The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Benny Morris

Episode Date: September 5, 2020

Benny Morris, one of Israel's leading historians and public intellectuals, discusses the possibility of peace in the Middle East, and whether or not Donald Trump is good for Israel. 

Okay. Brand Hour producer. I guess today somebody known has been talking about for a long time, Benny Morris, one of Israel's leading historians and public intellectuals. He has published 10 books on the Middle East and European history with a focus on the Arab-Zionist conflict. Welcome, Mr. Morris, or Benny, I don't know what to call you. Thank you. Benny is fine. Benny is fine. Okay. He's coming to us from all the way from Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or? Somewhere in between, a village called Saragim. Okay. Well, everything in Israel is near Tel Aviv or Jerusalem because it's such a small country. So anyway, welcome and thanks for joining us. And I know, I'll let Noam take the lead on this because this is a guest that he has been

really, really anxious to meet. So Noam. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm so interested in the, in the Arab-Israeli conflict, by the way, you know, this is more for my benefit than for yours, but you were a huge hero of my father's and he was a, he was a pretty right-wing israeli guy and when you first came out with your new um uh you know the new history on on the the conflict he was jarred by it and um and he read a bunch of the new historians at the time and he he quickly distinguished you as

somebody um he had to grapple with and he had to accept it. And he, and he, I remember him telling me this in the nineties that he saw that he saw in you a that you only cared about the truth. That's the way he felt about it. And because he recognized that, he had to integrate a lot of the things that you had come out with that were very difficult for him. I'm sure this is not a unique story. Very difficult for him at the time.

Okay. But then he did so because he was also dedicated to the truth. So since then, you're kind of like an important guy in my family. So, you know, it's really an honor to meet you. So I'm having arguments all the time with, you know, people about the Arab-Israeli conflict and so that we're forced to give the best possible answers. I know that's the way that you always do things, but I just, for the listeners, that's really the way I want to approach it. So let's start with, I've been reading 1948. I haven't finished it, but let's just start with that.

Can you? No, it's not that long. I have three kids and I can read a little bit at a time. So the first issue that people always bring up is the way it all began. Two issues. One is the, let's start with this. When the Jews began to settle Palestine, were they doing anything wrong? That's a matter of outlook.

I think the Jews had a good case to return to Palestine beginning at the end of the 19th century to a place which had always been theirs, or had been theirs for 2,000 years before, and that was their homeland. That was their historic homeland. That was the aspirational homeland. Arabs can argue, I think quite legitimately from their point of view, that the Jews hadn't been around for 2,000 years. They themselves had conquered Palestine.

They weren't really natives of Palestine either. They conquered Palestine in the 8th century during the rise of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries and then settled there. And they were the native inhabitants of the land in the 19th century when the Jews began to come back. So both points of view, it depends on where you stand, but both points of view are legitimate. They're legitimate arguments. But to the extent that, and I know that this is contested, but to the extent that people decided to go legally to another land and buy up land, especially at that time in history, was that considered a controversial thing to do? Did

people say maybe you shouldn't be doing that, or was that considered? No, it wasn't controversial. People could buy land. You could go to America. You could go to England. You could go to Germany and buy land, even if you were a foreigner. This was something which was accepted. The Jews came and bought land basically from Arabs. Arabs were busy selling it to the Jews in Turkish-owned Palestine, later in British-governed Palestine. So there's nothing illegitimate about that.

What the Arabs, though, said was you're not just buying land individually for individual families, you're buying land our sovereignty. But later, of course, a Palestinian Arab national movement arose, and they said, we are the real, the moral sovereigns of this land, this is ours. This came basically after the Zionists had planted some deep roots in the country, and in fact, the Arabs were not by then, by the 1930s and 40s, unable to remove them. Right. Daniel, anyone want to add here, or you want me to continue? No, I have nothing that leaps to mind right at this second. And was there in some way an underlying mentality here

that these are tribal people kind of beneath the Europeans in some way, and essentially we don't even really consider them, the mentality of the world at that time? I think this is true. This is an accusation that Arabs often make, and the Zionists often reject, but it's actually true. The initial Zionist settlers in the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century probably looked down at the native inhabitants, much as natives were looked down upon by British settlers in East Africa or in India,

or by French settlers in North Africa. They were looked down upon by British settlers in East Africa or in India, or by French settlers in North Africa. They were looked down upon. Europeans thought of themselves as more developed, more cultured, more advanced than the natives. And truth to tell, the Arabs who lived in Palestine at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were 90% illiterate. They were an illiterate, very primitive population, completely agricultural. And, and as I say, illiterate,

very poorly educated. So on these grounds, certainly the Europeans who came and settled were the Jews in this case. And they had a certain case to what they were saying. These guys are not yet at our level of education, at our level of political consciousness. And they weren't. That's why they didn't resist the Zionist influx because they hadn't reached the level of political consciousness, which is called

nationalism. I do have something to add. Let me just involve but when you say they have a certain case, but you're not saying that warrants treating them differently. No, I'm just saying that this was the mentality at the end of the 19th century, the early 20th century. The Jews were no different in this, those settlers who settled here, from Europeans or Frenchmen or Americans or whatever you want.

Go ahead, Dan. When we talk about the entity known as Palestine, which has a certain configuration and certain rough borders, I guess, does the notion of Palestine, would it exist were it not for the fact that there was a Jewish kingdom there 2,000 years ago? In other words, if there had never been a Jewish empire there, would we even have a concept of Palestine or not? It's a bit of a confusing question. The word Palestine comes from the word Philistines. At the end of the second millennium BC, there were sea peoples who came from Greece by boat and settled on the shores of what we today call Palestine. The Jews of the time called Canaan of the land of Israel.

They settled on the coast. And these Philistines were the enemies of the Jews who came in also at about the same time, around 1000 BC, just slightly before that, who came from Egypt or Babylon or wherever they came from and settled in Palestine as well,

which, as I say, wasn't called Palestine at the time. But the area along the coast came to be known as Philistia. And from this, a thousand years later, the Romans decided to call the whole land Palestine, because they didn't like the Jews here, because the Jews had revolted against Roman rule twice, at the end of the first millennium BC.

