9/11 i would put it this way. when the soviet union collapsed, the dividing line in the islamic world shattered into the region from yugoslavia to the hindu kush was thrown off balance and

city. this is one hour and 25 minutes. >> thank you for joining us for what i hope will be a fun our. you know, i had intended this to be a love fest because you are a great hero of mine. but then paul said that i have to ask tough questions, so i want to make it clear whenever i see something that is supportive and warm that's me and whenever i say something that is critical that is me just channelling paul. [laughter] so, to get that of the way. i wanted to start by -- you are in a very unusual position. you're going to have this big conference in washington this coming weekend were there will be 10,000 people. you have this enormous falling and you are a kind of figure and

i was trying to figure out is there any recent historical figure that you think you are analogous to? [laughter] people for what the restaurants of modesty. just like you. >> to be clear the 10,000 people are coming together because they want to -- i mean because they are drawn to the same vision as each other and they want to spend a day just thinking about and reflecting on the incredible progress that we have made in the last 20 years against what is a true crisis in the country this issue of educational and equity and what we need to do individually. >> guest: but you will be treated as a kind of rock star. [laughter] >> the sad reality is maybe we would all wish, but there will be my critics and friends but it's not all a love fest. >> the closest analogy i could

come up with was the marine corps. it's tough to get in and then they send you to really nasty places. [laughter] i was wondering how in the movies there's always the moment in that kind of movie where the one tough guy meets the other and they are staring each other down about to get enough light and the other says were u.n. nam? yeah i was in nam. wheelan the marine corps? of and the 29th infantry something or something and then they go semper fi! [laughter] was wondering if there's an end to economic for the to teach for america alums' get together and the producer of? south bronx. south bronx. [laughter] [applause] and then the show each other there should teach for america tattoo. [laughter] and joking, but there is a kind of -- you are creating a kind of movement. the marine corps alumni represents a kind of movement representing a certain attitude towards the world, you know --

>> this is the big idea. and teach for america really isn't about -- we are about teachers are critical but teach for america is about building a movement among the country's future leaders to say we've got to change the way our education system is fundamentally. and i think your article in the new yorker about the formation of movements captured the change for teach for america. this is about the foundation of experience of teaching successfully in ways we are creating a corps of people that were absolutely determined to expand the opportunities facing kids in the most absolutely economically disadvantaged communities, you know, who are pouring themselves into their work and trying to put themselves in a different trajectory and having varying levels of success and taking

from that experience. incredible lessons. they realize through firsthand experience the challenge their kids face, the potential they have. they realize that it's ultimately possible to solve the problem, and that experience is not only important for their kids but it's completely transformational for them and i think of course they are all going through this together and i think that we will leave with a common set of convictions and insights and just a common level of commitment to ultimately go out and affect the fundamental changes we need to solve the problem. >> you've got how many alumni now? >> 20,000. >> and so you considered your alumni to be as important as your active teachers if you're thinking of it in movie terms. how many alumni do you need before you think you have a kind of critical mass? >> well, you know, i guess you never know what would lead us to the tipping point.

laughter [laughter] >> you just bought yourself five more hardball questions with that. [laughter] >> i think, you don't know, this is growing exponentially at this point. you know, five years ago we had 8800 alums and today we have 20,000 if we can continue the growth trajectory we will have more than 40,000 by five years from now. and i guess i look at what is happening in some communities where we have the critical mass of teach for america alum. communities we have been placing people for in some cases 20 years, new orleans and washington, d.c. and oakland california, houston texas and any number of other places and newark new jersey where very different things are happening for many reasons, but if you to call of the teach for america alum out of the picture to take away a lot of the energy and the leadership in the pictures. >> as the teach for america

movement have an ideological person of the? >> i think that people come out of this and we probably have a bunch -- we have a diverse community and people come into it reviewing the issue we are taking on in different ways and from different sides of the political spectrum. i think people come out of it sharing, largely sharing a few views. one, i think people come out of it knowing we can solve the problem. it's not that the kids don't have the potential and the parents don't care. i mean, if you look at the gallup polls, and i would be interested in seeing another one now i think the prevailing ideologies navy started to shift a bit. but as of about three or four years ago most people in our country thought that the reason that we have low educational outcome is because kids were not motivated in the communities and parents don't care we know for a fact that isn't true.

they see their kids working harder than any kids work and they see that their parents to care when they are brought into the process. so, they come out of that thinking when the kids are met with high expectations, given extra support they do well and they also come out of it realizing that there is no silver bullet. meeting -- >> we are going to get to that but still want you to answer the question. i only ask because whenever i see teach for america spoken of in a derogatory manner it is invariably by someone on the right which confuses me because i would have thought that it -- i would have thought it would be the other way around. do you have a sense of this? am i wrong in thinking this? >> i doubt it. you're saying folks are largely from the left? we have a diverse group of people. >> the alumni voted republican in the last election. [laughter]

>> i don't know, i can't answer that. it's probably -- it's maybe not that high of a percentage but i'm not sure. >> quite apart from the value of the observation isn't that weird to you? why would it have an ideological dimension? why wouldn't you expect kids to be signing up for this who were diehard right wing as everything is consistent with all? >> what is the profile of graduating college seniors today in terms of their ideological perspective? i mean like what percentage of them vote republican? i don't know and they would be interesting to look. i don't want to say. i mean, we get republican folks, too. i wonder what college students -- i'm not sure, i don't know if we are out of line with that or not. i've sort of media living in a bubble, but -- i don't know.

i think that we are drawing people -- would be interesting to look at that i guess. >> this is your 20 the anniversary. so, when you reflect on the differences between -- and to reflect on the differences between 1990 and now. we were chatting earlier and you mentioned how the was hilarious how the movie lean on me could never have been made today. what is it about lean on me to would be unthinkable today? >> we put the movie and the school of in life as a success story and the principle was kind of a super hero with some level, there was the point of the movie, and he really changed the culture of the school but it's still number 317 out of 326 in

terms of educational outcomes in the state of new jersey. the kids are on the path -- we are not giving the kids enough school real-life options and we couldn't make that movie today. we couldn't hold it as a success because today we know what's possible. we know what is possible to give kids who face all the challenges that are facing the kids to go to that school in paterson, new jersey who the school that actually sets them up to graduate from college, not just a few kids to beat the odds with a whole buildings full of kids to actually get on the same trajectory as kids and much more privileged community and i just think it shows. >> it's about somebody that imposes order on the school, it is about discipline. >> but it's also holding up the school as a success story, and i

just think we would never do that today. i mean hollywood would never hear the end of it. we would say this isn't a success. it tells me how far we have come. >> it was low enough you could describe the school where kids were not getting killed. in that sense we have made progress, right? [laughter] >> its huge and dramatic not to underestimate how significant that is. we didn't know that was possible to provide kids with a truly transformational the education, kids growing up in poverty. the assumption was and all the research backed up the fact the socioeconomic background determined the educational outcomes and we knew a few kids the were beating the odds and if you charismatic teachers and another hit movie my senior year stand and deliver who could do

extraordinary things the we viewed them as out layers. [laughter] go on. [laughter] >> but today we don't just have a few -- first i think it's fascinating to think about not only lean on me but stand and deliver, and i have thought a lot about the fact that why didn't i go out and think let me find out how he did what he did so we could teach them the same way. it took many years to figure out to spend a lot of time with our outliers like every truly exceptional teachers putting kids in a different trajectory to try to understand what were they doing differently and it turned out the point is now we know. we know what the teachers to teach and otherwise not very successful schools and low-income communities to to

produce incredible results with their kids so we know so much for the classroom level, but at the school level with the one thing you really is is it takes a total superhero to do that classroom by classroom but it's possible to create whole schools that foster good teaching and enable teachers to sustain that kind of work and hundreds of the schools it is dramatic progress in the question used to be can education overcome poverty and we know it can the question is how we do it at scale and cradle systems will transformational schools. >> you are applying something interesting which is you think that the task of providing quality education can be decoupled from the broad kind of macroconditions of the society. in other words, 20 years ago we would have said you've got

poverty and dysfunction and the educational task is impossible but what you're saying is -- >> i think what we have learned is that it's not. we can i mean we should solve poverty. it's just that while we try to do that we don't need to wait. in the meantime we can provide kids the kind of education that breaks the cycle of poverty and maybe we will realize that is the answer to poverty actually. >> it's interesting because this is the same transformation that took place in our thinking about crime 25 years ago if you ask people what would it take to bring down the crime rate of new york and they would say you have to solve poverty, drug abuse, discrimination, we solve one of those problems. the crime rate came down by 75% which is both very good news and also kind of disturbing

disturbing in the little sense that it says that you can actually break off these pieces of the pathological puzzle and solve them without ever getting the core problem. is the paradox? >> i guess i believe that education is different. i feel like i meet in my work everyday people who -- honestly i meet them because some of them are joining teach for america today. people who were not on a path to graduate from high school love alone college who end up going to college and graduate from college and be able to choose what do they want to do? to they want to teach, do they want to work for a big company? do they want to go into the law and that's how you treat the cycle of poverty. >> but let's just for a moment dwell on this point which is i think it's an important one that

for the longest time a central tennant in the liberal ideology was that the reason we need to solve the fundamental questions of the social and economic injustice is without doing that, problems like educational equity and crime will be beyond our reach. the experience of the cause that you have been part of, and the experience of the crime fighting the last 15 years has been that that ideology -- that fundamental tendencies totally false. economic and social inequality in this country has soared in the last 15 years and simultaneously, we have made extraordinary inroads against crime and the beginning of extraordinary inroad against education. what does that mean for the liberal ideology? was it wrong? is there no reason?

>> i would hate to conclude that there's no reason to solve the fundamental challenges of poverty. i mean, one of the quickest ways to make the job -- as we will discover if it is possible in an enormous amount of hard work and we can make it easier by taking the pressure off of schools and absolutely we should take on the fundamental with improve the economy in the urban rural areas and improve the stealth services and to all of that. we don't need to wait and maybe we will discover that freakin' the cycle of poverty for kids some of whom will come back and improve their own communities. let's pretend that you were in education czar and i gave you more power than we normally give

czars. very often we give people the title czars but they are not czars, not classic czars. [laughter] it's just a word we use to pick on somebody in washington that has a large office. he wasn't any czar. [laughter] you are a real czar and you got to start over. can you describe your perfect educational system? >> i think that we would first of all be very clear about the standards we are trying to reach one quick start with a clear understanding of here's what we think kids should people to master and we have to develop a great assessments so that we understand whether or not kids have mastered at and we would put an enormous amount into

attracting a tremendous school leaders, educators in general and then we would freeze them out to obtain those results. isn't that what you would have funded organizations and the sectors where management does its job. >> i don't know, are you asking me? [laughter] >> i thought maybe would bring in a kind of analogy. it's a different sector. >> so you wouldn't in a perfect world? >> you wouldn't need them because he would have school principals and district superintendents and everyone else who would know that the most voluble assets or the teachers and people and they would be making them happy and the -- they would be listened to

etc. >> we sort of had an example about this and you talk about this in your book in new orleans. it was kind of after katrina the sort of blow up the school system and start over. can you talk about what happened there and what we learned from that example? i thought was one of the most fascinating parts of the book. >> so, teach for america start replacing teachers in new orleans 20 years ago, and you know, i personally spent a lot of time walking around the new orleans public schools and you could call it a crime scene at some level before hurricane katrina. it was just tragic what was happening to the kids. after the hurricane you may remember many of the kids were displaced to houston. they were living in the astrodome with their parents and some of the folks in the up recruiting the kids and basically running the school for them in houston.

the did the diagnostics and discovered that the eighth graders were on the second grade level and that is pretty much what we knew to be the case in new orleans. and you know, so of course post-hurricane katrina, talk about a place where we can see the incredible burden of poverty , but the storm basically created a window of opportunity for some people who had been working for a long time to try to improve the schools without gaining much traction to actually just love the system. i think after the school board announced they were going to open schools for a year they decided no more. and they basically created the new system where -- >> could you mean in this instance? >> i'm thinking about into real advocate for change comes word from the business community

named paul pasternak who ended up being the school superintendent of the state level, and there was the state legislative change, but essentially they created a system of charter's. this is a slight oversimplification, but they create a world where and they slowly shut down the schools still under the management of the central department and anyone could appoint to run a charter school. they created a very rigorous accountability system so that very few of the applications to run the schools were approved and if they didn't work would be shut down. but the people in that puzzle knew that it wasn't as easy as that. they knew that the charter laws don't create transformational schools that put kids who are starting we behind facing lots of different challenges on a different trajectory in order to do that we would need extraordinary leadership, and they went about finding it.

they went outside of new orleans and looked inside of new orleans and hugely scale that teach for america and brought the new teachers project to help recruit people from all of the local community. >> how many people did they bring before katrina, do you remember? >> we have about 600 people now. from -- we were placing about 120 probably total of any given time. >> is that as many as you have in any city? >> the core members alone in the first and second years are reaching one out of every three students in the new orleans public schools right now. but there are -- >> and sorry. you said they start looking for -- when you see looking for, are you talking about looking for principals, looking for -- >> they did everything. they went about the different pipeline to read a skill that teach for america and they brought in a different group that sets up local teacher recruitment of michigan's so they tried to recruit people who

didn't have teaching backgrounds like the new york city teaching fellows in new orleans. new orleans, teach new orleans or whatever it's called and then the leaders to recruit nontraditional folks to become principles and they recruited the operators of the high performing schools and said come to new orleans like we are going to create a model school district and they set up this organization for the purpose of recruiting people to run the charter schools and making it easier to find buildings etc., etc.. and, you know, as i write about in the the chance to make history, i spent two days and new orleans last spring and i was just in shock when place all. i had heard what i was going to see and have been talking to everyone and assumed that it would be great but it was shocking given the comparison that i had. >> what do we know, what kind of statistical measures of improved performance to we have?

