Watch / Listen
Controversy continues over Jimmy Carter’s recent book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” In it, the former US President criticizes Israel for what he calls the “continued control and colonization of Palestinian land.” Carter faults Israeli settlement expansion for the failure of the peace process and is also highly critical of the US role in the Middle East, particularly its history of using veto power on the UN security council to block more than 40 UN resolutions critical of Israel. Carter spoke about the book in Washington DC last November:
- Jimmy Carter, speaking November 28th, 2006.
[Click for full transcript]
The book has seen growing media attention which began even before its publication in late November. Leading Democrats quickly distanced themselves from the book and it was immediately condemned by Jewish leaders and organizations around the country. Long-time Carter Center Fellow Kenneth Stein resigned his position in protest of the book. In a letter addressed to Carter and distributed to the media, he accused Carter of omission, factual errors, and plagiarism.
Today - a debate on the book with two leading scholars:
- Gil Troy, professor of American history at McGill University and author of several books including “Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity, and the Challenges of Today.”
- Norman Finkelstein, professor of Political science at DePaul University in Chicago. His latest book is “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.” His latest article is titled “The Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter’s Book” is posted on Counterpunch.org.
AMY GOODMAN: This is an excerpt of President Carter speaking about his book in Washington, D.C. in December.
JIMMY CARTER: Some people have said the title is provocative, and I accept that categorization, but I don’t consider the word “provocative” to be a negative description, because it’s designed to provoke discussion and analysis and debate in a country where debate and discussion is almost completely absent if it involves any criticism at all of the policies of Israel. And I think the book is very balanced.
Secondly, the words ” Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” were carefully chosen by me. First of all, it’s Palestine, the area of Palestinians. It doesn’t refer to Israel. I’ve never and would imply that Israel is guilty of any form of apartheid in their own country, because Arabs who live inside Israel have the same voting rights and the same citizenship rights as do the Jews who live there.
And the next word is ” peace.” And my hope is that the publication of this book will not only precipitate debate, as I’ve already mentioned, but also will rejuvenate an absolutely dormant or absent peace process. For the last six years there’s not been one single day of good faith negotiations between Israelis and their neighbors, the Palestinians. And this is absolutely a departure from what has happened under all previous presidents since Israel became a nation. We’ve all negotiated or attempted to negotiate peace agreements. That has been totally absent now for six years. So ” peace.”
And then the last two words, ” not apartheid.” The alternative to peace is apartheid, not inside Israel, to repeat myself, but in the West Bank and Gaza and East Jerusalem, the Palestinian territory. And there, apartheid exists in its more despicable forms, that Palestinians are deprived of basic human rights. Their land has been occupied and then confiscated and then colonized by the Israeli settlers. And they have now more than 205 settlements in the West Bank itself. And what has happened is, over a period of years, the Israelis have connected settlements with highways, and those highways make the West Bank look like a honeycomb and maybe a spider web. You can envision it. And in many cases, most cases, the Palestinians are prevented from using the highways at all, and in many cases, even from crossing the highways.
The book has seen growing media attention, which began even before its publication in early December. Leading Democrats quickly distanced themselves from Carter’s book. It was immediately condemned by Jewish leaders and organizations around the country. Longtime Carter Center Fellow, Kenneth Stein, resigned his position in protest of the book. In a letter addressed to Carter and distributed to the media, Stein accused Carter of omission, factual errors, and plagiarism.
Today, we’ll have a debate on the book. Joining us from Montreal is Gil Troy. He’s a professor of American history at McGill University and author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity, and the Challenges of Today. Norman Finkelstein is here with me in our firehouse studio. He’s professor of political science at DePaul University. His latest book is called Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!
Let’s begin with Professor Troy. Your response to President Carter’s book?
GIL TROY: He calls his title ” provocative.” I call it offensive. It’s offensive to South Africans, because to use the word ” apartheid,” which is about white supremacy and a systematic approach of discrimination and racism, demeans the very difficult struggle and the odious examples of South African oppression.
It’s also offensive to Zionists and to Jews and to anyone who supports the state of Israeli, because, while in his remarks that we heard, Jimmy Carter makes a distinction between what goes on inside Israel and in the territories, he did not do that in his book, which is actually quite shoddy and quite erratic.
And I think, you know, it’s also a disservice to the people of the world and good people who want peace, because if you want to truly be a mediator, try to find the complexity, try to show the complexity on both sides, the failures of both sides, rather than having this one-sided approach, which basically throws water on any hopes for peace. It actually throws gasoline on the fires in the Middle East.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Finkelstein?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, the question, it seems to me, is whether or not the term ” apartheid” is appropriate in this context. I’m not going to — for the moment, I’m not going to make an argument either way. The question I would raise is, if the term is, as it’s often been said recently, if the term is anti-Semitic or contrary to the interests of Jews, however you want to put it, how do you account for the fact that so many mainstream figures and organizations in Israeli life themselves use the term apartheid to characterize the Israeli occupation in the West Bank or Gaza?
You take the case of B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. In May 2002, they put out a report entitled “Land Grab.” It’s a substantial report. It’s not throwing around slogans and terms. The report’s about 150 pages, based on quite in-depth research. They conclude in their report that Israel has established a regime in the Occupied Territories, which is, as they put it, reminiscent of the South African apartheid regime. This past year, B’Tselem put out another report entitled “Forbidden Roads,” on what they call the ” Road Regime” in the Occupied Territories. Again, they concluded that this is reminiscent of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
You take the case of Ha’aretz, Israel’s leading newspaper, or most influential newspaper. And in their editorials, they routinely refer to the apartheid-like regime in the Occupied Territories.
