How do two prominent philosophers—one Palestinian, one Israeli—think about the war in Gaza, the October 7 attack, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and prospects for the future? Can philosophical reflection contribute to our understanding of the crisis in the Middle East? Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel moderates a discussion between Sari Nusseibeh, a renowned Palestinian philosopher and former president of Al Quds University who has been active in Palestinian politics and peacemaking initiatives, and Moshe Halbertal, a distinguished professor of Jewish thought and philosophy at Hebrew University and Gruss Professor of Law at NYU Law School.
KRISTIN CAULFIELD: I now turn the event over to Professor Melani Cammett, Director of the Weatherhead Center.
MELANI CAMMETT: Thank you so much, Kristin. Welcome, everyone, to the Weatherhead Forum. I'm Melani Cammett, Director of the Weatherhead Center. I'm also a Professor of Government at Harvard. And it's really my great pleasure to introduce this forum.
The Weatherhead Forum is our platform to address pressing topics of the day and the path-breaking research being done in these areas. These special sessions are open to the public, and we thank you for joining us virtually in this session.
Today's forum is the fourth in our series on Israel/Palestine, and we are going to address the realities and questions surrounding the conflict through an ethical, moral, and philosophical lens. To facilitate the discussion, we welcome Michael Sandel, who will be in dialogue with our guests, Moshe Halbertal and Sari Nusseibeh. It's really an honor to introduce the three distinguished philosophers that we have with us here today.
My colleague Michael Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard where he is the Anne and Robert Bass Professor of Government and a Faculty Associate of the Weatherhead Center. His books on justice, democracy, ethics, meritocracy, and markets have been translated into more than 30 languages. His free online course Justice has been viewed by tens of millions of people. His BBC series The Global Philosopher explores the ethical issues lying behind the headlines with participants from around the world.
Moshe Halbertal is Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy at Hebrew University and Gruss Professor of Law at NYU Law School. On Sacrifi-- and he's written numerous books, including Maimonides, Life and Thought, On Sacrifice, and The Beginning of Politics, Power in the Biblical Book of Samuel, which was co-authored with Stephen Holmes.
Sari Nusseibeh is a renowned Palestinian philosopher and former President of Al Quds University who has been active in Palestinian politics and peacemaking initiatives. His books include Once Upon a Country, A Palestinian Life, What is a Palestinian State Worth?, and The Story of Reason in Islam. We very much look forward to the discussion, and I'm sure it's going to give us much to think about and reflect on as we continue to grapple with different ways of approaching this conflict.
Before I turn it over to Michael, I just want to remind all of the attendees that they're invited to write their questions into the Q&A function on Zoom. And we'll do our very best to address as many of them as possible at the end of the discussion. Michael, the floor is yours.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Thank you, Melani. And I want to express my gratitude to my colleague, Melani Cammett, for her leadership of the Weatherhead Center and for really enabling the Harvard community to discuss issues related to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Thank you, Melani.
And what an honor and pleasure it is to be reunited, even if online, with two friends, Moshe Halbertal and Sari Nusseibeh. I'm very grateful to both of you for having joined us. Each of you has a fascinating life story in addition to being a distinguished philosopher.
Sari, you're a member of a Palestinian family that traces its origins in Jerusalem back 13 centuries. Your father was involved in politics. You have dabbled in politics as well. You've been the-- you were the PLO representative in Jerusalem, as well as being a president of Al Quds University.
Moshe, you are the son of a Holocaust survivor who made his way to South America. You grew up in Jerusalem. You studied at an Orthodox yeshiva to become one of the leading world Jewish philosophers, Talmud scholars, scholar of Maimonides.
I'd like to begin with a question about memory. Not memory in the abstract, but personal, autobiographical memory. Can you think back and share with us, each of you, the first memory you have of the Israel-Palestine conflict? What age were you when you first became aware of this feature of the world in which you would grow up? Who would like to begin?
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Moshe, of course.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Sari, please. You have a longer memory here.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Go ahead, Sari.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Well, thank you, Michael, and thank you for inviting us. You know, it's a hard question. I grew up right on the borderline between-- what's called the Green Line between East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian rule.
And so I grew up in that house, which still is where it is and where I am. And it must have been in my early days when I was very young, maybe three, four, five-- I can't remember really-- that I grew into the atmosphere of very intense political discussions because of the involvement of my father and other family members in politics.
So we always had people coming into the house, discussing the issue. And so I sort of grew up as it were just to be part of it, part of the discussion. And it just grew larger as I grew up. But there's no specific incident that sort of reminds me of a sudden moment of awareness.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Moshe?
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Well, it's interesting because I have a similar memory from the other side of the border in Jerusalem before the 1967 abolishment of the Green Line. So we were neighbors from both sides of the borders.
I think my first memory-- my distinct first memory is in-- I was seven years old, and that was 1967, the Six-Day War. And I remember when it began. I remember, first of all, the huge tension around the country, whether it will survive. I mean, at the time-- we forget the days before-- a sense of ominous fear, actually. And I remember the initial bombardments from both sides in Jerusalem.
