The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Israel-Hamas - Norman Finkelstein vs. Eli Lake - a Heated Debate

Episode Date: November 3, 2023

Comments: [e-mail] Controversial Professor Norman Finkelstein and Commentary Magazine writer Eli Lake debate the current Hamas-Israel conflict. It's quite a conversation. Check out Eli's podcast - The Reeducation, and Professor Finkelstein's many books, including Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom.

There we go, we're on the air. Okay, so this is our first live stream here at the Comedy Cellar. Let me welcome you all to our first live stream. I told ChatGPT I didn't want to call it a debate, and ChatGPT recommended Disputatious Conversation, which I kind of like. So this is our Disputatious Conversation on Israel. Before we get started, I'd like to mention that the Comedy Cellar is sponsoring what, as far as I can tell,

will be the first serious conversation of this kind with no fingers on the scale. You'd think this would be going on nightly all around the country. And I know Mr. Finkelstein has actually, I've seen him urge people to call in with tougher questions, almost like he was itching to get an audience that wasn't built in for his side, and it's hard to get. Obviously, people who watch the show know that this issue is tough for me because it's close to my heart, but I'm going to try to conduct this down the middle and correctly if I jump in in some way. I don't think Mr. Finkelstein will mind because I think you could take on 10 comers and be

fine with it from the way I've heard you in the past. So we're not going to have a formal debate with resolutions and all that stuff. I'll ask some questions and we can have an informal discussion. You guys can also bring up whatever questions you want. As far as interruptions go, I'd ask for people to use discretion. Try to control yourself if you can. But I do understand that interrupting is sometimes part of a constructive conversation. So, and it's, you know, we want some action also.

So hopefully we can keep it to a wise level. I was thinking as far as potential factual inaccuracies and mistakes, I don't want to pretend that we don't live in the modern age. So after this is all over, if somebody wants to provide me, not with a citation, but with an actual excerpt of something that they feel contradicts what someone else said, I would like to include these kinds of addendums in the final package of all this, because it's got to be very frustrating to know that somebody said it's not true, and then it lives on forever in some way. So I want to give every opportunity, when this is finished and tied in a bundle,

to create a record that everybody feels is accurate, or at least accurate in terms of referring to the sources. Do I have anything else I want to say here? Okay, so here we go. Eli Lake is an American journalist. He's a columnist for the Free Press, contributing editor to Commentary magazine and host of the Re-Education podcast, which I listen to quite often and I think is fantastic. Thank you. Norman Finkelstein received his Ph.D. from the Princeton University Politics Department in 1987. He's the author of many books that have been translated into 60 foreign editions. In 2020, he was named the fifth most influential political scientist in the world for the years 2000 to 2020.

His two most recent books are Gaza and Inquest Into Its Martyrdom and I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get To It, which is a book where you take on the woke. And I've heard you in a bunch of interviews on that subject, and it was fantastic on that subject. So I would recommend people checking that out, even if they don't agree with him about Israel. Okay, let's start. In a recent post, this is obviously going to start with the Gaza attack, and then at some point I'm sure we'll rewind all the way back to the 19th century. So in a recent post, you compared the Hamas attack on Israeli civilians to the Nat Turner slave rebellion. You wrote that Turner exhorted his fellow insurrectionists to kill all white people.

You said a whole family's fathers, mothers and daughters, sucking babies and schoolchildren were butchered, thrown into heaps. And you say that Turner's rage was ascribed by white to his religious delirium. So to obscure the slave uprisings, real taproot, not fanat, to what happened with the Hamas uprising. And I'll read from it. I could let you read from it if you want, because, okay. The 2,000 young men who burst the gates of Gaza on October 7th, 2023 had been born into a concentration camp. For fully two decades, they had been immured in a 25-mile long by five-mile wide sliver of land

that was among the most densely populated places in the world. The vast majority of them could never hope to leave, but only to pace each day the camp's suffocating perimeter, never aspire to gainful employment or eat a full meal, never expect to marry or raise a family. Abandoned by everyone, they were remaindered to languish and die. To expedite this process, Israel periodically launched operations visiting death and destruction on Gaza. Thousands methodically mowed down, homes and critical infrastructure systematically pulverized. It might sound like the script of a Bad Bee movie, but on the night of October 6th, each of those 2,000 men probably kissed his mother,

then his father goodbye forever, and then each silently vowed to vindicate the remorseless torture of a twilight existence and to avenge the murder of a grandparent, sister, brother, niece, nephew by that satanic power that cursed their lives. So you're offering what I think is a psychological defense there, somewhere along the lines of pleading down from premeditated murder through manslaughter, maybe even to some kind of justifiable homicide. So tell us about that and why you wrote that. On October 7th, when I first heard about the events, they were described as Hamas members, militants, whatever you want, breaking through the gates of Gaza. And they estimated on the first day about 50 people were killed. It wasn't clear how they were killed, whether they were targeted, whether it was crossfire.

So my initial reaction was people broke free of a concentration camp, an open-air prison, whichever term you prefer. And of course, I was very sympathetic. In fact, instinctively, I turned to that Civil War song, John Brown's Body Lies a-Moldering in the Grave, and one of the lines in the lyrics is, The gods above in heaven are looking kindly down. But by day two or day three, it became clear that something different had happened, or at least something of a very different order of magnitude. And at that point, I had to, in my own mind, try to make a moral judgment as to what,

we don't know the details, but we know enough to know that something of an atrocity of a significant magnitude had occurred. And at that point, I was at a loss for analogies. My first thought was my parents. They were in concentration camps during World War II. My father was in Auschwitz, and my mother was in Majdanek. So I tried to picture in my mind what would their verdict be on what happened. That was very speculative, though I'm pretty certain what their verdict would be, but we'll leave that aside because it is speculative.

The next thing I did was, recently I've been reading a lot of American history, in particular African American history, and everybody knows Nat Turner's Rebellion. It was the largest slave rebellion in American history. And it was, I knew, to be very gruesome. Actually, until I read Stephen Oates' biography of Nat Turner, I didn't realize how gruesome it was. He gave the order to kill all whites, and they proceeded to behead a lot of babies. It was very ugly. Okay, now the analogy seemed close, though I don't think the evidence is in the Hamas militants beheaded Israeli babies.

That's still a very gray area. But clearly there was a level of ugliness that the analogy seemed to hold. And then my next question is, OK, so what was the verdict, the historic verdict, on what happened with Nat Turner? And my first impulse was, OK, let me go see what the abolitionists have to say. The abolitionists refer to those heroic whites who gave over their lives to trying to end slavery. People like Charles Sumner, William Lloyd Garrison, Thaddeus Stevens, and so forth. And what struck me when I went over to look at what they said, when you look at, for example, William Lloyd Garrison,

who is the editor of that famous newspaper called The Liberator, I was quite surprised, I have to say it was a kind of a relief for me, that whereas Garrison does state that atrocities had occurred, that horrors had unfolded, if you read closely every word of what he wrote, never once, it's very conspicuous, he never once condemned the slave revolt. He condemned all the hypocrites who suddenly became very pious about atrocities. He said that we warned you, we told you so.

You leave these people in this condition, there's going to be a catastrophe. And so when I read that, I felt that was the correct verdict. And then I went on to look at CLR James, what he had to say about the Haitian Revolution, which whites were systematically targeted in very large numbers, very large numbers. And he said as well, what happened is clearly an atrocity, but he refused to condemn the slave uprising. And for me, that was the right way to try to come to grips with what happened.

Anybody, I have one advantage or disadvantage over virtually every other person listening to this program, and maybe every other person, not just virtually. That is, I spent the last 20 years reading through those human rights reports on Gaza, reading through the reports after each of Israel's massacres in Gaza, what it likes to call operations, reading through each of Israel's destruction, murderous destruction of the people trapped in Gaza, what they call, what Israelis like to call, mowing the lawn each time it launches

one of its murderous assaults. And people thought that was very funny, mowing the lawn. Isn't that cute? Isn't that clever? And then it occurred to me the other day, you know what Hamas did on October 7th? It mowed the lawn.

Is that funny? Is that funny? Is that an object of humor? Why does it suddenly become disgusting if it describes what Hamas did? But since 2007, I'm not going to even go through all the other massacres. Even though I have a pretty good memory, I cannot try as I do, try as I may. I can't remember the names of all the massacres. I don't want to interrupt you, but I want to, you know, so and before I turn to Eli, when you say you were relieved,

when you were relieved to find that garrison, you were relieved why? I couldn't find it in me to condemn the actions of those concentration camp victims. I couldn't do it. Okay. So this issue of psychological frame of mind, I want to come back to this throughout this conversation because at every period, the actors we're going to talk about have their own psychology, and some of them may be comparable to what you're describing. But go ahead, your response. Well, for those who are watching, what you just heard from Mr. Finkelstein is utterly demented and historically illiterate. The Gazans are not slaves. Gaza is not a concentration camp.

And I have read your books, not all of them, but I have read enough. And you rely selectively only on the most anti-Israel sources, and you never account for the agency of the criminal gang that currently runs Gaza. And so this allows you to make these performative moral judgments comparing it to Nat Turner's slave rebellion or what have you. But you are only able to do this because although you have assembled voluminous amounts of information, you have been totally unwilling to ever ascribe any agency to the people that have started this latest war and have started so many of these other wars. So in that respect, I have to say that I am at a loss as to why you just insist on describing the world's only Jewish state in such demonic terms. And it has consequences. Because I believe that the people who have joined these demonstrations, shouting from the river to the sea, in some cases celebrating this massive brutality,

they are in many ways your children and grandchildren, intellectually speaking. Because you have provided a kind of narrative and framework to not only delegitimize, but to really demonize the only Jewish state. It is a standard to which no other country has held, and you have decided to do it. Does Israel kill innocent civilians? Yes, every army does. But your telling of this story, that every single time the Palestinians are victims and have no role whatsoever in provoking these kinds of conflicts or even being an actor in any of these kinds of conflicts, and your massing of evidence

that only seems to go against Israel and never seems to sort of acknowledge things that almost everybody else who has looked at this as knowledge, such as the use of human shields by Hamas, it's, I think it really, it's self-discrediting. That's what I would say. Okay.

Let me ask you a question. So he's bringing up psychology, and in the law we recognize psychology. You told me earlier today about a story about when the concentration camps were liberated, how they came and they murdered the soldiers. Justifiably. What's that? Justifi soldiers. Justifiably. What's that? Justifiably. So where do you feel that his analogy fails?

Because not everybody knows these facts the way you do. Well, I mean, first of all, Israel has provided fuel. Israel has provided electricity. Israel has provided water. And it is this notion that there is this siege of Gaza, which is so inhumane. I've been to Gaza. Granted, I was there 10 years ago. You can find luxury hotels, you can find shopping centers, and you can find incredibly impoverished refugee camps. Now, there are probably a lot of reasons, and I think Israel does have some responsibility for the poor

conditions in those camps. However, why is it that in your analysis you do not blame the group that siphons off development aid, that has done everything it can to, well, let's just say immiserate Palestinians in the sense that not only do they rule the Gaza Strip, as you would expect fanatic fascists would, but they also start these wars which Israel retaliates. So you look at this massacre and you say, aha, they were mowing the lawn. I look at this massacre and I say, you are a false friend of the Palestinians. This was an obvious sort of decision from Hamas with no consultation from the people of Gaza

themselves. And by the way, Hamas is underneath Gaza City in tunnels, somewhat secure from the aerial bombardment. They have stockpiled food and fuel, of course, which they are not giving to the average citizens. They knew that there would be a response, especially something this vicious. So of course, you are explaining away the worst pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust. But you are also, it's a slur against Palestinians. If you think this is some sort of authentic representation of what Palestinians want, you think that they want this kind of thing? You think that this would not provoke a response from a far more powerful military? Is it an authentic representation of the psychology of the people in Hamas who did this?

