This week, RBI Director John Torpey speaks with Amos Goldberg, Professor of Holocaust History at the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, about the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Among other rhetorical aspects of the conflict, Goldberg reflects on the meaning of such slogans as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” They also discuss the question whether Israel is committing genocide and what that means. Finally, the conversation addresses how the conflict might end, an especially appropriate question as the parties seem to be returning to the bargaining table in a serious way.

John Torpey 

The war in Israel Palestine that began with the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7th 2023, has captured the attention of the world. It’s led to the deaths of more than 33,000 persons, most of them women and children, and some of them, unfortunately have been humanitarian aid workers. The war has inflamed passions across the United States, especially, of course on college campuses, but also in the halls of the State Department and other groups and institutions. The war has also brought to attention the growing tensions between Iran and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah on one side and Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia on the other. How can the conflict be resolved if at all? Welcome to International Horizons, a podcast at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly and diplomatic expertise to bear on our understanding of a wide range of international issues. My name is John Torpey, and I’m director of the Ralph Bunche Institute at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Today we discuss the situation in Israel Palestine with Amos Goldberg of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Prof. Goldberg is the Jonah M. Machover Chair in Holocaust Studies in the Department of Jewish History and Contemporary Jewry, and until recently was the Head of the Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry, at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Among his books is the award-winning volume Trauma in First Person: Diary Writing During the Holocaust (Indiana UP 2017), which was listed among Choice’s ten most outstanding books in the category of “History, Geography, and Area Studies” for 2018; He’s also published a co-edited volume together with Bashir Bashir The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History (Columbia University Press 2018). Goldberg is among the initiators and drafters of the Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism. He has contributed dozens of articles to numerous media outlets in Hebrew, English and German, including most recently the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the New York Review of Books (NYRB), Haaretz, and Local Call in Hebrew. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity (CSHGCAH) here at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies and we are very happy to have him. Thanks for being with us today, Amos Goldberg.

Amos Goldberg 

Thank you for having me.

John Torpey 

It’s great to have you. And I want to talk to you about a very delicate and troubling subject, which is of course the situation in Israel Palestine. You recently wrote an analysis of the slogan, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, and criticizing the way it has been used as a means of suppressing speech on the part of critics of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. Maybe we could begin by having you explain your argument in that article.

