Abdullah al Andalusi – IS ANTI-ZIONISM ANTISEMITISM – vs Raphi Bloom UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER UK
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses various religious beliefs and their connectedness with the land of Israel, including the belief that the Jewish people have a strong connection to the land. They emphasize the importance of creating a state of Israeli citizenship for all individuals rather than just one race. The Israeli Jewish population is a minority and the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is highlighted. The return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel and the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel is also highlighted.
AI: Summary ©
When people criticize Zionists, you're talking anti-Semitism.
He hasn't answered my question though, as to
whether Einstein is actually an anti-Semite for
saying that Palestinians should be given the land.
Does he equals anti-Semitism squared?
Anti-Semitism!
Anti-Semitism!
Racist!
Racist!
Racist!
Jews are the tenuous presence in the land,
and they are its indigenous, original people, and
the DNA proves it.
But, they also have DNA in roughly equal
proportion, that's from Europe.
Europe is equally your homeland as the Middle
East, but for the Palestinians, it is only
Palestine as their homeland.
But it has always been there, a constant
Jewish longing.
So all I'm hearing is, we want it,
so we get it.
Even if Jews live there, they're considered to
be in destruction if the Arabs rule over
them.
It's about racial supremacy, racial privilege.
You just condemned your own people!
Oh my God, I'm embarrassed for you.
The Palestinians have always rejected peace.
Israel doesn't want peace with other people, it
wants a piece of other people's land.
You need to do your homework, this is
a university here, it's going to look bad.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, my name is
Duncan Iverson, I'm the President and Vice-Chancellor
here at the University of Manchester, and welcome
to our second Whitworth debate.
And the mission of the Whitworth debate, aligned
very closely with the mission of the university,
is to provide a context in which we
can air difficult and often divisive issues in
a way that promotes understanding.
Understanding of different points of view, in an
open and spirit of civil and open discussion.
And it follows on from a debate we
had last year, around this time on animal
research.
Now this is also part of a wider
series of events that we're instituting across the
university this year, to promote debate about difficult
and important issues.
And that includes meetings like this, but also
meetings with students and staff in new ways
and new formats.
And we really embrace the opportunity to give
our students, our staff and the wider community,
a chance to be exposed to different ideas
and beliefs, so that they can come to
their own conclusions, about what they think and
how they should think about them.
Now tonight, as we'll hear in a minute,
our speakers are members of the Jewish and
Muslim communities, and have expressed differing opinions of
various aspects of the discussion we'll hear tonight.
And we recognize that not all members of
these communities, obviously, will share the same views.
This is a dialogue across different views.
Now the Middle East is a subject, about
which people feel very strongly, on all sides.
And in the spirit of open debate, I
urge you tonight, to allow our speakers to
make their points, without undue disruption, without interference,
that in any way would deny us from
achieving, what we're here to do tonight, which
is to listen and to hear what people
have to say.
You know, the world is full of shouting
at the moment, and the loudest are certainly
being heard.
But let's endeavor to take a different approach.
You know, sometimes the most radical thing we
can do, for another human being, is to
listen to them.
And let's hope we can act in that
radical spirit, this evening.
So now let me introduce the panel.
Very pleased to invite, to welcome Rafi Bloom,
who is one of the founders and co
-chair, of the Northwest Friends of Israel, which
was formed in 2014, and is one of
the largest grassroots Israel advocacy organizations in the
UK.
Rafi holds both professional and voluntary roles, within
the UK Jewish community.
He describes himself as a proud Zionist, and
a passionate and knowledgeable advocate for Israel, and
often appears in the UK media, to both
put across Israel's case, and to give a
perspective on anti-Semitism, faced by the Jewish
community.
Alongside this, Rafi works extensively with the Manchester
-based Holocaust survivors, to ensure their stories, and
the lessons of the Holocaust, are widely shared,
especially with high school students, and young adults.
Abdullah Andulazi is an international speaker, thinker, and
intellectual activist, for Islam and Muslim affairs.
He's a researcher for the I3 Institute, an
instructor and head of the Department of Occidentology,
at the Quran Institute, and in 2009, co
-founded the discussion forum, the Muslim Debate Initiative,
a forum that promotes open dialogue, and critical
debate, between thinkers, academics, politicians, and public speakers
of all backgrounds.
He's spoken in community centers, universities, colleges, made
numerous appearances on various programs, on TV and
radio channels, including the BBC, ITV, BBC Arabic,
BBC Radio 4, Channel 4, Al Jazeera, and
the Islam Channel.
And then finally, to our moderator, our chair,
Joseph Timmon, who is a politics writer at
the Manchester Evening News.
He's worked at the MEN for four years,
and has been leading the newspaper's political coverage,
since October this year.
So with that, I'll hand over to Joseph,
for the beginning of tonight's event.
Thank you.
Hi everyone, can you hear me?
So now, we're just about to get started,
it's just time for me to explain how
this evening will work.
Our two speakers will begin with opening statements.
Rafi will posit the question, is anti-Zionism
anti-Semitism?
And Abdullah will respond.
That will then be followed by one longer
rebuttal each, and five shorter rebuttals each.
The second half of the debate will consist
of a question and answer session.
Then our speakers will each have five minutes
for their final remarks.
And just a reminder, tonight's speakers are members
of the Jewish and Muslim communities, but they
and we recognize that a diversity of views
exist across these and other communities.
And the speakers tonight are representing their own
personal viewpoints.
So Rafi, over to you.
The State
of Israel, and in many cases, so you
fix the straw shack.
We want
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Racism, racism, racism, racism, Racism, racism, racism, racism,
Daughters
of
Israel, Hussain, Hussain, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain,
Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain,
Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain,
Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain,
Rahman, Hussain,
Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain,
Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain,
Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain,
Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rahman, Hussain, Rah We
understand that emotions are running very high but
our objective as a university
is to enable the
event to proceed.
Let's please proceed with respect for each other.
When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews and
you're talking anti-Semitism.
Who said this?
It wasn't Herzl, it wasn't the Chief Rabbi,
it wasn't Ben-Gurion, it was Martin Luther
King Jr. in 1968.
And that criticism, as we know, takes the
form of statements such as Zionism is only
a modern day political movement, Zionism is different
to Judaism, Israel is a settler colonial state
and of course anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.
And we hear these arguments all the time
from those who seek to delegitimize the state
of Israel and in many cases seek its
destruction.
And no doubt we'll hear them tonight.
Yes, the founding of the state of Israel
was the result of Zionism as a modern
day political movement.
But those who seek to characterize Zionism as
only political and differentiate it from Judaism and
Jews are at best woefully uneducated or at
worst dangerously disingenuous.
Let me quote Alice Marku, whose family survived
the Holocaust and communist Romania.
Judaism is a native identity.
Jews are a people and a religion.
Like many other indigenous identities, it predates the
modern separation of religion, culture, mythology, morals, nation
and land.
These elements have all been tied together for
Jews over the course of millennia.
Much like other native identities, Judaism sanctifies, which
means the religious element, the bond between the
people, the nation and the place where their
ancestors had lived, the land, and had formed
their native heritage, their culture, mythology, morals, language
and so on.
In other words, much like many people can
accept Native American tribes, seeing their ancestral land
as sacred, a belief that isn't nullified even
when they have been displaced from it, that's
how these same people should understand the unbreakable,
holy, indigenous connection in Jewish identity between the
people of Israel and Eretz Yisrael, the land
of Israel.
She finishes by saying it might be that
only in modern times we came to refer
to this bond as Zionism, when it took
on the form of a political movement.
But it has always been there, a constant
Jewish longing, an intrinsic part of our faith,
history and legacy.
And I know, as do most Jews, whether
they're religious or not, that this yearning for
a return to self-determination in our ancestral
homeland is brought to the fore time and
time again.
Anyone who has been in synagogue at the
end of Yom Kippur will know that Jews
joyfully declare, Next year in Jerusalem.
It's a powerful, emotional and heartfelt cry made
before God on the holiest day of the
Jewish year.
And similarly, everyone participating in the Passover Seder
makes the same declaration.
Judaism is unique in its attachment to Jerusalem.
The Tanakh, the complete Old Testament, mentions Jerusalem
more than 650 times.
The Koran does not mention it once.
Psalm 137.5 declares, If I forget you,
O Jerusalem, let my right hand lose its
skill.
There's no comparable expression in non-Jewish scripture.
And that declaration is made at the end
of every Jewish wedding ceremony to express our
grieving for the destruction of the temple and
remember Jerusalem, even at moments of extreme joy
like a wedding.
In Judaism, Jerusalem is a living focus of
prayer.
When praying, one is required to orient our
heart and face towards Jerusalem, no matter where
we are in the world.
References to Zion, the land of Israel and
Jerusalem are deeply embedded in ancient Jewish texts,
including the Bible, the prophetic books, the Talmud
and the Siddur, the Jewish prayer book.
Archaeological evidence further substantiates the longstanding Jewish presence
in the land of Israel.
And a close examination of Jewish liturgy reveals
a profound connection between the Jewish people and
their ancestral land.
Jews are traditionally called to formal worship three
times a day.
These prayers are compiled in the Siddur and
many of them reference Zion and are expressly
devoted to the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
Additional prayers are recited before and after meals,
as well as on special occasions, on holidays
and whilst mourning.
And through the study of these prayers, whether
in the home or synagogue, one can discern
both the physical and spiritual significance of Zion.
The Hebrew calendar and Jewish holidays are based
on the agricultural year as experienced specifically in
the land of Israel.
And among the 613 Jewish mitzvot, biblical decrees
that Jews are required to observe, there are
26 decrees that can only be observed while
living in the land of Israel.
And many Jewish festivals explicitly celebrate Zionist ideas,
meaning they uphold the importance of the bond
between the Jews and the land of Israel.
Chanukah is a celebration of native Jews, the
Maccabees, fighting off the forces of the Greek
occupiers and re-establishing Jewish sovereignty in Israel.
And to bring this full circle to modern
-day Zionism at the end of the 19th
century, when the secular Theodor Herzl wrote The
Jewish State, he forged an alliance with religious
Jews worldwide who had longed for Zion much
longer than he had.
For them, it was not political, it was
sacred.
The poster designed for the 5th Zionist Congress
in Basel in 1901 had written across the
bottom the prayer, May our eyes see thy
return to Zion in mercy.
10th century Portuguese did not pray to return
to Brazil, nor did our own British countrymen
yearn for Australia.
There were colonial powers in Israel, that's without
doubt.
Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, Rome, Islamic Ottoman Turks,
Jordan, and of course Britain.
But the Jews were not among them.
Jews absolutely cannot be a settler colonial power
in the land where they arose.
And for all the violence Israel has been
forced to endure in defending itself since 1948,
its national anthem is not about rockets and
bombs like America's.
It's about hope, the hope of 2,000
years to be once again a free people
in our land, the land of Zion, Jerusalem.
The modern-day state of Israel, founded by
modern-day Zionists, is simply the rightful fulfillment
of this.
Judaism includes Zionism, which is derived from the
Hebrew word Sion.
To deny that intimate link between Judaism, Jerusalem,
and the land of Israel that has existed
for millennia, and has been proven in black
and white here, is to deny one of
the most fundamental tenets of Judaism.
This is thousands of years of Jewish religion
meeting the modern, to re-establish a Jewish
state in our ancestral home.
We are a people and a religion.
Hate and disagree with the things that Israeli
government does.
But if you call for the destruction of
the Jewish state of Israel with your anti
-Zionism, then you hate Judaism and Jews, and
that is what makes anti-Zionism anti-Semitism.
I'd like to thank you all for being
here.
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
I want to make some points.
Firstly, in case you can't tell, the Muslim
here, the person that's a Muslim is also
wearing a kippah with a beard and a
shirt.
