Ep. 31: Political Analysis & Debate: Prof. Dr. Omri Boehm (The New School for Social Research, NYC)

Welcome to our Israel Palestine podcast, a project by graduating high school students from Berlin, I couldn't. Home to Germany's largest Palestinian diaspora and a second home to many young Israelis. Israel and Palestine are painfully present in our district and in our schools. We've spoken with historians, legal scholars, trauma researchers and educators, some of whom are world leading experts to better understand this ongoing conflict. Our approach has been multi-perspectival. We don't aim to resolve controversies or contradictions, but to hear different perspectives. Human rights and international law are the foundation of responsible multi-perspectiveism. Can we learn to listen and hold conflicting truths at the same time? Find your round answers or better questions. Are you ready for this comfort of learning? Welcome to a new episode of our podcast on Israel Palestine. We're thrilled to have a very special guest here today, Professor Omri Boom, from the new school for social research in New York. Welcome, Professor Boom. Earth. It's in honor to have you here. Thank you very much for taking the time. Professor Boom is an associate professor of philosophy at the new school for social research in New York. He studied at Tel Aviv University and earned his PhD from Yale. His notable works include a future for Israel beyond the two-state solution and traditional universalism beyond identity, which won the 2024 Leipzig Award for European understanding. He contributed important insights to the ongoing Middle East debate, especially after the tragic events of October 7th and the war in Gaza. We are here to explore his take on the current political situation, reaction Germany and the US, his critic of identity politics, and his vision for peace. Let's dive in. We'll start right with the first question, Professor Boom. Violence has returned to Gaza. Why did the ceasefire collapse and what worries you most about the development since the war began in the region and globally? Well, first, I want to be precise, violence in an obvious way has returned to Gaza. Let's be clear that it never stopped. Right. So there was a ceasefire. So let's talk about it like that. There was a ceasefire and the ceasefire collapsed. I think it collapsed because the Israeli government was always uninterested in preserving it. I don't think this should be very controversial. I don't think this acquires even a particular political position. I think that this is something that most people in Israel also want the center of the political map people who often would disagree with me. So many things would probably agree that the reason why the ceasefire start was the reluctance of the Israeli government to keep it to finish the hostage deal, which the Israeli government is uninterested in. And actually, in fact, there is a real interest in preserving the hostility, the hostility is because there is a real interest. I think in promoting something like Trump's infamous plan, a plan of this so which I have been warning from much before October 7th, years and years before October 7th. That's one reason. Let's say more strategic and far reaching something we can talk about. On the other hand, there was a really interest of the government. There was a really need and interest of the government to bring it amount of energy back into the coalition. This is more an internal Israeli issue and it amount of energy would only sit in the coalition as long as the bombings continue. So I think frankly that those issues were the decisive reasons for the collapse of the ceasefire and the return of brutal bombings. Not just bombings, not just a little bit, you know, a ceasefire can collapse in all sorts of ways. The type of bombings that we have witnessed claiming, I think, by now more than 400 Palestinians just in a couple of days. Those are the reasons. You said, "Violence, I'll just make myself absolutely clear." The ceasefire collapse, violence, never stopped because I want us to be clear that a situation in which humanitarian aid, for example, cannot be ensured and so forth is a situation that is also inherently violent. POTES against the gatherer have sparked a major student movement, especially on US campuses, something we haven't seen since the Vietnam War. What's your view on these protests? Has your perspective changed? Yes. Well, the short answer is yes. The longer answer is yes and no and maybe. Anyone who has read my work on radical universalism will know that I was skeptical and worried about some trends in the so-called, you choose the terms, global left, oscolonically a left, identitarian left, unsovietal, unsophobic, that I had real worries about those trends and this pre-revolution in our thinking that I was seeing that we were witnessing a certain evolution of thought that understood itself as anti-humanist, anti-universalist, and anti-enlightenment in ways that I perceived as danger. My sense is that on October 7th and after October 7th, unfortunately those worries were confirmed. That is something that I said right away on October 7th and then witnessed unfolding and persisting all so after. And so while as I just showed you my position on the Israeli actions is very clear and has been clear for years, also on the deeper reasons for Israeli violence against Palestinians, I find myself in very little agreement with much that's being stated, much that's being motivating the atmosphere and campuses now around me. And as a professor in New York I see and it's a new school which is famously a leftist institution. I'm on the one hand in solidarity with my students, I care about my students, I want to protect my students, I want to teach them, I'm committed to them, and also not empty statements we can discuss that if you'd like. I am very skeptical about the atmosphere that I'm seeing around the student body sometimes and very often not just the student body but the faculty. I don't trust it blindly and I'd say. To be more specific I think there was and we really should not hide that there was a real widespread support of Massacre of October 7th. It was not just first emotional response that people don't need to justify, it was a certain support that emerged out of thorough. And I think harmful theoretical position and theoretical interpretation first things the most abstract terms of the opposition to let's say enlightenment humanism as the origin of colonialism. And second of the state of Israel is a state that is reduced to a colonizing state. And lastly the assumption that in a colonizing state there are no citizens but settlers and that settlers do not enjoy the protection that citizens ought to enjoy. Those trends were where and are unfortunately widespread and they brought people to support or to be very reluctant to criticize even the massacre of civilians because the claim was they're not civilians are settlers and they're very presence in the region is violence to the Palestinians. Unfortunately almost nothing almost nothing was done by colleagues and students in order to dissociate themselves from those trends. And what we saw as a result is the fact that even when later the protests for Gaza to protect lies in Gaza were taking place they were already couch and they were