CPAC debate on Israel: Max Blumenthal and Mira Sucharov (unoffical transcription)

Moderator (Rebecca Schein): Okay so I'm honored to be the moderator here. I look forward to a really thoughtful discussion from two really principled careful thinkers on this issue. So what we're going to do is we're going to start with Max Blumenthal, then Mira Sucharov. Each will talk for 10 or 12 minutes, then they'll have some time to engage with each other for a little bit. We also have volunteers who have been collecting questions from the audience. So I think there's papers probably still going around. Those will be passed to the front. And when we get to the question time we should have quite a lot of time for questions. They'll get passed to me and I will direct them to the appropriate speaker, possibly both of them, depending. If you would like your name to be said, if you would like your name to be associated with a question or comment, feel free to put it an affiliation if you'd like. If not you can just leave it blank. I think that's about it, so, without further ado, I'll turn things over to Max.

Max Blumenthal: Thanks. Thanks to IJV for having me here. I'm really tired. So I hope you'll give me a few liberties. And if I start arguing that Israel can exist as a Jewish and democratic state I hope you'll wake me up because I'm sleepwalking and the Ambien hasn't worn off yet. I notice that my arrival comes on the heels of the arrival to this country of someone who probably shouldn't have been let in, named Moshe Feiglin. Who was welcome to Chabad/Lubavitch house; by not only the Jewish Defense League which is identified by the FBI in my country as a violent extremist organization and which has lobbed numerous death threats against me on Twitter but also what I believe is the Toronto Zionist Council. I noticed that there was an attempt by IJV to have this character who has expressed admiration for Adolph Hitler, who has said that he supports price tag terrorist attacks against Palestinians and supports destroying the Dome of the Rock to make it a Jewish space, who supports ethnic cleansing in the entire West Bank to turn all land between the river and the sea into a Jews-only theocracy, this character was welcomed by elements of the Jewish community in Toronto and I heard very little outcry from within those quarters. I noticed very little outcry from within those quarters about his presence.

Of course these were right wing groups but we have to look at who is pushing back, it was primarily Jewish dissidents from IJV. Mira Sucharov who is a very principled and widely respected academic on this issue, is widely published, who cares deeply about the fate of Israelis and Palestinians, has been barred, by her synagogue, for promoting this event because it includes me. And IJV and the poster. Mira has been prevented by the local Jewish paper in Ottawa for which she regularly writes from mentioning me. It's like how Cubans refer to Fidel as just by doing this [hand gesture], or IJV. And so we see an ardent Zionist who is committed to Israel as a Jewish state falling victim to the Zionist gag rule. As so many other dissident thinkers have. As I have throughout my book tour. As pro-Israel organizations have worked to cancel my events before they happen. And she is fallen victim to the Zionist gag rule simply for advocating an open dialogue, simply for embracing democratic values. This says something about the state of the mainstream Jewish establishment and pro-Israel organizing in North America right now. Something very troubling that reflects the situation in Israeli society. And in as many ways -- in many ways being propelled by Netanyahu and his allies.

I am a Marxist. I'm a Groucho Marx-ist. I wouldn't be part of any club that would have me. And you know that's not a problem when it comes to the mainstream Jewish community. I wind up mostly speaking in churches and mosques about my views and my reporting, on my book. On Israeli society. And you know what? I really have no interest in being inside the Jewish tent. I have no interest in working within the mainstream Jewish establishment. I don't believe that it is possible to tell the truth about what's happening in Israel/Palestine within those sectors. And I actually don't believe that it's possible for Jews to actually sincerely pursue justice within the current Jewish tent which is built on a scaffolding funded by plutocrats and which revolves around an identity, that holds Israeli apartheid as sacrosanct and above reproach. So I want to talk about the real facts on the ground. I want to talk about the reality. That's what I'm here to do tonight. And I think we really owe Mira a big round of applause for agreeing to sit on the stage and present an alternative viewpoint and allow you guys to make up your own minds and draw your own conclusions. And with that, cheer. [Applause]

I want to make another point before I get into the heart of the argument which is that we're debating whether Israel's a democracy and we do need to sincerely debate whether Canada is a democracy and whether the United States is a democracy. We need to ask these questions when people like Omar Khadr are sitting in Guantanamo Bay and are denied justice on the basis of secret evidence. On the basis of laughable charges. A fifteen year old boy who was picked up who it appears is not guilty of the crimes for which he is accused. Who could be held -- and who is currently indefinitely detained without any legal relief. We need to ask this question about the United States and Rasmea Odeh is on the verge of having her citizenship stripped. She's -- this is the woman who was brutally sexually assaulted in an Israeli prison, spent fifteen years there for being accused of involvement in terrorist activity. And has been a model of community activism in Chicago. And now is having her past dredged up again after helping so many people in Chicago, and may be stripped of her citizenship and will join the ranks of the more than two million deported by Barack Obama's racist war on immigrants which calls into question the United States' democratic charter. There are so many people like Rasmea and like Omar Khadr in our countries. So I think we need to avoid essentializing Israel as uniquely unjust. The way I see it is that Israel is the most severe image of ourselves and a warning of what we could become if we allow ourselves to go there, if we're not constantly vigilant, if we don't embrace truly democratic values against the likes of Stephen Harper and Barack Obama. [Applause]

I'm a Jew. And that means a lot in terms of this debate. It means I have more rights inside the land of Israel/Palestine, inside a land which is completely controlled between the river and the sea by Israeli authority, than any Palestinian alive, simply because of the circumstances of my birth. Simply because I am deemed to posses J positive blood. And that says a lot about Israel's claim to uphold democracy while being a Jewish state. There have been warnings about the crisis that we're witnessing unfold before our eyes. Ever since the beginning of the introduction of political Herzelian Zionism during the Second Aliyah in 1893 to Historic Palestine. From the finest Jewish minds we've ever known: Hannah Arendt, Hana Sol [sp?], Judah Magnes, Ahad Ha'am. And these figures have always been thrown out of the Jewish tent and ignored, their words and their warnings about the coming catastrophe or sheer prophecy. They warned that a Jewish state would require a strong Jewish demographic majority which would require ethnic cleansing because there was no Jewish majority in the land of Historic Palestine prior to 1947 to 1948. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the forefather of revisionist Zionism who always advocated a Jewish state, even when the labor Zionists concealed their true goals, understood this as well from a totally different perspective and so in his "Iron Wall" -- his 1923 essay which I consider to be the seminal document of Zionism and which explains Israel's entire policy of strategic deterrence towards Palestinians and the Arab world -- he wrote "Zionist colonization, even the most restricted must be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population, an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is in toto our policy towards the Arabs."

Some 14 years later following the British Peel Commission David Ben-Gurion, who was the head of the Zionist labor unions, accepted Jabotinsky's Iron Wall as the policy that the entire Zionist movement would pursue towards Arabs. He accepted it after the Arab revolt and he told his son Amos in 1937 we must expel the Arabs and take their places. And if we have to use force, not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Trans Jordan but to guarantee our own right to settle in those places, then we will have force at our disposal. By the time Ben-Gurion signed the Declaration of Independence on May 15 1948 over two hundred Palestinian villages had already been destroyed. This is well before the entry of the major armies -- Arab armies into what is now Israel. There was a deliberate orchestrated plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians in order to produce a Jewish majority and produce a Jewish state, which was the only way it could have happened. And 750,000 people were turned into refugees, forcibly expelled between 194*7* [emphasis] and 1948 in what is known as the Nakba. And they are not allowed to return because they're not Jews and for no other reason. So while many of you -- those of you who consider yourselves Zionists probably oppose the right of return, but you don't oppose the right of return of Syrian refugees who have been expelled by Bashar Al-Assad. You didn't oppose the right of return of ethnic Albanians according to the US led Dayton Accords by Slobidan Milozovic and his thugs. You didn't -- you don't oppose of Congolese refugees. But you oppose the right of return of this one group simply because they're not Jews. That is moral hypocrisy and you need to straighten that out with yourselves.

The Nakba transfer committee was led by David Ben-Gurion and members of the Labor Zionist establishment. The right-wingers who control Israel today had very little role in the Nakba. They had very little role in the first anti-democratic laws which were introduced in order to consolidate Israel's Jewish majority like the absentee property law which put all Palestinian property into the hands of Jews only. We're talking about thousands and thousands of structures and farms. If you go to Ein Hod, this village in northern Israel that I wrote about in my book you will find a Jews-only village inside the homes of Palestinians who live three kilometers away. In what had until 2006 been an unrecognized village that was unable to receive public services. Those people could not return to their homes which are now bucolic art studios because they're not Jews. That's not democracy.

The Prevention of Infiltration Act turned all Palestinian refugees in 1953 who attempted to return to their homes in return for their property into not refugees but infiltrators. And it has been updated and amended to apply to 60,000 non-Jewish African refugees in Israel. To deny them refugee rights under the 1951 Convention on Refugee Rights and allow for their expulsion but first to allow for their indefinite detention in a desert internment center for as long as three years without any charge except for the crime of not being Jewish. Israel is unable to embrace the lessons of the Holocaust. The lessons which compel us to give shelter to refugees who face genocide because it has to maintain its character as a Jewish state.

