Do Israelis Genuinely Want Peace with Palestinians?

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]when they said, "Okay, we want to live here." We opened the doors exactly when you start showing the when you shot you start showing the intentions, when you brought the weapons and you start killing people, that's when people attack.

[00:00:10]>> I'm Rudy Rockman. I'm a Jewish and Israel rights activist and today I'm surrounded by 20 pro Palestinian activists who completely disagree with me.

[00:00:20]>> Myan claim that with the current situations, we don't see a genuine desire among Israelis to achieve peace.

[00:00:27]So I agree that the Israeli government is doing nothing to change the current status quo and benefits from that status quo politically, economically and in many ways. This is a critique that I have openly in Israel towards the government towards extremist voices which to me are embarrassing. The things that they're saying like Benville and Smoltridge that are going and talking about ethnic cleansing. This is horrible and not what our culture has to be. And I always tell Israelis that the biggest win of Hamas is not how many Israelis they killed, it's how many Israelis they turn to being just like them. hateful of an entire population.

[00:00:58]>> It's sad to think and and this game we can go back and forth and play in just the chicken and the egg game. Who who who caused the Israelis to become uh pro- genocide, pro- ethnic cleansing is Hamas is causing that. Hamas just started 1986. And we have to understand that the actions of the Israeli governments, the actions of of discrimination and apartheid is what is causing us to have these conflicts and fights between between each other. You have the power. You have the military.

[00:01:24]You have the money. You have the support of the whole Western world. For God's sake, you can do something different about what's happening there. We are tied. We are stuck in the corner. Our kids are being killed right and left.

[00:01:35]Our homes are being destroyed. You know what? If all what I have is just to throw a little rock at you, you have to understand where that's coming from.

[00:01:42]>> I I understand. And and I never made the claim that uh the Israeli hate towards Palestinians that exist comes from kamas that has existed since 1948 from the conflicts that we have even from the massacre in 1929. I actually go to the British that divided our people. That's where it's sourced not me or not you but there are ways to move forward. Now you called Israel an apartheid and apartheid is one country, one state, one civilization with different rights for different peoples. Those who are living in Israel have equal rights. There's another territory called the West Bank Judans Maria which has a different jurisdiction which has different jurisdiction. Gaza has different jurisdiction. I'm wait I'm against the division of Islam. I want to see this land united but that's actually the opposite of an apartheid because an apartid would be one country with different rights for different people.

[00:02:22]Now we're talking about different territories, different jurisdictions. I don't have a right there. They don't have a right here. It's bad but it's not an apartheid. Now you said something I actually agree with you. We have the power. With that power comes the responsibility. And this is something that every Jew, every Israeli, every Zionist should listen. We have the power to correct the problems of our Palestinian family and our cousins. And we talk about healing the world and empowering other nations. Well, we need to do we need to action government criminalizing free speech. Uh pushing uh >> that's not in Israel. That's in America, you're saying?

[00:02:55]>> Yeah, but Apac is an extension of what's Apac.

[00:02:59]>> That's good. Good to know.

[00:03:00]>> Yeah. I'm not for America getting involved in the Middle East. I'm not for that. Now if you uh if you you you mentioned earlier about the the division between the West Bank areas area A area B area Cre you served in the army right it's it's really do you think that's that's they have the full freedom to do whatever they want in area A >> they don't have the full >> it's just few miles of distance people cannot drive out of these areas young people are losing hope what do you expect from a 20-year-old boy or old young man who has no hope to get married no hope to get a job to get what do you expect >> I understand that That's why when I look at Israelis who become extremist, Palestinians who become extremists, I understand where it's coming from.

[00:03:39]>> And what are you doing about the settlers?

[00:03:41]>> Enough of us who in just few months >> we're going to address the the Jews in Judans. But just as there are extremist individuals, there are people like us who don't hate one another.

[00:03:49]>> As long you keep you keep rejecting and refusing to use the word Palestine.

[00:03:53]>> I don't reject the word Palestine.

[00:03:54]>> You keep saying Jude and Sam. You keep saying that.

[00:03:56]>> I mean that territory has been historically understand people. I'm telling you that psychologically if you wanted to achieve peace, if you want to achieve ease, you have to also understand what your words how powerful they are. When you keep saying Judea and Sam, Judea, you know, this is what people call Palestinian.