Amos Goldberg 

Thank you very much, John, for having me. Yes, I will try to explain I think, first of all, we have to take into consideration that this is a broader struggle over the meaning of antisemitism and how it is connected or disconnected or not connected, or in what sense it is connected or not connected to critique of Israel. This is a long, long debate which is taking place in a all over Europe, America, Israel, and also other parts of the world. So that’s the big question and in my take on it that, now I’m going to say very generally, that although there are some times that anti-Zionism or harsh critic of Israel somehow flows or spills over to a group that could in a way that it could be considered anti-semitic, whether it is from a left wing or other critique of Israelis or Israel and Zionism, whether it is from Palestinian or Arab, from writings and expression overall, overall speaking, I think two things have to be settled, broadly speaking, they do not conflate those are two very different things. Anti-Israel, or anti-Israel occupation or anti-Israel policies, or even anti-Zionism as a national ideology is one thing and it’s legitimate. It has always been legitimate, it is legitimate towards other countries and also towards Israel. And there is antisemitism, which is a form of bigotry and racism, that we have to fight. Generally speaking, so those are two different things, that some political parties have an interest to conflate them. So this is one thing that I think you should be saying, although as I said, in the beginning, sometimes they overlap and I will try to draw, try to draw, some kind of a map where they overlap. And I think this we can discuss it afterwards. And then, a second thing that has to be always remembered before entering the slogan is that, to my opinion, and I think to many other experts and other viewers and other Jews and other, I would say, other parties, or ask actors in this field. The real antisemitism, anti-semitic threat comes from the right wing from those who shout Jews will not replace us, from those from the AfD (Alternative for Germany) in Germany, that all of a sudden became the best friend of Israel, but they have so such a strong Nazi roots in revisionist roots. So, so this is the big picture. Now let’s go to the within this big picture, there’s a triangle, there is an attempt to criminalize a critique of Israel and critique of Zionism as anti-semitic. And from the date of this kind of interpretation of the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” it should be understood within this context. Now, before we get So, I think it is become such a contentious slogan, which is chanted since the 60s all over the world, particularly it started in the English speaking countries, but now it’s all over the world really, also, in South Africa, in Latin America, in Europe, every Germany is become so before we go dive into the meaning of the word, even according to those who think that it means that it’s the elimination of the State of Israel, because when you say “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” you actually meet, which I think is wrong. I will explain in a second, why I think it’s wrong. This is a wrong interpretation. But even for those who think that it means only Palestine between the river and the sea, and no Israel, then they have to explain why do they accept the opposite view by Israel “from the river to the sea”, by Israel, Israel policy to or is actually what is actually happening, the actual reality on the ground between the river and the sea today, there is only one state controlling the whole area, and for many decades, its policy is to jeopardize any possibility any option of a Palestinian state that is doing “from the river to the sea, only Israel will be free”. This is a legitimate political opinion, why the other is not. So this is kind of a hypocrisy, because as we know, today, there is one state Israel, Israel is controlling the whole area, the whole territory “from the river to the sea”, Israel itself and its occupied territories. It has a settlement policy, that to avoid any future Palestinian state. This is also what said maybe what’s outspoken about that, he said, he wrote he will not allow in his his whole policies to prevent a Palestinian state. So Israel is not chanting from the river to the sea, but it actually does create a political reality of “from the river to the sea” there is only one state which is means only Israel will be free. No Palestinian state, no Palestinian rights and what we have now for many, many years, that between the river and the sea there are two almost equal in demography, in terms of numbers, population, one Palestinian one Israeli, Israeli Jews have almost I mean, they enjoy full rights, while the Palestinian population have either no rights or partial rights. And we can distinguish between those in the West Bank that almost have no rights those in Jerusalem have a the residents that are not citizens, those inside Israel are citizens but are not full citizens in a sense that there are so many laws discriminating against them. And there are those in the diaspora in the refugee camps that were expelled or fled Palestine in 1948, or 1967, still can go back. And there are those in Gaza, who we know what is happening to them. So various ways they don’t have rights. While half of the population, the Jewish population enjoy full rights, and this is what many called apartheid. So while this is a legitimate, is considered to be a legitimate Israeli policy, even if you disagree with that, just chanting “from the river to sea” is criminalized anti-semitic. Now, so this is a I mean, you see here the hypocrisy of this allegation. Now, if we dive into this, and there’s quite a lot of quite a lot of research that has done on this specific chant,  specific slogan by, for example, historian Maha Nassar, from Arizona, then it started in the 60s in the process of decolonization and the PATAJ and the PLO supported this slogan, as in the vision one democratic state for all, which was, of course, rejected by Israel. But since then it became the chant, the major chant that Palestinians around the world and the supporters chant, in the demonstration against the occupation, against apartheid, against settler colonialism and against whatever. Now, what does it actually mean? It actually means what I said that between the river to the sea, there are all the Palestinians are not free. Now, how to what what is the way to free them? When then you have many, many, you have many, many Palestinian views on that, as we have views on any political issue in every society.

