welcome back you're watching aussies a weekly review the headlines. sarkozy all lines the tough race from the top job and fry of problems goes into a second round will crucial results now showing you can learn some procedures that one and a half percent behind his main rival the turnout has been other extraction a high despite fears the electorate might ignore the vote at a time of great hold unemployment under faltering economy. the u.n. security council has agreed on a resolution to some three hundred observers to syria to monitor the franchise truce in the country but despite the united misfiled some remain skeptical of the ten day old cease fire put a year of threatening to adopt fresh sanctions against the us. so thirty

minutes that group global attention julian assange trainee of his own interview show host c.b.c. week giving voice to those ostracized by the mainstream media the show has sponsored reactions ranging from praise to the spirit. of bahrain prose the controversial formula one grand prix motion racing sparking a new wave of public protests against the regime clashes between demonstrators and security forces continued through the week with a virtual ground down by police and beating weiner with dads. as the headlines up next stay with us for more heated debate you know she's close talk with the school about. still. to come to think this is the.

following welcome across town people about a movement at odds with itself b.d.s. or the boycott divestment and sanction of israel movement is undergoing some serious soul searching for what has to be the as accomplished things its founding in two thousand and five where does it stand on the question of a two state solution of the palestine israel conflict and does the boycott movement actually benefit the palestinians. can start. to cross the b.d.s. movement i'm joined by omar i don't in washington he is a political scientist and promotes human rights in cairo we have eric walberg he is a journalist and writer for weekly and author of those modern imperialism and in london we go to money he is a political activist and author of the one who a study of jewish identity politics are i jonah cross-talk rosen of i that means you can jump in anytime you want omar if i can go to you first some israeli think

tanks think the b.d.s. is more dangerous to israel then an armed palestinian uprising but at the same time the same time we have met people like mr norman finkelstein they calls the movement a cult and chomsky calls it the posse rises to high heavens what is it is the movement powerful is it dangerous is it relevant. it is a powerful and relevant move and there's no question about that i mean essentially the b.d.s. movement is borne out of the failure of the diplomatic process to make any progress on achieving a peaceful solution to the israeli palestinian conflict we've had a couple of decades of it going on so far and nobody has seemed to have been able to pressure israel to respect palestinian rights and the occupation and it's going to require something significant some major shift in the balance of power to make future negotiations more possibly productive now of course there is a chance that that might be happening with all the uprisings in the arab world and

a bunch of other things but until the balance of power does shift that doesn't mean that the international community just has to sit there and watch so there is a need for everyone to actually find ways to be involved directly to try to push things that are positive direction and i think that's what the b.d.s. movement is ok a reaction to the political failure and i think it's an absolutely crucial movement in which everybody can get involved in order to hopefully be able to pressure israel to end the occupation and have something substantive move forward in there on the ground. in london where do you stand on that because norman finkelstein caused a real locker war and everyone knows his stand on. the israel palestine conflict in that he still he says it's a cult how do you follow him around. i think that. unfortunately . there is. element of truth in what he has to say my approach to the b.d.s. is very ambivalent on the line and i would totally agree with

qamar are important it is in principle. but on their other end we have light problem we. any attempt to stifle or to interfere with freedom of speech and freedom of thought. probably no ways but your probably some of your viewers know just a few hours after. norman finkelstein expressed his criticism there were calls within the biggest b.d.s. movement to start to boycott him to balkan norman finkelstein. in the last few weeks there were similar attempts within the same b.d.s. movement to boycott myself and my work just to remind your viewers neither norman citizen or myself are israelis we are not living in israel norman was born in the

states i was born in israel but i left israel. seven eighteen years ago and never visited it since since then. so it is very problematic now why is it problematic because we definitely we can definitely understand boycott on products yet artists and. professors or intellectuals or writers are not out to cargo's and this is something that must. become clear to people in the bidi movement if we want to envisage a future of freedom democracy tolerance pluralism you want to fight for palestinians in the occupied territories in gaza who come to visit conferences abroad we cannot at the same time. as we know

