Genozid-Forscher Omer Bartov über Gaza, Israel & den Westen - Jung & Naiv: Folge 784

Category: Middle East Politics

Tags: GazagenocideIsraelpoliticsZionism

Entities: Brown UniversityGazaHolocaustInternational Criminal CourtIsraelIsraeli Defense ForcesNetanyahuOmar BovTrumpUnited Nations

Transcript

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All right, new episode of Young and Eve. I have a new guest.

Who are you? >> Uh, my name is Omar Bov.

I'm a professor of history and of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University in the United States.

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>> Um, I was born in Israel. um lived there for the first half of my life.

Since then, I've been teaching in the US. Um what else should I say?

I studied the German army uh in my

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original research uh and then moved on to other topics. >> Well, we will talk about all of that uh during this conversation.

What brings you to Berlin or to Germany? >> Um I'm giving several talks here.

>> Uhhuh. About what?

Um,

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>> the German army. >> No, about the Israeli army.

>> Why is that? >> Um, well, since October 7th, I've been writing a lot on what's going on in Gaza.

>> Mhm. >> Uh, and I've just finished a book on that and I

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wrote various essays. Uh, so people seem to want to hear what I have to say about it, >> especially in Germany or all over the world.

>> Uh, no. I've done a lot in the United States.

Mhm. >> Britain, fair amount in France and Germany.

Yeah.

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Germany actually a bit less. >> Okay.

And and who's inviting you? >> Um well different places.

Um let's see. I was yesterday in the Fritz Bau Institute.

>> Um tomorrow there's a symposium on

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genocide in the Humbot University. >> Mhm.

On Thursday, I'm talking at the how, which you probably know. I've not been there, but >> um on Friday, I'm speaking in Hamburg.

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>> Mhm. >> At an institute there.

>> So, yeah, several. >> Do they invite you to talk about genocide?

What's happening in Gaza? >> Yes.

>> Because like in Germany, it's a it's a very hot topic, especially when it comes to the the word. >> Mhm.

That's the reason that I think I

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mean, I've done interviews here. you probably know with some newspapers over the last two years, >> but relatively I think there's been maybe less so now, but certainly in the early months or first year, there's been

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great reluctance in Germany to speak critically of Israel. >> I saw that you were also reluctant when it came to the word genocide when when it came when it came to Gaza.

>> I would say reluctant. I I don't think that's the right term.

I was cautious.

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>> Yeah. >> Um and I was cautious because first of all because genocide is a very heavy word.

>> Mhm. >> And you shouldn't use it unless you're sure that that is what you're seeing and it's often used as a term of outrage and

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it has been used as such. >> Yeah.

>> Uh including against Israel in the past. Uh, and so I did not want to say genocide before I was sure it was.

But already four months, four weeks after the war began,

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uh, I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times and I said there that if this is not stopped, it may become genocide. So I was worried about it almost from the very beginning.

>> Uh, but I waited until to my mind at

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least on the evidence that I could get. Obviously, I was not in Gaza.

>> Mhm. >> Uh I became convinced that there was no way to deny that it was what it was.

>> Why can't you deny it? >> You can't deny it?

Well, I mean, now

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it's very hard to deny it. Extremely hard.

In fact, there are hardly any specialists in genocide studies or in international law who would deny it. But I came to that conclusion in May June of 2024.

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>> Mhm. >> And at the time it appeared to me you couldn't deny it anymore because what the IDF was doing was not following the official war goals that the Israeli government had proclaimed which were to destroy Hamas and to release the

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hostages. but rather it was actually acting in conformity with statements that were made right after October 7th by a whole list of uh politicians and military men uh which had clear

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genocidal content and at the time those statements were dismissed as being you know said in the heat of the moment people were outraged rightly by what happened on October 7th uh but By May of

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2024, it became clear that in fact what the IDF was doing was making Gaza uninhabitable for its population and moving the population increasingly to the south, concentrating it to the extent that it could in the south and

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making it possible for them to come back by destroying their homes. Uh so that appeared to me to be a process of ethnic cleansing which became genocide because people had no place to go to.

>> Well, we would talk about all this uh

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let's talk about uh you first and are you afraid that the Israeli ambassador is going to be mad that you're on this show because he regularly watches this show and whenever he doesn't like something he calls it out on X. >> I I saw him protesting

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>> uh some kind of interview with you. >> Yes.

You guys know each other, Mr. Prozone?

>> I I think I met him once. I I was trying to remember at some dinner.

I >> He was a UN ambassador at some point. So maybe you met >> No, I met him in in Germany, I think, once.

>> Uh I think it was in Germany. Uh I don't

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know. Yes, but I'm shaking in my boots.

>> Uh you were born in Israel 19 1954. Uh did your parents uh they they they

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immigrated from Europe? >> My mother.

>> Your mother. >> My father was born in Palestine.

>> Really? >> Yeah.

>> And how did they meet? When she when she got uh to >> they met in high school >> in Israel >> in Petikva in the gate of hope.

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>> I never heard of that. Well, it's Petika was the first uh secular settlement in Palestine.

>> Uh it's now part of Tel Aviv, but at the time it was pretty far from Tel Aviv.

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>> Um it was established in 1882. >> Um it was a moshava as they called it, which is like a colony.

>> It's the Hebrew for a colony. Have you ever talked to your dad about the time uh of the British mandate of Palestine

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and how life was as a as a Jew there? >> Look, I didn't just talk with my dad about it.

My dad was a novelist and so he wrote a lot about it. So, one was never sure when he told you what happened.

Was it what happened or the way it happens in his novels? Because

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they're autobiographical novels. >> So, yes, I I heard and read a fair amount about his childhood.

Was he part of like some kind of resistant because there were some Jewish groups fighting the I think the British and the Arabs and all this. Was

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he part of that or was he too young? >> Well, look, I mean, he was born in 1926.

>> Oh, yeah. Uh so his first real encounter with violence was when he was 17 and he

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volunteered to the Jewish brigade of the British army >> because he wanted to go to go and kill Germans. That was his he also wanted to leave his home.

>> Oh >> because his home was very poor and religious and he didn't want any of that

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and he thought his home was diaspora like Galuti as they called it >> and he felt that he was a young Israeli male >> and he knew the Jews were being slaughtered in Europe and so he wanted to go and fight in that war. >> Did he?

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>> He did. >> Where where did he fight?

in Italy. >> But so you didn't fight the Germans.

>> Yeah, >> there were Germans as well, not only Italians. >> Yeah, you should know your your German history.

Yes. >> This is Young and Eve, so Germany Germany when when Mussolini um was

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deposed >> um and the allies invaded Sicily and then Italy, uh Hitler sent a number of divisions to Italy >> and took over most of Italy. And then the allies worked their way very slowly

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uh through Rome and uh so there were very heavy battles actually. It was a pretty bad war.

There were also many partisans uh there were quite a few slaughters of populations by uh German army units

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>> uh of villages where there was partisan activity. And so he he was part of that fighting.

But I would say that his uh most searing experience was not the fighting.

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It was just later because then they became occupation troops in Austria >> and then in Belgium and he encountered um the DPS, the displaced persons, the survivors

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and for him uh and he wrote a fair amount about it. Uh that was the most painful experience, the one that really determined much of what he wrote and what he thought later.

boy. >> Uh look, as I said, I mean, he wanted to

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uh leave his home uh and become a soldier uh and be independent. Uh partly because his home was still, although his grandfa his father came from Poland >> and was his father and mother still spoke Yiddish

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with each other, they they lived a very kind of traditional Jewish life in the new land. and he grew up into that.

And the encounter with the Jews who were in many ways like his parents who had been

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uh mostly killed but those who survived, who had been brutalized, who had been um humiliated, who had no hope, who were displaced, who lost everything. And I think as a young man, you know, uh, Jewish soldiers in the Jewish

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brigade wore a shoulder tag with a Star of David. And for Jewish uh, survivors of the Holocaust to see soldiers wearing a Star of David that they had been told to wear to humiliate them

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>> and that there were these soldiers who wore that. Uh, for them it was like a miracle.

And so they rep the the sort of encounter between these two groups, those young soldiers coming from Palestine uh encountering these people had been

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humiliated, degraded and for those people to see these young strong men coming to liberate them with the Star of David being of their own uh was a very powerful and important moment. Then if you want to understand

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anything about uh post Holocaust Jewish existence including Israeli existence, you have to remember that and it's often these days forgotten. >> When did he go back?

>> Go back home. >> Yeah.

>> Before Israel was established.

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>> Yes. Yes.

>> Uh he came back on leave in 1946. >> Um and then uh he was released from service before returning to Europe.

He he managed to marry my mother. They went to the university for one

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semester. The Hebrew University was the only university in Israel then.

And then the war of 1948 began >> and they just left the classrooms and went to fight in that war. >> Did you talk about how how the time was

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what the what the time was like when Israel was established? I mean right after the war began, right?

But the part the the UN plan and all this. Yeah.

>> Was he worried uh or was he >> excited about the future?

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>> Oh, they were they were thrilled. I mean when uh >> the dream of Zionism was fulfilled or something.

>> Yes. When uh uh November 29th, 1947 >> when the UN proposed the partition of

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Palestine, which meant the creation of a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, which has not been created. Mhm.

>> Uh there was dancing in the streets. Everyone was Yes.

I mean you you can see photographs. Uh but then of course

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immediately thereafter begins a kind of uh civil war between the Palestinian Arabs >> who oppose uh the partition and their leadership opposed it and Arab countries

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opposed it and the ishou as it was called the the pre-state Jewish community was called the ishou >> uh and that continues um until May 14th

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when the state May 14th, 1948 when the state is declared and that's when the British leave. They leave the next morning.

>> Mhm. >> On May 15th and that's the beginning of the other war, that civil war becomes a war with uh Arab armies.

And it was a

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very costly war. It was >> Did he fight in the war?

>> Yeah. Yeah.

He he was declared dead three times in that war. >> What?

At least my mother was was told three times that he had been killed and so she mourned him three times and each time he sort of showed up and said no I'm I'm fine actually. Uh yes he was in

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that war and she was she was a soldier in that war too. >> Really?

>> Yeah. >> What did she do?

>> And she was a very small woman. Very brave.

>> What did she do? >> She was in a stronghold.

They they had these um how would you call it? Like a stronghold.

These were small units that

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would be put on top of hills >> with some sandbags and what they called uh chim which was checks but it was check rifles but they actually were German mouses. Uh, some of them I still trained with

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one of those and they had a little swastika on them, but they came to Israel through Czechoslovakia because Choslovakia ended up with a whole bunch of German weapons. >> Mhm.

>> And they were selling them to Israel for the war. >> Mhm.

>> Uh, and of course the Soviet Union was

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instructing its own clients to provide arms to Israel. At the time, Israel was being supported by the Soviet Union.

Uh, and so she was there with her chi with that big mouser that was about as big as she was. I have photographs of her, you

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know, it's it's quite moving in its way. Much of the time she was in Jerusalem, which was besieged.

Um, she lost a child as a result of that, her first child, uh, because of malnutrition. Mhm.

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>> Uh you know it's an interesting question because for my parents this was a a a very important experience that they never forgot. They lost many of their friends.

Uh the

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casualties among those who volunteered to fight which are always a minority. Uh the casualties were very very high.

They lost many of their friends. Uh, but I could never get them to talk much about what happened in the war.

>> I was going to ask that.

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>> Yeah. >> So, your dad talked about the World War II >> and wrote about it >> and wrote about it.

But why would both of them not talk about the other war? >> He wrote a whole novel in English.

It's called The Brigade. >> Uh, about his experience in the British

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Army, >> right? uh only in his last novel or when he was already in his 80s, he has a chapter about what Israelis call the war of independence.

>> Uh and he describes a few obvious war

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crimes, but even then quite lightly. Uh and so they took much of what happened in that war, which was filled with atrocities and with ethnic cleansing of course, they took it to their grave.

They never

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really talked about it. >> Were they ashamed >> of of the atrocities, not the not fighting the war itself?

>> One would assume um but I think it was a very mixed experience. >> Did you try to talk to them about it?

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>> I did. they blocked they didn't want to talk >> you know some I mean I don't want to make analogies but there there is a generation in Germany of people who >> I always ask those those questions when

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it comes to u uh guest who who whose parents uh were part of either the veh or Nazi Germany >> and their parents most of the time >> were very reluctant to talk about it >> or hashed out were like Don't talk to me

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about this. >> No.

>> Were you curious why they wouldn't talk about it? >> Well, I knew why.

I was pretty sure why. >> You knew because of this of school, of newspapers, of books.

>> Okay. That's that's So, these are things

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that take time, right? It's not when I was a kid.

>> No, of course. >> I didn't ask any questions.

I mean, our parents were heroes and that's all we knew, right? Um my generation basically was raised on

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two big negations. Uh one was a typical Zionist negation which was the negation of the diaspora and that's what I was alluding to before that my father was also already raised in that thing.

You don't look back at

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the 2,000 years of Jews living in exile. you connect directly to the pre- um exile existence, Jewish statethood before that under Roman times, but you don't look back, you look forward, >> you skip 2,000 years.

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>> The future belongs to you. If if you know that >> uh >> uh we were the future.

My generation was the future. We were supposed to be we are the first generation of people born

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into the state. Um, >> and we did what had to be done.

>> And not only that, we normalized Jewish existence. We were supposed to be strong, athletic, sentand, brave, cool,

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uh, and not have any of these attributes of Jewish diaspora identity. And what were these attributes?

Well, Zionism took it from anti-semitism. So the the attributes that were given to Jews by anti-semitism, Jews being weak, being

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cowardly, being effeminite, >> um not wanting to ever, you know, defend themselves. Um so Zionism was the answer to that.

Then we were the children of Zionism. We were born into that.

Mhm.

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>> So as I was growing up um that was the kind of education that we were internalizing. This was the one negation not to talk about the past.

Now my generation I'd say by the time we got to our 40s

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many members of my generation started asking questions because what kind of past do we have? We were born from nothing.

It's it's a pretty miserable past to have. So we started asking our parents or our grandparents if they were still alive and often we we missed them.

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They they died on us before if if we had grandparents before we asked them these questions about where they came from, what sort of life they had and we discovered a whole world that we did not know about. Right?

>> For instance, I discovered that my grandma mother was fluent in German and

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loved reading German literature although she came from Bhach, a little town in what is now West Ukraine. and had never lived in Germany.

So the but I never knew that until she was living in our home in her 80s. Um

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>> so this was one negation but the other negation was the negation of the Nakba. We of course the we didn't know the word then but the negation of the expulsion of the Palestinians nobody spoke about it.

