TRIGGERnometry - Israel/Palestine: Asking The Questions No One Else Will - Norman Finkelstein

Episode Date: May 12, 2024

Norman Finkelstein is an American political scientist and activist. Born to Jewish Holocaust-survivor parents, his primary fields of research are the politics of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He received his PhD in political science from Princeton University and rose to prominence in 2000 after publishing The Holocaust Industry, in which he writes that the memory of the Holocaust is exploited as an ideological weapon to provide Israel a degree of immunity from criticism. Find more from Norman here: https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/ SPONSORED BY: AG1. Go to https://drinkAG1.com/triggernometry and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Buy gold and earn interest on it! https://monetary-metals.com/triggernometry/ Join our Premium Membership for early access, extended and ad-free content: https://triggernometry.supercast.com OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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could have surrendered the terrorists who committed the atrocities on October 7th, and this would all be over. Let's say Hamas did do what you said. What would happen? The people of Gaza, half of whom our children, will be confined in that same concentration camp, probably it'll be more brutal than ever. We're missing a part of the puzzle here, which is also Iran. Iran could say we didn't know they were going to do that.

Come on. No, they didn't know. It's factually true. Come on. Professor Norman Finkelstein, great to have you on the show. We've been trying to make this happen for a little while. Thanks for coming on. One of the things we talked about before we started was our Basim-Yusuf interview. and we'll talk about your frustrations about how that went. But the first thing we wanted to do is do something that people often don't have a chance to do, which is kind of talk about what informs their views on things.

And in your case, one of the things that you've talked about is both of your parents were in concentration camps in Nazi Germany, or put there by Nazi Germany at least. And you talk about how that informs your views now in supporting the Palestinians. But tell us a little bit about your family history. Both of my parents were from Warsaw. My mother, I guess her father, owned a tobacco store, and she had a very good education. She went to a Jewish private school.

She knew Latin and she knew classical music. She knew math. When I say new math, not just addition subtraction, she studied at Warsaw University, as she put it, the mathematics faculty. It only lasted about two years before the war broke out. And she told me that was impossible to study because the Jews in the lecture halls,

they had to not sit, but they had to stand in a certain place. And at the end of the lectures, the Polish fascists would beat them up. If you ever saw the film Julia, Julia, it was with Vanessa Redgrave, and Jane Fonda, and had a real resonance for me, because if you remember the film and probably won't remember the details,

Julia loses her leg, the Vanessa Redgrave character, loses her leg in a Malay in an Austrian college where the fascists, it was, you know, Austrian, when the fascist attack, the Jews in the lecture hall, and it was the exact description that my mother told me growing up about what it was like in the university. Anyhow, she had a wonderful carefree life as she describes it.

She was a fascist, she said, totally supported to Tilsutsky in Poland. She was president of her class and president of her school. And by all accounts that I heard, she was very, very smart. My father, his father owned a lumber mill, I was told. And he and my mother were both in the Warsaw Ghetto from 1940, I think, to 1943. The ghetto was gradually constructed. And then in April, 1943, was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Neither of my parents were in the uprising. I want that to be clear. I don't want to misrepresent their past and make it glorious where it's not warranted. The survivors, the estimates are, between 20,000 and 40,000 Jews survived the uprising, and they were deported to Meishdnick concentration camp. Both of my parents were deported there. Now, they did not, they apparently knew of each other before the war, but I don't know the exact details. What I do remember is, after the war, pictures of my mother's son. family survived because my mother's mother had a sister in the United States.

And before the war, she sent pictures. So I have still, it was on the family wall. I kept the pictures and there are now above my piano in my living room. Those pictures survived. No pictures of my father's family survived. Nothing. And in the war saw ghetto. So my mother saw my father's sister in the distance.

She had thick blonde hair and she was wearing white boots. And periodically during the marriage, my father would assume this very tense pose. And he would tell me, he would say to my mother, tell me what she looked like. tell me what she looked like because it was the only visual connection with his family my father as I said there were the pictures

but on both sides every member was exterminated my father when I wrote my first book I wanted of course dedicated to my parents and I also wanted to say something about their past and I asked my mother, in what camps were my fault? I knew my father was in Auschwitz because he had a number,

and only if you were in Auschwitz did you have the number. So I said, in what camps? So I said, I dedicated to my father, Walsogeto, Auschwitz, and my mother told me, no, your father was in seven concentration camps. I didn't know. I know he ended up in Auschwitz, and he was in the Auschwitz death march. My mother ended up in two slave labor camps. And the thing that they always remember, what was part of their, so-to-speak, resume,

my mother would always say I was liberated by the Russians, and my father was liberated by the Americans. And then they ended up in the, what were called DP, displaced people camps in Linz, Austria. And that's where they met. that's where they married, and that's where they left. My father was in the socialist Zionist youth group called Hashemar Hatsayer, and my mother was both of my parents,

till the last dying days, they were fervent Stalinists. I mean, long after the Soviet Union, the Communist Party had put that chapter behind them, beginning with the Khrushchev speech. that did not happen to my parents. Now, as I said, they were very smart. However, they looked at the world through the lens of the Nazi Holocaust. That was sort of the beginning and the end.

You know, that was being there at the creation. And it was the Nazi Holocaust. And so far as they were concerned, and factually, it's correct. I'm fully prepared to go toe to toe with you. And it was the Soviet Union that defeated the Nazis. and that's all they cared about. Well, I'm from the Soviet Union, so the fact that the Soviet Union,

I mean, four out of every five German soldiers who died on the battle, died on Eastern France. So the fact that the Soviet Union, together with the United States and the British Empire, work together to destroy Nazism. Well, I don't agree with it together, except as a cameo role in defeating the Nazis. That's my opinion, but we're not going to get into an argument. We'll get into that argument after the interview, because I've got a lot of beef with you on the Nazis.

That was how my parents viewed it, and Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union, so you could not criticize Stalin. And if you did, even I became a Maoist, and as you know, the Soviets and the Chinese were at loggerheads, more than loggerheads. And I would sometimes make some criticism of Russia and my parents would become utterly livid, livid. And for them, the worst thing to say about somebody, the worst epithet, was to call them a traitor. And anybody who criticizes the Soviet Union in their minds was a traitor. So I had to walk on eggshells whenever we had discussions. I had to compartmentalize my Maoism at home. Well, let's not focus on World War II debate.

We can do that another time. The reason I asked you about your family background is you have talked about the fact that it informs your views of the Israel-Palestine conflict. What does that mean exactly? How are your views on that shaped by your family history? Well, there are two aspects. Number one, there is a distinction between having an intelligent discussion of something and intellectualizing something. Now, that distinction might be like sound like hair splitting or parsing, but it's part of my total being,

namely when you're talking about death, when you're talking about destruction, when you're talking about war. Yes, you have to make a rational argument. You have to persuade through reason, facts, logic. However, there is always the danger that you start to intellectualize the discussion or the conversation, as it's called nowadays, you start to intellectualize it and you lose sight of what's at stake. So to give you a concrete example, during the 1960s and 70s, There was a very famous program on New York called Firing Line, and the host was the national conservative, William Buckley.

