The Secular Dimensions of the Zionist Project in Palestine: A Historical Review
This lecture will present two dimensions that affected most the Zionist movement and later on the state of Israel ever since the late 19th century: geography and demography. The talk will survey the changes in these two dimensions and will claim that the geographical issue has long been resolved and is irrelevant and the main issue in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is demographic.
http://publicsolidarity.de/ilan-pappe-am-16-dezember-2011-in-berlin/
This lecture will present two dimensions that affected most the Zionist movement and later on the state of Israel ever since the late 19th century: geography and demography. The talk will survey the changes in these two dimensions and will claim that the geographical issue has long been resolved and is irrelevant and the main issue in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is demographic.
http://publicsolidarity.de/ilan-pappe-am-16-dezember-2011-in-berlin/
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NewsTranskript
00:00Thank you, Professor Papel, for a very stimulating firework of ideas of sociological and historical
00:21origin.
00:22And we will try now to live up to the challenges that you posed to us.
00:27And I'm very happy to take up any comments or questions that you have and maybe we take
00:34three people at a time and then you have the opportunity to answer or comment.
00:44No fingers up.
00:45This is a big surprise to me.
00:49Here in the back, I have a question.
00:51I think it was behind you.
00:54Yeah, it was you.
00:55Okay.
00:56Okay.
00:57I'm a historian dealing with the Ottoman history and I appreciate your presentation.
01:06It was excellent.
01:07And I wanted to ask you about the roots of your presentation and this ethnic identity.
01:20I think it has a lot to do with the very recent, well, by now already 20, 30 years old literature
01:38on nationalism and ethnicity, as you probably are aware of.
01:44As you probably know, when the first professional literature appeared on the general phenomenon
01:52of nationalism, race, and ethnicity, it was very neutral about the phenomenon.
02:03It took it for granted as part of the reality.
02:07It did not challenge it, apart from Marx himself and Marxists did.
02:15But apart from that, in the main sort of liberal academic thought, the role of academics who
02:23dealt with collective identities such as nationalism and ethnicity was not to question the identity
02:31but to provide the evidence for the historical story of the nation or the ethnicity, explain
02:40the problems, and so on.
02:42In many ways, academics were archaeologists of the story, right?
02:48They sort of excavated, they took for granted as fully true the national myth or the national
02:56ethos or narrative, and then they academically provided the evidence for it.
03:03Somewhere in the 1960s, we were confronted with a different kind of approach, which deconstructed
03:09the whole phenomenon of nationalism and ethnicity in general.
03:14And there were various ways of doing it, but more or less nationalism was regarded as a
03:19human invention, a very modern invention.
03:24As someone wiser than me said, instead of being archaeologists, people who dealt with
03:32ethnicity and nationalism became experts on food because they looked at nationalism or
03:38ethnicity as a dish, and they could identify the moment that the dish was cooked in the
03:44kitchen.
03:45And they could even identify the chefs who prepared this dish, and because they knew
03:51what was included in the dish and what was not included in the dish, they could understand
03:56the problems later.
03:57For instance, very little Muslims or Islam was put into the Lebanese national dish, and
04:03you can see the problem.
04:05The indigenous people of Palestine were not put into the Israeli dishes, you know.
04:13Their churches and values were totally excluded from the Greek modern national meal.
04:18It was a more orthodox church, and so on.
04:21So people were aware of this, and so I think you approach this reality from a point of
04:29view which is critical on human inventions which are taken sacredly as if they are divine.
04:38I think that's where it comes from.
04:40And far more important, I think, you allow yourself to do it because you think there
04:45are real victims to these stories.
04:48Otherwise it's just an intellectual exercise.
04:50If the story that Israel, for instance, as a society, as a political system, as an educational
04:56system, tells about itself, if this story is the reason why Palestinians today are refugees,
05:03it's the reason why Palestinians today are occupied, then you would like to deconstruct
05:09the story, not just intellectually.
05:11You really believe that you are struggling for justice, for something that is better
05:18from what you have.
05:20Yes, please also introduce yourself when you have a question.
05:28Felix Pahr from the Green Party in Germany.
05:32My question is related to what you described as the perspective of the oppressor, which
05:37is relevant to the oppressed, but as you said, it may be relevant nonetheless in thinking
05:41about it.
