I was hoping that halfway through last night’s talk at SOAS by Jewish Israeli lecturer Oren Yiftachel that another Jewish Israeli lecturer, Dr. Yair Wallach, would stand up and announce that it’s all just a Purim shpiel!
Mr Wallach and a third Jewish Israeli lecturer, Moriel Ram, had heavily promoted Mr Yiftachel’s talk under the auspices of the Centre for Jewish Studies. Mr Wallach was in last night’s audience while Mr Ram introduced Mr Yiftachel.
The talk was called Between Apartheid and Peace: Confederation for Israel/Palestine? It was part of a fairly hostile series of five talks crafted together by the European Association of Israel Studies.
Mr Yiftachel’s lecture was basically in two parts. The second part would have been fine as a stand alone topic in which he discussed his own plan for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. No one can reject hearing a possible peace plan however delusional it might be, especially considering that he headed B’Tselem until 2014.
He is currently on a sabbatical at UCL from Ben Gurion University with 10 months left.
But the first part was about Israel becoming an apartheid state and about how both a two state solution and a one state solution would not work: two states would fail because, he claimed, Palestine would be a “ghetto state” due to the Palestinians having been ghettoised and put into bantustans by the Oslo accords. A one state solution would fail due to the competing nationalisms.
Mr Yiftachel then showed slides with questions “Why has Israel destroyed large parts of Gaza and killed many?” and “Why is Palestinian resistance and terror continuing?”
He claimed Israel was carrying out one of the few remaining colonial projects while most of those of other countries had ceased in the 1950s.
Another slide* depicted what he termed “The Judaisation process” showing maps of how in 1917 there were 67 “Jewish settlements”, in 1947 there were 332, in 1967 there were 764, in 1993 there were 911 and now there are well over a thousand.
Next, a slide contained two maps showing the “Nakba: De-Arabization” between 1947 and 1949. Other slides* used the term “Deepening apartheid”.
One slide depicted how the economic gap between the Israelis and Palestinians had accelerated since 1975 which he said contributed to the “apartheid”.
He then showed a map* of South Africa depicting where all the bantustans used to be while explaining that the Palestinians are currently even more “encaged”. A subsequent slide* depicted how “citizenship” had been “stratified” under “the Israeli ethnocracy” into:
- Jews – ‘whites’
- Palestinian Arabs in Israel – ‘coloureds’
- Palestinian Arabs in the OT – ‘blacks’
- Foreigners – ‘grays’
One would think that the ex-head of a human rights organisation wouldn’t make light of the horrific historical conditions in ghettoes and under apartheid with such comparisons.
Mr Yiftachel should be ashamed of himself.
The second part of Mr Yiftachel’s talk was about his delusional peace plan called Two States, One Homeland. He explained it was a way for Israel to save itself from ‘apartheid’. It would involve two sovereign entities with joint institutions and gradual free movement ‘Schengen style’ between the two entities. There would be a right of return for Palestinians to Palestine and “redistributive justice”.
Gradually, according to Mr Yiftachel, the huge economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians would disappear and so would terror attacks by Palestinians. He said “the Jews will remain the upper class but the gap will close…terror dies when the cause of terror dies…it’s worth trying because it is better than apartheid” although he admitted “there will be conflict”.
During the Q&A I asked how this ‘confederation’ could not ultimately lead to the end of the Jewish state. First, he wasn’t impressed with the term ‘Jewish state’ preferring to use ‘Israeli state’ which was a ‘state of all its citizens’. Second, he said the Palestinians wouldn’t have citizenship in Israel so there wouldn’t be a problem. Third, he reckons there were only a couple of hundred thousand Palestinian refugees anyway but that would depend on the definition of ‘refugee’.
That third assumption is ludicrous seeing as earlier in the talk he had claimed there were 2.5m refugees and according to UNWRA there are five million!
To sum up the awfulness of his talk an elderly gentleman asked about the possible consequences of having Hamas terror so much closer to Israel. Mr Yiftachel replied that Hamas had accepted the two state solution. Of course this is utter nonsense. Their 1988 Charter to annihilate every single Jew in the world is still alive and kicking. Hamas has never disowned it.
Embarrassingly for Mr Yiftachel he managed to secure for himself a 300 seat prime central London university lecture theatre but only 50 people turned up. Needless to say a waste of taxpayers’ money.
(* for these slides see Jonathan Hoffman’s blog)
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Thank you very much, Richard. I’ve read it and another extraordinary lecture you find yourself in.
Jonny.
Jewish antisemitism is an sad illness.
I’m appalled and horrified every time I hear about these “academics” (who may be learned but are incredibly stupid) who defame and delegtimize Israel – particularly those academics and other intelligentsia who are Israeli.
Bad enough that their delusional ideas would lead to catastrophe for Israel and its Jewish population, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. But the slandering, smearing and outright propagandizing for the enemy? I can’t understand it at all. They themselves would fall victim to the results of their proposals.
It’s a known truism that the worst antisemites are Jewish. They have a deeper visceral hatred for their nation and their state, and they give credibility and cover to the non-Jewish antisemites.
What a disgrace!
Kol hakavod Richard on your courage in attending this lecture and documenting it for us. I don’t know how you have the stomach to carry on.
Jewish antisemites are not worse than others, although they might appear so to Jews who cannot understand Jews turning against their own people.
That was described long ago in this article:
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2.209/the-jew-flu-the-strange-illness-of-jewish-anti-semitism-1.267172
Jose, from the first para of the Haaretz article “The 1930s Labor Zionist leader Berl Katznelson asked “Is there another People on Earth so emotionally twisted that they consider everything their nation does despicable and hateful, while every murder, rape, robbery committed by their enemies fill their hearts with admiration and awe?” can YOU provide some evidence to back that up especially the part about “while every murder, rape, robbery committed by their enemies fill their hearts with admiration and awe”? once you’ve done so i’ll read the rest of the article…thanks
See the Neturei Karta, see B’Tselem.