The people in Hamas? I mean, what are we talking about? I mean, terrorist is an overused word. I think that we have to look at Hamas right now as an organization of Anders Breiviks. It's a group of mass shooters at this point. So again, if you care about the Palestinians, why have you never devoted a single word to getting rid of this disgusting fascist organization that rules over them in a misery. All right, Mr. Finkelstein. Well, the people who rule over Gaza are, I agree with you,

a disgusting fascist organization. They're called the State of Israel. Gaza is legally not even any longer occupied territory. Gaza has been illegally annexed by Israel according to international law. But we'll leave that aside and let's turn to the facts. Now, there seems to be an objection to my describing what's happening in Gaza as a concentration camp.

Yes. And there seems to be an objection because I'm not giving enough agency to the people of Gaza. So let's look at the facts, because as facts as the British adage goes, facts are stubborn things. So let's look at the basic facts. Number one, what is Gaza? Gaza is 25 miles long, less than the length of a marathon, and Gaza is five miles wide. That is the distance from where we are now on West 4th Street, NYU, to Columbia University, 116th Street. So if you imagine a marathon by the distance from here to Columbia University, that's Gaza. That's the width. I heard it described as big as Manhattan plus the Bronx plus Hoboken.

Maybe. Which that seems bigger to me than... No. And I want to get it accurately. We want to be accurate, but I don't think there's any dispute. It's 25 miles long by five miles wide. Yes. Okay.

Gaza is among the most densely populated places on God's earth. It's more populated than Tokyo. The population of Gaza is 2.3 million people. Of those 2.3 million people, 70% are refugees or descendants of refugees. That is Palestinians who were expelled from Israel in 1948. Approximately 290,000 ended up in Gaza. And so they're those refugees, their children and their grandchildren. Gaza, a fact that should be of interest and concern to your listeners, Gaza is over half children. Can I pause it just so I understand?

So when you say it's densely populated, what should I be picturing? I know it's less densely populated than Manhattan during the day. It's around like London. Gaza City is much more dense. But how does this dense population actually bring itself to bear on day-to-day life? I've seen videos of it. It seems like a normal kind of city. I've only been to Gaza a few times,

but I don't think it's correct to describe it as a normal city in terms of its density. I don't want to get into quarrels about that. I said I would start with the facts. I think it's universally...

We have no way to gauge what density means. I'm trying to picture it. I'm saying it's universally described as, quote, among the most densely populated places on Earth and more densely populated than Tokyo. Beyond that, I don't want to get— Yeah, but Tokyo is a fun city to live in. That's what I'm saying. So why is that so terrible?

Okay, so that's what we're going to get to now. Okay, sorry. That's what we're going to get to now. Yeah. So as we proceed, let's bear in mind, as I said, that the population is half children. I'm just going to jump ahead for a moment, and then I'm going to get back to Gaza, or the details of Gaza. Okay. In the past three weeks, Israel has killed about 3,500 children in Gaza. That's more children have been killed in Gaza than all the war zones in the world combined

for the years 2020, 2021, and 2022. The last time more children were killed in the total war zones in the world was in 2019. Okay, now let's get back to your question. Tokyo is a fun city. Maybe. I've not been there, but I'll take your word for it. Is Gaza fun? Let's see.

I'm just referring to the density to be fair. Okay. Yeah. I'm not trying to be unfair. I'm just trying to quote you. Right. But I was trying to picture the density. Yeah, that's fine.

Obviously, in other ways, the comparison is— We're not going to quibble over those things. Yeah. So in 2006, there was an election in Gaza. The election was urged on the Palestinians, among others, by President George Bush. Hamas surprisingly decided to participate in the election. Originally, it was against all the elections because it was under the aegis of the Oslo Accord.

They didn't want to participate. They decided to participate. Surprise to everybody, they won because the Palestinian authority, the administrative union in Gaza, is hyper-corrupt. People wanted a change, not something Americans can easily understand, and they voted to elect Hamas into office. Former President Jimmy Carter was among the monitors of the election. He pronounced the election completely honest and fair. The day after the election results came in, Israel imposed a brutal blockade on Gaza. That blockade was then reinforced by the EU and the United States. Can you get in here now?

Okay, go ahead. I take notes. He can take notes. I'm even happy to present them with paper and a pen. That's fine. Okay, so now in 2006, the blockade was imposed on Gaza. So now let's get to the question of agency. Okay?

Nothing can go into Gaza, and nothing can leave Gaza without Israel's permission. No one can go into Gaza, and no one can leave Gaza without Israel's permission. Israel controls the surrounding water. Israel controls the airspace. Now, here is fun Gaza. 50% of the population is unemployed. 60% of the children of the young people, 60% of the young people are unemployed.

Half the population in Gaza is classified by international humanitarian organizations as suffering from, quote, extreme food insecurity. That's Gaza. Now, people like to talk about Hamas. You know, I've looked up that fact, and there's a very high, almost similar, I think, stat that they give about America in terms of food insecurity. So it's not the same thing as starvation. It's some sort of poverty measure.

There are different gradations. I refer to extreme food insecurity, and that applies to about half the population of Gaza. I interrupt it only because it's another one of these adjectives like density, which it evokes something, but we don't really know what that means. And, you know, I just try to really picture, are they hungry? Are they not hungry? But, you know, they're not quite sure where the next dollar is coming from. These kind of things. The essence of truth I'm trying to get to. So we talk about Hamas as this kind of, I guess it was called fascist organization. Hamas, the people who burst through the gates of Gaza,

they were overwhelmingly about 20, 21, 22 years old. That means they were born into the concentration camp. They had never seen anything else. And there was no prospect of ever seeing anything else. So what was the surprise that people who were born into a concentration camp, half of whom have never seen a full meal in their lives, what is the surprise that they would be as Nat Turner was? One of the things that struck me when I read his biography was Nat Turner happened to have been a very smart guy. Only because we're at a half an hour and we only had on our first question, so no disrespect. No problem.

I'm saying that these young men should be consumed by rage and fury, not just at their own lives having been destroyed, but those periodic operations, in Operation Cast Lead, Israel killed 1,400 people, 350 of them children. Operation Protective Edge, Israel killed 2,200 people, 550 of them children. And then you can go through the house demolitions and so forth. And then for me to hear in the midst of that, what about agency? It's as if to say, in the Warsaw Ghetto, what about the agency of the Judenrat? Well, they had some agency. I will agree with that.

The Jewish council, I'm not going to dispute that. But at the end of the day, really, let's be honest, how much agency did the Jewish councils have? Okay, let's, Eli, come on. Well, again,

thank you for your historical illiteracy. There is no comparison between what the nazis did to exterminate six million jews and what israel has done to try in the last say 16 years to deal with a fascist fanatic organization that is on their border, that has turned the Gaza Strip into essentially a military weapons factory to attack Israel in any way that it could. And so you speak of these, and listen, it is tragic in war when people are killed and civilians are killed,

and this is sadly a fact of war. But where in your story do you account for the fact that Hamas has broken ceasefires, launched rockets, launched missiles to times, and kidnapped soldiers and now massacred 1,400 civilians in cold blood? These are very different decisions than the Warsaw Ghetto. And to even make the comparison, it's not only insulting to the memory of the Warsaw partisans, because they never did anything like that. They never sort of went on a murderous rampage, as you described.

But it's also insulting, again, to the Palestinians. I believe that you are a false friend. You are not their ally. You pretend to be the one documenting this great crime in all of your exaggerations and inaccuracies, but what you really are doing is you are saying, what can we expect from them? Of course they're going to act like these savage barbarians. And you justify it. And I say, no, there are other explanations. A lot of this, and maybe we can play the clip now of some of this Hamas television. Here's an effort to try to brainwash Gazans into this disgusting ideology.

You had one here about children. You have that one that says children? Yeah. You want to play that? Yeah. These are children's programs that when it says children yeah you want to play that yeah these are children's programs that um are produced by hamas here we go let's let's watch this make sure you have sound yeah

it's in arabic and we must wage jihad. Jihad for the sake of Allah is the pinnacle of Islam. Dear children, we must also know that the criminal Jews are plotting and they are digging tunnels under the Al-Aqsa Mosque in order to... I forgot. What do they want to build? The temple? They want to replace the Dome of the Rock with the false temple.

Aha. With all the digging under the Al-Aqsa. One day. What to do? What to do? They want to. What is the Zionist entity plotting? They want to build the false Solomon's Temple, as you said.

I want to stress that this is not true. It never existed and it will never be built. As long as we, Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are here, we are going to stay in Rabat to our last drop of blood. It is beautiful. It is wonderful. Have you a technical problem? So... Can you try it again, Nicole? Press play?

That's the end? Okay. We can show the one where they talk about Jews as apes and pigs. Might as well get it out. Sure. Do they call them human animals, by the way? Well, I think that Hamas are human animals. Do you disagree? Do you disagree that the people who would do such a thing are human animals? I think human animals are charitable.

I want to get back to the points that you made. Play the apes and pigs only because... How about the human animals while we're playing apes and pigs? You know what, I look... Go ahead, play the apes and pigs. You see the hordes of foreigners, the brothers of apes and pigs. Allah transformed them into filthy, ugly animals like apes and pigs. The Jews know that they will be exterminated one day very soon. Every Muslim must fight in order to regain Palestine.

Every Muslim must exterminate them because they are the most despicable, most treacherous and the ugliest creatures of Allah. While it is true that they are humans, they are the most despicable ones, as mentioned in the Quran. The Quran mentioned that Allah transformed them into apes and pigs, and into everything that is repulsive to the human soul. Construed to war crime by the criminal Zionists, the sons of apes, a lot of curses and curses by the Prophet Muhammad upon them.

Charles Darwin claimed that the first man had descended from apes. And this theory pleased the Jews who have spread it around. Why? They are malicious. Who did Allah transform into apes? The Jews. To those who proposed the project of the Abrahamic family house, we say, Sadat beat you to it

and this project was buried with him. You will end up in hell in the afterlife. And in the Quran, 566, it says that Allah had turned them into apes and pigs. When I visit a mosque it always surprises me how an Imam says these are descendants of apes and pigs. Oh Allah do this and do that to them, make the earthquake under their feet. We must remind him that we live on their land.

Go easy on us with your supplications. It is considered within his freedom of speech to say this every Friday. The apes today are not the descendants of those Jews mentioned in the Quran. Apes existed before and after the appearance of the Jews, who transformed them. Therefore, one can say that they are not the sons of apes and pigs.

They are not the sons of apes and pigs. One can say that they are the brothers of apes and pigs. For the sake of Palestine and the mosque, we should know the sons of apes and pigs should know. At the moment, the reaction of the Jordanians and Palestinians might only be the words. These words pretend. As some have shown us an example

that the Holy Quran, by likening it to two animals, apes and pigs. How do you allow me, since many points were made, unfortunately rarely documented, but I'm not going to get into that now also. I want to just...

So the human animals, since you asked for it, you said that Gideon Levy had described them as less than animals. You said that to me. That was Gideon Levy. The Israeli government on the first day called them human animals. We're talking about the defense minister,

and he was referring to Hamas. He said, we are fighting. As I said a moment ago, let's try to figure out who this Hamas is. Let me put this in, because I watched you on Aaron Maté's show, and I'm friendly with Aaron, and you did, Katie talked about the defense minister, and there is that quote which

he talks about the people that they're fighting, but then you said, well, Gideon Levy, Gideon Levy also described them as less than animals. But then I read what he wrote, and he wrote, animals isn't even an appropriate term for the crimes committed by the Hamas invaders on Saturday. No animal can – and then he goes on. Hamas invaders.

Then he goes on. Gaza is plagued with Hamas, and Hamas is a despicable organization, but most residents of the Gaza Strip are not like that. So the whole point of his column as I read it was to say that, yes, Hamas is worse than animals, but let's never extend that to the people of Gaza. By the way, this is the point that I've been making with you, Norman. You would say something otherwise. Not wanting to quarrel, I think the whole point of what I just said a few moments ago was let's look at what Hamas is. Let's look at those 2,000 militants. So I'm willing to acknowledge they are Hamas. And I'm trying to figure out what is, who are these people?

