How Israel Won the West | The Big Picture

[Music] [Music] they have flattened Gaza entirely there's been targeted destruction of hospitals places of worship schools just eradicating the whole place Israel has seen as more moral than any other state in the world the Israeli Army is the most moral and the World the idea that Israel could perpetrate any crime in international law became basically unimaginable impunity for Israel is baked into International legal system from the very beginning nany wants to make it very very clear that what Israel is doing presenting Israel as the front lines of the battle against um against the Arab world

against the Muslim world and this brings Up this question of the West part of the argument that the Arab world is making is that oh Israel is just the Western implant in the Muslim world if you think about it historically Jews in Europe over time were described as not being of Europe were seen as Oriental were seen as the people who came from elsewhere who had customs and habits and beliefs that were contrary to European civilization right and much of the impetus for Zionism is that is that Jews Were we say now othered right once

they come to Palestine they start seeing themselves and even before they come they start imagining themselves as being representatives of the West in the orient and to a certain extent they succeed in persuading the West that they are the sort of Western Island in the sea of Muslims Arabs all these Oriental others you're right there is the Nonwestern nature of the Jew that then becomes westernized in a political imperialist colonialist project called Zionism Zionism tries to reconstruct a Jewish people and it reconstructs a Jewish people because for Israel to be the national home for the

Jewish people there has to be a Jewish people but this notion of a Jewish people is somewhat of an artificial construct so what do you think about this idea of the Jewish People what happens I would say in the mid 19th century which takes you also to Zionism is the attempt to transform the Jewish people into a Jewish Nation but most modern Nations today Trace themselves to stories that they tell narratives that they tell some of which have some historical um semblance of Truth and some are completely mythological they invent a mythology it's a myth

of creation of a group and the Jews had the Same kind of story that they told themselves from very early on and people will accept that he may be a myth or may not but they now see themselves as part of a certain unit that is distinct from all others if we go back to the Bible obviously the story of Abraham I mean the the birth of the Jewish people is really the it's really a tribal that's tribal root it's the birth of a family and over the course of history of course that family absorbs

many other peoples Within it so obviously the people are not all necessarily descendants from Abraham right so that the very notion of a people is a fiction but it's a fiction that has certain scriptural roots and certain roots of memory and [Music] ritual the stories of Jewish people were for centuries passed down as oral history until between the 9th and 6th centuries BCE they were written down in The Torah the Hebrew Bible as the decreed word of a single Creator God in one story the biblical God enters into a covenant with a character named Abraham

God tells Abraham to leave his home in Mesopotamia and take his family West to the land of Canaan once there he was to carry out God's work and lead a great nation they are chosen to be God's people and this is the land that God gave them so the land of Canaan that becomes the land Of Israel is really in a certain sense seen as the promised [Music] land the story is told in scripture and it doesn't really have much corroborating material outside of scripture they come into the land and then they establish a kingdom

basically and they build a temple eventually in Jerusalem the temple is destroyed the Jews are banished 70 years later they come back they build a second temple That Temple exists for some hundreds of years they're eventually taken over by the Roman Empire they begin to rebel against the Romans the Insurrection is flattened the Jews are dispersed it's important to note that the Jews never all lived in the land of Israel when they're exiled the first time and they come back most of the Jews stayed in Babylonia they didn't come back to the land but the

land of Israel became the Centerpiece of what became the Jewish religion Jews dispersed across the near East and into Europe some through coercion many by choice just as a new religion formed by the followers of a Preacher known as Jesus was set to change the course of Jewish history Jesus's followers understood Jesus to be the long- awaited Messiah figure the one who would bring about the end of days when people finally get what they deserve when the righteous are rewarded The wicked are punished Jews did not and what Christians did was not only only criticize

the ways in which Jews interpreted the Bible they began to criticize Jews themselves Jew becomes a slur you have this depiction of Judaism as the negative opposit of Christianity you have negative depictions of Jews as those who rejected Jesus as those who demanded that Jesus be killed Ultimately as those who killed Jesus themselves not just slurred as Christ Killers Jews were accused of murdering Christian children using their blood for ceremonial ritual the so-called blood liel they were made to live apart as a lesser Creed subject to violence forced conversions and expulsions whilst being excluded from

almost all professions except money lending the work opposed by Christian morality it was a perilous existence That often relied on the whims of Kings to the extent that Jews could choose where to live they often gravitated toward places with powerful Kings because the king might extort money from you might expel you but the king will protect you from the mobs [Music] as early Christian Europe defined itself in opposition to Judaism the rise of an Islamic empire spreading from the Middle East to Iberia in the 7th Century Stirred Christendom to repurpose old scorn for a new

