- 2 days ago
In this unflinching episode, we speak to Australian philosopher and academic Professor Dr Peter Slezak, a philosopher and outspoken anti-Zionist advocate that has spent decades defending Palestinian rights.
As the child of Holocaust survivors, Dr Slezak offers a powerful moral lens on the crisis in Gaza, challenging the idea that support for Israel is synonymous with Jewish identity.
From the dangers of religious framing to the weaponization of Holocaust memory, he breaks down why Gaza is not a religious war, but a humanitarian emergency.
Watch the full episode on all Sinar Daily media social platforms.
#PalestinianDiaries #PeterSlezak #JewishVoicesForPalestine #EndTheGenocide #GazaUnderAttack #AntiZionism #HumanRights #SinarDaily #JusticeForPalestine #HolocaustToGaza #SolidarityNotSilence #InterfaithJustice #MalaysiaForPalestine
As the child of Holocaust survivors, Dr Slezak offers a powerful moral lens on the crisis in Gaza, challenging the idea that support for Israel is synonymous with Jewish identity.
From the dangers of religious framing to the weaponization of Holocaust memory, he breaks down why Gaza is not a religious war, but a humanitarian emergency.
Watch the full episode on all Sinar Daily media social platforms.
#PalestinianDiaries #PeterSlezak #JewishVoicesForPalestine #EndTheGenocide #GazaUnderAttack #AntiZionism #HumanRights #SinarDaily #JusticeForPalestine #HolocaustToGaza #SolidarityNotSilence #InterfaithJustice #MalaysiaForPalestine
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NewsTranscript
00:00Assalamualaikum and hello everyone. I am Tasim Luqman and you're watching The Palestinian Diaries.
00:04Today we have a huge guest and I am very, very much honored to welcome him.
00:10He is Professor Peter Slezak. He is a Jewish anti-Zionism, anti-Zionist Palestinian rights campaigner.
00:19So he is a Jew. He grew up in a Jew family. His parents, sorry, his mother and his grandmother were Holocaust survivors.
00:27And he is also an Australian. He is a professor and he is pro-Palestinian for the past decades.
00:36He's been fighting for the rights of Palestinians and what more so now in times of the Gaza atrocities that's been happening.
00:45So I'm glad to welcome him today here, Prof. Peter Slezak.
00:50Thank you so much for joining us today. So let's get to know him better now.
00:55Look, it's relevant to our story that I'm Jewish. I grew up in the Jewish community in Sydney.
01:00An important part of the story is that both my parents were survivors of the Nazi Holocaust.
01:05I was born in Europe afterwards. My mother and grandmother survived the Auschwitz death camp, the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz.
01:12And I grew up with their stories.
01:14And that's an important part of how you think about things today because the lessons to be learned from that are very important.
01:23But it's important for me to say that most Jews, I'm sorry to say, learned the wrong lesson.
01:27Okay.
01:28And notoriously, Jews generally in the world and Israel especially, they've exploited the memory of the Holocaust to justify what Israel is doing.
01:36And one of my uncles went in one of those ships in that period in 1948.
01:42And the consequence of that was horrendous.
01:45There were massacres, there were expulsions, ethnic cleansing before the war broke out.
01:51People don't know this.
01:52And the point I'm making is that the general public didn't know that story.
01:56That film makes out as though it was, you know, the slogan, a land without people for a people without land.
02:04This is a terrible lie.
02:05I mean, the Palestinians, I often show pictures of how beautiful Palestine was and how rich the cultural life and intellectual and every life was.
02:13And they became swamped.
02:15The British sort of were also, you know, attacked by the Zionist Jewish militias.
02:23But in the end, they left.
02:24And in 1948, when Israel, 1947, the partition, the British left.
02:31And the Jews took over.
02:33In fact, they took more than half the land.
02:35Yeah.
02:35It's a shocking story.
02:36Now, the massacres that were happening even before the state was declared, before the war broke out, they were happening before.
02:44People didn't know this.
02:45The idea was that this was some benign, you know, settlement.
02:49So it's a terrible story.
02:50Yeah.
02:50And ever since then, it's been awful.
02:52It's been, as they say, it's a settler colonial project, which is one of the last remaining after in Australia, in America and elsewhere, they exterminated the indigenous people.
03:05Well, that's what's happening in Palestine.
03:07But that story wasn't the way the West was told and certainly not the Jewish community.
03:10And to this day, I just saw an interview by one of the leading Jewish propagandists denying what happened.
03:16Well, the leading historians are Jews that are telling this story, Ilan Pape, Avi Shlaim, even Benny Morris, and, of course, the leading historians like Norman Finkelstein.
03:28Yes.
03:29There are very many significant Jews who are now telling this very bad story, and it's hard to swallow.
03:34In Israel, it's not being accepted, but that's the background.
03:37And we have to understand the background to understand what's happening today.
03:40So you mean to say, like, you started exploring the truth in the 60s during the Vietnam War?
03:48I was just exposed to it.
03:48I mean, I just started to read and discovered that the story was not what I grew up with.
03:52But I was a student in America in graduate school, and I ended up getting a job in philosophy.
03:57And in a way, it's funny, one thing leads to another.
04:01Because of my interest in Chomsky's linguistics and his politics, I ended up getting more and more involved in his work and the activists.
04:10In fact, interestingly, Chomsky came to Australia the first time, and I met him.
04:14I was privileged to be among the group.
04:15Oh, that's amazing.
04:16He came for the East Timorese.
04:17Oh, okay.
04:18In 19, whenever it was, just before East Timor exploded, the big massacre, really, by the Indonesians,
04:28he was invited to Australia by the Timorese to speak out for them.
04:32And because I was at the university, I said, if he's willing, I'll get him to talk at the university.
04:37And then the university paid for the whole trip.
04:39Wow.
04:39So I became lucky, because he became my guest at the university.
04:43Oh, that's amazing.
04:44And he gave two lectures.
