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- [00:04]
A
You are listening to an art media podcast. The Muslims were very successful building up the name Islamophobia as one of the canonical sin of our society. And that's exactly what I wanted to do. So I coined the name xenophobia to connect anti Zionism with the idea of racism. We should stop the strategy of defending our innocence against accusation. We have to create symmetry here and say you are accused of racism as well. You are a genocide enabler. You mean to dismantle the state of Israel and let 8 million people be eternally stateless at the mercy of the Middle east jungle? Aren't you a racist to the first degree?
- [01:10]
B
It's 5:30pm on Wednesday, February 18th in frigid New York City. It is half past midnight on Thursday, February 19th in Israel, where it is certainly not frigid. According to press reports, U.S. officials are signaling that a direct military confrontation could be imminent and may last weeks with a White House official putting the chances of a strike in the coming weeks at 90%. The source added that if there is an operation, it would likely be a joint U S Israeli operation and that it could break out within days, adding that Israel is pushing for an operation that would be aimed at toppling the regiment. This all follows the latest round of nuclear talks that took place in Geneva on Tuesday and which have been described by U.S. officials as a nothing burger. Vice President J.D. vance said on Wednesday that while the talks did yield some progress, the Iranian regime is not yet willing to acknowledge President Trump's red lines, which include abandoning Iran's nuclear ambitions. Vice President Vance added that there are a number of things that make it clear that they are interested in acquiring a nuclear weapon, close quote. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt also said on Wednesday that there were, quote, many arguments for a strike on Iran, close quote, and that Tehran would be wise to make a deal. Meanwhile, new satellite images show Iran repairing military infrastructure that had been attacked by Israel and the US back in June of 2024, as well as Iran fortifying pathways to their nuclear facilities that had been bombed during this 12 day war. Turning to Gaza, the US has agreed to establish a formal panel to coordinate between the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the west bank and President Trump's Board of Peace. This indicates the Palestinian Authority's desire to play a more direct role in determining the next stages of the ceasefire and Gaza's reconstruction. Now onto today's episode. My guest is Judea Pearl, a pioneering computer scientist, philosopher and recipient of the 201120 Turing Award. Judea founded the modern field of causal inference, and he played a role in helping shape artificial intelligence and machine learning as we know them today. Judea is also the author of the newly published book Coexistence and Other Fighting Words, which touches on many of the themes we discuss in today's conversation and we will link to the book in the show. Notes Judeo was born in pre state Israel in 1936 and has devoted much of his time and energy to defending Zionism and Jewish self determination. He's also the father of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002. Our original plan was to discuss an important term that Judea coined called Zionophobia. But in researching Judea's life and learning about his childhood experiences and his history in pre state Israel, we couldn't miss the opportunity to hear from someone who belongs to what Israelis call Dor Tashach, the generation of 1948. For reference, DOR Tasha for Israelis is what the greatest generation is for Americans. So here's Judea Pearl on his life on pre state Israel and on Zionophobia. This is Call Me Back. Judea. Welcome to the Call Me Back podcast. It's a real honor to have you here.
- [04:42]
A
Great to be on your show, Dan.
- [04:43]
B
Judea, I want to start with where, when and to whom you were born. So can you just tell us a little bit about where you come from?
- [04:52]
A
I come from Braybruck. That's what I was born in 1936, but my family came to Israel in 1924. My grandfather was one of the founders of the town of Braybrak. He he and 26 other families migrated six or seven years after the Balfour Declaration and they wanted to establish a religious town based on agriculture.
- [05:20]
B
So give us a visual picture of what your environment, your community looked like during your childhood in Bnei Brak, Shangri La. Say more.
- [05:29]
A
We were expected to be the new Jewish who has no knowledge of persecution, of the diaspora, of antisemitism, of anything which, you know, contaminates our glorious history. So we were shielded from any bad news at the time. And we were made to believe that all the stories that you read about are passe because a new era began when we came back to our homeland and we were supposed to understand that the world was created for us. So we were really spoiled brats, I should say. At the same time we were part of the effort of establishing a state on the way. The whole environment was geared to one, perhaps two aims. One is to establish a state, the second one to prepare a homeland for Our families that were stranded in Europe.
- [06:32]
B
Okay, now, you grew up in a mixed community. One third socialist, one third very conservatively religious, and then one third ultra Orthodox, which today we would call haredi. What was that coexistence like? There aren't a lot of communities today that have that mix like that.