So now let's turn to what Mr. Lake had to say. I documented very great length the whole issue of who broke the various ceasefires since 2006. I'm not going to go through the details now because there'll be a... Look, I'm very happy to... If you would like me to go through the details... No, we don't have time, but you can send them to me, and then you can send them to Eli, and then I'll include...

Let's go... Give us the key, like an example of a major one. So let's take Operation Cast Lead. In June 2008, there was a ceasefire signed between Hamas and Israel. It wasn't signed, it was

unofficial. A ceasefire. You look at any of the sources, any of the sources, that ceasefire held until November 4th, 2008. November 4th, 2008, Israel went into Gaza and killed eight militants, knowing full well what the consequence would be. There is no dispute. See, one of the problems, Eli, is I don't think you read very carefully. I'm not going to resort to the juvenile insults that you hurl at me because they're frankly beneath me.

But you say that I only use Hamas sources or selective use of sources. You use UN, you use human rights groups that are biased. What I use is every available respected source on the topic. I use Amnesty International. I use Human Rights Watch. What do you use? I've gone through all the sources across the spectrum. And one of the things that's quite remarkable about the Israel-Palestine conflict is there is a broad consensus

among all respected human rights organizations about how Israel carries on in Gaza. Let's take one basic... I don't think Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International are... I know, I know, but you see, you didn't really answer what I said, so I'll repeat myself. Well, I used Hamas people themselves. I'm happy to play you their quote. I said there is a broad consensus among all respected human rights organizations as to how Israel conducted itself, and also as regards the blockade of Gaza, which is characterized by all human rights organizations. In fact, all of them describe the blockade as a war crime.

Richard Goldstone described the Gaza blockade as likely a crime against humanity. Now, here is the question I'm going to put to you. But didn't he walk the report back? He walked the report back. That is absolutely correct. He did not, however, not to go into fine points, he did not reject that particular finding. He rejected other findings.

He didn't reject that particular finding. Everybody, every human rights organization describes the blockade as a form of collective punishment that rises to a war crime. Well, let's leave aside... But he did retract what he considered to be the most serious finding, the 29 people killed in the home, right? Let's say he was willing to accept that Israel had made a case before Israel itself had made a definitive finding. But I'm going to lose the listeners. I'm sorry, go ahead. And I don't want to lose the listeners. So I'm going to just make three quick comments. Okay. Three quick comments. Make it quick so we can get on. Yes. Yeah. Number one, I would like Eli to point to a source that I ignored in my research.

You say I was selective. Now, everybody should listen carefully. What is my selectivity? According to Eli, it's Human Rights Watch, it's Amnesty International, it's B'Tselem, the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. It's all the UN organizations. So now let's hear Eli list the impartial human rights and humanitarian organizations that I selectively omitted. Because frankly, I would be curious. I'm very happy to answer. In your book, Inquest into its Martyrdom on Gaza, you have a chapter devoted to the concept that you believe you are debunking the idea that Hamas uses human shields in its various

wars that it starts with Israel, which you do not think they start. Well, can we play the clip of the recent Hamas guy talking about why they don't build bomb shelters and so forth. I mean, I'm basing this on what Hamas itself said. They urge Palestinians to go on the rooftops when Israel is bombing them. So why don't we play that? There was a case, it is correct, there was a case where Israel targeted a civilian home for demolition. And then I cannot say now with certainty because my memory is not perfectly clear on it,

but either they were urged, Palestinians were urged to save their home by going on the rooftop because it was targeted for demolition. That's not human shielding. I don't think Eli... That's not what I'm talking about. They said, listen, they constantly talk about the importance of martyrdom. Eli, Eli, Eli, you can't, I assume that you have some academic or scholarly background. You can't just say they all the time do.

That's not, that's not serious. Oh. No, you have to present documentation, which then the listener can verify. Let's play the clip. There's three videos here. One says, we don't build bomb shelters. Play that first. We can't see it in the call.

And then the other one should be human shields one, human shields two. Yeah. Okay. Since you have built 500 kilometers of tunnels, why haven't you built bomb shelters where civilians can hide during bombardments? We have built the tunnels because we have no other way of protecting ourselves from being targeted and killed. These tunnels are meant to protect us from the airplanes. We are fighting from inside the tunnels. Everybody knows that 75% of the people in the Gaza Strip are refugees.

And it's the responsibility of the United Nations to protect them. According to the Geneva Conventions, it is the responsibility of the occupation to provide them with all the services as long as they are under occupation. All right, should we play the human shield once again? Yeah, I like that. Maybe before we move on, what was objectionable about what he said?

I'm not sure. There's something apparently revelatory in that video. Now, memory, the alleged translators, are notoriously untrustworthy. But I'm going to leave that aside. Let me just tell you about that. I did a podcast a couple weeks ago where I played some memory videos, and I actually asked an Arabic friend of mine to check the translation on four of them, and he said they were correct.

So it doesn't mean you can generalize all of them. Right. That is correct. But the context in the memory video is notorious. Yes, it's notorious. But I'm not going to quarrel about that because I couldn't see what was incorrect in what he said. My parents— Well, let him answer My parents, just as a factual matter, my parents were in the Warsaw Ghetto. And guess what the Jewish fighting organization did?

The Jewish fighting organization built tunnels in Gaza. Excuse me, tunnels in the Warsaw Ghetto. They were called the bunkers. Anybody who knows, I know it from my parents, but I also know it from having read all the books on the Warsaw Ghetto. So building condos... Was there like an international aid to the Warsaw Ghetto? I'm sorry, it's such a ridiculous analogy. Hold on, hold on. We played the video. The memory of the Shoah, it's unbelievable. Eli, we played the video and he asked you, so what did the video prove? So go ahead, answer his question. Well, I think what the video proves is that Hamas has quite a lot of resources to build tunnels in which they can launch these abduction operations and kill various Israeli civilians.

They have plenty of money to stockpile fuel. They have plenty of money to build their rockets and missiles. They have plenty of money to buy paragliders and so forth to pull off these military operations. But they apparently don't have enough money, and they don't even consider it their own responsibility to build bomb shelters for their own population when they start wars knowing that Israel is going to bomb. So this is why I really think that it's very important that we establish here that Hamas has all of Gaza captive. Now, you get no argument from me that innocent civilians are killed in these wars. That is true. But when you just completely rip the context away and not recognize that for hamas dead palestinians are a war aim and that right there is why i believe that you are not an ally of the palestinians you are an ally of hamas let's let's

play the the other two human shield videos absolutely let's play now one of them was from an interview i did with rashid kal, and he acknowledged that it was legit. And that the guy in it was a real dude. Is that the beginning, Nicole? The enemies of Allah do not know that the Palestinian people have developed its methods of death and death seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry at which women excel and so do all the people living in this land. The elderly excel at this and so do the mujahideen and the children.

This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children and the elderly and the mujahideen in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy, we desire death like you desire life. Obviously, to an American ear, we would never hear such a thing. The children and the women go fight, get bloody. So that, to me, sounds like somebody advocating for the civilians to become part of the carnage.

What I see there, and again, I have to be careful about the translation. That's why afterwards, you have my word of honor. I'm not going to quarrel with you. I'm not going to argue because I'm not in a position to argue. I don't know Arabic. As I would understand that, I'm not going to argue because I'm not in a position to argue. I don't know Arabic. As I would understand it, I'm not going to, first of all, I'm not going to defend Hamas, not because I'm afraid to, but because it's not a source I would ever use in trying to document the case. So I'm not going to try to defend Hamas. That statement he made could also be interpreted

as meaning that we are all prepared to get, we are prepared, all of us, to give our lives for the cause. Is that a good statement? I'm not sure if it's a good or a bad statement. I would say that there are many cases in history where people have expressed a willingness to fight and die for the cause. It's not what he says, though, to be fair. He says they are human shields. Well, I'm not sure. I would have to okay i don't know that what i do know allow me to finish please because i don't want to drop the point go ahead uh there is as you can imagine as you can imagine there's an extensive human rights record on the question of human shields

so let's just see what the record shows here let's see and then we'll move on to another thing allow me one moment take your time we can cut this out people watching live stream but we can cut pauses out of the final video, so take all the time you need. Okay. So, I went through the record of human shielding in great detail. And now I'm going to quote what Amnesty wrote. Amnesty International investigated the question.

Contrary to repeated allegations by Israeli officials of the use of human shields, Amnesty found no evidence that Hamas or other Palestinian fighters directed the movement of civilians to shield military objectives from attacks. Can I ask you a question now? Yes. What if they didn't direct them? What if they just put all their materials where the other side would have no choice but to kill civilians?

That's a good question. That's a very fair question. If I can just repeat your question. Noam is your name? Noam, yeah. Noam is making the distinction between what you might call the strict definition of human shielding, where you conscript a civilian to protect you or protect others from enemy fire. And then you turn to another possibility. The other possibility is Hamas locating itself in

areas and firing from areas where it would be likely that civilians would be killed. And under international law, not to get into too many technicalities, under international law, that's called not taking sufficient caution to protect civilians. So let's look at what Amnesty International had to say about that. Oh, you were ready for it. Go ahead. Well, as I said, I believe in facts. Absolutely. Okay?

You believe in Amnesty International reports. Let's see what Amnesty International had to say. The attacks that caused the greatest number of fatalities and injuries were carried out with long-range precision munitions fired from combat aircraft, helicopters, and drones, or from tanks stationed up to several kilometers away, often against pre-selected targets, a process that would normally require approval from up the chain of command. Now, listen carefully to what Amnesty says. The victims of these attacks were not caught in the crossfire of battles between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces, nor were they shielding militants or other legitimate targets. Now listen carefully.

Many were killed when their homes were bombed while they slept. Others were going about their daily activities in their homes, sitting in their yard, hanging the laundry on the roof, when they were targeted in airstrikes or tank shelling. If you take just the current Israeli genocide in Gaza, and I'll be perfectly willing to defend the term should you want me to. In the current genocide in Gaza, the statistics show of the 8,000 people thus far killed, 3,200 killed.

What are you basing that on? Actually, I have it right here. The number. No, I'm sorry. I think I just said, Eli, it's very unwise, imprudent to use cheap tactics with me. It won't work. What's the cheap tactic? Well, I just said, Eli, I would never cite a Hamas source. Excellent.

Okay? So, according to the most recent statistic, allow me one second, I have it. How do they get statistics other than through Hamas? That's what I'm wondering. Well, I'll get to that in a moment. Okay. In the last of the 8,000 killed, 3,000 children, over two-thirds of the casualties were killed in their homes. Now, I'm going to get to that because I have no fear. I have no fear. I have no fear of truth or facts.

None. Now, that was the Gaza Ministry of Health. That's correct. Okay. So you just told me. Yes. Allow me to finish. Allow me to finish.

Human Rights Watch and several other, including The Econom economists, by the way, they have said that if you compare the statistics that are produced by the major human rights organizations with the ones produced by the Gaza Ministry of Health, that they are very, what they said, there was very... Comparable. they were comparable, they were close. Now, I have studied it closely. I have footnotes that take up three quarters of a page going through all the sources. And I would say, because people have asked me that question, if you were to put it on the spectrum, the Israeli numbers are at one extreme,

and then at the other spectrum from the center over, they mostly cluster in the same area, including the Gaza Ministry of Health. However, I would say the Gaza Ministry of Health would be the highest. I will acknowledge that. But as all the human rights organizations have said that there is no, I'll use the expression they use because it just came back to me, there is no big discrepancy between the Gaza Human, Gaza Ministry of Health numbers and the numbers used by the human rights organizations. By what factor is your intuition that they should discount these

statistics? I don't have any particular opinion on the statistics other than in a war that is now, what, three and a half weeks old that the numbers of casualties are not going to probably be accurate and if you are interested in the facts, it's probably best

to wait. But I acknowledge there are lots of civilian casualties in war and it is a terrible tragedy. And I'm not going to necessarily, I don't know what the numbers are. I was interested in it because you made it a point to say you don't take Hamas to assistance. I don't. Okay. Well, the Gaza Ministry of Health is pretty much run. The Gaza Ministry of Health is a civilian organization. Run by Hamas to assistance. I don't. Okay. Well, the Gaza Ministry of Health is pretty much Hamas. The Gaza Ministry of Health is a civilian organization. Run by Hamas. I'm not going to quarrel with that.