how the is the job? >> the jumps are completely dramatic. they are making in some cases depending on the grade levels between six to ten times the kind of improvement over one or two years that the other schools in the state of louisiana are making. fifth dakota i didn't just go to one school making great things happened. i spent two days going from school to school and meeting these very entrepreneurial school leaders who were on a mission to put their kids on the trajectory to graduate from college who were obsessing over the teams they were building, you walk into the schools and i just kept thinking i'd send my kid to this school. there was a shocking thought from the mere three or four years ago. one of the schools is run by a guy named todd and when he

recruited his fifth graders about 8% of the kids were profession and reading it 8% were proficient in math and 8%. now his kids last year his seventh graders were three-quarters of a year above grade level. so he has his kids on a trajectory by the time they are finished eighth grade he wants them to be able to get into any good high school anywhere in new orleans or elsewhere. >> so katrina is the best thing that ever happened? [laughter] that's not a joke. i want to pursue this idea. >> you know it's fascinating and i have this conversation all the time. people say this could never happen anywhere but new orleans because of the hurricane and i feel we have a crisis in new orleans that was bad before the hurricane. we have a crisis in detroit and philadelphia and any number of places right now that should merit the kind of action that

was taken when the school board decided not to open the schools and we are not acting, but we could. >> you could make the case given the single most important measure of the city's health, long-term health is the ability to educate the children. if new orleans was utterly failing before and now it has some signs of succeeding beyond other schools in the state of louisiana the city is better off for having hurricane katrina. it's sort of to the point before the, you know, i'm not going to say that it's not. there are so many people in the worst conditions because the hurricane. here's the other interesting thing about this. it's not quite -- it's convenient to look at it as -- >> you can't get away with saying that. >> yes i can. it might have happened without the hurricane.

the was the interesting thing. >> the use it it's not happening in detroit and all these other places. >> but it did and you know what's different and here's the difference this is the whole point, actually in new orleans to was a group of leaders who were absolutely bound and determined to fix this problem for kids. the existed and were working before the hurricane. in fact, all i remember when the hurricane had and my first thought was like all the progress that these people had made which we felt was going to be revolutionary, went down the drain of course everyone was dealing with a huge natural disaster but they revived and made a dramatic change happen anyway. who knows, i don't know what would have happened before the hurricane but what i think what is interesting and most of the communities, in most communities we would have had a hurricane and we wouldn't have taken a advantage of it of the circumstances of the day to actually revolutionized the schools. we probably wouldn't have bought

you know, that's actually create a system of charter's and most certainly because this is the problem and why we haven't moved if the needle against this issue in an aggregate sense we wouldn't have realized that's not enough, changing bill law isn't going to do it. we'd better go out and find the leadership necessary and cultivate over time the leadership necessary to actually run transformational schools. .. >> right?

>> you know what? i have not lost my revolutionary -- >> i'm not accusing you. i'm in malcolm mode. >> you know what concerns me? honestly, in order to create true, sustained, dramatic change we need -- the reason i'm so careful is it isn't about one simple thing, right? it's about doing a lot of different things right. and i fear, i really believe a lot of the problem right now is that we like to play, like, the blame game and the silver bullet lurching and, honestly, when you say so the answer's to blow up the system, right? i have to think, do i -- am i sure? because i think, i think the solution -- i think it, i guess i think it depends. but i think the real key in new orleans actually wasn't the hurricane. the real key was leslie jacobs, paul pastarak and a whole

generation of other people in new orleans most of whom, many of whom were teach for america alums who were deeply determined to address what they viewed as the single most unconscionable crisis in our country and who understood what you understand especially after you've taught successfully in this context which is there isn't a silver bullet to this. >> yeah. >> you change a governance law, that's not going to fix the problem for our kids. >> but you had a you had a nucleus in place poised to take advantage of an opportunity. the opportunity was katrina, and that allowed an awful lot of change to happen in a very short period of time. >> yes. >> i have no argument with that -- do you have any argument with that version? >> no. >> good. [laughter] that's what we're talking about, we have these nucleuses in place or we could put them in place in a lot of different cities, but it doesn't change the fact that

you could do an awful lot of good sometimes by blowing it up. >> you know what? if we had leadership in a lot of other places determined to solve this problem, if we with viewed it as the crisis that it is and we had the right leadership in place, we would, we would blow it up, to use your terminology, in lots of other contexts. >> uh-huh. i mean, i'm reminded -- i'm going to come back and ask you about what you mean in other contexts because it's intriguing. [laughter] >> absolutely. >> blowing up -- um, we're in a situation in a number of different areas in our society where objectively when we look at the institutional structures we have, we realize that if we were starting from scratch, we would never, ever have anything even remotely resembling what we have now, right? health care, everyone in the health system would agree if we were starting from scratch, we would build a system that bore zero resemblance to what we have now. [laughter] right? but yet somehow we sail on year

after year after year tweaking it at the edges -- >> yep. >> -- even though, you know, if we had a katrina that just systematically wiped out the culture of health care in this country and allowed us to start over again, we'd be better off. >> you know what? i mean, i think -- let me say one other thing in reaction to this which is really the thought that occurs. i think what you are saying is absolutely, basically, what needs to happen, right? we have a very systemic problem right now. most people, i think, misunderstand what's going on. like, why do we have low outcomes, low educational outcomes in our lowest income communities? why do you think? teachers are pathetic? i mean, that's probably what you'd think if you read all the headlines right now. you know, lots of people aren't very committed to kid. the real reason we've got this issue is we have kids who face unimaginable challenges that kids in other communities don't face. they show up at schools that don't have the extra capacity to meet their extra needs, and it

becomes one big, vicious cycle. so, you know, we can blame the kids, the parents, the teachers, the school principals, we could blame anyone in the picture, but what we've seen over time is we could also just change the picture. we could decide -- so right now our public schools, i grew up in dallas, texas, in a very privileged community and went to one of those public schools that's always on the top ten list of public schools in america. that was not a transformational school, right? we all showed up on -- at that school on a trajectory to graduate college, had perfectly hard working, nice teachers, some of them made a great impact, but it did not change our trajectories. if you took that school and put it in the bronx, it would crash and burn. i think it might take a year, maybe it would take two years. but its results would be no better than most of our schools unless it completely changed the way it operated. and i think what we've discovered over the last 20 years is we can change the way

we operate. we can embrace a completely different mandate for schools in low income communities, and when we do, it actually works. and so that's -- and in that sense i think we completely do need to start over. >> yeah. one, i want to make one last point about new orleans before we move on, and that is that in the, in your book you talk about the amount of autonomy that is given these individual schools, that is to say so long as they do their job, they get maximum freedom. and when they fall down, they lose their freedom, right? >> uh-huh. >> just sort of -- which i have, and i have, you know, far more than me, but that struck me as incredibly convincing as a kind of philosophy. but my first thought was, are reprepared -- are we prepared for the kind of social and institutional anxiety that that kind of process creates? in other words, a system where you have that kind of as long as you perform, you're on your own.

when you don't, we're going to step in. it's a system with a lot of turmoil, right? in a good way it's messy. things go up and down. some schools are going to do great, and others very visibly are going to be crashing and burning. do we need to prepare, if you're going to institute that kind of culture which i think is totally the way to go, do we also have to have a conversation with parents and with the public about what it means,? the kind of -- >> i think that parents want a great education for their kids, and i think what they're doing in new orleans is exposing parents to what is possible. and, i mean, truly there are more and more schools in new orleans that are actually, parents are thrilled, like, they see the potential. like, they see this is going to change my kid's trajectory. and be you're in a school -- and if you're in a school not like

that and your neighbor's in a school like that, you know, i think ultimately this is how to kind of, you know, i think create the context that will, that will be conducive. >> uh-huh. uh-huh. i want to move on to your silver bullets and scapegoats. it's a, it is the, one of the most interesting parts of the book is where you run down the list of the usual suspects and kind of go, uh, you know, and shrug a little bit. you're not crazy about the argument that this is about fund, and you tell this wonderful story about -- not wonderful, depressing story -- about the school of the future in philadelphia. can you, can you -- >> yeah. um, so there's a very big corporation, maybe these people remember this. about six or seven years ago there was a lot of talk about

this big technology company that was going to design the school of the future. and, you know, they spent $62 million designing this school in philadelphia. it's a beautiful building. i remember meeting an executive at this company and asking him, actually, do you think the people who are designing the school have spent time in this then-still small number but growing number of high performing schools in low-income communities so that they know what accounts for success? and i just remember sitting there thinking i can the tell that they haven't, so chances are not good. i went to visit that school a year ago. >> briefly describe, it is this big, gleaming -- >> it is a big, beautiful facility. this school has managed to underperform the average philadelphia public school. some of their proficiency rates depending on the subject are in the single digits.

okay, this was a school that parents fought to get their kids in. okay, i went and visited the only classroom that they will open to the public. there is one, it's led by a teacher who's been there since the beginning. and i stood in the back of the room, and i made sure i had my facts right because i was in the process of writing this book. but i watched every single kid in that class engaged in one of the following three activities. they all had laptops, that's one of the key features of the school. they were either trying to fix the computer -- taking the battery out, sticking it back in -- iming their friends or surfing the internet while the teacher talked as loudly as he could at the front of the room to try to get them to listen to his lecture. and, honestly, it would have been, it might have been funny if you didn't stop to realize that, literally, this school is shutting off these kids' prospects. like, they will have no prospects. and if you know anything about philadelphia and the communities

where these kids are living in, i mean, this is, this is like life threatening. and, honestly, it's right down the street -- and i couldn't have said this seven years ago, but today there is a growing number of schools in philadelphia that are serving the exact same student population three or four blocks away and putting them on a trajectory to graduate from college at much the same pace as kids in more privileged communities. and you know what? they don't have any technology. they might. maybe they've gotten some white boards. but it's definitely not the core of that school. the core of that school is a school leader who is absolutely determined to put, you know, the kids on a different trajectory, who's obsessed with everything a great teacher is obsessed with, right? building an incredible team. like, they obsess over attracting and developing teachers. they build this incredibly powerfulture where they get the -- culture where they get the kids, the parents the teachers all aligned on the same mission, they manage well, welln they do whatever it takes.

they know they're coming in way behind, so they lengthen the school day, bring in extra support in social services, etc., etc., they're completely redefining school, and they're getting different outcomes. >> are you suggesting that having constant, unimpeded access to the internet is not going to solve every social problem? [laughter] that's so -- wow. that's an eye-opener given everything that's happening in the world right now from egypt to tunisia is simply a function of social media, i would have thought -- [laughter] >> 8% of the kids in this school are proficient in reading, so access to the internet doesn't help that much. >> yeah. doesn't necessarily. charters. >> you know, i think one thing -- [laughter] one thing on the side of charters and then i'll go after them as a silver bullet. this growing number of schools that i keep talking about, many,

many more of them are charters than traditional schools. there are traditional public schools in the regular system that are getting these kind of results, but they are few and far between. and i think that's for a reason, you know? i think the charter laws provide talented, committed educators with an incredible opportunity to say, okay, i'm going to assume responsibility for results taking complete freedom over who i hire, how i spend my budget. so it's an incredible enabler. but unfortunately, i mean, if you look on average at the charter school is results and the public school rugs, they're no better. and i've seen charter schools -- because teach for america places in some of them -- you really wonder if we should be putting some of these people in jail. they're so much worse than even the dysfunction that we see in the regular system. and i think it's just another example of we thought, you know what? it is the best of intentions. it's people wanting to solve the problem tomorrow.

change the laws, hopefully everything will be better, you know, very soon. but, unfortunately, it's not that easy. like, we still need to then cultivate the leadership necessary to take advantage of the charter laws. and that is the most precious resource this all this because it's hard to find those school leaders who have the kind of foundational experience necessary to actually run a transformational school. >> does, is the, is the experience of new york city with charters different from the rest of the country? and if so, why? >> yeah. um, well, i think because there are such -- there are probably many reasons why. yes, it's definitely different from, i mean, i'm not the charters expert, but, you know, we have very lots of high-performing charters here, and i think it's because, first of all, there's a charter path. youyou can only open so many. not necessarily a good thing. but they have vigorous standards for who opens them, sort of like

new orleans, and they shut them down if they don't work. and probably even more so, you know, joel kline made an extraordinary effort to recruit people in to run charters so we've done a lot to recruit good folks in. >> is it possible those things are, that good experience with charters and can that kind of selecttivity and high standards for them is in part a function of the existence of the charter cap? doesn't the cap make -- doesn't the restriction on a resource make you use it more wisely? >> you could argue that. but, i mean, i think -- >> would you argue that? >> no. [laughter] well, it all -- i think that it's a very, i think it's a fact that it is very hard to find and develop the leadership necessary to run a high-performing school of any sort and including a charter school. but i think that we could find a lot more than the cap. >> oh, i see. what would, what's the cap now, do you know, offhand what the cap is in new york state? >> isn't it -- who knows?