as we know and we despise israel for doing it. just. like ten days ago was announced as a persona non grata by israel. bar and boy was a persona non-grata for playing wagner's ok i mean i mean i didn't like it when i guess what you're saying is it's a very blunt object here and it's not being very focused ok eric if i can go to you how do you feel about that i mean you know what degree do you boycott to make a political point in make a change on the ground i mean one of the things i said in my introduction is how much is this boycott actually help palestinians. well i think the business of the cultishness is. due to the fact that there are attempts now that it has become so powerful the movement in the last six years any movement that takes on such. an importance it immediately attracts what we call gatekeepers in the

movement and this. this is where i really appreciate collides contribution here that he's opened up the discussion because in american culture in particular the gate keepers the media the public opinion information this has largely been in jewish hands in the last out a century and of course something like media yes and that's i mean about israel this is going to attract. this element to try and control and stifle the the attempts to to pressure israel so i think the that's the cultishness that when it's controlled by a small group now the great thing about b.d.s. is that it is so decentralized it is thousands and thousands of groups all around the world it was founded of course it's got to be a palestinian movement it can't just be do gooders from the west it's got to be

coming from the palestinians and my attitude is if they want the boycotts ok we go for the boycott if it means boycotting the cultural figures the culture allowed because it was i would go along with it but the one thing also that. talked about. initially the arab spring this is close to my heart being here in cairo i love. the most wonderful head in after the arab spring here and he welcomed it he said it's wonderful now you're going to have democracy you're going to turn against. israel i realize it but that's the best thing for israel is if you have that public expression of anger of the neighbors and this is the way to pressure israel. if it's. going to get the results here if i go back to omar here what is the results of the movement i mean

are you satisfied with it i mean is it just do gooders as we just heard and everyone feels good about themselves or helping helping the oppressed palestinian people or is it really is it making anything really happen on the ground i mean there are palestinians thankful but you know it doesn't change the material being and the future of their state. yeah i just want to backtrack a little bit and comment. comments about the intelligence essentially it is not to be clear about one particular point i think norman finkelstein makes a good substantive point about the fact that there is a reason to focus the b.d.s. movement on ending the occupation because that happens to be the cause on which there is international consensus you know if you're trying to build a mass movement to deal with an urgent crisis it makes sense to focus it on something that already has a lot of international support on the other hand i do think that think those things comments were problematic because of the tone that they have taken when you're describing the one state segment of the b.d.s. movement as a cult that's not particularly helpful i mean we have to get to the point within

this movement where we can have disagreements with each other strategic ones without being reduced to name calling we're calling each other's each other cults or resign or sore sellouts or what have you you hear that kind of rhetoric on both sides and i don't think that it's helpful in any direction now just one more point real quick that's what i was kind of comparing his boycott you know the fact that many of the b.d.s. women are boycotting him with the fact that they're boycotting pinkel station and i think that there is a very significant substantive difference here in the case of finkelstein that people who are upset by his comments are specifically advocates of the one state solution who are insulted essentially by the name calling that he engaged in as opposed to out someone who has triggered calls of boycott from across the entire spectrum of the palestine's all dirty movement from people ranging from earlier when our all the way to people like hussein ibish who are you know stuart advocates of the two state solution. ok can i jump in here going and jumping around and ok well i think i disagree with omari that it's important for us in the west to be

deciding for the palestinians whether they want a one state or a two state he's our political decisions that the palestinians themselves have to take on the ground and what we can do is provide moral support really the b.d.s. is more moral booster when you think of how the i mean air america i can jump in if i can jump in this is one of the biggest criticisms of the movement and i get what you were talking about norman finkelstein is that one state solution means no israel. now that's a little bit of rational sense but some well that's a lot of people here lining their own facing ok now life can be enlightening is this i i want to do this in the second part of the further we started already go ahead in line them i think i think that there is a problem here is not sure i'm already severe and sorry and i don't agree with you obviously the issue is very simple the issue here is where we endorse the principle of tolerance and freedom of speech it is very clear that my the support

that i get in this movement is bust my papers are published on every almost every palestinian solidarity outlet and this is an outlet if it's true that my writings are controversial and the question here is where the weekend copas it i'll be an open movement or are we about to to form another totalitarian regime in the middle east is this our prospects for a solution of affair of the crisis in palestine this is what you believe in right gentlemen and what he's talking acknowledgement come to a very interesting point here we're going to go to a short break and after the actual break we'll continue our discussion on the role of b.d.s. in the palestine israel conflict state party. stands . to.