- [06:51]
A
Well, I remember it to be a symbiosis coexistence with rarely any skirmishes or conflicts. I went to kindergarten, which was run by the Socialist Party, to children of working families. And I marched in May 1 with a red flag and sang the international anthem. Okay. A year later, I was moved to Betsepher Mizrahi, which was run by the Mizrahi movement. I would equate it to the conservative today. Next to us was the Haredim run by Alat Israel. They went to Talmud Torah, not to a regular school, so they studied more of the Talmud and so on. My playmates were from all three segments. We had no qualm at all, playing with each other, visiting each other houses and. And so forth. So that was the community living in harmony. There were few skirmishes about Sabbath because they used to blow the horn on Friday night at 5pm and no car was allowed to get into Bne Brak after that, a horn blowing. Few cars tried to sneak in, and they were met with sticks and stones. But slowly the two fractions learned to live with that. The cows learned how to sneak in without being noticed. And the Haredim also learn where to find them and how to find them. Yeah.
- [08:31]
B
Can you talk a little bit about the socialist group you were a part of at that time?
- [08:36]
A
Yes. A third of the town was socialist. These people came from the socialist part of the Zionist movement, believing in the ideal of creating a model society based on the socialist idea. And it did not clash with their Haredim. We accommodated each other because we had a common goal. The goal was to establish a state and to save our brethren in Europe.
- [09:04]
B
So, Judea, at some point, that coexistence that you've been describing in Bnei Brak basically came to an end. Or at least at some point it gradually changed. So can you talk about that, how that change happened, why it happened?
- [09:18]
A
Bnei Brak became an attraction for religious family who wanted to live in a religious atmosphere. And more and more Hasidim came to Bnei Brak. More and more Yeshivot were founded in Bnei Brak. And I remember the time where we had clashes. At that point, our family decided to move out. It became too harsh to live with those kind of Demonstrations, they simply wanted us out. I didn't want to go out because I enjoyed this living in a beautiful atmosphere where Friday night, for instance, you would walk in the street and listen to the zmirot coming from the balconies and you know exactly at what point of the ceremonies each family is. You hear Lechadodi on one side and two Michelo Achalnu on the other balcony. It was a beautiful celebration of Friday night.
- [10:19]
B
You get part of this, by the way, Judea, today in some parts of Jerusalem I've experienced a version of what you're describing. Not exactly, but I can relate to what you're talking about. It's one of the most special parts to me of being in Israel and to these days in Jerusalem. Okay, so as I mentioned in the intro, it's not every day that we get to speak with someone who belongs to the door, Tasha, someone who witnessed the birth of the nation. How would you describe the ethos or the mission or as my kids would say, the vibe? In those pre state years the whole.
- [10:52]
A
Country was geared into two aims. Creating the infrastructure for a state. So I grew up in essentially a virtual state. I didn't see any deficiency in any of the services that normal states provide. For instance, transportation, education, water supply, electrical grids, healthcare. Okay, all this was available as it is today in California. So I grew up in an environment where all these services were already in place. And when it came to November 29, the decision on the partition of Palestine, everybody was excited. And I couldn't understand what the big deal about having a state and not having a state because we do have a state. Essentially in working I had a clash with my father. He was excited about we are going to have a state soon. I said we do have a state, what's a big deal. And also we were constantly tuned to the news our parents tried to hide from us. But we read the headlines. As a boy, six or seven years old, I remember the headlines of the time D days for instance, or the kels pogrom in 1946 or or in 1946, the establishment of 11 kibbutzim in the Negev on the day after Yom Kippur. These were the big headlines that created impression on my mind as a six year old child. The bad headlines our parents tried to hide from us, for instance, the threats that we heard from the Arabs, from Azam Pasha for instance, about rivers of blood and the monumental massacre. Those were the term of the threat that the Arabs used against the idea of a partition. We read Them indirectly in the headlines and in the radio from Beirut. That was the atmosphere. And we had, of course, to deal with the British mandates. The Brits were not pleasant to the Zionist movement, but to us they were very cordial. We played with the British soldiers. They were quite nice to us. They let us even play with the bullets on the pavements. Occasionally we had raids when they were searching for concealed weapons. So we had the otza, which is a curfew. Everybody had to stay home. And the British soldiers told us which room of our apartment to sit in and wait. And while they are searching the apartment for concealed weapons. But they were very, very careful to put back the glassware in the cupboards and make sure that everything is done in the tradition of King George VI Yehuda.
