mobilization is a good example of that. yeah, go ahead. you said the microphone? -- you need the microphone. >> al milliken, how distorted and as effective as propaganda do you see the way hollywood through films have depicted the communist influence in particularly, i guess, in the u.s.? >> yeah, great question. it's scandalous. it's horrible. it's absolutely horrible. and i would say that hollywood -- they are still dupes for the communists because in the grave -- the communists are in the grave now and hollywood is still protecting them. protecting them as if they were never communists to begin with. i mean, here you had october 1947 and these hollywood 10 figures who were almost all party members we now know. they're called to washington to testify. ..

>> these hollywood liberals did. they flew to washington. humphrey bogart, dan mckay, judy garland, gene kelly, katherine hepburn. they were duped really back. crusaders for the first amendment. here they are.

and then they get to washington and john howard lawson, and some of the other people called up on the stand. boy, big surprise. congress actually has some evidence. you know, they don't just -- they are not just a bunch of red baders bringing people. they bring them up there. john howard lawson. here's all of the communist groups that you remember. here's the article that you wrote, here's the article that you wrote for "daily worker." here's the communist party five digit. they present all of the evidence. lawson and trumbau they did did- fascist, nazi, concentrate camp. they were led out. they did what the left always does. when they were caught as communist, they called the accusers communist and fascist. they were taken out and bogart

and all of the people said boy, were we duked. boy, were we lied to. the airplane that they got on in los angeles is called the red star. loren said right away i should have thought oh no. no concern at all. no joe mccarthy is considered a -- he wasn't on the tv in the 1940s. he was a senator. he had nothing to do with it. but every new anti-communist was portrayed as a joe mccarthy. i quote one the co-founders of the aclu, roger baldwin. read roger baldwin "liberty under the soviets." one the founder was harry ward. he was a methodist minister.

and i quote a piece that harry ward wrote for protestant digest. he's warning a full decade and before joe mccarthy, he's warning about the next red scare. first it was alexander mitchell palmer and woodrow wilson. both democrats. then it was martin dyes of texas. democrat. then it was this guy. now it's this guy. joe mccarthy, they would have found their joe mccarthy in any event. that's not defend any of the mccarthy's excesses, please. but we know have the evidence of how many of these people were guilty and the lay they lied and misled people. it's been very disturbing. other questions right there. yes? >> i wonder if you have any comment on the role of american corporations as dupes for america's foes such as henry ford. and the ford corporation and

also -- >>arm & hammer. >> yeah. >> also now that the flow of corporate money into elections has become the flood gates have been opened. if you have any concern about american companies that want to do business with communist countries like china. >> huh. >> either selling them producting or buying raw materials from them. using their influence on american politicians, which is only going to grow. >> yeah. >> to force american policy in a direction that is more sympathetic. >> well -- i'll try -- >> i'll try to be less sympathetic to the american worker. >> i'll cut you off. because i haven't looked into it. i haven't. i didn't find much in corporate. although arm & hammer was originally on my list. i'm serious when i say this could be a multivolume set. it's extraordinary.

so many different people where manipulated. i didn't look into any particular corporations. yes? go ahead. >> yes. i was just wondering what the -- where the american socialist party plays into the narrative with politicians like al smith. where they easily duped to? or sympathetic to the communist party? >> yeah, that's a complicated question. in fact, i have in the book one the interesting document that i found in the archives, commentary in archives from the 1932 presidential campaign where communist party usa was just torching everybody. i mean they hated the republicans, they hated fdr, they hated the socialist. i mean, you know, -- they were going after everybody.

i mean it's amazing to the anger that was there among american communist. i was really surprised by that. when you would see these documents, the fights that they had among each other. and so and so, fraud, exposed in daily workers in a stool pigeon. that would be the order from the latest meeting minutes. so they -- but, yeah, and also i would update this. in fact, john -- to connect this to john's earlier question about modern day progressives. one the groups that i looked at in 2007 and 2008, was progressive spur obama. i'm always understand progressives and liberals to be on the left. not the communist left. there's the full spectrum. you have the very far left,