>> Why? >> So well why is actually not very hard to

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explain why? Because look uh >> expulsion is wrong.

>> Expulsion is wrong. And in 1948 uh the state in being the state that was being created had a problem.

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And the problem was that the goal of Zionism was to create a Jewish majority state. >> How do you create a Jewish majority state in a an entity so-called historical Palestine mandatory Palestine?

in the Palestine between the

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river and the sea in which the Jews even after all the efforts made and the help from the British between World War I and the aftermath of World War II, the Jewish community was still only a third of the population. Twothirds were Arabs.

Now, the the obvious uh solution to this

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problem would have been for millions of Jews to come from Eastern Europe. >> But they were dead.

They were killed. And so how else do you resolve that problem?

And the pro the solution was to kick the Arabs out. And that's what

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happened in 48. Israel became by the end of the war a Jewish majority state.

>> What was the state of Israel then, which was bigger than the partition, of course, it was bigger than the what had been handed over to it by the UN.

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>> That's how it became a Jewish majority state. and only 20% of the population at the time it was 150,000 Palestinians remained in it.

Uh so that process of expulsion often brutal and then of covering it up of destroying

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the houses over a period of 20 years destroying villages between four and 500 villages uh building um let's say the University of Tel Aviv in which I studied and later taught is

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built over Palestinian village. Shahanis >> was a big Palestinian village north of Tel Aviv.

It's gone. But when I was a kid, I played in those houses that still existed of that village.

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So, but we didn't ask any questions. We knew there were Arabs there once sometime.

Nobody told us what happened there and we didn't ask. There was no language to speak about.

>> They didn't teach you at school. They they didn't talk about it at home.

>> No. I mean the the only thing that was

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said was that >> did you have like Arab friends who were like uh Omar? >> No no no there there were no Arab friends.

>> They were segregated >> completely. We never met Arabs.

We'd see sometimes Beduin coming up from the from the nega from the desert >> with herds of sheep at the time. Uh

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sometimes uh the family, mine and as many others, if there was something to celebrate, we'd go to Jaffa and have an oriental meal. >> So we'd have hummus and and and tahini and and shish kebab.

Uh which was not

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what we ate at home. We we ate East European food, of course.

uh chicken soup. Uh but so to celebrate we'd go to an Arabic restaurant, but we there were no Arabic kids in my class and most of the

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Arabs lived uh segregated uh mostly in the Galilee and then in Jaffa in Ako. East Jerusalem was under Jordanian rule until ' 67.

Do you remember the first time you met like an Israeli Arab or a

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Palestinian when you were young? >> Um, I mean there there were still an Arab minority living in Israel.

>> Yes. But um so you you would meet people uh such as in a restaurant or if you

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went to Jaffa to buy uh pas on uh Passover because you couldn't buy bread in Tel Aviv. It was not allowed.

So, >> but you wanted to have bread. You'd go to Jaffa and buy Peter bread.

Uh, but the first time I actually had a

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conversation, a real conversation as a grownup was in my 20s. >> Wow.

>> And it was not in the country. It was in Europe.

>> In Europe? >> Yeah.

>> What do you remember the conversation?

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like did did this person uh share >> their view on the Nakba in 1948 and all this >> you know I don't really remember all the details or many most of the details of that conversation but it was a political

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conversation >> um and then at the university when I went to Oxford uh there were Arabs there um but it was only much later that I actually made Palestinian friends

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uh much later on. Uh so part of the success, if you want to call it that, >> Mhm.

>> of Zionism was of the of it's not exactly I'll take that back. It's not Zionism.

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It's the the the state of Israel was a segregation between the communities. Now there are exceptions.

I didn't belong to that exception. But I have friends, you know, I in 2022, I interviewed a a

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large number of people, both Jewish Israeli and Palestinian citizens, mostly people of my generation, and I spoke with them about their childhoods. Um, it's a project that I'm going to publish in a couple years.

And

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one interesting thing is those uh Jewish kids who grew up in communist families and it's Israeli communism. It's a very peculiar type of communism.

>> The kibbutim >> not kibbutim. I was also born in a kibbut.

>> Yeah. >> But it was not the kibbutim.

The the

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kibbutim could be socialist and nationalist at the same time and segregated. >> Right.

It was people belong to the communist party >> and the communist party in the 1950s and60s insisted on especially in the youth

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movement of Jewish and Palestinian kids being together >> uh going to camps together traveling together learning to an extent each other's languages. Obviously, most Arabs in Israel speak Hebrew and most Israelis

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don't speak Arabic because they're the majority. Um, but those people had a more intimate experience and uh had more Palestinian friends, but they were a minority and they were themselves in a sense part of a segregated group because

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communists um themselves were not part of the mainstream of Israeli society. And even within communism, there was a split later on between those who remain Zionist, Zionist communist and those who

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uh really opted for the Palestinian side. Uh and the Communist Party became two parties, one really dominated by Jews and the other by Arabs.

Did you get to learn about Palestinians at school >> or was the word Palestinians the present

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or did that did you talk about Arabs? >> So when you talk about denials, there's another denial >> and that's on the Palestinian side.

There were also two denials >> on the Palestinian side. One denial was the denial of the Nakba.

You couldn't

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talk about the Nakba. People were afraid to talk about it.

You have to understand the Palestinians who remained in Israel were very fearful and immediately after the state is created >> like fearful that they're next in being exposed >> of course.

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>> Okay. >> And immediately after the state is created although they get citizenship and supposedly have equal rights there is military rule imposed on all the Palestinians living in Israel as Israeli

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citizens for 20 years. between 1949 and 1966.

It's uh um uh dissolved in December 1966. And then in June 67, Israel expands and

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gets a whole bunch of other Palestinians. Many of them are those who were expelled uh in 1948.

So those Palestinian communities in Israel can't really talk about the Nakba. uh they're they're afraid and they are, you know, as secret services

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work, they don't know if one of their classmates or co-workers might uh speak to Israeli intelligence about them. They were recruiting people from within the community.

So, people were afraid to talk about it. But the other big

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negation for Palestinians is their identity. In Israel, when I was growing up, you didn't even speak about an Arab minority.

You spoke about minorities >> because the whole goal of the state was

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to split those that minority into different groups. So the term was the minorities, not the Arab minority or the minorities.

And those could be Christian Palestinians, they could be Arab Sunni

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Palestinians, they could be Bedwin. Uh but they were minorities.

Uh and again for that group, uh they didn't really know who they were. Most of the elites had fled in

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1948. Those who could afford to >> went to Beirut or to or to Cairo or to Europe.

Uh much of the urban population was gone. The people remained were in villages.

Uh

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and in villages they had very local identities. And so what we see now is not what there was at the time that they developed among Palestinian citizens of Israel a strong sense of national

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identity and a strong sense of of rights that they ought to have as citizens of the state. That took a long time and it certainly did did not exist in my childhood.

>> So as I said you were born in 194 uh 54

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in kibuts. >> Mhm.

>> How was life like that? >> Well look I mean I was born in a kibbut.

>> It was a very leftwing kibbut. It was a kibut.

>> Are there ever any right-wing kibuts? No.

>> Well they're religious kibbutim.

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>> Okay. Okay.

uh they're they're different and there were more mainstream sort of uh labor party but was the most left of the Zionist >> left. It was the party that represented

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them was MAM which was a party that before 1948 spoke about a bational state. In fact, my parents supported the bational state.

>> B state. >> Yes.

This was >> like like what Boom is pitching these days. >> Mhm.

This is an old idea. I mean he he

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can tell you about it more than I can but yes >> uh the idea within the left within the the real left >> right >> was that there should be >> a one state solution we would say today >> and part of it was uh an idea of justice

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part of it and people would tell you that if you sort of scratch the surface a bit they didn't want to give anything up they didn't want partition if you have partition what happens to Nablus what happens to um Jericho, what happens

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to uh Bethlehem? Uh those are historical sites.

Uh they appear in the Bible. Uh they are part of the Jewish heritage.

Uh so if you have a bational state, okay, you have the whole thing, but you have the two peoples,

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>> the two groups. All this um um line of that left vanished after 48.

The war was so brutal, the the losses were so grave, the expulsion was so

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horrendous that the whole discourse on bationalism disappeared and is not around until ' 67. And then in ' 67 a completely new paradigm is created, right?

That now we have greater Israel.

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>> Mhm. But the people living in those territories are people who will never get equal rights.

They'll never be citizens. So that's that's a kind of creeping aparttheid reality that begins to emerge after 1967.

It was not

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thinkable between 48 and 67. >> Like the West still dreams or the the UN and all this, they still dream of a two-state solution as they call it.

I mean yes >> Omry is pitching the >> B national

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>> uh state. >> Yeah.

>> What do you think? >> Yeah.

I mean I spoke with him about it. I think you know a bational state would be a wonderful thing.

Uh it's the it's the most fair thing. >> Uh Gdon Levy uh the Israeli journalist

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um who's exactly my age and uh great guy uh and writes beautifully also is pitching that idea. Mhm.

>> Uh I think it's a great idea but I don't think it has any bias and ideas without bias and don't really So I think in the

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future uh several decades from now >> several decades >> yes >> maybe but in between there needs to be something else uh and if you talk about the future the the future will be either a full-blown apathide state meaning that

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apathide will be part of the entire system of the state, not only apartheid in the West Bank and in Gaza, although in Gaza be worse than apartheid. Um people be concentrated in a small part of the territory >> but a part of Israel as well >> but apartheid also against uh Arab

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citizens of Israel, Palestinian citizens and an authoritarian rule and violence against any opponents of the regime, Jewish opponents of the regime as well. This is in in in the works right now.

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and an erosion of the legal system uh of uh legal protections for civil rights even for Jewish citizens. Uh but if that happens and it will happen unless it's stopped

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and it won't be stopped from within. It has to be stopped from without >> really.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

There there's no one to stop it from within. No one.

uh the there has to be the break has to come from the outside. There has to be uh brutal and

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relentless and uh uh unforgiving. >> But who's who's supposed to do that?

>> To impose a change in the political paradigm. It has to be imposed.

It it

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won't be generated from within. There are no forces in Israel to generate it.

Yes. There's Okay.

Okay. I mean, before October 7th, I was uh in August 2023, I was in in uh Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and I saw the protest, the pro-democracy protest protest, let's call them that,

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>> against the >> um justice reforms and all this. This seemed like a big big movement uh for democracy, for defending democratic values.

So there there are people and a lot maybe not a majority but a lot of

38:09

people in Israel >> who want to keep a democracy, a democratic state and not get into an authoritarian rule. >> And did you notice what they were not protesting?

>> Well, not against the occupation. >> No, they

38:24

>> not for not for equality and all this. >> They they they they refused.

I mean I was part of uh in August of 203 >> uh some friends of mine and myself uh published a kind of petition which we

38:42

call the elephant in the room which was at the time signed by about 2500 um scholars, academics, people writing on Jewish history on the Middle East on uh Israeli history um historians

38:58

philosophers, intellectuals. Uh, and the argument was that you cannot have democracy in Israel as long as you have occupation.

Israel is a 50/50 country. 50% of the

39:17

people being ruled by Israel >> are Palestinians. 2 million uh Israeli citizens with increasingly limited rights.

In 2018, the state passed a basic law uh Israel is a nation state.

39:33

>> Uh that's a declaration that Palestinians don't really belong to it. Those who are citizens, 3 million live in the West Bank, they have no rights at all.

>> Mhm. >> And most Israelis don't think they deserve rights.

They should just be quiet. And 2 million

39:50

live or lived in what was Gaza. Uh, so there's 7 million Palestinians and 7 million Jews between the river and the sea.

You can't have a democracy like that. That's not a democracy.

So democracy was being eroded and the country was being corrupted

40:07

progressively because of the occupation. And without the idea that we can't talk about the let's not talk about the occupation now.

Let's first talk about our rights >> means that you're perpetuating the actual problem. So without solving that,

40:25

no democracy. >> I remember at the protest you almost didn't see any palis Palestinian flags and uh I I talked to people they were like, "Yeah, we don't want that." >> No.

And people were wrapping themselves up in Israeli flags. >> Reclaim it from the right, they said.

40:41

>> Yeah. To show that they Yeah.

But reclaiming it from the right. Why?

To show that they're also patriots. And you have to remember one of the things that was most uh sort of um troubling for the government

40:57

uh was that reserve pilots >> were saying that they won't go into training if the government continues this judicial coup so-called overhaul. >> And you know if they don't go into training then within weeks they can't fly anymore.

41:14

And that appeared to be a major issue. Then came October 7th.

>> What did these pilots do? They got into their cockpits and they destroyed Gaza.

More civilians have been killed in Gaza by these uh pilots. Uh in Israel, the

41:32

saying was the best go into the air force. >> Really?

>> Those our best boys, those best boys and some women too. Mhm.

>> went to the air force, went back into their planes, and destroyed Gaza with

41:49

huge bombs. Um, so that's where the split is.

The the idea that you can have a nice, you know, I I love Tel Aviv or loved it. Uh, and I would go there a lot.

I mean, I went to Israel usually

42:04

three times a year and my son lives there and my best friends are there. Uh but the idea that you can live in this uh bubble of cosmopolitanism and tolerance

42:21

uh and you don't see what's happening 20 miles down the road in the West Bank where the same people are sitting with you in a bar having a drink the day before, the day after, get into uniform and break into people's homes at 4 in

42:37

the morning to impose the occupation. to show who's boss.

Uh if you think that that's possible, it's not. And so much of what you saw after October 7th had been built up for

42:53

decades over the over time from ' 67 and increasingly after the failure of Oslo after the assassination of of Rabbine in 1995, the second Inifada and from the

43:08

year 2000 the process of growing repression of Palestinians, growing brutalization, growing dehumaniz ization by both sides in a sense that when you rule over people, you dehumanize them because you can't think of them as being

43:24

like you otherwise you wouldn't behave like that and you yourself become dehumanized by doing that. That's a process that you know anybody writing about colonialism like a memeser who wrote about all this already in the 1950s of course uh that's what happened

43:40

in Israeli society and so in that sense what has happened after October 7th is not a surprise it's shocking it's horrifying but it's not surprising >> and since you call what's happening in Gaza genocide it's not surprising that

43:57

Israel is committing a genocide based on the last couple of decades. >> You know what is most surprising uh and surprised me too?

