This House believes the Palestinians should give up their full right of return
Wednesday March 28 2007
MOTION REJECTED
by 18% to 82%
Transcript
Order of speeches
Introduction
TIM SEBASTIAN
Ladies and gentlemen, a very good evening to you and welcome to the latest in our series of Doha Debates sponsored by the Qatar Foundation. To many in the Middle East, no issue is as controversial and emotive as the one we're discussing tonight, the right of return by Palestinians to lands and property which once belonged to them in what is now Israel. Palestinian leaders say they won't renounce that right, moreover it's enshrined in four separate bodies of international law. Israelis say they can't accept such a proposition, it would lead simpl
y to the destruction of the Jewish State. Well, our motion tonight seeks to elicit the arguments from both sides, 'This House believes the Palestinians should give up their full right of return.' Speaking for the motion, Bassem Eid, founder and director of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. He's worked in the Human Rights field for many years, documenting abuses by both Palestinians and Israelis. He's lived in refugee camps for over 40 years, and is now resident of the Aqabat Jaber camp in Jericho. With him, Yossi Beilin, Member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. He served as a minister in several governments, and in 2003 he helped to bring about the signing of the Geneva Accord, a private peace agreement negotiated by Palestinian and Israeli experts, but was never officially recognised by either government. Against the motion, Ilan Pappe, senior lecturer in political science at Haifa University. Two years ago he supported a boycott of Israeli universities, saying that external pressure on Israel was the best means of ending the occupation. He's written a number of books on Middle Eastern affairs, including 'The Making of the Arab/Israeli Conflict'. Also against the motion, Ali Abunimeh. He's the son of Palestinian refugees; he grew up in Europe and now lives in Ireland and the United States where he founded the Electronic Intifada, an internet gateway about the Palestinians and their conflict with Israel. He lectures frequently at colleges in the US and is the author of a recent book called 'One Country: A Proposal to end the Israeli/Palestinian Impasse'. Ladies and gentlemen, our panel. And now let me call on Bassem Eid first of all to speak for the motion.
Bassem Eid
Speaking for the motionBASSEM EID
Yes, thank you Tim. As you know, I am a refugee, who has been living in refugee camps for the past 40 years. The daily life in a refugee camp is so miserable. Sewage is inside the narrow streets, a shortage of electricity and water exists, and our children including my children are developing on the sewage in that street. So for how long I, as a Palestinian, and my children and the other Palestinian children should suffer from such a kind of situation? I think that we have almost reached the time that we should have to find a solution, and if by giving up the right of return, let me do it, because the most important thing for me today and for most of the Palestinians is that the Palestinian State is going to see the light. Now, we are suffering. For how long we can suffer? In the past 60 years we the Palestinians, especially the refugees in the occupied territories, continue sacrificing ourselves for the right of return. It is the time right now to see the Palestinian refugees in some other places like in Jordan, like in Syria, like in Lebanon, making their own intifada and start fighting for the right of return, I think that today we have run out of any kind of energy, and it is the time right now to give us a kind of rest.
BASSEM EID
Bassem Eid, thank you very much indeed. You paint a picture of misery, of people who have absolutely nothing in the refugee camps, and yet you would take away their last principle, or what many regard as their last principle, the right of return. Then you would have them with nothing at all. Why?
BASSEM EID
This is some time you might have a kind of a dream which might be applicable on the ground, but I think that in the past 60 years we are ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
It's more than a dream, they believe in it.
BASSEM EID
We are dreaming and we are living in it and in terms to get out from such kind of shock which is not a dream any more, because Martin Luther King also died with his own dream, so everybody has a dream, but for how long you can dream? For 60 years, it's I think ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Why, simply because Israel is stronger?
BASSEM EID
I think that we are so weak right now ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
So the weak should automatically give in to the strong?
BASSEM EID
I think that the Palestinian leaders including all Arab leaders who are oppressing these people these days, corrupting these people these days, they never have been able since 1948 to make the UN Resolution 194 so applicable, so, until when can we wait? If the Palestinians ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
But your principle is this, the weak give in to the strong, this is what you want them to do. If Britain has thought like that at the beginning of the Second World War, there would be a Nazi government in Britain now.
BASSEM EID
I want to say, if there are some Palestinians who might be able to wait for another 60 years or 120 more years to suffer for the right of return, let them do it and please come to the courtyard and still fight.
TIM SEBASTIAN
And what do you really think the Palestinians will get in return for giving up the right of return? What are you saying to them, do this and everything will be fine? Give up your dream and everything will be fine, then give up another one and another one and another one all the way along the line.
BASSEM EID
I think it is the time for the international community right now to start pressuring the Arab countries where these refugees exist, to start recognising them as citizens, to allow them to work in these countries, to allow these people to give them the freedom of movement, then I believe that that might be the best solution in terms of reaching a kind of a solution with the Israel conflict and to see the Palestinian independent state delivering with its capital East Jerusalem.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, Bassem Eid, thank you very much indeed. Now could I call on Ilan Pappe, please, to speak against the motion?
Ilan Pappe
Speaking against the motionILAN PAPPE
Yes. I would like to argue strongly against the motion, firstly because of my personal history. My parents are German Jews who were kicked out of Germany, and most of their relatives were killed in the Holocaust. Because of that personal history, I strongly support any struggle against oppression, dispossession and colonisation like the one that has been inflicted on the Palestinians in the past and in the present. Secondly, I believe that by acknowledging the right of return, Israel will acknowledge the ethnic cleansing it perpetrated against the Palestinians in 1948, when they dispossessed half of Palestine's population, demolished half of Palestine's villages, and destroyed half of Palestine's towns. This ethnic cleansing is the cause and the root of the problem. Thirdly, I believe that by acknowledging the right of return, Israel would be transformed from a racist and ethnic state into a democratic state, where the principle of one person, one vote would be the basis for the state, and not the ethnicity and the religion of the person. Finally, I think if we look at the peace process and the peace efforts ever since the creation of the State of Israel, all these efforts have failed because of the attempt to bypass the right of return which is acknowledged by the United Nations, and to bypass the refugee issues. Therefore all the peace attempts so far have produced more bloodshed and more hostility. To sum up, I would say that by accepting the right of return as the basis for a comprehensive solution in Palestine, we can bring peace and reconciliation to Palestine, stability to the Middle East, and also significantly improve the relationship between the West and the Arab and Islamic worlds.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Ilan Pappe, thank you very much indeed. How long do you want the Palestinians to go on fighting and dying for? Another 50 years, another 100 years, another 500 years? When will it be enough for you?
ILAN PAPPE
I think that the moment that the world would say to Israel, 'Enough is enough' ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
But it's been 50 years already, I mean, what is your deadline?
