hosted a conference in washington d.c. on u.s. relations with israel and the pro- israel lobby. and let's discuss the political influence of aipac, the american israel public affairs committee and college campus debates about israel. this part of the conference is two hours 40 minutes. come wan -- [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> morning. we will get started promptly at 9:00 a.m. thanks for being here. despite 40 mile-per-hour winds outside, we are glad you are

here. i am the assistant editor of the washington report on middle eastern affairs and on behalf of the washington report and the institute for research, we would like to welcome you all to today's conference. once again the annual conference is convening on the eve of the annual american israel affairs committee policy conference for a bipartisan group of congressmen and other officials gathered to reaffirm their unwavering support for the state of israel. it is our hope that today's event provides some contac context and insight on how the lobby functions and why the influences were talking about. today's event is being held at a time where the national discussion taking place about the role of the special interest groups in the particle process. in the aftermath of last month's shooting in parkland florida, americans have engaged in a relatively open and healthy discussion about the role of the national rifle association. it is the most powerful lobby

in the united states but the israel lobby must be openly debated and we hope today's event will help facilitate such discussion. before we begin, just some information ground rules for the day. we are expecting a full room. we asked that you make sure all the seats are open and do not occupy them with bags or coats or anything like that. during the q&a session, it will be done by notecards. there's no cards and pens at the back. please write your question on the card and find and assure who will circulate throughout the presentation. hesitate to give them to the usher during the discussion. the moderators like to sort through the questions before the q&a began spread we have exhibition hall located next door that it will close at 4:30 p.m. be sure to stop in during the break and visit our exhibitors. the bookstore is located right behind you. there's all sorts of books, pottery, oils on sale there.

book signings will take place in the main ballroom. also the registration, there is an exhibit where you can go pick up tickets for the reception "after words". that will give you one free beverage of your choice during the reception so please be sure to visit the booth to pick up your ticket. we ask that you don't record any video unless you're given prior permission. wi-fi information is available in the back of your program. we encourage everyone to tweet at the # israel lobby con. today's event is being broadcast live on c-span two and we encourage our online audience to purchase bait in the conversation. we ask that you refrain from talking in the ballroom and take your conversations outside to the exhibition hall. of course we wouldn't be here without our fantastic donors

and we have to give them our gratitude for funding today's event and making all this possible. we're happy to welcome numerous groups from around the country, students as well as dignitaries from 12 embassies. [applause] of course, many of you know it's more than an international issu issue, more than a domestic issue, it's also an international issue. i'm sure you will find our first panel to be of particular interest. i would like to introduce grant smith, a cosponsor of this event. his organization is committed to uncovering and document and how the israel lobby works and operates through its research and freedom of information act request. he is the author of several books.

the most recent being big israel. how israel lobby moves america. that is available first sale at our bookstore and online. with that i'd like to welcome him to the stage. thank you. [applause] : : it explains, i think, best buy we invited this particular group of experts to speak today and will try to mention as many as them as i can as we review this stake, the very high stakes, and challenges that are being presented here in the united states and globally which are higher than ever before.

the israel lobby in terms of a nonprofit sector snapshot and this is coming out of the database that was filed for my book, big israel, is an ecosystem of organizations that advance israel at very many levels. this is, ontrack, to be a $6.3 billion industry in the 20, nearly 500 separate medium-sized to major organizations was certainly a pack in the american jewish committee anti-defamation league and others at the top but if you added up it is almost 17000 employees from a half-million volunteers working in organizations that have the advancement of israel is one of their primary objectives in the united states.

their designated voice, as dale mentioned, leveraging the collective power of these grassroots integrated organizations as the american, israel public affairs committee and it will, of course, the meeting in its annual policy conference this weekend. and so, there will be a great deal of triumph in the achievement of one of its longest term long-term objectives which was realized in president donald trump's recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital. now, the announcement was followed by a state department announcement saying that the us embassy will be moved to jerusalem in may and it is something that since its founding in 1948, israel has wanted all countries to do and

to give official recognition and locate their embassies in jerusalem rather than tel aviv but of course the original 1947 partition plan of palestine into israeli states require jerusalem the international iced. both palestine and israel want to tell it to be the capital. in the 1970s zionist organization of america began defending a hundred thousand signature petitions to the president asking him to withdraw from the un agreement and also recognize jerusalem as the capital and locate the embassy there. in the 1980s the american israel public affairs committee's related information league, the christian coalition all said that we really ought to the embassy, mr. president, it will be popular with american

christians and jews. aipac got serious about passing highly coercive, with the embassy law, in the 1990s. they did it to port the oslo peace project which had its own problems but by creating facts on the ground the zionist organization organization, aipac, hoped they could preempt any moves from the oslo peace accords to make other law which had a presidential waiver provision to avoid constitutional separation of power issues. president clinton allowed the 19 for the jerusalem embassy act of 1985 to pass without signing it and then for two decades the israel lobby pressed presidential candidates to move embassy as part of their campaign and most of them,

personal did it. jimmy carter, hillary clinton, republican side george w. bush, bob dole, but every winner of the office sign the waiver and have every six months not to move the embassy. and so, jerusalem embassy act, again, required that the state department not be allowed to use its overseas construction budget until this is done and peasants waived it every six months until president trump overturned all of that. he recognize jerusalem as israel's capital and said the us with the pc. americans have never supported this and upon the trump administration's announcement 36% of americans polled by cnn said that they oppose recognizing jerusalem as israel's capital.

