William Tyler
World Without End: Onwards and into the Future

William Tyler | World Without End: Onwards and into the Future

- So welcome to this final talk in the series that we’ve been pursuing during this spring and summer period. Now, this last talk is, for me, perhaps the most challenging. I think it would be for any lecturer wherever they were giving it from, whatever their background. This is difficult. To talk about a war, the Israeli Hamas war whilst it’s still happening in real time, let alone the expansion of that war with the attacks by Hezbollah and the possibility of Israel going all out for a war in Southern Lebanon, it’s arguably not just a difficult talk to give, but perhaps even foolhardy, yet I can’t avoid doing it. It would be ridiculous to not do this session, the last one in the series, looking at where the situation is between Jew and Arab in 2024. We talked, that is to say, Trudy and I talked, for a long time about how we would go about this and were there ways in which we could avoid it? Well, honestly, we can’t avoid it, and so I’ve been asked if I will tackle this, and I will start by saying, as ever, I will tell the truth as I see it, but then you may see the truth in a different way than I do, but what is absolutely certain, like night following day, is that whatever I say, there will be a number of people listening who will disagree, as well as a number of people listening who will agree. I apologise in advance to those who disagree, although disagreement isn’t the problem, but I hope not to annoy you too much. I’m reminded those of us who did Latin as children at school, do you remember the old Latin tag, , whatever the number of people, so the number of different opinions, whatever the number of people, so the number of different opinions. I was once told by a Jewish friend here in Britain that that quotation, , applies to Jews in particular in terms of being disputatious in a right way of taking different approaches to questions, but I think it’s wider than that.

I think all of us are within that. So all I hope to do in this talk is to explain some of the geopolitical issues behind the Israeli Hamas war, and outline ways, and more importantly, perhaps barriers to any future peace. I’m going to begin by reading you tiny short paragraphs. “This was a surprise attack, a preemptive strike intended to inflict maximum shock and devastation. Within the next two hours, the world will change.” The date was the 7th of December, not the 7th of October. The year was 1941, not 2023, and yet that description of the Japanese attack on the American fleet in Pearl Harbour resonates with us today in the light of Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians last October, but there’s an important difference to note, and this difference has led to a lot of problems across the world. In 1941, the preemptive attack by Japan was of one sovereign state, Japan, on another sovereign state, the United States, whereas the attack by Hamas was not a preemptive strike at all, but rather a terrorist strike, and was not committed by a sovereign state, but by a terrorist organisation. Israel’s response in 2023 was mirrored by America’s response in 1941. In 1941, America’s Western allies, that is basically Britain and the Commonwealth, and indeed Britain’s ally, Russia, strongly approved of America’s subsequent declaration of war, but in the case of Israel, although it’s Western allies, including the States and European countries recognised the legitimate right under the UN charter for Israel to defend itself and respond.

Since then, there has emerged a worry in the Western alliance expressed by many Western leaders to Israeli political leadership directly over the scale of Israel’s response and the fate of Palestinian civilians. In the West in general, Israel’s stock has fallen fueled by the skillful propaganda by European supporters of Hamas, which we’ve all seen on our television screens. Now, none of this obviously brings peace and security nearer. Indeed, it almost certainly makes peace and security go further away. All of that is perhaps obvious except this emphasis that this is a new sort of war, not a sovereign state against a sovereign state, not Israel against Jordan or Syria, but Israel against Hezbollah and Hamas. Now, you may well say that is really Israel against Iran, but it isn’t. It isn’t quite the same. It’s different, and this war is part of a wider changing world, a world which, in recent decades, has seen the rise of China and the rise of North Korea, both with nuclear weapons, and in the Middle East, it’s seen the rise of Iran. It’s a world which watches with bated breath, the deep divisions in American society and America’s loss of power, the sort of power that it enjoyed in the Cold War as the leader of the western world after 1945, and as the sole power with the collapse of Eastern Europe in 1989, a collapse of Russia that is no longer true.

There’s the rise of China. There’s the new belligerence of Putin’s Russia, and there’s the increasing worry of these unstable states of Iran and North Korea, and it’s a different world and a changing world here in Europe where Europeans’ self-confidence and faith in the future has been severely challenged by the non enlightenment forces of nationalistic populism, which we’ve seen in France, in Germany, in Italy, and most importantly perhaps in Hungary. This has been much fermented by the challenge of mass migration across the world and the rise of a militant new form of Islam, which is not just in the Islamic world, but is absolutely dead centre here in Europe. We have three elected Islamic MPs in Britain who stood on a platform of support for Palestine. It’s worrying here. Lyon, which is the second city of France, has a massive Islamic population, as do many of the towns in the cotton and woollen towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire here in Britain. Now, in addition to these geopolitical changes is the growing lack of confidence in many parts of the west of international bodies, especially the United Nations and its agencies, UNRRA, UNESCO, and so on. And in addition to that, there has been lack of confidence now in the efficacy of international law. Now, many of us thought all these questions had been resolved post 1945, and that the world would not slip back into the pre-war world where the League of Nations failed to deal with the rise of Hitler, but this concern over the bias expressed by the United Nations and its seeming inability to deal with either the problem of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians, this has left many people in the Western Alliance to question the purpose of the United Nations.

It seems to many that the United Nations is more willing to appease the strong and the terrorist than to stand four square behind international law, and you can’t help feeling that the United Nations may be coming to the end of its usefulness, and that reminds us of the late 1930s and the uselessness of the League of Nations, and that’s not a good place to be in. Nowhere is this breakdown in the world order, which is the phrase that’s used, nowhere in the world order established after 1945, nowhere is it more pronounced than in the law of war. Oona Hathaway, who is the Yale professor of International Law recently wrote a very interesting article in the “Foreign Affairs” magazine of May and June of this year, and she wrote this, “International humanitarian law, also known as the law of war, or the law of armed conflict, is supposed to spare civilians from the worst calamities of conflict.” That was the deal with the issue of Hitler, and the civilian populations that suffered under Nazis during the Second World War. “The aim of the body of law has always been,” says Oona Hathaway, “has always been clear. Civilians not involved in the fighting deserve to be protected from harm and to enjoy unimpeded access to humanitarian aid, but in the Israel Hamas war, the law has failed.