ILAN PAPPE
I think there are very important undercurrents in the West, even in the United States, even among Jewish communities where people say to Israel, 'Enough is enough,' and that's the only way to stop the suffering of the Palestinians.
TIM SEBASTIAN
But you know your country well; you know that they are never going to give the right of return to up to five million refugees. Do you think they're really going to open the door for five million Palestinian refugees?
ILAN PAPPE
No, I don't think they would even end the occupation if you leave it to them. I think you need the world to pressure Israel as it pressured South Africa. Also the whites in South Africa did not want to give up the apartheid system, and you needed outside pressure. Israel doesn't have force from within.
TIM SEBASTIAN
But it wasn't outside pressure that ended South Africa ...
ILAN PAPPE
Together, it was a very important component in the process that eventually led to the end of apartheid.
TIM SEBASTIAN
And what has it achieved for the Palestinians hanging on to this dream year after year after year? Has it brought them peace? Has is brought them prosperity?
ILAN PAPPE
No, it hasn't brought them peace.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Has it brought them happiness? Are these dreams worth fighting for as well?
ILAN PAPPE
It's not a dream.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Why not? It is a dream, for those people who are living in the misery that Bassem Eid was describing, it's a dream.
ILAN PAPPE
Every people who live under oppression fight for the end of oppression. You can call it a dream, but you can also call it a natural and human impulse.
TIM SEBASTIAN
But my point is this: isn't peace just as legitimate a dream as the right of return and that right of return is standing in the way of a peace treaty?
ILAN PAPPE
On the contrary, peace will never be achieved until the Israelis acknowledge the dispossession, and until they will acknowledge the continued dispossession, the right of return ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
There are some Palestinian leaders who prefer to give up the right of return.
ILAN PAPPE
Unfortunately, and I don't think it ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Yossi Beilin negotiated with them in 2003.
ILAN PAPPE
Indeed, and that Palestinian leaders have lost the confidence and the support of their people, as Yossi is not, alas, is not a very strong candidate for Prime Minister of Israel. I think the only way that you can convince the Israelis ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
When he's a politician, he still has time.
ILAN PAPPE
I'm all for it. We could do worse than having Yossi Beilin as Prime Minister of Israel, but I do think that it is very important to understand that there is an ideological infrastructure of the Jewish State that wants as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians in it as possible, and this is the core of the problem, and the people themselves in Israel cannot understand it until the world, and especially the Western world sends them a message, in the 21st century, a country that subscribes to such an ideology is unacceptable, very much like South Africa.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Ilan Pappe, thank you very much indeed.
ILAN PAPPE
Thank you.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Now let me call please on Yossi Beilin to speak for the motion.
Yossi Beilin
Speaking for the motionYOSSI BEILIN
Thank you. I made it all the way here to talk to you in order to explain that we are not speaking about a zero sum game that somebody has to forget about the right of return or to implement it immediately. There won't be peace without a solution for the refugee problem, a solution which is dignified, a solution which is fair, a solution which is agreed upon by both sides and this by the way is said by the Arab Initiative which was debated today in the Arab World. Such a solution I believe has been agreed upon and found in the context of the Geneva Initiative, and those of you, I believe that many of you have read it and those of you who did not read it can do it on the website and to see this is the longest chapter of the Geneva Initiative, and it refers both to the compensation for the assets and compensation for the suffering, and for five venues, different venues, for the Palestinian refugees according to the original idea of President Clinton. And this is something which has been agreed upon by I would say mainstream people on both sides, not an official one but a very important one. There is no Israeli partner, from the right or from the left, who is going to agree that there will be both a Palestinian State based on the '67 borders, and side by side there will be an Israel with a Palestinian majority, which is the implementation of the right of return. It will not happen, so people can speak about it and say easily, 'Well, let them continue and fight for it,' but it will not be implemented in Israel, and this is why I believe that when you speak about a compromise, you must speak about a solution, and I want to end by saying the following thing: there are dreams on both sides. Israelis dream about the Greater Israel, about Jerusalem united, about sovereignty on the Temple Mount which is Haram-esh-Sharif, but they know that eventually Haram-esh-Sharif will be under Palestinian sovereignty if they want peace. And the same goes for the Palestinians who know that sometimes we use the right of return just to provoke Israelis and say, 'You must give it to us,' knowing that if you speak about the right of return, there is no compromise and there is no peace. The role of the politicians is not to kill these dreams. People may go on and dream. The role of the politicians is to prevent these dreams from becoming nightmares, and this is what we are trying to do.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Yossi Beilin, thank you very much. Put yourself in the position of the Palestinians for a moment: no free movement, no secure tenure, no right to work, no right even to get the taxes that are paid to them back from Israel, and you want them to give up this as well and trust the State of Israel, which has gone on expanding its settlements, which are deemed illegal by Britain and many other countries, and you want them to trust the Israelis and say, 'OK, just reject this right of return and everything will be well.' Why should they do it?
YOSSI BEILIN
It's only in a context of a package. The Israelis will not give up ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
But they don't see it as the contents of a package, it's a sacred right for many of them.
YOSSI BEILIN
OK, so don't give up a right. What I'm telling you is, you don't have to give up on it. I mean, I don't think ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Well, that's the motion we're discussing.
YOSSI BEILIN
Yes, but in real life, there won't be, in my view, any sentence in this treaty which says the Palestinians are hereby renouncing the right of return. I don't believe that one should say it, and there is nothing which ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
But there won't be a sentence saying that Israel accepts it, will there?
YOSSI BEILIN
No, of course not, of course not. Both sides are entitled to their own dreams, and I think a peace treaty has nothing to do with dreams. The question is whether we can put an end to the suffering of the two peoples, terrorism and expulsion, and whatever we did to each other, or whether we want to live in our situation, to continue it, to continue victory, to continue hate each other, and provoke each other. This is what we have done in the last 60 years.
TIM SEBASTIAN
But what can you say to persuade the Palestinians? You know that every concession they've made, you couldn't negotiate with Yasser Arafat because he wasn't a partner, so you said have democratic government. You can't negotiate with the democratic government because you don't like them either, so give up the right of return, it's one concession you're demanding after another. Why should they do it, Yossi Beilin, why should they? Why are your rights as an Israeli more important then theirs as a Palestinian?
YOSSI BEILIN
I'm not saying it, what I can say is that both sides are having their own books against each other, and the Israeli government will give you a book about the breaching of the agreement by the Palestinians, and vice-versa, so I want to put an end to it. I hate the situation whereby visitors coming to us, Tony Blair, all the American presidents, he comes to us, we are giving him all the details about how the Palestinians breach the agreements. Then they go to Ramallah and then the Palestinians are giving him all the details about how Israel breached the agreement, and you know, some of them, at least one of them, said to me, 'You know what? You are right and you are right. I don't come back to the region,' and I don't want the world to give up on us, because if this happens, we may give up on ourselves. We have to put a solution to it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Right, Yossi Beilin, thank you very much indeed. Let me please ask Ali Abunimeh to speak against the motion.