In fact, in the year 66 AD, and then again in the year 132, the Jews revolted against Roman rule. And as a result, the Romans decided to quash the Jews, to expel some of them, to basically remove the Jews as a political entity, and therefore change the name of the country from Judea, which comes from the word Jew or Yehudah, which means the Jewish land, change it from Judea to Palestine, using that ancient name for the coastal area, which means the Jewish land, changed it from Judea to Palestine, using that ancient name for the coastal area,

which was Philistia. That's how the word Palestine came into existence. Then the Roman Empire was taken over by the Christians. It became Christianized. And the Christians called the area, as the Romans did, Palestine. And that's why in the West, the area is called to this day Palestine rather than Canaan or the land of Israel. And the name was adopted by the Arabs of Palestine as well. So, so the explanation. I won't take the time to quote them, but there's more than one quote of very important Jews contemplating diary entries, comments,

where they seem to envisage that maybe some of these Arabic populations would need to be moved out of the way. And this is obviously one of the most important or one of the sorest points here is the issue of expulsions or high pressure tactics to get people to leave on their own. So what's your take on all that? Well, I was one of the first to actually wrote on this subject.

Occasionally, as you say, in diary entries and letters, in closed meetings of Zionist leaders, you have references to what's called transfer, the idea of throwing out or buying out and removing Arabs from parts of Palestine or even out of all of Palestine to make way and to make land available for the Jews who would come and settle there. And Ben-Gurion supported this in the 1930s, and Weizmann, the father figure, also supported it in the 1940s. But you have to remember that the whole idea of transferring Arabs

or removing some of the Arabs to make way for a Jewish state in all of Palestine or in part of Palestine was generated by Arab hostility and by the persecution of the or in part of Palestine was generated by Arab hostility and by the persecution of the Jews in Europe. The Jews needed a safe haven. They were coming to Palestine, and here in Palestine, Arabs were busy trying to kill them and to expel them, in fact. This is what happened during the Arab revolt of 1936-39.

So the Jews here said, well, if the Arabs don't want to live in peace next to us, we'll have to remove them. Otherwise, we don't have a safe haven here, and we can't establish a secure country here. So there was a certain logic to the idea of transferring the Arabs, a logic based on the Arab hostility and desire, in fact, to expel the Jews. It was like a mirror image of what the Arabs wanted to do to the Jews. From the Arabs' point of view, this was unfortunate because the Jews were successful

and the Arabs weren't. Now, what would some, I mean, I can imagine myself saying, well, this is kind of a bootstrap that you guys came in here, you know, you treated us as second class, you started, you know, buying up our land

with the intention of taking over. Then we exhibited hostility. Ah, and now you have your excuse to move the rest of us out. There's a vicious circle there, which you're right. There's a logic, and then you built logic into the whole thing, which is why sometimes one of my friends, Morale Baron, says, well, we wanted to move into an Arab populated land to turn it into a Jewish land. And therefore, it was more or less inevitable that there would be some form of expulsion,

because the majority of the population was Arab, not Jewish. And if you want to make it a Jewish land, a Jewish state, you would have to have a Jewish majority. That meant inevitably expelling some of the Arabs. And that's how the logic of it, but the Arabs fed this logic, if you like, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, when they said, well, if the Jews take over, they'll expel us. So we have to attack them. And if you attack them, you give the Jews ground to expel them.

So certainly nobody can say that the Arabs don't have a legitimate point of contention here in the way this all came about. They have a legitimate right to certain resentments of history, correct? Well, they do, except that the mass eviction of Arabs occurred in 1948 during the 48th war. And I think you can't escape from the simple fact

that the Arabs launched that war. The United Nations in 1947 had presented both sides, and if you like, the whole of the world, with a solution to the problem of Palestine, where there'd been violence for the previous dozens of years. The United Nations, in its resolution of the 29th of November, 1947, the General Assembly said, the only real solution is a Solomonic solution

of dividing the country into two states, a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews said yes to the United Nations resolution. The Arabs said no and then started killing Jews. They went on the attack and began the War of 1948. And the Jews then said, well, in defending ourselves, we have no choice if we wanted to win the war, but to clear the roads, to clear the border areas, and so on. It was a military logic, not a political logic, which is

what we were talking about before, but a military logic made it necessary to at least evict or expel some of the Arabs. And this is what happened. So the Jews afterwards were able to say, well, it was their fault. We accepted a moderate compromise. They rejected the compromise and attacked us. It's on their heads. So let me ask you about that. I remember in your book, I actually highlighted it, but I'm not going to take the time to look it up. There were a couple of Arab leaders in the 40s

who also favored partition, correct? Including the Hashemite. No, that's not correct. The only one, there was one Arab leader who accepted the idea of a compromise a small jewish state in part of palestine and that was king abdallah of jordan he was willing to live side by side with a jewish state he would take over part of palestine and the jews would take over the rest and they would live side by side in peace the king of jordan but the arabs of palestine rejected that and the rest, and they would live side by side in peace, the King of Jordan. But the Arabs of Palestine rejected that, and the rest of the Arab states except for Abdullah also rejected it, and went to war in 1948

against the Jews. I was watching this documentary which you speak of, and I'm going to guess that you were annoyed about it after you saw it. Creation and catastrophe. Okay, I can't remember. It was a pretty one-sided documentary.

It starts out, it doesn't even mention at any point that the Jews had ever been in Palestine. It just describes it as in the tradition of European colonials from the past. It literally doesn't even mention it, but you're quoted there a lot. But one of the things they concentrate on there was this plan Dalit.

Can you tell us about that and what your take is and what the controversy is? Okay, let me say something about the first point. There are some common elements between European colonialism, French settlement in North Africa, British settlement in America, and so on, and the Zionist enterprise in Palestine, with Europeans moving into a third world country. But the Jews were able to say, we're not like that. We are a national liberation movement, a nationalist movement, aiming to reestablish our state where it had existed before. And we weren't, of course, delegates or agents of any imperial power. We were doing it just for ourselves, just for the Jews to establish their own state. So in this sense, it wasn't a colonialist enterprise.