- [13:50]
B
Let me ask you, because there was tensions between Jews and Arabs. There were tensions between the Jews and the British to some degree. And I said, it sounds to me like the experience with the British varied. But then there was the Yishuv experience with regard to World War II. So can you talk a little bit about how you and people in your community were experiencing the fact that you were living in this place while there's a world war going on and while Jews were being slaughtered in Europe in the midst of that world war?
- [14:21]
A
What I'm gonna tell you now is a combination of what I experienced as a child plus what I learned in retrospective after that. Okay. I remember the meora', ot, the riots, occasionally killing of Jews by the Arab rioters. What I didn't realize at that time is that the British were caving in to the demand of the Arabs in essentially blocking Jews from Europe from escaping the Nazis. The British at that time sent emissary to the Jewish status to discourage them. They bribe the boatmen on the Danub river not to take any Jews refugees to Constanta in Romania, from which they tried to come to Israel. That I learned later as a child. All I knew is my grandfather seeks to come and he can't. Because the British gave only 15,000 certificates per year. And he indeed was stranded in Europe, wasn't able to come.
- [15:32]
B
How were you thinking about or experiencing or how aware of the Holocaust, of the Shoah were you at that time?
- [15:39]
A
My parents tried to hide for me any information about the Holocaust. And the first time I learned about the Holocaust, when I met my mother crying in the kitchen, probably in 1942. And I asked her, what's going on? Why are you crying? And she said, you know, I have a family in Poland and there is a War going on. And I said, so what? War comes and war goes, right? What's the big deal? And she said, no, this is a different kind of a war. Where did I learn that? I learned it from children who came to our school from Europe, Yalde, Teheran, the children of Tehran that made their ways from Poland into and came to our school. And they were totally different. And we didn't understand what they went through. They talked differently, they thought differently, they behaved differently. And we treated them cruelly because they were different. They talked meekly in a different fashion. And they had an outburst of anger in them that we didn't understand where it came from. So that's how I learned firsthand about the Shoah.
- [16:58]
B
Okay, now tell me about the period in which the British left the Shuv and David Ben Gurion's Declaration of Independence. What do you remember about that time?
- [17:08]
A
Okay. The big evening was not the Declaration of independence, but the November 29.
- [17:16]
B
November 29, 1947.
- [17:18]
A
1947. The decision or the vote of the UN to establish two states, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, which the Arabs fought against viciously. And we heard threats. The Arabs are there to fight to the last to prevent the Jewish state or any form of sovereignty in any part of Palestine. And the joy on November 29th was really memorable. At that point, my father grabbed me and said, you don't understand what's going on. I said, no, I don't. At that point, I understood what the conflict between us is. He was born in Poland and he went to a Polish school, and he knew what it means to be a Jewish child in a Polish school. I didn't. So I couldn't understand his glee and he couldn't understand why I take it so nonchalantly. But at that point we understood each other.
- [18:23]
B
There was this sense of euphoria. Didn't last long. Can you talk about the War of Independence and how you experienced that?
- [18:30]
A
On May 14th of 1948, my mother told me, don't go. Don't play too far from home, because things are not the way they used to. We didn't know what's going on because the idea of declaring a state was kept hush, hush. And I heard on the radio the Declaration of Independence. But soon after that, we found ourselves playing in a courtyard and being bombarded by the Egyptian warplane a day after the Declaration of Independence. And the reason that they bombarded Bnei Brak was because we had two textile factories. And they probably thought that this is some military establishment. And we found ourselves Hugging each other. I'm talking about a bunch of boys, right in a staircase under a barrage of bombs. And one of the neighbors opened the door and made a declaration. Children, we are at war. And it's going to be worse and worse. It's only begun, but we are going to prevail. And he closed the door. Okay. And that surprised us. How could things be worse than what they are now? We couldn't understand it. And he was right. Things became worse, but we prevailed.
- [19:56]
B
Okay, so at some point, you moved to a high school in Tel Aviv. So your. Your schooling went from B' Nai Brak to Tel Aviv, and then you went on to work on a kibbutz. So can you tell me about those two transitions?
