Inrerlocutor: Bassam, perhaps it would be fair to begin this second round with you. Before we departed from the first half of the symposium, Prof. Plaut charged that are trying to justify Arab mass atrocities against Jews and that you also overlook the reality that there are no Arab countries where civil rights are better protected than in Israel. He also asks that if Israel returned to its 1949 boundaries, would you then be willing to accept Israel as a legitimate sovereign state with rights to self-defense? Fell free now to respond to some of these themes. 

Haddad: Thanks Jamie.

Mr. Plaut’s diatribe is truly offensive to most sensibilities and intended to incite and spew the kind of racism that considers all Arabs a monolith and less than human. I cannot descend to this level nor do I share such racist views of any people on earth. Further, the arguments presented earn an F, overall, because they are premised on the stale/infantile argument that if you criticize Israel, you’re an anti-semite. Please!

First, it is not only (most) “Arabs” who share the views I outlined regarding Israel’s apartheid policies of ethnic cleansing, brutal military occupation tactics, and illegal settlements: it is the overwhelming majority of the international community and the global population, including nearly all human rights organizations (from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch), the United Nations (with more than 68 resolutions condemning Israel, supported by consistent majorities), an increasingly significant segment of Israeli and European/American Jews, and virtually all nation states on earth (the only two consistent exceptions, to Israel’s credit, were Apartheid South Africa and the United States—though even the U.S. acknowledges the illegality of settlements and is critical of Israel’s “excesses” here and there).

Even The Economist magazine, hardly a bastion of the left or the preferences of the global south, title’s its current lead article on the issue: “IT’S THE SETTLEMENTS, STUPID: WHAT GEORGE BUSH SHOULD SAY TO ARIEL SHARON.” Please visit the websites of all aforementioned institutions and read the world press to confirm or rebut all the above (don’t listen to either myself or Mr. Plaut). There are anti-semites in this world, just like there are racists against Arabs or Americans or Indians. But, please, Mr. Plaut, stick to the arguments and don’t insult the readers’ intelligence by the cynical association of anti-semitism with criticisms of Israel, or with “Arabs.” People are reading more these days.

Mr. Plaut and I seem to agree on one point: Arab populations suffer from lack of civil rights under autocratic regimes, many of which are supported by the United States (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, among others). These countries, along with Israel, are condemnable for violations of human rights, and the U.S. Government should stop aiding them financially or supporting them otherwise. Our tax dollars are better spent here at home than to spare $4 billion/year to fund Israel’s occupation, illegal settlements, daily home demolitions, killing of civilians (often with Apache helicopters), shooting of children in the back, and humiliating pregnant women at checkpoints, on a daily bases (see www.sustaincampaign.org). It should do the same with Egypt’s $2.5 billion/year. Palestinian resistance is borne out of such daily Israeli atrocities and humiliation associated with Israel’s illegal, immoral, and apartheid-like occupation since 1967. Moreover, Israeli Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, don’t enjoy the same rights as Israeli Jews, as Mr. Plaut Knows well. That is because they belong to the wrong religion.

Countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Taliban’s Afghanistan, and Israel who privilege one religion for one reason or another will always have trouble with their own as well as with their neighboring populations. In the 21st century, no group of people should be treated as second class citizens, whether this is prescribed (or interpreted to be prescribed) by a state, ideology, religion, or God, and this should apply to all forms of rule. Under conditions of equality, I welcome Mr. Plaut’s restoration of the partition plan between Palestinians and Israelis, for both people are deserving of sovereignty, equality, and dignity. So far, however, all these qualities are denied to the Palestinians by a state headed by a world-renowned criminal who is committed to their subjugation (note the telling fact that Sharon is paradoxically emerging as a “moderate”). The corrupt leadership of Arafat and Abu Mazen is his conterpart, hardly a formula for peace. Ultimately, the language of Mr. Plaut belies any serious commitment to applying similar standards to both Palestinians and Israelis, as though Israel does not have its own extremists, demagogues, and baby-killers. I suggest going back to the original topic of this discussion (the Road Map) if we are to have some productive communication, now that Mr. Plaut and myself have had two chances each to dispel one another’s “myths.”

