1.
Goodman: We turn now to one of thelongest[]
and themostbitter conflicts in modernHistory, Israel and the palestinestinians.
Well over a decade has passed since the historic OsloAccords have brought hopes
for lasting peace. Today the relations between the palestinians and
israeliGovernmentauthority are virtuallynonexistent. Israel and PA have not
held a final statuspeacetalks for over fiveyears. With rection election
ofHamas, Israel says it will cut all ties to any palestinian groups. After
election, Israel have cut taxfunds on behalf of the palestinian authority. Finally
transferred the funds, but says any Hamasled palestinianGovernment will get “not
even one checkle”, that’s, well, onedime in theUnitedStates. The palestinian
authorities are on the brink of financial disaster. This week, PA announced this
week it will be unable to issue paychecks to more than
onehundredandthirtythousand employees. It’s the largest employer
inOccupiedTerritories. Hamas’s victory is seen as corruption of the old guard. Internal
palestinian inquiries have found at least sevenhundredsmillionsdollars has been
stolen from palestinian public funds due to corruption in the last few years. The
total figure could could be billions more. Meanwhile Israelsettlements in
theOccupiedWestBank continue to expand. The israeli
group, PeaceNow, reported twelvethousands new residents moved into WestBanksettlements
in2005. Threethousands more than the total number removed despite
Israel’sdisengagement inGazaStrip. Construction continues as settlement expands
inside and outside [of] the root ofIsraelseparationbarrier. Today we bring you
a discussion with two of the world’s leading experts on theIsraelPalestainconflict.
Both of them [has] a new book on the subject. We are joined byShlomoBenAmi,
both an insider and a scholar. AsForeignMinister underEhudBarak, he was a key
participant in years of Israelpalestinian peacetalks, including theCampDavid
and Tabatalks in2000and2001. An Oxfordtrained historian, he’s currently vicepresident
ofToledoPeaceCenter inMadrid.
His new book is ScarsOfWarWoundsOfPeace:
TheIsraeliArabTragedy. PresidentBillClinton says, quote, "ShlomoBenAmi
worked-tirelessly and -courageously for peace. His account of what he did and
failed to do and where we go from here should be read by everyone who wants a
just and lasting resolution." We’re alsojoined byNormanFinkelstein. He is
a professor ofPoliticalScience atDePaulUniversity. His books include-NationOnTrail, which he
coauthored withRuthBettinaBirn,
named as a NewYorkTimesnotablebook for1998. He’s also the author
of-ImageAndRealityOfIsraelPalestineConflict, and -theHolocaustIndustry. His
latest book is BeyofndChutzpah OnTheMisuseOfAntiSemitismAndTheAbuseOfHistory.
His website is normanfinkelstein.com. AviShlaim ofOxfordUniversity callsBeyondChutzpah
"Brilliantly illuminating … On display are all the sterling qualities for
which Finkelstein has become famous, erudition, originality, spark, meticulous attention
to detail, intellectual integrity, courage and formidable forensic skills."
We both welcome you both toDemocracyNow. It’s verygood to have you with us. Well,
I want to start going back to the establishement to
theStateOfIsrael. I’d like to begin with formerForeignMinsiter, ShlomoBenAmi.
Can you talk about how it began? I think there’s a veryinteresting
discussion in this book that is rarelyseen in this country, of how
theStateOfIsrael was established. Can you describe the circumstances?
2.
BenAmi: Well, for practical purposes, theState
existed before it was officiallycreated in1948. The uniqueness of the zionist
experience, as it were, was in that the zionist were able, under the protection
of mandate, of theBritishMandate set up the essentials of theState,
institutions of theState. Politicalparties helped the system runningDemocracy
for jews obviously before theState was created. So the transition toStatehood
was declaration basically. It came about in the middle of twostages of war, secret
war [among] jews and arabs and palestinian, and the invasion by the arabArmies.
The point I made with regard to the war is that contrary to the mythology that
exist and continues to exist, mainly among the israelis and jews, is that Israel
was not at military disadvantage when the war took place. The arabArmies were
disorineted, confused and did not put in the battlefield the necessary forces. So
in1948, what was born was aState, but also original superpower in many ways. We
have prevailed over the invading arabArmies and the local population, which was
practicallyevicted fromPalestain, from theStateOfIsrael, from what became theStateOfIsrael,
and this is how the refugeeproblem was born. Interestingly, the arabs in1948
lost a war that was, as far as they were concerned, lostalready in1936-1939,
because they have fought against theBritishMandate and the israeli or theJewishYishuv, the Jewish preState, and they were defeated
then, so they came to the hour of trial in1948 already as a defeated nation.
That is, theWarOf1948 was wonalready in1936, and
they had no chance to win the war in1948. They were already a defeated nation
when they faced the israeli superpower that was emerging in that year.
3.
Goodman: You have some verystrong quotes in your
book, of your own and quoting others, likeBerlKatznelson,
who is the main ideologue of theLabourMovement, acknowledging that in the wake of the1929ArabRiots, the zionist enterprise as an
enterprise of conquest. You also say, "TheReality
on the ground was that of an arabcommunity in aState of terror facing a
ruthless israeliArmy whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits
against the regular arabArmies, but also by the intimidation and at times
atrocities and massacres it [] perpetrated against the civilian arabcommunity.
A panicstricken arabcommunity was uprooted under the impact of massacres that
would be carved into the arabs’s monument of grief and hatred."
Explain that further.
4.
BenAmi: Well, you see, there is a whole range of
new historians that have gone into the sources of, the origins of theStateOfIsrael,
among them you mentionedAviShlaim, but there are many, many others that have
exposed this evidence of what reallywent on on the ground. And I must from the verybeginning
say that the main difference between what they say and my vision of things is
not the facts. The facts, they are absolutelycorrect in mentioning the facts
and putting the record straight. My view is that, but forJesusChrist, everybody was born in sin, including nations. And
theMoralperspective of fate [?] is there, but at the same time, it does not
undermine, in my view, in my verymodest view, that the justification for the
creation of a jewishState, however tough the conditions and however Immoral the
consequences were for the palestinians. You see, it is there that I tend to
differ from the interpretations of the new historians. They have made an incredible
contribution, veryveryimportant contribution to our understanding of the origins
of theStateOfIsrael, but at the same time, my view is that this is how unfortunately,
tragically, sadly nations were born throughoutHistory. And our role, the role
of this generation, this is why I came intoPolitics and why I try to make my
verymodest contribution for the peaceprocess is that we need to bring an end to
this Injustice that is being, that’s been done to the palestinians. We need to
draw a line between a israeliState and sovereign palestinianState and solve
thebestway we can. The problem by giving the necessary compensation to the
refugees by bringing back the refugees to the palestinianState, no way to
theStateOfIsrael, not because it is in Moral or Immoral, but because it is notphysical,
it is notpossible. We need to act in realistic way and see what are the
conditions for a final peace. I believe that we came veryveryclose to the final
peace. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it. But we came veryclose in the year2001.
5.
Goodman: Before we get to that peacetale,
another thing that you said. “Israel is also a society
also suppress[es] the memories against the local palestinians, because it
couldn’t really come to terms with the fact that it expelled and committed
atrocities against them, dispossessed them. This was like admitting that noble
jewishStatehood was stainedforever by major Injustice committed against the
palestinians and that the jewishState was born in sin.” I think a lot of
people will be surprised to hear the author of these words are a formerForeignMinister
ofIsrael.
6.
BenAmi: Yes, but at the same time, with the
story I’m trying to be fair as much as possible when I read the past. But it’s
a veryinteresting point, the one that you make here, when asked try to
obliterate the memory of our war against the palestinians. Whole
israeli1948mythology is based on our war against the invading arabArmies, less
so against the palestinians were the weaker side in that confrontation, because
it didn’t serve the myth of the creation of theState and of the nation, so we
need to correct that. There’s no way, there’s no way we can fullycompensate the
refugees and the palestinians, but we need to do our veryverybest to find a way
to minimise harm that’s done to this nation.