- [20:09]
A
Four people from the town of Nebrak were privileged to be accepted by the education system of Tel Aviv. And we had great high school teachers, professors that escaped Germany. They came from universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, and they couldn't find jobs in academia, so they taught high school. But the nice thing was that they saw in us, in my generation, the continuation of their lost dream of science and academia. So they saw us as continuing the dreams that they had to bring to an end. And they gave us everything they had, and they had a lot. Each one of them was a polyglot. Each one of them could talk in front of the class without any notes for on any subject in the world, from the economy of Manchuria to the proof of Pythagoras theorem. And they gave us extra hours in the afternoons. So we came to their homes and they gave us extra math or extra music. At one point, I sat next to Bill Gates after I got the Turing Award, and he asked me, what's the secret of your education? And I said, I'm a beneficiary of the greatest educational experiment of mankind. How come? He said. I said, imagine that in California, they force every professor to teach five years in high school. Could you imagine what kind of education California high school kids will get? Now imagine further that they don't do it by being forced to, but because they really want to. This is the kind of education that I get.
- [21:57]
B
So I want to talk about your education and your experience at the Technion. One of the topics that the book I co authored, Startup Nation, focuses on is the role of institutions like the Technion played in laying the groundwork for Israel's economic miracle. So what was that like? How would you describe the culture and experience of studying there when you did?
- [22:19]
A
It was a tough training. It was hard work. I didn't totally appreciate at the time, Now I appreciate it. But the way they taught us was as if we are doing science. We are not learning science, we are doing science. The lecturers, the professors there were giants. Each one was a giant in its own field. And they gave us the feeling that we are doing new science every day. And each one of us has the potential of becoming an Einstein if we just do it right.
- [22:56]
B
So the Technion was established decades before the formal founding of the state of Israel. The Weizmann Institute of Science is there. These are world class research institutions. What was their role in society in pre state Israel?
- [23:10]
A
Teachon itself was established in 1925 with the presence of Albert Einstein, together with the inauguration of the Hebrew University, also in the presence of Einstein. It was part of the recognition that our society must be built on excellence in education. That I remember keep on being drilled into us. You are the carrier of our dreams of excellence in education. We carry that burden.
- [23:43]
B
And the 1950s were challenging years, to say the least, of austerity in Israel. So you've graduated from the Technion, you're out in the world, so to speak, as a young adult, how would you describe that period?
- [23:56]
A
I'll tell you a story. My brother in law was a bachelor and when he wanted to have an omelette cooked for him, he went to the Nuva restaurant and he had to bring an egg in his pocket. Yeah, because everybody was rationed. Number of eggs per week, number of bread even was rationed. Okay, so it saved the country because no one went hungry. They overcame the temptation to have a black market. I remember it was forbidden to bring chickens from the countryside to Tel Aviv from the countries because of the danger of black market developing. So people were stopped in the cars and search for chickens. The outcome was posterity. But no one went hungry.
- [24:47]
B
So why. And when did you become an activist for Zionism?
- [24:50]
A
It actually started in a second intifada.
- [24:53]
B
So early 2000s.