Yeah. uh is not that the all the demons that

44:12

existed in Israeli society uh burst out after October 7th uh when hundreds of uh Israeli civilians were murdered >> uh and when the army was humiliated and when the country felt insecure and the

44:28

way to respond to it was to lash out as brutally as possible and to say we have to eradicate that issue entirely and nobody's innocent. everybody's involved.

That didn't surprise me. What surprised me because we always said that at some point we I mean people like me

44:46

>> said at some point there there is a dynamic in Israel of ethnic cleansing that at some point the Nakba would be completed. It was an incomplete event.

>> Uh >> is that a second? There were forces that would have wanted to do it, but had they

45:02

been given the trigger and October 7th was a major trigger. >> But what surprised me and what I always did not believe would happen was that Israel would be given license to continue doing it with impunity for two years.

That was shocking

45:19

>> by the West, >> of course, by its allies, by the same countries that claim to be the protectors of international law, of civil rights. This is the first genocide that is carried out by a democratic

45:35

country or country claiming to be a democracy and seen as such you know the villa in the jungle it called itself that's what Barak the prime minister Barak said about it tells you something about >> the villa in the jungle >> the villa in the jungle so it tells you

45:50

a little bit about and and this was a labor prime minister right >> uh who are the jungle Right. So, uh, but that's countries that were seen.

Yeah. >> Barbarians.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

The barbarians at the gate, of course, the Arabs, the Palestinians,

46:06

>> and we are the villa. Uh, that's a very strange image.

Uh, but the the more sort of regular image was Israel was a beacon of democracy, of human rights. It's the sort of oasis in the Middle East, the only democratic country, right?

uh in

46:23

the Middle East that that country is the first one which is allied with Germany, with France, with Britain, with all those countries that claim to be the uh strongholds of democracy and civil

46:40

rights and of course with the United States, um the beacon of democracy. And they're not only allowing it to do it.

They're not sitting quietly. They're providing it with arms.

They're providing it with diplomatic cover. They're supplying it

46:56

with an economic uh hinterland. The the EU is Israel's main trading partner.

And nothing has happened. A few statements here and there, but for two years, Israel could get away with it.

47:12

And even the most extreme right-wing people in Israel always believed that if they began ethnic cleansing, they had, you know, a short time to do it. You had to be really quick because then, you know, the democracy would say, "No, no, no.

We can't do it."

47:28

>> Why were they wrong? Why were you wrong?

Obviously, >> that's that's something that >> I Were you naive about Western politics or western geopolitics? >> Yes.

>> Yeah. >> Why do they support it?

I mean, let's break it down to calling it support

47:44

what's happening. >> Yes.

Yes. >> Why do we as the Europeans and Americans, why do we support it?

>> Well, partly because of what your new chancellor said, Chancellor Merittz, uh, the Israelis are doing the dirty work for us, >> the dirty work of killing Arabs.

48:00

>> Yeah. What did he mean when he said that?

>> Did you think about it? >> You're talking about Israel's attacks on Iran, but >> Yeah.

But I mean, where's that coming from? First of all, it's an anti-Semitic statement.

Of course, he wasn't aware of it, I think. >> Really?

>> Yeah. I mean, the the usual statement is

48:16

the Jews are doing the dirty work for us. Uh but here it's got the twist and it became the Israelis.

>> But behind that is so that's part of it. Behind it is what you see in all European countries today that they don't

48:32

know how to deal with the new populations that have come into the countries. And many people in these countries, not all of them far right, >> not all of them if there >> don't feel comfortable with having Arabs, having Muslims, having people from from Southeast Asia.

Um,

48:51

and in that sense, there's a kind of sense of u, how would I call it, of affinity with Israel. Israel is also being attacked by these hordes, by these foreign strange people who pray five

49:09

times a day and cover their faces and they're not like us. And if you want to maintain Israel as a democracy like us, well, you can understand why they behave that way.

So there is a kind of empathy. I remember like talking to the uh by

49:26

then uh AFD leader Petri and she was she loved Israel and when I asked why she was like well she basically said well they do with the Arabs what we wish we could do with them. >> Voila.

That's that's exactly my point

49:41

and you can be and Nathaniel got that uh because he's a savvy politician. >> You can be anti-semitic but you can love Israel too.

No, no problem. because you don't want Jews, you know, in your neighborhood,

49:58

but you love Israel because Israel shows how you deal with all those others. So that's that's one reason, but there are other reasons.

I mean, Europeans in particular, I would say, Germans especially, uh, find it excruciating

50:16

to criticize Israel. It's very, very difficult.

Uh, and there's a history. It's it's understandable why >> the theatism that Angela Merkel came up with

50:34

uh has been I'd say um convoluted distorted into the notion that you have to support the state of Israel whatever it does doesn't matter we are always on their side rather than be what it should

50:51

be. Yes, of course we support Israel.

We have a duty, a responsibility, historic responsibility to support the state, but not to support this. Our responsibility is first of all to the regime of of international law and human rights that

51:08

was created in response to the Holocaust. One has to remember in 1948 two things happen.

One is the establishment of the state of Israel and the second is the genocide convention. Mhm.

>> The convention on the prevention and punishment of genocide, then both of

51:23

them are responses to the crimes of the Nazis. And you can't support a state that carries out genocide because it says, "Well, we also had a genocide." And so now we have license to do it, too.

No, you don't. And if Germany doesn't step

51:41

in, it it is complicit. And for the the the distortion of this notion that Germany becomes complicit in genocide because it's protecting Israel and it's protecting Israel because of the

51:56

genocide the Germans did to Jews. Now it's protecting it in murdering Palestinians is is mindboggling.

I mean the German like ruling class and the media pundits they I mean they rightly say there's a German there there's spe

52:14

spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe spe specific German reasons for supporting Israel but or the um like pretention of Israel is very good friend or the best friend of Germany and we need to uh support and um help it out. But like

52:30

when you call it a friendship, I mean, if we were best friends and I saw you doing criminal things, I would go to you and be like, "Omar, you got to stop that. You're going to be in big trouble if you keep doing this and I can't I can't keep supporting what you do."

52:45

>> You might even call the police >> to protect you as well. >> Correct.

So So if Germany really cares >> and I can't give you a gun to uh >> Correct. >> Yeah.

>> to help help you. So see, I mean, if if if if Germany really cares about Israel,

53:03

>> which they say they do, >> which they say they do, it has to save it from the powers that took over, from these fascist, uh, Jewish supremacist, genocidal, messianic, faright powers that are now ruling

53:20

Israel. But they know that these powers are these fascists and all that they are.

>> They are those who can help Israel be rid of them rather than support them. They can help Israel into a new future.

That's what I said before. Israel does

53:36

not have right now. It's it's unfortunate because it has wonderful people, very creative, uh very special people and yet it does not have the internal power, the internal dynamic to liberate itself

53:53

from these forces of evil that have taken over. And Germans should know something about that too.

Uh Germany can actually help Israel especially because of its own experience. not only responsibility for Israel but its own historical

54:10

experience. How do you come out of genocide, of destruction, of bloodymindedness, of a sense of supremacy, of a sense of license, of a sense that your crimes are glorious pages in history?

How how do

54:27

you liberate yourself from that? Germany was liberated from that because it was destroyed.

Mhm. I don't want Israel to be destroyed, but if it's not to be destroyed, then it has to be helped out of it.

And the only way to

54:43

help it out of it is through shock therapy. And that shock therapy has to come from the outside.

>> Can you explain what that could look like? >> It could look like >> how how can European powers, Germany

54:59

help Israel get rid of the their fascist problem? Look, it's so that that's one of the things that frustrates me that that people ask what do we do?

How how do we you know stop it? So I would say we have two major wars, major crisis

55:16

going on now. >> One is the brutal illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine and the other is what Israel is doing in Gaza and in the West Bank.

>> The Russian case is difficult to stop because the Russians are producing their own arms. They have vast resources.

They

55:32

have good relations with all kind of strange countries like North Korea and so forth. The Israelis cannot continue doing what they're doing for more than a week without constant support from the outside.

They can't do it. President

55:48

Biden could have stopped the war when it was still a war, which it has not been since summer of 2024. There is no war in Gaza.

There's a lot going on there, but it's not a war. He could have stopped it in November or December 2023.

That's

56:03

when I wrote that first oped in the New York Times and I hoped that somebody would pay attention and then it might have been a case because by then 10,000 people had already died in Gaza, most of them civilians in the first four weeks. But you might have said, okay, there

56:18

were war crimes, crimes against humanity. It might have become genocide.

But he didn't. But he did nothing.

He didn't stop it. How do you stop it?

You say if you continue, you're on your own. You're not getting arms.

You're not getting

56:34

economic help. And you're not getting diplomatic cover.

And then what happens? It goes Israel does not get 2,000 pound bombs.

It doesn't get tank engines made in Germany. >> It doesn't take get submarines and uh

56:51

it doesn't get airplanes. It's all made elsewhere.

And this goes to the Security Council, right? The the the International Court of Justice uh passed um provisional measures,

57:08

demanded provisional measures in early 2024. And as I said, why should we care?

The the the the ICJ is an arm of the UN. It was created with the UN.

Its enforcement

57:24

arm is a security council. The security council, if it wants to enforce a ruling by the ICJ, can do it easily.

It says, "Okay, you're not obeying fine economic sanctions and military embargo."

57:41

Of course, the United States has veto power. >> But if the United States wanted to do that, everything would have stopped, screeched to a halt.

What you saw now with President Trump, who is hardly my favorite politician and

57:58

who is wrecking havoc in the United States, but what you saw him doing with Netanyahu was clearly if you don't stop, you're you're on your own. And Nathaniel stopped.

Now, he's very savvy and he's trying to spin it one way or the other, but that

58:15

has to come from the outside. And if it's consistent and if there's a political plan behind it which appears to be part of these 20 points very vague uh maybe uninforceable

58:32

but in the right direction of a new political horizon then you by uh perforce will be rid of those people of the smases and the benve and the natan in the hours of this world. But it has

58:49

to come from the outside >> because the population will be like, "All right, you guys got to go." >> Yeah. >> For us to be safe.

>> Yes. Of course.

Because we can't live like that. >> Mhm.

>> Because uh we have inflation, unemployment. Uh we're getting no grants from no research grants from from

59:06

Europe. Most of the research grants are from from the from Europe.

Uh we are getting there's inflation. Uh people ultimately uh vote through the pocketbook.

Uh does it that kind of sounds like a

59:23

western BDS movement what you describe like the west seems to need to boycott Israel, divest from Israel and sanction Israel, >> you know. I mean, um, until October 7th,

59:41

um, I, um, used to say that, uh, in terms of BDS, there are things that I support and things that I don't. Mhm.

>> Uh I thought that uh military control

59:57

over Israel, control of arms to Israel and we can talk more about it because the other reasons for support for Israel and for the supply of arms to Israel which is not ideological but is purely uh >> economic >> economic uh national interest and so

00:14

forth. Uh but control of arms and use of economic measures I was totally in favor of.

What I was against until October 7th was the kind of boycott against intellectuals, against academics, against universities because I thought

00:32

and I think generally it was the case that these were the only places where there was a different kind of discourse and you could hope to develop that and if you shut that down these contacts then nothing is left.

00:48

uh >> we we're two years in. >> I have been deeply disappointed >> by Israeli academia universities.

I actually don't want to go and speak at any of them. I have severed connections with a number of

01:03

them officially. Uh >> do they hold their nose or do they self censor or do they support?

>> They do everything. They uh they deny, they support uh they um persecute

01:23

uh their own faculty and especially students and Arab students. Uh they've behaved abysmally uh especially against Palestinians of course um and they have not spoken out.

A few months ago, finally, there was a

01:39

statement by over a thousand uh professors um from all academic institutions in Israel calling upon their own administrations to

01:55

uh say something about the war crimes. They they didn't use the G word, they said war crimes.

Um and that was something like um

02:10

um 5% or or less or 3% of the of the entire faculty in Israel faculty members in Israel and the administration of course the the university administrations totally ignored it. >> Uh and that statement said we have been

02:28

silent too long. We knew what was going on and we've been silent.

So you have a very complex process in Israel and the universities and the intelligencia are very much part of it. It's a process of denial

02:44

and it's a denial that is not only denial of what happened in the past. You know like we know denial of the Holocaust it didn't happen.

It's denial of the present. It's a denial that facilitates a continuation of what is going on by saying first of all it's not

03:00

happening and secondly well if it happened they deserve it. That's the kind of denial logic that facilitates more and more violence and shows the intelligencia as often in

03:16

the past uh academics, writers, poets, singers, artists, most of them towing the line uh self-imposed gllyto that's that's to me was was extremely

03:32

painful to see. But I thought the Israeli society is like a free society.

How can this denialism become so strong? >> You should watch uh Israeli TV programs.

They're in Hebrew, of course. >> Uh Israelis live in in in a completely

03:48

different universe. You would not know what's happening in Gaza if you watch the nightly TV news in Israel, which is what most Israelis do.

>> You wouldn't know. You you see Gaza only through the gunsights of our brave now

04:04

heroic. They're all heroes now.

>> Really? >> Yeah.

Now they're all heroes. Every soldier is a hero through their gun sites.

And if ever some kind of inkling comes in that maybe there were some civilians who died who should not have died. It's presented either as this is

04:22

bad for our self-image or this is some kind of propaganda against us. So what you find uh with a case of uh as you remember when there was a bit of more discomfort in the western media uh

04:37

about starvation right because there were these photographs and nobody could deny those photographs well then Israeli asbal started working say well these kids were had pre-existing conditions and so forth and in these >> AI images

04:53

or these pictures were taken elsewhere another time another guys. And the the main line in in the Israeli media was that this was a problem.

This was a success. The the famine campaign by

05:10

Hamas. This was a Hamasgenerated >> famine campaign.

not famine, but simply a propaganda campaign, a successful one that we somehow screwed up, not in starving people, but in allowing

05:26

Hamas to show images that are obviously, you know, yeah, AI generated or force. Uh, so how do you break this bubble?

You can do it if there are enough voices. But those voices which exist in Israel are heard

05:43

only in >> Haritz. Mhm.

>> Which is mostly read by foreigners. >> Yeah.

I mean it's got a very narrow distribution in Israel. >> Mhm.

>> Uh and in even more marginal but very important news outlet plus 972 in

05:58

English, local call in Hebrew. Uh and they have wonderful journalists there.

They do amazing investigations, better than most of the foreign media, but it goes only out. >> What about the Israeli NOS's like Betam, Breaking the Silence?

Are they heard or

06:15

are they only being heard in the West? >> Only in the West.

>> Fact. >> Yeah.

