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Is one-state the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? | A People Without a Land | Full
Journeyman Pictures
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Oct 19, 2023
Settlement expansion across Palestine is out of control - now we need to speak about the One State Solution. Is the patchwork of remaining Palestinian land now so fragmented it could never form a viable future state? This incisive film explores the question of whether Israeli settlers have destroyed all hope of return for the villages' original occupants and asks if the One State Solution is doomed beyond hope of being salvaged.
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Transcript
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e
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forom foreign fore
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spe
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conflict is an eternal religious conflict others will argue that it's a symptom of a larger Clash of civil
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izations but the truth is that the Israeli Palestinian conflict isn't even a conflict between Arabs and Jews it's a
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conflict between people who believe in democracy and people who believe in
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[Music]
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ethnocracy [Music]
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in the late 18th and early 19th centuries two major forms of nationalism emerged in Europe civil nationalism came
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from Western Europe and argued that a state belongs to all its citizens the other form of nationalism
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was ethn nationalism and this came out of Central and Eastern Europe with the
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idea that a country doesn't belong to all its citizens rather it belongs to
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one particular ethnic group when Zionism was developing as a national movement it's not going to jump to Thomas
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Jefferson and become a a civil form of nationalism but it took the form of
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nationalism where the Jews lived which was this tribal ethno nationalism and
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brought it here to Palestine the problem was that the Jews were a very small minority in the country and remained a
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small minority and even after the beginning of of Zionist immigration and settlement in Palestine this led some of
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the Zionist leaders including Boran and whitesman H to the conclusion that in
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addition to immigration there would also have to be some form of transfer of Arabs out of the area of the Jewish
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state to be either be it all of Palestine or part of Palestine um in
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order to attain a Jewish majority like Michigan Springs thank you
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very much that's what I drink please don't show the pile of
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laundry in the in the film my mother would kill me if she saw that where's
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your mother from she's from lifa which is uh near Jerusalem I grew up in
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England and then in Belgium and then I came to the United States to go to
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university so I've never lived in Palestine like millions of Palestinians
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born to Palestinian parents outside Palestine this is in lifa this is my um
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my mother's grandfather so my great-grandfather well I think as a kid
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I lived in Israel for 4 years from 8 to 12 in Jerusalem in French Hill I became
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politically aware maybe like when I was N9 or 10 I consider myself to be a Zionist I understand Zionism as the
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importance of Jews having a a political state of their own and it focus on the
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people that this people need a place needs a place if the myth were true that
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there were a land without a people for a people without a land and Jews discovered this land without a
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people and went and formed a state on it that's my not not my business I couldn't
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care less but Palestine wasn't a land without a people it was a land with a
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people who'd lived on it continuously who were in all likelihood the
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descendants of the Jews who lived there in the past and nobody has a right to
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come and impose a state on them and and say you have no rights here but in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust the Zionist
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project of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine gained serious International legitimacy on November
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29th 1947 the UN voted to divide Palestine the Palestinians rejected the
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partition plan and launched attacks against the Jewish ISU but the zionists
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were buffed these attacks declared the establishment of the state of Israel and withstood a multi-pronged Invasion by
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the surrounding Arab states when the Dust of War settled in 1949 most of the
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Palestinian people were refugees and the state of Israel controlled 78% of
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historic [Music]
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Palestine
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so my name is aan brunstein and I was born in Argentina and I came to Israel
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when I was 5 years old my mom was a communist young communist in
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Argentina um she told us that she almost joined the the
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revolution uh of you know chavara and Fidel Castro in Kuba but she she she gave up this and my
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father also uh he was from what I know also young idealist
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but not Zionist they they were not into Zionism but uh