Ali Abunimah
Speaking against the motionALI ABUNIMEH
I strongly oppose this motion, and I want to tell you why. It's very personal for me but it's also a matter of principle. My mother was, with her entire family and like millions of other Palestinians, forced to leave her home, a village, in 1948 in what is now Israel. What strikes me is all the four panellists here tonight, we are from the same country, but what distinguishes us is that whereas Yossi Beilin can live in the country freely, his relatives can come, anybody who the State of Israel considers Jewish can come and live in the country, visit, buy an apartment by the sea, my own mother, born in the country, has no right even to visit. If my mother was a black African and Yossi Beilin was a white Afrikaner, everybody would understand what that is. That's why President Jimmy Carter calls is apartheid. The reality today is that in this country, there are 11 million people who live under one government. I know the news goes on about a Palestinian government, but it's a fictional government, because it has no control over the check-points, the borders, the settlements, the water, anything. There is one government in Israel/Palestine, it's the Israeli government and it's a Jewish sectarian government, and our challenge today is to transform a Jewish sectarian government into a government for all the people who live in Israel/Palestine, and I want to end by addressing this point, that somehow Palestinians in the West Bank can buy better conditions by selling out their Palestinian brothers and sisters in the Diaspora. We should be clear, the Palestinian problem, the conflict is not about the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it is about Israeli racism and colonialism, which affects Palestinians in different ways. A Palestinian State in a fraction of the West Bank, as the Geneva Initiative proposes, doesn't solve the problem of the racism, that the 1.3 million Palestinians inside Israel face. It doesn't solve the problem of the racism faced by millions of Palestinians outside the country who are prevented from returning just because they're from the wrong ethnic group. I strongly believe that Israelis and Palestinians can live together in peace and justice, just like blacks and whites in South Africa, just like nationalist and unionists in Northern Ireland, but only the basis of full equality and dignity for every human being.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Ali Abunimeh, why stick to a right that although many Palestinians hold dear, the majority probably wouldn't want to exercise?
ALI ABUNIMEH
The majority of Jews in the world ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
You don't want to go and live in what is now Israel, do you?
ALI ABUNIMEH
The majority of Jews in the world have no desire to live in the State of Israel.
TIM SEBASTIAN
No, I'm asking about the Palestinians.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Well, I'm saying, so why does Israel insist on a discriminatory law that allows any Jew to ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
But please answer the question as it relates to the motion. Why go hanging on to a right that they don't want to exercise?
ALI ABUNIMEH
Many of them, some don't, it's a matter of choice.
TIM SEBASTIAN
No, but a lot don't. In a survey in 1993, only 10% wanted to go back in annual quotas.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Well, those surveys are not accurate.
TIM SEBASTIAN
What would be an accurate figure then?
ALI ABUNIMEH
Well, Palestinians have never been given the choice. Let's give them the choice and see how many.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Well, they've been asked their opinions, and they don't want to go, and yet you want them to hang on to this for the sake of a principle. Don't you want them to have peace?
ALI ABUNIMEH
Tim, Palestinians in the occupied territories elect a government that strongly upholds the right of return. They made a choice and Tony Blair, the European Union, the United States all decided to boycott the Palestinians and starve them to death because they exercised their choice. It seems that when Palestinians do exercise their choice and speak out, and then who asked the rest of the Palestinians? Have there been elections in the refugee camps in Lebanon and in Jordan and in Syria?
TIM SEBASTIAN
With respect, you are speaking from a very comfortable position. You live in Ireland, you live in the US, who are you to say to people who live in terribly squalid conditions, 'Just go on fighting.'
ALI ABUNIMEH
I'm not saying that. I have been to the camps in Lebanon.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Yes, but you don't live there, do you, day after day after day?
ALI ABUNIMEH
Well, I have been to the camps in Lebanon, I have been to the camps in Jordan, and the one thing that people say to me is, 'Never give up the right of return, and if you have the chance to go out to the world and speak and use your position of privilege, to speak on our behalf, tell them that what we demand is the right of return.' That's what people have said to me.
TIM SEBASTIAN
And you even want a one-state solution, you don't even want the two-state solution that the main Palestinian leadership is pushing for? It underpins their entire policy. You're that out-of-tune with Palestinian people.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Not at all. What Palestinians want is equality and democracy, and everywhere I go and speak to Palestinians about this, they say to me, 'It's not about a state, it's about our rights,' and they say, 'We want to live in peace with Israelis, but do Israelis want to live in peace with us?' and frankly, Tim, the evidence is not strong that they do.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Ali Abunimeh, thank you very much indeed.
Audience questions
TIM SEBASTIAN
Let's go to a question please. Lady in the first row.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Mr. Beilin, you spoke of a solution. I'm just wondering what that solution might be. If you don't have a solution, who do you think should come up with a solution, and if that solution was that Palestine should continue fighting for their rights, and Israel should get out of the areas that are being occupied, would you in fact accept that solution?
YOSSI BEILIN
Well, I am the person with the solution. I'm not asking others to give me solutions, and I hate formulas which are hollow. I mean, to have a two-state solution and peace, it is nothing for me, or fair solution for the Palestinian refugees. What is the solution? The Geneva Initiative is the only detailed solution which exists. Nothing like what was offered before by Israelis and Palestinians, and nothing like that has been offered later on, which means something.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Isn't it true that under the Geneva Initiative, all of the settlements around East Jerusalem remain where they are?
YOSSI BEILIN
According to, I mean, I don't have here the map, I can tell you exactly that we are speaking about annexation of 2.5% from the West Bank ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
We are actually discussing the right of return here rather than the settlements.
YOSSI BEILIN
Then in exchange for 2.5% from the Israeli sovereign soil, so it is the '67 borders and there is a very detailed solution for the refugees which says the following thing. There are five venues. The first one is the Palestinian State, this is the right for self-determination and those who would like to live in a Palestinian, with Palestinian majority, should live in the Palestinian State, which will have a law like the Israeli one for Jews, it will have a law for Palestinians which enables anybody who wants to live in the Palestinian new state. The other solution which is very close to it is that the 2.5% of Israel which will be handed over to the new Palestinian State, will be another place where of course refugees would be invited to live if they wish so. There is the option for them to live where they live today, and to live in third countries like Canada, United States, Germany and others which are ready to host them, and Israel will suggest an average number of the third countries, meaning if our quotas offered to the Palestinian refugees by third countries like United States and Canada, Israel should set something like an average of these quotas to be accepted by Israeli sovereignty. Now, these are the venues. I mean, adjacent to it is what I said before about compensation for the suffering, for each Palestinian family, refugee family, and compensation for the assets, a real compensation for the assets and not only a symbolic.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, let me just get your view. What do you feel about the right of return? Yes, you.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Well, I'm sorry but it's a principle, it's a matter of dignity. I'm going to pick a very naïve example, but if you live in a house and you leave that house and 20 years later you come back, you find someone that has established themselves in this house, you have no right to tell them to leave that house because you once upon a time lived there. I don't understand that principle. That person has established themselves in that home. I don't understand how you can simply tell them to leave that house because once upon a time you lived there.