Hamas continues to hold hostages and has used schools, hospitals, and other civilian buildings to shield its infrastructure, while Israel has waged an all-out war in densely populated areas and slowed the flow of desperately needed aid to a trickle. The result has been utter devastation for civilians in Gaza.” Now I said, I will tell the truth as I see it, and there may be people listening in Israel who are appalled that I should say that, but you have to see it’s very important that we see as far as we can through the fog of war, the realities of war. That’s not saying anything about the legality of Israel’s war. It’s saying what the consequences are in a changed world where Israel is not fighting Jordan or Syria, but is fighting Hamas and Hezbollah. It’s different. The post-war argument set up in the Geneva Convention of 1949 had been rendered next to useless when dealing with terrorist organisations. In other words, international law has failed to keep in touch with the real events in the real world. Now that of course, is difficult because whatever laws of war you create internationally, neither Hamas or Hezbollah going to care a damn about, but it would give some protection to the criticisms levelled at Israel. Hathaway goes on to add this. Remember, she’s the Professor of International Law at Yale. I wish I could hear her lecture, because this article is really, I think, first rate. “One pessimistic takeaway from the wars in Gaza and Ukraine may be that the hard won lessons of World War II have been forgotten, and efforts to use law to protect civilians from war are pointless,” because the Russians don’t care what they do to civilians, and Hamas and Hezbollah certainly don’t care. “But as brutal as the current conflicts are, they would likely be even more horrific without these rules. A careful reading of the current era would show that rather than altogether abandoning the protections of civilians enshrined in the 1949 Geneva Conventions, belligerence in recent wars have been making those protections less effective by severely restricting what counts as a civilian, and the United States has played a key part in this shift.”

And she goes on to say this, “To confront groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State,” or Hezbollah and Hamas of course, “the United States and its allies came to rely on what they dubbed the unwilling or unable doctrine.” Let me repeat that, “the unwilling or unable doctrine. The theory that action against a non-state threat is justified as long as the country in which the non-state actor is found is unwilling or unable to suppress the threat.” Well, clearly Lebanon does not control Hezbollah and Hamas, as a terrorist organisation, controls the whole of Gaza under the pretext of an elected body, so it doesn’t apply. So you have to look at what is a civilian in a different way. As regards the IDF actions in Gaza, she adds this, “In Gaza, there are a few objects or structures that Israel does not consider dual use.” In other words, schools, hospitals, for example, being used by Hamas, whether their cellars or whatever, but are used as fronts for their organisations, so they’re are hospitals plus being headquarters for Hamas, or firing positions for Hamas, or where weapons are stored. “In Gaza, there are few objects or structures that Israel does not consider dual use. Israel has worsened Gaza’s humanitarian crisis by holding at the border items such as oxygen silos and tent poles. Meanwhile, it treats hospital, schools, apartment buildings, and even places of worship as a legitimate military targets if Hamas has used them for military purposes.” And this is why these new wars with terrorists do not and cannot abide by the old rules established to control the worst aspects of wars in regards to civilians established in 1949. They simply don’t work. How can Israel defend itself if it cannot attack schools and hospitals in which Hamas are embedded?

To use the modern phrase, it’s nonsense. But in doing so, Israel opens itself up to Hamas’ allies in the West for reasons of their own, to make serious criticisms of Israel’s actions, and you can add, Israel has not particularly helped itself by its lack of clear statements in the West. The war began with some terrible Israeli spokespeople on British television, which was horrendously bad, whereas Hamas’ supporters in the West have been far more on the ball, creating their own story, their own narrative. Now in a war, there’s propaganda on both sides, in a war, in the fog of war, to use the phrase I used just now, truth is difficult to ascertain. In 20 years time, we shall know everything about the Israel Hamas War, of what was true and what was not true, but in the middle of it, it’s difficult and you have to find ways. When I say you, I mean the West has to find ways of challenging the narrative of terrorist organisations, and that isn’t easy. It certainly isn’t easy, but it’s something that needs to be done, and the big issue here is the issue that western politicians have been bringing up with Netanyahu and his government, which is this concept of proportionality. And we’ve always had a sense of proportionality in British law, and common law, and in the States, so if you come, if you approach me in the street and you punch me, then it is not proportionality for me to draw a gun and shoot you dead. That’s not proportional; however, if I hit you back, that’s perfectly proportional, so there’s questions of proportionality. Now how on earth do you judge that in the present situation? I do not know. One of the problems of course, which is now arisen and links to our lack of faith in international law is what happens if Netanyahu is brought before the international criminal court, if he ever is? What does that say? Now I can say, because lots of my Jewish friends say they have not much time for Netanyahu, but it isn’t the man, it’s the government that he represents.