But this is no way, I'm trying to
actually destroy stereotypes here.
Muslims can look like that too.
Okay.
Just quickly what you said, a few points
which are inaccurate.
The Quran does mention the Holy Land is
called Al-Ard Al-Muqaddis, the Holy Land,
or Al-Aqsa, the furthest mosque.
So referring to what some people call the
Temple Mount, or what we call Al-Aqsa
Masjid.
You said that Jews have a religious connection
to the land, or to Jerusalem more specifically,
to be honest.
And, you know, Sikhs have a spiritual connection
to Amritsar.
That doesn't mean they have to rule that
land and take it over and what have
you, right?
So they can still have your temple.
The Baha'is in the State of Israel
have their HQ there, their head temple there.
But they're not going to come and invade
it and take it over.
There's a difference.
Okay, now for my speech.
Oh, and by the way, Theodor Herzl was
equally happy with Argentina.
He didn't really care about a holy land,
but that's a side point.
Okay, in 1917, the anti-Semitic UK government
cabinet believed that they could use Jews to
win the war against Germans.
And promised the Zionists to grant Jews Palestine
as a national home, but not expressly as
a state.
On condition that the civil rights of the
inhabitants be respected.
Despite promising in a joint French declaration that
all the former peoples of the Ottoman Caliphate
would be given self-determination, they expressly denied
this for the Palestinians.
And promptly allowed the drastic changing of demographics
within Palestine with European immigrants, without the consent
of the people there.
This state was called the Mandate of Palestine.
Zionism demands a Jewish state and a democracy.
But you can't have both when the majority
of the population isn't Jewish.
So what are you going to do if
you hold Zionism to be absolute above all
other considerations?
Well, you do the following.
In 1947, the UK was reaching the end
of the Mandate, but Palestine still had a
two-thirds majority non-Jewish Arab Palestinian population.
Zionists refused repeated proposals for a unitary democratic
state.
The Zionists noticed that despite the UN partition,
40% of their state would still be
non-Jewish Palestinian Arab.
So the Zionist leadership, together with the militia,
in coordination with a declared terrorist organization, the
Irgun, began an ethnic cleansing campaign in Palestine,
kicking out 700,000 Palestinians.
The Irgun committed massacres like Deir Yassin, killing
almost over 100 people, Arab villagers, and reportedly
parading captives through West Jerusalem before they were
reportedly executed.
Later, the leader of the Irgun, Menachem Begin,
was arrested and prosecuted for war crimes in
Israel.
Only joking, he was made the sixth prime
minister of Israel.
The Palestinians that were left in Israel, now
with less than half their number, were put
under discriminatory military rule for 19 years.
Only them, not their Jewish co-citizens.
The expelled refugees weren't allowed to return because
of demographics, and their homes and lands were
taken, so much for their protected civil rights
under the Balfour Declaration.
This only fully changed when Israel launched a
war in 1967, conquering Gaza, the West Bank,
and Golan, and Israel now had a million
more Palestinians to deal with.
Israel wanted land, but not the Palestinians.
In 2024, it has now been 71 years
that they have been under military rule.
Why are they so antsy about it?
Indeed, Israel is quite the exceptional state, being
the world record holder for applying martial law
and military occupation in modern times.
Notably, without international sanctions.
South Africa got that for less.
Apartheid South Africa, that is.
But what is gained by injustice requires more
injustice to keep.
So despite international scrutiny, Israel uses disproportionate suppression
tactics on the Palestinians, like mass damage operations
on population centers deemed to be loosely connected
or sympathetic to Palestinian insurgency.
We see Israeli commanders talking about operations that
killed masses of civilians quote-unquote, as an
example for everyone, and quote-unquote, they were
ordered to maximal killing and damage to property.
End quote.
In the West Bank, Israel made military laws
that silenced peaceful criticism of Israel, even showing
the Palestinian flag.
And pursuing a policy of housing dispossession, military
harassment via checkpoints and home invasions, and even
permitting settler harassment and terror designed to corral
Palestinians into reservations.
Or South African bantustans, if you will.
Generally, or just making life uncomfortable for Palestinians
to encourage them to leave.
However, the world was watching, and Israel was
losing support.
So this is why Israel's foreign minister, Abba
Egan, in 1973 said, one of the chief
tasks of dialogue with the gentile world was
to show that the distinction between anti-Semitism
and anti-Zionism is not a distinction at
all.
Despite leading figures within the Palestinian rights movement,
and activists being Jews, this label is often
used to silence criticism of what is the
big elephant in the room.
Now, an Israeli minister said, he talked about
Arab demography as a problem.
He said, there is a danger we shall
be Arabicized.
He said, self-determination is not an absolute
right.
The absurdity of Arab nationalism is that it
demands 100% self-determination, saying that all
Arabs, wherever they are, must live under their
sovereign flags.
If we decide on a unitary state that
will have to be free, with free and
equal rights, whatever you say about society, it
will not be Jewish.
Who said this?
Abba Egan.
And he said it in the exact same
article.
He said that anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism.
He said we must convince the world that
anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism, and at the
same time he says, and we must deny
self-determination to the Arabs.
And Zionism demands that.
Now, you don't have to be Einstein to
see the problem here, but if you need
him, he said, it seems to me a
matter for simple common sense that we cannot
ask to be given rule over Palestine where
two-thirds of the population are not Jewish.
Is he an anti-Semite?
I'd like to see him answer that, actually.
Einstein?
I'd like to ask my interlocutor and fellow
Zionist advocates, thank you, if you must insist
on continuing to campaign against injustice, against justice,
against Palestinian equality, against Palestinian right to human
dignity, equal self-determination and an end to
the suffering and death toll that is the
price Zionism has exacted, at least do us
the favor of not insulting our intelligence with
the ridiculous notion that campaigning for these is
anti-Semitic.
If you are saying that equality, human rights
and justice are anti-Semitic and therefore against
Jewishness, then you, sir, are the anti-Semites.
Thank you.
Okay, now
each of you are going to have four
minutes each in the first rebuttal, starting with
Rafi, and I am going to be stricter
with time this time.
Thank you.
Sorry, is that my con?
Yes, good.
I noticed that Abdullah didn't answer the point
about Jerusalem.
He mentioned Al-Aqsa, but not Jerusalem.
And he virtually ignored completely the chronicle of
examples I gave of the Jewish connection to
the land.
We are the only indigenous people that have
ever had an unbroken bond to that land.
But let's deal with just one lie that
we heard tonight, and that's about the War
of Independence and expulsion and massacres.
In 1947, when the League of Nations decided
to impose partition, the Palestinian, or I should
say at the time the Arab occupants of
the land started a civil war against the
Jews, which was attempted to be put down
by the British.
Now, there's often this misrepresentation about there being
expulsion.
And often they talk about Plan D, Plan
Dalet, which was the Haganahs' plan as this
mass plan for expulsion.
Let me just say very clearly, the Israeli
government at the time, the Israeli leadership at
the time, had absolutely no plan for expulsion,
and I'll prove it.
Plan Dalet, which was enacted on the 10th
of March 1948, says the following.
The objective of this plan is to gain
control of areas of the Hebrew state and
defend its borders.
It also aims at gaining control of the
areas of Jewish settlement and concentration, the areas
of Jewish settlement, which are located outside the
border, which would have been in the new
Palestinian state.
It doesn't talk about mass expulsions anywhere.
There is some mention of where a town
that might be a danger behind enemy lines
is conquered.
Then the residents are expelled.
But there is absolutely no overall overarching plan
to expel it, to expel Palestinians.
And I'll tell you another...
I'll just go into that in a bit
more detail.
The commander-in-chief, Israel Galili of the
Haganah, said that on the Arab policy of
the Zionist movement is an acknowledgement of the
full rights, needs, and freedoms of the Arabs
in the Hebrew state without any discrimination and
desire for coexistence on the basis of mutual
freedom and dignity.
In other words, we respect the rights of
the Arabs who are going to live in
our state, and we don't mistreat them.
And Tom Segev, who is one of the
new Israeli historians who wrote a comprehensive biography
of Ben-Gurion, said, what is important for
me to point out is to say that
before the war of independence, Palestinians left, Palestinians
escaped, Palestinians were forced to escape.
In the beginning, it was the Palestinian elite
that left, the rich people left.
Then people left because of war, they left
because of propaganda, they left because they were
told to leave.
There was absolutely no clear plan of expulsion,
and it's a lie that's propagated time and
time again to say that Israel expelled 750
Palestinians.
If they had this plan of expulsion, why
is today 20% of Israel, 2 million
people, Arab Israelis?
But let me just quote you two or
three more things.
APPLAUSE Emil Gouri, the secretary of the Palestinian
Arab Higher Committee, said on September 6, 1948,
the fact that there are refugees is the
direct consequence of the act of the Arab
states in opposing partition in the Jewish state.
The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously,
and they must share in the solution of
the problem.
And Abu Mazen, the president of the Palestinian
Authority, said in 1976, the Arab states succeeded
in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying
their unity.
They did not recognise them as a unified
people until the states of the world did
so, and that is regrettable.
And lastly, Edward Atiyah, the secretary of the
Arab League, said in 1955, the wholesale exodus
of Palestinians was due partly to the belief
of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of
an unrealistic press and the irresponsible utterances of
some of the Arab leaders that it could
only be a matter of some weeks before
the Jews were defeated by the armies of
the Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs enabled
to re-enter and retake possession of their
country.
There was no expulsion.
It's a lie to delegitimise Israel, and you've
just heard the proof.
So, what I've encountered when I studied Zionist
interlocutors is they will selectively quote and miss
out a whole bunch of stuff.
So they said, he misdirected you, made you
think that the accusation is there was a
dedicated plan, which was Plan Dala, which came
a bit afterwards, and it was actually very
broad in how it was worded, so anything
could be considered to be an enemy population
centre that must be removed and relocated.
But what actually happened was that when the
partition plan occurred, Ben-Gurion is on record
saying that how can we have a Jewish
state with 40% Arabs?
It's not possible.
And then he told all his commanders this,
and then his commanders basically went around and
expelled Palestinians from a number of cities, and
Ben-Gurion didn't stop this.
And in fact, in one case, he even
ordered it, not two cases, in Ramla and
Lidda, he's on record as ordering, he said,
when asked what should we do with the
Arab population, he said, there's two accounts of
the minutes of that meeting, one is he
waved his hand, the other one is he
said expel them.
And that's 10% of the population of
the Palestinians, that was 70,000 people, that's
on record there.
Now, if Israel is so concerned about getting
the truth out, and it declassified documentation, which
has led to historians like Benny Morris, who
is a Zionist, by the way, documenting this,
this is where we have all this evidence
coming from, of military accounts by the Haganah,
by the Jewish agencies, their own military accounts
of their own commanders, what happened, you can't
say it's made up by Palestinians.
What did Israel do in response when all
this came out?
All this declassified material came out, and it
got reported on and written about, became popularized,
they reclassified it again, oops, let's cover it
up.
So now you can't go back and read
those documents, those proofs anymore.
If Israel is so concerned of proving that
there was no ethnic cleansing, why is it
reclassifying those documents?
Answer that question, why is it reclassifying those
documents?
Why not let the truth be out for
everyone to see?
Or have more time?
Yeah, okay, I'll go ahead, all right.
Okay, oh yes, there's something else he said
that was actually inaccurate.
He also said that the Arabs responded to
the UN partition by an uprising, and the
British helped suppress it.
I think you're talking about the Arab revolt
that happened ten years prior to that, against
British occupation.
But hey, they weren't the only people fighting
against British occupation, so were the Irgun and
many others.
Now, the point being is what actually happened
was that the Arab High Council, so what
you could call some kind of leadership of
the Palestinians, what was their response to the
UN partition that gave them around 44%
or 45% of their own land?