marxist, lennonist, then you move over, democratic socialist. this group progressives for obama, one the initiators was the one who wrote the statement. one the 99 signers was jane fonda. we know what happened with vietnam. mark rudd who was in sds in columbia. i mean a lot of the people, they weren't just student radicals, they were communist. they were followers of fidel, or mark rudd in his book "underground" said that michael clonsky was a stalinist. it's amazing how many people won that are in academia. they are now out calling themselves progressives for obama. and so what do they really believe. are they now just lifting the

progressive label? have they changed their views? it's hard to say. i quote in the book, fascinating assessment from mark rudd of the 2008 election where rudd says, you know, obama, he did it. he did it. he didn't blow it. he said just the right things and took the right policy positions to be able to attract just enough moderates and independents and crossover voters. he didn't blow it. he did it. i agree with the strategy. any other strategy in this political environment invites short defeat. obama did it. and it's fascinating that for rudd and some of these folks, obama's the first democratic party presidential nominees they've ever supported. i mean they hated jack kennedy. they hated lbj. they dismissed carter as a born

again baboon. that's see obama as somebody that's far enough to the left for them. it's interesting. very telling. and rudd's point, after the november 4th, 2008 elections, i do what i always do on a wednesday morning before class. i got the printout of the latest exit poll to see how the americans voted and self-identify. and every single one of these has been going on for 20 years now. the american public has described itself as conservative over liberal by 40 to 20%. in fact, gallop did a huge poll in the summer of 2009. 40 to 20%. academia is 90 to 10. they teach diversity. it's been 40 to 20.

obama was called the most liberal member of the senate left to barbara boxer, ted kennedy, you name it. i'm thinking when i woke up morning of wednesday 2008, i'm finally going to see a change. 40% liberal, 20% -- because it's got to be. 40, 20. again. so you had this incredible situation where a self-identifying and self-professing conservative electorate goes in and decisively votes for president, a man the national journal ranked the most liberal member in the senate of 2007. it's quite unprecedented. how did that happen? you got to go into the reasons why bush lost, why people didn't like bush, or why john mccain lost. many ways the vote against mccain was a vote against bush. i think a lot of people were taken by the concept of change. what this change means? but the progressives for obama

people, they already thrilled with this. the american public finally voted the way that tom hayden and jane fonda and mark rudd and these folks have wanted them to vote. the same people who, by the way, in 1968, targeted the democratic national convention, not the republican, the democratic convention in chicago. democrats, liberals, the communist are not your friends. quit defending them. but as james burnham said, for the left, the preferred enemy is always to the right. so it's the anti-communist that consume their outrage more than the procommunist. some of their procommunist, but anti-communist are knee me

anderrals. i don't like them. they complain about joe mccarthy and not just stalin. >> the overcome, nobody has any communist sentiments expect the communists themselves. for me it's stunning. i found some interesting material. for me it's not just stunning, but shocking to see a young person in the united states holding the slogan saying socialism is an alternative. that on the other hand, i can see angela davis, or kgb still teaching. i'm still thinking how can it be possible? russia today, you know, probably the russian propaganda, channel in english.

they have like 500 people right now working in d.c. they run 12 munns interview with the current american communist party chairman who was promising revolution to come in the u.s. 12 minutes on the primetime. so they still do. really, i'm grateful for you and i hope you can brainwash -- rebrainwash both young people and debrain war the young people who are so badly brainwashed. >> well. thank you. lee edwards is his. google victims of communist memorial foundation. great web site. they are doing and helping to educate people on this as well. but the problem is that we're not learning this past. i mean, that's what it comes down to. i did a review of about 20 high school civics techs a few years back. the main 20 that are used across the united states.

it is for the state of wisconsin. but it's incredible. in fact, this was right about the time -- this was three or four years after the seminal book by harvard university press, the black book of communist had come out, which documented 100 million dead under communist government. i couldn't find that figure in a single textbook. not one. no figures at all. none whatsoever. 100 million dead, the black book of communist only, only has about 25 million dead for the soviet union. when, in fact, it's probably 60 to 70 million. alexander yacablev, he was tasked with the duty to see how many victims were killed by the communist. he said 60 to 70 million killed under stalin alone. alexander used numbers like that.

we know that malnutrition probably killed about 70 million. the number isn't probably 100 million, it's probably 140 million. on the conservative figure, it's at least 100 million. these numbers start to run together. just think about that. take all of the dead in world war ii, which -- and world war i, combine them, double them, and only then are you approaching the number of dead victims in communism. everybody here has an uncle who decided in world war ii. 300,000 people. communist killed over 100 million people. and it's something that we don't even know about. if you read the commune manifest o, go to marxist.org. i shouldn't have given the plug.