already how to separate and to dissociate from the atmosphere that preceded it. And the atmosphere in which the feeling was that Israeli Jews are legitimate target for Palestinians. If people had made sure to speak clearly against what was happening on October 7th, the protests on campus could have been completely legitimate, completely important. I would have supported them wholeheartedly since that was never done and I think was never done on our principal reasons because people do not believe that. I am on the one hand I do not share some of the lingua against those protests that I've seen in Germany and elsewhere. On the other hand, I have been most skeptical, put it mildly, most skeptical about those demonstrations than some of the colleagues who have otherwise very similar positions to mine on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and so on. Yes. Okay. In your book, Radical Universalism Beyond Identity, which we mentioned earlier, you critique identity-based politics. Can you briefly explain your view of identity politics, how do post-colonial theories connect to this and how do they contribute to our political culture, why they can be problematic when it comes to understanding this Israel-Palestin conflict? Yes. Look, in the most broad way, my criticism of identity politics, which is a term that needs to be used carefully, it has become a comfort-begriff as a German's, when I call it, and I actually do not want to use it as such. Identity politics, up to a point, is important when people are trying to struggle to establish their human rights, most minimal rights by fighting in the name of an identity that has been disadvantaged historically, for example. So, if African-Americans have been four systematic reasons disadvantaged over history, fighting for African-American rights is important, and just pretending to be colorblind makes no sense. To that extent, count me as a friend of identity politics. Same for Jews, right? It's not the same all over the world, but Jews have been obviously persecuted and disadvantaged in Germany, that is unfortunately all too obvious in the US, by the way, it's also true, but not in the same ways. Jews today are not and underrepresented minority, but actually for years, and people do not forget that Jews were discriminated against. So there are real pressures coming with identities that have to fight for their rights and sometimes for their lives, as we see with Jews, for example. My opposition to identity politics is rooted in the next step that people tend to take from that argument. It is a step in which people say not only that it makes sense to fight in the name of a certain identity, but that the very notion of humanity, the very notion of universalism, the very notion of human dignity is in fact what has to be overcome because it is a notion that rushes the rights of certain identities. That is where not only you shouldn't count anymore on my solidarity, but where I become your critic and sometimes hopefully not, but sometimes that's the limit even your enemy. Here is an example. Zionism since we should connect everything together. Zionism is a form of identity politics, and it is a form of identity politics, a form of identity politics, which is up to a point as meaningful, justified, legitimate as any other. Jews are right to say that liberal democracy, enlightenment emancipation did not emancipate the Jews, but ended up in crushing the rights and their lives. To that extent, by the way, Zionism is almost the mother of identity politics. It is one of the first responses to the failure of enlightenment liberal democracy to protect and emancipate minorities within the universalist humanist frame. Zionism responded by saying, well, therefore we need our own sovereignty, we need our own state, we need our own identity politics. Class, if you're not Jewish and you're not Zionism, and you criticize us from some universally perspective, you're racist, you're anti-Semitic, right? Because you do not have our experience, you do not share our vulnerable position. You are speaking from the the privileged perspective of the universalist, once say I want to protect all human rights. That is the argument that was advanced very forcefully by Zionist thinker and the Zionist movement, its relation to history. Again, up to a point, it makes a lot of sense and it is almost very important. The question is at what stage is this logic starting not just to say we need to protect the rights of a persecuted minority and becomes a way to go against the fundamental notions of humanism and its relation to law. So, for example, someone like me would argue that the state of Israel better have a constitution that begins similarly to the German one, say, with a notion of human dignity as its first clause. First and foremost, the law has to protect humans as such. Only later, does it derive from the commitment to human dignity, the rights of identity groups say Jews and Palestinians. That would be a structure that is consistent with humanism and universalism, but would still ensure within that framework, would still ensure to care about identities. So, I am not against identity. I think Jews require self-determination. I think Palestinians require self-determination. I am not interested, say, for the Israeli constellation in just a neutral state. Or you say, "I know this is just a state of all its citizens in full step. No, it needs to be a bi-national state in my view, something we can talk about." That is, identities have to be respected, but they need to be respected because they are the identities of humans, first and foremost. The identity, the national identity should not replace the category of the human by making national sovereignty coming before human dignity. I'll say it again because in the German context, it is very important that it is almost the one and two obvious, but has been forgotten. National sovereignty cannot come before human dignity, first human dignity, and later national sovereignty. My opposition to now, let's move away from certain types of Zionist discourse to post colonial discourse, which, as I like to say, is very similar to Zionist discourse. I'll say it again because I think that's true. Post-colonial discourse is very much a repetition of Zionist discourse. Minorities that are persecuted need to liberate themselves. True national sovereignty, and for that reason holding them accountable to universalist standards is colonialist, European, Eurocentric and so forth. That has to be overcome. National sovereignty even of Jews, even of Palestinians, even of Algerians, you name it. National sovereignty cannot come before human dignity only after. That's the crisis. Now I want to talk a little bit about settler colonial, like you already mentioned. Many academics and large parts of student movements describe Israel as a settler colonial state using a post-colonial framework. Is this a helpful lens to understand the history and the current situation of Israel and Palestine? Difficult question. And an excellent. I think the final answer is no. I think it has become extremely unhelpful. I think that the state of Israel and the Zionist movement is a complex movement. It cannot be denied that it has some colonialist sides to it. It cannot be denied that it is couched in a language also of