Amos Goldberg 

So something a two-state solution is the is the way to break free of this situation, and some kind of a solution to the right to return to all and this was during the 80s and the early 90s, was supported by at least the vast majority of Palestinians in Palestine, according to polls, but since then, after second, the father and the massive aggressive settlement policy, this seems to be according to many analysts, not feasible anymore, because there is no viable territory for stake because of the aggressive racist, I would say, settlement against the international law, because it’s an occupied territory, and you’re not allowed to transform population from your territory to the occupied territory, but Israel has done this according to almost all legal experts, it’s against the international law, but there is no it seems that there is no way to go to a viable Palestinian state. So the other so some chanted and still think of the way to free Palestine and Palestinians is through a two-state solution something is does not work. And we have to think of a confederation, something of one state with the two communities and there are also those radicals whether seculars who have Algeria, for example, in mind who want to expel all or most Jews or even sometimes kill them. And there’s the Islamic, some who support the Muslim or Islamic political imagination of the me of an Islamic rule, whereas the Jews are somehow subordinated in inferior but protected by the Islamic State and some even think of expelling or or even killing most of the Jews, in order for this holy land to come back to a Muslim country Islamic control. But the chant itself doesn’t say anything about, the chant itself has become a very global chant all for the Palestinian cause, and we have to see it as a kind of a speech act. This is what you chant in the porting of Palestine, what do you actually mean that they said, many people have many interpretation, it’s like, you know, when we say, once upon a time, we don’t mean once upon a time, we just mean that now we are in a legend. Well, in this journey over legend. When you say, Palestine, from which we will chant it, and I chanted it in many other chanted it, in many demonstrations around the world, you just mean, I support the freedom of the Palestinians. Now, but I have to end this, I mean, I’m talking too much. But I think I have to end this question, this answer, by saying that after the 7th October, a special sensitivity has arosen, and because of the big trauma of Israelis, and many others around the world, and some Palestinians themselves, understood it, and suggested changing this, this chant to be more clear that we are not about expelling or killing all the Jews, this is not what and then they suggested, for example, “from the river to the sea everybody should be free” or all should be free or all time, all kinds of egalitarian emancipatory chance now I’m not to say to tell the Palestinians what to chant. I’m just mentioning that some understood the sensitivity and suggested other. I could say that a friend of mine, a very dear friend of mine, that also chanted this in many demonstration and has no very, I would say, you know, very sound minded Palestinian, that is all her life is looking for some intellectual ways to think the, in an egalitarian way, solution said, you know, you cannot, I take it very seriously, you can say you cannot demand a seat, this was chanting 60s just to change it because of a some sensitivity of Westerns or Israelis or Jews. And I accept this also. So it’s for the Palestinians, I think, mostly to decide how they want to chant in the demonstration, but perfect. I just finished, they said, and I think nobody thinks about exactly what solution do we actually mean in “from the river to the sea”? It’s just a chant, we have to free we have to get we have to from a situation of unfree people to a free people. What is the how politically to get that? There are so many opinions, nothing is hinted in the chant itself to work to a specific political solution.

John Torpey 

Right. I mean, you’ve obviously laid a lot on the table. And it’s hard to know really where to intervene now. But I mean, I guess what strikes me in response to what you’ve said is that in the meantime there’s a war in Gaza. And it’s 33 or 34000 people have died, most of them women and children and this all started when Hamas committed a terrorist attack that killed more than 1200 Israelis and resulted in the taking of many hostages. And from a kind of outsider’s perspective, I’m hardly an expert on this, it looked like a kind of provocation that in its own way would make it impossible for the Israelis to want to make peace with the Palestinians. So the prospects insofar as they were going anywhere before October 7, the prospects of making some kind of long term peaceful solution seem now sort of off very much in the distance. And in the meantime, there’s a charge being leveled against the Israelis, that they’re committing a genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. And I know you’ve written about this. And I think the question of genocide is a complicated one. The definition is tricky, the International Court of Justice as we know come to the conclusion that there’s a plausible genocide taking place in Gaza. I wonder you’ve written about this. So what would you say is the answer to that question, which I think is obviously extremely sensitive.

