A Year and a Month into the War Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Sarah: Good afternoon, and welcome to yet another topical and timely EMET Webinar. Today, we are delighted to host Dan Diker and Khaled Abu Toameh. Dan Diker is a senior fellow and longtime Director of the Counter-Political Warfare Project at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Policy, previously known as the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He served as Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress. He also worked as a research fellow for the International Institute for Counterterrorism at Reichman University, formerly the IDC. Dan has written six books exposing anti-Semitism.

Khaled Abu Toameh is a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. People around the world are well acquainted with Khaled’s writing. Khaled has been a vocal critic of the Oslo Accords since day one. He has authored a multitude of outstanding articles including those focusing on the incitement prevalent in UNRWA’s textbooks.

Khaled, it has been 31 years since the signing of the Oslo Accords. What lessons has Israel learned since then? What lessons has the international community learned?

Khaled Abu Toameh: Thank you. I held very strong opinions about the Oslo Accords, even before they were signed. Back then, people in Israel asked me what I thought of them. I told them that the idea behind the Oslo Accords was not that bad. It was not a bad idea for Israel to allow Palestinians to run their own schools and hospitals and have their own small police force. There was no reason for Jews to be running the Palestinian schools and hospitals in Gaza. Israeli policemen were not required to deal with the civilian or criminal issues in Gaza. The idea of disengaging from the Palestinian population and handing civilian control over the Palestinian population was not that bad.

Israel had very good intentions when it signed the Oslo Accords. The signing of the Accords came on the heels of the First Intifada, the first Palestinian uprising. The Israeli public was tired of the violence. At the same time, Israel was being pressed by the international community to find a solution and give the Palestinians concessions. So, the Israelis decided to agree to the Oslo Accords.

As I mentioned, I have no problem with the idea of Israel handing civilian control over to the Palestinians. I do not object to limited security control, meaning a police force for the Palestinians. That is what Oslo was about. It was about giving the Palestinians a strong police force so that they could enforce law and order in their own communities.

When we heard there was going to be a police force, images of blue-uniformed policemen came to mind. We imagined them patrolling the streets of Ramallah dealing with crime, fighting drugs, and possibly even preventing terror attacks against Israel. The idea was good. However, my problem was with the PLO, the proposed partner for Israel.

The idea behind Oslo was to bring the PLO to the West Bank and Gaza. Gradually, they would begin managing the affairs of the Palestinians and would replace Israel in that regard. Back then, I said I did not trust the PLO. I said this as someone who knew the PLO very well. I made it clear that I did not trust Yasser Arafat. I warned my Israeli friends that he was not sincere about making peace with Israel. I told them that dumping Yasser Arafat in the West Bank and Gaza with 70 or 80,000 PLO fighters would not lead to peace. Calling them security officers would not change who they were. However, everyone was in a state of euphoria back then. If you dared to criticize the Oslo Accords, you were labeled anti-peace and told you were not giving peace a chance. Everyone was willing to give the Oslo Accords a chance back then.

The rest is history. Yasser Arafat came to the West Bank and Gaza. In lieu of preparing his people for statehood, he established a very corrupt regime there. He received billions of dollars from the international community. He did not invest the funds for the welfare of his people. We all know that a lot of the money received went into the secret bank accounts and coffers of senior Palestinian officials. Instead of enforcing law and order, Yasser Arafat ushered in anarchy and lawlessness.

The Palestinian security forces operated as militias and not as real security forces. Yasser Arafat and the PLO did not fight terrorism. After the signing of the Accords, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terror groups became even stronger. There was a time when Arafat claimed that he was cracking down on them, but it was a farce. He would arrest a senior Hamas official in the morning. In the evening, we would interview that same official who was already back at his home.

As a journalist, I had a problem with the international community, and even with the Israeli government. They refused to recognize reality. They refused to pay attention to the widespread corruption, anarchy and the lawlessness prevailing under the Palestinian Authority (PA). In 1994, 1995 and 1996, I tried to pitch stories about this to some of my foreign colleagues. They refused to listen. I tried to tell them about the dangerous anarchy and lawlessness in the Palestinian territories and they were not interested. I said that it would embolden and empower Hamas and I was correct. In 2006, Hamas ran and won in the Palestinian Legislative Council election under the banner of change and reform.

Has Israel and the international community learned from their mistakes? No. We continue to deal with the same PA leadership. They have not changed and they cannot be revitalized or reformed. We need a complete overhaul of the Palestinian leadership. It is time to reject the idea of allowing the PLO to govern in the West Bank and in Gaza. It is time to recognize they will not prevent terrorist attacks against Israel. They have not done so before and they will not do so in the future.

