Newsgroup: it.cultura.libri
Titolo: libri sulla questione palestinese

ciao a tutti
vorrei approfondire le mie conoscenze sulla questione palestinese, e mi
servirebbe un buon libro dove potrei conoscere i pensieri sia degli
israeliani che dei palestinesi, che non sia di parte (cosa penso quasi
impossibile :P ) e che parte da radici storiche del problema.. insomma un
buon libro non troppo complicato da leggere :)
grazie anticipatamente
..:: ive ::..

_iveWorKAh_ wrote:

Non so se i palestinesi sanno leggere e scrivere prova a cercare intifada
o sionismo in 
ibs.it
.

Vittime
di Benny Morris
Rizzoli
Ripercorre la storia del problema arabo-sionista dalla fine dagli ultimi
anni dell'ottocento ad oggi.
L'autore è israeliano ma mi è sembrato molto equilibrato.
--
upo

 buon libro non troppo complicato da leggere :)
Io ho appena comprato "Monsieur Ibrhaim ed i fiori del corano", non
parla proprio della questione palestinese ma dell'amicizia tra un
giovane ragazzo ebreo ed un anziano arabo ambientato a Parigi.
Secondo me č molto bello, poi vi dirņ ...
-- 
Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - 
http://www.Mailgate.ORG


A proposito di Benny Morris copio e incollo :
ISRAELE
L'INTERVISTA SHOCK DI BENNY MORRIS
 di Paolo Di Motoli
Nel supplemento di venerdì 9 gennaio 2004 in allegato al quotidiano liberal
Haaretz è stata pubblicata una intervista molto interessante al "padre" dei
così detti "nuovi storici israeliani".
Benny Morris è stato più volte accusato di odiare il suo paese e di essere
un post-sionista se non un antisionista. Egli però smentisce categoricamente
le accuse e, specie dopo la sua personale svolta conservatrice, dichiara nel
testo di considerare tali definizioni prive di senso. Le accuse gli furono
rivolte allorché, nel 1987, uscì il suo primo importante lavoro sull'esodo
palestinese del 1948 (The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem). Nel
prossimo mese si annuncia una versione aggiornata del testo che verrà
pubblicata dalla Cambridge University Press. Il contenuto del libro aggrava
le tesi sulle responsabilità israeliane nell'esodo palestinese del 1948 e
aggiorna con nuovi documenti desecretati l'elenco degli episodi dolorosi
della guerra del 1948. Tra le nuove scoperte di Morris ci sarebbe circa una
dozzina di stupri ai danni di donne arabe compiuti da elementi dell'Haganà
che avrebbero ricevuto espliciti ordini di evacuare alcuni villaggi arabi
dai loro abitanti per poi raderli al suolo. Gli stupri si sarebbero
verificati nelle zone di Jaffa ad opera della Brigata Kiryati, a Hunin in
Galilea, a Tantura a sud di Haifa, a Qula e nel villaggio di Abu Shusha
vicino al kibbutz Gezer.
Sollecitato dal famoso cronista di Haaretz Ari Shavit, Benny Morris
snocciola cifre e casi di esecuzioni sommarie e massacri ai danni della
popolazione civile palestinese; i casi riscontrati sarebbero 24 con un
totale di 800 morti che Morris definisce "noccioline" (peanuts) rispetto ai
morti del conflitto etnico in Bosnia o a quelli tedeschi nella battaglia di
Stalingrado sommariamente uccisi dai sovietici.
La figura di Ben Gurion disegnata da Benny Morris diventa quella di un "eroe
tragico" che sostiene tacitamente, attraverso varie forme, l'espulsione di
palestinesi da alcune zone chiave dello stato di Israele appena nato. Lo
storico israeliano poi, tra lo sconcerto di Ari Shavit, arriva a sostenere
che il rimprovero che andrebbe mosso allo statista israeliano è quello di
non aver avuto la forza di completare l'operazione esodo respingendo il
maggior numero possibile di arabi oltre il fiume Giordano. Paradossalmente
ciò avrebbe fin da subito stabilizzato la zona, evitando forse gli episodi
dolorosi che sono seguiti negli anni.
