election. isn't that hilarious? [inaudible conversations] >> the oldest person i have ever known the. [inaudible conversations] ..

>> thank you for having me. i spent, oh, months at the truman library about five or six years ago. i think the last time i stayed in kansas city was in 2000 for the carnahan/ashcroft election. [laughter] one of the strangest events in the history of american politics. [laughter] glad to be back here again. i know that this is talking about truman and israel is like talking about the last time that the kansas city royals won the world series. [laughter] and i have to warn you that i may disappoint you, because i'm going to go around this in a kind of circuitous way. we'll get to the truman at the

end, but we're going to start much further back, about 70 years before. let me say first something about how i came to write this book, because i kept having to ask myself as i was doing it why i was writing it. [laughter] i wanted to write a book about the arab-israeli conflict. i was concerned that i hadn't been a reporter and done the daily work, but i also worried that in writing about that conflict and about how, about the conflict in the present i would get into a kind of he said/she said dynamic that you sometimes find in divorce hearings -- [laughter] where you get into a question of who fired, whether the rocket was fired before the assassination, who really started the second intifada, in other words, with there really is no resolution, and the

argument just goes back and forth. and i thought the way around that was to look at the history, and in particular to look at the truman years, because that's really the beginning. that's when america became involved in the arab-israeli conflict. and i thought that i could see from there how it came to me that the conflict itself had lasted 50, 60 years, not been resolved, and the united states had not been very effective in trying to reconcile the two parties. perhaps i thought in looking at the truman years, i could find that. that's how i started, i started with a pretty blank slate of what happened there. the only thing was that as i proceeded, what i found was that in those years -- and we're talking about 1945-1948 -- those are the years when people learned about the holocaust. those are the years when people learned that the nazis had killed six million jews.

and that fact alone, deservedly so, overshadowed everything. and it made it very hard for the people at that time, and it's made it very hard for historians ever since to understand both sides of the conflict, and particularly the arab side of the conflict and why they were so angry in that period. so what i thought of doing and what i was driven to do was going backwards and to try to provide a setting for the truman, a setting in which truman himself found himself in 1945 when he took office. so i want to say a little to gun with about that -- to begin with about that, what the setting was, how this conflict began. to do that, you really have to go back to the 1880s. zionism starts in the pale of settlement which is the area on the edge of the russian empire where jews were allowed to live

and where the greatest concentration of jews was in europe. jews were treated as an alienation, and zionism really arose as a movement with the idea that insofar as jews were an alienation, they would be better off having a real nation. a real nation to which they could go, to which they could find refuge so that they could no longer be lodged these various countries as aliens. that was really the heart of the idea, original idea of zionism. it was an idea of national liberation in that sense. but it was an idea of national liberation for a people that didn't yet have a nation. that's the positive side of zionism. the problem was that the country that the psi itemmist -- zionist

movement which begins in the 1880s, immigration starts in the 1890s, the countries that the zionists chose to immigrate to was where one already loved. i'll give you a rough estimate that a lot of demographers would agree that it was an agricultural lawyer in palestine. jewish population's about 4% or 5% at most. about 10% arab-christian, the rest arab muslim. the arabs had lived there since the year 600, so for 1300 years. the three peoples got along reasonably well, but what happened was that when zionists began emigrating

unable to determine their own destiny or have to leave. so that's the basis. and if you look at that period, you'll understand a lot of the arab grievance. it goes on, of course. you can go back, you can go up to 1947 when the united nations decides to partition palestine to. it's about 30% jewish, 70% arab. the proposal for partition is 56% jewish, 40% arab and the rest,4%, under u.n. control. after the war, 19 t 48, it was 78/22. after 1967 the west bank and gaza are occupied.

so, in effect, that grievance remains. now, what about the zionism? if you look now at that period up to, let's say, 1924, 925 or so -- 1925 or so, the kind of justifications for a people settling in palestine are either biblical, you have to believe, again, that people who lived someplace in the hundreds and hundreds and even thousands of years before have the right to settle there and reestablish their own state, or they're in of a kind that the jews are going to bring civilization to us, to a barbarous people. what changes in 1925. >> what givers zionism a moral justification that to some extent it didn't happen before? two things happen. the first thing that happens is that immigration to the west gets cut off.