05:42I wonder how what you said about these different perspectives and settlement colonialism and
05:49the others relates to different currents in current Israeli society and to the base of
05:56support for the settlement enterprise.
05:58This is something that I always have trouble understanding when I read about what happens
06:03is how different segments come to all together support this enterprise, which seems to be
06:08completely irrational from the point of view of some of their interests.
06:12Yes, okay.
06:13It's a brilliant question.
06:14Thank you, Felix.
06:15It's a very good question.
06:16I'll answer it in two ways.
06:23From a liberal Zionist perspective, the occupation of 1967, as you know, especially in the Green
06:30Party, there will be your allies in Israel, anyway.
06:34I'm here only for a day, so I don't mind criticizing Germans and so on.
06:38I meet them in the morning, so I don't have to be nice to you people.
06:41We haven't talked about the link yet, so you're in good position here.
06:49I know.
06:50You're absolutely right.
06:51One shouldn't generalize, especially not on the basis of one person.
06:56The liberal Zionists, as you know, don't view the occupation as a good thing.
07:01In fact, their whole literature, the political manifesto and so on, is that things were very
07:08good up to 1967.
07:09Things deteriorated since Israel.
07:15Their perspective on the colonizing of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is a bit different.
07:22The other, all the rest, which is now the majority in Israel, the whole political system
07:27has moved to the right, of course, don't see 1967 as a bad moment.
07:32Actually, they're seeing it as a better moment.
07:35Israel was going back to the ancient homeland, became much stronger, much more steadfast.
07:40With generations and generations born after 1967, it looks like ancient history, the fact
07:46that once the West Bank was not part of Israel.
07:52The West Bank is under Israeli rule twice the period that it wasn't.
07:57It's 40 years versus 19 years.
08:00It's very understandable that the distinction between the two parts is dimmed, is going
08:08away.
08:09I think there is a difference, but I do agree with you that in the end, it translates into
08:15support to the settlement project.
08:19I think that's why in the Israeli political system, we had the phenomenon of Kadima, a
08:25central party led by Ariel Sharon, or we had the phenomenon of Ariel Sharon as a prime
08:31minister, namely someone who was both.
08:36Both of the camp that thought that 1967 was a disaster and a camp that thought that 1967
08:41was a brilliant moment.
08:43You can do, as I said, with words and actions, you can overcome any contradiction.
08:50And I think what happened is the following, that once you accept that actually your basic
09:00right to be there in Palestine is a historical right, a secular historical right or a religious
09:09secular right, it doesn't matter.
09:11You are really, you have no choice but to view the local people as usurpers, as aliens.
09:20You alienate them by your desire to believe that you have the right.
09:27And this is something embedded in the Israeli Zionist psyche.
09:30It doesn't matter whether you're left or right.
09:32This is your homeland.
09:34And if someone is in your homeland, when you come back up to 2,000 years, he's a visitor,
09:39at best, an invader at worst, right?
09:43Now, the difference between the two sides of the political map in Israel is how much
09:50of the land you need in order to survive, in order to thrive, and what do you learn
09:55from history of these problems if you take the whole land?
09:58What to do with these invaders or visitors?
10:01So you have a liberal camp that says, the 80% of Palestine we took in 1948 is enough.
10:08It's 80% after all, right?
10:11Not only that, if we take the remaining 20% of the homeland, we incorporate a million
10:17at the time, in 67, a million and a half Palestinians who are now three and a half Palestinians.
10:21So we create a demographic problem after we succeeded in 48 by expelling a million Palestinians
10:29to create a kind of a gated Jewish community.
10:32So what's the point of demographically changing it?
10:37However, for whatever reason, it doesn't matter.
10:41The center map of Israel realized that certain things in history, if you wait, happen.
10:49Demographic realities don't change unless you intervene.
10:53You have to kill people, you have to expel them, you have to make sure that they don't
10:57make enough babies.
10:58You have to intervene.
11:00Demography does not work in your favor if you have a racist ideology.
11:04I mean, it doesn't work in your favor if you say, I would leave it to nature.
11:08No, if you leave it to nature, you're going to lose demographically.
11:12So there you have to intervene.
