PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Paul Jay in Baltimore. And welcome to Reality Asserts Itself. This is a continuation of our series of interviews
with Max Blumenthal, author of the book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. And he now joins us in the studio. Thanks for joining us again. MAX BLUMENTHAL: Good to be with you. JAY: Criticism of your book, of course, is
emerging as you do interviews and people read the book. You mentioned the terrorist attacks that took
place,
and especially during the Second Intifada. I think it was something like about 700 Israelis
were killed during this early 2000s. One of the criticisms of the book is you don't
deal with some of the external reasons for this growth of more overt racism in Israel. One of your critics, from The Nation, Eric
Alterman, he writes the following: "Blumenthal evinces no interest in the larger
context of Israel's actions. Potential threats that emanate from Hamas,
Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Syria, Iran, etc., r
eceive virtually no mention in these pages. Israel's actions are attributed exclusively
to the myopia of its citizens. Blumenthal blames 'Israeli society's nationalistic
impulses,' its politicians who struggle 'to outdo one another in a competition for the
most convincing exaltation of violence against the Arab evildoers,' its 'fever swamps,' its
'unprovoked violence against the Arab outclass,' and its textbooks that 'indoctrinate Jewish
children into the culture of militarism.' It would have be
en easy for him to at least
pretend to even-handedness here. Did it not occur to Blumenthal, for instance,
that Palestinians have textbooks as well?" So what do you make of his criticism? And I need to add, I've read much of Alterman's
other criticisms, and it seems to me it's just someone out to get you, and I'm not going
to deal with them, 'cause I don't think they're all that significant or serious. And we have actually invited Mr. Alterman
to come onto the show and make the criticisms of his
book directly to Max and let them discuss
and debate it, and Mr. Alterman said, no, thanks. But is there something to this that the book
doesn't deal with, for example the effect of terrorist attacks at cafés and what that
did to help the right consolidate this more overt racist position? BLUMENTHAL: I talk about that explicitly in
the chapter called "The Big Quiet". Alterman didn't read my book. It's just pretty clear he didn't read my book. However, his desire for me to condemn Hamas
and Hezb
ollah before I can talk about the roots of the crisis is ridiculous and anti-intellectual. And his plea for evenhandedness is hypocritical
if you read his own writings on the false objectivity of the Washington press corps,
which insists on playing on the one hand, you know, there's the Democrats' policy, on
the other hand there's the far-right wing of the Republican policy, and he always criticizes
that, but he wants me to be evenhanded between the occupier and the occupied. What I'm trying to
do is elucidate an idea
which is not very complex--it's actually very elementary--which goes to the heart of the
crisis in Israel-Palestine and the roots of the Palestinian armed struggle and Palestinian
violence, which is resistance to settler colonialism. And we witnessed it in the United States with
the Native Americans using violence, and including acts of terror: they slaughtered, they killed
women and children in their homes in Western frontier settlements at times because they
were being
dispossessed. We witnessed it in South Africa: the African
National Congress, under the control of and direction of Nelson Mandela, carried out an
armed struggle, including terror attacks, against the white Afrikaner population during
apartheid South Africa. And we've witnessed it among the Palestinians. And the root of this crisis is not the occupation
of '67, per se, although that's a huge part of it. The roots of it are a settler colonial project
that began in 1893. And we've just witnessed a
historical progression. And what I talk about is, you know, the current
phase that it's in, which I think is a terminal phase. But I also discuss the historical roots. And this is a debate that I'd wanted to engage
in with liberal Zionists. I think it's an honest debate that can be
had. But Alterman--you know, you've found maybe
the only paragraph in the thousands and thousands of words that he's written in these series
of screeds seeking to impugn me and my book--which he has named the book of
the month club for
the Hamas book club. This is the--I didn't know such a thing existed. But, you know, I want to just give big ups
to all the friends of Hamas out there. You know. JAY: Hamas's version of Oprah. BLUMENTHAL: No, it's classic McCarthy, McCarthyism. But you found one paragraph where he offers
a sort of hackneyed mainstream Zionist analysis of the book. JAY: Let's forget Alterman. But--. BLUMENTHAL: Well, I want to say something
more, which is that he's one of the few liberal Zioni
sts who's actually attempted to offer
an extended critique of my book, and this is what he's able to come up with. It's very hard for them to grapple with the