And I-- that struck me. I mean, this is a childhood memory that is very strong for a kid. And I think I was a little bit over-informed for my age, which is not a good idea. So I think for two months I had a high fever. Yeah. It's a kind of immense anxiety of, where is this all going? So that's my initial first personal memory of that world that we are in across the border, actually, from Sari.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Yeah. Yeah. And when did the two of you first meet?
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Although I think Moshe just revealed the fact that he's a bit younger than me, so his memory is better than mine. So I'll let him tell us when we first met.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Well, I mean, it's-- I think the life-- I would say the following. There are two realms in which we met. One is Sari's a scholar of Ibn Sina, and other-- the Islamic philosophical tradition of the medieval period, and written wonderful books and works. And I am interested in that tradition from the sort of Jewish perspective. Maimonides, et cetera. So I knew Sari's work from that angle.
And we also had once a discussion on your book in the National Library, actually, in Jerusalem. A very interesting discussion of another world of Jewish-Muslim dialogue or interaction that has--
SARI NUSSEIBEH: [INAUDIBLE]
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Yeah, [INAUDIBLE]. That was a world of the 11th, 12th century. Then there is another circle of meeting that has to do with-- people, I think, seek reconciliation. I mean, I think from both sides-- and Sari was always standing there for that possibility of a possible way in which this ongoing conflict will be resolved in a reconciled way, in a way that does justice to both sides.
So from that realm-- I mean, this is a completely different realm-- I think our paths crossed many times. And by now, it's very hard to-- it's an old friendship that is very hard to point to it's beginning. But these are the two-- yeah.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: I just wanted to add that Moshe was very kind one day. I remember, and my wife remembers. We were talking about it today. A nice invitation in their house where we also met with good friends, people that we've known also for many years. It was a lovely evening. Thank you very much. You should repeat it, Moshe.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Absolutely. Absolutely.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Well-- Having rekindled those warm memories, I would like to turn--
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Now we can fight.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Well, let's begin with an interpretation of the last four months, the events of the last four months, the Hamas attack of October 7, Israel's response in the Gaza war. How have these events-- and perhaps I'll begin with you, Sari. How have these events changed your thinking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Well, first of all, it sort of threw me into an atmosphere of total confusion and worry. And since it started, I ceased being able to foresee in a positive way what can come out of all of this.
Right up to that moment in time, however bad things or good they were-- mostly bad-- nonetheless, I was really very hopeful that we can get there. We can get to a peaceful settlement of whatever kind, that it was still possible. Although there have been downs, of course. But it seemed to me that there was enough sanity on both sides to allow us, both sides, to somehow continue dialoguing, continue negotiating, seeing the sense of doing this until we got to where we both wanted.
But in the last four months, I've been totally sort of thrown out of that mode of thinking, and I'm now feeling totally confused and, quite frankly, quite pessimistic, although I know a lot of people say this is a moment of opportunity. Well, I hope it is.
But looking at both sides, both the Israeli side and my own side, I feel that we have been thrown apart in a way that is going to be very hard, much harder to try and bring together again. I hope we can, but I can't see how this is to be done, actually. I'm totally sort of blinded by what's happened. I used to be able to see things better. I don't know what that tells us.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Yeah. Yeah. Moshe?
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Well, I-- I mean, there is a personal aspect to the story. Like, I think it involved all of us. I'm sure Sari's-- on Sari's side as well. I mean, the 7th of October was a moment of real trauma on the Israeli side, and a sense of fragility and a sense of a country that cannot protect its borders and its citizens. A whole vast array of civilian population exposed to massacre.
And so there's that. And it touched personally, you know? It touched us personally. I mean, I have a very close student who was murdered in Ofakim with his son.
And then-- so there is this trauma, and trauma is a moment that can actually confuse, mislead, destroy, et cetera. And then-- from then the for-- then the world reaction. I mean, that might be also something to think about.
But a certain sense from me-- and this is actually not addressed to Sari, but other, I would say, people whom I thought were kind of partners and sensing a strong de-legitimization of the very existence of Israel, as if somehow the plan of Hamas and that voice coalesced in a complex way.
Then there was Israel's reaction that threw me also in complicated way. It had to react. It reacted in a ground offensive. You might think-- you might assess it differently, et cetera.
But my concern in many ways like Sari then was shifted to, what's the day after? What is actually the day after? And whether there will be a day after, whether there-- I would say reservoir of trust. Minimal trust is there.
And then given the context we are in, how us people of goodwill can come out and say, can we actually rebuild here some for us? What's the place of rebuilding trust? What will Gaza look like? What's the day after? The radicalization on the Israeli side, both politically in terms of the growing power of the radical right in the government on the one hand, and also publicly, and the loss of trust in the other side to say, well, do you want a Palestinian side next to you?
MICHAEL SANDEL: I think--
MOSHE HALBERTAL: --a state next to you. Yes.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Go ahead.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: I'm saying, the way think about it is in moment of pessimism-- and I share Sari's pessimism. I try to go back to my-- would say basic convictions, right? It's like when you navigate and you lose your way, you say, OK. Let's come back to the place actually when you knew where you are.
So there is this idea-- I'm coming back to my basic convictions. And my basic convictions is there is no other solution but two-state solution. Israel has to have-- the reason-- there should be a Jewish nation-state side by side with the Palestinian nation-state. Our self-determination will be justified only if there is a Palestinian self-determination.