colonialism. By the way, consciously so. So since in those days, people were building colonies, the Zionists were comfortable in some moments to understand themselves and to explain what they were doing to others also in colonial terms. And that is not just the language. It is also true that some of the type of thinking is colonialists. I can extend on that, but I'm not sure that we need to. I will also say that by the time that post-67 after the 6th day war, once the settlers, right, the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza started to build those settlements outside of even Israeli borders, then the relation to colonialism becomes even harder to deny. However, the reduction of Zionism into settler colonialism is theoretically sloppy and mistaken. I'll explain more in a moment. And it is today mostly political abuse of this slopiness. And for that reason, I think that a category that could have been important to illuminate the situation has become unhelpful and even dangerous. First, settler colonialism, by and large, is always connected to empires. The settler colonialists are ones who are somehow attached to an empire and go and settle a different part of the world as the empire controls. By and large, the Jews did not come to Palestine as representatives of an empire, but as people who are persecuted by empires. They went to emancipate themselves from empire rather than as so to speak, the representatives of it or attached to it or reusing its powers. Now, I know all the stories about the ways in which Jews control empires through money, through political connections. And I hope that you're already seeing in what I'm saying, the tendency to use anti-Semitic troops and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in order to connect the notion of settler colonialism into the framework in which it is the empires who cooperate with the Zionists in order to settle Palestine. Those stories ought to be rejected. When my grandmother escaped Germany as a skin of her teeth, as I say, in '39, she did not go to Palestine as a settler colonialist. She went as a refugee. And I think that the Zionist movement that was trying to build a safe haven for Jews was not conceiving itself as somehow a settler colonial movement that is coming to exploit the resources of the ground in Palestine. Whereas the people of Palestine, rather it was going to emancipate itself from the teeth of an empire. To that extent, I think that the category of settler colonialism is unhelpful. There's not more to say and I'd like to say it. First, we see here why there is this strong clash of the pardigmas of Holocaust studies and post-Holocaust thinking with post-colonialism. Because we see that those who understand Jews as primarily victims of empire, victims of Europe are clashing and I think rightly so in this case. We also present Jews and Zionists as almost the representatives of European domination. That's one thing that I think ought to be said. Another thing that, as a footnote to what I'm saying, I like to point out to my students and I like to point this out to you. I'm not sure to what extent you're in the weeds of the debates about the Holocaust's singularity, questions whether the Holocaust is just a repetition of colonial crimes or actually a newer emergence in Europe is a big debate of the last few years, so-called or not so-called the singularity thesis. Something that a lot of the people who actually oppose the singularity thesis today, people like Tiaq Moses, I respect, have argued that the Holocaust was only a repetition of colonial crime. So the Holocaust, the claim is, is not a unique crime but basically just a repetition of colonial logic. And there are many debates about it and I'm not even in time to enter them here. I think, I mean, we can if you'd like but I'm not going to speak about that. No, no. I want to point out that to the extent that this is true, assume for a moment, for the sake of the argument that this is true, it only shows you that the Jews are victims of a colonial crime. And that for that reason to present the Zionist movement as a colonial movement, rather than a post-colonial movement is mistaken. That part of the argument you don't hear often from those who try to present the Holocaust as in fact a colonial crime. The Jews often say, it's true that we are unique in the history of colonialism because we had to emancipate ourselves by fleeing euro in that case. In that sense. However, we're actually a post-colonial movement. Zionism is a post-colonial movement and I think that makes a lot of sense. But wait, for me also makes a lot of sense in my criticism of that movement. I criticize Zionism also for the same reasons I criticize often post-colonial logic because the logic is we are emancipating ourselves from empire. We're emancipating ourselves from colonialism by asserting our national sovereignty. And we reject international cosmopolitan law as a form of neo-colonialism because we have to defend ourselves from genocide. That's a buzzword now. Genocide colonialism of the Europeans. And as we do that, we cannot be demanded to abide by law. That is a logic I am going against. criticizing post-Zionist and say Palestinians. The last thing I want to say about this and I know my answer is long but I think this is important. The worst part of the application of post-colonial or colonial categories about Zionism is not just the theoretical disingenuity, the theoretical promiscuity that I think is associated with this conversation, which again in the right complexity could have made some sense. It is the attempted political consequences. It is a claim and we see it today all too broadly, we should not pretend otherwise. The claim that because Zionism is colonialist and because Jews are settlers, they are not citizens and the question of targeting them for resistance is not the question of targeting civilians, must be protected, but targeting settlers who very existence in the land is a form of violence and even a form of the genocidal violence against the Palestinians. We have to go against that and it's important especially for someone like me. We haven't spoken about that a lot here and I hope we will. Now like me, who actually does want the transformation of the state of Israel into a binational republic, does have a very robust criticism of Zionism such who does want a state that will belong to all its citizens, Palestinians and Jews together who speaks against the occupation but not just the occupation and things that the Jewish state itself needs to be transformed because Palestinians are not equal citizens in a Jewish state and so forth and so forth especially for someone like me who says all those things, it has become so important to also give you the opposition to the other side which is hijacking I think the conversation and will not bring us peace with the frameworks that we're seeing developing now as anti-Zionist. We will only cement the total war between Zionists and anti-Zionist and we will not develop the framework that would enable the transformation to a binational federation of Jews and Palestinians. All right. Using it a step further, with the decision of the international current of justice, the central accusation of students' movements that Israel is committing crimes of genocide in Gaza received