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One morning we woke up and Soviet Union was gone.  None of us saw this coming. 

When I started teaching in the 1970s, I told students there were three conflicts that would go on forever:  Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Israel-Palestine.    

But two of those are resolved: Northern Ireland and South Africa. Is it possible that the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict could be resolved short of a catastrophe?  

I am going to discuss four scenarios that work elsewhere but will not work here.  Those scenarios are explained more fully on Deep Blue under the title “Strategic Options in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”   

Suggestion: download a map of the West Bank with Areas A and B and C outlined.  A and B are where Palestinians live.  C is where most Jewish settlements are.  When the Israelis talk of annexing the West Bank, most mean Area C.   

I discuss the difference between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews.  Today the balance of those two groups is about 48-48.  But what if the Ashkenazim began to leave and the balance shifted to 60-40 in favor of the Sephardic Jews?  What would that mean?  

The professor I mentioned is Ian Lustick.  He is very good. 

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What happened after the armistice in January of 1949?  

Of course, the major consequence was the Palestinian refugees.  Thinking only of what we consider the internationally recognized boundaries of Israel, probably 80% or more of all the Palestinians inside of that area  on January 1, 1948 were gone by December 31, 1948.  This is the real “catastrophe,” or nakhba,  as the Palestinians call it.  The Israelis were insistent that none of these refugees would be allowed to return.  

I am very sorry I can’t deliver an hour-long talk on the refugee situation.  I am just not sure how to make it work.  Still, I have tried to incorporate key points into this talk and into the previous talk on the Palestine War of 1948.  And again, I invite you to go to Deep Blue (see that previous podcast if you are unclear) where I have posted my briefing document on The Palestinian Refugees of 1948.  As of April, 2021 this document has nearly 13,000 downloads from around the world.  It is a very thorough summary of the data on the refugees, of the recent research on the topic, of the personal stories of what happened, and of the argumentation.  For those interested in this subject, it is a valuable source.  

If you would like to read a short novel consider Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar.  The author was a noted literary figure (Yizhar Smilansky) who concealed his true identity so he could tell what happened when his unit took control of a Palestinian village in 1948.  It was translated into English in  2008.  It shocked many Israelis to realize that a person of such literary stature had experienced these things.  

I mentioned the mayor of El Bireh, a Palestinian town just 10 miles north of Jerusalem.  His name was Abdul Jawad Saleh.  I met him in Amman in 1987.  He was one of the most respected of the Palestinian leaders and was later put in charge of the PLO  treasury because everyone trusted him.    He told me that one evening he had a knock at the door and two soldiers told him the governor wanted to talk to him.  This was not unusual so he went without resistance.  But they took him to the Jordan border (I think in the southern desert) and pushed him into Jordan.  They then announced on the radio that he had been expelled.  The Jordanians rushed units into the area to find him before he died of thirst.  I met him in his apartment.  His daughter was visiting and his grandson.  He was the person who made the map of the dead cities and villages of Palestine.   I asked him why they had expelled him (which is a violation of international law, by the way). He said they never tell you why they are expelling you or detaining you  but he thought it had to do with the fact that the city was erecting a “mother statue.”  It depicts a mother lifting her child  to reach for a goal. It is obviously a metaphor for the Palestinian situation.  He thought it was just too symbolically powerful for the Israelis.  

When the archives were opened by Menachem Begin in the late 1970s,  Israeli scholars plunged in.  By the late 1980s, they produced a new wave of histories that went beyond wartime hero narratives but relied heavily upon primary source materials: diaries and journals and memos.  They were called the New Historians.  Their research exploded myths about how the Palestinians had fled of their own will, for example or that the military maintained a “purity of arms.”  Ilan Pappe and Avi Shlaim and Simcha Flappan were three of these.  Tom Segev’s book, The First Israelis, focusing upon 1949, after the fighting was over, brings surprising new perspectives to the issues.  These historians are hated by those on the Israeli right. 

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On April 24, 2021 President Biden used the word “genocide” to describe what happened to the Armenians of Turkey.  Whether to use this word had been a matter of debate since the 1970s.  In 1915 the Ottoman government, fearing that the Armenians in eastern Turkey would align with the Russians, decided to evacuate the whole Armenian population of Eastern Turkey by marching them across the desert to the Arab provinces of Lebanon and Syria.  They also massacred Armenians in other parts of Turkey.  Many young women were forced to marry Turks, and there were many forced conversions.  

No one is certain how many people were lost, through murder or death or forced absorption.  Was it half a million or a million or a million and a half?  Most scholars use a number close to a million.  

The Biden announcement had a softening provision, but two provocations.  Biden referred to events during Ottoman times, the previous, discredited regime.   This seems to spare the Turkish Republic direct responsibility.  But a State Department press release referred to the capital of Turkey as Constantinople, a name that goes back to Christian times and has not been used since 1453.  The State Department also used the highest estimate of losses, a million and a half.  

