The New Yorker writer who did the interview…
Several years ago, I interviewed Michael Oren, Netanyahu’s former ambassador to the US. I thought his answers here were worth thinking about now, in terms of both Gaza and the West Bank.
Oren is fucking nuts. The writer’s part of the dialog is in bold.
archive.today • Michael Oren Cuts Short a Conversation About Israel | The New Yorker
…I think it is our incontrovertible right as Jews to live anywhere in our ancestral homeland.
Really?
No question. No question about it. Anywhere. And a member of the Sioux nation has a right to live on Sioux-nation territory. These are our tribal lands. The cradle of our civilization.
Just to be clear: You were born in New York, correct?
I was.
So you think that you, as a Jewish person born in New York, have a right to be anywhere in Israel—
Absolutely.
Plus the West Bank, plus Gaza.
Absolutely. Not Gaza. We can debate whether Gaza is part of the land of Israel.
O.K., Israel plus the West Bank.
Even if you wanted to include Gaza, I’d say absolutely, yeah. The question is what is smart. What’s possible.
Who gave you the right to live anywhere you want in the West Bank? That’s what I am trying to understand.
Absolutely.
Where did you get that right?
It’s my heritage for three thousand years. It’s the same exact right I have from where I am talking to you. I am talking to you from Jaffa. I live in Jaffa. The same right I have to live in Jaffa I have in [the settlement] Beit El or Efrat, or in Hebron. Exact same right. Take away one right, the other right makes no sense. By the way, P.S., most of the lands of pre-1967 Israel are not even in the Bible. Haifa is not in the Bible; Tel Aviv is not in the Bible.
Did he actually say “P.S.”? Who says that?