foil Christians othered Jews and othered Muslims they begin to Define Muslims as pagans or as Heretics or as Jews it's a slur it's a way of criticizing those people who are your Rivals those people whose ideas you find threatening don't be like the Muslims they're Jewish the Islamic empire also subjected Jews including spartic Jews of Muslim Spain to a second class status but crucially they were protected as demies people of the covenant not the equal of Muslims but essentially free to contribute to the business art science and culture of a multifaith society and when Spain

was reconquered by Christians spartic Jews along with Muslims were forced out of Iberia with many resettling in Arab lands the Jewish diaspora was broadly divided between the sephardim spread Across North Africa and the Middle East and the ashkanazi who had long been scattered in Europe life for Europe's ashkan naazim remained ghettoized and insecure but as the Middle Ages gave way to modernity new laws began to emancipate Jews from many of the restrictions they'd lived under times it seemed were changing by the 1800s Europe's Industrial Revolution was restructuring Economies and societies offering new opportunities for Jews

to succeed and progress but making progress came at the cost of also making enemies there's now a new type of anti-jewish animosity that comes under the label created in the 1870s of anti-Semitism so you have a combination of thinking about Jews as the those who have now become the cause Of unemployment of poverty of lack of Education of being uprooted and still the older imagery of Jews is demonic Jews as different now on top of this this is a period of what is called scientific racism that is there is an idea that you can actually

identify different races of man so Africans are seen as as Savages as inferior Jews are seen as a different race but they're not simply inferior to The Nordic white Germanic Races they are also subversive and dangerous to society and they take up all those positions that give them that power they're conspiring to take over the world and we may not even know that they've done it [Music] in 1881 anti-Semitism fueled pograms against Jews scapegoated for the struggles of a fading Russian Empire thousands were killed their homes and communities Destroyed in riots watched over by state

authorities these prgrams kindled the belief among a small minority of Europe's Jews that the only way they could be safe from persecution was in a Jewish majority state it was at best a fringe idea but was taken up by an austr Hungarian journalist by the name of Theodore Herzel in 1896 Herzel published a pamphlet called Duden the Jewish state in it Herzel argued that Jews needed a state of their own and that its most fitting location was Palestine the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine is seemed to be such an outrageous and unrealizable idea

what does it mean for Jews who are living in Europe for a thousand years to go and move to this area of the world that was completely underdeveloped it didn't really have any reality to It traditional Jews not only didn't think of going back to their ancestral Homeland in fact they were not supposed to because you are supposed to come back to where you were exiled from only when the Messiah arrives and if you go earlier than that then you're basically going against your own theology this idea of Jews recreating a homeland in Palestine took

on the name Zionism Zion a Biblical reference to the land of Israel herzl's Vision had little support among European jewry religious and secular but Herzel wasn't appealing to his fellow European Jews as much as he was to Europe's leaders an echo of centuries past when seeking the king's favor was crucial to securing Jewish interests in duden Herzel aligned a Jewish state with Western Civilization claiming that a Jewish homeland in Palestine would serve as a sector of the wall of Europe Against Asia and The Outpost of civilization against barbarism Zionism was using the racist tropes of

the white Western World to dehumanize the people of the Muslim world the same tropes Christian Europe had long used to dehumanize both Muslims and Jews and in the process offered Europe an answer to its unresolved Jewish question zionists knew that part of the success of their project was the upsurge And anti-Semitism and that in fact if there was no anti-Semitism Zionism would really have no reason to exist Herzel was going to to offer a win-win situation to the anti-semites of Europe he said I have a deal for you I can take the Jews off your

hand and a lot of European leaders said yeah that sounds good if you can solve our problem will help you solve your problem his thinking is very European it's Progressive nationalist Colonial thinking it's about creating a European Outpost in Palestine because they are European they're part of a European culture but that European culture no longer wants [Music] them the pograms had convinced hundreds of thousands of Jews to leave Eastern Europe and start new lives in the United States but an estimated 25,000 made the move to pales they were followed by a second wave of Jews

fleeing more prgrams in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century heading to a land of some half a million Arab Muslims living alongside small Christian and Jewish minorities putting paid to the Zionist lie of a land without a people but new Jewish immigrants had already established their own farms and factories built their own towns on land Bought by Elite Jewish families like the Rothschilds whose banking riches helped finance a whole Civic infrastructure set apart from the Arabs at that point the Arab population begins to see something bigger is going on this is not just

