History, genocide and Israel’s war on Gaza: Mehdi Hasan and Benny Morris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amz2Sf1JMDE
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/head-to-head/2024/8/2/history-genocide-and-israels-war-on-gaza-mehdi-hasan-and-benny-morris

Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas's military capabilities, end its rule in Gaza, and bring all our hostages home. Since Hamas's attack on October 7th, Israel has been laying waste to the Gaza Strip. Tens of thousands killed, and the Israeli government now accused of committing genocide. But what can the history of the conflict tell us about how we got here? My guest tonight is the famously provocative Israeli historian, Benny Morris. His work once documented many of the crimes committed by Israel in 1948, but his critics say he now justifies those crimes. I'm Ali Hassan, and I'm here in London's legendary free speech society, Conway Hall, to go head-to-head with Benny Morris. I'll challenge him on his support for the war on Gaza, and ask him why he thinks accusations of genocide are absurd. Tonight, I'll be joined by our panel of experts, Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator and president of the US-Middle East Project, Diana Butu, the Palestinian lawyer and former advisor to the PLO, and Emmanuel Navarne, an Israeli lecturer of diplomatic studies at Tel Aviv University. Benny Morris, thank you for joining me on Head-to-Head. You are a supporter, a defender of Israel's current war on Gaza, which began in its current form after the atrocities on October 7th, and which has since killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, including 15,000 children, displaced more than a million people, made Gaza uninhabitable per the UN, and is being investigated as a possible genocide at the International Court of Justice. A lot of people around the world think it's a genocide. I happen to think it's a genocide. But you have called that accusation absurd. Why? Well, I once investigated a real genocide by Muslim Turks against the Christian communities of Turkey around the year 1900. Some two million Christians were killed at the time by Muslim Turks. And that's what the genocide actually looks like. What's happening in Gaza is a war. It's a war in which there are a lot of collateral deaths among Gazans. The war started, of course, by the Hamas from Gaza in a giant massacre on October 7th. And the only way to respond to that, and any country would have responded to that, more or less in the same fashion, I think, was to try and go after the Hamas. But the Hamas was embedded in the population, as you know, used the schools, the UNRWA schools, the hospitals as bases, as places where they stocked their ammunition, their guns themselves, hidden in tunnels underneath these schools, in apartment buildings. And this all involved collateral damage, which, of course, the Hamas knew it was going to ignite by killing 1,200 Israelis on the 7th of October. I, myself, have problems with the war as it's being waged. But genocide, it definitely isn't. The aim here is not to kill as many Palestinians. That's not the definition of genocide. You wrote a book on genocide. That's not the definition of genocide. It's one of the definitions. It's not. It's not based on numbers. It's also based on intent and on numbers. It's based on the intent. It's destroy, to kill in whole or in part. There's no intent here. I'm not a government spokesman. You seem to be presenting me as a government spokesman. I asked you for your view on the war. I didn't say anything. Well, come to the government. I'm just asking about your view right now. The definition of genocide, you wrote a book on it, has nothing to do with how many people you killed. So it's not a numbers game. It's also a numbers game. The ICC chief prosecutor has asked for arrest warrants, not just for Hamas leaders, but for the Israeli prime minister and the defense minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity. And he says he has mountains of evidence. We've all seen with our own eyes the Israelis, in Gaza, commit war crimes on camera, kill unarmed people who are carrying white flags, blow up apartment buildings, drop 2,000 pound bombs on crowded refugee camps. Can we at least agree, Ben, even if we're going to disagree on genocide, that Israel has committed numerous war crimes since the Hamas war crimes on October 7th? I'm fairly sure there have been war crimes. But the war itself is not a war crime, as the Hamas attack on Israel on the 7th of October was. It was a war crime from beginning to end. The aim was to kill as many civilians as possible, which they did, in accordance with the Hamas charter, which is to kill basically every Jew you can get hold of in Palestine. But I didn't ask about the aim. I asked about the acts that are being committed. As I said, probably there have been, as in all wars, war crimes. You've said there have been war crimes? Yes. So you would support an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu? I didn't say that. Why? Firstly, there hasn't been an arrest warrant. So far, they haven't issued it. I don't know if you can hold the Prime Minister responsible if a sergeant kills several unarmed people intentionally. You don't think the Israeli Air Force bombing apartment buildings, refugee camps, mosques, cemeteries, hospitals, schools, universities, libraries? Firstly, it hasn't bombed, as far as I know, hospitals. They have attacked... No expert agrees with you on that. That's not true. What you're saying is not true. The only hospital which I remember being bombed was by a rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad, by mistake. As far as I remember. Israel has raided hospitals. Let me talk. Israel has raided hospitals with infantry, found Hamas people in their Hamas headquarters, inside hospitals, under hospitals. Actually, we've never seen the headquarters of Benjamin Netanyahu. We've never actually seen that. It's been several months. We're still waiting for that. So, on the 31st of October, according to Human Rights Watch, Israeli forces unlawfully attacked a six-story residential building, killing 106 civilians, including 54 children, without warning. Four strikes, completely demolished. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target in the vicinity, making the strike unlawful, indiscriminate under the laws of war. Israeli authorities have provided no justification for the attack. Hamas always hides their own... Even the Israelis didn't say that they were hiding in the apartment building. You said you don't want to be a spokesman for the government. You're offering a better defence to the government than the government is. I don't know. I don't know the particulars of that particular attack. It could be that there was a war crime committed there. All you see is civilians. Benny, Benny, Benny, I'm not a Palestinian journalist. I'm a foreign journalist. And guess what? We're not allowed in by the Israelis. They are hiding... So, let me ask you this moment. I agree we should allow people in. Do you agree with me? I agree with you. Let me tell you something about the Israeli Air Force, if we're going to be talking about this. Each mission of the Israeli Air Force, and it's probably the most accurate and efficient arm of the Israeli military, is checked beforehand by a lawyer, et cetera, to see if there are actual... Is there evidence... Yes, I'm so glad you're pointing this out. Because it's not a rogue operation. It goes all the way up, so we can indict Netanyahu for these attacks. Because it's got... Come on. It's not a rogue sergeant. It's not a rogue sergeant. We agree. All right. You say it's not genocide. Can we at least agree that it's genocidal rhetoric and genocidal intent from various members of the Israeli government? Can we agree that the rhetoric from Netanyahu and Herzog and Smotrich, this is genocidal rhetoric? Some of the ministers, I'm not sure about Herzog's quotes, and I'm not sure about what Netanyahu said. Netanyahu said, Amalek, Benny. You know what Amalek means. I don't know if that's the same as genocide, but... Killing every man, woman, and child, and the donkeys. Listen, there's something really absurd about this line of questioning. If Israel was intent on genocide, if... Hold on. Can you let him speak? Would you let me talk? Can you let him speak? Yes. Guys, guys, guys. We are going to have to stop the entire show, and you will all have to go home if you do not have some order. Benny, please finish your point. If there was a genocidal intent in the war making in Gaza, it would be not 30,000... Incidentally, the numbers are all issued by Hamas. We don't know how true they are. But if there was genocidal intent by the Israeli government with the Israeli military machine to commit genocide in Gaza, it would not be 30,000 or 20,000 Gazans. There would be hundreds of thousands of Gazans. I'm sure... That is called genocide, and that's not what's happening in Gaza. Benny, we've already discussed that's not the definition of genocide. But OK, let me ask you this. That's not your definition of genocide. No, it's the 1948 Genocide Convention. There's lots of different... Forget it. There are 1948 Genocide Conventions. There are lots of definitions. That's not true, Benny. There's only one. There's only one. It's the 1948 Genocide Convention. That sounds dogmatic. There's only one. Only one truth, the Hamas truth. Sound the same. Is the 1948 Genocide Convention a Hamas charter? Is everything Hamas, Benny? If there is a genocidal side in this battle, it is the Hamas. OK, let me ask you this. Just look at its charter. Read the words there. By the way, Benny, I've interviewed people from Hamas and I've asked them about the charter. I'm interviewing you right now. I'm sure they do. Israeli minister called Avi Dikter, a member of the Security Cabinet, he said we're now rolling out the Gaza Nakba. He was referring to the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes. You famously documented a lot of that back in the 80s. You undermined a lot of Israeli propaganda that said they just fled on their own. So whether it's the 1948 Nakba or the 2024 Gaza Nakba, to quote Avi Dikter, for Palestinians, Zionism is Nakba. It is ethnic cleansing. Surely you of all people can recognize that. I'm not sure I can recognize that, no. You keep putting words in my mouth. 1937-1938, Zionism changed and said, we can't have all of the land. There are a lot of Palestinians here. Let's share it with the Palestinians. In 1937, the British Peel Commission proposed the partition of Palestine between the two peoples living in it. The Palestinians said no and continued their war against Britain and the Zionists. The Zionists said yes to the partition proposal by Peel. The international community repeated the idea of the partition of Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs in 1947, November, the famous Resolution 181. The Jews said yes to the UN partition resolution of 1947, accepting it. They would get some of Palestine, the Palestinian Arabs would get the other part, and the Palestinians said no and started shooting the next day, killing Jews. So this is one of the reasons I wanted to interview you. Because I know some of the history. You do know some of the history. And you said they all shared. But the problem is, I don't know which Benny Morris I'm speaking to because you're saying they all wanted to share the land. And yet, I have a book here that says, on the most basic level, Jewish colonization meant expropriation and displacement. Zionist ideology in practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist. Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology. That's righteous by Benny Morris. And I am glad that I'm able to share with you things I've written. Because you were right in 2001. And I agree with every word in there. But as I said, Zionism changed its objective and goal in the 1930s and agreed reluctantly, resigned to the idea of partitioning the land. And from that point on, the Zionists, a number of times, in 37, 47, the year 2008, proposed partitioning Palestine with the Palestinians. And the Palestinians consistently have rejected partition under the Hamas Palestinians and under the PLO Fatah as well. They always rejected partition. Let me ask you this. That's the truth, the basic truth of the conflict. Zionists are willing to compromise. And the Palestinians always say no. Yes, go ahead. I want to read a quote out to you. You keep saying lots of positive stuff. They're sharing, dividing. I want to read a quote to you. There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. That is not a quote from Slobodan Milosevic. That is not a quote from a Rwandan. It's not a quote. You no longer just document ethnic cleansing. You apologize. What's the context of what I quote? The context is you're asked, you condemn what they did in 1948, Zionist militias. You say no. You're asked, they perpetrated ethnic cleansing. You say there are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. What was the circumstance I'm talking about? You say, I know that this term is completely negative. When the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide, the annihilation of your people, I prefer ethnic cleansing. So the Jews understood in 48, the Jews were under threat of annihilation by the Arabs. And that, in my view, legitimized, justified cleansing Arabs from Palestine. The Jews were threatened with death by a second genocide after the ninth genocide. The Hutus said exactly the same thing about the Hutus in 1994. No, they said, we can ethnically cleanse and kill people because they're threatening us. No, I didn't say threatening. I said the Arabs of Palestine attacked the Jewish community in Palestine from 1947 on. That doesn't justify ethnic cleansing, right? You can't justify a war crime against humanity. Ethnic cleansing is not regarded as a war crime by any... So you're fine with it? It's not a matter of fine. It's not a matter of I prefer ethnic cleansing over the other to being massacred by my own people. Yes, sure. Even if that involves innocent people being driven from their own land and not allowed to come back. Yes, if you're... How's that fit with Zionists wanting to share the land? Of course the Zionists want it. No, you're mixing up the times, the chronology. The Zionists were willing to share the land. The Arabs said no. The Arabs attacked them. And from that point on, the Jews, to defend themselves properly, they would have to drive out Arabs from certain areas from which the Arabs were attacking the Jewish... So it was a pragmatic thing in the heat of war? It wasn't ideological. It was pragmatic. Even though you yourself say the transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism. Your words. It depends what you mean by transfer. It depends what you mean by transfer. You're the one who's... No, no, no. It depends what part of the population we're talking about. Total transfer was never any part of Zionist... Partial transfer. Partial transfer from areas in which the Jews wanted to establish their state in part of Palestine and from which the Arabs was busy attacking the Jews. OK, I want to bring in the panel. Before I do, a lot of talk about whether Zionism is a form of colonialism. If I said to you Zionism is something colonial, what would you say to that? I would say there's some partial truth in it, but on large, it's wrong. It's not a correct interpretation. Those are Daniel Herzl's words. He wrote a letter to Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia in Zimbabwe. He said it's something colonial. OK. So maybe you should take it up with... OK, I can take it up with Herzl. Herzl may have said that in order to... Not may, he did say that. No, no. In an effort to ingratiate himself with a great colonizer, Rhodes, it's possible. That's not the point. The point is... You don't allow me to finish my sentence. I do, please. No, you continuously interrupt. I'm trying to do what Trump did to Biden. Wow, I've never been compared to Trump before. That's a first. Please, you've actually got more time to finish your sentence. In order to mess up your sentences, Zionism intended to liberate the Jews from the alienation and oppression under which they lived in Eastern Europe, also later Central Europe, by establishing a state of the Jews, with the majority of Jews with Jews ruling over themselves. They ended up, in part, realising that dream, dream at the expense of Palestinians. This is correct. This is what happened, as it turned out. We'll end on a point of agreement and bring in our panel. We have Diana Butu, who's a Palestinian lawyer in Israel, former advisor to the PLO. Emanuel Navon is an international relations lecturer at Tel Aviv University. Daniel Levy is a former Israeli peace negotiator, president of the US Middle East Peace Project. Diana, I'm interested in hearing what you have to say about genocide, because we started the show talking about genocide. Benny adamantly says it's absurd. There's many definitions. You're a lawyer. What do you make of that? Look, Benny is exactly what I expect him to be, which is a genocide denier and a genocide apologist. Every human rights organisation has been defining this as a genocide. We have the ICJ that has come out and said that there's a plausible case for genocide, and yet