11:13Geographically, it seems that if you establish facts in a certain given moment, in certain
11:19historical circumstances, and the world allows you to wait 40 years after, geographically
11:26you're less in a problem.
11:28So what happened is, I think, for both liberal Zionists and ultra right-wing Zionists, there
11:35is no geographical question anymore.
11:38There is no two political entities between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean.
11:43There's one political power.
11:45It rules directly and indirectly.
11:48Now the question is, what to do with the demography?
11:53Do we expel people?
11:54Do we enclave them?
11:56What do we do with this?
11:57And I think there is a consensus that certain areas in the West Bank, either for strategic
12:04reason or religious reasons or national reasons, have to be, in the end of the day, part of
12:09the Jewish state, the European Jewish state.
12:12The euphemism in Israel is like not employing people after army service.
12:16The euphemism in Israel, you will find out, is the greater Jerusalem area.
12:20It could be in the south of the Sinai, but it's the greater Jerusalem area.
12:24Because that's a consensual thing.
12:26So you say, I'm expanding the greater Jerusalem area.
12:29It means you're going to cleanse Arabs and exit officially to Israel because it's the
12:33greater Jerusalem area.
12:35It's like Israel being in Italy.
12:37The greater Jerusalem area has nothing to do with Jerusalem anymore.
12:40But that doesn't matter.
12:44So you colonize, you settle, you depopulate in consensual areas.
12:53And you think, actually, that it's for your benefit that you have a very strong and a
12:57very serious ideological debate about the rest, where you have the crazy settlers that
13:04every now and then even the Netanyahu government, as this morning, is willing to evict them
13:09by force.
13:13I don't think they notice that nobody in the world takes it seriously anymore, these evictions
13:19of the crazy, fanatic settlers.
13:22They think, really, that this shows the last time they succeeded in doing it was when they
13:28evicted the settlers from Gaza.
13:30And they talk about the trauma, and that Israel was nearly in a civil war, and Sharon nearly
13:36got the Nobel Prize for this.
13:39But that was the last time that Europeans and Americans were fooled about Israel, I
13:45think, in great numbers.
13:48So I think you have to take for granted, that's my point, I don't know if you agree with me,
13:57that the issue of the settlements in Israel is no more separate from the core issue of
14:02how to solve the conflict.
14:05That's my take.
14:06And I think it will take a year or two before people will realize it.
14:09Namely, you cannot, I don't think the settlements are the main issue.
14:13They're not.
14:14I think the ideological nature of the Israeli regime is the main issue.
14:18Now, you still have Abu Mazen, you still have the PA, who would say, no, no, no, the settlement
14:23is the real issue, right?
14:25And that's why it's still alive.
14:27But this is not for too long.
14:28This is not for too long.
14:30So I think that, I don't know if it's good news or bad news, even, from a Palestinian
14:35perspective.
14:36All I'm trying to say is that the future of the settlements built in 1967, and the future
14:42of the settlements built in 1948, is the same future.
14:46It's the same future.
14:48It will eventually be discussed within the same paradigm of reconciliation and peace.
14:53But it will take, this is utopia, it won't happen in the near future, but this will be
14:59the only way.
15:00And until that happens, the settlers issue will remain as it is.
15:06Israel will talk about it, and every day will continue to settle greater Jerusalem until
15:11it gets to Tehran.
15:12Thank you for your presentation.
15:14When you, I follow you on what you said on, if we consider the Zionist project as a colonization
15:27project, and colonization, we have also at the other side the colonization process, the
15:34colonization project, what is your appreciation on the decolonization process?
15:43In the region, you mean, or?
15:45In the Palestinians.
15:46In Palestine.
15:47Oh, I see.
15:48Yeah.
15:49First of all, at least here, you and I, and the Palestinian, whoever is involved in the
15:58Palestinian struggle, have a common language.
16:02We call it decolonization, apart from certain political elite that calls it peace process.
16:11I think that the main issue there is the issue of representation, in my mind.
16:17And as long as this issue of representation is not resolved, it would be a very weak and
16:23very unsuccessful project of decolonization from their perspective.
16:27I think the world has a role to play as well.
16:29Like in South Africa, you need the outside intervention and pressure to make the decolonization
16:34succeed.