100 -- >> [inaudible] >> they raised the cap last year. >> 460. >> 460. you don't have a -- 200. do you have a figure, do you have a kind of optimal, would czar cop have an optimal figure? [laughter] >> i would bring the principals of charter into the system. so i think -- but i would, i would do that, and i would also do something else. so, you know, and joel kline has really worked very hard to do exactly this, and thises exactly what they've done in -- this is exactly what they've done in new orleans. the bottom line is wherever you see one of these transformational schools i'm talking about, always, always, always they're run by someone who feels such deep, passionate commitment and full ownership over insuring that their kids get on a different path. and if they don't have the freedom, they take the freedom

to do whatever it takes to get to that end result. and i think we really need to ground our policies in an understanding of that dynamic. and i think the implication is that our central system should spend an immense amount of energy attracting and developing real leadership which is a process, right? we can't snap our fingers and have great leaders. we need to recruit them into the classroom, insure they've highly successful, keep some in the classroom, move others into leadership roles and what not. we need to obsess over talent development in the way any high performing organization does. but at the same time we then need to empower our leaders to get results. and so i think that kind of restructuring is probably the answer overall. >> yeah. unions. >> i think that, um, unions need to change just like i think districts need to change and lots of other things need to change. but i think the idea that we fix

the unions or just swipe them off the face of the earth -- >> you were the one earlier who said you wouldn't have them in your perfect universe. >> right. it's just that we don't live in a perfect universe. and i think that we have, i think it's not totally -- i think the assumption that if we lifted -- let's assume we remove them all tomorrow. anyone who works in and around schools, just imagine what do you think will be different the next day? like, we have so much further to go. in states where there is very low unionization and collective bargaining's sort of a nonissue, we have 1% teacher dismissal rates. we have 1% teacher dismissal rates whether there are strong unions and unions or not. is that? because there's no culture of in our school districts. when you think about how these

very high performing schools operate and compare that to how most of our public schools and school districts and even, probably, private schools for that matter operate, there's no, you know, we don't do what we know it takes to run high performing organizations. and so i think we need to, you know, unions to change, but we need our districts and our schools to change as well. >> does all of this become, does dealing with, does making -- what you're saying is in all of these cases -- funding, charters, unionization -- these are all variables that can make a difference provided you have in place, first, an organization and culture that makes effective learning possible. in other words, it's cart and horse here. >> right. exactly. um, i mean, i think anything short of that gets us incremental progress. in a world where incremental

progress is not affordable, you know? >> yep. >> we haven't really grounded ourselves in the magnitude of the issue here, and it's so easy to not recognize what's going on in our country. but we live in a country where the 15 million kids who grow up below the poverty line, half of them will not graduate from high school. if you don't graduate from high school today, you know, your options are, i mean, lots of, you know, i mean, we have communities that are putting more kids into the prison system than into college. the kids who do graduate from high school who we applaud for walking across the stage have, on average, an eighth grade skill level. a few percentage points on standardized tests doesn't meaningfully change the kids' lives in that context. and that's what any of these interventions at their best will get you. and what we've learned in the last 20 years is we could have something different. we could have meaningful change

for kids. we could actually put whole buildings of kids on a different trajectory, and to me that includes the moral imperative. it's on us to figure out, okay, so we immediate to treat this as the crisis it is given now we mow that we can solve it and go after it. and anytime any of us have a true crisis in our lives or in many our midst, you know, and truly view it as that, we view it in all of its complexity and go at it with, with an equally complex solution. like, it is no one thing, and there's no way around the hard work of building high performing organizations, essentially. >> yeah. let's talk about the practical impact of importing -- what teach for america does, essentially, is import large numbers of motivated college graduates into the teaching profession, right? so let's talk about what that means on a practical level.

first of all, are, do teach for america teachers, are they -- how do they compare on average to the kind of median teacher? are they better teachers? what do we know? >> um, the kind of growing body of research out there would show that they're more effective than other beginning teachers, and in some subjects and grade levels they're more effective than the experienced teachers. but not by the impact levels that i just described that we need. you know? like if you look at the studies, researchers think statistically significant, positive results and we think this isn't changing kids' lives. some of our people are changing kids' lives, but on average. and, honestly, this experience is kind of part of what, i mean, i think teach for america is an enormously good thing. you're better off as a kid in a school if you have a teach for america core member than not, you know? and our people are, obviously, then going off and, you know,

staying in teaching for an average of eight years, but also moving into other positions and taking that experience with them and affecting broader changes and what not. but this experience is why i say that, you know, if teaching is the latest silver bullet. because i think we somehow think that we can reengineer the way 3.7 million teachers are recruited and trained and what not. and i think our own experience where we've poured immense amounts of energy and the smartest people i could possibly find and millions and millions of dollars, literally, we've got a continuous learning loop in our organization that is kind of mind-boggling. we can do tons of studies to understand what are the most effective of our people, what differentiates them at the selection stage, what are they doing differently? how does that influence our training and professional development? every year, and still we're where we are. and all of that has led me to think, you know what?

we need to take this on at a school level. this is an organization problem. if you run a big company, you don't fix your problems by sending brain waves directly to all of the people in your organization. you think, okay, who are my managers, let me work with them. and when you go up here to kip infinity and you see their incredible, incredible results and ask them what's the key, it's like the teachers. but he has gone out and attracted and developed and retained and, you know, you talk to the teachers, why have they stayed? because of the culture of the school. it's a team i want to be part of. i feel so supported, etc. so i think, ultimately, we just need to come at the teaching question differently. >> does this represent an evolution in your thinking? you would not have said what you just said 20 years ago. am i right? >> well, i probably didn't know what i, you know, 20 years ago i was saying why aren't we being recruited as aggressively to commit two years to teach in high-poverty communities as we were to work on wall street.

i mean, that was really -- >> yeah. >> but i think once i got into this, i don't know when i started, i've felt this way for some time though, i have to admit. >> yeah. i mean, a -- i mean, i sort of sees the my one mild, it's not a criticism, it's an observation about your book. >> yeah. >> which is that there are these two strands that are, in some sense, complementary and in some sense contradictory that run through the book and i suspect legitimately run through your thinking. >> yeah. >> the one is this notion that we have to find new sources of talent and bring them into the system, and the other is that, well, that's not really what it's about. what it's about is building a system that allows people to flourish. now, they overlap, you know? in the venn diagnose gram like this -- diagram like this. [laughter] and there's the same kind of,

uh, you also run into the not entirely fair observation when one read your book that you're saying that virtually all students can thrive given the appropriate culture and environment. right? but then is the same true of teachers? can virtually all teachers thrive given the appropriate culture and environment? i mean, if we can, if we can help virtually any kid, why can't we help virtually any -- or is there, is this apples and organizes? >> yeah. i mean, this is such a very complex set of thoughts. but i do, so first of all we can't understand teach for america as a teaching organization. and i think this is the biggest thing we fight in the world. we are a leadership development organization. there's no other way to look at it. we are going out and saying we need our future leaders to channel their energy against our country's most fundamental injustice, and we're going to get them to commit two years to teach in the high poverty

communities, we're going to make sure they have the leadership characteristics that we've seen to differentiate the most effective teachers, we're doing to invest massive amounts in their training and support in pursuing that they're highly successful with their kids. and we know that experience is going to be important for kids and for them in every single decision they make thereafter. and it proves out to be. and we need them to go out and engineer the changes. we need them to go start great schools. and, in fact, they have. we wouldn't have the school model that we have that everyone's trying to replicate if it weren't for a few teach for america alums. we wouldn't have the energy and the budget, we wouldn't have the revolution we have in new orleans and d.c. and what not without a bunch of these people. we need some of them to go take on the challenge of poverty to make the whole thing easier. so i think we need that. at the same time, what many, many of our people come out of this thinking is, wait, we need to change the way these systems attract and develop talent.

um, and there's no doubt. i mean, i've concluded the same thing, right? so what are the systemic changes that we need? that is one big, central issue. and i think what we've seen is we can do that too, you know? you go to new orleans, and i think, you know, one of the most interesting things about my time there was talking with some of our teachers who we'd placed there over time who said, you know, i came here for two years, and i wasn't -- i was just going to teach for two years and leave. he said, you know, i just bought a house. it's seven years later. why'd they buy a house? because i'm the hot commodity in new orleans. i can pick whatever school i want to be a part of, you know, they even pay me a lot because they can control what they pay their teachers in new orleans. and by the way, to get to your other part of the question, this whole conversation then went on in new orleans, and they said don't think it's just the outsiders coming in. the good people came out of the system. and, you know, that could take us down a whole other path, but

it speaks to your point. i think most people who come into education are coming into it because they want to do good things for kids. but they come into a system that, i mean, i think about people we hire, the best of the best. we'll take 4500 of 47,000 applicants this year. if we brought them into a completely nonrigorous, undisciplined culture and just let them go, no management, honestly? lots of good things who would not happen. some good things would happen, lots of not great things would happen. and over time, i mean, people have to operate in strong, rigorous cultures. and so i do think there are tons of people out there who would operate in a very different way if, if the culture and the overall structure was different. ..

i mean, we placed our first 489 teachers 29 years ago and they went in with the same level of commitment and idealism as the numbers we are facing today. they would say it would be fair to say they hit the wall. you know, they saw their kids bring out the social challenges into their classroom. and you know, it became a downward spiral, right? like, it's downright impossible. what happened was the view of our people rose above it all, like her beard and figured out how to change things, like how to actually teach successfully,

how to create the island of excellence. and they did it by teaching different. we didn't know how to tell people to teach. now we can say here's what it takes, you know, it takes being very clear about what vision are working toward. where are we going to be pedantic here? what are we going to accomplish to make a meaningful difference in their lives? once you figure that out, spend half your time to believe that's important. if they work harder than ever before they can get there. you get your kids working with you and everything so much easier. you have to be incredibly cool oriented, maximize every second. realize that i'm not good enough country and have enough time. any things have been in need of your kids extra needs. but they accomplish the goals. he sort of redefined the role of the teacher.

i mean, that was the first learning experience a unique. and then again, they've just learning from our people basically, some of those people not been said this this is not sustainable. you may superheroes who can take outweigh. if they can sustain its because there's so many of those people. it's humbling to spend time, but then they went off and started school that actually make it much worse is the noble to teach it more successfully. >> forgive me for accessing about your personal journey, but it's like if you've got on this road that starts with a noble ambition, which is kind of an elitist ambition, to bring the best and brightest into the neglected corner of the world and now you're like a marxist. in the best sense of that word. i'm not criticizing you at all. although i will say come you're

not a total marxist because when we were back there and they asked you to test out the microphone by using the word p., i thought you were going to save peter picks a pumpkin. >> and i was talking to him, so -- but yeah, honestly this has had an unbelievable journey and illuminating one. and i'm learning from our people and others who are working alongside his communities and that's exactly why wanted to write this book. it's such a demystifying experience. you know conceptually of course kids in low income communities have full potential and could have an excellent education but now we know really is within our reach to view this and there's nothing magic about it. there's nothing out of reach, but there is also nothing easy about it. it takes the same kind of discipline and leadership to

have really ambitious outcomes. the question is do we believe the crisis? because if we do, then we need to approach it the same way we would approach any credit crisis we know we can solve. and that's what it appears we are not doing. >> let me switch gears for a moment. 40 -- how many thousand applicants? >> 40,000. >> or how many positions? >> well, depends it depends what happens where federal funding. it's always good memo, 5300. >> so that his princeton at this point? >> although, i don't view this as elitist. >> my point was how many 10

years ago, for example, what with those two numbers have been? >> with 4000 applicants and guessing about and probably brought in five or 600. >> and part of that dramatic increase in your popularity, how did she do it -- this movement catching fire? part of it has to do also with the economy. am i right? you are the beneficiaries? >> honestly, what people don't know because they either view it as an outpouring of idealism from this generation are they view it as the economy is that we are out there building a movement. every year we take some of our most successful teachers. we probably have about 70 different directors who each of, you know, partners in crime who are recent college grads that we give them three or four campuses

and we say, go find not just anyone but the people you believe have leadership ability necessary to be transformational teachers and have her possessions of influence long-term. and they sit down one-on-one. we've probably met with 40,000 college seniors this year, people who are going to law school and met cool and all sorts of things or at this point they are making lots more people who are interested because of the friends before and what not. but we are completely changing their minds because the recruitment directors sit down and share their personal experiences. they say, you know they used to be a recruitment direct your, who is now renting our boston office is that i was based in phoenix. they started teaching fourth grade. my kids came in at the second grade level. i fell in love with my kid.

they made a couple years of progress. i guess the principles i could teach them again. they needed two more years of progress and i realized first of all, can you think of anything that would give you a bigger responsibility and bigger impact right out of college? secondly, this is -- this is something our generation can take on, be part of the group of people who are going to fix that problem. so i actually think -- the economy was a great enabler as we ran around and told everyone like the silver lining in this economic environment is that it's given the true leaders relicense more broadly about their futures and given the most precious education resource and education is talent in the wake of a certain data that. but the foundations are already there. >> the same thing we're talking about with katrina. you build a structure.