04:45So I got to meet the greatest figure in my life, really, I have to say, the most important influence, really, on me,
04:51intellectually and academically, but also politically.
04:54So that's the interesting irony.
04:55But he was already so prominent in speaking out for causes.
04:59And, of course, then, increasingly, the more you read about the Israel-Palestine stuff,
05:03the more you felt you had to engage as a Jew.
05:07That became, and it's still extremely important.
05:10It's a voice that is attempted to be suppressed by the Zionists who want to pretend that we're somehow traitors
05:17and they say rude things about people like me.
05:19But it's growing.
05:20In America, especially, significant Jews like Peter Beinart, who's a committed religious believer,
05:25have said some very powerful things.
05:27So there's a kind of a noticeable shift, especially in America.
05:32In Australia, the Jewish community is more conservative, but there, too, there are groups coming up.
05:36So it's a bit late, sadly.
05:38Yeah.
05:38But there are signs that things may change.
05:41So that's basically almost 50 decades, right, since you started.
05:46I mean, since the Vietnam War, basically, when you started.
05:49Don't make me sound so old.
05:50So, like, how do you think it has changed?
05:55I mean, in terms of, like, talking about it, discussions about it, publicity about it, you know,
06:01like knowledge and awareness about what's happening in Palestine and also the Zionism ideology, you know,
06:10how has it changed gradually or, you know, did social media help?
06:15Yeah, that's having a big effect.
06:16Look, Ilan Pape, I mean, I admire and follow the insights of people like Ilan Pape.
06:21He says a bit dramatically that, actually, this is the end of Zionism and it's the end of Israel.
06:25Okay.
06:25It's a pretty powerful thing to say.
06:27And the trouble is that at a time like this, this cataclysmic clash, things are perhaps worse than ever.
06:34There's no doubt about that.
06:34I mean, Gaza is just beyond description.
06:37It's an atrocity, a horror.
06:38But that's part of the point that Israel, I think, sees that it's losing its reputation, its credibility around the world in the public.
06:47The government's leaders are not supporting the Palestinians.
06:51They're sadly supporting Israel.
06:53But the general community around the world are aware because of social media.
06:57It's not in the mainstream press for the most part.
07:00So there's a noticeable shift in the attitude, as I say, even among Jews.
07:05But Israel can't sustain this in the eyes of the world.
07:08It's a bit like it used to be inappropriate to compare it to the Nazis.
07:12Okay.
07:12That used to be taboo.
07:14Anybody who said that got into trouble.
07:15But now it's being said regularly by people who know what they're talking about.
07:18Now, it's not to compare the Holocaust.
07:19There's nothing to compare.
07:20The Holocaust was six million Jews and millions of other people.
07:23It's not the scale of the atrocities, but it's the attitudes, the racism, the deep dehumanization of the Palestinians.
07:33And sadly, it's happening among Jewish communities.
07:36And in Israel, it's worst of all.
07:38So when you see – and I'm talking about Israelis who talk about it, Gideon Levy and various others who know.
07:43Look, 90-some percent of the Israelis agree with this genocidal attack on Gaza.
07:51A large proportion of them think they didn't go far enough.
07:54This is very sick.
07:56And that's what we're up against.
07:58So, like, okay, let's – I want to ask something maybe more in context to Malaysians, right?
08:04Yeah.
08:04Like, because you're a Jew and you practice it.
08:07No, I don't.
08:08Oh, okay.
08:08No, no, no.
08:09Let's be clear.
08:10I'm an atheist Jew.
08:11Oh, okay.
08:12We have to explain that.
08:13I gather that Malaysians don't quite understand these subtleties.
08:16All right.
08:17So, look, I'm a Jew because of my parents.
08:18I grew up as a Jew.
08:19And, you know, I have to say most Israelis and most Jews are not religious.
08:23Okay.
08:24They're not believers.
08:25They're not practitioners.
08:26They're Jewish as an ethnic identity.
08:28Okay.
08:29It's like being, I don't know, a Catholic.
08:31Okay.
08:32It's sort of like a family.
08:34It's just – you're just part of it because your parents were part of it.
08:37And I had a religious, you know, ceremony when I was 13.
08:40But I'm – so I'm, like, it's important that most Jews are secular.
08:44They're not believers.
08:45Okay.
08:45They go to the synagogue twice a year for the holidays.
08:47So, as far as I'm concerned, it's not a religious matter.
08:52Although, for some, it is.
08:53Peter Beinart is a religious Jew, and he speaks in religious terms about the crime that Jews are responsible for.
08:58That's a point of view which I don't share from the religious point of view.
09:03So, anyway, just correcting.
09:05Okay.
09:05My Jewishness is an ethnic matter.
09:07It's just my name.
09:09But to go back to the point I made, it's very important.
09:12The leading thinkers point out that what we have above all is a shared humanity.
09:15We have to understand that these are secondary.
09:18Yeah.
09:19The difference between Muslims – and look at the best in these traditions.
09:24Traditions understand that our shared humanity is what is the most important.
09:30How would you – okay.
09:31So, like, yes, we understand your situation.
09:33But generally, like, how does those who are more aware or woke are able to distinguish within Judaism and Zionism?
09:45Yeah.
09:46That's a good question.
09:47Look, I have to say, the Zionists try to make sure you don't distinguish it.
09:49Yes.
09:50That's a very important matter.
09:51There's a definition, so-called IHRA definition, that's taken over in governments and all around the world, in Australia, in the universities.
09:58It's a definition of anti-Semitism, and they – most of the examples of anti-Semitism are criticising Israel.
10:06Yeah.
10:07But that's terrible.
10:08It's a scandal to, as we say, weaponise anti-Semitism.
10:12Yes.
10:13Anti-Semitism exists, especially among right-wing fanatics.
10:17In Australia, I always say, and I got into a bit of trouble saying this, look, I grew up in Australia and I didn't experience any anti-Semitism, living openly as a Jew.
10:23There wasn't any.
