secession and where people try to live alongside each under the same law. I mean, Canada, Belgium, these are both binational states. India is an incredibly massively diverse state. So is Indonesia. So the United States is an incredibly different. There's that critical mass argument. India did not survive as one. It can survive as two with a minority.

Well, the just one remember the secession part, right? Let's not just pass over that. The secession was one of the most brutal and horrifying, you know, human losses of life in history. We don't know what would happen if there had tried to be, if the Raj had remained, you know, together. So I don't, I see that actually, you know, there are countries that, that actually you're making a big point about the fact that. that it can only work if one group is a very small minority. But actually, I think there are places where you can see where the demographics are not only one very small minority. You have a lot of, you have, you know, in Nigeria, for instance, and many, you have a lot of Muslims and a lot of Christians.

It's not, again, we can all, there are explicitly by national countries, Switzerland or multinational or Belgium, Canada. I think that, but I think the other point I want to make is just because I, to me, What really matters is not the idea that there has to be one state. What to what me is, is that how many states there are, one state or two states, is that people live equally under the law.

Because I think that even if there were two states, there would be Palestinian citizens who would stay in Israel. And there would be Jewish settlers probably who would live and who I think have the right to live in the West Bank. And I think part of the other thing I just want to say is that I, I, you know, I was a two-stater for my entire adult life. You know, up until just a few years ago. I was, you know, and so I think one of the things that I find frustrating in these conversations,

is not about you. I'm just talking about the conversation in general, is like there are a lot of people who say, when I say, I think there should be equality under the law, whether it's one or two states. They say, we have to have partition. There has to be a Palestinian state. And then I look at those people. And again, I'm not looking at you, but I'm looking at, like, let's say, the mainstream Jewish community. And I say, oh, you're so devoted to the idea of the idea of partition, and there being a Palestinian,

state. Let me ask you something. What have you done to stop settlement growth? What is APAC done to stop settlement growth? What is the ADL done to stop settlement growth? What is Chuck Schumer done to and these guys say, you know, you're wrong, Bynard. I believe in two states. And I say, I'm not so sure you believe in two states because everything it seems to me you've been doing for all the years I was yelling about two states is make it easier for Israel to build more and more settlements in the West Bank and make two states harder and harder. Yeah, I agree with the last part of what you said. I think they are. I mean, I believe if you were put Chuck Schumer,

connect him to the most advanced sodium pentothal iodidex a test, you would find that indeed he is actually for two states. But they kick the can down the road on the settlement issue, and then, you know, like we all do it with problems sometimes. And then all of a sudden you wake up one day, and it's not just something that, well, we'll worry about that. We can always raise the settlements we did it in Gaza. And all of a sudden, it reaches the level, say,

oh, my God, this is not going to be. anymore and it happened you know oh shit you know I don't think I don't take it the way you're but as for the the the people coming together and you know I would even include South Africa in this it it seems to it has it will have to require two peoples that had the same North Star of of chasing liberal values modernity I know that the whites in South Africa were were racist but it's some point, they realized they had to get on board with the way where the West was now. They could no longer live in the Jim Crow era, as it were.

So they took these risks that they had to, I guess. And certainly they wouldn't have done that if there was an analogous Hamas charter. But I think both sides had enough trust in each other that they were all after the same thing, which was immutable characteristics shouldn't matter anymore. We have to find a way to live as modern people. according to modern ideas. I don't see how you're going to do that with people who reject that stuff or why, how you can imagine any Israeli ever taking that chance.

The odds are not high enough. Well, also the South African Afrikaners weren't worried about having a refuge because they hadn't been persecuted for centuries. They were worried, though. They were worried. I mean, you know, it's always hard to get, like, get back in. inside the mindset of those people, but because my parents are South African and I spent from my childhood in South Africa, the way white South African-Africans saw the African National

Congress was as an existential threat to them. Because the ANC was not non-violent. It was using, it was devoted to armed resistance. It was getting its weapons from the Soviet Union. There was a lot of blood, very bloodthirsty language, you know, one settler, one bullet, killed the bore. You know, the ANC's flag is three colors. green, yellow, and black, right?

Green for the land, yellow for the gold, black for the people, right? White South Africans saw that. White South Africans looked at all the other countries in Africa and they were like, you want us to go down that road? And they remember, they were only 10% of the population, as opposed to 50% in Israel, right? And just to go back to the point, you make Daniel about kind of like... Can I just answer to that?

So I heard your debate with Coleman, and Coleman disputed the degree to which they were or were not nonviolence. I really know very little about this conflict, except that having lived through it, as it filtered down to me, and I think this is valid, Mandela was a Christ-like figure. It was impossible to,

I mean, to the extent that they might have flirted with violence or that there was a threat of violence that was unspoken, I'm sure that's all true, but yet there was a Mandela, who was a Martin Luther King type figure, a guy type figure. He really was.

though. I mean, Mandela, if you go, Mandela, Mandela rejected, the ANC had been nonviolent from its early 20th century until the 60s. Mandela said, this is a failure. Nonviolence has not worked. We're going to use armed resistance. He helped to found the military wing of the ANC in Conteu-Sizway. And when he was in jail, I just want to pause this because imagine if you had this situation with the Palestinians. When Mandela was in jail by the late period, by the 80s, the South African government really wanted to let him out because they were afraid he would die in jail and die in jail. and all hell who would break loose. And they said to him,

we will let you out of jail with one precondition. Just renounce violence. They asked him again and again. He said, I will never renounce violence until we have basically a date for a free election, which is the same thing the IRA did.

And I'm just saying that because I think, I'm not saying that too, because I want to whitewash Hamas. Hamas committed terrible war crimes on October 7th. They committed terrible war crimes during the Second Intifada. They committed terrible war crimes during the 1990s.