7.
Goodman: ShlomoBenAmi, your reponse to those
who continue who say that, at that time, at the time of the establishment of
theStateOfIsrael and before, that [it] really was empty, that jews came to a place
that was notpopulated?
8.
BenAmi: Of course, it is nonsense. I mean, it
was populated-obviously. It was populated. I mean, that the notion that existed
Israel[] was thefirst to say thefirst to say that we are, we came a nation without
a land, to a land without a people. That is obviously, it was nottrue. But again,
part of the tragedy was that the palestinians, as such, did not have,
palestinian peasants did not have the full control of their destiny. That part
of that land was supported by zionist organisations, from offenders [?],
landowners living inTurkey ot anywhere else throughoutOttomanEmpire. These
people were evidentlyevicted by these kind of transactions. But as a whole, I
think not more than sixorsevenpercent of the entire surface of theStateOfIsrael
was bought. The rest of it was either taken over or won during the war.
9.
Goodman: NormanFinkelstein, you’re an author
ofBeyondSchutzpah. TheMisuseOfAntiSemitismAndTheAbuseOfHistory. Do you
share thesamenarrative. Do you agree with what ShlomoBenAmi has put forward, the
former israeliForeignMinister?
10.
Finkelstein: Well, I agree with these statements
that there’s a verylittle dispute nowadays among serious historians, rational
people about the facts. There’s prettymuch consensus on what happened during
what you can call the foundational period, first zionistsettlement at the end
of the nineteenthcentury to1948. There’s prettymuch a consensus. And I think Mr.BenAmi in his first fiftypages accuratelyrenders
what that consensus is. I would just add a couple of points he makes to round
out a picture. He starts out by saying they wanted to create a predominantlyjewishState
in area which was overwhelmingly-not-jewish. And he cites the figure, I think 1906,
there are several hundreds thousands arabs and fiftythousand jews. Even if those
fiftythousand jews, only a handful of them [was] zionists. So that’s the
dilemma, how do you create a jewishState overwhelmingly-not-jewish? Now, [an]
israeli historian, BennyMoris, at onepoint he
says, There are onlytwoways to deal with this
dilemma. what he called southafrican way, that
is, create a jewishState and disenfranchise indigenous population, that’s oneway.
Thesecondway is what he calls the way of transfer
that is kick the indigenous population out, basically what we did in northAmerica.
Now, Mr.BenAmi correctlypoints out, by the1930s, theZionistMovement had reached
the consensus, and the way to resolve this dilemma is the way of transfer, throw
the palestinians out. You can’t do that any time, because there are moreproblems,
international problems. You have to wait for the right moment, and the right
moment comes in1948 under the cover of war. You have the opportunity to expel the
indeginous population. I was kind of surprised Mr.BenAmi
goes beyond what many israeli historians acknowledge. Someone likeBennyMorris
would say, Yes, the palestinians were ethnicallycleansed in1948, that’s
BennyMorris’sexpression, but he says, These are accidents of war. There are
wars, people get dispossessed. Mr.BenAmi, no, he’ll go further. He say, You can see prettyclearly that they intended to expel the
palestinians, and the opportunity came along, they did so. The facts, those
are the facts. So where do we disagree? I think we
disagree on responsibility, it’s just not the question ofMoralresponsibility,
or it’s not simply a question of tragedy or sadness. It’s a question ofLaw,
InternationalLaw, what are your obligations if you’re a memberState of theUnitedNations,
for example. Now underInternationalLaw, refugees are entitlted to their
homes once the battlefieldconflict has died down, and Mr.BenAmi was
absolutelycorrect, he said, The keymoment comes in
theIsraelPalestainconflict, not when palestinians are expelled, but when after
the war Israel refused to allow the palestinians back. At that point, he
says, Here’s the problem or The problem arises. And the way he puts the problem
is, we have two conflicting issues. On the one hand, there’s what he calls the zionist
ethos, they want a jewishState. On the other hand, you have [the] palestinian
refugees who have a right-to-return. ToMr.BenAmi, this is an intractable
conflict, the zionist ethos versus the refugees. But there’s a thirdfact, the
factor is theInternationalLaw. And underInternationallaw, the palestinian have
the right-to-return. Now, I am not arguing now [on] the right-of-return. I
acknowledge that it’s a complicat[ed] problem, but we have to be honest
about the Rights and the Wrongs, and the question of Rights and Wrongs, it was
Wrong inflicting the palestinians, it was their Right, their Right. This is not
a tragedy, and this is not aboutMorals. This is about legal rights, their right-to-return
was denied. How do you resolve that problem, I admit it’s difficult. But
we have to be clear about-Rights and -Wrongs, because
that’s going to become, in my opinion, the mainproblem when we come toCampDavid.
Whose rights were being denied during theCampDavidTabanegociations.
11.
Goodman: Your response, ShlomoBenAmi.
12.
BenAmi: Well, I think that the difference right
here might not be huge between what Dr.Finkelstein says and my argument. I
mean, either right or Morality, the bottom line is that he assumes that
practical solution to the problem is not there, and it’s notreallyfeasible to
recognise, on the one hand the existence of theStateOfisrael, and to say that their
right of fiveorsix or what have you millions palestinians to return to
theStateOfIsrael is something that can be reconciled with the jewishState. We
need to find the way, and the way was rightlyfound inBillClinton’speaceparameters that says the following: it says, the palestinian refugees have
inherent right-to-return toPalestain, WestBank and Gaza beingPalestain, being a
part ofPalestain. There’s an element in the parameter that I have to say was my
personal contribution to the peaceparamters that says the following: it says
that in the context of the landswaps that was discussed
between us and the palestinians. The palestinians were about to get some
percentages of what is now theStateOfIsrael, and the peaceparameter of thePresident
says that they can bring to those parts of theStateOfIsrael that we’ll transfer
to the palestinians as many refugees as they wish, that is, their return would
be to the palestinianState + to those parts of theStateOfIsrael that will be
transferred to palestinian sovereignty + huge sums of money for compensation
and rehabilitation. It seems to me that this is themost that can be done within
the context as it exists today, and we cameveryclose to the solution. By
the way, Arafat was neververyinterested in the refugeeproblem, he was
verymuchconcentrated onJerusalem. I saw him once saying to current president of
palestinian authority, Leave me alone with your refugees, what we need is
Jerusalem. See, he was notverykeen on much of the progress on the question of
refugees. Arafat was and remained until his last day, a member theMuslimBrotherhood,
religious man, deeplyreligious man, Koranic man, sole Jerusalem is the core of
dispute between the palestinian and the israelis. He was notveryinterested in
territorial question, either. I saw him, for example, inCampDavid saying
toPresidentClinton, I’m willing to give away eightpercent of theWestBank for
the sake of theIsraelblockssettlement, so long as you give me the solution on
theJerusalem. So he was that kind of. Refugeeproblem was not so central in his
mind.
13.
Goodman: I want to give a chance to respond,
NormanFinkelstein, but I did want you to step back. ShlomoBenAmi, and give
us an overview of the whole peaceprocess, of which you were a part, a critical
player in this, theOsloPeaceAccords in1993. Can you talk about what they
entailed, why they failed?
14.
BenAmi: Well, theOslopeaceprocess was an
agreement, it started as an agreement between two unequal partners. Arafat
conceivedOslo as a way, notnecessarily to reach a settlement, but moreimportantly
to him at that particular moment, in order to come back to the territories and
control thePolitics of the palestinian family. Don’t forget that theIntifada,
to which Oslo brought an end, startedindependently of thePLOleadership, and he
saw how he was losing control of the destiny of the palestinians. His onlyway
to get back to the territories was through an agreement withIsrael. So inOslo,
he made enormous concessions. In fact, when he was negotiating inOslo with us,
an official palestinian delegation was negotiating with an official israeli
delegation inWashington[DC], and the official palestinian delegation was asking the
right things from the viewpoint of the palestinians: selfdetermination,
rightofreturn, end of occupation, all the necessary arguments, whereas Arafat
inOslo reached an agreement that didn’t even mention the right of selfdetermination
for the palestinians, doesn’t even mention the need of the israelis to put an
end to settlements. If the israelis, afterOslo, continued expansion of
settlements, they were violating the spirit ofOslo, not the letter ofOslo.