As to Plan D, after the Arabs of Palestine, the militias of the Arabs of Palestine attacked the Jews after rejecting the UN partition resolution in November 1947, the Haganah, the Jewish self-defense force in Palestine, resisted these attacks by the Palestinian Arab militias. And this went on until March, continuous Palestinian attacks and Jewish resistance with occasional retaliatory strikes. Then comes March, and in March, the Haganah, the Jewish defense force, begins to lose the battle against the Palestinian Arabs. But not only that, there is the prospect that the British are about to leave the country. The British have announced that they're leaving the country in May, and the Arab states have all announced that they will invade the country as soon as the British leave. In other words, six weeks hence, after the beginning of March, or the middle of March, they know that the Arab states are about to invade. So the Haganah, in leadership, writes up a plan for how to defend this small Jewish state, which is about to come into being and has been facing off against the Palestinian Arab militias,

how it is going to survive this expected onslaught by the Arab state's armies once the British leave. And on the 10th of March, the heads of the Haganah, Yadin in fact, the operational commander of the Haganah, signs a document called Plan D, or Toukhnit Dalit, as it's called. And the plan basically is a plan for how to secure the emergent Jewish state as soon as the British leave and just in advance of the Arab states' expected invasion of the country. The armies of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc., all did invade the country on the 15th of Egypt, Syria, Iraq, etc., all did invade the country on the 15th of May, and the Haganah

knew this was going to happen, and wrote up a plan. In that plan, the idea of securing the main roads and securing the border areas is the key to it. That's the key to the plan. But in so doing, it gives a carte blanche to the local Jewish Haganah commanders to clear out Arab villages which are inimical, which are antagonistic, which attack the Jews. It also says if the Arab villages are friendly or don't attack you, leave them in place.

But if you think that they are attacking you or endanger your lines of supply or endanger you with a stab in the back, you have the right to expel them. And commanders in some places did expel Arab villages on the basis of Plan D. But Plan D is usually presented by pro-Palestinian spokesmen and so-called historians as a master plan of expulsion of the Arabs of Palestine.

And it's not that at all. It doesn't really deal in most of its pages with expelling anybody. It deals with defending the main roads and securing the border areas. It has one or two clauses which allow local commanders to expel Arabs if they feel the need to in certain areas. Do you think... The UN General Assembly, the Jewish state was to have about 500,000 Jews, a population of about 500,000 Jews. There were about 600,000 in the country. 100,000 of them were in Jerusalem,

which is supposed to be outside the Jewish state. So the Jewish state in the areas awarded for Jewish independence had about 500,000 Jews and over 400,000 Arabs. And you're right that how would a Jewish state have come into being with a population of 500,000 Jews and 400,000 plus Arabs who are against being in a Jewish state, against the creation of a Jewish state? It didn't make too much sense. But that's the plan the United Nations passed. And this was the proposal they made for a compromise. So the Jews said yes, and the Arabs Nations passed. And this was the proposal they made for a compromise. So the Jews said yes, and the Arabs said no.

So is it, go ahead, Dan. Do you think, I mean, had the Arabs been willing to compromise, could a state have come into being that was workable? It's possible. I know this is one of these ifs. What the Jews did expect when they said yes, they probably expected the Arabs to attack, but they also allowed for the possibility that the Arabs wouldn't attack. And there are documents relating to that, to a Jewish

state which will come into being with a very large Arab minority. And in these documents it basically says the Arabs will be a large minority here, but it'll, it'll, uh, over the years decrease in proportion because the Jews will come in massive numbers and, uh, immigrate to the country. The Jews would, uh, survive the Holocaust.

Jews from other places in around the world will come to Palestine or to the new state of Israel. And thus the, the, the proportion of Jews would increase and the proportion of Arabs would decrease. So Israel would have a large Arab minority, but it could live with it. That was basically what was written there. But in addition to that, as I say, people like Ben-Gurion,

taking note of what the Arabs were publicly saying, we will go to war to prevent partition from ever happening, he said, well, probably there's going to be a war. So this is all like a pie in the sky, thinking about a future Jewish state with a very large Arab minority. But the Arabs are not going to buy it. They're not going to accept it.

Isn't it realistic to say, given what we know about human nature, and even assuming the most moral conscience in the Israelis, that given what their goal was, that as soon as the Arabs presented them with a decent excuse to move them out, they were happy to do so. I'm not sure the word happy is right. Look, the Jewish mayor of Haifa in April 1948, five months into the first half of the war when the Palestinians were busy attacking the Jews in Palestine, five months into that war, which we call the civil war, half of the 1948 war, the mayor of Haifa, Shabtai Levy, said to the Arabs of Haifa, please stay.

They were about to leave. They said, we're going to leave. We can't live under the Jews. And he said to them, please stay. So I'm not sure. It wasn't universal that all the Jews wanted the Arabs out. But I'm sure the military commanders in the Haganah were just barely defeated or about to defeat the Palestinian Arab militias and faced a few weeks since a pan-Arab onslaught on the Jewish state

by the armies of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and whatever, they probably said, well, better for us if the Arabs leave than the Arabs stay. They stay, they'll knife us in the back, we'll have to garrison each village and town, we don't have the troops for it, we won't be able to depend on their loyalty. So it made military sense for these commanders of the Haganah to want as many Arabs to leave as possible. So if you call that human nature, sure. Yazdaiyat, I think

is the one other factor which everybody sort of forgets. The 1948 war occurred three years after the end of the Holocaust. And the Arabs around Israel, around Palestine at the end of the Holocaust. And the Arabs around Israel, around Palestine, at the end of 1947-48, spoke in terms of killing, slaughtering the Jews, not the Arab leaders as such.

They very rarely went on record saying anything like that. But Arab radio stations were constantly saying, we're going to drive the Jews into the sea. We're going to slaughter them. We'll do what Muhammad did to them back in Arabia in the 7th century and so on. So the Jews faced what they thought was a new Holocaust, three years after

the old Holocaust had just ended. So one can understand them feeling well. If they want war, we'll give them war. I mean, I'm trying to focus here on the defects in my own people as it were and i and i want but i have arabic friends we're going to listen to this interview and i want to i don't

want to give anybody any of them an excuse to tell me that i that i you know avoided questions that i that i whitewashed because you know i wanted so so what i haven't done is ask you questions about what the arabs might have been happy to do so So I'm assuming there's problems on both sides, people and people, but I'm just focusing on to what extent the Israelis don't have clean hands. I'm sure there's plenty of examples on the other side too.

