UPDATE: Go here for Melanie Phillips’s take on the debate (she had been a “yes” in an earlier debate (2019) on the same question in London).
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Normally you’d have to pay to watch this Munk Debate (they’re all in Toronto), but it recently appeared on FIRE’s YouTube site. And normally I wouldn’t watch it as it’s nearly two hours long, but it’s a holiday and I get to do something besides writing.
In my view, this is a “good” debate for two reasons. First, and less important, the opponents of the motion show themselves up to be zealots: both fanatical, purveyors of lies, and swallowers of Hamas propaganda. They both want Israel eliminated in favor of a “one-state” solution, which only a fool would think wouldn’t lead to the elimination and/or dispersal of its Jews. In that sense, the debate shows the opponents of the motion up for who they are, both anti-Zionists and antisemites.
But mainly it’s good because both Murray and Hausdorff show their typical debating skill, eloquence, and adherence to the truth. (As I note below, I’ve already said in previous posts that I agree that modern anti-Zionism (i.e., calls for the elimination of Israel) is also anti-Semitism, so I came to this debate with my own strong pro-proposition opinion. That said, I think I was open to having my mind changed, but I can’t envision what arguments would do it. In the same way, I’m open to see evolution proven as false, but I can’t imagine what arguments (or data) would do it.
Here’s the motion under debate:
Motion: Be it Resolved, anti-Zionism is antisemitism
And here are the relevant definitions given by the moderator:
antisemitism: “Hate directed at Jewish people, or cruel and unfair treatment of people because they are Jewish”
anti-Zionism: being against Zionism, defined as “the movement for the self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel.”
We have four people participating. As the Munk site notes (I’ve added the links to the people):
Arguing for the resolution is award winning journalist, best-selling author, and former Munk Debater Douglas Murray. His debate partner will be Natasha Hausdorff, an international law expert and legal commentator on antisemitism.
Hausdorff is director of the UK Lawyers for Israel, and, like Murray, is whip-smart, eloquent, and passionately pro-Israel. If I had to choose a pair to defend the motion, it would be these two. (Look up some of Hausdorff’s interviews and debates on YouTube.) Hausdorff is the only one of the four without a Wikpedia page, and that needs to be fixed.
Opposing the resolution is Mehdi Hasan. Mehdi is a best-selling author, former MSNBC anchor, and the CEO and editor-in-chief of the new media company Zeteo. He will be joined by the award winning Israeli broadcaster and Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy.
Hasan had an MSNBC show but left the network when his show was canceled. Levy, who writes for Haaretz, seems to hate the idea of a Jewish state, for he, like Hasan, favors a “one-state solution” and he also supports boycotts of Israel. As Malgorzata says, “he believes that Jews can live happily and peacefully alongside Palestinians in a single state.” She added, “Levy is either a fanatic or stupid—and he’s not stupid.”
There are four six-minute presentations, four three-minute rebuttals, and then the moderator asks the debaters questions, which leads to a back-and-forth that got quite heated, especially on the “no” side. There were lots of interruptions. (Hausdorff, however, seems incapable of shows of anger, but she’s nevertheless passionate.) Finally, the debate ends with four 4-minute closing statements by the debaters and then the final vote (spoiler: Murray and Hausdorff win).
But enough palaver. Watch for yourself. The debate preliminaries start at 4:00, while the debate proper starts at 14:02 with Douglas Murray’s 6-minute statement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6sOB2ROq_c
My notes as I watched:
Hausdorff’s opening speech, giving what she sees as the four “blood libels” of anti-Zionism, is magnificent. These are, she avers, libels used by anti-semites to justify their ant-Zionism. She denies that (at least now) Zionism is not a political movement.
Levy, on the other hand, sees Zionism as “Jewish supremacy.” By that I don’t think he means Jews are superior to all other people or to the Arab citizens of Israel. Rather, he sees Zionism as the view that Jews are superior to Palestinians. This is likely connected with his preferred “one-state” solution. Levy thus sees Zionism as an ideology: the doctrine of Jewish supremacy that has to be leveled by creating one Jewish + Palestinian state. He also argues that Israel is “more Jewish than democratic” as sees Israel as “occupiers”.