- [24:54]
A
Yeah. Until then I was immersed in my equations and my algorithms paying minor attention to issues of activism. But when the second Intifada started, I remember we had a communicating group of ex Israelis here in Los Angeles and we had arguments. Some people were anti Zionist and they were voicing ideas that were strange to me, like that Israel shouldn't exist or that Israel is evil, is not handling the Intifada properly. And I started looking into the sources, into the core idea of what Zionism is all about. And I became interested. It was clear to me that there is disparity here. Between what we hear in the news and what is going on. I saw that to be an era of deceit from the Arab side that affected me to study more, to look into the source of the conflict. And I came out with the conclusion that we are in a quite unfortunate situation. We are living in an era of deceit. Then the tragedy happened with my son who was murdered in Karachi, Pakistan in 2002. In 2002 I was thrusted into the public eye. It was an unprecedented kind of attack journalism. And people wanted to hear more about Danny and about his upbringing and where the families stands, our creation of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. So I had to deal with social issues of the right of Israel to exist and the place of Israel in the family of nations. I understood that the anti Zionists are attacking the core of our identity and they are plain racist. So I started calling them racists. Okay? I coined the name xenophobia which meant to distinguish between people who just criticized the policies of Israel, of Israel government and those who were against the very notion of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the Middle east. Okay? So I coined the name xenophobia, which has several purposes. One of them to distinguish between these two group. The second one was to attach to it an element of irrationality, phobia. And the third one to accuse the anti Zionist of racism combined with genocide. Because if you notice, the Muslims were very successful building up the name Islamophobia as the one of the canonical sin of our society. And they have succeeded in associating the name Islamophobia with racism. And that's exactly what I wanted to do to connect anti Zionism with the idea of racism. They have been successful. Why shouldn't we be successful? I cannot claim success because the Jewish leadership and the Jewish press did not adapt as a proper way of calling anti Zionism. They kept on hanging on anti Semitism. It's a convenient to fight anti Semitism because Hitler gave a bad name for anti Semitism. So what was all the fight? Is it antisemitic or isn't anti Semitic? All this discussion has been going on for two and a half decades. Okay, what are they fighting for? They're fighting on the idea of is it socially acceptable or isn't socially acceptable? That is what is the fight about? Not about the legality of saying utterance or another. Being a racist or being anti Semitic is protected by the first Amendment. You can be, if you really want, anti Semitic and declare it to be. No one is going to imprison you for being anti Semitic. Right? So the Fight is all about socially acceptability. And I wanted to make anti Zionism socially inacceptible. That is the reason for coining that name. I wasn't very successful. The word xenophobia was not entrenched in the language, in the discussion. Okay. But recently, after October 7th, wow, everybody is talking about xenophobia.
- [29:24]
B
Okay, I want to get to October 7th before we do. In 2007, former President Jimmy Carter, who since passed away, published a book, Peace Not Apartheid, in which he claimed that terrorism by Hamas against Israelis is justified based on political aims, that it is a political response. And your public response to this book drew quite a lot of attention. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
- [29:52]
A
Yes. He didn't say it explicitly, but the implication of his book is that terror is justified as a political means to apply pressure to achieve certain political goals. That was an implication. People asked him explicitly, how would you like Israel to behave to stop the terrorism? And he said, Israel should do X and Y and Z, okay, In order to stop the terrorism. Which means terrorism is the legitimate way to achieve X and Y and Z. Okay. So I wrote a paper and say that this is unacceptable. He essentially encouraged terrorism as a means to achieve political goals. And I guess that the reason my paper made a dent was because I could speak as a victim of terrorism and I could relate it to the tragedy of my son. Well, his murderers again wanted just one thing to achieve political goal with that act of abduction and murder.
- [30:54]
B
There's a parallel, Judea, between the construct of the term in terms of how it presents, between Zenophobia and Islamophobia. First of all, was that intentional by you?
- [31:05]
A
Absolutely.
- [31:06]
B
And why?
- [31:07]
A
Because my claim is religion do not have monopoly on human sensitivity and in human identity, people claim, oh, how can you compare Islamophobia, which is a protection of a religion, with xenophobia, which attempts to protect a political opinion. Zionism is a political opinion. No, no and no. My point was to establish that Zionism is part of our core identity as Jews. We are not only religion, we are a nation. And Zionism is the banner of our identity as Jews. So I wanted to make it very clear explicitly that we are talking about identity. Zionism trample on the identity of a group of people counts as exactly as the same weight as trampling on the identity of Muslims or Christians.
- [32:04]
B
So Judea, today if someone is called Islamophobic, it is considered a slur, is treated as a harsh negative. But if someone is called an anti Zionist or a xenophobe, that's not considered a slur these days. In fact, those who are anti Zionists proudly call themselves anti Zionist. It's not like they get defensive about being called an anti Zionist. It's a. It's a badge of honor. It's part of their identity.
- [32:29]
A
Correct.
- [32:30]
B
I understand you're trying to create a symmetry here between xenophobia and Islamophobia. But one is considered a slur and the other is considered a badge of honor.