They killed up a bus. They blew up a bus that had a friend of mine. And you saw the handwritten documents of Sinwar that came out recently. right? And we're going to drop the Israelis to the sea. Yeah, but I, to me, that again, you could have, the, to me, when I think about Palestinian violence, right, I don't think about it through the prism of Hamas. And the reason I don't think about it through the prism of Hamas is most of the Palestinian violence against Israelis historically has not been committed

by Hamas. It's not been committed by Islamists. One of the most violent Palestinian groups in the 1970s was the popular front for the liberation of Palestine. It was led by George Abash, who was a Christian, Right? Communists. Yeah. They worked us back down. But it must. Palestinians of all stripes have responded to, to oppression violently, because across the world, people respond to the violence of oppression, both violently and violently. In fact, Jabotinsky himself recognized that, right? You remember, you know, famously, he writes in the Iron Wall, right? In 1923, he says, every native population in the world resists, as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized. That is what the, the Arabs in Palestine are doing. And that was, he wasn't talking about Hamas. He was talking about the basic dynamic in which you dispossessed people. You oppress people, which is a violent process.

And some of them, Islamist, communist, nationalist, vegetarian, leftist, Buddhist, whatever, are going to respond with violence. At the same time, it should be pointed out that Jabotinsky did believe the Jews were indigenous and he was using the word colonist in a somewhat different context. Colonizers, not colonial. Well, you can believe that, I think you can believe that Jews are indigenous and believe that Zionism has settler colonial features, which is, I think, what Jabotinsky believe. Because, I mean, the Liberians were also indigenous when they went back to West Africa. And yet the movement of Afro-Liberians to West Africa had settler colonial features.

I find that whole semantic debate about colonizer versus colonial, like a lot of debates in this to be, you know, it just kind of masks. the kind of unique nature of this to try to put it in a category it's a category of its own you had these were refugees i mean it's it's to view to to make the list of colonial powers england france uh people escaping the holocaust i mean this is it it makes it kind of seem absurd to me in terms of and then it filters down to kids who don't know a goddamn thing and they and they actually see them all in the same category that's why i find the words unhelpful that what they did and how it happened has to be considered and assessed. Anyway, so where were we, Dan?

What was the last thing we were talking about? We were talking about South Africa, but you would imagine we're going to talk about the right of return at some point. Yeah, whether people, violence. So, yeah, it's absolutely true that the Palestinian spokesmen and violence was from the left at the time. I don't know how, and it's absolutely true that nobody wants to be ruled over. Of course, it should be said that, you know, the PLO started in 64 before they were occupied.

So there's multiple currents here in this conflict. Right, but if I can just say, it's not only the occupation, it's also the, it's also the Nakhba, right, and the dispossession of all those people. So that happened, but anyway, go ahead. Yeah, yeah. So, and but there is also a. jihadi fundamentalist Islam awakening in the modern era that is real and i mean iran is dedicated itself iran is not sunni iran is not palestinian iran doesn't give a shit about two states iran is dedicated to self to the destruction of israel and i don't know if they

would if it was a two-state solution i don't know if they would stop even if the I don't know where they're at. What's your take on Iran? I mean, I think it's complicated to me. Yeah. Look, the way I think about Iran is that Iran is a Persian Shia power, but it wants to be a big player in the Middle East where most people are Sunni and Arab. And so one of the ways that it can try to have power and leverage and embarrass the Sunni Arab countries is by being very pro-Palestinian and exposing the fact that they aren't really, you know, they're not, that they're kind of taking a more moderate, more accommodationist line.

And so I think that they, for them, the Palestinian cause, is a big geopolitical asset for them. And they support the Palestinian cause, and they feel like it gives them influence. To me, you know, it's not to me really all, yes, there's a religious tie, absolutely. But to me, it's not so different, honestly, than the Soviet Union and the South African, the ANC.

The ANC's top ally was the South African, Communist Party. The Soviet Union was supporting them militarily. It saw an opportunity to basically humiliate, make the America look bad in the world. And maybe get, and, but ultimately, the struggle was being led by blacks of Africans. And I think the struggle here is being led by Palestinians. You can even see, even Hamas broke with Iran over the Syrian Civil War. And I think that's why I think this language of proxy, it's like Iran controls everything the Palestinians do to me is like thinking that the Soviet Union was controlling everything that was happening in Vietnam. To me, I think ultimately this is a Palestinian struggle and people, other

countries for their own reasons, basically get involved because they think it's advantage advantageous to them. Well, I do think, I'm sorry, I do think that Iran as a proxy is a very, very serious issue. I think it's different than the Soviet Union because I think the, the quixotic nature of what the struggle, they're ready to go through, the sacrifice, all the enemies of, as well are ready to self-destructive policies to their own people is is different than the soviet union but that really but the point i was making though was just an illustrate this religious fever uh and and how we have to acknowledge that this is real even if the past was different i don't know how do i i don't know if if what you're saying actually is as um you're

intuitively correct as it as it might seem yes they were like that in the past and they were left wing and some of that just refusal to be ruled over or the the grudge of of of zionism and the nakpa is certainly still evident today but there is another layer to it now which is jihad yeah how do you explain mansura bas he's an islamist he comes from the same other Muslim brotherhood tradition But he's the most moderate of all the Palestinian leaders. Yeah, I've heard, and I don't even remember what I heard. I know nothing about Mansurabas. I've heard that his brand of Islam is of the nature that it's not up to us.

God will take care of it. That he comes from a slight different interpretation. So he's not interested in the day-to-day struggle. He's like, this is not for us to struggle. Let God will pull the strings. That's what I've heard. I don't know if it's true or is not true. Right.

