Latest / The Real News Podcast / Ghada Karmi: How Gaza Shattered the Myth of Coexistence

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Ghada Karmi: How Gaza Shattered the Myth of Coexistence · The Real News Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mark Steiner Show here on the Real News.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I'm Mark Steiner. It's great to have you all with us.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: As we begin our conversation, it's important to remember that
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: since October seventh, twenty twenty three, when the Gods of
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: War began after the kidnapping of Israelis, seventy three thousand
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Palestinians have been killed, over twenty thousand of them being children,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and the land itself has been totally devastated. The program
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: today is dedicated to the Nakba, the day of remembrance,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: when almost a million Palestinians were forced to flee from
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: their homes, forced to flee for their lives, to live
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: the rest of their lives as refugees. One of those
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: people is my guest today, who was a child when
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: she and her family were forced to flee their home
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: during the Nakba. Doctor God Kami is a physician author
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: of numerous books about Palestine, Israel, and the state of Palestinians.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Our latest work is a novel called Morjana, a novel
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: of medieval Baghdad and God It welcome. It's good to
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: see you. Good you heavy with.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Us, Thank you. I'm very glad to be.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Here, So God, I I've been covering Israel Palestine for
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: years now and been involved themselves a child, since I'm Jewish,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a family in Israel Palestine, and then my Palatinian friends
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: over the years as well. So it's a gigantic part
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: of my life. And I'm just saying that to say,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever experienced a moment as dire
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: as one we face now, other than the knack by
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: itself that we're in that kind of moment. Could you
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: describe just analytically where you think we are, what we're
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: facing when it comes to Israel Palestine this moment.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: First of all, I agree with you, I don't remember
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: a time as bad as this. And you say excluding
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: the original Knakba, I would not exclude that, because I
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: think what I'm seeing now is worse than the na
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: but that I lived through as a child in nineteen
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: forty eight. It is actually worse because always previously I
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: never really believed in my heart of hearts that Israel
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: would last for long, that it would survive, and that
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: we would not be looking at a situation where as
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: in my case, because I was evicted with my family
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: in nineteen forty eight. I never believed that in my
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: lifetime I would not be able to return to my homeland,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: which would be the same as saying that the state
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: of Israel would have been terminated. That's what I always
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: lived by, and I think all Palaestinians live with that
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: hope in their hearts. However, I have to tell you
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: for the first time in all those years, I have
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: begun to doubt that.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: As you were speaking, One things I thought about as
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: a young man, a very young man, I was in
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the Zionist groups. The last one was in Carchomkratz with
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: the Marxist scientists, who believed at that time in a
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: binational state everybody lived together in peace. And I raised
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: that only to ask you, in all your life, as
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a Palestinian woman, as a scholar, as an activist, is
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: that dream gone completely where people you think could live
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: together in that space? Have we have? We? Actually, because
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: of the oppresion of Palestinians, terminated that possibility.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, you know I have advocated for what I would
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: call one democratic state.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, for many years. Be careful, not by national not
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: by national gotcha understand.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Indeed, I don't recognize that there is another nation in Palestine.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: I don't, And for many, many years, my vision for
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: the future has always been that we Palestinians would return
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: home to Palestine, We and our children and grandchildren, we
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: would return. That number one as a matter of priority,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: and number two the question of what is to be
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: the future for the settler community, because this is really
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: what we Palestinians think of Jewish Israelians. They're settlers and
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: children and grandchildren of settlers. Apart from the very small
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: minority of originally indigenous what we called Arab Jews, the
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: rest came from outside. So what is to be done
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: with them has been a secondary matter. But I've always
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: believed that it would be only a right, humane and
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: moral to invite them to stay if they would like
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: to stay with us in a democratic state framework and
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: enjoy equal rights and equal citizenship with us. If they
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: are not prepared to do that, then they must leave.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: And that is really my vision for the future. Now
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: I have to tell you, as you point out so rightly,
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: I've begun to doubt that because I look at the
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Israeli Jewish population since the Gaza genocide, and we look
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: at opinion polls, and we see that a majority of
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: ordinary Jewish people in Israel are in support of the genocide.