What was their response?
A peaceful three-day strike.
When was the first military operations by the
Hagan initiated?
It was initiated after the Arab armies were
coming.
It was initiated as the Arab armies were
coming.
It was initiated within one month of the
partition plan being announced.
And they didn't just stop at securing the
Jewish partition areas, they went into the Galilee
that was meant to be part of the
Arab partition areas.
This is a matter of historical record, sir.
There's no denying this.
I don't need to quote anything.
It's just you can check it for yourself.
I actually want you to check it for
yourself.
And this is how he misrepresents the argument.
The Zionist agency were the aggressors.
They went into the Arab partition.
The Arab High Commission simply just, its only
response was a peaceful strike.
And it was met with a military strike
by the Zionists.
And that's ethnic cleansing.
It's on record.
And if you want, I can give quotations
later on, but I think I'll leave it
there.
So let's talk about Benny Morris,
shall we, since he was quoted.
Benny Morris said the following, and I'll quote
him because I think it's important to get
the truth.
I would say that altogether during the 1948
war, which lasted from the end of 1947
to the beginning of 1949, around 800 to
900 Arab civilians or prisoners of war were
deliberately killed in massacres when you take all
of the various 20 or so incidents.
I would also say that between 200 and
300 Jews were massacred by Arabs in the
course of the war.
He goes on to say, Benny Morris, that
was just quoted, the war was begun by
the Arabs.
They were the ones who launched aggression.
They were the ones who killed many, many
Jews in the course of the war.
6,000 Jews were killed by the Arabs
or 1% of the Israeli population.
1%, by the way, of Americans dead today
would be 3 million.
He goes on to say there were very
few massacres in the war compared to the
civil wars.
And he said, by and large, the Jews,
there is no other way of saying it,
behaved well in the 1948 war given the
circumstances of Arab attack and fear of a
holocaust at Arab hands.
The quality and quantity of massacres were very
small by comparison to other civil conflicts.
This is Benny Morris that was just quoted
as being the one to say the Jews
did terrible things.
So that's number one.
So again, let's look for the truth.
But what's interesting here is that when partition
was offered, let's get to the nub of
the issue here.
When partition was offered, what happened?
The Jews said yes.
55% of the land, the Arabs who
weren't Palestinians, the Arabs said 45%.
And this is a pattern that has repeated
itself again and again and again across history.
Every time the Palestinians have been offered sovereignty
of their own next to a sovereign state
of the Jews, every single time they have
said no and no and no.
They have always wanted all or nothing.
And this still happens to modern times today.
So what happened in 1947-48 was they
said no, there was a war, the Jews
fought, the Jews won.
Yes, there were atrocities on both sides.
It's important to say that.
Not everything that the Haganah and the Irgun
and the Stern Gang did was correct.
But Benny Morris, one of these new historians
that is widely quoted and Tom Segev, another
of these new historians, have both said categorically
in black and white that there was no
overall plan to expel it.
You can say broad things like, well, there
wasn't a plan, but they sort of knew
about it.
You can't prove it though, can you?
And there wasn't.
And the fact that between 100,000 and
160,000 Arabs remained in Israel after the
War of Independence, who have now become 2
million Arabs in the Israeli state today, proves
that there was no overall plan of expulsion.
If there was, there wouldn't be one Arab
in the state of Israel today.
In built into Zionism from the very beginning
was the idea of transfer of the Arabs
out of the land.
Benny Morris also said that.
He's also not quoting Ben Gurion, who said
in a letter to his own son, Amos,
10 years prior to it, that what happens
if there's a partition and there are parts
of Palestine which are obviously going to be
Arab?
What's going to happen?
So he was asked about this, and he
basically responded that he would make a deal
with the Arabs to see if they can
allow migration of European immigrants into the Arab
areas as much as they want.
If the Arabs say no to this, and
he says, if they say to him, we
won't need your honey nor your sting, then
we have to talk to them in a
different language.
And it will be a different language because
we will have a state.
And he talked about the use of weapons
and guns, the kind of language he will
speak to the Arabs if they refuse the
colonization of the Arab partition part.
This was his plan 10 years prior to
actually what happened.
Secondly, he talks about the Arab states starting
the way, again, selectively quoting Benny Morris.
Benny Morris is talking about the Arab states
who invaded to rescue the Palestinians in 1948.
Not who started the, it was called the
civil war in Palestine.
Who started that?
It wasn't the Arab states.
There was no Arab states there.
The first military operation by the Haganah happened
when there was not a single Arab soldier
from any of these Arab states setting foot
in the mandate of Palestine.
So, I think I'm being disingenuous there.
Also, the reference that, firstly, there are rituals
that can be performed in the temple and
are required to be performed in a temple,
in temple Judaism.
I understand this.
You don't need a state to do that.
But if you had a state, what does
the Bible command?
It says you must rule by the law
of God, the law of Moses only, not
secular liberalism, not that Western ideology you imported
into the Middle East.
That's not ruling according to the Tanakh.
And what does the Tanakh say about those
who don't rule by God's commands, who don't
abide by God's commands?
That you'll be kicked out of the land
as a punishment.
It says it in the Tanakh.
So, if you want to bring religion into
this, you can if you want to.
But it doesn't support you.
It only condemns you even further.
As for saying, oh, but there were Arabs
still in the, there are still Arabs living
today in the state of Palestine, or they
call it the state of Israel.
That wasn't my argument.
My argument was that they couldn't manage 40%.
They wanted to reduce, they don't want to
get rid of all the Arabs, did I
say that?
They wanted to reduce their demographics down to
a manageable number.
You need cheap labor.
Ben-Gurion talked about the need for cheap
labor in the new state, and the Arabs
could supply that.
They wanted to reduce the numbers of Arabs,
not remove them.
That's a straw man of my position.
I never said that.
So, this is where I think you're being
disingenuous on this.
Benny Morris himself remarked that there was no
concerted effort by any Arab leadership to initiate
any military operations against the Jewish agency prior
to the inception of the state of Israel.
The student agency initiated with their Haganah militia.
They initiated the first military operations.
And that is something you're not letting the
audience understand.
So, I'm going to pick up on the
point about the Tanakh and Israel being ruled
under the law of Moses in a Torah
state.
Now, I'm not sure if you've been to
Yeshiva and got Samicha.
There are people in this audience that do
have rabbinic ordination.
But let me, if you will indulge me,
ladies and gentlemen, let me give you what
we call in Hebrew a shior, a little
Torah lesson.
The great Jewish scholar Rambam, Maimonides, who was
born in 1138, uses the example of the
Chashma Noyim, the Maccabees of the Jewish festival
of Chanukah, who after defeating the Greek and
reclaiming the temple in Jerusalem, appointed a king
from a tribe of priests, rather than the
tribe of Judah, which is forbidden according to
Jewish law, Halacha.
Yet despite the fact it was forbidden, nevertheless,
Rambam, one of the greatest sages of our
times, Maimonides rules, we must celebrate the fact
that Jewish sovereignty returned.
The Rambam goes on to emphasize that we
must thank God for every single year of
Jewish sovereignty in Israel, no matter what the
sovereignty looks like.
Rambam, Nachmanides, born in 1194, says, he particularly
emphasizes that the mitzvah, the biblical commandment of
reestablished sovereignty in the land of Israel, which
applies to all generations, is not to abandon
her to the hands of any other nation.
All this proves from a Jewish religious perspective
that national independence of Israel is so important
that it's better to have a secular Jewish
state than not to have a Jewish state
at all.
In addition, the Maharal, the great sage from
Prague, born in 1525, and Rabbi Abraham Cook,
who was born in 1865, speak about the
beginning of the redemption before the Messiah and
explains that it's possible to know how the
redemption will be by looking at the opposite,
the exile.
Exile is characterized by three aspects, from our
natural place being scattered and servitude.
Conversely, the signs of redemption are the return
to Israel, the gathering and unification of the
nation and independence.
These great Jewish rabbis state that the founding
of the state of Israel is the beginning
of that process.
And finally, let's talk about the Shulchan Aruch,
the code of Jewish law, the books that
rabbis have to study to become rabbis.
Which was written, by the way, in Sefat
under Ottoman rule.
The Shulchan Aruch says that one who sees
the cities of Judea in their destruction must
say, your holy cities have become a desert
and tear his clothes.
What's the definition of destruction that obligates the
tearing of one's clothes?
It's the Halachic, the Gomorrah teaches us, the
Talmud teaches us that the law of tearing
garments came from the story of the people
who came to Gedalia, the governor of Judea,
and tore their clothes on the destruction of
Mitzpe, a Jewish city, despite the fact that
many Jewish residents lived there.
And from here the sages teach us that
even if Jews lived there, they're considered to
be in destruction if the Arabs rule over
them.
And finally, Rav Moshe Feinstein, the greatest ultra
-orthodox sage of modern time, so don't lecture
me about Jewish law, says that even though
through our many sins we've still yet to
be redeemed by the Messiah, one should not
tear his clothes when he sees Jerusalem, because
in God's kindness, it has been gloriously built
up and is not under the rule of
non-Jewish nations.
Do not, do not lecture us on Halacha
and the state of Israel as a Jewish
state today.
I wouldn't presume to lecture you on this.
I actually got these arguments from the Satmar
and, obviously, Natori Karta, who, by the way,
were the representatives of the majority religious Jewish
opinion prior to 1967, represented even Chaim Weizmann
and others, talk about that the majority of
Jewish opinion, religious Jewish opinion, was against them
back then.
So that was the majority Jewish opinion.
You can't simply say, well, now there's demographics
of Jewish opinion, now decide what is or
what isn't God's law.
So you debate with them.
I'm just mentioning their argument.
You can have a little debate with them.
But the point is that I don't think
that the Bible or any of the rabbinic
scholars intended a secular state that permitted things
which the Bible would hold to be prohibited
in a state.
That being said, though, I don't really think
anything else you said was of any substance.
The point being is, and this is where
the argument is, we're not here to talk
about the Jewish religion, per se.
We're here to talk about the universal principles
of self-determination according to the nationalist framework.
I'm not a nationalist, per se, but I'm
going to argue from that because people must
be held to be consistent.
If you argue that anyone who opposes Jewish
right to self-determination is an anti-Semite,
then you are an anti-Arab racist for
opposing Palestinians' right to also have self-determination.
And because they are a larger number, and
all humans are equal, they are, aren't they?
You do believe that.
Because all humans are equal, then that means
that the Palestinians have a superior right to
self-determination without even going into debates about
legacy and connection to the land as if
the Palestinians are not indigenous to that land,
as is proved by numerous genetic studies.
Even Ben-Gurion said that the Palestinians were
most likely, their ancestors were Jews who became
Christians and then converted to Islam.
Even Ben-Gurion recognized that.
But it didn't stop him from denying their
rights, nonetheless.
And that's the point.
The point here is not about denying anyone's
right to self-determination, it's about inequality.
It's about racial supremacy, racial privilege.
And that is why any man and any
woman of good conscience should oppose Zionism.
Because opposing Zionism is simply promoting Palestinian rights.
Before I come on to the Satna and
the Torah Karta, let me just remind Abdullah,
I mentioned the Rambam, the Ramban, the Shulchan
Aruch, the Maharal of Prague, Rav Moshe Feinstein.
There are rabbis in this audience who I'm
sure would be happy to confirm these are
some of the greatest, greatest sages of our
time.
I'm quoting them.
That has substance.
In terms of the Satna, in terms of
the Satna, let me tell you something about
the Satna.
The Satna number about half of 1%
of the global Jewish population.
And if you think that they believe that
the land of Israel, or the Holy Land
as it was, belongs to anybody else but
the Jews, you're wrong.
They're just operating on a different timeline.
They believe that it will become Jewish when
the Messiah comes.