we're to believe the Israelis, the only people who say that it isn't a genocide. Israel's allowed to be a coloniser. Israel's allowed to do what it pleases, and that Palestinians just have to sit by idly and take it. And this is the fundamental problem with Zionism. But we, Palestinians, are the ones who feel Zionism on our bodies. We've paid for it with our lives. We've paid for it with our land. This attempt to redefine Zionism will go nowhere, because you know, and the world knows, it's a below-world situation. All right, Emanuel, you teach international relations in Israel. Is there a recognition there that a lot of the world, well, governments, allies of Israel, as well as the usual human rights groups, are very critical, at a minimum, of the way Israel's prosecuting what's going on in Gaza? Well, first of all, Diana said we're feeling Zionism. You're right, you're feeling it, because the only place in the Middle East where Arabs are free is Israel. And so the freedom that you have, Diana, is because the only country in the Middle East where there is freedom is the state of Israel, from which you benefit, and you should be thankful for it. I'm not ready. Because the only country in the Middle East where Arabs can elect their officials, be elected, be judges at the Supreme Court, be president of a university, the only free country in the Middle East is Israel. Dan, do you want to respond to that? I find it staggering that the gentleman to my right is telling the Palestinian citizen of Israel how she is experiencing the reality under which she lives. It's a staggering moment for me. Now, you know, there were different strands to Zionism, OK? There was a cultural Zionism. There was a binational Zionism. This could have gone in different directions. From the perspective of 2024, 75-plus years in, the idea that this is just something benign doesn't match with the reality that has been lived. Now, I would say it's clear what this has meant for Palestinians, but I would argue it's not doing what was written on the tin for Jews either. I don't think either Israeli Jewish or global Jewish safety is best served by the actions we see day in, day out in Gaza. Would you like to respond to what you've heard from the panel? Please. I think there's a misunderstanding here. There's a separation between Israel and the West Bank. Israel, an occupied territory largely populated by the Palestinians and the state of Israel. In Israel itself, there is a rule of law. There is generally equality between the Jews and the Arabs. And you're misrepresenting it when you say that they are persecuted. And he's damn right in what he says. All the Arab states are dictatorships which do not allow their citizens any freedom. And Israeli Arabs enjoy most of the rights they may be discriminated against in certain things. But they may enjoy certain rights which Jews do not have. For instance, not serving three years, wasting three years in the army, for example. Israeli Arabs don't do that. We don't want that. No, no, no, it's fine. I'm pretty sure most Palestinians are not desperate to serve in the Israeli military. I'm sure you're right. Thank you for all your questions. In pre-1967 Zionism in Israel, it was not a colonial enterprise. In the West Bank, there is a colonizing and colonial framework, which is even apartheid-like in its actual workings. But in pre-1967 Israel, that was not the case. And for the first 100 years or so of Zionism, it wasn't a colonial venture. It wasn't a venture of an extension of an imperial. Let me just define colonialism since you're so busy defining genocide. Imperialism and colonialism were matched together in which an imperial empire sent its children to dominate and take over a third world country and exploit its riches and its people. This is not what Israel did until 1967. Do you agree with Benny that there is a colonial aspect and apartheid aspect to the occupied West Bank? No. Zionism is a national liberation movement that freed its land from Arab Muslim colonialism. How do you think Islam expanded itself from the Arab peninsula to Indonesia, from Indonesia to Morocco? Not from the Holy Spirit. This was conquest and colonialism. OK, we are out of time. I'm going to give Deanna the last word before we go take a break. OK, so now we have a Nakba denier and a Nakba apologist, as well as a genocide denier, genocide apologist. The point of the matter is that Palestinians have always paid the price for Israel's colonial ventures. My family pales for hundreds of years from Palestine. And what happened in 1948 was my family was ethnically cleansed from Palestine. Where? From Al-Majid. Never able to return back to their home. My father died, unable to return back to his village because of the colonialism that is called Zionism. There is no place for Zionism in this country. We are way over on time. Daniel, 30 seconds if you want to come in. What's remarkable to me is we've gone from denying the Nakba, and Benny Morris actually helped get past that, to threatening a second Nakba. And that's the narrative in Israel today without going through what's most necessary, which is acknowledging and healing and redressing and Palestinians actually getting their rights. Because without that, not only will Palestinians never see peace and security and the achievement of freedom, but Jewish Israelis will always live in the knowledge that that wrong will create a blowback and there's no security whatsoever. That is it for part one of Head to Head with our special guest Benny Morris. In part two, we'll be talking about what is happening inside of Israeli society. We'll be talking a bit more about Benny Morris's views. And we'll hear from our, I was going to say, patient audience at Conway Hall, but they're not so patient tonight. That's in part two of Head to Head. Welcome back to Head to Head on Al Jazeera English. I'm with my guest, Benny Morris, one of Israel's most famous historians. We have a panel of experts. And we have a live audience here in London's Conway Hall, who we'll be hearing from shortly. Benny Morris, in part one of the show, we argued, you and I, about genocide, about ethnic cleansing, about the Nakba. Can we start, part two, Benny, by agreeing, both of us, on something that Israel has seen in recent years? A pretty serious, severe, brazen shift to the right, some would say, far right, with the likes of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gavir in the cabinet, a lot of fanatical settlers inciting violence in the occupied West Bank. According to some polls, 60% of Israelis do say it's better for there to be segregation between the two societies. 