There is nothing in theOsloAgreement that says that israelis cannot build
settlements. So this was the cheap agreement that Arafat sold, preciselybecause
he wanted to come back to the territories and control thePolitics ofPalestain. Now,
the thing is that a major problem withOslo, on top of it, was that it solved veryminor
issues, such asGaza, and even people on the far israeli right were ready to give
away Gaza, but it left open the future. The future was unknown. The twosides,
thetwoparties started to embark on a process, when they had diametricallyopposed
views as to the final objective. There was nothing as to what will happen aboutJerusalem.
It was onlysaid that we will negotiateJerusalem. What about refugees? Nothing
clear was said, just that we will negotiate the refugees. So the thing that, the
fact that the future was left so wide open was a standing invitation for the
parties to dictate, to try and dictate, the nature of the final agreement
through unilateral acts: the israelis, by expanding settlements, and the palestinians,
by responding withTerrorism. So this symmetry that was created inOslo persists
to this veryday, so Oslo could not usher in a final agreement because of the
different expectations that the parties had. It was an exercise in makebelieve.
The palestinians didn’t even mention selfdetermination so a leader likeRabin
could have thought that, okay, we will have an agreement that will create
something which is aStateminus. This was Rabin’sexpression. He neverthought
this will end in a fullfledged palestinianState. There was a lot of ambiguity,
constructive ambiguity, might Kissinger say, but I think it was destructive
ambiguity. It helped, this destructive ambiguity helped in clinching theOsloAgreement,
but it was a minefield for those who went toCampDavid and later on toTaba to
try and solve all the pending issues.
15.
Goodman: ProfessorNormanFinkelstein.
16.
Finkelstein: I’m going to try to focus on the
key points or issues about the refugees inJerusalem, which for now I can’t get
into, but I will be happy to return to them later when we discuss what was the
impasse atOslo. Excuse me, the impasse at-CampDavid and -Taba, but I want to
set the context, and I don’t think, I agree in part with the context that
Dr.BenAmi set out, but not fully. The main context, in my opinion, is as
follows. Since the mid1970s, there’s been an international consensus for
resolving theIsraelPalestineconflict. Most of your listeners will be familiar
with it. It’s called a twoStatesettlement, and a
twoStatesettlement is pretty straightforward, uncomplicated. Israel has to fullywithdraw from theWestBank and Gaza and Jerusalem,
in accordance with the fundamental principle ofInternationalLaw, cited threetimes
byMrBenAmi in the book, his book, that it’s inadmissible to acquire territory
by war. TheWestBank, Gaza and Jerusalem, having been acquired by war, it’s
inadmissible forIsrael to keep them. They have to be returned. On the palestinian
side and also the side of the neighboring arabStates, they have to recogniseIsrael’sright to live in peace and security with its neighbors. That
was the quid pro quo: recognition of Israel, palestinian right to
selfdetermination in theWestBank and Gaza with its capital inJerusalem. That’s
the international consensus. It’s notcomplicated. It’s also notcontroversial.
You see it voted on everyyear in theUnitedNations. The votes typically something
like 160nations on oneside; theUnitedStates, Israel and Naru, Palau, Tuvalu,
Micronesia and theMarshallIslands on the other side. That’s it. Now, the israeliGovernment
was fullyaware that this was the international consensus, but they were opposed
(a) to a full withdrawal from theWestBank and Gaza and Jerusalem, of course,
and ([b]) they were opposed to creating a palestinianState in theOccupiedTerritories.
Come1981, as pressure builds onIsrael to reach a
diplomatic settlement in theIsraelPalestineConflict, they decide to invadeLebanon
in order to crush thePLO, because thePLO was on record supporting a twoStatesettlement.
As Dr.BenAmi’s colleague, AvnerYaniv, put it in
a veryexcellent book, DilemmasOfSecurity, he said, "The
main problem for Israel was," and now I’m quoting him, "thePLO’s peaceoffensive.
They wanted a twoStatesettlement. Israel did not." And so Israel
decides to crush thePLO inLebanon. It successfullydid so. ThePLO goes into
exile. Come1987, palestinians in theOccupiedTerritories
despair of any possibility of international intervention, and they enter into a
revolt, the palestinianIntifada, basically nonviolent civilian revolt by the palestinians.
And the revolt proves to be remarkablysuccessful for maybe the first couple of
years. Come1990, Iraq invadesKuwait. ThePLO
supports, ambiguously, but I think we fairly can say, and I agree withDr.BenAmi
on this, they lend support toIraq. The war ends, Iraq defeated, and all theGulfStates
cut off all of their money to thePLO. ThePLO is going down the tubes. Along
comes Israel with a clever idea. Mr. Rabin says, Let’s
throwArafat a lifepreserver, but on condition. And Dr.BenAmi puts it
excellently, that "thePLO will be Israel’s subcontractor and collaborator
in theOccupiedTerritories," and I’m quoting Dr.BenAmi, "in order to
suppress the genuinelydemocratic tendencies of the palestinians."
Now, it’s true, exactly as Dr.BenAmi said, that Israel had twooptions after
theIraqWar. It could have negotiated with the real representatives of the palestinians
who wanted that full twoStatesettlement in accordance with the international
consensus, or it can negotiate withArafat in the hope that he’s so desperate
that he’s going to serve as their collaborator and subcontractor in order to
deny the palestinians what they’re entitled to underInternationalLaw. The israelis
choseArafat, not only because Arafat himself was desperate. They chose him
because they thought he would deny them what they were entitled to. He would
suppress all resistance to the occupation. And finally the day of reckoning
came withCampDavidtalks, it turned out Arafat was notwilling to make those
concession to deny the palestinians what their rights were underInternationalLaw,
and I think that’s where the impasse occured in-CampDavid and –Taba.
17.
Goodman: Let’s turn to the
formerForeignMinister, ShlomoBenAmi.
18.
BenAmi: Yes, if I may with regard to-InternationalLaw
and -242. One needs to [consider]242SecurityCouncilResolution in different way [from]
one analyses Resolution425 that says Israel needs to pull out fromLebanon, or Resolution
I forget the number says that Iraq needs pull out fromKuwait. The difference is
that, in the lebanese case and the iraqi case, there was no negotiation at all.
Theonlything that was asked by the international community pulls out
unconditionally fromLebanon, and Iraq pulls out fromKuwait. This is a different
case with242. 242 is an invitation to the parties to negociate the secure and recognised
boundaries between the two entities. He doesn’t say anything by the way about
the palestinianState, anything of theState, anything of theJerusalem, which is by
the way thePLO rejected242. Didn’t accept the resolution, because it addresses
the palestinian question only in question of refugeeproblem. This is what 242 does.
So I think 242 is a framework for a peaceagreement inadmissible from the view
of the palestinians, and Israel accepted it, because it spoke about, according
to oneinterpreation, not full withdrawl from the territories, and didn’t
mention a palestinianState and the rest of it. As far as thesecondpart ofDr.Finkelstein’spresentation
is concerned, I agree based on what I say. Theonlything
I would add to it is that InternationalLaw was thelast or theleast
ofArafat’sconcern. He didn’t give a damn aboutInternationalLaw. It was
not whether or not the agreement was based onInternationalLaw or not that
concernedArafat. In my view. This is my interpretation of the man, I met the
man manymanytimes, I might be wrong obviously, but this is my firsthand
interpretation of this man. He was Morally-, psychologically-, physically-incapable
of the Morallegitimacy of a jewishState regardless of its borders or whatever.
Arafat was incapable of closing or locking the door of this endless conflict
between us and the palestinians. And this is the bottom line. I mean, inTaba,
nothing to do withInternationalLaw. InTaba, what happened was that Arafat
reallybelieved that [GeorgeWalkerBushJr.] is a replica of[GeorgeHerbertWalkerBush].