And Buckley would have on guests, often of the radical left. It was actually a quite open program. So you would have the Black Panthers on, you would have the famous radical lawyer William Cuncelor on, and you would have Nelm Chomsky on. and when he would have some liberal opponents of the war in Vietnam on, liberal opponents of the war in Vietnam, say a John Kenneth Galbraith, very famous economist of Ardae, of my day, or Allard Lowenstein, who's less well known. They would argue about the war, argue about the war, argue about the war, arguing about the war, competing facts, and at the end, they would stand. up and give each other a bear hug. And my mother was mortified.

Where is the moral core behind what you're talking about? We're talking about death. We're talking about destruction. The estimates are about 3 million Vietnamese were killed. Forget about Laotians and Cambodians. about three. And, you know, the scenes were horrible daily because they were actually televised every night in the news and to hug the person. So yes, to facts, logic, reason you have to persuade, but you have to always be cognizant. It can't just be at the back of your mind. It has to

to be in the foreground of your mind. What we're talking about, we're talking about snuffing out life. And that to me was very important. I try not to exaggerate, but many of my statements sound as if they're hyperbolic. It was typical in my generation to watch the nightly news, either what was called ABC News, NBC News or CBS News. I could still tell you the anchors on each program because it was so deeply imprinted in our mind.

CBS is, of course, Walter Cronkite, and NBC was what was called Hotly and Brinkley. And everyone watched the news, not new news. And the top story would always be the war in Vietnam. Okay? And when the scenes appeared on the screen of the war on the screen of the war on the war on the Vietnam. My mother would go like this. Tell me when it's over. Tell me when it's over. She could physically not look at it. She was not an emotive person, not at all, and she was not theatrical. She was the real deal of what you sewers, what you got. But she couldn't physically look at it.

And so you could say, and I'm willing to grant, there was a hysterical element to how she reacted to war. But others might say that's a normal human reaction. And if you don't react hysterically, there's something wrong with you. That's, you can debate it. And so I also remember when I was in high school, I was in debate society, the debating team I was called. And the premise of the debating team is you have to learn to argue effectively on both sides. It was just a flip of the coin where you're going to be pro-a-proposition or anti-proposition. And my mother was very, very disdainful of that.

She says, that teaches you to be duplicitous and two-faced. So the moral, the passionate side, even though they were very smart, my parents, the moral and the passionate side came from my parents in my own being. And then later in life, you could say I came under the tutelage of Professor John. And he became my mentor. And I think it's fair to say to the extent that he had friends. I was a close family friend. I was close to him and I was close to his wife, probably closer to his wife than him because with his wife I could have.

So I could talk about the real world, I should say, the mundane world. The mundane world. Norman, sorry to interrupt. Let me just move it closer to the Israel and Palestine thing, because what I'm really asking you is, I should have said it like this when I started, most people would think that with two parents who are Holocaust survivors,

whose entire families were wiped out on the Holocaust, you would be on the side of the Jewish state, so to speak. And the thing that people find difficult about your position, particularly in the Jewish Jews, among other people, of course, is that, to them, explicable contrast. How do you explain that? I would say there are two aspects to it. The first aspect to it is that I grew up in the home where there was never any particular identification with the state of Israel.

That's just if, yes, it's true. My father was in Hashemar Haatsayer, but by the time I came into the world that was in the past and my parents, um, uh, didn't inculcate in us any special affection for the state of Israel. And to speak honestly, even though my parents were resolutely Jewish in their being, in their being, their gestures, they're, you know, even taking pride in intellectual achievement and in all those sort of impalpable ways they were resolutely Jewish. I can't say we were raised in a consciously Jewish home, consciously Jewish, first of all, because God was an anathema, the notion of God was an anathema in my home.

And I wasn't Bar Mitzhitzhut, which was in my neighborhood. It was devastating because Bar Mitzvah was like a coming-out party for the non-Jewish world. and it's where you display the family wealth, the family achievement and all of that sort of stuff. And it wasn't even a question in my home. It's not like I went up to my parents and said, why aren't I being bar mitz? He doesn't even ask the question.

It was just not part of the range of thought. It's a funny story. I was born in December. So all of my friends, they're having their bar mitzvahs, they're having their bar mitzvahs. And I had to come up with an excuse why eventually it came to December, why, and I have a bar mitzvah, and my excuse was, I'm having my bar mitzvah in Israel.

Zionism came in handy. So there was that aspect that I didn't grow up in a home that you would call conventionally Jewish. And the second aspect is, and I know this is going to sound a little bit pious and abstract. At the beginning, it's true, and I tried to be as candid and truthful as it can be. Yes, the Jewish elman came into play because, remember, I was involved in this conflict at a time where very few Jews were. I go back to the 1970s and 1982 with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. And so being Jewish was an asset to the cause. And so, as it were, and I don't like to use the word,

but it seems like it's plausible. Advertising your Jewishness in this cause was helpful. But over time, you could say a kind of overtime, a kind of moral refinement set in, and I became pretty emphatic. I'm not pro or anti-Israel. I'm not pro or anti-Palestinian. I'm not pro or anti-Arab.

And whenever I am described in those terms, in particular, when I'm described as pro-Palestinian or pro-Arab, I recoil and I manifest the fact that I'm recalling by always emphasizing I'm pro-truth and I'm pro-justice. I am anti-falsity and I am anti-injustice. That's the only thing that concerns me. If the facts fell on the other side, then I have to go where the truth tells me to go

and where justice directs me. And I am very confident that that is, but I acknowledge it took time for me to internalize that. That it's about truth. It's about justice. It's about spending the whole of your adult life, the whole of your adult life, pouring over human rights reports,

pouring over legal texts, pouring over books, and books and not reading them once. I'm not boasting, I'm speaking factually, and maybe it's nothing to boast about. I have a wonderful friend in the UK, Deborah. Her father was a very famous Jewish historian, the most famous Makkobi, and she's the daughter,

Professor Makabi. And I was reading Jane Eyre again. First time I read it was in sophomore year in high school. I was rereading it. And the prose is just so dazzling. Oh, my God, every sentence. And I was, Deborah knows English, the English language. She was at Oxford in English.

And I was saying, oh, how I wish I had spent my life reading novels like this. instead of reading these human rights reports over and over and over again and over and over and over again, trying to ferret out the truth, trying to find a logic or illogic in the argument. So just complete the film. So at the end, if it weren't about truth and it weren't about justice, there's just complete the film. then I would have been, I would have had wasted my whole adult life because that's what I was searching for. I was trying to find the facts, the truth were, and follow it. So it long ago, I don't want to deny any aspect of truth where there is. Yes, at the beginning, my quote unquote Jewishness came into play. But I left that behind quite a long time ago.

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So, Norman, what is the truth? because you've used those words again and again. It's obvious that truth motivates you. It's obvious that you are motivated when you see injustice, particularly when it comes to this cause. So let's talk about the facts of what's happening on the ground. What is the truth? When you say what is the truth,

or can just be a little bit more specific, what would you like me to address? I would like you to address what is happening to the Palestinian people on the ground because one side says one thing, one side says another, and also as well, like the saying goes, the first casualty in war is the truth. So let's talk about what we know as far as possible.

