View the video of this briefing online, via http://www.palestinecenter.org
The Palestine Center
Washington, D.C.
29 April 2010
Professor John Mearsheimer:
It is a great honor to be here at the Palestine Center to give the Sharabi Memorial Lecture. I would like to thank Yousef Munnayer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, for inviting me, and all of you for coming out to hear me speak this afternoon.
My topic is the future of Palestine, and by that I mean the future of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, or what was long ago called Mandatory Palestine. As you all know, that land is now broken into two parts: Israel proper or what is sometime called “Green Line” Israel and the Occupied Territories, which include the West Bank and Gaza. In essence, my talk is about the future relationship between Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Of course, I am not just talking about the fate of those lands; I am also talking about the future of the people who live there. I am talking about the future of the Jews and the Palestinians who are Israeli citizens, as well as the Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories.
This is a bunch of worrisome balogna. A supposed realist talks about a state that will just happen — evolve — not be made, omits the aspirations of the two parties on the ground who are participants in the conflict, omits the influences of the liberal hegemon and the international community and its institutions and the surrounding states, and sees a straight line development into the future — based on what? Realism? This is scholarly? This is analytic?
This is also simply offensive. Righteous Jews? Norman Finkelstein? Give me a break. Jews who defend themselves, who are part of a national project of self-determination, and who in the face of the challenges they must confront, continue to build a liberal society under law, with democratic institutions, these are not righteous Jews? Thank you, Dr. Mearsheimer….
Self-determination and defense are illegitimate excuses – it was never necessary to build a Jewish state on the graves of an indigenous people to save the religion from extinction.
It is beyond offensive to promulgate that charade in any context and simply ignorant to flash as if an ace in the hole in this particular debate.