Source: “An Agenda Dressed Up in Violins?” — Dan Naturman and Noam Dworman (Comedy Cellar) in conversation with Peter Beinart.

Purpose: Each entry isolates (1) Beinart’s position, (2) his reasoning, and (3) the specific facts, sources, or analogies he cites. Where a claim is empirically checkable, or where the transcript itself contains a dispute or looks garbled, there is a fact-check note. Positions are attributed to Beinart, not endorsed.

Legend for claim type: [E] empirical/checkable, [I] interpretive/normative, [H] historical claim, [A] analogy.

1. Ethical collapse precedes physical collapse (the religious frame)

Position: Israel’s physical survival is bound up with its ethical survival. Beinart frames this as a “worry,” not a prediction, and explicitly disclaims any knowledge of God’s intentions.

Reasoning: He says he only infers principles from sacred texts. His reading of Jewish tradition is that when it examines Jewish cataclysms, it emphasizes Jewish sinfulness and asks Jews to look inward — to a degree he admits is “uncomfortable.” He believes God acts in the world but claims no access to how.

Evidence cited:

The two prior collapses of Jewish sovereignty: the Kingdom of Judah destroyed by Babylon (~586 BCE) and the Hasmonean dynasty destroyed by Rome ~500+ years later. He claims tradition insists physical collapse was preceded by ethical collapse.
Jeremiah passage (read from his 2012 book The Crisis of Zionism): “If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood… then will I cause you to dwell in this place.”
His book’s claim that nuclear weapons and anti-missile shields will be useless “on the day that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians march nonviolently” for equal rights.

Fact-check note: The 586 BCE and Roman-destruction dates are standard. Whether Jewish tradition uniformly attributes collapse to “ethical collapse” is his interpretation of the tradition, not a settled historical claim [I].

2. Jewishness is not sustainable without Judaism

Position: The “beating heart” of Jewish tradition is Torah; enduring Jewishness without Judaism is unlikely.

Reasoning: He distinguishes Judaism from pure belief — it emphasizes action and fidelity to law (doing mitzvot) more than abstract belief. He argues belief-as-belief matters less in Judaism than in (certain Protestant) Christianity.

Claim type: [I] This is a theological/sociological interpretation, contested even among people who share his politics (he concedes this).

3. Rejection of demographic determinism (“critical mass”)

Position: He agrees cultural and demographic change can produce powerful backlashes, but rejects the host’s determinism about specific population ratios producing predictable outcomes.

Reasoning: Outcomes depend on “the story of the nation” that takes hold. The US expanded its notion of Americanness to absorb massive demographic change.

Evidence cited:

Early 20th-century Catholic and Jewish immigration transformed a “white Protestant northern European country,” and the US adapted.
[H/E] What it meant to be Catholic in the US “was different in 1980 than it was in 1920” — used to argue identities are historically mobile.

4. Equality under law and crosscutting identities (core one-state argument)

Position: There is already one state between the river and the sea, more than 50% Palestinian, with most Palestinians lacking citizenship — a more dangerous arrangement than a divided society where everyone lives equally under law.

Reasoning: Legal equality makes identities “more mobile” and prevents politics from remaining binary. Under equality, coalitions form across the Jewish/Palestinian line, so those two identities stop being the only axis of politics.

Evidence cited:

Jerusalem Pride: the chief rabbi, the (Christian) patriarch, and the imam held a joint press conference opposing the parade — religious identity cutting across ethnicity.
[E/H] Mansour Abbas and Ra’am (Islamist party) split from the Joint List and joined Naftali Bennett’s government, partly over the role of women and LGBT issues — a crosscutting cleavage.
Hypothetical: Jewish and Palestinian trade unionists forming one party; Jewish and Palestinian business owners forming another. Woody Allen “interfaith camp” joke.

Fact-check note: Population share “more than 50% Palestinian” between the river and the sea depends on how you count (Gaza inclusion, methodology) — worth verifying against a specific demographic source [E]. The Ra’am/Bennett coalition (2021) is accurate [H].

5. Secession counterexamples (rebuttal to “secession is where it’s at”)

Position: Many diverse, deeply divided societies have not seceded and live under a shared legal order.

Evidence cited:

Canada and Belgium as functioning binational states; India, Indonesia, and the US as “incredibly diverse.”
On India: partition itself was “one of the most brutal and horrifying” losses of life in history — i.e., secession was the catastrophe, and we can’t know what a unified Raj would have produced.
Nigeria has large Muslim and Christian populations (not a single small minority); Switzerland, Belgium, Canada described as multinational.

Key move: He reframes the question away from “one state vs. two states” to “does everyone live equally under the law” — noting even a two-state outcome would leave Palestinian citizens in Israel and (in his view) Jewish settlers with a right to live in the West Bank. He notes he was a two-stater his entire adult life until a few years ago.

6. Settlements and the sincerity of two-staters

Position: US Jewish institutions professing devotion to two states have done nothing to stop the settlement growth that makes two states impossible.

Reasoning: If partition is the goal, the settlement expansion is the thing that forecloses it; failing to fight it reveals the professed commitment as hollow (or at least inert).

Evidence cited (posed as challenges):

What have AIPAC, the ADL, and Chuck Schumer done to stop settlement growth?
He grants Schumer probably is sincerely for two states (“sodium pentathol lie detector” quip) but says they “kicked the can down the road.”

Claim type: [I] Largely a normative/accountability argument; the underlying settlement-growth trend is [E] and checkable.

7. South Africa analogy and the “psychology of supremacy”

Position: The belief that granting Palestinians equality means mortal danger for Jews is the characteristic belief of groups accustomed to supremacy.

Evidence cited:

Personal: [H] His parents are South African; he spent childhood there. White South Africans saw the ANC as an existential threat.
The ANC was not nonviolent — armed resistance, Soviet weapons, “bloodthirsty language,” the slogan “one settler, one bullet, kill the boer,” and the flag symbolism (green/yellow/black = land/gold/people).
White South Africans were ~10% of the population versus Jews at ~50% in Israel/Palestine.
Mandela: the ANC was nonviolent from the early 20th century until the 1960s; Mandela declared nonviolence a failure and helped found the military wing (Umkhonto we Sizwe — transcribed “Kizway”). In prison he refused to renounce violence until a date was set for free elections — “the same thing the IRA did.”
Ian Paisley called the Good Friday Agreement (Catholic political equality) “a prelude to genocide”; white Southerners under Jim Crow thought similarly.

Fact-check notes:

ANC founded 1912, turned to armed struggle 1961 (Umkhonto we Sizwe) — Beinart’s timeline is accurate [H].
The Mandela “won’t renounce violence without an election date” framing is broadly accurate but compresses a longer negotiation history — verify the specifics [H].
Confirm the exact Paisley “prelude to genocide” quote and its target (he opposed the Agreement fiercely; the exact wording is checkable) [E].
The ~10% vs. ~50% population comparison is a rhetorical contrast; the South African white share (~9-10% late apartheid) is accurate [E].

8. Palestinian violence is not primarily Islamist

Position: Most historical Palestinian violence against Israelis was not committed by Hamas or Islamists.

Reasoning: Violence is a predictable response to dispossession across all ideologies, not a product of Islam specifically.

Evidence cited:

The PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), among the most violent 1970s groups, was led by George Habash — a Christian and a Marxist.
Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall” (1923): “every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized.” Beinart uses this to argue violence tracks dispossession, not creed (“Islamist, communist, nationalist, vegetarian, leftist, Buddhist”).

Fact-check note: Habash/PFLP details and the Jabotinsky quote are accurate [H]. Note Beinart himself concedes Hamas “committed terrible war crimes” on October 7, in the 1990s, and in the Second Intifada.

9. “Colonizer vs. colonial” is an unhelpful semantic debate

Position: One can hold that Jews are indigenous to the land and that Zionism has settler-colonial features.

Evidence cited:

Afro-Liberians returning to West Africa were indigenous to the region yet their movement had settler-colonial features.
He claims Jabotinsky himself believed Jews were indigenous while using colonization language.

Note: The host pushes back that Jabotinsky meant “colonists” in a different sense and that many early Zionists were Holocaust refugees, not colonial powers like England/France. Beinart’s response is that the “unique nature” of the case makes the category labels unhelpful [I].

10. Hamas history and the “Iran proxy” framing

Position (Hamas): Israel initially viewed Hamas as the moderate, less-dangerous alternative to the secular PLO.

Evidence cited:

In the late 1980s, as Hamas emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood and before it took up arms, Israel preferred it gain influence over the secular PLO. (This is a well-documented Israeli historiographical claim — verify against specific historians [E].)

Position (Iran): Iran is a Persian Shia power seeking leverage in a Sunni Arab region; the Palestinian cause is a geopolitical asset to embarrass accommodationist Sunni states.

Reasoning: Outside sponsors join for their own advantage, but the struggle is Palestinian-led — so “proxy” language overstates Iranian control.

Evidence cited:

The Soviet Union backing the ANC / South African Communist Party without controlling the black-led struggle; the USSR not controlling Vietnam.
Hamas broke with Iran over the Syrian civil war — used to argue Iran does not control Palestinian actors.

Note: The host disputes the analogy, arguing Iran’s willingness for self-destructive sacrifice differs from the USSR [I].

11. What Palestinians want / leadership legitimacy

Position: We can’t know what Palestinians would choose because they aren’t allowed to choose their own leaders.

Evidence cited:

PLO’s early “secular democratic Palestine” position; Arafat’s 1974 UN speech language about Jews living in peace without discrimination.
1988: PLO accepts two states.
Palestinian citizens of Israel — the only Palestinians who consistently vote — back parties (Hadash, Balad) more committed to liberal democracy than Jewish Israeli parties; Ayman Odeh cited as an example.
Marwan Barghouti and imprisoned leaders are the only figures Palestinians respect (uncorrupt, have suffered); if released and elections held, the outcome is genuinely unknown.

Fact-check note: Arafat’s 1974 “gun and olive branch” speech is real; verify the exact quoted line [E]. The PLO’s 1988 acceptance of partition (Algiers Declaration) is accurate [H].

12. Negotiations and the Olmert–Abbas offer

Position: Palestinians have made concrete proposals; the gap was smaller than commonly portrayed.

Evidence cited:

Bernard Avishai’s account of the Olmert–Abbas negotiations: Olmert offered to annex 6.3% of the West Bank and return 5.7%; Abbas countered with roughly a 1.9% equal swap. Olmert’s 6.3% was to capture Ariel, which reaches deep into the northern West Bank and cuts off Tulkarm and Qalqilya. Beinart calls it “the best Israeli offer ever.”
Generalization: Palestinian offers ~2% equal land swap; Israeli offers 6-10% annexation.

Fact-check note: This traces to Bernard Avishai’s 2011 New York Times Magazine piece on the 2008 Olmert–Abbas talks. The specific percentages and the Ariel/Tulkarm/Qalqilya geography are checkable against that article and other accounts [E]. Worth cross-checking Olmert’s own memoir figures, which differ in some tellings.

13. Salam Fayyad and the “moderation goes unrewarded” argument

Position: When Palestinian leaders do exactly what Israel and the US ask, they are not rewarded with reduced settlement growth.