10:24So the Zionists want to make sure that you don't separate them.
10:28Yeah.
10:28So they can accuse any critic of Israel of saying you're an anti-Semite, to shut them up.
10:32It's a way of trying to shut down criticism of Israel.
10:35Look, it's too stupid for words.
10:36It's amazing it's been so effective.
10:38Yeah.
10:38Because, okay, let's say somebody is an anti-Semite and a racist.
10:42What's that got to do with crimes against humanity and atrocities and genocide?
10:48Even if I'm an anti-Semite, these people are war criminals.
10:51Yeah.
10:51So it's sort of a distraction.
10:53Yeah.
10:53And it's understood to be a distraction.
10:55So we end up talking and spending a lot of time fighting against anti-Semitism when we should be worrying about the genocide in Gaza and, for that matter, in the West Bank.
11:04Palestine is a terrible story.
11:06So it's a distraction and, unfortunately, we're sucked into this.
11:09I've spent a lot of time pushing back and fighting.
11:11I was just testifying to our state parliament.
11:14There's an anti-Semitism inquiry.
11:16What the hell do they have to have an anti-Semitism inquiry for?
11:18There's – I mean, I don't want to overstate it, but there's practically no anti-Semitism.
11:22It's criticism of Israel.
11:23Yeah.
11:24And, actually, it's a bit stronger than that.
11:26The Jews have to understand that they can't avoid the criticism if they don't dissociate themselves from this.
11:35Okay.
11:35Israel is acting on behalf of Jews.
11:38The Jewish leadership are claiming to act on behalf of Jews.
11:41It's not possible to sit on the fence and be neutral.
11:44Jews have a responsibility – and I've said this publicly because I can say it.
11:48My Palestinian friend's a bit more careful.
11:50But there are a number of ways to explain this.
11:52But you can't sit on the fence.
11:54You can't – you are being implicated whether you like it or not.
11:59It's simply the way in which Israel and the Zionists are running this.
12:02And, therefore, there's a moral responsibility to distinguish it, to stand against it, to oppose it.
12:08And I quote people like – there was a famous – I always quote this rabbi in America during the American civil rights movement, Joshua Heschel.
12:16He said, some are guilty, but all are responsible.
12:19Oh, okay.
12:20That's a very good point.
12:21And, of course, the famous Desmond Tutu in South Africa.
12:23Yes.
12:23He said – it's very clever.
12:25He said it just exactly correctly, which is relevant to today, to the Jewish community.
12:29He said, in a time of injustice, to be silent is to stand with the perpetrator.
12:35Something like that.
12:36Yes, exactly.
12:37That's very powerful because that's telling you – so, when I got into trouble in Sydney for giving a public talk at a university,
12:44when I accused the Jews of having a responsibility, they usually had this meltdown, this hysteria.
12:50But I'm trying to explain now what I meant.
12:53And it's important to say that you can't – you know, you can't – I can give you lots of stories.
12:58Forgive me for one other story.
13:00The very important Israeli journalist, Amira Haas.
13:03Okay.
13:03She's Jewish, of course, and she writes about her mother's experience, who was also in the concentration camp.
13:08And she tells her mother's story, who was being driven into the concentration camp, and she saw the German housewives watching by the side.
13:17And she referred to this despicable standing by the side.
13:20To be a bystander and be silent is morally terrible.
13:23Yeah.
13:24And that's the point that I'm trying to make to say that we can't just be silent.
13:29That's quite on point.
13:30So, okay, since we're talking about that, in Malaysia, we generally support Palestine.
13:39We're very vocal about Palestine and the Palestinian aggression and genocide.
13:44But there are those who are unbothered because some would say it's a religious issue.
13:51No, it's not.
13:52It's an Islamic issue.
13:54And there are also other countries around the world, even in our region, that says exactly that.
14:02They choose to be silent or they choose to be on the middle ground.
14:07So, how do you – what's your take on this framing?
14:10Like, why do you think it continuously persists?
14:15Look, you can look at a lot of examples of history, but people basically lack decency, lack moral courage.
14:20I just watched a movie on the airplane about a case during the Second World War.
14:23People sided with the Nazis or were silent when the Nazis were – that's the lessons we're supposed to have learned.
14:27There's a lot of history for this.
14:29And it's not a Muslim issue.
14:32Most of the Palestinians are Muslim, but there are Christian Palestinians.
14:36Some of my friends are Christian Palestinians.
14:37For example, I interviewed in Ramallah a little while ago Hannah Neshrawi.
14:43She's a Christian-Palestinian leading figure.
14:47So, it's not a religious issue for the reasons I said, too.
14:51It's not fighting about religion.
14:52Mind you, while I'm saying something, it's disgraceful, as I said, that the Zionists exploit this.
14:59So, notoriously, one of the Israeli ambassadors, Danny Danon, there's a famous, infamous photograph of him at the United Nations.
15:05He's holding up the Old Testament, that's the Jewish Bible, and he's saying, this is our title deed to the land.
15:11Excuse me.
15:12Well, you know, this is so – I can't even express how disgraceful I find that.
15:16But that's the way they want to present it, as if they have some rights.
15:19You know, I have more rights in Palestine.
15:22I'm a Jew from Europe and an Australian citizen.
15:26I have no connection to Palestine.
15:29I have more rights in Palestine than my Palestinian friends, who are still holding the key to their parents' house because they were expelled and not allowed back.
15:37And they're not allowed back.
15:38What kind of country – and by the way, Israel, of course, is a racist endeavour because one of the definitions says that you can't call Israel a racist endeavour.
15:46So, 50 laws on the books in Israel discriminate against the Palestinian citizens of Israel, the citizens.
15:53They passed a nation-state law in 2018, which says Israel is the state of the Jewish people.
15:57That's a racist endeavour.
15:58So, that's the problem.
16:00And people like me around the world, Jews who have nothing to do with Israel, claim some rights there.
16:05That's really seriously bad.
16:06Yeah, that's kind of ironic.