Sarah: Earlier this morning, we were talking about the State Department’s failure of imagination. They continually revert to the same failed paradigm. Under President Biden, they continue to talk about re-energizing and resurrecting the PA. They would like to bring the PA to power in Gaza. Dan and Khaled, what are your thoughts about this?

Dan Diker: First of all, EMET’s Rays of Light in the Darkness dinner last night was a superb moment in all of our lives. I have a two-word take-away from it. Those words are, moral clarity. It was very reassuring to hear the term, moral clarity, used by speakers again and again at the dinner in D.C. last night. Moral clarity was also the main theme espoused by Representative Stefanik, the incoming United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

I wrote my doctorate on the Palestinian National Movement and the West, based on my desperate need for moral clarity. My thesis examined how the Palestinian National Movement co-opted western discourse. It scrutinized how the PLO and Yasser Arafat succeeded in challenging Israel’s legitimacy. In 1970, the PLO was a self-declared third-world terror organization comparable with North Vietnam and Cuba. By 2024, they have succeeded in convincing many across the world that Israel is a genocidal entity. They have done this either together with Hamas, or in competition with them. It is an absolutely incredible case study in international relations.

Two years ago, I succeeded Dore Gold as president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. At that time, we refocused the Center’s mission. Our new focus explains why I am on this webinar together with Khaled. Khalid and I have been colleagues in the media, the news and in the think tank world for many years. We understand that the regional approach is the correct path to stability, security, and prosperity. Khalid and I are two of the many Arabs and Jews in the Middle East who agree on this, particularly after the Abraham Accords.

The Oslo approach platformed the Palestinian problem or the Palestinian issue. It presented the absence of a Palestinian state as the central grievance in the Middle East. October 7^th proved this assumption was completely false. Many people on this webinar understood that the premise behind the Oslo Accords failed many years before October 7^th. Oslo empowered, mainstreamed, and legitimized a terror organization called the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Oslo was the poisonous pathway that led to October 7^th. Arafat and Abu Mahmoud Abbas were the first to promote the line, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”  Students at Columbia and Harvard did not come up with that line or that idea. The concept began in 1964, with the emergence of the first PLO charter and the first PLO chairman, Ahmad Shukeiri. Both he and Yasser Arafat promoted Jihad.

The Oslo process empowered the Palestinian Authority (PA), the laundered version of the PLO. The PA was able to engage in Nazi and Soviet-style conspiracy theories and in pay-for-slay. They incentivized young Palestinian men and women to murder Israelis. Oslo also allowed them to mobilize the United Nations and its agencies to delegitimize and dehumanize Israel. These types of actions continued for many years and led to the October 7^th assault on Israel. The State Department continued to push the exact actions that resulted in the attacks on October 7^th, 2023.

About 10 or 15 years ago, Israel began to understand that it had followed the wrong path. This realization came after the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Like-minded people like us and you and others have to work to change the approach of the State Department and others. Stability and security are possible if we follow the regional approach. A continued focus on the Palestinian issue will bring neither stability nor security.

Now is a moment of moral clarity for all of us. Moral clarity requires that we change the narrative on Israel, and the Jews, and the whole Middle East. Arabs and Jews need to work together to obtain regional security, stability and prosperity. If the Palestinians want to join the initiative, they are welcome to do so. If they refuse, they do so at their peril.

Sarah: Many of our Sunni Arab neighbors and allies seem to believe that the road to peace runs through Ramallah. This includes states which are part of the Abraham Accords and potential allies like Saudi Arabia. It appears they think a Palestinian state must precede peace with Israel. What is your response to this?

Dan: For many years, the road to peace was said to run through Ramallah. In fact, the road to peace is dependent on Israel being viewed as the strong horse in the region. The strong horse is a term first referred to by Ibn Khaldun, the 14^th century Arab Muslim historian and political theorist. Israel recently implemented its successful pager operation. It eliminated Hamas and Hezbollah’s command structures, and completed its extraordinary counterattack against the Iranian regime. Israel destroyed Iran’s anti-aircraft and their air defenses and exposed them completely. This is unprecedented in terms of the level of conflict in the Middle East. All of Israel’s successes emphasize that it is the strong horse in the region. Trump’s recent election cements the belief that the US will support Israel in maintaining its status in the area. This is very important in the Arab world. Peace does not run through Ramallah. Peace comes through strength, which is a core premise for the incoming administration. This is absolutely true for Arab Muslim culture as well. Peace comes through strength.

The regional approach asserts that stability in the region is based on Israel maintaining its position as an anchor of strength, power, moderation and freedom. The idea that peace runs through Ramallah, completely inverts the regional approach. It has proven to be an abject failure and is a national security danger to the United States and the Western alliance.