In his own rebuttal, Hasan agrees that Zionism is the doctrine of “Jewish supremacy”.
In her rebuttal, Hausdorff argues that the use of double standards against Jewish state omstantiates both anti-Zionism AND anti-Semitism. She scores a huge debate point when she catches Hasan lying about the Balfour declaratin, and happens to have his out-of-context quote on hand, which she corrects.
In his rebuttal, Levy argues that to create a real democracy in Israel, you more or less have to get rid of Israel, creating a single state in which there is a single regime promoting equality of Palestinians and Israels. Levy, an Israeli Jew, apparently believes that Israel is not a democracy because citizens of the Palestinian territories can’t vote in Israeli elections. Murray calls both of his opponents out for argui9ng Israel is not a “democracy.” Indeed, that argument is not even stupid.
One of the best parts of the debate is Murray’s description of how anti-Israel students in America (and other countries, I suppose) as falling in two classes: the “sinister and the silly” That starts at 1:10:16.
To my mind, the most sagacious statement of the debate was Hausdorff’s analogy that, to her, explains why antisemitism is the same thing as anti-Zionism. She says that a couple can argue about whether or not to have a child, and that there could be good arguments on both sides. But she adds this: “Once a child is born, to suggest that that child be got rid of is murder.” What she means, of course, is that before 1948 there was a debate, even among Jews, about whether a Jewish state should be created. But once it came into being in that year, it was a fait accompli, Jews flocked there to find refuge, and it is a nation like other nations, with the right to defend itself against aggression.
That is why to Hausdorff, and to me, it is murder to call for the elimination of a Jewish state that already exists. Whether it be through war or the one-state “solution”, that elimination, an “anti-Zionist” endeavor, shows “cruel and unfair treatment of people because they are Jewish”—the given definition of anti-Semitism.
In the end, the “one-state solution” will lead not only to dissolution of Israel, but the targeting of Jews. Since both Levy and Hasan favor that “one-state solution”, they are in effect calling for either the destruction of the Jews through murder or through dispersion of them throughout the world, for those are the two fates of the Jews under a one-state “solution.” Antisemitism, as Murray maintains, has taken the form of anti-Zionism.
You may ask yourself, as I did, whether a Jew like Levy can be antisemitic if they are anti-Zionist. How can a Jew be antisemitic? The answer is this: for the same reason that an American can be anti-American. In the end it’s not your own identity that determines whether or not you like or hate that identity, but how you feel about those who share your identity.
thanks for posting this item
Yes, thank you for the link. Yesterday I had declined to pay the Munk organisation $25 for the pleasure of watching it.
I fully agree with Jerry’s answer to the question, “How can a Jew be antisemitic?”
Really, the question itself is antisemitic. It conflates the mutable and the immutable: being Jewish (apart from the case of converts to Judaism, under certain interpretations) is an immutable property. One is born Jewish just as one is born Chinese, Italian, or Igbo (immutable and unique genetic markers, geographical origins, cultural history, etc.). Antisemitism, by contrast, is a hate ideology and a belief system of conspiracy theories. An individual chooses to be antisemitic, or chooses not to be. Asserting that one’s ethnicity/race (an immutable trait) is a determining factor in one’s ideological orientations (mutable traits) is the very definition of racism, in this case, antisemitism. Anti-Zionist Jews: you’re antisemites.
Relatedly, “I am an anti-Zionist but I’m married to a Jew. How can I be antisemitic?” That’s just like asking “Bill Cosby is married to a woman, how can he be a misogynist?”
“Since both Levy and Hasan favor that “one-state solution”, they are in effect calling for either the destruction of the Jews”
The “in effect” here is doing a lot of work.
Jews and Zionists are not literally the same thing. There are Jews which are not Zionists, just as there are Zionists which are not Jews, as many fundamentalist Christians in the US are. So it’s perfectly logically consistent to be pro-Zionist without being pro-Jewish, and the other way around. For the same reason, it’s possible to be anti-Jewish without being anti-Zionist, and anti-Zionist without being anti-Jewish. While it may be that in 2024 the two are strongly correlated, it’s still true that they are not literally the same thing.