16:07How do you – like, how does it go around?
16:13Meaning to say, like, maybe – I think I'm more interested to understand how a Jewish family decides to go to Israel and just be part of it and just claim their rights there.
16:22Like, maybe you have more friends who actually have possibly experienced this.
16:28Like, maybe you could tell all of us, like, how it happens, Stanley.
16:31It's the upbringing.
16:32Look, I grew up with kids.
16:33I told you, they went to summer camp and they were all Zionist camp.
16:35And they do what's called aliyah.
16:38They actually move to Israel and become citizens.
16:40They think this is a great honour.
16:43And the misinformation and their prejudices fuel this.
16:48They just believe that this is a great cause to move there.
16:51Mind you, a lot are leaving now.
16:52A lot of Israelis have dual citizenship.
16:54Yeah.
16:55And huge numbers are leaving because for good reason.
16:57There's this mythology that your home is Israel and that's where you belong.
17:01They even try to say that because now there's supposedly anti-Semitism, which is not exactly correct, they say that you're better off going to Israel.
17:08Well, that's nonsense.
17:10So the idea that you should go to Israel to be safe currently is a pretty stupid thing to say.
17:16But the answer to your question is the education that we all grew up with.
17:20By the way, I mentioned before the Passover service, every year Jews have this Passover, which is the story of Exodus.
17:25You know in the Bible, Moses led the Jews out to the Holy Land.
17:29It's significant.
17:30Every Jew grows up with that.
17:31And part of that story, I've written about this because I didn't realise until much later in life.
17:35I did it every year with my family.
17:36Anyway, Jews, you know, went with Moses and discovered their home that God gave to them.
17:47And at the end of the service, there's two parts to it, but at the very end of the service, every year, every Jew says,
17:53they hold up the glass of wine and drink a toast and say, next year in Jerusalem.
17:57Yeah.
17:57What's that all about?
17:58What, every Jew's going to go to Jerusalem?
17:59But this is the bullshit that basically everybody grows up with, that somehow this is the promised land.
18:06Yes.
18:07And look, I mean, a lot of people have written about it.
18:10Whatever happened or didn't happen, I mean, most of that is mythology.
18:14The Old Testament and the myths are really fairy stories, I have to say.
18:18But whatever happened thousands of years ago gives no rights to me to take the land from the people that have been living there for time immemorial.
18:29Okay.
18:30Okay.
18:31And politically, what do you think about how Israel is handling themselves as a state with all other countries globally?
18:40It's a criminal state.
18:42Yeah.
18:42I mean, their leaders are all war criminals.
18:45You know, the International Court of Justice has actually indicted Netanyahu and Gallant, I think, and one of the other ones.
18:52Yeah.
18:52The Prime Minister of Australia has been referred to the International Criminal Court.
18:56It's a crime in international law to be an accessory to the genocide.
19:00Yes.
19:00So these people are, I mean, to his credit, the new candidate for mayor in New York actually said if Netanyahu came to New York, he'd arrest him.
19:09Okay.
19:10Well, that's exactly right.
19:11My Prime Minister didn't say that, which he should.
19:13Yeah.
19:13The people are, so the world is avoiding the serious moral crisis.
19:19It's not new.
19:20I mean, and I can't avoid mentioning, of course, in passing, the West Bank.
19:24We're not paying attention to the West Bank.
19:26I agree.
19:26That is a horror.
19:27I've been there.
19:28I've travelled there.
19:29We're doing a documentary about what's going on there.
19:32It's not in the news.
19:33They're demolishing houses.
19:34They're rampaging around, shooting kids dead.
19:37It's beyond awful.
19:39And the mainstream media are not showing it.
19:40Now, maybe Malaysia is better because the sympathy for Palestine is here.
19:47That's very different.
19:48To the great credit of the Malaysians and the people here, they're much more sensitive and sympathetic to this.
19:56There's an important boycott movement and Palestinian solidarity activists here.
20:00That's really important.
20:02In other countries, the government and the people are nowhere near as sensitive and informed.
20:07There's this take by the Western leaders that are saying that it's the Palestinians who are not looking for peace.
20:13That's bullshit.
20:14And I definitely agree.
20:16But the history is so false.
20:19See, the trouble is that you have to do your homework and you've got to go and read what was said.
20:23I used to have to research this because people kept saying that.
20:26So if you go back and you look at the attempts to make the so-called peace process, firstly, I can give you all the references.
20:32It was a fraud.
20:33It was a trap.
20:34The Palestinians were constantly being just tricked.
20:39The Camp David, the Oslo agreements, these were all betrayals of the Palestinians,
20:43taking away from them rights that they should have had.
20:46So the so-called peace process, it was run by the Americans, after all.
20:49And it was run by one of the Zionists, an Australian Zionist, whatever his name was, Ivor Indyk, I think.
20:56Indyk.
20:56The peace process, you can read about it, it was a fraud.
21:00And actually, even Hamas has repeatedly tried to make a permanent peace.
21:04So the media constantly point out that Hamas is this terror organization, you can't make peace with them.
21:08It's all rubbish.
21:09So one has to understand the history.
21:13But there is, okay, on top of that, on top of the fact that they're saying that Palestinians are the ones not looking for peace,
21:20they are also saying that, you know, Palestinians keep giving this victimhood identity crisis kind of thing.
21:27And we all know this is just intentional, this is all an agenda, but yet they're still in power.
21:34All these Western leaders are still controlling the situation.
21:39But, you know, the example you give is really shocking.
21:42It's sick.
21:43If you read, you probably don't read the Jewish press like I do.
21:45Okay.
21:46They're wallowing in what happened on October 7th, which is pretty bad.
21:49It was an atrocity.
21:51It was a terrorism.
21:52They haven't paid attention to what's going on in Gaza.
21:55Gaza has been flattened.
21:56Yeah.
21:57And you talk about who thinks they're victims.
