Israel defenders have lost the plot

First, Ben White, one of the speakers for the motion followed by video of the debate and then two articles from the former president of the Jewish Union – the two have interesting different nuances and information.

Vivian Wineman, standing,  offers a set of hackneyed excuses for Israeli policies  at the Cambridge Union. Norman Finkelstein, Ghada Karmi and Ben White on left of picture, Hannah Weisfeld on right.

Watch this unedifying video here

Israel is losing the debate – in more ways than one

Ben White, MEMO
March 06, 2015

Last night, I participated in a debate at the Cambridge Union on ‘This House Believes Israel is a Rogue State.’ Speaking alongside Ghada Karmi and Norman Finkelstein for the proposition, the motion was carried by 51 percent to 19 percent – with a 7 percent swing from the pre-debate vote.

The debating chamber was packed, and the atmosphere charged. At the end of the debate, cries of ‘Free, Free Palestine’ rang out. But my main takeaway from the proceedings was the sheer weakness of the opposition’s arguments – a microcosm of pro-Israel propaganda that simply no longer works.

In my opening speech, I pointed out that the issue was not about whether Israel is ‘perfect’, or makes ‘mistakes’. To concede that Israel is ‘not perfect’, as I suggested the opposition may do, is in fact no concession at all, and misses the point. The issue is whether Israel violates international law and human rights, and whether it does so systematically.

Ben White

I also stressed that the debate was not about the record of other countries or actors, in the region or elsewhere. It was not about Iran or Syria, Hamas or ISIS, North Korea or Russia. The Cambridge debating chamber hosts debates about dozens of topics of international interest but last night, the subject was Israeli policy, and the question was plain – is Israel a rogue state?

Yet in the speech directly following mine, Vivian Wineman, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, opened up for the opposition by stating exactly what I had predicted just minutes before: ‘Israel is not perfect.’ Such is the reliance of Israel’s apologists on predictable talking points.

Similarly, Wineman – like the other two opposition speakers – indulged in the familiar tactic of citing abuses by other states (Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, etc.). The rest of his talk was a regurgitation of tired talking points about the Israeli army’s morality and so forth.

Joining Wineman in opposing the motion were Hannah Weisfeld, head of liberal Zionist advocacy group Yachad, and Davis Lewin, deputy director of the Henry Jackson Society.

Weisfeld’s approach was to immediately state she had no intention of defending the occupation or settlements. The bulk of her speech was an attempt to demonstrate that Israel could not be a rogue state because it has parliamentary democracy, an independent judiciary, a free press, and that critics of the government are not arrested.

She did not clarify if this wonderful list also applies to the millions of Palestinians living for half a century under a military regime.

Extraordinarily, Weisfeld claimed that her argument was further confirmed by her ability to visit Israel freely as a critic of the occupation. Meanwhile opposite her, was a speaker excluded from her homeland because she is Palestinian, and an American Jew denied entry for his political activities.

Davis Lewin speaks for the Henry Jackson society.

Wineman’s old school hasbara and Weisfeld’s new school ‘nuance’ were followed by an extraordinary contribution from Davis Lewin. His performance was 10 minutes of screaming, finger-jabbing, and insults directed at both speakers and Union members.

Lewin’s speech was a combination of Twitter troll and YouTube commenter – and sheds light on the nature of the Henry Jackson Society, a think-tank in the loosest sense of the word.

Together, Wineman, Weisfeld, and Lewin represent the variety of Israeli propaganda strategy in all its limited predictability: historical fantasies, faux-liberal concern, and offensive smears.

Presented with the arguments, the University of Cambridge students voted with their feet, and found Israel to be a rogue state by an overwhelming majority.

Ethnic cleansing, colonisation, war crimes; behind these repeated Israeli policy decisions is a disregard for and defiance of a global order shaped by international law and treaties. It is an attitude that stretches from the founding of Israel through to its politicians and leaders of today.

In 1955, Israel’s first prime minister Ben-Gurion stated that: “Our future does not depend on what the nations [the international community] say, but what the Jews do.” Jump forward to 2007, and Tzipi Livni – former minister and so-called ‘moderate’ – revealed: “I am a lawyer…But I am against law – international law in particular. Law in general.”

Israel commits grave, systematic violations of international law; expands beyond its borders; and seriously abuses the human rights of Palestinians terrorised by settlers acting with impunity. The evidence is irrefutable – and the theatrics of apartheid apologists can no longer hide it.

This house believes it’s time to wake up!