48%, according to one poll a few years ago, supported the expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel. What is going on in Israel? Israel has turned, definitely, to the right. It's partly to do with demography. More religious people are born, more than secular people. I would say, also, unfortunately, more Sephardi people are born than Ashkenazi secular people. I would say that, in addition to the demographic shift, which has taken place in the last 20, 30, 40 years, continuous Arab terrorism and Arab reluctance to reach a compromise has also driven Israelis to the right. You've also been critical of the far right in Israel, as we just heard you say. Very critical. You've called Netanyahu cowardly and incompetent. But you, yourself, have been criticized by some on the left, both in Israel and abroad, for your own views. And I just want to get through some of them with you. Because you've said what many would say are racist things about Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims. You've called them barbarians. You've said they have no moral inhibitions. You've said they ought to be caged. You've said Palestinian citizens of Israel are a time bomb, a fifth column, the adversary of the enemy. I got the gist. Kind of what the audience needs to hear. You say you're a liberal, and you believe in the peace process. A lot of Palestinians would say, how do we make peace with people who say they're liberal Zionists, and they think of us in this way. It's quite a question of quoting out of context, which you are indulging in. Those who blew up buses and restaurants in Israel during the second intifada, I'm talking about both Hamas and Fatah terrorists, I called barbarians, and they behaved like barbarians. You didn't call all of them barbarians? No, I didn't. You did, in 2004, in Haaretz. The Arab world, as it is today, is barbarian. That's true. The Arab world, I didn't say all Arabs are barbarians. I said the Arab world is barbarian in its behavior. Have a look at Syria, where the regime killed about half a million people in its civil war, trying to suppress an uprising. Look at Sudan, where the Arabs are busy killing blacks in Darfur. Look at Libya, where they're killing each other. They throw bombs at funeral cortages. Look at Iraq. They behave like barbarians. If somebody said to you, and I would say this is anti-Semitic, if somebody said to you the Jews are barbarians, the Jewish world is barbarian, I think you would agree that's anti-Semitic. And if somebody said, well, I'm not being anti-Semitic, I'm just talking about the IDF. I don't think it would be anti-Semitic. It would be false. That's the point. You don't think it would be anti-Semitic for me to say the Jewish world is barbarian? It would be false, not necessarily anti-Semitic. And when you say the Israeli Arabs are a time bomb, they're a potential fifth column, all of them. I said Israel's Arab minority, which identifies in large measure with the Palestinian cause, is, in the long historical perspective, a potential time bomb. Yes, I would agree with that. You said they're a potential fifth column. Or a potential fifth column, yes. An emissary of the enemy that is among us. This is vicious stuff. I don't remember using the word enemy. Whether you remember it or not is irrelevant. You said it. Their slide into complete Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us. It's vicious stuff. During the Second Intifada, when there were riots by Israeli Arabs blocking of roads, et cetera, they behaved like an emissary of the enemy. This is correct. It depends on context. You keep quoting things without explaining the context. I'm not sure there is any context for dismissing an entire people as a fifth column. Nobody is... OK, go ahead. All right, let's talk about some other views of yours, which are somewhat controversial, many would say. You're not just somebody who said some... You don't actually want any facts from me or any explanations of anything. You just explained it just very well. You're just Iraqis who drove off. You just want to accuse. I'm not accusing you. This isn't really an interview. This is basically blame-throwing and interrogation. You don't like defending your views? I don't like defending my views. I'm able to defend my views, but come up with these quotations which are out of context. Don't explain the historical context. The audience doesn't understand what you're talking about. I just read the entire quote to you. I read the entire quote to you. And then you used the word racist, which you used at the beginning when you introduced this. Yeah, you said... OK, here's something else you said. You said, we're talking about murder in far larger numbers. It's not a matter of money, referring to Palestinians in Israel. It's the society's nature. Yes, I would say that's a racist comment to say an entire society has a murderous nature. During the second intifada... This was said in 2019, Benny, not in the second