Okay. They did count up 471 people in the hospital, and then it turned out it was only the parking lot, and the French group found fewer than 50. No, no, no. With all due regard, I don't know you. I did speak to Aaron Matei, and he said you're a nice guy. That wasn't a not nice thing to say. The Gaza health ministry said 471. So let's be clear about these things, okay? Yeah. I said to you that when the atrocity happened on October 7th, the original number given out was 50.

I followed the numbers very closely. It went from 50, it then went next day to 100. The next day it went to 200. It wasn't until about a week and a half later that the number went up to 13 to 1,400. But nobody says anything about the reliability of Israeli statistics, even though... Because it's an open society. No, no.

You have Horowitz there investigating this kind of stuff. No, no. Even though the number changed, well, you could do the math yourself. The number changed by a factor of not 10. The factor changed by a factor of 25. Okay? So now you take the case. Are you skeptical of the Israeli numbers?

Okay. I will say at this point, having looked, read, but as I said, it's too soon to tell, the numbers on who was responsible for the deaths, I would say we have to wait and see what investigations show. Tell me more. Well, I don't know how many were killed in Crossfire. You know they videotaped it. Right. You know they GoPro'd it.

Okay, I'm not going to argue, because as I said, I am willing to acknowledge an atrocity of a large magnitude occurred, and I also said on the details, things like beheadings, rapes, and how many were killed by which side in the course of the firefights, I don't know yet. But I'm not going to argue because I said I will begin by saying I acknowledge an atrocity of a large magnitude. But do you accept a different point that Israel has a robust free press and they have people

there who are trying to sniff this out? They're reporters motivated to get to the bottom of whether the Israeli government is lying to it. And that doesn't exist on the other side of the book. I have to say to you, in all honesty, as I said, I'm of the old school. My school is never quarrel with facts. I was very perplexed. And I don't want to sound like I'm denying.

I'm just saying perplexed, and I don't want to sound like I'm denying. I'm just saying perplexed. Israel has what's ranked as among the best first responder systems in the world. Okay? Now, most of the deaths were supposedly happened on the first day. So how did a country with among the best first responder systems in the world, where most of the bodies had to have gone directly either to the hospital or to the morgue, one or the other best first responder system in the world. How did the number keep growing from 50 to 100 to 200 to 300 until finally about a week and a half later? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But I will answer you this. I will answer this because it reminds me that in the past, you used similar arguments to argue that the Iron Dome system was

actually a fraud and that the Hamas rockets were nothing more than fireworks. Correct. I don't think you stand by those positions still. So that kind of deductive reasoning can lead you to the wrong conclusion. First of all, I would not describe what I do as deductive reasoning. No, just that was deductive reasoning, not your other things, that particular thing. Which, when you say which particular thing? When you say, well, how did the first responders, it went from 50 to 100, it doesn't make any sense. You're deducing from it. No, I'm not deducing.

Second, let's be clear. I'm not deducing anything from it. I said I am perplexed by that fact. No deductions whatsoever. As to the question of Iron Dome, I went through the record very,

very carefully on Iron Dome. Now, this time, I will admit, I have been completely overwhelmed by people contacting me, calling me, and I haven't been able to do what I did for Operation Protective Edge in 2014. Namely, for me, the critical question as to the effectiveness of the Hamas quote-unquote rockets, and maybe now they are real rockets, I don't know, but the critical question would be property damage because you can't judge their effectiveness by number of civilian deaths

because Israel has a very good civil defense system. So people can go into shelters. So for me, the critical variable was property damage. And I've not been able yet. But I can't understand that because what you're suggesting is that Hamas is sending up fireworks, projectiles that they know won't do any damage. That's a lot of people. And that the entire Israeli defense establishment knows this and is sending up Iron Dome

that it's spending millions and millions of dollars on that they also know is just a charade. And that this massive conspiracy... I don't think

it's a massive conspiracy. Well, it has to be. You have to have hundreds of people who know about this. From the rocket scientists, from every aspect of the chain that builds them

all the way through, you'd have to have knowledge of this. From the people who sign off on the fake testing of them. Firecrackers or fireworks? Well, actually, I was quoting somebody else, a military

expert calling them basically bottle rockets by comparison. But let me just get along. Can we pause on this and get on to something completely different? I would like to just go to one question, which I think is significant. It'll be significant for you. And then let's wrap this up because there's so much more to talk about. Right.

Okay. It's how you characterize what's been happening since October 8th, whether to characterize it as a war or to characterize it as, I think, and just I don't want to toot my horn, but I do teach international law. I teach the laws of war or whether to characterize it as a genocide. So let's see the facts. And then, you and then we can dispute them, argue about them. Compact them, yeah. Okay, so what are the facts? On October 8th, three statements were made by Israeli leading officials. Statement number one was by Defense Minister Golan. Golan said we're not going to admit any water, fuel, electricity or food into Gaza. Statement number two was made by

the president of Israel, Mr. Herzog. Mr. Herzog said we do not acknowledge any distinction between Hamas fighters and the civilian population. Statement number three. Not with regard to killing them. No, that's exactly what he said. If you look at even the headline of the Huffington Post, you can check it yourself. They headline it as, they headline it, just go Huffington Post, civilians legitimate targets. Okay?

That was Mr. Herzog. And now statement number three is the statement by Mr. Netanyahu. He said this is going to be a long war. It's going to be our longest war. Now, I'll assume he wasn't going back to June 1982, the two and a half month. So not now, Nicole, because I want to read it. Let him not that I'm trying to hide it, but I want to give Eli a chance to look at it before we put up the headline. The question is, what's in the details?

Yeah, I looked at the details. I know, I'm sure you did. And he said that the people of Gaza voted for Hamas and they're responsible for what Hamas does. Because he was explaining, excuse me for raising my voice.

That's okay. He was explaining why they were legitimate targets. Now, statement number three, as I said, was by Netanyahu that this was going to be the longest war. Which means Operation Protective Edge was 51 days. Okay? So now you add those three statements up. No food. No water, no electricity. But they get water from the ground wells.

No, they don't. 97% of the water is poisonous from the ground wells. 97% is poisonous. According to? According to everybody. No, because CNN reported something. There's so much research done on the water situation in Gaza. I'm no expert in Gaza, but I saw it in CNN. 97% is not fit for human consumption. It's not potable. Okay.

So now you add those three statements up, and what do you get? It means the entire human population of Gaza, of whom more than 1 million are children. They will not have access to food. They will not have access to water. They will not have access to fuel or electricity, which means all the hospitals will be inoperative. The hospitals cannot operate without the fuel. We are also told that the entire population is a legitimate target for the Israeli army. When you add those statements up together, I can't see how, I can't see how it's possible to conclude that Israel has launched anything except a war of genocide against the people of Gaza? Okay, so I'd like to respond to that. First of all, Israel does provide warnings. It urged the Gazan population to move to the south part of the Strip before it ended up being,

they delayed a ground invasion. So there were efforts to try to warn the civilian population to get out of the way of the war. So I would join you in saying that what the President Herzog said, perhaps he was still furious after this diabolical atrocity from Hamas. But it was inappropriate. and I disagree with it, and Palestinians are not responsible for Hamas. I have said that consistently since this war began and since before this war began. So you get no argument from me that that rhetoric was wrong. However, the actions of Israel clearly show that this is not the case.

And I might add that Israel provides about 10% of the water for Gaza. The rest of it, I don't know the statistic of 97% of the groundwater is not potable. You can find it right now. Okay, well, very good. Nicole can look it up. But I want to continue here. Yeah, go ahead. We also know that Hamas has massive stocks of fuel and water and food and everything else in their tunnels, which they do not share with the regular population.

We also know that the leaders, I might add, of Hamas, who are celebrating this operation, killing 1,400 at least Israelis and other foreign nationals, and not to mention the abductions and so forth, which, by the way, is also a war crime, that they live in Doha and five-star hotels. So I say to you that, yes, some of this rhetoric was wrong, but I don't think it is indicative of a particular plan. For you to use a word like, it is a genocide, is, again, a typical kind of Finkelsteinian flourish. It's not a Finkelsteinian flourish. It is.

You're not. Mr. Eli, you said you've read. That's Mr. Lake to you. You said you've read my books. Not all of them. I've written about 12 books. Now, apart from the books I've written in the Nazi Holocaust, I don't think if you brought a magnifying glass, a microscope, to my books, you'll ever see the word genocide.

In fact, except— You just said genocide. No, I said before this moment. He's going to tell us why it's appropriate now where he's never... I'm not cavalier with language. I take great pride in my mastery of the English language and in the precision in my use of it. I said, in this instance, in this instance, when I add up the statements, and I was looking carefully at Perio, the other person, yes, I was, because there are other O'Flor, the listener, as she's a member of the staff here.

And I was watching your face, how you process the information that I just provided and which nobody disputes. I just gave you more information in context. Galan, Galan. By the way, they allow now the water and the electricity. What are you talking about? They allow the military barters now. Listen, there's a difference between what was the announced plan of the government of Israel on October 8th and the pressures. As they were counting their deaths.

And the pressures that are now being exerted okay but let's look at the reality i got i want to say right now right now i'm sorry right now guys right now two percent two percent of the truckloads of food there are need for gaza based on past experience, 2% are being admitted. Right now, all the human rights organizations are saying, all of them, there's a crisis in the fuel, which means the hospitals are going to not be able to function. They're going to become dysfunctional. This is, if you look at the details and then you look at what they said on October 8th and you put the two together. Now you say, we got it. We got allowed to move. I would like your listeners to remember more children were killed in Gaza in the last three weeks than all the other war zones in the world combined in the years 2020, 2021, 2022.

Including Ukraine. I don't know. Including Ukraine. Okay, okay, okay. That's a pretty horrible thing. All right, hold on. I want to just quickly respond here. I'm going to let you respond. I just want to say horrible thing. Wait, hold on. I want to just quickly respond here. I'm going to let you respond.

I just want to say one thing. Okay. I don't mean to be cavalier by trying to cut you off about that. I only did it because it's something we've said already. And I just want to, we should all acknowledge, because things can get hot and it can look like we don't, that I believe every person in this room deeply feels the tragedy of children dying. Yes. And this is one of the accusations that goes around, and it's a scurrilous accusation,

that the people who defend what Israel did are so hard-hearted that they don't break for the children dying. The images are impossible to look at. We all know that, and I think we all acknowledge that. So go ahead, do respond. The tactic that Israel initially tried and then relented on within a week was because this is what you do when somebody has taken this many hostages. Was it over 220 at this point? And they're still trying to figure

out the exact numbers. So when you, again, there's no other factor in your analysis. So why would the Israelis decide that they're going to cut everything out of Gaza? Because they wanted to use it as a pressure tactic to get Hamas to relent. Now, I believe that this was a strategic and tactical mistake of Israel, mainly because Hamas likes dead Palestinians. And so therefore, you're not going to get them to give up hostages because you're just going to help them in their war aims. So of course, the Israelis, I think, were clearly, it was a blow, a major blow to the nation state of Israel, and they made a decision that they then revoked. But, you know, if you think that this is still a genocide, explain to me why they relented on all of these points.

So let me add two things to the record, because I looked at the New York Times, it says, as the headlines from two days ago, as Gazan scrounged for food and water, Hamas sits on a rich trove of supplies. I know what the Times writes. Listen. Hamas has hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel for vehicles and rockets, caches of ammunitions,

explosive materials to make more, stockpiles of food, water, and medicine, the officials said. The officials said. A senior Lebanese official said Hamas... The officials said. Enough fighting. I wouldn't ask you a question, Noam. I would like you for a moment to... Before you interrupt me, I'm going to let you...