[00:04:14]I say West Bank/Judan Sam cuz Judan smear is not talking about the entirety of what is Israel/Palestine. This is specifically what you're implying when you use those terms. But this is what happens in the Palestinian, right?

[00:04:25]>> Where's the word West Bank come from?

[00:04:27]It's the British that used that term that's the common term was called Palestinians gets in mind when you keep using those terms like okay we're next they're going to come and take us take us out that's that's what comes in the mind >> when Jews hear the term Palestine they think oh you're trying to erase us this is where we need to be able to accept each other's identity I'm a Jew I'm a Hebrew I'm an Israelite this land has historically to my people been called Israel/Jan speific actions are speaking louder than my actions not my actions other people's actions that you can accepted to serve in the army that's causing to serve in the army. I serve so many soldier so many soldiers are rejecting and% that's bravery. That's bravery on their behalf.

[00:05:05]>> I served in the army proudly. You don't have a weak Jew in front of you. You have a proud Budan warrior in front of you >> to be proud of a machine that's killing people right now. It's not a machine. It is a machine a little text message get out of your house issues. I condemn certain actions, certain policies, certain things that they do because I'm an individual first before anything else. And when there are countries all around that have constantly attacked and tried to kill our people without an IDF, we would not exist.

[00:05:31]>> You're the one who started.

[00:05:32]>> No, we're not. Didn't you say we shouldn't be pointing out who started the chicken or the egg?

[00:05:36]>> No. That's what we arguing. You're saying that these countries are coming attack you. Imagine if Imagine if if a foreign country come and invaded California. You expect Texas and Israelis are invaders? The Israeli arms invaded Palestine were invaders.

[00:05:50]Absolutely. Were the indigenous people that came back to our land.

[00:05:53]>> They came with them. When they came peacefully, we opened our doors for them. I'm sure in 1929, it was so peaceful.

[00:06:00]>> When they came peacefully, when they said, "Okay, want to live here?" We opened their doors. Exactly. Palestinian when you start showing the when you shot you start showing the intentions when you brought the weapons and you start killing people, that's when people act.

[00:06:11]>> See the difference in this conversation is that there are bad actors on both sides. I'm identifying the individual bad actors on the Israeli side, identifying the bad actors on the Palestinian side and saying do not attach these bad actors to all Palestinians. What you're doing is identifying the bad actors here and saying it's all Israelis and refusing to identify bad. I said majority they came on the borders of horrible and cheering the things that you see death to Arabs right and left minority of the populationity. It's a great minority should be it should be zero is Israel a democratic state.

[00:06:42]>> Yes. So why would a minority be able to control the actions of the government?

[00:06:46]Great question. This is the majority >> parliamentary system government where you have all these different parties and in order to have power you need to have over 60 seats out of 120 seats in order to have the majority. You don't have a 60 party seat. You have a 20, you have a five, you have a two and the majority is very small. So then a party with two seats that is a minority has the ability to unfortunately that's the reality of the political system. That's why we got to change the things that all speak for Natao. There's plenty of criticism that have Natao. Okay, we can talk about Natao and Ben Visage and bad actors and bad individuals. What I'm talking about is how do we move forward from here?

[00:07:20]It's not going to come from the politicians, right?

[00:07:22]>> It's going to come from the majority of the Israeli people to accept the rights of the Palestinians to be equal.

[00:07:27]>> I agree with you, but you have to accept my rights to be able to be a human being here and not demonize my people. I I I serve I I worked as a dentist in in Bethlehem in a outside of the city of Bethlehem next to a place called movie Betar >> where my patients were Jews, Muslims, and Christians. And guess what? All what they care about how much it's going to hurt to pull out a tooth >> when they're sitting in the room. So what what I'm trying to tell you here that we have no problem living with each other, but not with a gun on our head.

[00:07:53]Not when you're taking on my house. Not when you're telling me you cannot go to work every day. Not when you humilate me on every checkpoint. you remember who you're talking to. I'm against the checkpoints. I'm against the walls that divide our land. I'm against the fact that we're currently living to become the majority. You are a minority.

[00:08:07]>> No, we're not. We're silent uh large population. I wouldn't say it's the majority or a minority, but we're a large population and we need to create a social revolution. And we in this land have to start changing the conversation, no longer demonizing one another and being able to envision a future relationship.

