The Debate That Never Happened

On Sept. 16, Francesca Albanese, the U.N.’s “Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” spoke to Brown University’s Watson Institute for Public and International Affairs and the Center for Middle East Studies.

The perversity of her nearly 80-minute Zoom lecture can be summed up in the fact that its name, “Anatomy of a Genocide: A Failure of the International System?,” is directly torn from the title of a book by Brown University Holocaust historian Omer Bartov. While Bartov’s book examines how local Poles and Ukrainians murdered Jews in the then-Polish town of Buczacz during the Holocaust, Albanese’s bizarre rant reversed that basic moral scenario, purely to accuse Israelis of doing what was done to their grandparents.

Yet, like most anti-Israel luminaries, she was allowed to deliver her absurd speech alone and without any opposing response. This is, among other reasons, because universities now believe that the more controversial an issue, the less debate it deserves. Thus, Albanese’s audience went away with no cause to question anything she said, thereby confirming existing antisemites or creating new ones.

To its credit, though, on Sept. 24, the Institute hosted an in-person event with pro-Israel advocate and former MK Einat Wilf in which she provided the historical context Albanese had concealed. While she did not rebut Albanese point-by-point, Wilf indirectly yet satisfactorily addressed the worst of Albanese’s propaganda.

Here follows, based upon quotations from both presentations, a truncated approximation of the debate Brown did not host.

Urban warfare

ALBANESE: … There’s been the almost total destruction of Gaza. Destruction of neighborhoods, churches, schools — already, by March, all of these Palestinian universities in Gaza — there were 11 — had been destroyed. And so, essential civilian infrastructure and sources of livelihood, like grazing land, the fishing boats … The people in Gaza had already suffered five violent wars in … the last 17 years of blockade — [an] unlawful blockade which had caused 5,000 deaths, including 1,200 children, just in Gaza.

WILF: You have 700 kilometers of tunnels that are connecting mosques, houses, hospitals, kindergartens. In all these places, weapons are stashed ahead of time  … Sometimes people talk about what’s happening in Gaza as “urban warfare.” This is urban warfare taken to the thousandth degree. What was done in Gaza is the weaponization of an entire landscape. It’s not just some militants hiding among an urban population. They have spent over a decade — nearly two — taking the entire Gaza Strip … All the weapons are stashed ahead of time. And, except on their GoPro cameras, where they wear uniforms, the rest of the time they’re in civilian clothing, and they either go underground between those stashes [of weapons], or overground in civilian clothing. This is a whole military strategy that is ingenious. We don’t know the final and exact numbers, but we know enough to know that pretty much the ratio of combatant to civilian in Gaza is about one-to-one. Given the Gaza landscape and the weaponization of all of it, a one-to-one ratio is unparalleled, unprecedented, and, I would say, even exemplary …Israel’s not even close to operating … [outside the] envelope of what international law [permits], and we will add … that we are fighting against enemies [terrorists] that are not subject to that law.

UNRWA

ALBANESE: …During my three years with UNRWA, I’ve engaged in one of the largest audits that the U.S. requested on UNRWA’s school curriculum, and enrichment programs and the human rights curriculum. So, frankly, I’m pretty confident at pushing back on [claims] that [the organization teaches hatred for Jews, or assists Hamas].… I’m not questioning and not challenging what has been asked. I just think that it’s an overstatement.

WILF:  …[Oct. 7 was] something that was prepared for years ahead of time with all the billions of dollars of supposed aid for reconstruction flowing in. And this was done with the knowledge of a very supportive population … I have about a 30-minute video on UNRWA and its history. I did a briefing in the U.N. — of course, there’s the book The War of Return … Once you understand that UNRWA is the arsonist rather than the firefighter, the question of what will replace the arsonist emerges as weird, because why would you want to replace the arsonists? You actually want them not to be there … The answer is, quite simply, what will replace UNRWA is Palestinian responsibility. …Certainly since Oct. 7, I think we can put an end to any notion of the “poor Palestinians,” the charity basket case; I think we can agree that Oct. 7 required years and massive investment in infrastructure. It required strategy, discipline, economic, and financial planning. This is not an incapable people: These are people with substantial capabilities who, tragically, for over a century, have decided to use them for the singular goal of initially trying to prevent and later to undo the Jewish state.

“Once you understand that UNRWA is the arsonist rather than the firefighter, the question of what will replace the arsonist emerges as weird, because why would you want to replace the arsonists? You actually want them not to be there.”
– Einat Wilf

Glorification of Hitler

ALBANESE: There is not such a thing like an idealization of “Mein Kampf” or antisemitism. Actually, I think that there is more animosity against the Israelis and, to an extent, against Jewish people in the Arab world — not necessarily as antisemitism as it is in Europe, discrimination against the Jews because they are Jews … Those who know the Palestinians in Gaza confirm what I’m just saying. There is an acceptance of the Israelis, but not of them leading and maintaining an apartheid regime, or the blockade of Gaza, or persecuting Palestinians.