YOSSI BEILIN
I'll tell you, if I may. What is the problem? It is very difficult to find comparisons from private life, because if you want me to refer to the original problem, each of us may refer to another origin. I can tell you tell you ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Yes, but can you just address the issue that she raised.
YOSSI BEILIN
I can, of course, of course. It is not a matter of just one spot in history. If in November '47 the Arab world and the Palestinians would have agreed to the partition of the land of Palestine, there would have been no expulsion of refugees at all. There would have been two states for more than 60 years now, and all this debate would never have taken place. The fact is that the Arab world, and I may not accuse the Arab world now or the Palestinians because then it was for them very difficult to accept it maybe, but the fact is that they rejected it. This was a historic mistake.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, okay, Ilan Pappe, come in.
ILAN PAPPE
This is historically not true. The Zionist movement from the very beginning understood that only by dispossessing the Palestinians, it could create a Jewish State, and had even the Palestinians accepted the partition resolution, ethnic cleansing would have taken place anyway. I prove it in my last book, The Ethnic Cleaning of Palestine, I'd like you all to read, I have fully proved there that the Jewish leadership even before the United Nations even thought about the partition resolution, was determined to expel the Palestinians from any part of Palestine that would become a Jewish State.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right. Bassem Eid.
BASSEM EID
Yes, I think that the audience also must have to understand one thing, and I'm a person who believes what the American people are saying, if you are living in a hole, stop digging. So I am living in a hole and I must have to stop digging. I believe that none of you is living in a hole, so you can continue digging. I think that the Palestinians know exactly what is going on inside their daily life. I think that the Palestinians almost sacrificed themselves in the past over 60 years, and I think that it is, it's still an internal decision, mainly not even for the Palestinian leaders but also for the Palestinian refugees which according to the surveys only 10% of them would love to come back to Palestine.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, thank you very much. We're going to take another question here.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Yes. Palestinian Israelis now constitute 20% of the citizens of Israel, essentially nullifying claims that it's a supposed to be a Jewish State, and there's already an emerging movement within Israel to demand that the rights and citizenship of this 20% minority be recognised. My question is, history has shown that Israeli policy is to oblige concessions from the Palestinian leadership without giving much back. Why should the majority of Palestinians concede their right to an identity and a homeland in order to maintain the notion of an exclusive Jewish State?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Well, I think it's a question that you really wanted to put to this side, isn't it, but let Bassem Eid answer that.
BASSEM EID
Yes, I think that I am as a Palestinian, I'm less worried what the Israelis are doing internally for themselves and for all citizenship. I think that I am a person who is much more worried about my people. I have been practising the human rights issue for 18 years in terms to protect the lives of the Palestinians inside the occupied territories, if it is under the Israeli occupation or it is under the Palestinian Authority. I think that we, the Palestinians today, are totally fed up, so hopeless and so angry at the international community and probably mainly with our own people that nobody is trying until now, since the Oslo Accord has been signed in '93, nobody succeeded in improving the daily life of the Palestinians. Nobody will believe that before Oslo, our life has been much better than it is today.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Bassem Eid, let's have Ali Abunimeh come in on that.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Well, I want to get to that question, but I just wonder if apartheid would have ended if Nelson Mandela had taken the approach that Bassem Eid takes, the one of giving in to racism, giving in to colonialism. But the question should Palestinians give up their rights so that Israel can be a Jewish supremacist state? The answer of course is no, they shouldn't. Does that mean that Israelis as a community, as individuals, as a culture, don't have the right to live in peace and security? Of course they do. What Israelis say they want in this region is acceptance and legitimacy, just like whites in South Africa. Whites in South Africa could not get that through 300 years of fighting, of domination, of oppression, of dispossession. Today white South Africans travel throughout the world. They live in their country with no problem. Why? Because they gave up the notion that God gave them a right to have special and better rights than everybody else. Now, we as Palestinians ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Briefly please, we've got a lot of questions.
ALI ABUNIMEH
... We as Palestinians cannot be only concerned with our little corner, the West Bank or Gaza or Palestinians in Lebanon. We have to be concerned, we have to support the pro-democracy movement by Palestinians oppressed inside Israel. All Palestinians face this racism. We must stand together.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right. Gentleman in the first row.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
You've mentioned South Africa before and we know it took a radical change to change things over. What do you propose as something solid, something concrete, something that I could see as an individual?
ILAN PAPPE
Yes, I would like to answer that. I think that the struggle against apartheid in South Africa is very inspirational for anyone who supports the Palestinian cause, because it created an anti-apartheid movement in Europe, a solidarity movement in Europe that eventually brought pressure from the outside on the South African regime. I think this is a very concrete programme, to recruit the people in the West to turn Israel into a pariah state as long as it continues its criminal policies.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Yes, but how does this bear on the right of return, the South African ...
ILAN PAPPE
It does.
TIM SEBASTIAN
How?
ILAN PAPPE
I'll tell you exactly how it bears. The one system that eventually worked in South Africa was one person, one vote, people who were expelled, people who were put in Bantustans, people who were ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
They were the majority.
ILAN PAPPE
... They were the people who had the right, but these are the indigenous people of Palestine, they are not immigrants that Israel is asked to give them rights. These were people who were expelled, dispossessed, not only in 1948 but ever since 1948. The return of the Jews was justified in the eyes of the world over 2000 years. Why cannot the return of the Palestinian after 60 years be accepted?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Bassem Eid.
BASSEM EID
Yes, just a short comment to my colleague, Abunimeh. Abunimeh is living in Chicago and he is moving between Chicago and Dublin. He is not living in a refugee camp, and I wish that Mr. Abunimeh one day will come probably to replace me in Aqabat Jaber in Jericho for one probably month, as I would love to replace you in Chicago in turn to see what kind of facilities people have in their daily life.
TIM SEBASTIAN
And your point is what?
BASSEM EID
My point is that we know ourselves much more than any other Palestinian who is living outside which he has no connection to the realities, and by creating the Electronic Intifada, I don't think that by that you will bring the right of return to the Palestinians.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, Ali Abunimeh.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Well, I mean, you know, I live outside the country because my parents were expelled as refugees, right, you know, that's my reality, and that's the reality of millions of Palestinians, and I have been to the camps in Lebanon.