So, for the moment, I would like to focus on the question: why is it illegitimate to use the term? Why is it anti-Semitic to use the term here, whereas in Israel just yesterday, Shulamit Aloni, the former Cabinet Minister for Education under Rabin, she says, ” Everybody here knows it’s apartheid,” so why is it illegitimate for a former American president to use a term which is a commonplace? I’m not saying everyone agrees it’s apartheid in Israel, but it’s certainly part of the mainstream discourse. Why are you in the United States disqualified from participating in what in Israel is part of the mainstream discourse?
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Troy?
GIL TROY: First of all, I didn’t accuse the former president of anti-Semitism. I didn’t accuse him of not having the qualifications to jump into the debate. I think the term is historically offensive and inaccurate. I said it’s offensive to South Africans. I said it’s offensive to people who want peace in the Middle East. Just because there are many Israeli leftists and many Israeli critics of Israeli policy who use the term doesn’t mean that it’s a legitimate term. As a historian, I can say it’s a false historical analogy.
What I learn from that is that in the United States and in Israel, unlike the country that Jimmy Carter pretends to live in, there is a vigorous debate on the Israeli side, there is a vigorous debate on the American side, there isn’t a vigorous debate on the Palestinian side, which doesn’t have the same kind of political culture. It actually has a toxic political culture, where right now we’ve seen over 500 Palestinians killing each other in an internecine civil war.
So, I’d like to focus on the question that has been sidestepped of, is it an accurate and is it a helpful term, and I say it’s not, because let’s look at what apartheid was. Apartheid was a regime started in the South Africans in the 1940s as an attempt — and it started actually with a kind of sexual revulsion on the part of whites against blacks to truly degrade blacks. And the community of nations — it took them decades, but the community of nations justifiably said this is so odious that we want to kind of vomit out — and I use the term advisedly — vomit out South Africa from the community of nations, because they’re so despicable.
When Israelis use the term, they’re being provocative, and they’re being incendiary, they’re being inaccurate. When the former president of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize winner uses the term, it’s even more destructive, because what he’s doing is he’s giving it a kind of legitimacy to a Zionist movement, which has already been libeled as being racist, and it feeds — and I see it on campus, where there’s quite a vigorous criticism of Israel every day. They use the term ” Israel apartheid.” And they don’t distinguish between the Territories and Israel. They look at it as an illegitimate country. And Jimmy Carter, who has shown a capacity for friendship of all kinds of dictators, from North Korea to China to Cuba, all of the sudden seems to have quite a harsh perspective when it comes to Israel, and I wonder why.
AMY GOODMAN: Norman Finkelstein?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I agree that we shouldn’t fixate on terms. We should look beneath the terms and see whether they accurately represent the reality. And that’s what I think those who have used that term have tried to do. So you take the case of B’Tselem. It publishes a report, and it says Israel has constructed in the Occupied Territories what it calls a ” Road Regime,” with roads for Jews only. They go on to say that Israel is –
AMY GOODMAN: Explain that. What do you mean exactly?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, there are roads which connect the settlements in the Occupied Territories with Israel. And those roads — there’s various kinds of laws and various degrees — it’s a complex system. Those laws effectively mean that Jews are the only ones who are allowed to use these roads connecting the Occupied Territories to Israel, and Palestinians have to take these circuitous routes in order to get from one part of the Occupied Territories to another.
In 2002, the B’Tselem report points to the fact that the kinds of settlements and the kinds of laws in the Occupied Territories resemble the apartheid system, in that there’s a different system of laws for Palestinians, and there’s a different system of laws for Israelis.
So, it’s not so important, in my opinion, to fixate on the term. I agree, it can become sloganeering. But we should look at the policies. We should look at what’s going on.
Jimmy Carter has, in my opinion, a compelling section of the book — it’s chapter 16 — which I would encourage your listeners to look at, where it’s entitled ” The Wall as a Prison.” And in chapter 16 he goes through the wall that Israel is building in the Occupied Territories. And I want to emphasize, because there’s so much misinformation on this topic in the United States. I suspect that Professor Troy is going to immediately jump in and say it’s not a wall, just as Ethan Bronner, the Deputy Foreign Editor of the New York Times, notes parenthetically that the edifice that Israel is building is only 4% a wall.
Well, these issues have been resolved legally. The International Court of Justice in July 2004, when it adjudicated the question of the wall that Israel is building in the Occupied Territories, at the very beginning it says there has been some dispute about the language used. Should we call it a fence? Should we call it a barrier? Should we call it a wall? And the International Court of Justice, going through all the possibilities exploring the linguistic resonances of all the terms, it concludes we should call it a ” wall.”
When Jimmy Carter uses that term, he is using the term which has been agreed to by consensus in the International Court of Justice. And I should add that Human Rights Watch, a mainstream human rights organization, in its publications and in accordance with international law and the International Court of Justice, uses the term ” wall.”
And Jimmy Carter says what’s happening in the Occupied Territories is Israel’s confiscating about 10% of Palestinian land inside the wall, and he says — I thought it was a compelling point — he says Israel will not only control all the Palestinians within the wall, but Israel has de facto also annexed the Jordan Valley, which means all the Palestinians between the Jordan Valley and the wall will also be controlled by Israel. They are creating — and Jimmy Carter, I think, with a certain amount of candor, he said, ” I don’t think it should be called a ‘separation fence.’ I think it should be called an ‘imprisonment wall.’” I think that’s accurate.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Troy?