Yeah. the same, you know, uh you take uh physicians for for human rights, the Israeli branch, they came out with a with a very powerful report uh the same

06:32

or a couple days after >> Betam >> uh on genocide in Gaza and they focused on the deliberate not accidental but deliberate destruction of the entire medical infrastructure in Gaza with with enormous amounts of evidence. So that

06:48

was very very important. But if you look at the association of Israeli doctors, of pediatrics, of psychologists, nothing, not a peep.

So it's a very small group that is doing

07:05

something very important and very brave, but they're either ignored or seen as traitors or seen as anti-semitic or self-hating or whatever they might be. Uh but definitely what is true is that they don't represent majority opinion in

07:21

Israel. >> What were the reactions from Israel when you came out and said this is genocide?

Did did people care? >> Was it reported on?

>> Not directly. No.

M

07:37

>> uh you you know the the the first oped that I published in the New York Times uh which warned that there might be genocide in November November 10th 2023 >> a month after

07:52

>> um was not published in Hebrew but uh Harit's English version published an oped against it by uh a bunch of Holocaust uh historians

08:08

>> uh Israeli and American uh saying that what I was saying was outrageous that there's no genocide and no worry of genocide that the IDF's completely acting within the rules. Uh, and I was appalled at the time.

And if

08:23

you take it all the way to the oped that you're referring to of July 15, 2025, one of the things that I wrote there was in continuation to what I said in November 23. That is, but that's two

08:40

years later. >> Mhm.

almost two years later that those people that you would have expected to have spoken out against genocide or war crimes or crimes against humanity and brutalities. Those people who uh as

08:58

historians or directors of institutions that were built to commemorate uh the Holocaust and to say never again. that those very same people are saying nothing, are

09:14

being silent and by doing that they first of all discrediting themselves. It's it's it's a shame but also they are destroying the entire notion that was created not immediately after the

09:29

Holocaust but decades thereafter that the Holocaust has some kind of universal meaning that what you need to understand from it is don't do these things again create all kinds of mechanisms and create a public conscience and a collective memory that will not allow

09:45

that to happen again and the people who are the leaders of these institute initutions created under the name of speaking out against that say nothing. >> I mean you were part of the editorial

10:00

board of the Yatvasham uh journal. >> Yeah.

>> And you resigned because because of this. >> I resigned.

Look, I mean I was uh on the editorial board, >> right, >> of Yashim studies for two decades or so.

10:17

Uh and this was already in the summer of uh 2024 we had a board meeting on Zoom because uh unlike people who work in Yadvashm who are state employees and I can't

10:32

blame them for wanting to keep their jobs >> we are volunteers and all of us historians with some reputation uh German British American Israeli uh and we do it because we think, you

10:48

know, there needs to be a board for this journal. It's an important journal and and we want to help.

And I said at that meeting I said look I've become increasingly uncomfortable that a journal which is published by

11:05

Yadvashm uh the state institution uh built to commemorate uh the and research the holocaust that we say nothing about what's going on in Gaza.

11:20

Um, and when I said that, uh, most people said nothing. I was just total silence.

Um, >> okay.

11:36

And then I wrote an email to everyone uh explaining what I had in mind and saying I think that at this point I've already been a member of this board for 20 years.

11:52

I I think it behooves me to resign. And again most people said nothing.

One member of the board was very angry at me and he was not Israeli

12:07

and another sort of made some more how would I put it nuance criticism and that was it. Uh and in some ways you know it broke my

12:23

heart. It's it's so sad.

Uh so some people try to compartmentalize. They say, "Well, I'm I'm a scholar of the Holocaust.

I don't I don't know anything about what's going on in Gaza. I don't do a history of Zionism.

I don't know Palestinians. I'm

12:39

I'm just this." So, there are these sort of Jordan, right? I mean, they they do the one thing and they don't want to say anything about anything else.

>> But if you're a scholar of the Holocaust, you're also a scholar of genocide. >> You're supposed to be.

Well, so >> is there a difference between

12:56

uh being a Holocaust scholar and being a genocide scholar? >> There are people who make that difference.

There shouldn't be a difference. But uh you will notice that I introduced myself by saying I'm a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies.

13:12

>> That kind of doesn't make sense, does it? >> Why Holocaust and genocide studies?

Unless you uh view the Holocaust as a super genocide or industrial genocide >> or unique >> or unique >> or unique so all the other genocides are

13:27

terrible and they have similarities and we can study them comparatively and learn from them and then there's the holocaust okay >> and the holocaust is on its own terms now I have never accepted that distinction >> uh and most scholars today don't accept it including most scholars of the

13:43

holocaust but there is a divide Mhm. >> between those who study the Holocaust and those who study genocide.

And that divide has it's partly disciplinary academic but

13:59

partly more ideological. There have been arguments by scholars of genocide who don't study the Holocaust that because of the centrality of the Holocaust, the vast shadow that he cast over everything else,

14:16

we can't really speak about other genocides, they don't get enough airtime. Uh because you keep comparing and saying, well, okay, there was a genocide in Cambodia, but was it wasn't like the Holocaust.

There was no Avitz. Uh Rwanda was terrible.

Yes, it was a genocide,

14:33

but still it's so so there is this temptation to use the Holocaust as a measuring rod and to say, well, it doesn't quite measure up to the Holocaust, which is what you hear nowadays

14:48

when people like me say what's happening in Gaza. I said that to the former minister of defense and chief of staff who under Netanyahu Moshe Bogi alone who said himself that in northern Gaza there was ethic cleansing.

15:05

>> And I said to him, you know, historically ethnic cleansing is the first stage of genocide. And he said to me, well, but there's no shooting pits in northern Gaza.

What he was trying to say is if there is no Baba and there is no Avitz, it can't

15:23

be a genocide. But of course that's not how you measure what genocide is.

You have to go to the genocide convention created after the Holocaust but defining clearly what genocide is. >> Well, and the convention doesn't say

15:38

anything that there have have to be like gas chambers. >> It does not say there >> industrial killing of human beings.

>> No. And he certainly doesn't say it should look like the Holocaust.

No. Um, so there are

15:54

certain kind of loyalties I would say that are threatened >> when you use the term genocide uh especially if you apply that to Israel itself. >> And in Israel to say that it's genocide

16:11

is almost uh unthinkable. There are some people who say it, but they are on the rim of everything.

Uh because in the Israeli mind, if you say Gaza is a genocide, you're saying

16:29

Israel is carrying out genocide, Holocaust. M >> um and in that >> is it like a mental blockade that yes we are we were victims of the probably worst genocide in history the Holocaust

16:46

and that's why we cannot be a perpetrator >> yes and >> of a genocide >> and of course it's exactly it is that and the implication is is exactly the opposite. So you say we were the greatest victims of the greatest

17:03

genocide of the modern era. >> Mhm.

>> And therefore how can anybody say that we are carrying out genocide? But the opposite side of that is that we were victims of the greatest genocide in history.

And therefore nobody

17:21

certainly not all these Europeans has a right to tell us how we should behave when we feel that we we are threatened that we are under existential threat. We have license to do whatever it takes to stop this kind of threat toward us and

17:38

any threat say the threat by people that we occupy who want to be liberated from this occupation that sort of threat if we see it as >> people who who have the right to resist. Yes.

Well, >> occupation, >> you say that. I may say that.

But people

17:54

who live in that mentality don't see it that way. They see the people that they oppress who are trying to liberate themselves as presenting an existential threat to them.

And therefore, the Holocaust gives them license for genocide.

18:10

That's that's where we got to at this point. And it's a process.

It didn't start on October 7th. It would be completely wrong to think it begins there.

It's a process. >> But it got to this point.

18:25

>> You talked about uh about the Israeli society today that almost no one is speaking uh out or people are silencing themselves or media self-censoring. I mean you stud genocide genocide scholar,

18:40

you study other genocides in history. Are there similarities to u other societies who committed genocides uh in what you what you see now in Israel?

>> Yeah, of course. Of course, this is ve

18:56

very common. Denial is very common.

Um it's almost necessary >> and denial is not necessarily saying we are not doing it by saying what you say we're doing is not we what we're actually doing.

19:12

>> Right? So, um, most countries and organizations engaged in genocide don't say they're doing genocide.

They say it's a war of existence. It's a war of defense.

>> Self-defense.

19:28

>> Self-defense. It's a internal enemies.

It's we have no choice. >> Uh, they say it's a war.

>> And in war, bad things happen. It's true, but it's a war.

Uh, they say it's collateral damage. we are we don't want

19:44

to kill civilians but they happen to be there where they shouldn't be. Uh so most of the time most countries and organizations involved in genocide obviously don't call it genocide.

There's another mechanism which is very interesting that most

20:01

uh states societies and genocide is a social event. It's not just a state event.

socially even >> I'm I'll speak about that in a minute. Uh >> but states, societies, organizations,

20:17

individuals involved in genocide see themselves as the victims. >> They don't see themselves as perpetrators.

They see themselves as victims. They're killing the people they're killing because those people had in the past victimized them.

And they're

20:33

killing them now even more because of the fear that if they don't then they will kill them in return that they will do to them what they are now doing to them. >> So that's why for instance you need to kill children because children will grow

20:48

up and be the next generation of those who will take revenge on you for what you did to them. So the sense of victimhood is extremely powerful in motivating violence and that's that's not only in genocide that's also in in

21:05

wars and other types of war crimes. You think about the Nazis, the Nazis when they were killing Jews, they saw themselves as victims of the Jews.

They were victimized by the Jews and the and the communists. U the stab in the back

21:21

1918 was a betrayal of Germany. Germany was stabbed in the back and destroyed in a war that it was about to win by these Jews and social and and socialists.

And so in the next war and Hitler said that

21:37

quite clearly in January 1939 uh if the Jews incite another world war, the result of it will be not the bulchization of Europe but the extermination of the Jewish race. So he

21:53

links bolsheism and Jews. He speaks about the past and he says what that means for the future.

And once you engaged in that then and a lot of people were saying that um during World War II

22:12

what we have done uh is such that if we ever lose terrible things will happen to us. They will do terrible things to us.

the Jews, the Bolsheviks, the the Russians as they were called. Uh so there's a a dynamic

22:29

of violence that is based in a self of victimhood. I mean, even when I first uh arrived Israel and talked to Palestinians and Israelis and you talk to Israelis who are somehow against occupation and they

22:47

want to make peace, but then there was always like but and as you said like there needs to be a Jewish majority. We need to have be in control and I was like why is that important when you want to be a democracy and equal rights and all?

Well, the Palestinians, they will

23:04

do they will kill us. They will uh rule over us.

>> And um what they didn't explicitly say it, but they were worried that the Palestinians will do to them >> uh dominate them, occupy

23:21

uh or oppress Jews in this new state or whatever it is. and um that the Palestinians will do unto them what they have done with Palestinians.

>> Yeah. And that's of course uh within the context of Israeli history.

Uh that's

23:39

the paradox of how do you create the Jewish and democratic state? What does it mean Jewish and democratic?

How do you square that circle if it's Jewish? I mean says that there can't be a democracy if you have a Jewish state.

23:55

>> Yeah. I mean there could be if there were only Jews there.

>> Exactly. >> If there only Jews, it's no problem.

But as I said, the Nakba was incomplete. Uh and 150,000 Palestinians stayed in the state and now there are 2 million.

Uh so part of the

24:13

dynamic of ethnic cleansing is to create not a Jewish majority state but a Jewish state. Period.

Another dynamic is to change the state from being a Jewish state in the sense that it's majority ethnic Jewish to a Jewish state in the

24:30

sense that it's Jewish, religiously Jewish. And the strong forces in Israel now and a general trend in Israeli society known as hadata of becoming more religious.

All society in Israel now all

24:45

Jewish society is more religious and the the national religious the fanatics the messianics uh have growing impact side by side with the orthodox communities from which they actually came but they are very

25:02

different branch of it uh which are multiplying in very large numbers they have many many kids uh and so the direction of Israeli societies is also to become more and more Jewish with this kind of ethnational

25:18

notion that we have to be all Jews here and the Arabs, the Palestinians who are amongst us who basically of course remind us or ought to remind us that once they were the majority, once that

25:33

country belonged to them uh and we don't want these reminders, if we can get rid of them, then we can be a thriving democracy. That's the that's the paradox that the the kind of democracy that you're speaking about is one that is based on ethnic cleansing and genocide.

25:50

I want to uh get back to one more thing when it comes to denialism and talk about the German society and especially like the political ruling class like uh few months ago before the last election Olaf Scholes the previous chancellor was sitting on your chair and at the end of

26:06

the interview I was talking about you know the war in Gaza and also that the ICJ is ruling on what Israel is doing there and it could end up the ruling could be this is genocide And I asked him if this turns out to be true then

26:23

Germany as a supporter military supporter, economic supporter, diplomatic supporter of Israel uh will become uh like after World War II would will become the first u support German support of a genocide. >> Mhm.

26:39

>> Like after 80 years and he didn't even want to talk about it. like he was just like uttering like he he denied thinking about it.

>> Yeah. >> And the majority of the ruling class

26:55

here, they still want to >> uh they don't want to see, especially when it comes to the what you're saying about this is genocide, this is not a war. They try to deny themselves from seeing what's actually happening.

They still talk about when it comes to our

27:11

government that this is self-defense. >> Yeah.

>> They still uh start out with saying Hamas needs to do this. They start out with October 7th and how it all started.

And I I'm I've been waiting for like at

27:29

least a year now. I'm like, okay, this you can't keep doing this.

>> You will implicate yourself. And in the end, especially those ministers and uh part of the government of the previous government under Schulz and Meritz now,

27:47

they could end up uh in the H themselves and go to prison >> for this uh for the supporting this genocide and they know this. They we have great lawyers in the government.

They know

28:02

this >> and they still don't do anything about it. or they at least only pay lip service.

>> Yeah. >> And maybe I'm too young, but like I don't understand that.

>> But you're not naive. >> I play one here.

28:18

>> Well, look, I mean I I don't think they they have much reason to fear that they will go to jail for one thing. Uh >> many people say they should if >> Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm I'm not saying they shouldn't. I'm just saying the chance that they will is very very

28:36

small, vanishingly small. Um I would be happy enough if the people actually did it, not those who were complicit, >> but the people most directly responsible such as Netanyao,

28:51

Yo Galant, those people would go to jail. In fact, I think if they don't go to jail, if they're not prosecuted, it's a catastrophe.

Even if it takes 10 years, doesn't matter. But at some point that some people would pay the price.