>> you have to be ready to take advantage of the crisis. >> it's funny because the last time this happened in this country was during the depression. the well-documented effect of the depression was to the contraction of the private economy costs an awful lot of incredibly talented people to go into the public school system in the generation that emerged from schools in the depression which was one of the most successful, well-educated generations we have are the unintended beneficiaries of the economic calamity. you know, i hate to harp, but it's fascinating which we spend so much time bemoaning our misfortune, whether it is a hurricane or economic hard times, do we forget there are incredibly fertile. but if you can build -- >> yeah, that's a compelling

point. and we have lots of crises that we should take advantage of to solve the true crisis. >> a terrible thing to waste as rahm emanuel says. i don't know -- where is paul? is paul want to ask the question? areas. no, no, i think -- but not you, and make -- >> i have one nasty question and you can tell it's written by me. i'm curious, how many teach for america alumni in the program are here? pretty amazing. further question, was there a time or american education was not in christ this?

you can say yes or no if you want. [laughter] >> no. i mean, i think we've had this issue. i have limited historical knowledge myself, but i'm sure we've had these issues forever. i think we've been in denial about this particular issue that we are working to address. i think 20 years ago a lot of people were in denial about the very existence of what we call today educational inequity. >> and security officers and police and security officers and police in the hallways, less and less resource time, school manuals that require a law degree to decipher with rule upon rule, longer school days, why would a child do you think want to go to school? >> you know, i think about the schools that i've been talking

about these transformational schools. kids are dying to be in school because first of all, the principals and teachers in the schools for their kids. and you know, they build such a community among them and the kids know they are going to work incredibly hard, but there is huge for the. so i don't know that there's a place they'd probably rather be. >> lots and lots of questions from alums at the organization. this one begins with being alone i am completely on board the belief that all students can learn. however earlier this school year, "the new york times" covered a study that pointed to statistics showing that when stripped of all society and economic factors come african-american boys are underperforming when compared to female african-american peers as well as other non-black students. what are you and tsa's thoughts

on this and what do you think -- what do you think are the ways to shift education focus to address these statistics? >> meaning even outside of the context of low income communities? >> ray. >> you know, i feel like it will take me out of, you know, i think about my own kids who go to public school appeared that very diverse, but not as economically disadvantaged when there are kids from all of the economic backgrounds, all racial backgrounds. honestly the puzzle of how to make the schoolwork for all kids is very different from the puzzle of making the schools i've been talking about work. so i am hesitant. i actually think what we need to understand is where the schools out there that are working for african-american kids across all socioeconomic backgrounds?

let's find out because our schools -- i'm sure there are schools working for these kids. let's find out if there's one what are they doing differently? i think therein lies the key to unlocking the answer to that question. >> either way, you can jump in whenever you want if any of these questions and you have comments to that. for instance, is there consecration to expand the teach for america to training and supporting administration? >> now, because we are going to stay focused on our core mission of channeling a lot of talent and energy in this direction, but we do, you know, we have a whole priority around accelerating leadership of alumni in ways that are strategic for the broader ad reform movement and we think supporting them to become principals is one huge important

focus among others. i mean, helping support them to run for elected office and start advocacy organizations and social enterprises are others. we partner with others to do those silly partner with the feds out there, with a charter school or districts or universities or other school leader training programs to center people to streamline school leadership. >> you bring up joel kline quite a lot -- quite often many seem to admire him. what do you think of joel kline's success? [laughter] >> think it's too early to tell. but i think better commit and -- i mean, she's clearly committed for all the right reasons and you know, i guess we'll see what happens. [laughter]

i think we should reach a point where when we are trying to figure out who should be the superintendent of our nation's largest school systems or newark, new jersey for that matter which is in the midst of a superintendent church or atlanta or soon-to-be chicago, where some of the best jobs on the planet, they should be, we should be considering sites of people who bought the foundational experience is necessary to do that job. issue people who have typed in transformational ways, ran trans-to national schools and supported other transformational schools. can you imagine ge, for a ceo selection just stepping back and deciding not someone you haven't even worked in corporate america should be the ceo? i mean, we would never do it. again, this is why i say i wonder if we think this is a true crisis.

but we can't blame the mayor because the fact is we don't have that. we don't have the people pipelines and that's what we need to -- the longer we stay above the development of sure people development systems, the longer we just have to learn from silver bullet to another and try being of things and pray that they work, which is pretty much where we are at the moment. [laughter] >> often when schools strive towards excellence in key competencies of reading, writing, math, et cetera, they do so as the odds of physical education. do you believe they are part of an educational system? if so, how? >> i think what i want for my own kids and a think that all

kids should have access to parts and physical life in all sorts of other enrichment opportunities. i think again that go visit, if you haven't already, schools that are not only can a good test results, but they're really trying to set their kids have to be on a level playing field with kids in communities where parents are giving them not and i think absolutely we need to -- i think we need the whole picture. >> when you come back to the new york public library and 20 years from now, what difference do you think we will find in the education system? >> you know, i think it is so hard to predict. i think about the fact that, you know even four years ago, if we had come together and you had said, what are the most

impossible to move school systems in the country? i would've said new orleans in washington d.c. you think those are two of the fastest improving right now, you know, things are moving very quickly and the snowball is moving down the hill. i think it will be easy to underestimate the progress we can make in 20 years. what i am hoping it's the way we have growing numbers, you know, hundreds of incredibly high performing schools today that we could never have imagined even 12 years ago we would have, i hope we have proof point that the whole system level and i think once we do the proof as possible -- we can talk about tipping points all the time. we are going to get to the tipping point where people realize we can do this and hopefully were doing all the right things. i think it is limited our reach. in 20 years we should see the achievement capped closing of

big waves. >> madam kopp, were getting to the closing point. what is the difference between teachers excellent performance and pay? >> i think we need to, you know, absolutely think completely differently about the whole human capital picture committee is a terrible jargon term, we need to free our districts and our school principals will ultimately up. i mean, they need to be obsessing at all times on how do they attract. i mean, they need to be obsessing at all times on how do they attract develop them and retain them need to be obsessing at all times on how do they attract develop them and retain them and compensate them? ultimately i think we need to give them lots more flexibility over their compensation dollars so that they can retain and value the people were making the biggest impact. >> if they are paid more, are they better teachers?

>> well, i think ultimately, you know -- i don't know, with the research show? we got to look across the dresses well, we should be valuing our most effective teachers accordingly from a compensation perspective in search of a the research we've done ourselves, you know, we might consider a $15,000 p. job for teachers who are perfect is in four to eight were dead serious retentions. >> surely the issue is not so much obstet level of compensation, but compared of compensation. so much what you have been trying to do is the ability and attract different kinds of people to hear part of the way we rehabilitate professions as we pay people comparably to other professions that we

esteem. the issue of teaching is not whether they make x or y. it is the amount of money we pay a quality teacher is not commensurate with what we pay and another profession that event nearly as important socially. >> i also think that people with lots of other options, you know, there shows reality. you got to raise a family, we have to make it financially viable to say in teaching and education. >> different ways of expressing this question, but what is your greatest regret? what is the greatest mistake you think you've made? >> gosh, there has been of course -- >> baby miscalculations would be another way. >> you know, the most significant one i went say in

recent days with the i think it's tough, teach for america has grown a lot and we have the priorities around not only becoming thicker and more diverse on one hand, which leads us to put an enormous amount of energy to recruitment processes and requires us to scale up a lot. we've gone from 1,003,000 teachers in the last 10 years. but we have equally ambitious goals about increasing the measurable impact to teachers during their two years because we think it's critical for their kids and we think it's critical for the lessons they learned. and in pursuit of that, you know, we've tried many different things. we put in place measurement systems ourselves that were very well-intentioned. we've tried lots of different strategies and ultimately if we got into the ins and outs of that, ultimately you see the limitations kind of leading web

measurable -- i mean, measurable results are critical, but it's about more than that and i think the culture that you build in keeping everyone grounded in what this is all about in this. a truly putting kids on a different trajectory, creating the right balance between a focus on measurable results in keeping everyone grounded at the same time is a powerful and they think we sort of veered too much. we are trying to now ricci are and i hope remake that have been around the spirit of things. >> finally, what are you most proud of? >> probably sticking with it. i think this is very challenging work. many other people to accomplish great things takes time and i think persevering and constant

learning, you know, grounding ourselves constantly and what are we learning from my most successful core members and alumni and the constant evolution of thought here that is probably but i think is teach for america's strength in what i am proud of a guess. >> malcolm glad

minutes. >> i would like to start off. this is not a reading this evening. it is just simply talk and that will have a q&a. i'd like to start up beside me to read something from the book to set the mood. and i will set the scene was in the 1960s when bobby fischer was going to martinez to model plots to play and a big international tournament. so here we go. a week before i left argentina, bobby and the author of this book had dinner at the theater

tavern in greenwich village to hang out with an abstract expressionist and one of bobby's favorite eating places. jackson pollock in france i'd were having conversation toward andy warhol and don cage dined at a nearby table, not the bobby notice. he just liked the pub food the restaurant served. it was a shepherd's pie kind of place and the anonymity that came from sitting among people who preferred document are celebrities rather than taking note of chess prodigy days. we slid into the third boost from the board and ordered bottles of beer. but we sure this didn't question bobbie sage, even though he had just turned 17 and wasn't legally old enough. 18 as you remember was the limit at that time. but he looked like he was 18. bobby knew the selection without

looking at the menu. he tackled an enormous slab of prime rib, which he consumed in a matter of minutes, as if he was -- if he were a heavyweight boxer enjoying his last meal before the big faith. he just received his during the lull in the conversation, since he didn't talk much and wasn't embarrassed by long silent as i asked, bobby, how are you going to prepare for this tournament? i always wanted to know how you did it. he seemed unusually chipper and became interested in my interest. here, i'll show you said smiling. he slid out of the side of the booth and grant me into the corner. next, he retrieved from his coat his chest that and all the pieces lined up in the respect

they've thoughts waiting to go to work. i doubt he'd seen one of those, but they are the larger than an index card. at the talks come elect for me me to the pocket that and spat out this dollar retreated on this method of preparation. he's the first of all, all the games they can play and all the players when i'm going to really prepare for bronstein. i'm not worried about. he then showed me progression of his one and only game with ron stein, a draw from the kazaa the two years earlier. he took me to a bronstein choice. one moment awarding another the next. variety of choices bobbi worked through his dazzling and overwhelming. in the course of his analysis he discussed ramifications of

ramifications intact deflation is advisable or not was like watching a movie with a voiceover narration that with one great difference. he was manipulating pieces and speaking so rapidly it was difficult to connect the moves with this commentary. i couldn't follow the tumble at ideas behind the wheel and phantom attacks. he said i didn't think of this. whether kennedy? the thoughts on bobby's pockets were so worn and large from thousands of games that little pieces almost fell into the slot and aesthetically it is well banal of the images were worn off. then he went on the discussed braunstein style. at one point he said, did you read reinstein spoke? i said no, it isn't in russian?

hewitt annoyed and amazed that i didn't know the language. it's a fantastic book. you play for a win against me and i'm sure in a plane for a draw. resetting pieces in seconds, again i must without looking he said, he tarcher prepare for if he can play any kind of game, positional or type the code. he then began to show me from memory game after game, dozens focusing on opening for bronstein had played against bobby's favorite variations. multiple outcomes leaked from his mind but he didn't confine himself to bronstein sufferer. he also took me a mature games that louis paulsen had played the 1800s and i ask. men with in the 1920s as well as others just weeks before in games that he had claimed from a russian newspaper.

all the time, bobby wade possibilities and suggested alternatives that selected the best lines, discriminated, decided. it was a history lesson and chess tutorial. amazingly it is an amazing feat of memory. his eyes slightly glazed were now fixed on the pockets that what she held open in his left hand, talking to himself, totally unaware of my presence or that he was in a restaurant. his intensity seemed even greater than when he was playing in a tournament. it sped by in a blur in his face showed the slightest of smiles as if it was a referee. he whispered, very audibly, he plays that. i could block his bishop. and then raising his voice so loud he will play that.

i began to weep quietly, aware that in that time suspended moment i was in the presence of genius. [applause] okay, a couple of things were going to do here is all talk, have a q&a. there is a microphone man over here from c-span. c-span is filming this for a future broadcast. if you have a question, don't give it out. at the microphone man come over so it gets picked up on the tv. i was attempting to do a number of things when i began to write this biography of bobby fischer. the me tell you, those who here do not want to play chess and all you can read this book.

this is not a chess book. it's a biography. of course it's a great interest i would hope to chess players, but you don't necessarily have to know the game very well in order to enjoy it. i had written a number of other biographies and from person to aristotle onassis. i approached bobby's life in the same way as a biographer. as a microscopic look at his life and i attempted to leave no fat behind. i mean, that's the way i approach all of my books. i want to note every fact -- every trivial fact. i may not use it, but it gives me confidence that i know my subject and then they use it somewhere along the line. and there was no bite very

unvisited, no archive on the research undone on my part. in addition to approaching this as a biographer or researcher, i was also an official witness to a participate in bobby's career. i was the direct terror of one of the first tournaments he ever played as a child in new jersey at the old monterey hotel which doesn't exist any more right on boardwalk there. somebody was 10, 11, whatever he was. his mother was with him. and i didn't talk to bobby at that time, but i noticed him and he was a bad net for people because he was so tiny. he was the youngest person in the tournament in iraq gathered around and watched him. i noted a new he would become what he became.

he really took his time. he really concentrated. we also played -- bobby and i played in some of the same tournaments together over the years. we never met at an official tournament game. by the way, were light years away in terms of ability, but we did play perhaps hundreds of speed gains over the years. don't ask me which one. but he was an incredible speed player, by the way. it is very interested to watch them play speed chess. don't think basketball, neighborhood or playground basketball. you know, a lot of trash talk. what? play that against me, how dare you. you're a cockroach. an elephant. elephant steps on cockroach, that kind of stuff.

crunch, whom. he was absolutely the most incredible speed player in the world obviously as it turns out. so i was there. i was also the arbiter of the u.s. championship where he won all of his games without bosses, without trust. it'd never been done before. it is not been done cents and may never be done again. it was right there it is for during the entire time. i was able to study and observe him i talk about that in the book of course. i also defended bobby when he got into a big conference which caskey and bobby was force-fed and i stood up for him and went to bat for him in print and turned out to be a lawsuit and because of my champion had i

ended up losing my job, which i founded. so we bonded and i was in iceland with him for actually the match took two months, but i was up there three months. i came early and monthly during the time he won the world cheered winship. and i also looked at this book, this biography through the eyes of a friend. i was his friend. we had falling out, whatever we had, we had arguments. and there were times in many come in many areas we didn't speak. but i did feel that he was a brand. we dined together.