1924 in the united states immigration raws -- same things happened over the next ten years in europe, south america, south africa. and there 1880 -- from 1880 to world war i when to poe grams and the czar would come into jewish settlements and kill people and burn down synagogues, there was tremendous immigration. 2.5 million people left the pale of settlement. 2.55 million jews in that time. 1.2 million came to the united states. 30,000 went to palestine. so what i'm trying to say is that up until 1924, the united states was, in effect, israel. it was the place where jews who were oppressed in europe could

go to. that gets cut off, and that's incredibly important event. the second thing that happens, as you all know, is in 1933 the nazis take power. and not only the nazis take power, but in the surrounding central european and eastern european countries, antisemituck parties gain a foothold -- anti-semitic parties gain a foothold. you get, over the next six years, jews attempting to flee central, eastern europe but not having anywhere to go and looking toward palestine at that point as a safe haven, as a refuge. so now jump up to the period of 1945 or so. on the one hand, arabs' grievance, not wanting -- the arabs at this point have gone to war against the jews, they've gone to war against the british, they've failed.

they were desolated in the late 1930s by the british during the arab rebellion there. leaders exiled. immense bitterness. a feeling that the leaders at this point what they wanted was not some kind of, not just simply an our wrap astronaut and not just -- arab state and not just stop immigration, but there were proposals to basically deport everybody who had come after world war i. that's one side. jews at this point feeling a tremendous urgency that they had to have someplace where other jews could go. and that included the refugees from naziism, but it also included the possibility -- which in 1946 didn't seem so farfetched -- of another hitler, of another, you know, starting all over again someplace else. so both sides were locked into a kind of mortal combat.

now, up until 1945 the british were the many charge. palestine was a british colony. they created palestine. and they were, they were responsible, in effect, for holding the two sides apart. the british come out of world wd war ii incredibly weakened. they lose most of their fleet, they have enormous debt, they have problems in india. they basically have to get rid of their empire. and palestine is part of their empire. so they want to get out at this point. who is left? who is stuck with as a major outside power with trying to do something? the united states. the united states before that completely deferred to the british. under roosevelt it was a british problem. 1945 harry truman comes to office in this april, and suddenly it's an american problem. and america becomes responsible,

along with the british and then solely responsible as the main outside power to try to resolve this conflict between the arabs and the jews. so that's the kind of incredible dilemma that truman inherits when he comes into office in 1945. now, how did truman approach the issue? there were two things, i think, and one is, one is pretty obvious and the other isn't. the first thing was that true 23457b was -- truman was always afy who saw the world -- a guy who saw the world in terms of underdogs and bullies, and there was nobody more of a bully than the nazis. if you read his speeches in the '40s, most of them were put

wooden. he was not a great orator. i hesitate to say that in kurtz -- [laughter] but -- kansas city. but i came upon in 1943 about the nazis and what they'd done to the jews. and there's a passage there that you just don't find in a lot of his other speeches, felt that passion thoughtly. and in 1945 passionately believed that the refugees of the -- they were called displaced persons at the time. the jewish refugees in europe should be allowed to go to palestine. so that's one side. the other thing that truman believes -- and this is the thing that's not, i think, fully appreciated, is he was not this favor of the idea of a jewish or an our wrap state. he was -- arab state. he was a jeffersonian democrat. he believed that different races and religions should get along

with each other, even if it was difficult. he attributed all the wars and chaos in europe to a religious rivalry. he wanted, he wanted in palestine something where both sides would be reconciled. what he favored was a confederation where there would be different parts, there were jewish and different parts were arab but then a common legislature, or a binational state. he didn't have a, he didn't have a say in august of 1945 any specific scheme in mind. but what he did insist upon was that he didn't like the idea of a jewish state or an arab state. and when jewish -- zionist leaders calm to visit him, he -- came to visit him, he would say that, to their dismay. what he tried to do during that

period was to work out with the british the idea of a arrangement by which the jews spotlight arabs -- and the arabs could live in a federation, the british would remain in control of foreign policy until such a time, you know, five years, ten years when the two sides could get together, and at that point it would become ad the rated commonwealth d fed rated -- federated commonwealth and that was to be done through something called the british-american committee. and the report that calm out of that -- that came out of that was called the brady-morrison proposal. and that was for a federated palestine. it's going to come up, i'm going to read you different passages where he refers to that.