intifada. That's not my fault if you can't remember when you said things. In 2019, you said, this is not about... We're talking about murder. It's the society's nature. The murder of who? The murder rates in Israel. The same applies, incidentally, to the killing of women. The same applies to honour murders, which are called honour killings, when a woman shows too much leg or looks at a man the wrong way. This is, unfortunately, inherent in Arab societies in general in the Middle East, and among Israeli Arabs as well. That's the context. I know that's true. I know that's true. You are a racist. Is that true or not? You are a racist. Is it true? We will bring in the analysts. Is it true you are a racist? Is it true you are a racist? You actually just made a racist comment about what you said. Benny, I will let Diana respond in a moment. You can't tell me you don't want heckling from the audience. Engage when we talk. I'm talking to you. We'll come to the audience. OK. One last question. You can do what you want. One last question. It's a free country, as they say. Let me ask you this. It's not just the racism that you've been accused of. You've also been accused of war mongering. You just recently wrote a Haaretz column in June where you said Israel should consider nuking Iran to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons. Not even Benjamin Netanyahu has said that. You said it. Well, he's more responsible. He's the Prime Minister. So you're irresponsible? Yes. I mean, nuking an entire country. That is not what's written in the article. You misquoted everything you said. I almost said it. What the context is is destroying the Iranian nuclear facilities. That's the context. With nukes? Yes, with nukes. But not destroying Iran, as you just said, I said. You think dropping a nuke on Iran would have a limited effect? Not on Iran. Small nuclear bombs can destroy facilities like Natanz. And you know that. And you've been advocating this for 15 years, right? I've been advocating an Israeli strike against the Iranian nuclear project because Iran says that its policy is to destroy Israel. It doesn't have nukes. If they ever achieve nuclear weaponry, Israel will be immortal. But you didn't say that. You said bomb the Netanyahu in 2008. No, no, no, no. In 2008? You're not telling the truth. You know that. You didn't call for a nuclear strike in 2008 on Iran? No, I didn't. In 2008, I said Israel should destroy the Iranian nuclear installations. With a nuclear strike? No, I didn't say that. This is my problem, Benny. You keep saying that. You don't remember? The New York Times, July the 18th, 2008, an Israeli nuclear strike to prevent the Iranians from taking the final steps towards getting the bomb is probable. I didn't say I support it. I said it's probable. You said the alternative is letting Tehran have its bomb. It's very clear what you said. Now who's playing word games? Israel does not have as part of its policy and doesn't announce as its policy the destruction of Iran. But Iran does say that its policy is to destroy Israel. And they are working diligently to get nuclear weapons. And if the Iranians do achieve nuclear weapons, Israel basically will be finished. That's what the Iranians are aiming at. And using tactical nuclear weapons to destroy the Iranian nuclear installations before they achieve nuclear weaponry, it makes sense to me. It may not make sense to you. Because you're not an Israeli, so you don't care. I'm a human being, so I care about nuclear weapons. I don't know what you care about. I don't know what you care about. Well, you just assumed. Let me go to our panel here. We have Diana Butu, a Palestinian-Iranian Israel former advisor to PLO. We have Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator at the US Middle East Project. We have Emmanuel Navan, who is an international relations Diana, I've got to bring you in first, since we got started earlier. Potential fifth column. This is exactly the problem, is that he's a racist. He espouses these racist views. That's the problem with Israel. Israel is a society, a country, that is based on this idea of Jewish supremacy. And anything that they do or say goes. Which means, therefore, that as a Palestinian who lives in that country, who is not enjoying any benefits of so-called democracy, that they get to espouse and tell me how I feel. They get to make statements like we are a fifth column. And they actually treat Palestinians as though they are a fifth column. It's very important, Nathalie, for people to understand that Israel came to us. We didn't immigrate to Israel. Israel is a colonial movement. And as a colonial movement, its aim is to not only get rid of Palestinians, but it's to try to transform the entire place, erase and replace. OK, Emmanuel, I want to ask you this. Do you recognize the shifts that Benny was agreeing on at the start of this segment about what's happening inside of Israeli society? Well, allow me to respond to what Diana has just said. She's not telling the truth. What she's saying is not true. First of all, the Jewish country, I mean, there are over 190 states in the world. Most of them are nation states. It's not about supremacy. It is about national self-determination and freedom. Now, we didn't come to you. This is our land. No, it's not. This is a Jewish land. The way that the state was created was through an act of colonization. First of all, when you say we've been there for hundreds of years, the word Palestine, it's an invention of British colonialism. It was invented in 1920. It did not exist under the Ottoman Empire. So when this story starts, it's a colonial invention. So when you say Palestine, and you can't even pronounce it in Arabic, because there's no P in Arabic. That's why we say Palestine. We did not come to you. All