And [GeorgeHerbertWalkerBush] was known in the arab world as morefriendly or more,
at least partiallydeaf to the jewish concerns. This was his image in the arab
world. I remember the visit I made toPresidentMubarak after we left office, I said,
Everybody speaks about military intelligence, Mr.President, but we all fail in
our political intelligence. You wanted an election ofPresidentBush, you wanted
thePresidentAlGore, and we ended up with themostfriendlyPresident to
theStateOfIsrael ever in theWhiteHouse. So this was the conviction ofArafat. That
he can still get a better deal from[GeorgeWalkerBushJr.]. His concerns were of political
nature more than anything else. And this is where he failed again, because
Arafat had always a sense of somebody who knows everything. I mean, he thought
of himself as a great statageist, and this is where he failed time and again.
And he betrayed the cause of his own people, because at the end of the day,
today, the palestinians are becoming thesecondcurse of theMiddleEast, a nation that
he’s moving away from the chances of having aState. There is never going to be
an ideal solution. A leader needs to make a decision or
moments of trial, because if you look for a consensus among your people for a
solution, you might never have that kind of consensus. Peace is a devised
enterprise, and peace that is accepted byHamas will not be accepted by the
israelis just as peace that is accepted by israelis, because far right, mutadis
mutandis, [Fuck are you talking about?] is not going to be accepted by the
palestinians. You need to divide your society. And the peaceagreement will not
be in full coincidence with the requirements of theInternationalLaw, it will be
in coincidence with the feasibility, with the politicalpossibility of reaching a
precarious line in the equilibrium in the position of the parties. This is how
peace is made throughoutHistory. And I believe that we lost that
oppotunity sadly enough, and we need to go back to it. When it comes to the new
situation in the palestinian authorities today, I am lesspessimistic than any
others. I don’t think that we need automatically to rule out the new rulers, [Hamas]
inGaza as peacepartners. There are things that need to be done.
19.
Goodman: Hamas, you mean.
20.
BenAmi: Hamas, yes. I think that in my view
there is sort of poeticJustice with this victory ofHamas. After all, what is
the reason for this nostalgia forArafat and thePLO? Did they [“]run the furs[“]
of the palestinians in the clean way? You mention the corruption, inefficiency.
Of course, Israel has contributed a lot to the integration of the palestinian system,
no doubt about it. But the leaders failed them, their leaders betrayed them.
And the victory ofHamas was Justice being made in many ways, so we cannot
preachDemocracy, and then say that those who won are notaccepted by us. Either
there is [a]Democracy or there is noDemocracy. With these people, I think they’re
muchmorepragmatic than is normallyperceived. In the1990s, they invented the
concept of a temporary settlement with theIsrael. 1990s, thefirsttime Hamas spoke
about the temporary settlement withIsrael. In2003, they declaredunilaterally a
truce, and the reason they declared the truce is this: that withArafat was the system
of ** was one of
divide and rule. They
were discarded from the politicalsystem. MahmoudAbbas has integrated them into the
politicalsystem and this is what brought to the truce. They’re all interested in
politicising themselves, in becoming [a] politicalentity. And we need to try
and see [the] ways where we can work with them. Now, everybody says they need
first of all to recognise theStateOfIsrael and Enterism. Believe me, I would like them to do
so today, but they’re not going to do that. They’re eventually going to do that
in the future, but only as a part of a quid pro quo just as thePLO did it. ThePLO,
when Rabin came
to negotiate with them, also didn’t recognise theStateOfIsrael, and they
engaged in all kinds of nasty practices. And therefore, we need to be
muchmorerealistic and abandon wornout clichés, and see whether we can reach something
with these people. I believe that longterm interim agreement between Israel and
Hamas even if not negociated between the parties, but through a thirdparty is
feasible and possible.
21.
Goodman: ShlomoBenAmi is a
formerForeignMinsiter ofIsrael. NormanFinkelstein is a professor
ofDePaulUniversity. Both [has] written books onIsrael. ShlomoBenAmi’s is ScarsOfWar.WoundsOfPeace.
NormanFinkelstein’s is BeyondSchutzpah.MisuseOfAntiSemitismAndTheAbuseOfHistory.
Your response to the formerForeignMinister ofIsrael.
22.
Finkelstein: Well, I want to put aside for a
moment the question ofHamas and just return to the previous point, namely the
relevance[s] were not ofInternationalLaw. It’s not an abstract question. It’s not
the question fortunately only to be left to lawyers. It’s the question which
bears on thelastthird ofDr.BenAmi’sbook, namely, who
was responsible for the collapse of the impasse, negotiations inCampDavid and
Taba? Whereas in my view, Dr.BenAmi wears historian’shat, he gets
everything right. When he puts on a
diplomat’shat, he starts to get things, in my opinion, wrong. And it’s that the
last third of the book that things begin to goseriously-aride. Now, I can’t look intoMr.Arafat’s[thoughtprocess] heart,
and I don’t know what he did or didn’t believe. Frankly, I have no interest in
it. My concern is let’s look at the diplomatic record, the factual
record. What were the offers being made on each side of theCampDavid and in
theTabatalks? And the standard interpretation, which comes, which is, you can
call it theDennisRossinterpretation, which
I think unfortunately Dr.BenAmi echoes, is that Israel
made huge concessions atCampDavid and Taba; palestinians refused to make any
concessions, because of what Dr.BenAmi repeatedly calls Arafat’s unyielding
positions; and that Arafat missed a huge opportunity. Now, it is correct
to say that if you frame everything in terms of what Israel wanted, it made
huge concessions. However, if you frame things in terms
of what Israel was legallyentitled to underInternationalLaw, then Israel made-precisely
and -exactly zeroconcessions. All the concessions were made by the palestinians.
Briefly, because we don’t have time, there were four
key issues atCampDavid and at Taba. Numberone, settlements.
Numbertwo, borders. Numberthree, Jerusalem.
Numberfour, refugees. Let’s start with settlements. UnderInternationalLaw, there is no
dispute, no controversy. Under Article49 of the FourthGenevaConvention, it’s
illegal for any occupying country to transfer its population toOccupiedTerritories.
All of the settlements, all of the settlements are illegal underInternationalLaw.
No dispute. TheWorldCourt inJuly2004 ruled that all the settlements are
illegal. The palestinians were willing to concede 50%, 50% of the israeli
settlements in theWestBank. That was a monumental concession, going well beyond
anything that was demanded of them underInternationalLaw. Borders. The principle is clear. I don’t want to get
into it now, because I was veryglad to see that Dr.BenAmi quoted it threetimes
in his book. It is inadmissible to acquire territory by war. UnderInternationalLaw,
Israel had to withdraw from all of theWestBank and all ofGaza. As theWorldCourt
put it inJuly2004, those are, quote, "occupied palestinian
territories." Now, however you want to argue over percentages, there is no
question, and I know Dr.BenAmi won’t dispute it, the palestinians were willing
to make concessions on the borders. What percentage? There’s differences. But
there is no question they were willing to make concessions. Jerusalem. Jerusalem is an interesting case, because
if you readDr.BenAmi or the standard mainstream accounts in theUnitedStates,
everyone talks about the huge concessions that Barak was willing to make onJerusalem.
But underInternationalLaw, Israel has not oneatom of sovereignty over any ofJerusalem.
Read theWorldCourtdecision. TheWorldCourtdecision said Jerusalem is occupied palestinian
territory. Now, the palestinians were willing, the exact lines I’m not going to
get into now, they are complicated, but I’m sure Dr.BenAmi will not dispute
they were willing to divideJerusalem roughly in half, the jewishside toIsrael,
the arabside to the palestinians. And numberfour, refugees.
On the question of refugees, it’s not a dispute underInternationalLaw.
Remarkably, even fairlyconservativeHumanRightsorganisations like-AmnestyInternational,
-HumanRightsWatch, in2000, during theCampDavidtalks, they issued statements on
the question of the right-of-return. And they statedcategorically, underInternationalLaw
everypalestinian, roughly five-to-sixmillion, has the right to return, not to
some little parcels, onepercent of Israel, which Israel is about, which Israel
would swap, return to their homes or the environs of their homes inIsrael.