Sarah: Thank you. Khaled, do you also have a response to this question?

Khaled: I want to add that there are Arab countries that would disagree with the premise that peace runs through Ramallah. These countries include Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. These countries have decided that they are not going to allow the Palestinians to continue hijacking them. They are not going to let the Palestinians hold them hostage. They have decided to move past the idea that peace runs through Ramallah.

They have told the Palestinians that they have helped them for more than 70 years. They have given them money and support but they have failed to get their act together. They have let the Palestinians know that they know they are corrupt. They have informed the Palestinians that they, the Arab countries, have decided to move on. They have decided to liberate themselves from being held hostage to the Palestinian issue.

The Abraham Accords were facilitated by Arab states moving on from the Palestinian issue. This explains why the PA and Hamas were furious when the Arabs signed the Accords. I believe that Saudi Arabia will also join sooner or later. This is in spite of its talk about a Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia’s insistence on a Palestinian state is mere lip service. The Arab world already understands that the Palestinian leadership is a total failure. They know that Palestinian leadership is actually acting against the interests of its own people. They know the Palestinians could have had a state a very long time ago. They are aware the Palestinians have chosen not to have a state next to Israel and that many of them want a state in place of Israel.

Dan: I think many people on this webinar understand intuitively or empirically, that the Palestinian state idea is exactly what triggered, enabled, and empowered October 7^th. Gaza was effectively a state controlled completely by Hamas. Hamas controlled Gaza politically, civically and militarily. Gaza could have been a Monaco on the Mediterranean but it has become hell on the high seas. Hamas developed the largest underground terror network in the history of modern politics.

Hamas’ 500-kilometer underground terror metro system is extraordinary. Israel gave up its ability to defend itself in Gaza. It gave up its intelligence capabilities inside of Gaza. It withdrew its citizens who had lived there for decades and surrendered its security capabilities there. Establishing another Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, is a perfect pathway to the next October 7^th attack.

For this reason, we have to move from diplomacy-based security, to security-based diplomacy. To achieve this, we need the unconditional partnership, understanding and support of the United States government. Israel’s need for defensible borders will determine the available alternatives for solving the conflicts facing us. Israel will need to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon with Israeli control of the land there. We are going to have to establish a buffer zone in northern Gaza. We need to continue to control the high tops. We need to control the Judean-Samarian hilltops that overlook Ben Gurion Airport, our major infrastructures and our major highways. Right now, our country is porous. We can be infiltrated by six different countries and in three or four different directions.

Sarah: Right. Many in the American public project their own values onto the Muslim and Islamic world. They project the map of the United States onto Israel. They fail to understand that Israel needs defensible borders to survive. Qalqilya is just a few miles from Ben Gurion Airport. One missile fired into Ben Gurion Airport could shut down the airport and all air transportation. This would isolate the state of Israel.

We are not the Gush Emunim types who think the soil is holy. We think lives are holy and we want to protect them. I think the best way to protect the lives of all people in the region is through strength. Otherwise, the children of the region are going to be impacted over and over and over again.

Dan, you have researched events on college campuses in America extensively. How can we undo 31 years of propaganda? How can we reverse the myth that Israel is a satanic occupying force, and that intifada is justified?

Dan: It is going to be a long haul. Last night Shabbos Kestenbaum said it is going to get better before it gets worse. As a fellow Harvard graduate, I would submit that Shabbos is correct. In 2018, we produced a study which our viewers can find online. It is called Students for Justice in Palestine Unmasked. At that time, nobody knew who the heck Students for Justice in Palestine were.

Our study forecasted exactly what is happening today. On October 8^th 2023, Students for Justice in Palestine coordinated a well-planned, well-organized response to the October 7^th attacks. This type of coordinated response had been planned for decades and was originally funded by Ramallah. Students for Justice in Palestine went national in 2010. So, they have been around for almost 15 years nationally but were active for 10 to 12 years before that.

In 2004, no one was paying attention. We were willfully blind to the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). PACBI is still based in Ramallah and Hamas is one of its members. Please note that I just mentioned Hamas on a Palestinian boycott committee. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as the Fatah were also members of the committee. Before going to prison for murder, Marwan Barghouti was the head of the Palestinian National and Islamic forces (PNIF).

They were all part of the boycott movement that resulted in Students for Justice in Palestine. Students for Justice in Palestine were the descendants of American Muslims for Palestine. That organization was linked to the worst terror financing case in American history, the Holy Land Foundation case. It was a multimillion-dollar terror financing case run by Abu Marzook. Abu Marzook is a senior Hamas operative who is still alive, well and kicking in Gaza and in other places.