The partition. Let me add one thing. I think wars in general, people don't have clean hands. That's what wars are like. Right, yeah. I mean, that's a point which really is forgotten all the time by advocates of causes. So the partition in that same documentary, it made the claim, which I'd never heard before,

that the partition was quite unfair because it gave the Jews almost all the suitable land for farming. Is that true? No, no, no. This is untrue. The partition resolution of the United Nations from the 29th of November, 47 awarded the Jews, 55% of the land mass of Palestine and the Arabs of Palestine, 45%. Whereas in fact,

the proportions of the population were two thirds Arab and one third Jewish. So in that sense, it was unfair. But in terms of the land which was given to the two sides, the Jews, most of the land earmarked for Jewish statehood was in the Negev, it was desert. More than 60% of the land awarded to the Jews for their new state was desert, whereas the Arabs were given the hill country of Judea and Samaria and various other parts of the territory, which were actually quite arable. So I wouldn't say the Jews were given the better part of the land. In fact, they did get a large part of the coastal plain, which was inhabitable and very fertile, but they got also most of their state was supposed to be desert. So that's an unfair allegation.

What's true is, as I said, that the Arabs were given less land than the Jews, though they were a majority of the population. But the United Nations considered that the land given to the Jews wasn't just for the 630,000 Jews in Palestine. The land wasn't given just for them, but for the future waves of Jewish immigration, which everybody expected as a result, which were left over.

In fact, lots of Jews were left over from the Holocaust. They were supposed to come. So the United Nations thought, well, we have to give them a reserve of land so they can settle these masses of new immigrants. So the United Nations thought, well, we have to give them a reserve of land so they can settle these masses of new immigrants. So in other words, it wasn't just for the inhabitants of the land area given to the Jews, but also for the Jews who were expected to arrive.

That was part of the logic in the allocation of the different segments of Palestine. And I guess it's probably, it's probably impossible to overestimate the effect that the Holocaust and the footage had on the world conscience. They might have overshot in some way, I don't know how much different a percentage really matters, but I'm sure there was tremendous sympathy for the Jews at the time. The whole partition

resolution, I think at the back of most the time you know the whole of the whole partition a resolution i think at the back of most people's minds in the united nations and in the various capitals washington london moscow etc even with an anti-semite like stalin around in moscow they had the holocaust at the back of their minds and they thought the jews at least deserve something from a the christian world which had been persecuting them for thousands of years, will give them their state now. This was in some way payment for the Holocaust. What the Arabs were to maintain after that is,

why should we Arabs of Palestine suffer because the Germans killed millions of Jews? It wasn't us killing them. But that overlooks one other thing, that the Arabs of Palestine in some way had assisted the Nazis to destroy the Jews of Europe. They did this in two ways. By rebelling in Palestine in the 1930s against the British and against the Zionist presence in Palestine, the Arabs of Palestine essentially forced the British to close the gates of Palestine to more Jewish immigration. What it meant was that Jews in Europe had nowhere to go.

The Americans, the British didn't want them. The British were preventing them from coming into Palestine because the Arabs in Palestine said, no, you mustn't allow the Jews to come here. And this sort of annulled the idea of a safe haven for the Jews. So in that sense, the Arab actions consigned the Jews in Europe to their fate a few years later during the Holocaust. In addition to that, one does have to remember that Haj Amin al-Husseini, the head of the Palestinian Arab National Movement,

the Mufti of Jerusalem as he was, was a sympathizer of the Nazis, spent most of the war, 1941 to 1945, in Berlin, working for the German foreign ministry, issuing broadcasts to the Middle East, calling for the Arabs to slaughter the Jews and to kick out the British and the French, but also to slaughter the Jews. So he was, in fact, an ally in league with, I'm not saying that he invented the Holocaust, that he pushed Hitler to do the Holocaust,

but he in some ways generated anti-Semitism and supported Hitler's campaign against the Jews in the Middle East. And this, the Arabs can't sort of wipe away. This happened. And the last the Arabs can't sort of wipe away. This happened. And the last question before we leave 48. The issue of Dariusin and the various massacres by the Jews of Arabs, how do you see all that?

How do you put that in perspective? Well, look, I wrote about, I was one of the persons who revealed most of these massacres. Yir Yassin was well known, but there were another dozen or so massacres in various places in the course of the war in 1948. The Jews, it is true, conducted, carried out different Jewish forces, including the Haganah and the IDF, massacred Arab villagers in various places. Altogether, they slaughtered probably something like 900 Arab villagers and prisoners of war in the course of the 48th War. This includes Deir Yassin. And they committed atrocities.

This is what armies do. During that war, there were also massacres by the Arabs of Jews when they got hold of Jews whom they could massacre. But generally, because the Jews won the war, the Jews overran Arab settlements, not vice versa. So the Jews had in their, at their mercy, quite a lot of Arabs. And when you consider, in fact, the numbers of people massacred in other wars, say the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the number of Arabs massacred by Jews in the 48th war, it was actually very small when you consider this an existential civil war.

Well, this is an important point that you say, which is that because... No, but it is something the Jews did brush under the carpet and try to hide and even deny. Jews committed massacres in the 48th Ward. This is true. As did Arabs. So if I'm understanding your answer, you're saying that you're kind of saying that we

would have expected the same thing from the other side, only that they never had enough of the upper hand to do so. They would have probably massacred many, many more Jews than Arabs were massacred. This I'm sure about, even though this is total speculation. And to what extent did the Israelis use the legend of Dariusin and these massacres to scare other Arabs out of their villages and things like that? No, I don't think that's what happened. I think the Arabs did that to themselves.

The Jews didn't trumpet the massacres. They tried to hide the massacres. They tried to hide the massacres. But the Arabs, after Deir Yassin, issued broadcasts in which they said the Jews had slaughtered women and children and whatever. They exaggerated the atrocities that had happened in Deir Yassin. And this helped to frighten the other Arabs who were still in Palestine into fleeing. And this is what happened. It had a sort of an effect of exciting and promoting flight by Arabs. So it, in fact, worked in the Jews' favor. The Arab broadcasts.