Evidence cited:

Salam Fayyad, PM roughly 2007-2013, supported the Arab Peace Initiative, was most committed to renouncing violence and institution-building, and was liked by Israelis and Americans. Yet Fayyad reportedly said on leaving office that settlement growth “didn’t stop for a single day.”
Framing: 1988 two-state acceptance + Oslo were “a tremendous concession”; the Arab Peace Initiative was accepted; still no halt to settlements — which he argues delegitimized two-states in Palestinian eyes.

Fact-check note: Fayyad’s tenure dates (~2007-2013) are accurate. Verify the exact “not a single day” quote and attribution [E].

14. Right of return — morality and the sentimentality asymmetry

Position: If Jews and Palestinians are moral equals, it is hard to justify a Jewish right of return after 2,000 years while denying a Palestinian right after ~75 years.

Reasoning: Jewish aliyah is itself deeply sentimental — many who make aliyah lack a recent family connection, yet pray facing Israel. Israel, of all states, is least positioned to reject return after 75 years given it grants return after two millennia.

Claim type: [I] A normative consistency argument. The host’s counter is that right of return is “a political agenda dressed up in violins” and that Jewish return is not paired with expelling current residents.

15. Right of return — international law and the UN

Position: Under international law there is a Palestinian right of refugee return, though Palestinians might concede it in negotiations for things they value more (e.g., a sovereign state with a capital in Jerusalem).

Sub-claim on the UN: The UN is “a super pro-Israel institution.”

Evidence cited:

The many anti-Israel resolutions sit in the General Assembly, which has little enforcement power; the Security Council — where power lies — is pro-Israel, so Israel is never sanctioned there while its neighbors are.

Fact-check note: The General Assembly vs. Security Council enforcement distinction is accurate; the “Israel never sanctioned / neighbors are” claim is checkable against the Security Council record and the US veto history [E]. “Right of return under international law” is contested — UNGA Resolution 194 is a resolution, not binding law, and legal scholars dispute its status [I/E].

16. Immigration policy favoring Jews is discriminatory

Position: A state with internal equality but a Jews-only (or Jews-favored) immigration policy would still be discriminatory.

Evidence cited:

A US that treated all religions equally domestically but admitted only Christians would be “fundamentally wrong.”
He allows one exception he’d accept: an immigration policy favoring both Jews and Palestinians (the two main populations), with everyone else in third place.

Claim type: [I] Normative.

17. One-state civil-liberties objections — his rebuttal

Position: He rejects the host’s assumption that a one-state outcome would end gay rights, a free press, women’s conscription, teaching evolution, alcohol licenses, etc.

Evidence cited:

Palestinian citizens of Israel vote Hadash/Balad and “on the issues you’re talking about sound like AOC and Bernie Sanders”; Ra’am is socially conservative “but no more than Shas.”
Palestinians are split religious/secular like Israeli Jews; not uniformly “ISIS-style.”
You can’t infer future behavior from the West Bank and Gaza because those populations live under occupation and don’t choose leaders; the one place Palestinians consistently vote (inside Israel) they back liberal-democratic parties.
[E/H] The Church of St. Porphyrius operated in Gaza under Hamas until Israel damaged it during the war — offered as evidence that even under Hamas a Christian institution functioned.
He recommends interviewing Palestinian intellectuals: Yousef Munayyer, Nora Erakat, Mohammed Shehada, Tareq Baconi, Raja Shehadeh.

Fact-check notes:

Ra’am/Shas social-conservatism comparison is a rhetorical equivalence [I].
St. Porphyrius: Beinart says “9th century.” The site’s Christian origins are traditionally dated to the 5th century and the current structure often to the 12th; it was damaged by an Israeli strike in October 2023. Verify the dating and the strike details [E].
The host’s Google snippet in the transcript concedes Arab-Israeli support for gay marriage is low and trails secular Israelis — relevant counter-evidence to weigh.

18. The Middle East democracy deficit is externally imposed

Position: The scarcity of Arab/Muslim democracies is not inherent to Arab or Muslim identity but reflects great-power (especially US) preference for pro-American autocrats.

Evidence cited:

The 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran.
An elected Egyptian government overthrown with Saudi and Emirati help.
White South Africans similarly pointed to the lack of African democracies.

Fact-check notes:

Mossadegh 1953 (US/UK-backed coup) is accurate [H].
The Egypt claim is garbled in the transcript (“we helped the Saudis and Emiratis overthrow that”) — almost certainly a reference to the 2013 removal of Morsi, backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Verify the specifics and the degree of US involvement, which is more contested than the Mossadegh case [E].

19. Risk symmetry and October 7

Position: Every path carries risk; the status quo is not a safe baseline.

Reasoning: Controlling a large rights-less population is itself dangerous — October 7 happened under the current system, not under his proposed equality. Giving people nonviolent mechanisms to influence government makes them less likely to take up arms.

Claim type: [I] A causal/strategic argument. The empirical anchor (October 7 occurred under the existing arrangement) is factual; the inference that equality reduces violence is contested [I].

20. The Nakba, Benny Morris, and Arab intentions

Position: Morris deserves esteem for the Israeli-archive work but is not credible on Arab intentions because he does not use Arabic-language sources.

Evidence cited:

The Morris–Pappé debate is over whether expulsion followed a plan (Plan Dalet) or happened ad hoc.
Morris concedes Israel wanted a Jewish-majority state; his Ari Shavit interview line that “Ben-Gurion was a transferist” who understood there could be no Jewish state with a large hostile Arab minority.
Better source on Arab intentions: Shay Hazkani, Dear Palestine: A Social History of the 1948 War (University of Maryland; Arabic speaker). Beinart quotes: an examination of “many hundreds of documents… yielded not a shred of evidence of an extermination plan for the land’s Jews,” and that Haganah intelligence itself found the Arab army “does not intend to carry out a massacre of Jews if they surrender and wave a white flag.”
[E/H] Haifa was “ethnically cleansed” in April 1948, before the pan-Arab invasion in May 1948 — used to rebut the host’s “the Arabs started the war” framing.

Fact-check notes:

The Haifa dates are accurate: the battle for Haifa was April 21-22, 1948; the pan-Arab invasion began May 15, 1948. Whether “ethnic cleansing” is the correct characterization of the Haifa exodus is exactly the Morris/Pappé dispute [E/I].
The Hazkani book, its author’s credentials, and the two quoted passages are checkable against Dear Palestine [E].
The “Ben-Gurion was a transferist” line is from Morris’s 2004 Haaretz interview with Ari Shavit — verify exact wording [E].
The host counters that Morris also documented Arab calls to “drive the Jews into the sea” (in Righteous Victims or 1948); Beinart does not fully concede this [E].

Consolidated fact-check checklist (highest-value empirical claims)

Verify these first

West Bank/Gaza population share “more than 50% Palestinian” between the river and the sea — source and methodology.

Olmert–Abbas offer figures (6.3% annex / 5.7% return / Abbas’s ~1.9%) and the Ariel–Tulkarm–Qalqilya geography — Bernard Avishai, NYT Magazine 2011.

Salam Fayyad’s “settlement growth didn’t stop for a single day” quote and attribution.

Hazkani, Dear Palestine — the two quoted passages and the “not a shred of evidence of an extermination plan” claim.

Morris “Ben-Gurion was a transferist” — Ari Shavit / Haaretz 2004 interview, exact wording.

Haifa exodus timing (April 1948) vs. pan-Arab invasion (15 May 1948) — accurate as stated; the “ethnic cleansing” label is the contested part.

Ian Paisley “prelude to genocide” quote re the Good Friday Agreement — exact wording and source.

St. Porphyrius Church dating (“9th century” per Beinart vs. 5th-century origins / 12th-century structure) and the October 2023 strike.

Egypt claim (“we helped the Saudis and Emiratis overthrow” an elected government) — almost certainly Morsi 2013; verify specifics and degree of US involvement.

UN claim that Israel is never sanctioned by the Security Council while its neighbors are — check against the Security Council resolution and US veto record.

Israel viewing 1980s Hamas as a useful counterweight to the PLO — attribute to specific historians.

Arafat 1974 UN speech and PLO 1988 Algiers Declaration language — exact quotes.

Content

An Israel Conversation

CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro - four nice things about Peter Beinart
4:50 Will God punish Israel? Jeremiah, tradition, and belief
13:20 The critical-mass hypothetical: a 49% Hasidic America
22:03 Quebec, Czechoslovakia, South Africa - why not divorce?
41:35 The right of return: “You can cherry-pick anything”
54:24 1948: They were closer to the Holocaust than we are to COVID
63:40 Day one of a one-state solution: the list
79:53 “An agenda dressed up in violins”

Claude Says:

Peter Beinart - editor-at-large of Jewish Currents, New York Times opinion writer, and author of “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza” - joins Noam Dworman and Dan Naturman for an honest, occasionally heated conversation about the questions underneath the Israel-Palestine debate. Does Jewish tradition teach that Israel’s survival depends on its ethics - and does Beinart, an observant Jew, mean that literally? Is there such a thing as demographic critical mass? Why is secession the answer everywhere from Quebec to Czechoslovakia, but one shared state the answer here? Is the Palestinian right of return a sacred principle, a practical question, or - as Noam puts it - “an agenda dressed up in violins”? Plus: South Africa and Mandela, Iran, the Olmert-Abbas offers, what Benny Morris actually wrote about 1948, Robert Jackson’s “suicide pact,” and what day one of a one-state solution would look like for a gay couple in Tel Aviv. Two people who disagree about almost everything - except the settlements - actually talk to each other.

Peter’s book: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza https://bit.ly/4ygbHH8
Peter’s Substack: The Beinart Notebook https://peterbeinart.substack.com/

Transcript

Intro - four nice things about Peter Beinart

0:00 · Dan Nman here with Noom Dorman, owner of the world famous comedy seller. We are coming at you remotely via Zoom and we have with us our special guest Peter Binar, professor of journalism and political science at the Bumar School of Journalism at the City University of New York, contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, editor at large of Jewish Currents. His fourth book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza, was published in 2025 and won the PEN John Kenneth Galbrath Award for nonfiction.

0:30 · And he is also, we’re all remote today.

0:33 · Uh Gnome is at his uh is at his uh summer home in Maine. I am at my winter and summer home in Manhattan. And Peter’s coming at us from wherever he’s coming from. And welcome.

0:46 · Welcome, Peter Binard. It’s been it’s been a it’s been a a long time coming.

0:50 · Um, okay. I want to say a few nice things about Peter Bard at the top. Uh, first of all, I wrote them down. First of all, and Dan, you’ll be interested in this. Peter was an early adopter of the comedian Modi. Long before Modi became a huge comedian in the world, Jewish comedy world, the regular comedy world, Peter was a fan of Modi. I know this from some personal dealings. And you and you called that one correctly.

1:17 · Number two, You had a long interview with Coleman Hughes and afterwards he thought the world of you. I can tell you as a friend of Coleman, he he spoke extremely nicely about you and I trust his instincts on things. He had a very uh high regard for your vibe. Uh even though you guys don’t agree. Uh, number three, to my chagrin, about 12 years ago, you had a debate with Alan Dersuitz.