Does anyone really disagree with this, or is this all semantic debate about what “the same” means?
If your anti-Zionism means you don’t believe the state of Israel should exist, and should be dissolved, then yes, that’s a flat-out anti-Jewish statement, because it means you don’t want Jews to have a homeland, or to be able to physically defend themselves.
Historical context is important in answering the question because the meaning of anti-zionist changed during the course of the Twentieth century.
Before the modern state of Israel was created at, say, the start of the Twentieth century, being anti-zionist meant you were against the creation of a homeland for Jews. I don’t see that as any different from being against the creation of a specific homeland for any ethnic group. There are many reasons why you might hold that position, not necessarily anything to do with having a hatred of the ethnic group.
Here in the 21st century, Israel exists and being anti-zionist means being in favour of dismantling that country. I agree with Jerry that this would be disastrous for the Jews living in its former territory, if, as seems likely, it is taken over by an Islamic regime. Being anti-zionist now means either being in favour of the deaths or deportations of millions of Jews, or wilfully ignoring the possibility that it might happen i.e. being indifferent to the fate of millions of Jews. Either way, it is anti-semitic.
You’re not dealing with the question, which is whether if you’re ANTI-ZIONIST, you’re being antisemitic at the same time. That is not the converse of what you’re talking about.
It seems like utopian thinking, after a fashion.
It would be really nice if Jews and Arabs could live together in harmony, perhaps even singing like in those old coke commercials.
Zionism is “A movement for the development and protection of a Jewish nation in Israel” (Compact Oxford, 3rd ed) Or you could use the definition given in the post.
There is nothing exclusionary about Zionism. It allows people of other faiths, and those unaffiliated, to live and work there, as long as they follow the rules. The main rule is that you are not allowed to kill all the Jews.
That rule in particular is a real problem for Palestinian Arabs, as following it requires them to violate a fundamental tenet of their faith.
To be a Zionist is to accept the realities and challenges of maintaining a nation in Israel that allows Jews in particular to live in relative safety. The checkpoints and walls are not there to oppress anyone. They are there to keep the children from being stabbed or blown up.
In the end, I think the mildest form of anti-Zionism is a childish notion that the sometimes harsh-seeming actions of Zionists are the cause of the problem, not a response to it.
What a fantastic debate.
Mehdi Hasan is as usual, often a demagogue and flat-out liar. Disappointing.
My reasons for being pro-Israel are:
Jews have been historically persecuted for centuries. Douglas Murray asked during the debate, “Who will protect the Jews? Europeans? Arabs?” Having one Jewish majority nation allows Jews to defend themselves.
There are about 49 Muslim majority nations but only 1 Jewish majority nation. While Muslims and Christians enjoy the same civil rights as Jews in Israel, in nearly all of the 49 Muslim majority nations, Jews and Christians are treated as second class citizens, as many Muslims are. The fact is that most Muslim majority nations don’t allow any of their citizens much in the way of rights.
The battle between Israel and its enemies is part of a larger global battle that has been going on for about 250 years between liberal democracy and various forms of dictatorship, including both religious, non-religious dictatorships. The defeat of Israel would mean one less liberal democracy in the world and one more Muslim dictatorship.
The amount of land that Israel possesses is very small compared to the amount of land occupied by Arabs. Israel is about the size of New Jersey with a population smaller than North Carolina.
The only place in the Middle East where Arabs enjoy decent human rights is Israel. Arab Israeli citizens represent over 10 percent of the Israeli population and sit in the Israeli parliament, serve in the Israeli military and on the Israeli Supreme Court. The defeat of Israel would be a loss for non-Jewish Arabs, Christian Israelis, Muslim Israelis as well as Jewish Israelis.
To support human rights is to support Israel.