Okay. I would say a good place to begin, because people always ask, what would you recommend? I would say a good place to begin on the events since October 7th. I would say a good place to begin is the South African application to the International Court of Justice. It runs to about 84 pages, and it's single-spaced with literally hundreds of footnotes, and each footnote has multiple references, sometimes 10 or 15 references. And the references come from what I think are by consensus, reputable, objective sources.

of the references, not all, would I would say, the overwhelming predominance of references are to various UN agencies. And the picture they depict, and I've read that application several times. In fact, I just recently, a couple of days ago, reread it for something I'm writing. The picture they depict, first of all, let's begin with beginning. It's a horrifying picture. I am absolutely astonished. Each time I read it, I have to take a breath.

It's not only horrifying in terms of the objective numbers they present, whether it be the number of children killed, the number of children and women combined versus men killed, whether it be the number of bombs dropped in a week, the weather. weight of the bombs, or whether it be the number of homes that are killed, destroyed. It's not just the numbers, the objective figures. How do you, as Oprah Winfrey would say, wrap your mind around 15,000 children killed? How do you do that? You know, it's not just the numbers. It's the relative numbers. not just the objective. In the case of Ukraine, which I take you're familiar with, they estimate 500 children killed in two years. In the case of Gaza, 15,06 months. If you take the density of bombing, it said that there was more relative destruction in Gaza than in Dresden or Hamble.

during World War II, the number of medics killed, the number of journalists killed, the number of whatever number you take, it's in a completely different category. It's in a totally different level. Every article, and I take it, you fellows read the British Press, they're constantly making the comparisons, I read those articles.

They're constantly comparing it with other war zones. More children killed in Gaza in six months than the number of children killed in all the other war zones, all the other war zones in the world over three years multiplied by four. Do you hear what I'm saying? Yes. Yes. Gaza is?

Gaza is, sometimes people need, I think, to visualize it. Gaza is 25 miles long. It's less than the length of a marathon. It's five miles wide. You know what five miles wide is? But that number resonates for me? I jog every morning at the seashore, calling the island seashore five miles. It's the length of my jog by the distance of a marathon.

Half the population, half is children. Half. And 80% are refugees or descendants of refugees. You know what that means? In 1948, you lost your homeland. You were expelled from the area that became Israel. And now, according to the last report of the World Bank, 300,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed.

72% were just destroyed. Okay? 1.3 million people have nowhere to return. They lost their homelands, and now they lost their homes. You know what it means to lose a home? I don't want to become emotive, but on the other hand, you have to put, give life to the facts. They not only lost their home, they not only lost their block, they not only lost their neighborhood, they lost their city. What does that mean? It means the place has been pulverized.

they don't know where to return to. Imagine the block you live on has been ground into dust. That's what happened. That's what happens when you drop these bombs at the density and intensity that Israel has been dropping them. That was a calculated policy. The Israeli officials kept saying, we're going to make Gaza unlivable,

uninhabitable. That was a calculated policy as one of Israel's senior advisors, Giora Island, the former head of Israel's National Security Council. He said, we are going to give them two choices to stay and starve or to leave, to make Gaza uninhabitable, to reduce it to rubble and dust. That's Gaza. And so looking at the picture not trying to attach a broader legal label to it, whether to call it genocide or ethnic cleansing,

will leave the labels aside for a moment because you ask me, what does Gaza look like? I would say, there's very little left in Gaza right now. There really is. There's very little left. The only area which they haven't yet reduced to rubble is Rafa, and that's their goal. They want to turn all of Gaza. Usually somebody would use here a metaphor like a parking lot.

A parking lot doesn't sound right to me. because the parking lot's too peaceful. The image it conjures is too peaceful. I prefer during the U.S. war in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century, 1899 around there. There was an order given by one of the senior generals. He said there was one province, Luzon Province, L.U.ZO.N. And they said, we're going to turn Luzon Province into a high

into a howling wilderness. And when I was reading descriptions of Gaza, that's what came to mind, to turn it into a howling wilderness. And that's what's been done. Norman, this is a difficult question to ask, but I feel that it needs to be said. The events of October the 7th were vile, awful,

and you cannot justify that in any shape or form. Not to say that you are, I'm just saying that we both agree on that. What should Israel have done afterwards? Because we look at what's happened at Gaza, but what Hamas did was an act of war, and it was barbaric. And Israel had to retaliate in some shape or form. So I guess my question to you is, If you were Benjamin Netanyahu, what would you have done?

Okay. I am not going to evade questions. Yeah. So do not take what I'm about to say as a diversion. And you're absolutely free to press me and press me and press me. But I do have to convey how I see the question. Of course. your question to me has to be preceded by what I would call an antecedent question,

which is, what did you expect the people of Gaza to do? What do I mean by that? Well, look, let's not get into that for this reason, because in terms of having this discussion, let's accept, let's accept, when we had Basimon, for example, this was a, nature of the debate we had, right? He was saying, well, what do you expect the Palestinians to do? And I said, let's accept that while the uprising, as Francis said, you call it, I think, a prison outbreak. Let's accept concentration camp outbreak. Let's say that that's what it is. Nonetheless,

the fact is that Israel exists. Israel was attacked in this barbaric way. Let's say that the Palestinians have every cause to try and free themselves. in this way. I don't know how killing lots of and raping civilians does that, but let's set that aside. That still leaves the question of what should Israel do in this situation? It still leaves that question on the table. So let's say without going into the detail, just for time reasons, that we accept everything you say about the suffering of the Palestinian people. Nonetheless, on top of that, what should Israel do in the situation? I have pondered that question. Okay.

And I recognize that to say they should have done nothing except to end the illegal and inhuman a blockade of Gaza, which Richard Goldstone described as elements of a crime against humanity to amure two million people, half of whom are children. children in what Israel's head of the National Security Council, Giora Island, described as, quote, a huge concentration camp. What you're a British economist before October 7, he described as Gaza as a human rubbish heap, the Secretary General of the... Let's say we accept all of this, just for the sake of argument. I recognize that question. Okay. So what's the answer?

My answer is, first of all, on one level, it's a little late in the day to be asking that question. But asking it, you can still make the argument that whatever Israel did, whatever Israel did, or excuse me, whatever was done to Israel, excuse me, whatever was done to Israel. If you, for example, look at the South Africa application, it begins by saying what happened on October 7th was horrible, awful, terrible, so on and so forth. It said, and I'm quoting it, paraphrasing, whatever was done to Israel on October 7th, nothing whatsoever could justify a genocide.

We can talk about that separately, but what should they have done? I don't think it's so easy. That's not answering my question. It's the only reason I'm interrupting you. As I think you've observed, the way of fair interviews, we've given you lots of time to answer questions. So my question is,

what you've described about what's happening in Gaza, what you described about happening in Gaza prior to October 7th, let's, for the sake of argument, let's just say that that's all the case, I agree with you. I think that's a fair question. So do I? I've wrestled with that question.