1:50 · And although I wanted to say that Duruitz wiped the floor with you, I had to admit, and I admitted it to our mutual friend Fred Kaplan at the time that I thought you bested Duruititz in that uh Israel debate. I don’t know if you remember the one or if there was only one. I don’t know, but uh I would tell people they should go back and um look at that. And number four, this is most important, you know, and of course we don’t agree on a lot and we’re going to talk about that, but um I think I used to hear you say, and I used to kind of roll my eyes.

2:20 · They say, “I’m criticizing Israel because I want Israel to be better. I’m doing the I’m saying this stuff for Israel’s benefit.” And I and I and I, you know, I thought, “Yeah, sure.”

2:34 · But now that I become personally so pessimistic about Israel’s uh kind of trajectory as a pariah state in the world and the uh repercussions that I think are likely to Jews throughout the world, I have to be honest and uh in saying and Dan and listeners know this that I’ve been forcing myself to reconsider um some past opinions in a new light, a more realistic light, a more practical light, I don’t know what you want to call So I don’t roll my eyes at that point of view as I once did.

3:07 · So even though I never said that to you, I have to now retract it, you know, uh as a matter of honor. Um, and so let me say and I you know this debate I’m so fatigued of this topic, so fatigued of getting into fights with people that I I and I’m sure we will fight, but I I I really I’ve been following you over the years and I’ve made certain notes to myself like someday I want to ask him this, someday I want to ask him that.

3:33 · So let me start with something that I underlined and I brought it up here in my Kindle from your book, The Crisis of Zionism. This is way back like 10 years ago that came out.

3:45 · Uh 2012. Yeah.

3:48 · And and so this is this highlight here. This is a wonderful thing about Kindle. This is from from 2012 or 2013. And by the way, this is the context that I highlighted this. I want to check it. You are an observant Jew when you go to an Orthodox temple. Correct.

4:04 · Uh I I do try to be an observant Jew. I don’t I don’t always succeed, but I I try to be an observant Jew. Um and uh I go to a ci I I go to a synagogue which has a has a mita. So I think by the standards of many people that would consider again these questions are can be contested but I think it would be considered an orthodox synagogue.

4:24 · Also no and please note that behind Peter are books that uh though I can’t read they seem like the talmud or something behind you. I I’m doing something called dafomi. So you means a page of talmud a day. It it started at beginning of um January 2020. the cycle will end in the next summer. So, this is I’ve been cumulating to of the Talmet as I as I go through.

Will God punish Israel? Jeremiah, tradition, and belief

4:50 · Yeah. Well, they there it’s a multi-olume series behind you.

4:52 · But Dan, anybody could put a Zoom anybody could anybody could put a Zoom background in this day. Anyway, it does.

4:59 · That’s true.

4:59 · All right. So, series. So, so so I’m going to read and it’s it’s it’s a little bit long. Um but I think it needs to be long. And this is um what I underlined. Accepting that the Jewish condition has fundamentally changed requires looking our tradition for guidance about how Jews should treat the people we rule, not just how we should endure treatment from the people who rule us. That guidance will not always be comfortable.

5:24 · Jewish tradition offers no simple lesson for how to wield power. And the lessons it does teach can sometimes be hard for modern liberals to stomach. But it is striking that when describing the previous two times that Jewish sovereignty failed, the kingdom of Judah’s destruction by the Babylonian Empire around 50 586 B.CE and the Himmonian dynasty’s destruction by the Romans more than 500 years later. Our tradition insists that physical collapse was preceded by ethical collapse.

5:52 · Again and again, Jewish texts connect the Jewish right of sovereignty in the land of Israel to Jewish behavior in the land of Israel. In the words of Jeremiah, quote, “If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt, then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever.”

6:21 · And my question, you know, let me finish it to be fair to you because you said something very interesting and then I’ll go back. My question regards that, but I just want to the next paragraph. You you should take some credit for today too.

6:34 · Israel’s physical survival is bound up with its ethical survival. Whether or not Israel’s nuclear weapons and anti-missile shields can protect it from Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, they will be of no use on the day that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians march nonviolently. All right, that that didn’t happen. to demand the very equality of social and political rights that Israel promises in its Declaration of Independence. And if American Jewish leaders continue to defend the Israeli government at the expense of Israeli democracy, they may find their own children and grandchildren cheering those protesters on, which they have.

7:08 · But that’s not my question. My question is when you said that about Jeremiah, was there a subtext there that as a religious person that you believe that God has taken an interest in this and that if Israel does not clean up its act as it were, that the heavens may punish Israel and take away its sovereignty.

7:35 · Is that what you meant?

7:37 · Um, no. I mean, I can’t I could never claim to know the mind of God in any way, nor to um so I that would be a step too far. I I think I’m only I can I’m only looking at what our sacred texts say about the Jewish past um and trying to infer certain principles and other people can inter infer completely different principles. Um I do believe God acts in the world, but I don’t believe that I have any access to how God acts.

8:07 · So okay because this is this is I mean just to to push you on it because I find this fascinating not just with you but with religious people in general.

8:17 · If you are observant meaning that you don’t just study this as a matter of you know deep wisdom and logic but you believe there’s a supernatural element to it that warrants actually going and praying and that this is a a lesson. uh and you bring it to bear in the in the introduction of your book as kind of a warning.

8:40 · Am I wrong to say that in some way at least you think it’s possible that we’re getting on the wrong side of God that Israel is getting on the wrong side of God here? I I mean it’s possible to the extent that I think that that’s the way that that as I may that I think Jewish tradition as I read it and again there are many people who are more deeply expert to me but Jewish tradition as I read it when it looks at Jewish cataclysms most you know kind of

9:10 · famously the destruction of the of the two temples it tends to put the emphasis on Jewish sinfulness often to a degree that’s actually frankly really uncomfortable to to to to me and to people today but I do think that is The emphasis of Jewish tradition is is to ask Jews to look inward at what sins we may have committed and then to think about God in responding. Again, that doesn’t mean in any way that I have any idea what God holds in store for the Jewish people or or the world.

9:39 · I couldn’t I could can’t predict I couldn’t I wasn’t able to predict who would win the soccer game that just finished. I can’t predict anything in the future with any certainty. But I do think that when I look backwards at our tradition, I do notice that dynamic. So, so it’s a worry. Correct. It’s it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a worry.

9:59 · Yeah, it’s a I I do worry that and look, I think that I don’t, you know, I I’m pretty not I’m not in the same place as Rahm Emanuel politically in a lot of ways, but I think that that was kind of the message that Rahm Emanuel gave to Israel. I mean, you know, he went there and he basically said, “Listen, your arm is great. Your technology is great, but this international isolation is going to be a very, very serious threat to your capacities to survive as a country.”

10:24 · And there have been a lot of people, I mean, I’m only one of tons of them, but including Israelis, I mean, a lot of Israelis of the kind of center left or left have been saying this for for decades now. I didn’t I don’t think that, you know, it’s only now that I think we’re beginning to start to see that sense of kind of isolation really gather steam because of the shift in the United States.

10:48 · Yeah.

10:48 · The the the final thing that just interested me about this, and I hope you appreciate that, you know, I’m taking an interest as kind of soouththing the way you might somebody else is that you you use the word tradition rather than the religion, but then you quote the religion. To me, tradition is is what people who are not religious will say, “Well, that’s our tradition.”

11:09 · You know, I’m a I believe in the traditions. I don’t believe in the mumbo jumbo. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe word of God is is actually holy. You know, I guess what I guess what I the way I think about it, and this will be controversial, um is that I don’t think Jewishness meaning is particularly sustainable without Judaism. Um, for for me when I think about tradition, it’s true there’s lots of other stuff that becomes part of Jewish tradition, but to me the beating heart is Torah.

11:39 · And I personally am very pessimistic about the possibility of an enduring Jewishness without Judaism.

11:48 · That’s that’s a very that’s not, you know, there are lots of people who share my politics who would completely disagree with that. But when I think about tradition, I think about it as Torah at its core. But you can have uh Judaism without uh belief in God. People have Passover saters that really don’t believe any of it. Um I fast on Yam Kapoor and I’m not really a believer but I do it. Uh I don’t know how many generations that can be sustained. But um that’s a it it’s a super interesting question.

12:18 · You know Judaism and again I want to make it clear there are a thousand people you could have on this podcast million more knowledgeable about Judaism than me. But the way I read our tradition, what Judaism emphasizes is action. It’s it’s it’s it’s action. It’s fidelity to the law. It’s following the law. P belief as belief, pure belief, I think is something that I think is less important in Judaism than it is in Christianity, certain Protestant Christianity.

12:44 · So if you are doing the mitzvote, as many mitzvot as possible, I think that’s more important in terms of your relationship to Judaism than when you say in the abstract, do I believe in God?

13:00 · All right. Well, I’m I’m going to I’m going to I’m going to score for myself that I think I’m slightly on to something there. Anyway, um, so many of the argu many of the arguments that that um I’m going to make to you where I differ with you um come down to practical matters. So, let me um set it up and forgive me if I’m a little disjointed. I tried to make notes. There’s so much I want to ask you about.

The critical-mass hypothetical: a 49% Hasidic America

13:23 · Um I believe very much that there’s a concept of critical mass which has to be brought to bear in issues of uh human relations and and human politics. Um and I give you an example. Tell me if you agree or disagree. America with a few hundred,000 hidic Jews is wonderful.

13:50 · It’s it’s America is benefits from them is it’s diverse. It’s rich and um all around America operates very well with some small number of hosidic Jews. If America were to become 49% hidic and 51% non, we would enter a kind of political hellscape in America. That would be predictable. And if America were to become 51% acidic and 49% non uh then it would be even more a daunting proposition for America.

14:26 · Do you agree in general with with this kind of analysis that you know this is kind of similar to our immigration debate. Very few people are at zero or 100. Everybody’s just say you know what’s too much? What’s enough? Let’s not pretend that different levels don’t create different realities and the realities are somewhat predictable.

14:45 · Nothing’s perfectly predictable. So, do you agree with that?

14:50 · I think that um you know uh that cultural and demographic change can produce a very very powerful backlashes.

15:00 · We’re seeing it in the United States now. We saw it in the United States in the early in the early 20th century when Catholics and Jews came and fundamentally trans transformed what was a white Protestant northern European country among among white people particularly. Um uh and I but I off I think that the how that plays itself out is not I don’t I’m not as deterministic as you are.

15:23 · I think a lot of it really depends on what’s the story of the nation that takes hold and the story of the nation of the United States has been able to change radically in order to respond to rap massive demographic change and to expand the nation the notion of Americanness.

15:42 · Um, and so I’m not I think there I think I’m not as pessimistic as you are about the idea of their of of of of demographic cultural change and the ability of people be if they believe in the core principles of a nation to actually to hold together and actually for the nation to become much stronger even if there’s more diversity of religion, race, etc.

16:07 · I I I know but I I maybe I didn’t ask question. My question is is more about whether or not you agree with the concept that as I said critical mass that amounts matter like even in Israel they’re suffering as the religious uh population grows this is causing reverberations and um you know in the Arab Israeli conflict as we contemplate talking later on about what a one-state solution a two-state solution the idea that you can

16:39 · introduce any amount of people to any amount of people and it’s all the same as as you know like you’ve said and I’ll let you answer you know well the two million Arabs in Israel you know this gets along this this they get along pretty well and and I’m like well yes but what if what if there was an equal number of Arabs the same the very same people I don’t mean like bad Arab like the very same disposed Arabs but who didn’t understand well we are an extreme minority here or you know extremist is wrong.