but i get called by students other universities can you please come here and give a talk on why communist is pad? -- bad. we don't know. you hear again and again -- well, stalin and these guys were an aberration. it's a good idea in theory -- no. read it. you can read it in two hours. it's a horrible book. read marxist's ten point plan. read marx, the entire theory of the communist maybe summed up in a single sentence. abolition of private property. my 3-year-old daughter can tell you you are going to have to kill people if you do that. abolition of private property, that's a good idea? i mean that's craziness.

i could look at that right there in 1850 and say you know how many people are going to have to die. you are going to have to kill to pull that off. not a good idea in theory. which is why almost everywhere it's been tried, anywhere on the planet, whether in asia, africa, eastern europe, or whenever, widespread blood shed. the university of california berkeley, martin said in each of the cases and countries where communist has been tried. the massive annihilation of human human beings and repression and crimes far out did anything in the previous experience or nationality or history of any of these countries. all right. this was an entirely new thing. why it's in cambodia, or soviet union, or china or cuba, you name it again and again and again.

we are not learning any of it. the reason why is the wretched states of our universities. that are not teaching this stuff, that are horribly bias, they do not believe in ideological diversity, and they are way over priced while we are at it. i'll stop there. how's that? [applause] [applause]

>> a discussion like this begins with the interviewer asking how you came to write this book. but you answer that in your book subtitle "coming of age between arabs and israelis." it makes the question. i guess i want to break with convention and ask a different sort of question. how is it that someone who came of age between arabs and israeli, then became to be the biographer of jay roppenhimer. >> that's a good question. though my whole childhood was spend in the middle east, and i spend my university career there, and i went back as a reporter, i have tried not to write about it. it was an abdication. i discovered in my 20s, at least for me, it was an

emotional black hole. it was very difficult to grapple with, it was always controversial. and so i ended up writing about the american foreign policy establishment. you know, wrote a book on john jay and the bundy brothers. and in 1991, '92, during the midst of the first persia gulf war, i felt a flood of sort of childhood memories coming back. i felt compelled to write at least not bad. a short piece, 800 words in the "washington post." i described my earliest childhood memory, which is really of crossing mandelbaum gate. it is a dreary gate, sort of a check point of a divided

jerusalem in those years. barriers that you weaved in and out, rolls of barbed wire, and soldiers 100 feet away. then there was the israeli check point. i told the story in this article about going through the gate one day. because we lived in east jerusalem. he was assigned to the consulate in the jordannian sector. for a while i went to the school in west jerusalem. i was a privileged little boy. no arabs and no israelis were passing through mandelbaum gate to go to jordan. it was just diplomats and the tourist during christmas season or something. one day we got through the gate, at least the jordannian part.

and we were approaching the israelis check point. and suddenly i cried out to my father, daddy, daddy, stop the car. and he turned around in astonishment and looked at me. i was grabbing with something on my t-shirt. it was a button that a friend in the jordannian sector had given me with the image of nasser. you know, nasser was -- i knew even as a little boy that nasser was wildly popular throughout the arab world and in jordan and egypt where he was president. but that he was the enemy of the israeli. in my childhood naivety, i thought it was going to make the israeli soldiers angry with me. i was keenly aware of the conflict, the borders, the divisions, the animosity. so i wrote about this. and about growing up in saudi arabia and lebanon and egypt.

and then i talked about the fact that i had as a young man in any 20s had a sort of another sort of metaphorical crossing of mandelbaum gate when i met susan and fell in love with her and married her and she's not only jewish, but the only daughter of two holocaust survivors. and her half brother is here in the audience this evening. and so i had to tell that story. at the end -- i'm sorry, i'm going on. this is actually how the book got written. because susan turned to me and she said, when it was published in the "washington post." she said, kai, this is the best thing you've written. i don't know why you are trying to write the boring history books and biography. why don't you write about the childhood in the middle east? susan is very bright. i try to listen what she tells me. i couldn't. i went on to finish my big fat