The controversy over the use of the word genocide has to do with the official definition of the term.  It requires intent.  The Turks insist that while there were massive losses among the Armenians, there was no “intent” to exterminate the Armenians as a people or to commit mass murder.  They also say the word draws a comparison with the Holocaust.  The Armenian deaths were a by-product of war, they insist, a war in which not only Armenians died but Turks and Kurds and others.  

Two points about the Armenian genocide are worth noting.  First, after the war, the Turks put several officials on trial for war crimes.  (The word genocide did not exist at the time).  Many observers were curious about why the current leaders do not say, “we disagree with the word genocide but agree that some of those leaders committed crimes against some of our people, as we showed by putting them on trial and finding them guilty.” But those trials are controversial and were carried out by the old regime, which is not seen as legitimate today.  Second, the national hero of Turkey, Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, was fighting the British at the time and was not involved in these events.    

Back in 2020 I prepared a lecture on this topic.  In the age of pandemic, the lecture was recorded and shared with students.  I just listened to it and found it informative and nuanced.  It was done on my computer rather than with the fancy microphone that I now use, but the sound is ok. 

I wish I could provide you with the written definitions of genocide that I made available to students.  You should listen carefully as I read definitions or as I discuss the model to predict future genocides. 

Three points.  First, the situation of the Albanian refugees from Kosovo was terrible but stating that 90% of the population were displaced may have been an over-statement by some world leaders for whatever reason.  Second, Leo Kuper in his valuable book Genocide uses the term “genocidal massacre” to describe targeted killings short of a full genocide.  An example might be killing a whole village or widespread massacres to intimidate a targeted population. Third, regarding  “war crimes,” there is a concept of “disproportionate response.”   It consists of “extensive destruction not justified by military necessity.” Massive bombing in response to a homemade missile might be an example.  Bad as it may be, this is not genocide.   

I will soon post a talk on the Holocaust. 

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In 1948 the Jewish forces in Palestine declared themselves to be the state of Israel.  The Israelis joyously call this their independence war but Palestinians see it as the Nakhba, the catastrophe that deprived them of their homeland and sent most of them into exile. 

What many people do not realize is that this was not one war but three.  There was the Zionist-British War, the Zionist-Palestinian War, and the Israeli-Arab War.  These wars were very different from each other.  Understanding these differences is very important. 

A legitimate question is, why did the Zionist forces win this series of wars, especially the Palestine War of 1948?  I break this into two questions:  Why did the Jews win? Why did the Palestinians lose?  As with most of life, the answers are not easy.  

If you do not have a map of the UN Partition Plan of 1947, Resolution 181, you might want to download one.  It outlines the proposed partition of Palestine (and the creation of a federation).  The map, which usually also illustrates the population concentrations of Jews and Palestinians, is extremely useful in understanding what happened. 

And if you have Tessler or some other book on this conflict, you will note there is quite a bit that I did not have time to include, such as the negotiations among the great powers over alternatives.  You might want to go through this for your own interest.  

This was a talk I recorded for my students. 

Welcome to class. 

ps. If you go to Deep Blue (see separate podcast if you are confused) you can find my paper on The Palestinian Refugees of 1948.  This is a valuable resource. 

pps.  There  are two other podcasts connected to this one.  One is on what happened in the aftermath of 1948.  The other is entitled The Palestinian Situation After 1948.  these are a part of this lecture.  

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When the pandemic hit in March 2020, we could handle it. Live classes were cancelled but faculty made audio talks to share with students.  At that point, the students knew each other, they knew me, I knew them, and I had examinations and  papers so assigning a semester grade was not a problem.  I decided to focus my talks on  important topics and have students write personal reactions to the talks rather than analytical papers.  This worked out  well. 

But when the fall semester rolled around, that was a different ball game.  We had never met as a class.  They did not know me and I did not know them.  I realized I had to give students some philosophical orientation to an unprecedented situation.  

I sent some written encouragements and also gave an orientation on the first day of class.  I told students to consider that in a hundred years people will look back to the time when the whole world was shut down.  Even if you did not ask for this privilege, you  have become players in a drama of unprecedented  significance.  My suggestion was to keep a journal. Write to a future reader you may not even know.   Use this time to help someone else understand our unique age.  I figured if students could stop thinking about themselves and think about someone else, that might help.  

I also told them about Viktor Frankel’s amazing Auschwitz memoir,  Man’s Search for Meaning  The reason this is such an astonishing book, and the reason I read it for a second time in four months, was because Frankel leaves the reader with stunning insights.  

First, he says anyone can find meaning in life no matter how bad it seems.  Even in Auschwitz there is a life worth living.  

