Mehdi Hasan v Benny Morris | Al Jazeera, Head to Head | Key points
PART 1:
Benny: It’s not a genocide its collateral damage, because Israel is responding to the terrorist attack on Oct 7th by going after Hamas leaders and it just so happens that Hamas has embedded itself in the wider population and is using schools and hospitals (etc) to hideout.
Mehdi: The ICC prosecutor hoping to have arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu & Yoav Gallant, based on “mountains of evidence” he’s seen of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Benny: Agrees there have been war crimes but argues “the war, itself, is not a war crime” because it is a legitimate response to the Hamas attack on Oct 7th. He also argues, contrary to expert opinion, that Israel has not bombed any hospitals and he asserts that at least one hospital was bombed accidentally by Islamic Jihad. The Israeli army has only ever raided (not bombed) hospitals and, he asserts, subsequently found evidence of Hamas headquarters.
Mehdi: We’ve yet to see any credible evidence that hospitals where being used by Hamas
Benny: Every mission of the Israeli air force is checked beforehand by a lawyer, etc, to see if there’s actual evidence of Hamas being in the building.
Mehdi: Glad you pointed that out because now we know it’s not a rogue operation and that there is a chain of command that goes all the way up, which suggests we will be able to indict Netanyahu. Mehdi then asks if Benny at least agrees that there has been a lot of genocidal rhetoric from senior government figures such as Netanyahu, Herzog, Smotrich etc
Benny: Some of them yes, not sure about Herzog or Netanyahu though
Mehdi: Netanyahu literally likened Palestinians to the Amalek and invoked retribution on the scale of utter annihilation.
Benny: “I don’t know if that’s the same as genocide”
Mehdi: “Killing every man woman and child, and the donkeys?”
Benny: Argues the Mehdi’s line of questioning is absurd and if Israel really wanted a genocide there would be a lot more people dead than just 20-30 thousands and he even disputes the actual figures as they stand because, he claims, the figures are issued by Hamas.
Mehdi: You know that’s not a recognised definition of genocide. Are you suggesting the definition of genocide, as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention, is wrong?
Benny: Argues that there are lots of definitions of genocide and accuses Mehdi of pushing Hamas’s version of the truth
Mehdi: Are you actually suggesting that the definition of genocide, as provided by 1948 Genocide Convention, is Hamas’s version of the truth? Is everything Hamas Benny?
Benny: It’s Hamas who are genocidal. Just look at the Hamas charter and see what they intend to do to the Jews.
Mehdi: I’ve interviewed Hamas and asked them about the charter but I’m interviewing you now. Mehdi asks Benny about Israeli Minister, Avi Dichter, who tweeted that Israel was now “rolling out the Gaza Nakba.” Isn’t Zionism Nakba, isn’t Zionism ethnic cleansing?
Benny: “Zionism’s intent was to establish a Jewish state in the area called ‘Palestine of the land of Israel.’ Initially the Zionists wanted to establish a Jewish state on the whole land of Israel or all of Palestine but in 1937-1938 Zionism changed and said, we can’t have all of the land as there are lots of Palestinians here, let’s share it with the Palestinians. In 1937, the British Appeal Commission proposed the partition of Palestine between the two peoples living in it. The Palestinians said no and continued their war against Britain and the Zionists. The Zionists said yes to the partition proposal by the Appeal. The international community repeated the idea of the partition of Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs in Nov 1947 – the famous resolution 181 – the Jews said yes to the UN Partition resolution of 1947, accepting it they would get some of Palestine, the Palestinian Arabs would get the other part and the Palestinians said no and started shooting the next day, killing Jews.. ”
Mehdi: Points out that Benny has said different things at different times and references an extract from Benny’s own book, ‘Righteous Victim’, from 2001, in which he states… “on the most basic level, Jewish colonisation meant expropriation and displacement. Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist. Zionism was a colonising and expansionist ideology”
Benny: “Zionism changed its objective and goal in the 1930’s and agreed, reluctantly, resigned to the idea of partitioning the land” then argues that Israel made further offers of partitioning land with the Palestinians that were rejected.