so let he repeat once more so i get this straight what truman's reasons were, what his worries were, what his qualms were about a jewish wish/-- jewish/arab state. the first, he thought it wouldn't be fair, that both sides should have their due. but the second you'd call it now geopolitical. he was worried that if such a state, if a jewish or arab state were imposed, it would lead to conflict, and the conflict itself would inevitably draw in the united states, might also draw in the soviet union. at one point he accused the zionist leaders of wanting to start world war iii. so those were his two worries.

now, let me talk about what happens then to truman after he devises this idea. truman's idea was that if he could convince the british to allow the j is ews -- the jews into palestine, the jews in the displaced camp, it would kind of let off the steam, it would take all the energy out of zionism in palestine. this was completely mistaken, of course. and the jews in palestine would no longer want a jewish state, they would in longer care. that was his strategy. so august 1946 you get the grady-morrison proposal. let the jews into palestine, but no state con federation. truman encounters at that point

um -- immense opposition this the united states, particularly from the zionist movement. now, the zionist movement in the united states was quite strong in that period. the jewish vote was much more important vote than it is now. the jewish vote was decisive of in new york. it was also important in maryland, ohio, pennsylvania, illinois. elections were coming up in november of 1946, critical elections as it turned out. those were the congressional elections where democrats got swept out of office. truman was very worried about that. pressure comes in early august, and he just gives up. he says i can't do it, there's too much -- i don't have sufficient support. and he gives up the idea of the grady of morrison plan -- grady-morrison plan. what happens at that point as you look at truman is you get a kind of a bifurcation.

you get two harry trumans. one harry truman continues to operate on a practical level, and the other harry truman on a psychological level. let me talk about, first, the practical. in practical terms, truman to a great extent loses interest in the issue after august 1946. i hate to tell you this, but it's true. and he cedes control over the issue to the state department. the state department makes proposals that are anathema to the zionist movement, so what happens is you get a clash between them, truman is finally dragged in, and truman makes various decisions. but he himself, he's making decisions and then trying to withdraw. he keeps trying to stay out of the conflict. he gives up on the idea of, practically speaking, of a federated palestine, but he

still tries to apply the same principles. in the united nations when the proposal for partition comes up in 1947 for partitioning palestine into a jewish and an arab state, he tries to make the proportions fairer to the arabs than they were. not 56/40, but something more closer to 50/50. pressure come, he gives up. after the state is recognized, psalm thing on -- same thing on the refugees and borders. he starts -- he makes, he will make attempts to try to resolve conflict and then withdraw. so it's not, it's not a kind of picture that you would get if you look at the truman of the cold war, the decisive buck stops here truman. the other side of it is the side that's really peculiar, and we're talking about the psychological side here.

throughout this whole period, truman remains welded to the -- wedded to the idea of a federated palestine and to the grady-morrison plan. he keeps telling him who come visit him, and hume going the read you a -- i'm going to read you a few things to convince you i'm not making this all up. he recognizes the state of israel on may 14, 1948. okay? may 15th he writes bardly crumb, a newspaper man who had been pressuring him to recognize israel. he says: you, of course, are familiar with all the effort put forth by me to get a peaceable and satisfactory settlement of the palestine question. i am still hoping for just that. i think the report of the british-american commission on palestine was the correct solution, and i think eventually