[00:08:22]>> Can you also add to your activism that you guys get off the freedom of speech of America? Let us speak whenever. Well, you have to speak about against that as well.

[00:08:30]>> I believe in freedom of speech in every country in the world.

[00:08:33]>> Your government, your government is imposing so much restrictions on freedom of speech of Americans and we are not liking that and you are losing the Americans because of that.

[00:08:43]>> I don't think Americans should have a limitation of freedom of speech unless someone is trying to invoke violence on someone and saying I'm planning to then that's different than just saying I'm expressing an idea that I have.

[00:08:52]>> How many professors lost their jobs because they said they're anti- genocide?

[00:08:55]>> A lot of professors I went to Colombia they're actually supporting genocide of Jews and saying that October >> there's no genocide against Jews, man.

[00:09:03]That victim mentality. Nobody's after you guys.

[00:09:06]>> A lot of people are after us.

[00:09:07]>> After your actions in New York City, okay, we are 13% of the population. Over 60% of total hate crimes are targeted against Jews that exist. I sit down with the chief of police. I'll tell you what, I sat down with actions that people sat down with the chief of police here in anti-semitism. I'm not I'm saying you are so much better in reporting that better than everybody else. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I'm saying that's what we heard from the chief of police of many cities around here. Guys, you need to report hate crimes against your community. Of course, >> because this community reports it better than everybody else and collect all the benefits reporting them. So you guys know what's interesting about anti-semitism. The far right blames us for being the left. The far left thinks we're the right. The black supremacist, the farcons, we're enemy number one. The white supremacist, it's not victim mentality.

[00:09:51]>> It's not. It's understanding our reality. You think everybody's after you. No. The extremes are always obsessed against the Jewish people. Why?

[00:09:58]Cuz the Jewish people have a function in this earth that we have yet to fulfill, which is to be the world's immune system. Okay. We chose that responsibility. It is our mission statement of the world. And the reason why there's anti-semitism, it is a rejection and reaction to the Jewish people failing their purpose.

[00:10:11]>> I think that's that's with all due respect to what you just said. It's really a wild dream that you have that people idea of unity around the world is a wild dream, right? The Jewish people believe in a reality called Mashia, a reality where we will have peace in this earth.

[00:10:23]>> You know, people people >> blame everything on anti-semitism right now.

[00:10:28]>> No, there's a lot of anti-semitism that exists. It's not everything. Everyone is an anti-semite. I don't consider you an anti-semite. Okay? Because we had a conversation, we understood that you define Zionism differently. Exactly. So I'm not so what I'm asking you if you want if you want to tackle this issue and we go back to it is try to understand when people are criticizing the actions of the Israeli government when people are expecting from it to act like a civilized nation they're not being anti-semite but when people are demonizing Israel delegitimizing Israel holding double standards they are there's no double standards there are double standards there no double standards why why is it okay to be double standards when we get amount of support from America but it's not okay when the Americans are criticizing our actions >> what does it do to America I'm against the support of America when their actual genocide and no one is talking about those things that are happening. You never said it's double standards that the US government gives $3 billion every year to Israel.

[00:11:18]>> I did. Well, is it a double standard or is an intentional investment in order to control Israel?

[00:11:21]>> But it's it's not the same for every other country. So why >> it's not a double standard that that's an you're you're helping a country in order to be able to control it. Has nothing to do with double standards.

[00:11:30]Double standard would be looking at all the problems in this world and realizing wow there's so many people here in Sudan that have been killed in Nigeria that have been killed in in Israel Palestine that have been killed and caring about all of them or looking at Palestinians when Hamas is killing Palestinians I don't see any protest I don't see any riots I don't see >> people choose what to be active about certain they choose to care about your people my family only when it is profiting from this the media companies the military companies >> anybody who is in the media who acts in any way to criticize what's going he's losing his job.

[00:12:05]>> That's not true. All the media companies are just you see on the media are always going against Israel.

[00:12:10]>> You know, you know, I I sat down if I could just just to redirect this a little bit. I did hear points of agreement, frustration with Apac, you know, frustrations with Netanyahu, agreements on, you know, uh things that you want to see change in Israel. Can I would love to hear from Rudy and then your response doctor on like what changes do we want to see where there is alignment.