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life on the go live video on demand exceeds my old costs and r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your live listen. listen to. the live. welcome back to crossfire i'm going to go to remind you we're talking about the controversy surrounding the p.b.s. live can live. ok if i go back to london i mean the whole controversy around the movement right now is and again i'm invoking mr finkelstein's name here and words is that you know if we if we look at the movement

he believes that it is deception is that the movement essentially wants they have no israel ok that's the one state solution god what do you think about that i mean can there be a one state with both sides respecting each other under the rule of law. i. truly believe or in the idea of one state i'm a true believer of the concept that was offered by a veteran palestinian israeli knesset member azmi bush shara of states of its citizens israel is not a state official in its at the moment a jewish state jews only state i think we can move forward in this direction but it is crucial and this is where the b.b.s. is a part of this issue we have to make crucial to make it very clear the people who are leading the move towards a state offices and one state are people who are themselves and those things the

notion of tolerance if mr ali abunimah is a problem with gilad atzmon presenting the first attitude obviously what it what is he going to offer israeli settler in the west bank what kind of a state is he going to do for them this is this is what i think the crucial problem that we have to do is ok omar then essentially what we're looking at here is the end of the zionist project. essentially i just want to address his last remark quick i mean i don't want to speak on behalf of any one people here and can present their own views but i don't think anybody has suggested that one be stripped of his right to speak his mind they're just making it clear that they're not of solidarity with his views and that they don't see themselves in alliance because his views are out of what they consider to be acceptable i mean we can have that kind of disagreement nobody's talking about a totalitarian mindset you don't have to be a totalitarian person to express your disagreement with somebody else's views right

now on one state and two states i think that there is a this what what is the world are raised about right now and they're outraged about the occupation about the fact that there is no military rule about the home demolitions about the building of settlements and that's why i think this is a better focus the world is not particularly outraged about the fact that israel the jewish state this is not to say that there are not some problematic policies in which israel that israel is engaging in in order to protect that identity but it's saying that if you're going to be promoting a one state solution which is morally perfectly defensible i mean it is a good solution from a moral perspective but strategically speaking given that it does not have this wide international support and that it would literally take decades to achieve i think the occupation is a more urgent problem to address and it's not the kind of thing that you want to take decades to result i think that's why i'm sorry take me in the case of the first three occasions the occupation has taken decades already and eric if i could go to you were you fall down on this fear because i mean this is the criticism of

the movement is that if they achieve all of their goals there will be no israel i mean you know there's a lot of people that a lot of israelis are critical of the occupation but i don't think there's a lot of israelis will say let's give up israel i don't think that's realistic. well earlier i made a very interesting comparison in a recent article in zero about northern ireland in israel wasn't quite exact but i think what's important is to see that both northern ireland and israel are british imperial. british imperial policy. lord shaftesbury in the mid nineteenth century coined the phrase a land without a people for people to settle land israel was supposed to be the beacon of the british empire in the middle east and so right from the nineteenth century on it's been in the back of people's minds now northern ireland also i suppose was a kind of peak and i don't know what kind of beacon the british had in mind there but they did several of my ancestors are protestant irish and look where i and i

ended up in canada as a result of a very serious you know israel has a huge geopolitical position and it's alignment with the united states i mean i think i like i saw the article on northern ireland too i thought it was really interesting and i thought it really missed the geo political significance and if i go back to you in london i mean how is this you know there are people in israel that have thought about a one state solution but what would the state be called on palestine and it would it would not be jewish let's go right ahead i mean you see where i'm going. to look and this is the major issue here in order to contemplate to ask ourselves whether it's all possible for israel to transform tara really into one state we have to ask i was sort of there it is this concept is that all existence was in bed jewish culture always in the israeli culture always been big gripe culture and i'm

