HN_ZOOM_INTERVIEW_WITH_PANKAJ_MISHRA_SPEAKER_VIEW_10-13-22

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Transcript

00:00these questions and that's what this book is about. Yeah, I think that's one way of putting it.

00:05Certainly, you know, those are the sort of basic questions. Because, you know, we,

00:12let's take the first question. When we speak about the victims of history, we have a tendency

00:22to credit victims of history with a superior morality. I think that just because they've

00:29suffered, they will not inflict readily suffering on other people. It turns out,

00:38in almost every case, that people who have suffered often tend to act sometimes extremely

00:49cruelly towards weaker peoples. And so I think in that sense, the question about Israel,

00:57you know, a country populated, at least partly, by the survivors of the most extraordinary

01:07atrocity of modern history, the Holocaust. The fact that they themselves have created

01:14millions of refugees, millions of victims, is a fact of history that it's very hard to

01:22wrap your head around it. But there it is, you know, and it just shows that nobody who is a

01:28victim can be expected reasonably to behave in a highly moral fashion. We must be always prepared

01:36for the victim to also act horribly. The second question, of course, you know, why is it that

01:47powerful Western nations turn a blind eye to Israeli violations of international law and basic

01:55morality? And I think, you know, the answer is, I think it's a complex one.

02:03There are several reasons here. There is obviously a very strong factor of guilt,

02:09the fact that most of European nations were complicit in the destruction of European

02:14Jewry. Even those who fought the Nazis, the nations that ranged against the Nazis,

02:22were extremely reluctant, as I describe in my book, to accept Jewish refugees,

02:29both during and after the Holocaust. This is an extraordinary fact.

02:35And that Jewish suffering was ignored for an extremely long time. And I think, you know,

02:41later generations, which have grown up with a greater awareness of these facts,

02:48feel a sense of obligation towards the state of Israel, and discharge it in ways that are obviously,

02:56you know, deeply, sort of, in a way, unfair to the Palestinians. But nevertheless, there we are.

03:05The other factor here is that organized opinion in favor of Israel is much, much stronger than it

03:16used to be. And it is as a result of very concerted lobbying efforts by the state of Israel. The fact

03:24that Israel has created a network all across Western Europe, and most prominently in the

03:29United States of sympathizers. So we know, Jimmy Carter said this, it's, you know, any number of

03:36the some of the most experienced politicians have said this, that if you go against Israel,

03:42as a legislator in the United States, as a member of the Congress, or as a member of the Senate,

03:48you're very likely to be thrown out in the next...

03:54That's the end of the political career.

03:56Yeah, that's the end of your, it's career suicide. So the power of Israeli propaganda

04:04efforts has reached a point where it's politically suicidal to criticize Israel.

04:11That means that Israel today has complete impunity, enjoys complete impunity. Just today,

04:18in fact, we see the news that the U.S. House, U.S. Congress has basically filed a

04:28passed a resolution penalizing the authorities of the International Criminal Court,

04:38and imposing sanctions on them. Why? Because these people have issued criminal warrants against

04:44Netanyahu. So the highest, you know, legal authorities in the world are being sanctioned

04:51today by American politicians, because they have dared to bring criminal charges against Israel.