By Alex Davis, Jewish Chronicle

March 19, 2015

Chants of “Free Palestine” echoed around the chamber of the world’s oldest debating society, the Cambridge Union. The brightest students in the country had just passed the motion – “This House Believes Israel is a Rogue State” – and few in the audience seemed surprised. And if you’re not worried about that, you should be. For, unless we act now, we are in real danger of losing future policy-makers to the anti-Israel camp.

Speak to any number of pro-Israel students at university. They’re concerned and rightly so. Across the country, pro-Israel students are being met with open hostility, academic boycotts and, occasionally, violent confrontation. Many feel helpless at times and look to their seniors in the community for guidance, especially in the comforting setting of a debate based (supposedly) on reason and fact. Yet, having attended numerous of these events, I can tell you with frustration that age is not bringing wisdom.

The result in Cambridge last week stands only as the latest example of a wider trend of debates being lost by senior members of our community, causing growing anti-Israel sentiment among those lacking an ingrained, emotional connection to the region.

These are the people the pro-Israel camp cannot afford to isolate. Students today, they are the policy-makers of tomorrow, entering public life believing Israel is a rogue state. And they are ultimately the figures who will dictate future British relations with Israel.

Curiously, only five years ago, the Cambridge Union held the same debate with exactly the same motion. It was comfortably rejected, with 77 per cent voting in opposition or abstaining. So what’s changed?

Video of debate

Some might say the ”scene”. There’s more anti-Zionism in the air – depressingly predictable after Israeli military action is relayed on prime-time TV screens around the world. It’s a fair point, but we in Britain have little control over the actions of the IDF. Israel’s portrayal in the media during military operations is of course important, but, however negative you may or may not feel the coverage was, this doesn’t explain why 51 per cent of students agreed Israel was a rogue state. The opportunity to defend Israel in a formal setting ought to have been the perfect opportunity to dispel anti-Israel sentiment. If done effectively, of course.

To understand what went wrong we need to first break down the results of the debate. Students were asked to vote both before and after, giving us strong data on how the speakers performed as a collective.

The conclusions are bleak. By the end, 7 per cent more students agreed that Israel was a rogue state and, perhaps more significantly, 10 per cent fewer disagreed with the motion outright. Put bluntly, the pro-Israel speakers not only lost the debate, but further alienated those on Israel’s side. Why?

I don’t think we can blame the Union for inviting poor speakers. Two of the three, Vivian Wineman, president of the Board of Deputies and Davis Lewin, Head of Policy and Research at the Henry Jackson Society, were hardly minnows. Few pro-Israel supporters in the room thought these two would fail to get the room to reject such a leading, anti-Israel motion. And yet they did.

Both spent much of their time comparing Israel to its neighbours. It’s an old classic: Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, while the Iranians hang homosexuals. But is this really enough any more? I think the results speak for themselves.

Here, we reach the crux of the problem. Ineffective arguments are being furthered by traditional speakers in the most crucial of settings. So what needs to be done?

Firstly, speakers need to recognise that “Free Palestine” can no longer be countered with free the Arab world. The recent poll by Chatham House, which placed Israel as the second most unfavourably viewed country by the UK public, beaten only by North Korea, dispels any such myths. Indeed, compared to 2012, 12 per cent fewer people viewed Iran with an “especially unfavourable” eye.

Second, we must recognise that Israel is increasingly being judged against ”Western” countries, not its Middle Eastern neighbours. So why not compare Israel with the United States, a repeated violator of international law with drone strikes and the use of cluster bombs in so-called “surgical strikes”? Or, if that’s too controversial for some audiences, at the very least make the point that, unlike the Israelis, the Egyptians opened the Rafah crossing with Gaza only last week, after a two-month closure. Remarks like these would go a long way to counter the bully/victim narrative often used to single out Israel in a comparative framework.

 Hannah Weisfeld

A long way, but not far enough. Figures on the anti-Israel side would still be correct in arguing two wrongs don’t make a right. Just because others are “rogue” by breaking international law doesn’t exonerate IsraeI of its own responsibilities.

I think the third speaker, Hannah Weisfeld, accepted this premise and it is why her argument was more effective. She accepted Israel didn’t “always get it right” and that one should approach Israel with a critical eye, particularly over contentious issues like the occupation. But to call it rogue was “completely irrational” in the light of the checks and balances ingrained in Israeli society that enable parliamentary criticism and a free press. Most convincingly, she spoke of the Israeli court system’s proclivity to charge corrupt politicians, including sitting political figures, and the manner in which an NGO like B’Tselem could openly criticise the policies of the government.

In a sentence, she argued Israel can, and should be, legitimately criticised but this doesn’t make it a threat or indeed rogue.