21:59It's hard to imagine the pathology of people, the Jewish communities, the Zionists and the whole Jewish community,
22:05thinking that they are the victims.
22:07Yeah.
22:07I read this stuff.
22:08I'm staggered because it's a degree of pathology.
22:11I mean, they're sick.
22:12This is a kind of a deep, I don't know how to describe it.
22:17How is it possible for people, I mean, Israel is the fourth most powerful nation militarily in the world.
22:22It's just flattened Gaza.
22:23And they're the victims?
22:24I mean, I'm avoiding swearing, but I feel like swearing.
22:29Also, what do you think about the whole situation where suddenly Iran came into the game?
22:36And I mean, everybody's now so focused on World War III where the whole genocide is happening.
22:41Netanyahu has been for decades trying to provoke Iran.
22:44Okay.
22:45They've been claiming, falsely again, that Iran is five minutes away from a nuclear bomb.
22:51Every year he's five minutes away.
22:53So for a decade they've been five minutes away or a year away.
22:55It was a deliberate attempt to provoke, in particular, America to come in, which they did finally.
23:01To the credit of the Iranians, they showed enormous restraint.
23:04They could have done a lot more damage to Israel for the first time they attacked.
23:07And they even signaled some of the attacks they were going to make as a kind of a gesture.
23:11Yeah.
23:11So that's playing with fire.
23:13The idea that Netanyahu wants to...
23:15I mean, he has had an agenda to attack all of these other countries, and there's some good discussions online about this.
23:21And America has supported all of these.
23:23Mm-hmm.
23:23He wanted America to attack Iraq, which they did.
23:27Yeah.
23:28Israel is a rogue state.
23:31And people like Norman Finkelstein and others will talk this way.
23:33It's not a normal state.
23:35And unfortunately, it's given too much respect in the international forums.
23:39And we have to understand how serious it is for the whole world.
23:42Prof, could you share with us some of the Holocaust stories that you've grown up with?
23:47Sure.
23:48Okay.
23:49Change gear a bit.
23:50Yeah.
23:51Let's just, like, take it...
23:52I'm happy to talk about it.
23:53I mean, it's an important...
23:54I have to tell you, did I mention, for the first time in my life, I have an opportunity.
23:58I'm going to a conference in Warsaw in Poland.
24:00Oh, wow.
24:00That's amazing.
24:01And I've never been to Poland.
24:02And I have to go to the concentration camp in Poland, the Auschwitz camp, where my mother was.
24:07I grew up with all that, and I can't not go.
24:09I'm a bit scared of going.
24:10It's going to be very difficult for me, actually, emotionally.
24:12Yeah.
24:13So let me tell you where it starts.
24:15My mother told me her experience when she...
24:18First, they were forced from their homes in the town where she was living, where I was born,
24:22in a town called Sotmar in Romania.
24:24Sotumare is the Romanian name.
24:26And they were rounded up in the ghetto and lived there.
24:28But then they were transported in cattle trucks.
24:30Okay.
24:30They were...
24:31This is the story.
24:31How old was she?
24:32She was 19.
24:3319?
24:34Wow.
24:34I have a picture of her, a movie, in fact, a black-and-white film of her at 19.
24:37Okay.
24:37And her mother would have been, I don't know, 30, 40, 40, whatever she was.
24:41And a 19-year-old kid, she was in this cattle truck, and they finally ended up in Poland,
24:46in Auschwitz.
24:47And when she got out of the cattle truck, I can tell you one first...
24:52A lot of people died in the cattle truck from starvation and thirst.
24:55It was a cattle truck.
24:56Yeah.
24:56And I don't know how long it took them to go.
24:58When they got there, my mother got out of the cattle truck, and she was a 19-year-old
25:02girl, holding her little nephew, little three-year-old.
25:05Okay.
25:05And as she went forward to the line-up where Mengele, the notorious Dr. Mengele, who was
25:12separating out people, some people would go straight to the gas chambers, and some people
25:16were spared.
25:18And mothers and children went straight to the gas chamber.
25:21And my 19-year-old mother's holding the little kid, and she goes, and she looked back, and
25:27her mother was unwell.
25:28So she gave the kid to her cousin, also a 19-year-old girl, and she went and got her mother.
25:33And my mother, the 19-year-old and the kid went straight to the gas chamber.
25:36Oh, my God.
25:36And my mother, because she went to get her mother, they went that way.
25:39And that's the beginning of the stories I grew up with about the accidental fate, the
25:46flukes which determine whether...
25:48And I had a whole series of stories like that.
25:51Auschwitz, you can imagine.
25:53That's insane.
25:53If you've seen any stuff about...
25:54That was the beginning.
25:55That's just like one second of...
25:58Of course.
25:58And in fact, one of the women came up.
26:00I saw another woman say this when they do these documentaries.
26:02Well, they were met by some of the inmates in their striped clothes, and one woman said,
26:07you see the smoke in the chimney there?
26:08That's your family going up there.
26:10That's the stories that, you know, it's pretty grim.
26:13Yeah.
26:13And that was Auschwitz, the crematoria and the gas chambers.
26:18Lots of stories like that.
26:19But one of the perhaps better stories, in a way, is how my mother was saved.
26:23But the Russians were coming, pressing, and militarily were, as they did, come and take
26:30over Auschwitz.
26:31It was the Russians who liberated Auschwitz.
26:34But the Germans moved a lot of the inmates.
26:36They started to clear the camp.
26:39Okay.
26:39And there was this death march, they called it, and they were going somewhere.
26:43I don't know exactly where.
26:44And at one point, my mother and her mother decided to hide in a drain in a village because
26:49they didn't think this was going to end well.
26:51And they hid.
26:52And when they came out, they were looking at something, and a nun from the Catholic convent
26:57tapped them on the shoulder and saw who they were and took them into the convent and looked
27:02after them.
27:03Oh, wow.
27:04So my mother was saved by Catholic nuns and brought back to health.
27:08There's a lot of stories about that.
27:09But that was the beginning.