Plaut: AH, the Orwellism of the claims of Islamofascism! I would like Mr. Haddad and Mr. Turaani to deal with these facts:

 [1] The Arab countries have been trying nonstop since 1948 to destroy Israel and its population and have perpetrated nonstop aggression and wars, and then they whine that the Arabs are being mistreated by those awful retaliating Jews.    Should we laugh or cry?

[2] The fundamental cause of the Mideast conflict is Arab anti-Jewish racism and Arab refusal to accept Israels very existence.

[3]  Arabs living under Israeli rule are treated a thousand times better than Arabs living under Arab rule and ten thousand times better than non-Arab minorities are treated by Arab states.

[4] The Arab members of this discussion declined to accept my challenge  to state in which borders they would accept Israel as a legitimate state with the right to self-defense and to avenge terrorist attacks upon it. Their refusal speaks volumes.

[5]  The Palestinians forfeited any claims they might have had to a right  to a 23rd Arab state through a century of atrocities.

[6]   Even if all the charges against Israel by the Arabs were correct, and of course none are, that would still not justify Arab terrorism and attacks on Israel nor negate Israel's rights to retaliate and defend itself.

[7] The Palestinians are as entitled to self-determination as were the Sudeten Germans in 1939 and in 1945.   In other words, not at all. Like the Sudetens, demands for their "self-determination" are disguised aggression by fascist states with genocidal ambitions against a democracy.

[8] Israel is not occupying Palestinian lands, but Jewish lands.   The PLO was foolishly allowed to occupy Jewish lands in the West Bank and Gaza by Israel as part of the Oslo Accords.   Since the PLO has violated those and murdered 1300, the solution is for Israel to Re-Occupy and Denazify those areas.

Spector:  Let me reiterate some of my earlier points because I would really like to know what the other guests have to say about them:

[1] There are “victims” on both sides of the Green Line, and they do not include Hamas or Islamic Jihad homicide bombers—whom both the US and Canadian governments classify as terrorists.  The “inalienable right to resist occupation” does not include blowing up mothers and babies in pizzerias.  Human Rights Watch says such actions are “crimes against humanity,” and that nothing justifies them.

[2] The century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict pre-dates settlements which,  therefore, are not its root.  Nor did the Oslo agreement prohibit settlement construction, as Arafat’s partner in the “peace of the brave” made clear from the outset.

[3]  It’s the Palestinians and Arab countries, not Israel, who regard the US role as indispensable.  It’s an illusion to believe that any US government will impose a terrorist-harbouring state beside Israel in a territory that’s 2/3 the size of Vancouver Island.

[4] Sari Nusseibeh has correctly noted that, if they truly believe in a two state solution, Palestinians will have to give up the demand (what Mr. Haddad calls an “unalienable right”) that refugees and their descendants return to the Jewish state. 

Bottom line?  The root of the conflict is Palestinian/Arab non-acceptance of the legitimacy of a Jewish state between the river and the sea.  That land must be partitioned into two states, as the UN voted in 1947, because it is the ancestral homeland of two peoples.   Peace will come when both peoples accept the legitimacy of the other’s aboriginal claim to the land.  And it will come through negotiations, not violence.  The onus is on the Palestinians to stop the violence, because theirs is offensive while Israel’s is defensive.

Haddad: All forms of colonization, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing have had their arsenal of intellectuals who rationalize their underlying racism. How else could a state like Israel justify its apartheid-like 36-year occupation of Palestine if not by dehumanizing Palestinians/Arabs (as Mr. Plaut tries relentlessly) and posing as the victim? Not once did Mr. Plaut acknowledge the humanity or diversity of Palestinians.