GIL TROY: I would actually have less of a problem if he called it an ” imprisonment wall.” We could debate ” wall” or ” fence,” but that actually is not my point. The reason why ” apartheid” is so problematic is because it feeds a broad campaign to de-legitimize Israel to expel it from the United Nations, to make it an outlaw state, when it’s a democracy, and a flawed democracy, like America’s a flawed democracy, like all countries are flawed.
I’m not going to focus on the question of ” wall” versus ” fence.” I’m going to use the T-word: terrorism. It’s not as if, unlike in South Africa, Israel one day woke up and said, ” Boy, how can we torture the Palestinians?” Although if you read Jimmy Carter’s book, you would get that impression, because he doesn’t give a full and honest and balanced accounting of the Israeli side of the ledger.
What happened was that there was this Oslo peace process, which he also tends to give short shrift to, and as a result of that Oslo peace process, there was a very generous Israeli offer made at Camp David, which Jimmy Carter also tends to skip over. And then, in September 2000, the Palestinians launched an approach with lots of terrorism. Yasser Arafat — and there’s proof that Yasser Arafat helped underwrite the terrorism, although Jimmy Carter ignores that in the book, because he was good friends with Yasser Arafat. And the terrorism was the issue.
Both the Israeli left and the Israeli right initially hated the idea of any kind of wall-fence-barrier, because the Israeli right wanted to incorporate the Territories into Israel. The Israeli left wanted to have this vision of everyone living together in what I would love to see, in beautiful peace and harmony. Both of them had to kind of be forced by serious suicide bombings by a systematic terrorist campaign, by a political culture on the part of the Palestinians that was anti-Semitic — that is anti-Semitic, not Jimmy Carter — that in the Palestinian mosques and on Palestinian television was attacking not just Zionists, but Jews, and attacking the West and celebrating 9/11 and was part of a broader Islamicist surge against the United States, against Israel, against the West, that led to hundreds of deaths of children, of men, of women.
That is the context in which the wall-fence-barrier was built, and that is the context in which these last couple of years, this six years of a lack of peace process, has occurred. And without of acknowledgement of that, Jimmy Carter at one point says there are two problems in the Middle East: the first is that some Israelis want to grab land, and second is that some Palestinians react to that with violence. And that’s very disingenuous.
The problem — let’s have someone stand up and say it’s a messy situation. There are rights and wrongs on both sides. I would have been so much happier with the book if he had said the problem is, yes, some Israelis want Palestinian land, and there’s a complicated historical, legal, strategic debate over that, and two, there are Palestinians who want to destroy the Jewish state. How do we get out of that intention? Until we acknowledge the problems on both sides, the weaknesses on both sides, the failures on both sides, we’re not going to get to the peace that Jimmy Carter claims to achieve. And I think what he’s done is he’s undermined his status as a mediator, as an honest broker, by using this incendiary term and by coming out with a book, which, frankly, is shoddy. He tends to quote Arafat, rather than quoting Palestinian Hamas documents. He quotes Assad, the president of Syria, allowing him to kind of give a spin on events, rather than giving facts. And that’s the problem with this propagandistic work.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Gil Troy and Norman Finkelstein, we’re going to come back to this debate on Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, in a minute.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We’re having a debate on Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, with Gil Troy, professor of American history at McGill University in Montreal. Among his books, Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity, and the Challenges of Today. Norman Finkelstein joins us here in our New York firehouse studio. He’s a professor of political science at DePaul University in Chicago. His latest book is Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.
In Ethan Bronner’s review, long awaited, that came out yesterday in the New York Times Book Review, he says, ” This book has something of a Rip van Winkle feel to it, as if little had changed since Carter diagnosed the problem in the 1970s. All would be well today, he suggests, if his advice then had been followed. Forget Al Qaeda (the name does not appear in this book), the nuclear ambitions of Iran and the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. If Israel had ‘refrained from colonizing the West Bank,’ he asserts, there would have been ‘a comprehensive and lasting peace.’” Bronner is talking about Carter, of course. And he goes on to say, ” The debate about the Israeli occupation ‘will shape the future of Israel; it may also determine the prospects for peace in the Middle East — and perhaps the world,’” quoting Jimmy Carter. And Bronner says, ” This is an awfully narrow perspective.”
Before I get your response, Professor Finkelstein, I wanted to go for a minute to Brent Scowcroft. He was speaking yesterday on This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” Stephanopoulos had asked him about the significance of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Of course, Brent Scowcroft is the former National Security Advisor for President Bush, Sr.
BRENT SCOWCROFT: What it would do is change the psychological climate of the region. What we have is a number of different issues all coming together. And the region is in great turmoil. And there’s a great sense in the region of historical injustice on the part of the Muslims. And this would change that. This would see us as participating and helping in a problem which is central to the region, which has been a gnawing sore for Muslims for 50 years.
AMY GOODMAN: That was President Bush, Sr.’s former National Security Advisor, Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft. Professor Finkelstein?NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I’ll get to that point in half a moment. Let me just address the questions that were raised by Professor Troy. On the question of Camp David and the offer, I don’t think for Democracy Now! audiences we have to go over that ground, because when Shlomo Ben-Ami was here –
AMY GOODMAN: The former Foreign Minister of Israel.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: The former Foreign Minister of Israel and one of the negotiators at Camp David. He said, ” Frankly, were I a Palestinian, I would not have accepted the offer at Camp David,” and exactly for the reasons that Carter outlines in the book, namely, Palestinians were asked to make such monumental concessions that no Palestinian leader could in good conscience, let alone as a representative of the Palestinians, accept such an offer. That was the position of Arafat. It’s also the position to which Shlomo Ben-Ami agreed.