legitimacy. It was preceded by the warnings of UN officials and many outstanding scholars of international law and genocide, human rights organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders followed. Do you think the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza reflect a genocide on nature? Thank you. I think this is slightly more complex than you suggested, even though you put it well but I want to underline something here. The decision, first the ICJ, the international code of justice in the egg does not have a decision. It does not issue a ruling. However, I think that you were right to the extent that you said that the intermediary decision that it issued, which did not accuse Israel of genocide, landed as you said again. So I want to just underline that fine line. There was no real decision of the ICJ. There was an intermediary decision that landed some plausibility or a legitimacy to the accusations of genocide. And I agree that this is very important because that showed that the accusation cannot be taken as just false ideology, but that also the code bites on standards, considers the accusation plausible enough and as it actually said, it used a term plausible. I think this is extremely important. That's one thing. The thing is that this is a very complex question. And I will give you a clear answer but it needs to be very careful. I think first that the most important thing of the genocide accusation, which people are not doing well enough, that's the OXID in my back. I hope the fire engines are, I don't know if you get them on your microphones. The most important part of the genocide accusation needs to be the claim that it must remain a legal category, an optimal or ideological category in my field. And I can try to explain this. There is a category in international law and it is extremely important to such as a category of international law, a category that is supposed to prevent genocide by law, by rubbing the state of its alleged sovereign right to make some actions that would be genocide. That was the real novelty and the real progress that we made in Nirenberg, long stories that they didn't use genocide there but crimes against humanity. But crimes against humanity and genocide, its legal category emerged as categories that question state sovereignty to act in certain ways. And as such, they were very important categories. The most famous and important doubts about those categories came from one Carl Schmidt, the Nazi right wing conservative legal expert was also one of the most important legal experts of the 20th century. When he won, he said you're pretending that you're using the category of genocide in order to prevent total war and extermination. But in fact, he would produce exactly the opposite because once you're accusing peoples and states of being genocidal, once you accuse them of being this absolute evil, also total war against such evil would be allegedly justified, right? Because with total genocidal evil, you do not fight in order to have peace, you need to eradicate them. The claim was once to moralize war in this way by saying my enemy is an enemy of humanity. I will not have peace with my enemy. And in fact, the crime that I will commit against my enemy, who is an enemy of humanity, those crimes will be allegedly justified as crimes for humanity. I have to commit those crimes against my enemy because my enemy is the enemy of humanity. The crimes that you commit against the enemy of humanity, the genocidal enemy, are crimes for humanity. There is a good answer to those challenges. And those good answer is that we have to preserve the notion of genocide and crimes against humanity not as moral and ideological categories. Hamas is genocidal. We have to eradicate them. The Zionists are genocidal. But rather, as legal categories that obtain in court, and that the international court will decide if this is genocide, then the state has some responsibilities that are legal. But this has to be proven in court, and it will prevent total war rather than make total war. I think that this is the distinction that I'd like now after this theoretical introduction. I'd like us to come to approach the discussion of genocide around Israel. First, it is, as you said, extremely important that the ICJ issued an intermediary ruling against Israel saying that the accusation is plausible using the authority of the general side, prevention convention in order to issue the legal remedies to Israel. It shows that, as a legal category, the accusation makes sense and needs to be taken extremely seriously. The people who just denounces this and anti-Semitism and as mumshit have to be answered. No, there's a really legal case here. Israeli actions are obviously suspect of crimes against humanity in genocide and for that reason it is a duty of the world to make sure to prevent it. That's absolutely important. If you ask me and you know what I'll say more about my own position about this in a moment but for a moment I want to mark the lines. Unfortunately my impression is that a lot of the discourse on campuses and a lot of the discourse unfortunately I would say carefully. Also among human rights organizations we can talk about this more should lie is sliding from the legal question to the more than ideological claim that is meant not to hold Israel accountable to law and prevent the crimes by law but rather to make a political more than ideological claim about Zionism. Zionism and the state of Israel are genocidal. We have to go anti-Zionist. We cannot have peace with the Zionists and it's a limit many go to that limit to also say yes and for that reason for example Samas crimes all were legitimate as well because we're fighting a genocidal enemy and in this settler colonial genocide logic you cannot accuse Hamas for attacking the settler colonialists. I want to go to go with the question of the legal accusation and to warn that we need to be very cautious with the development of the ideological moral accusation that is really bound to present Zionists and Israeli Jews as somehow inherently genocidal. That's a line that we need to walk. It seems to me that the crimes against humanity I think it's very hard to doubt that Israel is committing and is interested in committing crimes against humanity against Palestinians. I have been warning for years that since 2018 I don't think I was the first but I was I think in fact among among the first. Well in 2018 19 in writing if you read high for Republic Israel and Utopi it's black and white saying if we will continue pretending about the two-state solution the situation will not culminate in apartheid but in much worse crimes most importantly of ethnic cleansing I think that is really clearly interested in ethnic cleansing and I think that this will spread from Gaza to the West Bank and so forth. I think that the crime of genocide is more difficult to prove legally and as I try to explain now in many words I think the main question is legal and the other questions are not good ideology, harmful ideology. I think that as a as a legal question I don't know what the court will decide I don't think April or I that the court will decide that Israel is committing genocide I don't know that the court will decide that it isn't but I think that the type of conversation that has