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yeah so they came to the kibuts I was 5 years old and I grew up in the kibuts
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since I was H five until factu until I was uh
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27 well I can tell you for example I remember I have memories from 1967 war
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so as a child I remember because we were very close to the border with with the Jordan back then like we were the kibuts
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was 200 M from the border in fact the 67 War began in that area of the our kibuts
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so we remember I remember the beginning the the war and I remember the bombs falling around the us and we knew that
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the other the side of the Border they are the Arabs and they are our enemies
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in the summer of 1967 fearing a joint attack by its Arab neighbors Israel
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launched a preemptive War which came to be known as the sixth day war during the
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course of the war Israel conquered the West Bank in Gaza Strip along with the more than 1 million Palestinians who
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lived there the big debate was between people who said ah we've completed the work now we have the Holy land of Israel
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and the people said no now we have a bargaining ship that we can trade for for peace and uh acceptance and
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normalization essentially you ended up with what was considered a temporary situation in perpetuity a situation in
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which Israel rules the territories but does not anex it and in which therefore
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the residents of the territories the Palestinian residents of the territories remain permanently disenfranchised it is
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more than 40 years now it is certainly the longest military occupation uh in
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the world today maybe one of the longest in history that continues as a military
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occupation without a political solution and without giving the the inhabitants
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of the conquered territory any rights I've always been uncomfortable with the idea that you have however many Arabs
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living in the West Bank that are disenfranchised and not always sure
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about why that's remaining so uh my name is Aron s I'm a professor of
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geography and geopolitics at the moment I am the head of the chair of geost
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strategy at H University if we Annex the West Bank without
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Gaza or I would say if we anex greater Israel or part Palestine will be one
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United Country today we are 50% only in another 20 years we the Jewish people
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will be about 42% this is the end of a Jewish
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state
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so I'm going to start with a very general question um what is the occupation and what are its effects on
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the Palestinian people wow that's a simple question that Demands a very
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complex answer the the occupation is a system of control basically power control military control but in addition
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to that it's a system of theft because you're not just controlling or enslaving a population you're stealing their land
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their resources their rights and their [Music]
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freedoms this is a permit if you want to go to Israel we have to apply for a permit through the Israeli intelligence
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quarters sometimes you have to meet with the intelligence sometimes in the window when you apply they just say yes or they
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say no every Feast actually in the Christmas and Easter as a Christian I apply through the church and I never
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go so the best resistance is to be uh unarmed and now I think this is very
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successful what we do and what I do like almost every day in my work which I became blacklisted because of this since
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92 I'm blacklisted uh I don't believe in fight I don't believe in weapons the best way
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bring Internationals and show them the reality of the [Music]
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occupation and this is the house of the family I told you about the settlers attacked it by cocktail molo few years
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ago and his brother was burned who was 3 years old then when his mother wanted to
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give birth not in the same time another time because the ambulance couldn't come the main road we came from you so it's
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very narrow this is the only way to come the ambulance which means from the settlement they forbid the car the
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ambulance so the she lost the baby actually he died there are now about half a million Israelis living in
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occupied territories about a quarter of a million in East Jerusalem and a quarter of a million in the West Bank
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the purpose of the Israeli settlements is first of all answering a political and a religious wish and desire of a
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strong powerful organized part of the Israeli population you have to remember that when you open up your Old Testament
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and your fingers walk through the history of the biblical era they're walking through the hills of the West
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Bank they're not walking through Tel Aviv our history our story is there in
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the West Bank
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[Music]
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well I'm a reserve so it's hard to say name and rank CU I'm not really in the Army I you know get called up every now
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and then to do some shmir uh Ari Abramson uh my rank would Pro would be