That’s theLaw. Now, Dr.BenAmi will surely agree that the palestinians were notdemanding and neverdemanded the full return of sixmillionsrefugees. He gives a
figure of 4to800.000. In fact, I’m not going to get into the numbers, because
it’s veryhard to pin it down, other authors have given figures of the tens of
thousands to 200.000 refugees returning. That’s well short of sixmillion. On everysingle
issue, all the concessions came from the palestinians. The problem is,
everyone, including Dr.BenAmi in his book, he begins with what Israel wants and
how much of its wants, it’s willing to give up. But that’s not the relevant
framework. Theonly relevant framework is underInternationalLaw what you are
entitled to, and when you use that framework it’s a veryverydifferent picture.
23.
Goodman: If you can bear to make this response
brief, Dr.ShlomoBenAmi.
24.
BenAmi: Yes, yes. Okay, the last thirdpart of
the book, as Dr.Finkelstein says, there is the diplomat, and this samediplomat stillbehaves in a way as a historian when
he says in this book that CampDavid was not the missed opportunity for the palestinians,
and if I were a palestinian I would have rejectedCampDavid, as well.
This is something I put in the book. But Taba is
the problem. TheClintonparameters are the problem, because theClintonparameters,
in my view.
25.
Finkelstein: Maybe you could explain to them
what that is. I don’t think most people will know theClintonparameters.
26.
BenAmi: Well, theClintonparameters
say the following. They say that on the territorial issue, the palestinians
will get 100% of Gaza, 97% of theWestBank, plus safe passage fromGaza to theWestBank
to make theState viable. There will be a landswap. The 97%, which I mentioned,
takes into account the landswap, where they will get 3% on this side, within theStateOfIsrael,
so we will have the blocks of settlements and they will be able to settle
refugees on this side of the border. AboutJerusalem, it says what is jewish is israeli,
and what is palestinian is, sorry, and what is arab is palestinian. It includes
fullfledged sovereignty for the palestinians onTempleMount, on theHaramAlSharif,
no sovereignty, no jewish sovereignty on theHaramAlSharif, which was at the
time and continues to be a major, major problem for israelis and jews, that
these things mean to them a lot. And then, with the question of refugees, it
says that the refugees will return to historicPalestain, to historicalPalestain,
and that Israel will maintain its sovereign right of admission. That is, it
will have to absorb a number of refugees, but with restrictions that need to be
negotiated between the parties. But the bulk of the refugees will be allowed to
return to theState ofPalestain. This is the essence of theClintonparameters.
What Dr.Finkelstein said here aboutInternationalLaw, I want to make it clear,
it is important, it is vital for a civilised community of nations to have an
axis of principles based onInternationalLaw, around which to run the affairs of
our chaotic world. It is veryimportant. It is vital, etc. But at the same time, when you go into politicalissues, and
you need to settle differences, historical differences, differences that have
to do with politicalrights, security concerns, historical memories, etc., it is
almostimpossible to do things on the basis ofInternationalLaw, but rather, on
something that is as close as possible to the requirements ofInternationalLaw.
The veryfact that, as Dr.Finkelstein rightlysays, that the palestinians were
ready to make this or that concession is the reflection of them understanding
that there is no viability, there is no possibility really to reach an
agreement that says let us apply-automatically and -rigidly the requirements ofInternationalLaw.
So we need to find a way, I believe, I reallybelieve, that CampDavid we failed
to find that way, I say it veryclearly in the book. It is my conviction that through
theClintonparameter, it was not the sudden whim of lameduckPresident. They were
the point of equilibrium between the necogiating parties, and thePresident sort
of looked for a way between the two position and presented these parameters. They
could be finetuned obviously. We tried to finetune them inTaba. We made some
progress, but eventually a number of reasons among them politicalquality of
time that is missing, for the americans and for the isralies, and because the
consideration ofArafat that he reallybelieved that he can get a better deal. I
think that he will not get a better deal. The conditions are not there, I don’t
see that happening in a foreseeable future, so he lost the opportunity of
having a deal that he [considers] imperfect, inevitablyimperfect, will always
be imperfect, because this is the way peaceprocess are done all over. And he
sent his nation into the wilderness of all and backing the timemachine of call
of the conflict. This is what we face today.
27.
Goodman: NormanFinkelstein, quick response. And I
wanted to ask you your, one of the main thesis in your book that has with
antiSemitism.
28.
Finkelstein: Just for the sake of audience.
29.
BenAmi: Briefly, because.
30.
Finkelstein: Yeah.
31.
BenAmi: I do mention obviously the inadmissibility
of the acquiring, acquisition of land by force. This is not the invention. This
is what the242 says.
32.
Finkelstein: Exactly.
33.
BenAmi: This is what 242 says. But again, let us
look at the new ones. When the isralies accepted242, that’s because this
expression of inadmissibility of the acquisition of land by force is tempered
by the concept through the concept of borders that are defensible and
recognised and securityborders. That’s the equilibrium, which is
notInternationalLaw, but it is give and take in a negotiations.
34.
Goodman: ProfessorFinkelstein.
35.
Finkelstein: I don’t want to get into the
interminable question of what 242 meant. I’ll
simplystate InternationalCourtOfJustice in july2000 ruled on that question,
that Israel has to withdraw, fullywithdraw [from]-Westbank [and] -Gaza,
includingJerusalem. To my mind, it is no
longer a matter of dispute no matter, however you want to interpret242.
Let’s now turn to just quickly thelastissue. It’s going to be hard for a lot of
you listeners, because even though I have read twodozens of books on the topic,
I keep getting things confused. CampDavidAccords-talks are
in july2000. Clintonparameters are roughly december23rd2000. Taba in
january2001. Now, Dr.BenAmi says, CampDavid, I can understand why the palestinians
turned down. Unfortunately, in his book, he keeps referring to Arafat’s
unyielding positions, even though now he acknowledges the palestinians made
concessions atCampDavid. In fact, as I said, all the concessions within the
framework ofInternationalLaw came from the palestinians. Let’s now turn to those
Clintonparameters. Dr.BenAmi accuratelyrenders their content. I don’t think he
accuratelyrenders in the book what happened. He states in the book that atTaba israeli.
Excuse me, at the time ofClintonparameters, israelis accepted
theClintonparameters. Arafat didn’t really accept theClintonparameters. He says
he did, but he didn’t. What actually happened? What
actually happened is exactly as what was
announced by theWhiteHousespokesman onJanuary3rd2001, the official statement
was both the israelis and the palestinians have accepted theClintonparameters
with some reservations. Both sides entered reservations on theClintonparameters.
Dr.BenAmi leaves out in the book both sides. He
onlymentions the reservations by the palestinians. Numbertwo, I was
surprised to notice one of the books Dr.BenAmi recommends is the book byClaytonSwisher calledTheTruthAtCampDavid. I looked
in the book. On page402 ofClaytonSwisher’sbook, when he’s discussing the issue
of entering reservations toClinton’sparameters, he quotes none other thanShlomoBenAmi.
You acknowledged, you call them relativelyminor, but
you acknowledged that Barak entered, you called it several pages of
reservations. In fact, Barak sent a tenpageletter of reservations to
theClintonparameters. It was exactlysymmetrical. Both the israelis and
the palestinians agreed to theClintonparameters with some reservations.
36.
BenAmi: Yeah.
37.
Finkelstein: Wait, one last point, one last
point. Dr.BenAmi left out another crucial point in his account. He doesn’t tell us
why Taba ended. It endedofficially when Barak withdrew his negotiators. It wasn’t the palestinians
who walked out of Taba. It ended with the israelis walking out ofTaba, a
matter of historical record, not even controversial.
38.
Goodman: Dr.BenAmi.
39.