Then within-- if this is your deep moral political conviction and you throw into a situation where rightfully this is not something to take lightly, rightfully the trust of both sides is shattered, then you ask yourself, what is it to be done? What's the day after? So that's where I am.
MICHAEL SANDEL: All right. I'd like to come back in a moment to the question of the path forward, two-state solution or otherwise. But first, I'd like to ask you both about the war and a question about the ethics of war. Philosophers have long debated various just war theories, and the question I would like to put to each of you is this. Is Israel's war in Gaza just war? Who would like to go first?
SARI NUSSEIBEH: I think Moshe would say probably that it is-- I don't know, I'm speaking on your behalf here-- that it has some justice. I would say the opposite. And we could argue about what justice is and what the right thing is here.
To tell you the truth, where I come from, I mean personally, I don't see any justice. I mean, I find it very hard to justify any use of force or violence any way as a person. And when I look at wars or I look at how things are organized in the world on the basis of force, I don't feel good about that. And I've always held to the belief that we are, as human beings, capable of being better and of somehow avoiding conflicts and violence and force.
But on the other hand, you look around and you see, this is what is used. And you can only hope that you can get over it. That's why actually I did not focus in the earlier part of my answer to you on the actual events of the 7th October onwards, which in my eyes, including first and foremost the 7th of October itself, were examples of the senselessness of human beings in the pursuit of force for some ends that cannot actually be brought about, produced by the use of that force.
I've always been against the Israeli occupation because it's an act of force from my point of view. And I've always argued that the only way to oppose the occupation is peacefully because that would only-- be the only justification for any kind of product of that kind of opposition to the occupation.
So I'm not sure about the justness of the war in Gaza one way or the other. I'm not sure about the justness of the occupation. I think it's all unjust, to tell you the truth. And it's unjust based on my thinking, as I said earlier, that we should be able to base our politics on universal human beliefs and the equality of people. Men, women.
We should not have to force each other into political situations in which one side or the other suffers. And actually, we should, on the contrary, help each other. An ideal situation would be one in which Israelis and Palestinians would actually be cooperating in order to build a better future.
And I think if you look back on our history, the last-- I don't know how many years-- 70, 80, 90, 100-- I don't think we have actually yet matured enough on either side to the point of seeing that force is useless, pointless. And I don't really like any argument that justifies force. I know many philosophers do, but I haven't myself matured to that position yet.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Moshe?
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Yeah, I mean, first of all, it's very hard to argue with the sentiment and position of Sari's. I mean, clearly, all wish for a way in which we can deal with human conflicts peacefully. And not only dealing with conflicts, but make them a vehicle of cooperation, of mutual flourishing. And there is so much good things that can be done.
The question then is, what happens when actual force is being used, regardless of our wishes? So I would say, given-- I'm against the occupation as an act of force, and here I share with Sari's position. I mean, the occupation is wrong and I hope it can end peacefully.
But Hamas wasn't about the occupation, unfortunately. Hamas since-- by the way, since, its really dominant role in the '90s through the Oslo process, has done everything to harm the possibility of peaceful solution. And it was an attack, and then a country has to defend its citizens. And the only justification of war, if there is any, is defense.
So there is one question. It's whether the war is just. Well, the war has justness to it. Then there is another question a philosopher asks, which is not the justice of the war, but the justice in the conduct in the war. That's a different question.
MICHAEL SANDEL: And what would be your answer to that second question, Moshe?
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Oh, [SIGH]. I mean, this is an invitation to another seminar, but I would say the following. I mean, first of all, I don't know enough about the actual conduct of the war. I can say a few things about it. Clearly, it's not an indiscriminate, intentional attack on civilians, which is the worst thing a country can do. It is not.
Knowing whatever I know about it, it's an attempt to harm Hamas. I think the idea of absolute victory is a wrong idea. Not only wrong idea. It leads to wrong actions. But to say, well, Israel ought to or should have, et cetera, was morally right in actually confronting Hamas on its grounds was a right thing. It's not an indiscriminate attack on civilians.
The price-- the price of the war vis-a-vis civilians' life is so hard that even if the war is just, and even-- and which I believe it's not-- it's not an indiscriminate attack. It's not intentional attack on civilians. Clearly not a genocide. That's actually mocking-- mockery of the term genocide and what genocide is.
I think the cost is so big for the civilian population, so painful, that you have to think of ways, first of all, to minimize that pain as much as you can in terms of humanitarian aid, et cetera, et cetera. And mainly given that that's the nature of the conflict, you have to ask yourself, how do I end it in a way that would relieve the civilians from such harm the quickest that I can, given the role-- given the legitimate aims that are there? And then, how do I reconstruct life?
Now, the justness of the war in that respect also will be assessed by what happened after the war, right? And that's a question that you can never, I would say philosophically or humanly, you can never separate from assessment of the war itself. That's in general my way I think of it.
So Hamas is a case in which I think our aim-- let me say the following. Our desire for a possible reconciliation, nonviolent possible reconciliation, was never a player in that arena.