when polled 57% of americans in january 2017 said they were opposed to moving the embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. the us is becoming israel's delegated arbiter of territorial claims and i would say by the power of the israeli lobby. george w. bush even signed a letter in the prime minister saying that he didn't expect them to drop certain territories if they didn't want to. this is been something that has been a while and coming. the question is can the us really be considered a legitimate actor in making territorial declarations and bestowing legitimacy because the lobby wants it? the mc move and related measures such as cutting assistance to palestinian refugees in the un

and others is why we have a real panel of experts coming up to talk about the united nations and other issues. agenda number two the israel lobby would very much like to pass a federal law mandating the criticisms of israel and some cases is equivalent to anti-semitism. the anti-semitism awareness act is an expansive us state department definition of what anti- semitism is also crafted by israel lobby organizations which is designed to clamp down on criticism of israel, particularly on college campuses. so the organizations backing such laws want to be able to say that certain criticism under this state department definition is anti-semitism and that

federal funding should be withdrawn from higher education in certain cases if it is allowed to happen. when advised that major american civil liberty groups are opposed to this law such as the aclu 61% of americans also oppose this particular measure, cutting off foreign assistance to higher education and to discuss this we have doctor barry trachtenberg, a holocaust scholar and author of the new book, the united states and the new holocaust testified on november 7 to discuss the real politics behind the anti-semitism awareness act and we will also hear from the eminent scholar, a doctor who failed in a lawsuit filed against her which some people believe. [applause]

, including me, which might she might not have a federal law have been in place. this is not the only israel lobby gag law that is in place. there's a legislative rule the force of law currently in effect to the department of energy that says any government contractor ploidy cannot publicly say or write that israel has a nuclear weapons program under penalty of losing their jobs, their security clearances and being treated like a criminal and if you don't believe that, simply ask former national laboratory employee james doyle. that de facto law is company wp 136 and has a devastating impact on legitimate discussions of nuclear proliferation in this country and in many countries in the world to consider the us to be particularly coming as a nonproliferation partner.

an expanded topic is the role of christian evangelicals as a force multiplier of the israel lobby at the ballot box. israel lobby stewardship of this group has been underway for a very long time. aipac has been putting this group since the late 1950s and early 1960s when aipac was still just a little on inc. committee inside a larger body called the kindness counsel. this is some of their secret internal medications and outreach plans from the 1960s when it's parents were under investigation and ultimately order to register as an israeli foreign agent. it's culturally religious leaders generating positive press and counteracting opposition. there is a reason for all of this and why are christians evangelicals so important and

more important than ever today to the israel lobby? well, it's because most americans aren't avid members of the zionist movement. if you ask them in the most anodyne of terms and no one ever has until july of last year a zionist is a person who believes in the development of perfection of a jewish neighbors and is now israel. most americans, 70.3% don't consider themselves to be zionist. however, the biggest challenge to the lobby is to maintain the illusion there is broad grassroots support across the united states for israel and therefore, the policies that aipac pages are broadly popular but today there's a major partisan split in this pew research survey of adults in january 2015 of the sheer we can

see that sympathy among democrats for israel in independence has tanked at 27% and 42% sympathy respectively. the comprehensive pew research poll published in the 13th also indicated that 30% of american jews, many were democrats, don't believe the israeli government is serious about a peaceful resolution to the conflict and that only 70% believe that the settlements were conducive to israel's security. according to a recent brand israel study group support for israel, quote, support for israel among 200 jewish college students in the united states has dropped 32% between 2010 and 2016. among republicans there's near unconditional sympathy for israel and it has never been

higher, in fact. 75% according to the january research poll. the christian evangelical way which is highly supportive of israel and overwhelmingly voted for jump has become absolutely vital to the lobby. in the israeli lobby ecosystem it's become a player. christians united for israel, the international fellowship of christians and jews, are financially inconsequential if you added up compared to the main line israel lobby support organizations but their votes are not inconsequential. according to pew we've got 80 million christian evangelicals and 95 of them say that israel is a primary or important factor in selecting their presidential candidate.

americans, despite the wide partisan split, if you look at the last platform planks on israel and the republican and democratic party americans who are no longer supportive of israel would like a less israel centric policy have nowhere to go. the us approach to the middle east in terms of the republican platforms in 2016 were nearly identical in the republican planks a little more strident but they are basically asserting shared values and policymaking between the two governments and essentially no choice for voters. turning israel into a topic that is beyond rational debate and preempting other considerations as such large religious organizations is something that is extremely important for that reason. we've invited thomas, former

head of worldvision to explain exactly how this came to be. israel lobby spends a significant amount of resources pressuring the media and in trying to shape the narrative and there are no specialties, there are specialty organizations such as the committee for accuracy in the middle east reporting in the israel project but do nothing else such as watching comments on c-span every morning and making a big deal out of it if it is not particularly happy about us middle east policy. last year, some of you may remember al jazeera took a major under cover look at the lobby and how it operates in the united kingdom. they also had an undercover investigation of what was going on in the united states. this report called the lobby presented a threat and the

american israel public affairs committee and other groups were determined that americans not be allowed to not see the us version and their friends included getting the us government their threats included having the justice department register al jazeera's reporters as foreign agents which cut off their access to us government officials and limit their access to government facilities. this pressure campaign has worked and you will not be able to see the us version of the lobby which should have aired for the aipac meeting this year air. but we are happy to have two journalists who have withstood this kind of pressure.

just as fierce as the battle to legally create criticism of israel in the semitism is the drive to outlaw economic boycotts and other first amendment activities targeting israel to pressure into better human rights compartment and it's the subject of most major israel advocacy fundraising campaign these days, crush bds. pds is it is a medic it should be made illegal say these mailings and although there have been some victories against these some of these laws, one in kansas by the aclu, defending a contractor who wouldn't sign a waiver saying she would never boycott israel in return for her contact the kansas state education department the site is far from over. and so, if you look at what is

behind the israeli anti- precut asked you see that it's key backer, senator ben cardin of maryland, among his donors top 2017 donors 86% of the individual contributors administer, run or belong to israel organizations. among his top nondemocratic party many of them are self packed which are misleading names but really only invest in israel's lobbying agenda aipac swabbing agenda provided 31% of its campaign contributions. and if we continue down the line we see that members of israel looking at his donors lineup rather than average maryland who are behind cardin with this we got back. there's no popular support for

it but the lobby is demanding it and they will be demanding on capitol hill that it will pass and can find americans for them in jail for violating it for 20 years in americans are against it. when advised of the penalties and the fact that even the aclu is fighting against it 69% of americans are against it. so, if it does pass the impact will be hugely consequential and americans collectively will be pledged to defend israeli exports from the legal settlement in the first amendment activities will be severely curtailed. finally, agenda item number six provoking us confrontation with iran. it is clear now that aipac knows the lobby would like to see the us in a major competition with iran and advocacy organizations