[00:12:33]>> I think the most productive way we can continue this conversation is to understand how do we change the narratives for our collectives to start seeing each other as human beings and being able to exist in this land. So that goes to the Israeli population. How can we start seeing the Palestinian identity as a legitimate identity connected to this land as their suffering as real suffering? And how could Palestinians start to understand that the Jewish people are also connected to this land, have a right to be here when they're being attacked and suffering, that's also something to condemn. So how do you suggest that we can change the cultural view, not just the political, >> you cannot put the uh carriage before the horse? You cannot expect people who don't have any human rights, they don't have the ability to find food or to feed their children or to protect their families and then expect them to go into that high level of uh civilized social understanding. First let them have the freedom, the ability to leave the the self-determination right. Let them be feeling that they're safe in their homes, in their cities, in their villages. Nobody's going to come and take their their food. No one's going to come and bomb their homes. I am telling you just few months ago my friends he has a huge amount of sheep in the in the maz which is a town north of Ramlah and they just came and took all the cattle that he has. This is the fear that Palestinians have. What do you expect us to do? Just sit down be sitting ducks being shot by the Israeli soldiers?

[00:13:55]First let's give them the rights. Let's give them the the the sense of security and safety that Israelis are not going to come after them every time they every chance they have. That's the first step.

[00:14:05]Israelis are not coming after all Palestinians. There's some bad actors that happen like in all populations, but this like generalization of Israel coming.

[00:14:12]>> I lived as a kid and and I saw what I I'm looking at it from the other side. I look at from the other side.

[00:14:17]>> Okay. So, I I hear your experiences in in Bethlehem, which is a house of bread in Hebrew, ancient Jewish town.

[00:14:23]>> Okay. So, let's talk about what you were just saying. I don't agree with you entirely that they can't do anything.

[00:14:28]They can't have any conversation. No one can be seen as other than just being an extremist. I don't agree with that. But I do agree with you that Israel with the power has a greater responsibility to change. And I always talk about this that if Israel removed Hamas, gave people freedom of speech, invested in education, in infrastructure, in job opportunities, and slowly when we saw that the population is not reacting that way to the Israeli government to remove >> history shows us otherwise.

[00:14:51]>> History shows what otherwise.

[00:14:52]>> History shows us that whenever Israelis have the full power of controlling lives of Palestinians, they're going to make their life hell. They're going to make their life miserable. I think that the Palestinians living in Israel are the freest Palestinians that are living anywhere in the world.

[00:15:04]>> I don't think even the Israelis want to do that strategically. They think it's a bad idea to put all Palestinians under one state. Demographically, they will be minority.

[00:15:11]>> We wouldn't be agree with some people, but we wouldn't because a lot of people aren't aware that there are 12 tribes of Israel. The Ethiopians are one of the ones that were displaced of the nine and a half that have yet to come back.

[00:15:21]>> We want to we want to respect the intelligence of the the viewers. Like this is what what are you talking about?

[00:15:25]>> We are made up of 12 tribes, the Jewish people. This is not an idea. If their Native Americans are made up of many tribes or many nations, it's also a truth. Because you haven't heard or don't know or aren't aware, that's something different. We're made up of 12 tribes. Today's population of the Jewish people, 16 million around the world, is two and a half. There are nine and a half that you have to return. If they are to return, and Palestinians are to return, there's no more demographic threat that Israelis feel. You are able to have full equal rights in that land with the right of return and we're able to transcend and to move forward. But you shouldn't be speaking to Israelis who are afraid of telling you the truth or who are weak. And I shouldn't be speaking to Palestinians who are tokens are just trying to demonize other Palestinians or fans who are here to try to like use our conflict to go against one another or to gain popularity. We have a future together and it's one that includes both aspirations that we have and ending the injustices for both peoples. I reciprocate by saying that Palestinians have no problem with uh peaceful solutions that will guarantee their dignity, their ability to live, their ability to have uh futures they can where they can raise their children in a safe and and a comfortable environment. Palestinians don't have the desire to kill or attack every Jewish or every Israeli. All what Palestinians are doing are defending themselves from those atrocities and those attacks that are happening against them. I believe strongly once the Israelis stop attacking, dehumanizing, bombing Palestinians villages and homes, Palestinians will not have a problem with them. I want you to know that as a Palestinian, >> I agree. Most are like that. And inshallah, we'll get to that reality.

[00:16:54]>> All right. All right. Let's stop there.

[00:16:56]Let's give them a hand. [applause]