27:11When did she manage to escape?
27:15How old was she when she managed to escape?
27:161920.
27:16She was there from 1944 until whenever it was liberated, when they cleared the camp.
27:21So it was late.
27:22It was that last stage.
27:24It was like five years?
27:25No, no, no.
27:25She wasn't there that long.
27:26I think she was there for nine months, nearly a year.
27:28Oh, okay.
27:28She was only there for about nine months.
27:30But that was nine months of...
27:31Of torture?
27:31Of starvation and deaths.
27:35People were...
27:35I mean, on the death march, my mother said, you know, the Nazis who were taking them.
27:41One mother sat down with...
27:43She couldn't walk anymore.
27:45And the German came up and insisted she goes.
27:48And her daughter was with her, and they refused to go.
27:51He just shot them both dead.
27:52These were the stories I grew up with.
27:54Oh, my God.
27:55My mother's stories of these horrors, and most Jews in my age, that's why they were so deeply imbued with these horror stories.
28:04But as I told you, they learned the wrong lesson.
28:07What's the lesson from this?
28:08Yeah.
28:08And now, I don't know how to put this exactly, but if you're watching what Israel is doing in Gaza, it's stories like that.
28:16It's beyond description.
28:18I don't want to describe them, but you would have seen them.
28:20If you've seen enough on social media, because the journalists...
28:24I mean, Israel has killed so many journalists there.
28:26Medical people.
28:27The medical people are reporting what they're seeing.
28:29Yeah.
28:29It's heartbreaking.
28:30Well, I once got asked the question, how can Jews be doing this?
28:34That's a good question.
28:35Yeah.
28:36I don't know how to answer that.
28:37There's no answer to that.
28:38There's no answer to that.
28:40It's insane.
28:41That's my role.
28:43It has become...
28:44It's rather strange.
28:45I was busy with my academic life, and this is taking over in a way, because you feel you have to do something.
28:51It's too desperate.
28:53You were saying that you were a professor.
28:55You were teaching at the University of New South Wales.
28:58Yeah.
28:59New South Wales.
28:59So, how was it there?
29:00I'm sure, because you had students, how was that when it comes to discourse on Palestinian, or just humanities, or the unjust world?
29:11Well, look, I was teaching philosophy and history of science, and philosophy of science, Galileo, and various other interesting things.
29:17Yeah.
29:17And cognitive science, linguistics.
29:20So, I wasn't teaching politics, but I would talk to the students after class.
29:25Yeah.
29:25I did run one class, which I turned into a political class.
29:28But I got students to read classics in the field of philosophy of politics.
29:35I mean, Edward Said, I got them to read, and John Stuart Mill about free speech, and Arundhati Roy, the wonderful Indian writer, and a whole list of...
29:45And Chomsky, of course.
29:46And I got them to read, and that was a lot of fun.
29:50It was getting students...
29:52I'll tell you something I had to say to the students in the first lecture.
29:54I said to them, because, you know, there's this culture at the moment where students have to feel safe.
30:00You can't upset students.
30:02And I said to the students in the first class, this is not a safe space.
30:05Okay.
30:05You're supposed to make students feel safe.
30:08And I said, this is not a safe space for ideas you don't like.
30:10Okay.
30:11This is...
30:12You shouldn't be at a university if you don't want to hear provocative ideas which challenge you.
30:16Uh-huh.
30:17It's a reflection on the universities now.
30:19We're not supposed to upset students.
30:20Well, I made a point of upsetting them my whole career.
30:23Which I was very proud of.
30:25And I think that's what you should do as an academic.
30:27That's your job, to make people uncomfortable and question, challenge their beliefs.
30:33Not just in politics, but in everything.
30:35And, of course, that's uncomfortable.
30:36So, the second lecture is rather funny.
30:39I used to say this every semester.
30:41And one girl, student, she missed the first class.
30:43And when I said something very provocative in the second lecture, she said,
30:46What right have you got to say this?
30:48I said, you missed the first class where I explained...
30:50Oh, yeah?
30:50Yeah, we're going to be reading things.
30:53I'll give you an example of something I gave the students.
30:55I had some Vietnamese students in the class.
30:57I gave them some of Chomsky's stuff on the Vietnam War, which is very confronting for them.
31:00Uh-huh.
31:01Because they were on the wrong side.
31:02And these Vietnamese who fled, they were the American allies.
31:05Yeah, yeah.
31:06Well, they were supporting the Vietnamese.
31:08Yeah.
31:09The Americans.
31:10They were on the American side.
31:12And, of course, they lost.
31:13And so, these kids who grew up with parents who fled, they found it very confronting.
31:17But I was very proud of that class.
31:19I thought it was a wonderful example to openly...
31:22Look, I have a record of this, and I'm proud of it for the following reason.
31:26I have my views, strong views.
31:27But I used to teach a course on philosophy of religion.
31:29Okay.
31:30And the reason that's relevant is it was sort of political, really, but in a way, because
31:33I'm an atheist.
31:35Uh-huh.
31:35But I gave the students the strongest arguments on the religious side.
31:39I had a large number of students who were Christians, the campus Bible study Christians,
31:42and a few Muslims as well.
31:43Wow.
31:43Okay.
31:44But I gave them the best articles on their side of the story, and then we argued about
31:48it.
31:48That's how you should do it.
31:49You confront...
31:50You know the students loved it.
31:51In other words, my bias is I'm not trying to pretend I don't have views.
31:55Yeah.
31:55I shouldn't.
31:56A lot of academics think they should be neutral.
31:57Well, no.
31:58Yeah, yeah.
31:58No, but I'm better than neutral because I'm not neutral, but I'm fair.
32:02Yeah.
32:02I give the students the best arguments, even better than they thought of, on their side,
32:07and then we argue about it.
32:07You know, it's super interesting you're talking about having blunt discussions, right?
32:13Like facing and confronting and trying to have...
32:17You don't have to agree, but you have a fair conversation.