800 page biography of john mccloy, and spend seven years on the bundy brothers and vietnam war and five years on oppenheimer. only then did i feel prepared to turn to the middle east. >> i was hoping you could describe how you grew up, at least in jerusalem. it's something that you describe in the book, but from an adult's perspective, which i imagine was at point at odds with your child's view. but i was hoping you could describe that briefly. >> well, jerusalem in those days and particularly east jerusalem, the arab sector was a very small place. it had a population of no more than 65,000, maybe 70,000

people. you know, including the old city. and it was a small town. and my father who was a very young foreign service officer knew practically everyone. including a very opinionated woman named katie antonious who is the high dragon lady of east jerusalem. held salon in her south and gathered journalist. katie was a palestinian palestinian-christian background. and the widow of george antonious, the first great arab historian of the 20th century who wrote "the arab awakening" to try to explain the rise of

arab nationalism. oddly enough, simultaneously with the rise of zionism in the early 20th century. george had died in 1942 or so. but katie was still very much a fixture of jerusalem society. and, you know, i had a childhood friend, for instance, who my play meat -- play mate at the time was a neighbor boy his father was a palestinian-muslim. but his mother was jewish-german emigrant who landed in palestine and met this palestinian who she fell in love with. and danny was the product. he had a foot in both communities, so to speak. it was -- as i'm trying to describe it and remember it, it was a much smaller place, a much more cosmopolitan.

and yet divided and we lived on no man's land on the edge of mount scopist, just below where there was an island of israeli control. and barb wire and occasion untilly, you know, it wasn't uncommon at night to hear gunshot fired or an explosion if a donkey happened to wonder through no man's land and trigger a land mine. but i was a young boy. and i thought this was an normal childhood. >> you say early on in the book, rather provocatively, i thought, the two bookends of your life was the showoff and the [inaudible] which is arabic for catastrophe, what the arab word considers the

1947 war of independence. first of all, they came before, both came before you were born. but if these are the bookends, isn't that a lopsided shelf? >> well, what i meant to imply there was that as a young boy and adolescent and even a reporter wondering around the middle east, i was keenly aware of the plight to the palestinian , and sympathetic to their cause. but i fell in love with susan, and, you know, i had to learn about the holocaust in a very personal way. so when i was first taken to my mother-in-law's apartment in new york, susan at one point took me aside and opened the closet door. literally, there was nothing in the closet expect one packed

suitcase. helna was a survivor. the lesson she had learned from her fantastic story, of course, all survivors have fantastic survivor stories, was that she had to be prepared to flee once again. and, you know, this was the -- a burden that she, of course, inevitably passed down in one way or another to her daughter. and like all -- like many holocaust survivors, i've come to realize they try to protect their children by not telling them the horrific stories of what happened to them during the war. but nevertheless, there's an empty space there in which the child understands that something terrible did happen. and so i literally over the years, i've gotten -- i've interviewed my in-laws, on tape, and tried to extract what actually happened to them. what they didn't tell susan.

and that's another -- i tell that whole story in the book at great strength. >> the book is structured in an interesting way. the first 2/3 or so proceed roughly chronologically, following you through jerusalem and the various other cities that you lived in saudi arabia, in lebanon, and egypt. and then there is this turning point when you meet susan. and then you proceed to relate the stories of her two parents. is there a tension, is there a tension in the book there? i think there's fair to say that the first 2/3 of the book are grounded in a fairly sorrow-going critique of israel, of israeli military policy, but it seems that there is a

reversal of sorts, once susan comes in. would you say that's fair? >> i plead guilty. >> well, i don't know if you want to elaborate on that. >> well, when sue and i married, actually the first thing we did was to go off on a trip around the world. first starting in europe, but we land traveled all the way through the middle east. we spent a month in egypt, and a month in israel, and more time in jordan, and damascus, and turkey, iran, you know, we went all the way across by boss and train to afghanistan. part of -- part of this was me trying to show my young wife where i had grown up. and i tell that story in the

book. and i tell the story of how this was in 1975, 76 we were in israel in the west bank. and we were freelancing as young journalist in our 20s and sharing a byline and writing stories for places like the christian science monitor. and at the time, we would go and interview an israeli official, or an academic, and then go and talk to a palestinian mayor and novelist, or -- and it seems to us at the time that the conflict was eminently solvable. it's right around the corner. and the two parties weren't really that far apart. and i talk about that in the book as well. and i explained alas we were wrong. it's gone on 40 years since that