BenAmi: Okay, well. Laughter ofBenAmi. You see,
as somebody who was a part of those who prepared the israeli document that was
submitted toPresidentClinton, I can say that the bulk of the document was an
expression of our, the comparison that we made between our initial positions
and what was reflected in theClintonparameters. It was not a series of
reservations. It was basically a mention of the difference, the way that we
have gone. This was an attempt to impress thePresident, more than an attempt to
say that these are reservations, sine qua nons. There were no real reservations
in our document, whereas in the palestinian document, there were plenty of them,
with the refugees, with theHaramAlSharif, with what have you. I mean, it was
full of reservations from beginning to end. Ours was not a document about
reservations, it was a statement, basically, that said these were our
positions, this is where we stand today. We have gone a verylong way, we cannot
go beyond that. This was essentially what we sent. Now, with regard toTaba, you see, we were aGovernment
committing suicide practically. Twoweeks before general elections, theChiefOfStaff,
GeneralMofaz, who is now theMinisterOfDefense, comes and in a, I say that in
the book, in something that is tantamount to a coup d’État, comes and sayspublicly
that we are putting at risk the future of theStateOfIsrael by assuming the
lintonparameters, and we accept them, we assume them. And then I go toCairo and
I meetPresidentMubarak, and PresidentMubarak invitesArafat to see me inCairo,
and I say toArafat, We are going to fine tune this in a meeting inTaba, if you
wish. And then we go toTaba, and we negotiate inTaba. And inTaba, PrimeMinisterBarak instructs me to conduct secret
negotiations withAbuAlla. Within the negotiations, we had thesecondtrack
trying to reach an agreement, and he evenagrees to all kind of things that he
was not veryopen to before that. Now, this was the end. We saw that we are not
reaching an agreement, and we need to go back, even if for the electoral
campaign. I mean, we were a week before the elections. I mean, we were
practicallynonexistent. We were. Our legitimacy as aGovernment to negotiate
such central issues asJerusalem, asTempleMount, the temple, etc., was being
questioned, not only by the right that was making politicalcapital out of it,
but by the left, people from our own Government. “ShlomoBenAmi
is ready to sell out the country for the sake of aNobelPrize.” This is
what HaimRamon said, one of theLabourministers,
so it was unsustainable. We could not go any longer. So to say that we now, the
whole thing collapsed, because we put a helicopter over the palestinians to go
and see if we can lubricate some basic peaceparameters on the basis of onenegotiations.
They didn’t want it. Arafat didn’t want it. Anyway, the thing is that we need
to understand that, frankly with all due respect of the requirement ofInternationalLaw,
at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the peaceprocess is a
politicalenterprise. And there are things that Governments can do and things they
cannot do, because if you do things [] that leave you without politicalsupport,
then you can do nothing. You can write poetry, not make peace. And we’ve been
writing poetry every since, because we are not in office. We are advancing all
kinds of peacedreams. It is only when you are in office and you have a politicalsupport
that you can move ahead, this is theonlyway that peace is done. We already [have]
done our verybest. We went out of our limits of our
capacity to compromise without disintegratingentirely our homefront, and this
is an exercise that Sharon decided not to make, preciselybecause we learned
from our experience. He said, Listen, we’re not going to do that. I’m going to
be an neutralis[er]. I don’t believe in negociations. It’s verybad. But
this is the lesson that he learned from setexperience of the collapse of the
peaceprocess in thelastyear ofClintonpresidency.
40.
Goodman: We don’t have verymuch time. I wanted
to ask you, ProfessorFinkelstein, about your thesis, not so now (new antiSemitism).
What does that mean?
41.
Finkelstein: Well, actually, I think it’s useful
to connect it with the conversation we’ve just had. Namely, I think when
honest and reasonable people enter into a discussion about [any] topic, you
will have large areas of agreement, some area of disagreement, and frankly, and
I’m not saying it to flatter. I say it because I believe it. I don’t flatter by
nature. I’m quite certain that if palestinians, if representatives of the palestinians
were to sit down withShlomoBenAmi in a room, [andif] weren’t subjected to the sorts
of politicalpressures that Dr.BenAmi describes from Israel, I think a
reasonable settlement could be reached, and I think he’s reasonable, in my
opinion. We can disagree on some issues, but he’s reasonable. The problem is
when you get to theUnitedStates. In theUnitedStates,
among those people who call themselves supporters ofIsrael, we enter the area of
unreason. We enter aTwilightZone. American jewish organisations, they’re
not only not up to speed yet withStevenSpielberg [and his fucking amazing
stories], they’re still in theLeonUris-exodusversion ofHistory, the (this land
is mine, god gave this land to me), and
anybody who dissents from this, you can call it, lunatic version ofHistory is then immediatelybranded an antisemite, and whenever
Israel comes under international pressure to settle the conflict
diplomatically, or when it is subjected to a publicrelationsdebacle, such as it
was with theSecondIntifada, a campaign is launched claiming there is a new antiSemitism
afoot in the world. There is no evidence of a new antiSemitism. If you
go through all the literature, as I have, the evidence is actually inEurope,
which is Dr.BenAmi’s halfhomeground, Spain, but throughoutEurope, the evidence
is, if you look at like thePewCharitableTrust surveys, antiSemitism has
actuallydeclined since thelasttime they did the surveys. They did it in1991 and
2002. They said the evidence is that it’s declined. And thesamething in theUnitedStates.
What’s called the “new antiSemitism” is anyone who criticises any official israeli
policies. In fact, my guess is had people not known who wroteScarsOfWarWoundsOfPeace,
that book would immediately be put on theADL's list of verboten books, an
example of antiSemitism, because he says things like the zionists wanted to
transfer the arabs out. That's antiSemitism. It has nothing to do with the real
world. It’s a publicrelationsextravaganzaproduction to deflect attention from
the facts, from theRealities, and I think this afternoon in our exchange, there
were some areas of disagreement for sure, but I think a lot of what Dr.BenAmi
said would not go down well with most of american jewry, and that’s when
they’ll soon be charging him with being an antisemite.
42.
Goodman: Your response, Dr.BenAmi, and do you
see a difference in the dialogue inIsrael and you do right here?
43.
BenAmi: On the question of antiSemitism? Well,
Israel is the result of the jewish catastraophe, there’s no doubt about it. With
no jewish catastrophe, there would not be aStateOfIsrael. And I think that
during thefirstyears of, before the creation of theState, especially the figure
ofBenGurion, jewish catastrophe needed to be enlisted for the cause of the creation
of theState. You see, BenGurion was a Leninist in some way, he was aLenintype. By
this I mean, he onlyhad one central idea in his mind, that is the creation of
theStateOfisrael, all the other considerations were subservient to that goal,
which is the reason why he rushed to reconcile the jewish people in
theStateOfIsrael withGermany, because it was vital force to theStateOfIsrael. He
was revolutionary in the sense. All the other nations are instrumental to that.
I think that [NaziHolocaust] has become not only defining event for the jewish
people, but.
44.
Goodman: **, you mean, [NaziHolocaust.]
45.