On the question of terrorism, as Professor Troy calls it, the big ” T-word,” I think there’s a certain confusion about what was the sequence of events. The Second Intifada begins September 28, 2000. Between September 28, 2000, and March 2003 [sic - 2001], there wasn’t one Palestinian terrorist attack. The suicide bombings began five months after the beginning of the Second Intifada. Why did it begin? Well, on the first month of the Intifada, the ratio of Palestinians to Israelis killed was 20-to-1. And if you read Shlomo Ben-Ami’s book, he states there that had Israel not so overreacted to the Palestinian protests, which were overwhelmingly nonviolent in the first months, the huge explosion that subsequently occurred probably would not have happened. But those first five months, when Israel was killing 20 times as many Palestinians, overwhelmingly nonviolent protesters, to each Israeli killed, that part has been completely effaced from the historical record.
Now, it’s true suicide bombings began, and one possible way to avert them — not the only one, but one possibility — was to build a wall. Well, but there’s an option. If you want to prevent suicide bombings against your country, just like if you want to prevent a neighbor from intruding on your property, you build a fence or a wall, but you build it along the border, the internationally recognized border. Israel didn’t do that. It used the suicide bombings as a pretext to confiscate 10% of Palestinian land. If they wanted to build a wall on their border, the International Court said that’s not a problem. What they said was — the International Court of Justice, when it condemned the wall, it said this wall is taking a sinuous path, which is incorporating the Israeli settlements. That’s what made the wall illegal.
Now, Professor Troy says he would prefer if coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict by Carter and others would assign responsibility to both sides. But the problem is, if you look at the international consensus for resolving the conflict, the burden of responsibility for the failure to resolve the conflict falls on the side of Israel and the United States. Carter is very clear on that — in my opinion, entirely accurate. He says the main problem is Israel refuses to recognize international law. The law is absolutely clear. It’s inadmissible to acquire territory by war. Israel acquired the West Bank and Gaza in the course of the 1967 War. The International Court of Justice said, under the UN Charter, Article 2, it’s inadmissible to acquire territory by war. Israel has to withdraw to its internationally recognized June ‘67 borders. It refuses. That’s the obstacle.
A simple illustration. Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled ” Peaceful resolution of the Palestine conflict.” Every year, the vote is the same. The whole world on one side — the whole world on one side — and on the other side, the United States, Israel, and usually Palau, Nauru, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. It’s usually six dissenting votes. And that’s it. The problem, I think, is not that the world is — not that the coverage is biased. The problem is, the reality is biased.
I was reading a book today, to get to your last point you mention, by Zeev Maoz, a mainstream Israeli military historian, smart fellow, and it’s a good book and called Defending the Holy State. He says in a hundred years from now people are going to be very perplexed by this conflict, because, he says, compared to other conflicts, this is not a particularly complicated one. And it really isn’t. There has been a resolution, a settlement on the table for 30 years. And Israel and the United States have blocked it. That’s the problem. And Carter, to his credit, forthrightly says it. One side is blocking the settlement.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to get back to Professor Troy. Israel has announced that it’s going to now build new settlements in the West Bank. Do you think peace is possible with continued settlements there?
GIL TROY: I think peace is possible with a recognition of the pain on both sides and with serious attempts at compromise. We historians like to say that what’s your favorite text — context, to claim, for example, that suicide bombings started in 2003, when they actually started by Hamas and others during the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. There were suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem. It’s a much more complicated story.
You know, when I look at all conflicts in history, it’s so easy to caricature. It’s so easy to say, oh, the Israelis are the bad guys. And to rely on the United Nations as an honest broker in this is highly problematic, given that it is the same United Nations that has been so biased against Israel they had a big attempt to revitalize its ugly “Zionism is racism” slur from the 1970s in the early 2000 period.
So I’d rather say this. Israel has tried — you know, it’s a complicated situation. Israel and the Palestinians are in many ways intertwined with each other. There’s an intimacy between many Israelis and Palestinians that we don’t see when we sit here in television studios and debate what’s going on. And there’s also, obviously, a lot of hatred. There’s extremism on the Palestinian side. There’s, as I said, a political culture which is highly problematic and truly vicious and ugly, where they kill each other, as well as Jews, and celebrate those deaths.
So, how do you break out of that? Israel has tried. Israel tried with the Oslo peace process, for all it’s flawed. And that, by the way — to go to General Scowcroft’s point, in the 1990s, Bill Clinton was spending a lot of time — Yasser Arafat was supposedly the most welcomed foreign guest, the foreign guest who had the most visits to the Clinton White House. America put tremendous prestige on the line to try to get this so-called simple solution. And it fell apart. It fell apart because of failures on both sides. Let’s acknowledge that, rather than saying one side is the bad guy, one side is the good guy.
And to claim — and that, of course, during the 1990s, was the period that al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were issuing their fatwas, not so much about Jews and Palestinians and Zionists and Israel, but about American troops in Saudi Arabia and about this broader desire to undo the great historical crime of Spain getting rid of the Muslims 500 years ago. I mean, there are more complicated and bigger issues going on. And to reduce everything, as Jimmy Carter does, to reduce everything, as part of this conversation is doing, to this unidimensional perspective that if Israelis stop building settlements, then, you know, somehow peace would reign in the land and peace would reign in the world, it’s just not true.