Israel is a bit of a tall poppy as well compared to its Arab neighbors, which are generally lagging on every humanitarian and economic indicator. There is no small amount of jealousy and humiliation involved in the Arab hatred of Israel…a bit like the lazy, obtuse student getting mad at the hardworking classmate who gets good marks…
While Muslims and Christians enjoy the same civil rights as Jews in Israel,…
You could have added atheists.
You can’t start a war, kill and maim thousands of civilians, take hundreds hostages, and when you are losing the war you started, complain to high heaven. And don’t forget that the leaders of Gaza still repeat their promise that they would repeat October 7 as soon as they can. Polls show that the majority of Palestinian in Gaza still think that October 7 was glorious.
Murray’s points regarding the double standard that anti-Zionists/semites apply to Israel is excellent.
On a related note, I find the hypocrisy of those calling for the elimination of Israel but not of the 22 “Arab world” countries, including 15 that enforce sharia law, appalling.
>She says that a couple can argue about whether or not to have a child, and that there could be good arguments on both sides. But she adds this: “Once a child is born, to suggest that that child be got rid of is murder.”
It’s a fantastic analogy. But to play the opposition, can you equate the life of a child with the abstract concept of a ‘Nation’? Is there perhaps a bit of emotional manipulation there? When Czechoslovakia fell, was that a murder? When Yoguslavia fissioned, was that a murder? Or a birth? When Scotland and Wales were subsumed into the UK, was that a murder?
Does the state of Israel has as much life on this Earth as any other state, in that it will probably fall or have it’s borders altered at some point, or should it be uniquely different?
I don’t think you’re grasping the metaphor: once something has come into being, its moral status may change and that, she’s arguing, is the case for Israel. HOWEVER, a one-state solution is much closer to a murder than is Wales being subsumed into the UK. In the case of Israel, a one-state “solution” almost surely entails murders of Jews, while no Welsh, as far as I know, were killed when Wales became part of the UK.
I don’t get your last point, unless you’re arguing that Israel has no more right than any other country to defend itself against terrorism. A one-state solution is not the same as Wales being part of the UK. Israel would disappear as an entity under that situation; Wales didn’t. Plus, as everyone knows, the one-state thing will result in killing of/expulsion of the inhabitants (Jews), so Israel is not at all the same as Wales.
Do not make up email addresses, please.
If Muslim attitudes towards people who aren’t Muslims, but especially Jews, were to radically change in a positive direction, then a one-state solution might be possible. But we must live in the real world as it exists today.
From a historical perspective, today few people doubt the ability of Baptists and Catholics to live together in a single state. But this is the result of several centuries in cultural-religious change.
If most of the 49 Muslim majority nations in the world today were places of religious tolerance, women’s rights, homosexual rights and freedom of speech and press, the idea of a one state solution in Israel might be plausible. Those who advocate for a one state solution today must either want the Jews exterminated or just aren’t paying attention to the sorry state of human rights in the Muslim world.
Apologies for the email.
I accept that once something comes into being that its status has changed, by definition if nothing else.
I agree that a one-state solution as presently concieved would represent a mortal crisis for Jews given that they’d be integrated with fanatics who want to murder them. I don’t suggest this would be a desireable outcome.
>while no Welsh, as far as I know, were killed when Wales became part of the UK.
Well, the ‘killing’ happened over several centuries before the subsuming was made official, but medieval history is not my strongpoint and I’d defer to an expert for the exact numbers/dates.
>I don’t get your last point, unless you’re arguing that Israel has no more right than any other country to defend itself against terrorism.
Certainly Israel has the same right as any other country to defend itself and (it should go without saying) I condemn the terrorist group that is Hamas for their attacks. But, and the point I was attempting to make, does the Israeli state have a unique right to exist that other nation states don’t? Because it has claimed to be *the* Jewish state, is the world obligated to protect it more than other states? Would failure to protect the Israeli state be different to failing to protect other states that have fallen such as Czechoslovakia?
I don’t think that people insist that Israel has more rights to be protected than any other state, but that’s not my point, which is that Israel is uniquely CRITICIZED because it is the only Jewish state, and is held to standards higher than other states or territories. Actually, the Muslim states of the Middle East, like “THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN” are also states that harbor members of one religion (Israel, of course, harbors members of all three Abrahamic religions), but, unlike Israel, Jews cannot live in these states The Muslim states are truly “apartheid states.”