that work against the jcpoa, the iran nuclear deal in the aipac adl are now the champion of the confrontation with iran and they have a candidate in the white house who signed a december 12 secret mou to take military and intelligence actions against iran and there's a lot of assumption that the base of this secret agreement, if you believe the reports that de facto they claim they have a nuclear program. agitating for war is not an easy sell or popular. the aipac's operative support behind the scenes in publicly to foment this confrontation. it's important to get that steve wiseman and keith rosen of the aipac espionage scandal of 2005

were, essentially, shopping around stolen intelligence to try to get the us to attack iran. that was the whole point of the x exercise that led to their indictments. and so they are still hard at work. if you look at some public statements by the washington institute for policy patrick clawson he said that it is hard to initiate a crisis but perhaps we can get some sort of naval provocation in the persian gulf against an iranian summering to provide crisis initiation. this is what is going on and then finally the israel lobby is biggest and most important task on capitol hill will be unconditional state funding and warning. it's interesting this year that

mark green will be speaking at aipac and there is probably a reason for that. there's a potential new pool of assets and this would be the one countries that voted against the united states and condemned the jerusalem declaration and maybe the 38 billion debate in usaid are now on the table. hundred 28 member states voted against the us and maybe that is the pot of money that they will be going after. there is a clear demand now that the 38-point to billion dollars that the us promised in the last mou is not enough. when americans are informed of the amount of aid that is given to israel the 8% say it is either too much or much too

much. particularly, if they are informed that it's been $250 billion since 1948 which is far more than the us spent even to rebuild post world war ii europe under the marshall plan. and this silent majority is certainly going to be not going to be heard next week. at aipac, politicians names will be called and they will be asked to rise in support of increasing aid and they know that if they do not rise enthusiastically support this they will be seeing a primary challenger and others coming after them quite soon. 58% of americans are against it and this is consistent when you asked the question in a number of different ways americans are consistently of the police that we simply give too much foreign aid to israel.

so, what can we do about it. i will be giving a few ideas in our closing remarks about what i think we can do about it but first i thank you got a sufficient introduction here that i would like to call up our first panel, the united nations panel to discuss the un in these policies. thank you very much. [applause]

>> hello, i'm janet demand at managing editor of manager port of washington report on middle east affairs.

since april 5th, 1982 when we published our first issue we have been covering all the activities of aipac in the greater israel lobby. it is great to see such wonderful turnout for our conference on the israel lobby. as you will know there is a very strong wind outside today and thank you for braving that wind. it's a wind that i believe is blowing in our direction. [applause] as a result of last centuries two world wars the majority of the world's countries committed themselves to the principle of international law which was embodied in the united nation but adherence to the principle and the institution has not been guaranteed. in some cases it has been outright undermines.

the first speaker doctor virginia is a professor of political science at southern illinois university. she earned her ma and phd from the university of wisconsin madison and an ma from georgetown center for contemporary arab studies. she has conducted research in central america, israel, palestine, postapartheid south africa and oceana. she is the author of the one state solution, a pragmatic analysis of the two state solution in israel palestine and editor of beyond patient. doctor tilley is the author co-author with richard falk of a 2017 report commissioned by the un economic and social commission for western asia titled israeli practices of the palestinian people in the question of apartheid.

despite intense pressure from israel in the us the commission's chair refused to withdraw the report and resigned in protest. the un subsequently deleted the report from its website. fortunately, however, we are about to benefit from the expertise which informed that report findings. please join me in welcoming doctor virginia tilley. [applause] >> thank you very much. it's a distinct privilege to be here. especially in the somewhat daunting position of first speaker. i have to set the tone. i'm not seeing my presentation quite yet. maybe that could go up. there we go. in this presentation i will not actually going to talk too much about the findings of the report. we really did write that report for abroad, informed audience of

concerned people and it is not hard to read, i think, you don't have to be a legal scholar to do it. i will briefly summarize the report itself and then talk about what i think is much more engaging at this point to me which is the implications of the report. implications for diplomacy in conflict resolution in israel, palestine. i was asked to first address the question of is the us supporting an apartheid state in israeli palestine and well, yes, it is. in short. it is an apartheid state and by the way there is no such as an apartheid state in international law but the practices are consistent with apartheid and i will come to that in a moment. the deeper answer here is yes, and so are a lot of other people. including people wouldn't think they are.

that is what wanted to come to in regards to the implications of this finding for questions such as the two state solution. essentially those seeking partition are endorsing apartheid state and that is a bit startling so i want to get to that. it raises this dilemma that if apartheid anywhere is inadmissible and destabilizing it cannot comprise the basis for adjusted stable points and this now lifts us out of the question of whether you are pro- anybody and simply too concerned about international peace and security which apartheid is considered to be a threat, too. in this talk again i will talk briefly about the analysis and legal definition of apartheid and how it works and why it

requires israel to sustain the occupation in a particular point i'd like to bring forward here and move on to the implications. and why it brings us directly to the question of reunification as the only file mode of conflict resolution. it is based on resources and the first is my own book that i wrote narrowly on the question of whether israel could be expected to withdraw from the occupied territories to allow two state solution and the second one was this really extraordinary experience of coordinating a team of international lawyers and i'm a political scientist, not an international lawyer but through a project for the south african government and i believe this is on the desk out there. it is a legal analysis and any of you who are familiar with the international law should find it rewarding and others might find it dense but in the third one, of course, is a wonderful

experience i had, privilege of working with doctor richard fall on the un report. this was mentioned already and a lot of what i will say here came out of but what was in that report relied on the previous one beyond occupation so the deeper legal analysis for this report can be found there. what is apartheid? very briefly the report goes into detail but we use it properly. anything that strikes us as racist or segregationist, maybe, elicit the start. that is perfectly fine as far as i'm concerned. but if you are going to argue that states are accountable under international law to act into an apartheid that we must

refer to the law which prescribes that obligation. that means we're brought to the relative international law that is a found in two major instruments the international convention on the suppression and placement of the apartheid and the statute of criminal court. the first definition is far larger and much more detailed and it lists a series of acts including a segregation in reserves that i will come to you but it says these are only after apartheid understood certain conditions. they have to fit overarching conditions and those conditions include -- they may be similar to practices in south africa and this is a universal instrument and if they do not have to be exactly the same the point is whether they have this other qualities of the law and that they are these are acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination and i call that the purpose clause.