They don't believe it belongs to anybody else.
And when you're talking about the Naturi Karta,
you can't even lump the Satna, who I
would call non-Zionist as opposed to anti
-Zionist, because they've never advocated for the physical
destruction of the State of Israel, whereas the
Naturi Karta have actually goes to meet with
the Ayatollah in Iran and stand with Hamas.
They've actually been openly criticized by the Satna.
The Satna Grand Rabbi criticized them for standing
with the enemies of Jews.
So that's that.
In terms of Palestinian self-determination and DNA,
I mean it's interesting actually you say that
because there have been numerous studies done that
have shown that the priestly tribe of Kohanim
can be traced back to one single ancestor
who lived between 1000 and 586 BCE.
The tribe of Levites have been traced back
to a common ancestor in the Middle East
just like the priests.
And Ashkenazim have been traced back to four
mothers also in the Middle East.
But what I would say to Abdullah is
the following.
I absolutely believe in Palestinian self-determination.
I believe in two states living side by
side in peace and security.
The fact that the Palestinians in 1937, in
1947, in 2000, in 2008, in 2005 said
no every single time, that's their problem.
But I believe in two states, a Jewish
state of Israel, a nation state of the
Jewish people, and the Palestinians living side by
side.
Do you believe in two states?
Okay, so I was just going to bring
up something here.
So there's basically, there's a book you can
read called A Peace to End All Peace
Creating the Modern Middle East.
David Fromm calculates, the historian, in 1913, the
last date for which they were figures, only
about 1% of the world's Jews had
signified their adherence to Zionism.
1% at that point in time.
So, at one point, Jews were not convinced
by your argument.
Have you now discovered something that Jews from
most of their history didn't know?
Yes, of course, you're waiting for the Messiah
to come and to give Jerusalem and to
create peace across the whole world.
And the Messiah is going to rule the
whole world, not just Palestine.
Don't tell me you're going to use that
as a pretext now to start conquering the
whole world, because the Messiah will also rule
the whole world.
I hope not.
But, here's the thing, here's the thing, the
question that we really need to ask is
do Palestinians have the right of self-determination?
And if they do, and they have a
connection to that land, just as strong as
anyone else is, if not more, and they
have more numbers, then are you going to
be consistent with talking about self-determination?
Are you going to be a believer in
equality like you claim you are?
I'm assuming you do believe in equality of
human beings.
And if so, then what does that mean
if the Palestinians are in greater number and
they have a connection to that land?
What happens then?
I want a state for everybody.
I want a state where everyone is free
and equal.
That would be consistent.
Who here is arguing against that?
It's not me.
And therefore, who here should be opposed morally
and politically?
Well, it's not someone that advocates for equality,
does it?
He hasn't answered my question as to whether
Einstein is actually an anti-Semite for saying
that the Palestinians should be given the land
because they are the majority.
He hasn't answered that question, though.
Does E equals anti-Semitism squared?
You need to answer that question.
As for genetic studies, there's studies in from
the year 2020, 2017, 2001, all state that
Palestinians are related to Canaanites and have more
Canaanite DNA than Ashkenazim or Jewish Europeans do.
So if they're more related to people 4
,000 years ago that was in that region
from bodies in Megiddo and the DNA they
discovered there, does that mean now, would you
concede they then have a superior right connection
to that land?
Or do you only have to be Jewish
to have a connection to that land?
But anyone else, if you're from the wrong
religion, you can't be connected to that land.
Is that what you're trying to say seriously
to all of us?
Also, I'm not here denying that Jewish Europeans
have a Middle Eastern DNA, have an ancestry
to the Levant.
I didn't say that.
I hope I didn't say it without knowing,
but I don't believe that.
The genetic studies show that, yes, Ashkenazim or
Jewish Europeans do have DNA from the Levant.
But, they also have DNA in roughly equal
proportion that's from Europe.
So as Europe is equally your homeland as
is the Middle East.
But for the Palestinians, it is only Palestine
as their homeland.
Can I just remind everyone to keep quiet,
please.
I'm glad that we've been able to get
to this stage.
So whilst the speakers are talking, can you
please keep your comments to yourself.
We've got two more rebuttals from each before
we move on to questions.
Thank you, Rafi.
Just to clarify, when I spoke about Messiah
and the Satmar, it was simply to disprove
the fact that you brought the Satmar to
say that they can't be anti-Zionist.
I was merely explaining to you what their
religious viewpoint is, that they still believe that
the land of Israel will be Jewish, just
on a different timeline.
And all the way through this, the indigenous
connection of the Jews to the land of
Israel, but the fact that we've prayed for
it for millennia, both in exile, and remember
that the Jews are the only people to
have had an unbroken connection to the land
of Israel over 3,000 years.
Yes, we were dispersed.
Yes, we went to Europe.
Yes, we went to Babylon.
Yes, we went to Rome.
However, we kept an unbroken connection to that
land.
And the connection between the Jewish people and
the land of Israel goes back way before
Christianity and Islam, where we created a society
there in the days of Joshua.
We created a kingdom there in the time
of Saul.
And we created a nation with Jerusalem as
its capital in the days of King David,
all more than 3,000 years ago.
Jews are the only people who've ever had
a nation-state in the land of Israel.
Yes, there have been colonial conquerors there, the
Babylonians, the Persians, the Romans, the Byzantines, the
Crusaders, the Ottomans, but Jews are the only
people who've maintained a continuous presence in the
land, and they are its indigenous original people,
and the DNA proves it.
And I'm not saying, by the way, that
Palestinians shouldn't have a state of their own.
There should be two states living side by
side, each with their own nationality, each with
their own customs.
That's absolutely what I believe.
I note that Abdullah cannot bring himself to
say that the state of Israel should exist
alongside a state of Palestine.
APPLAUSE When the United Nations gave or presented
the option of two states, and the Jews
took it, that was the momentous occasion and
the reversal of imperialism of the state of
Israel.
It gave back the Jewish people the home
that was taken away from them.
Israel is the only non-artificial creation in
the Middle East after the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire, because we've always been there.
It's always been our land, in our religion,
in our liturgy, in our practices, in our
DNA, it's always been our land.
And you can try and deny it all
you want, but why would Jews have prayed
for that for millennia if it didn't mean
anything to us?
That's the unbreakable connection between Israel and the
Jewish people.
It's absolutely inherent, it's indigenous, and that's who
we are.
And that's in terms of the Jews, but
Judaism also began with two journeys to the
land, one by Abraham and Sarah and one
by Moses with the Israelites.
As I said before, 26 of the 613
commandments of the Bible can only be done
in Israel.
Why would we have that in the Jewish
Bible if it wasn't our homeland?
Think about it.
And through all the centuries of dispersal, we
prayed to return to that place in sovereignty,
in freedom, so we can build our own
society, our own religion, our own set of
ethics, and that is what we have done,
and that is the right decision.
So all I'm hearing is who cares about
equality between human beings?
We want it, so we get it.
Basically.
And really, well, that's what it is, because
self-determination, no?
No?
Everyone's equal, right?
Palestinians are not aliens to that land, and
if they're the majority, and you believe in
equality, what follows?
Finish the equation.
You don't want to finish that equation, because
it goes somewhere that's against your absolutist nationalistic
desires.
No one really said that when you want
to change the apartheid system of South Africa,
you want to destroy South Africa.
You want to destroy it, wipe it off
the map.
No.
We just want it to be free and
equal for everybody.
Is that a problem?
Of course, the South African apologists, who were
white nationalists, made many arguments, some of which
are eerily similar.
But no, we don't want to destroy any
states there.
We just want to broaden the state out
for everyone as equal citizens.
Is that a problem?
Yes, it is.
It is for his nationalism.
As for saying that Jews have always been
in Palestine, well, one of the things that
I try not to do, and it's an
anti-Semitic trope, which is, is to say
all Jews are the same.
Edwin Montague, who was the only Jewish member
of the British cabinet during the time of
the Balfour Declaration, opposed it.
He accused the British government of being anti
-Semitic.
He's saying that he was a British Jew,
and to say that Jews should be in
Palestine is to say they don't belong in
England.
And he said that he's not the same,
he doesn't follow the same customs, nor speaks
the same language, or has the same sentiments
as a Jew from the Middle East.
They just have the same religion, that's it.
And he used the example, in a way
I'm plagiarizing him, that German Christians are not
the same as Arab Christians, just because they
follow Christianity.
And Christianity has a connection to that place.
It doesn't mean that they should now rule
it.
Although at one point they tried to.
So that's a bogus argument.
Yes, go do your rituals in Jerusalem, all
you want.
Who let Jews in after the Romans had
banned them from Jerusalem?
It was Muslims.
The second caliph of Islam, Umar ibn Anhum,
he let Muslims in Jerusalem.
Practice all you want.
Practice all you want, follow your customs, follow
your religion, great.
But don't come and dominate people who are
the majority, because you claim some minority privilege.
That's not the same thing.
And I think I'll just also cite that,
I don't want to go too much into
ancient history, but there was never a nation
state in the land of Palestine.
A Jewish nation state.
This is a modern creation.
We can talk about the 12 tribes were
divided up into different areas.
That's not a nation state, is it?
Neither was there a kingdom that came afterwards,
and neither was the separation between the kingdom
of Israel and the kingdom of Judea.
That's not nation states to me.
They just sound like ancient kingdoms and ethnic
tribal divisions between tribes.
Not nation states.
That's a modern idea.
APPLAUSE APPLAUSE Of course there was a nation
state of the Jewish people in the land
of Israel.
King David had a nation state in the
land of Israel.
APPLAUSE Abdullah doesn't like nationalism because he wants
a caliphate, so we'll deal with that another
time.
APPLAUSE However, what I would say about this
is, and we talk about equal rights, I've
said numerous times that I believe a Palestinian
state living alongside a Jewish state, two states
living in peace and security, that is the
way that we should do it.
Now those who advocate for a one-state
solution, which is really what Abdullah is doing,
are naive at best but really dangerously disingenuous
at worst.
And why is that?
Because he knows full well that in this
utopian one state, there would very soon be
a Muslim majority.
And that's before you bring about the so
-called five million refugees who would be allowed
back in who aren't really refugees because they're
fifth generation Palestinians from all across the world.
And very soon the Jews would be a
minority in that state.
And that's before, by the way, that state
would then become a Muslim theocracy.
And that's before, by the way, you take
into account that a survey done in 2018
by the Palestinian Centre for Survey and Research
along with the Steinmetz Centre for Peace showed
that something like just under a third of
Palestinians would seek to practice apartheid or expulsion
on the Jews in one state.
And 40% of Hamas supporters want to
practice either expulsion or apartheid on Jews in
a one state solution.
So we know what happens to Jews as
minorities in the Middle East.
We've never fared well.
Yes.
It's very generous of the Caliph to let
the Jews back in after the Roman expulsion.
But the key words are let them back
in.
It's our land.
Now you can talk that we were allowed
to freely practice our religion, but we know
what that means.
It means paying the jizya and the tax
and being dhimmis and being tolerated at best.
Well, sorry, the days of Jews being tolerated
are long gone.
Now the Palestinians, on the other hand, have
always rejected peace.
Every single time they've been told, you can
have sovereignty in your own state, but you'd
have to be sovereign alongside a Jewish state,
no longer tolerated by you, no longer ruled
by you, no longer under your boot.
Every single time, again and again, they have
said no.
Why is that?
Because they do not see a place for
a Jewish state of Israel in the Arab
Middle East between the river and the sea.
So I'm sorry that that might offend some
people, but we have, the Jews have always,
whenever there's been peace on the table, we've
been willing, the Israelis and the Jews have
been willing to make peace in return for
security.
The Palestinians have always said no.
Why have they said no?
Because they don't believe in Jews having self
-determination.