Let me finish what I wanted to say. That's what the Times said. I have no way of... There is a very easy way. I would like to ask a simple question. Let me finish. I'll let you. The other thing is I wanted to just put in here because

again, going back to your Nat Turner thing, if you can allow for that kind of rage for these kind of atrocities, and you used the word atrocity, knowing what the Israeli people at least believe went on. Can you not allow

in some way for intemperate statements? Does your solicitousness to psychology make you so solicitous to Hamas psychology? And then on the day after these atrocities he said something harsh.

That to me seems a lack of fairness. No, when you say a lack of fairness, I have to be attentive to that statement because it seems to me you're using a moral standard and I have to respect that. You don't say things like, you know, they're just all animals or they're all legitimate targets. You say to me, okay, fairness. Nobody said that. We haven't said anything in the

record. They're all animals. But go ahead. Nobody said they're all animals. You're missing a point. It's three weeks later and that tactic is being pursued. No, it's not. That's a different point. You brought up Herzog's remark. You said, I quoted the three leading figures. But you quoted without anything, nothing about you said yourself, but I understand. I can

make some allowance because this was the worst day for Jews since the Holocaust. I can understand his psychology. I'm saying if you're going to understand people's psychology, let's understand people's psychology that's what i'm saying let's say you know let's say they were driven mad by what happened and when people ask me why is israel and uh flicking this genocide in gaza i say one, I have no doubt it's just bloodlust revenge. You know, I'm not going to dispute that. Number two, it's what Israel calls restoring its deterrence capacity because it suffered in October.

We're going to start chopping it up more fondly only because we're running out of time. I hope you think I'm being fair to you so far. I have no quarrel. Okay, because I we're running out of time. I hope you think I'm being fair to you so far. I have no quarrel. Okay, because I'm trying to be very fair. The war aim is to remove Hamas from Gaza. That is what the war aim is. So I would put it to you, Norman Finkelstein. Do you think that that is a legitimate war aim?

Well, let's do two things. Number one, let's do two things. Number one, let's clarify what we mean by Hamas. You say you want to remove Hamas from Gaza. Now, I can cite a half dozen statements, and in fact, at the end, if you want, I could provide you with a half dozen statements or more by Israeli officials saying, let's use this opportunity to get rid of the population of Gaza. That's Hamas.

Hamas, for your listeners, you should bear in mind. Hamas means, when Israel says get rid of Hamas, it means the 2.3 million people of Gaza. No, it doesn't. It wants to clear up what it calls, clear out the northern sector, which means among the most densely populated places on God's earth, they want to take half the population,

namely what's called the northern sector, and push them into the south. So now among the most densely populated places in God's earth is going to be doubly doubly densely populated why do they want to do that to force Egypt to open the Rafa gate they've said it over and over again they want to force them into Sinai they To get rid of them, force them into the Sinai. So Hamas means a mass ethnic cleansing. That's what it means when you say Hamas. No, it doesn't.

Now... Okay, let him answer. Go ahead. You can come back to it. But I want to ask another question, but go ahead, Eli. I think what Israel is trying to do is to remove an organization that just committed a mass slaughter and treats its own population as PR pawns. And if it is true, and we still have to wait for some of this reporting to bear out, that Iran had a role in this, then that is even more cynical. When Israel asked for the population in northern Gaza to go to the south, it was because they were trying to avoid civilian casualties. That's what a humane military does. And that's what Israel did, even in its rage. Now, I'm sorry that you were incapable of using Occam's razor that would just tell you, hey, we were just attacked by these disgusting

terrorists, and we have to eliminate this terrorist organization so it no longer rules Gaza. I think anybody looking at this who isn't familiar with much of anything and just sort of casually pays attention to the news can understand that. But you, again, have twisted all of anything and just sort of casually pays attention to the news can understand that but you again have twisted all of this and said no no no it's ethnic cleansing so the victims of this horrendous massacre in an effort to defend themselves but their defense is illegitimate because i think the the tragedy of your position norman finkelstein, is that you actually don't understand that Hamas brings nothing but misery to the Palestinians. If you were a true friend of the Palestinians, you would be calling for regime change in Gaza at the top of your lungs. But you're not.

And you are more interested in demonizing Israel and delegitimizing any response that Israel might have to this horrific massacre, and you're holding Israel to this standard that no other country could possibly be held to. Okay, I want to change something. So the current conflict, the whole Arab-Israeli conflict, has shades of a Palestinian nationalist cause, a greater Arab cause, and a global jihad. And this becomes confusing to know which part of the conflict we're talking about. And I noticed in the 1988 Hamas charter said, The question of the liberation of Palestine is bound to three circles, the Palestinian circle, the Arab circle, and the Islamic circle. Each of these circles has its role in the struggle against Zionism.

Each has its duties, and it is a horrible mistake and it's a sign of deep ignorance to overlook any of these circles. Since this is the case, liberation of Palestine is then an individual duty for every Muslim wherever he may be. On this basis, the problem should be viewed. This should be realized by every Muslim. So are we seeing a fight for the Palestinians for a homeland? Or are we seeing jihad on a global basis? Are we seeing the Arabs' intransigence a la 1948 that they don't want a Jewish state? Or are we seeing the Arab street just advocating for the cause of the Palestinian people? How do you untangle those intertwined threads, again, that Hamas itself speaks about? How do you see it?

He's laughing already at me. I'm not laughing. I'm not laughing. Go ahead. Okay. I don't mean that badly. I thought I said something, you know. It's a funny thing.

I go back a long ways. It's a funny thing. I go back a long ways, much longer than anyone here. I remember the days in order to discredit the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, in order to discredit it, when the Palestinian Liberation Organization was doing everything it can, it could, to get a two-state settlement based on international law they always read from the charter now the palestine liberation organization

charter now palestinians the plo they never cited the charter it was ancient history covered in cobwebs they wanted that palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in East Jerusalem. But they do talk like jihadis. Yeah, okay. They don't need the charter. I just happened to find the charter. We have plenty of video of them talking like jihadis, and Iran is jihad. Okay. There's a lot of literature

on that Hamas charter. Leave the charter aside. Let's just take the evidence of jihad. Okay, I'll take the evidence. Okay. The evidence is, if you look at the record, beginning in 2006, Hamas was looking for a settlement with Israel. Sometimes they called it, sometimes they called it, Eli, you can laugh, but laughter can also be an indication of ignorance. I run a comedy club, so I hope not, but go ahead.

Right. So beginning in 2006, there were many attempts made by Hamas to reach a settlement of the conflict. Now, sometimes they called it the Arabic term for a long-term truce, a 30-year truce. Other times they talked about a settlement of the conflict. Israel did not want to settle the conflict with Hamas or, for that matter, to settle the conflict with the PLO. Exactly why time doesn't allow me to go into that. But it's never wanted a settlement. Well, let's just fast forward. But Barak didn't want a settlement? Excuse me? Barak? Eh that but it's never wanted a settlement well let's just fast

barack didn't want a settlement excuse me barack it depends it depends on what you mean by a settlement when i use the word settlement i mean settlement based on the principles of international law i don't think the principles are great, but nonetheless, that was the consensus of the international community. If you're interested, and I would point to your listeners, every year, every year, the UN General Assembly votes on a resolution called peaceful settlement called Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question. And every year, the whole world votes on one side, namely the terms that are spelled out, Israel, the United States, and some Pacific atolls,

Tuvalu, Paolu, Tonga, together with the U.S., and Israel vote against it. That record cannot be easily effaced because it's been every year since maybe 2000. That's what the record shows. How many of the—let him answer. Allow me just— We've got to dice it. No, no, finish it. Let me fast forward to the present.

Please. You talk about, is it global jihadi? Is it for a Palestinian state? I don't think, with all due regard to you, I don't think it's very complicated what happened. The Palestine question had vanished from the international agenda. I myself, and I freely admitted it in interviews, beginning in 2020, I gave up.

After 40 years of devoting myself and my entire adult life to chronicling what happened in Gaza, I gave up. And so the people there, they saw that the international community had itself given up on Gaza and given up on the Palestinians. So does it require a knowledge of whether it's global jihadi, a Palestinian state, an Islamic state, or to use Eli Lake's expression, let's apply Akham's razor. Akham's razor, for those of you who don't know, it's simple. Tell it for Periel. No, for everyone.

It just means sometimes the simplest explanation or the most obvious explanation is the right explanation. I think the simplest explanation and the right explanation is 2.3 million people were holed up in the concentration camp with no hope in the future. None. camp with no hope in the future, none. Even Norman G. Finkelstein from Brooklyn, New York, who gave over his entire adult life to trying to fate into their own hands and come what may. This is their way to intrude on the world's agenda and remind everybody. That's exactly what Nat Turner said. Nat Turner said, I want to cause a national crisis over slavery.

That's why I'm doing this. To be honest, I mean, there has to be some reason they did it. That's as good as any. Go ahead. I look at Occam's Razor and I see that an organization that in its charter, in its weekly calls to prayer and sermons in mosques, in its literature, in its children's program, glorifies and calls for the killing of Jews. And on October 7th, that's exactly what they did. Now, you may think that this is a way of getting the world to pay attention and that this will lead to a two-state solution. But this is actually starting a war with a more powerful party for which there is no preparation to try to save lives or to protect their own population.

It is an incredibly destructive act. It is not a democratic act. It is an act of sacrifice. It is what a death cult does. So you may think that this is explained. I mean, you originally told us it was the rage built up over the years, and this slur that you call

it a concentration camp, and then you say, no, no, no, no, they want to put it on the international agenda. Maybe next we'll tell us that it's about Al-Aqsa Mosque. Who knows? I think it's because it's an organization dedicated to killing Jews, and that's what they did.

But do you think they had any strategy, or is this just visceral pleasure? Well, I have to say I am still thinking that the verdict is out. But if Iran had a role in planning or training in any way for this and that this was in the interest of Iran, then I think it is totally likely that Hamas decided to launch the suicide mission to advance Iran's strategic agenda. Once again, like we've seen throughout the history of the Palestinian struggle for an independent state, they have been co-opted by other regional powers. And in that case, again, if you care about Palestinians, you have to favor regime change in Gaza. Mr. Finkelstein, let me ask you this, and I have another question.

And I'm asking this sincerely. These are smart people, right? So when they attack Israel this way, they understand there's going to be a reaction, and they understand that reaction is going to mean thousands of people are dead. So in some way, that has to be part of their intention is that part of uh are they in a sense using these three these thousands of people dead as weapons in their struggle, I'm going to, you know, inhabit the psychology that you're describing, in their struggle to make the world grapple with their cause. And the only way to do that is by showing them dying, because if it shows them, you know, going about their business every day, how do you get people to be urgent about that? So is the death part of the strategy here like murder by suicide you know they say that uh murder by cop yeah you know that kind of thing is this murder by uh suicide by cops sorry you know

you know i'm talking about there are many questions interwoven into that question. So let me just try to address several of them. Number one, I haven't a clue what was the reasoning behind what Hamas chose to do on October 7th. I was speaking to the motivation of the 1,500 to 2,000, I guess it's closer to 2,000, because Israel said it killed 1,500 Hamas militants, and you assume that there are about 290, the figure is now, hostages, so you assume about 500 Hamas fighters went back with the hostages. So you're talking about 2,000 young men who burst through the gates. And I was talking about what in my mind, and I admit, as I said in what I wrote, it sounds like a bad B-script movie, what was going through their heads.