So what should Israel have done? I would say that I'm not, again, I'm not trying to divert. There's two concepts in international law. Jus ad bellum and Jus enbelo. Jus ad bellum basically means who's the aggressor, who's the defender. Okay? That's Jus ad bell. Jus enbello is how you conduct the war.

and you have to conduct the war according to what we call IHL, international humanitarian law, the laws of war. That's conducting. I would say if Israel's, I'm not going to say which side is right and which side is wrong. That's Jus ad bellum. I'm not going to discuss it. Jus and Bello, I would say, if you're going to carry out a war, even if it's a war of aggression, even if it's a war of aggression,

let's say you believe Russia is engaged in a war of aggression against Ukraine. It's still bound by the laws of war. and even if Ukraine is defending itself, it too is bound by the laws of war. So I will say I'm going to separate out the question of who's right and who's wrong. And I'll simply focus on then the laws of war. And I would say whatever Israel does,

whether it's right or wrong, it still has to obey the laws of war. But Israel is carrying out what, in my opinion, not in my opinion, what the International Corps of Justice, as a plausible genocide. So just so I'm understanding what you're saying correctly, are you saying that what Israel should have done is retaliated

and destroyed the organization that attacked Israel? No, I'm not saying. You're not saying that. No. So what should they have done? I said if they choose to engage in the war... Then they should follow the rules of war? Then they have to follow the laws of war.

But what should they have, should they have retaliated? Should they have attempted to take out Hamas? Should they be trying to kill the people who attacked that people? I would say I cannot accept those judgments, the ones you just found it. I understand them, not necessarily your judgments, but you're telling me, should they have? No, I can't accept those judgments because it's like for me, I'll just give you the closest analogy I can. When the events of October 7 happened, the first day, it was unconsored. clear exactly the magnitude of what had occurred.

The numbers were being given where 50 Israelis were killed. It wasn't clear if there were combatants or civilians. And it was only about, you would say, about the third or fourth day, it was clear that a crime of significant magnitude that occurred. The atrocities of a very significant magnitude had occurred by end, by the end, by now, the figures about 850 civilians were killed. That's a significant crime by any standard. There's no question in my mind about that.

Even if you allow for collateral damage and this and that, no. There's something very substantial that occurred there. And then I had to ask myself exactly the question you asked, you know, what should Israel have done and how do you allocate, so to speak, more responsibility? Let's leave the legal question aside, more responsibility. And after thinking about very hard, the answer, what resonated for me, what seemed right for me, was to see it in the terms, for myself as an American, in terms of the slave rebellions. And if you look at, for example, the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831, the United

States, if you look at the details, it was very ugly. You know, Nat Turner, he gave the order to his Confederates, kill all whites. That was the order, okay? And they went from house to house, and unlike in Gaza, they did behead babies. They took out an axe, chopped off the head of babies, cracked skulls, killed about 61 whites, the rebellion was repressed very quickly. And once I felt that seemed like a fairly reasonable analogy, then the question for me became, how did the abolitionists, those who oppose slavery, how did they react to Nat Turner's rebellion? And it was very striking to me when I read, for example, the editorial by William Lloyd Garrison,

who was one of the famous abolitionists in our country, where he wrote an article in the periodical of the abolitionist called The Liberator. And he began by saying, and this I think is responsive to your question, he began by saying, we told you so, we be abolitionists, we told you so, we told you so.

And he said, we told you, if you demean these people, degrade these people, humiliate these people, exploit these people, rape these people. If you do that, then what happened with Nat Turner was inevitable. And then... But we've already built that into the argument. No, I'm sorry.

Yeah, but he never said, he never said, remember... Listen, let me explain to you where I'm coming from, okay? So that we... Allow me just to complete the thought. We're just talking past each other for... No, no, we're not. Allow me to complete the thought. Okay.

Okay. If you read the Liberator article or editorial, he never says the U.S. government should have retaliated to Nat Turner. Understood. Okay. So his argument is probably, you've got to free the slaves, then none of this happens. That's correct. Fine.

Let's accept that. However, do you honestly think that a leader of Israel is in a position after the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust to say, you know what? what we should do in retaliate, in reaction, in reaction to this, is free the Palestinians, whatever that looks like. This is never going to happen, right?

And I'm interested in living in the real world, as I think you are. If you care about the lives of Palestinians and Israelis and everybody else, that means there has to be some kind of way of resolving this that is based in reality. And in reality, wherever way you look at it,

you've got two tribes that absolutely hate each other, with good reason for both sides to hate each other because there's been atrocity against both sides throughout history. You may argue about who's responsible and blah, blah, blah. Reality on the ground is this is where we are. Yes. So my question is, how should Israel have reacted in that situation

in the real world, in the real world? Right. And I think I have responded to you, but you can, of course, quarrel with me on that. I am quarreling with you. As I said to your name is? Francis. Francis.

You can press me and press me and press me and press me. I'm trying. Yes, and I will accept that. My answer is what I've said before. What in the real world should the Palestinians have done if they tried negotiations, they gestured to supporting either a two-state settlement and here I'm referring to Hamas, or what they called a hoodna, a long-term ceasefire,

when in March, beginning March 30th, 2018, they tried not least because of my encouragement. They tried nonviolent civil resistance. And what was the Israeli response? we know exactly. There's a 250-page single-spaced UN report describing the response. Israel took its best snipers, lined them up along the perimeter fence,

and while there was this festive to describe, to use the word of the UN report, atmosphere among the Palestinians. There was music, there was dancing, there was song. The snipers, I'm quoting the report, intentionally targeted children, intentionally targeted medics, intentionally targeted journalists, intentionally targeted disabled people. They described double amputees, 300 meters from the perimeter fence that Israel shot.

When they didn't kill them, they targeted them from the kneecap down to inflict, to use the technical term, life-changing injuries, which for the lay person translates as paralyzed them. One Israeli sniper, boasted to Harat's newspaper, Israel's most serious newspaper, he shot 42 kneecaps in one day, 42 children and adults paralyzed for life. And so when all the options of diplomacy,

nonviolent civil resistance, when there have been exhumored, exhausted, what were they supposed to do? We've already accepted that. For the sake of this argument, I've said repeatedly, let's accept everything you're saying about the plight of the Palestinian people. None of what you're saying, though, is going to solve what's going on. Yeah, well, to solve it, I would say you have to use the convention. By the way, just to clarify, even though in our conversation before the program began, I said,

said I belong to the Marxist tradition. I see myself there. I'm not a radical on these subjects. If you can hear me through this whole conversation, I was just quoting international law. I'm not suggesting you're radical. So I have a very conventional, I have a very conventional answer to your question.

Both sides have to sit down. They have to accept the terms of international law for ending the conflict. You want to end it? according to the real world, fine. I'm not going to say we have to wait for communism to end it. I'm not going to go through the... We might be waiting

a long time. Exactly. Right. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying we have to wait for socialist revolution. I'm saying we apply what everybody's been saying. Read a South African brief. Read what everyone says.