TIM SEBASTIAN
And would you go back to live there?
ALI ABUNIMEH
You know, what I always ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Yes or no?
ALI ABUNIMEH
What I always say about the camps ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Yes or no? Would you go back to live there.
ALI ABUNIMEH
... Is if my grandfather ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
Ali Abunimeh, would you go back or not?
ALI ABUNIMEH
Nobody would choose to be in a refugee camp.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Would you go back to live in what is now Israel?
ALI ABUNIMEH
I might do. I don't know because I don't have the choice. The point is this. The difference between me and somebody living in Shatila or Borj el Barajneh in Lebanon or any of the other refugee camps is, my grandfather, when he was expelled, he walked that way (pointing) and their grandfathers walked that way (pointing in other direction). I am lucky because of an accident of history, not because I'm better than Bassem but I live in Chicago. Now, what we have to recognise, the gentleman asked about concrete solutions. You mentioned, I don't mean this to be a plug but I set that out in my book One Country, a very concrete proposal, but there's another one. We talk about South Africa, that's only one. The other one is Northern Ireland where we've just witnessed in recent days historic images of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein sitting down to form a coalition government.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Which has got what to do with the right of return?
ALI ABUNIMEH
I'll tell you this.
TIM SEBASTIAN
What has it got to do with it?
ALI ABUNIMEH
Yes, I'll tell you exactly. It's the political equivalent of the Likud and Hamas forming a government together.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right.
ALI ABUNIMEH
And that's where we should look for inspiration.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Gentleman in the fourth row, you sir.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Good evening. My question is for Mr. Pappe. What will happen to the government of Israelis by the Palestinians' return, will the Knesset ever allow it, and will they be given the right to vote? Isn't this a dream?
ILAN PAPPE
Well, the Knesset doesn't allow Palestinians who got married from both sides of the Green Line to live in Israel, so I don't expect the Israeli Knesset which has a majority of Zionist parties to allow anything to do with the rights of the Palestinians, let alone the right of return. I think that if we get to the point where the right of return is accepted as a basis, it means that ideological racist ideas have been abandoned, and you will have a new parliament and you will have a new political system which would allow Jews and Palestinians to share a land which is not very large and cannot be divided, cannot be segregated, and this may be a dream, this may be Utopia, but it's a worthwhile dream given the present situation of occupation, colonisation and dispossession.
TIM SEBASTIAN
OK, since we have a member of the Knesset here, Yossi Beilin might like to come in on this.
YOSSI BEILIN
Yes, of course. I mean, I, maybe unlike some of you, I'm a politician who believes in solutions. I see both people suffering a lot and I am asking myself, what can I do? I mean, to compare Israel to apartheid, with all due respect, is irresponsible. Israel is a democracy.
TIM SEBASTIAN
It's the US president who did it. What's irresponsible about it?
YOSSI BEILIN
I met him last week and I said to him exactly what I think about it. We owe him a lot.
TIM SEBASTIAN
He didn't renounce his opinion.
YOSSI BEILIN
Okay, okay, but I believe it is, I mean, there is no racist policy which prevents people to live together, to marry each other or something like this. The results of occupation are very bad, so there is a majority in Israel, it is ready to get rid of the occupation which understands what occupation does to us, morally, culturally and so on and so forth. To come back to us and to say, 'Well, forget about the Jewish State,' which was established by the UN resolution.
TIM SEBASTIAN
But if there's a majority, why do they keep electing governments who don't give back any of the land?
YOSSI BEILIN
I'm not sure whether this is the case. I mean, since the giving up on the Sinai Peninsula, to giving up on the Gaza Strip ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
They still control everything that moves in Gaza, you know that as well as I do.
YOSSI BEILIN
Okay, I believe that we are not far from an agreement. I think that in the Arab world today there is readiness to it. I believe that in the Israeli public opinion there is a majority, a big majority, for an agreement with the Palestinians on the two-state solution and I believe that by calling names, using the apartheid and whatever, we are just creating a situation in which every side has to defend himself, he says, 'No, I'm not this, I'm not this.' It is bad enough without being apartheid.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right. The lady in the fifth row there.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
You spoke about how horrible the refugee camps are, like you are for Palestinians giving up on returning to their homeland.
TIM SEBASTIAN
I'm sorry, the question is for whom?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
It stems from what Bassem said. I was just wondering what other countries like Jordan, what if they reject them, where else would they go, where would they go if they can't go back home?
BASSEM EID
I don't think that a country like Jordan or Syria or Lebanon ...
AUDIENCE Q (F)
You gave that as an example though. You said if they don't go home, they can go somewhere else like Jordan, some other country, you gave that as an example.
BASSEM EID
Yes, I talked about the refugees who are settled right now in Jordan and Lebanon and Syria. What I want to say, that these countries will never, ever reject them, you know why? Because they are using them for their own political interests. The right of return is a very strong card, but in the meantime we have very strong players like the Lebanese region and like the Syrian region. These people are trying from time to time to threaten Israel for their own political interests about the right of return, but these countries never, ever try to protect our right, and if they really would like to protect our rights, they shouldn't have to open the borders in front of us during the war of 1948.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Before we just move on to the next question, let me just ask, are there any refugees in the audience? You, sir, what's your opinion on the right of return?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I'm a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon, my family's still refugees, and if you ask them what they want, they say, 'We would like to go back,' because they have no hope for life in Lebanon, and I think it's more reprehensible that Mr. Bassem is saying all night that nobody has been sacrificing anything apart from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. If you go to Lebanon, and everybody knows the history of the civil war and the sacrifices Palestinians made there, so on what moral basis do you base your argument? The other thing, on the statistics, the details which was sponsored by the European Union asked actually the Palestinians what they want, and the vast majority of the Palestinians asked all over the world whether they want to return or not said actually yes, so actually there are the statistics.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, conflicting statistics. Do you want to answer that?
BASSEM EID
I just would like to give short comment. I was also in Lebanon in January 2005 and I visited most of the Palestinian refugee camps over there, and I remember when Mr. Mahmoud Abbas appeared in one of those camps and start shouting towards the Palestinians, that no solution will be reached without the right of return, I remember after that Mr. Ahmed Qurei also went and he talked in the same sense. The question how the people in Lebanon, the refugees in Lebanon, looking to the Palestinian leadership, are they really satisfied with their operation in the occupied territories?
TIM SEBASTIAN
Another refugee? Are you a refugee? Where from?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
From Jordan.
TIM SEBASTIAN
From Jordan.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Yes, and I believe that if I'm the last man standing on earth, I believe in this right of return and I'll keep fighting for it until the day that I'll die.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Let me just ask you why. Why do you feel it's worth fighting for?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Because it's my country, that's why. But I would like to ask a question to the guests that speak for the motion, that Israel guaranteed that it will accept whatever choice the Palestinians choose as their government. However, when the Palestinians chose and elected Hamas, the Hamas government, the financial aid from the European Union was stopped. So what is the guarantee that if Palestinians give up the right of return, they'll get a solution that satisfies their demands?