emerged around it on universities in the media and so forth is extremely harmful because people are attached to genocide and they really are attached to genocide really for exactly the moral ideological reasons that Carl Schmidt that I mentioned won't from because they really need this deluditimation of Israel and somehow ethnic cleansing doesn't do this enough. Primes against humanity is not been enough we need to show that the arnism is genocide. I suggest to resist that and that we hold Israel accountable to international law we'll see what the court decides about that but we still need to hold today Israel accountable to very serious crime not less serious in genocide by the way. They thought that only genocide is genocide is a crown of the of the crimes is a little bit false crimes against humanity are not necessarily better and the legal frameworks that those crimes allows the international community are almost just as useful in order to put legal pressure on international governments to prevent those crimes from happening. That's my view. Thank you very much now we want to talk a little bit about Germany. In Germany the pro-Palestine movement phase heavy repression in North-Vine Vestfalia the police even issued a leaflet encouraging teachers to fight police reports against students who described the war in Gaza as a genocide while anti-asemitism and anti-Palestinian racism are clearly rising. Critics Rory is at state restriction on free speech and the way to demonstrate become increasingly a terror. In the US the deportation of Palestinian students student activist Muhammad Khalid from Columbia University became a recent symbol of this crackdown. How do you see this developments in Germany and the US is free speech in danger? Are current anti-migration policies in the US and Germany using the fight against anti-asemitism as a cover? Yes unfortunately I'm very concerned with with those developments and you know despite everything that I just told you and my war is that became very clear in this conversation about some of the the trends that we're seeing in the discussion that concern me I think that the attempt to crash the views of students, protests and to delegitimize them with accusations of anti-asemitism that this attempt is all too often illegitimate violent and also leading in a slippery slope that endangers really all of us. So even if everything that I told you about my war is about the genocide lingua and about the reduction of Israeli settlers to Israeli citizens to settlers and so forth. Even if all of this is just true what I told you the attempt to then delegitimize those who hold different views and have a different position on this and who come and protest with that position attempt to do that is dangerous and by and large illegal. This has certainly limit you know if people I was concerned I expressed my concern about the fact that you could not separate well enough the support of Hamas on October 7 and the demonstrations for Palestine that ensued once the bombing of Gaza started. That is something that I would have loved the protesters to do themselves but this lack of sharp separation cannot be a sufficient reason I will repeat cannot be a sufficient reason for censorship immediate accusations of anti-Semitism who say nothing of deportation. This in fact to me personally poses a very difficult dilemma in the US even though I think the situation in Germany is also interesting and worth a comment and I have something to say about this in the US it it presents to me now a new dilemma a very genuine one because I actually was making the arguments that I'm making now against some of my colleagues. I was telling them, you guys are all pretend-day, that you're being accused of being anti-Semitic because you're anti-Zionist. But this is not true. Almost everybody on campus here is anti-Zionist. And nobody thinks you're anti-Semitic because you're anti-Zionist. The truth is, the accusations against you are because of your position on humbass and your position on targeting Israeli civilians and your pretending. So the question of your anti-Semitism, the question of your legitimacy is completely different from what you're pretending. And I was making this very explicitly in public. Now as long as this was a public conversation and a public debate with colleagues and students, I was not trying away from making the clearest criticisms that I could make. And I want to be able to continue making those accusations and those questions. The problem is that once the Trump under-industration then uses those public discussion in order to even deport students. And that the thing that I would say can be used either by the university, or by the administration, the government against students in order to take their rights. And at that moment, I have to think twice because I only want to express my criticism where my criticism is used for rational discussion, not to undermine in the most violent way the rights of the people I'm talking to. That's first for the American context. And frankly, that is a huge issue. And it's a very, I'll tell you very frankly, it's a very painful issue for me because I don't say this lightly. I do not always feel nowadays in great solidarity with, on the one hand, as I said, I love my students and I want to protect them and I care very much about the new school and my friends and colleagues there. But in the last year and a half, I was not always in narrow solidarity with the ways they went about things. And I did not trust them blindly, some of them I did, not the body of the fact. And now, on the one hand, I do not have full trust. On the other hand, I feel my hands are tied because I don't want to participate in injustices, in graving justices being done to them. And if I have to choose, I would immediately choose protecting my students, making sure that my colleagues do not face actions that are in a gentleman for their academic opinions, even if I disagree with us. That's more. In Germany, I do not know the case that you mentioned. You mentioned the case that someone was, I can't remember exactly what you said, but it surprised me that Germany went, that the state in Germany went that far, but I take it from you that someone was censored in this way for using the term genocide. That is extremely serious, especially because, as you said, the ICJ is the international court of justice. You, this is a plausible claim. So what next? Are we going to censor the ICJ? That is, so to the extent that this is a simple matter and someone was censored for saying that this is a very serious genocide. It is a very grave, serious offense. Again, these are the things that need to be checked. Look, the situation in Germany is worrisome because I fear that Germany needs to choose, and it's not choosing well in its relation to its past. This is very complex. I think that very few people are actually walking the right, fine line that needs to be walked. I want to clarify, it was a police leaflet, not the government measure, just to make it clear. Thank you, this is important, and I hope that if the police did this, this is very important. So if the police did that, then I hope that the police was then held accountable for acting against law. At this point, it becomes more complicated, I realize. This is not often held accountable