Jews who want to come to the land of Israel there's some project they were trying to build a society the people coming from Europe have come with an idea to create their own Jewish communities not simply to be Part of a an ottoman [Music] Society by 1917 with the first world war still raging ottoman Society was on the brink of collapse with Britain the leading world power itching to seize the Ottomans Arab lands including Palestine Britain's Imperial greed converged with Zionist ambition securing the support of wealthy European Jews so the British thought Would boost their

chances of Victory and once the war was won a friendly Jewish State planted in Palestine would be a proxy for British rule and a buffer against Arab hostility but the convergence went much deeper British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and foreign secretary Arthur balfor were both Christian zionists they understood a return of Jews to a Biblical Homeland as a precondition for the second coming of Christ when those who accepted Jesus as the Messiah ascended to heaven and those who didn't most notably the Jews were left to perish [Music] Christian Zionism was a way to free

Europe of Jews so there's that kind of complicated relationship where anti-Semitism and Zionism are working together where Zionism is a perfect answer to that problem and this is all coming from a Colonialist mindset where well the Middle East is just like outside of civilization like it doesn't matter what happens there in November 1917 before the war had been won Arthur balfor issued a declaration that announced the British government's support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people saying nothing of the Arab people already there it doesn't mention the Arabs its

attempt is to say we're Going to create some kind of European likee Jewish state in Palestine where Jews can live and flourish on a portion of their historic Homeland not the entirety of their historic Homeland but a portion of their historic Homeland Palestine was already in the process of being hived off for the growing ashkanazi population but now one of zionism's leading figures David benan recognized the potential of what the balfor Declaration promised and was Quick to address those thirsting for more than just a part of Palestine benan made a very very impassion speech trying

to convince many many Zionist detractors who were not in favor of partition because for them they wanted from The River To The Sea and benorian convinced them that this was the first step and we'll move on from there and this was ultimately the convinc narrative that that brought most of Those ironists on board from that point of view there's anist are thinking yes the are people there but we are coming to create our own National home and what will happen with the people who live there um that's to be seen one of the things that

I wanted to also ask you about is on this question question of orientalism and the view of the Muslim uh as other there is this division between the west and the East the Christian world and the Arab world And the orientalist understanding of what the Arab is both in terms of the attractiveness and also the kind of uh rejection of the idea of the The Stereotype of the Arab but how does how does the the anti-muslim which goes back to the Middle Ages and Christianity versus Islam how does that play into the kind of Zionist

project kind of like Reviving this medieval battle between Christianity and Islam in terms of the West and the East I look I mean obviously um the the view of the Orient in Europe uh especially later in the United States as well is a complex one U because Europe has as it does with Jews it has a long history with Islam um the the going back to the reconquest of Spain uh going back to uh s such areas as Sicily taken over by Arabs and then taken over by by by Normans and so forth uh all

of those events are sort of Deeply embedded I think in the European memory of their own history now that of course combines again with power politics that uh Europeans can actually go and grab these territories or have power over them uh which is what they do at the end of World War I now if you add to that the way the baa declaration specifically speaks about the territory of Palestine itself there in fact it does not speak about the rest of the population which is the vast majority of The people it only refers to the

Jews as those who have particular rights and so Zionism says well we can self-determine as a nation so once they move to that land with that ethn National ideology they speak directly completely openly proudly of colonization they buil they built colonies right they call them colonies uh and that process creates what is functionally a settler Colonial process and they get exactly the response that one can expect by Competing over land with the people who live there they create their own position it is in that sense a profoundly dialectical process I wanted to uh just bring

up a sketch of the Jewish immigration to Palestine the land of Israel from the mid 19th century on and there's a community of Jews who are living mostly in Jerusalem and other places uh that are referred to as the old settlement Jews and these are Jews that are mostly traditional they have Come to the land of Israel from the some some of them from the early 18th century and were not zionists in fact they were the core of the anti-zionists and were very opposed to the zionists coming in the 20th century and for the most

part lived in pretty good company with the majority Arab population it's really the second immigration 1904 to the first world war that's considered to be the first real Zionist immigration over 50% of them went back to Europe within 5 Years it wasn't really a successful immigration now these were the people who were building colonies these were the people who were building what later became much of the settlement of that period is funded by Jewish millionaires in Europe who are assisting uh those early colonizers to build colonies um colonies which are based on the idea that

the Jews who immigrate would uh run them and they would have Workers working them there and those workers would be locals would be Arabs and the the second alah the second immigration are the people who come already as you say with more of an idealistic view of the kind of society that they're going to create and that group is deeply critical of the first group precisely for issues of Labor because those early colonies as I said use Arab labor to produce uh on their own agriculture cultural colonies and This new group that comes in starts

speaking about the conquest of Labor that is the part of the Zionist um undertaking is both to take over uh work take over land and in the process of doing that transform themselves become workers of the Land There is a growing realization within the AR population that there's a group now that is beginning to Esta establish cities establish communities take over land and that brings about Resistance the Allies victory in the first world war granted Britain a mandate to administer the lands of Palestine and trans Jordan territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire the Mandate was

an instrument for Imperial Rule and at its heart was the Bal for declaration commitment to creating a Jewish Home in Palestine in the early 1920s Britain sanctioned the resettlement of thousands more ashkanazi Jews from Eastern Europe Palestine was dotted with new Jewish towns with separate economies that excluded indigenous Arabs who forcibly resisted what they recognized as Brazen colonization clashes between Jewish immigrants and Arabs became more intense as the Zionist project acquired new territory for a new Jewish State one that would be home to a whole new Jew the new Jew was the Sunan muscular secular