right, Emmanuel, I'm going to bring you back to my question, then move on. What do you make of Bilal al-Smotrich and Itmar Ghebreyev, referring to Arabs in the most dehumanizing race? Are you going to deny that as well? Like every society, we have our extremists. OK. It's a democracy. I don't agree with them. But we have, like every society, we have our extremists. And you're doing government. Yes, but I didn't vote for this government. I wish they were not in the government. Daniel hasn't spoken. Daniel Levy. When I was in a Zionist youth movement and president of the World Union of Jewish Students being pumped with the talking points and the propaganda points, I really think they were more sophisticated. And I may be misremembering this. I cannot, genuinely cannot believe that this is what now constitutes an Israeli attempt at defending and putting your best foot forward. But then I look at the reality in Israel today, and of course that's what it should look like. Because what's the reality we're living in? And let me take two snapshots. First of all, it's really not that surprising that we've got to this point when you consider the impunity with which the external community and Israel's allies and the West and the US treat Israel, despite the litany, the entire spectrum of violations of international law and of human rights. And yet every time there's an excuse, there's a veto at the United Nations, and then there's more answer. In that respect, don't expect Israelis to come up with better talking points when they don't have to, because you're willing to run cover for them and create completely the wrong incentives. OK, but can we respond to this? I must protest. We've got three people in a panel, two of whom are pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist. That's the purpose of the show, yes. It's supposed to be two against one. I consider myself pro-Human, I consider myself pro-Palestinian. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let me finish, let me finish. You are pro-Palestinian propaganda. That's what you've become, just so that you know that. Let's go around the audience. We're going to try and see where we've got some hands up. We're going to go to the gentleman here, third row with the jacket on. Just if you could say something more from an Israeli perspective, in terms of the threat they face from Hamas as an Islamist movement, which is patiently slaughtered by the Jews in Israel. That's what it says in its charter, never revokes charter. If you could explain that in more detail, please. The Hamas is a small organisation with a small army of terrorists. It doesn't represent, in my view, an existential threat to Israel. But as part of the larger Muslim radical Arab world, that part of it, including Iran, together, they do represent an existential threat to Israel. Israel is not fighting merely the Hamas, it's fighting the Houthis, it's fighting militias in Syria, and Iraq, it's fighting the Hezbollah, orchestrated by the Iranians at the moment, which wants to destroy Israel, yes. Lady here in the third row, on the second. My question is to Diana or Daniel, because I want an honest and truthful answer. Given the decades-long brutality against the Palestinians by the Israeli government, without much regard for international law or consequences, should we have seen the escalation of this genocide coming? And what could be the global implications when states disregard international law to justify and even normalise genocide? Diana, briefly. We've gotten to a point in this world where the world tells us that nothing can justify October 7th, and yet everything that Israel has done since October 7th can be justified by October 7th. That's a distorted world, and we have to understand what this occupation has meant. It's been violent from day one. The Nakba was violent, and what we're seeing today is a continuation of that Nakba. For world order to be restored, we need to have a system where all states are held to account, not where we get to have a country that says, it's time to bomb Iran because they might have a nuclear weapon. Big secret, Israel has a nuclear weapon too. Gentleman in the brown jacket, and then the gentleman here in the blue jumper. I know that we're on Al Jazeera, Qatari station. What do we think about the fact that Qatar has funded Hamas for so long, persecuting girls and Palestinians? And also, we haven't had one mention of the 120 hostages still being kept. What pressure could Qatar be putting on Hamas to release those hostages immediately, regardless of all the rest of this? Well, Qatar has been supporting the Hamas for at least a decade, with money, propaganda, et cetera, et cetera, probably using Al Jazeera also in that fashion. This should end. I think normal states shouldn't support what the world regards, or at least the Western world regards uniformly as a terrorist organisation. It's true that Hamas is still holding 120 Israeli hostages, women, children, octogenarians, two-year-olds and whatever. They had 250 in the beginning, now it's been reduced to 120, many of them killed by Hamas people. Many of them killed by Hamas and by Israelis. Also, Israelis also killed some of the hostages. Hopefully, they will be released. OK, we hope they will be released. I would just say one thing. Why did the Israeli government prop up Hamas for so long and encourage Qatar to send money to Gaza? Stupidly. They're not hearing my answer. The answer is that the Israeli government under Netanyahu behaved stupidly, and this was part of the incompetence of Netanyahu. I think it was incompetence. Let's go to the gentleman in the blue jumper. Take it away. I'm not sure, and I wrote a book called What Is Genocide? I wanted to bring Benny back to Gaza, because he said it's a war and there's collateral damage