But remember, and remember, you know, Hamas in the 1980s, right, were considered by Israel to be the moderates, the people who weren't dangerous because they weren't, they didn't take up arms. They were very late to come to the party in terms of violent resistance to Israel, which is one of the reasons that I think, you know, there's been a lot of Israelis who've written about this, how in the late 80s, when Hamas was emerging from the Muslim Brotherhood, before Hamas took up arms, Israel was like, good, let's let these guys get more influence because they're less dangerous than the secular PLO. So let's get to the right.

Dan, you want to say something on this and we'll get to the right of return? This is it tied into the right of return, is that, you know, the idea of one state, everybody's equal solution presupposes that that's what the Palestinians want. I think their leadership over the years has been clear that they're happy to have a state with everybody equal, but it's going to be an officially Muslim state. You know, the official religion will be Muslim. one would imagine that the population would be Arabic speaking, the street science would be primarily in Arabic, the holiday, the national holidays would be Islamic holidays and

so forth. I mean, the truth is, first of all, one of the things about Palestinian politics now is we don't let Palestinians choose their own leaders, so it's hard for us to know what kind of political agenda Palestinians would put out if they could vote, right? The early position of the PLO was what sometimes they called the secular democratic Palestine, right? I mean, this is like, this is what Yasser Arafat said in his famous 1974 speech. When we speak of our common hopes for the Palestine of tomorrow, we include in our perspective all Jews now living in Palestine, who choose to live us there in peace without discrimination. Then in 1988, the PLO says,

forget about that. We're never going to have that. We accept the idea of two states. And I don't think we know now, if you let Marwan Bargudi out of jail and a lot of the other prisoners who are the people, the only people I think that Palestinians really respect politically are the people in jail because they're not corrupt. They've actually suffered. And we let Palestinians vote. I really don't know. I have no idea whether Palestinians would say they want one state or two states at this point and what the principles would be. But I think we can see that the Palestinian citizens of Israel in terms of the political parties that they vote for, because they're the only Palestinians who are allowed to vote consistently. They actually vote for parties

that are much more committed to the principle of liberal democracy than Israeli Jews to. I mean, look at, I'm an Oda. That guy actually believes in liberal democracy, human rights equality under the law, a lot more than, you know, than the Jewish-Israeli parties. If you're going to get specific with facts in this debate, I'm going to have to hang up now. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. You didn't give me the ground rule. No, I'm not as well informed on these more detailed issues, and I, you know, I'll have to take your word for that stuff. And by the way, this is where, in Dershowitz, who I think was well informed, you made, I don't wish I could remember the points. I should have reviewed it. This is where I thought you had the better of them. You brought some of these details to bear.

and I could tell by his reaction that your version of them was legit. He didn't really have an answer to them. And you move the needle for me. Anyway, on the right of return. Look, I spent some time today listening to your debate with Coleman and Googling, chat GTPing, various things on this right of return. And this is what I've concluded, and you tell me where I'm wrong. I think there are enough historical precedents that bear on the right of return, both directions, that one can cherry pick examples to make basically any case they want.

My conclusion was, best I can tell, there is no general right of return anywhere to any place. That it usually comes down to a practical judgment. Sometimes the right of return, I've discovered, has been offered where nobody really thought they would. would take advantage of it. Like nobody really expected the Jews to come back to Germany. Sometimes it's refused out right. Like there was no way the Germans were going to back to the sedaten land or wherever it was

after World War. So that wasn't going to happen. And of course, we, I didn't know this, but we expelled something like a million Mexicans in the 30s. And we know very well, they're not getting passports and land and their descendants, which would be 10 million, 20 million, I don't even know, are not

ever going to be brought back in the United States. And by the way, nobody would ever call them refugees, like we call the Palestinians refugees, because they were expelled to their own country, their own land. So I think in the end, and this reminded me of, now you go back in finance, it reminded me of something I learned at Penn. Robert Jackson, he of the Nuremberg trial's fame, had this quote,

there is a danger that if the court does not temper its doctrina logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the Constitution of Bill of Rights into a suicide pact, which reminds me of the movie Oppenheimer, which says, theory will only get you so far. I think this has to be, first and foremost, a practical matter. I don't, I know, and this last thing I'll say, because I want to get into it also, I know you spoke a lot about the sentimental aspects, like they want to. that Palestinians want to see the sea of Haifa. You should have the choice to go.

I'm not saying you should have the choice to kick someone else out of their home. If your family is from Jaffa and that particular home is not from Jaffa, I think there should be compensation. You should be able to buy another apartment in Jaffa and go to see the sea, which is like very important to people from there. Because when you read Palestinian writing, it becomes super, super clear, right? That this territory was for them artificially divided and created into a Jewish. state through an act of mass expulsion. They have a deep historical connection to particular places

in this area, which was Palestine. And so to say that because of that there's going to be this new state created in the West Bank in Gaza, and they should only feel an affinity there, their families that can trace back their connections in a place like Haifa and Jaffa for many, many, many, many generations. And it's precious to them. And we Jews, this is, we Jews should understand that better than anybody else because we've maintained that connection for 2,000 years. And of course,

I don't mean to mock anybody's sentimental attachment to anything. But two things. First of all, it is noteworthy that this coincides with a political movement, meaning like, no Jew is looking to go back to Europe or even Iraq.

A lot of Jews who've gone back to Europe, actually. No, but there's no demanding the right of return to these countries. There's no sentimental attachment to that. If you can put so much stake in this sentimental notion

of wanting to live in the land of the Jews where your grandfather once lived, I don't want the normal recompense that the law allows for when there isn't a practical solution, which is money. I don't want the price of my

land and I'll live in my own homeland, thank you very much. I want to live there. That's a bit much to me, but then on top of that, okay, if we're going to start weighing in sentimentality, why is that more valid than Jews around the world who say, you know what, this country wants to get rid of circumcision, this country doesn't want to allow kosher slaughter, there's fewer and fewer Jews. I feel very uncomfortable here. I feel conspicuous. I want to live in the, and among my people in Israel. And by the way, I'm a living person now. I'm experiencing this now.