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: They support the destruction of the Palestinian people.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: And now I.
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  Speaker 3: Cannot, as an activist ask my fellow Palestinians to contemplate
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: embracing people like this and saying, why don't we live together?
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: And you know, we can forget the past, we can
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: get on.
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  Speaker 2: It's not true, it's no longer true.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: So when I think about this, I spent years working
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: in the anti apart I struggle around South Africa and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: places like South Africa, like Israel. There's two alternatives. A
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: is either the Jewish population in Israel, Israel Palestine is
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: wiped out or they're forced to leave, or there's one
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: democratic state. You know, There's a poster I have on
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: my wall that I got in Cuba in nineteen sixty eight.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: It's a map of all of Palestine, all of the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Holy Land, and on one side is a Palestinian flag,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the others and Israeli flag, and down the front has
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: written one state, two people, three face. Do you think
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: that's an absurdity?
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's a possibility.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: You know, Okay, tell me why.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: I don't you see the Jewish Israelis are settler colonialists.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: That's what they are. So it's like saying, if you
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: rephrase it, you're saying, you know, the flag of the
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: indigenous population Palestinians and the flag of the settler colonists
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  Speaker 3: Jewish Israelis. Now, how would you then imagine these two
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: communities living together in an arrangement where the rights of
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: the colonists are equal to the rights of the indigenous
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: peace people.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: That is not the case. Now.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: South Africa is confusing. I respect your activism on South Africa,
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: and correctly so. But South Africa, you see, the majority
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: of the population were indigenous, indigenous natives of the land.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: The minority of whites had come as settled colonists in
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: the same way as Juish Israelis, but much much further back. Now,
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: the disparity in numbers in the South African situation makes
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: it a nonsense to say to this minority of whites,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: you must have your own space and we have our
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: own space. It's a nonsense. So of course it made
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: sense here with Palestine. The problem is that it's about
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: half and half. So if you discount the exiles and
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: the refugees who are living outside the area altogether, what
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: you end up with is a fifty percent Jewish population
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Palestine Arab population, but it doesn't alter the basic nature
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: of the Jewish population, who are settler colonists and their descendants.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: Now that's not acceptable. I cannot, as a Palestinian be
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: asked to accept these people as equivalent to myself, especially
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: given the suffering that they have caused for us Palestinians,
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: and especially in the last three years.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's.
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  Speaker 3: Not moral, it's not right, and it's not human to
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: ask the victims, which is us, to take count of
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: the victim and say, well, well a nerd, never mind,
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: all is forgiven, let's all live together.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: It can't be done.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I'm very curious. I I have read a lot of
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: your writing and work you've done over the years, and
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: looking forward to talking about your latest work another day.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: But so, then, what do you see as a solution.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: How do we get to a place where the our
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: destruction of Palestinians is stopped, the murder of Palestine people
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: is ended, and we come to a place of peace.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: How do you see that happening?
