this is r t live from moscow our top stories israel wants its peace treaty with egypt is in danger after cairo says it terminated a gas export deal over payment and prices observers say the brow as a consequence of the troubled revolution and fall of interference in egypt is. reports say a senior afghan official believes u.s. troops could remain in afghanistan for another decade after the twenty fourteen withdrawal deadline that follows a deal between the two governments despite widespread opposition to the american military presence both in afghanistan and back. in france is currently the nicolas sarkozy now only loses his socialist rival francois all learned in the presidential election first which will see the pair now go head to head in a runoff in just under a fortnight when he will face

a tough job of fixing full trick con to be a record unemployment exactly eleven thirty one last time they were tonight's headlines for me kevin owen here at r.t. in moscow and i'll just let you know that we're going to be off air in thirty minutes time for the next ten hours for shared jewels technical maintenance our teams are in and ready to go you can keep up to date with all the news on our website at r.t. dot com as per usual and we very much look forward your company again from ten am moscow time that's six am g.m.t. so we'll see if then but next now let's head to people of crosstalk. if you can. start. to think the odds. are low in the welcome across the uk i'm peter all 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 what has the b.d.'s accomplished since its founding in two thousand and five where does it stand on the question of a q state solution of the palestine israel conflict and does the boycott movement actually benefit the palestinians. the kick. start. to cross talk of b.d.s. movement i'm joined by omar al gore in washington he is a political scientist and promotes human rights in cairo we have eric walberg he is a journalist and writer for her weekly and author of postmodern imperialism and in london we go to on he is a political activist and author of the wandering who a study of jewish identity politics are i tell me cross talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want omar if i can go to you first some israelis think thanks thing for the b.d.s. is more dangerous to israel then an armed palestinian uprising but at the same time

the same time we have people like mr norman finkelstein they calls the movement a cult and chomsky calls it hypocrisy 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 we're essentially b.d.s. movement is born 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 end 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 in a positive direction and i think that's what the 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 the on the ground. in london where do you stand on that because norman finkelstein caused a real opera war and everyone knows his stand on. 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 video is very ambivalent on the one and i would totally agree with him are are important it is in principle. but

on their other end we have a slight problem we. any attempt to stifle or to interfere with freedom of speech and freedom of thought. probably no ways but you'll probably some of your viewers know just a few hours after. norman finkelstein expressed his criticism there were calls within the biggest movement to start to boycott him to block a nominee because time. 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 finkelstein nor 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 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 cargoes and this is something that must. become clear to people in this movement if we want to envisage a future of freedom democracy tolerance clear elysium if we want to fight for palestinians in the occupied territories in gaza to come to visit conferences abroad we cannot at the same time. as we know as we know and we despise israel for doing it good to grass just. like ten days

ago was announced as a persona non grata by israel. barenboim was a persona non grata for playing fucking ok i mean i mean i really don'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 to what degree do you boycott to make a political point in making 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 and what we call gate keepers 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 be in jewish hands in the last half a century and of course something like b.d.s. and this 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 you know 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 cultural avocadoes i would go along with it but the one thing also that omar talked about. initially the arab spring this is close to my heart being here in cairo i love. me the most wonderful head in after the arab spring here and he welcomed it he said it's 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. even if it's a pleasure let's on about the results here if i go back to omar here what is the results of the movement i mean are you satisfied with it is it just do gooders as we just heard and everyone feels good about themselves or how big how helping the

oppressed palestinian people or is it is it making anything really happen on the ground i mean your 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 tad bit and comment. about comments essentially i was going 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 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 a source allows for 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 one was kind of comparing his boycott we know the fact that many of the videos women are boycotting him with the fact that they're boycotting finkelstein 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 so dirty movement from people ranging from all the way to people like hussein who are. you know store advocates of the two state solution. ok all right can i jump in here going and jumping around again 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 these are political decisions that the palestinians themselves have to take on the ground and what we can do is provide the moral support really the b.d.s. is more moral booster. when you think of how the i mean harry america if i can jump in if i can jump in this is one of the biggest criticisms of the movement and i guess we're talking about norman finkelstein is that one state solution means no israel. now that's a little bit well that's nonsense and well that's a lot of people here lining their own facing ok well i can't be any in line is this i i want to do this in the second part of the further we started already go ahead in london yeah i think i think that there is a problem here is much more rare severe and story oh my i don't agree with you obviously the issue is very simple they 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 we can call police are we an open movement or are we about to to form and other to tell you terry and a regime in the middle east is this our prospects for a solution of affairs of the crisis in palestine this is what you believe in try gentlemen until you start eating it nearly hollywood come to a very interesting point here we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the role of b.d.s. in the powers like israel conflict state party. stands . but there are actually innocents here allies and they face

a crisis and that's never answered. the song from this costume let me think of it every day. still the flashbacks from the memories and. assume i said a long time i'm just here trying to come. i was a shape. i was ashamed that i didn't. i was ashamed that i hadn't been a hero why. i got my arm i got my legs. in the mine. what i like to be out of portugal. i don't believe what i was going on once or i think. that i was a good soldier. but now most older on the other side and i think i'm just in a good.

