"Does The Jewish State Have a Future?
Debating Israel in America"

With Tony Judt, Amos Elon, Alan Brinkley and Raef Zreik

A discussion co-sponsored by Remarque Institute at NYU.

With the Middle East Peace Process at an impasse, and no end in sight to the ethnic violence and hatred plaguing the region, the future of both Israelis and Palestinians seems bleaker than ever. Or is it? Recently, a new debate has emerged, or re-emerged, in American public life, concerning the suggestion that the road to peace and coexistence in Israel/Palestine may lie not in the attempt to establish two separate states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, but in the creation of a new civic identity, shared by Palestinians and Jews alike.

Tony Judt, Director of the Remarque Institute at New York University, has been at the center of this controversy since the publication of his article, "Israel: The Alternative", in the New York Review of Books. In his talk, he presented his views on the One-State solution and on the powerful reactions his article engendered. Joining him for this public discussion were Amos Elon, noted Israeli author and historian; Alan Brinkley, professor of American history and Provost of Columbia University; and Raef Zreik, a Palestinian-Israeli civil rights lawyer and political activist.

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Tony Judt's article may be found online.

A response to Judt's article by Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, may be viewed here.