The reason the world is picking on Israel while leaving the brutal and terroristic Palestinian territories alone is precisely because Israel was founded as a state that could be a refuge for Jews.
End of discussion, please.
Nobody died when Wales became part of the UK. It had already been subsumed into the Kingdom of England by that point and the creation of the UK was more like a corporate takeover of Scotland than a conquest.
A few hundred years earlier, Wales was subsumed into England by force and people on both sides did die in the fighting. However, there was subsequently no systematic attempt to erase the Welsh people or Welsh culture from the territory (which is likely what would happen in the Middle East). Wales diid not die, it merely changed its political status.
There was a systematic attempt to eliminate the Welsh language though, beginning with “The Laws in Wales” Acts in 1535 and 1542.
Elder of Ziyon discusses the debate here, correcting Hasan on a few points.
https://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2024/06/answering-mehdi-hasans-arguments-yes.html
“In his own rebuttal, Hasan agrees that Zionism is the doctrine of “Jewish supremacy”.
That’s pretty rich considering that equal civil and religious rights for all other peoples in Israel was mandated under International law by the League of Nations.
Meanwhile, one inch to the east of Israel, is the nation of Jordan, also created by the League of Nations as the homeland for Levantine Arabs in Palestine. Unlike Israel, and upon Arab insistence, (Trans-) Jordan was created *without* equal civil and religious rights for Jews. Jews were either killed or ethnically cleansed from Jordan almost immediately, their synagogues destroyed and their gravestones used to line Jordanian urinals.
I wonder if Mehdi Hasan has ever once in his life spoken of “Arab supremacy” wrt Jordan, or that Jordan is illegitimate, or that Jews should have a right of return to Jordan?
Susan and I couldn’t get “in” (on line) to the debate live until the negatives started to speak. We are going to watch the openers this evening.
>”Levy, an Israeli Jew, apparently believes that Israel is not a democracy because citizens of the Palestinian territories can’t vote in Israeli elections.”
This is a stupid assertion, as you and Mr. Murray say, for the following specific reasons which the debaters didn’t get into. (I think what Mr. Levy really means is that Israel is an apartheid state vis-à-vis the Occupied Territories. That is still a stupid assertion.)
A democracy can decide to extend the franchise (or deny it) to any members of its polity that it chooses. First, I don’t think Arab residents of the Occupied Territories are Israeli citizens. They are citizens of some Arab entity that might be the Palestinian Authority or even Jordan. I don’t know for sure what their citizenship is but they are definitely not citizens of Israel. So right off the bat it is entirely democratic that Arabs in those territories should not have the Israeli vote, any more than German citizens in the American Occupied Zone after the end of the Second World War had the right to vote in the 1946 and 1948 U.S. elections. That’s a no-brainer.
Second, even if Israel wanted to make citizens out of the the West Bankers, it wouldn’t have the right under international law. You have to have recognized territorial sovereignty to grant (or impose) citizenship on the residents. Germany can’t arbitrarily deem Canadians whose distant ancestors came from Germany to be citizens of Germany just because they have Germanic names.) Most of the world deems Israel’s occupation of Judea and Samaria to be illegal (which is why Israel calls the territory “disputed”.) The last thing the world would allow would be to have these Arabs made Israeli citizens. The world (and the Arabs) would be more worried about the obligations of citizenship than the perqs and freedoms of it.
Third, suppose Israel did annex Judea and Samaria, over the objections of the world and make it sovereign Israel. It still would have no obligation to make the residents citizens, unless, say, they were born in Israel or perhaps had converted to Judaism or swore in a trustworthy manner allegiance to the Israeli state and flag, whatever any other immigrant to Israel who applies for citizenship has to swear to after thorough vetting. Occupying and annexing countries has rather gone out of fashion but admitting your new “subjects” to citizenship is by no means automatic. Citizenship is a path toward desirable assimilation and it reinforces that you must be loyal. No fomenting intifada as resentful non-citizens who never renounced fealty to radical Islam.