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sergeant major um a regular infantry unit and
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uh mostly our job is just to protect the area protect the Israelis living in the area that's that's about it oh look at
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that oh H look at that a whole lunch here
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interesting breakfast clean up lunch that's basically our day breakfast
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lunch and dinner as I can see my belief is that most of the
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Palestinians uh do not recognize Israel's right to exist and I'm talking about uh I couldn't give you exact
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numbers because I haven't done you know I haven't done the proper research but uh it's it's a large large number do you
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believe believe that Israel has a right to exist everybody has the right to exist
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everybody Israel Palestine Europeans Americans Iraqis everybody has the right
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to exist but you cannot exist by ignoring others this is very
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important you okay they are humans Israelis are normal people humans we are humans normal people everybody has the
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rights since he's born to live in peace so it's has the right to exist and I
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don't say no for living here they can live here they can share the land with us but
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[Music]
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equally the vast majority of Israelis who live in the West Bank reside in one of the 120 Jewish only
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settlements but there are a handful of Israelis who have chosen to live with the
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[Music] Palestinians oh
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shoes hello hi just keep going okay this way
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up here yeah we have to go around kind of no I can't say that there hasn't been a change you know I mean in the West
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Bank Obama's made a change you know our friends people involved in the non-violent resistance instead of being
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killed uh are being
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arrested wow they're releasing do you have any credit on your
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phone 5,000 in the same conditions as muhamad so up until I was 50 I didn't
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know that there was an occupation you know it didn't exist the occupied territories were Judea and Samaria and
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Gaza I would go visit my uncle who lived in a settlement but I didn't know about
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the occupation and the picture that was drawn for me is that we are
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um morally Superior you know we basically Jew Jews uh the Jewish history
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that I was taught in school um we had always been victims we had never harmed
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anyone you you won't find Israelis that will that will purposely go in and and
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start killing Palestinian civilians it just it doesn't exist it it it just doesn't exist
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settler violence settler violence is definitely
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wrong it's not it's not the same um if there are settlers that would actually
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go and kill there you're right there there probably are uh um 0.1% of the
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Israeli population by the way when the settlers came and put stones this Soldier stays here of course not himself
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all the time they are shifts but there there will be a soldier 24 hours on this spot so when they came and through the
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Big Stone there were a soldier there who was watching but they cannot forbid the
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settlers and we can smoke now as I said smoking is very good for health and we
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support the families who work in the tobacco companies you know I don't want them to lose their
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jobs in 1993 Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Oslo
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Accords which laid out a staged timetable for Israeli withdraw from the West Bank in Gaza Strip the concept was
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that the Palestinians would establish an independent state on the parts of the country that Israel had conquered in
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1967 to this end the Accords established the Palestinian Authority and granted it
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limited autonomy over certain parts of the occupied territories but crucially the most sensitive issues of the
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conflict were postponed and not discussed and the situation in the occupied territories only seemed to
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deteriorate further over the seven years of negotiations in Oso from 93 to
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2000 Palestinians got nothing they ended up in a worse shape because before Oslo
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you had the West Bank in Gaza and palestin Ians could work in Tel Aviv take their kids to the beach they had
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jobs they they could move around all of a sudden after 7 years they're locked
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into areas A and B 95% of the Palestinians are locked
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into 40% of the West Bank Israel's doubled its settler
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population and they're they're
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imprisoned the talks failed suicide attacks against Israeli civilians followed by brutal military reprisals
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against the Palestinians fed off each other in a deadly cycle of
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[Music] violence in 2005 following five of the
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bloodiest years of the conflict Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sheron set Israel on a course of unilateral disengagement
