@Ilan Tavor aka Massada

the threat–the threat they pose is existing as a people. I mean, I think from the very outset of the establishment of Israel in 1948, I mean, the famous quote from Ben Gurion, the first prime minister, was “We must expel the Arabs and take their places.” I mean, this was the–this was the plan. But the establishment of the state along the lines in 1948 wasn’t meant to be the final state. I mean, they saw all of that land as belonging to this new Jewish state. And so that’s why, like, you know, the framing of this is not, you know, two people who are side-by-side who are just always in conflict. It’s an ongoing process, right ? I mean, we know the West Bank is constantly being gobbled up by more and more settlements, which is a continuous thing to where now it’s just, Palestinian territory is just so speckled across what many people think is the West Bank, but it’s predominantly settlements and such now. And so, you know, Gaza was of course undergoing that same thing ; as you know, Gaza was occupied until 2005, until they were essentially kicked out by resistance in Gaza. And so it was never intended, this kind of situation now of Gaza being blockaded while they’re colonizing the West Bank. They always intended to go back, back to the West Bank. I mean, back to Gaza and take the rest of Gaza.

RS : Yeah. I’ve done a number of these shows. I’ve even interviewed Tom Dine, who was once head of AIPAC. I recently interviewed Susie Linfield, who’s written a book criticizing the left for its not supporting Israel more. And I’ve interviewed people who are Palestinian journalists, and others. So it’s an ongoing saga. But I’m trying to get at some core issue here, because people listening to this, they’re going to–you know, on one side they’re going to say, well come on, who are you going to negotiate with ? Who are you going to make peace with ? And they have a view of an Arab mass, an Arab mass that threatens tiny little Israel. That’s sort of always been the argument, right ? But what your film shows is really something different. It shows that at a time when, and during a whole long history, really, where Israel–certainly since the Six-Day War, which is now, you know, a half a century–has been able to get along quite well with these big, Sunni Arab governments, right, that were supposedly the enemy, that has air force and troops and things. And what your movie shows is that this threat to Israel is not from this massive Arab population and countries, but rather something that looks like Occupy Wall Street.