we are going to get it worked out just that way. so you know what he's talking about there. may 18th, that's four days later. he writes dean -- another person who was pressuring him named dean alfonse: my sole objective in the palestine procedure has been to prevent bloodshed. the withdraw things look today, we apparently have not been very successful. nobody in this country has given the problem more time and thought than i have. then he goes, and here we go. in 1946 when the british-american commission on palestine was appointed and mr. bevin who was the british foreign secretary had made an agreement with me that he would accept the finding of that commission, i thought we had the problem solved. but the emotional jews of the united states and the equally emotional arabs in egypt and syria prevented that settlement

from takes place. i sincerely hope that sanity will come to both sides so that a peaceful approach could be made to a settlement which should have been worked out by the british 20 years ago. truman blames different parties for this happening. well, one more anecdote. so september, that's, what, four or five, five months later. he gets a visit in the white house from the jewish war veterans, and the leader was a guy named general julius klein. truman expected a kind of routine visit where he would be asked to appear at a conference, and he would say, yes, and they would shake hands and out the door. but to his surprise, klein presented him with a list of demands that he wanted truman to do including ending the arms embargo on the israelis.

and i'll just read you what happens from my own book. truman was taken aback. he said defensively that he was the best friend the jews had in america. and then he said something that clearly shocked klein and the delegation. he complained to the jewish war veterans that he and the british foreign secretary, ernest b be evin, had agreed on the best possible solution for palestine, and it was the zionists when killed that plan by their opposition. now, i'm not confirming his judgment. i'm not saying that he was right or wrong, but i just want you to understand that truman was a very divided man. and after august 1946, he approached the issue in a very what i put a bifurcated way, operating on two levels. on one level he continued to want a federated pal student and thought that was the just --

palestine and thought that was the just solution and is solution that would be least likely to lead to war and rebellion. but on a practical level, he kept acceding to, basically, what the zion u.s. movement wanted -- can zionist movement wanted. that's truman. now, what can we say, finally, about him and about his decision? on the practical level, truman really had no choice but to recognize israel. the only way conceivable in which he could have achieved a federated palestine or even a different kind of partition in 1947 was to have agreed to send american troops to palestine to enforce an agreement. there was just in other way. american troops would have had

to replace the british, they would have had to stand between the jews and the arabs, they might have had to stand there for a decade, maybe they'd still be with there, for all we know. truman was absolutely not willing to do that. in 1945 he wasn't willing to do that was america was demobilizing from the war. 1948, berlin airlift middle of cold war, worried to death, completely beoccupied by -- preoccupied by europe, not by pal student at that point. -- palestine at that point. and completely unwilling to contemplate sending troops to the middle east when the possibility loomed of a major war in europe with the soviet union. so without that it's hard to imagine. the state department had this fantasy that they could get the british to stay there, and they kept sending people over to convince the british to stay. and the british kept saying, well, listen, didn't we tell you

before that we're not willing to do it? really, if you look at the papers, it's almost comical because it just, it keeps happening every few weeks. the state department wouldn't take no pause they didn't see -- because they didn't see any other alternative. if not that, then there would have to be a state. so there really wasn't any realistic alternative to the outcome that occurred which was a jewish astronaut at the time, the -- state at the time. the decimation of the palestinian-arabs. they become part of jordan, and the king says the word palestine has to disappear from all textbooks. so i just don't see the, i don't see either that the recognition was a mistake or that truman's idea of a federation was realistic. but now let me look at it from

another standpoint. if you look at truman's underlying principles and what he was worried about and his qualms, they resonate down the decades. first of all, he wanted a settlement. leave aside the federation question or binational or whatever. he wanted a settlement that was fair to the arabs as well as the jews. that was very important. secondly, he feared that if there wasn't a settlement like that, there would be war, there'd be riots, there'd be rebellion. i mean, that had been happening since 19 -- basically, since 1920 in palestine. i think he was right in both those respects. i think that his impulses, his initial impulses were absolutely correct. his practical sense of how to do it, well, it didn't work this the circumstances.