Mehdi: Offers another quote from Benny.. “there are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing”
Benny: asks what the context for that quote was
Mehdi: “The context was that you were asked to condemn what they did in 1948, the Zionist Militias, and you say ‘NO’. You were asked if they perpetrated ethnic cleansing, you say ‘there are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing’…. You say, ‘I know that this term is completely negative but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide.. the annihilation of your people.. I prefer ethnic cleansing’”
Benny: “the Jews were under threat of annihilation by the Arabs [in 1948] and that, in my view, legitimised, justified, cleansing the Arabs from Palestine… they were threatened with death by a second genocide after the last genocide”
Mehdi: “the Hutu said exactly the same thing about the Tutsi in 1994”
Benny: Argues that the Arabs weren’t just threatening Jews they attacked the Jewish community in Palestine from 1947.
Mehdi: Does that justify ethnic cleansing.. a war crime.. a crime against humanity?
Benny: “Ethnic cleansing is not regarded as a war crime by any…”
Mehdi: “So you’re fine with it?”
Benny: It’s not a question of being fine with it, it’s just preferable over the massacre of my people.
Mehdi: How does that fit with the argument that Zionists wanted to share the land?
Benny: explains it’s an issue of chronology. Zionists wanted to share, the Arabs said no and attacked them, so the Zionists had no choice but to ethnically cleanse the land of all Arabs.
Mehdi: You are it was a pragmatic choice but you’ve also said “transfer was inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism”
Benny: Not total, only partial transfer and only from the areas in which Jews wanted to establish their state, in part of Palestine… areas in which the Arabs were also attacking the Jews.
Mehdi: “If I said to you, Zionism is something colonial, what would you say to that?”
Benny: It’s partially true but mainly wrong and not a correct interpretation.
Mehdi: points out that those are the words of Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism and “the spiritual father of the Jewish State” (according to Israel’s Declaration of Independence). Herzl had said this in a letter he’d written to Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia).
Benny: Argues Herzl probably only said that “in an effort to ingratiate himself with a great coloniser”
@17.25mins Mehdi introduces a panel of guests
Diana Buttu, Palestinian-Canadian lawyer & former spokesperson for the PLO
Emmanuel Navon, Israeli political scientist, Lecturer at Tel Aviv University, CEO of ELNET (a pro-Israel lobby group)
Daniel Levy, British–Israeli analyst, former advisor to the Israeli government, founding member and president of the U.S./Middle East Project (a not-for-profit policy institute focused mainly on the situation in Palestine-Israel).
Mehdi: Asks Diana for her thoughts on whether it’s a genocide and whether Benny is right that there are many definitions.
Diana: Calls Benny a genocide denier and a genocide apologist and reminds us that practically every human rights organisation on the planet is calling it a genocide and even the ICJ have said theres a plausible case that it is a genocide. Only Israeli’s argue it isn’t. Israel can do and say whatever it wants and Palestinians just have to take it. This is Zionism and Palestinians feel it on their bodies and pay for it with their lives and their land. Benny can try and redefine Zionism but the world knows is a colonial project.
Mehdi: Emmanual, is there a recognition that most of the world, including allies of Israel as well as human rights groups, are critical of how Israel has prosecuted what’s going on in Gaza?
Emmanuel: Diana is right to say Palestinians are feeling Zionism because Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Arabs are free and you should be thankful for it. Arabs get to elect officials, be elected, be judges at the Supreme Court, be president of a university. The only free country in the Middle East is Israel.
Mehdi: “Danny, do you want to respond to that?”