Finally, even if the residents of the West Bank did become citizens of (greater) Israel, Israel still need not give them the franchise. In no country do all citizens vote. The trend has been to extend the franchise to all adults but that is based on the premise that there is no demographic within the country that actively seeks its destruction, and would do exactly that if it became a voting majority.* It is not racism for Israel to ponder the consequences of an enlarging Palestinian voting citizenry that will vote to expel or kill the Jews when it takes control of the Knesset. If this counts as apartheid, well, maybe apartheid had its merits.
The Right of Return to Israel granted by a Zionist state to Jews anywhere in the world would surely not be extended to Arabs or Muslims. The only possible response to someone who says it should be, for symmetry, is “No.”
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*Canada comes close to that in that we have a federal political party whose only platform is to secede Québec from Canada. (Ms. Hausdorff alluded to Québec secession in her remarks.) It runs (and elects) MPs only in Québec. Québec’s population as a share of Canada’s has been falling for several decades so there is no prospect that the Bloc-heads as they are known in English Canada will replace the rest of us. (Most of the Bloc MPs don’t cause any trouble. They just sit around drawing salaries hoping to stay in office long enough to collect a Parliamentary pension from the Canadian taxpayers.) But if Québec ever embarks on “Revenge of the Cradle, épisode deux” they could cause mischief in Parliament.
I don’t care for what it’s become any more than what the notion of Palestinian statehood has become and all the people of both nations suffer in some way or another for it.
I listened to the pre-debate interviews with the 4 participants, and I came away with the same feeling regarding Levy as Jerry stated. He reminded me then of an anti-American American.
Hassan noted in the interview that he debated Murray once previously but had been offered the chance to debate him many times and turned down the opportunity because he didn’t want to give his views “a platform”. I don’t understand this thinking. As Murray noted in his pre-debate interview, by debating not only are you getting your point across, but you can also learn where your view may be lacking and also how to improve your argument. Plus, by debating Mr. Murray, wouldn’t he (Hassan) be given a platform to espouse his views to fans of Murray? Debates work both ways.
I haven’t watched the actual Munk debate yet, but based on the interviews before, I would have guessed the winners correctly, though the Munk debate format always leaves this in the air.
The Munk debate “Be It Resolved, Don’t Trust The Mainstream Media” was entertaining. Murray and Matt Taibbi were in support of the resolution, Malcolm Gladwell and Michelle Goldberg were against. Well worth a listen in terms of Murray’s debate skills and Gladwell’s lack of them. Gladwell then did a Revisionist History podcast to address this, and Murray did an interview after as well to explain how Gladwell’s thoughts about it were still not right. As a fan of Gladwell I was let down. Sorry about the tangent, but thought maybe some here might be interested.
Re Gladwell in the Munk debates…he was equally underprepared and obnoxious when he participated in an earlier debate against Steven Pinker and Matt Ridley. He seems to have a curiously juvenile penchant for boorish insults (he called Steven “Mrs. Pinker” for instance), and as Ridley said in that debate, is high on adjectives but low on facts.
I fear that Gladwell spent too much time in an echo chamber, and doesn’t have enough people in his life who can tell him when he’s full of it.
I think that is exactly it! Though I’m not exactly sure if he’s saying these things out of true belief, or because he wants to be seen as part of that in-group. He’s a useful idiot, either way.
Eiynah (NiceMangos) and her online armpit-sniffers have not taken the debate very well. Seems their beloved Mehdi “cattle” Hasan didn’t fare well*, despite him releasing a book called “Win Every Argument”.
*Wouldn’t know, ‘cos I haven’t seen it yet. But I can certainly believe it.
Rich, judging from what I saw in the debate when I watched it late last night, Hasan’s ways to win every argument would seem to be 1) reframe the terms of an argument from the start (Levy did this immediately in his opener by using it as an opportunity to bash Israel as murderers of upwards of 35,000 Gazans); 2) start at high volume and Gish-gallop your points (however false some might be) to somewhere north of level 11; and 3) react immediately, if necessary talking loudly over your opponent, nitpicking any correction and delegitimising your opponent’s points and, indeed, their credentials and personality.
