Conor here: Last week, the Oxford Union Society held debates on the question of whether Israel ever really wanted peace with Palestine. Here we feature the argument of Sami Hamdi, managing director of the International Interest, a global risk and intelligence consultancy firm focused on geopolitical dynamics. I used a transcript generator and tried to clean up the best I could, so please excuse any typos.
Sami Hamdi: The norm in the region was one of coexistence for as long as history could remember. So when you see this war unfolding the question is not that this was always happening. The question is what changed?
What is what changed that meant that this harmony where the Jews, Muslims and Christians live side by side but what changed? I’ll tell you what changed. What changed is that a Palestinian descended from the Jews who became Muslims. They’re killing their own.
Don’t get it twisted. They’re killing their own. They’re saying, “Because you of my blood became Muslim, I bomb the daylights out of you. Because you and your ancestors who are from here became Muslim, I bomb you.”
When they go to Palestine, they find Palestinians living in lands in the Palest Palestinians told them, “Welcome you’ve always been welcome.” They took the gun, shot them in the head, kicked them out of their homes, and grabbed their homes. Then they offered a peace deal. They said, “I’ll take the kitchen, the living room, the front yard, and the garden, and you can have the top of the closet. That’s a good deal. That’s peace. That’s why you should reject this motion.”
And when you look at common Israeli prime ministers and Israeli leaders, they’re the ones saying it. A friend once made a joke and said that if you want to destroy a Zionist in the argument, just give them the microphone. I want to show you ladies and gentlemen what it looks like when they talk about the Oslo Accords and their own former Israeli minister says I would have rejected the deal. I would not have taken the deal that Israel offered me. I as Israel would never accept such a deal being offered to me.
They say that it’s only a few fringe units. This is the Knesset voting overwhelmingly against any Palestinian state in any form whatsoever. When you look at Netanyahu running in an election, he knows that to deny a Palestinian state is what is going to win him the elections. And Shamir, when he loses the election, tells him that the duty of every prime minister is to make sure that we should prolong as long as possible to kick out as many Palestinians as possible to increase as many settlements as possible.
We need land, land, land. We need to take, take, take. We need to erase, erase, erase, and we need to make sure there’s no sign of Palestine ever again. That’s contrary to those who preserve the Jewish heritage.
Do you know why Emily argues that there is Jewish heritage in Palestine and why she can point to it? Because the Muslims preserved it. They weren’t like the Israelis who tried to erase it. Do you know why when they look at Palestine, they find their heritage and the temple of Solomon being protected next to a mosque. It is because the Muslims preserved and protected it, not like the Israelis who want to dig under Alsa and destroy it. There is a very difference between the standards of Palestinian peace and between the Israeli peace. I want you to look at it more bluntly.
LOOK AT PALESTINE BEFORE AND AFTER. Look how they eat and eat and eat. Look how they take and take and take. Look how they destroy, destroy, destroy. Look how they build and build and build. AND THEY STAND THERE TELLING YOU, “WE WANT PEACE. WHAT HAVE YOU LEFT OF THE HOUSE?
[cheering] [applause]
THEY SAY…
[cheering and screaming]
MY 8 MINUTES. MY 8 MINUTES.
[applause]
My 8 minutes. You never know. THEY MIGHT GO OUTSIDE AND RAISE MORE MONEY TO BUY OXFORD UNION.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to show you what they consider to be self-defense. These are the last five operations that they conduct against Palestinians. Blue is Palestinian casualties. The one you cannot see because it’s so tiny is Israeli casualties. Now, all lives are important, but does this look proportionate to you when they go after the Palestinians?
Let me read you the ratios, my dear friends, my dear members of the house, when you look at the ratios, and you can see very clearly that even now as they bomb Gaza, 73,000 people killed, 36:1 ratio. The value of a life of an Israeli is 36 Palestinians. The value of a life of an Israeli, the way they balance it is that it should not exist. If one Israeli is harmed, they erase the entire civilization.