Most hide behind a thin veil of hypocrisy: they won’t blame Hamas for using human shields and blame Israelis when some innocent gets hurt.
Ezra Nawi, is an example of the worst antisemite a Jew can be.
He was caught on hidden camera boasting about having ratted Palestinians for selling his private land to Jews.
He gloated that he was sending them to their deaths, PA torturing them first of course.
Can you imagine such antisemitism that this guy considers worthy of death penalty those who sell land to Jews? And in a country that hasn’t applied death penalty since Eichmann!
And of course, you have Richard Falk, Kenneth Roth, Max Blumenthal, Miko Peled, Gilad Atzmon, Ilan Pappe, etc.
Jews whose jobs depend on them accusing Israelis of every crime.
Tell me when you’ll be tired: I have a rather extensive list.
Wow..just WOW! Your statement that “It’s a known truism that the worst antisemites are Jewish.” is as anti semitic as can be…what a disgrace!
Says the antisemite with an antisemitic website.
Wow..just WOW! Your statement that “It’s a known truism that the worst antisemites are Jewish.” is as anti semitic as can be…what a disgrace!
You’ll have to explain that ridiculous statement to people who know better/
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2.209/the-jew-flu-the-strange-illness-of-jewish-anti-semitism-1.267172
ROFL@anneinpt, can’t back up her preposterous claim so calls me a troll and runs away
anneinpt, please explain why i’m an ‘anti semite with an anti semitic website’?
I looked at your revolting website and every single post is a demonization and smear of Israel and Israelis, whether soldiers, residents of Judea and Samaria or whatever. This single minded distorted and obsessive focus on Israel is antisemitic. Anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
And now I’m blocking you.Goodbye troll.
How come nobody noted the Arabs live where they do of their own volition especially as socially they are highly family or clan (hamullah) orientated. Second glaring omission all human rights declarations and laws are posited on peacetime and peaceful conditions. The Arabs having refused peace compromises on at least half a dozen occasions since the 1937 Peel report and their leaders and charters promoting warlike conduct , the can not complain that some of their freedoms are curtailed. Wartime Britain, Canada and the US never mind the USSR deported and imprisoned large numbers of resident aliens during hostilities.
How would you explain the internally displaced within the racist settler colony? How would you explain to human beings Palestinian refugees own 88% of the land within ‘israel’ (those are JNF – the appropriators – own figures). Nothing justifies their loss. A wrong that must be righted.
Please, your name-calling statements have nothing to do with facts.
Those pseudo-refugees never owned one bit of the land of Israel.
By the way, the 850,000 real Jewish refugees from Arab lands did own a lot of land there. When are they going to pay for it to the Jewish State, who welcomed most of the refugees?
Too many “Palestine Arabs have out of country toponyms – place name surnames. First Egypt is the biggest source of intra-Arab World migration in any Arab country: Masri/Misri; then Mugrebi /Maghrabi=Westerner ie Morocco or the rest of French N. Africa; Djazair=Algeria; Bushniak=Bosnian, Halabi=Aleppo ie Syrian; Obeidi=Sudanese; Hijazi=Hejaz in W.Saudi-A; Khamis=Bahrain; the following are fairly obvious: Lubnani, Yamani, Afghani, Hindi, Baghdadi, Turki. Time to stop accepting the tear jerker about the aboriginal Arab population who indulged ethnic cleansing all Jews beyond the Green Line in 1948 both in the Land of Israel and in the Arab World.
There would probably be less than 700,000 ‘refugees’ in 1948 if the British had kept their mandate promises and made a Jewish homeland of it, instead of letting Arab immigration unchecked and Jewish immigration ever more limited after each White Paper.
On the other hand, Jews from Muslim lands lived there for centuries and millenia, especially the Mizrahim. Their lands and other properties were valuable and were not paid ten times over by UNRWA and other programs for fake refugees.
Thank you for your report and for taking the time to listen to this garbage and to continue letting us know what the anti-semites are being allowed to say.
Looking back at our history some of the major problems for our people have been caused by apostates and many Jewish lives were lost as a result.
I trust that Ben Gurion University will be made aware of what their employee has been saying.
Test
How did this academic get appointed to a post at UCL?
Honestly! A man with integrity and humanity gets smeared with every ugly quality a racist supremacist zionist is actually guilty of. Is there anymore proof needed that a racist supremacist zionist lives in an upturned antonym meaning universe to human beings?!
Under the Mandate 70% of the country was waste or crown lands – mawet or miri. Only 30% was cadastrally surveyed and registered private freehold and of that only 6% ie 6/30ths of the freehold land was Jewish. Given that most of the Beer Sheva sub-district, or half the Mandate’s 10 000 sq miles went to Israel it is quite impossible that 88% of the land of the State of Israel – 8000 sq miles (5/8 Negev ie BS sub -district) is the former property of the Arab refugees of 1948.
Do not blame the British entirely. The Jews did not turn up in convincing numbers either in the British years especially when the doors were open before the 1921 transfer from the military to the civil regime. Further Arabs infiltrated the frontiers easily enough. In fact overall the rabbinate and Diaspora establishment were not over enthusiastic – except to send funds – admittedly a £100 mn ($400mn then) in 1917 – 37 = £5+ Bn now and all private contributions. Even now when Israel is a developed society and economy capable of taking in a million a decade as it did with the Soviet Jews being 25% to 20% of population unlike its struggle to house the Arab Jews on a smaller base as a 100% of the population, organising the Diaspora to move on aliyah is not the loudest squeak in the Jewish agenda.