I was kind of hoping he would bring
up something he mentioned in the previous debate,
because I had a refutation ready for it,
which was he cited a poll that said
one third of Palestinians want, was it transfer
and what was it?
Expulsion of Jews and apartheid.
Expulsion, transfer, apartheid.
That's a lie.
I checked that very same poll.
It doesn't say that at all.
In fact, the vast majority, over 50%, are
actually for a two-state solution.
And what he also doesn't mention is in
that very same poll, because Israeli Jews were
asked, one third did say they wanted expulsion
or apartheid of Palestinians.
Thank you for that.
I was hoping he'd repeat that lie, and
I thank you for that.
It's a 2018 poll by the Palestinian Center
for Surveys and Studies, so research.
He's going back to the thing.
There was a poll in 2018 that asked,
a Pew poll, that asked Israeli Jews what
they think about Palestinians that live amongst them,
so citizens.
49%, because there were others on the side,
so the majority against those who were against
it, the majority said they would want the
transfer of Palestinian Arabs out of the state
of Israel.
Not from the West Bank, not from the
state of Israel itself.
Why does he not talk about that kind
of mentality amongst Israeli Jews?
You said you're an Israeli citizen as well,
right?
So you're fellow citizens.
And then he also lies about peace initiatives.
Arabs gave up on trying to retake Palestine,
make it a unitary equal state.
They gave up on it ages ago.
That's the basic premise of the PLO, was
they gave up on that.
They just wanted the 1967 borders back.
Like, just give us what you conquered, what
you said you didn't want, you didn't need,
you weren't going to take.
Just give it back.
Israel says, no.
In 1986, the Arab League makes an initiative
to Israel saying, we will give normalization, peace,
everything.
Recognize you.
It will be normal relations, no more tensions.
Just give back what you took in the
West Bank and Gaza and Sinai and Golan.
Israel says, no.
2002, the Arab Peace Initiative, everyone, even members
of Hamas were saying in that, that they
were willing to offer normalization and agreement from
every Arab country, the entire Arab League and
even Iran agreed to the Arab Peace Initiative
to say that we will give normalization to
the state of Israel if they just gave
what the UN has said they should withdraw
from, occupied West Bank, Gaza and the Golan.
Israel said, no.
And that's because Israel doesn't want peace.
It doesn't want peace of other people, it
just wants settle down guys, don't be the
new disruptors.
Israel doesn't want peace of other people, it
wants a peace of other people's land.
Is this on?
I don't think this is on.
Okay, thank you.
So we're going to move on to the
question section now.
The way this bit is going to work,
we've selected eight questions and four addressed to
each of the speakers.
So you'll each have three minutes to respond
to the questions addressed to you and we'll
bring the other speaker in for a couple
of minutes after.
So the first question is for Rafi.
We've had people express concerns that this debate
might create or exacerbate divisions within our community.
Can a debate framed on these terms promote
mutual understanding on such complex topics?
It's a really good question.
It's a really good question.
What we've seen since October the 7th is,
in the UK, is an unprecedented rise in
Jew hatred.
And a large amount of that happened actually
before Israel even began to respond to the
Hamas massacre on October the 7th.
These were people who came out to engage
in anti-Semitic acts as a way of
supporting the Hamas massacre.
It was almost as if they didn't want
to feel left out.
And so the Jews have experienced this.
Jewish people in the UK have experienced this
now for the past 12-13 months.
We've been attacked in our synagogues, in our
schools, in hospitals when we go for treatment.
And so what's really important is dialogue.
Now, Abdullah and I are never going to
agree with each other.
You've seen that tonight.
But, to be able to have civil discourse,
and to be able to talk to each
other and understand each other's differences, even if
we don't like what each other's saying, is
really important.
And the fact that those of you who
remain in the room tonight, and have actually
been able to listen to myself and Abdullah,
I think that is a very important thing
for us to do.
We're British UK citizens.
Some of us might have dual nationality, but
all of us here, most of us are
Mancunians.
We're proud Jewish Mancunians.
We've worked to make Manchester the great city
it is.
The Jewish community have a proud history here,
going back over 150 years.
And so, debates like this are important.
It's important that we can listen to each
other.
They're passionate, they're fiery.
We very much firmly believe in our positions.
But it's absolutely important for community cohesion that
we can have these discussions, and we can
understand each other's points, even if we don't
agree.
I'd say that primarily what you could say
divides us is the political ideology and disagreement
over it, and what's happening in the land
of Palestine.
This has got nothing to do with a
religious disagreement.
Let's just say, let's just look at the
different perspectives from different sides.
So, why should a Muslim, why would a
Muslim hate Jews?
Specifically.
You're monotheists, you don't worship idols, you don't
believe in the trinity doctrine, and you don't
believe in the incarnation of God in human
form, which for Muslims, that's a big issue.
We are against idolatry.
You don't eat the meat of carrion, you
exsanguinate the meat before it dies, which is
kosher.
And Muslims, we have halal meat.
We can even eat kosher meat, it's clean
for us.
We can marry Jews, it's deemed to be
wrong or bad in Islam at all, to
marry Jews.
There is a lot of cultural similarities, a
lot of religious similarities, being two Semitic religions.
In fact, even antisemitism, the term, was coined
for that because initially, like Ernest Renan, the
French antisemite, at one point anyway, he attacked
both Islam and Judaism, both Arabs and Jews,
as inferior Semitic peoples and civilizations.
That's why it's called antisemitism, not just anti
-Jewishness.
So technically, we were included in that originally.
So there's no reason for us to specifically
hate Jews at all.
And of course, as for Muslims, we follow
the six Noahide laws, which is what Jews
were...
I'm not going to presume your religion, but
it's what you're meant to encourage amongst the
Gentiles.
Please do correct me if I'm wrong.
So we follow the six Noahide laws.
We're not polytheists, we're not idolaters, we don't
eat the meat of carrion, we have a
law system, all this is what's required.
So there's no real animus.
What is the animus is where people associate
Zionism and make it intrinsic to Judaism because
that, unfortunately, is going to encourage antisemitism in
many people because they actually believe that...
believe the lie.
They think that it is connected.
I think it's not.
That's why I'm not antisemitic.
The next question is addressed to Abdullah.
Considering the horror of the Holocaust and the
persistence of antisemitism across the globe, why shouldn't
we defend Israel's right to exist as a
place of refuge for Jewish people as well
as its right to self-determination more generally?
People have a right to self-determination, not
states.
States are meant to serve people, not the
other way around, by the way.
In case people forget.
Firstly, the issue is that many people around
the world have suffered and have been persecuted
and have been massacred and been genocided and
a whole bunch of things, very horrible things.
But this doesn't justify doing that to another
people then.
You're not justified.
And that's why many Jews of good conscience
who say they're following Jewish values, I don't
have any reason to disbelieve that at all,
are opposing Zionism, like Einstein did, which you
haven't answered to me as the antisemitic.
He still hasn't answered that question.
Maybe one day he'll answer it.
This is easily stressed.
Maybe I'm going to ask another question.
I want to make it easy for him.
He says he believes in equality, right?
He said that Jews have a right to
return to the land of Palestine no matter
how intermixed or how different cultures or different
languages they are following or adopting around the
world.
Okay.
But then do Palestinians who have been out
of the land in a much shorter time
than European Jews have, 2,000 years plus,
do they have an equal right to return
to their land of their ancestors?
Answer this.
The answer, well, in the first instance I
just proved in my opening statement that Judaism
and Zionism are intrinsically connected.
I don't know what he was listening to,
but why would it be a center of
all our festivals, all our prayers, all our
liturgy, mentioned so many times in the Tanakh
and in the Siddur, the return to Zion,
the rebuilding of Jerusalem, sovereignty in our own
land.
It's part of our festivals.
It's part of our wedding ceremonies.
When you go to a Jewish house of
mourning, you say, may you be comforted amongst
the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
There are four fast days dedicated to remembering
Jerusalem.
I mean, for goodness sake, how much more
do I need to go on to show
Zionism and Judaism are intrinsically connected?
And so, if you're going to hate Jews
because they're Zionists, then you're just a racist,
basically.
In terms of the right of return, it's
actually interesting because, I don't know if you
know this or not, but 75% of
Gazans today are registered as refugees.
Fifth generation Gazans are registered as refugees.
Now, they've never lived anywhere but Gaza, and
they live in what all of us would
agree in a two-state solution is between
the river and the sea.
It would be part of the Palestinian state.
Why are they still registered as refugees?
Because for them, because for them, there is
an overwhelming desire to return.
For them, return is not to the West
Bank or Gaza or in any state that,
by the way, Israel offered in 2000 and
2008 and withdrew from Gaza in 2005, pretty
much offering in 2000 and 2008 98%, and
Bill Clinton has confirmed this of what they
wanted.
But let's leave that for one side because
I think that's just another lie that he's
going to come up with.
But what I would say is that the
right of return is to Palestinian areas.
Absolutely, they should be allowed to go back.
But what is the right of return?
What is refugees?
Is Gigi Hadid's father, who was born in
Israel, who went to Syria and is now
an American multi-millionaire, billionaire citizen, he's still
registered with UNRWA as a refugee.
Should he be allowed to return to Israel?
No.
Refugees can return to the Palestinian territories or
when it becomes a Palestinian state and Jews
can return to Israel.
Thank you.
Okay, so the next question is addressed to
Rafi.
What moral obligation does Israel have to the
families that either remain in Gaza and the
West Bank or have been displaced due to
the conflict in the Middle East?
Let's take a step back and talk about
I'm not sure about the question.
Is the question talking about the current conflict
or the age-old, or the 1976 conflict?
It's not specific.
I think it's general.
Okay, so we've shown during this debate that
if we're talking about families that were displaced
during the War of Independence absolutely they left
for a number of reasons but not because
of a specific Israeli plan for expulsion.
There's absolutely nothing written anywhere that proves that
and we've seen statements from Arab leaders to
show that the Palestinian the Arabs told them
to leave, that they would come back.
And in fact Abu Mazen said it was
the Arabs who were at fault for the
Palestinian refugee problem.
Now it has been said that in any
peace treaty there would be compensation limited compensation
for refugees.
But everybody understands that in any peace treaty
that happens between Israel and the Palestinians there
is not going to be a right of
return.
And until the Palestinians understand that any right
of return is into any Palestinian state that
is formed, they're only rejecting that because they
genuinely don't want peace.
So the answer is and even Resolution 242
by the way talked about the solution for
the refugees but talked about compensation mostly and
understood that there would never be huge return.
Resolution 242 by the way didn't call for
Israel to withdraw from all the territories in
1967 it called for it to withdraw from
territories understanding even then that there would be
negotiation.
So ultimately the only people responsible for displacement
of Palestinian families is the intransigence and the
failure of the Palestinians over 70 plus years
to make peace with Israel to allow the
Jews to have a nation state of its
own people and to live side by side
and do the right thing by its own
citizens.
And as I've said over and over again
the Palestinians have always dealt in absolutism they've
always said if there should be a free
Jewish state living alongside our own state we'd
rather have nothing.
So ultimately Israel bears no responsibility for this
it's clear as day the Palestinians as Aba
Eban said never miss an opportunity to miss
an opportunity and it's incumbent on the Palestinian
leadership to make peace with Israel and to
accept the offers that have been done and
accept Israel's right to exist and I'm going
to carry on and if you want to
know really why there's been no peace let's
just use some quotes from, I won't even
use the old Hamas charter, let's use the
new Hamas charter of 2017.
A real state of Palestine is a state
that's been liberated there is no alternative to
a fully sovereign Palestinian state on the entire
national Palestinian soil with Jerusalem as its capital
they talk about the establishment of Israel is
entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of
the Palestinian people and goes against their will
and the will of the Ummah.
There should be no recognition of the legitimacy
of the Zionist entity.