We have to apply the principles of international law to resolve the conflict. And that to me is perfectly legitimate. Now, if you want to say that in the real world, no resolution of the conflict is possible with Hamas after October 7th. If that's your position, and I see you're shaking your head. I haven't said that.

Right. But if that's the argument, I have to say, then no settlement is possible with a government that's carrying out a plausible genocide in Gaza. But I'm not saying that. I'm saying those are the parties to the conflict. Sit down, resolve it. However, I will say, according to current international law, current principles, every party has to be held accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity,

and the crime of crime of genocide. So the fact that they may resolve the conflict, in my opinion, does not preclude that they should all be held accountable, except there is the alternative, you know, under the current system, what was first established in South Africa, which was called the Truth in Reconciliation Method, namely we can't prosecute every person who committed a crime under apartheid. It's impossible because there's not going to be many people left in South Africa.

So we'll try what Bishop Tutu attempted, you know, the truth and reconciliation. I could see that as an alternative. I happen not to believe in it. I believe never to forgive, never to forget, but that's a personal opinion. If you can resolve it that way, fine, and then let's move on. I think it's a hard thing I have to say, but I... No, no, man, can I just stop you there?

Because you said never to forgive, never to forget. But look, if you look at what happens in Northern Ireland, what happened in Northern Ireland, if everybody in Northern Ireland weren't never to forgive, never to forget, that situation would never have been resolved. Where it is now is unimaginable to where it was in the 1970s and 80s. Francis, I try to be careful in my words. Of course, and I don't wish to misrepresent in any issues.

You're not. I just want to be careful, make clear what I said. I said, as a personal opinion, I don't accept it. I will tell you why. And you'll forgive me the drama, but that's my life, my being. So after World War II, in 1979, there was the last major trial, at that time, it was called a last major trial of Nazi war criminals, the female guards from Meish in that concentration camp.

And my mother was called to be a witness at the trial. And she were, we weren't told, I accompanied her to the trial. We weren't told that the guards were released on their own, they walked freely in the courthouse, and they released on their own recognizance at night. And my mother started to scream, why aren't they in cages? They're animals. Now, bear in mind, it's 40 years later, it was 1979. And at a certain point, without going into the detail,

We confronted, or one of the guards, was walking about an inch away from the outside the courthouse as my mother was on the other side of me. It was such a provocation, and I confronted that situation. I mentioned it because 40 years later, that desire for revenge, that unlawful, that unlawful, that unlawful, that unlawful, that unlawful, unwillingness to forgive or forget those who put your mother, your father, your two sisters, and brother in a gas chamber. Never to forgive, never to forget. That's what I internalized, but I perfectly respect what you just said. There couldn't have been peace in Northern Ireland.

there couldn't have been peace in South Africa, if that were the attitude taken by the protagonists in that historical drama. I said, speaking strictly for myself and in deference to my parents' suffering and their legacy. But as a practical matter, you resolve the conflict according to the principles of international law, and you hold accountable those who are guilty of crimes under international law,

or you seek some sort of truth and reconciliation process. That's how I see it. Then that's the only way to be, because, so for a bit of disclosure, half my family is South American, but a large portion of them particularly my grandfather is from the Middle East. He's from Lebanon. And what always struck me whenever I heard my grandfather talk about Israel was, and this is a man who is a historian, a very learned, very educated man,

there was a lack of rationality because of the heightened level of emotions involved in this particular conflict. And it seems to me, and I think we're in agreement here, if we always tap into the emotion side of it, if we always look at the atrocities that have been happened on both sides, if we focus on the anger and the rage and the injustice, we are never going to be able to move forward. And what is going to happen is that future generations will suffer.

Look, I told you at the very out sin, I have tried to call. carve a path whereby I am faithful to facts, logic, reason, but not to intellectualize. So when you say if we acquiesce to passions and emotions, I think passions and emotions, I think passions and emotions are integral to justice, they are not a encumbrance on justice. That's how I see it. I can't intellectualize. I can't. You know, the other day I spoke at MIT, their encampment, really impressive. You know, these are the smartest minds on earth. And most of them in the encampment, most, not all, from the Middle East.

There were two young men from Gaza, the young men from Gaza, you know. And after I was at the encampment for about three hours, and then I spoke, and somebody asked me, what is your most distinct memory of Gaza? I was only there very little. I spent significant time in the West Bank in a place called Hebron al-Halil

and in a place called Bait-Sahor. And I said, I know it's going to sound strange, I said, but my most distinct memory is there was a beautiful library in Gaza, a magnificent structure. It was donated by Saudi Arabia. It was called the King Salman Library. It was like a castle, you know. And when I read in a newspaper,

It was reduced to rubble. It really, it left, it really, really bothered me, you know. I saw the kids in that library, I saw the librarian, the head library, very dignified woman. And that's part of the picture for me. It's not just the rubble. It's not just another building destroyed. it's the children, it's the librarian, it's human beings, you know. I can't, and it's passionate and emotion.

And I don't think it's sensible, if I can use that word, which refers to reason. I don't think it's sensible to try to separate them out. I don't think we're suggesting that they should be separated out. I think what Francis is suggesting, and I agree with him, is that if we fail to adequately look at the situation and focus on the future, more libraries will be destroyed. I totally agree with you. More people will be killed. More children will be made. And so I think the conversation that we are trying to have is about how this gets moved forward.

And you've said that the way it gets moved forward is by the side sitting down and talking. And ending the conflict. And ending the conflict. On the basis of international law. On the basis of international law. We'll get to that in the second. One of the other things that I hosted a panel at a festival recently, which was very intense about Israel and Palestine.

I was the moderator. I was trying to press both sides on their arguments. But one of the interesting things to me was that actually everybody agreed, broadly speaking, on the ratio of Hamas fighters who'd been killed to civilians who had been killed. And it was something like total killed 35,000, and about a fifth of those were Hamas fighters.

I would say there's absolutely, I've studied the question. I'm not pulling right. Just give me the numbers in the ratio. I don't think there's anything, nobody knows. It's impossible. How could you know how many Hamas fighters were killed? Most Hamas fighters were killed probably the same way that most Gaza civilians were killed

in the course of indiscriminate carpet bombing. There's no way to know. The Gaza Health Ministry never distinguishes never distinguishes the numbers between civilians and combatants killed. The number of Hamas people killed in tunnels, nobody knows because Israel just blows up the shafts to the tunnels. They don't go down for obvious reasons, the fear of being booby-traped and so forth. So we don't have any idea what the number of Hamas militants killed is. Israel just throws out numbers.

One day it will say 9,000, another day will say 12,000. At one news conference in Germany, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, for every civilian, for every militant killed, one civilian was killed, you know, a nice one-to-one proportion. And the person interrogating him said, are you saying one civilian, one combatant? He said, yeah, sure, that's what he said.

All the numbers are just made up. Well, that wasn't the ratio that I was talking about. I think people on the panel that I was hosting, it was something like one to five, one to six, something like that was. I have no idea. I wouldn't pretend to know. And nor would I.