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, Yossi Beilin.
YOSSI BEILIN
Well, I think that one should understand what happened on the Palestinian side when Hamas won the elections. It is one thing that they were democratically elected and another thing for them was to say, 'We do not recognise the agreement on which we were elected.' What did they actually say? The whole structure of the Palestinian Authority or Palestinian government, weak as it is, I agree that it is very weak, but there is a Palestinian government, there is a Palestinian parliament, and here is the new government which says, with all due respect, 'We are not recognising Israel, we are not recognising the Oslo Agreement. We are there, we were elected democratically, not recognise us. We will not give up on the struggling against Israel. We believe that terrorism against Israel is legitimised as long as there are occupied territories,' and so on and so forth. It is not just an easy situation in which a new party was elected and the world doesn't recognise it, so I believe that it is more than logical that the world would say, 'Okay, if you were ready to be elected ...' which had not been the case in '96, they changed their mind and they were now ready to be elected on the basis of the Oslo Agreement, at least, at least accept the Oslo Agreement and accept the partners of the Oslo Agreement. I mean, Hamas may think what they want but the new government has to accept it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Let me ask if you're happy with that answer.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I'm not.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Okay, Ali Abunimeh, you wanted to say something.
ALI ABUNIMEH
This is just, with all due respect, convoluted nonsense, if that's not too harsh to say. Let me put it this way, the Palestinians under occupation, because we have to remember that the vast majority of Palestinians were excluded from this election, but those under occupation did vote democratically for a party on a platform, and that party has been systematically denied the possibility of putting forward that platform democratically, and subjected to cruel and inhuman sanctions by the so-called international community.
TIM SEBASTIAN
I'm going to take a question from the gentleman up there, you've had your hand up, yes, you.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
You talk about the fact that many Palestinians will not return, even if they are granted the right of return, but do you not realise that the right of return is not only the literal right of return, that as a Palestinian refugee living outside of Palestinian, it's my only link with my home country. Why are you so neglectful of my identity? If you take away my right of return, I lose my identity. The Palestinian people outside of Palestinian lose their identity. You seem to take that, lately it's not, it's someone's identity, it's 5 million people's home country and you're so neglectful of that. Can you please tell me why?
BASSEM EID
Yes, probably your belief in identity, I'm a person who believes in dignity. I am seeking much more a dignity rather than identity.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
And what dignity is it to take away my ...
BASSEM EID
Because in dignity you might have a much better life, never mind which identity you are holding, and I think that this is one of the major problems that we are trying to do in Palestine today, to defend our dignity rather than identity in term to achieve our independency in our free own Palestinian State.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Yes, I might get prosperity, I might get peace if I do give up my right of return, but this is all materialistic gains, so don't we need to look beyond that?
BASSEM EID
See, I didn't come here to convince you or to change your mind. You can continue fighting for your right to come back, but I am as a Palestinian who already fought for the past 60 years, I really came here today without any energy to continue my fight against the occupation.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Lady in the fifth row up there.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Mr. Abunimeh, the Palestinians have a history of fighting among themselves as well as with other nations. How would that be different if they're permitted to return to their homeland?
ALI ABUNIMEH
I don't know what the basis of your question is. What's remarkable is that the Palestinians for 60 years have not fought among themselves.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You haven't seen the fighting that's been going between Fatah and Hamas, that's passed you by?
ALI ABUNIMEH
No, it hasn't. This is a new and recent phenomenon and we mustn't forget the role of foreign countries like the United States and Israel in arming militias and factions and encouraging ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
So it's the foreigners' fault?
ALI ABUNIMEH
It's partly the foreigners' fault. It's also partly the fault of Palestinians in the occupied territories who've agreed to go along with this ugly game.
TIM SEBASTIAN
The foreigners also set up 11 separate security organisations in the Palestinian territories, they've been fighting amongst themselves.
ALI ABUNIMEH
They funded it and it was a big mistake.
ILAN PAPPE
What's the connection to the right of return?
ALI ABUNIMEH
Unfortunately some Palestinians have allowed themselves to be used in this way, but the vast majority have rejected this, which is why despite the political differences, there is so much support for Palestinian unity, and we've also seen Israelis fighting among themselves and killing each other. Yizhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jew, by a settler, and yet we see nobody saying that Israelis should not have human rights and dignity.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Are you happy with that?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Thank you.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Okay, lady up there in the fourth row.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
My question is for the panellists speaking against the motion. So if we consider this war, not a war of two political parties but a war between two different religions, Islam is a religion of peace and it teaches to forgive your enemies and to forgive people for their mistakes. Now there are about 5-8 million Palestinian refugees living outside Palestine. If they were to come back into the present Israel which consists of about 5.8 million Jewish Israelis and 1.3 million Christian and Muslim Palestinians, do you not think that there's going to be demographic shift and the Jewish State, the only Jewish State in the world, will perish?
ILAN PAPPE
No, I don't think so. I think that the state that would be transformed is a racist state and would be transformed into a state where Jews, Christians and Muslims could live in peace rather than in the present situation where Muslims and Christians are being discriminated against, are being dispossessed, are being colonised and being occupied. I think that the whole idea that I think Ali and I support is not to have a religious state, not a Jewish State, not a Muslim State, not a Christian State, a state for all its citizens, the people who live there, the people who used to live there, the people who want to live there, there is enough place for everyone, there's enough space for everyone, and this could be the beginning of a new life, not just of people who live there but in the Middle East as a whole. I think it's high time we should turn the Palestine issue into a model which is based on the past, where Christian, Muslim and Jews live together in the Middle East until colonisation began and pitted one religion against the other instead of sharing the land together.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Bassem Eid.
BASSEM EID
Yes, my question is how much Ilan Pappe is really representing, which percentage he is representing inside Israel? On the other side specifically towards the word democracy, Yasser Arafat on February 3rd, 2002, wrote an article in the New York Times and he said, 'When we, the Palestinians, talking about the right of return, we should have to take into our consideration the Israeli democratic concerns.' What does it mean for Yasser Arafat to take into our consideration the Israeli democratic concerns?
ILAN PAPPE
And even that didn't satisfy the Israelis.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You sir, in the middle there, can we take your question?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Thank you. I'm a third generation Palestinian refugee and like Mr. Abunimeh, I never had to go through all the hardships that Mr. Eid has described, and what all the refugees here have said and what Mr. Abunimeh has said is very idealistic and all, but who are we to promote something that might hurt people who actually are in the refugee camps, who are not as privileged as we are.