Mr. Plaut makes problematic assertions. Again, the overwhelming majority of humanity and its organizations condemn Israel’s Apartheid-like policies, perhaps even for the long term benefit of Israelis themselves. As a state, Israel is internationally recognized as the expansionist intruder (now occupying the West Bank, Gaza, Jerusalem, the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Lebanese Shib`a territory), the powerful aggressor (few take Israel’s vulnerability seriously), and the dispossessor, ever since it existed in 1948 on land that had an overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs who had to be necessarily dispossessed in the hundreds of thousands, to be replaced by European immigrants for the most part.

When Palestinians retaliate and try to affirm their rights, people like Mr. Plaut describe them as violent aggressors who, as he states in dangerously fascist language above, do not deserve self-determination. Just as rapists complain that their victims are resisting violently, Likudists want total submission and self-denial from their victim. This, will never happen, as all observers know well.

How can civilized people reason with such bigotry? Who would ever deny a whole people the right to self determination? Have “intellectuals” not learned anything from the horrific acts of Nazi Germany regarding the dangers of dehumanizing entire groups of people?

I hope Mr. Plaut is not passing this kind of denial of the “other” to future Israeli generations (nor any Palestinian passing similar racist convictions to their own). Both Israelis and Palestinians should have the right to exist with full sovereignty side by side (or under a unified secular democracy where all are equal), according to mutually recognized borders. More B’Tselem, less Plaut!

As for Mr. Spector’s comments, I made it clear that a mutually recognized two-state solution is acceptable, but I resent his putting the onus on the Palestinians who are daily faced with the horrors of occupation. To make matters worse, and his argument infinitely partisan, Mr. Spector claimed that Oslo did not explicitly address the settlements, and that is why they have increased dramatically on Palestinian land. Two points: first, this is one good reason why Arafat has been a flop regarding giving up Palestinian rights, and this Road Map is only a continuation of injustice that is more cynical in nature and that requires an even more complacent and desperate “leader” like Abbas (for reasons discussed already).

Secondly, Mr. Spector is basically saying that because Oslo was not explicit about ending internationally recognized illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land (which is supposed to be returned to Palestinians ultimately), then it is alright for him to defend them. What kind of “argument from power” is that? What kind of peace partners would subscribe to this disingenuous logic? And, in comparison to Mr. Plaut’s explicit racist remarks (regarding the other guests and the Palestinian people), Mr. Spector emerges as a moderate among supporter of Israel!

Finally, regarding the issue of suicide bombers, it is of utmost importance to hold successive Israeli governments directly responsible for such actions and other savagery committed by the Israeli Defense Forces on daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for which desperate and completely hopeless youth retaliate. The complaints of rapists regarding the retaliation of victims cannot be separated from the act of rape, no matter how reprehensible both actions might be. Let me remind you that the official Israeli army (not desperate/hopeless Israeli youth) have deliberately killed many, many times more Palestinian children, women, and babies, and all that while Israel occupied their land, not vice versa. We have to get the causal chain right: no justice, no peace. The Road Map wants peace without justice. Only Israel’s military might allows it to be racist, brutal, and arrogant, with impunity. Only genuine peace based on equality and mutual respect of rights will disarm extremism on both sides. The simple fact is that successive Israeli governments have felt too powerful to be concerned with justice. But this is changing.

Spector: Contrary to Mr. Haddad’s analysis, Israel’s post-67 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, which replaced that of Jordan and Egypt, is the result, not the cause of the century old Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  I WISH TO SEE BOTH END.

The formula is land for peace; if Mr. Haddad believes the roadmap is unjust and not the route to go, I’m sure he will find many Israelis who share his view.  Far be it for me, as a Canadian, to try to persuade him otherwise.

I am fairly certain, however, that the Palestinians will not achieve their objectives through violence. Both Egypt and Jordan were able to recuperate the lands they lost in the 1967 war because their leaders persuaded a majority of Israelis that they wanted to live in peace. For Palestinians to do likewise, they will have to disarm those, like Hamas, who are not fighting the 1967 occupation, but against the mere existence of a Jewish state on territory they believe is a waq’f—or sacred Muslim trust.  And, it will require those like Mr. Haddad, who believe that Israel is a dispossessor, to recognize the right of the Jewish people—as well as the Palestinians-to self-determination in its ancestral homeland.

