Division in the arts community over Israel-Gaza war
PK: P. Karvelas
DC: Deborah Conway
(Introduction by PK, not transcribed)
(Talking about a performance of The Seagull, not transcribed)
DC: I am proud to be a jew. I support the right of Israel to exist, which means I am a Zionist.
DC: Since October the 7th everyone in the jewish community has felt very wretched - because we have endured not just the unbelievable death cult atrocities of what happened that day. We have all heard, come of us have seen it, some have us have tried to avoid seeing it, it has been pretty difficult. And then, not only that but on the 8th of October we had to endure this ordinary response from the community who decided that Israel needed, or the jews needed a bit more punishment, and we had groups of people outside the opera house chanting 'gas the jews', before the IDF had lifted a finger in response. And that was unbelievably terrifying, it was for many people, and it made many people very angry, really discombobulated, because you think, feel like, you are in a society that understands you and has welcomed you in your home and then you suddenly find there is this underbelly of extraordinary anti-semitism that refuses to acknowledge your right to a peaceful existence. And it was peaceful before, I mean by and large, before Oct 7, but there has been many claims since that the war started a long time before that ... the history is complex ...
PK: I just wanted to say in relation to the chants of 'gas the jews', that hasn't been verified, and there are now multiple reports that say there were offensive chants directed towards jews during the event [evidence not found etc (not worth transcribing)] ... but you think anti-semitism has risen as a result of this.
DC: I think it uncovered anti-semitism. I think the anti-semitism existed before there was any action from the IDF to respond to what happened on Oct 7 by saying that the jews deserved it and that Israel is an illegitimate state and that we need to relitigate the war of 1948 because Israel should not be there at all. I do believe that unavoidably that is an anti-semitic response, I think.
PK: You described yourself as a Zionist. Now the word 'Zionist' has been really weaponised I think in recent times and perhaps how you described yourself as a Zionist might be different to what people think that might be. What does that word mean to you?
DC: It means a democratic state where the jews rule themselves and they can defend themselves. That is what it means to me. It is the one jewish state in the worldr. Among 193 nations there is one jewish state and that is where jews feel they can defend their right to be jews, in whichever way that takes its form. Israel is a democratic country. I don't know that jews would support a country in their name that was not democratic. [Labour and conservative governments in Israel.]
PK: you mentioned you were conflicted. Are you conflicted about the war in Gaza?
DC: Well I don't believe that Hamas can be allowed to continue to use Gaza as an operations base. So, I don't know that I am conflicted about it. War is awful, it is atrocious, people get killed, it is horrible and unfortunately I think that Hamas have embedded themselves in such a way as to use the Palestinians as a human shield for their operations. It is fairly well documented how much money has gone into that small piece of land and yet still there is an enormous amount of poverty and there are no bomb shelters for people yet Hamas arranges for bombs to be sent into Israel that are going from schools, from hospitals, from mosques, from people's homes, from playgrounds - and then they seem to be happy that when the IDF responds that if a few of their own civilians are killed that makes terrific press. It is so awful I can barely bring myself to say these words but the accounts of them are so many it is difficult to dispute.
PK: You mention that Israel has a right to defend itself. We hear that language a lot but at the same time there has been a disproportionate impact on innocent people.
DC: I hear the response a lot.
PK: Kids, lots of kids. We know they are not Hamas.
DC: Of course. Well it depends what you call kids but you see young people, 16 or 17 year old young people, boys toting rifles. I have seen plenty of photos of that stuff. Unfortunately Hamas recruits boys that are not men yet.
PK: There are a lot of young people dying.
DC: There are a lot of young people dying, but I believe that the responsibility for that lies squarely with Hamas who have embedded themselves in the civilian population. They have not allowed the Gazans to move south when Israel asked them to. They were given two weeks and a safe corridor to go through. Hamas was tellling them they could not move. They actually murdered some people who tried to move. Israelis do a knock on buildings before they bomb them to warn people to get out. There is so much attention on Israel. They don't want to commit war crimes. They really don't. It's very important for them to be as meticulous as possible to not commit war crimes.
PK: Do we know that, Deborah?
DC: I listen to the IDF spokesmen, I listen to the reports from ... I mean Amnesty International announced ten years ago that the al Shifa hospital was being used as a terrorist centre for Hamas and that Palestinian traitors were being taken there to be tortured. This was Amnesty International, an organisation that is not fond of Israel, let me tell you. I can't recite all of the independent information here for you now ... bit I have read plenty of accounts and eyewitness reports that this is the case. And they have gone in and shown us videos, they have discovered weapons caches in schools and under the hospital etc. I would also say to you, I don't know if you remember, in 2002 after the second intifada the IDF went into Jenin and there was a terrible pitched battle for a while. I think maybe a ten day pitched battle or something like that. And people were screaming "the Jenin massacre", "the Jenin massacre", do you recall that? You do, ok. When the smoke had cleared and the bodies were counted ... You know people were screaming "Thousands are dying. What is going on? The international community needs to step in and stop the IDF. And when the smoke had cleared and when the bodies were counted there were 26 IDF soldiers dead and there 56 Palestinian soldiers and civilians dead. I don't think that that qualifies as a massacre.
PK: Look, right now I can't ...
DC: I know you can't because you are the ABC. I get that. I suspect that ...
PK: I can't fact check what you say. I am not focused on that right now.
DC: That's all right. What I am saying is, that is an interesting example of what may be happening here and we get the figures from the Hamas ministry of health and that is the only figures that are kind of out there and they are the ones that are going through the UN, they are kind of laundered through the UN, and everyone says "Oh the UN says ..." but they are getting them from Hamas because no-one else is able to do that, to count the figures, so when we talk about how many civilians are dying, and I have no doubt there are a lot
PK: There are clearly a lot.
DC: But I also don't believe that the figures are accurate, and I don't believe that they could possibly know at this point. At this stage, however many weeks after the October 7 massacre, the Israelis are only just figuring out how many people died on October 7.
PK: Deborah, I am politely saying goodbye to you just because we are way to ...
DC: We could go on and on.
PK: We could talk for a long time and I mean, I know that is your perspective and many other people feel ...
DC: Did we get to the crux of the matter that you wanted to talk about?
PK: I think we talked about the arts at the start, so I appreciate you joining us this morning. Thank you so much for joining us.
DC: That is a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.
PK: Deborah Conway, singer and songwriter and the author of the memoir "The Book of Life". There has been a huge split in the arts community over this. She called herself a Zionist. She very much feels like this war is justified.