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from parts of the occupied territories he withdrew Israeli settlers and forces from the Gaza Strip and accelerated
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construction of a separation barrier that was sold to the Israeli public as a security measure against Palestinian
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suicide bombs but the path of the barrier deviated wildly from the 1967
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Green Line suggesting that its purpose was more than just security back to to
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to shaon when he became prime minister second time the night of his victory can
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you imagine while all over the country people are celebrating his victory he called me home
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please tomorrow morning bring me your disengagement map and very early in the
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morning I was in a in his office and one day later he called me Aron I'm studying
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your map the ideology of the disengagement how to do it and my My Philosophy Jews Jews must be here Arabs
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here it was clear for me and I'm talking to you let's say that you are from the
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left why we are not back along the green line and to to to to save so many
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problems those who ask me to do it they don't understand that
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300,000 settlers religious people the hardcore of the Jewish people ready to fight are
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living today in the West Bank it is a mission impossible and by my demarcation now
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listen we manag to Annex 86% % of all the settlers what do you want from me
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I'm offering you a two-state solution I'm offering you I'm recognizing you on 78% of historic
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Palestine and accepting to live next to you in peace and security and 22% of the
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land and you tell me no I want to have MIM in the heart of the West
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Bank go on and if you don't say that you're against peace would be completely
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unfair and one-sided to say the you have to get rid of all of the settlements and kick all the settlers out of their homes
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I mean uh talking about transfer of people I think it's disgusting um I I I would never think of
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uh going over to uh hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and kicking them all out of their homes and saying This Is Our Land now I wouldn't wouldn't
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think of doing that I don't think it's right to do that to Jews I cannot withdraw or us
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300,000 settlers to withdraw from the West Bank and if you force me to do it it's a civil war
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that will another reason for the end of the Jewish people the wall or the fence
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is a
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compromise
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Israel I think has eliminated the two-state solution I don't see I mean I mean we'll see what Obama comes up with
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but I don't see Israel going back to a place where there's really a viable Palestinian state so then the problem is
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not 1967 the problem is 1948 I was H for years a kind of
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political educational activist I conducted and
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facilitated many perhaps hundreds of encounters between Jews and Arabs and
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then um I think some 10 years ago it we we started to see we began to see how uh
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when whenever the nakba is coming up you know as as an issue in those encounters
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there is kind of huge gap between the two sides yeah so the nakba is the
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tragedy uh happened in 1948 when most of the Palestinians uh living in this
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country were expelled um out of about 900,000 pales Ians living in the
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territory that Israel was established eventually H out of this
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900,000 around 750,000 were expelled or H flee they
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flee out of fear when the yeshu the Jewish Community feels that its back is against the wall that it's losing the
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war that the Americans are withdrawing from support for partition and Jewish statehood that the British are about to
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evacuate and the Arab armies are about to invade and things change in April but
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still even with this change in an atmosphere of um you might even say an Atmos atmosphere of transfer takes hold
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among the Jews in April 48 4 months after the Arabs begin the war and still
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it is never translated into a consistent systematic policy but everyone knew that
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that's the hope of the leadership to expel as many Arabs as possible and a
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lot of the expulsions was done by the local local leaders by the local military commanders not on orders from
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above but because this was the ethos to get rid of um of the Arabs so it's a
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complicated situation ultimately I think that the term ethnic cleansing is
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Justified the Zionist came to Palestine to establish a Jewish State what is a Jewish State it's not a state full of
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Palestinians it's a state full of Jews how are you going to do that there's a
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country full of non-jews Palestinians how the how on Earth you going to do it
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there was only one
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way fully 1/3 of the Palestinian people had been expelled before May 1948 which
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is to the date of the establishment of the state of Israel I'm one of them um see there behind me that that is