- [32:38]
A
But not if you use the term Islamophobe. Because in that you express that there is something wrong with the guy who call himself or herself anti Zionist. So you have to express something is wrong with you. I'm ready to elaborate on that. But at least in the word itself you have symmetry of accusation. You accuse us of something and I want to produce symmetry. We should stop the strategy of defending our innocence against accusation. We have to create symmetry here and say you are accused of racism as well. I'll go even further. You are a genocide enabler. We can argue about it, but at least the purpose of a name is to create a different framework for conversation. I want to shock the anti Zionist out of his pompous self righteousness. Normally they are shocked and say what we are Genocide enabler, unheard of. How can we be. You are in. Look what you're doing in Gaza. You're calling me a genocide enabler. And I thought. Let's elaborate what you mean by anti Zionism. You mean to dismantle the state of Israel and let 8 million people be eternally stateless at the mercy of the Middle east jungle. Is that what you call that what you want to be? Aren't you a racist to the first degree? That is my purpose, to change the course of conversation from dealing with the policy of Israel government, whether you agree or not agree to the core of the issue.
- [34:21]
B
Okay, Judea, your use of the term xenophobic is to me interchangeable with being antisemitic. More or less. I mean, we can quibble, you know, on the margins, but it's basically one and the same the way you're describing it. Does this mean you want to dispense with using the term antisemitic where it's appropriate and just.
- [34:38]
A
Yes, absolutely, yes, say more. Because I've seen that the word antisemitic is being used as a cover up for inaction. I saw it in the university environment. Okay. They love the word antisemitism. They like to fight or to present themselves as champions against antisemitism. Why? Because when you are fighting antisemitism you can appoint a task force to study antisemitism or to combat antisemitism. And what does it mean? It means yet to invite people who are normally considered to be experts on anti Semitism in addition to some philosophers who have studied the case. Then they have lots and lots of libraries to refer to. And you buy yourself 12 years of inaction because nothing comes out of this task force appointed to combat anti Semitism. They are just being used by the administration to buy time and to justify inaction. And at the same time, the real issue, which is xenophobia. Why do I call it a real issue? Who are the targets of hostility today in the universities? Who is being targeted and being called, you are not welcome. Zionists are out. Zionists should be killed. Are you a Zionist or you're not Zionist? If you seek to walk from one library to another, the Zionists are the targets of hostilities, not the Jewish people. Right? So they target our Zionism in us and we are defending ourselves against anti Semitic tropes, which has nothing to do with the issue. And if you look at the university protocols, you'll find that the word Zionism doesn't exist in any of the reports, protocol or memo issued by university. It's empty. They fear it like a plague because it forces them to deal with the real issue. So that is the power of the word xenophobia. Please deal with the real issue.
- [36:58]
B
I mean, you're saying, deal with the practical implication. The practical implication is you, the xenophobe, are basically telling 8, 9, 10 million people they no longer have a country, they no longer have a home and they have nowhere to go.
- [37:10]
A
In the political arena, in that educational arena, we have a different fight. In the political arena. Yes, I'm telling them not only that, but you are essentially enabling a genocide. Because you know the spirit of the Israelis, they are not going to give up their sovereignty. They are going to fight house to house, bunker to bunker, and they are going to insist on maintaining that small sliver of land. Okay? Even if you try to create a one state solution with all the euphemism that stand with it, right? They are not going to agree with it. You are. Then you are subjecting 8 million people to a essential genocide. And I heard one rabbi say here very nicely, he said, tell me how many millions of people you are willing to sacrifice for your idea that the world will be a better place without Isra? How many? 2 million. Give me a price.
- [38:07]
B
Okay, One of your claims is that xenophobia explains the failure of peace Processes in the past, meaning processes between Israelis and Palestinians to reach some kind of accommodation, some kind of two state solution. However, you want to describe the goals of these peace processes. How does xenophobia explain these failures?