Perhaps this argument is a sign of things to come. Yachad, the organisation she heads up, describes itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace” and casts a self-critical eye over the Jewish state. It is a refreshing move away from the old conservatism displayed by figures like Lewin and Wineman.

Because however much you might feel Israel is unfairly singled out among its Middle Eastern neighbours, it continues to arouse a unique fascination among those in the West.

Why this is so remains a separate debate. What is clear, however, is that, unless we change tack, we risk a new generation of future policy-makers entering public life believing Israel is a force for evil, not good. And that would be rogue indeed.

The writer is a former president of the Cambridge University Jewish Society.

Cambridge debating society votes for Israel as a rogue state

Alex Davis, Special to The CJN [Canadian Jewish News]

March 09, 2015

Students at England’s prestigious University of Cambridge voted last week overwhelmingly in favour of the motion “This House Believes Israel is a Rogue State”during a debate at the Cambridge Union Society.

In a packed debating chamber on March 5, 51 per cent of attendees voted in favour of the motion, 30 per cent abstained and 19 per cent voted in opposition.

The debate featured six prominent speakers, most notably the Jewish American political scientist Norman Finkelstein in proposition and Vivian Wineman, the president of the board of deputies of British Jews, in opposition.

Finkelstein was joined by the Palestinian academic, Prof. Ghada Karmi, and the human rights activist Ben White in proposition. Wineman was supported by Hannah Weisfeld, director of the pro-Israel pro-peace movement Yachad, and Davis Lewin, deputy director of the global think tank the Henry Jackson Society.

The proposition opened the debate by focusing on Israeli settlement growth in occupied Palestinian territories since 1967, which White labeled a “grave violation of international law. Karmi further argued that, “Israel’s preferred methods are violence, aggression and war” and described the state as a “threat to its neighbours.”

Wineman, tried to place the state in the wider context of the Middle East and received loud hisses upon declaring Israel as the “only democracy in the Middle East.” Wineman additionally provided a passionate rebuttal to the point on settlements, accusing White of obscuring the fact that Israel has withdrawn from settlements in the past in attempts to broker for peace.

Weisfeld chose a different tact, focusing closely on Israeli domestic politics. She argued that any nation with a strong system of parliamentary democracy that allows open criticism, along with a free press, cannot be called rogue.

Despite heated early exchanges between speakers, students remained largely respectful and listened carefully to points raised.

However, the final speaker in opposition, Lewis, was met with vocal abuse, including boos and hisses throughout his speech. This began after Lewis described the motion as “disgusting” and expressed his frustration that Israel was “once again” being debated because of an “obsession” with the state. The loudest jeers of the night came when he dismissed Palestinian death tolls as “minor” by comparison to the hundreds of thousands of casualties of the Syrian civil war.

Union Society president, Amy Gregg, was repeatedly forced to plea for calm, especially when the debating chamber erupted after Lewis described the Israel Defence Forces as the “most moral army in the world.”

“We will review the debate footage, but as the disturbances were general audience noise, rather than repeated incursions by an identifiable individual, we do not anticipate taking disciplinary action,” Grgg said after the event.

She denied that Israel was being unfairly focused on, stating, “this is the first debate we have held on Israel in two years. In the meantime, we have discussed Russia Iran, and the Arab Spring, to name but a few of our debate subjects.

“The Israel-Palestine conflict is a topical issue that, as evidenced by turnout, our members are extremely interested in, and this is a primary consideration in deciding which debates to run.”

Nevertheless, some Jewish students were left feeling uncomfortable and intimidated by interruptions, which culminated in chants of “Free Palestine, Free Palestine” at the end of the debate.

One student commented, “I felt the debate in general was poorly managed, with little intervention from the president or officials when it became out of hand and hostile- even to the point where we could not hear the speaker. It became extremely chaotic.”

The controversial result comes just months after the Israeli Ambassador to the U.K. was met with loud protests as he addressed students in the Union chamber. In addition, a recent survey found Israel to be the second most disliked country by Britons in the world, only behind North Korea. This follows a significant surge in anti-Israeli sentiment in 2014 across Britain, something Cambridge students appear far from rejecting.

Founded in 1815, the Cambridge Union is the world’s oldest continuously running debating society. Notable past speakers have included Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan, as well as The Dalai Lama and Moammar Gadhafi The society prides itself on debating a wide variety of controversial topics ranging from legalizing the sex industry to capitalism’s influence on the Third World.

The same motion was debated at the Cambridge Union in 2010, but was comfortably rejected by a significant majority. Just five years on, it appears Britain’s brightest students have had a clear change in heart towards the Jewish state.