the lesson i draw from this history has nothing to do really with 1948, it has to do with now; which is to say that we are now in a situation where, a recurring situation where both on a moral and is a eye yo political -- geopolitical basis it's important for us to do something about the conflict between the israelis and the palestinians. morally it's important to do something, and i think, again, going back to what i said in the beginning about zionism, the 1880s, 1890s, it's important to understand the arab side of this and to understand that they have legitimate grievances and that the jews, the zionists got a state, the palestinians don't have it. and i would like to see american policy recognize that and take that seriously. second, the geopolitical side. you know, we could argue in the

certain times in the 1980s, for instance, that israel was an important ally in the cold war, maybe during the war on terror, no question that the united states should be friendly to israel. but it's in our interests at this point to resolve that conflict. it just breeds instability in the region. it's a kind of organizing tool for terrorists who end up, you know, coming here and trying to do stuff. so it's very much, it's very much not only in our moral interests, but in our geopolitical interests to do something. and that's the lesson that i draw from the truman years. thank you. [applause] >> setting up the microphones on

either side. they'll be in the far aisle. you can come up and ask your question at the microphone, that would be with great. >> i guess there's mics, so speak up. i can occasionally -- i'm not good on male voices. i'm better on female voices. [laughter] my daughter is in theater, and we'd go to play, and i'd also come out and say, well, i thought the female actresses were, they were great, but the men all mumbled. [laughter] so anyway, speak clearly. [inaudible conversations] >> we can't hear you. >> no. oh, good. i was getting really worried.

>> we'll repeat the question. >> okay. i think that when you said that zionism started in the 1880s in the pale of russia, it was really theodore herzl in austria that came after the dreyfuss situation that came up with the idea that maybe after 2,000 years the jews should have a place to go where they're not persecuted just because they're jews. and it was actually, and everyone should read the book "1919" which really speaks about the ottoman empire and how after world war i when the ottomans lost world war i, it was the americans, the english and french that divided up the middle east and made the countries that we know today that are the problem today, iraq, syria, lebanon and jordan

and took king faisal from saudi arabia and put him and all of his relatives in positions of authority. >> with i got it. >> wait. >> i got it. >> excuse me, you don't have it. >> because i can answer -- >> so i would just like to say that as you are saying, and it was the zionists when bought the land from the arabs so that -- and created the state after world war ii for the, for some of the moral reasons. and, you know, truman was the first president and the first, we were the first country to recognize the state of israel. so it isn't as if these zionists came to this piece of land, and they were jews there for the last 2,000 years. so it wasn't that they just came over there and there were these

people that were living there and they overtook everything. >> okay. thank you. [laughter] you know, just keep the questions brief with. i can usually pick be up what you're asking from the first 20 sentences at least. [laughter] let me make two points. first of all, you know, there were actually zionists, you know, for hundreds of years, but the zionist movement itself starts in odessa, in russia where some of my relatives took the boat about that time. and the people are a guy name lillianbaum and that's where the first emigres come from. theodore herzl's incredibly important. that's 1835, that's will have 10 years, 15 years later. 1919, i know that book by

margaret macmillan. it's a wonderful book. and it's absolutely true if you look at the, if you look at the conflicts that are happening thousand in the middle east -- including israel and the palestinians -- it's all, it's all previewed in the settlement after world war i. well, what you have then is france, you have france takes syria, france elevates the alawites to power. what's going on now is an incredible or war waged, civil war. in iraq, same problem. saddam hussein is the, was the arab, the sunnis that the british put in power. so, yes, that -- and palestine existed as a holy land a, but it didn't exist as a country. people thought about palestine, and they wrote about palestine,

but the actual geographical boundaries get set by the british after world war i. so, you know, as you think about what's happening now in the world, the two most important events are what happens after world war i and what happens after world war ii, the soviet union, ukraine, all that stuff. you can, you know, goes right back to the -- so it's all, in fact, ukraine goes back to world war i and the russian revolution smtion so it's all, that's -- we're still living through that period. next. you know, should i go over here? >> yeah. >> thank you. could the result, the situation that we have to be have been different if after may of '48 and the war for independence the, the united states had put more pressure on israel or the surrounding arab states to do

something about the refugee situation from the beginning? could that have made a difference today? >> right. you know, i would love to say yes to that question, but i, i'm more, i'm skeptical. and the reason i'm skeptical was that the arab states that attacked israel, you've got, what, egypt, jordan, lebanon, syria, iraq were as divided among themselves as they were divided from israel at that point. and i think that to a great extent the egyptians wanted to use the refugee issue as a kind of battering ram both against the your jordanians and againste israelis. i'm just not sure. i mean, it's a good question, but i lean on the side that it was, out probably couldn't have been resolve ised at that point.