time. >> there's maybe a parallel trajectory in the book. at a number of points, you write about about -- you write sympathetically about various visions of a binational state. and georgia antonious was a proponent of one, martin bloom berg, and you seem to cite various iterations of such a plan. and at the tale -- tail end of your book, you seem to suggest the only clear solution is the two-state solution. i wonder is that -- is that the product of time or is it the product of a more realistic engagement? i was wondering if you could

address that transition. >> well, yes, that's true. george in his book "the arab awakening" he wrote that book in 1938, ten years before the creation of israel. and he was trying to make the case that the palestinians could live with the new immigrants, and they would live in a binational secular state. so i'm reporting that. george was a major influence on my father and a whole generation of state department officers, foreign service officers who specialize in the middle east. arabic, and so that was george's vision. you know, it was a road not taken. and we haven't discussed. but at the end of the book, i have this long -- well, not long, but detailed account of the life of an israeli who was a large influence on my views of

the conflict and of what israel is going to become. [inaudible] >> yes. or otherwise known as the american alias as peter bergson. who's a very controversial figure. i met him in 1978 on a trip to israel. i spent a long american in which i found his life story. it was incredible. and i was attracted to his idea, his notion of not -- a binational state, he had a slightly different view than george or martin bloober, the whole point in establishing israel was to create a state where the rem innocents -- remnants of european jewelry and

anyone else that chose to come from america or elsewhere. and they would be citizens along said the residents, palestinian, christian, muslim, or whatever in what would be a hebrew republic. a secular, hebrew republic. and the state would have it's national identity based on what most states sort of ground their identity, and their language and their culture. and it would be drenched in jewish culture, cook thought. but it would be secular, and therefore, open and open to giving full equality to anyone who decided to reside in that 20th century secular state. so i'm trying to -- i guess i'm trying to -- jam a circular block into a square hole or something.

but i'm trying to find a way out of the conflict. and like cook, i think part of the conflict, one the reasons it's gone on for so long, for six six -- more than six decades is that we have this unresolved identity question. and cook, i thought, had a great vision. that's where actually israel is headed towards. hebrew republic. most israelis live alone the mediterranean in places like tel aviv, and they are very secular. they just want their state. unfortunately, the politics as we all know has been seized on both sides, by the sort of -- what i call the messy

antiextremist. it's the whole religion. i think that's dangerous and unpreductive. -- unproductive. >> in the jewish world, many flinch at the talk of binational state for fear that demographic trends would reduce the jewish population to a minority and that the rights of the jews would be compromised. how do you reckon with that argument? >> well, in the end, i -- as you have said, i come down at the end of the book very much in favor of a two-state solution. i think a one-state solution now would be a disaster. it would be -- it would only happen, you know, drenched in blood and violence. there are, you know, extremes on both sides, both communities who would violently oppose such a thing. and so i think -- you know, the

eminently rational and humanist thing to do is to have a two-state solution. i tell the story at the end of the book of going back to jerusalem and looking up a childhood, neighborhood friend named sari nasabi. he's a wonderful intellectual, trained as a philosopher, now the president of a university. i tell the story of how he heard a knock at the door of his home in my old neighborhood. which has now become ironically enough a follow com symbol. he heard a knock at the door. he opens the door. there's for the palestinian the much feared but now retired head, the israeli intelligence

organization. i'm the -- i turn to sari and shows him a one-page document. i have this simple seven-point peace plan. i've been talking to some of my palestinian sources. they say you are the only palestinian crazy enough to sign this document with me. and sari says -- he actually had to think long and hard about it for several weeks. but he put his significant to the document. and i think it's what should happen and what will happen eventually. it's two-state solution with the green line of 1967 basically being the border. but taking into account facts on the ground. there's a provision for a one to one exchange of land. to take into account new settlements and acts on the ground. and jerusalem would be shared,

east jerusalem would become the capital of the palestinian state, and west jerusalem would become the capitol of israel. >> although that wasn't one the seven pointed. >> shared jerusalem. >> oh really? >> yes. >> okay. at least not here. >> it's not listed there. i'm sure it's in the -- >> oh, it is. you know what -- i apologize. it seems so simple and straightforward. i thought, well, the biggest sticking point of all. >> no, jerusalem -- >> and there's also a provision for compensation of the palestinian refugees. no provision of rite of return. which was -- made sari hesitate for a moment. you know, most palestinians realize that, in fact, most of their relatives are -- have no intention of moving back to tel