If it is put on trial for acts of, and I hate this use of the word genocide in this context, it’s nonsense, but if he’s brought to trial on grounds of initiating very aggressive Israeli action, unlawful actions, then it means that any western leader facing a terrorist situation could likewise be brought before an international court. And yet we remind ourselves that for all the horrors performed by the Chinese government on the Uyghurs, for example, they have not been brought before an international court nor are suggested or Kim Jong Un in North Korea, but it doesn’t help when the new British labour government has recently announced that it would support the international criminal court in prosecutions court against Netanyahu. That really does not help the situation. We might prefer the Israeli leader to be someone that we could genuinely admire and support in the West, but life isn’t like that. You can’t choose your friends anymore than you can choose your enemies. It is what it is. And who knows, Britain doesn’t count anyhow, but what happens if a Harris or Trump administration go along with the prosecution of Netanyahu? That is a different ballgame, and none of us know. None of us know what’s going to happen in America. Now, none of what I’ve said so far makes reaching a goal of peace or settlement in the Middle East any easier, a weakened international order, a weakened United States, but what we do know is that failure to reach peace between Israel and Hamas, and indeed with Israel and Hezbollah threatens peace in the whole region, and thus peace across the entire world.

And within the last 24 hours, we’ve seen reports that the Turkish president, Erdogan, has threatened to invade Israel on behalf of Palestine. What game is he playing? Well, he’s playing a game of an attempt to restore the power of the Ottoman Empire. That’s the game he’s playing. He’s talked before about meetings and conferences of Turkic peoples. Now the Middle East doesn’t have Turkic peoples other than Turkey, but he does have Muslims, like Turkey, and so he’s looking again before creating power for himself, but this is really dangerous because Turkey is a member of NATO. You might well ask in the light of that, and in the light of Trump, whether NATO can survive. It may not, in which case the European nations will have to come to a agreement about European military defence. But then Hungary, a member of the European Union, is already dealing with Russia and Belarus and opening its borders to Belarusians and Russians. We live in a very changing world, fast changing, complex, no easy answers. You will have read in your press wherever you are, I’m sure, many serious commentators, many politicians, and many military men and women who are talking in the West about three years to get ourselves a grip militarily in preparation for a potential World War III. Now, I don’t personally think we’re anywhere near a World War III. Why? Because I don’t think Putin would dare do anything which would result in the complete destruction of Russia, but we may have limited, further limited wars in Europe was Putin to advance, for example, into the Baltic states, and it’s all banged up together. That’s what I’m trying to say at this beginning part of the talk. I got to keep the eye on the time because the Israel Hamas war is part of this changing world, part of this changing world. Now, the road to peace over the last 20 years from 2000, shall we say, has been littered with failures.

The Abraham Accords, for example, which saw progress did they not, with treaties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates mediated by the United States, United States then being all powerful. It was the first time since 1994 and the Peace Treaty between Israel and Jordan, that Israel had come to another agreement with an Arab neighbour. Incidentally, you know why they were called the Abraham Accord? It was to highlight the common belief of Judaism and Islam in the person of Abraham, and religion has fueled this conflict, and now that we have Islamists taking a extraordinary view of the Sharia and of the Koran, extreme interpretations, makes it more difficult, and indeed, the extreme Orthodox Jews on the West Bank taking similar views based upon religious beliefs also create problems. In 2020, Israel also came to an agreement to normalise relations with Sudan. Then we get the Clinton parameters on the cusp of the change in government. The Bush Clinton change at the end of 2000, and here there were plans put, both to Yasser Arafat representing Palestinians, and to the Israeli government, and both had reservations, but at the time, Clinton thought those reservations that both sides had could be negotiated. In the end, it led to yet another political cul-de-sac. In 2003, there was that phrase I don’t like, “The roadmap to peace”, an informal group consisting, incidentally, not only of the United States and the United Nations, the EU, but Russia. And it was meant to be a two nation approach, a Palestinian State and an Israeli State with the Palestinian ceasing terrorism and Israel ending its settlements.

Again, something quite easy to say, but of course impossible to implement. None of this brought peace, none of it brought peace. In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza, including the withdrawal of Israeli settlements. Israel had occupied Gaza since 1967 and left it, you remember, with good infrastructure. In 2006, Hamas took power at Democratic elections, which it shared the government with Fatah, a branch of the PLO. But in 2007, Fatah and Hamas fell out, and that didn’t help the situation one iota for it meant that any idea that route one could create one Palestine in two places, Gaza and the West Bank, was completely gone, because the West Bank had no intention of dealing with an organisation like Hamas. And so from 2007, practically the issue of a one state Palestine dissolved in effect to one state and one terrorist controlled territory, Gaza. It’s very difficult. Every page you turn over becomes more difficult. This is Jean-Pierre Filiu’s book on Gaza. It’s rather a large book. There were two little pieces that might be worth sharing at this point with you. First of all, he wrote this, “On the 19th of September, 2007, Prime Minister Olmert,” I’m sorry about the pronunciation here of the Israeli Prime Minister, “and his security cabinet took a further step when they classified the Gaza Strip as hostile territory.” Wow. “Against which military and anti-terrorist operations will be intensified.” That’s 2007. “Sanctions against Gaza were strengthened by the Israelis with a ban, for example, on the import of paper to discourage Hamas propaganda activities while the Israeli government continued to claim its risk to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.” Well, not necessarily are those things compatible.

And Filiu goes on to say, “On the 26th November, 2007, President Bush convened his anticipated Peace Conference in the American city of Annapolis in the state of Maryland. On the eve of the meeting, the Israeli Prime Minister, in what was supposed to be a gesture of goodwill towards Mahmoud Abbas, announced a temporary suspension of the ban on the export of flowers from Gaza and permission from the import into Gaza, of a hitherto proscribed cargo of sheep. The conference itself did not lead to any significant breakthroughs.” Israel said a condition to go forward was that Mahmoud Abbas took control of Gaza. Well, we know that was a wish that was not come about. It wasn’t simply possible. So every attempt at peace from whatever date you want to take, 1948, 1918, 1914, nothing has been resolved in over a century in the Middle East, something I’ve said before. And then we come to the war. This is Scott-Baumann’s book, “Palestinians and Israelis” in which he writes this, “The politics of Israel and Palestine have been transformed by the events of October the 7th, 2023.” Exactly the point I made at the very beginning by reading about the attack on Pearl Harbour, “Israel lost more lives in a single day than in all the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973 combined.” And remember, those lives were not military lives. “As Israel started to bombard Gaza and cut off all supplies of food, fuel, electricity, and water, Gaza faced a humanitarian catastrophe.” He adds, “At the time of writing, the outcomes of this crisis are unknown and unknowable.”