But this wasn't the idea of the people who perpetrated the massacre in the area of Sin. They just massacred people because they behaved nastily because that's what happens in war, or in some wars. And then denied that they'd done it. But it was the Arabs who publicized what had happened and exaggerated what had happened, which caused mass flight.

Any other questions on the founding? Because I want to move to 67. Dan, Periel? Ask the top of his questions. Well, you had mentioned that the Arabs said to themselves, why should we suffer from, because Hitler did what he did, what does that have to do with us? But were they suffering? Were the influx,

can you properly say that the arrival of Jews in large numbers was a suffering for the Arabs in any real way? No, no. The Jews who managed to arrive in Palestine in the 30s to escape Hitler and anti-Semitism in Poland and whatever, they settled in Palestine and it was fine. But Arab contention is that the 48th war was a sort of inevitable result of what Hitler had done, of the survivors who sort of were dumped in Palestine and needed land and wanted sovereignty and so on. And they had to pay the price for what Hitler had done. That was the Arab argument, not that a few hundred thousand Jews who survived the Holocaust would inevitably lead to their

own, the Arabs' destruction. This wasn't going to happen. All right, so now moving on, so then Israel is formed, but there's no peace, and we come to 67, and there still seems to be a lot of people, smart people, who don't accept that Israel was actually in danger when they attacked in 67, that it was actually a warranted preemptive attack. What do you think about that? Well, there's a hindsight. You never know how wars are going to turn out. I mean, it's true the CIA predicted in secret that the Jews would win

within a few days, and the Israeli generals were very confident that they would win the war when they said, well, let's launch it. But you never really know what's going to happen in a war until it actually happens. Wars are always full of surprises. As it turned out, the Six-Day War was a war won by the stronger side, and Israel was the much stronger side. But this wasn't necessarily something they knew. And the war, incidentally, was fought or managed or orchestrated on the Israeli side, not with the idea of conquering the West Bank,

because the Israelis tried, in fact, to persuade King Hussein of Jordan in the early hours of June 5th, 1967, not to enter the war. And they promised him, if you don't shoot at us, we won't touch the West Bank, we won't touch East Jerusalem. This was Israel's promise conveyed through the United Nations and through the United States to King Hussein of Jordan. But his troops, under his orders, Hussein's orders, started shooting at the Jews inside West Jerusalem

and towards Tel Aviv and so on. And the Israelis marched and conquered the West Bank. So the West Bank wasn't part of the plan at all. They had to move brigades, which were supposed to jump into Sinai or cross the border into Egypt. They had to move them hastily to the Jordanian front because the Jordanians started shooting. It was all sort of hand to mouth, all very haphazard.

But the Israelis were stronger and won the war. This is what happened. Look, you can say that the Israelis could have waited. Maybe the Arabs would not have attacked. This is true. But then what Nasser had done, the president of Egypt, had unilaterally moved troops into the Sinai Peninsula in the middle of May 1967, contrary to his agreements made with the United Nations and the great powers in 1957.

He had closed the Straits of Tehran to Israeli shipping. That is, Israeli shipping going southwards towards Asia and Africa was basically blocked by Egyptian guns. He chased the United Nations Peace Force, which was in Sinai since 1957. He chased them out, told them to get out. All of this sort of made Israel vulnerable to Egyptian attack. I don't think the Israeli generals could have been expected to do anything else. They waited for two weeks.

The cabinet sort of told generals, hold your horses, maybe we can solve this diplomatically. They waited for mid-May until the 5th of June. Then the cabinet said, okay, carry out the war. And that's what happened. They attacked Egypt, and then the Jordanians and Syrians joined in and attacked Israel. Do we know to this day what Nasser's intentions were? Do we have any good records on that?

No. Well, look, you have to know all the Arab archives are closed. Nobody knows what material is there. They don't show it to their own historians. They certainly don't show it to Western or Israeli historians. And so we don't know what they said in the cabinet meetings, what they told their generals and commanders to do. Nasser, I'm talking about.

We don't know what... It seems to be that he hoped to gain a sort of a cheap victory, moving his troops into Sinai, in other words, re-militarizing the Sinai Peninsula, blocking the straits of Tehran to Israeli shipping and air traffic. And he hoped Israel wouldn't move, wouldn't march. He made a miscalculated and he sort of basically overplayed his hand and forced

the Israelis to attack him. And that's what happened. And his troops weren't ready for it. Yeah. I mean, so, so then you, then you talk about the West Bank. One of the frustrations I've had, and I, I don't even know if you're aware how deep this runs with American Jews who are not particularly pro-Israel, is they actually have no idea how it is that the West Bank even came into Israeli hands. And we've had multiple people on our podcast, and I've asked pro-Palestinian advocates, do you know how it is that the West Bank came into Israel? And they literally don't know. And so this is

a very important point to the whole history, which is that I'm just repeating what you said, that Israel actually asked Jordan not to get involved. They didn't intend to take this land. And then, in my opinion, we have this weird, almost unprecedented situation where the nation that is attacked, that beats back the invading army and holds this land and has tried many times to give it back, and you can tell us about that, is now held accountable for the fact that they have this land.

Is there any historical precedent for that situation? I'm not sure there's a historical precedent, but there is a problem in what you say. The problem is that after 1967, the Israelis became greedy. They didn't intend to expand. They didn't want to conquer the West Bank when they went to war. But once the West Bank fell into Israeli hands, after two or three days of fighting, the Israelis said,

this is nice, we now have the core of our historic homeland, the old city of Jerusalem, this is nice. We now have the core of our historic homeland, the old city of Jerusalem, Shechem, Shiloh, the various places which were the center of Jewish existence 2,000 years ago. So they had this in their hands, and then sort of a movement emerged in Israel, including in the Labour Party, but certainly on the right. Well, we now have it. Let's keep hold of it. So Israel became greedy,

without paying attention to the fact that they were also absorbing millions of Arab inhabitants, Palestinians, who didn't want to live under Israeli rule. And over the years, since 1967, Israel was basically remiss and not really trying to give back the territory in exchange for peace. It was willing to give back the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for peace, and it was

willing to give the Golan Heights back to Syria in exchange for peace, and it ended up with a peace treaty with Egypt in which it gave Egypt, in exchange for peace, the Sinai Peninsula. But in regard to the West Bank, the right wing in Israel, which grew much stronger as a result of the war, didn't really want to give back the West Bank. They wanted to retain it. And the Labour Party sort of caved to this popular pressure and was unwilling to make a real compromise over the West Bank, basically giving back the West Bank in exchange for peace with Jordan.