aviv. but there are -- the compensation is very important at least symbolically to -- and the money is best -- it's specifies also that this compensation fund would be from international contributions. but also from the state of israel. and from the palestinian perspective, it's important to sort of at least acknowledge -- have the israeli israelis acknoe they are part of it. that's actually the hardest part about this conflict and as an historian, what i see is both sides have competing, opposing, historical narrative. and neither can acknowledge the others. and on top of that. both sides have over the decades

then drenched in the sense of victimhood. the israelis not only because of the show, but because of, you know, six decades of continual conflict from their neighbors. and their palestinians from, you know, their own sense of victimhood of being made homeless. >> so you make it seem so -- so eminently within reach. why -- what are -- what are the impediments? >> well, that's what i would like people to conclude. that they get to the end of this book and they they -- you see at of difficult history that both sides have to grapple with. and then there's a conclusion that i think should be seen rational and filled with common sense. and yet i'm told that i am naive, and i can plead guilty to that too.

but, you know, the realist have on this conflict been deal, it for decades. and they haven't gotten anywhere with step by step solutions. i think, you know, what's necessary now is something dramatic. and we need leadership and people to acknowledge the system. >> sari isn't in a position of political influence, although a well respected figure. and you also have the division between hamas and -- >> hamas. no. it's a stalemate, it looks very grim. and what i'm suggesting should happen probably won't happen tomorrow. but i'm quite confident that it will some day. now it's true, it seems naive. but, you know, 250,000 israelis have signed the initiative. citizens initiative as it's

called and a slightly fewer number of palestinians have. and if you go to the israelis always complain that they have no partners. no reasonable people to deal with. but -- and hamas is, you know, major problem. the palestinians have, you know, -- there are reasonable people in the west bank. and intellectuals are an example. but there are also politicians who would be willing to go along with the plan. i'm also quite confident from polling datas if such a plan was put to a referendum in israel and in the palestine-occupied territories, even in gaza, you would find a majority willing to reluctantly grind their teeth

perhaps vote for this. and so that -- i think that's t- that gives it hope. unfortunately, the leadership on both sides are, you know, -- they think there is no hope. and some of them actually think there's something to be gained by the status quo. >> you return to jerusalem to -- i don't know if it was to find inspiration for the book, but you do write about returning in recent years. how was your experience? your experience of jerusalem as a boy was someone who could live or would could at least exist or visit the two worlds. where they farther apart, or closer together than they were in the '50s when you lived there? >> well, it was -- i was rather

depressed by my visit back in 2007 when i went back on a research trip for this book. you know, jerusalem is no longer divided as such. but if i tried to get a cab driver from west jerusalem to east, they didn't want to go. vice versa. i remember getting a palestinian driver in east jerusalem to see an israeli friend in, i think it was tel aviv neighborhood. he got lost, completely. it wasn't -- you know, it wasn't anything complicated. he'd obviously not been there much. so it was -- it was depressing. and -- >> you talk about how -- you mean you talk to benny morris and a number of other figures

whom you ask, well, do you have any contact with counterparts? and basically to amend they say no. >> no, it's very sad. i had lunch with benny morris, the very white and articulate israeli historian who has written all of the books that, you know, validate important parts of the palestinian narrative that there were expulsions, as well as palestinians that got up and fled during the '48 war. there are very controversial books inside of israel. he has taken a lot of grief for them. when i asked him if any had palestinian intellectual friends that he socialized with. to my shock, he said no. he then explained he was also quite upset that he hadn't even been invited, you know, by a

palestinian academic institution to give a lecture about his work. and likewise, i'd ask my palestinian friends, in romala mostly, whether they had israeli friends they socialized with. you know, this one woman said -- i asked her if she learned hebrew. she said, no, as a matter of principal, i have refused to learn hebrew. but she said she did socialize with some israelis as long as they were -- how did she put it? not zionist. so check mate again. >> your book is a rich one. there's much in it we haven't been able to discuss. i wanted to open up the floor to some questions to allow the

audience a chance to participate too. are there any? gentleman here towards the back. if you could just wait for a second, there's a microphone coming. >> you made a statement a few moments ago as you were taking an opinion poll among israelis and palestinians that a great majority even though they may grind their teeth were in favor of the poll. how to you tie the integration of the leftist parties and the recent election which seemed to indicate that the left has made it. whatever reason, without getting into the reasons whether it was gaza or anything else. just the fact they have appeared.