16:35It won't be just on the basis of your local forces.
16:38But in order for that pressure to be successful, I think the main issue is how to overcome
16:44the fragmentation of the Palestinian existence caused by the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing
16:49of 1948.
16:50And I don't think the Palestinians have solved that problem very successfully.
16:56I know that there are very serious attempts among different parts of the Palestinian community
17:01in the world to re-represent the issue of representation, so to speak.
17:08To try and work out, especially in this digital, virtual age of ours, how technically to bring
17:15to the fore a different kind of Palestinian representation.
17:19In this respect, for instance, the last agreement between the Hamas and the Fatah is irrelevant
17:27to my mind.
17:28It was very relevant three or four years ago.
17:30It was big news.
17:31I would have gone and celebrated myself the ability of the Palestinian factions to find
17:37a common government.
17:38It's irrelevant now.
17:39Who cares?
17:40Israel is occupying most of the Palestine.
17:45The Palestinians don't have the military power to resist.
17:48They have the military power maybe to exist, but not to resist.
17:53And you need a different agenda which connects to what's happening in the region, what happens
17:58in the world.
17:59For that, you cannot just involve the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
18:04You can't.
18:05The Israelis succeeded in forcing the Palestinians for a few years to say, Palestine is only
18:11the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinians are only those who live in the
18:15West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
18:17These days are over, but to rebuild the representation that will get all these Palestinian communities
18:24together in one representative body, it's a huge project, which I think undermines the
18:32process of decolonization in this respect.
18:33Do you want me to take three questions now?
18:34Yes.
18:35People begin to defrost.
18:36Yes.
18:37I'm a political scientist here at ZNH.
18:38I wonder if one cannot see also a fifth paradigm where Zionism kind of has dissipated into
18:59the region by virtually marrying into the mode of governing as common in the wider region
19:08of the Middle East, where Israel is more seen as an elite project with modes of exclusion,
19:14cultural and ethnic and religious, which will ultimately be challenged only through local
19:22and regional restructuring and sociological kind of fermentation, and not from outside,
19:30where basically Zionism only exists as an excuse, but actually where Israel operates
19:35just as another Tunisia or Egypt or Iran.
19:40I was wondering, you said that you consider yourself as an activist too.
19:45I was wondering, what is your main goal as an activist?
19:48Where do you think is the place to start in the Israeli society?
19:53Do you think you can do anything there or here in the West?
19:56Maybe we take the two together.
19:59Yeah, yeah.
20:00I will.
20:01Okay.
20:02Yes.
20:03Maybe there is a fifth paradigm.
20:04I'm not sure it's a paradigm of analysis, but more as a paradigm of prognosis, in a
20:09way, looking at the reality in the Arab world today, this sort of bottom-up, if you want,
20:17evolution and transformation, also in class issues, not just in issues of religion, ethnicity
20:26and nationalism.
20:29It is possible.
20:31I'm not sure that it excludes the balance I see between external pressure and internal
20:39transformation.
20:40I think the world has become so interconnected nowadays, and the Palestinians themselves
20:49become so dispersed, that you cannot limit it to the locality itself.
20:56It started as a Zionist project, which said, actually, what happens in Palestine is what
21:03happens to the Jews wherever they are.
21:06It ends with the Palestinians saying, what happens in Palestine, it matters what happens
21:11to Palestinians wherever they are, especially those who were expelled in 1948, and should
21:15be able to come back as part of the solution.
21:18So, I think that this means that there is a kind of distribution of labor there between
21:27the transformative agents, namely those who have the power to change the reality.
21:34Some of the people who are local do not belong there, and are not part of the game, and a
21:41lot of people who are not there are local, although they are not there.
21:45So, we have a global reality.
21:49So, I think it's a bit more complicated, although I think it's a fair remark about not forgetting
21:56that kind of elite, anti-elite kind of paradigm.
22:00And the second question was, an activist can do in Israel and outside and so on.
22:05Yeah, I think, basically, there are short-term and long-term goals for any kind of activism.
22:14The short-term, in my mind, are concentrated in the outside world.
22:20They have to do with pressure, with strong pressure on Israel, which can be sent in all
22:25kinds of ways, from sanctions, boycott, divestment, demonstrations, whatever.