Now, we can ask seriously, so how did it became a player? How did it became a major force? What's Israel's role in that happening, et cetera, et cetera? This is a different question, but it had to be confronted in respect.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Yeah. Which, it's interesting that you suggest that fully to evaluate the moral status or the ethical status of the war and of these events going back to October 7 generally will in part depend on what comes from it.
So to be concrete, if the optimists are right-- and Sari, you mentioned that some see this as an opportunity-- if the optimists are right that these devastating events will actually issue in a comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then these horrific events may be viewed differently in retrospect than if the aftermath and if the result is simply carrying on as before or persisting tension and conflict and violence.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: You know, Michael, I'm not sure that I'd agree to that. If I think something is-- if I feel that it's inhuman or immoral in itself, of itself, I don't see anything can be redemptive that produced out of it. And I would argue-- I'd argue it's best probably for the sake of one's moral principles to, in fact, wait out and focus on doing things peacefully in order to get to that moral product that you wish to-- or the justifying product that you wish to get at or you hope you'll be able to get to.
Let me just add here. I think it's important-- I don't want to go into this too deeply. I think one has to be careful. It's interesting. I think Moshe's perspective on what happened, on what's just and what's not and so on is something that I do not personally see eye to eye with on a number of-- or for a number of reasons and from a number of perspectives.
And I think that in any case, yes, Hamas is the stated object of the attack or war in Gaza. Now, not the civilians who are just collateral damage, you know, that I must say include a lot of my cousins, Moshe. I mean, we have family on my mother's side, and the situation is terrible. I don't want to go in there, into that kind of-- it sort of makes me unable to think rationally to actually bring it up.
I think it's madness. What's happened is madness. It's madness in the sense that it is first unnecessary. I do not see how it can justify any of it. We can explain it, of course.
And I think Moshe, what you said about the trauma, the sense of anxiety and fear on the 7th of October, I mean, I think that's very important, and it's something I think on the Palestinian side people did not really understand, and therefore, did not really understand to begin with the depth, extent of the Israeli reaction. But it was a very important phenomenon that I think has to be addressed by Palestinians to themselves and with Israelis in order to try and see forward what the best way to go is.
But Michael, justification-- I refuse to see any justification to violence, I'm afraid. And I think it's more rational always and possible for human beings to actually solve their conflicts. And if they can't solve their conflicts, well, perhaps people can wait it out until it's more possible to solve their conflicts.
And you know, occupation-- Moshe, occupation is not something that is separate from Israel, just as you said Hamas is not separate from the collateral civilian deaths in Gaza. We don't see Israel as being separate from occupation. The occupation is Israel. It's the institutions, the government, it's the history. It's everything.
And so it is Israel, of which every Israeli citizen is part, which is responsible for the-- partly for the situation that we find ourselves in. And I come again and say, we have excellent people on both sides, reasonable people on both sides. And whatever people can come out with, they have to work together-- together, Israelis and Palestinians, in order to see a better future, whether it's two states or whatever comes out. I'm not wedded to any particular solution. I'm just wedded to a solution.
MICHAEL SANDEL: If I could just clarify one point. Sorry. I did not mean to be pronouncing one way or the other on the justification of the war. I was intrigued by the idea that the meaning of a war can change depending on what happens afterwards.
Here's the kind of analogy I had in mind. And it may be a very distant analogy, and may not be relevant. But during the American Civil War, Lincoln's pronounced aims in the war-- pronounced aim was to preserve the Union. But then in the face of the enormous unspeakable human sacrifice that he witnessed, he realized, he sensed that that aim could not possibly vindicate that level of sacrifice, and he changed. He re-described the purpose of the Civil War to be not only about union, but instead about freedom.
And it would be a further question whether even freedom justified that enormous sacrifice. But I suppose I'm-- or Lincoln was pointing to a distinction of redemption, not just so much justification as redemption, that only the higher aim of achieving freedom could possibly redeem or vindicate the mass of human sacrifice. So I was really-- I was really wondering whether the moral meaning of horrific human loss can only be assessed in retrospect, which in this case, coming back to this conflict, would depend on whether it can lead to a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: I'm always suspicious of such interpretations, Michael.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fair enough.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: I want to actually-- since I triggered that chain of thought, I don't think something wrong can become a right by a future bad-- good results that come out of it. Wrong is the wrong is the wrong.
But here's the asymmetry. A right can become wrong by a future event. You can have a self-defensive war, which could be reasonable. It could be justifiable. But then if it's aims is-- I don't know. If it develops and rolls into removing of a population, resettling, et cetera, et cetera, then what started as a justified war becomes, you might say, retroactively colored by unjustified structure.
That's what I meant. I don't think a wrong can be justified-- a wrong can be justified by its future redemptive outcomes. It's the other way around. A right can become colored by wrongness, by a certain future it has. Now, I--
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Self-defense is not-- should not be looked upon from one side only.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Of course.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: You can't justify one kind of self-defense at the expense of another. That's why this whole language, this whole-- to my mind is unconvincing, actually. And I think [INAUDIBLE] can make a lot of people astray-- lead them astray from what needs to be done in this kind of context. And what we really need is just to sit together and face each other and find other ways to resolve our problems, and not find rationalizations and justifications for what we do to each other, the terrible things we do to each other.