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the house that uh I lived in as a child this is very very much as as it was what
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has changed very strikingly of course is the Upper Floor of this which did not
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exist by the time they got here my my father's job was much better uh things
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were really much more comfortable and my mother really came into her own when it
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really changed was the beginning of 1948 that was when a very big hotel in
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our neighborhood close to our house called the seam Hotel was blown up by
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the hag that I think was the first time I began to feel that life was changing
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from that moment on that was January 1948 things got worse and worse and
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worse because our neighborhood was obviously targeted by Jews Jewish militias who were intent on taking it
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over if you read the literature on ethnic leging in other places you see
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that usually the idea is to force people to flee rather than to waste energy in
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uh in taking them one by one put them on buses and lores and so on so usually what you want is to intimidate the
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population make it flee and and and by that you achieve your goal of a
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massive deplacement displacement our street had quite a number number of
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Jewish snipers who had taken over empty buildings because many of the families
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in our neighborhood had already left Palestinian families because it was too dangerous they took these over they
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would be either on the roof or in an upper window with guns pointing you
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never knew when a shot would ring out and in fact a a man I saw him as a child
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he got shot a poor bedin man was just walking along the road uh
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trying to sell um home produce cheese and so on shot shot by a sniper my
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parents both were resistant to leaving many of their friends had left and talked to them and say look what the
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hell are you staying for it's very very bad this well let's go and wait a bit and all calm down my parents said no my
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mother in particular said no way no way nobody's moving me I am not moving I think the thing that I think and I say I
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think because they never discussed it I mean you know so people need to understand that
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the the neckar the this catastrophe the loss of the Homeland in 1940 was so
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traumatic that my parents really couldn't talk about it never they never talked about it I never got anything
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from them about it however I I learned afterwards that darine was a small
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village close to Jerusalem uh and uh on the 9th of April um units of the uron
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Jewish terrorists moved in and shot and killed um about 200 people and that I
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think was the that was it the feeling was cannot now stay too
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dangerous the is organization Israeli organization founded uh some 78 years
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ago ER by Israeli activists most of them are Israeli Jews working on the nakba
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because we believe that unless we acknowledge it and take responsibility
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for the nakba there will never be there is no uh possibility for reconciliation in
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the future between Israelis and Palestinians there may be peace some political agreement but real
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reconciliation there will never be unless Israelis are takeing responsibility to the
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NBA
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for Hi how are you to see you to see you in
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lifa again my name is yob from lifa Village Refugee from lifa
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Village evicted in 1948 lifa
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resident 1948 3,000 they were living in uh more than
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and more than 400 Stony
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houses you are welcome to lifa always I used to
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say I I hope in the future you will come to our house in lifa and drink a
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cup of coffee or tea or to eat Z it you are
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welcome [Music]
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it's a village uh that was ethnically cleansed in
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late 1947 early 1948 it was one of the first and benorian even sort of crowed
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publicly about how lifa and roma were now you know emptied of Arabs and he
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hoped this same would happened in the rest of the country the LIF men did not
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left the village till thein when thein Massacre
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happened uh all the people LIF it and the The Gangs the Zionist armed gangs
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get down looking for in each house houses so no one left
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here or remain in the village we went yeah in the truck only by our clothes
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nothing we took nothing and the key was with my father because we are coming back tomorrow and
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most of the people we are coming tomorrow but we yeah left because
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fireing the fire the shooting or killing or the fear ful and until now we are coming back
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back but I'll not lose the hope that we will come back now and this is the most