No would I. But let's just for the sake of, trying to understand this situation. Let's just say it is something like that. Something like that. The people who liberated your parents, by the way, the Soviets committed some awful atrocities that nobody should defend.

Nobody should defend like the mass rape of German women, etc. However, the collective allies collectively together would have killed a hell of a lot of civilians in what I think we would agree was the just attempt to end that conflict. And the people who had the ability to end that conflict without those civilian casualties were the Nazi party who continued to make their last stand, despite being entirely clear that they were going to lose.

And they exposed their civilians to that suffering quite deliberately, right? I'm not sure deliberately, you could say recklessly. Okay. They didn't want their civilians to be killed, but they didn't care if they were killed. Fine. Isn't that exactly what's happening in Gaza? Meaning...

Meaning that the people in charge of Gaza could have handed over the hostages by now, could have surrendered the terrorists who committed the atrocities in October 7th, and this would all be over. Well, I would say, if Hamas surrendered, it would all be over.

I agree with that. Okay. And if they could declare, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, We want an unequivocal total victory, military victory over Hamas. That's their goal. Which is what we wanted in World War II. Right.

Exactly. Exactly what we wanted in World War. That's why we kept fighting. We wanted them to capitulate. That's correct. Right. So isn't Israel doing exactly the same thing in response to October 7? Well, there's a slight difference.

Okay. Okay. If you allow me. Of course. The slight difference is, let's assume what you describe happened. Okay. there are two, I should say there are two differences. Number one, after October 7th, Israel was determined that, as you know, the cliche, every crisis is an opportunity.

And their opportunity came with the crisis, what happened October 7th. And they were determined, and they said this as far back as 2015. I quoted actually at the end of my book on Gaza because I was rereading it, and I noticed at the very end, they said they're tired of what they call these wars of attrition with Gaza. And they said the next war will be the last war. And in fact, that seems to be turning out to be the case. We don't yet know how it's going to end.

So Israel was determined after October 7th that there is not going to be a number, another what they call mowing of the lawn in Gaza. This time, they weren't just going to cut down the blades in Gaza, their mowing of the lawn. They are going to extirpate, pull out by the root, every blade of grass in Gaza. So their goal, yes,

their goal is to defeat Hamas, to inflict a massive note, military defeat on Ghana. But there's a second goal. The second goal is to once and for all resolve this Gaza question. And that means, could mean three things. It could mean ethnic cleansing, which is what they tried during the first two weeks, as you will recall, when Secretary of State Lincoln and Ursula Vandaline were going to places like Egypt and telling them to take in the Gazans. Egypt vetoed that. So ethnic cleansing at least until now can predict tomorrow is not an option. The second possible goal is, as I quote, Ghiara Island, to make Gaza

uninhabitable. So they have only two choices to stay and starve or to leave. And the third goal is the one that Prime Minister Netanyahu announced twice to do to Amalek. Remember Amalek. You kill every man, woman, and child. As Betzelm, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights and the Occupy Territories, as Betzelm put it in its most recent report called manufacturing famine in Gaza, It said, every Israeli who's gone through our educational system, every Israeli who's gone through our educational system, knows what it means to say Amalek. Everyone understands that means kill every man, woman, and child. So I disagree with you that if,

the hostages were released, and if even Hamas surrendered, it would not be over for Israel. It wants to make this war the last war. So just to be clear, let me just interject one thing, and I want to clarify what you're saying, and then please, Karen. What you're saying is if Hamas handed over the hostages and surrendered the terrorists who committed October 7th attacks. Well, now you're adding another condition. Well, I said that at the beginning. No, you said if Hamas. Handed over the hostages and the people who committed.

I said that right at the beginning. Maybe you didn't hear it. So if Hamas turns itself in? It turns over the people who committed and planted interests. I thought you were the one that wanted to talk about the real world. Well, that seems to me the way, for example. So let's take our World War II example. If Hitler had said, you know what, we've clearly lost the only way to save German civilians

from the suffering that's about to be inflicted on them, is to do what will eventually happen to me anyway, which is hand myself over or kill myself and end this now. That would have ended World War II. I'm not convinced, by the way, that will end the situation in Gaza. I think Israel's... Well, that's what I was asking. Israel has two goals for sure to inflict a military defeat on Gaza

and also to once and for all put an end to this... Gaza, nuisance that's in a nuisance that's escalated into a real problem. So this is what I'm trying to clarify. Is it your view that if is that if Hamas had handed over the hostages or if today Hamas hands over the hostages and hands over the key perpetrators, let's say for the sake of argument of October 7th, Israel will carry on killing people in Gaza. That's your position? I would say.

if they, I would say in the real world, those two goals can't be disentangled because, as you said, Hamas was not going to do that. And Israel, as I said, saw October 7th as a crisis, a disaster, for sure, and an opportunity, and it was going to exploit that opportunity to the hilt. Now, there's a second point, and that's going to be responsive to your oppressing me on this point,

which I'd accept. Of course I accept it, because we have to be honest and truthful of these matters. Let's say Hamas did do what you said, okay? What would happen? it would be a return to the status quo ante.

It would be a return to the people in Gaza being confined. I know you don't want to hear about it because you said you've already gone through this with Lassamusa. But the people of Gaza... It's not that I don't want to hear about it. It's that we accept that for the sake of argument and I don't want to waste time. The problem is I don't want to fault. because there's no reason to doubt good faith unless there's evidence of bad faith. So I'm going to accept good faith.

But you understand, let's say this particular interview goes to a million people, right? Maybe 100,000 of those million or even 10,000 know about before October 7th. So when you say, I accepted for the sake of argument, 99% of the viewers won't know what you have accepted. Okay, in that case, let's help them. Why don't you tell us which interview you have done that best describes the plight of the Palestinian people? And we will put a pop-up right here on YouTube that they can go and watch that. What's the best interview? I thought the Kandes-Owens. The Kandes-Owens. So people can go and watch the Kandes-Ow's interview to get the detail of what you're talking about. Okay. Good. Settled. If Hamas were to lay down its arms,

and for argument's sake, let's say, that would preempt the possibility of of Israel executing its other goal, which is to solve the Gaza question. What does that mean? It means that we return to the status quo ante. The people of Gaza, half of whom our children, will be confined in that same concentration camp. Probably it will be more brutal than ever. The blockade will be more brutal than ever because of what happened on October 7th. And then the people of Gaza will be left in that concentration camp to languish and die.

I don't think that's acceptable. I don't. Do you think if they keep finding they're going to get a better deal? I would say with a long life experience, politics is wholly unpredictable. Who would have guessed, just to give you two examples, who would have guessed, that South Africa would rise to the challenge, confront the United States, because the U.S. is enabling the whole thing,

and go to the International Court of Justice, and go to back for a poor, powerless, stateless people, totally unpredictable. Who would have guessed that the vote in the court was 15 to 2? I was asked many times before, I said, forget it. There's no possibility the court's going to find in Gaza's favor or South Africa's favor. Who would have guessed with young people facing very formidable, redoubtable challenges, daunting challenges, climate change, mass

I call NAS unemployment because I don't consider the gig economy real employment student debt piled so high in the midst of

all of those challenges the young people on all the college canvases seized upon Gaza a poor powerless, stateless people halfway around the world. They had no dog. You said most of them are from the Middle East.