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Well, good question. I can't see it happening, not given
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: the present circumstances.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: And by that I mean not just the murderous.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: Israeli leadership and to a loge extent to population, not
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: just that, but the support that Israel still enjoys after
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: all this, you can wonder the astonished at the continuing
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: support that this generocidal state still enjoys. Without that support,
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: now there's an argument. Now, if you could actually work
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: on the support end that the Western States, and particularly
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: the United States, if you could work on them and
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: get them to give up on Israel, then then I
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: think there's a very great hope that the whole thing
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: will come to an end. But given the current arrangement
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: where you've got a powerful Israeli state, supported funded shielded
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: by the West, which is very powerful. This combination, you
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: can't expect a small people like the Palestinians, given their
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: friends who are many in the world, even then, you
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: cannot expect them to fight that kind of setup. It's
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: not possible. So your question is really a very good question,
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  Speaker 3: how do you do it? I wish I knew the answer,
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  Speaker 3: I knew what it would take. I know the mechanisms
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: which you'd have to remove in order to to get
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: that result. I wouldn't know how you could persuade Western
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: countries that are addicted. It seems to me they are
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: addicted to Israel or the idea of Israel. It's quite remarkable.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: How can you get them to give up their addiction.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: I honestly don't know.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: That's really an interesting way to put it. I've never
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: thought about it in the way you described it as
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: an addiction. The piece I wrote that didn't sit well
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: with many of my fellow Jews was was if there
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: had never been a Holocaus, they would never be in Israel. Now. Yeah, yeah,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: that's true, and that is the reason that it exists.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, the United States refused to let Holocaust victims in.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: People went to Palestine, took what wasn't theirs and created
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: a place for themselves. Yeah, it's refugees creating other refugees.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I've wrestled with this as well, about how we end it,
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  Speaker 1: and I got exceedingly frustrated trying to find an answer.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: And I've had hundreds of interviews with people or around
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: this issue over the decades, but I've never felt that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: we're at a moment that we are a As I
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: said on a precipice of total disaster for both Israelis
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: and Palestinians. And I don't see how you stop that
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: collision from happening.
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  Speaker 2: Nor do I.
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  Speaker 3: Because if I go back to an early answer I
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: gave you, which is, you know, how do I feel
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  Speaker 3: at this moment? Well, I feel very, very hopeless, because
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: for the first time in my life, I'm contemplating the
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: physical end of Palestine. That's something I never ever thought
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: would happen. But given the license that Israel has to
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: do whatever it likes, it's currently continuing this generocidal attack
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: on Palestinians in Gaza, and it's continuing the ethnic cleansing
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: that it's getting away with on the West Bank. So
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: if it's allowed to do that unhampered and nobody stops it,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: and nobody is strong enough on our side to fight
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: it and to stop it, I can't see any other
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: future other than that they will succeed in emptying the
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: land of a majority, let's say, not everybody, but a
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: majority of Palestinians.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: So you know it's looking pre bleak.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: I have to say, And of course my concern is
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: for the Palestinians. But you mentioned Israelis, and I agree
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: with you. I think Jewish Israelis don't have a future.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: They don't have a future now, whatever they do to
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: the Palestinians, they're finished, because imagine what is the future
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: for Israel. What is it given it's now completely exposed
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: as an utterly belligerent state which cannot survive without for
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: perpetual war. It cannot Now, how on earth can you
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: imagine a future for its people with this way of
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: life unless they accept at some point that they are
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: actually like other people and they must settle down and
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: stop fighting other people and killing them. Unless they accept that,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: I don't see any future for them at all. So,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: even though they're not my primary concern, yeah, right, I
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: do understand they don't have a future, and we certainly
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: don't have a future, not given the current situation.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I am. I had no idea the direction
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: our conversations are going to take today, though I've been
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: doing a lot of reading a lot of what you've written.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I've been in touch with friends in Israel where israelis,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and family and friends who are Palestinians who live in
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Romaala and other places in the West Bank. People have
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: known forever, and I A bleakness took over in those
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: conversations over the last week thinking about you coming on
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: as well. And so that's why the tenor of my
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: questions and discussion is because of what I see is
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: a real hopelessness that we're facing at this moment. For me,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: it's the question I asked them is how do we
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: who have been so oppressed oppressed another? How do we
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: let that happen?
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I so do you think the era of dialogue and
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: hope are really over.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Look I I'm reluctant to say anything is absolutely.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Over I understand, yes, I understand yes.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: But having said that, you ask the question which says,
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: how can people who've been oppressed be so oppressive? Well,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: I can think of a mechanism which explains all of this.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: You see.