Amos Goldberg 

Yeah, this is extremely sensitive and whatever we think whether it was a genocide or not a genocide, I think now after six months, with so many investigations, including of Israeli investigations, and including human rights in the special to the occupied the Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese and the ICJ and, and then you know, you just name it, we can fairly, you know, fairly certain that huge crimes, massive crimes are taking place. Again, I mean, certainly war crimes, and I think many would agree, crimes against humanity in the occupied, in Gaza, I would suggest, and it took me half a year to acknowledge that I think the word genocide or the term genocide is also applicable to this situation, and there is a genocide going on or unfolding and who knows when it will stop. So, if we tie it to the, again, previous question, so while this is going on in Gaza, I think attacking those who chant “from the river to the sea”, as genocidal is a bit… hypocritical, because you know, what’s, look at what’s happening on the ground. And what you chant, I mean, you cannot blame someone or implying some way genocidal when you are actually doing such horrible Israel has done. Now, I will say, now, I don’t know how there’s so many layers of this question you ask. So first of all, yes, Israel had the right to self-defense after 7th October, the 7th October was a crime. Some even, not only Israeli, go as far as say that it was genocide or whether a genocide was a genocidal. I’m not sure about that. I doubt it. I don’t think so. But it was a very severe crime, the 7th  October, and the impact on Israel and Jewish society was shock and trauma. It was as itself was, in itself was something unprecedented, for many, many reasons. It really, till now the kibbutzim are unpopulated, most of them. People, you know, the figures are known 1200 on the first day, some 850 of them killed were civilians, children, elderly. Yes, there were true atrocities. Not all that was published was right. But basically, yes. And the hostages are really an open wound. I know like my colleague, in my department is hostage in our neighborhood. I know people who are hostages, that just a few days ago released a video clip of this, his name is Hersh Goldberg-Polin is released and it’s heartbreaking. And you know, I was working on my book which some of what I say here is written down with the editor on 4th or 5th October, just finishing the editor, edit the proofs and on 7th October, she was under attack. She’s survived and her daughter but her partner is also a hostage in Gaza. So this is an open wound and traumatic and Israel had the right and even obligation for self-defense. But what has been going on since then, is way way, way way more aggressive than self-defense and it crossed the line of, I think, to my mind, certainly war crimes, certainly crimes against humanity and to my mind, even the concept of genocide and I will explain. Now, genocide is a very tricky, it’s a judicial concept. It comes from the international from the 1948 covenant to prevent and to punish genocide in December 1948 was the adopted by the UN. And there it says that, it’s very tricky, because it says that it is to destruct four categories of groups racial, ethnic, religious, and national I think with intent and in whole and in part, it could be in whole or in part. So, how big the part is in order for it to be considered and to be the destructed as such, this is the as such, what does it mean as such not for other reasons. Now, this is a very tricky and it was political and the whole debate about it in the UN was very political. For example, you don’t have political groups, because many like the USSR, Soviet Union opposed it, because then they might be, they were afraid they will be accused of doing genocide. So it’s a very tricky definition and many scholars, historians or political scientists did not accept this definition added. Some spoke about ethnic cleansing in the big like Naiman or others, that genocide, you cannot really consider the boundaries between this and other other war crimes, and other crimes against humanity and it is connected to other. Some spoke about mass atrocities 50,000 and more that would be considered mass atrocity, mass killing not talk about genocide, because it is a very tricky, and it’s a very political definition. Nonetheless, it has power. And United States acknowledged so far eight except for the Holocaust the genocides. Now, let’s start with incitement to genocide. This is also part of the convention and parties have to prevent and to punish, incitement for genocide. And this is undoubtedly happens in Israel. I think there are more those a monitoring organization that monitored more than 500 utterances from the highest political levels to the Facebook and to media people talking openly about destructing completely Gaza, no innocent people in Gaza. This also said our president, it’s handheld, so. So there are on this level, I think. And this is actually what the ICJ also ruled it. It is one of the public provisional measures were was for Israel to do all it can to punish and stop incitement for genocide. So and this has never been done. Just recently, a rabbi, very influential rabbi called for really, you know, in the most brutal way to kill all of them, because there is no innocent, not a child. And it is openly said in Israel. So on this level, I think it is hard to say that there is not incitement from the highest to the lowest levels, media people, as I said, influential figures, in the army, and that was very, very, I think, powerful step put straight forward in the ICJ by South African delegation that the lawyers of South Africa. So on that level, and I think there can be no dispute, there is incitement for genocide and there is a cause for genocide implying, explicit or implicit. Now, after the ICJ, this was reduced by four, four months. We heard this all over, just open mean, all of all open. Now, whether this is now I think this the case for genocide in Palestine is very strong. And it is based first because of this insight and open speech. We know I heard some I read some political scientists who said never before political leaders spoke so openly and express the desire for this whole destruction as in Israel.

Amos Goldberg 

So, I think it’s fair to say according to the evidence that there was an intent. Now, Israel said no we didn’t intend this, this does not express intent, it’s expressing just the rage. And after the 7th October, but when you have such a boost, and then you see what is happening on the ground, when actually, Gaza does not exist anymore is, as in political, human cultural society, it does not exist anymore. It was completely destructed physically, and institutionally, while really killing by now more than 34000 people and probably many more under the rubbles. And we will be this ongoing thing. We don’t know how many  and famine will be killed by the end of this war, and now they’re entering Rafah. So when you compare what they said at the beginning, and the end, and what has happened, and after all those investigation that say that actually, within this very broad hiding behind a collateral damage, they were willing to kill hundreds of people and destroy neighborhoods for just one Hamas officer, then you say this is this is actually a genocidal logic that you can kill everyone in order to get rid of Hamas. And this is what we see. And some as we know, in the cases of for example of , well, the quote, the International Criminal Courts, Yugoslavia twice, decided that. So that it’s a was genocide, only, quote, unquote, 8000 people, men, over the age of 16, were killed, while the other were expelled. So you see here, a combination of killing an expulsion, which takes also place in Gaza, that can create a genocide, the same is about to the Rohingya in Myanmar where America acknowledged it. And then also you have as a genocide just in March 9 2022. And then you also have the combination of destruction, expulsion, and killing, just as in Gaza. And this could be considered a genocide, because looking at it you see the extreme, this extreme killing, the extreme amount of destruction, and including of all cultural, universities, hospitals, everything. This is the logic of a genocide. And Israel never said that the population is going to return to the homes. So, if this is not your genocide, what is a genocide? So it’s not a genocide in the sense of the Holocaust that every Jew, and I think this is the big mistake that we imagine a genocide only, according to what the Holocaust was that every Jew was looked after in order to be killed in exterminating systematically. This is one kind of a genocide. Maybe the Armenian Genocide is similar to that maybe the one that genocide is more close to that is closer to that. But there are other forms of genocide you which I just mentioned, like Srebrenica or Rohingya, where the extermination is, takes a different shape and a different form, and not only a total annihilation of other population. And I think the Gaza is more, seems more like this kind of genocide. And as I say, just using the human rights discourse, of we actually expelled all the Palestinians or most of the Palestinian order to avoid more civilian casualties is not an excuse. Francesca Albanese rightly I think, mentioned in her report, the special report to the UN, rapporteur for human rights conditions in the occupied Palestinian territories, she said, this is using the human rights rhetoric to camouflage the actually ethnic cleansing, which is part of the big picture of a plausible genocide act.