that involves racial groups in a systematic system of oppression but that is not just a random collection of discrete laws but a comprehensive institution that distinguishes apartheid in the rome statute's emphasizing brandon and herm which is institutionalized regime. political scientists get all flushed with pleasure when you talk about regimes because we have loads of theory about regimes and we start to feel more in unfamiliar land. all these elements of the definition are satisfied and i refer you to the report on this and it is an institutionalized regime and the competence of system of laws that ensures jewish national privileges i want to stress that hyphenated construction here. the idea that jews are a nation

and as a people that they have this certain village. it does include policies similar to south africa but any policy. there would not disqualify but it's nonetheless suggested that they do. it is a racial conflict according to the international law defining what is racial discrimination which includes groups defined by dissent. in this case, the local construction of jewishness and palestinian illness or arab this is a distant group, the key quality here which conveys special privileges to one group over another is postulations about their dissent and their right to land in a ticketing. it's expressed in the declaration of the state of israel. i'm speaking fast here about lawsuit if you're getting like

the wind outside not to worry it's clarified in the report. actually purpose there is this a formal aim to maintain israel as a jewish and democratic state and we have a cluster of laws and policies on the books to look at and to confirm that israel has that purpose and if anyone was in doubt about it. from a legal perspective that is satisfied, as well. what was more interesting to me was figuring out how israel is pursuing its apartheid regime was the way it works which is these crucial policy variations among for interwoven regimes and by the domains, i'm sorry, which domain referring here to a territorial geographic entity and a cluster of expectations, norms, rules, practices within

that geographically defined ambit. the first domain being palestinian citizens of israel. what matters here most is the right to vote because if you're going to have jewish and democratic states then it is most pertinent to not allow non-jews to vote those laws out and that means that you have to constrain the vote and allow people to vote you can allow them to vote on that point and in order to do that you have to make sure that the non-jewish vote is never large enough to threaten loss. citizens famously do have the vote which is often cited for crucial difference with south africa but they're not allowed to vote against their own minority status and not allowed to vote against the jewish national character of israel. some people do not have a

national vote so they are carefully excised from that potential body of voters who could challenge the jewish national character of israel. palestinians in the occupied territories, course, have noble. they are not citizens and they can vote for the palestinian authority of the terms of oslo but they are carefully sequestered, and it's five plus million people that are carefully pushed out of any possibility of joining an electoral block that could challenge this state. in domain which outside of the territory under israeli control which is clearly obviously they don't have the vote. another way to think of this is a system and one regime that is effectively composed of four tailored sets of laws covering each population to achieve the

same goals which is to ensure that israel remains a democratic state. all kinds of arguments about whether he can be a jewish and a mechanic state or a white and democratic state and i recognize that point of time to get into that now. what i would like to stress here is the system requires that israel maintain the occupation because if israel does not keep the occupied territories under occupation it faces the threat that a truly sovereign palestinian state could form in those territories which then threaten israel to pass population mixing. it is the deathknell for any racial state because the need division of populations begins to go away and when you have people mixing and make babies it all falls apart. [laughter] on the other hand annexation and

full integration with fire fighting citizenship to the palestinians so that cannot be allowed either. current talk about annexation is affecting that dilemma but it is better for israel not to annex so what is the solution -- military occupation. people who say we have to put apartheid one side in order to look at the occupation, no, that's the other way around. so, speeding right along to part two her policy is apartheid as it always does it destabilizes the whole region and friends international security and must be stopped on those grounds alone. it is immoral untenable and it's crime against humanity and must be stopped but how? the vision of two states is fatally flawed. my book on the one state

solution goes from a pragmatic preview and it only address that one thing and it means that we cannot anticipate that israel would withdraw that it has become the emperor's new clothes kind of fantasy to think that will happen. i don't think that is acceptable anymore and requires a great deal of difference. sustaining jewish statehood on part of the territory and this is a crucial thing. if you partition the land in order to allow israel to remain israel in one part of it in the palestinian state to the other part of it you are basically saying apartheid will continue in that part were israel is now composed. israel continue to be a state and the way it operates and will

continue to be apartheid regime in a slightly different modified order within different borders. my thought experiment transplant that i didn't south africa it would have been okay for white south africans to sustain apartheid in part of the country in turnover the rest to the black south africans -- no one entertain such an idea. it was an anathema. this is the same thing here. you can't and apartheid by dividing the land and allowing it to continue in another part of land. there other aspects of this but cutting to the chase i would propose therefore that unification is the only way to end apartheid. since there's only reason to do that we have to take that very seriously. for activism and activism i mean every kind of activism from grassroots to legal activism in diplomatic activity in support, if -- i want to focus on this angle of in the occupation. and the occupation is a mantra,

a slogan, it's a sign people carry in marches and it's a legal argument but how? again, israel's withdraw cannot be purchased anticipated and invest it would be very partial. this is the [inaudible] plan that you're looking at a peer. all the yellow would be israel and the white would be palestine. with a little umbilicus between the west bank and gaza. odyssey, it's an unviable state building and cutting control water and you could build a road that connects and it's unworkable. it would not end apartheid. establish a state of palestine to leverage withdrawal. this is a popular movement right now, big dip clinic the united nations to do this and however point here is that if we accept the apartheid analysis and the regime such a state would be and

it would lack the exhibitions of true sovereignty. israel is as long as it has composed as a apartheid regime cannot accept any palestinian state that is not [inaudible] because any truly sovereign state would print the jewish national character of israel. this means that a state of palestine formed under these conditions would only secure palestinian property under development, frustration and insecurity and essentially, sustained conflict itself. i would like to take an extra moment and i will destroy my time constraint, i hope not, but i will pray that a little bit of extra attention to [inaudible] is well. google that and spent 50 minutes looking at it more than we supposed do. i went to south africa to study

this material because i realized i didn't understand it and i found it fascinating as a comparison to the palestinian authority and the territorial and institutional constraints that it is operating under. apartheid comparative in the imperative apartheid of wherever it would appear would be to prevent racial mixing. otherwise the whole logic begins to fall apart. began to strictly have different populations there is nothing to defend. in order to do that you need strict geographic segregation. this requires that you -- if you're going to make this work you need separate authorities within these territories and the south africans initially called them black self-government authorities and guess what oslo called the? palestinian self governed authorities. a great deal of conversations between israel and south africa about the bantustans.