As I said earlier, the facts of the war, we shall one day know, but at present, the propaganda of war and the horror of war does not lead us to come to any clear decisions about some of the facts, but what we do know is that Israel had the right to respond by international law after the events of the 23rd of October, sorry, after the 7th of October, but whether it has breached issues of proportionality and gone too far remains to be resolved. We also know that in addition to facing Hamas in the South, Israel now faces Hezbollah in the North, and we now know the possibility of Turkey entering the war, and we’ve known for some time the possibility of Iran entering the war. In fact, one can see the development, if one’s pessimistic, of what I will call an anti-Israeli, Islamic, or Muslim coalition emerging. So if we can’t get peace with a click of fingers, could we get a ceasefire, or even a temporary ceasefire, in which the Israeli hostages could be released by Hamas, those who are still alive? And can we use that ceasefire to put more humanitarian aid into Gaza and give ourselves, and I mean the West as well as the participants, time for reflection? And I’ve written here and for wiser counsels to prevail, because if we don’t, then not only will we have put the lives of the remaining hostages on the line, but we would’ve put the lives of civilian Palestinians on the line with lack of medical and food supplies, and we risk the escalation of the conflict across the Middle East.

The longer it goes on, the more chance that Iran will enter directly. The longer it goes on now we have to say there is a chance of Turkey getting involved, and if that happens, maybe those in the West talking about a World War III may not be so far off the point. “But how can we settle Gaza with an Israeli victory?” you might say. But what would an Israeli victory look like? Gaza is already in ruins. And remember what the classical historian Tacitus told us about the Romans in Britain? “They created a desert and called it civilization.” And Israel has created a desert in Gaza. Who and how can that be restored? Because we have a problem that, if there is a ceasefire, borders are open, large numbers of Palestinians will become refugees. Egypt doesn’t want them. Jordan doesn’t want them. Israel doesn’t want them. Where do they go? Do they cross the Mediterranean making for Italy and the European Union, creating more problems here, because how many Hamas will be embedded within those civilian refugees? And how committed would Hamas be to any cease fire? Well, it will be committed for its own reasons. Its own reasons would be to reestablish its command structure probably outside of Gaza, and to recruit a new generation, made militant by the very actions Israel has taken to stop the militancy, and who is going to broker such a piece? The United States? I can’t see it. The United Nations? Well, hardly. The European Union? Oh, come on. So what can be done? Please don’t expect me to give answers because I don’t think there are any answers.

Well, one thing we can hope for is no escalation of the conflict with Hezbollah, but that isn’t entirely in Israel’s hands. It’s no good Israel ceasing to take action if Hezbollah. Well, it’s impossible if Hezbollah go on bombing Northern Israel, leading to many people fleeing, many Israelis fleeing their homes. That’s not, that can’t be acceptable. It is true that the Americans are at present trying to create a ceasefire. I don’t think they will succeed. Maybe there are liberal forces within Israel itself opposed to Netanyahu who might, following an election, begin to see that there is some value in ceasefires. Maybe there’s a “friendly” alliance of Arab states, the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt, for example, which could broker a peace, but it doesn’t look entirely possible at present. I’ve written here what I’ve just said to you live as it were. There are no easy answers and there are no easy answers because neither Hezbollah or Hamas want peace. They want the total destruction of Israel. They don’t want to negotiate with Israel. They want to get rid of it. As the phrase goes, “From the river to the sea.” Their objective is not peace in a settlement. Their objective is the destruction of Israel followed by the Islamic conquest of Western Europe. You can’t negotiate if this other party to the negotiation won’t come and talk to you. Many of you who’ve dealt in business and had to deal with trade unions know that if the trade union won’t come and talk to you, then it’s very difficult to negotiate.

I’ve been in that position in education myself, and somebody has to break the impasse. Somebody has to say, “Well, look, if you won’t negotiate, what about the following scenario?” You can use a threat, but I don’t think threats work so much as well. Look, we could discuss this quite separately from that, but Hamas don’t want to know about logical negotiations. It’s not in their DNA. So does the war last forever? Well, it can’t and it won’t. Do I believe that the West, that is the US and Europe would allow Israel to fail? No, I don’t. I don’t think that’s is possible. I have an article here from “The Economist” of March of this year, and in this “Economist” article, headed “Israel Alone”, I read this, “If America tried to force Israel out of Gaza, while Hamas could still regroup or curb military support for Israel, or withdrew its support of Israel at the UN, Israel security could be in jeopardy. America should therefore use other means. It should dispense more humanitarian unilaterally and decline to support weapons for an invasion of Rafa. Given the lack of civilian provision, it should broaden sanctions against settlers and right wing fanatics to show Israeli voters that America underwrites their security but not extremism or permanent occupation, and it should continue to signal that it is keen to recognise Palestine as part of a two-state peace negotiation.” Well, that was written in March. I think that’s nonsense today. I think we’ve gone beyond that. I do believe that we are, all of us in the world, and I’m thinking really of the liberal West, including Israel and the States of course, I do believe that we are at a crucial point in history. Remember the final phrase from the piece I read right at the beginning about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

The world will change. I’ve been arguing the world is changing. This is “The Economist” again. “America, however, can only do so much. Most Israeli wars are followed by political upheaval. Removing Mr. Netanyahu will not be easy, but when the reckoning comes, it will be huge. The war has shattered many illusions that the Palestinians can be ignored, that the PA has any appetite for reform, that antisemitism is rare, that Israel can pay lip service to two states as settlements expand, and that the hard right can be tamed. The good news is that there are grounds for hope. Polls suggests that centrists in Israel command perhaps 50 to 60% of the votes. Institutions like the Supreme Court are still strong, and better leaders do exist. A struggle for Israel’s future awaits.” The battle in Gaza is just the start. Well, that’s a more sensible comment than the first one that I read, both written in March in the same article. The first one is now being overtaken by events. That has not, and what it suggests here, and that’s what I was saying just now talking about negotiating with unions, someone has to make a first step, and it’s clear that that someone has to be Israel. Why? Because the other two parties to this war is Hezbollah and Hamas are not negotiable with.