In the book, which Frankel wrote in nine days, he tells two stories about his patients. One was of a man whose wife had died.  After two years his grief was as great as the day she died.  Frankel asked what would have happened if he had died first.  The man was horrified.  His wife loved him so much that she would never have recovered.  “So, by surviving you have spared her the grief of mourning forever.”  The man suddenly realized that his survival was a blessing, not a betrayal.    

A second patient was a young woman in a depression.  Frankel asked how old she was.  She said 30.  He said, “No.  You are 80.  You are lying on your death bed and looking back over your life.  Is there anything you see that made your life worth living?” She suddenly realized that there was much meaning in her life, things she had overlooked. 

Frankel says two traps lead us astray: dwelling on the past and dwelling  on the future.  The temptation is to say, “Remote Learning is terrible.  Last semester was great.  I could talk to friends, discuss issues in class, and talk to my professor. This is awful.”  The other danger is to think, “When this is over, everything will be good so I will just get through this catastrophe.”   If you idealize either the past or the future and ignore the present, then you are missing whatever benefits there are in your current life.

Frankel says we have to remember that we have the life we have, not the life we wish we had. But what is uniquely good about living in pandemic?   Before Auschwitz, life was good.  After Auschwitz life was good (for those who survive).  But life IN Auschwitz. How could that be good?  Frankel says even if we know we will not survive, we need to find  meaning in  whatever life we have.  

Is there anything about the pandemic for which we can be grateful?  I am glad that I recorded a semester of lectures.  This podcast project would be much more difficult to start without those.  

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This is a discussion of public opinion, focusing upon scientific survey research studies.   Some of the findings are a bit surprising.  As we might guess, Jews are rated higher than Arabs or Muslims but the patterns are not as simple as they might seem at first.  There is a lot of nuance and complexity in public opinion.     

The theme music Stockspeaks is by G. Kevin Dewey.  

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This is Part Two of my discussion of  The Replacement Wars.  This is a worldview that began in Europe but has spread to the US and is emerging on the violent extreme right.  It is a discussion of this ideology and of nine manifestoes or expressions of this, plus of three novels in Europe, and of other sources.  

You should listen to Part One before listening to Part Two. 

Note that this has nothing to do with legitimate debates over immigration policy. 

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This may be the most important research project I have ever done, because of its ominous significance for the future of our country (and of other countries).  It is a worldview rooted in a terrifying sense of confrontation and violence.  It is a form of violent white nationalism rooted in the belief -- originally found in Europe but now emerging in the US on the extreme right -- that white Christian Americans are being numerically overwhelmed and replaced, even displaced,  in their own homelands by minorities and waves of immigrants. Those immigrants come with little desire to assimilate or to identify with America and its values and traditions.  Often, they have hostile views of western values and cultures.  To survive as a civilization true Americans must fight back, with violence.  This is a zero-sum struggle.  There will be a winning side and a losing side.  This is not simple racism or xenophobia.  It is something much more fundamental and scary  It is rooted in a toxic combination of identity and fear and a sense of vulnerability, and an ominous sense of a horrifying future unless the emerging course of history is stopped and reversed. 

The focus of the analysis is nine texts that express these views.    There is also a discussion of three best selling  but widely condemned European books.   

This lecture is broken into two parts.  You should listen to them in order.  

Note that this has nothing to do with legitimate debates over immigration policy. 

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"On the seventh day of the six-day war, Israel became a different country." 

This was the amazing victory of the Israelis over the combined armies of their immediate antagonists:  Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq.  How did they do that?  It was remarkable. 

But there were consequences for as God says, "Take what you want.  And pay for it. " 

In spite of the astonishing military victory,  this set up a strategic situation that was not entirely good for the Israeli future.  Israel had reunited historic Palestine, the Mandate, but from that point on,  Israel controlled the Palestinian territories and created a demographic situation that cannot possibly work out well.   That will have to wait for a subsequent lecture. 

It also made the 1973 war more-or-less inevitable.  

As soon as the war ended, President Nasser announced he was stepping down.  But there were crowds in the streets calling for him to remain in office, so he did. 

This was a lecture I delivered to my students. 

For the rest of you, welcome to class. 

(And I should note that while the Israelis gleefully call this the Six-Day War,  the Arabs call it the June War). 

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In 1780 the Americans were on the ropes.  The British had won several key battles and had taken Savannah and Charleston, giving them control of the South Carolina and Georgia coasts.  Now Lord Cornwallis was coming south with a large army.  His plan was to link up with pro-British Americans, called Whigs in those days, and to separate the whole south from the rest of the country.  The country would be split, Washington would be isolated and could be defeated, and America would remain within the British Empire. 

But the Americans had two secret weapons:  the Scots-Irish and Nathanael Greene.   

The story of how Greene, and his commanders, fighting mostly with rag-tag militias but brilliant guerrilla war tactics, were able to reverse this catastrophe is a little-known element of this war.  

There were four critical battles during this campaign, but King's Mountain was the turning point. 

I hope you enjoy this story (which has meaning to me personally).