17:08 · We’re we are a permanent minority here and we can’t really pretend that we’re going to start throwing our weight around. But if we can get to 48% 49% 51% then obviously we can sky’s the limit and that’s why you know I chose the the seis because I don’t want to live in it’s obvious to me what it would mean to live in a a country that was 48% or 51% hidic. We all know what that would mean. It’s not the country you want to live in.

17:38 · And so I’m just saying do do you accept the notion of a critical mass that has to be on as a practical matter contended with?

17:47 · I mean I think it depends a lot on the circumstances and under what conditions people are living alongside one another.

17:54 · So when it comes to Israel Palestine today I see that there is one state between the river and the sea. It’s more than 50% Palestinian and most of the Palestinians don’t have citizenship. And I think that’s a more dangerous condition set of conditions for everybody than this deep than the this than this deeply divided place in which everyone lives equally under the law.

18:14 · I think that there are uh I think you can see under conditions of legal equality I think countries can sustain deep deep divisions um of of race, religion uh and other things in part and I think this is important in part because that equality under the law makes people’s identities more mobile. One of the reasons I think that you might have chosen Jews is we think of kasidic Jews as basically their identities never change.

18:42 · But if you think about Catholic Americans, for instance, who were considered an existential threat to the United States, what it meant to be Catholic in the United States was different in 1980 than it was in 1920. And I think when I think about an equal Israel Palestine, I think that the political significance of being Palestinian or Jewish can change over time. I think under equality under the law, politics would not remain binary. I always remember this image.

19:12 · They were doing this Jerusalem pride day, this pride day parade in Jerusalem, right?

19:18 · And they had the chief rabbi, the patriarch, and the Imam all join a joint press conference because they didn’t want a gay pride parade in Jerusalem.

19:27 · Now, what was that? Those were people who were coming together because they had identities different than Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim, Christian that brought them together. And I think under equality under the law, Jew, Jewish and Palestinians stop being the only access of politics, which is why I think this can can work more than better than I think you think it would work.

19:46 · So So you you so and then I’ll next thing Dan that. So you you part of what you gird or you you rely on for your world view here is that you think that the extreme religious and extreme cultural points of view anti-gay you know on both sides will dissipate and and Wayne and No, I don’t think they’ll dissipate. My point is they can be crosscutting kind of forms of identity.

20:17 · So we already saw this with Palestinian citizens of Israel. One of the reasons that the joint list broke apart and Mansur Abbas and Rahm, the Islamist party moved away and joined Naftali Bennett’s government a few years ago was because the divide on the role of women and LGBT issues. My point is that under conditions of political equality, Jewish trades unions people and Palestinians could form a party. Jewish business leaders and Palestinians who all want to exploit their workers together, right?

20:47 · It’s like, you know, the Woody Allen has that line. He says, “I won two weeks in interfaith camp where I was sadistically beaten by boys of all races and creeds, right?” Like, this is I imagine politics where it’s not that religion will dissipate. It’s that Jews and Palestinians who are religious might bind together and Jews and Palestinians who are not religious might bind together. And I think that’s a much healthier politics.

21:07 · Uh Dan, what do you want to say? Well, um u assuming a state with everybody equality under the law and say there’s a majority of people that are uh a Muslim Arab uh what’s the immigration policy going to be and you know one of the raison’s detra whatever I don’t know how you pluralize that of Israel is is to uh offer refuge to any Jew that wants to come and and a majority uh Muslim state probably won’t

21:38 · uh will probably uh unnull that right of return and well Dan Peter wait can we just can we pause Dan’s question once I want because that’s going to bring us into the right turn so I just want to I just want to tie this one up and then we’ll go to the right turn so you know and and by the way I’m no expert on on this stuff so you know if I say something stupid you let me know but it seems to me in my lifetime time secession is where it’s at.

Quebec, Czechoslovakia, South Africa - why not divorce?

22:08 · You know, Canada cycllically, the French and these are people very very similar. You know, I don’t even know what their differences are except the leng same religion speak.

22:19 · Yeah.

22:19 · Um I think the the the French wanted to secede. They voted overwhelmingly to secede, but they it lost the the uh by by one point or one point. Belgium has trouble. um uh Czechoslovakia, the same people, same church, everything as far as I understand it. They decided to to to split up Yugoslavia. I mean, the list is very very long just in my lifetime of pretty similar peoples who wanted to secede or came very very close to seceding.

22:52 · And yet you think that these two people who are completely opposed in their religions, completely opposed in their culture and have deep deep deep experiential animosity towards each other, deep bitterness.

23:10 · These are the one people who should take the opposite path and actually even though they’re now apart, look to live in the same government. the French and the the French Canadians can’t manage it with the English speaking Canadians, but the Palestinians, a group that’s like 30% 40% Hamas, they’re going to get along with Israel. I I find that hard to believe.

23:33 · So, I guess a couple responses. First of all, I I I I think your rendition of the state of the world and mine are are different. I think there are many many extremely diverse and divided societies that where there has not been secession and when people try to live alongside each other under the same law. I mean Canada, Belgium, these are both bational states. India is an incredibly massively diverse state. Uh so is n you know so is Indonesia. So is the United States is an incredibly there’s that critical mass argument.

24:06 · India did not survive as one. it can survive as as too with a minority.

24:10 · Well, the social just want to remember the the secession part, right? Let’s not just pass over that. The secession was one of the most brutal and horrifying, you know, human losses of life in history. We don’t know what would have happened if there had tried to be if the Raj had remained indep.

24:25 · So I don’t I see that actually you know there are countries that um that actually you’re making a big point about the fact that it can only work if one group is a very small minority but actually I think there are there there are places where you can see where the demographics are not only one very small minority. You have a you have a lot of you have you know in Nigeria for instance in many you have a lot of Muslims and a lot of Christians. It’s not again we can all there are they’re explicitly bational countries Switzerland or multinational or Belgium Canada.

24:57 · I think that but I think the other point I want to make is just because I to me what really matters is not the idea that there has to be one state. What to what me is to is is the is that how many states there are one state or two states is that people live equally under the law because I think that even if there were two states there would be Palestinian citizens who would stay in Israel and there would be Jewish settlers probably who would live and who I think have the right to live in the West Bank.

25:25 · And I think part of the other thing I just want to say is that I I you know I was a two-stater for my entire adult life. you know, up until just a few years ago, I was, you know, and so I think one of the things that I find frustrating in these conversations, it’s not about you. I’m just talking about the conversation in general, is like there are a lot of people who say when I say I think there should be equality under the law, whether it’s one or two states, they say we have to have partition. There has to be a Palestinian state.

25:50 · And then I look at those people and again I’m not looking at you but I’m looking at like let’s say the mainstream Jewish community and I say oh you’re so devoted to the idea of the idea of partition and there being a Palestinian state. Let me ask you something. What have you done to stop settlement growth?

26:07 · What has Apac done to stop settlement growth? What has the ADL done to stop settlement growth? What has Chuck Schumer done to stop? And these guys say you know you’re wrong. I believe in two states. And I say, I’m not so sure you believe in two states because everything it seems to me you’ve been doing for all the years I was yelling about two states is make it easier for Israel to build more and more settlements in the West Bank and make two states harder and harder.

26:30 · Yeah, I I agree with the last part of what you said. Um I don’t I I think they are I mean I believe if you were put Chuck Schumer connect him to the most advanced sodium pentathol lie detector test, you you would find that indeed he is actually for two states. But they kick the can down the road on this settlement issue and then you know like like we all do with problems sometimes and then all a sudden you wake up one day and it’s not just something that oh

26:55 · we’ll worry about that what happen we can always raise the settlements we did it in Gaza and all of a sudden it reaches a level say oh my god this is not going to be so easy anymore and it happened you know oh [ __ ] you know I don’t think I don’t take it the way you but as for the the the the people coming together and you know I would even include include South Africa in this.

27:17 · It it seems to me it has it would have to require two peoples that had the same north star of of chasing liberal values, modernity. I know that the whites in South Africa were were racist, but at some point they realized they had to get on board with the way where the west was now. They could no longer live in the Jim Crow era as it were, right?

27:40 · So they took these risks that they had to I guess and certainly they wouldn’t have done that if if there was an analogous Hamas charter but but I think both sides had enough trust in each other that they were all after the same thing which was immutable characteristics shouldn’t matter anymore. We have to find a way to live as modern people according to modern ideas. I don’t see how you’re going to do that with people who reject that stuff or or why how you can imagine any Israeli ever taking that chance.

28:10 · The the odds are not high enough.

28:15 · Well, also the the uh South African Africconers weren’t worried about having a refuge because they hadn’t been persecuted for centuries. Um they were worried though. They were worried. Yeah, I mean that you know it’s sometimes hard to get like get back inside the mindset of those people but because I my parents are South African and I spent from my childhood in South Africa the way white South Africans saw the African National Congress was as an existential threat to them because the ANC was not nonviolent. It was using it was it was devoted to armed resistance.

28:50 · It was getting its weapons from the Soviet Union. There was a lot of blood, very bloodthirsty language. Uh, you know, one settler, one bullet, kill the boar. You know, the ANC’s flag is three colors. Green, yellow, and black, right?

29:05 · Green for the land, yellow for the gold, black for the people, right? White South Africans saw that. White South Africans looked at all the other countries in Africa and they were like, “You want us to go down that road?” And they remember they were only 10% of the population as opposed to 50% in Israel. Right. And and just to go back to the point you make, Daniel, about kind of can I just can I answer then you so I you know I heard your debate with Coleman and Coleman disputed the degree to which they were or were not nonviolent.

29:30 · I really know very little about this conflict except that having lived through it as it filtered down to me and I think this is valid. Mandela was a Christlike figure. a you it was impossible to I to I mean to the extent

29:48 · that they might have flirted with violence or that there was a there was a threat of violence that was unspoken I I I I’m sure that’s all true but yet there was a Mandela who was a Martin Luther King type figure a guy figure he really wasn’t though I mean Mandela if you go Mandela Mandela rejected the ANC had been nonviolent from its early 20th century until the 60s Mandela said this is a failure nonviolence has not worked worked. We’re going to use armed resistance. He helped to found the military wing of the ANC in Kizway.

30:18 · And when he was in jail, I just want to pause this because imagine if you had this situation with the Palestinians.

30:25 · When Mandela was in jail by the by the late period, by the 80s, the South African government really wanted to let him out because they were afraid he would dial in die in jail and all hell would break loose. And they said to him, “We will let you out of jail with one precondition. Just renounce violence.”

30:37 · They asked him again and again. He said, “I will never renounce violence until we have basically a date for a free election.” which is the same thing the IRA did. And I’m just saying that because I think I’m not saying that to because I want to whitewash Hamas. Hamas committed terrible war crimes on October 7th. They committed terrible war crimes during the second inifat. They committed terrible war crimes during the 1990s.

30:55 · They killed up a they blew up a bus that had a friend of mine in you and you saw and you saw the the handwritten documents of sinir that came out recently, right? They wanted to drop the Israelis to the sea.

31:05 · Yeah.