Daniel: “I find it staggering that the gentleman to my right is telling the Palestinian citizen of Israel how she is experiencing the reality under which she lives…. There were different strands to Zionism, there was a cultural Zionism, there was a bi-national Zionism.. this could have gone in different directions” but then argues that 75yrs on we can no longer suggest that this was ever something benign and certainly these arguments don’t match the lived reality and Zionism isn’t delivering for Jews either. Israeli security, Jewish safety around the world, is not best served by what we’re seeing, on a daily basis, being played out in Gaza.
Benny: there’s a misunderstanding here. There is a difference between Israel and the West Bank (i.e. the occupied territories). In Israel there is a rule of law and equality between Jews and Arabs and argues that they may be discriminated against in certain things but Israeli Arabs are not persecuted in Israel and don’t even have to serve in the Israeli army. He also backs Emmanuel’s argument that all Arab states are dictatorships that do not allow their citizens any freedom. He admits there is an “Apartheid like… colonial framework” in the West bank but argues that pre 1967 “Zionism was not a colonial exercise” because imperial colonialism, he says, is defined by an empire sending “it’s children” to dominate and take over a 3rd world country and exploit its riches and this, according to Benny, did not happen in Israel pre-1967.
Emmanuel: Refuses to acknowledge that there is an “Apartheid like… colonial framework” in the West Bank. In his view, “Zionism is a national liberation movement that freed it’s land from Arab Muslim colonialism”. Arabs, he argues, have been colonising other nations for years.
Diana: “So now we have a Nakba denier, as well as a Nakba apologist.”
Emmanuel: “A proud denier”
Diana: “as well as a genocide denier and genocide apologist” Palestinians are the ones paying the price for Israel’s colonialism, including my family who have lived in Palestinian for 100’s of years and were ethnically cleansed from Palestine and never allowed to return to their homes.
Daniel: “We’ve gone from denying a Nakba… to threatening a second Nakba” there’s been no effort at “acknowledging and healing and redressing and Palestinians actually getting their rights.” Until we do that Palestinians will never attain peace, security and freedom and Jewish Israelis will never attain security because they will always expect a blow back from that injustice.
PART 2:
Mehdi: Asks Benny to explain this sift to the far right, both in the Israeli government and also in wider Israeli society.
Benny: He believes it has something to do with a change in the population because religious Jews have larger families compared to secular Jews – more Sephardic Jews as opposed to Ashkenazi Jews – asserting that Sephardic Jews are more religious and therefore more fanatical. He also believes that “Arab terrorism and Arab reluctance to reach a compromise” has also played a part.
Mehdi: You’ve been critical of the right and even referred to Netanyahu as a coward but you’ve also said some things that might be considered right wing. You’ve referred to Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims as barbarians without moral inhibitions who should be caged. You called them a time bomb, a 5th column, the emissary of the enemy. How do you expect to make peace when you speak about Palestinians in this way?
Benny: I didn’t call all Arabs barbarians, I was referring the Hamas and Fatah terrorists who committed terrorist attacks during the 2nd intifada
Mehdi: So why did Haaretz print an article in 2004 quoting you as saying “the Arab world, as it is today, are barbarian”
Benny: I meant the Arab world, not all Arabs. He proceeds to reference, for example, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Iraq as countries who supress and kill their own people
Mehdi: How would you like it if someone said all Jews were barbarians, judging them by the actions of the IDF. You’d call them an anti-Semite wouldn’t you?
Benny: I wouldn’t call them anti-Semitic but I would argue it to be a falsehood. On the time bomb and 5th column, the enemy among us references, Benny explains he wasn’t referring to all Arabs, he was talking about Israel’s Arab minority who identify with the Palestinian cause and who, during the 2nd Intifada, were rioting and blocking roads. Everything has a context, you see?
Mehdi: “I’m not sure there is any context for dismissing an entire people as a fifth column.” He then reminds him of another article from 2019 in which he said “we’re talking about murder in far larger numbers. It’s not a matter of money (referring to Palestinians in Israel), it’s the society’s nature” I’d call it racist to suggest that an entire society has a murderous nature.