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: One of the self defense postures that people can adopt
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: when they are persecuted is to create an idea that
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: they are very special and that they are better than
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: other people. The fact that they're being attacked by less
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: lesser people can be made to feel not so painful.
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: If you are encouraged to believe that you are special,
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: that you're being attacked by a load of barbarians who
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: don't understand how special you are. And how superior you
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: are to them. So this idea of superiority I think
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: has taken over with many I was going to say
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: most Jews, whether in Israel or out of Israel, and
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: that that is the mechanism, that's how it was created.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: So we end up with a situation where the oppression
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: that Jews were subjected to was met by this feeling
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: of we're better than them. They can kill us, but
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: we know we're much better now. If you carry that
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: kind of mentality into Israel Palestine, you've created a population
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: of Jewish Israelis who really do think they're supremacist, that
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: they are special, and that everybody else around them, the Palestinians,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: first and foremost, are lesser human beings. So you can
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: do with them what you like. It doesn't feel that
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: you're pressing them, like you're oppressing them, because they are
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: a human anyway. So that I think is one explanation
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: that interests me a great deal, and I would want
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: to put forward to explain, as you say, this depressing
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: reality that the people who underwent the Holocaust, or some
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: of them did, or their children there descendants can behave
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: the same way, by the way as the Nazis, you know,
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: So that would be what I would say to that.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: So you've lost your home, been forced out of the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: country of birth, and you've been teaching and working as
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: in medicine and as a scholar all these years, which
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: is not easier to do given the situation that you
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: face and face. Yeah, and when we see Donald Trump
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: in the White House, who is probably around Israel Palestine Palestine,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Israel is probably one of the worst presidents we've ever
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: had and only kind of pushes the neo fascist control
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: inside of Israel itself and agrees with it with Nata
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Yahu and his crew. How do you see it ending?
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I don't often answer this question, nor do I get
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: confused about how to ask the question very easily. But
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: after years of being in a struggle, being Israelis and
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: Palestines together, running camps, fighting to end the occupation, all
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: the things to come to the moment we are now,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I really don't know where we go. I don't know
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: how we find the road to peace, because it's between
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the two people who are at ours and between the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: Israelis oppression of the Palestinians.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very difficult to see. Now.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: You could imagine a number of scenarios which would end it.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: I don't know how likely any of them are, or
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: how likely or what order they might happen, but you
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: can see, you can see a way in which the
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: whole thing would change. Let's stick Iran, supposing that things
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: become much more acute or dramatic with Iran, with President Trump,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: in my view of being Israeli orders and bombing the
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: hell out of Iran. Now, Iran will bomb the hell
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: out of Israel, right, There's no doubt about that. So
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: now imagine a scenario in which that happens, and the
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Israelis cannot continue to hide behind no Internet, no showing
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: of anything, no publicity, no information about the damage that's
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: being done. It's already I gathered Tel Aviv and other
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: areas in Israel are badly damaged already by the bombing
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: by the missiles from Iran. And this could be very,
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: very much worse to a point where the stats's is
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: to function. If you add that to the fact that
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: fewer and fewer young Israelis will volunteer for the army,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: which is already happening, and if you add that to
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: the fact that the economy, which is not badly affected
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: now as we speak, but will become affected in the future.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: So if you take a number of these factors together,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: and don't forget Hazbollah, which is also lobbing missiles over
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: the border at Israel. So that's one possible scenario that
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: could happen. Now I can imagine another scenario in which,
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: unbelievable as it seems at the moment, Donald Trump actually
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: realizes the danger he's in domestically and drops Iran and
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: drops Israel in it and withdraws, just withdraws.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: So there's another way.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Because the main support for Israel, of course, it's the
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: United States. So if something threatens that, then Israel has finished,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: It's had it. So that's another possibility. Now how likely
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: all these are.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: I add to that a third factor which we're seeing,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: which is the level of popular support for Palestine and
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: an accompanying disenchantment with Israel, particularly in the United States.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Now where does that lead I don't know, But here's
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: another potential which could make things.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Very difficult for the Israelis.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Looking at the situation in general and wondering which bit
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: or maybe more than one of these scenarios could come
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: together and would make an enormous difference.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: To the outcome.