It was unwilling to do this. They were willing to give back chunks of the West Bank, but not all of the West Bank, and certainly not East Jerusalem. And this is what Hussein demanded in exchange for peace. So how it all fell into Israel's hands was because of the Arabs. The Arabs misstepped. Egypt did what it did in the Sinai Peninsula. Jordan started shooting, even though Israel asked them to stay out of the war.

But afterwards, Israel sort of tried to retain the territory, and the Israeli right became stronger and stronger because of demographic reasons, because of political reasons, and there's a great reluctance among Israelis to give them back the West Bank in exchange for peace. So, in your opinion... Partly because the Arabs don't... The Arabs, the Palestinian Arabs, didn't really offer peace in exchange for the West Bank.

Well, this is my question. If you could have inhabited the shoes of any Israeli leader in history at any time, do you think you could have brought about a two-state solution? I probably couldn't have done anything, but Prime Minister Eshkol, the Prime Minister of Israel in 67, had he been stronger-willed

and supported by ministers who were willing to make a major concession, in other words, pull out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in exchange for peace with King Hussein of Jordan, they probably could have pulled it off. Even though Hussein had joined the Khartoum Nose, that is the resolution in Khartoum in September 67,

saying no recognition, no peace with Israel, etc. Had he been offered the West Bank and East Jerusalem, I believe Hussein would have said yes, and there would have been peace with Jordan, not in 1994, but in 1967-68. But the Israeli leaders were weak or not willing to make the concession. If that had happened,

and the West Bank would have become part of Jordan, there would be no talk of a Palestinian state. Well, the Palestinians may have rebelled at some point later on and tried to throw out the Jordanians. But as you say, at least initially, it would have become part of Jordan, and there would have been less pressure on the Palestinians to sort of rebel, because they were willing to accept Jordanian rule during 1949-67, whereas after 67, they really weren't willing to accept Jordanian rule during 1949-67, whereas after 67, they really weren't willing to accept Israeli rule.

They didn't want to be ruled by Jews. So I was five years old in 1967, and there's very little I remember from 1967. But one of the things I do remember, just as this image sweeping over me, was the emotion of having Jerusalem back among Jewish people, only to say that this was such an emotional thing. It's hard to imagine the will to give it back, especially after a war that they felt they were sucked into. I don't know if that's not a defense, I guess, but I can just imagine your attack, you tried to avoid being attacked,

and in that attack, you regained Jerusalem. And now you say, now let's give it back. That's asking a lot of any human. Yeah, I mean, say the situation has been something similar to do with Paris or London, would the French have given, would the French having regained Paris, would they now give it back to whoever it was, the Moroccans or Arabs, in exchange for peace? They wouldn't.

They would never give up Paris. And the Londoners, the British wouldn't give up London. And the Israelis, having regained after 2,000 years East Jerusalem, which was really the center of ancient Jerusalem, the old city, Temple Mount, and so on, you're right. Probably most humans wouldn't have done this. I think most liberal Israelis today are still willing to give up the West Bank and East Jerusalem in exchange for peace.

I think most liberals will do that. But I'm not sure that that's a majority of Israelis anymore. All right. So, and I, forgive me for kind of crossing my own line of not advocating the Israeli position, but I, you know, it's a personal anecdote. So I take a, a privilege. So we move up to the Clinton era and the time when it looked like peace might have been at hand. And you, from what I understand,

you put the blame on Arafat for that falling through. But I speak to liberals who claim they never offered them a, a viable state. They, they pull out this quote of the Israeli foreign minister who says he wouldn't have accepted it either if he had been Arafat. I'm sure you know the quote I'm referring to. So can you put that all in perspective for us? Let me say outright to begin with,

the whole thing is in some way nonsensical. Even if the Palestinians were offered all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, they would still be unwilling to accept that as the final status, as their state, because it's simply too small. There are 10 million Palestinians in the world. This territory is too small to contain such a large population, especially as it says all of Palestine should be ours, not just the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. It's all ours. We were robbed of it by the Jews.

So I think the two-state solution offered by President Clinton and subsequently offered also by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert to Abbas, who followed Arafat, at base is insufficient in terms of the minimal Palestinian requirement for a state. They want and need a much larger state than the West Bank and Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. But to get back to the practicalities of what happened in the year 2000 at Camp David, between Clinton, Arafat, the PLO leader, and Ehud Barak, the Israelis. The Israelis essentially offered him the West Bank as a viable state, if such a state is viable, with some sort of land or underground bridge connecting the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and most of East Jerusalem.

These were offered to the Palestinians. Today they lie about it and say they were never really offered a proper state of that sort, and therefore they rejected it. This is total nonsense. The Palestinians were offered a state of this sort. As I say, I don't think such a thing was viable, but they were offered this state and said no. And again, Ehud Olmert in 2008 offered exactly the same thing

to a Mahmoud Abbas Arafat successor as head of the PLO. And then the Palestinians said no. And the reasons the Palestinians, Arafat said no, and Abbas said no, and Haj Amin Husseini said no in 1947 when the UN offered them the partition plan to split Palestine in two. The reason they said no is because they want all of Palestine. This is what the Palestinian leadership, both of the so-called Fatah secular movement and the Hamas, this is their position. They will not agree to give up Palestine. They want all of Palestine.

This is the problem. Because the Israelis are not going to destroy their state and give up their state. They want a state also. And this the Palestinians essentially have never agreed to. Well, you strung together two words there that we want to separate. You said want or need. And obviously what they want, you know, they might have to compromise on what they want. On what somebody needs, well, that's different. You can't expect someone to take less than they need.