We see Israel constantly taking measures to limit the Palestinian population in undemocratic and violent fashion. And whether it's the uprooting of 800,000 olive trees since 1967 or, we just watched last week, 1,500 Palestinian fruit trees uprooted at the Bethlehem tent of nations. This is occurring every day. Or the Prawer Plan to expel 40- to 70,000 indigenous Bedouins who are citizens of the State of Israel, and who often serve in the Israeli army from their ancestral land in the Negev desert and force them into one of five Indian reservations. An open plan of expulsion. These are plans to limit the number of Palestinians who live under Israeli control. And ghettoize them. And keep them out of Israeli hands. Keep them from obtaining full citizenship rights. We see various measures put into place all under the logic of demographic control. Whether it's the separation wall which according to Netanyahu is imposed not for security reasons necessarily, but to limit -- to prevent demographic spillover -- in his words. Or the Gaza withdrawal, which according to its architect Arnon Soffer of Haifa University was done to improve the Jewish demographic majority, not for security reasons. The two-state solution is another means of limiting the number of Palestinians by confining them to what Soffer calls four sausages: the four main Palestinian population centers. I call them bantustans. You can call them Indian reservations. And allow settlements to grow all around them. There has not been one single plan offered to the Palestinians which calls for the withdrawal of the major Israeli settlement blocs which contain 80% of the settlement population, and sit on top of the Palestinian aquifer which accounts for 85% of the water supply to the West Bank.

So we see attempts to violently engineer a demographic Jewish majority in order to maintain a Jewish state causing enormous harm and misery for the indigenous Palestinian population. And transforming young Jewish Israelis into loyal occupation soldiers, not good democratic citizens. Zionism and the Jewish state have been a prison for Palestinian bodies and Jewish minds. And with that I will close my comments. [Applause]

Mira Sucharov: Thank you to Max and thank you to IJV for inviting me to engage in this important dialogue/conversation. I will be arguing that a Jewish and democratic state in Israel is compatible with maintaining a cultural minority within it. And granting and upholding that minority's full rights, on the individual, communal, religious, cultural level. I wanted to start with a little anecdote/insight. Going through some pictures -- old photos -- this week -- I don't usually have any paper photos to look at anymore so I was relishing the feel of Kodak paper, and I found a picture from about 20 years ago of me -- what might be called a selfie nowadays but our arms weren't long enough in the days of conventional cameras. I was in an orange grove on one of the kibbutzim that I spent a lot of time on in my twenties in Israel in a kibbutz issued blue cotton clothing, ripped in all the right places, soft in all the other places, and I was grinning from ear to ear, and I recall that I was feeling like I was one in the line of Jewish Hebrew pioneers. I was reclaiming the Jewish communal identity. I was reliving the idea of -- that Zionist philosopher Max Nordau said when he said that Jews should become a Jewry of muscle. They should change themselves from withered, Yeshiva-studying pale people of the Book into people of the Book and the plough. Now of course when I look at this today, in 2014, I wasn't unaware of this at the time but of course decades of studying and immersing myself in these issues make me see something else in the photo. I see watermark. And it's a watermark of the Palestinian narrative as well. And it's a water mark of how the Israeli, Zionist, Jewish narrative of pioneering is heard. So what I'm going to talk about tonight is how certain things are said within some circles and heard very differently within others.

Now, I will argue that being a Jewish and democratic state is not an oxymoron. When we hear articles critical of Israel ask things like "Is Israel a Jewish and democratic state or is Israel a state of all its citizens?" I will reject that dichotomy as being a false dichotomy. I will say it can be both. And part of how I will advance that argument tonight is by arguing for something we know a lot about in Canada -- we don't always get it right -- but I will advocate rather than for a flattening, rather than an assimilation, rather than a one-state solution I will be arguing for a more robust multiculturalism within what is today Israel coupled with the rise of the Palestinian state within what is today the West Bank and Gaza.

Now, two caveats. One is that when we talk about a Jewish democracy we cannot logically be thinking of Jewish in a theocratic way. And of course I know this is very complicated. We all know this is complicated. Because Jews are not only a religion, they're also a national group, they're also a people, and as much as they're also a national group they're also a religion. We all know that one can convert to become Jewish, and when one converts that's done under the auspices of religion. Now, we will talk about that as being one of the fundamental contradictions in the idea of Jewish sovereignty and Jewish nationhood but we'll also talk about it as perhaps a saving grace.

Second caveat is that as much as I will argue that Israel can and is both a Jewish state and a democracy, I will be advocating very strongly for necessary legal reforms. Not all laws that are on the books in Israel today are as democratic as they should be. And I'm glad that Max mentioned Canada and the US because what we're really talking about here is not only nominal, categorizations of what kinds of states are democracies and what kinds aren't. The kind that political scientists do when we're trying to do large studies, statistical studies. Is it A or is it B we got to fit it into a slot. What we're talking about tonight is in the realm of ideals.

So first on narratives and symbols. What does it mean when Jews talk about -- and Zionists' pioneering spirit -- talk about the term Hebrew labor. You know when I heard that term? Particularly in the early era that Max was referring to. It's a controversial term. It wasn't controversial for me when I was sitting in an olive grove. Ah, Freudian slip. I was sitting in an orange grove planted by Israel. I was far from any olive grove planted by Palestinians. Actually it's an important Freudian slip. We can mine that later. I'm going to note it. And it's relevant! Okay?

Okay. Orange grove. I was thinking that I was reclaiming the Jewish nation through Hebrew labor. In Hebrew, avodah Ivrit. When Palestinians hear that term now and when historian of the Palestinians hear that term they hear something quite different. They hear that Jews, Zionists, early settlers, to early immigrants, and settlers to what was then Palestine, were sidelining Palestinian laborers in favor of employing only Jews. Jews within their narrative, Zionists within their narrative were trying not to be a colonial oppressor exploiting cheap labor was not part of the ontology of Zionism. It was about self-sufficiency and independence.

Again, two narratives that are heard quite differently. Demographic threat. Now Max you didn't say the term demographic threat. But you did say different things about demography, particularly in the Jabotinsky period. Today you hear democratic -- demographic threat out of the peace movement in Israel. It falls with a thud on Palestinian ears and on supporters of the Palestinian cause. Now when Israelis and Zionists talk about the demographic threat they're really getting at one thing. The idea that Israel must withdraw from the West Bank. And well Gaza we can talk about that, it's a bit more of a nuanced situation. They must withdraw from the West Bank. Otherwise they're going to be ruling over a majority that is not only not Jewish -- that's not necessarily the key thing here for me -- but it is also of course they're not all citizens. So there's a very, very tricky situation going on now. We'll get to that when we talk about endgames. And the law of return when Israelis say the law of return meaning that any Jew with J positive blood as Max said -- but again you can convert to become a Jew so it isn't all about DNA -- any Jew can land at Ben-Gurion airport and claim citizenship. It's not so for non-Jews. It's not so for Palestinians. It's a lot more difficult if you're not Jewish to immigrate to Israel. Israelis and Jews -- diaspora Jews -- hear that as in-gathering of the exiles. As protection, ­­­-as bringing a collective hug -- hugs are very current these days right? "hug it out, hug it out" -- bring a collective hug, bringing Jews together. Palestinians think of it as denial of the [emphasis] right of Palestinian refugees. We'll talk about that.

Now, about the legal reform. There is a common -- anyone know how many laws that are considered discriminatory against Arabs. There's a number that's thrown around of Arab citizens, of Palestinian citizens of Israel. There's a number that's thrown around. Judith Butler has quoted it in her speech. Lots of people. Does anyone have the idea of the number off the top of their head? [Audience member: 53?] 50 some -- 53 -- okay 50. Okay? Around. Thank you. This number is 50. I went through some of those laws. They're on the NGO website Adalah, an NGO devoted to improving civil liberties particularly for Palestinian citizens of Israel. Most, many, a lot of these laws are maybe considered discriminatory in effect but not in intention. There is a very important distinction. For instance -- or not discriminatory at all. Two of the laws, for instance -- actually three of the laws -- here's three out of about a list of 50 or 53: one is that Israel has a shield of David -- a star of David on its flag, one is that the Israeli national stamp has a menorah (seven tiered candelabra), and one is that official Israeli government correspondents have to include the Hebrew date. Now if that is discriminatory, then the flag of Australia, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, U.K. Are all discriminatory against non-Christians. If that is discriminatory then any time I see May 22 written, I as a Jew might feel discriminated against because it's not in the Jewish calendar. And so on, you get the idea. So the point here is that -- the bigger point here isn't to pick on this NGO, Adalah. The bigger point here is: Is the promotion of a cultural identity inherently discriminatory against those who aren't part of that culture or linguistic heritage group. So when an English-speaking country wants to promote its literature, wants to work on revisions to the Oxford English Dictionary, wants to build grand libraries and promote a theater festivals is that discriminatory to those whose heritage does not fall under that linguistic or other cultural system? This is the question we're dealing with tonight. There's a law that if you don't vaccinate your kids, you're not entitled to child allowances. Is that discriminatory? Now Adalah says that it's discriminatory because it mainly affects the Bedouin populations who live in the so-called unrecognized villages. It's an Israeli government term in the Negev region that Max alluded to.

So in effect if there's a problem for a particular population. But again you have to talk about what is necessary legally to do and what is necessary socially, economically, and culturally. And it is my belief that both legal reforms are possible -- there's my timer, saved you a job, I'll finish in one minute -- both legal reforms are possible and where social and economic improvements need to be enacted. Those are possible too. So laws that should be changed. Admissions committees for whether you have to suit to fulfill socially suitable criteria to live in these sort of gated communities. Things like that need to be changed. Uneven funding for Palestinian and Jewish school systems need to be changed. I'll just end on one point and the question is, when we're talking about justice, whose justice? Are we talking about justice for Palestinian refugees only? Are we talking about justice for the idea of Jewish national sovereignty? How do we reconcile those claims that seem on their face to be incompatible but I think they're very much not. And we'll get into that in the subsequent questions Thank you. [Applause]

Moderator: Okay each of the speakers will now have about five minutes to respond to one another.