John Torpey 

Right. I I want to intervene. I mean, this is an important discussion, obviously, in a very difficult one of definition and intention and all of these kinds of issues and how it compares to other cases of genocide. And so you mentioned the Holocaust, that this may not be this may be a genocide, but not one like the Holocaust, but this gets that the issues, I think that underlie the whole conflict. And that is the sort of idea of Israel as this safe haven to avoid future kinds of holocausts. And, yeah, but you written an article that was very interesting to me, that is based on an article, I guess, that Charles Maier wrote in the American Historical Review about kind of the historical memories that we live with, the narratives of 20th century history, that we kind of that are the main ones that we are using these days. And that is this sort of notion of settler colonialism on the one hand, and of Holocaust memory on the other. And it strikes me as though this in Israel, these two ideas clash head on, right, the memory of the Holocaust, as the worst, obviously, the worst thing that ever happened to the Jewish people in a story that involves a lot of bad things and at the same time, there’s this issue of the displacement, dispossession of the Palestinian population. And I guess the question basically is,  are these two narratives kind of, can they be resolved? Because that, it seems to me is the underlying problem that we’re facing in Israel Palestine? So how are those two narratives going to be reconciled with each other? I mean, it’s sort of the same question is, how is the Israeli Palestinian conflict going to be resolved? But since you’ve written a lot about this, I thought I’d ask it to you in that way.

