We now have an MP3 recording of Monday’s Tikkun Phone Forum discussion with Tony Klug available for you to listen to here. Tony Klug wrote the article in the new issue of Tikkun “Are Israeli Policies Entrenching Anti-Semitism Worldwide.” The discussion was between 2 and 3 AM in the night in England but he sounds extremely coherent. Jack Lampl, the volunteer who edited the recording, called it “A really excellent conversation!” So I think you will think so too.

Tony Klug’s is a wise, compassionate, well-informed voice in this conflict. I hope this recording will be widely heard. Find all our Phone Forum recordings here.

Dr. Klug is a veteran commentator on Middle East affairs. His Visions of the Endgame (Fabian Society, 2009–download the pdf here) outlines a strategy for Obama and the international community to bring the conflict swiftly to an end.

In an earlier pamphlet in 2007, How Peace broke out in the Middle East (pdf here), he described an imagined future sequence of events as if they had taken place in the past, to indicate how Israelis and Palestinians could bring about peace by themselves. As you will hear him say on this recording, Tony Klug now believes that events have moved beyond this latter possibility. He thinks that although both sides can still reach a settlement they would think viable (still a two state solution), they cannot now do it without being forced into it by the international community, which can only be led in this by the Obama administration. The alternative to an imposed two state solution, he says, is endless conflict.

My blog post connecting Tony’s perspective with the recent hate piece by Alan Dershowitz against the 39 rabbis who supported Judge Goldstone is here.

Note about changed headline: The original headline for this post was “Audio Interview with Tony Klug: It’s now up to Obama to impose a solution in Israel / Palestine.” Tony Klug responded: “One point about your blog post. There are indeed various plans around to impose a solution but I don’t think it’s quite right to describe mine in this way, as my proposal includes important participatory (particularly the first step) as well as coercive elements. I think it’s more accurate to say something like ‘It’s now up to Obama to drive a solution in Israel / Palestine’. I don’t know if you feel it’s possible to alter the headline to capture this spirit?” Sorry, Tony!