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important and crucial Point here the prevention of return home of civilians
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is a political decision this H doesn't have it's not exactly a result of the
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war it's mainly a result of a political decision for me one of the most shocking
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as an Israeli was born here the most shocking Israeli decision I I don't think I've recovered since I've first
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met this decision in the archives in the 1980s in July already 1948 the Israelis
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decided to demolish The Villages so the people would not say that they can come back because there would be nothing to
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come back to how people who survived the Holocaust could do such a
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thing for me is I must say I must say it's a riddle I heav sold until today
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how could they decide in July 1948 to go to 500 villages with bulldozers and
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tractors and wipe them [Music]
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out but the destruction of Palestinian Villages didn't end in
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[Music] 1948 so here we are standing now in the
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West Bank in fact legally this is is the West Bank this is the Border here as you can see with the colors so this is this
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was Jordan until 19 this is the West Bank okay and this was Jordan until
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1967 we are standing here at imas Village at the center of what was it imas Village and there were three
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villages hereas yalu which is some 2 kilomet to the East and B nuba just when
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you walk look the stones around and also the metal metal of the house remains of
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house because we are passing at the center of what was the the Israeli government they talking about the issue
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of these Villages so for example mosan is's lying like many other in many other cases he says there okay but there
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houses been destroyed by the in the war now there is no one house even not one
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house was destroyed in a war here no one they move house from house by bulldozers as you see and by a explosive we have
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this photo in 196 58 in this is a photo from
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1868 one year after 67 war and you see the same structure here it's still not
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uh not been excavated around it but the village is gone already the village is
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totally destroyed and you see from the same the same here and here and this is 10 years later again always is the same
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place of the photo there is 78 already the the park is already growing you see
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the tree and then 88 this is the park green what they
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would call blooming the desert for me as Israeli uh the importance is goes much
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Beyond this history of the Palestinians um because for me as Israeli as I see it
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the nakba in a way constituted us Israelis
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as colonizers and that's why it's so important to understand H to understand
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the reality in which we live the refugee issue is the the the most important issue the
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Palestinian refugees the most important part or component of this conflict and
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um until if we don't deal with it we will never have any solution here in
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addition to the original 700,000 Palestinian refugees of 1948 another
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300,000 became refugees as a result of the 1967 war today these two populations
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and their descendants number upwards of 6 million people and constitute a majority of the Palestinian
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population roughly 13d of them still live in un administered refugee camps in
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the Gaza Strip the West Bank Jordan Syria and
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Lebanon classically in a refugee situation refugees have three choices they can stay where they are they can go
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to a third country or they can go home the preferred choice of the United Nations is for them to go back to their
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homes this is a basic right of all refugees around the world Jews in particular know how important this right
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is many Jewish refugees from World War II have exercised and are still exercising their right to return to
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their homes of origin in Poland Germany Austria and other countries they were expelled from by Nazi Germany when I was
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in my 30s I I wrote to the Israeli Embassy in London I mean it was if I
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think about it is absurd but I was going I'm going to have a tri so I wrote a very nice letter and I said I had been
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born in Jerusalem that I was a um an original inhabitant and my family
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had had to leave in 1948 but I and I wanted to go and back and live in the
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city and could I be assisted by by Israel to do that I I did
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get an answer and I got an answer which was perfect courus but it said yes you'll give you a tourist visa
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um as a v as a visitor but we are not able to acceed to your other request
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your sincerely end of story somebody that the state identifies as a Jew
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living in Canada or Argentina who has no organic connection to the country is
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entitled to come and live and be given a home have access to land be given