Now, so I can't say what they intended to do. I don't know, and frankly, I don't think anybody does except a handful of people in Hamas, because apparently most of the organization didn't know that was going to happen on October 7th. Number two, you can never figure out exactly what the consequences are going to be in the long term. So let me give you an example. Now Turner Rebellion, what's the consequence? Well, 120 blacks were killed. The whites in the South went on the rampage,

beheaded the black people randomly, randomly, beheaded them, put them on pole, you know, put their heads on poles to warn the other black slaves, don't do that. And then the laws were severely tightened. Actually, as a result of Nat Turner's rebellion, that's when they passed a law that black people can't learn to read because Nat Turner was hyperliterate. So the immediate result was very negative. But then Nat Turner inspires John Brown. John Brown says,

I was inspired by Nat Turner. And then if you read Frederick Douglass, the great black abolitionist, he says that it was connect the dots. You go from John Brown to the Civil War. There's a direct link. So I say you can never say with certainty what will be the result. What did seem certain was, and this I hope your listeners will take in. By 2023, October 6th, the people of Gaza were being left to languish and die. That I could say with 100% certainty. And do you know why?

Because I left them to languish and die also. When you say die, you mean? Meaning no past, no present, no future, except to pace that perimeter of Gaza. There was nothing, nothing for them except to languish it. So that's number two. Number three, number three, if we were to take the question of consequences. Now, bear in mind I'm speaking now as the son of two people who were in the Warsaw Ghetto. It's very easy to make the argument, what did the Jewish fighting organization accomplish? All it accomplished, if you want to make this argument, all it accomplished was it accelerated the destruction of the ghetto and the deportation of the 20,000 to 40,000 survivors to Majdanek concentration camp.

You could make that argument. Now, here's the interesting thing. Nobody, nobody makes that argument. Nobody says, well, rationally speaking, the uprising was very dumb. I'm going to follow up on your argument. Let me ask you this question. You're just, this is like three different ways to say Israel are the Nazis. And it's, as I said earlier, historically illiterate. The analogy is nonsense. And I'm not going to let it stand.

I'm sorry, but if you're going to do this and you're going to try to appeal to like, well, we wouldn't say this about the Warsaw Parliaments. He did make that analogy, but I cousin of that thought, which is that polities, sometimes the pendulum swings to the other side of whatever was the side when something terrible like this happened. So Israel swung to the right during the second intifada. Would it shock you that now Israel now swings somewhat to the left, saying, listen, you got us into this mess. The right, what you right wing wing guys obviously this is not working and would it shock you that then that from this sprouted a

renewed attention to the peace process not a different argument whether the end justifies the means but would it shock you if that happens which is I think sort of what I think if Israel can remove Hamas from Gaza and there is a credible plan, hopefully one with elections, and more responsible parties are elected, yes, you could have a peace process. So eventually. In response to what but you cannot have a peace process when these

fanatic jew-hating fascists are in charge and the reason why and listen you've you you consistently overstate this blockade you use these out of control analogies and so forth but the reason why there are border controls for Gaza is because Hamas uses Gaza as a military staging platforms, whether it's rockets, tunnels, or power gliders, whatever it is. So that's why Israel has to make sure that everything that goes into Gaza, and they obviously didn't do a very good job because a lot of these guys who went and shot up a concert full of, you know, young peaceniks were wearing bulletproof vests and had pretty modern weaponry. So in that respect, Norman Finkelstein, as I said, if you want a two-state solution,

and I certainly do, then you have to deal with the fact that Hamas is a cancer that must be removed. And don't tell me that Hamas is really all the Palestinians because that's not true either. Eli, I never said that. What did you never say? I said Herzog said all of the Palestinians in Gaza are Hamas. I didn't say that, Eli. I'm quoting the president. You said what Israel means when they say get rid of Hamas.

Okay. And then I said, well, then look at what Israel did. Look at what Israel did. And it discredits your argument that that was the policy. Here's an interesting question. Okay. Here's an interesting question. Eli says that they can't let people in because of security reasons. But here's the interesting question. Why don't they let them out? They do. There are 40,000 work permits before October 7th that were given to Palestinians. I'm talking about Palestinians being able to leave.

Leave. They're not allowed, even cancer patients, cancer patients who are seeking better medical care outside can't leave Gaza. And that brings us to the interesting question, this question of hostages. We're told that Hamas took maybe 290 hostages. Guess what? Israel has kept 2,300,000 hostages in Gaza, the condition being you can't leave until you overthrow Hamas. That's why they're being kept hostage. one, want the Israeli hostages freed, the 290, and I want the 2,300,000 Gaza hostages freed.

What Mr. the head of the current head of the South African government, the president of South Africa, he said we need an immediate ceasefire. We need the 290—he didn't give the figure, but the hostages freed. And then he said, and the blockade of Gaza 2,300,000 people hostage, half of whom, 1,150,000 are children. I have to respond to that. Why is there restrictions? Because it's not an entire blockade, and there are cancer patients that can get treatment elsewhere. And there are also these 40,000 permits which were granted and beforehand and we know now from israeli reporting

that one of the reasons why they were able to know where to go in these kibbutzim is because the gazans working in these kibbutz were who were allowed to go over there were uh in the end informing i guess hamas into you know how to how to commit their mass murder. I think that's probably true. Okay. So why would there be these restrictions? Well, I think it's because Hamas runs Gaza and they want to kill Jews. Maybe that's it. Israel has made it clear.

There's no mystery. They can't leave until they overthrow Hamas. I got to say two things. First of all, on that point that he's making, I had the same thought that some of the horrible, I put horrible in scare quotes, actions that Israel does vis-a-vis checkpoints, vis-a-vis surveillance, questioning, all this stuff of the Palestinians, which looks so terrible to us, when we see what Hamas did, we realize, oh, maybe if not for these things that Israel does, this kind of thing would have happened sooner. There is a relationship between... And maybe if there wasn't a blockade of Gaza and people could live a normal life...

Maybe, but I'm just saying... Maybe they could live a normal life. It wouldn't have happened in the first place. Maybe, but I'm making a different point. Now, as far as Herzog's speech, I'm happy I'm just saying. Maybe they could live a normal life. It wouldn't have happened in the first place. Maybe, but I'm making a different point. Now, as far as Herzog's speech, I'm happy I looked it up. He said, there's an entire nation out there that is responsible, Herzog said at a press conference. Then a reporter asked to clarify. He said, that makes them by implication.

No. Read the first sentences. It is an entire nation out there that is responsible, Herzog said at a press conference. It is not true, this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime, which took over Gaza in a coup d'etat. When a reporter asked Herzog to clarify whether he meant to say, since Gazans did not remove Hamas power, that makes them, implication legitimate targets. He says, no, I didn't say that.

But then he stated, when you have a missile in your goddamn kitchen and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself? So this is typical of the kind of spinning it in one way. I don't know. I'd have to think about it. I know exactly what he said.

Right, but you didn't say that's what he said. He said there's no distinction between Hamas and the civilian population. But he didn't say they were legitimate targets. As a matter of fact, he said. Right, but you didn't say that's what he said. He said there's no distinction between Hamas and the civilian population. But he didn't say there was a target. As a matter of fact, he said, no, that's not what I meant. And what is the inference from that? What is the inference? If you say,

I'll turn to a neutral person. Perrielle? She's the worst. If you say, if you say, there's no distinction. Don't mess it up. There's no distinction between Hamas and the civilian population because they elected Hamas and they are responsible for Hamas. Yes, that is the inference. So what is the inference?

That is the inference, but if three minutes later somebody says, did you mean that? I say, no, I didn't mean that. Because he realized there was a problem here. Maybe. Or maybe he spoke inartfully. Why tell them that they should evacuate? Hold on.

You can be right, but I would say it's not fair not to mention to somebody. Listen, they did ask him. He did say that's not what he meant, but I don't believe it. But to tell people that's what he said and leave out the fact that he said otherwise, I don't think is scholarship. What I said was they announced their plan on October 8th. And then I said they proceeded for the last three weeks to act on that plan. They changed their plan a bunch of times in three weeks.

If you follow anything, anything that's gone on in the last three weeks, I said 25 miles by five miles. In the first week, they dropped more bombs on Gaza than any year during the war in Afghanistan. I have a question about that. Wait, I have a question about that. Wait, I have a question about that. If that bombing was indiscriminate, would it be only 5,000 casualties? Seems to me if you drop that number of bombs on the most densely popular indiscriminately, you would kill tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands.

I will, I never speak when I'm not knowledgeable i'm telling you i do that i don't it works well i don't go for that go ahead it's not my style i'm giving you the facts it's not disputed that number one more bombs were dropped on g than on Afghanistan in every year of the war in Afghanistan, bearing in mind the size of Gaza as compared to the size of Afghanistan. Number two, the Times reported, not that they attach any significance to the times, the times reported this has been the most, among the most dense bombings since in the 21st century, among the most densest bombings in the 21st century. OK, now you remember my question. My question was, wouldn't you see way more casualties? I would say 10,000 is in bed. I would say you're doing good.

I would also say... The most densely populated on God's earth. Indiscriminate bombing. More bombings than we've seen in all of Afghanistan. And you killed just a few thousand people? Wait one second.

You say just a few thousand people. I think I cited the statistic that more children were killed in Gaza in three weeks than all the other war zones in the world combined. But most people in Gaza are children. Yes. So that's what you'd expect.

You'd expect 50% of everybody killed in Gaza to be children. I'm saying, I'm saying. You want to say something? I have a question. Okay, can you ask a question? I'm Dan Aderman. I'm a senior here at City University. That's usually what I hear when I watch Norman.

Yeah, so you mentioned that Gaza, no one's allowed out of Gaza. Gaza, go ahead. Gaza. Now, the Egyptian border also has a policy that they don't let Gazans into Egypt. Does does Israel forbid if Gaz if Egypt opened up the border, would Israel allow that? Or at least before October 7th, would Israel allow Gadans to go to Egypt and maybe even go overseas from Egypt? If Egypt allowed that, would Israel? I think they'd like that now.

I think Professor Finkelstein would say they would like that now because of their strategies to get them out of Gaza. I think, you know, I've had differences of opinion with friends over this. It is a complicated question. On the one hand, as a sheer humanitarian gesture, should Egypt open up the border of Gaza and let the people out? On the other hand, not that I would make any apologies for the mass murderer of Egypt, the head of state, Mr. Sisi,

but he has a problem. The problem is that our Secretary of State, Blinken, Anthony Blinken, and the U.S. administration in general, and Israel, and Israel, have been applying huge pressure on Egypt to let the people go into Egypt. And then he says, I'm not going to facilitate, I am not going to abet the ethnic cleansing of Gazans into Egypt. I don't want to be part of that. And then what do you say to that?

Well, I looked around for what people were saying. I think the obvious answer is don't force them to flee. There should be a ceasefire now so they don't have to flee. Let's end with that. That's their home. And I want people to bear in mind 70% are refugees from 1948 when Israel was created. They've lived since 1948 in refugee camps in Gaza, 70%. And now Israel wants to turn them into refugees twice over, to dispatch them into the Sinai desert to rot and die. Because of one thing you can be certain, President Sisi of Egypt will never let them assimilate into Egyptian society.

That's never going to happen. So now you want to take the refugees from 1948 who are living in the refugee camps in Gaza and make them refugees again. That's the U.S. plan. and Israel is saying, we will get the IMF to release money to you because right now one half of their revenues are being used to service the debt. We will give you money and you let the refugees in there. Now I ask you, is that not hostage-taking? Okay. Is that not hostage-taking? Okay. Is that not hostage-taking? Professor.

To want to expel them a second time? Where are you getting this from? Expel them a second time now into the Sinai Desert? Is that not hostage-taking? Go ahead. Okay, so you're referring to a report in Haaretz where one person suggested expelling Gazans to these tents. Yes, it was one recommendation of many things.

You seem to think that Israel has a master plan that it concocted literally 24 hours after this horrible massacre, which it keeps changing. Eli, you really don't have a clue what you're talking about i respect maybe you were busy with other areas you're referring to one document that was an intelligence organization it was from october 13th and they talked about the possibility of an expulsion there have been so many statements now issued by Israelis saying, this is a great opportunity to resolve the Gaza question by expelling the Gazans.

It's not one person. Who's saying that? I'm going to do something. Okay, Eli, I think... Okay, but I don't want to get caught up on this because I think what you are saying is another fantasy from you. Because the Israelis left Gaza in 2005.