facts and the analysis that are contained in my book Goliath, and that's why they're
shying away from me. That's why--I think that's why Peter Beinart
will never allow himself to be in the same forum as me. He's even backed out of a televised panel
when he found out I was on the panel. JAY: Is it getting any mainstream reviews? BLUMENTHAL:
Well, there's one review that's
notable, and it is by someone who could be considered a figure of the Zionist left in
Israel, Akiva Eldar, who is a veteran Israeli journalist who's been reporting on the situation
for, I think, as long as 30 years. He's written an incredible book on the settlement
enterprise called Lords of the Land with Idith Zertal, who's an Israeli professor and an
expert on the Holocaust and Israeli life. And he has written an extremely positive review
of my book. Even thoug
h I think he might disagree with
a lot of my conclusions, he has called on people to answer the challenge that's contained
in this book, and he said that this book reminded him of the reality that had faded into a "bas
relief," because he had been so inured and become so immune to the daily acts of petty
violence and racist incitement that are all around him, he almost forgot it existed. I reminded him of its presence. And so compare Akiva Eldar to Eric Alterman,
someone who's a denizen of the U
pper West Side, versus Akiva Eldar, who spent 30 years
pretty much in the trenches of Israeli politics, and compare their reviews, and I think you'll
see a pretty strong contrast, both in their level of experience and understanding of the
crisis and in their review of my book. JAY: There is--true or false: there is serious
trends of Jewish hatred, anti-Semitism amongst the Arab world and amongst Palestinians; it
exists. BLUMENTHAL: Definitely. JAY: There is a trend within Palestinian politics
th
at would like to see Israel gone and would like to see most Jews leave. BLUMENTHAL: Definitely. But, I mean, it depends on what trend you're
talking about. JAY: Well, I personally talked to an official
from Hamas in Beirut who essentially told me, you know, someday we're going to have
so many rockets, meaning Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran and all of this, that the threat
of all this is going to drive Jews in Israel to the airports. BLUMENTHAL: I can tell you stories about that. You know, when I'
m meeting people who have
been driven from their homes--I met a family who is living three kilometers from their
home, which is now occupied by artists and had been turned into an art studio, and they
welcomed me. And then the daughter, I said: what do you
think will happen in the future? And the daughter, who is 12, who spoke very
good English, said, well, the Jews will eventually leave. And you can call that anti-Semitic if you
want, but this is what often happens in situations where the relat
ionship of a group, of a settler
group and a group of indigenous people, is defined in colonial terms. And that's the kind of environment that Israel,
that the state of Israel has created, where they're constantly fearing being thrown into
the sea. But it was Palestinians in Jaffa, in the Menashiya
neighborhood, who were literally thrown into the sea and forced away on boats. And their refusal to allow them to return
is what highlights, what animates this sense of insecurity and this fear that t
hose people
will eventually return. And the longer that that Goliath continues
to bloody his hands--he's constantly worried, like any bully is, of who will rise up and
finally stab him in the back and fell him. And so it's this kind of relationship, the
colonial relationship between Palestinians and Israeli Jews, that is at the root of the
whole crisis. And it's what has to be appended if there
is to be a just peace in the holy land. So, I mean, when you talk about the fears
of the Israeli publi
c, you're talking about fears that don't necessarily have to be there. You're also talking about fears that are particular
to the Israeli public that looks at history from a European perspective and sees their
past and even their future in Israel--in Europe. I mean, the exodus of Israelis is already
happening. As many as 600,000 to 1 million Israelis are
living abroad. And I write--my book ends with a portrait
of Berlin, where 15,000 Israelis are already living in the city where the Final Soluti
on
was planned. They've taken--most of them have taken citizenship,
and they love it there. And this is where they are able to experience
freedom and light and justice. They've turned their back on the gloom and
doom of Netanyahu. And they don't have to go through this experience
of colonizing another people. So they've already kind of left and moved
on. And this crisis will continue. So how can it be ended is the question. It can't be--we have to look past a two-state
solution now and start loo
king at the real roots of the crisis. And that's really what's going to, I think,
depress the rising degree of classical anti-Semitism we're seeing being promoted in the Arab world,
because the colonization of Palestinians is really the key catalyst. It's why Protocols of the Elders of Zion has
been a top-selling book in Egypt. If you talk to younger Egyptians, they don't