Max Blumenthal: Thanks. I want to move beyond the idea of narratives and move towards the reality on the ground. I said in the beginning that I wanted to talk about facts on the ground and not how different groups perceive things. I don't think it's actually possible to have your own private Zionism. You have to acknowledge what Zionism means in practice. And we have to talk about what it means in practice for Palestinians and Israeli Jews just in fact, not in how it's perceived.

So Mira mentioned some laws that are not particularly discriminatory, at least in her view, that are mentioned on Adalah's website -- register -- of anti-democratic and racist Israeli laws, that have been introduced and passed by the Knesset. Adallah is the main legal rights organization for the Arab minority in Israel. A minority that is not recognized by the state of Israel. No minority group is recognized by the state of Israel. If you look at Israeli forms they refer to members of minorities. The government will not recognize a national minority. That is part of the platform of the Balad party whose members are under constant surveillance because the -- and have been twice barred by the central elections committee of Israel for advocating for a state of all its citizens. Which former Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin wrote in a letter in 2007 to the Balad party was tantamount to the destruction. So that's the reality. That's how the government of the state of Israel views a state of all its citizens. It views it as tantamount to the destruction of the Jewish state. This year Adalah charted 39 laws proposed and/or passed by the Knesset which were anti-democratic or racist in nature. And you can go on their website and see that these laws extend well beyond the 50 laws that are already on the books. And they're not about national symbols. And by the way if there was a Christian cross on the US flag me and Abe Foxman would be marching down the street against that. [audience laughter] We wouldn't like it too much. [Applause].

We didn't mention -- Mira didn't mention the Acceptance to Communities Law which was passed, it's on the books, which allows communities of under 500 to discriminate on the basis of race and religion, ethnicity, two things that are kind of bundled together in Israel. 

The Nakba law which punishes municipalities to participate in observances of the Nakba, it's an attack on free speech. It compelled Ofir Akunis, a Knesset Likud cabinet member, to declare on national TV in Israel that he believed McCarthy was right in every word. The Jewish National Fund law, the JNF law which was passed in I think 1964, well before the occupation, authorizes the Jewish National Fund or requires them to control 7 out of 13 seats on the Israel lands administration, which controls all the land in Israel The Jewish national fund already leases 20% of Israel’s land. And the Jewish national fund says on its website that its mission is to provide land for the Jewish people. In other words it's a Jews-only landlord. It's completely racist in nature. And this law consolidates its ability to control pretty much all the land within what's considered Israel proper.

Israel has no constitution, for various reasons. One reason is that the constitution might require you to set national borders, and if you accuse me of trying to destroy Israel I will require you to draw where Israel is. And you won't be able to do so because it has no -- it doesn't have internationally recognized borders. Ben-Gurion didn't want that, the current leadership doesn't want it because it's an expansionist settler colonial project. Those borders might be set sometime in the future when someone like Naftali Bennett the economics minister is able to fulfill his wish of annexing 60% of the West Bank. That's the reality. Those are facts. That's the reality we're dealing with. Netanyahu's proposed a new Basic Law -- and Israel uses Basic Laws in the place of its constitution, it's kind of making it up as it goes along -- this new basic law would place Israel’s Jewish character above, in a legal sense, its supposedly democratic charter. Netanyahu has said that this law which we need because of attempts to delegitimize Israel -- this is how he's justifying it -- will consolidate Israel’s estate for one people only and no other people. Those are Netanyahu's exact words. It's what he wants to do and so while I appreciate Mira calling for these in these reforms, the reality on the ground is you have a government which seeks to consolidate institutional discrimination in a very formal sense. I call it apartheid you can call it something else but you can't call it democracy. To call it democracy besmirches the very concept of democracy. [Applause]

Mira Sucharov: I like this term private Zionism. It can sort of be an indie film, "My Private Zionism." Question is, can you have an -ism of one, and you can't which I think is what you are trying to get at. That I can't create a Zionism that is comfortable just for me. But I would say that groups like the new Israel fund, groups like Amenu, Peace Now, including Canadian Friends for (sic) Peace Now, Americans for Peace Now, ACRI -- Association for Civil Rights in Israel,  B'Tselem. J Street. These are groups, a multitude of activists are becoming more and more vocal on the diaspora community world stage and Israeli civil society world stage in addition to parties like Meretz and wings within the labor party, that share the Zionist vision that I have outlined tonight. They also do not by any means share the vision of the government that you are critiquing and in that sense they would agree with you as do I. Am I allowed to agree with my interlocutor ?

Now I’m not so sure that Israel doesn't attempt to sustain a legal and institutionalized commitment to its minority. The 1965 broadcast law talked about promoting Zionist ideals of course Hebrew would now be spoken in with with very funny acts of inflections and if anyone was around in Israel during that period you'll recall that the kind of rolled R’s that the Israeli broadcasters used to use, but also in that same law said that the law was intended to promote Arabic language broadcasting. Is that you know just a shred of bread to the minority I don't know. But in 1965 certainly things were such that Israel didn't need to do that, right, unless there was some stated and felt, I would say commitment to bilingualism. That said there is a very minor law does need to be changed, in my opinion.

Hebrew and Arabic are both official languages Israel But should there be a discrepancy between the Hebrew and Arabic versions of the law, Hebrew law takes precedence. That in my opinion should be changed. In Canada there is no precedence between Canadian french laws. They are both deemed of equal stature. So these kind of legal reforms could be enacted. Now nakba law, JNF law, laws surrounding the JNF, military service benefits, acceptance to communities laws that max mentioned. Can all these laws be changed, amended, abolished if need be, while still retaining Israel’s Jewish and democratic character? I say yes. As long as you say yes they can be changed then we're not in the realm of undermining the very notion of Israel’s core identity. We're not in the realm of saying that Israel’s Jewish and democratic character is an oxymoron. Right now the association for civil rights in Israel has taken that acceptance to communities laws, those gated communities where they turn away non-Jews to live within their dates. It's taken that law to the supreme court. The supreme court is sitting on it right now and these groups are awaiting a decision. As long as the courts are there, and as long as there is a robust commitment to liberal democracy, even if particular members of Knesset or particular prime ministers, or particular coalition members would seek to roll that back, I believe that Israeli Jewish democracy can be saved. Gershom Gorenberg wrote a book a couple of years ago. It was shortlisted for major American Jewish book award and he in that book called for the abolishment of the JNF. Okay? It's not totally taboo within mainstream Jewish circles such that you would be shortlisted for an American Jewish book award to call for radical change with the Israel, and still retain its core Jewish and democratic character. It's true that Israel has no constitution partly maybe because Israel doesn't want to set its borders but I think that much predated that issue and it also has to do with the idea that Jewish law, halacha kind of hovers in the background more prominently for some politicians than for others. But Israel does have a series of basic laws. And I think we can more or less say that that is conceptually akin to a constitution. At some point it does become semantics. In 1992 there was a basic law of human dignity which outlined these the idea of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with freedoms and dignity.

Part of the issue of course here with a lot of these seemingly discriminatory acts -- max's book writes a very descriptive idea with some very biological -- I think I learned some things about the birds and the bees from that section, when you were being interviewed at Ben-Gurion airport and maybe you had an Israeli girlfriend that materialized in that interview as he wanted to gain quicker access.

Max Blumenthal: Imaginary Israeli girlfriend.

Mira Surachov: Imaginary Israeli girlfriend. And you might have young Israeli soldiers, right? As you proceeded and that got you through the gates more quickly, through Israeli security. And of course what's going on here. I’m not here to defend Israeli airport practices. I’m here to illuminate them as an ethnographer would, as an anthropologist, would. And of course what is going on is a concern with security. Though sympathetic with what Israel’s policies are I would say's concerned with, those objecting to Israel’s policies would say obsession with, either way there is the ontology of security which is a very different ontology from racism and ethnic supremacy. It's an ontology of fear more than it is an ontology of superiority.[Applause].

Moderator: I think while some questions make their way towards me I'll give each speaker another go round.

Max Blumenthal: I don't think that Nour Joudah posed a security threat on her way back to the Quaker school in Ramallah where her students were hoping to finish the semester. She is an Arab-American who has the same rights that I do in the United States. But was stopped at Ben-Gurion international airport and deported for 10 years without any security justification. I think that this was done in the name of maintaining a lawless occupation that is based on demographic control and racism. She is one of more than 100 Arab-Americans who have been deported by the State of Israel each year. And so to suggest that there's a security imperative behind that is to suggest that my neighbors and my friends are involved in violent terrorist activity and are not seeking to reunite with their families and their students and their classmates. And it reflects on Israel’s commitment to actual academic freedom which is -- takes often takes the form -- of scholasticide towards Palestinians . Deliberately bombing with precision guided weapons universities in Gaza, including the American university which sent several Fulbright scholars to the United States despite Israeli objections. The notion that liberalism and Zionism can coexist and be reconciled. These two states of mind is the only two state solution I know about right now. There's really no two state solution on the horizon . And I know that Mira and many of the organizations that she named want the best for Israelis and Palestinians. The problem is that given the political realities, especially inside Israel, and within our own countries, it's not going to come about to unless we take action on the outside. Emile Nakhleh who was a longtime CIA analyst, veteran academic who conceived the Palestinian vision of the two state solution which is actually rejected by what was then the Palestinian political establishment in 1970s, of the state in the West Bank and the Gaza strip -- recently wrote that it is physically and geographically impossible for a viable Palestinian state to take shape, and the Palestinians will have to abandon the concept of sovereignty and work on a rights-based approach. And it's that rights-based approach which is rooted in the tactic of BDS: boycott, divestment, and sanction. And it's really the only thing that I can think of that any of us can do to actually apply external pressure to provide some kind of momentum towards Palestinian rights, towards relief of this horrible suffering that we're witnessing before our very eyes, and open democratic space in Israeli society. It's why the veteran Israeli columnist Larry Derfner -- who is himself is a liberal Zionist -- said that he supports BDS as the last, best hope to save the two state solution. Meanwhile the organizations that Mira named have linked themselves to the US-led peace process which was conducted under John Kerry's watch, and allowed 50 new Israeli settlement units to be authorized every day and one Palestinian to be killed every 4.3 days, as the peace process always has since the beginning of the Oslo process. Hundreds of thousands of new, Jewish Israeli settlers have been moved into the West Bank beneath the cover of this unfair and unjust process.