They have tried to get some sense where if you are a civilian, get out of the way. We want to have a war to destroy Hamas. I think the answer is more complicated than that, in my opinion, because demography is not our friend here. We both, I think, agree that there is a growing hard right in Israel. And it would not shock me

that some of them think this way. But there's a unity government now. We should say that. There's a unity government. And I would agree, if you want to say that Ben-Gavir and Shmotrick are Judeo-fascists, I've said that about them before. He has. I heard him say that. So I'm not going to argue that those people have terrible ideas and they do want to expel.

But so far, Israel hasn't done that. What Israel did do is it left Gaza. and I just think that you are ignoring the fact that it tried to say, get out of the northern part of Gaza because we have to go after these demons who are in the tunnels. Right, get out of the hospitals. I want to end with the ceasefire issue. Okay, so that's why— I want to just—just a strictly factual question. Yeah. Israel did not leave Gaza in 2005. Israel redeployed its troops from inside Gaza to the perimeter of Gaza.

Even Israel's leading expert on international law, Yoram Dinstein, the former president of Tel Aviv University, even he acknowledged that after Israel redeployed its troops, Gaza was still under Israeli occupation. There is no human rights organization, even including Yoram Dinstein, who's quite conservative, who denies that if you control everything that goes in, you control everything that goes out, you control the airspace, you control the waters, you're the occupying power in that area. Of course, but the question is...

They're leaving out the settlements that they also uprooted. Yeah, they uprooted the settlements. And they left greenhouses and they left... Okay, let's not... The heart of the matter... They didn't leave the greenhouses? The heart of the matter has to be why. Why do they feel it necessary to do this?

They're harsh with the West Bank, but that's not the policy on the West Bank. So we'll have to leave that to another day. Why do they feel that they can't take any chances with this particular part of geography? But it's my final question. So I just remember— By the way, just in the West Bank, Haggai El-Ad, who's the executive director of B'Tselem,

he has in the current issue of The New Yorker an article called, quote, the Gossification of the West Bank. We don't read The New Yorker because they were unfair to Hasan Minhaj. Okay. So I'm kidding. So I remember when the Gulf War started, and I was a supporter of the Iraq War. I remember saying to my father, because it was all sorts of talk going back and forth, I remember saying, I sure hope they know what they're doing.

And they didn't, right? And we've seen this in many, many wars, without regard to the justification of them, that they backfire. It's happened to Israel as well. What is your sense for the wisdom of the military action, or is that maybe we just don't have enough facts, but what's your sense for it?

Why would you oppose a ceasefire now? All those, that bundle of issues. You have thoughts on all that? And then we'll let you end. I'm not a military planner. There are great hazards in urban warfare. I think we have to mourn the civilian casualties, which are inevitable in this kind of fighting.

And I mean, again, I don't have access to the intelligence or anything like that well however i fully endorse the goal of dismantling this organization and just killing their leaders wherever they are so that they can no longer hold gaza hostage which is what they are doing and can no longer commit mass pogroms against the Jewish people. Let me add a log on that fire that just came out a couple of days ago. Gallup had a poll of Palestinian support for the two-state solution, and it's down to 16 percent of people 25 and under. It's much higher as you get older and older. Which, I don't know if that shows Israeli policy

is backfiring or Palestinian policy is succeeding, but that's the people of tomorrow that are going to be making these decisions. It's very upsetting. You cannot talk about any kind of two-state solution.

You can't talk about any of that until you get rid of Hamas. And I would put the question to you. Do you support the dismantling of Hamas? Good question. Okay. Okay. Number, I'll answer that question because I never shy away from questions as long as I've thought them through. And then number two, what should

be done now? So let's take a simple case. About 1,400 people, according to Israeli figures, about 1,400 people were killed on October 7th. Of those, about 350 were soldiers. If you look at the figures for, let's say, Operation Cast Lead, it's about the same. 1,400 people killed in Operation Cast Lead, about a quarter of them Hamas militants. So roughly the same. So if you are of the opinion that because of what Hamas did on October 7th, it has to be destroyed, not just dismantled, it has to be destroyed. That, by the way, is Bernie Sanders' position. I acknowledge that. Then, by that reasoning, the Israeli government has to be dismantled and destroyed. Now that's just one massacre. See, that's just one. Because Israel likes to periodically mow the lawn. In Operation Protect- I thought you were going to answer the question.

Okay, I'm answering the question. I'm saying if Hamas has to be dismantled because of what it did in October 7th, then if you take Operation Cast Lead, Operation Pillar of Defense, Operation Protective Edge, then the Israeli government has to be dismantled 10 times over. Yeah, I follow you, but it's not really an answer to the question. Oh, it is an answer to the question. No, because... It's called keeping a single standard. No, it's not.

You want to talk about the 290 Israeli hostages? I say fine. But then let's talk about the 2,300,000 Gaza hostages. Oh yes, Gaza. Hamas is closing the gates. I know that. Gaza is closing. Hamas is- They would love to open the gates to kill more Jews. Yes. Okay. I don't think it's necessary. I understand you're pointing out hypocrisy, but it still depends on whether you think Hamas should be... No, I will hold everyone to a single standard.

Number two... Should both governments... What do you mean by dismantling the Israeli government? If you want to decide that Hamas has to be dismantled because of what it did on October 7th, I say fine. But then the Israeli government has to also be dismantled because for 20 years it's kept the whole population confined in a concentration camp and periodically mow the lawn.

Okay, professor. But... You want to destroy the world's only Jewish state. Let me respond. Let me ask you a question. Hold on. Just hold on for one second. I'm not going to mock you. I will mock you. Maybe your comedy...

Now you're getting personal. Let me just get my answer. Comedy may be your forte, but the suffering of a genocide. I see no humor in that. Okay, hold on a second. Nothing funny about that. I would betray the memory of my parents were I ever to mock, ridicule, find funny, whatever.

Hold on a second. What's being done to those people in Gaza. Professor. It is a crime that makes your heart just scream. Professor. What's being done to them. No one is mocked. Hold on.

No one is mocked. No one has made a joke. I'm trying to ask you a question in response to your question. What I see is Israel is a democracy, and there is no substitute for a democracy. So hopefully the voters of Israel, if they are moved by the facts that emerge, will dismantle, which is not really the right word, but will vote out of office and adopt a different policy. Hamas is a military dictatorship. You can't ask them to vote them out. So your answer fails.

They never were given a chance. The people of Gaza. It can only be dismantled. It can't be voted out of office. The people of Gaza and the West Bank were told by our government. Why did you go off on a thing about mocking and joking about the children? I didn't say anything like that. Because I see a kind of lightheartedness.

No, you're imagining that. Okay, fair enough. I'm not mocking you. I pity you. If you say I'm wrong, then I'll acknowledge I'm wrong. You are wrong. I'll acknowledge you. I have no problem with saying that.

Okay. But I said the government was never given a chance from the moment it was elected in an election that the U.S. forced on the people of the West Bank and Gaza. And then Jimmy Carter went over to monitor the moment they elected that government. Yeah, the United States exerted a lot of pressure at the time. So you don't think Palestinians should vote for their leaders? Apparently not. I do think they should vote for them. Well, then why would you say they forced it on them?

I don't think you're—OK, I think there's a disconnect here. I said President Bush urged that there be the election in West Bank and Gaza. The election occurred in January 2006. Hamas, the political party of by the EU and the U.S. imposed this draconian blockade on Gaza. It was never given a chance. And then you call it a military dictatorship. I have no problem with saying that. But it was a dictatorship that was the result of never giving the people a chance for another election.

Fair enough, but the question was... Who didn't stand for another election? Why isn't there another election? Hamas has not allowed elections. Nor has the PLO. That's true, too. That's what... Okay, listen.

Listen, I think that we've gotten on pretty well here. I think that what we're doing here is a public service of the highest order. I don't think I've seen any conversations like this on any of the major news networks or any place where they should really be had. I hope you haven't had a bad experience here. And I hope that I'm asking you if if we can do things like, debates like this, on a somewhat more regular basis. If you don't want to come all the way down here, we could do it online. But I think it's much better to do it in person. We have to wrap it up because I think we're taxing.

Periel wants to say something. You can say it in Elon's mic. Go ahead. Okay. Hi. I feel like I've earned the right to speak. Okay. So I have a couple of questions for you,

and I want to be very clear that I don't think anybody, and God forbid not us, would ever make light of the death of innocent civilians or innocent children, Palestinian or otherwise. That has never, ever been the case here. And my heart and I know everyone who we've spoken to is certainly on that page. So I even had a statistician calculate how many 9-11s a thousand Gazan deaths were, because it bothered me that Israel was putting everything

in terms of 9-11s. And it's, I can't remember, if it's one 9-11 for Israel, it's like five 9-11s for Gazan, as a way of people understanding the tragedy of what's going on. So I don't remember. If it's one 9-11 for Israel, it's like five 9-11s for Gaza. So as a way of people understanding the tragedy of what's going on. So I don't think anybody takes that as a joke, just to be very clear. OK, but so you said a couple of things that I have questions about. I don't think it's fair to characterize Gaza as a concentration camp. And I am the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. My uncle was a child in the camps and my entire family on my mother's side was murdered by the Nazis. I don't think those are they're not the same thing.

I'm not saying that Gaza is, you know, a fun place by any stretch of the imagination necessarily, but I don't think that characterizing it as a concentration camp is fair. And then also your point... Would you like me to respond to that first? Sure. Then you'll go to second. Sure. Okay.

And you can cut this out if you want. No, no. No, you're part of the conversation. Thank you, Mr. Finkel. So, Baruch Kimmerling was a senior sociologist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. And he was highly respected. He's since passed from the scene prematurely. If you look at his book, Politicide, I'll spell it for your listeners, P-O-L-I-T-I-C-I-D-E. Hopefully our listeners can spell that themselves.

Yeah, because he coined the term. That's why I'm spelling it for your listeners. He described Gaza's, quote, the largest concentration camp ever in the world. That's his expression. Okay. Okay. Number two, he wrote that in 2003 okay before the blockade and before israel's repeated operations mowings of the law lawn in Gaza. I don't like that phrase, but okay.

It's a revolting phrase, yes. And isn't that something that should give one pause? That that phrase is constantly repeated. We're mowing the lawn in Gaza. Can you imagine the phrases that Gaza uses about what they've done? Do you realize one million of those blades are children. Okay, I have never heard anyone, and I know a lot of Israelis, ever use that expression.

I don't know anybody who takes any pleasure in killing children. And I don't know that that's the standard. We know that Hamas massacacres you got to talk in the mic here perry you can say come see we know we know that the hamas took great pleasure in killing children okay but i'm not yes we do but i'm not talking about that now i'm talking about the the israeli so i i don't want to use that phrase as a standard because i think it's repugnant on both sides. So that's one thing. And then you take these words like ethnic cleansing and genocide,

but I haven't heard you say anything about the horrors of what comes out of Hamas's mouth or these, maybe it's naive to say that some other people who perhaps are not Hamas apologists or sympathizers who are from the river to the sea, which calls for the very explicit genocide of literally wiping Israel off the map and Jews across the world. Okay. I know we're going to be pressed for time, and you obviously are committed to the subject enough that you sat down at the table

and you want to ask me questions. And I respect that. I had a very close friend in Israel. She was like a high school sweetheart. And I was also close with her daughter. And her daughter is the deputy editor of Haaretz, Tamar Zweigrath. And on October, she started to hear some of the statements I made,

and she was very angry at me. And she said, I don't want to have anything to do with you anymore, and you've lost your moral bearings. And actually, just a week ago, because she was a decent person, I know that. Just a week ago, when I went to Grand Central Station, and I saw those thousand Jews inside the station, and about 2,000 more outside the station. I was outside because, silly reason, I don't own a cell phone. I know.