31:05 · But I to me that again you could have the the to me when I think about Palestinian violence, right? I don’t think about it through the prism of Hamas. And the reason I don’t think about it through the prism of Hamas is most of the Palestinian violence against Israelis historically has not been committed by Hamas. It’s not been committed by Islamists. One of the most violent Palestinian groups in the 1970s was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It was led by George Habash who was a Christian. Right.

31:32 · Communists. Yeah. They weren’t back then. Palestinians of all stripes have responded to to to oppression violently because across the world people respond to the violence of oppression both violently and violently. In fact, Jabatinsky himself recognized that right? You remember you know famously he writes in the iron wall right in 1923 he says every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonized. That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing. And that was he wasn’t talking about Hamas.

32:04 · He was talking about the basic dynamic in which you dispossess people, you oppress people which is a violent process. And some of them Islamist, communist, nationalist, vegetarian, leftist, Buddhist, whatever are going to respond with violence.

32:18 · At the same time, it should be pointed out that Jabatinsky did believe the Jews were indigenous and he was using the word uh colonist in in in a in a somewhat different context.

32:29 · Colonizers, not colonial.

32:31 · Well, you can believe that. I think you can believe that Jews are indigenous and believe that Zionism has settler colonial features which is I think what Jabatinsky believed because I mean the Liberians were also indigenous when they went back to West Africa and yet the movement of Afro Liberians to West Africa had settler colonial features. I I I don’t want to get I I find that whole semantic debate about colonizer versus colonial like a lot of debates in this to be um you know it it just kind of masks the

33:01 · kind of unique nature of this ra to try to put it in a category it’s a category of its own you have these were refugees I mean it’s it’s to to view to to make the list of colonial powers England France uh people escaping the hol Holocaust. I mean, this is it. It it it makes it kind of seem absurd to me in terms of and then it filters down to kids who don’t know a goddamn thing and they and they actually see them all in the same category. That’s why I find the words unhelpful. The what they did and how it happened is has to be considered and and assessed.

33:32 · Anyway, um uh so where were we Dan? What was the last thing we were talking about?

33:39 · Uh we were talking about South Africa, but you imagine you talk about the right of return at some point.

33:44 · Yeah.

33:44 · Um oh whether people the violence.

33:47 · So yeah, it’s it’s absolutely true that um the Palestinian all spokesman and and uh violence was from the left at the time. I don’t know how and and it’s absolutely true that nobody wants to be ruled over.

34:05 · Of course, it it should be said that you know the the PLO started in ’ 64 before before they were occupied. So there’s there’s multiple currents here in this country. I can just say it’s not only the occupation, it’s also the it’s also the Nagba, right? And the dispossession of all those people. So that happened. But anyway, go ahead.

34:24 · Yeah.

34:24 · Yeah. So no, so so and but there is also a jihadi fundamentalist Islam awakening in the modern era that is real. And I mean Iran has dedicated itself. Iran is not Sunni.

34:43 · Iran is not Palestinian. Iran doesn’t give a [ __ ] about two states. Iran has dedicated itself to the destruction of Israel. And I don’t know if they would if it was a two-state solution. I don’t know if they would stop even if the pal like I don’t I don’t know where they’re at. What’s your take on Iran? I mean, I I think it’s complicated to me.

35:03 · Yeah.

35:03 · Look, the way I think about Iran is that um Iran is a Persian Shia power, but it wants to be a big player in the Middle East where most people are Sunni and Arab. And so one of the re ways that it can try to have power and leverage and embarrass the Sunni Arab countries is by being very pro Palestinian and exposing the fact that they aren’t really, you know, they’re not that they’re that they’re kind of taking a more moderate, more accommodationist line.

35:32 · And so I think that they for them the Palestinian cause is a a big geopolitical asset for them and they support the Palestinian cause and it gives they feel like it gives them influence. To me, you know, it’s not to me really all yes there’s a religious tie. Absolutely. But to me it’s not so different honestly than the Soviet Union and the South African the ANC. The ANC’s top ally was the South African Communist Party.

35:55 · The South the the a the Soviet Union was supporting them militarily. it saw an opportunity to basically humiliate make America look bad in the world and maybe get and and but ultimately the struggle was being led by blacks South Africans and I think the struggle here is being led by Palestinians.

36:12 · Um you can even see even Hamas broke with Iran over the Syrian civil war and I think that’s why I think this language of proxy it’s like Iran controls everything the Palestinians do to me is like thinking that that the Soviet Union was controlling everything that was happening in Vietnam. I to me I think ultimately this is a Palestinian struggle and people other countries for their own reasons basically get involved because they think it’s it’s advant advantageous to them.

36:39 · Well I I do think I’m sorry. I do think that Iran as a proxy is a very very serious issue. I think it’s different than the Soviet Union because I think the the the quicksotic nature of what they’re the the struggle they’re ready to go through the sacrifice all the enemies of Israel are ready to self-destructive policies to their own people is is different than the Soviet Union. But that really but but the point I was making though was just an illustrate this religious fever uh and and how we have to acknowledge that this is real even if the past was different.

37:11 · I don’t know how to I I don’t know if if what you’re saying actually is as um intuitively correct as it as it might seem. Yes, they were like that in the past and they were left-wing and some of that just refusal to be ruled over or the the grudge of of of Zionism and the Nagba is certainly still evident today, but there is another layer to it now which is jihad. Yeah.

37:46 · How do you explain Mansour Abbas? He’s an Islamist. He comes from the same other Muslim Brotherhood tradition, but he’s the most moderate of all the Palestinian leaders.

37:55 · Yeah.

37:55 · I I’ve heard I I I I’m only and I don’t even remember what I heard. I know nothing about Msurabbas. I’ve heard that his brand of Islam is of the nature that it’s not up to us. God will take care of it. That that he comes from a slightly different interpretation. So he’s not interested in in the dayto-day struggle.

38:16 · He’s like, “This is not for us to struggle. Let God will pull the strings.” That’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know if it’s true or it’s not true.

38:23 · Right.

38:23 · But remember and remember you know Hamas in the 1980s right were considered by Israel to be the moderates the people who weren’t dangerous because they weren’t they didn’t take up arms they were very late to come to the party in terms of violent resistance to Israel which is one of the reasons that I think you know there’s been a lot of Israelis who’ve written about this how in the late 80s when Hamas was emerging from the Muslim Brotherhood before Hamas took up arms Israel was like good let’s let these guys get more influence because they’re less dangerous than the secular PLO So let’s get to the right.

38:54 · Dan, you want to say something on this and then we’ll get to the right of return.

38:57 · This is tied into the right of return is that um you know the idea of a one state everybody’s equal solution presupposes that that’s what the Palestinians want.

39:06 · So I think their leadership over the years has been clear that they’re happy to have a state with everybody equal, but it’s going to be an officially Muslim state. You know, the the official religion will be Muslim. One would imagine that uh that that uh the population would be Arabic speaking, the street signs would be primarily in Arabic. The the holiday the national holidays would be is Islamic holidays and so forth.

39:32 · Um I mean the truth is first of all one of the things about Palestinian politics now is we don’t let Palestinians choose their own leaders.

39:42 · So it’s hard for us to know what kind of what kind of political agenda Palestinians would put out if they could vote. Right? The the the early position of the PLO was what some they called the secular democratic Palestine. Right? I mean this is like what this is what Yaser Arafat said in his famous 1974 speech. Um I when we speak of our hopes common hopes for the Palestine of tomorrow, we include in our perspective all Jews now living in Palestine who choose to live us with there in peace without discrimination. Then in 1988 the PLO says forget about that.

40:13 · We’re never going to have that. We accept the idea of of two states. And I don’t think we know now if we if you let Marwan Bargoodi out of jail and a lot of the other prisoners who are the people the only people I think that Palestinians really respect politically are the people in jail because they’re not corrupt. They’ve actually suffered and we let Palestinians vote. I really don’t know. I have no idea whether Palestinians would say they want one state or two states at this point and what the principles would be.

40:38 · But I think we can see that the Palestinian citizens of Israel in terms of the political parties that they vote for because they’re the only Palestinians who are allowed to vote consistently. They actually vote for parties that are more much more committed to the principle of liberal democracy than Israeli Jews do.

40:55 · I mean, look at I’m an ODA. That guy actually believes in liberal democracy, human rights equality under the law a lot more than, you know, than than the Israeli Jew than the Jewish Israeli parties.

41:06 · Peter, if you’re going to get specific with facts in this debate, I’m going to have to hang up now.

41:10 · Oh, okay. I’m sorry. You didn’t give me the ground rules.

41:13 · No, I’m kidding. No, I you know I I there certain I’m I’m not as well informed as you on these on these uh more detailed issues and I you know I’ll have to take your word for that stuff and and by the way this is where in Duritz who I think was well informed you made I don’t wish I could remember the points I should have reviewed it this is where I thought you you had the better of them you you um brought some of these details to bear and I could tell by his reaction that that your version of them was legit.

The right of return: “You can cherry-pick anything”

41:43 · He didn’t really have an answer to them and uh you moved the needle for me. Anyway, on the right of return, look, I spent uh some time today listening to your debate with Coleman and Googling chat gtping various thing on this right of return. And this is what I’ve concluded and you tell me where I’m wrong.

42:10 · Um, I think there are enough historical precedents that bear on the right of return both directions that one can cherrypick examples to make basically any case they want.

42:23 · My conclusion was best I can tell there there is no general right of return anywhere uh to to any place.

42:31 · Um, that it’s it usually comes down to a a a practical judgment. Sometimes the right of return, I’ve discovered, has been offered where nobody really thought they would take advantage of it. Like nobody really expected the Jews to come back to Germany. Sometimes it’s refused outright, like there was no way the Germans were going to coming back to the Sudatan land or wherever it was after World War II. That wasn’t going to happen.

42:54 · And of course, we I didn’t know this, but we expelled something like a million Mexicans in the 30s. And we know very well they’re not getting passports and land and and and their descendants which would be 10 million, 20 million, I don’t even know, are not ever going to be brought back to the United States. And by the way, nobody would ever call them refugees like we call the Palestinian refugees because they’re expelled to their own country, their own land.

43:23 · Um, so I think in the end, and this reminded me of, I did go back and find this. It reminded me of something I I learned at Penn, Robert Jackson, he of the Nerburgg trials fame had this quote. There is a danger that if the court does not temper its doctrinary logic with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional bill of rights into a suicide pact. Which reminds me of the movie Oppenheimer, which says theory will only get you so far.

43:51 · I think this has to be first and foremost a practical matter. I don’t I don’t I know and this last thing I’ll say because I want to get into it also. I know you spoke a lot about the sentimental aspects like they want to they the Palestinians want to see the sea of Kyifa. You should have the choice to go. I’m not saying you should have the choice to kick someone else out of their home.

44:14 · If your family is from Jaffa and that particular home is not from Jaffa, I think there should be compensation. you should be able to to buy another apartment in Jaffa and go to see the sea, which is like very important to people from there because when you read Palestinian writing, it becomes super super clear, right, that this territory was for them artificially divided and created into a Jewish state through an act of mass expulsion. They have a deep historical connection to particular places in this area, which was Palestine.