Kutnik and that was basically offering a revolutionary revision of the entire tradition to create a kind of national istic Jew of [Music] power they wanted to create the kind of Jew who can escape the degradation that built up over 2,000 years of Exile from their land the Western idea of masculinity was something that was deeply influential in Rebuilding the new Jewish personality now on the other side and this is somewhat ironic the Arab portrayed as being a feminine a feminization of the Orient for the purposes of domination the Arab in the Zionist imagination becomes what

the Jew was in the Christian European imagination the Zionist leadership headed by David benan clung to the delusion that Palestinians still might Welcome a Jewish State despite increasingly Fierce resistance but there was a more realistic Vision in a 1923 essay called The Iron Wall Ben guan's political rival Vladimir Zev jabotinski recognized the reality of Zionism for the people of Palestine Zionism manifested itself in the settler Colonial project that is to take the land of an indigenous group in this case Palestinians and build a different Society on it in this case a Jewish Society but really

actually a white settler Jewish Society jabotinski he asks do you know of any indigenous group in the world that accepted a colonial movement and he answer is of course not jabotinski became the head of the alternative the revisionist Zionist movement he says we all know that the Arabs will not accept us Here and his idea is that they will have to do it by force they will have to build an iron wall they will have to show that they cannot be removed jabotinsky believed that eventually the palestin Ians will give up and will accept a

reality that they cannot change and at that point they can be welcomed and accepted as individuals with full and equal citizenship rights but they will not have National rights within a Jewish state in Palestine and for jabotinsky that wasn't simply The River To The Sea he wanted to see a Jewish state in the entirety of the original British Mandate of Palestine and he felt that this was going to require a sense of this new Jewish personality that will not be the defenseless Jew but really the Jew of power this was the policy that was adopted

the policy of force in 1939 Zionist militias collaborating with British troops used Brute Force to help put down an Arab uprising Jews in Palestine were gaining strength just as Jews in Europe faced Devastation the second world war revealed the true horrors of Nazi Germany Adolf Hitler's monstrous anti-Semitism steeped in the fallacies of racial science and conspiracy theories about Jewish power was to claim the lives of 6 million Jews [Music] at the end of World War II there were hundreds of thousands of displaced Jews in Europe with nowhere to go they could not go to the

United States they could not go to Great Britain another way to put it is when Western Powers encouraged the creation of a Jewish state so they didn't have to take in the immigrants themselves Europe's unwanted ashkanazi Jews were occupying more and more of Palestine that was now nearing the end of British rule but its fate remained in the hands of Western power at flushing Long Island the general assembly of the United Nations has made its decision on Palestine the map shows what partition means the Jewish State colored light the Arab State dark jeffa to go

to the Arabs Jerusalem internationalized the 1947 United Nations partition plan was skewed in Favor of the 630,000 Jews living in Palestine handing them more than half of the land while leaving 1.4 million Arabs with the Lesser share the resolution was adopted by 33 boats 13 against 10 [Music] abtin the Jewish people at once began to celebrate the United Nations decision the Arab reaction was to follow palestine's Arabs resisted the UN plan that formalized Zionist Colonization fighting between Arabs and Jews was a commonplace occurrence and there were many casualties on both sides in the midst of

intense Arab resistance the Zionist paramilitary group hagana began clearing the way for a new Jewish State they launch an operation in April of 1948 of opening the axis of transportation and they do that by attacking Villages their policy by and large is to empty those Villages they do that by intimidation they do that by force they do that by killing in one of those cases there is the notorious case of vasim near Jerusalem it's a massacre women and children are killed there and use of that Massacre travels quickly to other Palestinian Villages and people are

terrified and so there's Also uh large numbers of Palestinians who flee from their Villages whenever they hear a rumor that Jewish forces are on the way because they're afraid of massacres on the 14th of May 1948 at the official end of the British mandate David benan declared the birth of the independent Jewish state of Israel the de death and destruction and forced dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians in the creation of Israel would be known as al-nakba the Catastrophe Israel's Dark Truth forever to be denied nakba denial becomes a foundational issue in Israel of course but also