Benny: I was referring to the murder rates of fellow Arabs, not of Jews. The murder rate amongst fellow Arabs is 100-200% higher that amongst Jews. The rate of women being killed is also higher (refers to honour killings) and that’s a issue for Arabs in the middle east, as well as Israeli Arabs.
Mehdi: You’ve also been accused of war mongering. In June you wrote an article in Haaretz suggesting “Israel should consider nuking Iran to prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons” Not even Netanyahu has said that.
Benny: Netanyahu is PM so he has to be more responsible
Mehdi: “So you’re irresponsible?”
Benny: “Yes” and the context was that I was suggesting destroying Iranian nuclear facilities.
Mehdi: “With nukes?”
Benny: I’ve always advocated for small nuclear explosion to take out Iranian Nuclear facilities, not to take out Iran.
Mehdi: That’s not what you said in the New York Times on July 18th in 2008. What you said was “an Israeli nuclear strike to prevent the Iranians from taking the final steps towards getting the bomb is probable”
Benny: “I didn’t say I supported it, I said it’s probable”
Mehdi: except you also said “the alternative is letting Tehran have its bomb” Now who’s playing word games?
Benny: Israel doesn’t say that it has a policy to destroy Iran but Iran openly declares its policy to destroy Israel so if Iran gets nuclear weapons then Israel will be finished and you’re not an Israeli so you don’t care about that.
Mehdi: “I’m a human being so I care about nuclear weapons, so you just assumed” I don’t care.
@34mins Mehdi brings in the panel of guests
Mehdi: “Diana… potential 5th column?”
Diana: This is the problem, he is a racist and he espouses racist views. Israel is a society based on Jewish supremacy, which is why they get away with telling Palestinians, like me, how we feel. They call us a 5th column and they treat us like a 5th column. People forget, Palestinians didn’t come to Israel, Israel is a colonial movement that came to Palestine with the objective of erasing and replacing Palestinians.
Mehdi: Emmanuel.. do you agree with Benny about what’s happening inside Israeli society
Emmanuel: Calls Diana a liar and then argues.. “it’s not about [Jewish] supremacy it’s about national self-determination and freedom… we didn’t come to you.. this is OUR land, this is Jewish land… the word ‘Palestine’ is an invention of British colonialism, it was invented in 1920, it did not exist under the Ottoman empire… when you say Palestine, and you can’t even pronounce it in Arabic because there is no ‘P’ in Arabic…”
Mehdi: Repeats his question to Emmanuel.. “what do you think of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir referring to Arab’s in the most dehumanising racist language, or are you going to deny that as well?”
Emmanuel: Acknowledges they have extremists, like in any society, and states that he doesn’t agree with them.
Mehdi: “Except your extremists are in government”. Then invites Daniel to comment.
Daniel: Daniel is shocked at the pitiful arguments and Israeli talking points that are being put forward but adds that we shouldn’t be surprised when we consider the current state of affairs. In particular he references the level of impunity and protection that Israel’s allies provide Israel with today.. “despite the litany.. the entire spectrum of violations of international law and of human rights.” Clearly Israeli’s don’t need to come up with better talking points because they don’t have to.
Benny: “I must protest” Benny tries to argue that the panel is biased because 2 of the 3 panellists are pro-Palesinian anti-Zionists.
Daniel: “I consider myself pro-Jewish, pro-Palesinian, pro-human…”
Benny: to Daniel.. “you are a pro-Palestinian propagandist.. that’s all you’ve become”
@38mins 44 sec Mehdi brings questions from the audience
First question: To Benny… Can you say more about the threat that Israeli’s face from Hamas “as an Islamist movement which has pledged to slaughter all the Jews in Israel.. that’s what it says in its charter…”
Benny: “Hamas is a small organisation with a small army of terrorists” He doesn’t see it as an existential threat to Israel on its own but does consider it part of what he calls “the radical Arab world.. including Iran” which he does consider an existential threat to Israel.