>> you are quite right. the israeli left has imploded. peace now is psychologically depressed. it's still active. i think most obscurered degree it happened because it was violent and indiscriminate. in terms of the suicidal attacked. it changes benny morris' mind. he was a two-state solution. >> benny morris wrote about this question in, "tablet" magazine where i work. he argued while there was implosion on the official peace movement, the fact that the figure like binyamin netanyahu

embraces the two-state solution proves the success of the israeli peace movement. the -- their fundamental arguments have been absorbed by the bulk of the israeli public. >> right. and yet as the gentleman points out, politically, the peace now movement seems deflated at right -- at best. to answer briefly, how could i have any hope that the plan might be approved of even by a slim majority? well, i think most israeli are still, you know, while they are depressed and pessimistic about the long-term, you know, i talk to israeli academics who, you know, are in their personal lives today most israelis are doing well, the economy is booming, you know, the israel of tel aviv is driven by the

high-tech industry. you know, people are well educated, they are doing well, in their personal lives, when you ask them about the long-term future and viability of the state, they sometimes give you shocking answers about, well, i don't know whether my grandchildren will be able to live here. because of the demographic problem and, you know, i'm astonished, you know, today in israel among israeli citizens, 25% of all first graders come from either orthodox, or national ultra orthodox families. and many of them, of course, are living in jerusalem. but yet another 25% of all israeli citizen first graders, when i'm talking about the west bank or gaza, 25% of israeli are

muslim christian or palestinians. the next generation we are headed towards a demographic cliff that is very dangerous politically. now is the time for a two-state solution. and i think benny is right. even people like netanyahu see this theoretically and ehud barak has made a statement speaking to the democratic issue. everyone seems to know what should happen, but it's not happening. >> okay. another question. >> what about the -- sorry. what about the road they are building? isn't that going to lead to two states where they are trying to connect certain towns or certain, you know, draw certain lines? >> a road that they are

building. i'm not sure. >> i'm not sure which. >> the palestinian communities? no. >> well, there are roads being built in the west bank. but they are roads only israelis can use that circle -- [inaudible comment] >> places where they sort of develop when you are talk the two-state solution. >> oh, i think maybe you are referring to the fact that some people are suggesting in a two-state solution there should be a special highway built from gaza to the west bank. and it would connect the two separated territories. sure. that would would -- that should probably be part of the agenda. but we're not there yet. [laughter] >> i thought they were talking seriously about doing it. >> not yet. >> gentleman over here.

>> firstly, i would like to say on a personal note, i was very moved by the book. i'm a child of holocaust survivors myself. i spent the last 20 plus years doing my business in the arab world. i have been crossing through bridges quite a bit on my own. i would like to focus on a theme in the book which appears several times which i call missed opportunities. i particularly would like to ask you to put your reporters hat back on and speak about a missed opportunity that i don't think was covered in the book, which was the clinton camp david effort with barak and arafat and ask if you could reflect upon that. in particularly because my impression much of what you shift as the blame for failed -- misses opportunities go to israeli side. and many of my arab friends

think that the same is true for that similar event. >> oh. well, i don't write about camp david and tava and the clinton 2000 evident to get a peace. it is -- the book is a memoir, so it's about my childhood. you know, it's from 1956 to 1978 but to answer your question, yes, the palestinians have missed opportunities too. repeatedly. the rogers peace plan in 1970 is a good example. and arafat failed in 2000. he missed an opportunity. after camp david, you know, just before clinton left office, there were further negotiations in tava. and tava, i think, you know, represents the future. they were very close.

they were beginning to get out maps and get into specifics. and it just, you know, it fell apart because it was too close to the israeli elections. and we had the second and sharon coming to power and another missed opportunity. you are right, the book and the history is very much about a series of roads not taken and missed opportunities in a, you know, tragic sense. >> down here. it's not from your memoir. i want to know your opinion. do you personally believe that the arab world does not have a solution because there's so many dictatorships and social and economic disparity in like egypt, syria, lebanon is constantly having conflicts. ou