in the west it's very important to understand the origin in 1948 we have the genocide convention the immediate background of the genocide Convention of course is the Holocaust the Nazi assault against Jews is perceived as a unique phenomena in Order to detach Nazi Germany and Nazism and the Nazi assault on Jews from Colonial genocide what this does is create a hierarchy meaning that what We Now call the Holocaust is perceived as worse and more terrible than genocide but this also creates another hierarchy because Israel which emerges as the state of Holocaust Survivors is immediately placed

as more moral than any other state in the world and this is The origins of this idea that the Israeli Army is the most moral in the world so from the very beginning we have these kinds of what really are Jewish supremacist ideas that meant that the idea that Israel could perpetrate any crime in international law not to mention genocide became basically unimaginable which of course immediately necessitated nakba denial and nakba denial therefore becomes a structural Element of the post-war International legal system it means that impunity for Israel is baked into International legal system from

the very [Music] beginning the beginning of Israel triggered an immediate war with its Arab Neighbors when a un brokered ceasefire brought fighting to an end Israel had gained control of 78% of historic Palestine What remained for the Palestinians was split in two the Gaza Strip and the West Bank with Jerusalem divided between an Arab East and an Israeli West the nakba had vanquished the vast majority of palestine's Arabs and stripped them of any right to return to their homes a minority remained in the new expanded state of Israel full citizens of a country that that

saw itself as morally Superior and saw them as a racially inferior Enemy Within but Israel's new labor government needed a new labor force new people to do the essential manual jobs unattractive to many European ashkanazi and so it turned to the spartic Jews in the Arab world those Jews that were living in the Arab countries generally were not zionists sinus was really a European phenomenon but their lives were now in danger in many cases there is a particular case of AOG Against Jews in Baghdad but there also attempts by the Zionist to uh incite anti-jewish

sentiment in Iraq so as to persuade people to leave but when those populations arrive then they're seen by much of the European population Jewish European population there is Arabs and the Arabs of course were the enemy they were called the mrai the Jews from the East and they were being used as media Labor the ashkanazi Jewish Elites regarded MIM as less than as inferior as uneducated the scene is not fully Jewish they're not fully uh civilized the rhetoric is to civilize them it is a de arabization which meant to europeanize them which meant to zione

them what actually happens is that many of those immigrants become basically a second class group within Israeli Society Israel was building racial inequalities into its new societ iy but Its existence in the Middle East remained precarious surrounded by hostile enemies Israel like Jews in the Middle Ages was looking for the support of a powerful ruler in the middle of the 20th century the United States of America was the most powerful Nation on Earth and looking to assert itself in a cold war with the Soviet Union its communist NE es a really important way of asserting

How different we in America are from those Godless Communists is that we are religious and that we value our religious Heritage under this broader umbrella of judeo-christian and by saying judeo-christian we embrace all people who have inherited this Western religious tradition and that we accept Jews under this umbrella too because they share the same basic starting culture religious Culture Israel's early years coincided with America's opportunistic Embrace of a contrived judeo-christian identity that conveniently whitewashed America's own anti-Semitism by folding Jews into to a white Western Civilization there is no way to understand that Embrace without understanding

the symbiotic relationship between the Embrace of Israelis as westerners as judeo-christians as White and the rejection of Arabs and Muslims as different as other is outside of our sphere an inescapable conclusion is that Jews and Israelis came to be seen as insiders as people who were like other Americans and like the United States the United States gathered Israel into its fold just as events were about to bring the two countries even closer together in 1967 Israeli air strikes triggered an allout war with Egypt Syria and Jordan the Arab armies were defeated in just six days

there's a certain kind of pride in that Victory and a certain sense of invincibility the Jews go from being the disempowered weak victims of the Holocaust to being almost like a superation but the dark side is that is also the beginning of the Occupation Israel captures all of historic Palestine and Beyond which includes the Gaza Strip and the area that is most of greatest interest for settlers is the West Bank this is the beginning of settlement of the occupi territories if we think about jabotinski that was the iron War Israel said we are here we

can defeat you now is the time to finally reach a final Arrangement but with the tasting comes the Appetite and Israel does not do that and a new movement is created in eal of a greater isal a greater Israel meant the whole of historic Palestine and possibly Beyond an overwhelming military Victory proved Israel's strength to its Arab enemies and proved to the United States that it could be a useful proxy in a region vital to American interests 1967 helps to usher in this idea of this military Alliance Israel became the Western Democracy that was connected

to these Global powers in terms of interests that had to do with everything from oil to labor to technology Israel became the American footprint in the Middle East I would say on this invention of the judeo Christian uh Universe the judeo Christian ideology um within the European context and you can talk more to the American One uh it is completely a creature of the post World War II post Holocaust attitude of Europeans uh toward what happened in Europe uh during the Holocaust and then rethinking uh the tradition uh centuries of European anti-jewish animosity and European