we can learn a lot of lessons from it. i learned that from the format in south africa, by the way. this channels palestinian or black or indigenous political aspirations to the local authorities rather than to the states to the dominant states. very convenient for apartheid state to just place the frustration innovations and the quest for rights for population dominating to their own leadership operating under constraints, of course. the pictures you are looking at at the top is a lineup of the bantustans leaders in south africa and the nine, there were ten bantustans, but nine of these leaders were in the picture. below is the palestinian authority.

by the way, i don't mean to impugn the integrity or the authority of the people here is the structural one. they are put into a position where they are compelled to act like a bantustans and one -- to the point of view of the dominant state the main function of this authority is to repress dissent which in the top picture you see bantustans forces in the bottom palestinian armed forces are doing the exact same thing proxy measures. i think the battery is coming out on this thing because i am pushing -- oh. let's see what happens now. there we go. all right.

the oslo accords and we don't have time to get into this brought the second article about this. especially. they established authority identical to the south african bantustans, blow-by-blow. and it is interesting that the anc perceived it is prejudice from the beginning and refuse to have anything to do with it and in fact i've understand that nelson mandela told that it's a bad idea and don't go for this and it's not a good idea. he went with it anyway. that wasn't supposed to happen. this is a tricky device here. so, in short, it is now locked into paying the self-government authority and it cannot act independently of that role. the alternative therefore is if

the partition can only sustain apartheid and we must rethink the conflict on using south african not as a model but as an inspiration or a thought experiment and they called it colonialism of a special type and it doesn't involve -- agreeing admitting that a large completion of people come into denies and federal not go away and it's called settler colonialism, shift model from a colonial to a settler colonial model and that means that you do not and it by practicing or and you can't and separate colonialism and its power by petition. and it by eliminating settler domination. treating palestinian as a multinational state is on the basis of race would only saturate a settler discord

because it is sign is him as that there are identities that if you recognize them and institutionalize them they are essentially perpetuating apartheid. to the whole country as one country in palestine wrongly divided by race and this is south africa formula. one country wrongly divided by race and reunifying mandate palestine. i'm out of time, aren't i smart how my doing? there is a legal basis for doing this if he turned back to the league of nations mandate. it's always propose that is one country for everyone that there and that it would not be a jewish state or anybody state but secular democratic state so there is a nice, fat, legal argument to explore there. the hard part of this is that reunification does raise very serious questions of identity

shift and to reconstruct the idea of the nation and reconstruct the idea of the group in this case, palestine. being a foggy mandate reference or a dreamy future but would be one state that belongs to all who live in it and it would not be the exclusive geographic heritage of any one part of the population and it would not require the departure or exclusion of anybody which is tough for people who lost a great deal to it. jewish has to be reconceived as an ethnic group with full civil, social and cultural rights, not people with superior rights to the land, not as a nation with right to self-determination. in palestinian, this is the toughest thing for me to say as a non- palestinian, but returning to the idea that it is a multi- secretary and identity

and it still is, actually, everything everyone in mandate territory not arab in any sense that would exclude non-arabs. okay, this is one of the problems that palestinian arab state and under [inaudible] that has to be pre- taught dp. not the racial, ethnic construction firm by zionism and confirmed by apartheid. it recasts everything by in my sleep don't want to tackle it. it's crucial, i think, it illuminates where we are and what is going on and the more i look at it the more powerful an analysis i think it is in i do hope you will consider it seriously as a model for rethinking the conflict. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you so much, doctor tilley. our next speaker ian williams is a native of liverpool, england and his been washington report un force on it since 1991. it's no surprise that he really knows the ins and outs of that world body. he has preservice president of the un correspondence association and has won many awards for his exposes of human malfeasance. at the same time he has supported and defended the un and its ideals and has personally known for secretary generals as well as numerous international diplomats and officials. and has been a columnist for the nation and the guardian american online and an editor for the world policy journal. senior alan must perform policy in focus he is the author of the un for beginners and the recently published untold for the real story of the united nations and peace in war. he and doctor tilley will be

signing their books during the break that follows this panel. please join me in welcoming ian williams. [applause] >> it be difficult to follow virginia's detailed academic exposé but it is worth remembering one of the big problems united nations as people what is it good for mark i'm very diffident about this and i tell people it's the worst possible organization except all the alternatives. it doesn't work that way. if you start off with a sense of realism about what the united nations can do what it stands for and you don't get disappointed too easily and you walk of its small successes and there are successes and they are very relevant here. it's a very good reason why israel and the lovely concentrate so much on the united nations. what we call the unique legitimizing power of the united nations seen several result of

this recently and is real never get clear title of jerusalem or the occupied territories without a you and say so. that is key and it's been proven since 1945 if you think of the occupations no one had given up on the tunisians and i told foreign minister over lunch today you will never get a clear title, ever, until you can get the un to do it in the un won't. they went to a standstill but in the end it is independent. only this week and i don't know whether you saw this but the european court of justice actually ruled that the european union had no right to decide fishing treaties with morocco that included western sahara fisheries. the european court was legitimizing boycotts of produce from occupied territories.