29:09

Representative people, it's crucial because if they don't, then the whole system of international law is worth nothing. It's just empty.

If you see someone murdering someone on the street and there's no way to punish them, then

29:26

>> the the irony is Germany is one of the founding members of the ICJ. >> Yes.

and a proud founding member >> until now. >> Now in in terms of they will be complicit, they are complicit.

>> Yes.

29:41

>> This this has been from day one. Uh Germany has been supplying Israel with arms.

It may be supplying it with fewer arms. Now I I don't I haven't seen sufficient information what exactly is going on.

All I've heard was that

29:57

there's some problem in Israel now with tank engines because these Israeli made tanks have Germanmade engines and tanks don't run very well if they don't have an engine. They're very heavy.

>> From what I know, the engines uh supply is still going on.

30:12

>> Exactly. So, >> and the German government uh would would tell you, well, we told them not to use it in Gaza.

>> Yeah. Right.

And then when you ask like how how can you make sure that the engines are only being used in Israel or the West Bank for example and they were like >> they would tell you like we don't know.

30:28

>> Yeah. >> We just tell them don't do it in Gaza.

>> Most Israeli tanks are in Gaza right now. >> Exactly.

>> Actually um so they are complicit. Um and and they have been from the beginning.

>> But they must know that this ruins like retrospectively

30:44

>> in history like in the history books at some point in >> it is look I mean >> will ruin their >> their uh >> their reputation for Yes. >> Yes.

I think so. And and and beyond that beyond personal reputation

30:59

>> um >> Germany's reputation >> what does it mean? What does it mean for Germany, for France, for Britain uh to have become facilitators of genocide?

What does it mean for those countries?

31:14

And what does it mean for the system that they claim to uphold? And how can they apply these non-standards to Israel and then uh try to apply different standards to Russia?

31:30

Of course, it makes no sense. And the only way to understand it is as we said before first of all because Israel has a particular historical uh meaning which is completely different.

31:46

>> Mhm. uh and it it does I think make it more difficult for politicians uh even of younger generations to uh behave toward it the way they would toward other countries.

32:03

There is and we didn't touch on that and I think it's important to note there is a very cynical economic technological aspect to this that Israel uh first of all is making huge profits during this war. It's selling its uh

32:20

technology everywhere. >> Um I I I don't know if it's doubled or tripled uh its income from from that.

Uh but also that this technology is woven together intricately with other Western technologies, American and European.

32:38

Uh there's rocket technology the European countries want now because of uh Russia. There's drone technologies.

>> Yeah. >> Uh and Israel is part of that system which is partly about security, partly

32:54

about money, partly about technology. Uh and Israel though a small country has used its abilities in high-tech to infiltrate to become an intricate part of that including at universities of course because this is not only military

33:10

industries. It's where all these thinking is going on.

And so the combination of knowhow, money, and security is hard to beat. And the same countries that say that they won't provide arms to Israel are buying

33:25

arms from Israel. >> Denmark is buying systems from Israel >> um because well, they need them for the Russians.

And so that's a whole other element uh that is at work, has always been, >> but it shows you how the military-industrial

33:42

uh um project complex that President Eisenhower uh talked about in the 1950s is well at work right now and what the impact of that is. Yeah, many German

33:57

politicians like off the record will tell you like if we actually stop providing Israel uh with military aid and all this, they will stop uh providing us with their military stuff and then we can't support Ukraine. >> Yeah.

34:13

>> And then they like okay are you against Ukraine? >> No.

Well, then you have to be uh with Israel as well otherwise you will you will >> uh let Ukraine die or something. >> Yeah.

you're looking for consistency and and that's not not part of the game.

34:29

>> Um, you know, and and there's there's another important element which is the United States. >> Mhm.

>> Uh, and decisions made in the White House have huge impact on European politicians as as you know. Um, the

34:46

minute Trump came up with his plan, everybody kicked in and said, "Yeah, yeah, we support it." But they hadn't come up with it before until he he said it. But in American politics, there are other elements that play a bigger role

35:01

than in Europe. So in Europe, I would say the kind of sense of responsibility, guilt, memory of the Holocaust, not only in Germany, but in other European countries plays a much greater role than in the US.

>> But in the US, Israeli influence is much stronger. Uh, and it's a lot of it is

35:20

through uh Jewish organizations that claim to be um representatives of the Jewish community, which they're not, but hold a huge amount of power. They have a lot of money and they use that money very well

35:36

in politics. And it is only now in the last few months that you actually see a diminishing effect of those major Jewish organizations because of the growing apporance of

35:53

what's happening in Gaza. But up to now, many senators, representatives who were appalled by what was going on in Gaza, knowing that it was done with American arms wouldn't speak out.

You know, many

36:09

rabbis wouldn't speak out because they were afraid that they would be fired. Uh university presidents wouldn't speak out because their boards and donors uh not only wouldn't speak out, but would bring the police in to get rid of the students who were demonstrating.

Uh so this is

36:26

another element where Israel over time succeeded in having extraordinary influence on American politics. Uh there may be a very strange change going on,

36:42

not for the first time, where you have people on the MAGA right >> and people on the American left who are both talking a about >> welling both anti-mpire >> anti-mpire. They talk about Yeah.

Uh we

37:00

we don't need to spend all this money. uh um um and they they are showing moral revulsion uh only that one side has its own very good anti-semitic credentials

37:16

um and that kind of anti-Israel sentiment that is growing within the MAGA movement within the make America great movement the base of Trump uh is not something that I particularly uh desire to in American society because

37:35

all this use this weaponization of anti-semitism to um to shut people up um actually opens the way for real anti-semitism to resurface saying it's

37:50

the Jews who are shutting us up. It's Israel and it's Jewish supporters around the world who are shutting down free speech, academic freedom, uh the the freedom to demonstrate.

Um and that real type of anti-semitism is actually on the

38:06

rise. >> That's that's especially uh true here in Germany as well when media and the political class like uh is calling uh anti-war protest, let's call it.

which

38:22

you always frame as pro Palestinian protest or like um basically Hamas supporters or something like that and they call it it's anti-semitic and and all this. >> This could at some point uh lead to people who are like

38:38

>> wait we're against what's happening in Gaza. We're against a genocide, what Israeli scholars call it.

We're if if this is anti-semit anti-semitism, then I'm a proud anti-semite. >> And then we are in big trouble because

38:53

then the Nazis, our right-wing extremist people like, well, that's what we've been saying all along. >> Exactly.

Um and and also making you know uh there's so many ironies here because uh Israel had agreements

39:09

um already during Oslo with the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority has symbols, state symbols.

One of them is a Palestinian flag. It's it's an officially recognized flag recognized by Israel.

And that flag has

39:25

become now something that the police would attack you for. Um it makes no sense.

It's it's now described as >> it's a red triangle Omar. Yeah.

This is Hamas. >> Yes.

Exactly. Exactly.

And and Hamas, of course, as they're called in Israel repeatedly

39:41

on every night newscast. Hamas are Nazis.

That's how they're called. And Nazis, there's only one way to treat them.

>> But then again, isn't that a double standard? Because I learned you never

39:58

compare anything to the Holocaust in >> apart from Hamas. >> Oh, apart from Hamas.

>> In in Israel, it's allowed in Israel, it's allowed to compare your enemies to the Nazis. Now, yeah.

>> When when you were in Germany for a few

40:14

years in the 80s, I mean, you probably heard of the slogan never again. And I grew up with it as well as a young as a young student and as a German, you know, never again >> must Jewish people, the Jews feel unsafe

40:30

in Germany, in Europe or anywhere in the world. Let's break it down to this.

Never again uh wars of aggression and never again any genocide. >> In the last few years, it seems to be uh

40:46

the German ruling class is only uh saying one thing which is like okay we must not feel let Jews feel unsafe in Germany in Israel and all this but wars of aggression no problem

41:01

anymore. I mean look at the Iran uh >> aggression against Iran.

Uh and when it comes to Gaza we now see well this is not true anymore as well. So is was it were these just slogans?

41:18

>> So look, I heard about never again before I came to Germany. I I I grew up with never again.

It's not a German invention. >> Okay.

>> Um so never again means different things in different places, >> different times maybe. >> Uh no, but I mean this never again.

The

41:35

never again that relates specifically to Nazism, the Holocaust, and all the other crimes. Mhm.

>> Uh in Germany it meant what you said it meant. >> Mhm.

>> Um but much of it became

41:52

uh yeah never again German aggression and never again persecution of Jews and never again anti-semitism, God forbid, and never again uh >> Yes. In America, never again became increasingly

42:07

important in the 1980s, 1990s. That's when the Holocaust becomes an important element in America, not before.

Mhm. >> And the never again of America uh not right now but over those previous decades is combined with an

42:24

understanding that the way to avoid such horrors is to teach tolerance, diversity, mutual understanding, love of your neighbor, um welcoming uh different people, different groups into your society and

42:41

so forth. So, a very liberal um humanistic type of never again.

If we are like that, there'll never be another Holocaust. >> In Israel, never again meant exactly the opposite.

And Israel, never again said

42:57

all the Jews should stick together because when we're when they were dispersed, didn't have a state, had to rely on the other nations of the world, look what happened to them. They have to all come come together, have a strong army,

43:13

uh be proud, uh be well trained, uh respond to any threat, uh and be a nation unto its own. This is a slogan that is heard a lot in Israel nowadish, a people dwelling on its own.

That's

43:30

from the Bible. Uh that's our lesson.

Our lesson is militant, fearful because you're always seeing the Awitz lurking behind the corner, aggressive, unrelenting, and the exact opposite of

43:47

diverse or tolerant or anything like that. That was not in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust when uh in the early years of the of the state.

There was a general embarrassment about the Holocaust because the notion that

44:03

the Jews went like sheep to the slaughter didn't work very well for u the young Israeli state. So you know when I was growing up people spoke about the war ghetto rebellion was the thing that you studied you you didn't study

44:20

about the gas chambers. Yes, we know they went there.

But the people we should know about are those who rebelled and fought with a gun in their hand. This these were the terms that that were used.

They were what we are now, right? We now learn the lesson.

We always have

44:36

to carry a gun. So that was the never again of Israel.

And if you think that it's all about the same event and you draw completely different lessons using precisely the same slogan,

44:53

we got to go back to your biography, but uh two more things about the now. uh in this oped in the New York Times from July uh 2025, you said at the end uh quote, "I'm deeply worried that Israel will persist uh on its disastrous

45:10

course, remaking itself perhaps irreversibly into a full-blown authoritarian apartheid state." And then you said such states as history taught us do not last. So you're saying if

45:26

uh Israel is turning into an authoritarian state which the west seemingly is supporting >> by not intervening. >> This actually uh endangers the entire state of Israel.

45:43

>> Yes. >> The existence existence of Israel.

>> Yes. You know we we spoke earlier about um uh can there be a bational state?

Right. Um, the way I see it, if Israel is allowed to continue on this course, and we don't know right now, we're sort of

46:00

in in a moment when there may be just a sliver of hope of it going else in another direction, but if it continues on this, which is very likely, uh, it will become authoritarian, violent, racist, um, uh, militaristic

46:21

uh, uh as was more and more with more and more religious uh oppression. Um that will mean that it will no longer be able to present itself as a kind of

46:37

beacon of democracy in the Middle East. >> It'll become increasingly difficult and also not very uh meaningful to support it.

um its allies which of course have also other

46:54

interests in supporting Israel uh will gradually feel increasingly uncomfortable with that being their ally being such a country which would be on the you know for for decades the occupation was sort of marked under hidden under all kind of uh language

47:12

that well it's temporary and uh when you become an apathite state that's it Um now the argument is that there was a party there for a long time but it was just couched in different terms. Uh but once it becomes part of the system

47:27

it'll be very hard for those countries to support it. It also become I I believe impoverished many of the elites are leaving and will continue to leave.

uh younger people, better trained people, and not

47:43

necessarily for political reasons, but just because they won't see much of a future in that state for themselves and for their children. and they won't want to send their kids to the kind of public schools that are already in existence in Israel now that are nationalist that racist that they impose religion on

48:00

students and Jewish communities around the world will also distance themselves from that state increasingly uh because Israel is now the main generator of anti-semitism around the world. It speaks of itself as a representative of the Jews around the

48:17

world. It doesn't ask them whether they want to be represented by it, but in its actions, it's obviously a a very good excuse for anti-semitism.

And so, Jewish communities will and are already now

48:33

beginning to distance themselves from it. So, what will it be?

How long could it survive like that? uh torn with internal u intrajeweish tensions and of course constant friction between Jews and Palestinians because

48:49

Palestinians will not just live in aparttheid and accept it. There will be constant resistance and constant violence and they are 7 million on each side.

So what I think may happen is that this entity

49:04

will not be able to survive as such and then there will be choices. There may be a kind of civil rights movement there and that may transform it into another type of political entity but it'll come at a

49:21

huge cost of a great deal of violence of suffering of impoverishment. uh and there's no assurance that uh we would see in Israel what we saw in South Africa in 94 and South Africa of 94 which got rid of

49:38

apartheid uh is still suffering to this day >> from the apartheid regime uh the the the poison that that instilled in society is still there uh so it's a very dire future for that state and if anybody

49:56

cares about it they could try to help it avoid it. >> Uh since you called what's happening in Gaza genocide, just like to for clarification, there was the recent UN UN Commission of Inquiry who also

50:12

concluded this is uh genocide and they uh they're observing four genocidal acts out of the five in the 1948 genocide convention. And just to see if you uh uh agree, first they say um Israel is is

50:29

killing members of the group or killing members of of the Palestinian group. Uh they're causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group.

Uh they are deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole

50:45

or in part and finally imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. Do you agree with these four uh genocidal acts or do you disagree with the UN comm UN commission?

51:00

>> No, I think they they they're totally correct. Uh Israel's killed large numbers of members of that group of Palestinians.

>> Uh the estimates uh you know the the official figure is someplace around 67,000. Now estimates

51:18

are it's much higher than that. It's well above 100,000 uh about 170,000 wounded, many with life-changing uh injuries.

So you you're talking about at least a quarter of a million people. Um

51:34

that's just who are physically harmed. If you talk about uh severe physical and mental uh injury to people, uh you have to think about the children.

in that society. Half of the people living in

51:51

Gaza under the age of 18, what that has done to them mentally and physically, uh deprivation of food, even those who don't die of hunger, children who for two years are being deprived of food, children who've lost uh their entire

52:07

families, children who've been subjected to bombing uh on a daily basis, to the horror, to fear, to trauma. Uh so enormous damage to that rather small population.