MICHAEL SANDEL: I would like to go-- come back to something that has come up earlier, the idea of a two-state solution. The obvious question, whether it's possible under these conditions, whether it's desirable, or more broadly, the end of the occupation. Sari, do you see-- can you imagine circumstances given where we are now that in-- that in our lifetime or the lifetime of our children we will see an end to the occupation?
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Look, I mean, I always tell myself that everything is possible from a-- in a mathematical or geometrical or logical way. All kinds of solutions that are based on an ending to the occupation, the creation of peace between Israelis and Palestinians is possible. Even a two-state solution, that is possible.
And you know, I maintain the hope that however bad it looks at any moment in time, things can turn upside down overnight. I don't discount the possibility that this can happen. And so you know, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, the two-state solution.
And to tell you the truth, I agree with Moshe, that actually the most practical solution for the Israelis and Palestinians I think is what he said right at the beginning about the mutual recognition of the rights of self-determination of both nations, which is the logical solution. I mean, and it's the least painful and the most direct that can produce the kind of life that our children and our grandchildren can have.
But it needs a lot of work now. It needs a lot of work for this to be done. And as you probably know, I mean, we've worked on a two-state solution for so many years, and we've worked on it from the bottom up. We've worked at it from the top down. And I'm not sure.
But it doesn't mean that we failed-- that it is therefore not possible. It failed. It can be tried again. It should be tried again. And I hope when it happens, if it happens, and we have two states that there will be two states, the Israeli, the Palestinian state itself, that it will be a state that has been worth fighting for and that we would like to live under the laws of.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Moshe?
MOSHE HALBERTAL: So I want to say one thing I think still maybe that's a naivete of mine, but maybe Sari would either confirm it or not. I do believe-- and that's-- that there are, let's say, 65% to 70% goodwilling people on the other side. Each want in principle a two-state solution. But 80% of those 70% don't believe that there are 70% in the other side. The level of mistrust is immense. Immense. But the goodwill is there in principle.
And the question is for both sides, two things that have to be done. How do they-- can control-- [INAUDIBLE] control of their radicals, that do everything to undermine possible trust on our side, things that are happening in the West Bank, settlements, and other things? Palestinian side, activities, Hamas-like activities that create immense mistrust. That's one thing.
And the other thing is, how do this goodwilling people-- and I still think that there are many of them. And by the way, you show it-- you see it in polls, one poll after the other. And not only that, you see that the two communities are mirror image of one another in that respect.
What are the mechanisms of actually establishing-- reestablishing trust in moments that you know we are-- from all the upheavals and all the, I would say, deteriorations that we have seen, we are at the lowest moment in both sides in terms of that opportunity, which actually, I would say put the burdens on us. We don't have any other country but that.
To say, OK. I mean, let's try. It's not-- it's not utopian in that respect because it's grounded by something very deep in both peoples. I still think it's there. But they have learned so much not to trust one another in such a deep way that that blocks the possibility of a solution.
And by the way, I think we all know the contours of the solution. It's not complicated. And we all know what it means, how it will look like, et cetera, et cetera.
So that's my-- I would say the following. The source of my hope, [INAUDIBLE] of conviction of what's possible in the world. But also, some type of-- my experience with people on the ground that there is still there an understanding that there is a senseless violence of conflict that goes on and on, that the only solution is a two-state.
The problem is how to marginalize the ideological hardcore extremes of both communities and how to rebuild in a serious way trust. And that's a work that is not going to happen tomorrow. It's a long work, but it's the only work that can be done.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Moshe, when you speak of marginalizing the ideologically hardcore, it makes it seem as though that hardcore-- well, is a minority. And you have the-- you've just articulated the faith that there is goodwill in principle on both sides. How then-- and this is really a question for the two of you-- do you account for the fact that this goodwill, and in fact, a willingness to embrace a two-state solution, has not been translated politically into the leadership on either side? Far from it. Moshe, do you want to begin?
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Well, I think-- I mean, there is so much to say about that. But I think there were moments-- I mean, we have to come back to those moments. The '90s, through the '90s, even to the beginning of 2000, there were moments of actually hope and progress. Actually, that's the point where Sari and I and other people intersected a great deal.
And one of the failure was that the way the deal was constructed, it looked like a divorce agreement where the parties decide to fight about each furniture-- each piece of furniture separately. Let's discuss the porch. We're going to discuss the kitchen. Going to discuss the living room. By the way, the living room can be divided into four, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And there was no moment where either side gave to the other side a sense-- where does this all go? I mean, we should-- Israel should have said, look. There will be an independent Palestinian state. We're not going to-- there will be a self-determination, [INAUDIBLE] self-determination. Palestinians should have said, look. This is the end of conflict, et cetera, et cetera. And there was no moment of genuine reconciliation in a serious way, the way it was structured.
So we can discuss a lot about the failures. But we have to remember another round of violence, another round of violence. One problem of the region is these are two strong-- two-- I would say two nations who can bear too much suffering. It's a problem. They have-- they have a reservoir of bearing suffering. But a certain moment, you see the senseless of all of it.