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financial support and gain all the rights and privileges of citizenship where whereas a person born in the
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country who's Palestinian whose uh parents and grandparents and great
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grandparents were born there has no rights whatsoever that's what a Jewish
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and Democratic State means in practice another often overlooked consequence of
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Israel's ethn nationalism is the state's treatment of its Arab minority While
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most of the Palestinians either fled or were expelled in 1948 a minority remained in Israel
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these people were granted Israeli citizenship but they were stripped of their land and forced to live under an
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internal military occupation for 18 years today the Arab minority in Israel
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is 1.6 million people strong and constitutes 20% of Israel's citizens I
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think we're some sort of a mixture because on the one hand we are Palestinians but on the other hand um to
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a certain extent we were not able to not be affected by by the Jewish Society or
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by the Israeli State on on different uh on different levels of course one of
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them is the is uh uh culture and education and and foreign
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um foreign uh um how can I say it um has
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influences influences maybe discrimination is not as clear and as
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vulgar as it used to be but it is still there there in in the law itself I can
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see a lot of similarities between the situation of the Palestinian citizen of Israel today and the situation of
42:06
African-Americans back during the segregation period discrimination against the Arab community in Israel has
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two levels one is that level which is formalized by by law itself in issues of
42:20
citizenship immigration political participation religious Services language and culture and that's the law
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itself contain these privileges for the for the Jewish majority but also in in
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other areas where supposedly the sit the legal situation as was supposed
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basically to Grant equality for Palestinians in Israel on reality on the ground you will
42:46
see the situation of the community lag far behind that of the Jewish community and mainly speak about the socio
42:53
economic situation as an ethn nationalist State Israel sees itself as the exclusive state of the Jewish people
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this means that Jews from around the world are encouraged to immigrate while Palestinian refugees are prevented from
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returning but it also means that the state treats those living in its Sovereign territory differently
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depending on their ethnicity and geographic location Jewish Israelis enjoy the highest level of Rights and
43:19
privileges Arab Israelis have fewer Palestinians who live in the West Bank have fewer still and the Palestinian
43:26
Ians of the Gaza Strip have the least and if you are a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem you may find yourself in
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the Absurd situation of being made a refugee
43:55
twice
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for rabbi aric asherman I'm the executive director of rabbis for human
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rights their house in in in in being taken by a Jewish group claiming pre
44:35
48 um ownership which may or may not be true but then let these people go back
44:40
to their homes that they owned before 48 so we're we're demonstrating that uh
44:45
they've been made twice refugees once from their homes in tban jafa once from they now they're home
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in um one way or the other they have to have a home you are occupying our
44:57
country Mis in the first place but when you say that it look like you want to take her out when you said occupy of
45:04
course you are Israeli government is it was war it was war yes who who came to this country we because it's our country
45:11
oh if you don't years ago if you don't believe that it's our country the Jew 20
45:16
you're going back we couldn't live together we can't live together sorry sorry we are here as human beings now
45:23
this is the 21st century human Jew and you're Palestinian this is the place for
45:29
the Jew no Christians Jews and Muslims this their place yes and you have to
45:35
accept this if you didn't accept this you will never see peace believe me because we're not going to disappear the
45:41
question the question is if you're looking for a feast or you looking to take out the Jew no we're looking for
45:48
feast with the Jew with the Jew okay so and the Jew has to understand that this land is a Holy Land body in the world
45:56
yes but you should look at the Bible and God said God give this peace to the Jew
46:03
not to the Palestinian there is no Palestinian God is not a land
46:09
[Music]
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broker Israel is is defined by its basic laws as as a democ as a Jewish and
46:24
Democratic state with with this order being Jewish and Democratic not the
46:30
opposite but but our our analysis of the situation clearly lead us to the
46:36
conclusion that it's it's mainly Democratic for the Jewish community and
46:41
it's mainly Jewish for the Arab Community as much as you try and as much as you do there is still something
46:48
fundamental in the state that wants to delete you delete your your culture your language Your Existence if you in danger
46:56
the jewishness of my country my compromise will be on
47:02
Democracy then you will see long
47:24
nails
47:38
[Music]
47:54
this is part of the wall this is Banky actually the picture here it was done 3
48:02
or 4 years ago the first thing because banki came two times to beim this is from the first time and he had a picture
48:08
over sea actually and this is my
48:14
house this is my house I'm just in front of you the white with the Stars I started decorating they
48:21
decorating already yeah I put the lights in the night since to [Music]
48:31
right so you are welcome at my house those are my
48:38
daughters Mary she's sick I took care to the doctor today natal shad and
48:46
Christine you were talking before about a two-state solution in a one state solution which solution do you prefer I
48:53
prefer the one state solution one state two people equally and every religion is
49:00