Second question: To Diana & Daniel… “given the decades long brutality against the Palestinians by the Israeli government, without much regard for international law or consequences, should we have seen the escalation in the genocide coming, and what could be the global implications when states disregard international law to justify and even normalise genocide”
Diana: “The world tells us that nothing can justify October 7th, and yet everything that Israel has done, since October 7th, can be justified by October 7th.” The world we live in is distorted. The occupation is violent, the Nakba was violent and the only way to restore world order is to introduce a system that holds ‘all’ states to account for their actions. We can’t have a world where Israel decides it can just bomb Iran because it ‘may’ acquire a nuclear weapon. Diana reminds us.. “big secret.. Israel has a nuclear weapon too”
Third question: As Al-Jazeera is a Qatari station, can we ask people’s opinions on Qatari funding of Hamas, an organisation that persecutes Gazan Palestinians. Also we haven’t even mentioned the 120 hostages and couldn’t bring any pressure to bear to bring about their release?
Benny: Qatar has been supporting Hamas for over a decade, with money and propaganda. He then alleges that Al-Jazeera has ‘probably’ been a mouthpiece for that propaganda. Qatar should stop funding terrorists. They had 250 hostages, now its 120, many of them killed by Hamas
Mehdi: “and by Israelis”
Benny: acknowledges “and by Israelis”
Mehdi: Question to Benny.. “why did the Israeli government prop up Hamas for so long and encourage Qatar to send money to Gaza?”
Benny: “the Israeli government, under Netanyahu, behaved stupidly and this was part of the incompetence of Netanyahu”
Mehdi: “I don’t think it was incompetence”
Fourth Question: [Note: this question was posed to Benny by Martin Shaw, a British sociologist and academic, research professor of international relations at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals, emeritus professor of international relations and politics at Sussex University, and author or ‘What is genocide’] “you said it’s a war and there’s collateral damage, and that Hamas knew, and that maybe true, but the real point is that Israel knew, isn’t it? If you bend the rules of war so that 100 people can be killed for one militant, if you do that thousands and thousands of times, with 2000lb bombs, you know that the whole of Gaza is going to be a ruin, you know that you’re going to destroy that society, and that the only way that we can understand that, in an overall sense, it’s not a series of war crimes, it is one big crimes, and I think the name for that is genocide”
Benny: Hamas knew when they attack Israel on Oct 7th that Israel would respond. They knew there would be bombing, they knew Gazan civilians would die, they wanted this because it looks good on western TV screens. Hamas think it’s a good thing that Gazan civilians die because then they come martyrs and go to heaven.
Mehdi: to Benny… “so your argument is Hamas knew that if they did this we’d do a genocide, so we did a genocide?”
Benny: “not a genocide… they knew Israel would kill lots of Gazan’s going after Hamas”
Fifth question: To Benny, “you say that the ICC should issue an arrest warrant against the Israeli Prime Minister and the Israeli War Minister, Yoav Gallant, but on the 9th of October they imposed a total siege on 2.3 million civilians, depriving them of water, medicine, food.. that is what they are accused of.. starvation as a weapon of war… something that the Syrian and the Russian regimes were accused of. Do you condemn that?”
Benny: I’ve not seen any reports of people dying from starvation in Gaza. Despite being repeatedly challenged by Mehdi on this, who referenced numerous reports, both in the media and by independent public bodies, Benny claims he hasn’t seen a single report of people dying of starvation.
Sixth question: If you were born a Palestinian, would you support a Palestinians right to resistance?
Benny: “I would support Palestinian resistance if I was living under Israeli occupation”
Mehdi: Asks Benny, if you were a starving Palestinian child in Gaza who has seen his home blown up and his parents killed by an Israeli bomb before his eyes, what would you think of Israel?
Benny: I’d hate Israel but maybe later I might also hate Hamas for causing this to happen.
So now we no longer have to ask why Israel slaughters children on such an unprecedented scale. They expect repercussions, they fear what these children will become and they justify the killing by deferring blame onto Hamas.
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