Hasan and Levy came across as brittle, boorish, schoolyard bullies trying to jackhammer and intimidate Douglas Murray and Natasha Hausdorff. Fortunately, those two are more skilled debaters, kept their cool so their points carried the night, and increased the level of support for the motion from the starting vote.
Many thanks to Jerry for posting this debate and for posting the update to Melanie Phillips’ review of it.
My wife has trouble grasping how Israel could be absolved of any wrongdoing in the present (and past situation). It’s immensily difficult finding sources that debate the subject properly and kinda objectively. How was the creation of its state justified despite the presence of settled people there ? What’s the reality of the Gaza settlements ? What about the countless reports of children living in rubble after the recent attacks ?
Hamas presents itself as a group that fights back against injustice – just like others do claiming Western interference in their sovereign integrity. They are technically not wrong. But we cannot condone their actions.
Does someone have some good online sources that shed some light on this whole affair ? It’s hard saying “no, Israel and Zionism do not commit war crimes” when you actually *see* images of the results in Gaza.
“How was the creation of its state justified despite the presence of settled people there?”
What would have been the alternative? The “state” that had been there for centuries, the Ottoman Empire (which was not Arab, by the way), had ceased to exist decades earlier. The temporary replacement, the British Mandate, had just expired, and Arab representatives had rejected any split of the territory between Jews and Arabs. Why would the creation of an Arab state, accompanied by the mass murder and expulsion of Jews, have been any more justifiable? What other options do you see?
“What about the countless reports of children living in rubble after the recent attacks?”
War is terrible. Don’t start one if you’re not prepared to pay the price.
While I would not state that Israel never commits war crimes, I am yet to see evidence of such crimes.
So far, I have seen only the inevitable results of having a war in a densely populated territory. It is not the fault of Israel that its enemies (1) keep procreating on a tiny territory beyond any reasonable limit, (2) start a war for no other reason than their commitment to murder Jews, and (3) do not evacuate civilians from the war zone, partly because Hamas always uses them as human shields, and partly because nobody wants these civilians, because every single country that has sheltered them in the past has been severely hurt by them.
Death and destruction are not necessarily war crimes; they are the result of war. It is horrible.
“Hamas presents itself as a group that fights against injustice…claiming Western interference”. There would likely have been no interference had they not murdered, raped, burned, and kidnapped Israeli citizens on October 7. They are indeed technically and morally wrong. What is the technicality you are claiming in which Hamas is right?
Regarding injustice and interference: how do you define the hundreds of missiles launched on Israel? Is that not interference in their right to exist in peace and an injustice?
Just saw your update of Melanie Phillips’ essay. It is excellent, in particular doing a compare of her UK debate experience on the proposition with this week’s in Canada, and her expansion of some of Murray’s and Hausdorff’s time- constrained remarks. Thanks!
Haaretz was a decent paper a long time ago. If you are so naive to believe european journalists – I’m Spanish- it seems there’s no other newspaper in Israel…
Are you writing a new book, Prof.Coyne?
In the interim, I consider myself pro-Zionist; however, in the long term, I am anti-Zionist because I believe no country should be an ethno-religious state. Hopefully, the situation in the Middle East and among humanity more generally will evolve to the point where a state like Israel is no longer necessary. Until then, I am pro-Zionist and pro-Israel. I think that people who are advocating for a one-state solution NOW are either surreptitious antisemites or naïve. However, I don’t think Hasan, in particular, is naïve. He is just comfortable with the potential bloody outcome because he is a Muslim and is biased in favor of Muslims. I guess to answer the question of whether or not anti-Zionism is antiemetic, I would say that my Sam Harris-esque form of anti-Zionism isn’t, but Hasan et. al’s is.
Fantastic debate! Must be required material in schools. Douglas Murray and Natasha Housedorff were magnificent.
Their opponents — not so much. Lots of weaseling, gas-lighting, and simple lying.