This is not something that happened to my grandfather. I'm here now. So why do you dismiss that as, I think you said, as worthy of zero consideration? But the sentimental attachment of somebody to land they've never been to generations in the past rises even more important than practical considerations. of ending the Jewish state?

I guess where I start is that if we think about the legitimacy of a right to return to this particular territory, right? And we think, as I do, that, you know, Palestinians and Jews are created equal in the image of God and should be considered equal in their concerns, then it seems to me you have a, I have a, I have a, what I have a, I have a, I have a, I have a problem in justifying, why a Jew like me could return after 2,000 years. I mean, you could say that's pretty sentimental, right, because a lot of Jews who make Aliyah don't have a personal family connection within a couple generations. It is very sentimental. They wake up every morning and they should say the Shmonessaray looking towards Israel. And yet you say that the Palestinian connection, which is of 75 years or so, where literally you could have someone still alive or their

children, eh, that's too sentimental, we'll get rid of that, right? It seems to me, irrespective of what you think about the right refugee return in a global perspective, there seems to me a fundamental imbalance here in terms of how much weight we give to the yearnings of one group of people versus the other. So that would be, that's, that's, you know, in some ways I feel like Israel is the last place in the world that should be able to say, you don't have the right to come back after 75 years because it has a right of return for 2,000 years. On the practical question, I would say, I think that under international law, there is a right of Palestinian refugee return. It may well be in the course of negotiations

between Israel and the Palestinians that the Palestinians concede to this to some degree. In fact, I think there is evidence from past negotiations that the Palestinians were willing to make concessions on this question if they got the things that were important to them, like a sovereign state with a capital in Jerusalem, right? So I don't think that politics is never, politics doesn't give you perfection. I believe that this right exists, but I also believe that you could have a hard-nosed negotiation in which Palestinians give something on this and Israel gives on something else just as you've had in other places. All right.

Three things. First of all, as for international law, again, another thing which I think you can cherry pick to make any point you want. You know, we're not going to argue slavery under the, and cite, red Scott and we're not going to argue abortion and say, well, you know, Congress, the law says, you know, we're arguing, I think, higher concepts than what the law is. We're arguing moral and practical concepts. And, you know, if that conforms and if that's harmonious with international law, fantastic, if it's not my personal attitude, well, whatever, because the moral issue and the practical issues are more important than international law.

I mean, the UN, we both know, has had more resolutions against Israel than all other countries combined. So, you know, it is a bit much to be taking anything that comes from that channel too seriously. I actually think the UN has been a super pro-Israel institution. What's that? I actually, I know this is again, and I'll let you get back to it. But just remember I'm saying, I think Israel has been a super pro-Israel institution. The reason it partly has all those resolutions is because they're all at the UN General Assembly, which has Babkiss in terms of influence.

The power at the UN is at the Security Council. The Security Council is a super pro-Israel institution, which is why Israel never get sanctioned by the Security Council, whereas virtually all of Israel's neighbors do. Yeah, let's just leave that, because it's not critical to argument. I'm not going to dispute it with you. And again, it's one of these things I don't follow day to day.

I know that Israel does not consider it to be. That's true. Number one, number two, and this goes back to the quarter right at the beginning. You said, which was very, because it's one thing in that book that really was what I believe, too. He said that, where is it, the day that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians marched non-violently to demand the equality of social and political rights that Israel promises in its Declaration of Independence, there's going to be all over for the Israelis. Yes, all of which is to say that if this is what the Palestinians want, let them say so. I mean, I understand negotiation on the, but like, if they want the Allmerd offer plus a few extra details, just say so.

Like, we overlay onto them all these, you know, benefit of the doubt things that they want. And maybe it's true, but can't they, do they have a newsletter? Is there something I can substack? I can sign up to the Palestinian leaders that want this? You know, give us the Allbert map and you got a deal. Well, I think that actually, I mean, I think it's a really important point you're making. And I think one of the problems is that Palestinians don't get as much opportunity in the American media to make their case. I mean, the truth is Abbas did have an offer, the counteroffer that he made to Omer.

I mean, if you go back and look at the essay that Bernard Avishai, Israeli journalist, wrote about the Abbas negotiations, you write. Omer offers basically says, we're going to annex 6.3% of the West Bank, and we're going to give you about 5.7%. That was the best Israeli offer ever. But the offer that Abbas wanted was basically about a 1.9% equal swap, because he was like 6.3%. You're going to take Aureel. That's why you want 6.3%. Ariel goes very deep into the Northern West Bank and basically cuts off the Palestinian cities in the Northern West Bank, like Tolkolaram and Kalkalia from the rest of the West Bank.

So I'm just pointing, but Palestinians have offered. And generally their offers have been about a 2% equal land swap, whereas Israel's offers have basically been between a 6% and 10% annexation. And there have been interest on other issues. But it's not like Palestinians haven't had their proposals. I don't buy that for just as I just don't buy it because Abbas, if they, listen, first of all I buy, don't buy it for too. I read Allmer's book. Now, Almert is quite a critic of Israel and quite an advocate of the two-state solution. and he doesn't believe what you're saying.

