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00:00But certainly, those are the sort of basic questions.
00:05Because let's take the first question.
00:10When we speak about the victims of history,
00:14we have a tendency to credit victims of history
00:21with a superior morality.
00:23We think that just because they've suffered,
00:26they will not inflict readily suffering on other people.
00:31It turns out, in almost every case,
00:36that people who have suffered often
00:40tend to act sometimes extremely cruelly
00:47towards weaker peoples.
00:49And so I think, in that sense, the question about Israel,
00:53a country populated at least partly
00:58by the survivors of the most extraordinary atrocity
01:03of modern history, the Holocaust,
01:06the fact that they themselves have created
01:09millions of refugees, millions of victims,
01:13is a fact of history that it's very hard to wrap your head
01:18around it, but there it is.
01:20And it just shows that nobody who is a victim
01:24can be expected reasonably to behave
01:27in a highly moral fashion.
01:29We must be always prepared for the victim
01:34to also act horribly.
01:37The second question, of course, why
01:40is it that powerful Western nations turn a blind eye
01:45to Israeli violations of international law
01:49and basic morality?
01:52And I think the answer is a complex one.
01:58There are several reasons here.
02:00There is obviously a very strong factor of guilt,
02:04the fact that most of European nations
02:06were complicit in the destruction of European Jewry.
02:11Even those who fought the Nazis, the nations
02:16ranged against the Nazis, were extremely reluctant,
02:19as I describe in my book, to accept Jewish refugees,
02:24both during and after the Holocaust.
02:27This is an extraordinary fact.
02:30And that Jewish suffering was ignored
02:32for an extremely long time.
02:35And I think later generations, which
02:37have grown up with a greater awareness of these facts,
02:44feel a sense of obligation towards the state of Israel
02:48and discharge it in ways that are obviously
02:53deeply, in a way, unfair to the Palestinians.
02:59But nevertheless, there we are.
03:01The other factor here is that organized opinion
03:07in favor of Israel is much, much stronger than it used to be.
03:12And it is as a result of very concerted lobbying efforts
03:17by the state of Israel, the fact that Israel
03:20has created a network all across Western Europe,
03:23and most prominently in the United States, of sympathizers.
03:27So we know, Jimmy Carter said this.
03:31Any number of some of the most experienced politicians
03:34have said this, that if you go against Israel
03:37as a legislator in the United States,
03:40as a member of the Congress, or as a member of the Senate,
03:43you're very likely to be thrown out in the next.
03:50That's the end of the political career.
03:51Yeah, that's the end of your career suicide.
03:55So the power of Israeli propaganda efforts
04:00has reached a point where it's politically suicidal
04:04to criticize Israel.
04:06That means that Israel today has complete impunity,
04:11enjoys complete impunity.
04:12Just today, in fact, we see the news
04:15that the US Congress has basically
04:23passed a resolution penalizing the authorities
04:30of the International Criminal Court
04:33and imposing sanctions on them.
04:35Why?
04:35Because these people have issued criminal warrants
04:38against Netanyahu.
04:41So the highest legal authorities in the world
04:46are being sanctioned today by American politicians
04:50because they have dared to bring criminal charges
04:53against Israeli politicians.
04:56So this is the condition.
04:57This is the state we are in right now.
04:59So every institution.