44:44 · And so to say that that that because of that there’s going to be this new state created in the West Bank and Gaza and they should only feel an affinity there, you know, their families that can trace back their connections in a place like Hyen Jaffa for for for many many many many generations. And it’s precious to them. And we Jews, this is we Jews should understand that better than anybody else because we’ve maintained that connection for 2,000 years.

45:12 · And of course, I I don’t I don’t mean to mock anybody’s sentimental attachment to anything, but two things. First of all, it is noteworthy that this coincides with a political movement, meaning like no Jew is looking to go back to Europe or even Iraq. Um even though a lot of Jews have gone back to Europe actually.

45:34 · No, but but there’s but there’s no movement demanding the the right of return to these countries. There’s no sentimental attachment to that. If you can put so much stake in this sentimental notion of wanting to live in the land of the Jews where your grandfather once lived.

45:56 · I don’t want the normal um recompense that the law allows for when there isn’t a practical solution, which is money. I don’t want the price of my land and I’ll live in my own homeland.

46:07 · Thank you very much. I want to to live there. That’s a bit much to me. But then on top of that, okay, if if we’re gonna start weighing in sentimentality, why is that more valid than Jews around the world who say, “You know what? This country wants to get rid of circumcision. This country doesn’t want to allow kosher slaughter. There’s fewer and fewer Jews. I feel very uncomfortable here. I feel conspicuous.

46:34 · I want to live in and among my people in Israel. And by the way, I’m a living person now. I’m experiencing this now. This is not something happened to my grandfather.

46:46 · I’m here now. So why do you dismiss that as I think you said as as worthy of zero consideration?

46:54 · But the sentimental attachment of somebody to land they’ve never been to generations in the past rises even more important than practical cons practical considerations of ending the Jewish state.

47:10 · I guess where I start is that if we think about the legitimacy of a of a right to return to this particular territory, right? Um, and we think as I do that, you know, Palestinians and Jews are created equal in the image of God and should be considered equal in their concerns. Then we seems to me you have a I have a would I have a problem in justifying why a Jew like me could return after 2,000 years.

47:40 · I mean, you could say that’s pretty sentimental, right? Because a lot of Jews who make aliyah don’t have a a personal family connection within a couple generations.

47:50 · It is very sentimental. They they wake up every morning and they sh say the shimmon looking towards Israel. It is there is and yet you say that the Palestinian connection which is of 75 years or so where literally you could have someone still alive or their children eh that’s too sentimental.

48:05 · We’ll get rid of that. Right? It seems to me irrespective of what you think about the right return refugee return in a global perspective there seems to me a fundamental um imbalance here in terms of how much weight we give to the yearnings of one group of people versus the other. So that would be that that’s that’s you know in some ways I feel like Israel is the last place in the world that should be able to say you don’t have the right to come back after 75 years because it has a right of return for 2,000 years.

48:32 · Um, on the practical question, I would say I think that under international law, there is a right of Palestinian refugee return. It may well be in the course of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians that the Palestinians concede to this to some degree. In fact, I think there is evidence from past negotiations that the Palestinians were willing to make concessions on this question if they got the things that were important to them, like a sovereign state with a capital in Jerusalem. Right?

49:01 · So, I don’t think that politics is never politics doesn’t give you perfection. I believe that this right exists, but I also believe that you could have a hard-nosed negotiation in which Palestinians give something on this and Israel gives on something else just as you’ve had in other places.

49:19 · All right. All right. Three things.

49:20 · First of all, as for international law, again, another thing which I think you can cherrypick to make any point you want. You know, we’re not going to argue slavery under the and and cite Dread Scott and we’re not going to argue abortion and say, well, you know, Congress the law says, you know, we’re arguing, I think, higher concepts than what the law is. We’re arguing moral and practical concepts. And, you know, if if that if that conforms and if that’s harmonious with international law, fantastic.

49:51 · If it’s not, my personal attitude is, well, whatever. Because the moral issue and the practical issues are more important than international law. I mean the UN we both know has has had more resolutions against Israel than all other countries combined. So you know it it is a bit much to be taking anything that comes from that channel too seriously.

50:16 · I I actually think the UN has been a super pro-Israel institution.

50:20 · What’s that?

50:21 · I actually I know this is again I’ll let you get back to but just what I’m saying. I think Israel has been a super pro-Israel institution. Um, the reason it partly has all those resolutions is because they’re all at the UN General Assembly, which has bubus in terms of influence. The power at the UN is at the Security Council. The Security Council is a super pro-Israel institution, which is why Israel never gets sanctioned by the by by the Security Council, whereas virtually all of Israel’s neighbors do.

50:44 · Yeah.

50:44 · I I I I’ll you know, let’s just leave that um because it’s not it’s not critical to our argument. I’m not going to dispute it with you. And I again it’s one of these things I don’t follow dayto day. Um I I I know that is Israel does not consider it to be but but whatever.

51:00 · That’s true. Um number one number two uh and this goes back to the quote I read at the beginning you said which was very because it’s it’s it’s one thing in that book that really um was what I believe too. You said that um where is it? The day that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians march nonviolently to demand the equality of social and political rights that Israel promises in his declaration of independence is going to be all over for the Israelis. Um, yes. All of which is to say that if this is what the Palestinians want, let them say so.

51:29 · I mean, I understand negotiation on the but like if if if they want the MERT offer plus a few extra details, just say so. like we we overlay onto them all these, you know, benefit of the doubt things that if they want and maybe it’s true, but can’t they do they have a newsletter? Is there something I can substack I can sign up to? Palestinian leaders that want this, you know, give us the map and you got a deal.

52:00 · Well, I think that actually I mean I think it’s a really important point you’re making and I think one of the problems is that Palestinians don’t get as much opportunity in the American media to to to to make their case. I mean the truth is Abbas did have an offer the counter offer that he made to I mean if you go back and look at the essay that Bernard Aishai Israeli journalist wrote about the Abbas negotiations you’re right offers basically says we’re going to enex 6.3% of the West Bank and we’re going to give you about 5.7%. In fact, that was the best Israeli offer ever.

52:33 · But the the offer that Abbas wanted was basically about a 1.9% equal swap because he was like 6.3% you’re going to take Ariel. That’s why you want 6.3%.

52:44 · Ariel goes very deep into the northern West Bank and basically cuts off the Palestinian citizens in the northern West Bank like Tilcal and Killilia from the rest of the West Bank. I’m just going but Palestinians have offered and generally their offers have been about a 2% equal land swap whereas Israel’s offers have basically been between a six and 10% annexation and there have been iss on other issues but it’s not like Palestinians haven’t had their proposals.

53:06 · I I don’t buy that for just as I just don’t buy it because Abbas if they listen I first of all I buy don’t buy for I read Mer’s book now is quite a critic of Israel and quite an advocate of the two-state solution and he doesn’t believe what you’re saying well he’s very complimentary of Abbas actually yes he’s he’s complimentary in the book but he doesn’t believe what you’re saying yes he was complimentary and he and he said in the book that he thinks that Abbas could be finally brought around if Israel would keep trying.

53:35 · He he he does he does it’s not a he doesn’t blast Abas in the book which in a way is why I think he’s more credible because I think he would say what you’re saying and he would say it now and number two but let me just say a couple things and number two number two um there nobody’s

53:54 · forcing them to be mute as you said it’s it’s analogous to the nonviolent demonstration Abbas could put tremendous pressure on Israel and by the way move many Israeli voters as Saddat by simply giving a speech and saying this is what I want. Can can I hold you there for one second? You can come back to that. I want to make the other point and you can go back.

54:14 · The other point about you know this right of 2,000 years before I forget it. I have found it conveniently clarifying to my position on Israel to um have a systematic way of looking at it and this way I’ve looked at it because I I don’t think you can go back now and question decisions that were

1948: They were closer to the Holocaust than we are to COVID

54:37 · made in the past based on things we know today in a very you know macro way around the turn of the century when programs were happening and all that If you would have told any Jew, if a Jew said, “Listen, we got to get out of here. This, we can’t live like this, us and people all over the world. Let’s go to Palestine legally and expand our existing and ancient community there.

55:06 · There’s not a person in the world who say, “What are you talking about? You can’t do such a thing. That would be immoral.” So, so that’s so so I I can’t fault them from that. And then after the Holocaust, and by the way, it’s it’s worth noting as you just the picture, it was those

55:24 · people who just got out of the Holocaust who closer to their exit from the Holocaust than we are today from COVID, talking about like trauma, were then fighting for their lives again in the war of independence in which those Jews Palestinians were Mars’s words is displaced.

55:49 · Um and he does by the way 100% blame the war on the Palestinians. But in but in any case and in that context of Jews 6 million being killed and having nowhere else to go for a state to be formed then and for that state to say and every Jew around the world will always be able to come here. Look what just happened for us to go back now and say, “How dare they have that right?”

56:18 · It’s it’s it makes no sense to me. You want to resend the right, you want to resend the country. It is what it is. As I said, this quicksotic battle they’re having. Let them say what they want. Put the pressure on the Israelis and and settle this.

56:34 · I think I think Go ahead, Daniel. Oh, I think I mean they kind of have said what they want in terms of I don’t know how uh uh significant the Palestinian constitution is, but I’m reading it right here. What they want is a state that is officially Muslim, but yes, uh minority religions will be respected, but it’s an officially Muslim state. Would such a state allow uh a right of return for the Jews around the world? Probably not.

57:04 · So that’s what they want.

57:05 · Yeah. Israel’s not signing up for official Muslim state obviously. Go ahead.

57:09 · But that’s what they want. If you’re saying what do they want?

57:11 · I mean I think that the the one of the reasons that I think the Palestinians haven’t been able to do I think I think that Gnome is saying if only the Palestinians would basically say you know we’re fine with two states um you know sign us up for that. I actually think that what that that that Palestinians in many ways Palestinian leaders have said that. I mean I mean look at the ex look at what happens when the Palestinian leaders do what Israel actually wants them to do. I mean look at Salam Fiad for instance, right?

57:41 · Salam Fiad was the Palestinian prime minister um I think from uh you know 2007 to 2013. Not only did he support the p the Arab peace initiative which Abbas also supported which Israel didn’t embrace which uh but he also basically was the

57:59 · most committed to renouncing violence to building institutions you know the Israelis really liked Salam Fiad right the Americans really liked Salam Fiad right and how so we we can look at that example and say how did people respond during the six years when Salam Fiad was the prime minister in the West Bank right did they did they fall at their feet and say we’re going to stop settlement growth so we can show Palestinians that what you that your path is really working. No, Israel just they fad said when he left office, I didn’t stop settlement growth for a single day. Right?

58:27 · So I think the Palestinian the for the Palestinian perspective the the the acceptance of two states in 1988 and then formalized in the Oslo peace initiative was a tremendous concession. The acceptance of the Arab peace initiative and yet Palestinians couldn’t stop settlement growth ever. Right? which I think is part of what has delegitimized the idea of two states in the eyes of so many Palestinians.

58:51 · Yeah.

58:51 · Well, I I mean I I I don’t agree. I feel that there is a way that a person behaves when they want something and and it shouldn’t have to be divining tea leaves and and pulling out, you know, little known facts that you have access to to make it clear. We knew very well what Martin Luther King wanted. We knew very well what Mandela wanted. and you know uh not while he was in jail.