Uno stato ebraico non sarebbe mai potuto sorgere senza l'esodo di 700 mila
arabi palestinesi e quelli che sono rimasti costituiscono per Israele una
sorta di potenziale quinta colonna nemica. Citando il presidente Mao, Benny
Morris ci ricorda che per fare una frittata bisogna rompere le uova e
sostiene che l'esigenza primaria per uno stato in guerra, quale l'Israele
del 1948, era quella di rendere sicuri i territori presidiati dai propri
soldati e facilitare la via ai convogli dei rifornimenti, eliminando i
nemici arabi che si nascondevano nei villaggi confinanti con strade e
kibbutzim, senza potersi permettere l'uso del bisturi.
Insomma la tesi di Morris è quella di Max Weber e cioè che morale e politica
non coincidono mai, tanto più in situazioni di guerra per la sopravvivenza
come quella combattuta tra israeliani e palestinesi nel 1948. Morris è un
realista politico che pure dichiara di provare pena e dolore per i profughi
palestinesi del 1948 ma la situazione in cui allora si mossero gli
israeliani era di necessità.
Nel finale dell'intervista il professore spiega la sua conversione politica
che lo ha portato a non considerare i palestinesi un serio e determinato
partner per la pace in Medioriente. Quasi a volersi giustificare di fronte
al "moralismo" dell'intervistatore lo storico israeliano dichiara poi di
aver votato in passato sempre per i partiti di sinistra come i laburisti, il
Meretz o addirittura lo Sheli e di essersi rifiutato nel 1988 di servire l'
esercito in Cisgiordania e nella striscia di Gaza.
Dopo aver descritto Arafat come un crociato che intende far tornare gli
ebrei da dove sono venuti, Morris sostiene che la dottrina del "Muro di
Ferro" elaborata da Jabotinsky è la soluzione migliore nei confronti degli
arabi. Il collega di Morris Avi Shlaim, anch'esso nel novero dei nuovi
storici, ha argomentato nel suo testo dal titolo "Il muro di ferro"
(tradotto in Italia dalla casa editrice bolognese Il Ponte e presentato da
Marcella Emiliani) che questa idea è stata portata avanti da una specie di
blocco politico in Israele che andava dalla destra fino a Ben Gurion; negli
anni '50 l'oppositore di questa pratica all'interno del governo era Moshe
Sharett ma perse la battaglia. La filosofia del Muro di ferro è quella di
utilizzare la forza contro gli arabi fino a quando questi, ormai in
condizione sfavorevole, non potranno far altro che sedersi al tavolo
accettando una soluzione politica precedentemente rifiutata.
Paolo Di Motoli


Ecco il testo dell' intervista pubblicata dal quotidiano Israeliano Haaretz
a Benny Morris :
Survival of the fittest
By Ari Shavit
Benny Morris says he was always a Zionist. People were mistaken when they
labeled him a post-Zionist, when they thought that his historical study on
the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem was intended to undercut the
Zionist enterprise. Nonsense, Morris says, that's completely unfounded. Some
readers simply misread the book. They didn't read it with the same
detachment, the same moral neutrality, with which it was written. So they
came to the mistaken conclusion that when Morris describes the cruelest
deeds that the Zionist movement perpetrated in 1948 he is actually being
condemnatory, that when he describes the large-scale expulsion operations he
is being denunciatory. They did not conceive that the great documenter of
the sins of Zionism in fact identifies with those sins. That he thinks some
of them, at least, were unavoidable.
Two years ago, different voices began to be heard. The historian who was
considered a radical leftist suddenly maintained that Israel had no one to
talk to. The researcher who was accused of being an Israel hater (and was
boycotted by the Israeli academic establishment) began to publish articles
in favor of Israel in the British paper The Guardian.
Whereas citizen Morris turned out to be a not completely snow-white dove,
historian Morris continued to work on the Hebrew translation of his massive
work "Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001,"
which was written in the old, peace-pursuing style. And at the same time
historian Morris completed the new version of his book on the refugee
problem, which is going to strengthen the hands of those who abominate
Israel. So that in the past two years citizen Morris and historian Morris
worked as though there is no connection between them, as though one was
trying to save what the other insists on eradicating.