We have to look at what's happening on both sides of the Green Line where, since 1967 according to the Israeli committee against home demolitions, over 26,000 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israeli forces. That in the Galilee the World Zionist Organization is seeking to balance the Arab population out by planting 100,000 Jewish colonists. And it's doing so inside the Green Line inside what Peter Beinart calls democratic Israel. It's something that I have heard very little objections to from the Zionist left, from Peace Now, and Meretz, which is so marginalized in the Knesset, has very little ability to do anything about it. Meanwhile current parties in the Knesset who have never been allowed to serve in an Israeli coalition government -- ever. The current head of the Yesh Atid party, Yair Lapid said that that he wouldn't allow Zoabis to to be in the government. Referring to Hanin Zoabis as the voice of all Arabs in Israel they are facing legislation which will nullify their presence in the Knesset, raising the electoral threshold to four seats. So this is the reality that's happening. We can't just say yes to peace we actually have to do something. You have a demand and then you have to mobilize and create external pressure to make that demand possible. To just say yes is like to embrace The Secret. You know, this book that was like the book of the month for the Oprah Winfrey book club. It reminds me of the whole 2008 Obama campaign where everyone believed that there was going to be some magical change and once Obama was elected they all just shrank away and let him continue his executive assassinations in the tribal hinterlands of Pakistan and let the NSA run wild. The antiwar movement disappeared. Students for Justice in Palestine came to the fore, has risen to the occasion, and they are leading the antiwar movement on campus. And they are leading the struggle I think to provide a just peace in Israel/Palestine. And I don't see any other means of getting there given that the peace process has been finally extinguished. We have to ring the alarm clock on apartheid and do something about it. [Applause]

Mira Sucharov: There's one law in the Adalah list of 50 that everyone here I assume has heard of, the law -- well we've already talked about it -- the law of return. That is the linchpin of those who believe that Israel is undemocratic. For allowing every Jew to show up at the airport and seek citizenship when non-Jews cannot. Let us roll that concept back a little bit. Democracy means being even and fair and free with in your borders to all your citizens. The law of return discriminates but it doesn't discriminate among current citizens. It discriminates among potential citizens. One might decry Israel’s immigration policy but it is not the same as discriminating against Israel’s current citizens.

Now there's another law that it is pretty annoying and frustrating for many Palestinian citizens. In spirit, it does discriminate against them but again not in the letter. The law is this: if a Palestinian Israeli citizen marries someone from a Palestinian from the west bank and wants to bring them to live as spouses do here she cannot. But no one, Jew or Palestinian can bring someone to live from the west bank who was not an Israeli citizen. Okay? So in spirit Palestinians are more likely to marry Palestinians from the west bank, Jews are less likely to, so the law is discriminatory equally. Okay? so here's the issue. Part of the issue here is the lack of civil marriage and civil laws in Israel for personal status issues. But this is discriminatory equally. A Muslim and a Jew can't get married not because of -- and I'm going to a really risk mispronouncing it -- miscegenation. Did I get that right? I’m not because of laws that are in spirit or a practice. But because religious authorities have to let you marry, die, and get born, or circumcised etc. And so this is a big problem that has to do with religion and state Israel and not specific to discrimination across sectors of citizens. Arab parties not being allowed in the governing coalition. You hear this this a lot. What does that that Arab parties aren't allowed? it means that when the party is selected by the president, the ceremonial role to form the government, it's usually the biggest party but not always, sometimes it may be the second-biggest party if the president believes that party can most successfully form of government -- that party is king made and then that party then invites other parties into his collection. No Arab party has been invited but it doesn't mean they're not allowed. Right? so there's a question here of politics. There is a question here strategy. There is a question here of what political parties think will be best for pushing forth policies. Now this doesn't mean that Arab citizens of Israel -- Palestinian citizens of Israel have to join so-called Arab parties. In fact some of the Arab parties are not fully Arab this isn't a sectoral system. It's not a consociational system. It's not like her countries where civil war has broken out because the balance of power in the parliament between ethnic groups changes. There are Palestinian citizens who join other parties namely labor sometimes Meretz. So again this isn't legally fixed discrimination.

Secondly, BDS. Let's get to boycott, divestment, sanction. That's the movement that has been the most articulately brought up in the last several years to focus on supporting the Palestinian cause . Three pillars: bringing Palestinian refugees back to Israel, back to Palestine, what is today Israel, ending the occupation, and ending discrimination with in Israeli society. Where BDS differs from the Israeli peace movement and from the liberal Zionist movement is through the refugee issue. The liberal Zionist movement, the labor party and to the left one might say, among the Zionist parties believe that Israel should be allowed to maintain its core identity. And that a solution Palestinian refugees is essential, must be negotiated, will likely involve some family reunification, will likely involve reparations, needs to be addressed, needs to be discussed, the Nakba needs to be discussed historical grievances need to be aired. Apologies may ensue. I mean if prime minster Harper apologized for having his treatment of first nations populations in residential schools,

It's not unheard of to think that there may be apologies forthcoming in the Israel Palestine context as well. Again whether Israel’s allowed to maintain its core identity as a Jewish and democratic state. And you know even if Israel isn't so-called allowed -- I’ve just critiqued this idea of Arab parties not being allowed. No one is here to say who is allowed to do what. The question ultimately comes down to pragmatics. What country is going to willingly give up its core identity. Particularly a country as militarily powerful as Israel so the question is: given what we have today in 2014 -- were not debating here with with Magnes or Buber, we're here in 2014 -- what is the solution that best connects and honors the identity and material needs of each side separately and both sides together? the two state solution in my view. [Applause]

Moderator: Okay so these are questions that are coming from the audience. I'm some cases they're directed at a specific speaker. If not I’ll allow each of the speakers to respond if they would like to. So this question comes from Jim Gail. He asks: can a democratic and Jewish they exist if the Jewish national fund can continue to refuse to lease or sell land to non-Jews

Mira Sucharov: Really briefly as I said I do agree that the JNF's Jewish only land leasing policy is discriminatory. And because it discriminates among the state's citizens on the basis of ethnicity and religion I do think it is antidemocratic. So I do think that those policies have to be changed. And that they are a historical relic. Let's remember where things come from. They're a historical relic when Israel was trying to create itself as a sovereign expression Jewish peoplehood. And it had it it had a purpose perhaps at the time and now it no longer does. [Applause]

Moderator: This is a question directed at Mira. It says you were censored by your synagogue, in the paper of which you write in the Jewish community, even though you're a respected member. Do you believe self-censorship in the Jewish community is the greatest challenge to peace between Israel Palestine? why is this self-censorship more prevalent in Jewish communities outside of Israel ?

Mira Sucharov: A two-pronged question there. Let's take the second half of it. It's true and it's become a truism that there's things that Israelis can say amongst themselves that Jews outside of Israel are sanctioned for saying, censored for saying, and that the debating Israel is often much more robust. And that is a function of I think a great diaspora Jewish fear that exists that many diaspora Jew, particularly ones who are closer in generation to the holocaust, feel that host countries so-called are not necessarily safe countries. And that therefore means that Israel is the insurance policy -- again according to that view Israel a sovereign Jewish state is the insurance policy to protect diaspora Jewish communities. So it began it feeds back on itself.

And the first part of the question was: is that the greatest threat to Israeli Palestinian peace? I actually think that -- well the censorship I’m not crazy about, but I don't even of the term is quite censorship. I don't think it's is quite fair to say that the synagogue censored me. They may have the right to decide what what posters to put. I happen to disagree with their judgment call. Right? so there's a question of values, a question of judgment, a question of strategy, in terms of what kind of discourse we as community members want to be upholding. I think that these are moments that allow truth telling, that allow open dialogue, that allow a little provocation. And so I actually find there can be moments of growth and healing when these tense moments come about. Of course that is if I still have my job at the Ottawa Jewish bulletin. And if I don't have it because I’ve exposed certain policies then I guess will be a couple steps backward in fomenting this kind of dialogue. [Applause]

Max Blumenthal: I don't think what we say here and the discussions that are had in the way that they're carried out will present the greatest threat to peace between Israel -- Israelis and Palestinians I think that Zionism does. That is the system that has obstructed peace since 1893 and imposed a structure of institutional discrimination on Palestinians while demanding a total militaristic posture from Israel’s Jewish Israeli population. So it can be discussed but I mean you seen what happened here Israel wasn't destroyed. Nothing scary happened. We had a chat and that was it. I don't know what people are so afraid of. I think we should have more of it. I think everybody learns something. 

And this neo-McCarthyism that we see at the forefront of the pro-Israel lobby's playbook only reflects badly on them. It's turning off young Jews and in the United States -- I don't totally know the lay of the land here -- but Jewish Voice For Peace, which is an organization very much like independent Jewish voices -- their chapters on campuses are swelling with young Jews who are totally frustrated with not only how off-limits this discussion is but what they've learned by actually seeing the facts on the ground. How shocked they are and understanding what Zionism means in terms of the reality on the ground and what a Jewish state requires. Many of them are coming from the ranks of J Street U into the Jewish voice for peace and I tell them it's easier to change from J Street U to JVP than it is to renew your driver's license. and they seem to be getting the message. 