resolved at that point. >> i just wanted to clarify the record real quick. i think you said at the beginning of the lecture that the arabs came into the area around 600. >> uh-huh. >> i believe you may have meant to say the muslims came to -- >> yes. >> the palestinians have heritage going back to the philistines, canaanites, and that's documented in the bible and archaeological -- >> thank you. i'm interested in the archaeological questions myself, and these are very thorny issues, and there is a big issue about the canaanites and things like that. my resolution for those is that you can't resolve these questions on the basis of the bible or the koran. but i'm, i might be a dissenter in this world. [laughter] >> what response do you have for the british getting blamed for everything that's wrong in the world? [laughter]

yes. i'm interested in the way in which -- >> speak up. >> i'm interested in the way that truman makes policy, and i'm interested in this idea that you say he's kind of got a bifurcated attitude towards things, psychological response and racket call. but you fail to kind of mention, and i'm sure you do in your book, that the key thing he does is he recognizes israel. if he didn't, we wouldn't really be talking about truman and palestine and that problem. what i want to know is what were the pressures that pushed him into doing that? was this entirely coming from him or was with it outsiders, other people telling him this is the way you need to go, this is the way you need to recognize israel. and is it people in the administration? is it congress? people, you know, leaders in congress or is it kind of lobbyists and his concern about the jewish vote in upcoming elections? >> well, there's two different

kinds of questions. along the way from 1945 to 1948, truman faces a whole host of decisions where lobby withists and thing -- lobbyists and things like that are very important. now, the decision to recognize israel on may 14th, truman's decision to do it exactly when he did it, 15 minutes after david ben-gurion proclaimed a new state, was political. there were rallies planned that evening. he didn't want to face a situation where he was being denounced around the country. but the decision to recognize israel would have happened anyway. it would have happened in a week maybe, or it would have happened in two weeks. really he had no, he and the state department had no alternative. they had run out of alternatives. truman was, again, had this fantasy about a federated

palestine that was not going to come to be. the state department was trying to insist on a trusteeship where the british would stay around. the british refused. so in effect, it would have happened anyway. the particular time in which it happened was because of political pressure. >> yeah. the bulk of your presentation is without mention of, that there are raich-muslim -- arab-muslim states in that region, as if there's no country for arab-muslims to go to, and they should have a piece of what could have been a jewish state. and i think that's an unfair presentation, because the region is pretty much arab-muslim with many states, with countries -- most of which deported the jews when israel was established -- and i think it's unfair not mention that. and i also think it's worthwhile to mention all the benefits that have come to the united states of america through the israel/united states

relationship. >> okay, thank you. you know, beginning in the 1920s and i think the first person to make this argument was the founder of revisionism and he wanted not only palestine, but jordan to be part of a jewish state. to some extent, netanyahu is the heir of revisionism. he made this argument, and it became widely adopted, that -- let me put it this way, that the arabs were find of a fungible people and that a palestinian could as easily live in iraq as could live in palestine or could move to jordan or what have you. they didn't feel that way, and i don't buy that argument. you know, i was just, i was amazed as i was doing the research in the mid 1930s,

louis brandeis who you think of as a force in american liberalism, one of -- and he is -- probe poses to truman that it would be a good idea to transfer the arabs to iraq, because then you could resolve the conflict. you'd have a jewish majority. you know, this was at a time when the germans were trying the move the jews out of germany. so a transfer of population is not a good idea. and i don't think that that's a proper framework to understand what was going on prior to 1948. >> at one point during the 1940s, the king of jordan tried to portray himself as a middleman who would be glad to be in charge of a confederation of israeli and arab citizens. did truman or the grady-morrison people, did they support that at

all? >> the, there were secret negotiations that went on between the jordanians and the, it was the jewish agency, it wasn't the israelis yet. and i think as i remember gol da meyer was involve inside those -- involved in those negotiations. and they, they're like the negotiations now almost because, you know, at one point they were going to work, and then there was a massacre, and the jordanians pulled out. and so there wasn't an agreement. but there was always a kind of an implicit deal, because the jordanians wanted the west bank. and so their troops didn't go up beyond that during the 1948 war. so there was that kind of, there was that kind of a deal.