59:16 · No, but when he’s out and what the Palestinians have wanted and of course like when Nabil Ammer, you know, there’s people from within the Palestinian camp who just [ __ ] all over Arafod afterwards say, “What are you doing? You you you were a fraud. We you know, whatever. I I Can I ask you a question?”

59:36 · Yeah.

59:37 · Would you let Marwan Budi out of jail, Peter? Honestly, I don’t know enough about it. I know I I’m going to exasperatingly flexible about such things if I thought it would have practical positive effects. So, I’m going to answer assuming that he is the murderer that they say he is, even though I know that’s disputed.

1:00:03 · In the same way that apparently Israel was getting ready to install Akmad as president of Iran, Yes. If you could make the case to me that this would be the end of this horrible misery for the Palestinians and this horrible misery for the Israelis, of course I would. Why? Why? I’m going to not going to stand on the fact that he’s a murderer. There’s murderers at heads of state everywhere. That’s my answer.

1:00:30 · No, I I just said because I think he would clearly be the person and some of the people who are in prison with him who would have the greatest credibility, I think, to offer the kind of call that you’re talking about. Abbas, you know, Abbas has no credibility uh to do that at this point.

1:00:47 · Uh and so I think if you want that, I think we have to think about how we allow Palestinians to have leaders who are legitimate who can make difficult political decisions, you know, by laying out these visions.

1:00:58 · Peter, can I ask you a question?

1:00:59 · Yeah, go ahead. Um, do you think that a state uh let’s let’s assume uh Israel truly has equality? And there are those who argue that it does, uh, a state that is um, a Jewish state, but there’s complete equality for Arab citizens. The only difference is is our immigration policy is going to favor Jews. Do you think in and of itself that is a immoral u in its in its um, you know, concern? I mean, I guess I would answer that question like I would answer the question the United States.

1:01:28 · Like how what do you say if America were a country where Christians and Jews and Muslims were treated totally equally, but we would only allow Christians in the United States? Um I would think that was fundamentally wrong. Um if Tucker Carlson or Donald Trump wanted that position. Now I it would be an improvement over where Israel is now where I think there are a lot of domestic laws for instance especially having to do with land allocation that are severely discriminatory.

1:01:50 · But I still think it would be discriminatory in aula in a country that has both Palestinians and Jews to say that only Jews can come and Palestinians can’t or not that Palestinians necessarily can’t come but that Jews are heavily favored in the immigration policy. I would no I I I wouldn’t look I would be okay with a policy which said both Jews and Palestinians were heavily favored because those are the two main populations now and then you’re going to have an assign an assign the third place will be for everybody else.

1:02:21 · That to me would be would be fair. All right, Peter, I’m gonna ask you just one more question about the one-state thing and then because I don’t want to keep you too too long over what we promised you and then just before you go because I went into reading the uh the birth of the Palestinian refugee crisis and 1948 over the last couple days and I pulled out some quotes and I and I just think it’s interesting to to read them so our

1:02:47 · listeners hear them. how Benny Morris, who I think is considered to be the expert on this, one of these books he wrote before his kind of uh move to the right, one of these books he wrote after.

1:02:58 · I’m not sure I would concede that, but go ahead.

1:03:00 · Okay. Well, well, Finkelestein did, you know, that’s why Finkelestein. Yeah.

1:03:04 · Yeah, I can explain what I mean by that, but go ahead.

1:03:06 · Okay.

1:03:06 · So let so let me just but this one state thing because again I’m weighing the sentimental attachment of an Arab descendant who wants to see the sea in Kyifa a Jew who is worried about you know a a an unpleasant life in Europe which I which I or not in Europe somewhere in the world and decides you know I would like to go to Israel where I can live as you who says being Judaism and the observation of Juda is central to your life.

1:03:37 · Mhm.

1:03:37 · Certainly can understand that somebody who doesn’t live in Manhattan, Mhm.

1:03:42 · you know, might have that desire and you may want to honor it. And then three, I tried to make a list. You tell me what you disagree with.

1:03:52 · In a one state, um I think any kind of Charlie Hebdo satire religion will never be allowed. gay pride, gay mar honor of gay marriage, police protection is is done. Uh a free press that calls the most likely Palestinian prime minister out as a criminal or whatever is is done. Conscription of daughters is done.

1:04:21 · Teaching evolution in in schools is done. Alcohol licenses done. Women and bench is done. Uh who knows what goes on in terms of archaeological digs and the holy time. You can go on and on of of the I mean just to just just to be a gay husband in what’s now Tel Aviv, which is consistently rated one of the top 10 cities for gay gays in the world by gay sites. I looked it up.

1:04:46 · To imagine what your one state would likely bring down upon people, isn’t that more important to you than somebody seeing the sea?

1:05:00 · I I don’t buy those assumptions and I I actually think it would be so fascinating if you just you know I thought one of the things I thought Coleman did that I really appreciated was I guess people gave him a hard time for not having Palestinian guest and so he just asked people like who would you suggest and they had so he had Ysef Munay on and I would s I would really recommend like whoever you think is like a big deal Palestinian activist or intellectual who has a lot of support among Palestinians ask them those questions because I actually think that this this idea recommend somebody.

1:05:29 · Recommend somebody because I love to have people like that on.

1:05:32 · Yeah.

1:05:32 · I mean, you you could have Yousef, you know, you could ask Nora Ericott.

1:05:36 · You could ask um you could ask my friend Muhammad Shahada from from Gaza who’s an amazing writer and thinker. You could ask Tar Bakonei. I mean, there there you could ask Raja Shahada. You could ask Can I ask a question? Are are you saying that I can’t look at the West Bank and Gaza and infer?

1:05:52 · Well, no. No, I mean first I I think that the rest of the part of the problem or the entire Arab world and infer No, I don’t think you can look at No, I think that the the the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are living under occupation in various different ways.

1:06:09 · Right. So this is not the equivalent of a state in which Palestinians get to choose their leaders. As I said, there’s only one part of Israel Palestine where Palestinians consistently get to vote, right, for their leaders, and that is inside Israel proper, right, where the Palestar point. The Palestinian citizens of Israel, the Arab-Israelis consistently vote, right? Most of them vote for either Khadash or Balad. And now some of them vote for Ram.

1:06:34 · Now Rahm, which is, by the way, the most moderate party, is socially conservative, but no more than Shas, right? and most of the other Palestinians are voting for parties that literally on the issues you’re talking about, they sound like AOC and Bernie Sanders. Look at the look at Khadash and Ballad’s positions on these issues. So, I think there is an this kind of idea about Palestinians. Palestinians are divided between religious and secular just like Israeli Jews are.

1:07:02 · It’s not this idea that Palestinians all h it’s kind of like this. They’re all people who basically like have an ISIS style perspective. Even Hamas, which is deeply socially conservative and oppressive.

1:07:15 · Let me just answer that. You know, one of the things Israel did, one of the things Israel did during this war was it destroyed this ancient ancient church, right? This this it was called the church of St. Polyorius, right? It was like a like a 9th century church, right?

1:07:30 · Um it was an operating church in Gaza, right? an operating church in Gaza under Hamas which is the most socially conservative the most you know you can say islamophobic I mean homophobic misogyny so I think it’s a bit of a caricatured view of Palestinians and I

1:07:48 · think you know I think you should test that hypothesis with Palestinians who other Palestinians think you know who they listen to well that’s a great idea but if we can get them on the show I mean you look they might be suspicious but but keep trying you guys are You guys are are p, you know, you’re persistent.

1:08:06 · Okay, so just I just Googled for whatever it’s worth. Support uh do Arab Israelis support gay marriage? It says support for gay marriage among Arab Israelis is low, though opinions vary depending on religiosity while there’s no official samesex marriage with as all polling indicates that acceptance of homosexuality generally trails behind secular Israelis often reflecting broader trend.

1:08:28 · Yeah.

1:08:28 · So, so yeah, I I I’m sure the the religious Jews are not that keen on it either. Although I have we could talk about that even if we meet privately. I had a really interesting experience at a Modi concert when he was filled with religious Jews and he talked about being gay and it was it was very sweet. But I I would have to say and maybe this is why Coleman was so taken with you. You have what is a very wonderful seemingly seeming faith in humanity here. And I mean I couldn’t disagree more.

1:08:56 · To me, yeah, some leaders say this or say that, they they also understand their audience. But when you have an a part of the world which is 100% has a certain attitude about these issues, the idea of taking these chances with the potential disaster because you spoke to some experts. I mean, it it’s I just I can’t get there with you. I’ll let you respond to that, then I’ll read you many more stuff.

1:09:23 · Look, I I guess first of all, I appreciate your what you’re saying. I I genuinely do. I would say to me, Israel is taking chances no matter what, right?

1:09:32 · Israel’s taking chances because when you’re controlling all these people who don’t have basic rights, that’s very dangerous. We saw on October 7th.

1:09:38 · October 7th didn’t happen under Binard’s utopia that he dreamed up under under at Zars. October 7th happened under the current system of rule, right? And so I think that we have to recognize that there are risks in whatever path you take. The what I would say is the idea that if you give people equality that your your life will be in mortal danger is the norm among people who become accustomed to supremacy. It’s what almost all white South Africans thought.

1:10:07 · It’s what most white southerners thought. The Protestants you know they the Ian Paisley the Protestant leader called the Good Friday Accords which gave Catholics political equality. He called it a prelude to genocide. I think the idea that you gnome and I and maybe you Daniel have grown up in our entire lives that basically giving Palestinians equality means that they’re basically going to be they’re going to be you know at our our throats. I think it’s a typical way to think because we we associate safety with supremacy.

1:10:30 · But I actually think that that’s that people that equality under the law is safer because when you give people the right to have a nonviolent mechanism for getting the government to listen to them, I think they’re less likely to pick up a gun. Well, I don’t think that, you know, mortal danger is the only issue. I think Israelis want a place where the street signs are in Hebrew, where the holidays are their holidays.

1:10:54 · And I think the Arabs want the same thing, Dan. Yes. Yes. But to me, you never get to that because I mean, just look at I mean, Abbas is on the 30th year. There there is no And elections in the Arab world are one-offs or or followed by a coup. There are no I mean that no there are no I mean it’s like we’re saying the Arab countries don’t have enough elections. Israel doesn’t let the Palestinians have elections.

1:11:18 · No I’m I’m saying as I mean I I I know that when you start generalizing about cultures although I have no problem generalizing about Jews. We all know our people that that that you can be called a bigot. But it’s I do think if you look at the Middle East as in its entirety and don’t refuse to note that they never have elections and they have one election and then they never have another one after that and then imagine that this country is now could potentially be like 15 million Palestinians and 7 million Jews.

1:11:51 · Israel’s there’s never going to be another Jew elected ever ever. I mean I mean as a prime minister. And then you know you think that prime minister Hamas is not going I mean I have Palestinian friends who tell me not about a one-state solution but just a two-state solution. They feel like the second there’s a Palestinian state there’s going to be a civil war. That’s this is a like a rank and file ordinary Palestinian guy.

1:12:18 · That’s what they believe. Maybe you’re right. Maybe he right. But who wants to take the chance? That’s my feeling.

1:12:24 · Yeah. I guess I I know I know we need to go. No, the Jews are never going to take that chance.