So what does that mean? It means that Israel probably can present a better image in the Western world for support, and it’ll clearly need a lot of financial support when the initial war is over because of the strain on the Israeli budget, let alone the need to rebuild the infrastructure of Gaza itself to stop the a flight of refugees whom we don’t know where they might go. So the argument here that “The Economist” is putting is that this centralist position in Israel, politically centrist position, would have to be more realistic to what the situation is rather than right wing rhetoric. That’s not easy, but it is a hope. Now to my final section of this talk and indeed of this course, where do we go from here towards a peace settlement? Such a settlement between Hamas and Israel must now take in wider questions of Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah, and take into account the West Bank, and in particular, the Israeli settlers in the West Bank. There are, as there has been since the end of the first World War, two options, a two nation solution and a one nation solution. The two nation solution, Ian Black says in a book that’s only just been published called “Enemies and Neighbours”. It’s published by Penguin, It’s all on my blog by Ian Black.

Ian Black writes this, “Ever since the late 1980s, there has been broad agreement internationally that the Middle East’s most enduring conflict could only be resolved by creating a Palestinian state alongside an Israeli state. A return to the old idea of partition that had first been proposed by the British Peel Commission in 1937,” nearly 100 years ago now, “and adopted by the United Nations a decade later has always had opponents, including Palestinians who rejected the legitimacy of Zionism or a Jewish state, believed that partition ignored the Nakba”, that is the refugees sent out in the first war, the 1948/49 war, “and the writer returned to Palestine and saw an endless peace process between vastly unequal partners as a smoke screen for continued Israeli expansion, entrenchment, and control. It was also opposed by Israelis who claimed all of ancient Israel and rejected Palestinians independence insisting it already existed in Jordan.” Well, those are the extreme views that we face. Those objections, both Israeli and Palestinian have not gone away in the interim years, the last 40 to 50 years, they’re still there, and are a block to the two nation solution. Ian Black goes on to write this, “Netanyahu, by 2017 Israel’s longest serving Prime Minister since David Ben-Gurion, never explained how a Palestinian state worthy of the name could be created. When Netanyahu is up against those who are more hawkish, he will say, ‘It will not happen on my watch,’ observed an Israeli labour politician. When he speaks with those who are more moderate, he says, ‘I’m ready to talk to the Palestinians, and I’m committed to the idea of a two state solution.’

The bottom line was that the leader was not prepared to make the concessions needed to make such a solution possible. An undefined Palestinian ‘state minus is not exactly a state with full authority’ as Netanyahu put it, was the most he was prepared to consider. Whatever that was, it meant demilitarisation and effective Israeli control of the west of the Jordan, and that was far from what any Palestinian leader, including the accommodating Mahmoud Abbas could accept. The West Bank and Gaza, after all, as Abbas and others constantly reiterated, constituted 22% of British mandate Palestine, leaving Israel with 78%.” So if we go back in time to the 1937 Peel Commission of two states, the Palestinians say when Israel was created and subsequently Israel now holds 78% of that territory, and the Palestinians 22%. That’s hardly a fair split. But even if you could negotiate a two party solution, an Israel and a Palestine, how can you have a Palestine state that’s divided geographically into two, into Gaza and the West Bank? There was an article in “The Economist”, which is, well make of it what you will.

This is published in June this year. It reads this, “Some visions of this new state”, of a Palestinian state, “Some visions of this new state are inspiring. Palestine Emerging,” that is a study by 100 experts released in April this year, “foresees Gaza and the West Bank by 2050 as a single entity of 13 million people up from around 5 million today, connected by a railway, replete with nature reserves and an airport.” Nature reserves? These are green woke people that wrote this report. A railway? Well look what Lawrence did to the Ottoman Railway. A railway from Gaza to the West Bank with an airport at each end, and oh beautiful flowers all along the way. Come on, come on. That’s nonsensical. “The Guardian” goes on to say, “The devastation in Gaza creates a clean state on which a new city will be built with a sea port on an island linked to the mainland by a causeway.” Who’s going to pay? “Palestine would prosper as a trading entrepreneur. It’s currency pegged to the American dollar, underwritten by the rich Gulf states.” Really? “Yet, when you look away from such hopeful blueprints, the gap between the dream and reality is crushingly large.” Well, absolutely. I mean I just think that is pie in the sky, a fairy tale. So that leaves us with your alternative to a two state solution, which is a binational state, that is to say a one state solution. And Black tells us this, “The growing belief that the two state solution is defunct, dead, or dying, or simply not feasible,” I agree, “has led since the second to intensifying discussions of the alternative, a single binational state.”