Finally, while characterizing my argument as “infinitely partisan,” I note he does not dispute the statement that Oslo did not prohibit settlement construction.  And let’s be clear:  Settlers have an aboriginal right to live in Bethlehem, as Arabs do in Jaffa—and some now do.  But I recognize that a two-state solution means that Jews will have to abandon their homes in the West Bank.  However, it also means—as Sari Nusseibeh has eloquently explained—that Palestinians will have to drop the demand that refugees and their descendants should have the right to live in Israel.

Haddad: I must contest Mr. Spector’s claim. The Palestine-Israel conflict began when Zionist thinking and organizing made it an explicit goal to migrate and inhabit the land we call Palestine and necessarily displace/dispossess local populations (which included Christians, Muslims, and Jews, living together in relative peace). Early “realist” announcements by Zionists, including Ben Gurion, attested to the fact that it is impossible for the state of Israel to be created without “somehow” doing away with the Arab population there, by establishing “revolutionary conditions,” i.e., expulsion of indigenous Palestinians (800,000 were expelled). The dispossession, wholesale burning of villages, and massacres of Palestinians in 1948 and beyond by Israeli forces and gangs (e.g., Stern, Irgun) was a start. Zionist aspirations could not have possibly been realized without erasing a large part of Palestinian history. Hence, the requisite dehumanization of Palestinians.

This converges nicely with the question of the right to return for Palestinians, a crucial sticking point in the Road Map: Israel refuses the right of return precisely because it makes it impossible for Israel to exist in its present form as an exclusivist state where Muslim and Christians are second class citizens. Rewind to 1948: the same result had to be achieved to establish the Zionist state. Can we blame Israelis? Who can live with this memory? If Mr. Sari Nussaybah wants to drop the right of return, then good for him. The four million or so Palestinian refugees don’t.

Finally, I don’t know how many times Mr. Spector wants me to acknowledge the same rights for Jews as for Palestinians. I wonder, is it because he can’t fathom how a supporter of Palestinian rights is not a racist? We have to be sober, Mr. Spector, the problem today is that Israel would not recognize the same rights for Palestinians. And regarding “violence,” I and perhaps all Palestinians are for its elimination. The question is, my friend, can Israel persist in its military occupation without violence: occupation is the most devastating/ongoing form of violence, even before the bombs drop and the water is cut off and settlements are built and movement is controlled and people are humiliated. Welcome to occupied Palestine!

Interlocutor: Prof. Plaut, why don’t you take the last word?

Plaut: Thank you Jamie.

Let me conclude just by making a few points: everyone knows that Islamofascism's war against Israel's existence, which began in 1948 when there were no "occupied Israeli territories" nor Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, is motivated by genocidal Arab racism.  What became clear on September 11 and recently in Morocco was that Islamofascism is NOT a war between civilizations but rather a war against civilization by barbarism.

The treatment of ethnic and religious minorities by Arab fascism are on display this week in Iraq's killing fields, yet Haddad has no interest in that and whines that Israelis are insensitive to the 'Other', showing how easily Islamofascists can co-opt post-modernist campus Newspeak.  Slavery is still widely practiced in Arab countries, as is feudalism, but Haddad thinks Israel should be destroyed and its population annihilated because Israel is insufficiently egalitarian.   Haddad thinks Israel is an "apartheid state", but where the main forms of ethnic discrimination there are conscription to the military ONLY of Jews and not of Arabs and of course where pro-Arab affirmative action preferences are instituted by the Israeli government. 

Haddad continues to use words to mean their Orwellistic opposite.  Israel was and is an aggressor against the Arabs in precisely the same way that Germany was the victim of Czechoslovakian aggression in 1939 or that the Taliban was the victim of US aggression after September 11.

Interlocutor: Khalid, Bassam, Norman and Stephen, it was a pleasure to have you here. We are out of time. Thank you for joining us. We will see you again soon. 

To See Part I of the Ashcroft Symposium CLICK HERE