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: Now if you then add the eternal factor in Israel,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: that is, never mind all this stuff from outside. Internally,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Israeli society is split. There is a problem between the Orthodox,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: the right wingers, and.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: The liberal population.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, and the Haredim, which refused and
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: the Orthodox, which refuse to fight for the army and
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: then maybe forced to fight, And that'll create a hell
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: of a big problem. So you know, it's like a
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: cocktail of impending disasters, any of which or some combination
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: of which would bring about the end of the current
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: awful situation we have.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: There's also one other factor in that you can't forget
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: that Israel also a nuclear power.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't forgotten.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: No, No, I'm sure you have not. I mean, I
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: don't mean you've forgotten. I mean, as you can. We
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: cannot forget that that exists, and that if Israel feels
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: its back is completely against the wall, it's going to
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: use that power.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is really a real possibility. That's what
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: I meant. But I hadn't forgotten because it often crosses
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: my mind that Israel is mad enough.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: It's honestly, it's psychotic enough to do something like that.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's it's, it's it's the one of
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the stories in Jewish history is about the Masada.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Mmmm. Sure.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And it's in the consciousness of everybody who's Jewish. You
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: grow up with that, just like you grew up with
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the Holocaust or my grandparents who suffered the programs and
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: were almost killed by the Cossacks. So all that's an
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: oppressed consciousness. And I and I can the powers within Israel,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: especially the right wing powers of Israel, saying if we're
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: gonna if we're going to die, they're all going to die.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, very well. Put And I
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: tell you it's a terrible fear that I have. It's
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Samson all over again. And you know in Arabic the
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: whole Sampson story says has a line in it ad on.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: Me and on all my enemies, right and.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Perfectly explains it illustrates the situation. Yes, it's very frightening.
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know what we can do except to express
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: our fear of such an eventuality.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: And they have. We have to keep fighting for the alternative,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: We have to keep fighting for the peace to happen
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and to make of course you can't give up.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Yes, But you know I need to say, when you've
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: said before earlier in this interview, you said again you
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: said about peace.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Look, peace can only come about if people understand what
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: the problem is.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: And you know, and I as well as me, that
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: there's a tremendous amount of obfuscation, of confusion, of sentimentality,
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: of all kinds of things have been checked at this story.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: You know, the Bible, the Holocaust, all these, all these
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: factors mean that in the end people are actually confused.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: What does peace mean? What would it mean? Now?
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: In my terms, the only piece that I can envisage
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: is one where we Palestinians go home. It's very very simple.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: We all have to go home. And of course if
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: we go home, then the whole structure of the current
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: set of Israel automatically changes, and in my view for
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: the better.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: The right of return got to carve me. I want
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: to thank you for the work you do. I'm want
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to talk to you next about you latest work, your
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: latest book, and I'm going to thank you for joining
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: us today. It's been an important conversation and I diply
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: appreciate you to being with us today.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: It was a great pleasure for me to talk to you.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Once again. I want to thank doctor god Karme for
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: joining us today for the work she does and we'll
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: be linking to her work which is extensive. And thanks
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: to Cameron Grednino for running the program today. Audio editor
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: receive from Frank for working this magic, Rosette Swally for
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: producing the Mark Steiner Show and putting up with me
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: and the titler is Keayla Rovara for making it all
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: work behind the scenes, and everyone here throw News for
• 29:52
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• 29:55
  Speaker 1: thought about what you heard today. What you'd like is
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: to cover. Just write to me at m ss at
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: the Realnews dot com and I'll get right back to you.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: And once again, thank you joining us today. So for
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the crew here at The Real News, I'm Mark Steiner.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Stay involved, keep listening and take care.