Um

52:23

if you talk about uh creating conditions uh you look at Gaza today there is nothing in Gaza. >> Gaza is uh there hardly any building standing.

People are living there in

52:39

tents in huge numbers. There's no humanitarian infrastructure, no medication, no clean water, not enough food, certainly not healthy food.

Uh the conditions are conducive to people dying indirectly, which is what this uh

52:55

particular act is. They don't die because they're shot.

They died because of conditions created that will lead to their destruction. And the last one that I was actually glad that the UN commission mentioned and what the UN commission referred to was the

53:11

destruction of fertility uh clinics >> uh which is documented and that's true and that of course has to do with prevention of birth but there's many other elements that were mentioned by physicians for human rights. So there's

53:28

been a rise of 300% in miscarriages since October 7th. Uh 20% of children born are born underweight or prematurely and they have no medical facilities,

53:44

hardly any. And their mothers are undernourished and cannot feed them.

Um large numbers of kids have no parents at all and no other family members. their entire families have been destroyed.

So what does that mean regarding the future

54:01

of that group which is what prevention of birth is about that the group would have a future and the last thing I would say that they I don't recall the UN commission speaking about it uh but I think it's very important the systematic

54:18

destruction of Gaza was a destruction not only of infrastructure and of homes it was also a destruction of universities of schools, of mosques, of museums, of archives, of everything that is needed.

54:34

Let's say the war ends, the war, the demolition of Gaza, which is what it is, >> uh, ends. How does that group reconstitute itself as a group when everything that it had, educational, medical facilities, and its

54:51

collective memory, its archives, its museums have all been destroyed? That is the goal.

That's the intent to destroy the group as a group, which is clearly a genocidal intent.

55:08

>> Let's let's let's stop it here. I'm sure there there will be some uh follow-up questions when when Hans comes.

Let's go let's go back to your uh biography. You were also part of the IDF.

>> Mhm. >> Like you where did you go to military?

Uh like right after school, right?

55:25

Because I I saw you were a company commander in the Yamapour war. >> No, no.

I I was a company commander, but not in the Yamipur war. That's some someone got it wrong and everybody keeps No, I I was >> Cuz I I was like He was 19 and already a company commander.

55:40

>> No, I was 21 when I was a company. >> So you didn't fight in the Yamapour war?

>> I did, but as a soldier, not as a company. >> You were 19 years old.

>> Yeah. Well, I was 18 actually.

Uh I No, I I just turned 19. Um because it was October.

I was born in April. Um I was

55:57

conscripted uh November 1972. >> Uh but I was in a unit that did some time in a kibbut before.

So January of uh 1973 I went to basic training

56:12

uh for 4 months. Um and then I went to advanced training because I was in a unit that wanted more training.

Uh, and I was in that unit when the war broke out in October. Uh,

56:28

we were then patrolling, but we were patrolling the Jordan Valley. >> And so when the war broke out, we were waiting for the Jordanian army to attack.

>> Mhm. And we could hear that night, I I vividly recall it, uh, tanks were

56:47

driving on their own chains along the Jordan Valley to reach the Golan Heights because the Syrian army had penetrated the Israeli defenses and was streaming toward the Sea of Galilee. >> Uh, but we were not attacked.

The

57:03

Jordanian army made two mistakes. In ' 67, it attacked and lost.

And in 73, it didn't attack. when we had nothing to stop it with.

We had World War II bazookas. Uh there were no tanks.

Uh so in in the war 73 itself, I was there. So

57:20

I wasn't in the fighting itself after the war. Um, I went to NCO course uh and I became a corporal or sergeant and then I was sent to the

57:37

Syrian enclave. There was a lot of fighting going on.

People don't recall all these things. >> Uh, Israel had uh captured more territory in Syria.

After the Syrians attacked and almost took over the Golan Heights, the Israeli army took over that territory and more.

57:55

Mhm. >> And I spent several weeks there uh in a kind of bunker basically being shelled every day.

Um and I read already I was a fan of military history and reading

58:10

about the World Wars. And to me it looked it felt exactly like World War I because we were standing in mud.

It's lava soil there and it was winter. Uh, and there were there were, you know, people were killed around us and we were

58:27

shooting at the Syrians, but we couldn't see them. They were far away.

Uh, so it was really artillery duels and we were just sitting there sitting ducks uh for a few weeks. >> Was your life ever in danger or did you >> It was in danger.

>> Did you endanger other people's lives?

58:42

>> I I might have. I I was firing, you know, a machine gun.

I have no idea. I was trying, >> but I I couldn't see anybody on the other side.

It was too far. >> Uh, our lives were in danger, of course.

I mean, we were being shelled with 240

58:58

mm motor uh shells, Soviet made. They they make uh a huge racket.

>> Were you a proud soldier? Na or a naive soldier?

>> Yeah, I I thought a lot about it later, you know. Uh yeah, we we were very

59:15

naive. uh very stupid.

Uh that's why armies recruit young men. I mean because they don't think about death.

I mean they, you know, they joke around, they play around and then they get killed. >> Um but one thing that interested me in that

59:30

when I later was studying the German army was that this idea that we were just fighting for each other. This idea that soldiers only fight for their bodies.

I thought then and I think today uh is force.

59:45

>> Why >> that is obviously when you're in a military outfit in a military unit. Yeah.

I mean you have to have confidence in your uh commerce in arms and they have to have confidence in you otherwise you know the whole thing breaks down. Uh

00:01

but we certainly had we thought that we were fighting for the state. We thought that the Israel was about to be overrun.

uh we were patriotic uh and that was very much part of the motivation. Uh so it isn't that we

00:16

talked about it >> because we were young guys. It's embarrassing to talk like that.

But clearly this was what was in our DNA. We had internalized that in our education.

It's what I wrote about the soldiers of the Vermat. It's not just the Vermat

00:33

indoctrinated them. They went to school.

They went to the youth movement. You internalize these things.

You're socialized into that and you believe in a higher cause and so you'd rather not die but you believe that if you die you die for something meaningful and the

00:49

state wants you to believe that wants your parents to believe that and your society to believe that because otherwise you might think that you're just cannon father. Uh when I think about it today, and I wrote a little bit about that in the Guardian, uh these

01:05

soldiers who were dying in Gaza, uh were dying and and the state doesn't care about them. The what the state is doing is has got nothing to do with uh a national goal, with self-defense.

01:23

It's just sacrificing people. It buries them, hangs out a flag, plays some music, and then forgets about them and doesn't care not about them and not about their parents.

There are hundreds and hundreds of Israeli troops who have been involved in all kinds of atrocities

01:39

that we may never know precisely, but come back from Gaza and they're traumatized. They have PTSD.

There's a rise in suicides. The state doesn't care about them, but they will become actors in Israeli society.

I think of them a little bit like the

01:55

>> Fryore >> after World War I, you know, these paramilitary units that were then the carriers of German fascism. So yes, it was for me an experience that I I think about, but

02:11

I don't remember being scared. I I remember people being wounded and uh you know a driver we had was scared because our platoon commander was wounded but you had to take him to hospital and for that

02:28

you needed to drive in an area that was being targeted by Syrian artillery. So who who wants to do that?

And the driver just refused and then one of the sergeants did it and somehow managed to escape the shell. So there was fear.

I

02:44

don't remember personally being fearful. I remember running to a bunker while the shelling begins and everybody runs.

You run like crazy because the shells are falling around you. But it's there's a

02:59

kind of you're young and there's acceleration in it. There's excitement.

Um >> how long were you in the army? >> Yes.

>> How long did you have to serve? Like nowadays like it's three years of basic training, right?

No, it's three years is alto together now and then it was also

03:16

three years >> in both cases they were about to shorten the service >> but then >> uh October 6th happened in 73 and October 7th happened in 23 exactly 50 years later right um I said four years

03:32

because then I went to officer's course uh and I had to sign up for more >> you you saw yourself in becoming a professional >> why did you go to officer course >> because I hated being uh mistreated by officers and I said, >> "You want to become one yourself?"

03:47

>> No, I I didn't want to. And I I don't think I was a particularly Nazi officer.

I mean, you'd have to ask my soldiers if you can find them. Uh but but I hated being pushed around.

I liked being a soldier. Uh

04:03

I was young. I liked running and shooting.

Uh I was machine gunner. >> Me too.

>> That I liked. >> Yeah, me too.

But I hated the army, the the stupidity of it, the hierarchy of it. And in the army, as you know, if you were in the army,

04:18

>> I I did German basic training. >> So the higher you go, the more stupid people are because the smarter people leave.

>> Yes. >> And so your generals are stupider than your brigade commanders who are stupider than your battalion commanders.

Um and

04:34

there's a lot of abuse by the NCOs's, by your sergeants and corporals. And I I thought uh I might as well do it myself.

Uh which I did. And then I was also for a while a company commander.

04:49

Uh and it was kind of ironic because my company was in northern Sinai and our base, the battalion was in Gaza City. Uh so we would go every week

05:05

>> in in our jeep. We we shared two two uh company commanders shared one jeep and the other guy was a friend of mine.

He's still a friend of mine. He's a retired professor at Colombia University.

So we would share the jeep. >> Wow.

05:21

>> To drive to the battalion command in Gaza City. And I remember Gaza at the time already being um poor, congested, hopeless.

And then the population was about 400,000

05:36

>> and now it's 2.3 or it was it's now they've killed a lot. >> Were there any settlements yet?

No. >> Mine was a settlement.

So what I was doing I was creating a military settlement. I was in a unit that that did that.

It's called

05:53

>> it's an acronym for fighting pioneering youth which was created in in the 1950s. Uh and so we actually established a military settlement that was then handed over to civilians and in the handing

06:10

over ceremony I was there in my sort of a uniform. I handed it over to Manakim begging.

I I still have a photo of that because the people who moved into that settlement were from the revisionist youth movement

06:26

from >> Bettow. >> Now that doesn't exist anymore.

There's nothing there because Israel returned to Sinai and he went back to the dunes which is where it belongs. Beautiful, beautiful dunes and all this military settlement and barbwire that were built

06:41

and all that is gone and good riddens. Uh but I was part of that project.

>> When did you decide to leave Israel? I mean you uh you said half of your life you you lived in Israel.

Did you leave because you had the chance to uh become

06:57

a professor in the US or were were there other personal reasons? If you can talk about it.

>> Look there there was mixed motivation. I was teaching at Tel Aviv University.

I had a young family. I had a very small child.

07:12

>> Great life. >> It was it was miserable because the salary was terrible.

>> So I had to do other jobs. They have a name for it in Hebrew that comes from Russian.

bought to do all kind of odd jobs. I was translating all kind of

07:27

garbage literature because I couldn't even afford to buy a computer. I couldn't afford to go to any conferences.

Uh >> it was in the 80s >> in the 80s. >> And then uh the first broke out >> in December of 87

07:43

>> and uh I was a young reserve officer >> and there was a very good likelihood that I would be called up. Uh, and I very quickly realized that that was not something I wanted to do to break the bones of uh, Palestinian kids.

Uh, which

08:02

is what our minister of defense told us to do. Rabin.

Uh, >> you didn't have to see serve in the Lebanon war at the beginning of the ' 80s. >> 82.

No, 82. I was out of the country already.

>> Oh, okay. Then you came back.

>> Uh, um, >> no.

08:18

>> No, sorry. No.

Um, >> Lebanon was 82. >> Um, >> and the first 87 88.

>> Correct. Uh, no, I I was not.

Oh, of course not. I was at Oxford at the time.

Yes.

08:35

>> Yes. 1980.

Sorry. 1980 to 83.

>> Uh, >> so they couldn't call you. >> I was at Oxford.

Well, there was a very funny story there because um I was sharing an apartment with uh someone who has become a very well-known Middle East

08:50

historian called Elon Pap >> who is a friend of mine. And Elan and I were two young Israeli men living in the same apartment.

Me writing on the Fairmont, he writing on Palestine. And then we heard that the war broke out and

09:06

our first instinct was well I mean we have to go back, right? That's what young Israelis do.

Mhm. >> And then we wisely said, "Well, let's sleep on it." And the next morning we realized that we were not going back.

We realized what that war actually was. That it was just an invasion of Lebanon.

09:23

And it was of course an attempt to change the regime in Lebanon. >> Um and and so yes, that for me was already a kind of moment of thinking about Israel's wars.

But still in ' 83, I wanted to go back to Israel. I missed

09:39

my friends. I wanted to go back to the university.

I established a family in Israel. And then came the intifa was uh very clearly this was an uprising of oppressed people.

And you you didn't have to be that smart to understand that. And at the time I wrote Rabine

09:58

uh as I was very young and cheeky and I wrote on a postcard to him that the way he was leading the Israeli army. Uh I said I just come back from doing a PhD in Oxford on the brutalization of the German army and the way he was leading

10:15

the IDF. Uh he's putting it on the same slippery slope.

And I I sent it to him and I of course did not expect him to respond. >> You wrote a letter.

>> It was actually it was a postcard that was protesting the killing of a Pilian

10:32

child. Mhm.

>> But I was so angry by that uh killing of the child that I wrote in very small letters on the back of the postcard to him directly. So it was just a postcard with some words in the back.

Two weeks

10:47

later, I got a letter in the mail from the the defense ministry signed by Rabbine saying, "How dare you compare the IDF to the Vermacht?" So then I wrote him a letter and I explained everything and then I got

11:03

another letter from him saying the same thing. >> How dare you?

>> How dare you compare? Uh so um obviously I was really angry.

>> You have a new pan pal. >> I did.

And and I think in retrospect not because of my letter >> but because

11:20

uh Rabbine understood something. Uh he understood that this was not the right future for Israel.

uh because we we're talking now this is 1988. >> Mhm.

>> And in the early '9s he's already involved in the Oopsisa Accords and had

11:36

he not been assassinated in the most successful assassination maybe in the 20th century uh we would not have been perhaps where we are now. >> An assassination completely incited by Benjamin Netona.

He was the main inciter

11:52

chief. He has Rabine's blood on his hands.

>> Um so I think he saw something. he understood something.

Uh but that was later and I did not know about Oslo in 1988. Uh and then I had an offer of a fellowship at Harvard and I

12:09

thought okay I mean I my my salary is terrible. I can't do anything with my career here.

I don't want to serve in uh the West Bank. Uh three years at Harvard that's not bad.

And so I just went there. I didn't think that I would not

12:26

come back, but I wasn't sure that I would. And then things open up for me there and I stayed and never came back.

