Haviv Rettig Gur, a veteran journalist for The Free Press, The Times of Israel and host of the “Ask Haviv Anything” podcast, headlined “The Configuration of the Middle East After the Gaza War” last Wednesday, a conversation hosted by the Tufts Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education.
The event, moderated by Eitan Hersh, the center’s director and a professor in the political science department, focused on a range of topics relating to Israel and Palestine, including Israel’s founding, the Israel-Hamas War and the future of Gaza, as well as his thoughts on a one-state versus two-state solution.
Outside of the Cabot Intercultural Center, the Medford Coalition for Palestinian Liberation — which is not directly affiliated with Tufts — protested the event. Demonstrators handed out flyers which read “Reject Propaganda: Stop Normalizing Genocide” and criticized Rettig Gur and Hersh for past comments and the center’s mission.
Rettig Gur opened his remarks by responding to criticism of the event and the flyers. He spoke directly to the protestors and to wider historical ties between Judaism and Israel.
“I want to say something to the people who are angry that this event is happening,” he said. “They’re foreigners with almost no knowledge of what is actually taking place in the region itself.”
“The people handing out those flyers are people who believe that, because they are extremely progressive, they get to be safe, privileged, white and sitting in judgment over the survival of refugee nations,” he added. “In other words, pathetic losers who don’t matter but are too full of themselves and too detached from any lived reality to understand just how utterly blind and irrelevant they are.”
He went on to say that the protesters’ objection to the war in Gaza was “1,000% necessary” and that “fierce and brutal” criticism was fair, but condemned the argument that Israel should not exist.
In the main event discussion, Rettig Gur argued that the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be steering the country towards an intolerant, nationalist trajectory where both Palestinians and Israelis suffer. He contemplated whether Israel was at risk of collapsing given Netanyahu’s leadership.
“That is the feeling of 35% … of Israelis,” Rettig Gur said. “On the question of Netanyahu taking Israel down a path where these moral questions of liberalism are no longer fundamental to Israeli politics, will Israel survive a collapse, a moral collapse like that, an institutional collapse like that?”
Rettig Gur also described the path forward for Palestinian independence as bound with Israeli politics, while criticizing a lack of meaningful engagement with that reality.
“Palestinians will not find independence at Tufts and they’re not going to find independence at the UN and they’re probably not going to find independence in Riyadh or Ankara or even Washington,” he said. “In the end of the day, the central arena for Palestinian independence is Israeli politics, and it’s the only place they refuse to engage at all costs in any way.”
In the latter half of the event, Rettig Gur was asked why the conflict resonates with so many around the world, more so than other issues. He responded by describing the unprecedented nature of these protests, while also expressing concern over young people’s constant exposure to war on social media.
“I’ve met college students over the last two years that I would consider post-traumatic,” he said. “I was a combat medic in an infantry battalion that went into war. I would consider them post-traumatic from what they’ve seen on their freaking phones.”
He went on to argue that marches against Israel’s actions in Gaza could reflect a promising new form of social media-driven opposition to war that makes it harder for governments to sustain conflicts. But he warned that if such mobilization selectively targets Israel, it can lead to the opposite of that ideal.
“Selective outrage isn’t outrage. It’s something else masquerading as outrage to justify itself,” Rettig Gur said.