By binational, it means different peoples live in one state, “a binational state in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians would enjoy equal rights irrespective of their ethnicity or religion. In early 2017, according to a joint Israeli Palestinian poll that was supported, this idea of a one nation where all the religious and ethnic groups were equal was supported by 36% of Palestinians, 19% of Israeli Jews, but 56% of Israel’s Arab citizens.” I don’t think that is a basis for an agreement. That view of a binational state was one held by many Jews before the Holocaust, before World War II, but the idea that Britain launched right back in 1917 of a Jewish homeland has gained, of course, enormous support given the horrors of the Holocaust. The Jews are not likely to give that up easily. How can you, after all that’s gone through? It doesn’t seem to me to be a viable answer. I went through hoards of books and looked on the internet for all these historians who’ve written about all of this. Looked at Jewish historians, Palestinian historians, Arab historians, western historians, American, all of them. No one comes up with an answer. I always look at the end of books where people tend to be positive, but it’s very difficult to see the positivity. The best positivity I could come from is the latest book, which is by, as I said, by Black, but it isn’t positive at all. “Perhaps,” Black writes, “in decades to come and in the absence of any other alternative, a struggle for equal rights for both peoples would make advances and create new and hitherto unimaginable opportunities for change.” Doesn’t say anything. And I’m often accused by friends when I’m lecturing about modern history, “You’re so depressing, William.” Well, I can’t leave you in this depressive mode.

We have to have hope. We must always have hope. It what drives humans on in their personal lives and in the lives of countries and of nations. We must never give up on hope. And I’m going to read you from Chapter two, verse four of the book of Isaiah to end. “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore.” That must be our goal. Without that light that leads us, Jew and Christian alike, we must hold on to it. “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift that sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore.” I can’t give you any more than hope. I can’t give you answers. There are simply no answers. Prayer and hope are our only weapons in this dreadful clash of ideologies, of ethnicities, of however you want to put it, and a clash that could spread from the Middle East to the western world. There are so many unknowns in all of this. We have to get through the November elections in the States for one. We have to have a resolution in Ukraine for another. We have to have a more united European. I don’t mean EU, a more united European view of the situation, ‘cause there will be others that will step in if we don’t. I’m very grateful to all of you who’ve stuck with me, and listened, and been so polite, and many of you who’ve asked questions and comments and those who’ve sent me emails, and I’ve done my best to answer all of them. If I missed any, I apologise. I’ve tried to answer people who’ve written to me. Sometimes I can’t answer because I don’t know the answer to the questions you’ve raised, but now I guess I probably got a number of people. Oh my goodness, I have got a lot of people.

• William, William, I just want to jump in and say thank you very much for a very interesting presentation, and to all our listeners, I’m going to often listen to you today before they give you a hard time. I’m going to get the experts on humanitarian aid so you will get the facts, actual facts, so because we have been involved in humanitarian aid into Gaza and Israel, so we do have the facts, and I’m going to have a special presentation on Lockdown University and also on Hamas and also on Turkey, so I have very, very, very on Hezbollah, sorry, Hezbollah and Turkey, so I have very close connections and associations with Washington Institute and I’m going to get their guys to talk to us. So on that note as well, thank you, thank you very much. I’m going to hand over to you now to answer some questions.

Q&A and Comments:

• Oh yes, sorry, yes, I am taking, you’re right. I’m taking the whole of August off. I’m back everyone on the Tuesday of the second week in September.

Oh dear. What if I lost that? Alfred, Alfred. The Jewish version times two .

Yes, that’s what Vivian, “two Jews, three opinions.” Absolutely.

“There’s a story about a Jew.” says Shelly, “ending up on a desert island who built two synagogues. Why two he was asked. He answered, 'One I go to and one I don’t go to.’” So much for two opinions for two people. It’s absolutely correct, and in the situation, the complexities of the situation, it isn’t feasible that everyone will agree. A minor correction from a functional self-government point of view, Gaza under Hamas was is an independent, though an internationally not recognised sovereign entity. Yes, that’s true, but that’s not the point because Gaza isn’t operating as a sovereign country, and it isn’t recognised by law. Legally, it’s a terrorist organisation as such, recognised as such by UN.

“Perhaps it’ll go the same way as the League of Nations,” says Adrianne, “United Nations.” I fear it will, and that’s not good.

Michael, “The scariest thing about Iran is that unlike other nuclear powers, Iran is eager to use nuclear weapons to attack Israel and kill Jews. This is different ‘cause the fanatic mullahs understanding that they will end up dead.” Iran petrifies me.

Q: Hillel, “You note that there are four new British MPs who support Palestinians. Does that mean that they have decided, declared an opposition to the existence of the state of Israel, or do they support a Palestinian state along the state of Israel?”

A: I can’t answer that. I think probably, if pushed, they would say opposition to the existence of Israel.

Michael, “They will end up, but they believe, they truly believe that as martyrs, they will be greeted in paradise by 72 virgins.” I don’t think at my age I could even cope with that.

Hilton, “No nation on earth is more deserving of peace or more condemned to fight for it, said David Cornwell.” John le Carre, David Cornwell is the real name of the novelist John le Carre who’s recently passed away.

Monty, “At my grandson’s bar mitzvah, his father, in a speech to his son, quoted a philosopher, 'We can see the present and the past. The present and the past are in front of us. We cannot see the future. The future is behind us.’” Oh, that’s a sort of question you would be asked in an Oxford interview and you would have no idea how to answer it.

Clive. Hello Clive. “The Trobriand Islanders have that philosophy, to walk through life backwards.” Jacqueline, “International Review of the Red Cross, volume 87 June, 2005, Judaism and the Ethics of War by Norman Solomon.”

Aubrey, “The first casualty of war is truth.” Truth, absolutely right. Rita, “Quote attributed in War Aeschylus, the Greek dramatist.

Hazel, "In the new Gaza Hamas murdered the opposition, Fatah, throwing them over buildings, killed gruesomely some Israelis who drove into Gaza by mistake.” Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Q: Why do you think, oh, Warren’s asked the question, “Why do you think,” why do I think, “we see massive protests against the Israel Hamas war, yet minimal protests about the Russian War in Ukraine, and nothing about the huge human carnage in Sudan?”

