Discusses his newest book book if they critique of correspondent best selling book my Promised Land of the triumph and tragedy of israel. You can watch them talking about the book on the website booktv. Org. He spoke out another bookstore in baltimore. This is just under two hours. Thank you for inviting me. And i want to use the time that is allotted to me. I could go on for roughly an hour. I want to use the time that is allotted to me to try to clarify exactly what is going on in this particular case. It does require a certain amount of clarity because virtually everything thats being said about the current round massacring gaza virtually everything that is being said is simply not true. Saying its not true is just a euphemism. I think its important to have some clarity. What actually is happening and what triggered it and what is happening now in the ground and where things are headed. Let me begin with the beginning mainly the context of what is happening. Its important to get the point of the departure right because we have to know what was the cause and what was the effect. It was the killing and kidnapping and the effect was the harsh reaction in the west bank that the sequence virtually every account begins by saying that it all started with israel with the abduction and the killing of the teenagers. But that is false. The only proper context to understanding what happened is that it began in april of 2014 when the Palestinian Authority formed a union government. The Prime Minister of israel demanded that the United States and the eu break off relations with the government because hamas is a terrorist organization. Surprisingly, the United States and the eu. But then they would decide on the stepbystep basis whether or not to persist in this relationship. At this point, nothing out who was enraged and was being consistently ignored first in the question of iran when he claimed that iran was on the verge of becoming a nuclear power. On the question of israel housed on is once again he was being ignored. He was saying hamas is a terrorist organization. You have to break off relations with it. Both the eu and the u. S. Said no. We are going to continue in our relations. In fact, when the gift so into nothing out netanyahu it was initially the abduction. Even after that gift fell into netanyahus lap, the u. S. Continued to say we are not going to break off relations with the new unity government. Now on netanyahu had the pretext. He knew full well from day number one do that the kids were dead and number two, hamas had nothing to do with it but he saw an opportunity to exploit at the abduction and the killin killine three israeli teenagers to do what israel always does. Hamas signed on to the unity government, and the unity government had said because the Prime Minister abbas was the spokesperson still a unity government, he said that we are accepting as the unity government we are accepting the terms for the negotiations because the enunciation of violence, number two, recognition of the state of israel, and number three it slips my mind that it will come back to me in a moment. The hamas had joined the government accepted on the recognition of the past agreements. Succumb it was the mmc asian of the violence, the recognition of the past agreements and recognition of the state of israel. They said the new unity government accepts those terms. Its one of those Palestinian Peace offenses. The way that you try to deflectt peace offensive is you start pounding and pounding the presenters of the peace offensive. Now imagine al imagine all you s pretext. The objection coming after kids he started going after hamas in the west bank and arrested about 700 palestinians and just about the majority of them being hamas ransacking homes demolishing the two homes and carrying on as it always does in these moments like the food and state. When it finally reacts as anyone would under those circumstances what does nothing out and say, look, you see i told you they are terrorists you cant negotiate with them. This is particularly odd situation because in fact it was not a Palestinian Peace offensive. Ironically this was a palestinians are under offensi offensive. The Palestinian Authority accepted all of the secretary of state conditions for ending the conflict during the negotiations that were carried down in the Kerry Initiative or the carrying process. Abbas accepted that israel could annex the major settlement blo blocs. They accepted the nullification of the right of return perfectly clear from the record or what has been leaked from the record he accepted everything. He accepted the defeat. But because of the coalition politics, he wouldnt even accept a surrender from the palestinians and so now he was determined to wreck the government so that at some point in the future he would and have to accept not a settlement based on International Law because at some point in the future, he wouldnt have to accept a surrender from the palestinians. After the rampage in the west dually escalated,ome point it t the Ground Invasion. I made many predictions along the way before the whole comp but started to cover them about what would happen. And many people would know that recall. One of my predictions was i thought it was impossible that israel would be able to repeat what it did in the Operation Task that was led in 2008 and 2009 that the International Community had drawn a red line. The red line had a name and it was cold but goldstone report. Even though the report was eventually ignored, it set up a new standard. The standard was that israel knew you cant do that sort of stuff anymore. He went too far. And for a long time, my prediction held up in november of 2012 israel launched the operation of defense that caused a larger massacre in gaza but that was a different attack than 20 of eight and 2009. For those of you that recall during the operation pillar of defense and 2012, november 2012 they didnt target schools or mosques and the death toll was significantly different about 170 people in operation 1400. So until that point what i had predicted would be right. However, its perfectly obvious now that