i just mention one other thing about it. there was a window from about 19, oh, about from september 1946 to february 1947 when it might have been possible to to work out some kind of transitional federation as truman wanted. it was a very, very narrow window. the zionists were worried that the issue would get thrown into the united nations where they expected wrongly that soviet union would be on the arab side, so they didn't want it in the united nations. and the arab states were willing to pick some kind of a deal -- to make some kind of a deal, but they told the british that in order to make a deal, it would have to, they would have to work out all the arrangements in secret and then have these public negotiations, pause if

they tried -- because if they tried to do the negotiations in public, they'd get tremendous opposition from their own public and from the, from what existed of the palestinian leadership. and the british made a big mistake. they did it in public, and so the arab states denounced them and so on. it's just an interesting side note because john kerry, one of the things he's tried to do in his negotiations is keep things absolutely secret and not allow them to get out because, or you know, then it becomes impossible. the british did not heed that lesson. there was a slight possibility then but, you know, it was gone. yes. >> i was in washington, d.c. earlier this month at the global ties u.s. conference, and i asked one of the ambassadors how do we solve the conflict? and his answer was, we just get

them to talk to each other. and i would like to ask you the same question since you gave us that, at the end of your talk you said it's our moral, you said it's our moral obligation to work on solving this conflict. how would you solve the conflict? >> oh, boy, i have no -- [laughter] i try, i tried to stay away from this in my book, because i'm leaving it to john kerry. [laughter] i think the main point i'd make is it's -- you remember when obama came into office, he thought that the republicans and democrats could just sit down in a room and talk to each other. is what happened there? [laughter] i think it's the same thing. i think without our intervention, nothing was going to happen. and in particular without

kerry's intervention in 2013, in july, i think nothing would have happened. i'm not sure that obama had the stomach to go true that again -- to go through that again. so, again, the negotiations take place. i, you know, i would expect that if they succeed, the palestinians will probably get a bad deal. they'll probably have to allow israeli troops along the jordan river which will prolong the occupation. certainly no refugees coming back. but at this point even, and i'm glad that i don't have any power when i say even a bad deal is better than no deal. because if the situation continues as it is with settlements growing, it's going

to become impossible, and you will get a one-state solution there, but it'll be the nightmare one-state solution. >> i have a history question for you. >> yeah, okay. i'm going to fail this one. [laughter] >> well, no, you've done a lot of research, and that's good. i've been reading a lot of world war i books right now, and there's a sentence somewhere in the back of my mind that at some point someone had come up with the idea of finding a homeland for the jews in africa. >> yes, that was -- >> and i'm not familiar with that, so i wanted to you to address that a little bit. >> in 1903 theodore herzl was negotiating with the british. his idea was to get imperial sponsorship for a homeland from the turks. that failed, so then he tried the british, and the british came up with this idea of giving the jews uganda, you know?

[laughter] might not have been so happy about that, but neither were the zionists. and at the sue onist organization in -- zionist organization in 1903, that proposal got beaten down. in fact, i think lloyd george was, who became the prime minister, was involve inside those negotiations -- involved in those negotiations. he was a lawyer. so -- >> you mentioned the friendship between israel and the united states government at the end of your talk and also touched on it, i think, during the question and answer period briefly. >> right. >> it brought to mind a quote, i've got to paraphrase this a little bit from jesuit father john sheehan a. he said whenever i hear that israel is our only friend in the middle east, i can't help but think before our friendship with israel, we had no enemies in the middle east. [laughter] >> that's pretty tricky. [applause]