So given what you think they need, what's the solution? Listen, there are hundreds of millions of Arabs in the world, around Israel, hundreds of millions. There are over a billion Muslims. In Palestine, Israel, there are seven or eight million Jews. Why should the Arabs give up Palestine when they say, well, these guys, there's seven million of them. We're hundreds of millions, and we're supported by another billion or a billion and a half Muslims around the world. History is on our side.

We're potentially much, much, much stronger than the Jews, and we will overcome them in the end. So why should we give up our dream of having Palestine? Some Arabs, incidentally, some Muslims also say, why should we even give up the dream of Spain? Spain was once a Muslim country, ruled by Muslims, and eventually the Christians reconquered it in the 15th century. But really, giving up Andalus also doesn't make sense, because we Arabs, we Muslims,

are ultimately much stronger than the Christians in numbers and in potential power. But certainly this is true about Palestine. They think that history is on their side. Why should they now compromise over it? This is, I think, a real problem. You say it's their dream to have Palestine. Why should they now compromise over it? This is, I think, a real problem. You say it's their dream to have Palestine. Do you think it's a genuine dream to have a place called Palestine, or it's just more of a dream that there's no Jews there?

Well, you know what? They probably would agree to have a Jewish minority there, which was subservient to Arab rulers. This is how Jews lived in the Arab world over the centuries since the rise of Islam. And they could count on this having a few hundred thousand, maybe a few hundred thousand Jews, a few million Jews living in Palestine under Arab rule. But Jews ruling over Arabs, that is unacceptable in terms of a Muslim history, in terms of Arab history. This is completely contrary to the way history had developed since the 7th century. The Arabs conquered the Muslims, conquered Jews, and they conquered Christians,

and here they were now being subjected to Jewish rule in a core part of the Muslim legacy. It just didn't make any sense for Muslims to acquiesce in this. Do you have a feel, or is there any good data, for how the everyday, misfortunate Arab and Palestinian people feel about all this, as opposed to their dictatorial leaders? That's a good question question because nobody really knows. The leaders are essentially intransigent. They don't really want and won't agree to a compromise.

But I would say that probably a lot of Palestinian Arabs, maybe Arabs around Palestine as well, as recently demonstrated by the United Arab Emirates, they say, well, this is reality. The Jews are very strong. They have atomic weaponry. We can't really crush them. Let's reach some sort of deal with these guys

so that we can educate our kids, send them to college, have enough bread on the table to eat, good social services. This is more important to us than some sort of political dream of taking over the country, which is really quite unrealistic. I'm sure there's a lot of Arabs who think that, but if they say it publicly, it's usually considered treachery. As incidentally, the leaders of the United Arab Emirates were denounced as traitors by the Palestinians in the last few weeks because they want to reach a deal with the Jews. So, and let's get to the Israeli public. So another story.

So when I was young, my father, as I described, was a pretty right-wing guy. That was just his outlook on human nature. And he was very, very skeptical of the Arabs. But I can remember whenever, I guess it was 77, I think it was when sadat came to speak to the kineset and we were watching on tv in our in our my father's bedroom on riverside drive and i remember my father crying like you know just crying because all of a sudden

it occurred to him that it was for real that that they really meant it. And for whatever reason, when that changed in his mind, that he, and he believed Sadat, he swung to the other side very, very hard. And I continue to believe, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, that that is a good, that represents the Israeli public, that if they actually believed, if an Arabic leader actually convinced them that they wanted peace, I feel like we'd see a big swing to the center or to the left.

What's your take on that? I think that's probably correct. I think the Israeli right, in terms of their deeper emotions and thinking, has grown stronger. But nonetheless, I think you're right that were a Palestinian leader to stand up, Arafat, Abbas, someone else, and say, okay, we're bowing to reality. We will now make peace for these guys. No more demands, no demand, for example, for a mass refugee return,

but we will accept a two-state solution. Most Israelis, I think to your right, would probably swing leftwards, as happened after Sadat's visit, because Begin was quite intransigent before that. Begin, the Israeli prime minister, was a right-wing prime minister, was unwilling to give up all of Sinai, in fact. In the end, he gave up every last inch of Sinai in exchange for peace, because he believed that Sadat meant it, and Sadat meant it. Why Sadat did it is another good question.

Maybe he was afraid Egypt would be destroyed by Israeli atomic bombs if it came to another war. It could be that that's what drove him, not some sort of humanistic impulse or altruism or whatever. But he was sincere in wanting peace. In fact, gave up his life for that in some way. And this did move the Israelis leftwards, including the right-wing Israelis. Where is Netanyahu? Would he actually want a two-step solution if one could be had? Netanyahu wants essentially to escape from a trial, which he's already enmeshed in, which will probably end up sending him to jail. That's the most important thing in Netanyahu's

life for the last couple of years, getting out of the clutches of the Israeli justice system, because he is corrupt. So I don't think he thinks at all in terms of peace or making deals with anybody. If he makes deals with the United

Arab Emirates, it's also partly to leave him still installed in power and to somehow escape the wrath of the justice system in Israel. He's certainly not willing to make compromises to achieve peace. But I don't think he really thinks about that. I think he thinks 90% of his thinking is about how to remain in power in order not to end up in jail. Okay, but prior to his legal problems, I mean, just in general, is he a guy whose intention is to strengthen a one-state Israel for the future, or would he bow like my father did if he felt an Arab leader really was sincere?

I don't know. Look, people always described him as pragmatic, and he was pragmatic for many years. But I think that there's a sort of a limit to his pragmatism. He was brought up in a right-wing ideological family. I think he basically distrusts the Arabs, as most Israelis do. And I don't think he's willing to give up land for peace, because that basically un unhinge his political power.

That is, he would end up losing his coalition. So even if he did think in those terms, he wouldn't go into it because, as I say, he'll lose power and he'll end up in jail. So I don't think it's realistic to expect anything from Netanyahu. Ariel, you want to say something? I just have one... We i'm gonna wrap it up yeah i just have one question which will um reveal my bias i'm sure very quickly but one of the things that you wrote um more recently that's always been

of interest to me is um something that i've always felt and argued with many people about, which is that this very misguided, I think, idea that Trump is good for Israel. And you have articulated, I think it was in The Atlantic, though I could be mistaken, that that's not true. And if you could just explain that a little bit. Yeah, look, I don't trust Trump as far as I can see him. I don't think his heart is in it. I don't think he likes Israel. He has no special connection to Israel.