Well, they clearly have a dog. The encampments are from, but the campus sentiment, if you look at, for example, I was at MIT, when they uphold the students on whether they support divestment from the university, because that's one of the men's, the numbers are up to 60 and 70 percent. I was very surprised. I was very surprised. Politics, very unpredictable. So when you ask me, could they have done better? I can't say it.

I can't answer that. I did, I'm very interested in talking to people from Gaza, young people. And I asked them, I asked him over and over again, what is the feeling? And they said to me, we all knew something had to happen. Something had to give.

I don't want to be dramatic. I'm trying to be faithful to the facts. If you're born into a concentration camp, if you live in it, 60% of the young people in Gaza were unemployed because Israel shattered the economy. There's no exports from Gaza except occasionally a few strawberries. They don't allow it.

If 80% of the population is dependent on government handouts, if 50% are insecure, food insecure, as the term goes, the head of the UN, Gutierrez is no radical. He said, in May 20, 2021 before October 7. He said, if you want a hell on earth, those are his words. If you want a hell on earth, go look at the children in Gaza. That's what he said. That's a quote. Something had to give. So in the face of that and where there are a hundred, Hamas surrender, it would just be a return to that concentration camp, probably, I don't want to be exaggerating, but let's call it, I'll say a thousand times, but let's just call it significantly

worse than that human rubbish sheep. So when you say to me, can they do better, death is death. nothing can bring back those 35,000 who were killed. I recognize that. There is no silver lining in a genocide. Period. Full stop. It would be an utter betrayal of my parents and my family where I to try to discern or espine a silver lining

in what's happened there. And if you want to hold, Hamas accountable for it, I'm not going to, I won't, we've had that discussion. What I will say is if the people of Gaza want to take a roll of the dice and maybe life for some of them will be better, bar be it for me to tell them not to try. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line.

Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Norman, we're missing a part of the puzzle here, which is also Iran. And the fundamentalist regime there,

which is intent on obliterating Israel, which is intent on funding terrorist organizations around the Middle East. If we're talking about Israel's retaliation and your argument that it's what they're committing are war crimes, Iran needs to take some responsibility for this as well for stoking the fires and for basically helping this situation to come about as well, surely? Let's start with the factual question.

There seems to be a broad consensus among all intelligence agencies, including Israeli, that Hamas did not inform Hezbollah or Iran of its plan on October 7th. So far as I've read, and I've read a lot, but I can't say I've read exhaustively, but I've read a lot. Nobody, so far as I've read, makes the claim that Hamas, excuse me, that Iran was directly responsible. Now, you might say, what about indirectly responsible? So here's how I see it, and we, of course, can disagree, and you should press me. It's like saying the Palestinians or the Gossans, the Palestinians, they hate Israel because of the Hamas propaganda in those unra schools. Okay.

Now, of course, the claim about the propaganda of the unwrows schools is nonsense. Let's say it's even true. Okay. They say, look at these videos that Hamas puts out on its television network, okay? Where children are taught, the Jews are pigs and should be killed and all that. Right, right, right. Okay. Okay.

Let's assume, I'm not going to get into the question about the translations. I don't know about it and references to the Quran. Let's say it's true. Let's say it's true. I think to myself, do you really need to be educated? about how horrible Israel is by Sesame Street-like programs. You don't know from your daily experience. Do you know what those mowings of the lawn, what they look like?

I do, and here I'm going to claim a certain kind of high ground and expertise. I know Operation Cast led 2008 to 9. I read there were hundreds, believe it or not, hundreds of human rights reports on it. I read them all. I read them twice. I know about the 1,400 people killed, 1,200 of them children,

excuse me, 1,200 of them civilians, 350 of them children. I know about the 6,300 homes which were damaged or destroyed in Gaza. I know pillar of the fence. I know protective edge, which Peter Moore, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, described, he said after touring Gaza in the aftermath of, of Protective Edge, he said, never in my career have I seen destruction on the scale of what I saw in Gaza? I know what it was like, admittedly, intellectually,

through books, but I know, and reports, but I know the details, you don't need a Sesame, a Hamas Sesame Street. I don't think that's the point people make about it. Sorry, sorry, Norman, could I just interrupt? You're saying it's Iran. Sorry, Norman, can I just interrupt? But you're saying it's Iran that's fomenting the problem in Gaza.

No, it's the concentration camp that's fomenting the rage in Gaza. No, but it's also Iran who are also making this situation worse. Ayatollah Khomeini is not interested in peace in the Middle East. I agree with that. The Adela Khomeini is interested in wiping Israelis off the map and every Jew. This is a Islamic fundamentalist and rabidly anti-Semitic regime. So my point is that what they are doing is creating ever more animosity. Maybe they are, and states have their own raison d'etat.

I'm not going to deny that. I don't live in a Never Neverland. But here's what I would say. Number one, well, I have to say several things, because I want to be truthful to the whole record. Number one, if you look at the UN record on a two-state settlement, every year, there's a UN resolution called peaceful settlement of the Palestine question. Okay? The entire world votes for two states in the General Assembly now, not the Security Council. So we're talking about the entire world.

The entire world votes for two states on the June 67 border. except Israel, the United States, and some Pacific Islands, Tuvalu, the others will come to mind. Iran is with the majority. Iran votes with the majority. The organization of the Islamic Conference, the OIC, it's 57 Islamic countries, they supported the two-state settlement. Iran voted with the majority. Do they dislike Israel? No question in my mind.

No question in my mind about that. Would they like it to disappear? Yeah, I think so. And I'm going to return to that question in the moment. So just remind me to get back to that. Because I'm not going to deny facts. I have a credo in life. I coined it.

Never quarrel with facts. Or as Lenin like to say, he like to quote the British proverb, facts are stubborn things. And I turn that into never quarrel with facts. So I'm not. I'm not going to quote. So, first of all, that has been the Iranian position formally.

Now you may say when it comes down to brass tax, they're not going to sign on. And the funding that they give to terrorist organizations. So on the one hand, you can be forward facing and say, yes, we agree with this. Behind it, you're doing something pretty dodgy. Okay. I'd like you to hold that question, but I want to respond to it. Number two, now I know this is, I'll be accused of what aboutism, as that expression is now used, or that locution, what aboutism.

Take a very sane, a very sane Israeli historian, Benny Morris. He's Israel's chief historian, educated at Cambridge, written very solid history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. He's come out for nuking Iran. Yes. He has said literally, if the United States does not. join in a conventional war with Israel against Iran, we should use, I'm quoting him, unconventional weapons against Iran, nuclear weapons. Unconventional is the euphemism for

nuclear weapons. And he says, and then he asks himself the question, what about all the innocence that are going to be killed? And you know what he says? They elected that they deserve their fate. So when you talk about the Iranians want to wipe out Israel, we ought not also to forget that even the sanest, most sober of Israelis, he's not in charge of Israel. Francis was talking about idolat.