- [38:30]
A
Everything. It explained everything about the failure from day one. From the day that Foreign Minister Bevin errant Bevin stood in front of the British Parliament and declared the nature of the conflict and why his government is giving up his precious piece of land to the UN to decide on the fate of Palestine. He explained, because the conflict is irreconcilable. It involves two nations. Both of them have the principal point of priority. The Jews have a essential principle, it is to establish a state. And the Palestinians have another principle. And this is to prevent the Jews from having a state. Now listen, this conflict, one side said, I want to have a state and this is my highest priority. The other one said, it doesn't say that I want also to have a state. It says, I want you not to have a state. This is a conflict. One side says we, we, we. The other side says, me, me and only me. If you look at the logic of the conflict, so said Bevin, you realize that it's irreconcilable. So we are going to let the UN deal with that mess. We don't want to deal with that. And this asymmetry, we, we, we versus me, me and only me has been the source of the conflict throughout the entire 78 years from 1947 until today. And I can identify where it is. I can attribute to it all the failures that we have seen from Oslo down to Annapolis, okay? Every attempt to achieve some sort of reconciliation failed and failed on that basis. In my book I quote Chaim Schul, who somehow disappeared from the conversation. But this is one of the most important interview that was conducted after Oslo. Why has Oslo failed? And Chaim Shu, who was one of the originator of the Oslo and according to him, he saw more Palestinian in his home, in his living room than any other negotiator. He came out with a conclusion. They have stabbed us in our back. They never meant to have a two state solution. They never meant to create a formula to deal with the Palestinian refugees. They never had it in mind. They used us. That's why I put it in my book, because I think it's very important. It matches of course with other stories that we know. Arafat's speech in Johannesburg, the deputy of Jerusalem saying Oslo was meant to be a Trojan horse. These are known in the public. But Chaim Shu was in the Midst of the negotiation and he came out with a statement. They stabbed us in the back. They never meant to start Oslo.
- [41:43]
B
I want to ask you about your own position on a two state solution. What's your view?
- [41:48]
A
My view is encapsulated in a slogan. Two states for two people, equally legitimate and equally indigenous. Stop here and start with the last. Nothing can be accomplished unless both sides recognize each other. Belonging each other indigenous.
- [42:10]
B
Recognizing that each people are indigenous to the land. Is that your point or is that.
- [42:13]
A
Your indigenous to the land? Yeah.
- [42:15]
B
Okay.
- [42:16]
A
I have defined what indigenous status is. It has three components. Genetic, residence and historical connection. We Jews have historical connection, the Palestinians have none. And I say it clearly, none according to my understanding of what history means. But you do have residence. You can debate the genetic part, but genetic criteria are racist. You don't want to base your claims on racist criteria. More important is continuous residency which the Palestinians do have, and historical connection which the Jews have and the Palestinians do not. Now we come to compromise. In order to compromise and live together, we must recognize each other as equally indigenous. Then we have to start with that, because without this starting point, no step will be successful.
- [43:14]
B
So you're basically saying, I think let's freeze the conversation about a policy track towards a two state solution. It is frozen. So one doesn't need to advocate for a freezing of it. It is frozen for a variety of reasons that predate what we're talking about now. But it sounds like you're saying it's frozen. We should even try to revitalize it. We should focus on education because it's gonna. That education process to deal with what you're calling indigenuity will take a generation, if not more. So what's your proposition? What do you say to the international community that says we can't wait a generation?
- [43:52]
A
We've got to be on a path.
- [43:53]
B
Towards some kind of normalization between these two peoples. Sooner than that, we need a shorter term solution. Judea, how do you respond to people who say that?
- [44:04]
A
I say that we have tried it and no steps can be taken without dealing with the important issue. Now I'm not saying that tomorrow that we take less than one generation, but at least we have to declare our own utopia. In that respect. Our government is making a mistake. There is no danger in claiming our aim is two states for two people, but here is our conditions, the condition that we would like to see as litmus test for the intentions of the Palestinian. We can state it in the open, there's no danger in stating them. So that's what I advocate.
- [44:46]
B
Okay, Judea, we will leave it there. Thank you for this conversation, not only your views on contemporary issues, but the backdrop for how you arrived at these views based on the experience that you've actually lived through this entire now almost a century. That you were front row seat for the development, the implementation, the practical development of the Zionist idea at work both in the land of Israel and at work as the center of this big, heated, noisy, contentious debate internationally is refreshing. We should be doing this more and more, taking a step back and having the perspective of people like you. So I thank you for taking us through not only your views, but your own history.
- [45:27]
A
Thank you very much for having me. Dan.
- [45:39]
B
That's our show for today. If you value the Call Me Back podcast and you want to support our mission, please subscribe to our weekly members only show, Inside Call Me Back. Inside Call Me Back is where Nadavael, Amit Segal and I respond to challenging questions from listeners and have the conversations that typically occur after the cameras stop rolling. To subscribe, please follow the link in the show notes or you can go to arkmedia.org that's ark media.org call me back is produced and edited by Lon Benatar. Arc Media's Executive producer is Adam James Levin. Already our Production manager is Brittany Cohn. Our Community Manager is Ava Wiener. Sound and video editing by Liquid Audio. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.