for quote unquote, "stakes" like that. But this is important. Germany has some responsibilities in relation to Jews and the Jewish state, and they are extremely important in life here. I don't think we can look at them lightly. That is because of German past. However, Germany also has serious commitments to international law. Also because of its past, but among other things. The most important thing, though, hasn't yet been mentioned. It is that Germany has a responsibility to its own role of law and its own citizens. Again, first of the state and also as a response to its past. The notion of constitutional patriotism that emerged in post-war Germany for fasem's patriotist citizens was one of the most important ways in which Germany responded to its past. Because it said from now on, Germany will belong to its citizens. It is not the state of the German nation. It is the state of German citizens. One way to say that whoever is a German citizen belongs to the nation. That is already a way of saying, "Well, the nation is not defined by ethnicity. The nation is not defined by language even. It is not defined by your genes or your blood. It is not defined even by your history. Germany is in principle. I am aware of the difficulties and complications, but in principle, in response to its past, we understand that Germany belongs to citizens. And whoever has German citizens' ship is German." That was constitutional patriotism and it was a constitutional patriotism that emerged among other things from the recognition of the crime of the Holocaust. And what we are seeing now is that, dialectically, we are coming not full-circle, but 180 degrees in the opposite side of that commitment. That is, out of the commitment to recognize the Holocaust, which once said that Germany has to remain the state of its citizens, we are now seeing how the recognition of the Holocaust and the commitment to the Jewish people, which are important. Functions now, not to open up, German identity to all citizens as such, but to extend. Now, the relation to the Holocaust, the relation to the Jewish state, and I say this as a Jew also, German Jew, among other things, is being abused in order to say we can rehabilitate German national consciousness by appealing to the history of the Holocaust. Say the real Germans can have the responsibility to the Jews. Those who will not accept this narrative will be excluded from the public sphere. And this way in which now the Holocaust's memory is not used in order to open up a civic liberalism and its relation to international law, but to actually exclude and diminish the public sphere, exclude from it German citizens who do not belong to the same narrative and to also question international law. I think that this is a great injustice to the memory and the history of the Holocaust and very dangerous. for German politics as presidents. And by the way, it's also dangerous to Jews because I think that what's happening is that we're framing here the fight against anti-Semitism, which is important. Anti-Semitism exists and has to be fought against. It better not be framed as the opposition to human rights, to citizens and so forth. The only way to fight anti-Semitism needs to be as internal to the framework of citizenship in Germany, as internal to the framework of human rights, as internal to the framework of international law, not as the opposition to it. That reason, the whole doctrine of Statswezel seems to me like a real scandal. And that's a duty, I think, of philosophy professors and professors of law to remind the German public that the very idea of Statswezel is-- and this is the fact now-- the very idea of Statswezel is the contradiction of statelessness and international law. Those are facts. The only way for Germany to fight against anti-Semitism can be within the framework of rest, stateless, guide, and international law, and humanitarian law, not with rest, stateless, guide. And to present the cause of remembering the Holocaust and protecting Israel as reason of state is among other things disastrous to the fight against anti-Semitism. I have a question about the commitment about the international court and Germany. The international criminal court has issued a response for Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and Thomas Leeder Mohamed Dief, for the Git warquemes. And Fritrich Meert said he would invite Netanyahu to Germany despite the ICC arrest warrant. What do you say about that? Honatef is dead, I think. Al-Ayalkov Moe, as they say. So it doesn't matter. I've just mentioned this as that. No, I think this is very simple to answer. I think this is a disaster. The German government has to respect international law. And the president, that's a short answer. The slightly longer answer, the president that is set by some like Meert's saying that he will not respect the war in broader relation for international law is disastrous. We've already mentioned slight involvement by the Trump administration. Now, since the first Trump administration, we've seen major shifts in the Middle East like the Abraham Accords and Israel normalizing relations with the Arab states. What's your view on Trump's recent plans for Gaza and the forced resettlement of Gaza's population? It's an invitation to a crime against humanity. I'm not surprised that he's proposing this. I'm being asked a lot if I think that Trump is serious about this. People think because it's couched in Trump's weird real estate fantasy, it sounds so weird and maybe not serious. The answer is always, it is very serious. It is very serious. And that is, again, as I said earlier, also why people like Me and some others have been warning that plans of this salt will develop very quickly. Short. Look, in the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, there lives a Palestinian majority. 52%, 53% of the population is Palestinian. Short of a two-state solution. Or another solution for peace. The only other option is ethnic cleansing. Because the state of Israel at some point, and we're already at that point, I used to say, at some point, the state of Israel at some point will have to defend itself from the majority of its population. This is a say. We're already at that point. The state of Israel is now defending itself, calling it from the majority of its population. And that is why the logic of ethnic cleansing has become so prevalent. And this white will spill also from Gaza to the West Bank. And I fear, eventually, also to Israeli territory itself. So the Trump plan, Israel is completely serious about it. It has been serious about this before. Short of a two-state solution, which will not happen, or an alternative of the salt that I'm trying to promote in high for a public of the salt of that. Short of at least trying to get going such a transition that can show how both people can live together in the region. Ethnic cleansing is becoming necessary, unavailable. And so the Trump plan is very serious. It is a plan for ethnic cleansing. I think that there are some hurdles that Israel and Trump will have to pass in order to manage to do that. Egypt will not accept those people gladly. Jordan will not accept them gladly. But now speaking about transferring the Palestinians to Sudan, for example, the plans are dead serious. And we need to notice this. And we need