Well, he's very complimentary of Abbas, actually. Yes, yes, he's complimentary in the book, but he doesn't believe what you're saying. Yes, he was complimentary, and he said in the book that he thinks that Abbas could be finally brought around if Israel would keep trying. He doesn't, he doesn't blast a boss in the book, which in a way is why I think he's more credible

because I think he would say what you're saying. And he would say it now. And number two, let me just say a couple of things. And number two, number two, nobody's forcing them to be mute. As you said, it's analogous to the nonviolent demonstration. Abbas could put tremendous pressure on Israel, and by the way, move many Israeli voters as Sadat did

by simply giving a speech and saying, this is what I want. Can I hold you there for one second? You can come back to that, because I want to make the other point. Sure. Sure. The other point about this right of 2,000 years, before I forget it, I have found it conveniently clarified.

to my position on Israel, to have a systematic way of looking at it. And this way I've looked at it, because I don't think you can go back now and question decisions that were made in the past based on things we know today. In a very macro way, around the turn of the century when pogroms were happening and all that stuff, if you were to told any Jew, if a Jew said, listen, we got to get out of here. We can't live like this. Us and people all over the world,

let's go to Palestine legally and expand our existing and ancient community there. There's not a person in a world to say, what are you talking about? You can't do such a thing. That would be immoral. So I can't pull them from that. And then after the Holocaust,

And by the way, it's worth noting as you just, the picture, it was those people who just got out of the Holocaust, who closer to their exit from the Holocaust than we are today from COVID, talking about like trauma, we're then fighting for their lives again in the War of Independence in which those Jews, Palestinians were, Mars's words, is displaced. and he does, by the way, 100% blame the war on the policies. But in any case, and in that context of Jews' 6 million being killed and having nowhere else to go for a state to be formed then and for that state to say, and every Jew around the world will always be able to come here. Look what just happened. For us to go back now and say,

how dare they have that right? It makes no sense to me. You want to rescind the right? You want to rescind the country. It is what it is. As I said, this quixotic battle they're having. Let them say what they want. Put the pressure on the Israelis and settle this.

I think they— Go ahead, Daniel. I think, I mean, they kind of have said what they want in terms of, I don't know how significant the Palestinian constitution is. but I'm reading it right here. What they want is a state that is officially Muslim, but yes, minority religions will be respected,

but it's an officially Muslim state. Would such a state allow a right of return for the Jews around the world? Probably not. So that's what they want. Israel's not signing up for an official Muslim state, obviously. But that's what they want if you're saying, what do they want? I mean, I think that one of the reasons that I think,

that I think the Palestinians haven't been able to do, I think that Nome is saying, if only the Palestinians would basically say, you know, we're fine with two states, you know, sign us up for that. I actually think that what, that Palestinians in many ways, Palestinian leaders have said that.

I mean, look at the, look at what happens when the Palestinian leaders do what Israel actually wants them to do. I mean, look at Solang Fayad, for instance, right? Salam Fayad was the Palestinian prime I think from 2007 to 2013, not only did he support the Arab Peace Initiative, which Abbas also supported, which Israel didn't embrace, but he also basically was the most committed to renouncing violence, to building institutions. You know, the Israelis really liked Salam Fayyad, right? The Americans really like Salam Fayyad, right? And how, so we can look at that example and say, how did people respond during the six years when Salam Fayyad was the Prime Minister in the West Bank, right? Did they fall at their feet and say, we're going to stop settlement growth so we can show Palestinians that your path is really working? No, Israel just, as Svalaad said when he left office, I didn't stop settlement growth for a single day, right?

So I think the Palestinian, for the Palestinian perspective, the acceptance of two states in 1988 and then formalized in the Oslo Peace Initiative was a tremendous concession, the acceptance of the Arab Peace Initiative. And yet Palestinians couldn't stop settlement growth ever, right, which I think is. part of what has delegitimized the idea of two states in the eyes of so many Palestinians. Yeah, well, I mean, I don't agree. I feel that there is a way that a person behaves when they want something, and it shouldn't have to be divining tea leaves and pulling out, you know, little-known facts that you have access to to make it clear. We knew very well what Martin Luther King wanted. We knew very well what Mandela wanted. And, you know, Not while he was in jail.

No, but when he's out, and what the Palestinians have wanted, and of course, like Nabil Amr, you know, there's people from within the Palestinian camp who just shit all over, Arafat afterwards, said, what are you doing? You were a fraud. You know, whatever. Yeah, I...

Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Would you let Marwan Burgudy out of jail? Peter, honestly, I don't know enough about it. I know. I'm going to exasperatingly flexible about such things if I thought it would have practical positive effects. So I'm going to answer, assuming that he is the murderer that they say he is, even though I know that's disputed. In the same way that apparently Israel was getting ready to install Ahmadinejad as president of Iran, yes, if you could make the case to me that this would be the end of this whole.

horrible misery for the Palestinians and this horrible misery for the Israelis. Of course I would. Why? I'm not going to stand on the fact that he's a murderer. His murderers, it has a state everywhere. That's my answer. No, I just said because I think he would clearly be the person and some of the people who are in prison with him who would have the greatest credibility, I think, to offer the kind of call that you're talking about. A boss, you know, boss has no credibility to do that at this point. And so I think if you want that, I think we have to think about how we allow Palestinians to have leaders who are legitimate who can make difficult political decisions, you know, by laying out these visions.

Peter, can I ask you a question? Yeah, go ahead. Do you think that a state, let's assume Israel truly has equality, and there are those who argue that it does, a state that is a Jewish state, but there's complete equality for Arabs. The only difference is, is our immigration policy is going to favor Jews? Do you think in and of itself that is a immoral in its, in its, you know, I guess I would answer that question, like I would answer the question of the United States.

Like, what do you say? If America were a country where Christians and Jews and Muslims were treated totally equally, but we would only allow Christians in the United States, I would think that was fundamentally wrong if Tucker Carlson or Donald Trump wanted that position. Now, it would be an improvement over where Israel is now, where I think there are a lot of domestic laws, for instance, especially having to do with land allocation, that are severely discriminatory.