He couldn't give a shit about Israel. That's the truth. Anything he does which favors Israel, I think, is in order to garner support from evangelists or maybe to keep good relations with his son-in-law, whatever it is. But I don't think he cares about Israel. Like, incidentally, Bill Clinton or George Bush did. They really had a thing in their heart for Israel, to help Israel survive, to help Israel become stronger.

This was important to them. But Trump, it's just he's play-acting for his own personal interests. He's done some good things for Israel in the sense that he did move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This is something which previous American presidents should have done, because Jerusalem is Israel's capital, whatever anybody says. That's the capital of the country. That's what the people want as their capital.

Like Frenchmen would say, well, Paris is our capital. You can't have our embassy, your embassy in Nantes or in Marseille or somewhere. It has to be in Paris. That's what Israelis say about Jerusalem. And Trump was right in moving that, in doing that. But that doesn't mean he's pro-Israeli. He's not. And I wouldn't trust a man when it came down to it

to support Israel if it served his interests not to. Yeah, I think Trump would bend for himself. But I think that if I think Trump has a basic mentality, which is West good, Islam bad, third world bad. And I think that support for Israel is right, you know, smack in the middle of his worldview. and it would be difficult for him to break out of it. And I think to that extent, he is sincere in that worldview. He really does feel that way. I've never felt that. With Clinton and Bush, you felt it.

With him, I don't feel it. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's there. Like Obama, he doesn't have anything good to say or think about Israel either. I don't think he cares about Israel at all. Well, that's interesting because Obama doesn't have this anti-third world attitude. He might even have a pro-third world attitude.

But Trump is the guy, and this is not in defense of him. This is just to try to inquire into his motives. He was the guy who wanted to even talk about identifying Muslims in America. This is how he views the world. So within that mentality, you can see why being pro-Israel is pretty easy for him. I think how he views the world

is an open question. I don't know that he views the world at all. I think he's completely an amoral actor that just is looking to say what he thinks will get him votes and will get him love. Yeah, well, you know, simple caricatures are always a little risky. He may be the one person, you know, that that applies to. I just don't feel anything coming out. So, last question, I guess. Exit question.

What policies... I mean, altogether, where do you see the future? What policies should we support if we want to bring about a peaceful solution? And is there any hope for a peaceful solution in Israel? I'm a pessimist. I don't see a peaceful solution on the horizon.

I think America should support, continue to support a two-state solution as the principle for a compromise. But I don't see a peaceful solution on the horizon. I think America should support, continue to support a two-state solution as the principle for a compromise. But I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think the Palestinians will buy it. They haven't bought it for 100 years. They won't buy it now. And I don't think the Israeli public by this stage

is even willing to contemplate a two-state solution, a real two-state solution. So I don't think we're going anywhere in the foreseeable future towards peace. We glossed over, I didn't get the answer, there's 10 million things. I never heard that fact before. If there's not enough room for all the Palestinians, how do you get, what's the solution to that?

There isn't. Even the division of the country into a Jewish state on 78% of the land and the Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem doesn't solve the Palestinian problem in the sense of five, six million of them living as so-called refugees in Jordan, in Syria, in Lebanon, and elsewhere. They can't come back to Palestine, to the state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza Strip if it eventually emerges. They can't do that because there's no room there for them.

Sorry, I'm being cut off here. I can't see you. Will you please join Zoom? Oh, God. You have to go? No, no, I don't have to go. I don't know what I've done. You're here.

We see you. You see me. I can't know what I've done. You're here. We see you. You see me. I can't see anything. That's okay. It's all fine. We can see you fine. Okay. No, I'm pessimistic.

I don't see the Palestinians agreeing to a two-state solution. I think America should continue to press for a two-state solution. I'm happy the United Arab Emirates is pressing for a two-state solution, but I don't see it happening. So sad. Would Sharon, if he had lived, would he have just withdrawn from the West Bank? I think that was his intention. I think he withdrew from the Gaza Strip unilaterally without a deal with the Palestinians, because he knew there was no deal possible with them. I think he intended to withdraw from the West Bank unilaterally, 90% of the West Bank, and basically restructure the border along the wall he was building.

But he collapsed, and that was it. That was the end of that dream. A unilateral withdrawal by Israel is a possibility. But what will happen is if Israel does that, the West Bank will turn into another Gaza Strip from which rockets will rain down on Israel. That's the fear of any leader in Israel who wants to withdraw unilaterally

without a peace deal from the West Bank. It's a dilemma. How do you do that? I don't know. Every year the rocket technology improves. Okay, well, this has been an absolute pleasure. Unless anybody has any final questions. Professor Morris, I don't know if you ever get to New York, but we'd love to host you at the Comedy Cellar some night if you want to laugh.

Well, we haven't actually joked at all here, which I find unfortunate. This isn't a subject which is good for joking, but no, I'll certainly be very happy to join you in the Comedy Cellar at some point. I'd also like to say, as somebody who's attuned to these things, is that Benny Morris' level of English is native level or nearly native level. I guess that's because you grew up in an English-speaking household. Yeah, that too. And grew up in an English-speaking household. Yeah, that's

true. And I also grew up partly in New York. Okay. Well, first of all, that probably was bad for my English. If you would describe it as nearly native level, Dan, you must be hanging around with all your Ivy League friends because it's superior to native level as far as I understand

Americans. I can be influenced by his accent, which is actually sort of British, maybe with a little Israel thrown in. That's what I said. It's a mid-Atlantic accent. It's in the middle of the Atlantic. Do you write your books in English or in Hebrew? I write my books in English.

Articles I sometimes write in Hebrew and sometimes in English. And then you translate them yourself or you allow someone else to do it? No, somebody else translates them. I go over the translation to make sure it's good. Yeah. All right, sir. Be safe over there with COVID

and thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. My pleasure. Bye, everybody. Bye. Bye. Samastit. Bye.