he came to my house and red chess magazines. he swiped a lot of those, i must say. we went to parties together. i taught him how to play billiards. we were friends. so that was my focus, study bobby fischer is a biographer, as an official chess arbiter, as a player and as a friend. and i can tell you as they go through this in the book, bobby had an extremely competitive personality. i matter what he did, i mean he was a good swimmer, for instance. going to high school in grammar school and camp he would swim in

when they had recess, bobby would be in the water before everybody was in the dies. he was just fast and he wanted to win. when he got older and when he went up to grossing kurds, he would play tennis to beat everybody at tennis except the tennis pro. other than that, he wanted to win everything again. so i go into that and talk about his competitive personality. he also had a phenomenal very. when he was preparing for spaskky, there is a book, spaskky's game, hundreds and hundreds of his games with about 10,000 moves to not book. and almost as a parlor game they would you need the book and say

pick up the game, tell me when it was played into spaskky played against. it's a all right, 1978 against portugal. he would then rattle off all the moves. he had memorized the 10,000 moves. i mean, that is just one of his memory feeds. i can tell many other stories and they do in the book about how good he was. and he had a total focus on chess. many people as he was growing and when he got older said bobby isn't savant and he doesn't know anything about chess. well, i don't know if you read malcolm gladwell's book, the outliers where he achieves success in 10,000 hours in a sense, that's like a thousand hours a year for 10 years in order to become good at something. bobby spent probably more the

not although gladwell disputes that. but he spent six or eight hours a day. i may say yeah, he didn't do anything else. have you ever talked to a musician, but they know music, don't they? i know psychiatrists who doesn't mind. they know the interpretation of dreams. they know all kinds of things. but many of them know anything about art, literature, art life. they know how to analyze you. i see at least one psychologist in the audience. i'm not putting psychologists have. so yeah he put a greater portion of his life playing chess. select from he became chess. and so misconceptions.

and by. and this is not a defensive bobby. i'm going to. i just want you to know that he was he of disraeli, causes of in the 40 years won the championship chess all that much and started my specific approach in the book was to this book,

you'll. you're the opening. there are no diagrams think i should analyzed and. he came from a poor family when bobby was born they had to live in a hospice. and they lived then they finally and he never had any government support like mean come the if

they could do anything wanted and spend bobby got. i talk about why did he and for entries another of the cd section of los angeles and given

into cheese,, why did. were not positive who married the next time comes she married someone denied he yet i have found evidence that bar mitzvah, never why did that do get into it and you cram it inside the

pages is difficult to do. in any event, it is there and american.

this is bobby's story. it is bobby's life. it is a great odyssey of what he went through, truly a rags to riches story and now he's a multibillionaire. it has shakespearean overtones and it's truly the stuff of greek legend. so that's about all i have to say. let's have a q&a. [applause] remember, wait until the microphone comes around. >> hi, how are you. at the end of his life, where did he get his money?

>> in 1982 he played -- he violated sanctions that the united states had against serbia. in montenegro and ended up with a $5 billion match any ended up winning $3.5 million lift him >> but the most of it -- was that most of that swindled by the serbian banker? >> absolutely not. there was a billion dollars in television rights that bobby never got, but the 3.5 million definitely pocketing cash, kathmandu hotel with exchange, deposited in switzerland, said he had his money.

>> wasn't the u.s. government trying to take the money? >> yes, and they still are. bobby first of all violated the sanctions come is that we at least $250,000. on top of that, you stop paying taxes in 1977 and was so anti-american. so i don't know how much time she was a a heck of a lot during the 20 years i call the wilderness years that was living in l.a., he had some royalties he was making on its books, but wasn't a heck of a lot. he still had to be taxes on that, so they are trying to get a lot of this money. who knows, they may still do it. it's up for grabs in the icelandic words. country in courts. >> did he make a will? routed his money go?

>> he didn't make a will and the money still exists. he spent it since 1992 and he died in 2008. so he had those expenses. he bought a house for his girlfriend. he bought her a condo and supposedly there was $2 million left. >> did he believe the things that the senator was he just being provocative? and did he have in high school? >> were you in high school with them? >> no, no. >> you're much too young. there is somebody here that supposedly went to high school with robbie. are you still here wherever you are?

[inaudible] actually, i met him and he used to walk around campus with his head down and a copy of a russian journal in his back pocket. i went to brooklyn tech. >> will forgive you. did he believe the things? yeah, i believe he did. at the end of his life, he came out with what seemed like a terribly pretentious statement by saying, you know, i'm not just a chess genius, i'm a genius and all things. and he believes himself to be that. that was the whole point with ib, even when he was younger. whatever he said, it was. you know, he believed it.

you either accept it or not and sometimes they don't seem very rational, that indeed that's the way it was. so he wasn't just been in a church country and. >> hi, frank. this is a chess question. you said they played a chess. did bobby ever play blindfolded? >> at, he rarely played blindfold chess, but he did. i know on a trip for him to dock played as a young man they played fine for chess, what does it take? six hours. during that time he played blindfold games, but his opponent kept not remembering the game. the two bobby, you know, in a

sense he was always playing chess because it was always going through his mind. >> what made him anti-american? >> there was a story that appeared -- a series of stories that appeared in "life magazine about bobby and the writer who is now dead, brad darrah, wrote the stories with a contract for bobby that he would not write a book about it. and a year and a half or two years after the match was over, darrah came out with a book. believe it or not $100 million in bobby always had problems with lawyers, decided to handle the case himself. so the race was scribbled on

yellow paper. eventually it was thrown out of court in bobby claimed there was no justice and the american jurisprudence system, so therefore he said i'm not going to pay taxes anymore. i don't believe in america. it is a corrupt government. >> i just want to thank you for delivering to us the second book. i have the first one he wrote. when he was playing, he kept losing to him. i enjoyed your book. i found it very interesting. thank you for the second part of it. >> thank you, thank you coming thank you. let's get one over here and then we'll come back to you.

>> yeah, where they are every bit clinical mental issues that were attributed to him, given his statements that he made linux >> no psychiatrist and i know ever said anything along that line and i interviewed a number of psychiatrists who knew him. the latest dr. magnet schools funner who was with bobby during the last months of his life he said, give you a quote, he said he was disturbed, he was paranoid, but he was not schizophrenic and he was not psychotic. dr. schooler sin is an m.d. and was the director of the largest mental institution, a very reputable man.

he said he came up with a troubled childhood and was mixed up, but clinically he could not say he was paranoid schizophrenic. he had paranoid tendencies as most of us due to some extent, so yeah. >> well, it is the end of his life in the end of the game. thank you very much. thank you. anymore? brooklyn tech trader. >> i'm curious as to how well he would have done in its prime against a spiral? >> well, how would dempsey have done against tyson? it's a very difficult thing to compare things that cannot really be compared.

>> a former student. good lord. wait a minute. your name will come to me.

don't tell me your name. >> i'm not. but i'm dating myself. because i'm calling you professor brady. >> that's right. now i have my democrat. go ahead. >> lilian. >> that's it. very good. i was on the phone with my dad the other night. i was mentioning i was going to and your book signing. he actually played with bobby fisher at the manhattan chess club. i was asking me about him. he said that at times, bobby would play 15 people at one time. >> absolutely. >> and he was always ten steps ahead of everyone. so no one really won, you know, against him. but he did mention that his mother had a lot of influence on him. i just wanted to know if you with elaborate on that. do you think that really protelled him to say the things he said later on in life?

>> his mother was a great influence on him in many ways, she helped his career, she was like a professorial press agent almost. it was not a newspaper, magazine, or anything else in the city that she didn't go to to try to get press for bobby. she encouraged him did they have fighting? of course. just like we all probably have had with our parents when here 16 years old. so yeah they had fights. but that's another misconception that i try to straighten out. they loved each other. they were in contact all of the years. he wanted her to come back. she went and got her doctorate in hematology and her medical degree in later years. he wanted her to come back to the united states because he missed her. when he was on his death bed, he asked for a photograph of her. they loved each other. and she was a professional protester, but she was a left

professorial -- professional protesters. as i say, the pawn doesn't stray too far from the queen. he became a protester, sort of on the other side of the anti-american and so on. she had a great influence on him. and she was both mother and father to him because she was a single mother. okay. couple more questions. a couple more. we have time, sir. two more questions. >> it must have been a unique experience for you as a biographer to revisit a subject that you had written about so many years earlier. and i can't imagine that when you are writing "profiles for a prodigy" you developed a bond with bobby. i'm wondering how that's affected you over the years.

you touched upon it to a certain agree how it's affected you as you saw him change and degenerate over the years and what you feel ultimately was your relationship with bobby. >> well, as bobby changed, i changed. relationship changed. when i wrote the first book, i didn't have a doctorate. i sort of learned. you know, the thing -- it sounds like i'm boasting. the thing about getting a phd, you learn how to research. if you don't, heaven forbid. i went ahead and learned something, and i wrote many other books between the first and this one. about nine or ten other books. so i changed and as i told you, or as i mentioned, i felt very badly about his anti-american statements and his 9/11 statements and so forth.

i just -- i was horrified. and -- but i had to take a couple of years to get over that. when i did, i said i should tell the story. there's nobody better in the world that can tell bobby fisher's story than me. there was an obligation on my part in a sense. i think i told it accurate and honest appraisal of his life. we got here. we got here. sorry. >> did he train physically? like an athlete would before matches? >> absolutely. he swam, he played tennis, he lifted weights, he was a very physical person. and, you know, he -- his walk if you saw him, he was like a tennis player. he would swagger like, you know, because he was so used to this

kind of stuff. playing basketball, he was an athlete. he was a true athlete, and he kept that up pretty much all of his life. during the bewilderness years, there were times when he didn't do anything. but he was also a walker. he walked miles and miles and miles. he walked my legs off. he would think nothing of walking from the upper west side down to the lower east side and back again. in the of course of an evening. you know, miles and miles and miles. he loved it. and he was a fast walking. it was practically if you were next to him, there was a wind that he would make because he walked so terrifically. he was in terrific shape pretty much all -- and he really trained before each match. so i think that's about it. unless someone has one anxious question that they want to ask. nick? yes? [inaudible question] >> i'm wondering if you had any

romantic relationships. was he ever married? >> he was never married until he was in prison and then the woman that she was living with in japan came quite honestly in a gamut to try to get him out of prison that he became, you know, he would be looked upon as a japanese citizen, but he wasn't married to the japanese woman. they got married in prison towards the end of his life. he was in love with a 17-year-old girl when he was 49. nothing ever consummated. however, he was in love with her. there were occasional romantic.

>> elliot abrams and robert wexler. moderating is jason isakson. [applause] [applause] >> good morning. hello from a.j.'s 2011 global forum. i want to make sure you picked up a copy of the "wall street journal" you will see in the center an advertisement. united states and israel an enduring partnership. please pick it up. good statement to resolve to continue to strengthen the relationship between the united states and israel. i am jason isaacson your moderator. i would like to welcome the audience washington, d.c. and

the global web cast. on the panel, we are joined by elliot abrams, senior fellow at the council of foreign relations and former deputy national security advisor, and robert wexler, president of the s. daniel abram ha center for middle east peace and former u.s. congressman from florida. a few notes about the debate, we will begin with opening statements. each debater will have five minutes for the statement and three minutes to respond to his counterpart. we'll then move to the question and answer portion of the debate in which each speaker will again have up to five minutes to respond. and finally, each debater will have the opportunity to offer five minute concluding remarks. these time limits will be strikely enforced. [laughter] >> now, i will turn the floor over to elliot abrams to kick us

off. good morning. >> good morning. thank you very much. good morning to bob wexler. i want to congratulation steve and jason for the awards that they received yesterday. as you can tell from the format, i'm here this morning to declare my candidacy. this is a copy of my birth certificate. [laughter] [applause] >> next year the meeting will be held at the trump washington center. [laughter] >> and now to the middle east. there's so much to talk about when the changes in the middle east that we could be here for all morning, all day. [cough] >> i think fundamentally the united states has a great interest in supporting democratic allies around the world, and in the middle east.

that sounds obvious, but i don't think it's quite so obvious. because i think, frankly, the obama administration has tended to focus more on multilateral institutions like the u.n. and less on traditional democratic alliances. nato is in tatters as we see in libya. i never thought i'd live to see the day when the british and the french are complaining about our commitment to nato. and rightly so i'm afraid. focusing on democratic allies, japan, india, germany, france, britain, australia, israel. israel obviously needs to be near the top of that list. here again, i think we have not done a good job in the last couple of years. relations need to be good at all levels. military-military relations are excellent, for example. but relations at the top are

clearly not excellent. and we pursued a policy over the last couple of years, until november when it was abandoned, built around a construction freeze. and in the words of senator john kerry, we wasted a year and a half. since november, there really hasn't been much of a policy. we are all waiting to see what happens now? the prime minister's speech in about a month was the building block. but now an event has happened yesterday that changes the context. the hamas-fattah agreement. we don't know a lot about that agreement. but i find it troubling. i don't think it'll last. let me say now. you remember the mecca agreement of 2007 led if not directly, fairly quickly just a few months to the hamas crew in gaza. announcing an agreement is one thing. keeping it going from month to month is another.