i think that one is something that should be played up a lot more yeah, i know it's a contentious subject we pointed out several times washington report that the separation in western sahara is there are many parallels there. the other one of course, is western sahara will in fact some time and you never see a map of where it's included in morocco but the moroccans come with a clear title and it's the same with occupied territories in jerusalem. this brings us back to the ambivalence of his real and the lobby. they have and how do i put this? it's almost psychological psychoanalysis but they have a deep respect for law but in the way that makes the elevator stopped in every way hundred and four and the can still take the elevator and obey the letter but

israel spent a lot of time trying to work its way around the laws. rarely do they deny them so after the united nations the us spent a lot of time trying to create an elevator so that they could skirt the law and they are very scared of actual definitions of the law and that is why they are so obsessed and if the un was ineffectual they wouldn't devote too much effort to supporting them. there is an apartheid conventi convention. it's like the genocide convention. there is a legal international binding commitment on member states to do something about an apartheid state. if israel declared to be an apartheid state there are legal consequences the states to follow and another regard if you remember jim baker in bosnia on the state department were very solicitous to make sure there were genocide ever appeared. mass murder was fine, mass

murder is something you can ignore, genocide has a binding, legal commitment under the geneva convention to do something about it. it looks like we're playing with words but this is very, very serious and the israelis know that. first off, they deny it but in effect israel is the only state that was created by un resolution. so you have the conundrum that they are visibly denying the efficacy of united nations and its legitimacy in saying that the resolution don't apply but their very existence depends on the resolution. you hear continually that general assembly resolutions are often binding and we could say amen because it was a general assembly resolution and the partition palestine and set up the israeli state. [applause] you could have a conclave to

work your way out of this particular presence it does have international complications because the united states was a founding member of the united nations and it is still an indispensable part of united nations and it is inconceivable that the united nations would exist without the united states taking part in it. this creates a problem because this is always the exception. almost every resolution that comes up is being weighed in the balance and nuclear nonproliferation, we saw with grants presentation earlier, the united states is significant for nonproliferation treaty that says nothing apart from what is now the five permanent members and have nuclear weapons and then it condones nuclear weapons in israel. because it does that every other country in the world and

eckstein says hey, if them, why not us? you continually create exceptions to your own roles that other people walk into and settlements in particular the us has never improve them but they changed the language so often over the years that as far as the us is concerned jerusalem is international territory in the state department and i believe just showing this about law i read earlier this year that the state department is still refusing to issue passports with jerusalem israel americans born there. it still jerusalem and they will put israel on there. the state department still has residual respect for international law that is missing completely from wales. let's get these territories together. the un is cockpit for all of these things. all human life is there. they're watching us. you have this ambivalent

attitude in most american jews, as we know of, liberal, globalist and the support democracy and freedom and they like the united nations and they made an exception for all these things about zionism and racism and they didn't think it through but it eroded the support and this helped the road to support of united nations inside the us and you got the people who would automatically have been natural supporters of the un were always ambivalent about it. you have jewish senators from new york looking over their shoulders to will pass resolutions condemning the un and that's one of the points that the lobby has been doing in washington is to try to trim the un to size by threatening to withhold or withholding funds or pulling out of organizations as we've seen recently. the effect of this is not just

financial but it's a continual attrition of the morale and standing in the un and the scene secretary generals realize that to get on the us you have to pander to the israel lobby and also street generals have said this to some extent in a pragmatic and political way. it's the most accommodating up till then but [inaudible] had a continual stream of the jewish lobby organization and i have read conference to presidents that they were coming into his office all of the time and he always received them they were banging on the door and they were banging on the doors of embassies. all of these states that the microstate's that only stump collectors know about come out to support the us and israel on these crucial resolutions and the two, three, six civic trust

territories and this is a result of intensive lobbying by the israel lobby here on the states to affect israeli policy. at the moment of a particular situation that would be laughable except that it's serious and i don't know whether you know but israel is running for a seat on the security council this year. on the face of it this is laughable we have to remember that morocco was on a security counsel while occupying western sahara and indonesia was on the city council was occupying and one of on the security counsel while it was missing its own preparation. it's not totally unprecedented but usually they didn't actually say they define the whole gamut of international law openly and is this likely to happen?

i don't want to get too much into it but they are running for seats in the west your opinion and other groups which is an imperial hangover because essentially it is europe plus the white commonwealth, australia, new zealand and canada, plus the us has an auxiliary member. the asians wouldn't have them and the africans wouldn't have them so in the end intense lobbying by the lobby through the us came in and badgered the europeans into accepting israel as it associate member so can run for office which run under teetering basis. israel became a vice president of the general assembly and became chairman and i would have you believe is a chairman of the legal committee at the moment which it is putting casanova in charge of the chastity committee

back it does not compute. but this is really investor is very concerned about this bit. then this was upgraded very quietly so that israel became a phone number was allowed to run, it could run for the security counsel. the mechanics of this is regrettably for it's good for western europe and most of the countries it rotates on a [inaudible] basis and they had calendars going decades ahead sometime as it the genocide in the human rights and now you make it israel on the security council. the reason for that is the one that only has elections and if they don't decide within their own group that he goes to a general poll of all the members

to becomes a temporary memory of the security counsel so germany and belgium are the current candidates in israel is running against them and i have been trying to calculate the others on this and it is difficult but i can imagine there are is really investor diplomats going into berlin insane you owe us so much and why don't you do the right thing. why don't you stand down a message or two and how can you deny us in on your clients? they will say will give you another submarine and shut up we're taking this one. but i am worried about belgium. the other people that will gang up on belgium and say you should stand down and do the right thing. that is the only way to get to it and israel will not get it but if it's stitched up like this and belgian is leaned upon insufficiently many of the powers them i just do it so it's

worth watching and worth intervening. what is the practical effect track a lot. discussions in the security counsel have resolutions and even a member can have considerable affect. while france was grandstanding of the iraq war it was the other smaller countries with respect for international law like jamaica and ireland and others like that who provided the both of the opposition to the iraq war and stood their ground and where do we get to it with this ambassador? i think this brings the lobby and it is because the un is so unpopular in some parts of america like evangelical christians or with the diehard zionist it's a great fundraising gamut. i keep getting letters from various organizations saying poor little israel, the only country not allowed to be on the security council. poor little israel continually