Hamas rejects any alternatives to the full and
complete liberation of Palestine from the river to
the sea ladies and gentlemen if anybody's at
fault for no peace and again I want
two states it's the Palestinians so
I'm going to answer a whole bunch of
things as quickly as I can.
Again all he's ever shown is that Judaism
requires religious practice in the vicinity of Jerusalem
but not to rule the whole land of
Palestine you haven't shown me a single verse
of the Bible that says that you must,
Jews must be the rulers of the entire
land of Palestine and explain to me why
Israel is in south of Beersheba historically there's
never been a Jewish state south of Beersheba,
in the Negev desert or the Naqab desert.
It's been the Edomites, actually even the Bible
was called the homeland of the Edomites.
What are you doing there then?
Get out of Eilat if it's not your
homeland, right?
But you don't care because Israel doesn't care
about historical rights it just cares about as
much land as possible Again citing that
the Arab this Qanar that's been refuted over
and over again the point that saying the
Arabs left the Palestinians left Palestine in 1947
because they were told to leave and they'll
come back it's the opposite they were called
traitors for leaving, cowards they were told not
to go to the lands to Syria or
what have you they still streamed in, even
though they tried to be stopped at the
borders they were actually said no, because when
you leave then it'll be harder to get
it back also just read Benny Morris's a
whole number of his books, you cite him
he's a Zionist, like for example his book
1948 or Righteous Victims or the Birth of
the Palestinian Refugee Problem, he cites documentation that's
been declassified from the Israeli government, proving deliberate
campaigns where the commander on the scene was
actually ordered to expel the Palestinians from different
towns and different cities and so on and
so forth, it's not even a matter of
dispute anymore even though you're bringing it up,
you need to do your homework this is
at a university here, it's going to look
bad applause and notice how he says, yeah
of course Palestinians have the right to return
to their own areas, imagine he said, yeah
Jews can go there but only to their
own areas sounds pretty antisemitic, but it's okay
for him to say that about Arabs if
it was racist to say that about Jews
it's equally racist to say that about Arabs,
only go back to their own areas, and
by the way their areas were ethnically cleansed
and Israel doesn't want them to go back
to their areas, why not talk about that?
applause so the next question is addressed to
Abdallah some people have said that because we
don't see the same kinds of protests when
other serious global conflicts occur there is an
undercurrent of antisemitism in protests about Israel and
Gaza do you think that is the case?
yeah you know I've often said, how comes
when there are other countries who have the
world record for the longest military occupation of
the land that are given billions of pounds
and billions of dollars by the American government
with no accountability for that, who are funded
by the West and is a Western country
which purports to be a liberal democracy, why
don't we protest against all those other governments?
oh wait a second, they don't exist, Israel
is literally the only one that fits all
those criteria applause you argue why is Israel
the exception when Israel literally is the exception
which is the hilariousness of it as for
the peace proposals now remember when I mentioned
Aba Egan, the foreign minister the one who
actually first touted the lie that anti-Zionism
is antisemitism and he talked about the plan
for the Palestinians and the West Bank they're
not going to get 100% self-determination
look at all the maps of the peace
proposals might I add, the Palestinians came to
these negotiations with their own proposals always rejected
by Israel even when they compromise let's have
land swaps, we won't dismantle all settlements, can
we have some right of return Israel has
always rejected it he never talks about that
side of the equation only the Palestinian side
applause I have one simple rebuttal to that
look at every single peace proposal proposed by
the state of Israel to the Palestinians they're
not allowed to control their airspace they have
no right of return to refugees going back
to the state of Israel they get booted
out of a lot of East Jerusalem which
is meant to be their capital their state
is cut into pieces with the Ariel settlement
cut right in the top it's a fragmented
state that doesn't control its own airspace or
even its own borders that's not 100%
self determination Israel doesn't want 100% self
determination and it never did by the admission
by the admission of its foreign minister all
the way back in 1973 why don't we
ever talk about that and lastly of course
he talks about not letting the Palestinians go
back to where they actually came from for
all their villages in Palestine and yet the
state of Israel is very dogged about returning
Jews to every place that was ever documented
that there were Jews living there whether it
was Hebron or Sheikh Jarrah or Silwan they
will say we're going to take back these
properties that used to be belonging to Jews
but they never give it to Palestinians why?
Because Palestinians are not equal to Jews in
the eyes of Zionists again I
seem to have to keep on saying this
but a secular Jewish state sits perfectly well
with religious Judaism how many more times do
I need to quote Nachmanides, Maimonides, the Shulchan
Aruch I mean for goodness sake you either
understand the Jews and Jewish religion or you
just want to quote things to misrepresent and
distort what Judaism stands for in terms of
land and peace maybe Abdullah has forgotten its
history but Israel gave the Sinai back to
Egypt, that was Menachem Begin Ariel Sharon left
the Gaza Strip in 2005 something like 80
% of Palestinians, 90% of Palestinians in
the West Bank live under Palestinian authority rule
but we'll leave those facts now because they're
clearly not convenient now every country has the
right to control its own borders and decide
who comes in we do it here in
the UK, the Americans do it the Europeans
do it, everybody does it everybody understands in
this peace deals that the right of return
is not going to happen into Israel they
will be absorbed in the new Palestinian state
that comes into existence now that Palestinian state
should be here, the Palestinians should have their
own state but they've been let down by
their leaders time and time again, Abu Mazen
is 19 years into a 4 year reign
Hamas are theological Islamists who want to destroy
the whole of Israel, so forgive the Jews
for saying we want you to have your
own state, but we're just going to wait
a bit until we know that we're not
going to be attacked by it and the
rest of the new Palestinian state is not
going to be Gaza Mark 2, and with
regards it's very easy for Abdullah to want
to sacrifice us all but in terms of
the protests, I'll tell you why the protests
against Israel are anti-Semitic because Turkey is
a major customer of UK arms a member
of NATO, it's been murdering Kurds it's a
Muslim state but it's been murdering Kurds for
years, it's never been protested against, Saudi Arabia
helped kill thousands of people in Yemen, they've
never protested against that, it's only the Jews
Thank you Any more questions?
So we've got 4 more questions Is that
alright?
So the next question is addressed to Rafi
How does the right of Israelis to live
in peace and security coexist with the rights
of Palestinians to live in peace and security?
Well the first way that happens is for
the Palestinians to understand that the state of
Israel has a right to exist that the
state of Israel as the nation state of
the Jewish people has a right to exist
and that those factions within the Palestinian movement
who seek to destroy the state of Israel,
as I just quoted from the Hamas charter
forget the old charter that called about killing
Jews all over the world, the new one
which just talks about destroying Israeli Jews and
murdering Israeli Jews, that they have to accept
the right of Israel to exist and the
regional proxies and the regional countries like Iran
also have to agree that Israel has the
right to exist now we've seen some movement
on that, the Abraham Accords was a fantastic
way of the Gulf states recognizing Israel's right
to exist Egypt recognized Israel's right to exist,
Jordan recognized Israel's right to exist but there
are many many other countries in the Middle
East that have not recognized Israel's right to
exist and this is the problem, Abdullah still
won't say it, he wants this unitary state
this binational state, I mean the interesting thing
about Abdullah is actually he doesn't want nation
states at all so I'm not sure what
he thinks, what flag this state would have,
what language it would have what roles it
would play, how it would identify itself, what
Abdullah actually wants is an Islamic Caliphate across
the whole of the Middle East and probably
into the West so let's not be let's
not be fooled by his nicety about wanting
a biracial state where everybody's together because A,
we know that wouldn't work, does anybody really
think that after 76 years of struggle the
Palestinians are going to give up their flag,
their nationality their customs, absolutely not right, that's
number one, number two as I said before,
we know that Jews would not fare well
in this state, they would be a minority,
it would become a Muslim theocracy Jews have
never fared well under Muslim rule in the
Middle East and that's just a fact okay,
that's an absolute fact he'll tell you otherwise
and yes, they might have fared better than
under Christianity in Europe but they absolutely never
fared well so ultimately, how do the two
states live side by side in peace and
security with an acceptance by the Palestinians that
the Jewish state has a right to exist
even as recently in recent years, the Palestinian
Authority has come out with statements that call
for the liberation of Palestine from the river
to the sea so, how can you expect
there to be peace when the Palestinians have
this attitude of all or nothing, I mean
the truth is that they want absolutism, as
I said and until they can accept the
fact that the Jews are not going anywhere,
that the Jews are the indigenous people of
the state of Israel, that it's a return
to ancestral homeland, then unfortunately there won't be
peace because the Palestinians don't want peace Who
is he debating against?
At any point did me or did I
say It's okay, it's their side's turn to
disrupt Alright, can we respect free speech?
Yeah, let me speak trust your colleague here
to argue for you if you want if
you have confidence in him Okay Alright, yeah
No one's saying that Jews should go anywhere
at all whatsoever we're talking about simply equal
rights for Palestinians that's all we're talking about,
but you see how they try to divert
the argument you just want to kill Jews,
what have you I want to quote something
you might find this interesting The choice before
us is one of two divergent courses, either
that of integration, which in the long run
would amount to national suicide on the part
of the whites or that of apartheid, which
professes to preserve the identity and safeguard the
future of every race with complete scope for
everyone to develop within their own sphere while
maintaining their own distinctive national character.
Who said this?
It was the National Party the manifest of
the National Party in 1947 of the apartheid
South African regime See the similarity?
That's how you sound like That's what you
sound like By the way states don't have
a right to exist people have a right
to exist If you prioritised maybe if you
prioritised people over states, you wouldn't be killing
so many of them Oh, he said Israel
gave back gave back cyanide to the Egyptians
Oh, that's nice but when Egypt asked before
1973 we'll have a peace deal with you,
just give it back What did Israel do?
Two points with Golda Meir?
Refused No, we're keeping it Only after there
was a war and the Egyptian army was
ensconced on the cyanide and couldn't be budged
then there was agreement and negotiation with the
Americans, only after Egypt launched a war to
get it back and kept their army there
Is that not true?
Please fact check me Anyway and I'll finish
this last point which is I'm not arguing
whether Judaism permits Jews to have rulership in
the land of Canaan or Palestine or retin
-Jew as the as the ancient Egyptians called
it I'm simply saying where does it say
in Judaism that Jews must be the rulers
and supreme over everyone else in that land?
Where does it say that?
Bring it Is this on?
I just want to remind everyone again, please
stop disrupting the meeting the same rules apply
to everyone so if there's going to be
interruptions then I'm going to have to ask
you to leave So the next question should
be for Abdullah The question is what do
you think the impact of the slogan from
the river to the sea Palestine will be
free has on our different communities and their
safety There's a Jewish organisation called the American
League for a Free Palestine Are they anti
-Semites?
Depends what you mean by a free Palestine
They just said a free Palestine and they're
technically militant they advocate for militant insurgency there
Are they anti-Semites?
So militant insurgency as in fighting the state
of Israel Fighting the military occupation Then they're
anti-Semites Ok yes, the American League for
a Free Palestine are anti-Semites I have
some bad news for you guys This is
1947 and they were supporting the Irgun It's
your own people You just condemned your own
people Oh my god I'm embarrassed I'm embarrassed
for you I thought maybe he knew it
I thought he'd catch me out Admittedly I
had it planned I thought he'd catch me
out These were people fighting the military occupation
The British, that's the military occupation they were
fighting against for a free Palestine It's ok
to say free Palestine when it means for
Zionism It's ok to say free South Africa
when it's against the apartheid regime No one
says that means white genocide well maybe apart
from the white racist regime But to say
the same thing apparently is anti-Semitic and
that's how ridiculous this motion is today This
is how ridiculous it is Freedom for everybody
What next are you going to say?