So something is happening out there. I have been all over the country talking about my book and I’m meeting -- yesterday in Hamilton was it Hamilton? -- two days ago in Toronto a young man came to my talk in the back he was wearing a kippah and you usually people who wear kippot who come to my talks don't really agree with what I have to say. And he reminded me that I’d met him in my apartment in Jerusalem and he had been living on a settlement doing some work on a settlement and was confused about what he'd seen, and had all these questions and I talked to him about the Nakba but we had a conversation in the living room of this apartment I was renting with several Hebrew university students in Jerusalem and he soon after that conversation went to Nabi Saleh which is a Palestinian village under occupation that is deeply involved in the unarmed struggle. Whose young men were being arrested at night and thrown in the Israeli military prison. And he lived with these families and within days he has sort of switched sides, gone to the other side you could say. And is actively involved with Independent Jewish Voices. 

And I meet people like him everywhere I go. So something's happening out there regardless of what we do what we say. And it's because young people are naturally skeptical and they tend to reject unfairness. And it's great that there are organizations like independent Jewish voices which allow them to find a parallel community and to organize for justice. And to allow themselves to soak in the prophetic voice which is a lot older than Zionism. [Applause]

Moderator: This is a question directed at Max. The writer says: he made many criticisms of Israel. And Dr. Sucharov seemed to agree with most of them, but I don't think you've answered the debate question: possible or not to be a Jewish and democratic democratic state.

Max Blumenthal: No. [Laughter]

Mira Sucharov: I think I may add something to this question. If the questioner is asking you to distinguish between critiques of particular Israeli government and their policies versus the kind of ontological question maybe of Jewishness and democracy as characteristics of the state.

Max Blumenthal: The current government of Israel like previous governments has a threshold of a percentage, and a threshold that seeks to maintain of the Jewish demographic majority. I know that Arnon Soffer , this character I mentioned who is like one of the key demographic advisers to successive Israeli governments, defines it at 70%, that Ariel Sharon agreed with that level. And that Netanyahu has agreed with that level. And so in order to maintain that level inside the heart of the Arab world in an area where most people aren't Jewish, you going to have to do some pretty disturbing things. You are going to have to manipulate and engineer demographics. 

There were attempts in the past in the United States to manipulate and engineer demographics including the application of restrictive covenants to prevent Jews from settling in certain communities. But it was overall designed to keep America White. There were ordinances put into place across the United States in the 20s and 30s that forbade the presence of African Americans after dark. The American historian James Loewen calls these towns sundown towns. Mob violence was used when the ordinances don't work. What we see today in Israel is sundown nation. Is an anachronistic project dedicated to a peculiar and outmoded concept of maintaining an ethnic demographic majority by any means. And so that's it, that's what a Jewish state means to me. But I do think it is possible to have a democratic situation with a large number of Jews living in Israel/Palestine and maintaining their unique Hebrew culture. They are Israelis, unfortunately the Israeli government denies Israel’s right to exist. That sounded crazy, didn't it? [crowd murmurs] The Israeli government -- I repeat -- denies Israel’s right to exist as a nation. The Israeli supreme court ruled that there is no such thing as an Israeli nationality, and that you can only obtain nationality according to ethnic criteria: Jewish or Muslim or Christian. And that is really the basis of apartheid. It's how it's structured and it is the basis of a Jewish state. An ethnocracy not a democracy. So I hope those distinctions in fact helped understand where I'm coming from.

Mira Sucharov: A few responses to Max. To back up a little bit on McCarthyism the so-called pro-Israel community isn't the only engineers have McCarthyism right now. This week we've seen the student government at UCLA also use the tactic of blacklisting. And that is they have tried to bar candidates -- students who would like to run for student council -- they would seek to bar them if those students have happened to attend a trip sponsored by number of so-called pro-Israel organizations, a trip to Israel that proposal was voted down by their sort of supreme court. They have this judicial body. It was voted down 4 to 0, two abstentions.

So that said that's finished but be the chill factor's still there. So blacklisting is been used a lot -- too much. It shouldn't be used at all all. Right? we have to really worry about our academic freedom, our discourse and how were really talking to each other about these issues. I really want to trouble or disrupt the narrative. I hate when my students say that to me. We're learning about the narratives here. We're not here to disrupt them. But let me try to disrupt the narrative that Max just gave about the engineering -- birth engineering -- and I'm really not sure about that. And he talked about the American south and some black/white issues. 

Now in terms of how communities were going to be formed formed in Israel as we've said there is casual racism. There are communities that seek to bar outsiders from living in them. There is a desire to live amongst oneselves, one's own ethnic group no doubt. But this does not impact the political system. Israel is not a system of ridings. It's not even like that in the Canadian sense. In the American sense there's no states. There's no sub units, there's no electoral colleges. Israel is one electoral riding. It's proportional representation system if you want to get technical. Doesn't matter where people live, it will not affect political governance. So I think it's a real slip -- a conceptual slip -- to say that where people live is going to affect in any way Israel’s democratic system. Also this idea nationality is true that you cannot claim yourself to be Israeli national in a sense that Israelis have these id cards the way we pull out our driver's licenses they pull out their ID cards. And it is true there have been cases going to the supreme court where someone doesn't want to say they're a Jew on their card. But again that is not the same as citizenship. And here today we're here to talk about how Israel is governed so again these are issues around the edges which I believe may and will be changed but it is not indicative of apartheid. [Applause]

Max Blumenthal: Just for clarification [waits for end of applause] about what happened at UCLA there was a member of the central student government named Sunni Singh who voted on the divestment resolution brought by UCLA students for justice in Palestine who had been aggressively lobbied by the anti-defamation league and other pro-Israel groups, and sent on a free trip to Israel and I just wrote about a provost at university of south Florida who was taken on a luxury trip to Israel during the work week. We've seen presidents taken on free trips to Israel by the pro-Israel lobby. This is not democratic, and if the student on the student government has been aggressively lobbied by the pro-Israel lobby and taken on free trips and given favors they should recuse themselves from voting because they can't be considered objective. So I don't consider that a witch hunt. Just to voice my opinion. I call on those students -- and I’m disgusted with the lobbying of my own government which has just completely eliminated any ability for any politician or elected representative to dissent on this issue. We're just seeing it replicated at the college level because as Ali Abunimah says in his really important new book, The Battle For Justice In Palestine, that battle will be decided on US campuses. The Palestinians have no property rights. That' just a fact. It's not necessarily on the books but they have no property rights. I don't know why conservatives support Israel so much when they consider that fact. Also I mean where are the gun lovers? You know? [Applause] Palestinians can't have guns.

I stayed for quite a while in Jaffa which is a ghetto just south of Tel Aviv where the remnants of the tens of thousands of people who were literally thrown into the sea in 1948 under the artillery fire of Zionist militias, reside. And they are being actively pushed out through a process of gentrification. In 1948 the homes of those who remained -- 2000 homes were bulldozed on the beach in the manshia neighborhood -- the homes of those who remained, 40% of their homes was placed in the state-linked holding company and so they have to get permits to like renovate their kitchen. You just think about putting a new room in your house as something you take for granted. Well if a Palestinian does that without a permit which they are completely unable to get, they get an eviction notice. There are 500 standing eviction notices in Jaffa, almost exclusively applying to Palestinians. I visited a neighborhood in Lod which used to be known as Lydda before the Lydda death march when tens of thousands of Palestinians under orders from ben-gurion where marched to to ramallah. And the remnants of that community are still facing a process of ethnic cleansing. When I arrived at the neighborhood that contain the homes of the Abu A'id families I came upon several city blocks that had been demolished to the ground simply because they built their homes according to the natural growth of their family without permits. It was deemed illegal construction and it was bulldozed because they have no property rights. It's completely directed against Palestinians and if I were to declare an Israeli citizens and if I were to declare tomorrow that I wanted to be an Israeli citizen I would get set up with housing. I could move into the Negev desert were 8,000 Bedouins are unable to receive any public services in their unrecognized communities. And you know if I got a minyan together you know we could start our own new community with state benefits. So if you don't want to call it apartheid you can call it boojudu!adakachadalabah [Audience laughter]. But you you can call it what you want it's not good and it's not democracy. One of the reasons by the way that I call it apartheid is because apartheid has consequences under international law. And it requires sanctions. [Applause]

Moderator: So I have a few questions on this theme so I"m going to try to combine them. This person writes if a Palestinian refugee wants to convert to Judaism does that mean they can reclaim their ancestral home. If not why not? what does this mean for the racial character of Israel who is deemed with a legitimate Jew? Another raises very similarly: Do you think that if it's 5 million Palestinian refugees convert to become Jewish they will be allowed to return to their homes? [Audience laughter]

Mira Sucharov: You're going to have to find the right rabbi. [Audience laughter]. So basically -- and they're all over the internet too-- so basically what does it mean to convert to Judaism? it means -- and I’m not a rabbi and I’m not an expert but I do observe these issues -- it means to cast your lot with the Jewish people. You would have to go through extensive program of study. You would have to adopt not necessarily particular beliefs but you'd have to adopt Jewish literacy. Some knowledge of Hebrew, knowledge of Jewish history, a sense of the Jewish rhythms of calendar. Essentially the kind of state and a kind of culture that Israeli sovereignty seeks to promote. If a Palestinian wants to cast their lot and is so moved with the concept of Jewish peoplehood, if they have convinced a rabbinical panel, you know there's always, technicalities that they were authentic than voila, that's how it would happen for them.

Max Blumenthal: I want to point to two historical instances that relate to this question.