Both books will appear in the coming month. The book on the history of the
Zionist-Arab conflict will be published in Hebrew by Am Oved in Tel Aviv,
while the Cambridge University Press will publish "The Birth of the
Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited" (it originally appeared, under the
CUP imprint, in 1987). That book describes in chilling detail the atrocities
of the Nakba. Isn't Morris ever frightened at the present-day political
implications of his historical study? Isn't he fearful that he has
contributed to Israel becoming almost a pariah state? After a few moments of
evasion, Morris admits that he is. Sometimes he really is frightened.
Sometimes he asks himself what he has wrought.
He is short, plump, and very intense. The son of immigrants from England, he
was born in Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh and was a member of the left-wing Hashomer
Hatza'ir youth movement. In the past, he was a reporter for the Jerusalem
Post and refused to do military service in the territories. He is now a
professor of history at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva.
But sitting in his armchair in his Jerusalem apartment, he does not don the
mantle of the cautious academic. Far from it: Morris spews out his words,
rapidly and energetically, sometimes spilling over into English. He doesn't
think twice before firing off the sharpest, most shocking statements, which
are anything but politically correct. He describes horrific war crimes
offhandedly, paints apocalyptic visions with a smile on his lips. He gives
the observer the feeling that this agitated individual, who with his own
hands opened the Zionist Pandora's box, is still having difficulty coping
with what he found in it, still finding it hard to deal with the internal
contradictions that are his lot and the lot of us all.
Rape, massacre, transfer
Benny Morris, in the month ahead the new version of your book on the birth
of the Palestinian refugee problem is due to be published. Who will be less
pleased with the book - the Israelis or the Palestinians?
"The revised book is a double-edged sword. It is based on many documents
that were not available to me when I wrote the original book, most of them
from the Israel Defense Forces Archives. What the new material shows is that
there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought.
To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape. In the months of
April-May 1948, units of the Haganah [the pre-state defense force that was
the precursor of the IDF] were given operational orders that stated
explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them and destroy
the villages themselves.
"At the same time, it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by
the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to
remove children, women and the elderly from the villages. So that on the one
hand, the book reinforces the accusation against the Zionist side, but on
the other hand it also proves that many of those who left the villages did
so with the encouragement of the Palestinian leadership itself."
According to your new findings, how many cases of Israeli rape were there in
1948?
"About a dozen. In Acre four soldiers raped a girl and murdered her and her
father. In Jaffa, soldiers of the Kiryati Brigade raped one girl and tried
to rape several more. At Hunin, which is in the Galilee, two girls were
raped and then murdered. There were one or two cases of rape at Tantura,
south of Haifa. There was one case of rape at Qula, in the center of the
country. At the village of Abu Shusha, near Kibbutz Gezer [in the Ramle
area] there were four female prisoners, one of whom was raped a number of
times. And there were other cases. Usually more than one soldier was
involved. Usually there were one or two Palestinian girls. In a large
proportion of the cases the event ended with murder. Because neither the
victims nor the rapists liked to report these events, we have to assume that
the dozen cases of rape that were reported, which I found, are not the whole
story. They are just the tip of the iceberg."
According to your findings, how many acts of Israeli massacre were
perpetrated in 1948?
"Twenty-four. In some cases four or five people were executed, in others the
numbers were 70, 80, 100. There was also a great deal of arbitrary killing.
Two old men are spotted walking in a field - they are shot. A woman is found
in an abandoned village - she is shot. There are cases such as the village
of Dawayima [in the Hebron region], in which a column entered the village
with all guns blazing and killed anything that moved.
"The worst cases were Saliha (70-80 killed), Deir Yassin (100-110), Lod
(250), Dawayima (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70). There is no
unequivocal proof of a large-scale massacre at Tantura, but war crimes were
perpetrated there. At Jaffa there was a massacre about which nothing had
been known until now. The same at Arab al Muwassi, in the north. About half
of the acts of massacre were part of Operation Hiram [in the north, in
October 1948]: at Safsaf, Saliha, Jish, Eilaboun, Arab al Muwasi, Deir al
Asad, Majdal Krum, Sasa. In Operation Hiram there was a unusually high
concentration of executions of people against a wall or next to a well in an
orderly fashion.