BenAmi: Holocaust, not only the definining issue
for the jewish people but something that Israel has. NotInsrael, but perhaps some
politicians inIsrael abused, begging use to compareArafat toHitler. He must
have been a probablyverynasty guy, but certainly notHitler. Just as I don’t
think that SaddamHussin was Hitler. I think President[GeorgeHerbertWalkerBush] likened
him toHitler. We go verylikely with these things, we do this kind of comparison
necessarily. The capture ofEichmann, for example, was veryimportant toBenGurion,
because he wanted the sort of pedagogical exercise for the young generation. I
explain this in the book why he needed to reconcile himself with theShah, [?]
which didn’t interest him very much in the beginning. He was verymuchconcerned
with other issues. Suddenly he covered the threw this ethos of the newIsrael, of
the**. You cannot build cohesive nation, because people were coming from
different parts of the world, so you needed to resort to jewish memory, to jewish
values, to jewish catastrophe as a way to unite the newborn nation. Today, it
seems to me that the problem of antiSemitism when it happens, for example, inFrance,
synagogues are being attacked, etc. If these happen through the hands of muslim
youngsters in the suburbs ofParis. For me, it is verydifficult to define as
antiSemitism. I can define it as-Hooliganism and -manipulation of conflict in
theMiddleEast in order to perpetrate all kinds of nasty acts against the jewish
holy places, but this is not what we understand as antiSemitism, which is an european
malady as it were. I think it was there already, it will continue to be there,
but I’m not in the business of counting how many incidents happened. And
there’s an institute atTelAvivUniversity that will tell you how many incidents
happen every year. I don’t believe also that the number of incident, as such, is
a reflexion of antiSemitism is growing. I believe that it is there, I believe
it will stay there as a subculture current in many european societies, but I’m
notscandalised by the antiSemitism today. I can see moresemophobia against
northafricans, against foreigners throughoutEurope. And in a way, in a way, I
can even see a reconcliation ofEurope with its jewish past. There’s a hardly european
country where you would not find today a museum of jewishIstory, not only
inGermany. Poland, Iran, France, all over the place. So, Judaism has, it is
being endorsed more and more, the jewishHistory, as a part of a whole european
legacy. The problem today is in my view much more that of arab, muslim
immigrants from northAfrica, from theMiddleEast and other parts.
46.
Goodman: Being descriminated.
47.
BenAmi: Yeah, absolutely.
48.
Finkelstein: Totallyagree. No disagreement at
all.
49.
Goodman: On the issue of language, Terrorism, Arafat
called terrorist, Hamas called terrorist. How would you describe the israeliState
when it attacks civilians in theOccupiedTerritories? Or how would you
describeArielSharon?
50.
BenAmi: Well, let me tell you what is my
description ofTerrorism. Terrorism, in my view, is an
indiscriminate attack against civilian population. If I, personally, or
my son, god forbid, is being attacked, being in uniform in palestinian
territories, by aHamascall, I would not define this asTerrorism. I will define
asTerrorism if they go into a kindergarten or a mall, explode themselves and
cause injuries and death among civilian population. This to me is. Now, the problem of the response of aState is muchmoredifficult to
define, because aState needs to go not against the civilian population. It
needs to go against military targets, ticking bombs. This is what States
can do and should do. The problem is that when you have a fight, not againstArmies,
which is the case of-Syria, -Egypt, we never spoke about Terrorism, State, israeliStateTerrorism
against the egyptians. We spoke about wars between two
military sides. This is verydifficult in the conditions prevailing in places
like-Gaza or -theWestBank, where you have militias, you have arsenals of
weapons, etc., and theArmy attacks them and there is collateral damage to
civilian population. To me, this is verydifficult to define asStateTerrorism. It
is attacking military objectives or sort of military objectives, anArmy which
is not a realArmy, but can cause damage and you need to fight back and defend your
population, and it is veryveryunfortunate that civilians are hit. But if Israel targetsintentionally civilians, this is a
different matter. This can be defined asTerrorism. I don’t believe that we have
done it. [Whatthefuck?] Normally, the practice is that things happened-collaterally.
51.
Goodman: I would like to get your response, ProfessorFinkelstein,
and also if you could include in that, you have a chapter inBeyondChutzpah
calledIsrael’sAbuGhraib.
52.
Finkelstein: Well, on the issue ofTerrorism, I
agree withDr.BenAmi’sdefinition. It’s the indiscriminate targeting of civilians
to achieve politicalends. That’s a capsule definition, but I think for our
purposes it suffices. What does the record show? Let’s limit ourselves to just theSecondIntifada, fromSeptember28 to the present. The period
for that period, the record shows approximately 3.000 palestinians have been
killed, approximately 900 israelis have been killed. On the palestinian side
and the israeli side, I’m now using the figures ofB’Tselem, theIsraeliInformationCenterForHumanRights
in theOccupiedTerritories, on the palestinian and the israeli side roughly
onehalf to twothirds of the total number were civilians or bystanders.
And if you look at the findings of theHumanRights supports, B’Tselem, AmnestyInternational,
HumanRightsWatch, PhysiciansForHumanRights inIsrael, and so forth, they all say
that Israel uses reckless indiscriminate fire against palestinians, and
B’Tselem says when you have so many civilian casualties, you have, you know,
600 palestinian children who have been killed, which is the total number of israeli
civilians killed. 600 palestinian children killed. They said when you have so
much, so many civilians killed. I don’t
particularly like the phrase “collateral damage”. [I agree. The title
ofSchwarzeneggermovie.] When you have so many civilians killed, B’Tselem says it
hardlymakes a difference whether you are purposelytargeting them or not, theState
has responsibility. So, you could say Israel, using numbers now, is responsible
for threetimes as muchTerrorism in theOccupiedTerritories as palestinians
againstIsrael. That’s the question ofTerrorism. Let’s turn to an ancillary
issue: the issue of torture. Now, the estimates are, up
to 1994-1995, that Israel tortured, and I’m using the language of-HumanRightsWatch
and -B’Tselem, Israel has tortured tens of thousands of palestinian detainees.
Israel was theonlycountry in the world, theonlyone, which had legalised torture
from1987to1999. The record on torture, on housedemolitions and on
targeted.
53.
BenAmi: 1999 is when
we came to office.
54.
Finkelstein: Well, I wish that were, I wish that [it]
were the saving grace, but the fact of the matter is, being faithful to
historical record, the record of Labour has been much worse onHumanRightsviolations than the record ofLikud. It’s a fact that
the only israeliGovernment during the period from1967 to the present which
temporarilysuspended torture was Begin from1979to1981. On the record of
housedemolitions, Mr.Rabin used to boast that he had demolished manymorehomes
than any LikudGovernment. Even on the record of settlements, as Dr.BenAmi well
knows, the record ofRabin was worse in terms of settlementexpansion than the
record ofYitzhakShamir, and a fact he leaves out in the book, the record ofBarak
on housingstartups in theOccupiedTerritories.
55.
Goodman: Building morehouses?
56.
Finkelstein: Yeah, was worse than the record ofNetanyahu.
It’s a paradox for, I’m sure, american listeners, but the record onHumanRights,
an abysmal record in general, an abysmal record in general, and in particular, theworstrecord is the record ofLabour, not Likud.
57.
Goodman: Dr.BenAmi.
58.
BenAmi: Laughter ofBenAmi. Well, Dr.Finkelstein alreadysaid
what needs to be said about end of the legal status of torture ending in1999.
When it comes to difference between Labour and Likud, I make these point[s] in
a different way in the book. And that is that Labour was muchmorekeen to
advance the final ethos ofLabour, which is settling the land. These were never
ethos of the right. The right dreamt about greater Israel, but did nothing to
implement it. You know, in theCampDavid, thefirstCampDavid that was withSadat, the
right that was in office dismantled the settlements ofYamit in northernSinai.
Left was in the position couldn’t follow that collapse of ethos of the settling
the land. The right was morebiblical, sort of morereligious, lesspractical in
its attitude to the territories. So it was always the case, this is the point I
make in the book, the settlements where in fact started byShimonPeres, when he
was a defenseMinister ofYitzHakRabin. But you see.
59.
Goodman: OfLabour.
60.
BenAmi: OfLabour, obviously. But onecircumstance
that needs to be emphasised however, it’s this: at least as late from1988, I
make the point in the book, that surprisingly until1988 there’s hardly any
difference in the politicalattitude between Labour and Likud. You couldn’t
reallydiscern any difference in the attitude. Things start to change in1988. And
I do give credit toArafat here, contrary to what I do. Arafat was pioneer in
many sense, because he invented the peaceprocess, what you call the
peaceprocess by his declaration of1988, and it is from that moment that those
inLabour who continued to settle are the verypeople the thing that, Okay, at
the end of the day, we will have to find some sort of agreement with the
palestinians when we might even have to dismantle the settlements, which is in
itself an interesting march of folly, that is, you create the settlements
knowing that at some point you might have to compromise. The difference between the settlement created bySharon and those
created byRabin is this: that Sharon created settlement in order to torpedo future
agreements whereas what he called, I agree, it was an internal israeli game.