So there were structural failures, including, by the way, as I see it, at the time there was an opportunity, a lack of will of both parties to address their radicals seriously. And not only that, that they didn't address their radicals seriously, they used them as a leverage against the other side to win some point in negotiations. Well, then you're riding on tigers.
So maybe looking at this experience will be a lesson, though we are very, very far from there now. Actually, in that respect I share Sari's beginning-- beginning mode, I would say. It's something I've tried to refuse to succumb because I feel humiliated by that type of submission, kind of as if I will be ashamed before my parents, giving up. So I'm trying, and you are trying, and we are trying.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Sari?
SARI NUSSEIBEH: I mean, the different ways to-- I mean, if you think about it, I mean, the different ways to get a solution, one is, of course, leaderships, governments from the two sides somehow successfully negotiate and come up with an agreement. In the absence of this, perhaps the international community can become involved in order to bring about such an agreement if the two parties cannot bring themselves to come to an agreement in contacts between them.
And thirdly, there's the bottom-up approach, which is what we used at some point in 2002 and earlier. But 2002, this initiative after the failure of the Camp David talks and the return of Arafat and Barack and Clinton all feeling, this is the end of the world, we tried to create a kind of grassroots movement on both sides, Israeli, Palestinian, to push for the support for a two-state solution.
And indeed-- I mean, the number of people who supported this initiative really is not something to belittle. I mean, on both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides, people were prepared to put their names, sign their names, to five principles, basically, for a two-state solution defining more or less the headlines of an end to the conflict. And so it's possible. This was the third kind of approach.
Today, you know, again, it's possible. Maybe again a combination of three forces from the international community to help us. By the international community, I don't just mean the states themselves, by the way, the wider region. I mean also the-- for instance, the Jewish people in the world. I mean the Arab world on the other hand.
So not just the people that are here, that are living in Israel or in Palestine. But everyone-- everybody has to join hands at the formal and as well as at the informal level. And I think things can, again, be started from the bottom, but it will take time. It will not be easy, I think.
What I worry about is the fact that looking ahead, if we can't do this now or in the foreseeable future, which is how I see things now, you know, it's going to go on and on and on, and it's going to get worse and worse and worse.
I mean, what we've seen these last four months I think is just a kind of prelude of something even more horrible that will happen if we do not-- if we're not sensible enough and do not, in fact, preempt all of this by what I think needs to be done by both sides, which is to go deep into ourselves on both sides and you know, re-articulate what it is that we are about, what it is that we want, and to determine for ourselves what it is that we are. Not only be the recipients of who we think we are from our traditions, and so on. We need to do a lot of work. It's possible. But-- it's possible, but difficult.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Right.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: It's hard.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Well, given the difficulty of bringing peace to the region, I want to invite your thoughts before we turn to Professor Cammett and some questions from the audience. I'd like to get both of your thoughts on a local campus controversy. Actually, it's a controversy on campuses throughout the United States, and maybe elsewhere. And Sari, I'll begin with you because you were for-- what? You were for 20 years a university president.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Yes.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Often embroiled in political challenges, including dealing with and trying to prevent the separation wall from being built, dividing your campus.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: And dealing with a-- and dealing with a pro-Hamas student faction.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Well, that's what I was also going to mention. So here's a very concrete question I would like to get both of your thoughts on, but I'll start with you, Sari, given your previous role.
One of the controversies is to do with a slogan, a slogan that's chanted during some pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the campus. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. What does this slogan mean? And should students on campuses be discouraged or prohibited from chanting the slogan, Sari?
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Well, I think in order to answer the second question, the first question should be-- it's necessary to answer the first question. What does it mean? We have to talk to people to ask them what they mean.
But let me say something. When I was 17 and 18 and 19 and 20, I must admit that I was running around in demonstrations, saying something more or less similar. And free Palestine, and all of that. It was very much part of the culture of-- this was in the '70s, I'm telling you.
But you know, we've gone through a lot of years. We've gone through a lot of experience. At the time, free Palestine might have meant one democratic secular state, for instance, or it might have meant the destruction of the Jewish state. Different people have different interpretations for it.
Now today, it can have many meanings. I imagine that what it means by a lot of the people who use it, the destruction maybe of the state of Israel, the retrieval of Palestine as it was in one's memory or the memory of people from before.
Should it be-- no. I mean, I think slogans should be-- people that want to use them have to defend what they mean, and the defense has to be based on reason. You can't just go around sloganeering, I think.
I can understand this is a war that's going on, and sloganeering and demonstrations on campuses, outside of campuses can become part of a war that's taking place somewhere else. And to tell you frankly, Michael, I personally would like people abroad-- Jews, for instance, the Jewish community at Harvard, other campuses, and the Palestinian and Arab and Muslim community outside to actually not engage in this war and to be part of the attempt at making us reconcile with one another.
The people here, the people under-- that are being beaten here, we want a relief from this situation. And the relief can only come if the war ends. And one way it can end-- it is helped by not making it rage outside on campuses abroad. I think make peace outside so that we can make peace inside, is what I'd say.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Great. Thank you. Moshe, from the river to the sea.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Yeah. So I think this slogan should not be prohibited in the sense of it's othered. It can be interpreted as people who deny the very right of Israel to exist. There are many of them. And that's fine that they shout it. I mean, I hear it quite a lot. And I don't think it's an actual threat or call to genocide or something like that, so it should be pronounced.