i can't answer that directly. i'll just say this, that i think the iran negotiations are incredibly important, and if those work out, they'll be not only to the benefit of the united states, but of israel as well. because they'll be one, you know, they'll have one less enemy in the country in the region, and, you know, israel and iran used to be allied under the shah. it's not like those countries have a history of antagonism. so i think that that's very important. and i personally have been december turned that -- disturbed that the main lobbying organization in washington, aipac, has been trying, in my view, to undermine those negotiations by putting impossible conditions on them. so i have a lot of hope for that, and i think that if you ask about other things, syria, i don't, you know, that's a

nightmare. i don't see any, any light in that. yes. >> i'm sorry, but i i have another historical question. >> i just keep worrying that i'm going to flunk, you know, when you ask these questions. >> no, i have complete confidence you'll get this, you'll be able to explain this to me. i've always wondered, what was the motivation behind the british issuing the balfour declaration? >> oh, that's a good question. you know, sigmund freud's theory of dreams, he had this concept that dreams were order determined, and what he meant was that you'd have numerous causal elements intersecting, and you couldn't say, you know, one thing cause -- [inaudible] it was a number of things. and that's the case with the balfour declaration. number one, the british wanted a

buffer between turkey can they'd been fighting if world war i and the suez canal. al stein was right in -- palestine was flight between, it was a passage. they wanted also to protect that route from the middle east -- through the middle east from india. these were all, you could say these or were imperial concerns. they were worried that the germans would beat them to the punch and make a deal with the jews and so win their allegiance. to some extent, i'm weitzman encouraged that idea. i don't think it was ever going to happen. and finally some of high officials in the british government, lloyd george, arkansas fur balfour, a guy named sykes were christian zionists. they believed that the jews

should on biblical terms be able to return and reclaim the state of israel. so i think if you look at it, you have those three different things intersecting. i think finally the imperial things, reasons were the -- that was what sold it to the byer cabinet at the -- the entire cabinet at the time. >> yes. i was surprised to learn in over years of reading that there's a strong voice within the jewish community of anti-zionism couched in ultra orthodox religious belief. one name that comes to mind of an organization is -- [inaudible] okay. and their basis of being opposed to zionism is they reject utterly on spiritual terms the

achievement of a homeland under force of arms, that it violates the place spiritually that the jewish community, in their view, in their devout view, wants to arrive in terms of an evolution of moral perfection. >> right. >> so it's a voice, a message from deep within israeli and jewish community that is, it's an astounding message of peace and reconciliation. >> let me respond to that. >> yeah. >> so there always has been a strain of, as you say, orthodox judaism that believes that the way in which israel will be established is through the coming of the messiah. that's it. and anything, anything else is not accept is bl. but that's -- acceptable. but that's, especially if you look at american politics and american zionism, it's a very

small minority. it's not a, it's not a large voice. before 1946-'47 i'd say the majority of jews in america were either nonzionists or maybe even anti-zionists. but as the news about hitler and the final solution came up, that transformed things, and you really had, oh, i don't know, 95% in favor of israel. there was no, there were no, there was no -- there was a group called the american council for judaism that still exists that was the main dissenting group if 1948. but they -- in 1948. but they had no power. >> yes, sir. another history question. [laughter] i would go back in truman's early history when he was, had a haberdashery in kansas city, he had a partner by the name of eddie jacobson.

>> right. >> and jacobson was a jewish gentleman, and he stayed close to truman over the years. and i was just wondering in your research that eddie jacobson who was very close to truman, close friends, they were in the war together, business partners here in kansas city, did eddie jacobson push truman, do you think, more than anybody toward going with israel or getting behind what israel wanted? >> you know, i've read eddie jacobson's papers at the library, and, you know, his partner said that he didn't, that he was a late comer to the issue. i don't, again, i'm not sure, but here's the point i think i'd make is that his central role was not as an ideological influence on truman, it was as an intermediary. he got heym weitzman in the

door. weitzman was, again, from the peal of settlement odessa, from that whole group that went to britain, became a chemist, and he had magical powers as a diplomat. .. [applause] >> we are selling dennis