>> Let's talk about your life in the US. Uh at the end, I have one more question

12:41

about u you know, you being an Israeli, you being a Jewish Israeli uh and since you you said your family is very religious or was very religious. No, my grandparents.

>> Your parents were a Zionist. >> Yeah, >> you were Z a Zionist.

12:58

>> But it doesn't sound like you're a Zionist these days. >> When did you make let's call it the switch.

>> What happened? >> Well, I mean what what happened is everything we've been talking about,

13:14

right? Um um >> was was it like a slow transformation or >> so first of all let me say I'm not anti-ionist um and I have uh

13:30

>> what what do you understand uh when what do you mean when you when we talk about Zionism like >> the establishment of the state of Israel >> or what you know Palestinians these days they they they what they called Zionism. It's like the expansion of Israel.

13:46

>> I mean, I just wrote a book on all this called Israel, what went wrong, >> right? >> And I tried to explain all of that there.

But I very briefly, I would say that if Zionism is uh the right of Jews

14:03

to self-determine >> and to create a state of their own, uh then I'm not an antagonist. I support that.

>> Yes. uh and certainly after World War II and the Holocaust have what Jews don't have a right to do or any other people

14:19

is to self-determine at the price of others that they don't have a right to do and they did that right away. >> Mhm.

>> Uh so in some ways the state of Israel like many other states I have to say was born in sin. Uh but that does not take away

14:34

the right to self-determine. The second thing I would say is that what is now called Zionism in Israel to my mind is not Zionism.

It's Jewish supremacy. It's racism.

It's militarism. It's violence.

It's

14:50

genocide. It's messionism.

>> Colonialism. >> Colonialism.

Settler colonialism. uh that's not elements of that were always in Zionism because they are always in all ethnationalisms all ethnationalism have

15:07

all these elements in them >> uh apart from colonialism maybe uh although there are also other examples of that but what Zionism has become now is something that I absolutely cannot support uh and I'm vehemently opposed to

15:25

and because we talked about my father at the beginning I'll say that I dedicated my book to my father who died in 2016 uh at the age of 90 and I called him the

15:42

last ionist uh because my father in his last years when nobody was listening to him anymore he was old and you know uh he spoke about Natao as the recorder of Zionism

15:58

>> and I think he was right. Uh that means that he transformed what Zionism could have been might have been.

It's not only Nathaniel of course it started long before him but he transformed it into something that is

16:15

hateful that is completely insupportable that is totally immoral and that has to go that has to be removed. Not the people of Israel, not the state of Israel, but the regime and the ideology has to disappear.

It has to transform

16:30

itself into something else whose potential was there. There was, if you like, progressive Zionism, enlightened Zionism.

Zionism begins as a movement of emancipation, of liberation, of appeal to humanitarianism.

16:47

>> Um, but it also was a settler colonial movement. functionally that's what it did and it chose the wrong path in 1948 when the state decided not to have a constitution with a bill of rights.

It

17:02

set itself on a path that ended up where we are. >> No fixed borders, >> no fixed borders, no actual equal rights.

>> Uh now it was not inevitable even then. I mean there were moments in which things could have been changed.

In the

17:18

1990s there was talk about a state of all its citizens. >> Mhm.

>> And it became popular to speak like that. Nobody speaks like that now.

That's where Netanyahu came in as the as destroying the whole notion that there can be peace, coexistence,

17:34

an enlightened society, a civil society. Um and so in that sense maybe I'm a I'm an idealist.

Uh but I'm also

17:49

uh filled with sorrow and to some extent rage >> at what these leaders over time did to something that could had a potential of creating a very different and in some

18:07

ways creative and beautiful society and made it into what it is today. I asked I asked the question because there's the the German political class, the ruling class.

They intentionally conflate Zionism

18:23

with um Judaism. And they basically say if you're anti-Zionist, anti-ionist, >> against this form of Zionism in Israel today, you're against the existence of Israel.

>> Yeah. But that's nonsense.

It's that's

18:38

just empty. That's that's just nonsense.

Uh there there are many people around the world who are proud Jews and anti-Zionist. Uh look, go to any Orthodox community in Brooklyn.

It's nonsense. Uh the the largest Jewish movement party before

18:55

World War II was the Bund. The Bund was was vehemently anti-ionist.

Um so it's it's it's now the only thing that is true is that in the United States over time uh since the mid70s increasingly

19:13

with the rise of the Holocaust as a kind of constitutive element in Jewish identity linked to that was a sense of love or affiliation with the state of Israel. And so uh a couple of

19:29

generations of Jews felt that their identity was closely linked to a the Holocaust, the potential that they could have also been victims >> and to the state of Israel. Um so in that sense for many young Jews when you

19:46

criticize Israel or not young now those who were young then when you criticize Israel or even some young Jews now uh they feel that you are um criticizing undermining their own identity. >> Mhm.

>> Um but obviously that's not the case.

20:05

Obviously being Jewish and being Zionist is two different things. Zionism is a political movement.

you you can support it or not, but it's not an identity. It's an ideology.

What Zionism did in Israel, it became instead

20:20

of being put aside, put in the archive in 1948 because it accomplished what it needed to do. It created the state.

>> Yeah. >> It became a state ideology.

And what happens to these kind of movements when they become state ideologies is what happened to socialism when it became a state ideology. It

20:37

became corrupted. >> Mhm.

Um, and in Israel, not only did it become corrupt, but it became also an occupying ideology, the the actual core of the occupation ideology. Uh, and with that, it had no choice but to become what it became.

20:54

>> If you have any more questions uh for Omar, hurry up and let Hans know. He's going to uh >> Oh my god, it's 8:30.

>> He's going to come in in a few minutes. Uh, I want to finally talk about you.

You're at Brown University, which is an Ivy League school.

21:10

>> Uh, you're still a professor. You still teach students, >> although you're >> 71 years old.

How long can you teach? As long as you want.

>> Well, in in America, you you can teach as long as you're alive. >> And some people, I've heard I'm actually

21:25

teaching after they really >> pass away. Uh, but uh in my case, I'm retiring in two years.

Exactly. Tell me about your students these days.

I mean, ever since the latest where I mean, we've been talking about Gaza and all this.

21:41

>> You're an Israeli American professor. You talk you you teach about genocide.

>> Yeah. >> What do your students want from you >> besides being taught?

>> They want me to teach them. They they

21:56

want me to sit with them and talk with them and teach them and tell them things they don't know and explain to them things that they can't understand. That's what they want and that's what I try to give them.

And I've discovered that if you do that and I've said that repeatedly after October 7th with all

22:12

this attempt to shut people up and to stop the protest and all that. I said universities are institutions of learning.

You come there to study. You come there to not only learn things you don't know but also uh hear things that you have never thought possible.

Hear

22:29

things that would annoy you that would be accounted to everything you heard before. That's why you go to university.

And so uh that's exactly what I've tried to do after October 7th. So you know I teach a class I've been teaching a class on

22:45

genocide since the year 2000. So for 25 years uh but last year I taught it again and I added another week on Gaza and I have to say that there were more students in that class than in any other

23:00

class. Uh there were over 100 students there and I it was a whole week.

It was two lectures and I tried to give a history in in two lectures which is a bit difficult of Israel and Zionism and

23:17

how the state developed and then a very close look at what occurred after October 7th as I understand it and I told them I'm telling you how I understand things that's my interpretation of them not everybody has to agree with me

23:33

uh now I'm sure there were students there who did not agree with I can say also that I had at least one teaching assistant who is a foreigner who was afraid to come to that class because he was afraid of being targeted

23:48

maybe by one of the students or but certainly by the federal government >> uh that he would not be able to come back to the US to get a visa. Uh so the sense of intimidation was definitely in the air but I I try to you know next

24:06

semester I'm teaching a class on the Holocaust and the Nakba not for the first time. Uh, but when I taught it last time, it was in the spring of 20 24.

I had to open the class because it's a seminar. It's capped to 20, but there

24:22

were 40 there. And some students were nervous about this and they didn't know each other.

And there were some Arab students and Jewish students and normal American students, which is something that doesn't exist. Mhm.

>> Uh and by the end of that semester, uh

24:41

we I think understood much more because when you teach a history of something and you try not to be biased, but you try to present how different people understand it, young people will run with that. They will open up.

Uh so I I have not had any

25:00

trouble at all despite all the noise and all the people who are so afraid of teaching this. >> No trouble with interest groups with your >> no I mean >> with the university higherups and all this >> the the university had my back.

There

25:16

are alumni who have complained who have said I'm anti-semitic or whatever. >> Uh I I I I could not care less.

Uh look I'm I'm old. I know what I'm talking about and I'm about to retire and I'm not going to be uh you know disciplined

25:34

by bigots. Um but I'm but I can understand the younger people people who have no job security untenured professors or even tenure professors who are still young and still have a career ahead of them are afraid.

25:51

uh and I can understand it but I think they have to overcome that fear because that fear is what creates the dynamic of of of of silencing people. Uh and when

26:07

the center when reasonable people who can impart knowledge are silent and don't talk then the extremes take over. That's how you polarize societies by the silence of the center.

26:23

>> Has there been repression attempts by the Trump government uh towards the Brown University? I mean we here we hear about hear about Harvard versus the Trump administration or Colombia buckling.

What about Brown?

26:40

>> Yeah, >> they get they get in trouble. Brown was under a lot of pressure from the administration without going into too many details was under a lot of pressure.

Uh I perceived some of it relatively directly and then uh Brown

26:58

reached an agreement with the administration which released large sums of money that were being withheld from the university >> which don't really belong to the uh government but were being withheld by the government. Uh but there is still a

27:15

great deal of pressure and that's happening right now. Uh, in fact, after we talk, I'm going to be at a meeting that has to deal with that.

So, it the uh Trump is taking a wrecking ball to

27:30

American higher education and the there's no telling how far that will go. Uh, and I fear that the university as an institution, as I knew it, uh, may be on the way out.

27:47

>> Really? >> Yeah.

Why? >> Um because well it's not only Trump.

Let's let's be fair. Partly it's because of the kind of imposition by the government on what you teach and how you teach which which is

28:02

completely contrary to anything that exists in American academia. And the question is do the universities buckle or not but they seem to be buckling uh against their own rules against their own traditions.

So that's part of it. But another part is that the university is becoming more and more corporate.

Uh

28:20

the university has been infiltrated by business interests. Uh they want to make money >> which give a lot of money and then want particular results and they're not interested in history or social sciences.

They're interested in engineering and high-tech and that's where the money goes. And so programs

28:37

like history departments are shrinking. Graduate programs are shrinking and so the university will change.

Um, and it doesn't matter if Trump is around or not. It's actually got nothing to do with him.

Um, and that's and and and the third thing which is

28:54

related and troubles me a lot is centralization of administrations that the faculty of universities is losing itself sense of self-governance. Uh, and I keep saying to my colleagues,

29:09

a university is nothing without the faculty. you just have buildings, you have a president, you have some students coming in.

When there's no faculty, what do you do? The faculty are the university.

Uh and so they have to govern it. But they have abdicated that role.

And

29:26

bureaucracy, which is does what bureaucracy does. It fills the void.

It moves in. >> And you have presidents and provos and deans and they assert more and more power.

>> And the faculty said, "Ah, that's fine. I can write another book and then one

29:42

day they realize that all the the decision making power is gone. So and that was shown.

>> Did you realize that yourself at some point? >> Yes.

I mean, I think it came out very clearly after October 7th

29:58

>> with the student protest when universities uh uh clap down on student protests and issued all kind of uh decrees that they had no authority to. Uh it was not clear why can a president

30:13

say that by what right? Um and and you should say the presidents were acting because they were under pressure.

They were under pressure by their donors and they were under pressure by the government. Uh >> that's why you have a president so he doesn't buckle under pressure.

30:29

>> Uh yeah, but you know if they are not smart they'll be fired. >> Huh.

>> Uh and presidents have been fired. So we have to be smart.

>> Those who were fired were not terribly smart. That's a whole other issue.

Uh they just know um but the process is is

30:47

much bigger than that. the fact that the business model of the university of these elite universities in particular which was growing tuition I mean tuition now is through the roof it's it's it's absurd you pay $100,000

31:04

>> your students pay $100,000 >> for one year at the university it's it makes no sense now the university will tell you well most of them don't pay it most of them get grants and um it's needs blind admission and all that but that's situation.

31:20

>> Mhm. >> So, you need a lot of donors.

Uh you need to provide the students with a lot of beautiful buildings and dorms and concert halls and whatever. Uh and you need money from the administration.

And

31:35

that's a model that was created in the 1950s after World War II. uh and that it functioned quite well until the crisis came >> and then you saw that these like Brown very liberal open diverse university very proud of

31:52

that when the donors kick in and the administration kicks in then this veil of civility and uh diversity suddenly is removed and you see where the power really lies uh and I don't know how to

32:10

correct that because if you really want to correct it, you need to create a different university. >> But but at least you can see it now.

>> Oh yes. Yes.

>> At least it's uh it's transparent. >> At least I see it.

>> That's that's what crisis are for as well. >> Yeah.

I'm not sure that everybody sees it.

32:26

>> Oh. >> Uh I'm involved in that.

I'm I'm trying to think my way through it myself. There's some writings on that now.

uh but it is a major question uh for future generations because if the university

32:41

uh that has all kind of legacies is changed in in this way this will have a major impact on certainly on democratic societies. And finally last question since you worry about Israeli fascists in power

32:59

>> and what we have to do about them we talked about that. Yeah.

>> What about American fascism? I mean, there are fascist fascism scholars.

>> Who consider Trump and the MAGA movement a fascist movement?

33:14

>> Do do you see are are you afraid that um the American democracy, the American democratic institutions are not strong enough to fight this >> undemocratic takeover attempt?

33:31

Yeah. So, so that's two separate issues, >> right?

One is fascism. So, Trump is being called a fascist.

Putin has been called a fascist. Erdogan and so forth.

Uh fascism is a term that

33:46

has been used a little bit the the way genocide has been used. It's a kind of term of abuse of uh u >> you should only use it when it implies.

>> Yeah. and we we we used it, you know, in in the 1960s and 70s, people who disagreed with you were automatically

34:02

fascists if you're on the left. Um I I think obviously there's a danger to democratic institutions.

There's no doubt about that. In the United States now, there's severe danger uh to democracy in the United States.

34:17

Severe. But I think that calling a fascist uh is the easy way out.

It's not trying to understand what is it that is happening. I think a new type of authoritarianism and populism >> has appeared.

It has some similarities

34:35

with fascism, but it's also different. And if we try to apply fascism to it, we won't understand what it is.