my observation it appears to be an agreement without conditions. the quartet reaction, including the united states, but eu, un, russia to the mecca agreement was, and to the hamas victory in the 2006 elections, was anybody who participates in the palestinian government needs to be commitmented to peace, nonviolence, recognizing israel's right to exist, and all previous agreements. hamas obviously does not meet that standard. it doesn't -- it didn't meet it then, and it doesn't meet it now. apparently there's some kind of security agreement. again, we'll find out what the details are, but it's very troubling. there's no agreement on releasing, for example. there's no agreement on -- well, here's an example of the trouble that i mean. apparently they are going to say under some kind of security committee, hamas keeps gaza,

fattah keeps the west bank. over the last couple of years, israel and the p.a. has worked very closely in the west bank against hamas. against terrorism. you talk to idf officers, they will tell you it's pretty good cooperation. does that cooperation continue? if that cooperation does not continue, does u.s. security assistance to the p.a. continue? while they are in a partnership with hamas? you've already seen reactions on capitol hill. i think this is extremely troubling. i'm running out of time here. i guess bob and i have to disappoint you, you know, we are friends. we agree on an awful lot of things. those who are looking for a kind of tough debate here maybe slightly disappointed. but, you know, we'll try.

we'll give it our best. >> i think we will. i think we will. robert, please. thank you, elliot. >> thank you very much. i want to especially thank the american jewish committee for allowing myself and elliot to participate this morning. ajc, which needs no introduction to any of you, is certainly in my humble estimation the prominent american communal organization. the impact that it has throughout the town, on capitol hill, and the administration, in the media, and in all of the thought-provoking community in washington is quite significant and the fact that the new chief of staff for the president is addressing your organization which i believe will be his first address as chief of staff to an american organization and an american jewish organization is primary testimony to the prominence of ajc.

i thank all of you for participating. elliot is correct in terms of if you think there's going to be blood letting, you will be sadly disappointed. just the opposite for my personal perspective. elliot is a extraordinarily patriotic and able american public servant who for decades has devouted himself personally and professionally to american foreign policy, a significant part of which, of course, was america's policy in the middle east, and my hat is off to him for a very long, distinguished career of service. let me start with this. my family and i, we arrived back from israel last night having the privilege of spending two weeks in israel for passover. i'm sure many of you have had

that privilege. if i could take 15 seconds and just be a part of the israeli tourism council, spending passover in israel, i don't think there's any greater thrill than anybody could ever experience. on top of the extraordinary wealth that israel provides to any visitor whether it's their first or 30th time, but to be able to go to italian restaurants in the middle of passover in jerusalem, that's worth whatever extra charges there maybe at the hotel. and one stay in only seven days, that to me is also worth whatever extra charges there maybe. [laughter] >> but as to the issue, if we had met three months ago, all of us probably would have been centered on egypt. talking about egypt, and this

extraordinary change that was about to occur. had we met six or seven weeks ago, we would have talked about libya, and this extraordinary challenge that was presented and the thought that america with our nato allies would engage in a military operation. that would have been the center of our focus. had we met 24 hours ago, i suppose the center of our focus would have been will bashar assad and syria last through the weekend? now since we are meeting today as elliot referenced, we will be in part focused on what is the meaning of fattah and hamas appearing to be posed to enter into a unity agreement. i'm careful in saying appearing to be posed because they have

not entered into it yet. the point of what i mention is simply that the degree of change that is sweeping the region is so fundamental and farfetched that to talk about constant or fundamental at this point, i think, actually is outdated. and i know i share elliot's enthusiasm for the premise that america should fundamentally be on the side of democracy. and here again, elliot has rolled during the bush administration. i would applaud actually for being ahead of the curve in terms of aligning america with democracy. elliot is not naive. nor am i. we all understand the risk that empowering people involves, but i also think we need to understand the risks of not

empowering people. and the risks of anchoring peace agreements with leaders as opposed to societies. let me close with this fundamental question that i would ask to our friends in israel, and this, i think, is maybe where maybe elliot and i may differ a bit. if our friends in israel calculate that the degree of leverage that they today hold leverage with america, leverage with the international community, whether it be the european union, the united nations, the quartet, whatever it maybe, the arab neighbors, the new governments in egypt, and tunisia and the like and the leverage they have had the pall stillian authority, the pall pa-

palestinian authority, and the advantage and economic interest. if our friends in israel calculate that the leverage that they have today is greater than the leverage they will have in five years or ten years, i will respectfully offer it's prudent to make difficult decisions when your leverage is greatest. if they calculate that their leverage in five years or ten years from now is likely to be less, then i would respectfully conclude and i fall in this category that it's wiser it make decisions when your leverage is greatest. and it is borderline irrational to wait until your choices, in fact, are less.

or your ability to affect a positive choice is less. and in that record, possibly i'm opening up the debate. i suggest that now is the time to make difficult choices. although it maybe somewhat counterintuitive to the traditional thinking. >> thank you for opening up the debate. so, robert? elliot please respond. >> i've never heard such -- >> there you go. >> how's that for an opening act? [laughter] >> you know, there is a good deal of agreement here in this sense. [laughter] >> israel has a consensus now, i don't know 90%, maybe 95% to separate from the palestinians. if used to be there was a large community that believed in greater israel. i think that community is very small now. i think people left, right, and

center since sharon recognize that all the may will be but don't want a one-state solution, you do want a two-state solution, you need to separate. this is logic, and that logic fundamentally remains correct today. jewish state, arab state. the question that i ask, and it's very close to what bob is saying. if that was israel's interest, it's not a gift to the pall -- palestinians. it's israel's interest to separate. the question i ask is why don't you separate? neither of us is knee -- is naive. easy to say, hard to do. but i wonder, for example, if it was clear to everybody that sooner or later what is beyond the fence is going to be not israel, let's say. why continue to make investments

beyond the fence? why not begin the process of allowing people beyond the fence to move back? by saying allowing, they can do it tomorrow morning, expect try seller your house. if you have put money into a residence beyond the fence. in the case of gaza, there was compensation for people who moved back. sooner or later, that will have to happen for the areas beyond the fence as well. it would be meaningful for israel's international physician, i think, to begin to talk about that, to begin to act in the asset to take steps that reflect israel's logic that separation is the right thing to do. now this has become a lot more difficult. i think because of the hamas-fattah agreement, which if it falls apart. because it well may. because it reflects the view point of the palestinian leadership. i think it's going to lead to

the departure of salem fiad. if there's one thing they hate, it's fiad. he's been resists the departure. his departure is going to trouble people on the hill and a lot of other donors, and people in the europe and arab that want to know where the money is going. with him there, they know where the fun is going. with him not that, there's not so clear. i think the logic for israel is clear to begin to move in the direction that their national interests call for. but the palestinians have once again made it a good deal harder. on the one hand, they won't come to the table. on the other hand, they are playing games with hamas. if you haven't read the hamas charter recently, pull it out

over the weekend. it's a violently anti-semitic document. not one word has been changed. they don't ask. >> thank you, elliot. before i ask robert to speak, if you have questions, fill out the cards. staff will be picking them up very shortly. robert? >> elliot introduces an interesting concept that i would agree with in part. separation. elliot rightfully referenced prime minister sharon. prime minister sharon, of course, implemented the separation theory in the context of disengagement from gaza. i don't want to be disengenerous, i supposed prime minister sharon, with respect to gaza. we've learned some things from the disengagement plan. unirally december december -- ul

disengagement will not help. if anything, what israel do is give up the bargaining chip that is it contains and possesses without getting something significant in return. and the significant in return, of course, first and foremost are security agreements from the palestinians, from the arab neighbors, from the united states, from the natos, and internationally recognized commitment that israel be the homeland of the jewish people, underline jewish people. but in order to do that, and again, i don't think anyone on this is naive. the israelis, the likelihood of the israelis and palestinians negotiating, a comprehensive agreement is between zero and one percent. closer to zero. the question is what can prime minister netanyahu and the israel he government do to better posture itself so has to

protect it's significant interests going forth in the future. i would argue that this is where prime minister netanyahu and the israeli government should be more forthcoming. they should say what is in their interest. like elliot said, not because it's good for the palestinians. i would argue it's good for israel. for the israelly prime minister to say my borders, my borders. the borders that are best for me and my people are the 1967 borders with significant allowments to make certain that 80% of the jewish-israelis that today live outside of the 67 lines will be within the internationally recognized borders of israeli if he were to simply say that, i know it would be a big gulp, if the israeli prime minister were to do that, he'd not be giving away anything. i would argue, and he would be gaining enormously.

he'd gain enormously here in america, he'd gain enormously internationally, and he would undercut entirely the efforts that will occur in september with respect to a unilateral palestinian declaration by the u.n. and so forth. you know who will tremble if prime minister netanyahu were to make such a mistake -- excuse me. such a statement. [laughter] >> they would tremble in hamas, they would tremble in tehran, and all of the naysayers, all of those that oppose israel's right to exist, and oppose israel as a jewish state, they would tremble. because the calling card that they have too often is the perceived correct or not, the perceived intransient. this is not going to be a israeli jewish state from the

mediterranean to the jordan. the numbers are not there. we can argue we took extraordinary tours pointing out the jewish presence and the jewish history in places far outside of the 67 lines. i would respectfully suggest that we should all agree there was a jewish presence 3,000 years ago in 3300 years ago in the many of the places if the goal is to keep them as a part of the internationally recognized state of israel, that's impossible. >> robert, thank you. before we turn to questions from the web cast audience and you in the room today, i'd like to pose a question. really recenterring on a topic that we wanted to focus on, u.s. policy in the middle east. where should the united states go now on two fronts? one, promoting democratic change, and secondly on

advancing toward israeli peace. do we restart talks. put down a plan. let me start with you elliot. >> first, we need to lead. some of you have led the article in the new yorker where the senior administration official says we are leading from behind. sorry. that's not now the united states can lead the free world and lead the alliance of nation. we lead from up front. we are as madeleine albright once again, indispensable. we need to show leadership. in india, where we need more military pressure. we need to show leadership on syria. syria is an enemy of the united states, a murder and torturer is the president of syria. why do we call for the departure of mubarak, and not the

departure of mossad. it's disgusting. [applause] [applause] >> so leadership, even in the case of syria, nobody is sending troops. it's moral and political leadership. now i think we need to have a reconciliation with israel. let's face it, we've had two rough years. there's no sense of confidence. this is true in the arab world too. when i go to israel, frankly when i go to west bank as well, i hear a sense of a lack of confidence in the united states and where we are. i would not assert ourselves through an american plan. because i think i know what's going to happen when we put forward an american plan. israelis and palestinians are both going to say this is great. thank you very much. but just have a few comments. this is what the israelis did with the road map, 13 comments. where you will be left a week

later, both sides will have said no, and that will make the president look weaker, and none of us benefit when the president of the united states looks weaker. i don't see how that leads to a peace agreement. it seems to me that we should be doing is saying to the pall pal- palestinians, if you want the state, build the state, build from the bottom up, build institutions, a lot of progress has been made. you need to continue that. israel has helped a lot. it needs to help more. the arab states need to help more. there's been a lot of progress who have losened things up in the west bank. we need to be very candid in saying to the palestinians, the way through the state is not through a partnership with terrorists groups. >> thank you, elliot. robert? >> many my last year of congress when arab diplomats would come to my office, they would more

often than not start with how's the health care debate going? i thought maybe that was their polite way of talking to me about something they thought i cared deeply about. i realed after the third or fourth or fifth time, whether it was egypt, bahrain, the health care debate, the health care debate. obviously, they didn't have a stake in words seniors in my hometown for going to pay x in the donut hole for medicare or not. but they have as elliot referenced a great stake in this strength of the american president. and they were calculating this is president going to have a significant domestic, political victory which will then translate possibly into stronger american foreign policy? the reason that i reference it, and i suspect you will hear it from the chief of staff, for a moment, imagine you are barack obama.

and this is your day. i presume, or something like it. the chief of staff and the security people and the intelligence people walk into your office in the morning. i hope the chief of stay is saying, mr. president, the job reports in ohio is x. the auto city is boom. this industry is there. interest rates are that. the chairman said this. the economy, economy, economy, jobs, jobs, jobs. guess what, gasoline prices have topped $4 a gallon. they may hit five. if they do, we have a huge problem. both in terms of economics and politics. then the guy comes in or lady and says, yes, mr. president, we need to do something significant. and the president looks at that brave young man or young women or elderly man or women and says, okay, if i do all of the extraordinary steps, tell me

what's likely to happen. elliot is not wrong. the israeli government is likely to say, no, i think they would take a page out of the of the play book and say, yes, here are the 28 exceptions, drafted by the most extraordinarily schooled lawyers. and the palestinians will do something the same. so what i think the american president needs to do, and i would agree with elliot, what's happening in syria today is -- i would argue, the most significant of the factor that is have occurred so far. why? because if events go in syria in a way that is not beneficial to bashar assad, i'll make one predictions. iran will be next. not necessarily two or four weeks from now. but iran will not escape the chains brewing in the middle east if events in syria unfold in a way that is unhelpful.

people -- the initial reaction with respect to the palestinian or the p.a. and hamas agreement was some in israel said this. this shows how weak abbas is. excuse me. yes. abbas is weak. we all know that. but a few weeks ago, the same people were arguing, oh the events in egypt are going to empower hamas. they will be uncontrollable in terms of their ego. wait a minute. hamas just entered into the agreement. if they thought that their stake was so high, why enter into an agreement in guess what, the hamas guys are looking at syria and they are saying oh no. what's happening to bashar assad. oh no, if he's gone on sunday, or next sunday, or three sundays from now, what's going to happen

in tehran. so they are shaking like a leaf. so the president should enunciate principals. not than american plan. but the president should once and for all, enunciate a set of principals that america can hold it's head high, and then in september when we go to the u.n. and we say to all of the european friends and those all around the world, no, american will not support a unilateral statement, why? because we've enunciated the principals upon which the israelis and palestinians should and must begin the negotiations. not impose anything, but a set of principals upon which to negotiate. >> thank you, robert. [applause] [applause] >> we have a -- we have a fewer named abdallah from the middle east. i'm not sure which country. we've been talking about this, all due respect, can you please stir back the discussion to the

u.s. foreign policy in the middle east and not discuss the best strategy for israel to trick it's opponents. thank you. let me amend that question a little bit. because we've been talking about u.s. policy in the middle east. let's talk about arab attitudes towards israel and ways that u.s. policy can affect the climate for israeli palestinian, more broadly. can we be doing more to encourage a better climate between peace and all of its nay neighbors throughout the region. there are positive examples. but in the past and not too many. please, elliot -- robert. >> the -- bob said the, you know, we need to make peace with people. i was surprised by the degree to which the israelis mourned the passing of power as he's been a

great friend of israeli. the problem is the arab states have used israel. it's bread and circuses. because they delivered nothing but oppression to their own people, they appointed israel. the hope would be democratic governments were legitimate. nobody elected any of those guys. they were just stealing elections. the hope would be with a legitimate government they wouldn't need to do this. they could focus on the development of their own country. and they would stop the spewing out of anti-semitism on state run tv and in textbooks. what we can do, i think, is say to them, say to the new government of tunisia, the new government of egypt when we get to it and i completely agree with bob, the key turning point here is syria. when we get to the next government of syria, the relations with the united states depend on a few critical thing.