That’s what they talk about when they went in Iran and said, “We’re going to wipe out an entire civilization.” Understand who you’re talking to because as I go towards the end of my limited 8 minutes and Allah protect my freedom of speech from them. Ya’rub protect my freedom of speech from them. Please, please, God protect TIK TOK, PROTECT INSTAGRAM, AND PROTECT THE ALGORITHM. [snorts]
Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, as I go towards the end, I want you to imagine, go with me here. I want you to understand what [the pro-Israel debaters are] laughing at. I want you to understand that when six-year-old Sidra had her legs blown off and the blast of the force left her body hanging on the wall, they danced and celebrated “death to Arabs, death to Arabs.”
I want you to understand that when they shot Hind Rajab with 320 American bullets, because they don’t make their own 320 American bullets and Hind called the Red Crescent and said, “I need help. I need an ambulance,” the Israeli forces, IDF, the most moral army in the world, aimed their guns at the ambulance. They blew the ambulance up and they left Hindab to die in the cold —6 years old. And they danced and partied and had a festival and said, “death to Arabs,” her life was worth nothing.
I want you to understand what they’re laughing at. That when six-year-old Ru, her grandfather hugged her so tightly. He hugged her so tightly and said to her, “You are the soul of my soul, my beautiful granddaughter.” We’re not talking about numbers. We’re talking about real human lives. We’re talking about people’s blood. Did you see the way they laughed when Awa said, “My family is in Gaza.”
Did you see they laugh when the Palestinian says, “I exist.” And they laugh and mock and say, “You don’t exist. You don’t exist.” Do you see that? That when they’re dying, when they’re being slaughtered.
Moderator: Point of order has been raised.
Pro-Israel Debater: Where precisely in which speech do they say that Palestinians currently do not exist?
Hamdi: Please let me finish.
Pro-Israel Debater: He should retract it. Crazy.
Hamdi: No. No. You said it: “The state doesn’t exist.”
Pro-Israel Debater: The state doesn’t exist.
Hamdi: The state doesn’t exist and therefore what? The people don’t exist, and the state doesn’t exist. Don’t try to play semantics with me. You’ve got a whole social media to do it.
[applause]
Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen. He did a point of order cuz I mentioned a six-year-old girl. She’s not human, so he has to stand up.
[Noise]
Hamdi: Let me finish. Let me finish. We’ll get to you getting Warner Brothers soon. Let me finish.
Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen, order. Apologies. One second. A point of order was raised. What was the point of order?
Pro-Israel Debater: At which point in any of our speeches on this day was it said that the Palestinian people do not exist now which of our speeches? Me? Emily?
Moderator: Well, that is not technically a point of order. Is there something you demand from…
Pro-Israel Debater: No, I demand a retraction.
Hamdi: Okay, let me finish my speech now.
Pro-Israel Debater: No, retract that statement.
Moderator: A statement was made by Sami. Was it in regards to one of the speakers?
Pro-Israel Debater: It was. Yes.
Hamdi: I didn’t mention any speaker.
Pro-Israel Debater: You said “them.”
Hamdi: I said they the Israelis. You’ve got a video. You can look at it after, but don’t edit it. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, as I go, did you see how much they interrupted? They can’t even allow me to finish a speech for 8 minutes. 8 minutes. They can’t let me finish. Eight. [applause] Please make sure air strikes are not coming. But anyway, ladies and gentlemen, the reason why I make this point is to show you how ridiculous the argument is that Israel wanted peace. Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to understand who’s dying here. It’s not fighters, it’s kids, it’s the elderly. I want you to look at Dr. Nick Maynard’s interview with Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson asks him and says to him, “What are Palestinians like?” And Nick Maynard says to him that they’re the most generous and beautiful people I ever met. Tucker Carlson responds and says, “We’re taught that they’re not even human.”
Who taught them? Who’s teaching them that these people are not human? Who’s standing here telling them that they don’t deserve a state? Who’s standing here creating some false history that there was tension between them and that somehow they’ve always been fighting when in reality they have not been fighting. And anybody who reads history, anybody worth his salt when they learn history will understand that that’s completely false and that’s not the situation at all.
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