place you feel spring over seas my crazy birds will come home to roost. when their massive hungry. empathy can sway to pull the commotions. towards those who live on the current. take. welcome back to crossfire computer we're going to remind you we're talking about the controversy surrounding the p.b.s. . live can. still live. ok franco back to london i mean the 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 can if we look at the movement he believes it is deception is that the movement essentially wants they have no israel ok that's the one state solution go at it 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. true believer 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 and it's 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.d.s. is. part of this issue we have to make crucial to make it very clear the people who

are leading the move towards a state of our cities and one state are people who are themselves and tossing the notion of tolerance if mr ali abunimah is a problem with gilad atzmon present universe you'd obviously what it what is he going to offer israeli settler in the west bank what kind of a state is he going to offer them this is this is what i think the crucial problem that we have to do is ok i'm our 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 anyone people can present their own views but i don't think anybody has suggested that it would 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 disagree

when 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 in one state in two states i think that there is a. what is the world 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 by 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 light 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 said already take the energy to the

treasury and the occupation is taken decades already and eric if i could go to you as italy where do 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. i made a very interesting comparison in a recent article in al-jazeera about northern ireland and israel wasn't quite exact i think what's important is to see that both northern ireland and israel are british imperial. british imperial policy. lord shaftesbury and in one thousand nine hundred three coined the phrase a land without a people for people without a 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 beacon 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 saw the article on northern ireland too i thought it was really interesting and i thought it really missed a geopolitical significance god 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 palestine and it would it would not be jewish that's where you go right ahead i mean you see where i'm going this is absolutely and this is the major issue here in all the to contemplate to ask ourselves whether it's all possible for israel to transform alone tar really into one state we have to ask i was. eight is this concept is the whole

existence we've seen jewish culture always been israeli culture always been the bright culture and i'm not so sure about it that poll in iraq a book about it by the way some of my palestinian intellectuals friends are also very suspicious about such 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 meant title 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 what we wanted 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 both israelis and palestinians and zionists and people from the hamas the many palestinians are not very interested at all in

one state solution because they actually don't want to live there with their girls in bikinis on the on the beach we exclude start to to deal with the practicality with issues to do with culture we are dealing with as we stood the frontier cli's to the way the israeli society is in itself divided into more than one culture and stories the palestinian society at the moment we have to start to deal with these issues not in the afraid and i mean look at me sharon my friend if it is what impetus is there for here israeli put the political lead in israel even think along these lines i mean if utopian i'm afraid i like lethal ideas but it it's about power they have the power to colonize continue the colonization of the west bank no and that's to the one state yeah find it will be a sinus right away by the way you are absolutely you are absolutely right about it but. the these issues are already discussed and by the way they were not discussed

forty or fifty years ago thirty years ago twenty years ago the fact that this issues are discussed is because israelis do understand and many jews around the world that they may not be able to maintain this power forever and 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 that it will be pushed into it because the israelis are now already living in ghettos and why does 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 the that it can change iraq deeply and this will take more than half an hour or two to deal with but again it's some elements within jewish and it

grew and even new israeli culture that leads to 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 my head yes well i like to build on that point that israel is going to be pressured in. i see that at this point but i look at today the great founder of b.d.s. of our people is president eisenhower because he one hundred fifty six he told he stared down israel and said we're going to boycott you unless you get me out of the sinai and what did they do they got out of sinai in a hurry and so i think eventually the u.s. it's going 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 jumping 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 state thing and 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 for decades and has failed i'm under no illusions about the difficulty of achieving a two state solution and. a lot of israel's settlement expansion of the extent of the integration of the occupied territories into israel proper at this point but. 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 they're both very difficult to imagine how they could come about but if we're going to nonetheless be driven by our commitment to see justice in that region to continue to build a movement to pressure israel into some kind of sensible settlement it makes more

sense to be focusing in on something that already has wide international consensus because that's the basis of the success of the various 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 here like i had a minus caroline and. it is very it is very crucial i think almost like you said now because if you really want to talk about a vast movement we have to remember that in the parliament be i am me eighty percent eighty percent of the tory members are friends of see if i conservative friends of israel in america we have enough evidence to suggest you know and we live in africa. that actually it is a park that control it dominates american foreign policy so it is much who lived there if you really want to have a transformation in the region it is much wider and that what is happening with israel or whether we stop of the card or all the israeli academics we have to start

to focus to deal with israeli plower with 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 b.d.s. try to stop me but this is also why. i'm so popular i'm calling you i'm talking to you now in this program now there is another issue that i want to raise here i'm sorry gentlemen we've run out of time we could have use another hour to discuss this thank you very much many thanks mike yesterday in washington cairo and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember us. can.

it.