But I still think it would be discriminatory in a country that has both Palestinians and Jews to say that only Jews can come and Palestinians can't. Or not that Palestinians necessarily can't come, but the Jews are heavily favored in the immigration policy. No, I wouldn't. Look, I would be okay with a policy which said both Jews and Palestinians were heavily favored.

because those are the two main populations now, and then you're going to have an aside, the third place will be for everybody else. That, to me, would be fair. All right, Peter, I'm going to ask you one more question about the one state thing, and then, because I want to keep you too long over what we promised you.

And then just before you go, because I went into reading the birth of the Palestinian refugee crisis and 1948 of the last couple of days, and I pulled out some quotes, and I just think it's interesting to read them so our listeners hear them how benny morris who i think is considered to be the expert on this one of these books he wrote before his kind of uh moved to the right one of these books

he but after i'm not sure i would concede that but go ahead okay well finklestein did you know that's why thinklesing yeah yeah i can explain what i mean by that but go ahead so okay so let me just this one state thing because again i'm weighing the sentimental attachment of an arab descendant who wants to see the sea in Haifa, a Jew who is worried about, you know, an unpleasant life in Europe, which I, which I, or not in Europe, somewhere in the world and decides, you know, I would like to go to Israel where I can live as you, who says being Judaism and the observation of Jewish is central to your life. Certainly can understand that somebody who doesn't live in Manhattan, you know, might have that desire and you may want to honor it.

And then three, I tried to make a list. You tell me what you disagree with. In a one state, I think any kind of Charlie Hebdo satire religion will never be allowed. Gay pride, honor of gay marriage, police protection is done. a free press that calls the most likely Palestinian Prime Minister out as a criminal or whatever is done. Conscription of daughters is done. Teaching evolution in schools is done. Alcohol license is done.

Women in bench is done. Who knows what goes on in terms of archaeological digs in the holy side? I mean, you can go on and on of the, I mean, just to be a gay, husband in what's now Tel Aviv, which is consistently rated one of the top 10 cities for gayes in the world by gay sites. I looked it up. To imagine what your one state would likely bring down upon people, isn't that more important to you than somebody's seeing the sea? I don't buy those assumptions. And I actually think it would be so fascinating if you, you know, I thought one of the things I thought Coleman did that I really appreciated was I guess people gave

a hard time for not having Palestinian guests. And so he just asked people, like, who would you suggest? And they had, so he had Yusuf Munaya on. And I would, I would really recommend, like, whoever you think is like a big deal, Palestinian activist or intellectual, who has a lot of support among Palestinians, ask them those questions. Because I actually think that this, this idea. Recommend somebody. Recommend somebody. Because I love to have people like that on. Yeah. I mean, you could have Yusuf, you know, Sunniya. You could ask Nura Erakot. You could ask, you could ask my friend Muhammad Shahada from Gaza, who's an amazing writer and thinker. You could ask Tarek Beconi.

I mean, you could ask Roger Shahada. You could ask, right? Can ask question? Are you saying that I can't look at the West Bank in Gaza and infer? Well, no, I mean, first, I think that the rest of the Arab world, or the entire Arab world and infer? No, I don't think you can look at, no, I think that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are living under occupying. patient in various different ways, right? So this is not the equivalent of a state in which Palestinians get to choose their leaders. As I said, there's only one part of Israel-Palestine

where Palestinians consistently get to vote, right, for their leaders. And that is inside Israel proper, right? Where the Palestine, right, this sounds like a Hasbara point. The Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Arab Israelis, consistently vote, right? Most of them vote for either Hadash or Balad, and now some of them vote for Ram. Now, Ram, which is, by the way, the most moderate party is socially conservative. But no more than Shas, right? And most of the other Palestinians are voting for parties that literally on the issues you're talking about, they sound like AOC and Bernie Sanders. Look at the, look at Hadash and Balad's positions on these issues. So I think there is and this kind of idea about Palestinians. Palestinians are divided between

religious and secular, just like Israeli Jews are. It's not, this idea that Palestinians all it's kind of like this, they're all people who basically like have an ISIS-style perspective, even Hamas, which is deeply socially conservative and oppressive. Let me just answer that. You know, one of the things Israel did, one of the things Israel did during this war was it destroyed this ancient, ancient church, right? This, this, it was called this church of St. Polythorius, right? It was like a, like a ninth century church, right? It was an operating church in Gaza, right? an operating church in Gaza under Hamas, which is the most socially conservative, the most, you know, you can say Islam-phobic, I mean, homophobic, misogynic. So I think it's a bit of a caricatured view of Palestinians. And I think, you know, I think you should test that hypothesis with Palestinians who other Palestinians think, you know, who they listen to. Well, that's a great idea, but if we can get them on the show, no, I mean, you look, they might be suspicious, but but keep trying. You guys are good. You guys. guys are, you're persistent.

Okay, so I just Google for whatever it's worth. Do Arab Israelis support gay marriages? Support for gay marriage among Arab Israelis is low. The opinions vary depending on religiosity. While there's no official same-sex marriage with it, as all marriage, polling indicates that acceptance of homosexuality

generally trails behind secular Israelis, often reflecting broader region of trends. So, yeah. So, yeah, I'm sure the religious Jews are not that keen on it either, Although I have we could talk about that even if we meet privately I had a really interesting experience at a Modi concert When he was with the film religious Jews and he talked about being gay and it was it was very sweet But I would have to say and maybe this is why Coleman was so taken with you

You have what is a very Wonderful seemingly seeming faith in humanity here and I mean I couldn't disagree more to me Yeah, some leaders say this to say that they understand they understand their audience but when you have a part of the world, which is 100% has a certain attitude about these issues, the idea of taking these chances with the potential disaster, because you spoke to some experts, I mean, it's, I just, I can't get there with you. I'll let you respond to that. Then I'll read you to them any more stuff.