Israel tried, let’s say, in Gaza in 2005 with its disengagement, by pulling back. This was an opportunity for the Palestinians. This was a test for the Palestinians. I’ve been to Gaza, and I’ve seen the beautiful beachfronts they have, and obviously there are a lot of problems in Gaza. There was no attempt at development. American Jewish philanthropists raised $14 million to buy out Israeli agricultural initiatives and pass it over to the Palestinians. Those farms were trashed. There were attempts. There have been attempts. Israelis don’t trust. They don’t trust because the United Nations gangs up on them. They don’t trust because the International Court passes its decision on the fence-wall-barrier, without talking about terrorism. There’s a feeling it’s not balanced.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Troy, we only have two minutes, and I wanted to ask each of you the issue of having this debate at all in this country. President Carter was invited to speak at Brandeis University. Then the invitation was withdrawn, unless he agreed to have a debate with Alan Dershowitz. Your book, Beyond Chutzpah, Professor Finkelstein, is also very much about what Dershowitz has to say about Israel in his book, The Case for Peace. Your response on this issue?
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I think that’s an important question, maybe the most important: how to normalize debate in the United States about this topic. I don’t mean that everybody has to agree with me. The question is, how do you open up a forum so people can exchange reviews on the topic? I’ll quickly give you three examples or a couple of examples.
AMY GOODMAN: We have one minute.
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Take the example, a couple of weeks ago, Anderson Cooper’s producer called me, said they wanted to do a segment on me, having to do with the Middle East, because he was in the Arab world. I said, ” Don’t waste your time. It’s never going to get on the air. I know how it works.” They said, ” No, no. We’re sending down a camera crew.” They sent down a camera crew, sent down the producer, interviewed me for two-and-a-half hours, from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30. I said, ” It’s never going to get on. I know.” Well, she said, ” No, no, no. We invested the money.” Long story short, it was killed. It was supposed to be on that night.
Take the case of Carter. OK, a serious debate. But why is it Brandeis University has half a dozen — half a dozen — centers for the study of the Middle East, Arab-Israeli conflict, and so forth — Jehuda Reinharz himself is a historian on Zionism. I’ve read his biography of Weizmann. Why is it, of all the qualified people they could have drawn on to debate Jimmy Carter, they bring a clown from Harvard? It’s just not serious.
AMY GOODMAN: Professor Troy, ten seconds on the issue of a debate.
GIL TROY: Both sides feel that they’re not being heard. That means that actually both sides are, to a certain extent, being heard.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, but I encourage people to email us at mail@democracynow.org to talk about your thoughts and what you would like to see pursued. Professor Finkelstein of DePaul University, his book is called Beyond Chutzpah; Professor Gil Troy of American history at McGill University in Montreal, thank you for joining us. His book is called Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity, and the Challenges of Today.
To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click here for our new online ordering or call 1 (888) 999-3877.
Reader letters
From: info[at]freedombin.com
To: gil.troy[at]mcgill.ca
CC: normangf[at]hotmail.com
Subject: RE: democracy now apearance
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 23:39:27 -0700
Dear Dr. Troy,
I just read your email to Daniel Maté[1], as well as the debate with Finkelstein, where you refer to “the ugliness of Palestinian political culture.” It’s always interesting to see a comfortable educated white male talk about the “ugliness” of the “political culture” of people living in a ghetto. And yet, i’m still amazed, because such language is coming from non other than a Jew. Why? Because, if I recall correctly, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto had a rather “poisonous political culture” as well, Nazi-appointed Jewish policemen were handing over fellow Jews to the Nazis for deportation and slaughter. For someone with your level of education and social status to sit there and pontificate about how we need to pay attention to both sides, rather than face the facts about Israel’s responsibility over the Ghetto it has created in the territories it occupies militarily is amusing, to say the least.
Furthermore, you mentioned “Arab anti- semitism.” While, it was unreasonable for Germans, Poles, Russians, Ukranians to hate Jews because there was no Jewish military force bombing German, Russian, Polish or Ukranian cities. There were no Jewish militiamen killing and displacing their people. In the case of the Arabs, an army that claims to represent the Jewish State and Jewish people, has been killing Palestinians at the rate of 30:1 in 2006 alone.[2] I assume a professor would know how to look through other human rights reports from Humanr Rights Watch, Amnesty, B’Tselem, the Committee Against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights, Israel on Israeli behavior towards “Arabs.” Arab anti-Semitism has specific underpinnings and it does not stand a chance of going away as long as Israel keeps conducting itself as the regional hitman for American policy.
As for your claim of the “complexity in a difficult, messy conflict” – Finkelstein quoted an Israeli military historian Zeev Maoz, saying “it’s a good book and called Defending the Holy State. He says in a hundred years from now people are going to be very perplexed by this conflict, because, he says, compared to other conflicts, this is NOT A PARTICULARLY COMPLICATED ONE [emphasis mine]. And it really isn’t. There has been a resolution, a settlement on the table for 30 years. And Israel and the United States have blocked it. That’s the problem. And Carter, to his credit, forthrightly says it. One side is blocking the settlement.”[3]
The international community has been behind a 2-state solution since shortly after the war of 1967, which further confirms this point of view[4]. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Arab League and Iran have also suggested that they’ll not stand in the way of a settlement along 1967 lines, with minor and MUTUAL adjustments (not Israelis stealing 35% of West Bank land).[5]
Best,
Tamudjin
1. http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=803#rdrl
2. http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20061228.asp
3. http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=803#complicated
4. http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=788#withd
5. http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/403/
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=19190
From: daniel[at]mailodic.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 11:40 AM
To: gil.troy[at]mcgill.ca
Subject: democracy now appearance
Dr. Troy,
As a fellow Jew and a McGill alum (’98), I was completely unimpressed with your performance on Democracy Now yesterday. Professor Finkelstein effectively reduced you to the worst kind of fact-ducking apologetics: “it’s complicated”, “there are wrongs on both sides”, trumpeting the moral superiority of Israelis, and most odiously, “there is an intimacy”. There is an INTIMACY? You sound like a wife-beater telling Social Services that “It’s complicated, it’s between me and the little lady, you wouldn’t understand.”