"That can't be chance. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took
part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received
permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to
take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of
murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who
did the massacres."
What you are telling me here, as though by the way, is that in Operation
Hiram there was a comprehensive and explicit expulsion order. Is that right?
"Yes. One of the revelations in the book is that on October 31, 1948, the
commander of the Northern Front, Moshe Carmel, issued an order in writing to
his units to expedite the removal of the Arab population. Carmel took this
action immediately after a visit by Ben-Gurion to the Northern Command in
Nazareth. There is no doubt in my mind that this order originated with
Ben-Gurion. Just as the expulsion order for the city of Lod, which was
signed by Yitzhak Rabin, was issued immediately after Ben-Gurion visited the
headquarters of Operation Dani [July 1948]."
Are you saying that Ben-Gurion was personally responsible for a deliberate
and systematic policy of mass expulsion?
"From April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is
no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive
policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer
idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea.
The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a
consensus of transfer is created."
Ben-Gurion was a "transferist"?
"Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be
no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There
would be no such state. It would not be able to exist."
I don't hear you condemning him.
"Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not
have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it.
Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have
arisen here."
When ethnic cleansing is justified
Benny Morris, for decades you have been researching the dark side of
Zionism. You are an expert on the atrocities of 1948. In the end, do you in
effect justify all this? Are you an advocate of the transfer of 1948?
"There is no justification for acts of rape. There is no justification for
acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion
is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war
crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty
your hands."
We are talking about the killing of thousands of people, the destruction of
an entire society.
"A society that aims to kill you forces you to destroy it. When the choice
is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy."
There is something chilling about the quiet way in which you say that.
"If you expected me to burst into tears, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I will
not do that."
So when the commanders of Operation Dani are standing there and observing
the long and terrible column of the 50,000 people expelled from Lod walking
eastward, you stand there with them? You justify them?
"I definitely understand them. I understand their motives. I don't think
they felt any pangs of conscience, and in their place I wouldn't have felt
pangs of conscience. Without that act, they would not have won the war and
the state would not have come into being."
You do not condemn them morally?
"No."
They perpetrated ethnic cleansing.
"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know
that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century,
but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the
annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing."
And that was the situation in 1948?
"That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would
not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians.
Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel
that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the
border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the
villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."
The term `to cleanse' is terrible.
"I know it doesn't sound nice but that's the term they used at the time. I
adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed."
What you are saying is hard to listen to and hard to digest. You sound
hard-hearted.
"I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard
tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to
establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It
was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment
the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine] was attacked by the
Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to
expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.
"Remember another thing: the Arab people gained a large slice of the planet.
Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and
murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations.
But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even
one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one
state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state in
this place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by
uprooting them."
And morally speaking, you have no problem with that deed?
"That is correct. Even the great American democracy could not have been
created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which
the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in
the course of history."
And in our case it effectively justifies a population transfer.
"That's what emerges."
And you take that in stride? War crimes? Massacres? The burning fields and
the devastated villages of the Nakba?
"You have to put things in proportion. These are small war crimes. All told,
if we take all the massacres and all the executions of 1948, we come to
about 800 who were killed. In comparison to the massacres that were
perpetrated in Bosnia, that's peanuts. In comparison to the massacres the
Russians perpetrated against the Germans at Stalingrad, that's chicken feed.
When you take into account that there was a bloody civil war here and that
we lost an entire 1 percent of the population, you find that we behaved very
well."
The next transfer
You went through an interesting process. You went to research Ben-Gurion and
the Zionist establishment critically, but in the end you actually identify
with them. You are as tough in your words as they were in their deeds.
"You may be right. Because I investigated the conflict in depth, I was
forced to cope with the in-depth questions that those people coped with. I
understood the problematic character of the situation they faced and maybe I
adopted part of their universe of concepts. But I do not identify with
Ben-Gurion. I think he made a serious historical mistake in 1948. Even
though he understood the demographic issue and the need to establish a
Jewish state without a large Arab minority, he got cold feet during the war.
In the end, he faltered."
I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that Ben-Gurion erred in expelling
too few Arabs?