know that Jews used to live in their own country, that tens of thousands of Jews used to live
in their own country. They don'
t know that Leila Mourad, the famous
Egyptian Taarab singer, was Jewish. They don't know that there is a Jewish heritage
in Egypt, and a real Jewish heritage. And, you know, when I went to Lebanon, to
Beirut, I went to see the Jewish synagogue that was actually shelled by the Israeli Army
and destroyed, and it's been rebuilt. And I was removed from the grounds because
of the level of security around the synagogue. But there is a Jewish heritage in the Arab
world. And that's something I talk abou
t in my book,
too, through a portrait of my former roommate, Yossi David, whose family comes from Iran
and Tunisia and has decided, you know, I'm an Arab, I feel closer to Palestinians than
I do to Ashkenazi Jewish Israelis, and I want to build this Levantine bridge so that we
can have a future together after this colonial relationship is upended. So we have to also look past the Ashkenazi
perspective on the conflict and look at who wants to be indigenized in Israel-Palestine,
who wants to reall
y genuinely live together. And it could be a total bloodbath, like you
suggested, but there are also opportunities and possibilities that are opening up that
I want to explore and possible relationships between groups that we have never considered
who could actually live together. That's why it's so important to start looking
past the hackneyed, worn-out, and obsolete two-state solution, which focuses on ethnic
separation, which was based on the idea of us over here, them over there, a concept w
e've
thrown away in the United States as segregationist, and start looking at who wants to genuinely
live together and who demands colonialism and insists on its perpetuation for as long
as they can maintain it. JAY: Thanks for joining us. BLUMENTHAL: Thanks for having me. JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real
News. Max's book, again, is Goliath: Life and Loathing
in Greater Israel. And this concludes our series with Max on
Reality Asserts Itself.
Comments
An amazing eye opening interview.
Great series of interviews with Max Blumenthal. Thank you.
I love the way Max ended, on throwing away hackneyed segregationist thinking and instead thinking about who wants to be indigenized, who wants to live together in Palestine/Israel.
Absolutely re: exploiting resources.
he's not promoting anti-semitism. he's trying to stop his own ethnic group from perpetrating atrocities.
Thank you, Mr Blumenthal, you offer a fresh perspective in the concluding remarks. I have just begun to read the book.
Thank you Max Blumenthal eh... Ü
Thank you Paul Jay.You are an unspoken hero of alternative Journalism you are a journalistic Diamond in a Rhinestone world ! I have learned so much from your reports/interviews over the few years I have been tuning in !
Is occupying the territory of Palestinians esp after being activated several times and on 6 day war any different than what Joshua, judges, to David.... did to the land of cainaan.
again not all israel are jews by religion, in fact secular jews do not even get circumcised and that alone is read in the torah to say who ever is not are cut of from the jewish nation, but the state accepts them like other nations who have relatives that are really jewish
thanks gentlemen!
Mas and The Grayzone making history now!
that is correct
very interesting .....the problem is when you said anything about those people your life change .they will teach you not to write or talk about them.everyone know they are the problem because of them there is no peace in this world....no body want to stop them.So what is the point to talk about them?
blacks of South Africa were never dispossessed
i'm not defending israel, by any means, but what you're saying is absurd and you are conflating two separate topics. if you think dictatorships propped up by the u.s. and massive economic inequity was a paradise in the arab world, you're dreaming.
Thanks also go to Paul Jay... have subscribed to your channel many time Each time we return here we find ourselves non subscribed...!!?? SUB AGAIN! Censorship of YT n go..ogle is hitting on viewers and on uploads Great channel Our regards, best wishes for your future endeavor Namaste
I've meant to ask ur thoughts p,,, do u think if Israel gives the occupied land back that it will satisfy Palestinians? Or the Islam community at all. Uless all Jews are out of Israel this will never end. If I'd been attacked on 3 sides by 3 countries over and over. Spec. The 6day war, I'd never give back occupied zones to people who have been at war with me since the time of joshua
Watched all 5 segments. Max Blumenthal is totally delusional. His last few sentences were quite revealing where he condemns ethnic segregation and claims that it is contrary to American ideals. Look at former Yugoslavia where people speaking the same language, had high degree of intermarriage split their country based on ethnic principals. Look at Czechoslovakia - now Czech Republic and Slovakia. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Israelis wanting to separate themselves from Palestinians.