This is how our campuses became overtaken by Hamas. The campuses of today have become Hamas encampments. They are headquarters for pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah, and even pro-ISIS sentiments. At the EMET dinner, Shabbos Kestenbaum said there was a horrendous display of virulent anti-Semitism outside of Harvard University’s Hillel. The demonstrators said that Zionists are not welcome on Harvard’s campus.

Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Hamas Jihadi organization. Neutralizing and clearing out these pro-Hamas demonstrators is a major challenge for our universities. Students for Justice in Palestine is not a pro-Palestinian organization, it is a pro-Jihad organization. Khaled has visited many campuses. Khaled, maybe you can weigh in on the disconnect between Students for Justice in Palestine and those people who are actually pro-Palestinian.

Khaled: Back in 2009, I wrote an article after touring several US campuses. The article appeared on the Gatestone website and you can also Google it. It summarized my traumatic experiences on the US campuses I visited. This was the first time I had been invited to speak to students on US campuses and I was not aware of what was actually happening there. I was invited by people who knew I was a reporter writing about Palestinians in the Jerusalem Post and in other newspapers.

Upon arriving on campus, I was met by people calling themselves part of the pro-Palestinian camp. Initially, I welcomed them and asked them what their message was. They responded that Israel is a racist, apartheid, genocidal, murderous country. I asked them why they call themselves pro-Palestinian since they sounded more anti-Israeli than pro-Palestinian. I told them that hiding at a university campus and spewing hatred against Israel did not make them pro-Palestinian. I let them know they were simply Israel or Jew haters. I asked them if any of them were Palestinian and discovered that 95% or more were not. So, what I saw on the campuses in around 2009 was very disturbing.

After experiencing this, I concluded my article stating, “I would not be surprised if the next generation of Jihadis graduate from universities in the US.” I was basically saying that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS were already operating on US campuses. The irony is that I feel safer being in Ramallah than I did at the University of Michigan or other campuses. I work in both Ramallah and Bethlehem and I feel safe there. Even though I receive criticism, no one there threatens me. What I witnessed on the campuses is very dangerous. I felt physically threatened there. If I was invited to go back to the campuses, I would decline and let them know I would rather be with the PLO and with Hamas.

I think this is something that people here in the US need to address. What is happening? Who is funding these anti-Israel or anti-Semitic campaigns on the campuses? By the way, there is a total disconnect between these so-called pro-Palestinian groups, and the Palestinian population.

These are issues we really need to highlight. These so called pro-Palestinian demonstrators are actually Jew or Israel haters. I gave them suggestions on how they could actually help the Palestinian people. I told them to come to Gaza and defend the rights of women and gay people living under Hamas. I instructed them to come to Ramallah and defend journalists and human rights activists there. There were political activists being persecuted, imprisoned, and even killed by the PA at that time. Instead of calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions from the comfort of their university campus, I told them to work to narrow the gaps between Jews and Arabs and to promote peace and positivity. I told them to stop chanting ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘From the River to the Sea’?”

The first time I heard the chant, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” was when I visited Canada. I was invited to speak on a Canadian campus. I walked in to see people masked with keffiyehs. I had covered two Palestinian intifadas, and I was familiar with these types of masks. I heard them chanting, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” and I assumed they were Hamas. They told me they were not Hamas and I let them know they were chanting Hamas’ slogan. They asked how I knew this and I told them I was at a press conference in 2008 when Hamas was established. I informed them that Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmoud al-Zahar back then had said. “We want to liberate Palestine from the river to the sea, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

Some of them really did not know what they were actually advocating. I call that subgroup useful idiots. However, many protestors on university campuses are not there to criticize Israel. They do not believe in Israel’s right to exist. They see Israel’s presence in that part of the world as a problem. It is not possible to have any kind of a discussion or debate with such people because they are the same as Hamas.

Three weeks ago, I was in Bethlehem with a group of US reporters. They asked me if they could look around inside a supermarket there. Upon entering, they were shocked by the number of Israeli products they saw on the shelves. They asked me whether the sanctions movement was aware that Israeli products were being sold there. I said, “I don’t know but you guys can take pictures and show them that even people in Bethlehem are not boycotting Israel.”