The first is the case of Mubarak Awad who was a Palestinian-American activist who moved to the west bank, was a student of Gandhian tactics of satyagraha (is that what you call it?) and wanted to mobilize Palestinians during the first intifada according to Gandhian tactics. So one of the things he would do was put facts on the ground on Palestinian land. He would begin planting olive trees . He was like a real gadfly to the occupation authorities and so they deported him because you know he didn't have hawiyah, a Palestinian ID, he was an American citizen and he rushed to convert to Judaism and these the government instructed all of the rabbis are state appointed rabbis --- because there is no separation of synagogue and state in Israel, I don't know how liberals can support a theocracy -- but he rushed to convert and they instructed all the rabbis to refuse to allow him to convert. He was ready to do the whole Megillah and they wouldn't let him do it. [Applause] so Mubarak Awad works in Washington and his nephew Sami Awad leads the holy land trust which does these kind of Gandhian tactics in the west bank. And it's a group that you know many of you if you traveled to the west bank should meet up with on and see what they're doing.

The Israeli government in the last Knesset when Eli Yishai the head of the Shas party was interior minister to make the lives of African refugees miserable and wanted to deport them to the countries of their origin. Most came from Darfur where the Janjaweed, the forces of Omar al-Bashir has been accused of genocide by the US government and you know racked up for war crimes by the Hague, they would be killed if they were sent back. And the Israeli government began moving to send them back began, rounding up people from the ivory coast. And a group of them, a large group attempted to convert to Judaism and I write about this in my book I think then the justice minister was Yehuda Weinstein but he said you know we can't have people just converting to Judaism that would mean that we would have to give them citizenship. [Audience laughter] I mean he basically just rejected it out of pocket and we've seen the African refugees besides the fact that they are interned in a camp in the desert for the crime of not being Jewish are being sent back under the cover of darkness and many are dying or being killed or being subjected to terrible conditions. So there's really no precedent and finally we need to look at the core of state appointed rabbis and what they have done. Many of them money -- and we're talking about some of the key religious authorities in Israel -- issued a letter in 2010 declaring that it is illegal under Jewish law to rent apartments non-Jews in a complete perversion of Jewish law by the way. 

And their wives issued a second letter accompanying that declaring that it's illegal under Jewish law for Jews to have relationships with non-Jews which gave rise to a burgeoning anti-miscegenation movement. Which is rampaging through the streets of Israeli cities and is responsible for a wave of terrorist hate crimes against Palestinians including Palestinian citizens of Israel so you know this is not only a depressing scenario for you know that you know we can't have these people enjoy an easy conversion as Sammie Davis junior did but we see a really warped bellicose vision of Judaism being advanced by these state rabbis. And it's warping the image of Judaism as its projected to the outside world by a state claims to speak on the half of all Jews in the world. It's another reason why it needs to be challenged.

Moderator: Okay this question seems to follow closely from that response. That's a pretty tough one. What are the common attributes that make Jewishness a nation?

Mira Sucharov: A nation is a group with a common path and a common destiny. That's political science 101, right? Often it has to do with common language, racial, ethnic characteristics in the Jewish case there are multiple races. There were some multiple languages but the Israeli -- like namely Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino -- but Israel settled on Hebrew for fairly good reasons and revived it into a modern component but it's a group that goes through history together. Incidentally there have been talk in radical circles of creating LGBT nation. Right? because that's also group in many ways goes through history together in terms of finding freedom together and fighting oppression together. But that becomes more of a political exercise. And thinking about group identity. But that's what I would say makes choosing nation.

Max Blumenthal: The great Jewish prophet Lenny Bruce [Audience laughter] said that he had more in common with an Irish guy from new york than a Jew from Montana. And calling into question the idea of Jewish nationhood or Jewish peoplehood. Jewish peoplehood, we hear this term a lot, is a pretty recent concept. I think it's a 20th century concept which was pioneered by a re-constructionist rabbi whose name isn't coming to my mind. But a lot of these concepts... I don't deny there is a common bond between Jews it's a religious bond, it's a cultural bond.

But I have to call into question the idea of a Jewish nation to the extent that it revolves around a land. That's the only in a question that I’ll raise because you I have about as much connection to the land of historic Palestine as the San Francisco bay's Credence Clearwater Revival does to the bayou. It just doesn't make sense to me like because you know in the bible I was chilling with Methuselah and Ham, Shem and Japheth that I should suddenly be able to gain citizenship rights in a newly founded relatively new nation and replace Palestinians it all relates to this concept of Jewish peoplehood. I don't have that much in common with you know a taxi driver from Ashkelon whose family is from Tunisia and Iran except maybe religion. And you know I am not an atheist. I do participate in Jewish rituals but I question the idea of uniquely Jewish nationality and I think it needs to be better defined. And I’m not I’m not an expert on but these questions need to be raised. To the extent that it is used to justify political Zionism and only to that extent.

Mira Sucharov: The key thing here is that we are both Jews so it's not really for me to tell you not to question it but I would certainly tell a student of mine let's say who's neither Jewish or Palestinian let's just say I have a student and the student says says Palestinians are not a nation. And I would say to them you can't tell the Palestinians what they are. Right? so what I advocate when I teach in a conceptual way from a scholarly intellectual perspective and as a scholar/blogger/activist is nation's get to define themselves. Now of course if we're both Jews and we're sort of here saying it's not really what we are of course that creates another conundrum because you have every right to talk, experientially as those mass of Jews out there that I’m referring to conceptually. So we'll leave that as a conundrum. I recognize the nuance. But I also believe that groups of dominant narratives. And I imagine there is some individual Palestinian somewhere who also doesn't identify with the Palestinian nation. But insofar as there are hegemonic national narratives -- collective narratives, and collective imaginations, collective histories and poetry and songs that recall collective historical psychological longings, I think it's fair to say that the Jews are a nation.

Max Blumenthal: Can I just interject one more point since you brought it to the Israel/Palestine question. I mean `there were a group of founding generation Israelis who attempted to conceive of a idea of Israeliness which was Mediterranean in character, and linked to the to the terrain that they were living in. You know Amos Kenan , Uri Avnery, these kind of figures. And many of them participated in the Nakba but they wanted to at least establish some kind of nationality that could include Arabs but they have been -- you know we've seen them kind of -- even that rejected by the current form of Zionism and how it's been received. And it's based on the idea of a Jewish nation. And those who belong to the Jewish nation gain superior privileges and rights within land under Israeli control to Palestinians so okay, let's let's not dispute that there's a Palestinian nation and there is a Palestinian people but who lives in Israel? is it the Jewish nation or the Israeli nation? and I would assert that it needs to be an Israeli nation in order for it to have any possibility of being democratic. And that it is messianic to define Israel according to a global Jewish nation.

Moderator: This question asks "How does Israeli exceptionalism with respect to human rights and international law endanger everyone dependent on the protections of such the protections of civil society worldwide?"

Max Blumenthal: You want to get in that first because I just spoke.

Mira Sucharov: The assumption rolled into that question, "how does Israeli exceptionalism... " so, the assumption by the writer, the question is that Israel takes an exceptionalist view to human rights and international law. So I think we would want to debate that first. Certainly international law as a tool of the discursive Israeli/Palestine conflict has been used more by Palestinians and their supporters than it has been by Israel certainly Israel views international law as a distraction. Ben-Gurion famously called the UN "UN Shmuen" -- in the Hebrew "um shmum" move the idea was that Israelis and Zionists would reliance on self-reliance force when needed to propel its own vision of sovereignty. Israeli exceptionalism towards huma..? I mean again, the occupation: huge human rights violations. And so again when max said Palestinians under its control I assume you're including the many out the Palestinian population of the west bank and Gaza who are in different ways under Israeli control. The occupation is a great example of violation of human rights and I’m not here to defend occupation that's for sure. Human rights violations within Israel per se, within Israel’s green line? I think that we've talked about that a lot. I mean I’ll just leave it at that right now. I’ll let Max go.

Max Blumenthal: Israeli exceptionalism is based on Israel’s attempt to link itself culturally to Europe (you know a with Ehud Barak that Israel is a villa in the jungle) but use as its moral barometer the surrounding Arab states. And so whenever you challenge in an argument with a pro-Israel advocate Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, they'll often come back to you and say one a look at what's happening in Syria and that's the measuring stick that Israel uses to demonstrate to gain an exception to international law and basic standards of morality and human rights, is to say well you know were not Syria so let us keep occupying. Another tactic that's used, it's been increasingly uses Likud came to power in 1977, and Netanyahu is a huge proponent of this, is to deploy the holocaust in order to provide Israel with a special moral exception to its crimes against Palestinians to basically say how dare you challenge us? you're an anti-Semite and we bear the legacy of the holocaust. We're not going to go back into the ovens is basically how that view is summed up. It's a segregationist view of the holocaust that needs to be rejected. It holds the lesson of the holocaust to be never again to anyone. And abuses the memory of the 6 million who died by invoking their name to commit more abuses to other people. It's a negation of the holocaust and a hollowing out of the holocaust lessons that is nearly the ethical equivalent, in my opinion, of holocaust denial.