Black Lives Matter Oh that's racist, that means
Black Lives Matter more than whites No it
doesn't Free Palestine means free for everyone Free
Palestine means free for everyone I'll
finish up with this point Now just understand
the Palestinian the mainstream leadership which is Fatah
and the Palestinian Liberation Organization now it's become
the Palestinian Authority They have already accepted to
live in 22% of their former homeland
and even that's not good enough for Zionists
like my colleague here because no they have
to accept further compromises and they can't control
their airspace and they have to accept the
settlements that are there and those settlements are
going to be obviously excluded for Palestinians and
they can't accept East Jerusalem again or they
might not even control East Jerusalem again Look
at the peace proposal maps that the Israelis
foisted upon them and look at the reasonable
maps that the Palestinians asked for just 22
% less than and they, if you take
them in total all the Palestinian population are
actually two thirds of the majority and they
have to accept 22% and yet they're
the unreasonable ones and that's how ridiculous you
sound when you criticise them for that It's
very easy to reply to a quote out
of context of course but anybody that seeks
to be militant against the Jewish State of
Israel to destroy Israelis and Jews and to
kill Israeli Jews for the liberation of Palestine
if you attack Jews for being Jews in
the State of Israel then you're an anti
-Semite Now again we can talk about the
Hamas Charter and we can even talk about
the PLO Charter if we want to that
talks about freedom of Palestine from the river
to the sea the PLO Charter of 1968
talks about the fact that the claims of
historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine
are not in agreement with the facts of
history Judaism is not a nationality this is
anti-Semitism we've just established that Jews are
a people and a religion and this is
an argument that goes on and on and
I love it the way that my colleague
here likes to talk about the Torah and
the Tanakh when I've quoted time and time
again the greatest sages of the Jewish religion
he doesn't understand the Jewish religion he picks
and chooses things to try and make a
straw man argument and actually he fails every
time now again he doesn't accept that the
Palestinians should have their own state does he?
he wants one state or so he claims
but really let's ask him this because for
all those people here who want a Palestinian
state who want Palestine to be free with
their own state three years ago Abdullah said
Islam is against nationalism full stop the prophet
Mohammed said to Muslims they should leave nationalism
and that it's rotten any Muslim that calls
for nationalism is not one of us and
that's included today's Muslim states you said you
were not a fan of nationalism and reject
all forms of nationalism so do you or
do you not advocate for the Palestinians to
have a state what is it that you're
calling for an Islamic caliphate can you answer
the simple question do you believe in an
Islamic caliphate across the entire Middle East which
would mean the Palestinians for all their nationalism
won't get their own state in whatever form
it takes so did you know that
there was already a caliphate there before the
British took over Palestine the Ottoman caliphate system
and Ben Gurion himself praised it's called the
Millat system it was a system of Ben
Gurion praised it and he lived during Ottoman
times so he saw it for himself he
praised it and he thought it might be
a good model if Jews can't get a
majority state and the British won't let them
have a partition, whatever, maybe they can have
some kind of local autonomy like was in
the Ottoman Millat state this is Ben Gurion's
own writings on this in the 1920s, condemn
him if you like right there's also a
great book for you to read it's called
Jewish Life Under Islam and it was by
a Jewish historian, Amnon Cohen so it says
the Cohen name and he argued he showed
that basically Jews had justice and they were
not persecuted as a general rule for Islamic
law under Islamic lands and they weren't obliged
to go to Muslim courts, they had their
own law system, their own law courts and
so on there was no professions that they
were restricted from doing like in Europe they
were free to do whatever they wished this
was the peace and justice that Islam offered
where everyone can live in autonomous religious communities
living their own life and by their own
religious laws and standards, that created peace nationalism
has always been inciting ethnic conflict because the
question is nation, which nation and if there's
other nations there's always a fight and Zionism
is my proof in pointing that but my
argument today is one of consistency, the Quran
tells Muslims do not dispute the people of
the book Jews and Christians unless you see
them committing injustice, injustice does not mean they're
not following Islam because they're Christians and Jews
so they're not going to be following Islam
anyway it means they're not being consistent and
if you argue if you argue that self
determination is a right for all people, mean
it and that's all I'm saying applause right
we've got two questions left I admire your
stamina after the two questions we'll have the
final remarks and then we'll wrap things up
so the next question is addressed to Rafi
is that right actually because you asked in
the last one no we've not had this
one yet have we had this yet should
the historical presence of civilizations in the region
from long ago have a bearing on the
policies and attitudes of today I think that
we're living in modern times and you know
Abdullah likes to quote, you know use quotes
from people, Ben-Gurion in the 1920s, people
from before that, people from after that, but
let's talk about the reality of where we
are today and where we are today is
a nation state of Israel, the Jewish nation
state of the people of Israel, of the
Jews, that isn't going anywhere now Israel is
a democracy there's absolutely no denying that 82
% of Israeli Arabs in a poll a
few years ago said they wanted to remain
as citizens of the Jewish state I know
that Israel is a democracy because 20 years
ago my father had a heart attack and
a stroke on holiday in Tiberias and his
life was saved by an Arab doctor so
when we talk about the rights of what
was the question again, the rights of identities
and the historical presence of civilization the historical
presence of civilization we've established the historical presence
of Jews in the land of Israel going
back millennia the only people that have had
an unbroken presence in that land and you
know what I've been to the West Bank,
I've met Palestinian families who've lived there for
400, 500 years and they absolutely have a
right to live in that land as well
I absolutely say that categorically I believe
that that should be done with two states
living side by side each people with its
own nationality each people with its own customs,
each people with its own language, democracies absolutely,
which is actually something you don't get in
the Palestinian authorities today and you certainly don't
get in Gaza and I think that that
is how the way the region should look
and how the Middle East should look and
how certainly Israel and the Palestinians should deal
with peace, two states living side by side
Abdullah still hasn't said categorically he believes the
Palestinians should have a state of their own,
with their own symbols, with their own flag,
with their own history embedded into their culture
he won't say that because he doesn't believe
it, he believes in a caliphate and it's
all very well for him to say, yeah
the Jews were tolerated, you know to use
a Hebrew word, well done right, thank you
very much Okay, I'll answer that question directly
I'm only for consistency if you want to
if you believe in a caliphate or you
want to implement that, fine but if you
don't believe and you believe in nationalism then
be consistent, that's all I'm asking for you
pick which one you want and you be
consistent, if you believe in self-determination then
it's for everybody, not just for Jews not
just for whatever, it's for everybody that's it,
but you're not being because I keep asking
you, do Palestinians have the right of return
to everywhere they lived as Israel enforces Jews
are returned back to where they live or
it's given back to their heirs and descendants,
which is a state policy now in Israel
will that be equally extended to Palestinians, equally
always silence silence let me finish, people respond,
don't worry right, secondly secondly there is one
group of people that have an unbroken connection
to that land it's Palestinians, including Palestinian Jews
and Palestinian Samaritans, they are the inhabitants but
just because you've got a Palestinian Jew, Samaritan
or Christian or what have you in one
part in Palestine, doesn't mean now that a
German Christian or a British Jew can say
well that's my people there, right that's overstretched
European Jews have been separated from the land
for 2,000 years plus, right so that's
not, so don't say that you have an
unbroken connection because clearly it was broken enough
that it's 2,000 years, technically they could
have gone back at any point in time
after the Romans anyway, why only now with
the British right, second, I'll leave it I'll
leave one other point one other point, which
is today the Likud party says from the
river to the sea it will only be
Israeli sovereignty, that's on their manifesto there is
no two state solution, they killed it, it's
dead what's left?
They killed it what's left?
only one state, only the same solution that
worked in South Africa that's because the representative
government of the state of Israel has decided
that's the only, it's going to be the
only thing that's left is equal rights for
everyone and the fact that you don't want
that is highly telling as your ethnic supremacist
mindset unfortunately right, we've got one question left
and this is addressed to you Abdullah how
can we achieve a lasting peace?
quite simply justice have
you ever seen people when given justice still
want to fight?
no, generally speaking no no, justice is what,
is the only solution to this, but that's
what Zionism opposes because Zionism requires a Jewish
nation state with a democracy that means that
demographics are important that means that they have
to deny the demographics of the Palestinians and
deny their equal rights simple as that, that's
the problem there that's the stumbling block, that's
the obstacle that's why many Jews are opposing
this and by the way according to a
recent poll one third of British Jews do
not identify as Zionists a whole third of
them and it's increasing with every it's increasing
this is an impartial poll not done by
the Palestinians or Hamas I'll
cite it in the next round, don't worry
so basically the point is this he's not
going to answer do Palestinians have an equal
right to return to their ancestral places where
they lived within only a generational memory he
is not going to answer that question I'm
going to answer that question I think everyone
should have a right to return to wherever
their ancestry was, if they even have a
connection to it or even if they have
a loose connection to it, or maybe even
if they're a convert, they can just go
I'm okay with that the problem is, he's
not okay with equal human beings simply being
given equal rights because that goes against his
ethno-nationalist ideology and that's unfortunately the stumbling
block to peace today okay alright,
so I'll make a slight point, an additional
point now, the thing is this the Hamas
chart of 1988, he referenced it I always
like to check sources and obviously go through
claims what isn't really mentioned is article 31
in this, which is it says, now yes,
Hamas does believe that the land of Palestine
should be under Islam as it was before,
yes, they say that, they're not ashamed of
it but sometimes, Zionists on his side like
to argue that Hamas wants to just kill
all Jews just for the sake of it
just for the sake of it not because
okay now I don't support some of Hamas's
tactics in the past much like many of
you I hope do not support the Irgun
who their leader became the prime minister of
the state of Israel I hope that you
don't support it but I'll quote it it
says, under the wing of Islam it is
possible for the followers of the free religions
Islam, Christianity and Judaism to coexist in peace
and quiet with each other now just for
the sake of fact checking that doesn't sound
to me like they are aiming to wipe
out every Jew in the world as he
says otherwise why would it be in their
manifesto that Christians, Muslims and Jews can live
can coexist in peace and quiet with each
other answer me that under
the wing of Islam need I say anything
else now but I will because he talks
about justice and what he really means by
justice is that to the Muslim Middle East
it is an injustice that there is a
Jewish state with its own self determination so
for him justice means no Jewish state in
the Middle East and he's just said it
by saying under the wing of Islam, yes
they'll tolerate us yes you can live there
you can practice your religion but don't think
you can ever have an idea of your
own statehood of your own self determination, of
your own nationality absolutely not under the wing
of Islam and with regards to the Likud
Charter the Likud Charter was written in 1977
10 years when the Six Day War was
in living memory but it also says the
Likud government will place its aspirations for peace
at the top of its priorities for peace
at the top of its priorities and despite
what it's written the Likud party has never
moved to annex the West Bank and its
leader in 2005 voluntarily left Gaza its leader
as well also gave the Sinai Desert back
to Egypt Benjamin Netanyahu was part of the
Y River Accord that handed 9% of
the West Bank to the Palestinians extra 9
% for self rule it's always been Likud
Prime Ministers that have traded land for peace
so you can say all you want about
the Likud but actually it's been their Prime
Ministers who have always traded land for peace
but let's finish let's finish and remember that
one quote thank you so much we can
live under the wing of Islam thank you
that is so so generous and says it
all right
so we've come to sorry could you please
right we've nearly come to the end now
can I ask you to please stop interrupting
otherwise we may ask you to leave I've
said right okay so we're moving on to
the final remarks now each speaker will have
5 minutes and we'll start with Rafi we've
already established that Zionism the return of the
Jewish people to the land of Israel with
their own state subservient to no one not
under the wing of Islam is at the
core of Judaism and was a desire Jews
prayed for across millennia the creation of the
modern day state of Israel was the realization
of that yearning and fused Jewish religion and
nationality together Zionism was and is the liberation