im way off base in terms of the new massacre in gaza. Its more or less on the same magnitude as 2008 and 2009. The dust hasnt settled so riddled with a final reckoning would be but it seems pretty much at this point and we can make perfect comparisons because the operation lasted 22 days and i think it is the 22nd or the 23rd day if i am correct. The operation was about 1400 people. About 1200 were civilians and now its around 1200 again about 80 of civilians. Its roughly the same. The targeting, not only the targeting of hospitals but its the same thing all over again. And now the question is why was i so off base . And im not trying to defend myself but im trying to defend the situation which is what we should try to do and that will enable us to accurately predict where things are heading. Politics can add thi at best be political and can access the trajectories where things are generally headed but the politics itself is about taking advantage of opportunities being skillful at exploiting the moment and i mentioned the gift number one but fell into netanyahus lap the abduction and killing of the three teenagers and then the two fell into netanyahus lap. Gift number one was tony blair. Hes a clever politician and the two obviously are usually exclusive. [laughter] hes also a high cross and those are not mutually exclusive. Tony blair dreamt of something clever. He said come up with a ceasefire proposal that hamas has to be checked. He comes up with a proposal through the monstrosity of the president its now called the Egyptian Initiative as if they can even spell initiative. The initiative was quite clever we are going to have a ceasefire he said. But then he said we will lift the blockade. That sounds reasonable. Ceasefire in exchange for the blockade. That is what they want. But the language was very clever. We will lift the blockade when the security situation stabilizes and gaza. We will lift the blockade of the security situation stabilizes and gaza. Well, according to israel, hamas is a terrorist organization. So by definition the security situation in gaza cant stabilize until hamas is disarmed. So in effect, tony blairs ceasefire was an ultimatum to hamas. We will lift the blockade if you disarm. If you dont disarm, then we are not lifting the blockade. Of course hamas has to reject those terms. That was gift number one. So now the whole world can be told without prince of peace, president Prime Minister netanyahu wanted a ceasefire and it was hamas that said no and then gift number two was the downing of the malaysian airliner. When the malaysian airliner was bound to come in gaza was immediately the place of the top headlines by what happened to the airliner. Net netanyahu is not a genius, but it was perfectly honest it was going to happen. In 1989, way before many of you in the room were born, in 1989 there was the french and during the were giving israel a very hard time doing the massacre in china and netanyahu has been around a while as have i. Off netanyahu gave a speech and said the big mistake is that it didnt take advantage of the massacre to carry out the occupied houston and territory. So you know that this guy knows how to connect unpredictable events with political initiatives. Thats politics. When the malaysian airliner was down, he saw the opportunity between the fake claim that have lost had rejected the reasonable ceasefire and the malaysian airliner he now had the pretext to launch the Ground Invasion. Before i get to what happened after, i want to dispose of nonsense and now the tunnels that theyve discovered. Lets start with the first. Do they have rockets . When i conjured up in my mind a rocket, i conjured up something pretty tall and impressive and pretty destructive. That is a rocket in my mind. Maybe i have a quaint imagination but thats what i see. So now lets use some simple common sense. Gaza has been under a an airtight blockade for seven years. Israel doesnt let anything into gaza that could be remotely used for military purposes. That is fact number one. Some of you are thinking he is defeating us. What about those tunnels come off has built or dug between egypt and gaza. It was a sophisticated tunnel economy and probably militarily related material was smuggled in. I dont doubt that or have a problem with that. But then whatever they manage to smuggle in, they exhausted in november of 2012 the joint operation pillar of defense. Operation pillar of defense and iendsat the end of november. Seven months later is that true in egypt, the first thing after wise blow up all of the tamils. They blew up an estimated 95 of the tunnels. Nothing for the last year. Where do these rockets come from . Where was the material to make them . Now it is freely admitted all of them were homemade with barely any materials. The reason these rockets have caused all of those civilian casualties, all of the casualties is because they are not rockets. They are closer to firecrackers than rockets. Now, some of you may say ha ha it is defeating us again because we all know that miracle of miracles iron dome. These are very efficient rockets but that miracle iron dome managed to knock them out of the sky. Okay. Whats the fact behind that. Number one, the top person in the world in this particular area of research is the coastal mit. They were the first person to expos a nonsense about or the patriot of the antimuscles system during the 19,911th gulf war. It was 80 , 90 effective. It turned out that maybe. But that was revealed a year or two after the first gulf war. They were then asked recently in the last month, no it has to be the last two weeks sh he was asd what about the iron dome wax what is its efficiency . He put its efficiency on closing him at 5 . 