Please stop mythologizing the Israel-Palestine conflict, as if it’s some kind of unique, mystical outpost of human difficulty. Sharon is on record as admiring the Bantustan system. Israel was one of apartheid South Africa’s greatest allies.
Never mind what “campaign” it “feeds” to use the accurate terms. Let’s use the accurate terms. You may not know it, but it is actually Israel’s apartheid-like policies, and the apologist remonstrations of academics with milk-and-honey in their veins, that “feeds” anti-Israel hatred. Join right-thinking Jews and Israelis in calling a spade a spade — and first and foremost, the spades in our OWN toolshed — and then we can make some progress.
Best,
Daniel Maté
Brooklyn, NY
On Jan 9, 2007, at 12:22 PM, Gil troy wrote:
Hmmm, let’s see, one person acknowledges complexity in a difficult,
messy conflict, and another person says, no, it’s all Israel’s fault, and
sidesteps the ugliness of Palestinian political culture, Arab anti-
semitism, etc — and I’m the one you’re upset with… I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree — unapologetically…
gt
From: daniel[at]mailodic.com
To: gil.troy[at]mcgill.ca
Subject: re: democracy now debate
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 02:48:46 -0500
Dr. Troy,
Thanks for your response. I have no doubt that we will end up
disagreeing, and I can agree to that. But for clarity’s sake:
a) I’m not “upset with” you. I said I was unimpressed.
b) It seemed to me that the topic up for discussion was not which
people has the bigger moral, em, sword, but rather whether or not
‘apartheid’ is an appropriate term to describe Israeli policy in the
West Bank. I am confident that those many Israeli and South
African commentators, from Aloni to Tutu, who use the term are not
merely being petulant, “incendiary”, or trying to be provocative.
That is entirely condescending. They are, in fact, using their
judgment to make a solemn appraisal of a painful situation. I am
sure it gives Shulamit Aloni no pleasure to declare her own beloved
country guilty of such a crime. With a wave of your rhetorical
hand, you dismiss these very grounded observations, which have been
made for years –> and then go on to use them to prove that Jewish
society is morally superior to Palestinian society, because look!
such debate is tolerated in Israel! Whoever you choose to root
for on the reality show “Jews vs. Palestinians: Who’s More
Righteous?” (me, I don’t subscribe to such racist gutrot), this
argument is irrelevant to whether or not Israel is engaged in
apartheid-esque policies in its occupation. Palestinians could be
genetically predisposed to be the most barbarous savages this side
of the Klingon Empire, and it still would have zero bearing on the
question of apartheid in the Territories.
c) Therefore, it was entirely appropriate for Professor Finkelstein
to “sidestep”, or rather ignore, your complaints about “the
ugliness of Palestinian political culture, Arab anti-semitism,
etc.”. They may or may not exist, they may or may not be
deplorable, but they are certainly immaterial to the topic at hand.
Either Israel has built illegal Jews-only settlements or it
hasn’t. Either those highways are Jew-only or they’re not. Either
the checkpoint system is designed to restrict Palestinian movement
or it isn’t. Apartheid may be a matter of degrees when it comes to
its implementation, but certainly you wouldn’t claim that there is
a moral grey area in justifying it, would you?
d) Now, an intelligent viewer is wont to ask himself, why would you
be so eager to bring up “the ugliness of Palestinian political
culture, Arab anti-semitism, etc.”? It appears to this viewer that
this is a common tactic when an apologist, or a toddler, is
cornered: throw mud, the more impertinent the better.
e) Have you ever spoken out about the “ugliness” of Israeli
political culture, from the neo-Nazi Lieberman going all the way
back to Rabin, Meir, Ben-Gurion, and Jabotinsky? There are quotes
from all of the above that would tickle the most pure-laine Québec
seperatist. As an avowed Zionist, is it not incumbent on you to
account and atone for the sins of your side before you inveigh
against the other? (I say all this as a former Zionist program
director myself.)
best,
Daniel
From: sayang[at]sympatico.ca
To: normangf[at]hotmail.com
CC: Gil.Troy[at]mcgill.ca
Subject: Democracy Now debate
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:00:39 +0000
Pinch me. Slap me. I must be hallucinating.
Avi Shlaim, Uri Avnery, Meron Benvenisti, Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Desmond Tutu, John Dugard, Ronny Kasrils, Mandela himself, and now, and rather splendidly, the dinstinguished Shulamit Aloni, their moral authority beyond reproach, they and their like speaking from unimpeachable personal experience and often out of honourable even direct political involvement, call a spade a shovel. None was born yesterday. In instituting comparisons between the univers concentrationnaire to which Israel has consigned the Palestinians and the lot of the “bantu” in the Republic of South Africa under Malan, Vorster and Botha, they have described what even a deaf and blind man can see, to say nothing of the things that so many South Africans and Israelis themselves (and even a handful of courageous American observers, of whom Mr Carter is perhaps the best-known) have been obliged by the facts lately to acknowledge. (No surprise here: the facts are staring them in the face, after all. One has but to look.)
But no. Gil Troy, a Jewish New Yorker who lives in Canada, the Proud Zionist, knows better than they. Far better. They and their kind, their experience and credentials notwithstanding, are dead wrong, every man jack of ‘em. All live in cloud cuckoo land. All are ill-informed. Any similarities, so Troy announces at the top of his voice and adducing nothing in evidence, as between the South African situation as it was until 1994 and Israel/Palestine as it is, are false. Ignorantly false, or (as in the case of Jimmy Carter) wickedly so. Where they are not, to place the most charitable construction on them, an optical illusion, any such similarities, he assures us, are to be understood self-evidently as expressions of a will to mischief or else of irrational hostility.