to notice-- that's the most important thing I have to say about this. We need to notice that the question is not just if we condemn that, which we should. The question is, what is the alternative to that? Because right now, Western governments, Israeli Zionist politicians are not proposing an alternative. Short of an alternative-- if you want to pretend about a two-state solution, I view this as dangerous and not enough. But let's see your plan. I'm willing to listen. I think that will only lead us back to the West of Clinton. Short of a real plan, a genuine plan, not lead service, not pretending, yes, we still support the two-state solution and continue to do the same. Because then we will continue doing ethnic cleansing. The only way to go against Trump's absolutely serious plan to transfer the Palestinians, if it will happen tomorrow, or in five years, or that is where we're headed. That's where we have been headed for a long time now. Short of that-- so short of an alternative plan, it's not going to be enough to condemn it. We have to offer an alternative that is peaceful. Nobody in the West is now willing to do that. That is also why I'm so concerned that also others are not really doing that. For example, my so-composed colonial friends. They're shouting on his religious genocidal, trying to-- I think to rob Jews of the right to self-determination. But the logic that will happen is just this logic of total war between peoples in the region to inculminate in the spellings of Palestinians. What needs to be devised is a plan for cohabitation of Jews and Palestinians. It will not be easy. It will not happen tomorrow. If a plan of this sort will be rolling slowly, that will be the alternative to expulsion. Short of that, unfortunately, I'm very worried for my Palestinian and-- yeah. Thank you very much. In your book, "A Future for Israel, German, Israel, I'm not a Pee." You propose an Israeli Palestinian federation beyond the two-state solution. You already mentioned the Republic of Haifa. Can you explain it? And can you also say why it's also perceived as a threat? And do you still believe this vision is realistic, given the current circumstances? Yes. Look, the plan is for a federation. So the idea is to move from a concept where you have two sovereign states separated from one another along-- You have two, let's call it sub-Soveranities, that exercise their national self-determination, but not sovereignty on the whole region. And they had these two say that politics of this sort is not even contradictory to Zionism, say, because Zionism is actually about Jewish self-determination and not sovereignty. And perhaps the most important element of such a program is to say that a constitution should emerge, a constitution that would regulate rights and legislations on the whole territory and ensure the most basic human and citizen rights on the whole territory, such that each of the separate entities, Palestinian and Jewish, will not be able say to legislate laws that undermine the rights of people from each of the entities on the whole territory. And such a constitution then should have also, for example, freedom of movement, freedom of work, economic freedom of suffrage. There are all sorts of questions here, and I'm not going to be able to answer all of them. One of them is the relation to history. For example, one thing that I'd like to point out is that already is so cold, United Nations partition resolution of 1947, it was not far from such an idea. People forget that. It was not really a partition resolution, but it was called partition with union. Potential with union. And it's stipulated, freedom of movement, it's stipulated, shared tax authorities, customs authorities, port authorities, and so forth. One currency, even sort of a joint cult, it part. So the notion of a sharp separation in the territory that we have become so attached to and pretend that that is the only legitimate way to solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It needs to be historically questioned. Already the UN in '47 understood that in order to resolve the conflict, in order to transition to a peaceful constellation, the territory cannot be sharply separated. Rather, it needs to be shared. And the transition to a logic of sharing the territory rather than separating it is a most important underlying. Come in. Now, do I think it's still realistic, you go hast? And how do I think about it today? Briefly. I'm not sure, to what extent I thought it was ever realistic. I'm not as surprised. I didn't think it was realistic, and I still think in the same way that it is realistic, but maybe not in the way in which you've commented. So let me explain. The question of what's real and what's not, I think, needs to be questioned a little bit. For years, people have been telling me, yes, the two-state solution may be as far-fetched, but it is more realistic than what you propose. So why are you claiming that two-state solution is over if the one-state solution is even more far-fetched and even less slim? The answer is a following. And the place in which we currently are, I think that the question is not so much, what is more real and what is more ideal? I think no solution is going to emerge tomorrow morning, unfortunately. Unfortunately. The question is, what ideal we are directing ourselves in relation to in order to have peace? And my claim is that the two-state solution is not a far-fetched ideal of peace. The two-state solution is a lie and not really an ideal of peace anymore, in many cases. For that reason, those who direct themselves according to the alleged ideal of the two-state solution also act in the same way in which we're seeing them acting. They do not hold Israel accountable to building in the settlements for years. It's not just post-optorecepts. Everything we've been seeing for years, you do not hold Israel accountable to the international law and preventing the settlements, not holding Israel accountable to war crimes, not trading Palestinians, citizens of Israel as equal. And now, as the Wengazan folds, tolerating ethnic cleansing. Why is it that the people who for years pretended that they supported a two-state solution, now tolerate ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, because they never were committed to the idea that Jews and Palestinians both have to remain in the region. It's become a lie. A two-state solution was just a lie that you tell while you're crushing the rights of Palestinians while pretending that you're a communist. By the way, if I had to say more about this, I would. The solution that I propose is an ideal is far-fetched ideal, but it is an ideal of peace. And it says, "The principle that we will not compromise on is that both people have equal rights in the territory, human and national and citizen rights. They have to continue co-existing together. Nothing that violates the possibility of that can be legitimate in the region. We have to take now the small steps, very small, that ensure that we preserve those conditions. Even if high for a public will not exist in the next five years, and I let me prophesy that it will not, the steps that we will be taking today in relation to the civilians in Gaza have already proven themselves completely opposite to the steps that have been proposed by proponents of