Amos Goldberg 

In a way, first of all, I’m very pessimistic, I don’t think it could be resolved. I don’t see any way of hope right now. But the books and the articles that we either coedited or  cowritten, I call with Bashir Bashir actually deal with that. How do we put the two memories together? In order to create some kind of a future, the memory of the Holocaust is the foundational if I will use a long convenal term foundational path of Israel and the Nakba, which is the foundational path of the Palestinians. How do we put them together? While each of them is not only a local, is anchored within a much bigger, much bigger historical narrative and, as you said, I think Charles Maier wrote it already, I think it was 2000 and many other followed suit they also in Germany, and I think it makes sense to say that, you know, it’s very general, but still that two major historical narratives, explained to us modernity, one focuses on the Holocaust and one focuses and the anti-colonial, anti or post-colonial narrative, each one focuses on other atrocities and the other victim groups, and are also very many connections between the but they collide, they don’t live well with one another, and you can see but the place and, for example, in South Africa, they also had some kind of a fight they had, I have a very, I think, very interesting students wrote a book recently she turn PhD into a book and name is Dr. Roni Mikel-Arieli, showed that this also played out in South Africa for example. So like the ANC and the anti-apartheid movement, of course anchored the rights in the anti-colonial struggle, while the regime was willing to acknowledge the Holocaust, but to disconnect it from issues of racism, just about antisemitism, so they somehow in this way, who they have more the Jewish community on somehow on their side. And as we know the Jews in South Africa were also very much involved in the anti-apartheid movement but this was played out in South Africa. But the place where they really clash head on and very violently is in Palestine, Israel, because as I said, Holocaust story is a foundational story for Israel, What are the historical connections? That’s another issue, but in our minds that Israel Holocaust is foundational and for the Palestinians since certainly, since some started talking about  in this context of imperialism and colonialism, they afterwards settler colonialism since the beginning of the 20th century, even before and certainly after 1917, the Balfour Declaration that is part of an Imperial oppression of the local indigenous people. So, these two narratives really clash on Israel Palestine. And we can see really, and I wrote recently a chapter in my book that tries to follow as this trajectory of these clashes. Now, I think both narratives have merit and both narratives have a lot of justice. I mean, the Holocaust, actually was the end of an era of Jews in Europe. It’s very, not in an actually the modern antisemitism since the end of the 19th century, both to Jews and Jews acknowledge that, that within the new political formation of Europe, European political formation of nation states, in East and West Europe, they have no future and that ended up in the Holocaust. And after the Holocaust, there was an urgent need to create a policy for the Jews and this was done in Israel and in Palestine of that time. Now, as I say, that isn’t started before the Holocaust. And I said it was, to a large extent an outcome of a modern antisemitism. Herzl was undoubtedly influenced by, what urged him to create the Zionist movement was antisemitism, was the Dreyfus Affair and antisemitism in France, but not only in France and the masses, who supported Zionism in East Europe supported them, supporting it because of antisemitism, though we have to acknowledge that most Jews in East Europe, or most Jews in the world did not support that. Until the Holocaust, it was a minority among  in the Jewish political sphere. But in Palestine became also a haven for many of the Holocaust survivors wanted to rehabilitate themselves, created new lives, and came to Palestine, some came because that was the only option that they could find, they wanted to leave Europe after the Holocaust. Some did not want to come to Palestine and went to other destinations to America, to Canada, to Latin America or to wherever they could, but not to Palestine. But many did come to Palestine, and did want to create a, as I said, the Jewish polity as an answer, as a response to the Holocaust. On the other hand, this land was not empty. And there was already a political community there which became a nation, people was there the, Palestinians, and for the Palestinians and viewing those Zionists to came under the auspices of the great powers, particularly Great Britain of that time, since the beginning of the 20th century, trying not to integrate into the existing social and political structure but to create their own political structure on the ruins of the existing political structure, which was Palestinian, this is settler colonialism, and this is what actually happened. And in 1948 in the wall, an ethnic cleansing took place and all I mean, you know, the volumes of what really happened there. But to my opinion, it was an ethnic cleansing, which is typical to settler colonial violence. And since then, there is an ongoing Nakba of the Palestinians and the in order to explain, and I think it has a lot of merit, it is the Nakba, which is ongoing, because as we said at the beginning, the Palestinians don’t have their own the rights, not political, not individual for full rights. So it’s an ongoing Nakba, of occupation of human rights violation, of violence now in Gaza, perhaps a genocide, I believe it is, but at least it’s a plausibly, plausibly genocide as the ICJ. This is uncoded understood within, I think, rightly so within the big picture of the whole the settler colonialism. So as I said, both narratives as they clash, they have married, they are truthful. And we have to find a way to combine them in a way that will be historical truth, and open the new to new horizons of political agenda.

John Torpey 

Yeah, I’m afraid we’re gonna have to wind it up there. I mean, I know you’re a pessimist. I’m pretty pessimistic these days myself. But those last words were, at least in a certain sense, optimistic, at least they kind of lay out a roadmap for where this might go. I mean, I’m not holding my breath that it’s going to happen anytime soon. But that somehow some kind of recognition and reconciliation of these two historical narratives is what has to take place.

Amos Goldberg 

Yeah. Can I just say that the last word is like what Bashir and I call, and I think Bashir Bashir mostly developed it: egalitarian by nationalism that we have to that both narratives are valid. And all that we have to avoid, all have the right to voice their narrative, and both on the right and where to combine them. And both people have complete equal rights, political, individual and civil rights. This is a egalitarian by nationalism. It could be cashed out in various political structures once the two-state confederation, whatever, but the idea is a egalitarian by nationalism acknowledging those two entities, but in a completely egalitarian way to solve the problem. But this is almost science fiction today.

John Torpey 

Yes, I’m afraid it probably is certainly for the foreseeable future. All right, I got to wrap things up. As I say, I want to thank Amos Goldberg for sharing his insights about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the history behind it. I want to thank Oswaldo Mena Aguilar for his technical assistance and to acknowledge Duncan Mackay for sharing his song International Horizons as the theme music for the show. This is John Torpey, saying thanks for joining us and we look forward to having you with us for the next episode of International Horizons.