this is one of them. we have let the palestinians, egyptians, and others, get away i won't say with murder, but vicious hatred in official documents and books and on government-run tv. now is the time at this moment of change in the middle east for us to say that's over. that has got to come to an end. >> robert? >> thank you, elliot. >> with respect to america's policy in the region, a number of people have talked about a modern-day marshal plan for the middle east. in terms of economic incentives that america might offer our arab friends. times are difficult in america. times are difficult after world war ii, of course, too. i think that while it may not be the degree to which the marshal plan actually affected change in europe, that we ought to look and work in that direction. but some people may not be

aware. we already have some of those tools. probably the most leverage that we had with respect to egypt is not the $2.2 billion that we provide every year, at least have so in the past. it's a concept called the qualified industrial zones which elliot is familiar with. tens of thousands of jobs in egypt are dependent upon their cooperation with israel in terms of their economic interest with america. now the next government in egypt, whether it is one we like, or one that we can stomach, or one we can actually possibly applaud are going to have economic problems that are extraordinary in their scope. and we ought to provide both the admonition if they do not honor their peace treaty with israel, we are not a part of their process. if they do, our qualified industrial zones are but an example of the good things we

can do together to help you grow the economy and answer a chance in the people in the street that put you in power and e -- elected you in the first place. where i disagree a bit with elliot is the administration and american foreign policy with respect to israel and in terms of the bilateral relationship. the security to security relationship between american and israel has never been strong person that's not an easy thing to say. because it has been strong in the past. and in terms of public pronouncements of support in times of need, this administration has been on record time in and time again on the right side of the equation. a few examples if i may. when turkey, a year and a few months invited, they miscalculated. that was four-part exercise. i believe they thought we'd stay out of one. stay out of two.

we are not participating. our european allies, us, leading the way, not from behind but in front then followed our lead. what did we follow with? just a muted statement? no, followed with the largest arrival of american military personnel in the history of state of israel. over 1,000 american soldiers in uniform in the state of israel for three or four weeks, working on anti-missile ballistic exercises. and the security to security arrangement whether you are talking to an israeli official or an american official has been seamless. now again, i'm not an administration official, had there been mistakes? sure. do i think making the issue of settlements and settlement freezes out of the box the way in which the administration did, was that a success? no. asking an israeli prime minister

whether it's a prime minister, or a kadima prime minister to make a recession on jerusalem as part of the opening act? not a good strategy. with respect to security and vetoing the resolution recently at the united nations, with respect to whether we are talking about weapons, or the administration had supported from the congress. whether we are talking about providing the israeli government with the kind of international protection that it justty deserves, the administration has been as good if not better than any. the notion that we continue to debate probably for some political purposes as much respectfully as substantive. whether or not this administration is proisrael. your ad to a certain degree answers it. this country, thank goodness, has had a history with the

unbreakable bond with the state of israel. it's as unbreakable as it is today as when elliot was partly in charge, or anyone else before that. >> thank you, robert. [applause] >> we have a question from the audience which i'd like to read to you as well. how can we promote democracy across the arab world and at the same time, assure israel's security? >> i don't think the two are incompatible at all. first because a lot of the dictatorships which were all illegitimate were using israel as a way of sort of throwing red meat at people in their societies. i think we need to make a real effort on the economy. here i agree with bob. look at egypt. 80 million people. libya is small country.

huge oil well. tunisia, small country. the most important one is egypt. 80 million people and not much in the way of oil and gas. we know from the experience of latin america what happens when you go to democracy? you have elections and then you are disappointed and frustrated. you end up in the populism that we see in venezuela, libya, to a certain extent argentina. it's bad politics and economics. we need to do all that we can to help them economically as well as politically. i'm not in favor of the marshal plan only because -- two reasons. first the marshal plan was a reconstruction of industrialized countries. this would be a very different situation. we're not talking about the czech republic here or france or germany. secondly, we don't have the money. had but i know who does. because i just paid $4.01 a barrel of oil. it's $115 a barrel, and $4.00 a

gallon. they announced $100 billion to buy off their own population in an effort to avoid reform. they have announced it as part of the bahrain and $1 billion for ohman. we need to talk about their responsibilities. obviously, they are not in favor of democracy. not at home and abroad. but they are in favor of a more stable future for the arab world. they are supposedly in favor of the palestinian state. they certainly have the money. through the world bank, imf, we need to talk to them about the responsibilities. i don't think the american taxpayer is going to say it's our job to come up with billions of dollars for egypt, syria, tunisia. they mentioned the qiz. there's a place that we can make

a difference. in trade rather than aid. foreign aid isn't the answer anyway. i want reject the notion that israel is a less safe country if it is surrounded by arab democracies. and the poll data that comes from egypt suggest that people don't want a war with israel. they don't like israel. they don't like jews. they don't want a war. the egyptian army doesn't want the war. they understand if they get into any kind of conflict, investment, tourism disappears, they will go spiraling down into greater poverty. i think there's reason to be optimistic about the changes, particularly, bob and i here are in complete agreement. if assad goes, it is the beginning of a gigantic change. it does lead to tehran. >> thank you. elliot? >> i agree. i would go actually in some directions where we haven't

talked even further. the notion that israeli security has somehow muturely exclusive from the growth of democracy in the arab world needs to be rejected entirely. in fact, i would argue that converse. if you are of the belief that israeli society and israeli security is better off being surrounded by the whims of nations determined by one man, then we'll never have one woman there, but one man, i would respectfully suggest that your ideology is more danger with respect to the security of the state of israel than anything any government official could ever identify and implement. because long term it will fail. and it will fail miserably. does having confidence in democracy mean it's going to be smooth sailing. buzz it mean we're going to

applause those that win elections? i'll bet more often than not we are deeply concerned with the election results. they said they hope the people they support needs the first election. if democracy works the way it's supposed to, the people that win the first flexion egypt -- first election in egypt are going to rebel in the ballot box in a significant way. hope for the second election for the good guys and women to come aboard. but the one thing we haven't talked about which i think is essential is america's relationship with turkey, and israeli relationship with turkey. there is, in fact, another democracy in the middle east. and it is a moderate democracy with an overwhelmingly majority muslim population. and while america's relationship with israel -- with respect to turkey is very strong in certain

respects, in terms of cooperation in iraq, in afghanistan, and in other key parts of the region, it has been strained in orrs. and certainly israel's relationship with turkey has been strained to an extraordinary degree. turkish elections. yes, elections occur in june. subsequent to those elections, i would suggest our foreign policy in america. one the top priorities so ensure stability, to ensure security in in region, both for america's benefit, israel's benefit, and turkey's benefit is to make priority number one repairing the relationship between turkey and israel. because that actually can be an extraordinarily important anchor for all of the commotion and change that is about to come after. >> thank you, robert. obviously one the questions on restoring that relationship normalizing that relationship will have to do with the subject of iran. but that is not the subject of this debate right now. we only have a few minutes left.

so in i think the last question i have your someone in jere jer- jerusalem, if hamas and fattah come to an agreement, will that help or hinder the campaign that they are pursuing to seeking unilateral recognition of statehood and independence? >> it cuts boths way. it can be argued what do you mean they are going to have a state. how can they have a state and declare a state when it's two states. it's completely divided. so this is a partial answer the palestinians can give. no, we are on the way to unity now. we have come together. they may try to keep the agreement until september in an effort to have the answer to the question. on the other hand, it's unity fattah or the ph in a terrorists

group. and the reaction is israel is clear. the reaction in congress is reasonably clear. if hamas or changing and meeting the conditions, that's one thing. but how do you support a state with the participation of a -- excuse me, terrorists group in the government. so i think it cuts both ways. i think it makes it a lot harder for prime minister netanyahu. for example, and i'll just end with this, the -- i wrote an article a couple of weeks ago after returns from jerusalem, suggesting that israel should get ahead of the curve. he mentioned the 67 borders with agreed swap. if the president says the basis is going to be 67 borders with agreed swap, i don't understand why it's important for israel to say this is catastrophe. rather than saying great, we all agree. there will be no return to the 67 borders.

it's so great that we agree on that. take advantage of it. i said the same thing about the u.n.. if the u.n. is clearly going to go for palestinian state, why do you want to go around saying this is the greatest catastrophe. this is the worst defeat that israel is going to suffer. you were going to turn it into a meaningful defeat that will help the radical forces. why doesn't israel say you know what, last week chile recognized, i recognize. israel recognized. people will say what does it mean? i don't know. what does it mean when chile did it? you defang is. you leech some of the poison out of it. [laughter] [applause] >> but i have to say -- it's harder this week and it's harden. how do you do this as an reaction to the an agreement between fattah and pa, and unreconstructed violent terrorists group. if you say that's important,

let's forget about that. i think it does cut both ways. it's a huge complication for israel and for the united states. bob and i were talking before i came out here. i said to them, i don't know how bb writes a speech now, expect having little modules. >> thank you, elliot. robert please. >> i hate to disappoint you, but, i agree. of course, i'll go further. [laughter] >> to answer the question specifically, it depends. it depends, i think, in great part whether or not fattah and hamas really do create unity and what that unity actually means when it's implemented, but also it's highly depended on what we in the united states do between now and september, and even more important what israel does between now and september. with respect to the israeli

reaction, i understand it, i agree with it, but the quick israeli quote was fattah, the palestinian authority will have to make a choice. a choice between hamas or peace with us. agreed. yes. a palestinian entity that does not reject violence, and does not recognize the state of israel, that does not agree to the past agreements will not make peace with israel. america will not recognize it. agreed. but that's not a policy. that's not smart thinking. smart thinking is, okay, let's think, these two warring factions, fattah and hamas, have just potentially entered into an agreement. there maybe meaningful palestinian elections in roughly a year. what can the friends in israel do in the upcoming 12 months and what can we do in america in the

upcomes 12 months to help those that participate in the election that will promote policies that will be beneficial to israel and to america? to peace in the region, and to the rightful -- the rightful demands to the palestinian people for dignity and respect. :

and that person gave me an answer that i didn't expect, which was the mt. of olives has of course extraordinary jewish tradition, history and meaning and it can't ever be separated and the jewish people and the jewish state. on the other hand, it is very difficult to imagine that if he you were too in to in fact draw a border how you would get all the way over here to include it in wester islam or the israeli jewish capital. i said well, how do you bridge that? he said look at this convention center on top of the hill. there is a little hotel there that is right above the mt. of olives. and he said that looks like a perfect place for the israeli embassy to the mill -- new palestinian state and guess what the mt. of olives should be the

garden of the israeli embassy. [laughter] now that is the kind of creativity and that is the kind of reaction that we in america and our friends in israel ought to be providing as this extraordinary exchanges whipping through the nation. >> robber, thank you. [applause] we have time now -- thank you. we have time to sum up and we are going to begin with you elliott for a couple of minutes and then you robert for a couple minutes. >> first thank you for having me. desires a great pleasure to meet with members and officials in the agency which is the great american jewish organization and everyone in the u.s. government has always known and continues to understand it. this is a moment of unbelievable turbulence in the middle east. it has gone further than anyone

had predicted that it is a moment of tremendous opportunity and i want to close on a hopeful note. israel's great enemy in the region is iran. the only state that says we want to eliminate the state of israel and there is in accidents between iran, syria, hezbollah and hamas. hamas headquarters is still in damascus. syria, iran's only arab ally, the way in which iran ships arms to hezbollah. the middle east really changes a lot if that regime falls. you are not going to get a worse regime. certainly are not going to get a more brutal vicious and despicable regime in human rights terms. this is a 74% sunni country. with hezbollah and with iran. these are huge developments for the security of the united states and of israel. this is the first major defeat

for iran. this is the beginning i think and i agree with bob, this is the beginning of the end of the end may take years but it is the beginning of the end for the ayatollah because they know their own population despises that regime. in this turmoil and turbulence which makes the israelis very nervous. when i was over there i suggested there is some of this reason to be hopeful and the israelis responded hare you live 5000 miles away. we live here. is very nerve-racking. it is nerve-racking. and we may see lots of setbacks. not every air countries going to move in a revolution to democracy but there are tremendous opportunities here to improve, i wouldn't even say in the long run, in the medium run. israel situation in the region, run situation in the region to bring about the fall of the horrible regime in tehran and replace it with a democracy.