And we see that increasingly from Israel and the current Israeli government and its advocates. Finally on the question of international law, there is no international law that provides the right for Israel to maintain itself as a Jewish state. Not even the Balfour declaration provided at the right to a Jewish state in historic Palestine it referred to a Jewish national home which could've taken many forms. Resolution 181, the so-called partition plan, did not provide for a Jewish state. You need to look at the details of these proposals. What would've come about if 181 was honored by Israel would have been a bi-national state that was 55% Jewish and 45% Arab, and a state that was mostly Arab this is what required, after its passage -- after 181's passage -- the wave of ethnic cleansing that began in 1947 in order to ensure that Israel would be the only settler colonial state of the 20th century that gained a demographic majority and international recognition at the UN. So they have actually had it both ways. Without honoring 181 they still gained recognition at the UN. And so there's no international law that justifies a Jewish state. There is only moral exceptionalism. And finally on the question of the holocaust I just want to add my opinion that Germany, which has been providing Israel with dolphin class submarines at a deep discount with launching tubes specially retrofitted to launch nuclear missiles from the red sea should provide, as part of holocaust reparations should begin paying reparations to Palestinians who are the indirect victims of the holocaust. [Applause]

So before I ask another question I just want to check in with Tyler. Are there other questions floating around? Ok. So this a question I think about the extent to which parallels can be made between Canada and Israel it's sort of not in the form of a question so I’m going to try to make it so. It's asking about the idea of founding races in Canada, the British and french. I think it's asking third of the degree to which this is there is a productive parallel to be drawn with Canada’s official multiculturalism policy. I’m sorry to the questioner if that's not what you're asking.

Mira Sucharov: Well often multiculturalism is thought of Canada biculturalism, in terms of honoring an English tradition and a francophone, or an anglophone tradition a francophone tradition. Of course one would never want to ignore all the other cultures -- including first nations -- as well as subsequent cultures who have arrived on Canada’s shore since its founding. And that's why it's multiculturalism. But again we shouldn't forget that. So of course there is a layering on -- of English french identity -- onto the first nations tragedy and plight. And so in some ways there's parallels to Israel/Palestine and in some ways there is not. The Palestinians have thankfully no longer been marginalized and forgotten in the same way that first nations have in the way that the region is often talked. We often have to remind ourselves about the the first nations. And I think that's what Tyler was tried do in his opening. The Palestinian Jewish identity is actually very much alive and so the contestations are different. Again it's much more obvious and visible and again much more I think open to easier solutions, and a two state solution. I think when first nations leaders don't want to sing "Oh Canada" what's the solution? they're not talking about seceding. They're not creating their own country. It's is in a sense much more complex and layered than the solution counting needs to be in Israel Palestine context.

Max Blumenthal: I think it's legitimate when people ask me why are you as an American covering this situation and focusing on it 5000 miles away? Isn't the United States a settler colonial state and what are you doing about that? that's a legitimate question. It is a legitimate challenge. And of course I know I have written about abuses and indigenous rights and immigrant rights in this country but I feel like I’m not doing enough. One of the issues though is that the process of settler colonialism that brought the United States into being, and Canada into being, is largely a completed project which has left the First Nations, the aboriginal people, the native Americans on reservations. The kind which Palestinian population centers increasingly resemble. And the native people of been turned into a mascot for north America’s fun and games. There have been attack helicopters named after them and sold to the Israeli military. They've had precision guided missiles named after their weapons. It's a reflection of the fact that they have been disappeared from the lives and the view of the white man.

The Jewish population of Israel -- although they've probably never been able to ignore Palestinians more, especially in Tel Aviv thanks to the separation wall and the whole policy of hafrada or separation -- still considers the Palestinians to be a major threat to their existence. Palestinian resistance is ongoing. And the process of settler colonialism is ongoing, and so there are no, you know Beit Har Jerusalem, the main soccer team in Jerusalem, you don't see them with Palestinian or Arab logos on their shirts. Instead you hear the cry of "death to Arabs" from their fanatics after every goal. You you feel this sense of eliminationism is Israeli society because the process of 1948 is unfinished. And as I’ve said again and again, the goal of the right-wing rulers of Israel is to finish 48 and that's why they're popular. They want to finish that project that began in 1948. And I, as a journalist, feel like it's my obligation to document what's happening and to get in the way if I were a journalist in the 1880s, I would hope that I would have been in the American west documenting these final massacres of the Lakota Sioux. And so that's my kind of perspective on the parallels between settler colonialism and I think it's no coincidence that we see so much solidarity growing between Palestine solidarity activists and native American Indian aboriginal activists in Canada and the United States. It's because they both recognize a common process that they been victimized by. [Applause]

Moderator: Okay this is short. It's directed at Max but I'll give each of you a chance to answer it. What is your solution? [Audience laughter]

Max Blumenthal: Well I would love for there to be a single state and everyone would run across the street and sing Kumbaya and it's a panacea. Of course you know the demand and the demand is simply equality. That is the demand that's contained in the BDS call which is a Palestinian call. But BDS is a tactic and the tactic doesn't preclude the solution. In other words, it doesn't demand that there not be a two state solution. If that solution can include full Palestinian equality and the right of return. It doesn't mean that there can't be something like a confederation.

It's why as I said earlier in the debate that many people who are proponents of the two state solution are coming around to this tactic because it's the only means of imposing external pressure and producing a real peace process which has to be the end of institutional discrimination. Nelson Mandela said he would never come to the table with the Afrikaner government of apartheid South Africa until they agreed to negotiate the end of apartheid. So the question isn't "Where's the Palestinian Mandela?" we already know from looking in Palestinian cemeteries and Israeli prisons where the Palestinian Mandela's gone. The question is, where is the Israeli de Klerk? and I think through this tactic, an Israeli de Klerk could rise to the fore, could recognize the situation that she or he is in and begin to move towards reconciliation process, but I won't sit here and tell you that what I want to happen is a panacea in terms of a solution. All I’m going to do is look at the reality that this tactic is beginning to actually generate some momentum and create change where the us-led peace process has failed. Let remind you the US-led peace process has not led to the removal of one single established settlement unit, ever. BDS has. It at least momentarily forced Lev Leviev, the diamond baron to cease settlement activity in the west bank. And there have been huge losses for settler farms in the Jordan valley. According to Ma'ariv, the Israeli paper: $100 million last year. Soda stream stock has begun to plummet. So these are things that are working. There needs to be a price tag for this bad behavior. And so that's on the stand here and advocate. [Applause]

Mira Sucharov: If we were to make a word cloud of this debate I imagine that from my side you'd see two state solution peppering the cloud in you know a little larger font, and I do advocate that, but I hesitate to make it seem like simply meaningless mantra. I think that -- I know that a majority of Israelis and a majority Palestinians favor a two state solution. I think for all the historical memory and national narratives that Jews as a nation nurture and have expressed through Israeli sovereignty, Palestinians as a nation nurture very equally intense national narratives and they deserve self-determination in a state of their own as well. Now BDS is a tactic but it does have quite a clear endgame. And I would take issue with your personal BDS interpretation. The way you suggested mine was a personal Zionism I think BDS's endgame is quite clear. End the occupation, end discrimination, those two pillars as we've said are shared with the Israeli peace movement, but the return of all Palestinian refugees is where the two movements part ways. BDS's is endgame calls for Israel to dismantle its core identity as Jewish democracy. Israel is going to do that and I don't think any state should be required to as long as citizens within that it are not being discriminated against. And tonight we've outlined many areas where they are discriminated against and where legal reform must and should take place, and there are a wealth of Israeli NGOs who are on right now as we speak.So it's a tactic but the endgame is different. And I also think judging from the blogosphere -- we're both active on twitter, we go see that the vitriol that passes by sometimes between us -- but oftentimes against us -- what's that?

Max Blumenthal: ...was not bad.

Mira Sucharov: Was not bad. And tonight was a hiatus. A hiatus. [Audience laughter]. But BDS advocates particularly on the blog sphere under the cover of twitter generally seek to promote a one state solution quite openly and quite explicitly, I’m not saying there's anything evil about that but I’m just saying that that is generally the solution that that movement is advocating. And those who advocate a two state solution are ridiculed "lib-zio." Just look up "lib-zio" and you'll see all the liberal Zionists who are being ridiculed for activating two states for two peoples. Again that term's a little dated and we can get into the nuance of that but let's leave it at that for now.

Max Blumenthal: You only get 140 the characters on Twitter so.. [Audience laughter]

Moderator: I have a couple of --

Max Blumenthal: Can I ask a question, on that question? am I right that you saying the right of return will upend Israel’s Jewish democratic character because it will bring in millions of people into Israeli territory who are not Jewish and will upend the Jewish majority, isn't that why it would do that?

Mira Sucharov: Yep.

Max Blumenthal: Then the question I want to ask is what what percentage of Arabs is too high for Israel to hold? [Audience murmurs]

Mira Sucharov: The key issue here is can Israel be a Jewish state without having a Jewish majority? and that is a key conceptual question. And in some senses I say it needs a Jewish majority to uphold the promotion of its culture, but then in other ways one could actually think of it in the reverse. And one could say that England will always, or the UK will always promote English civilization as long as its state institutions are robust enough, no matter how many native English speakers live there. So maybe I’m wrong. But part it is also the dynamic. Part of it is also the idea that the BDS movement is not calling for negotiated solution to the Palestinian refugee issue, of which there are many possible solutions and one might say Israel has not complied with UN resolution which called for it to take back all the refugees, there was a clause there at the earliest practicable date. And one could say that given lack of regional peace that date has not been reached. I mean again these are diplomatic issues that states used to maneuver around similar to the way the Balfour declaration was worded in a constructively ambiguous way. I mean I think you're asking a key question and I do want to give more thought to it. I don't have a good answer yet. I want to give more thought to it.

Max Blumenthal: would you be comfortable with an Israel that doesn't have a majority of Jews as its citizenry.

Mira Sucharov: It's not really for me to say whether I'd be comfortable except if you're asking me about my subjective allegiances as a diaspora Jew. We can talk about my own subjectivity if we we want. And I do often seek to mine my own subjectivity in order to understand the narratives of the country which I study and I’m active about. And I do do that. The question is: if there were no longer a majority of Jews would Jewish cultural rhythms, patterns and heritage be promoted and upheld? that's the question.

