Israel-Palestine Debate: Finkelstein, Destiny, M. Rabbani & Benny Morris | Lex Fridman Podcast #418

That's a good point. No, no, it's a good point.

Now, some people accuse me of speaking very slowly, and they're advised on YouTube to turn up the speed twice to three times whenever I'm on. One of the reasons I speak slowly is because I attach value to every word I say.

Norm will say this all over and over and over again. I only deal in facts. I don't deal in hypotheticals. I only deal in facts. I only deal in facts. And that seems to be the case, except for when the facts are completely and totally contrary to the particular point you're trying to push. The idea that Jews would have out of hand rejected any state that had Arabs on it or always had a plan of expulsion is just betrayed by the acceptance of the 47 partition.

I don't think you understand politics.

They forced the British to prevent emigration of Jews from Europe and reaching safe shores in Palestine.

Again.

They did. And they knew that the being persecuted in Europe.

Was Palestine the. The only spot of land on earth.

Yes, basically, that was the problem. The Jews couldn't emigrate.

What about your great friends in Britain, the architects of the Balfour Declaration by the late 1930s? What about the United States weren't happy.

To take in Jews, and the Americans.

Weren'T happy to take in Jews? And why are Palestinians who were not Europeans, who had zero role in the rise of Nazism, who had no relation to any of this, why are they somehow uniquely responsible for what happened in Europe and uniquely culturally, the only safe haven for Jews?

Professor Morris. Because of your logic, and I'm not disputing it, that's why October 7th happened. Oh, my God. Because there was no options left for those people.

The Hamas guys who attacked the kibbutzim, apart from the attacks on the military sites, when they attacked, the kibbutzim, were out to kill civilians, and they killed family after family, house after house.

Talk fast. I'm trying to think that you're coherent.

I'm just reading from the un.

Yeah, but you.

I know you like them sometimes. Only when they agree with you, though. But you've lied about this particular instance in the past. Those kids weren't just on the beach, as is often stated in articles. Those kids were literally coming out of a previously identified Hamas compound that they have operated from. They literally.

With all due respect. With all due respect. You're such a fantastic. It's terrifying.

The following is a debate on the topic of Israel and Palestine with Norman Finkelstein, Benny Morris, Moin Rabbani, and Stephen Bunnell, also known Online as Destiny. Norm and Benny are historians. Muin is a Middle east analyst and Stephen is a political commentator and streamer. All four have spoken and debated extensively on this topic. The goal for this debate was not for anyone to win or to score points. It wasn't to get views or likes. I never care about those and I think there are probably much easier ways to get those things if I did care. The goal was to explore together the history, present and future of Israel and Palestine in a free flowing conversation. No time limits, no rules. There was a lot of tension in the room from the very beginning and it only got more intense as we went along. And I quickly realized that this very conversation, in a very real human way, was a microcosm of the tensions and distance and perspectives on the topic of Israel and Palestine. For some debates I will step in and moderate strictly to prevent emotion from boiling. For this I saw the value in not interfering with the passion of the exchanges because that emotion in itself spoke volumes. We did talk about the history and the future, but the anger, the frustration, the biting wit, and at times respect and camaraderie were all there. Like I said, we did it in an perhaps all too human way. I will do more debates and conversations on these difficult topics and I will continue to search for hope in the midst of death and destruction, to search for our common humanity in the midst of division and hate. This thing we have going on, human civilization, the whole of it is beautiful and it's worth figuring out how we can help it flourish together. I love you all. This is the Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description and now, dear friends, here's Norman Fichkenstein, Benny Morris, Muayan Rabbani and Stephen Bunnell. First question is about 1948. For Israelis, 1948 is the establishment of the State of Israel and the War of independence. For Palestinians, 1948 is the Nakba, which means catastrophe or the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians from their homes as a consequence of the war. What to you is important to understand about the events of 1948 and the period around there 4749 that helps us understand what's going on today and maybe helps us understand the roots of all this that started even before 1948. I was hoping that Norm could speak first and Benny, then Wayne and then Steve.