"If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a
complete job. I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals and the
politically correct types. But my feeling is that this place would be
quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for
all. If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole
country - the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet
turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full
expulsion - rather than a partial one - he would have stabilized the State
of Israel for generations."
I find it hard to believe what I am hearing.
"If the end of the story turns out to be a gloomy one for the Jews, it will
be because Ben-Gurion did not complete the transfer in 1948. Because he left
a large and volatile demographic reserve in the West Bank and Gaza and
within Israel itself."
In his place, would you have expelled them all? All the Arabs in the
country?
"But I am not a statesman. I do not put myself in his place. But as an
historian, I assert that a mistake was made here. Yes. The non-completion of
the transfer was a mistake."
And today? Do you advocate a transfer today?
"If you are asking me whether I support the transfer and expulsion of the
Arabs from the West Bank, Gaza and perhaps even from Galilee and the
Triangle, I say not at this moment. I am not willing to be a partner to that
act. In the present circumstances it is neither moral nor realistic. The
world would not allow it, the Arab world would not allow it, it would
destroy the Jewish society from within. But I am ready to tell you that in
other circumstances, apocalyptic ones, which are liable to be realized in
five or ten years, I can see expulsions. If we find ourselves with atomic
weapons around us, or if there is a general Arab attack on us and a
situation of warfare on the front with Arabs in the rear shooting at convoys
on their way to the front, acts of expulsion will be entirely reasonable.
They may even be essential."
Including the expulsion of Israeli Arabs?
"The Israeli Arabs are a time bomb. Their slide into complete
Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us.
They are a potential fifth column. In both demographic and security terms
they are liable to undermine the state. So that if Israel again finds itself
in a situation of existential threat, as in 1948, it may be forced to act as
it did then. If we are attacked by Egypt (after an Islamist revolution in
Cairo) and by Syria, and chemical and biological missiles slam into our
cities, and at the same time Israeli Palestinians attack us from behind, I
can see an expulsion situation. It could happen. If the threat to Israel is
existential, expulsion will be justified."
Cultural dementia
Besides being tough, you are also very gloomy. You weren't always like that,
were you?
"My turning point began after 2000. I wasn't a great optimist even before
that. True, I always voted Labor or Meretz or Sheli [a dovish party of the
late 1970s], and in 1988 I refused to serve in the territories and was
jailed for it, but I always doubted the intentions of the Palestinians. The
events of Camp David and what followed in their wake turned the doubt into
certainty. When the Palestinians rejected the proposal of [prime minister
Ehud] Barak in July 2000 and the Clinton proposal in December 2000, I
understood that they are unwilling to accept the two-state solution. They
want it all. Lod and Acre and Jaffa."
If that's so, then the whole Oslo process was mistaken and there is a basic
flaw in the entire worldview of the Israeli peace movement.
"Oslo had to be tried. But today it has to be clear that from the
Palestinian point of view, Oslo was a deception. [Palestinian leader Yasser]
Arafat did not change for the worse, Arafat simply defrauded us. He was
never sincere in his readiness for compromise and conciliation."
Do you really believe Arafat wants to throw us into the sea?
"He wants to send us back to Europe, to the sea we came from. He truly sees
us as a Crusader state and he thinks about the Crusader precedent and wishes
us a Crusader end. I'm certain that Israeli intelligence has unequivocal
information proving that in internal conversations Arafat talks seriously
about the phased plan [which would eliminate Israel in stages]. But the
problem is not just Arafat. The entire Palestinian national elite is prone
to see us as Crusaders and is driven by the phased plan. That's why the
Palestinians are not honestly ready to forgo the right of return. They are
preserving it as an instrument with which they will destroy the Jewish state
when the time comes. They can't tolerate the existence of a Jewish state -
not in 80 percent of the country and not in 30 percent. From their point of
view, the Palestinian state must cover the whole Land of Israel."
If so, the two-state solution is not viable; even if a peace treaty is
signed, it will soon collapse.