victimized at the united nations, send a check. i think it's one of the dynamics these organizations are businesses and their self-sustaining so they want checks off of people that they can find an issue at the united nations they can raise money on the strength of it in they do. then it has a practical effect because secretary-general, un staff get pilloried and harassed to do the right thing and the net with the report of being squashed. they will just get dropped or they will be sidelined. look what happened to poor arthur goldstone. he was personally carried into the ground until he gave up and i thought he was a tragic figure by the end because he started off with such integrity. with the us it's even worse

because it destroys the whole basis of the united nations. the embassy move is in direct defiance of the un charter in the us the founder and drafter of the charter and when the un charter was flown from san francisco to washington the case had its own parachute. [inaudible] scanned the case didn't have a parachute and maybe they suspected something that was how seriously the us took the un at the time and this is setting up international law. it's been defied but this is the significance of it. on top is basically that the un charter and because were talking about people who can do the impossible things before breakfast like the red paint in alice they are now saying but iran is in defiance of un resolutions and therefore we must take action against because

that is the only full commitment for the case for war against iran is being made in the united nations and our current ambassador nikki haley is, i mean, she could get her credentials from tel aviv, not jerusalem. i've never had to say anything that isn't 150% in support of israel. she really is. she's devoted her full-time and she gets them pledges and let's get down to the actual reason why the lobby is important for these people. what power in washington it goes to the lobby. want to be president in the united states? as the un ambassador most surely does it will jump through any hoops at all to do it. and that risks the organization which for all of its faults it's a very it's a major but pragmatic conclusion and you may look at the united states as a

failure but we will tell you we have not had world war iii yet. that's the measure. this is the road to world war iii. if you dissolve the whole structure of international global law and security that is where we are going and that is what donald trump and he's done on half of the lobby. he's done it because all across this country people are writing checks to congressman persuading him to vote in defiance of international law and devote to revile the united nations. there are refugees that have been going hungry all across the middle east because donald trump has seen unrest which, by the way, he's been doing is really's a favor. they like to revile it of balance but you have to remember that [inaudible] has been doing what israel should have been doing since occupied part. they been paying for the health and occupation when the

occupying power should have been doing it it. the israelis have known this all along and they have reviled and shouted but only so far. i think they are privately appalled that trump has actually followed and cut the funny. we didn't mean it, mr. president. we want the money, honestly. just want to keep them under control. they have kept them under control to a large extent. they kept generally secretary after victory general under control but it still comes back to all these people from all that is really organizations coming in but once they had been to gaza and some happening in gaza that was the key. is really try to stop them going to gaza and soon as he got there you see all of the statements he stated very clearly your decision about occupation and about gaza and yes, he kept receiving them but then they would tell them you got to break

the seizure and you cannot keep on doing this. you got to end the occupation and he's in the same position. he's pro- israeli like a lot of social democrats but he is now telling them gently you got to but the terrible thing is as long as the us is one 100% behind israel and as long as the lobby keep it that way and the un is never going to be a functioning international body and in a complete way which is bad news for the world. whether it's climate change or whatever it is an indispensable organization and i see i've entered the red light district, now. i better windup. i always stay in the red light district. i will go and sit down. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you very much, ian. final speaker, nora haircut is a noted legal scholar, human rights activity and activist. she's an assistant professor at george mason university, cofounder and editor of [inaudible] in an editorial committee member of the journal of palestine studies. prior to joining the george mason faculty she served as legal counsel for the house subcommittee, legal advocate for palestinian refugee rights and as a national grassroots organizer and legal advocate at the us campaign to end israeli occupation. most recently she released a pedagogical project on the gaza strip and palestine and the centerpiece of which is a short multimedia documentary titled gaza in context. it positions israel's wars on gaza within a settler colonial framework. she is also the producer of the short video black palestinian

solidarity and is currently working on a project tentatively project justice for some: law is politics in the question of palestine. it's a great pleasure to introduce nora. [applause] >> thank you, janet. thank you to all of you. i thank you are very brave to come to the session which focuses on law which in and of itself is meant to be obscurantist in order to disempower people to take their lives into their own hands and by its very definition is indeterminate so what we believe the law to proclaim is going to be subject to our own mediation as well as judicial interpretation. anything that the law tells us can be subject to some sort of legal controversy depending on who the lawyer is representing.

i can, if i really appreciated doctor tilly's presentation, but my colleague were israel i could use the very same legal framework to come to a very different conclusion which is why our reliance on law has to come with a great deal of skepticism and with a strategic vision. with that in mind, i want to build on what was said earlier to discuss occupation loss in the way that occupation law has not failed to stem the proliferation of settlements and settlers within the west bank and in gaza until 2005 but instead about occupation law israel could not have and could not continue to expand and entrenched it settler colonial presence within the west bank and within the gaza strip and without mandate palestine. a quick note on framework doctor

tilly walk us through apartheid and said this would recast how we envision this to now think of it as settler colonialism, i want her just as to think of this as little settler colonialism first project that is distinct from accommodation and that the settler who travels into the colony struggling with their sovereignty with an intent to stay. that intent to stay in the colony and to assert their sovereignty also places an imperative to remove the natives and so there are two processes of play and the removal of the native with the intent to replace them with the settler and to establish a continuous uninterrupted temporal and spatial presence and this is from patrick wolf, logic of illumination so that the removal of the settler, excuse me of the palestinian isn't an event but becomes an ongoing [inaudible]

that palestinians have referred to it but also fits in the theoretical. if we begin with settler accommodation is a free market apartheid and occupation become too legal regulatory regimes that enable and fulfill those settler colonial ambitions of removal and replacement. doctor tilly discusses one approach and i will discuss apartheid and i will discuss occupation. i'm not sure how this works but here is the map that you may be familiar with. obviously israel never and the armistice lost service in march that have never been declared in order to facilitate expansion. when israel conquered the territory in 196790% of israeli schools wanted to maintain them mostly for religious reasons with having an affectionate relationship with the west bank,