1:12:28 · I I think that the the Yeah, you know, I talked about this with Coleman, too. This idea that you you look out in the Middle East and you say we don’t see a lot of democracies here is also the way white South Africans looked at Africa. And and and and and they were right like there weren’t a lot of democracies in Africa. But the question is you have to ask why, right?

1:12:48 · I think one of the biggest reasons that you don’t have democracies in the Middle East is that the powers that be the Soviet Union but especially the United States have not wanted democracies. I mean look we overthrew Mosedc Mosedc in Iran in 1953 when the Egyptians had an election which was a free election. The we helped the Saudis and the Emiratis overthrow that. The the the the it is it is it is not something inherent in being Arab or Muslim.

1:13:12 · It is, I think, the policy of the world’s most powerful governments that they don’t want to risk democracies in these countries because we would rather have pro-American autocrats there.

1:13:22 · Yes.

1:13:24 · But as Dan said, this is not black South Africans. This is a people in their documents say they’re dedicated to Sharia law and being a Muslim state. Anyway, we can go back and forth. Let me just read. I I downloaded uh uh PDFs of Benny Morris’s books, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis, I think that’s the name, and 1948. And I uploaded them into the fable engine of um Claude.

1:13:50 · Okay.

1:13:50 · And I asked him, by the way, I have to I have to tell the world, I am so decent and fair-minded when I research. I constantly ask these AIs, whatever they’re like, what is the most fair argument? what what what is fair to him.

1:14:05 · I I’ll say give me enough of the quote so that the full context is always like I really try to never do anything that if anybody were to find out what I left out they would say to me oh you didn’t tell me that that’s that’s my standard and for journalists too like you you say you told me but somehow when I found this out I didn’t really get that impression from what you wrote and you knew I wasn’t going to get that impression so [ __ ] you lying anyway so this so this is the answers it gave.

1:14:33 · I asked the most expulsion sounding quotes. I’ll just read two um both on page 589.

1:14:43 · And while this general will was never translated into systematic policy, a large number of Arabs were expelled, the frequency of expulsions and the expulsive resolve of the troops increasing following the pan-Arab invasion of miday 1948 that threatened the Yeshu Yeshu with extinction. Next one. The policy was to prevent a refugee return at all costs. In this sense, it may be fairly said that all 700,000 or so who ended up as refugees were compulsorily displaced or expelled.

1:15:15 · And the very next sentence, uh, yet it is all, well, this is actually where it straddles. Yet it is also worth remembering that a large portion of those who became refugees fled their towns and villages not under direct Israeli threat or duress. And then I for so and then on the other side this is from same Palestine refugee crisis.

1:15:38 · Um villagers and towns people prompted by the fear that the Jews if victorious would do to them what in the reverse circumstances victorious Arab fighters would most probably have done and occasionally did to the Jews took to their heels. And one more he says the refugee problem was created by the war which the Arabs had launched.

1:16:00 · Though the Arabs would argue then and subsequently that the Zionist influx was an act of aggression and that the Arab launch of 1947-48 was merely an act of self-defense. And it was that war that propelled most of those displaced out of their houses and into refugee.

1:16:18 · Most fled when their villages and towns came under Jewish attack or out of fear of future attack. They wish to move out of harm’s way. So, you know, I’m I’m not trying to sugarcoat the Nakba or any of it, but I think that a lot of the discourse that cites Morris has morphed into a much less nuanced narrative than he writes. Go ahead.

1:16:43 · Right.

1:16:43 · So, I think that there my understanding again and I’m not a historian is there is a debate between Benny Mars and someone like Elon Pap.

1:16:51 · Right. Elon Pap is another Israeli historian, also one of the new historians. Mars kind of moved right, Pap moved moved left. And the debate is really about whether there was a plan like some people say was something dollar. Yeah. Was there a plan for this expulsion or did it basically just happen, you know, be but I think even Mars as you suggest would acknowledge that you know that Israel wanted to create a Jewish majority state, right?

1:17:16 · I mean and and and and you know he says in the Arvid interview Bengurian was a transferist. He understood there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab major minority in its midst. I think the one the other thing I would say about Mars is I don’t put a lot of credence in what he says about Arab intentions because he doesn’t deal with Arab documents. Um he he only he his his brilliance was finding in the Israeli archives all this stuff.

1:17:44 · A book that I would that I think is much more credible on the question of the Arab intentions is by a University of Maryland historian also Israeli named Shai Huskani. his book Dear Palestine because Huskani is an Arabic speaker and he goes through in a lot of detail uh the Arab the kind of Arab the intentions Wii Khaled did this way back in the 1950s and actually what you find from in

1:18:10 · Huskani’s work is not is it doesn’t doesn’t accord with what that what Mara says about the Arab intentions I’ll just read you something from dear Palestine Huskani’s book uh uh a social history of the 198 1948 war quote an examination of many hundreds of documents, operational orders, propaganda for Arab volunteers, and the letter of Arab volunteers themselves yielded not a shred of evidence of an extermination plan for the land’s Jews.

1:18:34 · And Hagana’s intelligence service itself finds that quote the AR the army meaning the Arab army does not intend to carry out a massacre of Jews if they surrender and wave a white flag. So, I would just I think Mars is deserves tremendous esteem, but I don’t think he’s credible on the question of Arab intentions because he doesn’t speak Arabic and he didn’t look at Arab documents.

1:18:55 · Well, I I didn’t see that Mars said that they intended to exterminate, although he did he did call he said they were afraid that the that the Arabs would do to them, the Jews would do to them what the retribution, but but that’s not quite I don’t see that doesn’t but all right.

1:19:07 · Um, and but he does he does say in um is it in righteous victims or in 1948 that there there were Arabs calling for driving the Jews into the sea. But anyway, in any case, I I would say that my earlier point, you know, there’s so much talk about psychology.

1:19:30 · I think psych psychology of course has to be considered in some way but I think anytime I hear psychological arguments I I go to red alert intellectually because it’s very easy to sway people when you cue the violins and in some way I think the right of return is a political agenda dressed up in violins.

1:19:53 · uh and I I would only say which I said it before but I’ll just say it again that in the context posth Holocaust I mean and under attack the fact that at a time when the world was just slaughtering civilians right and left the atom bomb and dresdon I mean the the the the attitude of the world at that time was not very uh precious about human life right that they pushed these people over the line

1:20:22 · to their own country that was to be their own country as per the UN does not strike me as one of even if they had misperceptions and and misapprehensions about what the intentions were this doesn’t strike me as one of the earth’s great uh injustices okay you know the Mex I said we we we expelled a million Mexicans from San Antonio a million but but num couldn’t we say that we can understand why if you got out by the

1:20:52 · skin of your teeth from Poland or Lithuania in 1939 or you survived hell on earth and were in a DP camp and got to Hifa in 1945 or 1946, you you you went down on your knees and you thank God that there was a that there was a Jewish date. But we could also understand that for the Palestinian who lived in that house in Hifa from which they were expelled and then it was given to that person who would who would have survived Avitz for them it was a grave injustice. These both things can both be true.

1:21:22 · Well, yes and no. To to be honest, yes and no. Because I would like to think that if I were that Palestinian and I understood that a war had been launched by five armies, some of my blame would go on those five armies for getting me into that situation.

1:21:37 · Hifa was ethnically cleansed before the Arab armies attacked in May 1948. It was in April or the Palestinian army or the Palestinian attacks or whatever. when when the [ __ ] hit the fan in some way. I would also blame the people who who threw the [ __ ] at the fan. But I Peter, I I want everybody to be right with God.

1:22:00 · And I, you know, I I I if we could go back in time and remember that Albert Brooks movie, Defending Your Life and and see where he he he does a flashback into the childhood. You know, you see video of him as if we could see these incidents.

1:22:17 · I bet you we’d agree on them on a case-byase basis to to elevate this as something unusual to the world, especially the world at that time. And to pretend that almost 100 years later, we’re going to redress it when nothing else from 100 years ago was redressed. I I think this is not practical. I think the practical answer is two states. Abas, if this is what you want, say so. Put the pressure on the Israelis.

1:22:43 · Like the Israelis are pretty pariah state now. Imagine how they’ll look if they’re turning down peace offers from the Palestinians. Look, if if if people like you who, you know, disagree with my vision of, you know, but but want there to be two states, if you I think it’s on incumbent on on on folks like you to be willing to put the kind of pressure on Israel that would require for Israel to stop settlement growth, right?

1:23:08 · Because even if you don’t think that you could negotiate a Palestinian state tomorrow, if it’s your long-term goal, you have to keep open the possibility. And you can’t keep open the possibility if Israel continues. It’s not just that it allows settlers in it. It incentivizes them financially. It makes it cheaper to get a house in the in the settlements often.

1:23:28 · So I think that’s to me like for you people of your view, I would say that’s your Avoda in my view. Like you make keep the possibility of a Palestinian state alive, but I don’t think it’s possible unless you can get the Israeli government to change what it’s doing.

1:23:43 · Yeah, I have no good comeback to that one. So, I I’ll get I maybe we’ll just end there. You can have the upper hand on that last point and uh and we can end. I hope I hope you thought this was a good interview.

1:23:54 · It was I’m I’m very grateful for you guys giving me the time being so, you know, so so gracious and um I would love to have the opportunity to do it again.

1:24:02 · Okay. We And there was talk about uh us all gathering at the olive tree one day.

1:24:08 · Let’s do it. Yeah, I’d love that.

1:24:10 · Okay.

1:24:10 · All right. Peter Bard, everybody.

1:24:12 · Oh, plug plug your your latest book one more time. Uh, the book is called Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. And like everybody and their grandmother, I also have a Substack called the Bine Art Notebook.

1:24:22 · Okay. Good night everybody.

1:24:23 · Thanks a lot.

1:24:24 · Thank you.

"An Agenda Dressed Up in Violins?" - Debating Peter Beinart on the Right of Return and Other Matters

1. Ethical collapse precedes physical collapse (the religious frame)

2. Jewishness is not sustainable without Judaism

3. Rejection of demographic determinism (“critical mass”)

4. Equality under law and crosscutting identities (core one-state argument)

5. Secession counterexamples (rebuttal to “secession is where it’s at”)

6. Settlements and the sincerity of two-staters

7. South Africa analogy and the “psychology of supremacy”

8. Palestinian violence is not primarily Islamist

9. “Colonizer vs. colonial” is an unhelpful semantic debate

10. Hamas history and the “Iran proxy” framing

11. What Palestinians want / leadership legitimacy

12. Negotiations and the Olmert–Abbas offer

13. Salam Fayyad and the “moderation goes unrewarded” argument

14. Right of return — morality and the sentimentality asymmetry

15. Right of return — international law and the UN

16. Immigration policy favoring Jews is discriminatory

17. One-state civil-liberties objections — his rebuttal

18. The Middle East democracy deficit is externally imposed

19. Risk symmetry and October 7

20. The Nakba, Benny Morris, and Arab intentions

Consolidated fact-check checklist (highest-value empirical claims)

Content

Transcript

Intro - four nice things about Peter Beinart

Will God punish Israel? Jeremiah, tradition, and belief

The critical-mass hypothetical: a 49% Hasidic America

Quebec, Czechoslovakia, South Africa - why not divorce?

The right of return: “You can cherry-pick anything”

1948: They were closer to the Holocaust than we are to COVID