"Ideologically, I support the two-state solution. It's the only alternative
to the expulsion of the Jews or the expulsion of the Palestinians or total
destruction. But in practice, in this generation, a settlement of that kind
will not hold water. At least 30 to 40 percent of the Palestinian public and
at least 30 to 40 percent of the heart of every Palestinian will not accept
it. After a short break, terrorism will erupt again and the war will
resume."
Your prognosis doesn't leave much room for hope, does it?
"It's hard for me, too. There is not going to be peace in the present
generation. There will not be a solution. We are doomed to live by the
sword. I'm already fairly old, but for my children that is especially bleak.
I don't know if they will want to go on living in a place where there is no
hope. Even if Israel is not destroyed, we won't see a good, normal life here
in the decades ahead."
Aren't your harsh words an over-reaction to three hard years of terrorism?
"The bombing of the buses and restaurants really shook me. They made me
understand the depth of the hatred for us. They made me understand that the
Palestinian, Arab and Muslim hostility toward Jewish existence here is
taking us to the brink of destruction. I don't see the suicide bombings as
isolated acts. They express the deep will of the Palestinian people. That is
what the majority of the Palestinians want. They want what happened to the
bus to happen to all of us."
Yet we, too, bear responsibility for the violence and the hatred: the
occupation, the roadblocks, the closures, maybe even the Nakba itself.
"You don't have to tell me that. I have researched Palestinian history. I
understand the reasons for the hatred very well. The Palestinians are
retaliating now not only for yesterday's closure but for the Nakba as well.
But that is not a sufficient explanation. The peoples of Africa were
oppressed by the European powers no less than the Palestinians were
oppressed by us, but nevertheless I don't see African terrorism in London,
Paris or Brussels. The Germans killed far more of us than we killed the
Palestinians, but we aren't blowing up buses in Munich and Nuremberg. So
there is something else here, something deeper, that has to do with Islam
and Arab culture."
Are you trying to argue that Palestinian terrorism derives from some sort of
deep cultural problem?
"There is a deep problem in Islam. It's a world whose values are different.
A world in which human life doesn't have the same value as it does in the
West, in which freedom, democracy, openness and creativity are alien. A
world that makes those who are not part of the camp of Islam fair game.
Revenge is also important here. Revenge plays a central part in the Arab
tribal culture. Therefore, the people we are fighting and the society that
sends them have no moral inhibitions. If it obtains chemical or biological
or atomic weapons, it will use them. If it is able, it will also commit
genocide."
I want to insist on my point: A large part of the responsibility for the
hatred of the Palestinians rests with us. After all, you yourself showed us
that the Palestinians experienced a historical catastrophe.
"True. But when one has to deal with a serial killer, it's not so important
to discover why he became a serial killer. What's important is to imprison
the murderer or to execute him."
Explain the image: Who is the serial killer in the analogy?
"The barbarians who want to take our lives. The people the Palestinian
society sends to carry out the terrorist attacks, and in some way the
Palestinian society itself as well. At the moment, that society is in the
state of being a serial killer. It is a very sick society. It should be
treated the way we treat individuals who are serial killers."
What does that mean? What should we do tomorrow morning?
"We have to try to heal the Palestinians. Maybe over the years the
establishment of a Palestinian state will help in the healing process. But
in the meantime, until the medicine is found, they have to be contained so
that they will not succeed in murdering us."
To fence them in? To place them under closure?
"Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds
terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild animal
there that has to be locked up in one way or another."
War of barbarians
Benny Morris, have you joined the right wing?
"No, no. I still think of myself as left-wing. I still support in principle
two states for two peoples."
But you don't believe that this solution will last. You don't believe in
peace.
"In my opinion, we will not have peace, no."
Then what is your solution?
"In this generation there is apparently no solution. To be vigilant, to
defend the country as far as is possible."
The iron wall approach?
"Yes. An iron wall is a good image. An iron wall is the most reasonable
policy for the coming generation. My colleague Avi Shlein described this
well: What Jabotinsky proposed is what Ben-Gurion adopted. In the 1950s,
there was a dispute between Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett. Ben-Gurion argued
that the Arabs understand only force and that ultimate force is the one
thing that will persuade them to accept our presence here. He was right.
That's not to say that we don't need diplomacy. Both toward the West and for
our own conscience, it's important that we strive for a political solution.