Norm. After World War II, the British decided that they didn't want to deal with the Palestine question anymore and the ball was thrown into the court of the United Nations. Now, as I read the record, the UN was not attempting to arbitrate or adjudicate rights and wrongs. It was confronting a very practical problem. There were two national communities in Palestine and there were irreconcilable differences on fundamental questions. Most importantly, looking at the historic record on the question of immigration and associated with the question of immigration, the question of lend. The UN Special Committee on Palestine, which came into being before the UN181 partition resolution, the UN Special Committee recommended two states in Palestine. There was a minority position represented by Iran, India, Yugoslavia. They supported one state, but they believed that if forced to, the two communities would figure out some sort of modus eventi and live together. United Nations General assembly supported partition between what it called a Jewish state and an Arab state. Now, in my reading of the record, and I understand there's new scholarship in the subject, which I've not read, but so far as I've read the record, there's no clarity on what the United Nations General assembly meant by a Jewish state and an Arab state, except for the fact that the Jewish state would be demographically, the majority would be Jewish and the Arab state demographically would be Arab. The unscupped, the UN Special Committee on Palestine. It was very clear and it was reiterated many times, that in recommending two states, each state, the Arab state and the Jewish state, would have to guarantee full equality of all citizens with regard to political, civil and religious matters. Now, that does raise the question if there is absolute full equality of all citizens both in the Jewish state and the Arab state, with regard to political rights, civil rights and religious rights, apart from the demographic majority, it's very unclear what it meant to call a state Jewish or call a state Arab. In my view, the partition resolution was the correct decision. I do not believe that the Arab and Jewish communities could at that point be made to live together. I disagree with the minority position of India, Iran and Yugoslavia and that not being a practical option, two states was the only other option. In this regard, I would want to pay tribute to what was probably the most moving speech at the UN General assembly proceedings by the Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko. I was very tempted to quote it at length, but I recognized that would be taking too much time. So I asked a young friend, Jamie Stern Weiner, to edit it and just get the essence of what Foreign Minister Gromyko had to say. During the last war, Gromyko said, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering. Without any exaggeration, this sorrow and suffering are indescribable. Hundreds of thousands of Jews are wandering about in various countries of Europe in search of means of existence and in search of shelter. The United nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference. Past experience, particularly during the Second World War, shows that no Western European state was able to provide adequate assistance for the Jewish people in defending its rights and its very existence from the violence of the Hitlerites and their allies. This is an unpleasant fact, but unfortunately, like all other facts, it must be admitted. Gromyko went on to say, in principle he supports one state, or the Soviet Union supports one state. But he said, if relations between the Jewish and Arab populations of Palestine proved to be so bad, that would be impossible to reconcile them and to ensure the peaceful coexistence of the Arabs and the Jews, the Soviet Union would support two states. I personally am not convinced that the two states would have been unsustainable in the long term if, and this is a big if, the Zionist movement had been faithful to the position it proclaimed during the UNSCOP public hearings. @ the time Ben Gurion testified, quote, I want to express what we mean by a Jewish state. We mean by a Jewish state simply a state where the majority of the people are Jews, not a state where a Jew has in any way any privilege more than anyone else. A Jewish state means a state based on absolute equality of all her citizens and on democracy. Alas, this was not to be. As Professor Morris has written, Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist. Then he wrote in another book, transfer, the euphemism for expulsion. Transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism because it sought to transform a land which was Arab into a Jewish state. And a Jewish state could not have arisen without a major displacement of Arab population. And because this aim automatically produced resistance among the Arabs, which in turn persuade the Yishuv's leaders, the Yeshua being the Jewish community, the Yeshuv's leaders, that a hostile Arab majority or a large minority could not remain in place if a Jewish state was to arise or safely endure. Or as Professor Morris retrospectively put it, quote, a removing of a population was needed. Without a population expulsion, a Jewish state would not have been established. Unquote. The Arab side rejected outright the partition resolution. I won't play games with that. I know a lot of people try to prove it's not true. It clearly, in my view, is true. The Arab side rejected outright the partition resolution, while Israeli leaders, acting on the compulsions inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism, found the pretext in the course of the first Arab Israeli war to expel the indigenous population and expand its borders. I therefore conclude that neither side was committed to the letter of the partition resolution and both sides aborted.

It. Thank you, Norm. Norm asks that you make a lengthy statement in the beginning. Benny, I hope it's okay to call everybody by their first name. In the name of camaraderie, Norm has quoted several things you said. Perhaps you can comment broadly on the question of 1948 and maybe respond to the things that Norm.

Said. Yeah. Unscop, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine recommended partition. The majority of UNSCOPP recommended partition, which was accepted by the UN General assembly in November 1947. Essentially looking back to the Peel Commission in 1937. Ten years earlier, a British commission had looked at the problem of Palestine. The two warring national groups who refused to live together, if you like, or consolidate a unitary state between them. And Peel said there should be two states. The principle the country must be partitioned into two states. This would give a modicum of justice to both sides, if not all their demands, of course. And the United nations followed suit. The United Nations, UNSCOP, and then the UN General assembly, representing the will of the international community, said, two states is the just solution in this complex situation. The problem was that immediately with the passage of the resolution, the Arab states and the Arabs of Palestine said no. As Norman Finkelstein said, they said no. They rejected the partition idea, the principle of partition, not just the idea of what percentage which side should get, but the principle of partition. They said no to the Jews should not have any part of Palestine for their sovereign territory. Maybe Jews could live as a minority in Palestine. That also was problematic in the eyes of the Palestinian Arab leadership. Husseini had said only Jews who were there before 1917 could actually get citizenship and continue to live there. But the Arabs rejected partition. And the Arabs of Palestine launched in very disorganized fashion, war against the resolution, against the implementation of the.