A: I don’t know, Warren, where you’re writing from. If you’re in Britain, we have had a large number of protests about the Ukrainian war, anti-Russian. My son has been involved in some of that. We don’t look at Sudan because it isn’t reported so well in the British press. And as regards to the Russian Ukrainian initiative, since the Israeli Hamas war, that is being reported less. It’s all about perceptions of the news and how the news is presented. If you’re not British, I have to say there’s been massive criticism of the BBC in both, in particular in the Israel Hamas clash as not being as objective as we used to think it was. I don’t listen to BBC News anymore.

Jacqueline, “Proportionality is more a question of proportionality of the response.” Sorry, I’ve lost it. Jackie, “Proportionality is more question of proportionality of the response to the threat.” Hang on. I think that’s true. I’m sorry, I had to think about it. It’s a bit, it’s it’s gone six o'clock here, on a summers evening. My brain isn’t functioning quickly enough. I think that’s absolutely true, Jacqueline.

Marilyn, “The Israeli-Palestinian issue is not only very complex, but highly emotional as well.” Absolutely. Marilyn, “There needs to be a change of attitude, not all by the Israelis, but also the peoples of Gaza and their leaders.” Well, Gaza and their leaders, the leaders in Gaza are all Hamas. Hamas is not going to change. Now whether there are people in Gaza who, if Hamas was emasculated, the people in Gaza could select other leaders, I don’t know. It might be possible, but I rather suspect not, certainly not in the short term.

Mitzi says, “Hamas uses civilians not as human shields but as human sacrifices. They want their civilians to die as a propaganda device.” Yes, we all agree with that. “They don’t feel guilty about this approach since anyone who dies for the sake of Islam goes directly to paradise. Israel is fighting an existential war. Obviously it’s better for Jewish children, Jewish civilians be killed than Muslims. This fight is a religious war as Jews are in the Quran labelled as the worst enemy of Islam. Yes, it’s okay for Jews to be citizens of an Islamic country if they are lower class people subject to unique punishments. The Sunnis are willing to be practical, but the Shi are run by Iran and determined to get rid of every Jew, a la Hitler’s approach.” But we have Islamists who want to get rid of all of us, who are not prepared to be converted to Islam. It’s a wider problem in potentially than simply a Jewish problem. It’s a Christian problem, a Hindu problem, and the story goes on.

Ralph, oh, that’s nice of you, Ralph, thanks. Let me pick it up. “None of the proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis could have inflicted the disruptions of international shipping or egregious acts against a democratic state without the financial tech or military support from Iran. Unfortunately, until the West gets its act together, the Middle East is likely to remain of war zone with casualties on both sides.” But we dare not go to war with Iran because Iran has the bomb. Now the bomb may not reach Britain, but it could reach Jerusalem.

Q: David, “What is your opinion as to proportional response to October the 7th?”

A: David, I can’t answer that. I don’t know. And none of us can answer that until the fog of war has dispersed and we get a clear picture. We know from British and American events in both Iraq and Afghanistan that the picture that eventually comes out is a different picture than that reported. I don’t think we can do that. Thanks very much. Who’s this?

Q: Rose, “How could we say we have gone too far if we still have not seen the hostages returned?”

A: It’s not gone too far, Rose. It’s the proportionality of that, and it’s a question of whether Israel would be prepared to agree to a ceasefire which would allow the hostages to come out, a ceasefire which would provide humanitarian aid.

“Much information is evident that the amount of humanitarian aid and supplies is much more than the Gazans have ever had.” We can’t analyse that. We don’t have the figures to do that.

Williams says, “Carol, one can ask why this hundred years of war hostility and terror without any breakthrough. Do you think it is to obliterate Israel completely?” Yes. “You have just given the answer, thank you.” Oh, right.

“Turkey is a NATO member will only blow hot air.” Mark, I hope you’re right, but Erdogan is a loose cannon, but I think if he did attempt it, I think he’d be overthrown by the army if you really want my opinion.

Q: How is it possible to be refugees in Arab lands of Gaza?

A: Well, it’s possible because they don’t have anywhere to live because their homes have been damaged. They don’t have any infrastructure, they don’t have any GPS for their children, or schools, so unless something is done very quickly to restore the infrastructure, then the desert, which Tacitus talks about is there, therefore they will seek to go.

And Maxine is right. “Many of them regard themselves as refugees in what is now Israel.” Back to the Nakba in ‘48, '49. Oh dear, it’s so complicated.

Linda, “It is my understanding humanitarian aid is not the issue. The issue is that it’s too dangerous to deliver or was stolen by Hamas.” Yes, I think the whole issue of humanitarian aid is a very, very difficult one, and yet another problem in this whole business.

Q: Shelly, “How can you have peace or a ceasefire if Hezbollah’s killing 12 Israeli children on a soccer field?”

A: I know, and those children were Druze as well, not Jews, most of them, were they not?“

Maxine, "Peace cannot be made with Hamas, which aims to destroy Israel and all what that-” Yeah, that’s why Clinton was looking at the possibility of Mahmoud Abbas taking over again in Gaza and the combination of West Bank, but we are miles from that. I now don’t see, I really find it extremely difficult to see what sort of administration can be set up in Gaza. If it’s an Israeli administration, it will only make matters worse. It would have to be a United Nations interim organisation. We’re back to a mandate system and then it would have to be handed over to a, God help us, a democratic Gazan election. And we know what happened last time.

Hazel, “Thousands of Israelis are refugees in their country because of Hezbollah.” Yes, absolutely.