anti-semitism ISM that is that Christianity as a religion played a role in um uh describing Jews is outside of our more Universe right and um when you try to apply that to attitudes toward Israel it becomes very interesting because Israel in a sense is the answer to the problem that Christian Europe now plays a role in creating a Jewish State um and therefore fulfilling its moral obligation to the Jews that it had betrayed during the Holocaust and so in a sense it's inverting uh anti-jewish attitudes into an invention of this kind of more Universe where

we are all on the same page we always were but we have this Burden of guilt of anti-jewish attitudes that had led to the Holocaust uh I think in the American case it's somewhat different I think it is different um you have something called the tri Faith America movement in the 1930s where you have uh I can't remember the names a priest a pastor and a rabbi go around the country preaching uh coexistence between Judaism Christianity Judaism Catholicism or protestantism which is an interesting Again Play given the fact That the Jews make up a tiny

percentage of the population that they're they're included in that tribe Faith America and then the judeo Christian tradition really in a certain sense and here I'm very influenced by this essay in 1969 by Arthur Cohen called the myth of the judeo Christian tradition that basically the judeo-christian tradition just really means the Christian tradition and the judeo already latinized and christianized in in its articulation Just become subsumed in Christianity so with an expression of generosity it's actually another form of supersessionism however it's now you ubiquitous in the halls of Congress people will get up and talk

about the judeo Christian tradition and post 911 it really has taken on a veillance of anti-muslim tradition right that Islam Judo Christian tradition becomes a weapon against Islam I don't think it's a very Provocative thing to say that Israel changes after 1967 The Six Day War is Over Israel increases its territory by about one3 and not only increases its territory but now has Dominion over populations in the Gaza Strip which is Egypt the West Bank which was Jordan and the Golan Heights which was uh which was Syria it was first seen as the liberation of

territories and then becomes the occupation and they can't easily Annex the territories to become Part of the state because then the Jewish majority which is kind of the retra of Zionism would be undermined so they they get involved in a situation that seems to me to be one uh where nobody really has a plan and yet what becomes a settler movement they do have a plan and the plan is kind of Greater Israel territorial maximalism this is seen as something Messianic Palestinians were now considered to be ironically as in Europe the Jews were were considered

To be the enemy within the Palestinians are now considered to be the enemy within the trajectory of uh Israeli policies but not just policies of Israeli aspirations of returning to the historic lands of where the Israelites were they they weren't living in Tel Aviv they were living in in nablo they were living in Hebron they were they conquered Jericho and suddenly all these places are under Israeli rule the Trajectory is how do we keep it Israel wants the territories and its problem is what to do with the people living in them another thing that happens

after 7 which is on the sort of geopolitical level is that after 67 the United States sees that Israel is a potent military power and it starts investing in that and the third thing that I would mention Israel changes the country itself changes it becomes a much more Cosmopolitan Society it opens up to the West uh people travel more uh there's more media coming in it opens up to the world and at the same time it increasingly becomes a country much of whose occupation is managing and occupation and so it becomes a society that on

the one hand is increasingly modernized and open and Cosmopolitan and less conservative and at the same time is preoccupied with how do you hold down half of the population Under your control [Music] Israel's victory in the 1967 6-day war brought with it a military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank but instead of being condemned Israel Consolidated its place within Western power with Jews embraced as part of a white judeo-christian world order the United States increased its military and economic aid to Israel to unprecedented levels while turning a Blind eye to the plight

of Palestinians the people outside of the white Western fold an armed struggle against the occupation now grew more intense a vicious Act of sabotage which killed 11 people in a Jewish Market in Jerusalem political violence against Israel by groups such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization was Avenged by the Israeli State through assassinations and more repress ression in the occupied territories and then in October 1973 on the Jewish Festival of yon kipor a coalition led by Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack the Arab armies made shockingly early gains against an Israeli military that would eventually

reclaim the upper [Music] hand but Israel's initial failures were damning its sense of invincibility now lost the labor prime minister golden Mayer resigned 3 years later in 1977 the lud party headed by manim Bean once the leader of a Jewish terror group was elected to power for the first time Israel had a right-wing party in government with an avowed disciple of the hard-right ideologue Zev jabotinski as prime minister but Le's rise wasn't just rooted in the failings of the 1973 War it was fueled by The Rage of Israel's Arab Jews the followers of the revisionist