ALI ABUNIMEH
The overwhelming evidence is as every survey has found and as every person who has gone to talk to Palestinians in the worst places, just a couple of weeks ago in Dublin, I met with Dr. Mouna al Fara who got out of Gaza only with the greatest difficulty and who lives there under the worst conditions of Israeli bombardment and oppression, and what she told me, as every other Palestinian refugee I've met from Lebanon is the right of return is fundamental. I'm not imposing anything on any Palestinian. What I'm saying is that people ought to be given the choice. If you don't want to go back, and you want to accept compensation, that's your choice, but we cannot ask people to give up their fundamental human rights so that Israelis can have a racist state in which they are special and better than everyone else.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Okay. Yossi Beilin.
YOSSI BEILIN
I want to tell you something. Yasser Abed Rabbo, the former Minister of Culture of the Palestinian government who was a co-signer of the Geneva Initiative and myself appeared two years ago in the University of Brussels. It was a very big audience there of thousands of people and many of them were local Jews and local Palestinians. The Palestinians shouted, 'How come you gave up on the right of return?' The Jews shouted on me, 'How come you gave up on East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount?' and it went on and on and we felt in the audience their criticism against us and we had to defend the fact that we tried to find a solution in order not to kill each other, and both of them, the Jews who might remain in Brussels, the Palestinians who might remain in Brussels, shouted on us, 'Why did you make peace?' and eventually we told them, 'With all due respect, we don't say anything against you. If you want to live in Brussels, it is fine. We are dying, we are paying the price, we are afraid to take a bus, we are unable to cross a check point, we are those who are there for 60 years, so with all due respect, we must make peace between us. Now, if we can't, we can't, but if we can, who are you to tell us don't live.'
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, let me come back to the questioner. Where do you stand on this issue? You seem to believe that the right of return is not worth fighting for any more.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Oh, I think it's, if there is a chance of giving up the right of return might improve the lives of other Palestinians, then I'm for giving it up, because although it's very idealistic and all, it might be our fundamental right, it might be our dignity and everything, we are not there, like no-one here in the audience tonight lives in a refugee camp, no-one has to go through all this pain and suffering.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Let me ask you ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
No, let him finish.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
I might be disconnected from Palestinians and from people in the refugee camps, I've never been to Palestine. The closest I've been is Jordan, but I'm not disconnected, I'm still sensitive to Palestinian suffering, and if there is something that might help and improve their lives, then I'm definitely for it.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Ali Abunimeh.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Yes. I mean, there are two things, is one; we have to remember that the right of return is not just an issue for Palestinians outside the country. 80% of the people in Gaza are refugees and they are demanding the right of return, so simply ending the occupation of Gaza doesn't take away the right to return from them. The second thing is, do you know, we would all do whatever we could for peace, but what's the evidence that giving up our rights creates peace. On the contrary, you cannot ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
You don't think there should be compromises?
ALI ABUNIMEH
Of course there should be ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
So that involves giving up rights, doesn't it?
ALI ABUNIMEH
... Compromise. The compromise is ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
It involves giving up rights.
ALI ABUNIMEH
I have no objection, in fact I'm very glad that Yossi Beilin and his family and his ancestors live in the country. They're there, the compromise is that they live there with us together in peace. The thing I can't understand is why he finds it so horrifying that my mother should live in the country with him, that's the thing I can't understand.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You want to come back on that?
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Yes. Firstly, you might have been to refugee camps and spoken to the people who told you that they should fight for the right of return, but as I say, I was in Lebanon and the only person that I ever met that has lived in a refugee camp is Mr. Eid here tonight, who has just described the terrible conditions of refugee camps and described that giving up something like right of return is worth improving your style of living, and secondly, you were talking about dignity and idealism and on the matter of human rights and everything, and we all know that world is not perfect and this is about people suffering every day and the gentleman here said he doesn't care about material things and everything, but people who starve do care about material things, and I doubt that they care about anything else.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Don't believe either of us, go out and talk to the refugees yourself, don't take my word and don't take his.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Okay, Ilan Pappe, briefly.
ILAN PAPPE
I think we should all agree that the refugees themselves first of all should be consulted and asked whether they want to return or not, and we should have a democratic, not a survey but at least thirty days in Lebanon asking people whether they want to be second-rate citizens in Israel, not surprising only 10% preferred to be second-rate citizens in Israel than continue to be in the refugee camps. I think that we have one clear indication in the occupied territories. The majority of the refugees who live in the occupied territories have voted for a government that upholds the right of return, so the only democratic vote that we had on the right of return ended up with choosing between the two parties, one that is wishy-washy about the right of return, and one which is very clear about the right of return, the people under occupation unlike Bassem Eid, voted for a government that upholds the right of return.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Okay, we've said that. All right, lady in the fourth row please.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Good evening. My question is to Mr. Abunimeh. You believe the Palestinians are going to accept living with Israelis after 60 years of suffering and sacrifices. Isn't this also a method of giving up?
ALI ABUNIMEH
No, not at all. You know, we can't undo history. History is not like a tape which you can rewind, but we see that in other similar situations, like in South Africa, like in Northern Ireland, and South Africa after 300 years of European colonialism, after decades of apartheid, after horrors, people are able to live together. It's not utopia, it's not utopia, South Africa, but they gave themselves the chance to resolve their conflict through normal politics. In Ireland after 800 years of English colonialism and decades of oppression in the north of Ireland, you'd see again the equivalent of the Likud and the Hamas sitting down to make a coalition government together. We have the responsibility to learn from these people and to go and see both their successes and mistakes and not to continue to believe that Israelis and Palestinians are so unique and so special that they can learn nothing from the rest of humanity.
TIM SEBASTIAN
A lot of people would argue with you about the decades of oppression in Northern Ireland, but that's not the issue. Your question seemed rather bleak. Do you not believe in the possibility of a peace deal based either on a right of return or something else?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
No, I don't believe that the Palestinians would accept it, and if even they accept it, I don't believe ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
The Palestinians want to live in peace, don't they?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
They want to live in peace but they suffered and sacrificed a lot, to now accept living with Israel, why should they, and if they do accept it, do you think the Israelis would accept it?
TIM SEBASTIAN
So what is the best option for them, a two-state solution?
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Carry on fighting.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Bassem Eid, do you want to add to that?
BASSEM EID
If you are so full of energy, so please welcome to Gaza, to help us, to help us and to fight with us.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
If I had the chance to go to Gaza, I would come.
BASSEM EID
Now, on the other side I mentioned before, if you are living in a hole, stop digging, so everybody here becomes so emotional towards the issue of the right of return, but emotion is not working in politics, and will never deliver any kind of peace between such kind of the two hatred parties, which is the Palestinians and the Israelis. Excuse me, I think that we are the Palestinians, especially in the occupied territories, should have to be much more wiser than anybody else living outside the occupied territories and to start to take an independent decision about our future and our children's future.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right. Gentleman sitting at the end of the row there, you sir.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Good evening. My question is for the opposition. How can you comment on Mr. Muammar Ghaddafi's proposal of combining both governments into one state called Isratine?