free Jewish or Christians or Muslims even Buddhist if they want to come here aist anybody is welcome to live in this
49:06
country peacefully these two people cannot live together today in the same state it is not possible the hatred the
49:14
fear the history the Bloodshed that took place here cannot be healed in a one
49:20
state framework what we live every day and what people who think contrary to
49:26
what I think about reality people who are opposing to the one state solution
49:31
are living in a one state solution but in the one state solution they Liv one state they are living in one state they
49:37
are living in what will be one day one state solution and they are living in this one state as a privileged citizens
49:46
and they are living in this one state as with a fellow govern who are under
49:54
citizens who are non citizens of the same state of course I've never been anything but a one state supporter let's
50:01
look at this in two stages and not mix them up together stage one is it a good
50:07
idea never mind whether we can have it or not I just want to know the answer do
50:12
you think it's a good idea for these two peoples to share this land to end this
50:18
misery and conflict let the poor people thrown out in refugee camps come home
50:23
and everybody calm down do you think think that is a good idea now you'd be amazed If Ever I ask this question
50:30
nobody ever says yes no to that idea the immediately oh yeah but how is it going to be done what I say to them look just
50:37
just a moment just just first tell me do you think it's a good idea now once you
50:44
get a a massive people saying yes what a good idea why the hell have you have we
50:52
been worrying and bothering with these all these thoughts what about that once you get to that stage the next stage is
51:00
how do we do it so my vision is kind of like the the United States of the Holy
51:06
Land madas you know we'll call it the holy land and you'll have um a bunch of
51:13
states very much like the United States starting out with uh different different
51:18
states so there'll be states that are more Jewish that are more majority Jews and there'll be states that have a
51:24
majority Arab but free flow and you have to really make sure that people can buy
51:30
houses wherever they want to and and no laws of discrimination in these Jewish
51:35
AAS there some Arabs that want to live there or if there's the minority of Arabs and vice versa in the Arab areas
51:42
and there's Inon and there in Hal and there's a minority of Jews that they're
51:47
treated well I have no objection to recognizing in some way that you have a
51:54
large Jewish population in Palestine that maintains connections to Jews
52:00
around the world especially if Jews actually did find themselves in trouble in other places around the world because
52:06
they were Jews then I would want Palestine to be a place where they could
52:12
come and be safe not reversing oppression mind you because some people might think oh the the Palestinians want
52:19
to become a majority so that they can oppress the Jews in Palestine and turn them into the oppressed the
52:26
colonized if the colonized wouldn't apply but at least the oppressed I would not support that I'm not interested in
52:32
reversing oppression I'm interested in ending oppression ending Injustice not reversing it so this is the difference
52:38
between Justice and revenge I'm against Revenge because it has serious moral
52:44
problems Liars Liars nasty
52:49
Liars live live my my idea we will go now and we will travel from Morocco up
52:58
to Afghanistan the the Arab Islamic world what happened in Turkey the
53:04
transfer of the the Greek and the massacre let's say or the the killing or
53:10
the mass killing of the Armenian what happened with the Italian people in in Libya what happened with the French in
53:18
Algeria talk about Muslim Visa Barbarian people in Morocco
53:26
and they cheat me and they think that I will believe them Liars I I repeat again
53:31
Liars because they know exactly what I just told you now after the last teral
53:39
100 years of so many hatred and Wars they will accept me with love to to
53:48
believe them sorry I I don't know if if Palestinians
53:56
and this is my main reservation here I don't know if Palestinians would agree
54:02
to uh to to one state solution uh if they are would after all these years
54:09
would be happy to live with us as their fellow citizens in the same state so but
54:17
considering this and considering the fact that in Israel itself the idea of
54:23
one state is something that terrifies most Jews uh one state
54:31
solution is not a solution at the moment it's a vision it's not a solution you
54:36
cannot think about it in terms of practical solution to practical problems
54:42
but as a vision this is my vision I would like to uh uh to dream about about
54:50
this possibility and to use this this Vision this dream uh in order to
54:55
um change the perspective of people about the possible not about not only
55:02
about the real but about the possible I remember that that when I first started
55:08
going like during the oso period when I first started coming to the West Bank I used to get on a service that would go from Damascus gate and I knew that the
55:14
first 15 minutes of the ride I would have an anxiety attack like I'd have like you know my heart would be like
55:21
crazy and I'd be sure that everybody around me wanted to kill me and then the fear would be like every once in a while
55:27
like if something scary happened like a soldier you know pointing his gun into our village right then again that fear
55:34
would touch the fear of of the Arabs that that I had and it took years until that that stopped coming up it
55:42
just it you know but then and then I remember times where I'd like be seeing like a really kind of human scene like
55:49
I'd see this Palestinian grandfather with a long long cfia meeting his grandchildren in Street
55:55
and like their eyes sparkling you know and I'd be like all of a sudden I'd be like they're human you know and it would
56:02
just it's been you know we should never lose sight of that the iar the principle
56:08
is the human being that's where the Torah starts from it doesn't start from us becoming a nation so it's not
56:14
nationhood that's the most important thing it's not the land it's not even the Torah it doesn't start from Revelation at sin it starts from a human
56:21
human beings being created and yeah I think that's we really got to get back to that after two decades of a failed
56:29
peace process it's easy to see why many have given up hope on finding a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict but
56:37
if you shift your perspective and focus on the people it becomes clear that the conflict is not actually a zero sum game
56:44
and that the obstacles to political change are not Geographic or practical
56:50
but emotional and psychological the path then to ad just and Lasting peace leads not through
56:56
ethnic segregation but through cultural and ultimately psychological integration
57:01
and if you look closely you'll see that there are Israelis and Palestinians who understand this and are working together
57:08
to transform the suffering of their people into a shared wisdom for the benefit of all
57:15
[Music]
57:23
Humanity
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