the building block for all of this has got to be american is racing -- american israeli relations. here bob and i have a disagreement because military-to-military are terrific. i really agree with bob have never been better. political relations are not so good. relations between the president and prime minister have been a lot better and a lot of administrations. we need to do better in the coming two years. we need to improve those relations. we need to solidify them. we need to make it clear to the arabs and the europeans that the alliance between the united states and israel is completely unshakable and will remain the key building block for israeli security and security and democracy in the middle east. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, elliott. robert. >> i am hopeful. i am hopeful because as

americans and for our friends in israel, the strength of democracy is so layered and so pervasive throughout a society that we can weather storms. as many times as i have been her out yad vashem i wish i could have been a fly on the wall in which i imagined there was the debate on how to end this exhibit in yad vashem. when you go through the halls of horror and the history and the end of course is the open view. i was just there last week, springtime, extraordinary greenery of hope and promise and what a people with determination and ambition can do. that determination and ambition

is not unique to americans. it is not unique to israelis. and i think war than anything our policy and our consciousness should respect the dignity of those people in the world and in this case in the middle east who today do not enjoy dignity. and it should be our efforts in america and israeli priority as well to give and help those people achieve dignity. and a dignified man, a dignified woman is far less likely to create a violent or a problematic situation for you, for me and or our friends in israel and this will not be without ups and downs and it will not be without risk. but i happen to think that we are living in what may be the most hopeful time that the

middle east has seen arguably in the history in the context of modern history. and before you react sometimes two events and say oh i am afraid of the change, which is perfectly reasonable and prudent to do, i think you should remind yourself that the ultimate goal is to create a scenario where there are more winners and less losers and with respect to the israeli-palestinian conflict, that is why i so fundamentally believe that forthrightness and a bit of courage on behalf of the american president and the israeli prime minister will actually be rewarded in a far greater fashion than any of us

will rationally believed. elliott points out history, which showed differently and that is correct. but i would argue that we are in a historical moment where great leadership whether it be in washington or jerusalem or other areas is required, and that great leadership will at times require defying conventional wisdom. thank you for having me. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you robert. thank you elliott. please stay their places for@ another second. please remain seated. i would like to tank or c-span audience and their webcast audience drawn from across the globe and for taking part in this informative debate. please do join us again for additional webcast session. please pick up a copy of today's "wall street journal" and read our ads.

for more information visit hjc.org. thank you all. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen please remain in your seat. our next session will be starting momentarily. >> ladies and gentlemen welcome to this morning session. please take your seats and welcome to the stage lorna fitzsimons, rafael bardaji and

allen. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen i would like to welcome you, those of you in the audience as well as those on our global webcast and those that will be viewing us on c-span two this session this morning. our session this morning is entitled, delegitimization, the global assault on israel. i am allard rich. i chaired a jc international relations commission and as i told the panelists the less i say in the more they say the more i think we will get out of this program. joining me for this panel today are gidi grinstein, rafael

fitzsimons the executive director of the friends of israel initiative and from spain and from the u.k., lorna fitzsimons chief executive of bicom, the britain is ripped medications and research center. before we begin our discussion, we have a brief introductory video to help frame our discussion. >> delegitimization a word that is has come to signify their political media and ideological assault on israel's very right to exist. it is a campaign that predates the creation through a u.n. resolution of the jewish state. many of the tactics we see todae jewish connection to the land of israel, the portrayal of zionism as a form of colonialism were

adopted by arab leaders in the decades before israel declared its independence. >> palestine is rocked by full-scale war is the new jewish state is born. >> as israel struggle to survive in its early years, it called for its elimination. following the 1967 arab-israeli war, the soviet union led the propaganda campaign against israel culminating in the notorious u.n. general assembly resolution of 1975, later rescinded touting zionism as racism. today it is a complex network of ngos, the adl that's an extremist activists that is leading the charge against israel. that the message is the same, israel's existence is the original sin. across the world like seattle, london and madrid and cape town as well as across the arab and

muslim world, anti-israelite activist push boycotts, violent demonstrations and the ultimate lutemack that israel is the reincarnation of apartheid south africa. our panel today asks, how can we we -- against this? >> the format this morning will be questions and answers and discussion with the panel for the first half-hour or so. i will be asking the questions but then it will be you, both the people in the audience as well as on the webcast. so let us begin. gidi i would like to ask you the first question which is a general question of what are the roots of this whole delegitimization campaign that is occurring in the western world? >> first of all thank you and it is a great pleasure to be here this morning with ajc which is

uniquely situated to play a critical role in this campaign against the assault on israel's legitimacy and i am very honored to be here with you. you know it was mentioned in the movie that the basic arguments about israel and zionism has existed for a century and the bias is over focused on the land of israel, the holy land that existed for a century as well. it has to do with religious focus, viewed this as their holy land it has to do with colonial -- of our former imperial friends, lorna from london. [laughter] tomorrow the real wedding. all of the ladies will be watching. all of these basic elements existed in the question i believe you are asking is what has made all of these sort of

explode over the last few years so i would like to point to a few of the trends that convergef these trends that have allowed this assault on israel's legitimacy to take such a volume and have such an impact on israel. first and foremost i would say that new technology like social media that allows people to come together in new ways, we are seeing arab and modern communities in europe much bigger and much more assertive and aggressive. we are seeing the radical left following the collapse of white south african looking for a new cause. we are seeing a wave of very strong anti-american feelings over the last decade especially around the second iraq war and israel is sort of -- there is collateral damage. there is also the element of the

weakness of the israeli response we have been very late in the game. we have been laid in understanding this bum him on the mac, organizing ourselves in responding to it. there's also the crisis in the jewish institutions. we are seeing a decline in institutions ability to create a collective response that that is weekend and last but not least i will say there is also i believe the crisis in the level of israel's education within our community. for too long we have taken the support of the jewish community for granted. we have not invested in education and members of the community so many of these people when they go to colleges and they confront a direct assault on israel that is fact-based, our lines crumbled and they have a very hard time offering a robust response to this assault and the support for israel a roads accordingly so we are seeing all of these trends

toward a converged over the last few years to what probably this room and many others that belong to the community could view as an assault that already has strategic implications for the state of israel which could be existential if we ignore them. this is the time this year as was said earlier during the movie for us to turn the tables and begin to respond in sort of a systemic and systematic manner to move into the office. >> lorna, rafael you live in cities that are at the hub of the delegitimization movement. what have you perceived? >> it is very interesting. i am not jewish. i come from a little village that is very unfriendly to any newcomer whatsoever, and i never

knew a jewish person until i went to college. and so, why am aa gentile atheist zionist? because, when i was on my political journey when i first went to college, i met a group called young jewish students and non-jewish students who understood the secular roots of zionism and the history rooted in the european left. and it was permissible for me to assume she wasn't sure for relationship with organized religion although i'm a woman of faith to actually understand the jewish people, a people, a

nationhood, and if i believed in my rights as a national group of people for self-determination i should therefore confer on the jewish exactly the same rights. and the problem is that there is not enough people that understand that very very simple but crucial political., and therefore it allows for confusion and perceptions on behalf of israel's true enemy, and i think we should all be clear, israel's true enemy, the people that are both anti-semitic and anti-zionist or both lots together and are actually small in number. but there is a smoke and mirrors game that is conflated -- issues of being completed. there is a perception that the tide is moving away from israel and therefore it makes people question their previous

judgments and so when a situation happens like a flotilla they become more prey to the -- of our enemies. the other issue is an issue not about israel but about those in the west which is a crisis of confidence. for britain is post-colonial guilt. it has to do with post-iraq crisis of moral authority and so a lot of what is being projected in the arena of britain on to the debate on israel does actually got nothing to do with israel and everything to do with our crisis and our own identity, and we will be playing our enemies game if we conflate all these people and all these issues into one big delegitimization camp. there are delegitimized respectably do them more service if we paint them bigger than we are.

there is the hard-core and as gidi has rightly pointed out in the brilliant report on delegitimization and there is a soft fellow traveler and we need to get that are not actually understanding the core constituency of that are the soft vote and peeling them off because we have the argument, we know they work, we know what works because in the sentences in britain we were fighting motions of zionism equals racism after the u.n. vote on our campuses and we brought back movements to be friends of israel. so we have been here before to some degree and therefore we have to have confidence and courage both in our own argument and our ability at the good sense of ordinary people that they will be receptive to a well put argument.

>> rafael? >> i agree. i think what we are facing is a war of a different time. it is not the war of 48, the 50s were the 70s or the terror of the -- it is a war against the idea of israel and its existence. as lorna also mentioned delegitimization of israel also means delegitimizing what we are in the west because we share the same values. we share the same goals and visions for a political system, opportunities, dignity, human rights so when israel is put on the spot ultimately western civilization will be conveyed as well. you mentioned that there are increasing communities in europe, industrial and unless we

realize europeans particularly that israel is an integral part of the western civilization in the western world, we will be having a difficult task to explain why it is impossible to trade off the security and peace in israel. we must defend ourselves because israel is on the frontline of -- that that is why it is so important for non-jewish white myself to stand up in europe and say israel has the right to persist. >> the universal nature of the challenge you are talking about i think resonates with a great many of us. i want to go back to a point that you made lorna which was specifically that the actual core of delegitimization movement is relatively small. the people that you would

characterize as truly anti-semitic and anti-zionist. are they coordinating this effort? is there any conscious coordination going on, and if so, who is it that is coordinating it? >> i mean i think gidi's report outlines a lot of the connectivity's and they are better organized over the last 20 years. they have learned dramatically and ironically they have learned from the self organization within and they revere how the community organizes. i was a member of parliament in britain for eight years, represent my hometown which has a very significant south asian population from pakistan, kashmir and bangladesh and i still live in my hometown. the conversations often happen which is a great irony to my jewish community friends, where they revere, not as in -- etc.

but they say why can't we be organized? why are we so pathetic at putting our case while it doesn't feel like it from our side, but they think that we have or phrase in the north of england. it is very difficult and they don't think that they are very effective but the truth is that what they have done is they have been very very good just like state actors are and applying and adapting. they are opportunists. they are like good sailors. they smell a changing wind and they capitalized on it and a problem that we have instead our architecture both in america and in europe is established like supertankers, like government and that is why israel finds it hard and as you know this stage and it is very similar to the organized jewish community

versus basically the young organization that are capitalizing on defense. win in britain for example there was a huge war in spain, movements around the iraq war, they realize that there was the ability to recruit from that space for their reasons. so as always with these organizations they have really and infiltrators. they are actually like past masters at making friends. when i was -- and the problem is we are actually not as good as we think we are at making friends because we say how high is -- am i truly a friend of the state of israel? can i really be trusted? it took me 20 years to get to the stage of being truly absolutely trusted and i had to lose my parliamentary seat to do

it on the issue of supporting israel. my jewish friend said to me we know you are a friend, do what you need to do. so, in terms of where it comes from, it is a longtime studying what we do, applying it and using world events as our position and the electors within britain and within europe and that -- [inaudible] >> lead to my next question but before he do so i would like to remind the audience that we have distributed cards and if you have questions to ask please fill in the cards at this point in time and they will be collected and likewise with regard to our webcast audience, hit the submit question but if you would like to submit a question. my follow-up question is, each of you is a director of an organization that speaks to this

issue, that is tries to address this issue and countered the delegitimization efforts. i would appreciate it if you could spend briefly a couple of moments each scribe in your organization and what are what you are doing and maybe gidi i can start with you. >> strategy and impact group in tel aviv, our role in this assistance, the system of the state of israel is to identify areas where there is a strategic gap, understand the reason for the gap, offering a vision or a new path for progress and then work to create basic momentum to see change, to see transformative change. the context of this issue delegitimization, our involvement in this started in the summer of 06. i'm sure you all remember this summer and the big frustrations

that any of us had with the performance of the state of israel and his confrontation with hezbollah. when you listen to the israeli government you could have concluded that the frustrations of the summer of 2006 were now part of the confluence of technical problems, command-and-control, logistics, intelligence, the training of officers and so on. we looked at it from with our tools and we concluded that actually the war exposed that the national security, the security approach of israel has been exposed as failing and relevance which means the other side, hezbollah, iran has developed an approach that allows them to frustrate israeli military superiority through the use of military tactics and diplomatic -- and 80 and diplomatic approach and the outcome of the war was a sort of

undecided. so from that moment, we understood that there is a problem here that is much bigger than anything we have known before. israel came with the mentality of pr, hezbollah and they came with his whole campaign of the legitimacy so that our work was to understand the logic of their operation and then to devise principles and guidance for their response. after we had done that, and by the way a lot of this work was an inland because very quickly we understood that london is the hub of hubs of the delegitimization -- delegitimization campaign so we route meeting dozens of people to try to understand what was going on. we have been working to create a coalition that could transform the response with many other great organizations and groups and by the way one of them is

the ajc this coming weekend with access 2020. our role is to do the diagnostic analysis to be the catalyst for the response. >> rafael. >> it is a project that was launched a year ago. actually the same day that -- was stopped by the ibf in a meeting. is a group of, small group of people chaired by the former president of spain that includes names like laura trimble, the former peruvian president and the former president of the czech republic among many others [inaudible] the goal is basically to defend israel. it is not any particular party

or specific policy. it is our goal to protect them in a positive way as a kind of of --. it is a wonderful opportunity a land of opportunity and we have tried to spread our message in a very small sins niche let's say in the market. we are not a grassroots movement. we are not a think-tank that will we try to do is to help current leaders to avoid major mistakes in in decisions. to give you an example, when the former president lula started last december to propose an american blog to recognize the palestinian state and the 67

borders, we took a delegation of the initiative and we toured all of the countries in latin america to try to explain why be considered that a mistake for the peace process benefit. so we try to help those who were -- to avoid making mistakes. it was the way of doing our business. >> lorna. >> bicom is a not-for-profit organization. our mission helps to create a more port of the environment in the way we do that is focusing on the policy. people who form opinions in the media and people who are opinion for --. for example we are the home to what goes with empirical data on what britain thinks of israel and related