judeo and smart but that religious relationship had no political legitimacy and therefore they had no basis to remain and was compelled to actually withdraw but israel wanted the territory, wanted to get around the law and again as was mentioned how do you get through that elevator and it couldn't annex the territory even if it wanted to because of the prohibition on annexation which comes into disrepute in the late 18th century and up until then territorial contest was permitted but it also, let's say he didn't care about the laws as seen in the annexation of jerusalem and otherwise it didn't want to annex the territory because it would have to for the palestinian population thereby disrupting jewish demographic majority that have been established in the aftermath of the removal of 800,000 palestinian natives. how then and recognize the territory is occupied it would

have to revert the territory with sovereign and maintain territorial demographic and political status quo so here is the problem. it was the land but it doesn't want the people on the land. if it annexes the land it absorbs the population and if it doesn't annex the land and acknowledges occupation it has to give the land back. instead israel creates a new category and law known as and declares that this occupation is generous or distinct and unlike any other category and argues that some of jordan's annexation of the west bank in 1950 is not recognized besides anyone in britain and pakistan in egypt is only in authority of the gaza strip and palestinians don't exist as a people that the

territory longed to know sovereign. as such occupation laws in trying to bite the regulations for that even if the accident and cannot be triggered in their is a sovereign void and this is not occupation by law shall be occupation by fact. what does that allow israel to do it allows it to the legal right to have presence in the territories without the legal obligation to maintain the status quo and entrance until the status of version of sovereignty. it allows israel to incrementally take the land under two legal fiction, legal fiction of military necessity and as far as necessity is concerned it's the idea that it's taking the land in order to create military cabins and that all of the civilian presence is

temporary. honestly that's a contradiction and you don't play civilians in military equipment because you're using them as he human shields or is in fact, permit. that is the first legal fiction for the second legal fiction of temporality is what [inaudible] the military advocate general and then chief justice for the israeli high court produced two decades described as temporality. it's a temporary presence of this millions but it is not indefinite which is the opposite of permanent. it is meaning that it is not permanent but we do not have to declare an end to it and that is the opposite of permanency and therefore can be temporary. that is a legal fiction. but these legal fictions survive. the law in and of itself and

especially international law lacking a higher education system and lacking a reliable enforcement model becomes subject to the political will of the international community and can very well by application implementation in interpretation as it does here the united states is central to this interpretation and essential to this interpretation despite the fact that it has administrations from the johnson administration to the present, well, not this administration, have recognized that occupation law applies as a matter of law, not fact and israel is in occupying power but has failed to implement its own interpretation of law for two reasons. one is in the aftermath of the 1967 war the johnson initiation

determined the value of israel as a cold war aspect in the middle east as within the soviet union to build a power vacuum left by the european colonial powers. in that struggle to fill the power vacuum what it decided in inaugurated after 1967 was a policy of injuring israel's qualitative military edge over collection of its neighbors so that it could prevail in a military confrontation should it arise. that is a policy one. before that the united states maintained systemic policy of equally arming israel in its allied monocle regime. qualitative military edge and the second policy that it inaugurates and this is another piece of this remark of why the generous occupancy works is that the johnson administration also inaugurates and helps to orchestrate the land for peace

remark which is enshrined in un security council resolution 242. in the at the time that israel occupied these territories in the golan heights what the un is in session and is an agreement that israel is in occupying power and to withdraw. if in fact the attack on egypt air force which had lain there in the sinai peninsula and destroyed in two hours, if that initial attack was unprompted then israel had committed aggression which is use of force that is illegal and has the legal operation to withdraw without a patient. if instead that was a preemptive use of force for self-defense then israel has the right to remain as an occupying power but under no circumstances title,

territory or congress. why does this matter? in the drafting of the security council resolution johnston personally, himself, wanted to ensure that israel can maintain the territories as consideration for exchange and in exchange the arab state for permanent peace. johnson with a ten when isaac hauser forced israel france and the uk to withdraw from the suez canal and so does mike johnson thought at the time israel should've been allowed to maintain the egyptian territory and hold onto it until egypt agreed to normalize its relationship with. and to establish permanent peace here in 1957 the opportunity arose again and rather than apply international law and withdraw as a legal obligation he said it became reformulated

as a politically creation of a quid pro quo exchange of land and when you give us peace. in the negotiation there was disagreement and israel wanted to keep it so there was disagreement about which territories were to be withdrawn from and the debate then raged about the terms of withdrawal of immediacy and what would come first and there was one other piece of the debate which was armistice line that was continuous and not been a permanent line. the johnson administration love the uk and they ordered the permanent article to be dropped in order to permit negotiation on the border but never ever to actually change the territorial integrity and so here is one and were five draft resolutions at the time this is the latin american walk resolution and you

could see in every other draft resolution besides the one that ultimately presented by the united kingdom had become the language of 242 the definite article the and all the territory is included. the us voted for this, by the way. it doesn't pass because the disagreement because the sequence of withdrawals or peace. this is the final resolution and this is 242 and you will see the definite article is dropped and but in the preamble or text there is a prohibition on the acquisition of territory by war in the actual clause itself is deflated that it was occupied in recent conflict and we know that legal loopholes are coming and state after state including france argue that this is to be understood as allowing for minor border modifications but the representative to the un

represents israel is exceptional in his skills explains very forthrightly resolution means what it said it does not mean that it does not say. [laughter] another legalese becomes consequential to this present day and together with israel's own logic of what it would need to establish permanent borders and this one articulated by deputy prime minister that defensible borders would be tantamount to this and as you can see, all of the orange is why israel defined as what is defensible borders would look like and what would be necessary for security purposes and there is jerusalem and it's part of that plan and there is continuity between the interior of israel as well as border with jordan and controls almost the entirety of the eastern border this is what it wanted in or articulated in 1967 and achieved far more than that. it has achieved far more than

that into the present. let me just also adhere that this could not be possible for the present it without palestinian participation and acquiescence. as embodied and represented through the peace process inaugurated in 1993.

>> ladies and gentlemen, once again, good morning, and thank you for your patience as we try and stay on time and on schedule today. our next panel excuses