movement of the Jewish people was because it
gave Jews a safe haven after experiencing both
the genocide in Europe and an ethnic cleansing
from Muslim states throughout the Middle East and
is because if not for the state of
Israel now its 8 million Jewish inhabitants would
be slaughtered without a second thought when Ghazi
Hamad a member of Hamas's political bureau said
on October the 24th 2023 Israel is a
country that has no place on our land
we must remove it because it constitutes a
security military and political catastrophe to the Arab
and Islamic nation we are not ashamed to
say this we must teach Israel a lesson
and we will do it twice and three
times the Al-Aqsa deluge that's the name
Hamas gave the October the 7th massacre is
just the first time and there will be
a second and a third time he meant
it when Khaled Mashal another Hamas leader said
October the 7th paved a wide highway towards
the removal of Israel towards liberation and towards
saving Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque he
meant it and just in case you think
it's only Hamas when Faisal Al-Husseini the
so called moderate minister for Jerusalem affairs in
Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority once said what many
still believe that tactically we may win or
lose but our eyes will continue to aspire
to the strategic goal namely to Palestine from
the river to the sea that is to
a Palestine in place of Israel he meant
it and if you need any more proof
that this is really what they want consider
this it's not settlements or occupation that is
responsible for there being no peace the Arabs
of the land the Palestinians have only ever
dealt in absolutism they have had time and
time again an opportunity for a state of
their own they could have had it in
around 75% of the land in 1937
and just under half of the land in
1947 in 1948 just 3 years after the
Jews experienced the genocide of the Holocaust the
Arabs launched their own genocidal war against the
Jews and the newly established Jewish state of
Israel aiming to destroy it the Jews defended
themselves fought back and won and when the
Palestinians were offered the vast majority of the
West Bank in Gaza in 2000 by Ehud
Barak and 2008 by Ehud Olmert they again
said no in 2005 Israel completely withdrew from
Gaza it could have been a Singapore of
the Middle East but it became a terror
state every time the Palestinians were told you
can be masters of your fate in part
of the land but in another part the
Jews will be masters of their fate no
longer inferior to you no longer ruled by
you no longer tolerated by you their choice
for over 80 years to the present has
been to fight for all the Palestinians have
always said if we must live next to
sovereign Jews better to fight until they are
not there at all and we saw this
live stream by Hamas terrorists on October the
7th as they roamed around southern Israel screaming
with joy that they were killing Jews not
Israelis killing Jews with their bare hands this
is how the anti Zionism of Hamas Hezbollah
Iran many in the Palestinian Authority and millions
of others across the Middle East would violently
manifest itself if given the chance the murder
and genocide of all the Jews living in
the modern day Jewish state of Israel and
its destruction and they are supported in this
genocidal lane by all those other people around
the world who agree with them that Israel
has no right to exist smear it with
modern versions of age-old anti-Semitic blood
libels and demand that it is consigned to
the dustbin of history these people do not
call for the destruction of any other state
in the world these same people target those
who identify as Zionists effectively meaning Jews and
I should know I'm a Jew since the
vast majority of global Jewry proudly identify as
Zionists with abuse discrimination racism and physical attacks
on our streets in our workplaces at synagogues
at Jewish schools at hospitals when we go
for treatments and online simply because we believe
in Jewish self determination if it's not really
Jew hate why do they use slogans like
from the river to the sea Palestine will
be free and stop doing what Hitler did
to you alongside pictures of Jesus on the
cross which say Palestinians do not let them
do the same thing again and chants of
an ancient battle cry that references the massacre
of Jews by an Arab army because it's
age old classic Jew hate in the Middle
Ages Jews were hated for their religion in
the 19th and early 20th century they hated
because they were rich and because they were
poor because they were capitalists and because they
were communists because they kept to themselves and
because they infiltrated everywhere Stalin thought Jews were
rootless cosmopolitans who believed nothing Hitler hated Jews
because he thought they were parasitic vermin worthy
of eradication much like all those people I
mentioned before before the Second World War Jews
were told to go to Palestine now they're
told to get out of Palestine today Jews
are hated for their nation state there are
15 countries of the United Nations who define
themselves as Christian states and 157 countries in
total in which a majority of the population
is Christian and 57 members of the organization
of Islamic cooperation the idea that Jews having
one country of their own is one too
many and that the Jewish state of Israel
should be destroyed and the Middle East be
Judenrein the ethnic cleansing of Jews by Hamas
and Hezbollah and everybody else that's what makes
anti-Semitism the new form anti-Zionism the
new form of anti-Semitism applause applause Since
he spoke over his time I was told
I would be given an extra minute like
he was given an extra minute so that's
fine I'll use that for some fact checking
I promised I would give you a reference
so here's the reference if you'd like the
religious media center conducted a poll this year
February the 8th 2024 and here's one of
the results most of the British Jewish community
the 5th largest in the world expressed an
affiliation with Israel however the study found that
there had been a fall in those identifying
as Zionist from 72% a decade ago
to 63% so there you go there's
the poll alright now one of the
things is we all and we all should
be concerned with combating anti-Semitism and really
we need to combat it begin to combat
it at its roots a lot of anti
-Semitism stems from the supremacist viewpoint of the
western civilization against those in the Middle East
that was original anti-Semitism at least in
the term was given to coin to that
but also there is an anti-Semitism that
arises because Zionists like my colleague here keep
associating Zionism with Judaism and then argues that
all the injustices that Zionism requires is really
required by Judaism and that is anti-Semitic
that's what makes many people unfortunately they believe
that rhetoric and then they follow it through
regrettably and we need to combat that I'm
actually in the forefront of combating anti-Semitism
by saying that's not true it's not Jewish
to oppress it is not Jewish to oppress
call me anti-Semite for saying that I'll
accept it, but it's not he says you
know he says a few things, I'm going
to try to jump and try to cover
a few things as best as I can
he still hasn't proven that it is an
obligation in Judaism, it is required in Judaism
that Jews must be the sole sovereigns of
the land of Palestine or the Israelites don't
the Samaritans count I suppose they're the other
Israelites but they according to the Israeli government
they actually are Jews that's why they're given
earlier right of return and they're giving Israeli
citizenship and they're also giving Palestinian citizenship too
now when he says again notice how he
refuses to answer my question do Palestinians have
the equal right to return to their ancestral
land to their ancestral homes of which they
have a much shorter connection to as Jews
do even if Jews are just converts to
Judaism he hasn't answered it, have you noticed
that and then he answers that the reason
I'm only supporting unitary state because I want
to see the Jews wiped out or massacred
or so on, the same rhetoric the same
rhetoric that South African apartheid advocates and the
government said, check it for yourself please I
literally quoted you the manifesto it said it
would be natural suicide to do it and
he said the same thing does that not
sound similar to you sounds pretty similar to
me, eerily similar he still hasn't answered the
question, is Einstein an anti-Semite for saying
that for saying that because the Palestinian Arabs
are the majority, you can't establish a Jewish
ethno-state up over them, he still hasn't
answered that he talks about he talks about
October the 7th because you can't have a
debate these days about October 7th being brought
up and he argues I suppose the implication
is that Palestinians shouldn't be having any self
-determination or they can't trust having their own
state or to have a unitary state because
of the actions done by some criminal elements
during October the 7th and yet were they
not criminals or do you not think they're
criminals alright let's talk about other terrorists then
like the person who said in my present
opening statement he said that he was commanded
to make an attack upon an Arab village,
an example to everyone and that he was
ordered for maximal killing and damage to property,
do you know who that was?
He killed 69 civilians do you know who
that was?
Ariel Sharon in his own diary if
an organisation that can do that means it
does not have a right to exist by
your logic then surely then the army of
the state of Israel and Israel by connection
does not have a right to exist because
of the atrocities it has been committed and
has ordered to be committed using your own
logic so if Hamas if Hamas should be
destroyed because it committed atrocities and every organisation
then in the world that commits atrocities should
be destroyed by that logic then it must
equally apply to your own so called state
that you support he talks about use some
German words there, what was it, blood libel
and what else is it, Judenrein the whole
argument, even though despite the fact that the
settlements in the West Bank are Palestinian Rein,
you can't go in there without a permit
in your own country but I'll use another
land, if you like German words I've got
a little word for you, Lebensraum that the
Israeli state viewed West Bank as its breathing
space, it says for its own security, it
was a German term used to justify the
ironically also eastward expansion of Germany for its
own security against Russia and for to be
a viable state for the German people right,
so this is an ironic argument I want
to bring up German words, we can bring
up German words I'm going to go back
to good old Abba Egan, I started with
him, we're going to end with him Abba
Egan he said anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism
and yet he also said that this requires
denying self-determination to the Palestinians there is
enough evidence for you to show that anti
-Zionism should be supported by anyone that is
a person of conscience, thank you Thank
you very much to both our speakers thanks
everyone for sticking around, I'm really glad this
was able to go ahead I hope you
feel you've got something out of it as
Duncan said at the beginning, it's about understanding
different people's point of view so hopefully you're
glad you stuck around until the end thanks
to the University for hosting it and all
that's left for me to do is wish
you a safe journey home, thanks The first
casualty in war is the truth Now we've
seen the loss of countless lives, heartbreak and
devastation on both sides setting aside our arguments
what are the practical steps to be taken
from today so we begin to move forward
towards a genuine and lasting peace between Israel
and Palestine beyond blame and divisions The first
step if you're talking about the war now
Give us just one minute and then we're
straight out of your hair I'll give you
a minute Cool, then we'll give them 30
seconds each Thank you, sir The first stage
is the immediate release of the 101 hostages
still held in the terror dungeons of Gaza
by Hamas The second stage is that Hamas
does not rule the Gaza Strip anymore and
then there needs to be a Palestinian partner
for peace who acknowledges the right of Israel
to exist as the nation state of the
Jewish people that Israel can negotiate with and
we can have two states living side by
side in peace and security the offers that
have been made for decades that have been
rejected as I said before, the Palestinians have
only ever dealt in absolutism, it's either all
or nothing for them sometimes when you want
all or nothing you get nothing, but the
Israelis absolutely want peace my mother lives in
Jerusalem, my sister lives in Tiberias, they want
to live in peace they live alongside Arab
Israelis who have equal rights, and I want
to see two states living side by side
in peace and security, and as part of
that framework, there would be negotiations on land
swaps, there would be negotiations on compensation for
some refugees there was always an offer of
limited right of return, but not wholesale right
of return especially not for fifth generation Palestinians
who cannot be classified as refugees they wouldn't
be classified as refugees anywhere else in the
world but as I said I believe in
two states living side by side, the Palestinians
absolutely have a right to have a state
of their own on the land that we
call the Holy Land, as do the Jews
living side by side in peace and security
I cannot say more than that I would
say that again, we should be consistent if
a fifth generation Palestinian has no right to
return because they're fifth generation then a twenty
or thirty generation Ashkenazi European Jew then also
has no right of return equally or more
so, because they're far more disconnected they're not
refugees anymore by your argument I would say
that we need to release hostages 3,000
to 5,000 held under no charge under
administrative detention in the West Bank, which Israel
has the ability to do they need to
be released and that's what has been demanded
by Palestinians for many years so bring them
home second, we need to get rid of
the government that is opposing a two state
solution you know who I'm talking about, the
Likud government who Benjamin Netanyahu boasted himself that
he successfully has subverted a Palestinian state and
has no desire to see one, nor his
party that's their official line so they no
longer need to be in power as well
using that logic and I think I'd finally
say that okay, I'm about to finish now
but I think I'd finally say that ultimately
speaking whether it's a two state solution with
a viable and 100% autonomous independent and
self determining Palestinian state or one state that
embraces all of Palestine where everyone has equal
rights and protections and what have you we
need to be consistent and apply it to
everyone equally and fair thank you so much
for your time today guys