That's the party that was established by Zev jabotinski and is now in 1977 LED by beg the people who elect him are the MIM the people or the children of the people who came from North Africa and the Middle East the people who had deep hatred for the ashkanazi establishment the ongoing resentment of how they were treated as second class citizens how they were treated like Arabs [Music] Israel's labor party made up of an ashkanazi elite had purged misraki of their Arab Heritage reinforcing the racist idea of Arabs as inferior worthy only of contempt while

treating misraki as a Jewish underclass the lud party itself dominated by ashkanazi leaders stoked Mizrahi disaffection with Labor's Elites while stirring hostility against Palestinian Arabs But a new radical figure was about to turn Arab hatred into a political movement too extreme even for Bean's right-wing government his name was Mayer Kahana the jdl in Israel has made it quite clear that it is ready willing and quite able to go and kill Arab terrorists mayor Kahana is an American Born Rabbi who immigrates to Israel and he begins to build a political party that becomes known as the

kak party very very militant very jabotinsky Like and then in 1984 he wins one seat in the knesset and this is really a shock to the Israeli political system because Kahana was advocating transferring the Arabs out making them worse than second class citizens any Arab who ready to live here as a non-citizen with his personal rights and not his National rights can stay here and any Arab who is not and who looks forward to that day when Israel will become Palestine must leave that's not Racism that's common sense there's a certain kind of hatred and

anger and militancy against Arabs that is even for the political right in Israel becomes frightening there is no such thing as Jewish Terror there is Jewish Vengeance perhaps his rhetoric tacks on to a sense of insecurity of disorder again latching on to people who are not shazi to MIM it is a politics of resentment and Of rage I am going to the Arab Village of um in in Israel a nest of vipers and snakes anti-israel and anti-jewish and I'm going to walk through those streets just like ours walk through the streets of Jewish cities and

I'm going to say Kahana is here and you'll be leaving soon and they also U motivated to use violence because the regime itself is using violence Mayer kahane and his followers Many of whom were Mahi carried out deadly attacks on Arab targets where the Israeli state strove to deny its violence against Arabs kahane openly celebrated it in 1988 his Koh party would be outlawed as a racist terror group he's subsequently assassinated in America some years later but his influence continues to grow among some of the radical factions of the settler Movement in 1994 an American

American Israeli opened fire on Palestinian worshippers at a West Bank mosque 29 people were shot dead the following year a misi Jew shot and killed Israel's then prime minister Yak Rabin both Killers opposed the 1993 Oslo Accords both opposed the possibility of a Palestinian State both were devoted followers of Mayer kahane Mayer Kahani was himself a devotee of Zev jabotinski the architect of the Iron Wall Doctrine and the ideological Godfather of another liud leader in 1996 Benjamin Netanyahu would become Israel's youngest ever prime minister Netanyahu was steeped in jabotinsky ideas of forcing Palestinians into submission

and in the ideal of a greater Israel that swallowed all of Palestine this was the ideology that Netanyahu shared with the extreme right the same ideology that had dictated Zionist policy since the early 20th century the policy of all Israeli governments labor or liud left or right since Israel's creation the policy of Total Conquest of absolute force force was used to beat down the first and second inas Palestinian uprisings against an illegal occupation force was used to collectively punish Palestinians for attacks by the military wing of Hamas The group gazin elected to power force was

the hundred-year policy hidden in plain sight and all the while Israel forced through its settlement building expanding its footprint in the West Bank laying waste to the possibility of any viable Palestinian state it was jabotinsky Iron Wall made real and its consequences would be shocking [Music] [Music] within hours the scales of the attack were unfathomable October 7th was a state in collapse and a military that failed miserably in protecting Israeli citizens the whole project of Zionism was to prevent this from happening if you keep people caged for decades you're brutalizing yourself and you're brutalizing them

and what can you expect will happen they will Respond they will be massacres as jabotinsky said about the Arabs in the Iron Wall subjugated people will Rebel one way or another [Music] the Hamas LED attacks of October 7th 2023 against Israel resulted in the death of an estimated 1,200 people Israel's response was an allout war on the Gaza Strip [Music] [Applause] [Music] prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the words of zionism's founding figure Theodore Herzel as he reached for judeo-christian solidarity in Europe and in the United States this is not a clash of civilizations it's a

clash between barbarism and civilization the response was unequivocal you know Who must make sure that they have what they need to protect their people today and always there is a necessity to continue to support Israel unconditionally to send even more weapons uh to Israel to stand behind Israel even more what we're seeing here is this Western identity and how if we need to really come to terms with Israel we need to come to terms with Israeli genocide which is a continuation of the Nakba then we need to think about settler colonialism at the heart of

the international political and legal system after World War Two which means that we also need to come to terms with settler colonialism in the US and in the west and who wants to do that but we can't understand that without thinking about what sits at the heart of settler colonialism that is white supremacy in Israel white supremacy Manifests itself as Jewish Supremacy one could make the argument that it's a settler government at this point and the ideology of Greater Israel in the movement becomes the government itself which is why nany is very open in saying

there will never be a Palestinian State Israel has flattened Gaza entirely there's been targeted destruction of universities of hospitals of places of worship schools Parliament just eradicating the whole place making it impossible for them to come back because there's nothing to come back [Music] to they've clearly been war crimes crimes against humanity and there won't be any other way to call it by a genocidal campaign to destroy the Palestinian people in Gaza and meanwhile in the West Bank under the Leadership of the two extremist ministers smich who is not only Minister of Finance but also