and Hamas knew, and that may be true, but the real point is that Israel knew, isn't it? That if you bend the rules of war so that 100 people can be killed for one militant, if you do that thousands and thousands of times with 2,000-pound bombs, you know that the whole of Gaza is going to be a ruin. You know that you're going to destroy that society. And the only way we can understand that in an overall sense is not a series of war crimes. It is one big crime, and I think the name for that is genocide. Absolutely. I think I've already made the point. The Hamas, when it attacked Israel on the 7th of October, knew that Israel would retaliate with bombing and knew that lots of Gazan civilians would die. They were hoping for that, because that looks good on Western television images. But they say that killing a lot of Gaza civilians is good because they go to heaven, they become martyrs. So this is allowed. Ben, can I ask you a question? Can I say something wrong? No, no, I just want to follow your logic. Hamas knew that. Your argument is Hamas knew that if they did this, we'd do a genocide, so we did a genocide. Not genocide, no. They knew that we would go and kill lots of people. They knew that Israel would kill lots of Gazans. They knew that Israel would kill lots of Gazans. Yes, they knew that. Going after the Hamas, they knew that lots of Gazan civilians would be killed, and they were happy with this because of international pressure which would result. OK, we're running out of time. I want to take a gentleman in the suit. Yes. Benny Morris, you say that the ICC should issue an arrest warrant against the Israeli Prime Minister and the Israeli War Minister, Yoav Galant. But on the 9th of October, they imposed a total siege on 2.3 million civilians in Gaza, depriving them of water, medicine, food. That is what they're accused of. Salvation is a weapon of war, something that the Syrian and the Russian regimes were accused of. Do you condemn that? Has anybody died in Gaza of starvation? Yes, I guess I do. This is total nonsense. The Israeli... I guess I do. You can't just say things that are false. I'm not going to let you say that. The Israeli government, I think the ministers, debated whether to cut off water, cut off electricity, et cetera, et cetera. They eventually resolved not to do that. That has not happened. Benny, how do you know that? Hold on, stop heckling. How do you know that, Benny? And please... I haven't read any report of anyone dying of starvation. There have been many reports. I haven't read any. So that makes it nonsense because you haven't read any. I haven't heard of anybody dying of starvation. You don't think there's a famine in northern Gaza? No, I think there's a food problem there. People... You don't think there's a famine in northern Gaza? I don't know what the word famine means. There is a food problem. There's malnutrition. This I haven't heard. But nobody's died. They all conveniently state a lie. As far as I know, nobody has died of starvation in Gaza. You're a historian. She's the head of the World Food Programme. She's the widow of Senator John McCain, the most pro-Israeli senator of my lifetime. She said northern Gaza is a full-blown famine and that there are children, women and children in skeletal states there. Did she say somebody died of starvation? I'm asking you. Did anybody die of starvation? Yes, there have been documented cases. Read the newspapers. Read the humanitarian issues. You said there's no famine a moment ago. I didn't say. I said I don't know what famine is. Let's get out. This is the core of the discussion. Let's take another question. Gentleman in the green jacket has been waiting a while. Hi, my question is to Benny. I just want to know, if you were Palestinian and you were born in Palestine, would you, given the circumstances, support a Palestinian's right to resistance? In the form that they have... In the form I would support Palestinian resistance if I was living under Israeli occupation, yes. Which is what the Palestinians are. Benny, Benny, we're out of time. I do... A very interesting question you posed, a very interesting answer. I do want to ask, wait, because I watched the recent discussion you did and you were telling your opponent you need to have empathy, you need to put yourself in other people's shoes. So let's just continue on, gentleman. A very good question, I thought. I mean, if you were killing Gaza right now and you saw your home blown up by the Israeli Air Force, you saw your parents incinerated in front of you, you're starving, what's your view of Israel going to be? It'll probably be very negative, but it might also be negative towards the Hamas who generated this conflict and led to that home being blown up. You think that's what a kid would think when he sees his parents killed by an Israeli bomb? He might think both things. He probably... What would you think if you were that kid? Probably I would describe the death of his parents to an Israeli bomb and to the Israelis, but I might, on reflection later, think maybe the Hamas shouldn't have slaughtered so many Israelis on the 7th of October, which led to this. I'm genuinely asking you, is that your talking point? Or as a human being, that's how you would feel? As a human being, I think I would feel anger towards those who had just killed my parents, but I think growing up and on reflection, I might think that the Hamas had led to this. Quite the empathy I was looking for, but we will... I mean, if that's your honest answer, I'll take it. That's my answer. I appreciate that. Benny Morris, thank you for joining me on the show today. Thank you to our audience in London's Conway Hall. Thank you to our panel of experts who joined the discussion. That's all we have time for. Thank you for watching at home. Good night.