George Galloway: It is the truth that must be told … it is the original sin that led to the birth of the state after which all the other sins are consequences. That is the way we have to look at it, it was the illegitimate way which the state was created that has led to all the other illegitimate acts. And if you only deal with the acts without looking at the original sin, then you will fail to understand the reality of this conflict. Essentially, the Zionist idea that there was a land without a people which could be given to a people without land was a fundamental untruth. Palestine did have a people. And that people had to be driven out of Palestine in order for the new state to be born.
Pappe: There were also some positive ideas for Zionism if you distance them from the fate of the Palestinians, it was legitimate to seek a safe heaven for Jews that were about to be exterminated in Europe and it was the right of the Jews as any other people to seek self determination. But not at the expense of the Palestinians and not by dispossessing the Palestinians
My reply: the man was not even making sense but when he said that the Jews had the right to seek a safe haven, why must that safe haven be in Palestine and the European Jews were completely alien to Palestine? What in fact he was saying was that the Jews have the right to be in Palestine because they have this ridiculous idea about Jewish blood in their veins!