Uh, and that's in the United States. You see versions of it in Russia, versions of it in in obviously in Hungary, in Turkey,

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in Israel. And each of them has its own peculiarities.

Uh >> what about an American autocracy? >> American autocracy is certainly on the way.

Uh certainly uh white supremacy

35:07

is on the rise. Politics of violence, state violence.

the the US has enormous um vast organizations of armed people, you know, who are ruled by the federal government who can descend on on on your

35:23

community like an army. Uh and now of course the army itself being called into cities.

So yes, that is certainly a danger and the danger is not going to be confronted successfully by just saying,

35:40

"Oh, these are fascists." Mhm. >> You have to look at what are the alternatives and why uh other parties, social democrats in European countries, Democrats in the United States are losing the voters are losing support.

35:57

What have they where have they gone wrong and they are refusing to do this analysis of their own errors and as long as they don't >> then these powers are going to take over. Omar, please come back at at some point.

This was a wonderful

36:13

conversation. I hope our audience agrees.

Hans will tell you in a second. Uh that was wonderful.

Uh >> thank you. >> Uh thanks so much.

Thanks for watching. Thanks for supporting us.

Hm.

36:29

>> Hello.

36:46

English. Okay.

37:07

Um, you know, it's it's also two different questions. One is me as an Israeli >> and the other is in the US and in Germany.

Uh it's a bit hard for me to say whether you have to be more careful as a

37:25

professor speaking about Israel >> in the US or Germany. I think that the pressures in both countries there also pressures in Britain in France.

I was recently in Paris people telling me similar things. Uh so I can't say for

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sure where it's more difficult. I suspect it's probably more difficult here because of the legacy >> of the Holocaust and the fear of being called anti-semitic.

>> I see. >> Uh but I'm not sure.

As for me as an Israeli,

38:00

uh let me put it bluntly. I don't give a damn.

I I say what I think. >> You can afford not to give a damn.

>> Yeah. I I say what I think.

>> Yeah. Okay.

Uh easy question. Do you still have the Reban signed letters?

38:16

>> Yes. >> Oh, >> yes I do.

In my basement. >> Uhhuh.

>> Yes. >> Are you going to publish them at any point?

>> Well, there's not much to publish. It's just >> Well, >> one line.

>> Yeah. >> Okay.

Um, imagine someone would have a

38:32

oneliner from signed by let's say KL Mars. Would be something, wouldn't it?

>> Okay. Um, oh, that's that's a nice one.

Why does Israel hold such strong influence over Western leaders? Could

38:48

blackmailing be a factor? The good old conspiracy theory raises its dark head?

>> Yeah. No, I'm I'm not I wouldn't say blackmailing, but but but I would say one thing.

>> Yeah.

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>> Uh not about Western leaders, but about the the prosecutor of the ICC. Mhm.

>> And there have been a lot of information of Israeli pressure, Mossad pressure on the International Criminal Court. >> Yes.

>> Uh which is uh

39:20

>> calling calling the uh um chief uh pro prosecutor an anti-semite like that. >> Yeah.

Yes. Or finding all kind of information on on improper sexual behavior and then trying to discredit

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him. These are tricks that the Soviets were very good at and I think the MSAD may well be engaged in them too.

>> Mhm. Next question.

Uh why both the media um and the prevailing discourse

39:53

tend to um omit or silence the role of projects um and um pro Yes. of projects of reconciliation and cooperation that

40:08

exist between Israeli and Palestinians. They do exist.

>> Yeah. >> And in fact they are not reported that much.

It's true and I think it would be much better to do that. I'm engaged in one of those myself and I'm trying to give it more attention,

40:24

>> but as you know in the news cycle, uh it's easier to go the other way and to show violence and discord rather than to present other options. Mhm.

Um would you see a certain pressure on on media and

40:41

discourse institutions not to report on that or do they do that out of um kind of self uh self-control? Look, I mean, I I I actually think that most of the pressure that we've seen on

40:58

mainstream Western media in Europe and in the US has not been not to report on the good story, but to report on the bad story, that there's been not enough reporting on the horrors in Gaza. Uh, and it's only recently that there's been

41:15

a bit more reporting. The very fact that international media are not allowed in and are not making an issue out of that uh is to me scandalous.

So I I don't see much of the so-called mainstream media actually doing its job properly.

41:32

>> Mhm. Do you think that the uh option of uh genocidical actions um against people today um is willingly v uh risen um due to the

41:48

lack uh due to the lack of concrete action against that? >> Yes.

I mean if there's impunity then uh the the whole idea of creating a genocide convention was to prevent

42:04

impunity but if you ignore it then you can expect that one state that gets away with it will be seen as licenses for other states to do the same. >> Mhm.

Next question is in German um of

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um for

42:43

>> look um yes so as I said I think before uh the term genocide has often been abused uh and used as is an expression of outrage rather than specifically as the crime as it's defined um by by the

43:00

UN convention. The same with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

I think it's important to stick to particular internationally agreed upon definitions. But to avoid calling things what they are is not the way out of it.

So, I

43:18

think you have to be precise >> to explain why you think something is what it is, but not to avoid using the term because you think it might be misused. And many people have refused to use the term genocide because they're afraid that it would be misused.

43:35

>> And I think if it is that, you have to call it by its name.

43:58

Yeah, of course. I mean that's that's what I said earlier.

I mean uh you can use the term fascist, communist, anti-semite, genocide, >> uh irresponsibly um and it makes you feel good by saying that the other side is bad.

44:15

>> Uh but it doesn't mean that these things don't exist. >> Yeah.

>> So so you have to make sure that if you use them, you're using them carefully, >> but don't avoid using them when you think that they apply. Mhm.

A sharp

44:32

knife has a small blade, but that's necessary to cut. >> Exactly.

>> Well, um, another question. German

44:57

Naziland.

45:18

Look, as as as I said before, I think the um uh the notion the the miracle notion of has to be not about criticizing or not

45:34

criticizing Israel because of the burden of the past. Whether it's your own family past or the past of your group or your nation, >> the burden of their past is important to recognize, but it has to be exercised in

45:49

a particular way to try to make sure that those that you can influence >> and those that you support are not engaged in such crimes. Mhm.

>> That's that's the that should be the legacy for Germany to be a protector of

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human rights, >> not to be a protector of a state even if it wants to defend the state that is engaged in severe breaches of human rights.

46:32

the Palestinian. >> Yeah, >> that's absolutely correct.

That's absolutely correct. uh there will never be security >> for the state of Israel and there will never be uh peace but even a sense of being at home

46:47

>> Mhm. >> for Israelis and Palestinians >> as long as there is no peace between the two of them.

>> Okay. Uh so I was just uh got the information.

I should stick to English questions because otherwise the software for the translation afterwards would get

47:04

a hiccup. >> Oh dear.

Okay. >> Okay.

So, sorry to those who asked in German, I'll try to translate into English. Um, how has Zionism changed um from its initial concept?

Was it

47:22

racist up from the very beginning? >> No, I don't think so.

No, Zionism was ethnationalist. >> Yeah.

>> Uh, ethnationalism can become racist, >> but not necessarily. >> But not necessarily.

I mean um um um

47:38

Zionism was greatly influenced by Polish nationalism, Ukrainian nationalism, German nationalism. All these nationalisms were ethnationalisms.

They were nationalism of a particular ethnos. >> It does not necessarily lead to racism.

It can >> uh how did it change? I think that

47:56

Zionism had two faces. One was emancipatory u about liberation of a persecuted minority.

Mhm. >> And the other was that in order to create a Jewish state >> in Palestine uh you had to exercise uh

48:14

settlement and that um settlement which came as settler colonialism was the other side. It was a side of removing another population and that process of removing that other population was one

48:29

that led to more and more racism, xenophobia and so forth. Mhm.

>> And these two things are happening together at the same time. In the 1920s and 30s, more Jews are being persecuted in Europe.

And those who are persecuted would want to go to a Jewish state that

48:44

would protect them. >> Mhm.

>> Which role that was another question. Um does uh Martin Boua play nowadays?

He was a an Austrian um Jew who um believed

49:00

very much and supported the idea of a of a Jewish state. On the other hand, he was one who called for uh a good relationship, a liberal relationship with the Arabs.

Is it a position which is still discussed in the philosophical

49:17

uh world or is he just history? No, it's discussed by you know people like Ombri Burm who was mentioned before and others.

It's not part of mainstream political discourse today. Gushalom,

49:32

this block of peace of the 1930s uh disappears >> uh after the war of 48. And as I said earlier, that whole notion, some of it coming from Bubber and K and others, and

49:48

some of it coming from socialism, from MAM, uh the war really destroys that. uh and Israel becomes a much more status country under Bengorian and it starts to reemerge in the 1990s and then is

50:04

assassinated basically with the killing of uh Rabine. >> Uh so yes, there's talk about it but it's not part of the main discussion.

>> Not very influential. I see.

Um oh that's that's a nice one. Um imagine uh

50:20

you were an Arabic Muslim migrant living in Germany. Would you stay here right now?

>> Well, I I know some who live here and stay here. Uh, but I think it's very difficult and that's something we didn't talk about, but I think the main

50:36

difficulty is that Germany as part of its lesson of the Holocaust has created this notion that you have to take responsibility for the past. >> And it's fine if you're a German of German heritage, but if you come from Syria, why should you feel

50:51

responsibility for the Nazi German past? then does that mean you can't become a German citizen?

So, Germany has not been able to uh square this circle and is having great difficulty integrating these populations. Uh so, if I wanted to

51:07

live here as a Muslim, I would also be active in changing that kind of concept of what is German today. >> I see.

Um who or what instance can stop Netanyahu? Um, right now Trump

51:23

>> Mhm. >> and in the mid future >> or his pacer >> Mhm.

>> could be he he has a pacer >> otherwise uh maybe elections but uh he's trying to rig the elections. >> Yeah.

>> So um at at at this very moment the only

51:41

person who's been able to stop him >> is Trump. not my favorite politician, but he's the only one who can stop Trump and who can stop Nathano and he has, but only for a little bit.

>> Um, what do you think about German

51:59

weapons to Israel? Should there be a general stop in providing uh Israel with German weapons?

The whole um marine, ships, submarines, etc., where all that comes even more than the uh engines for

52:14

the tanks comes from Germany. Should it all should there be a general stop of German weapons to Israel?

>> Yes. >> Mhm.

>> An embargo. >> Yeah.

>> There should be an embargo in Israel as part of

52:30

>> a timed embargo or in general forever. >> No, no, no, no, no, no, no, not forever.

There there should be an embargo as part of a campaign of pressure on Israel to change entirely its political paradigm.

52:45

>> Uh question. Yeah, we have four or five more minutes.

Um you said uh um liberaliz liberalization comes from outside but what about inside the Israel society?

53:03

um if BB is gone again um what would happen then? >> Yeah, it's it's hard to say but I I say briefly that the opposition the the big opposition in Israel uh has not proposed

53:19

any alternative politics. So that they would support um annexation and um >> they may not support annexation but they will but they will not stop the occupation.

>> Mhm.

53:34

>> Would a Palestinian state be a democratic one? >> Well, it would have to be.

Who could guarantee that? >> That that would be part of the entire project.

The project has to be to create two democratic states.

53:50

>> Israel is not terribly democratic now. >> U Palestine is no state, but there would have to be and by the way these were the conditions in the partition resolution of 1947, two democratic states.

>> Yeah. Um there are exhibitions right now

54:09

um about October 7th but um the the question taker uh says there have been no independent investigations. So question to you Omar what do you believe uh about October 7th and what do you

54:27

doubt? So first of all the the there there must be a state inquiry of of what happened an independent state in commission of inquiry.

Uh from everything we know uh the the event itself was a war crime and a a crime

54:44

against humanity uh that has no justification whatsoever. And I wish the people who orchestrated it could have been brought to justice.

They were all assassinated. So we can't do that.

Um last two questions. Uh when you talk

55:02

about the psychology of genocide, uh what would have happened in Israel if Israel would have lost one of the previous wars? >> Can you imagine that?

>> No,

55:17

that's a hard one. >> Yeah.

>> Um it was in no position to lose any war apart from the war of 1948. >> Mhm.

uh and in the case of the war of 1948 uh it's the one war that you can call a

55:33

war of existence for Israel. So it really had no option of losing it.

It would have not happened as a state. >> Okay.

Um so the very last question um have you ever talked um to those representatives

55:51

uh you or your like-minded colleagues have you ever talked to represent representatives of the government um I guess they mean the German governments who doubt um the thesis uh of genocide? Have you ever talked to them?

Have you

56:07

ever talked to let's say the uh Israel ambassador to Germany or Ron Proser? >> Well, that's two different things.

I I I would have loved to speak with German >> politicians. If they asked me, I would immediately agree to speak with him.

Uh

56:24

the Israeli ambassador is just a spokesperson for Natao. It's a waste of time to talk with him.

>> You wouldn't talk to him if he offers you a talk? >> Well, I mean, I would >> You know, you know how he called you after the interview?

>> Yeah. I I don't care about that.

If he wanted to talk with me, I would not refuse. But I have no interest in

56:41

talking with him. I don't even know what his views are.

He's a puppet for Nathano. So it's not that's of no interest to me.

But with a German politician, >> I would be very happy to sit and talk with him as I would politician. I never invited you.

>> No.

56:57

>> Maybe there is a chance, folks. >> So um thank you very much.

Uh there's one book I took in here, a very thick one. Yeah.

Yeah. You know him.

>> Um I took that because uh in the in the interview in with TLO he said yes there

57:15

is a certain fear and an element of radicalization when people say oh um they might or oppon our opponents might in the future do the very same thing to us. >> That's right.

>> What we do to them. So we have to be

57:32

first in cruelty. That's exactly what he writes about um about the radicalization of the German uh people um in the uh in Nazi Germany.

He said that was an element which officers from Russia wrote

57:49

home to their families said um we have to be afraid when when the Russians um are coming to Germany they will do or the Jews they will do the same >> things to us. And so that was an element of say so we have to fight until the

58:06

very end. >> And I wrote about that in Hitler's army.

>> Yeah. >> Uh in 1991 exactly that and cited many letters by German soldiers on the Eastern France saying exactly that if we lose that war they will come and do horrible things to us.

>> It's a horrible parallel, isn't it?

58:22

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Omar, thank you very much. >> Thank you.

>> Thanks for your questions. for

58:38

not just

58:57

heat.

59:23

Hey,

59:39

Heat. Heat.

Hey. Hey.

Hey.