TIM SEBASTIAN
I'm sorry, we dealing with the right of return here.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
Yes, this is the right of return. The proposal is talking about combining both governments into one state which possibly are used for the equality of both people.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, Ilan Pappe.
ILAN PAPPE
Okay, I think, I don't think the problem is the name of the country. I mean, I will go for Isratine, I would go for any other name, but I think the basic idea is actually if you see the reality on the ground in Palestine and in Israel, that there is place for two states there, and I think we will have to work for a joint state, a bi-national state, whether it will be called Isratine or Abraham or Eretz Yisrael, I don't care, but I do think that after 60 years, the only way of ensuring peace and stability is by creating a joint political structure, so in this respect, not in every respect, I agree with Muammar Ghaddafi.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Okay, lady at the back.
AUDIENCE Q (M)
My question is for those on the panel against this motion. You speak of apartheid and Northern Ireland and how they keep fighting. Are you saying that Palestinians should keep fighting for another 100 years, and are you realistically seeing Palestinians fighting, suffering for another 100 years?
ALI ABUNIMEH
No, I think this could end tomorrow if Israel were to give up its insistence on having a racist state ...
TIM SEBASTIAN
But Israel is not going to grant the right of return ...
ALI ABUNIMEH
Of course it's not, in the same way that South Africa did not grant the rights of its majority population until there was international pressure.
TIM SEBASTIAN
But the question was that something is not going to happen, is it.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Well, in the south of the United States, the white majority supported racism. In South Africa the white majority supported racism.
TIM SEBASTIAN
This is a very different situation.
ALI ABUNIMEH
How are they different, how are they different? Racism is a life-style choice that we are bound to accept. You know for a fact the struggle against racism in all its forms.
TIM SEBASTIAN
So it's morally binding even though it's not going to happen and you know it.
ALI ABUNIMEH
Not at all, not at all. If I had been living in the 1930's in Europe, and I had not stood against anti-Semitism and racism against Jews, I would have failed. If living in the United States and Europe today I do not stand against Islamophobia and hatred against Muslims, I have failed. If I do not stand with the victims of racism in Israel, whether they're Muslims or Christians or black Ethiopian Jews or others, I am failing. The job of humanity is to stand for the equality and dignity of all human beings.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Lady in the fourth row there.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
My question is for the member of the panel for the motion. You said that by giving up the right of return we'll have some kind of peace. What's the guarantee that we'll have peace since the behaviour of the Israelis now isn't showing anything by having settlements and going on with the colonisation?
BASSEM EID
I totally agree with you. I think that we need a guarantee. Now it is not enough to have such kind of guarantee from Israel itself, of course not, we will never accept it. We would like the international community even to be involved in such kind of agreement or such kind of a guarantee. Now, every Palestinian starts recognising that the right of return becomes the major obstacle in front of any kind of peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I think that by giving up from the right of return, we might be able to get some other issues like the borders which are very important.
TIM SEBASTIAN
We might, Bassem Eid, it's not very convincing, is it?
BASSEM EID
I think that it is convincing, I think that on one hand you should have to have something big and heavy, and probably on the other hand it should have to be empty in the meantime.
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, she wants to come back.
AUDIENCE Q (F)
I just said that how can you ask them to give up the right if you don't have the guarantees already settled, that's my point.
BASSEM EID
See, we reached the Oslo agreement with the Israelis which we have no peace accord with the Israelis, so without the intervention of the international community which succeed to bring the two parties, the Palestinians and the Israelis together, then the Oslo Accord will never be signed, so there is a kind of an international intervention today, especially between two sides who have conflicts. I am not going to sit with Yossi Beilin directly to say, 'Listen, give me a guarantee and I'm giving up from the right of return.'
AUDIENCE Q (F)
Why not? Why not sit with him and ask him to give you a guarantee, why not?
YOSSI BEILIN
If I have to give the guarantee, I want to tell you something. Most of the Israelis are criticising me personally and people like me for having these agreements which were breached, and they believe that they were breached by the Palestinians. The truth is, if I may be objective, is that both breached the agreements, the Israelis with the settlements, this was the spirit of the agreement not to continue with them, and the Palestinians with violence, because it was very clear that they gave up on it and they did it. The question is not about guarantees, because I mean, it is not that the Palestinians are going to give up on a right and nothing will happen. It is a package in which Israel will withdraw to the '67 borders and divide Jerusalem, and they may ask the same question, 'What guarantees are we having if the Palestinians will breach the agreement so many times,' we'll now say, 'You know what, now that we have Jerusalem and we have the whole of the West Bank and Gaza, now they want to return to Israel,' so at the end of the day, it is not an insurance policy. As we have peace with Egypt and we have peace with Jordan, and in the bottom line it is respected by both sides, I believe that we can have peace with the Palestinians and once there is a permanent agreement, I believe that both sides will not have the incentive to breach it, and I don't believe, by the way, that the world will help us so much. We might have some international forces there but I count on the other side rather than on the West.
TIM SEBASTIAN
Ilan Pappe, very briefly.
ILAN PAPPE
I'm not a politician so I don't understand, maybe you'll help me, I don't understand why there is contradiction between the right of people to return to the place from where they were expelled, to the right of people not to live under occupation, to the right of people not to live under discriminations. These are the three crimes that Israel perpetrates against the Palestinians. It discriminates against them, it dispossesses them and it occupied them.
TIM SEBASTIAN
You've said this before, but it's not the right of return.
ILAN PAPPE
Why should they negotiate the right of return for the right not to live under occupation? What other country in the world, what other people in the world are being asked to decide what do they prefer: to live under occupation or to be dispossessed. People should not be dispossessed, people should not live under occupation, people should have elementary human rights, whether they live there or whether it was stolen from them.
Vote result
TIM SEBASTIAN
All right, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we've come to the point in the proceedings where we're going to vote on the motion that 'This House believes the Palestinians should give up their full right of return'. Please take your voting machines. If you want to vote for the motion, press button 1, the yellow button. If you want to vote against the motion, it's button 2, the red button. You only have to press the buttons once and through the miracles of modern science your vote will be transmitted to the computers very shortly. Right, we should be getting the vote any second. 18.4% for the motion, 81.6% against. The motion has been resoundingly defeated. All it remains for me to do is to thank our distinguished speakers for making the journey here. Thank you, gentlemen, very much indeed. To you, the audience, thanks to you for your questions. The Doha Debates will be back again in May, so please do join us then. For now, from all of us on the team, have a safe journey home, thank you for coming. Good night .
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