22:32I think that activism transformed, very interestingly, in the Western civil society about Palestine.
22:40It used to be centered on what we used to call kissing-cousin dialogues.
22:47The Europeans felt, kind of a neo-colonialist way, that Palestinians and Israelis would
22:54talk to each other if they come to Berlin.
22:58They cannot do it on, and then invested, to my last calculation, 555 million euros, which
23:05you definitely need here in Europe, I understand, from your current problems.
23:10So, you wasted that.
23:11You should know that you wasted that money on something which is called the kissing-cousin
23:16dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, which made a few Palestinians very rich, even
23:20a larger number of Israelis very rich, but made the dialogue very poor.
23:25So, it's important to shift from enhancing dialogue to enhancing pressure.
23:32In the long-term, as an activist in Israel, I think you are left with the eternal question,
23:41which I discuss with Noam Chomsky in my book, The War in Gaza, where he believes that you
23:48should be embedded and wedded into the politics from above and try to influence it from there.
23:56And I believe in education, and of course, both are right in many ways.
24:01My own preference is to be in this long-term business of transformation, because anyway
24:07I won't see the results, and I can be optimistic, because if I go to politics, I will see the
24:13results.
24:14And from my experience in politics in Israel, these are always the opposite results of what
24:18I wanted.
24:19So, education, I know, I can always say to my students, in fact, you know, I had a home
24:26university in my…
24:27Wait a moment, I'll tell you a story, which I tell in one of my books.
24:31So, I think it's important to understand how an activist works.
24:34I moved in 2000 to a small suburb between Haifa and Nazareth, and the local newspaper
24:40had a kind of story of my movement, and more or less it said,
24:46Keep your daughters at night at the closed door, even Papaz moved to this place.
24:50And my wife said, no, we have to deal with this, and not in your usual way, in my reasonable
24:59way, and she was right.
25:01And we invited people to come to my living room to talk with them, and we had a great
25:05time.
25:06Fifty people came, and I think that really we helped to transform them in many ways,
25:10because they wanted to, of course.
25:12So, my son calculated that if I succeed in convincing fifty people a year, it only would
25:18take me 550 years to persuade a sizable number of the population.
25:24So, I like it, it makes me more…
25:27But seriously speaking, I really think both are dialogues.
25:31I really believe that BDS is a dialogue with the Israeli society.
25:36It's a dialogue, it's not a punishment.
25:38It's a dialogue.
25:39Say, we cannot accept you if you behave like this.
25:42And I think education is dialogue, and you don't give up on people.
25:47Actually, even if you pressure them, and if you try to be involved in education with them,
25:54it means you don't give up.
25:57And I think that's the most important thing.
26:00Thank you very much.
26:02I am closing the list now with a view to the clock, and there have been more…
26:06I'll be very short in my answers.
26:08…three more contributions and questions, but there will be time outside also with a
26:12glass of wine to ask Professor Papp the questions and continue our discussion.
26:17You were the next one.
26:18Stefan Kroll on Magazin Schattenblick.
26:20Your very interesting discourse on Christian Zionism reminded me on the fact that the peace
26:27researcher Johann Galtung told us after the massacre in Norway that he sees the greatest
26:34danger in the doctrine of dominionism in the United States.
26:38And I would ask you, how would you judge the part of the genuine belief in this kind of
26:47doctrine compared with pragmatic geostrategic considerations regarding US politics?
26:58And then Samuel Schilke from ZMO.
27:00Thank you very much.
27:01Samuel Schilke from ZMO.
27:02Thank you very much.
27:03I very much like your approach on settler colonialism.
27:06You basically present a very optimistic account where you say basically that the Zionist
27:11project is heading toward more or less peaceful decolonization one time in the future.
27:18But if we look at the history of settler colonization, they've been usually a lot more successful
27:23in getting away with it.
27:24Like the United States is the most famous example, but even if you think about what
27:28probably would be counted as the most successful cases of liberal democracy, which are the
27:32Scandinavian countries, which all colonized the Arctic regions with amazing brutality,
27:36and got away with it, and nobody talks about what really happened.
27:40Why do you think that Israel will not get away with it?
27:44In the back.