the two-state solution. Proponents of the two-state solution are south, silent on or supporting plans like Trump. It is in the Israeli society, proponents of federation and of one-state solution or confederation, who are explicitly saying that this will not pass. We will not let them expel allyskineeds. That's a difference. In your life's book price speech, you called October 7 the Gaza War and its global reactions a catastrophic failure. You emphasized further more the importance of friendship. Can you explain what this has to do with Kant and how friendship can guide us through this conflict? Broadly I think that in the type of atmosphere that we have seen evolving, and that we actually think we were describing well in our conversation here. We are zannies on the one hand, tolerate war crimes against Palestinians. Where, propolistinians on the other side are tolerating war crimes against Jews and Israelis. We are witnessing basically a collapse, not just of the basic laws in the region, but of reasonable conversation about it in the public sphere in Europe and in the United States. I think that such a situation is what an island called a dark time. Dark time is not just a very bad time. Dark time is an island to define it. Is a moment when public discussion no longer illuminates a conversation. No longer helps us being rational in relation to the situation. The public discussion undermines reason, reason, and support. I think we are in such a state that the suggestion was with criticism and also of our own. The suggestion was to see that in such moments the most radical political category that emerges is a category of friendship of people who remain friends and therefore even where the public sphere were Jews and Palestinians and Americans and Germans and people with all their identities are shouting, if not killing each other, some retains. Friendship between, in this case, Jews and Palestinians enables the real radical transformation. Why? Because it is the opposition on the one hand to the logic of, I am Jewish, European Palestinian, we have to be enemies, okay, that's almost too easy and too romantic and obvious. But also for another reason, which is more interesting. Because it refuses the logic of normalization on both sides. Look at the BDS move. BDS says, look, Israelis are occupying colonizing, killing Palestinians, expelling them while speaking about peace. That's a way in which conversation serves four violence. We stop this, we interrupt this by boycott. We will boycott Israeli institutions, say, like to say they will boycott only institutions, say, boycott also individuals. We stop the conversation with this guy. That's not a logic that promotes peace. But the criticism is not inaccurate. The criticism is valid. It is true that there is a tendency to have a nice dialogue while crushing the rights of Palestinians. The dialogue in that way serves to crush the rights of Palestinians. The war is correct. What is incorrect is, I think, the response by a logic of boycott. The suggestion was that French to induce in Palestinian is a form of relation that is not normalizing. The best way to see this is these movies that now want the Oscars. No other land. Where you see an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian making a movie together exposing the violence of the occupation in the most robust sense. You have a Jew and a Palestinian doing this together. The most radical thing about the movie was not so much, I think this is something that overlooked. The most radical thing about the movie is not so much that it exposes the awful violence of the occupation against the Palestinians. Most radical thing was a friendship between them. The fact that they showed you something else that co-abitation between Jews and Palestinians was not normalization is actually possible. I'm not surprised that everybody responded to this movie. The Israelis, of course, stated it. The Germans have been trying to censor it as well. And also the BDS movement when they get it. And also the Palestinians. Some naive people would have thought that the Palestinians would love it. Not so easy. I don't know if you remember Claudia Rose said it's a bellinalae when they won the bellinalae prize. Claudia Rose at some point said, "I only clapped my hands." I only applauded the Israeli. It was an awful statement, a silly one, a comical almost. Look at the Palestinian ambassador in London. Look at the tweets that he was releasing only applauding the Palestinian, pretending that there is no Israeli there. It was also only applauding the Palestinian. The BDS movement called the Boycott movie claiming that it is again a form of normalization. I suggest friendship of the types that demonstrate it there breaks out logic. Those who want peace, that is the only hope we have now, I think. Thank you very much. Now we come to the last question. What advice would you give young people who want to work for peace and justice in the Middle East? I would first recommend to get all the courage that they can find because my suspicion is that it's going to get more and more difficult and more and more dangerous. It's not that it hasn't been, but I think it's getting dangerous by the hour and we need to notice that. That's one thing. The second thing is not to use justice and peace as empty buzzwords. To think very carefully, what does justice mean? And what does this mean? And what is the relation between them? And I would recommend that without compromising on justice in a way that would be normalizing their action, that they would make sure that they are genuinely committed to peace. And that peace and justice need to come together, but that compromising on peace too much in the name of justice would be extremely dangerous. It doesn't mean that in the name of peace justice has to be abandoned or from it, but I would urge them to make sure that they do not sacrifice peace out of the surge for justice. Thank you very much. Professor Boom for this insightful conversation. Thank you very much. Many thanks from me too. One last question out of curiosity. If you had to sum up your vision for the Middle East's future in one sentence, what would it be? Well, my own vision or how I think you think will evolve? Your personal vision. A personal vision would be that hopefully a federative constellation will emerge and that this federative constellation will stand in relation also to other countries in the region. It's very often required, they must breathe. They need to be also in some legal relations to states next to them, you know, this from Europe very well. Ideally, that would be the situation, but that I think is extremely far-fetched. Like the Fien and federative constellation in Israel and ideally, this federation will itself be in relation of confederation to other states, but that is already very far-fetched. But a valid point. And that being said, that's it for today's podcast. We hope everyone who listens gained new insights and feels inspired to think for themselves and get involved potentially. Yeah. Well, last time, thank you very much for taking your time. Thank you for listening. If this conversation was meaningful or unsettling, if you left you with answers or more questions, feel free to like, share and subscribe. See you next time on our Israel Pyrrhastan Podcast.