WILF: … What’s special about this moment is looking at the prism, not just of the Palestinian ideology, but its supporters. Because the Palestinian ideology — I’ve come to call it “Palestinianism” — was always singularly focused on, first, the prevention and, ultimately, the undoing of a sovereign Jewish state in any part of the land. What the Arabs of the land discovered already in the early 1930s is the fact that they were engaged in a total war against Jewish sovereignty that made them incredibly valuable for every antisemitic and anti-Zionist power in history. So, in the ’30s and ’40s, they enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with the Nazis. Today, people find it highly uncomfortable, so everyone likes to pretend that Hitler and the Mufti [Haj Amin al-Husseini] just had lunch one day, but it was a full collaboration for years, with impact on the ideology that lasts to the present.

“Occupation”

ALBANESE: Over 57 years, Israel has frustrated the possibility for the Palestinians; not to have a state — no — but to realize their right of self-determination, their right to exist as a people, and to determine themselves as a people. This is what the right of self-determination is about … The ICJ advisory opinion … has declared Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory — meaning the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem — unlawful, both in defined terms of its settlement expansion that doesn’t amount to annexation and as a military presence.

WILF: We had a hypothesis. The hypothesis that was what stands between us and peace is a Palestinian state — is land, is dividing the land. It’s a hypothesis.… It was tested! That’s important! People like to erase the fact that it was tested! At least two Israeli prime ministers, [Ehud] Barak and [Ehud] Olmert and [Yizchak] Rabin, to a degree, but, most importantly, Barak and Olmert tested the hypothesis. That was through the effort to reach an agreement. Arafat walks away in 2000, Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] walks away in 2008. Ariel Sharon, a right-wing prime minister, tests the hypothesis through unilateral retreat from Gaza and the northern West Bank. The hypothesis fails. So, then I had to search for a new hypothesis that could explain the situation. The new hypothesis is that what stands between us and peace is the Palestinian ideology of “from the river to the sea.” Unfortunately, to date, all evidence supports this new hypothesis. It’s not an opinion; it’s empirical … The idea of the Israeli government under Sharon was, “We are leaving them no excuses.” In retrospect, what he and I and many others underestimated was the ability of Palestinians to make up new excuses, such as claiming that Gaza’s still occupied.

ALBANESE: … [Those] Israelis [the settlers] shouldn’t be there in the first place. Instead, to justify their protection, the protection of their security, Israel continues to take land from the Palestinians, subjugate the Palestinians, and impose conditions of life that result in humiliation and indignities, let alone no enjoyment of fundamental rights, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, and any kind of rights you can imagine.

WILF: … [The state of] “Palestine” was on the verge of emerging [in the 1990s] — no occupation, no settlements, capital in East Jerusalem, including holy sites. Essentially “check, check, check” to everything that I grew up being told is what stands between us and peace. All that Arafat had to do was say “Yes.” And he walks away. He walks away. This is followed up with a four-year campaign of brutal violence that was misnamed the “Second Intifada” … Palestinians could have had everything that we were told they wanted. So I begin to ask a very simple question: “What do they want?” Because they clearly don’t want a state; they clearly don’t want an end to the “occupation”; they clearly don’t want an end to the settlements; and they clearly don’t want a capital in East Jerusalem … There is something that they want so much more that, again and again, they will walk away from this package for this thing. What is that thing? … They always told us: “From the river” — from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean — “sea, Palestine will be free.” And to go back to the original Arabic, “From water to water, Palestine will be Arab.” So, “free” is free from any Jewish sovereign presence.

“Genocide”

ALBANESE: The language [of the Israeli government] was absolutely genocide, like calling for the elimination of a nation of responsibles [sic], together with Hamas — assimilating Hamas to terrorism and all Palestinians in Gaza to terrorists and Hamas [sic]. It’s been a very violent rhetoric that emanated from an ideological hatred against the Palestinians, which, over the years, has become a political doctrine, which was on full display and out of control… as of Oct. 7.

WILF: … I’ve been talking for years about genocide … Supposedly, if genocide has to do with reality, there should have been no mention of it before the last year. But … at least for a decade, there’s been an effort to insert “genocide” next to Israel, Zionism, and [the] Star of David. We’ll explain [in the future] how remarkable it is that Israel fought in this way, but no one will care anymore because everyone had already said “genocide” and “disproportionality” and “collective punishment,” and all these words … Someone recently asked me — they said, “Okay, if you know what words are bubbling up, what’s the next word?” And I said, “Actually, we’ve reached the final station.” And the reason that I know we’ve reached the final station is twofold. First, the word “genocide” was always going to be the ultimate word. First of all, because genocide is an ultimate evil, but also because there was always a particular need to blame the Jews for committing genocide as a kind of reversal — retroactive justification [for] what was done to them. …They were never engaged in a good-faith discussion about Israeli policies. I know that because, when there’s a good-faith discussion, it never uses those words [like genocide]. ■

Ben Poser is executive editor of White Rose Magazine and research director for the African Jewish Alliance.