27:46My name is Yomi Taylor from Israel.
27:49Thank you, Professor Papa, for your talk.
27:52I'm Palestinian from Gaza as well.
27:54Ahlan dik.
27:55Thank you for your talk.
27:57My question is really directed to the two paradigms which you mentioned in relation
28:02to the future of Israel.
28:04I think the discussion of the future of Israel, I'm just wondering how do you see the
28:09this kind of debate about the future of Israel in terms of the Zionist project?
28:16It's still very much at the heart of the Zionist project.
28:19So I'm wondering where is anti-Zionism, or where does it fall into this kind of project?
28:25And how do you see these social protests, for example, today in Israel, playing a role
28:31into the transformation of the Israeli regime and all that sort of thing?
28:37Another point is that the Palestinians in your talk were kind of absent most of the
28:43time, understandably.
28:45But I'm just wondering about what kind of role do Palestinians, can Palestinians play
28:51in this kind of transformation?
28:54I'm thinking about where does the, what Hanan Haver, for example, or Kaprotskyn, call the
29:01binational consciousness, where does this term fall between those two paradigms?
29:05Yeah, good, excellent.
29:09First of all, the kind of new rights and new agendas and so on.
29:16When you talked, I thought about a movement in England, the English Defence League.
29:22Whenever they demonstrate against whoever they don't like, which is 95% of the population,
29:30they cloak themselves with the Israeli flag.
29:35And I think there is a connection between the fact, I think there's a similarity between
29:42the fatigue I described in Israel.
29:46There's no need to play a liberal democratic game anymore.
29:50And it's much easier and much more relaxing to play the racist game.
29:55And I think that they reflect, this kind of thinking in the West is reflected also in
30:01these movements.
30:02And I think it's not surprising that you see the connection growing between these movements
30:08in Israel.
30:09Very illuminating in this respect is what Marie Lappin, the daughter of Marie Lappin,
30:16says on her visit to Israel.
30:19She said, I'm not allowed to say half of the things.
30:23And Lieberman is allowed to say the Israeli foreign minister in France.
30:27And I think this is the new light to the nations that Israel may play in the future.
30:34But I agree with you.
30:36I think it's an area to notice, to look at.
30:41I'm not sure I was optimistic because of the peaceful decolonization.
30:47I don't know whether it's, peaceful is a hope.
30:51It's not a prediction.
30:53I'm afraid that sometimes in history, these things collapse, not because of peaceful transformation,
30:58but because of catastrophes.
31:00But because my family is there and I'm part of that area, I don't want to include it into my scenario.
31:07I would rather like to think that it's possible.
31:10But I agree with you about the success of others to do this.
31:15Yes, it's going to be a very exceptional success compared to the historical process.
31:25But it's also an exceptional case study in many ways.
31:28So maybe that's where my optimism lies.
31:31In two respects.
31:34One is its periodization.
31:37It matters when you appear as a settler-colonialist movement.
31:42It's really quite interesting to appear as a colonialist movement at a time
31:49when anti-colonialism is the main discourse.
31:53It's kind of a bizarre thing.
31:55It's like Romania now wanting to join the Eurozone.
31:58It's a bit strange, but they are Romanians.
32:01I don't understand what the Romanians are saying.
32:03But they want to join the Eurozone now.
32:05It's like Israel becoming colonialist at the end of the age of colonialism.
32:10So maybe anti-colonialism would succeed there,
32:13because the colonialism is so bizarre there in many ways.
32:17The second issue is, most of the examples you noted,
32:21and most examples I know of, there was a strong element of genocide there.
32:25Now, genocided people have a difficulty to stage a successful anti-colonialist movement.
32:32I hope you understand why.
32:34Genocided people cannot stage anything.
32:39The Palestinians were not genocided.
32:42And they are still there in very large numbers.
32:47And there is also the Arab environment, the Muslim environment.
32:55I don't see anything parallel to this in Scandinavia.
32:58I don't see anything parallel to this in the Americas or in Australia.
33:02So I think there are two reasons to think that there is an exception.
33:06But you're right, history is not on our side.
33:10So we have to be aware of this.
33:13And finally, and I assume this is the last...
33:17Oh, sorry, you asked two questions.