I would say it's important that it should be pronounced because it has to be tackled. And what it represents for me is a certain principle of faith that I found perverse, of saying, well, you Jews are settler colonials. It's not the occupation. You don't have a right to exist as a state.
By the way, I find the same perversity of the argument about the Palestinians not being a nation, not being this, not being that. It's perverse-- it's as perverse.
And unfortunately, that paradigm, that framing of Israel as a colonial entity, well, in order to be a colonial entity, you have to have a home to have a colony. Well, the Jews didn't have a home. Zionism was a movement of refugees that managed to save something like around 300,000, 400,000 Jews from their demolishment in Europe.
That doesn't mean, by the way, they didn't harm the Palestinians. They did. It's a conflict. It's complicated. The Jews also had ongoing relationship to this land, you know? It's not like the white people landing on the Americas. Also, it wasn't about extraction of surplus, material surplus. There wasn't that much material surplus in Palestine to extract to start with.
So what I hear is the following. First of all, I think clearly it's a legitimate slogan in the sense that that shouldn't be prohibited as a hate speech. I think actually it's important that it is expressed. I wish there will be a conversation about it in a serious way. What do you mean when you say that? How do you see the future?
By the way, there is no future to the conflict if this is your starting point, right? You basically block any possibility of reconciliation if this is your starting point.
And I have the same wish as Sari, to say, OK. Given that we are in a shared environment of possible coexistence, can we think of other ways of getting out of those modes of thought that will allow us to reach to moments of reconciliation, et cetera?
So I would say it shouldn't be prohibited as a hate speech, et cetera, et cetera. It has to be raised in an interesting way in order to deeply tackle it. And I hope for a conversation that will be possible to address it by way of actually thinking, OK, well, this position-- you want to say I shouldn't be there as a state. It's not clear how we go from there. And if we want to go from there, which we should, and we want the campus environment to be a place where actually those forces come together, that should be addressed.
MICHAEL SANDEL: OK. Thank you for that. I have lots of other questions, including one concluding question, but I want now to turn to my colleague, Professor Cammett, who's been looking at some of the questions that people have sent in. Melani?
MELANI CAMMETT: Great. Thank you so much. This was a really fascinating and important conversation. So we have a number of questions which I think we can aggregate into three sets of topics. So maybe I can throw them out there in the interest of time and you can feel free to ignore whatever you don't want to address.
So first, we have some questions about depictions of the situation on the ground, both prior to October 7 and also depictions of the war. So one person asked whether-- had the impression that the depiction presented earlier in the conversation was too rosy and that things were actually quite bad before October 7. So implying that October 7 wasn't as sharp of a break point as one might think.
And another question is about whether the war can actually depicted-- be depicted as discriminate rather than indiscriminate. So one of the attendees asks whether given the scale of destruction-- human, cultural, institutional, the humanitarian catastrophe-- whether we can really think of this war in Gaza as a discriminate war. So that's one set of questions, if I can just throw in a couple of others.
Another set of questions relates to this concept of trust and how you get there, which has come up repeatedly in this conversation. How can you rebuild trust? There's so much mistrust. So one person raised what social psychologists call meta perceptions. Basically, what people from one community think that people from the other community think. So even if you have 70% of people from Israel or Palestine in favor of a peace agreement, if they believe that the other side, the vast majority of the other side are not to be trusted, are not truly committed, how can you get there?
And I would also throw in a question about building trust and whether it's realistic to think about trust building as the first place to start. Maybe that's really daunting given the trauma that people on both sides have experienced. Maybe the way to start is through political elites modeling conversations and exchanges, and then worry about mass-level trust later. And of course, that raises a deeper question about how you get people to even engage at the political elite level in these kinds of exchanges in the current polarized context.
And then the last set of questions really have to do with future scenarios that you've addressed to some degree already about the feasibility of a two-state solution, and what would that actually look like? Would you have some Palestinians moving into Israel and some Jews living in a Palestinian state? And how might this look like concretely on the ground? So too much for you to address in the short time we have left, but I wanted to share those with you.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Go ahead, Moshe.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: [INAUDIBLE], please.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Sari, would you like to take up at least some of those?
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Well, I-- OK. I mean, look. I mean, I think perhaps, yes, as far as I'm concerned, the situation before October 7 was terrible for the Palestinians anyway. There's nothing rosy about the state of occupation even without the war. And that's why, in fact, it was necessary, still is necessary to try and find a way out of the occupation and to try and go for self-determination.
You know, I want to say as far as the war, to what extent it's-- no, I'll leave that to Moshe to answer, actually. And I don't want to go through the list of things that have been-- Moshe can answer, I think, if I may leave that to you.
Building trust is an interesting issue. Can you leave it to political elites? I think the two populations are really-- the Israeli and the Palestinian populations are very-- very sort of politically astute and they're very mature, and you can engage them in conversations directly.