32:22Well, you have to learn how to disagree.
32:23Yes, learn how to disagree, exactly.
32:25And do you think, like, the new generation today, the younger generation that's coming
32:29continuously, everybody's, like, extremely hurt every time they hear something that is
32:35the opposite of their beliefs?
32:36Bad luck.
32:38I mean, look, that's the experience I had.
32:41Look, my Christian students, they were very committed, and we read strong arguments against
32:47their views.
32:47One interesting experience I had, I came out of the class once, and one of the Christian
32:51girls was crying.
32:52I thought, oh, goodness, I must have done it.
32:54I was too strong or something.
32:55I said something to upset her, and I asked her, what's the matter?
32:58Why are you upset?
32:58She said, it's nothing I said.
33:00It's that she was an American who came from the south, from North Carolina or somewhere,
33:06and she suddenly realized that she doesn't belong in her community anymore.
33:09Oh, okay.
33:10Her mind opened.
33:11She had an open mind.
33:12She discovered there's different views.
33:14Yeah.
33:14Well, that was a good thing.
33:16So it was confronting for her.
33:17I didn't upset her, but it was the fact that she learned and thought independently.
33:21Yeah.
33:22But, like, when we come back to this, people are very critical of Gen Zs, you know, like,
33:27of Gen Zs, and also, like, the younger generation where they're, like, constantly hurt.
33:34They're constantly, like, offended.
33:35I've got no patience for that.
33:36Yeah, like, but now you see a lot of them are also very, very vocal.
33:42Like, there's, like, two extremes, I guess.
33:45Where do you see you've gone through a lot of teaching and generations of people?
33:51Like, where do you see we're headed when it comes to, like, opening conversations, freedom of speech?
33:56Well, it's not going in a good direction.
33:57Freedom of speech is being challenged all over the place.
33:59Yeah.
34:00They're clamping down now, in America especially, and even in Australia.
34:04So, we have to be vigilant, and we have to push back against that.
34:09Universities have actually done some very bad things.
34:13In Australia, for example, we abolished what's called tenure years ago.
34:17I wrote an article about this because that was a major change.
34:20Academics didn't realize what a bad move that was.
34:23Tenure in America is sacrosanct.
34:25It's a very important institution where once you get tenure, you can't be sacked.
34:30Oh, wow.
34:30Okay, okay, tenure, okay.
34:32Tenure, T-E-N-U-R-E.
34:33And the reason for that is, like judges in America, in the old days, before Trump, when
34:39you appointed a judge, they were then free to make judgments on the merits of the case,
34:44regardless of their particular prejudices, but they couldn't fear that their job would
34:48be on the line.
34:49Now, academic tenure, I read a book about this because I tried to understand what's the
34:52motivation.
34:55Tenure was to protect you against being sacked for saying unpopular things, saying things
35:00that people don't like.
35:02And so if you're an academic, you should be protected, regardless of what your views are.
35:06That's what academic freedom is.
35:08That's what free speech should be.
35:09That's why I gave my students John Stuart Mill, a famous essay on free speech.
35:13We've lost that.
35:14So, you know, this one move, I was very angry about it, and I wrote about it in Australia
35:18because the academics themselves gave away tenure.
35:21They traded it in for a salary increment one year.
35:23Wow.
35:23They didn't realize in Australia what they had done.
35:27In America, still, it's protected.
35:30It may be being eroded, but tenure is a crucial institution because you protect unpopular views.
35:37Yeah.
35:38And that's important.
35:39Since we're talking about universities and opinions and stuff, throughout, since October
35:447, I think, we've seen a whole load of protests, like never before for Palestine, right?
35:49For Gaza.
35:52One of the major things that happened in the States was all the universities that, like,
35:56camped out and went all out, and then there was, like, so much brutality from the police
36:02and from the government themselves.
36:04Like, what's your take on that?
36:05Like, seeing how extreme it is.
36:08That's a shocking example.
36:09In America, we saw a lot of that.
36:10At my university, Columbia University, there was some very, very significant encampments.
36:14One of the things to say about that, there were always very visible presence of Jews.
36:17Okay.
36:17So, these weren't anti-Semitic Jews in Australia.
36:22I went to the encampments, and I spoke at the encampments.
36:24I was privileged to be invited to speak to the students, and there was always a Jewish
36:28presence.
36:28That's the first thing.
36:29The administrations got heavy-handed.
36:31They decided this was terrible.
36:32It's anti-Semitism.
36:33The Jewish community, of course, got hysterical about it, but it was a good sign.
36:38It was a sign, like in the 60s, when students at the campuses were at the forefront.
36:42Look, I made the point when one of the speeches I gave is the politicians and the media took
36:49too long to even react to this.
36:51It was the students who were at the forefront, pleading and demanding justice and the truth.
36:57And so, it has always been the campuses where the first...
37:01It starts there.
37:02Well, and that's to their credit.
37:04That's been suppressed.
37:05There's a lot of pressure to quiet students down and get on with, you know, this sort of
37:10neoliberal corporate approach to education to stop students thinking independently and critically.
37:17The organisations for them to meet have been limited in various ways.
37:22It's not a good thing.
37:23So, these demonstrations, these encampments were very important.
37:26And, like, what you saw happening in Harvard, right?
37:29It was like, that was extreme.
37:32Which thing?
37:33I think, like, when they started clamping out and they started arresting all...
37:36Yeah, they started brutalizing.
37:37The brutality of the police, professors were being manhandled off.
37:41That's the scary thing about how quickly a kind of fascist mindset can be taken over.
37:48Here in Australia, you saw just...
37:50I say here in Australia, back in Australia, a young demonstrator was blinded by the policeman
37:56in one eye just the other day.
37:58Yeah, she's...
38:01Her father was the attorney general of Malaysia.
38:05Oh, I didn't know that.
38:06Yeah, she was the nominee...
38:08She was the candidate against the prime minister, right?
38:11Albanese.
38:11Oh, she's a Greens candidate.