Ipse dixit.
The Palestinians, Mr Troy reminds us and as any fool knows, are, all of them, mere bloodthirsty savages and no better. Hardly human, in fact. As a fluent speaker of Arabic - is this not obvious? - and a resident of many years in the region, as one deeply informed about its politics and culture, knowledgeable at first hand about its manners and people, and as a man who can count many Palestinians among his friends and acquaintances, Mr Troy knows whereof he speaks…
To such invincible views, espoused as articles of faith, it is as hard to know how to react as it was in the 1930s to the views of well-educated Germans, otherwise reasonable and civilised, persuaded of the merits of Nazism, or to the views of respectable members of the community in the United States convinced as many were then of the dire reality of “the Jewish Problem.” At all events, Mr Troy’s hear-no-evil, see-no-evil defence of the indefensible might conceivably have had a leg to stand on were he at least as capable as NGF of expressing himself intelliigibly, in the kind of English which a university professor of history, speaking ex cathedra and making bold to set up as a spokesman, can be reasonably expected to have a command, i.e., speech characterised by desinential syntax and clarity of utterance. But what are his comments if not an arm-waving, sputtering dog’s dinner, a mess of inflamed expostulation overlaid by a tone of barely concealed hysteria (and - worse - infected by a vile strain of racism)? This if nothing else gives them the lie. What earthly tongue, one would give a lot to know, does this man speak, extempore? Certainly none known to linguistic science, unless, as the broadcast record suggests, it is the most demotically formless version of Yinglish. (Does he converse in this argot with students and colleagues on specialist subjects, one wonders? Alas for them, if so.) On the air at any rate, and before an audience ( his books may be another matter; I don’t know), the man seems scarcely able to utter a thought in standard connected prose! Granting for argument’s sake that what he says possesses merit, willing it, even, to possess merit, it is impossible, given the incoherent medium in which it is couched, to judge for oneself.
Granting, again for the sake of argument, that his interlocutor may be sorely mistaken (and - dread fate! - a “self-hating Jew” to boot), the lucid because self-possessed and self- confident delivery of NGF, combined with rigour of the appeal to evidence and attested fact, make for an edifying contrast. With friends like Troy noisily and shambolically fighting their corner, who needs enemies, unquerying supporters of the Jewish state may entitled to wonder.
Insofar as it can be made out (the poor man squirming in the spotlight of Ms Goodman’s queries and twisting in the wind as Dr Finkelstein’s adumbrates measured and thoughtful replies to them), the essence of his remarks about the Wall, the settlements, Gaza et al puts me in mind of an interview I read in Hong Kong in the South China Morning Post with the South African Consul-General there, in 1986. Asked what he thought of the dreadful upheavals and massacres taking place then in his country, the gentleman, at so sad a loss to know what to say, found himself speaking of the “debate taking place in our country” - this, re: use of armoured cars, machine guns against a defenceless civilian population of the townships to enforce a policy of cantonment and “separate development.” Some debate.
dmr
Montreal
From: Alex
To: mail@democracynow.org
Sent: Tuesday, January 09, 2007 3:37 AM
Subject: Carter’s book.
As Jew and a former ardent Zionist I say - My sincere admiration to President Carter. Apartheid, I think is a very mellow word to describe the crimes of Zionist regime in Israel against Palestinians. It looks like only the tragedy of our involvment in Iraq and the obvious fact that it was done under huge pressure of Zionist neocons and their institutions will finally make Americans see simple and terrible truth they were never ready to accept - that the US government supported with our tax money a monstrous regime that undermined our political, social, humanitarian and diplomatic weight in the Middle East.
There is but one way to evade that in the future - “One man - one term” for ALL elected officials or a sweeping campaign finance reform that would render behind-the-back lobbying for foreign interests impossible.
My hat is off to Professor Finkelstein - one of the bravest and most honorable people of all times.
Alex Chaihorsky
Reno, Nevada.
From: dawnortizlegg[at]charter.net
To: normangf[at]hotmail.com
Subject: Thank you
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 10:01:11 -0800
Dear Mr. Finkelstein,
I want to thank you for speaking on “Democracy Now” today. You did such a great job in the debate.
I have new found respect for you and I would only hope that more Jewish Americans would understand that those of us who are critical of Israeli- US policies, are not anti-Semitic, but critical of both country’s foreign policies.
I am just an average U.S.citizen and find it frustrating that this debate is not allowed because people think that one hates Jews. It is untrue. I love many Jewish people! Thus, for you to support Jimmy Carter’s efforts and join the growing voices encouraging our nation and others to debate this important issue in a civilized manner is noteworthy and appreciated by many people. Especially me.
Thank you!