But in the end, what will decide their readiness to accept us will be force
alone. Only the recognition that they are not capable of defeating us."
For a left-winger, you sound very much like a right-winger, wouldn't you
say?
"I'm trying to be realistic. I know it doesn't always sound politically
correct, but I think that political correctness poisons history in any case.
It impedes our ability to see the truth. And I also identify with Albert
Camus. He was considered a left-winger and a person of high morals, but when
he referred to the Algerian problem he placed his mother ahead of morality.
Preserving my people is more important than universal moral concepts."
Are you a neo-conservative? Do you read the current historical reality in
the terms of Samuel Huntington?
"I think there is a clash between civilizations here [as Huntington argues].
I think the West today resembles the Roman Empire of the fourth, fifth and
sixth centuries: The barbarians are attacking it and they may also destroy
it."
The Muslims are barbarians, then?
"I think the values I mentioned earlier are values of barbarians - the
attitude toward democracy, freedom, openness; the attitude toward human
life. In that sense they are barbarians. The Arab world as it is today is
barbarian."
And in your view these new barbarians are truly threatening the Rome of our
time?
"Yes. The West is stronger but it's not clear whether it knows how to
repulse this wave of hatred. The phenomenon of the mass Muslim penetration
into the West and their settlement there is creating a dangerous internal
threat. A similar process took place in Rome. They let the barbarians in and
they toppled the empire from within."
Is it really all that dramatic? Is the West truly in danger?
"Yes. I think that the war between the civilizations is the main
characteristic of the 21st century. I think President Bush is wrong when he
denies the very existence of that war. It's not only a matter of bin Laden.
This is a struggle against a whole world that espouses different values. And
we are on the front line. Exactly like the Crusaders, we are the vulnerable
branch of Europe in this place."
The situation as you describe it is extremely harsh. You are not entirely
convinced that we can survive here, are you?
"The possibility of annihilation exists."
Would you describe yourself as an apocalyptic person?
"The whole Zionist project is apocalyptic. It exists within hostile
surroundings and in a certain sense its existence is unreasonable. It wasn't
reasonable for it to succeed in 1881 and it wasn't reasonable for it to
succeed in 1948 and it's not reasonable that it will succeed now.
Nevertheless, it has come this far. In a certain way it is miraculous. I
live the events of 1948, and 1948 projects itself on what could happen here.
Yes, I think of Armageddon. It's possible. Within the next 20 years there
could be an atomic war here."
If Zionism is so dangerous for the Jews and if Zionism makes the Arabs so
wretched, maybe it's a mistake?
"No, Zionism was not a mistake. The desire to establish a Jewish state here
was a legitimate one, a positive one. But given the character of Islam and
given the character of the Arab nation, it was a mistake to think that it
would be possible to establish a tranquil state here that lives in harmony
with its surroundings."
Which leaves us, nevertheless, with two possibilities: either a cruel,
tragic Zionism, or the forgoing of Zionism.
"Yes. That's so. You have pared it down, but that's correct."
Would you agree that this historical reality is intolerable, that there is
something inhuman about it?
"Yes. But that's so for the Jewish people, not the Palestinians. A people
that suffered for 2,000 years, that went through the Holocaust, arrives at
its patrimony but is thrust into a renewed round of bloodshed, that is
perhaps the road to annihilation. In terms of cosmic justice, that's
terrible. It's far more shocking than what happened in 1948 to a small part
of the Arab nation that was then in Palestine."
So what you are telling me is that you live the Palestinian Nakba of the
past less than you live the possible Jewish Nakba of the future?
"Yes. Destruction could be the end of this process. It could be the end of
the Zionist experiment. And that's what really depresses and scares me."
The title of the book you are now publishing in Hebrew is "Victims." In the
end, then, your argument is that of the two victims of this conflict, we are
the bigger one.
"Yes. Exactly. We are the greater victims in the course of history and we
are also the greater potential victim. Even though we are oppressing the
Palestinians, we are the weaker side here. We are a small minority in a
large sea of hostile Arabs who want to eliminate us. So it's possible than
when their desire is realized, everyone will understand what I am saying to
you now. Everyone will understand we are the true victims. But by then it
will be too late."