38:13Yeah, Hannah Thomas.
38:14That's what I did.
38:15Yeah, Hannah Thomas.
38:16So...
38:16What kind of brutality...
38:18And I'm at the demonstrations every week now for a year, more than a year.
38:21And I speak, I'm proud to speak at the demonstrations.
38:24There was, at first, a very big police presence.
38:26Because there was this hysteria.
38:27The government made out that this was all scary.
38:29Well, I'm there.
38:30It's not scary.
38:31It's not anti-Semitic.
38:32And it's peaceful, but it's strong.
38:35They're protesting.
38:36So, it's important.
38:37You know, one thing about protesting, right?
38:39Like, when we see it on video,
38:41in Western countries, especially, like the UK, US, and even Australia,
38:45the numbers are huge.
38:47Like, it's massive.
38:48But in Malaysia, despite being very, very pro-Palestine,
38:53we don't get as much numbers...
38:55How interesting.
38:56...as we'd like.
38:57Yeah.
38:57But I don't know.
38:58Maybe it's the culture.
38:59It's not a very pro-Palestine culture.
39:00There's another reason.
39:01I don't understand Malaysia that well.
39:02Okay.
39:02But maybe because the government here is generally sympathetic.
39:04Yes.
39:04You don't need it here.
39:05Ah, okay.
39:06We need it.
39:07Okay.
39:07Our government is shocking.
39:08And so, actually, the anger is more appropriate and justified in Australia or in America.
39:13Our government has been shocking on this.
39:15They're basically complicit.
39:16They're accomplices.
39:17And our prime minister is on the left, but they've done nothing.
39:21And the foreign minister...
39:22And I was very proud.
39:24I gave one of the talks, and I swore in Arabic at the prime minister,
39:26and I got a big cheer from the crowd.
39:28Okay.
39:28I won't repeat it here.
39:29Okay.
39:30All right.
39:31You were worried that I was going to say it, but I won't.
39:32Okay.
39:33So, like, we're about to end, but I just want your take on the future as moving forward.
39:39It's already so near to October already.
39:42It's already mid-year.
39:44We're already in July.
39:46And a few months is going to be another year of...
39:49Yeah.
39:50Like, three years since...
39:51Two years.
39:52Two years since October 7th.
39:53Two years, yeah.
39:54Two years since October 7th.
39:55And it's insane because I don't know what else.
39:57Can you be bombing because you're still bombing and...
40:00Unbelievable.
40:02Insane.
40:02Insanity.
40:03So, could you give, like, some words of encouragement to everybody who's fighting for it?
40:11Who's fighting against the Zionism?
40:14But also, like, what can we do as a world?
40:17It's a tough question.
40:17You can't be optimistic given how shocking it is and how the world has not reacted properly.
40:22Yeah.
40:22I mean, some people are starting to talk a bit late of military intervention.
40:25I mean, it would be possible for, you know, a force, a military force, to just simply go in there.
40:33Yeah.
40:33I don't know why nobody's done that yet, but who would do it?
40:36Yeah.
40:36I mean, these flotillas, this one little boat goes in and, of course, it doesn't...
40:40Yeah, what do you think about Greta?
40:41Yeah, and a couple of years ago, before Gaza, that Mavi Mamara, they shot them up on the way to Gaza.
40:48So, the only sign of hope I can think of is, as I mentioned, slowly popular resistance and dissent and protest.
41:00It had effects in other places.
41:02I mentioned always the Vietnam War ended because, in America, the protest movement, the horror...
41:07Yeah.
41:07When they started to see how bad it was, grew, East Timor ended because of pressure from outside, and in the end, that made a difference.
41:17Apartheid ended.
41:18I don't know what else...
41:19The pressure was...
41:20We all do what we can do.
41:21The boycott movement, Malaysia has a very proud record...
41:23Yeah.
41:24...of standing up, and the boycott movement has now become actually almost legally mandated.
41:27It's become...
41:29The international court is requiring people not to be complicit.
41:32It used to be just a movement of activists, and Malaysia has a very proud, wonderful record of supporting the boycott movement, but that would be a good start.
41:41So, we need to press internationally.
41:44It's so late now.
41:45I mean, in a way, it's too little and too late for the people in Gaza, but still, they need to be saved insofar as it's possible now.
41:52But do you think...
41:53How should it be saved?
41:54Do you think, like, you know what Trump has been pushing for, like, everybody must be... must leave?
42:02Well, that's ethnic cleansing.
42:04It's a crime.
42:04Look, one thing, they should be all taken to the International Court of Justice.
42:07They should all be tried for war crimes.
42:09That's the first thing.
42:12People have been talking about, I keep saying, a military intervention.
42:14I mean, what else can you do?
42:15Why doesn't...
42:16What did they used to call it?
42:17A coalition of the willing.
42:18Yeah.
42:18It used to be called it when they went into Iraq.
42:20Why don't we have a coalition of the willing simply to send a flotilla, armed flotilla?
42:24What else can you do to stop this horror?
42:26I don't know what the answer is.
42:27To be honest, I don't think anybody really knows what to do, but the big powers have to be forced into this.
42:32And even if it was, like, arrest warrants that are acted on in some way to shock the people, look, I'm lost for knowing what to say.
42:41But activists around the world are all doing whatever we can do.
42:43And I think we just have to keep up the pressure and be creative.
42:47And certainly popular understanding is important because that generates a kind of a strong feeling and governments in the end have to act.
42:56Okay.
42:57All right.
42:57Thank you so much, Professor.
42:59Thank you so much.
43:00So thank you for being here with us.
43:02And I really appreciate and it's incredible to hear from you yourself as well.
43:07So thank you so much, guys, for listening.
43:09This is Professor Peter Slezak.
43:11Right.
43:13And that was, I hope we have more conversations in the future.
43:17And thank you so much, guys.
43:18Don't forget to follow Sina Daily on all social media platforms.
43:20We'll see you next time.
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