I think it's important that they have trust in the people that are addressing them. That's one of the important things. Their leaders, their elites, the people that are talking to them must themselves be trustworthy. The people must trust them. And it's amazing how that can be like a magical wand and can, in fact, get people to go fully behind you if you are-- if you seem to be trustworthy yourself.
And yeah, future scenarios where everything is possible. As we said, and they've been discussed in different ways, I mean, there are always difficulties, of course, when you come to details. As they say, the devil is there. But I think the devil can be beaten myself. He's been beaten more than once, and he can be beaten this time too.
I just want to say just one thing in answer to all of the questions, that life is terrible for us, both sides here, Israeli and Palestinian. It was terrible before. It's even more terrible now. Even to go back to what it was before in my opinion in contrast would be fine.
But it will not be enough because it will lead us to another kind of horrible situation. So that's why we need to find our way out of it, and we need to work hard to do that.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Moshe? Thank you.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: So thanks. Thanks for the questions. So about the rosiness of the prior situation before October 7, yeah, it wasn't rosy. There was the occupation before. Actually, there was from the Israeli perspective, the failure to end it. And through the Oslo process, through the Camp David, there were Israeli government who tried to end it. There was a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza that was filled with Hamas activity of ongoing shooting indiscriminately into Israeli cities.
So it wasn't-- on both sides, it wasn't rosy before. Still, the 7th of October is the watershed moment, both in terms of Israeli experience of the trauma and also the trauma of Palestinian in terms of Israeli response.
And it's not like we want to take the clock back to the 6th of October, but it will be-- in terms of where we want to take the clock, it will be much more difficult after the 7th. And that's the challenge we're facing.
Now, whether this could be described as discriminant, one thought experiment will be, how would an indiscriminate attack look like? And where in the history of war is indiscriminate attacks with huge forces? I don't know. The US attacked Tokyo in-- I think one night, there was something like 100-- almost around 200,000 people dead, et cetera.
So an indiscriminate attack will be that for every militant that is killed in the war will be something like 60 to 50 civilians being killed. That's indiscriminate attack in terms of the ratio. That's not the ratio.
Now, that doesn't mean that all war actions are right, et cetera, et cetera. But you have to imagine what it means for-- I don't know-- an Israeli squadron to indiscriminately attack a crowded place like Jabalia. I mean, that means 30,000 people dead after an hour of attack, god forbid. I mean, I'm not taking lightly the civilian pain that there is there.
But we have to-- when you discuss this issue, you have to ask yourself, so how does an indiscriminate attack look with the type of force that is applied, et cetera, et cetera? It will look, god forbid, differently, radically differently in terms of proportions, in terms of deaths, and many other things. What do we know of the history of war?
So about how do future agreement looks like, whether there will be Palestinians coming back to Israel, whether there will be, et cetera, settlers staying in the West Bank, I think one thing, with all the-- I do think that the-- I think the settlement project-- which is a project I always oppose. I think it's the biggest political mistake Israel ever made of-- also moral mistake.
I think still is a project that didn't make the possibility of a two-state irreversible. That means that some Israelis could stay. That means some Israelis could leave in conditions of peace.
And again, given the fact that for me, a future reconciliation looks the following. It looks like on the one hand, recognizing Israel's right to exist as a legitimate nation-state side by side with the Palestinian state. On the other hand, Israel taking shared responsibility to the refugee, the creation of the refugee, the fate of the Palestinian refugees, that will mean some way of either symbolically or real way of Palestinians coming in.
How it would look, how it will-- what form it will take, I think, again-- and I come back to a certain way of thinking about that. If we dip [?] there and Sari said we have to ask ourselves what type of people we want to be. Who are we? If we dip [?] there, we have that conviction that we aim at the end of conflict, we aim at respecting the rights of one another, et cetera, if this is a conviction, [INAUDIBLE] conviction, there are many interesting, imaginative solutions and possibilities that can be done.
Before that, we have to pass the threshold of reestablishing trust. I think trust can be-- I just want to talk about one figure that I was always struck by in terms of his capacity to establish trust. I want to talk about King Hussein.
Well, King Hussein was interesting. King Hussein-- there was one case where a Palestinian soldier killed a bunch of Israeli kids or high school kids in a certain [INAUDIBLE]. And Hussein came to the family in Beit Shemesh to comfort the grieving family.
I can tell you that Hussein could have been elected as the prime minister of Israel after that act. I mean, there are ways-- if it's genuine, there are ways in which trust can be built also from top because people read signals. People understand the other through its political elite, et cetera, et cetera. There are many ways. And I think it's upon us-- in terms of economic cooperation, in terms of many other things, it's upon us to try to get there.
MICHAEL SANDEL: Great. Well, Moshe Halbertal, Sari Nusseibeh, thank you for this dialogue. Melani Cammett, thank you, and back to you.
MELANI CAMMETT: Thank you so much. This was really a wonderful occasion, and really a privilege to hear your voices. And thank you so much, Michael, for engaging in this conversation. Thanks to all three of you.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Thanks, Melani. Thanks, Mike.
MOSHE HALBERTAL: Thank you. Thank you, Sari. Thank you, Michael and Melani.
SARI NUSSEIBEH: Now we can go and fight, right?