33:19But I think about anti-Zionism and so on.
33:24Yes, you're right.
33:25For the time being, to predict a change from within the Israeli society is not very realistic.
33:34But I must say that also in the case of apartheid South Africa,
33:38you did not rely on the deprogramming of racist whites.
33:43You needed a strong pressure from below of the ANC,
33:47and a pressure from the outside to make a racist white politician
33:52to decide that despite his racism, this cannot continue.
33:56I don't think people would be de-Zionized to the last,
34:00when a solution will come.
34:02But I think you need to create a situation where alternatives emerge.
34:08And that brings me to your last question,
34:10which is an excellent question.
34:12The agency of the Palestinians in this.
34:16And I think it's a good point.
34:18And you mentioned Amnon Raz Karkotzkin
34:20and his idea that the Jewish community in Palestine
34:24should go to the Palestinians and ask what role they see.
34:27And bi-nationalism is a kind of accommodation on this.
34:32I'm less interested in these models.
34:34I really think nationalism is not the best solution for that,
34:40for either side.
34:41But that's my position.
34:43That's why the bi-national model is not attractive to me.
34:48But I differ with Raz Karkotzkin.
34:52However, I think it's important to talk about the Palestinian agency
34:55in a much more general way than a concrete way,
34:58saying a bi-national model.
35:00You know, let me put it the way I like to do it usually,
35:04by concluding every talk like this,
35:06by saying that the Palestine solution is based on three A's.
35:12The first A is acknowledgement.
35:15Until the Israelis and the West does not acknowledge
35:19the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948
35:22and the ethnic cleansing of Palestine since 1948,
35:25there's very little chance for any progress.
35:28The second A is accountability.
35:30It's not enough to acknowledge.
35:32You have to be responsible.
35:34In this case, for me, any reasonable solution
35:38in the eyes of the Palestinians for the right of return
35:41is a very important way towards accountability.
35:44And I come to the third A, which is the Palestinian acceptance
35:48of a Jewish ethnic group in its midst,
35:52which is not easy.
35:54It is a colonialist project.
35:56There are 100 years of bad blood, of oppression,
36:00and I think it will help to hear
36:04more clear Palestinian visions
36:07of the place of the Jews in a solution.
36:10Now, we have a problem with that.
36:12The acknowledged Palestinian leadership
36:14talks about a two-state solution,
36:16and there will be no Jews in the little Bantustan
36:19that Abu Mazen wants.
36:21So there's no agency for the Jews there, right?
36:24The Palestinians who do not believe in it
36:26are not yet represented, so there is a problem.
36:28But I think it's an issue.
36:30And I think through there,
36:32through the Palestinian acceptance,
36:34there will be an Arab and a Muslim acceptance of this.
36:37As you know, there was a very important article
36:41by Azmi Bishara,
36:43who was once a leader of the Palestinian community in Israel
36:46and was expelled by the Israelis,
36:48that called on the Arab world.
36:51He wrote it in Arabic.
36:53It was about three generations of Jewish ethnicity
36:56in Palestine.
36:58In a way, countering Ahmadinejad
37:00and his ideas that the Jews
37:02should go back to their countries of origin.
37:04He said, no, they don't have to go
37:06to the countries of origin.
37:08You need to find the political,
37:10the cultural regime and system
37:12that includes those who live there today
37:14and those who used to live there.
37:18Between me and you,
37:20the whole land is a quarter of Shanghai.
37:23I mean, you don't have to be Einstein
37:25to understand Livno,
37:27far away from here,
37:29to solve this problem.
37:31It's a small part.
37:33It shouldn't be that difficult
37:35to find a reasonable solution for it
37:37if you get rid of certain
37:39racist,
37:41colonialist ideologies.
37:53Thank you very much
37:55for your interest
37:57and for coming.
37:59I would also like to thank
38:01Antija Buzas and Shanfi Ahmed
38:03very much for organizing this evening.
38:05I know that Antija very closely
38:07channeled you down to
38:09Berlin-Nikolazsee.
38:11And I would very much like to thank you
38:13for this inspiring evening
38:15and hoping that you come back
38:17to Berlin with more time
38:19very soon.
38:21Thank you very much.
38:51Thank you very much.