Look, I guess, first of all, I appreciate what you're saying. I genuinely do. I would say, to me, Israel's taking chances no matter what, right? Israel is taking chances because when you're controlling all these people who don't have basic rights, that's very dangerous. We saw on October 7th. October 7 didn't happen under Bynard's utopia that he dreamed up under at Zabars. October 7th happened under the current system of rule, right? And so I think that we have to recognize that there are risks in whatever path you take. What I would say is the idea that if you give people equality, that your life will be in mortal danger,

is the norm among people who become accustomed to supremacy. It's what almost all whites of Africans thought. It's what most white Southerners thought. The Protestants, you know, Ian Paisley, the Protestant leader, called the Good Friday Accords, which gave Catholic political equality. He called it a prelude to genocide. I think the idea that you, Noem and I, and maybe you, Daniel, have grown up in our entire lives,

that basically giving Palestinians equality means that they're basically going to be, they're going to be, you know, at our throats. I think it's a typical way to think because we associate safety with supremacy. But I actually think that that's, that equality under the law is safer. Because when you give people the right to have a nonviolent mechanism for getting the government to listen to them, I think they're less likely to pick up a gun. Well, I don't think that, you know, mortal danger is the only issue. I think Israelis want a place where the street signs are in Hebrew, where the holidays are their holidays. And I think the Arabs want the same thing. Dan, yes, yes. But to me,

you never get to that because, I mean, just look at, I mean, Abbas is on the 30th year. There is no, and elections in the Arab world are one-offs or followed by a coup. There are no, I mean, it's like we're saying the Arab countries don't have enough elections. Israel doesn't let the Palestinians have elections. No, I'm saying, I mean, I know that when you start generalizing about cultures, although I have no problem generalizing about Jews, we all know our people, that you, can be called a bigot. But I do think if you look at the Middle East as in its entirety and don't refuse to note that they never have elections and they have one election and then

they never have another one after that. And then imagine that this country is now could potentially be like 15 million Palestinians and 7 million Jews. Israel's there's never going to be another Jew elected ever, ever, ever. I mean, I mean as a prime minister. And then And, you know, you think that prime minister, Hamas is not going, I mean, I have Palestinian friends who tell me not about one state solution, but just a two-state solution. They feel like the second there's a Palestinian state, there's going to be a civil war. That's, this is like a rank and file, ordinary Palestinian guy. That's what they believe. Maybe you're right.

Maybe he's right. But who wants to take the chance? That's my feeling. Yeah, I guess, I know. I know we need to go. No, the Jews are never going to take that chance. I think that the, you know, I talked about this with Coleman, too. This idea that you look out in the Middle East and you say, we don't see a lot of democracies here is also the way white South Africans looked at Africa.

And they were right. Like there weren't a lot of democracies in Africa. But the question is you have to ask why, right? I think one of the biggest reasons that you don't have democracies in the Middle East is that the powers that be the Soviet Union, but especially the United States, have not wanted democracies. I mean, look, we overthrew Musaq in Iran in 1953. When the Egyptians had an election, which was a free election, we helped the Saudis and the Emirates overthrow that. It is not something inherent in being Arab or Muslim.

It is, I think, the policy of the world's most powerful governments that they don't want to risk democracies in these countries because we would rather have pro-American autocrats there. Yes. But as Dan said, this is not black South Africans. This is a people in their documents say they're dedicated to Sharia law and being a Muslim state. Anyway, we can go back and forth. Let me just read. I downloaded PDFs of Benny Morris's books, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis.

I think that's the name in 1948. And I uploaded them into the fable engine of Claude. Okay, got it. And I asked about it. I have to tell the world, I am so decent and fair-minded when I research. constantly ask these AIs, whatever they're like, what is the most fair argument? What is fair to him? I'll say, give me enough of the quote so that the full context is always like, I really

try to never do anything that if anybody were to find out what I left out, they would say to me, well, you didn't tell me that. Good for you. That's my standard. And for journalists, like, you say you told me, but somehow when I found this out, I didn't really get that impression from what you wrote. And you knew I wasn't going to get that impression. So fuck you, you're lying.

Anyway, so this is the answer as it gave. I asked, the most expulsion sounding quotes. I'll just read two. Both on page 589. And while this general will was never translated into systematic policy, a large number

of Arabs were expelled. The frequency of expulsions and the expulsive resolve of the troops increasing following the Pan-Arab invasion of mid-May 1948 that threatened the eshshu with extinction. Next one. The policy was to prevent a refugee return at all costs. In this sense, it may be fairly said that all 700,000 or so who ended up as refugees were compulsorily displaced or expelled. And the very next sentence, yet it is all, this is actually where it straddles, yet it is also worth remembering that

large portion of those who became refugees fled their towns and villages not under direct Israeli threat or duress. And then I, so, and then on the other side, this is from same Palestinian refugee crisis, villagers and townspeople prompted by the fear that the Jews, if victorious, would do to them what in the reverse circumstances, victorious Arab fighters would most probably have done and occasionally did to the Jews took to their heels. And one more, he says, the refugee problem was created by the war, which the Arabs had launched, though the Arabs had argued then and subsequently that the Zionist influx was an act of aggression, and that the Arab launch of 1947-48 was merely an act of self-defense. And it was that war that propelled most of those displaced out of their houses and into refugeedom. Most fled when their villages and towns came under Jewish attack or out of fear of future attack.

they wish to move out of harm's way. So, you know, I'm not trying to sugarcoat the Nakhpa or any bit, but I think that a lot of the discourse that cites Morris has morphed into a much less nuanced narrative than he writes. Go ahead. Right. So I think that my understanding, again, and I'm not an historian, is there is a debate between Benny Morris and someone like Ilan Pape, right? Elon Poppy is another Israeli historian, also one of the new historic.

historians, but Maris kind of moved right, Pape moved left. And the debate is really about whether there was a plan. Like some people say, some of the plan, dollar. Yeah. Was there a plan for this expulsion? Or

did it basically just happen, you know, but I think even Morris, as you suggest, would acknowledge that, you know, that Israel wanted to create a Jewish majority state, right? I mean, and, and, you know, he says in the Ari Shevid interview,

Ben Gurian was a transferist. He understood there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. I think the other thing I would say about Maris is I don't put a lot of credence in what he says about Arab intentions because he doesn't deal with Arab documents.