5 . Its not the iron dome that is deflecting these humongous rockets. What is deflecting them is that they are not rockets in the first place. Now, how do we know that . There is such a simple way to know that if you use your brain for half of a minute just use your brain. It was led from 20 of eight to 2009. It lasted 22 days. How many civilian casualties were there . There were three. Its lasted now 22 days. The operation led before the iron dome. Operation protected edge. What is the rational conclusion . The iron dome did nothing. That is the fact in fact now the rockets being used by hamas are much more primitive than the ones they used in 2008 and 2009 because at that point they managed to smuggle something but now its nothing. Now mr. Netanyahu has the problem. He bolstered so much about the efficiency of the iron dome, this miracle of miracles that the only conclusion that you could draw that it is so efficient, the work of genius by the geniuses of all genius only they could come up with such a brilliant contraption if it is so efficient, then why are you killing all of these in gaza . If it is so efficient, none of the civilians are being killed then why do you have to carry on like maniacs and lunatics in gaza . So you have a problem. And he comes up with a new pretext. Thats why the New York Times have people like isabel kershner. Shes there to copy out anything the New York Times hands to her, excuse me come anything the counselor hands to her and even the differences. So what do they do . Bakeoff with a new idea. The reason that we are attacking us because the rockets so they do not fly anymore. The reason that we are attacking and a day in and day out they keep saying this whole operation is because of the titles, and that is supposed to explain to the rational people by israel is doing what its doing. Its not the rockets anymore. The tunnels. So when an Israeli Naval vessel pills for kids on the beach playing soccer, its because of the tunnels. And when they target the hospital wide . Because of the tunnels even though nobody claimed that there were tunnels underneath the hospital. And when israel targeted the hospital and the playground nearby well, its a yes way they did that. Its the tunnels. And a day in and day out you keep hearing about the tunnels as if in any way they can rationally explain why israels precision weapons are constantly telling kids and targeting manifest civilian sites. Well, you could say that israel is doing it since its obviously not the tunnels. You could say israel is doing it because it is a lunatic state. Its a state that is gone over the cliff. And i myself have to acknowledge that on more than one occasion i said as much. I think its a crazy state. Its not a failed state. Its a crazy state. But, still to use the shakespeare express and there is a method in the mad max and its not difficult to discern. Number one. We dont want to have the combat and casualties. Its in many ways a reverse of conventional society is. In most societies they tolerate combat and casualties much more than they are willing to tolerate civilian casualties. Israel is a different kind of society. Its the kind of Spartan Society in which military or combat and casualties are the source of much greater anguish and torment than civilian casualties. So, the first rule is combat since are not supposed to get killed and so the operation was led in 2008 and 2009 and none of it was published. If you see a building in the distance you dont ask any questions. You demolish everything in sight, so there will be nobody to even take a sniper shot at you. So one of the reasons was to demolish everything in sight and that connects playing some of what israel has been doing now. So the big massacre to date was freely admitted they said we level the playing because if we have to go in street by street, fighting we would have had to absorb a large number of combat and casualties and so they wiped the whole place out it wasnt only because of that, but the other reason was the db for this event Israeli Soldiers had been killed contrary to what you might conceive, there hasnt been a Ground Invasion. There has been an occupation a couple of miles into the border. Its only on the border area for the reason i mentioned to you already there was and is the fear that if they were to conduct a real Ground Invasion deep into gaza, they were going to they are and they still might at this point theres the fear that they would suffer some significance, and so they are holding back. If they are still at the border and its not to protect the combatants, why are they doing at . Why have they seemingly gone mad . And the other reason hasnt been completely acknowledged by the israelis. Number one, it wont surprise anyone in the room you were hoping that a terror bombing will bring palestinians to their knees. They are hoping that he will destroy everything in sight. There is a humanitarian ceasefire. The people come out and see there is nothing and then they say lets have a ceasefire and end it because the devastation is so terrible. And the longerterm goal is the hope that with all of the death and destruction people will eventually blame hamas for what happened and then seek to help seat hamas and thats the calculation during the task and there was some truth to it. The people stood behind the resistance in 2008, 2009 but then a significant element of alienation and heard when the people of gaza asked themselves for what. All of this debt that israel left behind a 600,000 tons of rubble after the operation. All of the deaths and the destruction, the blockade was still there so there was the feeling of hamas got us into a mess. I dont think thats accurate that ibut that is what they areg will happen this time. Thats the purpose behind the bombing. And we should be clear about one point. There should be no doubt on one critical point. A couple of days ago, i got so i couldnt take it anymore 20 days in front of the computer watching this unfold 24 hours a day seven days a week to begin to go mad. They are describing the attack on the playground and other kids just blown two fragments and as there is a very smart person and elegant person. [inaudible] they said they want to vomit and that struck a chord with me. No fancy language, no queues i want to vomit by the way they are carrying on in gaza. So, i decided that it was time to something. I cant justify in my own mind just sitting in front of the computer slight decided lets do a sit in and do something. So lets do it in front of the council at for the un. After i anno