I gather there were 1000 people in this hall at University of Chicago yesterday, and many had to be turned away, to hear Abunimah, Finkelstein and Mearsheimer talk Gaza.
Mearsheimer and Finkelstein agreed that Israel was the roadblock to
peace. “The bottom line is, what’s going on has little to do with
rockets and mortars…. Everyone knows what the solution is,” Mearsheimer
said. “As [Israeli prime minister] Ehud Olmert said, if Israel
continues on the present trajectory, it will end up as an apartheid
state. That is not good. For Israel’s sake, you should want to settle
this conflict.”
Abunimah, however, disagreed with the feasibility of a two-state
solution, saying that it was merely an “illusion” created by “what I
call peace-process industry.” For Abunimah, the ineffectiveness of
international organizations was just one frustration among many over
the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
Finkelstein’s final lament was the usual caliber of debate on the issue.
listen with such attentiveness to the other speakers on the panel,”
Finkelstein said.