His brilliance was finding in the Israeli archives all this stuff. A book that I think is much more credible on the question of the Arab intentions is by a University of Maryland, also Israeli named Shai Haskani, his book, Dear Palestine. Because Huskani is an Arabic speaker, and he goes through in a lot of detail the kind of Arab intentions.

Walid Khalid did this way back in the 1950s. And actually, what you find in Haskanis work is not, it doesn't, doesn't accord with what Mara says about the Arab intentions. I'll just read you something from Dear Palestine, Huskani's book, a social history of the 1980 war. An examination of many hundreds of documents, operational orders, propaganda for Arab volunteers, and the letter of Arab volunteers themselves yielded not a shred of evidence of an extermination plan for the land's Jews. And Haganah's intelligence service itself finds that, quote,

the army, I mean the Arab army does not intend to carry out a massacre of Jews if they surrender and wave a white flag. So I would just, I think Maris deserves tremendous esteem, but I don't think he's credible on the question of Arab intentions, because he doesn't speak Arabic and he didn't look at Arab documents. Well, I didn't see that Maris said that they intended to exterminate, although he did, he did call it. He said they were afraid that the Arabs would do to them, the Jews would do to them, but the direct, retribution,

but that's not quite, I don't see it. That doesn't, but all right. And he does, he does say in, he's in a righteous victims or in 1948, that there were Arabs calling for driving the Jews into the sea. But anyway, in any case, I would say that my earlier point, you know, there's so much talk about psychology. I think psychology, of course, has to be considered in some way.

But I think anytime I hear psychological arguments, I go to red alert intellectually because it's very easy to sway people when you cue the violins. And in some way, I think the right of return is a political agenda dressed up in violins. and I would only say, which I said it before, but I'll just say it again, that in the context post-Holocust, I mean, and under attack, the fact that at a time when the world was just slaughtering civilians right and left, the atom bomb at Dresden, I mean, the attitude of the world at that time was not very precious about human life, right?

that they pushed these people over the line to their own country that was to be their own country as per the UN does not strike me as one of even if they had misperceptions and misapprehensions about what the intentions were this doesn't strike me as one of the earth's great injustices okay you know

the mechanism as I said we we expelled a million Mexicans from San Antonio a million but but no couldn't we say that we can understand why if you got out by the skin of your teeth from Poland or Lithuania in 1939, or you survived hell on earth and were in a D.P. camp and got to Haifa in 1945 or 1946, you went down on your knees and you thank God that there was a Jewish state. But we could also understand that for the Palestinian who lived in that house in Haifa, from which they were expelled, and then it was given to that person who would have survived Auschwitz.

for them it was a grave injustice. These both things can both be true. Well, yes and no. To be honest, if I'm really being honest, yes and no, because I would like to think that if I were that Palestinian and I understood that a war had been launched by five armies, some of my blame would go on those five armies for getting me into that situation.

It would have to. It was ethnically cleansed before the Arab armies attacked in May, it was in April. Or the Palestinian army, or the Palestinian attacks, or whatever, when the shit hit the fan, In some way, I would also blame the people who threw the shit at the fan. But Peter, I want everybody to be right with God. And I, you know, if we could go back in time and remember that Albert Brooks movie,

defending your life and see that we, he does a flashback into the childhood. And you know, you see video of him. If we could see these incidents, I bet. you would agree on them on a case-by-case basis. To elevate this as something unusual to the world, especially the world at that time, and to pretend that almost 100 years later we're going to redress it when nothing else from 100 years ago is redressed, I think this is not practical. I think the practical answer is two states, Abbas, if this is what you want, say so. Put the pressure on the Israelis.

Like Israelis are pretty pariah state now. Imagine how they'll look if they're turning down peace offers from the Palestinians. Look, if people like you who, you know, disagree with my vision of, you know, but, but want there to be two states, if you, I think it's incumbent on, on folks like you to be willing to put the kind of pressure on Israel that would be required for Israel to stop settlement growth, right? Because even if you don't think that you could negotiate a Palestinian state tomorrow, if it's your long-term goal, you have to keep open the possibility.

and you can't keep open the possibility if Israel continues. It's not just that it allows settlers, it incentivizes them financially. It makes it cheaper to get a house in the settlements often. So I think that's to me, like for you, people of your view,

I would say that's you're a voter in my view. Like you may keep the possibility of a Palestinian state alive, but I don't think it's possible unless you can get the Israeli government to change what it's doing. Yeah, I have no good comeback to that one. So I'll get,

Maybe we'll just end there. You can have the upper hand on that last point. And we can end. I hope you thought this was a good interview. I'm very grateful for you guys giving me the time being so, you know, so, so gracious. And I would love to have the opportunity to do it again. Okay. And it was talk about a soul gathering at the olive tree one day.

Let's do it. Yeah, I love that. Okay. All right. Peter Beinhard, everybody. Oh, plug your latest book one more time. The book is called Being Jewish after the Destrook. of Gaza and like everybody and their grandmother, I also have a substack called the Bynart notebook.

Okay. Good night, everybody. Thanks a lot. Thank you.