Dan: The key point here is that organizations like EMET and the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs must bring the truth to the Jewish students on campus. We must strengthen the Jewish students on campus. People like Dalia Ziada and Hussein Aboubakr Mansour on our team, must work with students to disrupt the lies and deconstruct the deceptions. We must then replant the truth about the Palestinians and the Middle East leadership. I think that winning back our campuses is our most achievable and important goal. Right now, we can embrace Jewish students with the truth. We can make sure they understand the truth about the issues we have discussed on this webinar. There is a tremendous amount of confusion about the role of the PLO and the role of the Palestinians. We need to deconstruct the pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian, Israel genocide related propaganda. We need to deconstruct all of this propaganda and reconstruct the truth.

Ken Marcus and Elise Stefanik have outlined the bigger plans to address these issues. Ken Marcus has discussed the importance of enforcing Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Movement. At EMET’s dinner last night, Elise Stefanik spoke about the criticality of enforcing codes of conduct. She told us that she succeeded in getting two university presidents fired because they do not have moral clarity and they were not enforcing their own codes of conduct. Those are the bigger plans.

Sarah: Right. It is common practice for anti-Zionist organizations to hide behind liberation movements and to borrow their terms of liberation and intersectionality. My sister’s husband is a Harvard professor. She told me that the hostage posters put up there last year were all defaced and designated as fake news. On the posters of little Kfir Bibas and Ariel Bibas, they wrote, “Not beheaded yet.” This is pure hatred. Who would want to behead little children like this?

Khaled is right. The so-called pro-Palestinian movement is not a liberation movement trying to obtain control over part of the land. Their goal is to take all of Israel. They glorify the beheading, murder, rape, torture and the burning of children in ovens. Why are they glorifying these heinous, wretched acts? There is no moral clarity anymore.

Dan: I want to add to what you are saying. The polls in the West Bank Judea and Samaria also reflect tremendous support for the October 7^th massacres. They glorify the attacks in the name of al-Aqsa. That is very important. We learned a moral lesson on October 7^th. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a political, territorially driven conflict. Rather, it is religiously and ideologically driven. This contradicts what so many Israelis and Americans believed. Children were beheaded in the name of Ali al-Akbar. The beheading and raping of women was justified based on an interpretation of the dictates of Islam. We have to learn lessons from October 7^th and we must incorporate them into our thinking.

Hamas’ October 7^th assault on Israel, was named the al-Aqsa Flood Operation. Where does the terminology al-Aqsa Flood originate from? ISIS in Mosul, Iraq also adopted the word flood. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi referred to the Islamic flood. They have basically repurposed the biblical story of the flood. They said the world would have to be destroyed similar to the way it was during Noah’s time. Islam and Islamic truth would represent Noah’s ark. As such, the new-world would submit to Islam. So, in 2008, the word flood had already been used in the Islamic context.

As Khaled pointed out to me the other day, Sinwar saw himself as much larger than al-Baghdadi. He saw himself as Salah ad-Din. He viewed himself as the savior of Islam and the victor over the Zionist Crusader Alliance. So, October 7^th reflects the convergence of Osama bin Laden and Sinwar. It represents the merging of the Sunni and the Shia version of radical Islam to achieve victory over the so-called Zionist Crusader Alliance. That is what we learned on October 7^th. That is the truth to which we need to adjust in order to be able to fight and defeat them.

Sarah: We have received many questions from the audience. Unfortunately, we have a hard stop right now because Dan and Khaled have another appointment. Next week, we are going to take a break for Thanksgiving. We will meet with Behnam Ben Taleblu on December 4^th.

We did not have time today to discuss all of the many other pertinent issues relating to the war that Israel has been fighting on seven fronts. Some of these issues include Israel’s fatigue factor and how long Israel can continue to remain at war. We could also discuss the level of deterrence Israel achieved when it retaliated against Iran on October 26^th. I could also ask you more about Resolution 1701 and the difference between that and Amos Hochstein’s plan.

Given the time we have, however, I want to emphasize something Dan mentioned. He said Israel has to defend its own borders by itself. We made that mistake with UNIFIL and with the Lebanese Armed Forces. We made a similar mistake by depending on the PA. We have hopefully learned that lesson in the 31 years since Oslo.

I also want to mention that Senator Bernie Sanders has sponsored three resolutions. The resolutions advocate halting arms sales to Israel. I think one of my senators, Chris Van Hollen, is voting for this. Please call your senator’s office at (202) 224-3121 and let them know you are totally against any moves to limit arms sales to Israel. Thank you very much. Israel needs this for its survival. We are in the midst of an existential war.

Dan: Thank you. Please feel free to review the content we provide at https://jcpa.org/. There you can find cutting-edge analysis and recommendations on the topics we discussed today. We are delighted to work with you, EMET, and your wonderful constituency in advancing peace and security for all peoples of the region.

Sarah: And we’re equally delighted and honored to work with you, Dan and Khaled.

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