“Hezbollah, says Hillel, "has said clearly that they will not stop firing Israel the moment a long-term ceasefire’s arranged from Gaza. The person blocking the long-term, ceasefire is Prime Minister Netanyahu is afraid that the moment the war ends there will be greater demand for his resignation and new elections.” That’s the problem inside Israel. Absolutely. Why I said that a centrist administration in Israel with clean hands might be able to bring about at least some sort of ceasefire. It would certainly be better supported by Western politicians and hopefully American, but as I’ve said just now, I’m in a complete daze at what America, Harris or Trump led, will look like.

“My understanding” says Jean, “is that Hamas have sabotaged every pending peace ceasefire agreement.” Yes, absolutely. And that’s the problem of dealing with terrorist organisations. “As a NATO member, can Turkey go to war without NATO backing?” Yes. “If Israel fights back, will NATO see that as an attack on itself?” No. If it does, Turkey would be thrown out of NATO almost certainly. It can do what it likes. It’s a sovereign state, but if it didn’t resign from NATO, it’d be thrown out. And certainly NATO would not take an Israeli defence of its land against Turkey as an assault on NATO. That’s absolutely wouldn’t happen.

Thank you, Rita, and thanks always for helping out with references and so on.

Rod, “I agree with you what you mentioned peace between Israel and Hamas Palestinians not remotely possible on Hamas and their supporters agree that Israel has a right to exist. How can there be peace without the change of attitude?” Exactly. “The United Nations is of no help.” Absolutely, and it’s tragic. But you are absolute, well, I agree with you, whether we’re right or not is for others to judge, but I believe so. Two state solutions, idealistic yes, but not realistic. Yes. The right of return. In other words, Israel must commit demographic suicide. Absolutely. It would never, ever, ever work. It can’t. It would like, it would as though Britain had left the Raj in '47 with, with Hindus and Muslims in the same country. We split the two countries and incidentally we split the Muslim into East and West Pakistan and look where that got us. Nowhere. And exactly the same would happen with Gaza in the West Bank.

I think, Lynn, your question here about anti-Semitism under the guise of anti-Zionism is something that might be tackled by Lockdown. I’m not sure what Trudy has been planning. Incidentally, Simon Sharma, who the greatest one whom you all know is Jewish, said that he doesn’t think that there’s anything now separating antisemitism and anti Zionism. He wrote in a British newspaper in the last fortnight. And I’m not getting involved in that because I don’t know enough about it, but I just point out that he says this is not a debate that can happen.

Q: Joe, “However unlikely, why not a three state solution with Gaza and the West Bank each on their own?”

A: Well that’s true, and if we went for two state, then it would end up as a three state. You’re right. The two questions remain. This is not what many Palestinians want. That would amount to 22% of the territory, with 78% remaining Israel and Jewish, but there is the question of whether Gaza is viable as a state, because of its size, is it viable? Any chance of Gaza going to Egypt? No, because Egypt doesn’t want it anymore than Israel wants it.

And Myrna has answered, “Egypt doesn’t want them.” Precisely, because who wants them? It’s like a friend of mine who was a Catholic priest, an academic in Ireland, and he was an adult educator, and we were on the same international committee on one occasion. And I asked him about whether if Ireland came together, Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist in the North, but surely Ireland would welcome them. He said, “William, would you welcome them in London?” And I said, “Well, no.” He said, “Well, why do you think we’d welcome Sinn Fein in Dublin?” And it’s the same problem. It’s the same problem. Weaver, I don’t know what you’ve asked. “Apologies, second article would appreciate your views.” I’m sorry, I don’t know what you are referring to.

Marlene, thank you. Yeah, “Egypt has been complicit in ignoring tunnel traffic and Hamas stealing aid. Why should the onus be on Israel? Europe has been co-opted by immigration as you mentioned. Even the Americas are in the same position, so public opinion is not a matter to be so important in an existential war, yet in Israel it’s the mantra.”

I agree, and I don’t think the West in the end would allow that to happen. I can’t conceive of that happening. Who is this? Well, “Again, since October 7th, most Israelis have no appetite for a two state solution.” I think a two state solution is dead in the water.

“Having a failed state to the North,” Well, a two state solution is, at the moment, dead in the water, “having a failed state to the North in Lebanon, a precarious situation in Jordan, at least until the hegemonic aspirations are removed. Why would Israel want to repeat the conditions that led to that, to October the 7th?”

Jacqueline, “My family came here from Iraq seeking a haven. Now we’re frightened being in England. What is the point of removing Netanyahu to instal a lefty woke Prime Minister who will withdraw from Gaza. Netanyahu is exactly what Israel needs now for survival.” I know many Jewish friends who don’t think that, and I’m not sure that one should attack left or centralist as woke. I don’t think we should get into this populous versus woke argument. Netanyahu breeds on populous. I think we need to take a deep breath and say, Israel, like the rest of Europe, a democracy, needs to defend its democracy from attacks from within, as well as attacks from without.

“In 1987”, says Hans, “a friend in Israel spoke of a road already envisaged to link the two territories.”

Myrna, “Jordan’s about 75% Palestinian and has kept his refugees so called. Is there a Muslim state that guarantees minority rights? So much for a binational state.” Is there a that guarantees minority rights? Wow, I’m not, I’d have to think long and hard about that. It’s not a question of whether it would be in the Constitution, it might be in Turkey’s, but they’re not guarantor of Kurdish rights, for example, which is probably why they want to go into Syria. They’re probably not to do with Israel at all, but to take Syria. Okay, I’m sorry.

Look, thanks again for joining me. Thanks for being so open in your questions, and thanks for being so honest in your questions and for taking my answers whether you agree or you disagree. I look forward immensely to seeing you all in September when I’m doing a four week short course on Slave Revolt, starting with Spartacus, not the film, but the real history of Spartacus. I can’t wait, but I’m going to have a nice long holiday during August. Thanks ever so much for listening. See you all, God willing, in September. Keep safe.