not so sure about you death toll in iraq a book about it by the way some of my palestinian intellectuals friends are also very suspicious about such a such a tendency was in the palestinians. sure and this is why we have to grow then the discourse and i wouldn't let anyone not a jew and not a palestinian tell me what i am entitled to talk about and what i shouldn't talk about especially those who don't even read my book and write all my text and try to tell us like we are entitled to talk about this is the this is the biggest issue we have to start to ask the exact questions that you are raising in this very program and we have to debate it also israelis and palestinians and zionists and people from the hamas the many palestinians are not very interested all in one state solution because they actually don't want to leave their with their girls

in bikinis on on the beach we have to start to to deal with practicality with issues to do with culture we're dealing in peace through different police to work by the way the israeli society is in itself divided into more than one culture and so is the palestinian society at the moment we have to start to deal with these issues not be afraid he'll end up and i mean look to be sharon my friend but what impetus is there for it israeli to the political leaders in israel even think along these lines i mean it's utopian i'm afraid i like lethal ideas but it it's about power they have to cower to colonize continue the colonization of the west bank no east and that's to the one state yeah fine it'll be a zionist like the way by the way you are absolutely you are absolutely right about it but. the these issues are already discussed and by the way the we're not discussed forty or fifty years ago thirty years ago twenty years ago they started this issues are discussed is because israelis do understand and many jews around

the world they demand not be able to maintain this power for forever now i would agree with. i don't think that israel is going to become a one state or state of its citizens voluntarily but i think it will be pushed into it because the israelis are now already living in ghettos and wider living in ghettos because they feel insecure and why do they feel insecure because they brought this insecurity upon themselves and were aware of it and israel proved in the past that it can change rapidly and that this is this will take more than half an hour to deal with but again it's some elements within jewish and a brew and even new israeli culture that leads you know such such thing that i

define this breach are not expressed this is what you see now when you run eric i had jump in your head yes well i like to build on that point that israel is going to be pressured and. we might not see that in this point but i look at today the great founder of b.d.s. of our people is president eisenhower because he and one hundred fifty six he told he stared down israel and said we're going to boycott you unless you get me out of china and what did they do they got out of sinai in a hurry and so i think eventually the u.s. is in twenty bankrupt now it's just a question of when it's going to end its aid to israel and then. the situation will change rapidly i think. there that there will be a kilometer jump in go ahead please if i may jump in it's a very different domestic environment today than it was during the eisenhower era

but i just want to focus on the one to see thing in one more time when we're talking and you're absolutely correct that when it comes to the two state solution people have been pushing for it for decades and has failed i'm under no illusions about the difficulty of achieving a two state solution. a lot of israel's settlement expansion of the extent of the integration of the occupied territories into israel proper at this point but paper talking about the difficulty of ending israel's control over twenty two percent of historic palestine what makes anyone think it's easier to get israel to give up the entire zionist project either by pressure by pressure external pressure or any kind of pressure so both solutions are pretty far fetched at this point though theory difficult to imagine how they could come about but if we're going to nonetheless be driven by our commitment to see justice in the region to continue to build a movement to pressure israel into some kind of sensible settlement it makes more sense to be focusing on something that already has wide international consensus because that's the basis of the success of the b.d.s. movement the only way it can succeed is that it has enormous buy in from the entire

world and israel actually feels that pressure and that to me is the important distinction. and in north carolina. it is very it is very crucial i think all know what you said now because if you really want to talk about a vast movement we have to remember that in the parliament be i and me eighty percent eighty percent of the tory members are friends of sci fi conservative friends of israel in america we have enough and evidence to suggest you know and that we live in africa. that actually it is a park that control dominates american foreign policy so it is much wider if you really want to have a transformation in the region it is much wider than that what is happening with israel or whether we stop of the card or all or any israeli academics we have to start to focus to deal with the israeli power and the jewish power in western

politics and this is exactly did the issues that b.d.s. try try to avoid and this is my problem with b.d.s. this is why some elements of jewish elements in biggest try to stop me but this is also why. i'm so popular i'm telling you why i'm talking to you now in this program now there was another mention that i want to raise your i'm sorry gentlemen we're running out of time we could have use another hour to discuss this think you very much many thanks my guest today in washington cairo and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember. the. story.

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