But he drew the distiction between politicalsettlements, that is, settlements that
is created in order to derail the possibility of an agreement and other kind of
settlements that might [] become a part of theStateOfIsrael in the context settlement.
So this is a veryvital difference that, at the end of the day, was accepted by
the palestinians. The fact that, as you yourself say, inCampDavid, that’s where
they accepted the concept, assumed the concept of blocks of settlement if only
it indicates the position of [] Labourrights that say, Okay, buildingsettlement
in areas that make sense will become in the future a part of theStateOfIsrael.
61.
Goodman: And in the issue of torture in the
tens of thousands of palestinians.
62.
BenAmi: I don’t. To tell you the truth, I
don’t know about the numbers, and we have seen
differentGovernments in, the british have done it. [JohnFord] What the british
did inPalestine in the[19]30s, there is nothing new in what we did that the british
didn’t do before us, and the americans now inIraq and elsewhere. What I find
veryveryuncomfortable is really this singling out Israel that lives in a veryunique
sort of situation in comparison with other countries, but.
63.
Goodman: Well, NormanFinkelstein makes the
point, "Israel’s AbuGhraib," so that’s making reference to what
America did inIraq.
64.
BenAmi: Okay, okay. But if you, if you would
come from another planet and examine the resolutions of theUN, theSecurityCouncil,
you might reach the conclusion there is onlyonesinner in this planet, and it’s theStateOfIsrael,
and not anybody else. [Fuckyou.]
65.
Finkelstein: But I am quoting your own HumanRightsorganisations.
You know, B’Tselem is not theUnitedNations.
66.
BenAmi: Okay, that’s okay. I mean, I’m not, but
it speaks in favour of Israel that we haveHumanRights[group], we have B’Tselem,
and we criticise ourselves.
67.
Finkelstein: Right.
68.
BenAmi: And we want
to change things, but the solution.
69.
Finkelstein: I will agree with that, but then
you have to say it doesn’t speaktoomuch inIsrael’sfavour
that it’s theonlycountry in the world that legalised torture. It was also
theonlycountry in the world that legalised hostagetaking. It was also theonlycountry
in the.
70.
BenAmi: It wasn’t
legalised.
71.
Finkelstein: Well, yes.
As your ChiefJustice called it, “keeping lebanese as bargaining chips.” Israel
was theonlycountry in the world that’s legalised housedemolitions as a form of
punishment. Those things have to also be included in the record.
72.
Goodman: Dr.BenAmi.
73.
Finkelstein: In addition to. I totallyagree with
you, it’s to Israel’scredit that it hasB’Tselem, an organisation for which I
have thehighest-regard and -esteem. I agree with that.
74.
BenAmi: Okay, you see, the thing is that the
conditions where Israel has to operate, this is. We do not have a-Sweden and -Denmark
as neighbours, and we have neighbours that have taken
hostages, and have taken hostages that forced us to exchange things that were
notverypopular. Rabin himself gave away 1.500 palestinian and lebanese
prisoners in exchange for three israeli soldiers, and Sharon gave away fourhundreds
palestinian prisoners in exchange for fourbodies of israeli soldiers. So
we are living in that kind of place.
75.
Finkelstein: But that
may tell you that’s because they take so many people prisoner that they have a
lot to give back. Right now, as we speak,
there are 9.000 palestinian politicalprisoners inIsrael.
76.
BenAmi: This is because we live in the
conditions that we live. We are not, as I said. This is notScandinavia.
77.
Finkelstein: But, Dr.BenAmi, you know as well as
I do, InternationalLaw
does not apply to some countries and not to others, and some continents and not
to others. Either (it applies to everybody) or (it applies to nobody).
So to use the excuse, Well, in our neighborhood we
don’t have to recogniseInternationalLaw, is simply a repudiation ofInternationalLaw.
78.
BenAmi: No, I’m not saying. No, no, I’m not
saying that we do not have to recogniseInternationalLaw. I say that the
conditions.
79.
Finkelstein: Well, then, it applies.
80.
BenAmi: No, no. I mean, there
are conditions where you cannot apply these lofty principles, which are veryimportant,
but you cannot apply them. [Soderbergh&Clooney. Scorsese. JohnFord.]
And the british, and the british.
81.
Finkelstein: The british is an interesting
example.
82.
BenAmi: Well, it’s an interesting example. They
didn’t.
83.
Finkelstein: B’Tselem did a comparison.
84.
BenAmi: They did it inGibraltar.
85.
Finkelstein: TheBritish, that’s right.
86.
BenAmi: They did it in theFalklands. They did, anywhere.
87.
Finkelstein: B’Tselem
did an interesting comparison. It compared the british policies of torture in northernIreland
with israeli policies of torture. In the1970s, there were thousands of
terrorist attacks by theIRA, and B’Tselem’s comparison showed that the israeli
record is muchworse than the british on the question of torture. That’s
the facts.
88.
BenAmi: Yeah. You face
now in this country a challenge ofTerrorism, so you go toPATRIOTAct and you go
to. [Finally he says what he believes.]
89.
Finkelstein: But you won’t find me justifying torture.
90.
BenAmi: These are the
conditions that can be verydire, verydifficult.
91.
Finkelstein: No conditions justify torture.
92.
Goodman: Well, let me askDr.BenAmi, on the
issue of theUnitedStates, as you look here, coming here for a few days, AbuGhraib,
Guantanamo, do you feel there are problems with the detention of the hundreds
of men that are being held at Guantanamo without charge and what happened atAbuGhraib?
93.
BenAmi: Well, I cannot condone that. I mean,
I think that, obviously, it is a violation of international norms. There is no
doubt about it. But I don’t follow the internal american debate. I don’t
know if this society is scandalised by what happens and what is the degree of
civil opposition, civic opposition, and if you have here organisations like not
only B’Tselem, even ShalomAchshav, which is a centrist, it’s not a leftwing. Organisation
that exposes the seams of your own Government, I
don’t know. Maybe yes. I think we are a society
in the middle of a verycomplicated conflict. As I do admit, in this
conflict many atrocities were committed by both sides, however, but I do recognise
our own shortcomings, blunders and things. And theonlysolution to this
situation, theonly, theonlysolution, is to try and reach a final settlement
between us and the palestinians. There is no other way. There is no other way.
To split the land into twoStates, twocapitals, trying to find thebestway to end
this conflict, because much of the instability of theMiddleEast has to do with
our condition. You don’t need to be a binLaden or aSaddamHussein, who tried to
put on themselves the mantle of the vindicators of the palestinian cause in
order to say that the palestinian issue is a platform of instability in the
region that needs to be solved. But even when it is solved, let us not fool
ourselves. Many of the problems that theWest is facing today with the arab
world will persist. The palestinian issue has been used frequently by many arab
rulers as a pretext for not doing things that need to be done in their own
societies. But for the sake of the israelis, I am not, I am not, when I say
that we need to make concessions, it is notbecause I am concerned with the
future of the palestinians or because I am concerned withInternationalLaw. I want to say it veryclearly, it is because I define myself
as an ardent zionist that thinks that thebest for the jews inIsrael is that we
abandon the territories and we dismantle settlements and we try to reach a
reasonable settlement with our palestinian partners. It’s not because I am
concerned with the palestinians. I want to be veryclear about it. My interpretation,
my approach is notMoralistic. It’s strictlypolitical. And this is what
I’m trying to explain in the book.
94.
Goodman: I want to thank you both verymuch
for being with us. ShlomoBenAmi, former israeli,
author of ScarsOfWarWoundsOfPeaceTheIsraeliarabTragedy. He is the head
of theToledoPeaceCentre inSpain now. Also our guest for the hour, ProfessorNormanFinkelstein.
He is the author ofBeyondChutzpahOnTheMisuseOfAntiSemitismAndTheAbuseOfHistory,
professor atDePaulUniversity inChicago. Thank you both for joining us.
95.
Finkelstein: Thank you for having us.
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