And they didn't announce where the demonstration would be until 6 p.m. You had to have a cell phone. So I was stuck at home waiting for my friends to tell me. So I was one of the 2,000 outside. And it was one of the, for me, maybe my chauvinism comes out a little. It was such a proud moment, such a magnificent moment,

seeing 1,000 young Jews inside Grand Central Station wearing ceasefire now on the front of the t-shirt and not in my name on the outside on the back side of the t-shirt uh it was thrilling and I wanted to send a picture of that to Tamar and write I guess it's not just me who's lost his moral bearings. That's not what I'm asking. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. So now let me get to your question. My parents were very decent people.

They were hardworking. My mother was very educated. She went to Warsaw University, studied mathematics, but that was terminated by the war. That was 1937, okay? Having said that, I once asked my mother, just out of curiosity, so mom, what did you think about the terror bombing of Germany during World War II. They were engaged in terror bombing to kill German civilians in order to get them to rise up. That was the hope. It didn't work. But to get them to rise up against the Germans, okay?

The estimates are as many as 800,000 German civilians were killed in the terror bombing. And she just turned to me and very flatly said, our feeling was if we're going to die, we're going to take some of them with us. She didn't discriminate between civilians and combatants because we were talking about the terror bombing directed at civilians if We're going to die. We're going to take some of them with us It was impossible Impossible in my home growing up to say any good word about a German

or a Pole. But my parents were from Poland or a Pole. Now, with Poles, it was more contempt. You know, the Jews had a contempt for Poles. My mother would say, stupid Poles, stupid Pole. But Germans, it was a raging hatred to the last day of their life, you know? And they were very decent people. Once I brought to my home a friend, Cyrus Visser,

who was half German and half Armenian. It was the first time I ever brought anyone of any German extraction to my home. And my mother wanted to rise to the occasion. And she took him aside at the end and just whispered, it's okay that you came. That was the furthest she would go. Now, if you asked what she felt in 1945, because I'm talking about 40 years later, it wouldn't have been okay. to make anything less than the kind of homicidal statements that my own mother said, if we're going to die, we're going to take some of them with us. I have visited Gaza, not extensively, not extensively, but I have been there. And, you know, for whatever reason, I was treated decently. I lived in the West Bank. I lived in, if you know the West Bank, okay, I lived in Beit Sahur,

the Christian Palestinian village outside Bethlehem. And I lived in Hebron, right across the street from Fawar camp, Fawar refugee camp. I went back every year from 1988 to 1993. Do I walk away with a memory? And I didn't mean Hamas people, because Hamas was already around back then. Do I walk away with a memory of homicidal fascist maniacs wanting to kill me? If I did, I would say it. And people have accused me of many things, but lying is not one of them, you know. And also, errors in my footnotes is not one of them. You can accuse me falsely of selectivity. You can't accuse me of misrepresentation. So that's my answer.

You're asking for something which, to my thinking, is superhuman, that they feel about the Jews having been locked up in that concentration camp for 20 years, what my parents felt for the Germans. Okay, enough, enough. We have to wrap up. Do you want to say up. I'm sorry. I'm going to hold my tongue. I was going to say something. I'm going to hold my tongue.

Say it and finish. I would accuse you of selectivity and I hope when we meet again that I can try to... Fine. Go through my book and show it. I made a whole thing but I thought it wasn't because I'm supposed to be like impartial. I didn't want to be.

I would just tell the listener, the viewers, I would like to spar with you on that. This entire conversation, we have seen Mr. Finkelstein analogize the conditions of Gaza to a concentration camp. Yes, he has an Israeli sociologist who said it too. It is a free and open society in Israel. So yes, you will find such people who will say these sorts of things.

But he's stealing a base, and he's using, he's starting with this analogy in order to justify homicidal mass murder. And what I would say to him, even though I am younger, and I know that he is a scholar, he's written all these books, is that I wish he would evaluate the fact that he cannot bring himself to simply understand that Hamas are the 21st century Nazis, not Israel.

But I make bad analogies. Well, they are. They do what the Nazis do, which is just kill the Jews. If I invoke the Nazis, it's outrageous. But when he invokes the Nazis, that's permissible. Well, no, no, I'm basing it on what they do, as opposed to my inner demons or

whatever I'm thinking. Actually, that's exactly what I did. I based my comment on what they do. I think locking people in a camp for 20 years, where you can't go in, can't go out, no food, for a full stomach, one half the population suffers from extreme food insecurity. And now, as we speak, exactly at this moment, fuel is not being admitted, which means the hospitals collapse and the water supply. So why doesn't Hamas give them some of their fuel?

You know, because they have to kill more Jews? Okay, Ariel, first of all, you don't know that Hamas is not giving the fuel. That's what Israel says. But, but. But if they are, there was a problem. But I am not going by what I know personally. I'm reading the human rights reports. And the human rights reports, as we speak, they're coming out on a daily basis.

If the fuel is not admitted, the hospitals will not function and the water will not be drinkable in Gaza. OK, that's what the human rights organizations are saying. Okay, we're repeating ourselves now. It's not about, at this moment, it's not about Hamas. It's very convenient, and I'm not saying you're doing

it on purpose. She does do it on purpose. No, I'm not saying. It's very convenient to home in Gaza. I'm talking about I'm home in Hamas. I'm not saying it's very convenient to home in Gaza. I'm talking about I'm home in the Hamas. I'm talking about the two point three million people. Two percent, two percent of the food that they normally get, which means normally it's extreme food and 2% is being admitted. Water is drying up.

Hospitals are becoming dysfunctional. Now that to me is a murder plan. You may not like to hear it. Okay, sir. But de facto, it's a murder plan. It's a death sentence for the people of Gaza. And then we're finished. First of all, I'm not ready to sign on the dotted line for what Israel is going to do.

I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, and I'll predict here today that Israel is not going to starve Gazans to death. But if they do, I will say Finkelstein was right, I was wrong, and this is a shame that the Jewish people committed. I don't believe that's going to happen. I wonder if you really think it's going to happen. But there's a lot of bluster and bluffing and hard fucking

nose actions that people take in wartime. I want to say the following about the Nazis. Conclusively, comparing things to things is a tool, it's a strategy of advocacy. To compare something to the Nazis is a very powerful way to win an argument. All I would say is that if you were to compare factually what you've described as a concentration camp in Gaza,

and then I were to list factually to somebody who never heard the word concentration camp, what it meant to be a concentration camp in Germany, they would never think of using the same word to describe them both. No, with all due... You can find some... A concentration camp implies mass murder. No, that's a death camp. OK, well, that's what I understand. There's more camps, more camps and death camp. Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp. But you know as well as I do that the general public doesn't make that distinction.

The Japanese, what we call them internment camps, they were concentration camps. Yes, but you know that people don't make that fine distinction in everyday life. And I don't know the details of the work camps, but when you tell people it's a concentration camp, I believe you know this. You know how ignorant people are. They assume you're comparing it to the worst of Germany. I'm quoting Baruch Kimmerling. All right. Well, that's fine.

All right. He found one. Actually, you want a second? You have another? You have another human rights report? Actually, the Gaza Ministry. No, no, no. I would suspect that, you know, you would know Amira Haas.

Yeah, I do know Amira Haas. Okay. And Amira Haas' parents were in the camps in World War II. Okay. And Amir Haas's parents were in the camps in World War II. And she once had to wrestle with that question. And if you're interested, since he said you want to do research after, just Google Amir Haas concentration camp Gaza. She lived there, to her eternal credit. She lived there, and she wrote a book drinking... I am interested, but of course, everybody can pick somebody esteemed who agrees with them. So it's not an evidence.

The question is, what's her arguments are? Fine, that's why I said. Google it, because Amira, I don't always agree with her. But number one, Amira is a stickler for facts like myself. And she's a political person. And if you read her statements since October 7th, in general, in general, they've been excellent.

They've been excellent. And she was careful to say, I have friends who've looked into it. There were significant atrocities that occurred on October 7th. I defer to her judgment. I know she's not a propagandist, but she was also very careful not to blame the people of Gaza for what happened. Okay. Professor, thank you very, very much. What's the name of your book on the anti-woke book again? I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. I'll burn that bridge when I get to it.

I want to recommend that book very strongly. Jamie Kirchick, of all people, says, I don't know what's going on in the world. Everything's upside down. I'm hearing Norman Finkelstein, and I agree with him on everything because you were talking about this. I saw the blogging heads with you and

Lowry and I thought you made a lot of very good points about what happened. Because I think for myself and I struggle with what I think. See, it sounds great. Yeah, yeah. I struggle. I told you, October 7th was not an easy day for me. And then 8th and 9th were very tough days for me because

I do recognize, I'm not a kid anymore. I'm 70 years old. And I recognize people were going to attach weight to my judgment. And I sat and actually I was very nervous because I knew I usually, and I've said this before, I usually defer to your namesake, Noam Chomsky, who was my mentor for 40 years. And he wasn't accessible. Is he yet satisfied that bin Laden did it or not? I know he was tough to convince on that for a while. He said he should have been brought to trial.

Can I ask, why wasn't he accessible? It's not my business. I just want to say that I asked Noam Chomsky if he would write the foreword to my first book. I swear to God, I still have the email about all the oral sex she gave out in high school. That's not true. That's not what it's about,

but I do still have the email from Noam Chomsky. And what did he say? He said, no, probably because of the subject matter. It was, um, not as racy as Noam's making it sounds, but he did write me back. He wrote me a very nice email back.

What was the very last thing you said before that? I said that he wasn't accessible this time. No, before about Chomsky. What did you say right before that? He was his mentor. No, before Chomsky got mentioned, the point you were making. I said that I knew people attached a lot of weight to my judgment.

So I wrestled with it very hard. So when we meet again. And it's the same thing with the book on cancel culture. When we meet again. And I'm uncomfortably open to the idea of these psychological arguments, although I think the important thing is whether or not it's fair to say that this is a comparable situation. But the question then becomes, OK, well, they killed 1,200. How about 12,000? How about 120,000?

You know, once you start forgiving these types of actions or if you don't want to use the word forgiving, whatever word you would have to awkwardly use to describe what you're saying, short of saying this is unacceptable because it's murder, then you're in Never Never Land. The floor is gone and you're floating around because you find yourself all of a sudden endorsing mass murder. That's what happens when you cut these ties. And I want to explore that with you in the future. War is mass murder

yes but i'm saying if it's okay for her mask killed 1200 and nat turner it was 60 whites were killed john brown it was fewer the civil war was believe it or not i mean it's kind of an astonishing figure do you know how many americans were during the Civil War? 700,000. There were only 300,000 Americans killed during World War II. And how many Russians died in World War II? 30 million? Estimate is between 27 and 30 million Russians. Astounding, right?

Okay, we have to go. Okay. Thank you very, very much, everybody. Thank you. Good night. Well, one second. Sure. Thank you. My pleasure. I think one second. Sure. Thank you.

My pleasure. I think you've made an honest, good-faith effort, to be fair, and that's all I want. I don't agree with Eli. However, I respect the fact that he stayed. Things I said you must have found painful to endure, and I can't say what you said I found painful to endure, because I hear it quite a lot. On the other hand, I do believe I'm old-fashioned. I do believe the truth comes out in the conflict of opinions. And then the viewers can listen, and when they are doubtful, they can check.

And that's the way I think truth is discovered. Thank you very much. And I also want to say thank you to perry oh no you know i was making eye contact with you because i wanted not to be caught in the polar the polls but somebody was just listening and i could see you were listening and that's been a gratifying experience uh in the past couple of weeks do you know who gave me the most uh respectful uh hearing no uh what's her name it begins with m peterson what's her name yeah the jordan peterson's daughter jordan peterson's daughter. Jordan Peterson's daughter. What's her name? I don't know her. Margarita, I think. No, no, no.

Michaela. Michaela Peterson. And it was a very striking moment for me because she never does politics. And she listened, she processed, and you could see her face. She was listening. And the podcast, it got, as of now, it's already 350 000 views oh that's wonderful yeah and i was very glad right because her father does not like what i say you know right right but you

listened but you listen and so i'm grateful to all of you for that and i listened and i wish you all the best. Did you want to say something else? No, we're good. Okay, good night, everybody. Thank you for that. Thank you.