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00:00is that the biggest supporters of Israel today
00:03are white supremacists in the West
00:06or in places like Australia.
00:09And the biggest critics of Israel,
00:13the most prominent critics of Israel,
00:16are on the other side of the color line.
00:19And I think race itself has emerged
00:23as a very crucial marker of identity.
00:28It's certainly being claimed
00:29by any number of people in the West today
00:33as a badge of identity.
00:38And I think the defense of Israel
00:40is seen as a defense of white Western civilization.
00:44So, you know, this question never really goes away.
00:48It can seem out of sight.
00:53It can go out of sight for some time, but it reappears.
00:57And so what Du Bois called the central problem
01:02of the 20th century has reemerged
01:06as a central problem of the 21st century.
01:10Right.
01:13You also talk about how Israel is sort of a window
01:17to a future of a bankrupt and exhausted world.
01:22It's quite scary when I try to visualize such a future,
01:26especially for our children.
01:29As someone who has been to Israel,
01:33who writes about it,
01:35and who writes about complex historical
01:38and political issues,
01:40do you think there is any hope in this bankrupt world?
01:43Can we ever witness an equilibrium
01:46of world morality, as you write?
01:50Well, I think, you know,
01:51I wouldn't want to offer any kind of false hope
01:54or consolation,
01:57but I do find hope,
02:01at least, you know, in small quantities in,
02:07amongst young people who are shocked and outraged
02:13by what, not only by what the Israelis are doing,
02:16but the way they're being supported
02:18by their own governments in Europe and America.
02:24I think many of these young people
02:26who haven't received a, you know,
02:28any kind of great education,
02:31historical education of any kind,
02:34they're simply scandalized and horrified
02:38by the killing of children.
02:41And they ask themselves,
02:43why should children be killed in this way?
02:45Why should thousands of children be destroyed in this way?
02:50And I don't think there are any satisfactory answers
02:53to that question,
02:54no matter how much history you invoke,
02:56no matter how much you talk about the Holocaust,
02:58there is simply no way to justify
03:00the killing of tens of thousands of children.
03:05And I feel that those simple questions
03:08that the young people are asking today
03:11offer some kind of a way out of this,
03:17you know, poisonous mess
03:19that we found ourselves in,
03:21where people are flouting
03:25every, every basic rule and norm
03:31of ordinary morality
03:34to justify extreme violence.
03:36I think a simple reaction to that,
03:40that young people are manifesting today
03:42holds more hope for me
03:45than, you know, all the great major institutions
03:50and legacy periodicals of the world today.
03:54Right.
03:57To conclude this,
03:59I have a question for you as an Indian writer,
04:02I mean, someone who is from India,
04:05how do you see India's role
04:08in global politics,
04:09particularly in relation to the West
04:11and, you know, other non-Western countries?
04:1625.
04:35It's a...
04:45It's an opportunity to reclaim some of the...