Max Blumenthal: Let's get to another question.

Moderator: I have a couple of questions about education. Some scholars argue that being part of a democratic state involves democracy and education i.e. Freedom of ideas exposure to multiple and often competing for comparison viewpoints, access to a variety of perspective sources etc. Could you speak to this point regarding the Israeli public education system. Another question asked a similar question about noting the absence of an Arab speaking university in Israel

Mira Sucharov: Yes it is true that there are multiple educational systems at the elementary and secondary level in Israel there is a high Israeli Jewish secular one, there is an Israeli Jewish religious one, there's an Arabic language one, there is -- and I’m thinking about the parallel in Ontario where we have french catholic, french English, French immersion, for Anglophones. Anglophones gifted, on one for everybody else, and so one could say that it multiculturalism gone awry but it's not necessarily antithetical to democracy, and actually in the audience we have an education expert who also deals with civic democracy and so we could afterwords, over drinks ask Joel Westheimer whether he thinks that the multiple -- I always mention him at talks, it's our little bet -- whether the multiple educational systems -- you know we could say whether it's good for civic identity or bad but whether it's fundamentally antidemocratic would be another issue. Now what happens in Ottawa -- I can't speak for other parts Ontario, but I’m a parent of school-age kids in Ottawa what's the hottest school system for anglophone parents to try to get their kids into, if they could somehow finagle and pretend that they have a certain heritage that they don't? the french language schools, in certain certain parts of the city. It's a race to the top for excellence one might say. One might say that these multiple schools systems try to compete for students. Wouldn't it be something if that was the same thing in Israel, where you promoted your separate school systems, not as a way of dividing, but as a way of promoting your culture, as a way promoting your language.

Max Blumenthal: Maybe this is a problem with having a all-Jewish debate, but having a graduate of Arab school as it's known in Israel would be -- and their testimony would be -- extremely valuable here. I think we could learn a lot from them. There is a lot of work, academic work on what happens there. My understanding is, from interviewing people currently in these schools, , which are incredibly underfunded in comparison to Jewish schools, Jewish public schools in Israel, is that the Shin Bet, Israel's general security service maintains a very strong presence in the schools through a network of informants and teachers are vetted for their loyalty to the Jewish state. The teaching of Palestinian identity is explicitly off-limits as these people in the schools are deemed Israeli Arabs and there [emphasis] is a clear attempt to separate them from the wider Palestinian world. The teaching of the Nakba is explicitly off-limits, and it's something that the Shin Bet monitors and teachers can be fired for teaching the Palestinian narrative, or I what would consider the Palestinian reality, of 1947 and 1948. And we're seeing a shift in Jewish Israeli schools towards the promotion of more militaristic values, a culture of militarism. A program came into being in the last government under education Minister Gideon Sa'ar that deemed all teachers lifelong draftees whose goal was to send as many youth into the Israeli military is possible because conscription rates have fallen from 90 to 75%, because a lot of these young people are like young people everywhere else and they want to fight injustice too and so they they don't want to go over that wall and be occupation soldiers, so there's seeking to get out anyway possible. And it is thanks to organizations like New Profile who are a group of radical feminist Jewish Israeli women who are helping counsel these students, and helping them get out of this occupation army, and who have been interrogated and had their computers seized and are under constant surveillance because of their efforts in Israel.

We're seeing Jewish Israeli schools, thanks to Gideon Sa'ar and now the current education Minister Shai Piron demolishing or weakening civic studies classes and replacing them with Jewish studies, taking students on state-funded trips to settlements in Hebron -- extremist religious nationalist settlements in Hebron-- and replacing texts that promote democratic values with religious texts, we've seen questions in Israeli testing like their version of SATs that ask about the dangers of dating Arabs. We've seen students in development towns in Israel and in Be'er Sheva shown films about the dangers of dating Arabs. I interviewed a group of high school students in Jerusalem in Zion Square who told me that they learn, instead of sex education, they learn about what kind of relationships to have. And they learn that Arab men are potential kidnappers who are barbaric and could take them away as young Jewish women to their villages and beat them. We've we've seen students -- 25% of Jewish Israeli students taken on state-sponsored trips to Auschwitz, where they are heavily indoctrinated and the education ministry monitors their attitudes in hopes that they will demonstrate more nationalistic attitudes and favorable attitudes towards the military because this is part of their pre-army training. And so as I've said throughout this talk that the trends that I described, and the facts that I've detailed for you, will continue to intensify the horrors that we're witnessing before our eyes will continue to grow and develop unless something is done to shatter the status quo. So you can disagree with my conclusions, but I just don't think it's possible to disagree with the fact that those of us who care about Israelis and Palestinians need to take some kind of action to undermine the status quo. It's not going come from our government, it has to come from us. I leave you with that. Thanks. [Applause]

Moderator: Okay, some I'm going to give each speaker a couple of minutes to respond. This last question poses I think a nice kind of prompt for each of you. It's directed at each of you. So the writer says: Max Blumenthal argues that Israel argued that couldn't have been and isn't democratic, but can it be? And Sucharov argued that it can be both Israel and democratic, currently is it? I wonder if you'd like to address that question in your final statement.

Mira Sucharov: Well in grad school, I had a professor who said that being a little democratic is like being a little bit pregnant. You can't be. But the longer I study Israel the longer -- and other Western democracies as well, and all democracies -- the longer I think that democracy, though it is an important nominal category, as we said we have to fit things into boxes. It also has a spectrum element. And I think particularly with this government we've seen a slide to a liberalism. We know there's casual racism throughout Israel as there is throughout many if not all societies. But I think that Israel is fundamentally a democracy. It is a democracy. Now the thing about these Rabbis, fundamental expressions of religion are never good and they don't go with democracy. Does that mean Judaism is a religion is not compatible with democracy? No. Does that mean Jews as a nation are not compatible with democracy, of course not. To say anything else would be fundamentally racist, but one of the things that Jewish communities worldwide are doing is they are pushing on the hold of the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel -- well that's an oxymoron -- on the Rabbinate in Israel, on civil status laws, and one of the important things that particularly American Jews have taken the lead on, is in loosening that hold, and we've seen for the first time a non-Orthodox Rabbi gain state funding, who also happens to be a woman, Rabbi Miri Gold, who is based near Tel Aviv in the Kibbutz of Gezer. Now, unfortunately, she's not getting funded from the religious ministry, but from the Ministry of Sports and Culture but it's a start. [Audience laughter]

Now, multiple narratives. There are obviously terrible instances of how education perverts, or how certain teachers pervert liberal education into their own ends, or how certain government ministers would like to see certainty xenophobic expressions or silencing of the other expressions in their school systems, but we also see very heartening things. There's a textbook for high school students in Israel, that uses multiple narratives. On the left-hand side agency Israeli narrative of its history, the conventional Israeli narrative. On the right-hand side page it's the conventional Palestinian narrative. In the middle is the place to put notes. This textbook used in certain high schools in one of the regions of Israel. When the ministry heard that it was being used they cracked down it. But quietly -- I've interviewed some of the principles here, no pun intended because I don't want to get anyone in trouble -- they're quietly still using it. There is a thirst and a desire among many Israeli youth, we talked about contentious objection, for change and for welcoming me either. I don't think that is really democracy needs to be left for dead just yet.

Max Blumenthal: Where are we at here? What am I doing?

Moderator: We're doing a final, closing couple minutes. That was yours. Yeah.

Max Blumenthal: I guess in closing, the young people I mentioned who are getting out of that their conscription obligations are generally not conscientious objectors. There are usually less than 10 each year of not less than five, who are willing to go to jail for 30 days or longer. We saw one young man go to jail eight times in order to resist conscription. I think Israel has detained almost -- and correct me if I’m wrong, I may have this number wrong -- 10,000 people in the past year for failing to report to reserve duty, or participate in the military. But if we look at the attitudes of young people they are more racist than their parents. They are more anti-Arab than their parents. The Israeli democracy institute has documented this year after year. Over 50% or more of Jewish Israeli youth say that they would refuse to sit in a classroom with an Arab, that they would refuse to live next door to an Arab. In 2011 a plurality of Jewish Israelis declared their support for detention camps for Arab citizens of Israel in wartime. A majority of Israelis have expressed in 2012 in an IDI poll a agreement with the phrase "Africans are cancer in Israel’s national body" and a plurality supported violence against Africans as a solution to their presence, non-Jewish Africans I can rattle off more and more poll numbers, but you get the point. These poll numbers are the product of an ongoing status quo and the status quo won't change with replacement of one leader or another, or one minister another, one government or another, as long as those governments operate within the current framework of Zionism there needs to be a radical change. The kind of which we saw in south Africa, and that won't come about as I said through our own governments. Mira is right Israel will not willingly give up. We need to make them give up this system of apartheid. Maybe it won't work. Maybe you have cause for pessimism, but can you live with yourself at the end of the day, knowing that knowing what you know now? knowing that these are the facts? having done nothing? I think with that question I will wrap up my comments. Thanks. [Applause]

Moderator: Okay thank you very much both to Max and Mira for coming here. As someone who is sometimes conscripted into these debates against my will I will say that I came here willingly, particularly because I was happy to be able to be part of a conversation that was honest and principled and rooted in what I think of some of the foundational moral questions associated with this. Which too often I think get drowned out in the noise of debate around the question. So thank you to both of you. Thanks to the audience for coming. Thanks for your thoughtful questions. I also want to thank independent us Jewish voices and institute of interdisciplinary studies and the human rights program at Carlton university for their co-sponsorship of this event. Thank you.