Minister within the ministry of defense and benville who is the Minister of internal security and police under the leadership of these two people there is a creeping ethnic cleansing of the West Bank Benjamin neton Yahoo's coalition government is propped up by right-wing Fanatics like itamar benir and bezalel [Music] MRI Netanyahu has continued the leud strategy of appealing to far-right elements among Israel's mahim for support but is beholden to the extremists to keep him in power and and out of prison as he fights charges of alleged corruption unlike Netanyahu zrc and benir are religious zionists Disciples

of Mayer Kahan but all three share a Devotion to Zev jabotinski and a commitment to his Vision of an expanded greater Israel while our eyes are set on Gaza what's going on in the West Bank is as alarming you have these settler militias that are armed there's no police there's no law enforcement all the red lights are flashing because when you have these groups that are weaponized that's a recipe for atrocities in extreme cases such as the uh Hilltop youth these are the kids that feel that they're re Acting some sort of a crazy biblical

story as if they are just shepherds in the hill of Judea and avoid the fact that behind the Jewish settler there's a tank and an [Music] F-16 in the 1920s when the zionists come and first start thinking about a state project there was this term called the Arab question how we going integrate this population or can we integrate this population into this state idea and in Some very kind of horrific uh way um October 7th is like the Arab question coming and like smashing the country over the head in some sense how do you see

October 7th within the larger history of this whole you know Zionist project from the 20th century so look I mean from the sort of Zionist and Israeli point of view the Arab question is not the issue the issue is the Jewish question and Zionism was created it claimed to solve The Jewish question uh that's its project the ab question is a footnote to resolving the Jewish question so o over all those years of Israeli occupation from 67 to the present one has to understand that a secular mentality in Israel had developed not only that you

can manage the occupation but also that the people that we are occupying we don't see them they're on the other side of the fence they basically have undergone social death they removed from Their jobs from their homes and so forth and people just didn't see them anymore and if you don't see people then you stop thinking of them as being human being such as yourself and so they don't want to solve the Arab question they want the question to go away hopefully by a miracle that the Arabs will just disappear and that it won't be

only in Gaza but as is now being implemented also in the West Bank one way of making the problem go away is you make you just Make Gaza uninhabitable and the people go someplace else but of course other countries are not willing to take you know millions of traumatized people just like countries weren't willing to take the millions of traumatized people Jews that after the second world war so you know I I want to take us back to the beginning um and the beginning of Zionism actually uh which was a response to real oppression discrimination

persecution and nowadays when you say That Palestinians are fighting against oppression you don't have to condone massacr by Hamas but you can say actually I think you must say that resistance to oppression is moral it's also legal by international law but when you say that you are called anti-semitic and that to me is turning everything on its head because you have to remember that in order to liberate yourself from oppression you have to Resist the oppressor will never stop oppressing you unless you resist them the state of Israel was an answer to centuries of Jewish

persecution but zionism's leaders from theater Herzel to Benjamin Netanyahu understood that a Jewish state in Palestine meant the removal of those already there the Arab [Music] Palestinians and so Gaza is Destroyed thousands of Palestinian children killed and Lebanon bombed as Israel's war attempts to draw in The Wider region and possibly further beyond the West continues to support a genocide but something is beginning to shift the legal institutions set up after the second world war to serve the New us-led World Order institutions that have long denied Palestinians Justice might at last be standing up for the

Palestinian People I have reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense yuav Galant bear criminal responsibility for the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as well as crimes against humanity of extermination and or murder because genocide indeed is so clear and Because impunity originally is tied to the crime of genocide as it emerged now we start seeing the cracks in Israeli impunity and that's related to the case against Israel in the international court of justice it's related to requests for

arrest warrants by the chief prosecutor of the international cre Court kareim Khan this is an accident of the system this was never supposed to happen but it is happening and speaks to other Ways in which the international legal system has of course failed so many people around the world primarily in the global South and what we're seeing now it's such an unprecedented moment so it's very difficult to say what might happen but there is potential for a significant change in the international legal system there's broader implications we can think about dozens of millions of forcibly

displaced Refugee people around The world and this is why the global South has rallied around the case of Gaza because people at the global South who know who know very well that they've been discarded by this International political and legal system they see the potential here of transformation of change that's not only about Israel and Gaza but through Israel and Gaza it can happen but the forces pushing back are incredibly powerful [Music]