Dawn Ortiz Legg
San Luis Obispo, California
From: tarnopol[at]cox.net To: normangf[at]hotmail.com Subject: Nice job on DN! Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 13:26:35 -0500 Hi, Norm! I don’t know how you keep your cool with these people. This yahoo from McGill wasn’t even a very tough adversary. The very fact that Carter published his book and it’s getting major attention despite elite media scoffing basically means the “other side” has lost. The debate is on, and that’s what’s not wanted. Isn’t it amazing that American Jews actually have a huge and disproportionate role to play in current world issues of the highest import? History is a strange, ironic thing. I try to educate my generation, which I hope is more open-minded. So many of my non-Jewish friends are almost literally thankful to hear me be critical of Israel, etc. It’s a massive relief to them and opens the floodgates of honest and usually informed opinion. Of course, many non-Jews are super-pro-Israel due to a set of false identifications with 9/11. There’s another article to be written — breaking that down… It’s actually another cruel irony that the lack of antisemitism in the US, relative to say 70 years ago — or even 30, and the basically decent acknowledgment of the horror of the Nazi holocaust is being used as a firewall for rightwing Israeli policies, etc. I know you talk about this, but it would be interesting to see an article (maybe you’ve written it already? — I don’t have the best memory) on the fact that the existence of the fulcrum used by the Holocaust industry is actually the best evidence of a basic lack of at least public antisemitism in elite circles. In other words, “we” are alright here in the US. “We” can afford some criticism of ourselves and Israel. I think you did talk about this in The Holocaust Industry a bit… Btw, your latest book is #15,498 in Books on Amazon, as of right now. That’s out of millions, so that’s a good thing. (My sister is addicted to watching her rankings on amazon — she writes children’s books.) Good tactic to focus on the purported antisemitism of the use of apartheid. That’s the key. Carter doesn’t matter specifically — as you obviously know. Dersh doesn’t matter, either, as you wrote; American media (and propagandists of all types) love to personalize every single political or social issue. It has it’s uses, as you well know. (Like anyone upset by Carter’s title gives a crap about the “insult” toward the South Africans! I doubt it.) Keep it up! I hope DePaul works out…or you get an offer from California — or Hawaii! Jogger heaven, and in Hawaii, the land is high enough to avoid the coming deluge. Doug Tarnopol
From: alfred[at]agpatents.com
To: normangf[at]hotmail.com
Subject: Congratulations on Your Excellent Debate of Gil Troy on Today’s Program Democracy Now - Jan. 8, 2007
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 16:33:37 -0500
Dear Prof. Finkelstein,
Very recently I sent you a note expressing my profound admiration for the excellent work you have done in support of a truth-based understanding of the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
You replied to my letter with kind and supportive words and posted my letter on your website. I was very appreciative of that and flattered by it.
Today, after hearing your debate of Gil Troy, I was elated about how brilliantly, calmly, and collectedly you came across and felt compelled to share this debate with friends and acquaintances who may not be aware of the fine scholarly work you have rendered as a veritable public service to humanity in our agonizingly long collective quest for a final and peaceful resolution of the festering problem caused largely by Israel’s refusal to abide by international law by withdrawing to pre-1967 borders, something that is in the Israel’s best interest as well as in the interest of our national security and of international security and stability interest as such a just resolution cannot but lead to defusing of tensions throughout the volatile Middle East.
So, I hereby share with you the cover-note I wrote to some 100+ friends and other contacts about this Democracy Now debate.
I wish you continued success and will gladly continue to be a disseminator of your illustrious teachings. Do not hesitate to contact me if I can of any support in your scholarly endeavours, particularly as relates to perhaps facilitating an interview with the organization of documentary producers of La Jolla, California that I collaborate with that I brought to your attention in my previous e-missive, that is called Alternate Focus and can be visited via www.alternatefocus.org
Best regards,
Alfred Gluecksmann
Silver Spring, MD
From: alfred[at]agpatents.com
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 4:04 PM
Subject: Prof. Norman Finkelstein Debates Prof. Gil Troy on the Subject of Israel and Palestine -[ Democracy Now - Jan. 8, 2007]
Dear Friends and Other Contacts,
As some of you are aware, distinguished Prof. Norman Finkelstein has written various books on the subject of Israel and the Jewish /Zionist as well as the Evangelical / Zionist and Neocon role in the conflict generated by the establishment of an Israeli state in Palestine.
As an admirer and supporter of Prof. Finkelstein’s admirable and inspiring scholarship and dedication to the quest for peaceful conflict resolution on the basis of respect for human rights and social and economical justice for the peoples of Palestine and Israel, I have recently shared with you a letter that I wrote to Prof. Finkelstein that he posted on his website – primarily to bring this distinguished professor of political science to the awareness of some of you, since the mainstream media has neglected to review properly and comprehensively his excellent work, and at this time I wish to share with you the transcript (or audio / video stream) of today’s debate of Prof. Finkelstein with Prof. Gil Troy that was conducted on the prestigious program Democracy Now.
*********************************
* Norman Finkelstein vs. Gil Troy On Jimmy Carter’s Controversial Book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” *
Controversy continues over Jimmy Carter’s recent book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” We host a debate on the former president’s book with two leading
scholars: DePaul University professor Norman Finkelstein, author of “Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History” and McGill University professor Gil Troy, author of “Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity, and the Challenges of Today.”
Listen/Watch/Read:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/08/1414201
i have listened to your debate with mr. ben-ami on democracy now.org and i regularily recommended it to other people as evidence for hope.
i applaud both you and mr. ben-ami for how you agreed on facts and history, AND maintained integrity to your respective views. that debate proves to me that peace CAN exist without facism. (now if only the u.s. could catch that clue)
right now, i am listening to your debate with gil troy (this guy is no ben-ami, i’ll tell ya) and all i can think of is, thank you dr. finkelstein.
you have a wonderful intellect, a terrific way of explaining complex matters, fantastic abilities for connecting the dots for history with the present, and a tremendous sense of justice.
yeahyeahyeah, i’m gushin’. sorry about that. going back to simple…
thank you.
annette chowaniec
connecticut
ps, if you could, please pass on my respect to ben-ami for me? hey, any chance **YOU two** could hammer out a peace treaty for israel and palistine without the u.s.’ interference??? at least, in spite of that?