He's speaking to a broad consensus in this. As are you. You're speaking to a consensus of people. It doesn't mean you're in charge of the United States. I'm not saying in charge, but I'm saying in the Israeli mindset, especially the leadership, they would like to wipe out Iran. This is a false equivalence. Hold on a second.

Ayatollah Khomeini, what Francis is saying, is funding and giving aid to terrorist organizations. I'm going to tell you. That's the third question. No, no, it's the same question. The comparison you've made is false. What Francis is saying is, here's a state in Iran that is funding and aiding terrorism, and you've seen. And you've said, well, what about the fact that an Israeli historian wants to nuke? No, no, I said...

No one in Israel is advocating in government for the new king of the Rome. I don't think that's correct at all. What people are... Who in the Israeli government is advocating for them? I would actually think there's a broad consensus. Place for what are you? I'm saying because they have two options. They regard Iran as, as they call it, an existential enemy.

Well, they keep saying they want to wipe Israel off the... Is there all off the map? I'd say so, yeah. Well, I wouldn't say they keep saying that. I don't agree with it, but I'm not going to go into that. I said, if you look at the documentary record, they are on board supporting that two-state settlement. That's what the record shows. Now, I have to make one qualification to that because I want to be faithful to the facts. But on this question that you raised, and now you repeated, on the funding. So you'll forgive me if I go back to international law. International law says an occupying power, there is nothing in international law that bars an occupied people from engaging in armed resistance against an occupation.

There is nothing in international law, to use the technical term, and you'll forgive me for it. international law is neutral on an occupied people using armed force to resist an occupation. Number two, nothing in international law bars a country, a foreign country from supplying weapons to a people engaged in armed resistance against an occupation. What international law does prohibit, international law, it's not neutral. It prohibits an occupying force, an occupying power, from using violent force to maintain an occupation. Now, you might not like those things.

formulas or formulations. But the law is the law. Iran under international law has the right to supply weapons to the resistance in Gaza to the occupation. The resistance in Gaza to the occupation. Now, ask one question just to banter national law. You're clearly more knowledgeable about that than I am. When you talk about the international law allowing armed resistance and other countries supporting that, does that armed resistance include massacring civilians? No, of course not.

Okay. Well, I think that's kind of important in this context because what Francis is saying to you isn't, why is Iran supporting these people fighting the IDF? What he's saying is Iran funded and aided the people who committed the largest massacre of civilian Jews since the Holocaust. Isn't that a problem? That's what he's saying. I would say that it's, we're going to end up going back to the beginning, and I still have to say one last thing. But answer that one first. I would say what happened on October 7th, I absolutely acknowledge, I've made that very clear, that atrocities occur. Yes. Is that wrong that Iran funded and supported the people who committed that?

You know, Iran could say, and it's factually true. Iran could say we didn't know they were going to do that. No, they didn't know. It's factually true. Come on. Now, you could say they're misrepresenting what happened in October 7. And I would say Syed Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, because I listened to his speeches. I can't speak for Hezbo itself as an organization.

Yes, I think he's misrepresenting what happened October 7th. I have no doubt about that. And the truth of the matter, I've studied it pretty closely. It's almost certain, in my opinion, it's almost certain Hesbelah would not have done that. Well, no, it's not true because in Syria it's carrying out massacres. No, I take that back. I retract that. But the last question, and here I'm going to be very straightforward.

I do believe that what's happened in the last six months has changed the position of people like Hezbollah and Iran, I do believe as a not just a metaphorical statement like Israel will vanish from the pages of history. I do believe that the people in what's called the axis of resistance and mainly the Hezbollah and Iran no longer believe they can live with Israel. I do believe that. I do believe, I've said it over and over again. I'm not, I don't shy away. away from my conclusions, even if they're unhappy conclusions. I do think it's become between Israel and Iran-Haswla, I do think it's become existential. Neither one will tolerate the existence of the other.

That's why people despair when I say I'm kind of hopeless at this moment because I don't see an exit. I think after what Israel did in Gaza, over the last six months, least on the part of the Hezvala, which has a different mindset in Iran, in my opinion. But at least in the part of Hezbollah, you can't live with them. The official position of Hezvla up until October 7th was, we don't agree with two states. We believe Palestine belongs to the Palestinians. However, if the leadership of the Palestinians decides on the two-state settlement, we accept it.

That was their position up until October 7. Listening to the speeches, and I'm not happy to say this, listening to the speeches, I think their views now changed. They can't live with Israel. This will, you could say for good or for bad, but this case for bad, what happened will be a turning point. I didn't see that at the beginning. At the beginning when it happened, you know, friends of mine who are very knowledgeable,

like Muin Rabani, he said, it's a turning point. I said, well, you know, I've seen these turning points. I've seen Casillade. I've seen Pillar of Defense. I've seen Protective Edge. But now I see it's a turning point. I reluctantly acknowledge that it's a turn. And the same is true in Israel.

No one believes in a two-state solution in Israel. I don't believe large. No one. The overwhelming consensus is against it. Right. So neither side. I don't see, you see, that's one of the problems with this particular moment. Most of the time, you could see the terms of a settlement and then trying to get people to it,

both sides to it. Now I don't see that, because both sides see that we cannot coexist with the other side. Norman, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for taking part in the discussion. We really appreciate it. The final question we always ask. Before we go and ask your questions to Norman on locals.

What's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be? I would say speaking as an older person, much older person, that the world that we have carved out for the new generations is so, so unfair and so wrong, and we need a radical transformation to give the new generations the same chances the same chances and opportunities. in life that I was blessed with wonderful schools, a plentiful society for all the injustices of the capitalist system, for a large part, not the whole, for a large part, the system worked. And for now, if in my generation, the system worked for 80% of our country, and it failed for 20%, in the new world of the younger generations, it works for 20%, and it's a catastrophic failure

for 80%. And that, to me, is what we should be thinking about. And I'll just say, to round out the discussion, that's why I think so many young people identify with Gaza, powerless in the face of this juggernaut of power. And obviously, it's at a whole different level in Gaza, but the young people have that same feeling. Poor, powerless, hopeless, in the face of this ruthless, heartless, juggernaut of power. That's Gaza, obviously on a vastly smaller level, but it's also the young people in my own country. And that's why, in my view, they have seized on this Gaza issue because they see themselves, obviously, in a different level, they see themselves in it. That's my impression.

Norman Finkelstein, thank you so much for coming on. Head on over to locals where we ask, And Norman, your questions. Hamas follow a radical version of Islam. This version has a tradition or Hadith which describes an end-time prophecy in which Muslims kill Jews. How do you expect Jews to reason with Muslims when they seem to be radicalized with such suspicion and hatred when it's inbuilt in Islam? Hey, honey, it's mom. Did you know if we switch to Verizon we can get four phones for zero dollars plus four lines for $25 a line? Call me back. Me again. That's just $100 a month for four lines

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