The “No”s Have It
- 10.23.2007 - 4:46 PMI recently wrote about the Oxford Union’s upcoming debate on the Middle East, which was scheduled to take place tonight. The motion to be debated stated: “This House Believes that One State is the Only Solution to the Israel-Palestine Conflict.” The motion was to be seconded by the Israeli revisionist historians Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe and by Ghada Karmi, a Palestinian physician with an academic appointment at Exeter University. On the “no” side: the British human rights activist Peter Tatchell, along with former Irish MP Lord David Trimble, who is staunchly pro-Israel. And, bizarrely, the passionately anti-Zionist academic Norman Finkelstein.
How, you may ask, does this qualify as a debate? Five out of the six invited participants are all harsh critics, to one degree or another, of the state of Israel. But Finkelstein really belongs in a class by himself, for the hysterical fervor and vitriol of his anti-Zionism and his obsession with minimizing the moral meaning of the Holocaust. Trimble demanded that Finkelstein be dropped from the panel as a precondition for his participation; when the Union accepted Trimble’s argument, Shlaim, Pappe, and Karmi decided to withdraw in protest. Clearly, they felt that without Finkelstein on the other side of the floor, there was now a chance the debate might be fair. The debate is taking place tonight nonetheless, with three Oxford students replacing Shlaim, Pappe, and Karmi, and Paul Usiskin of Peace Now UK replacing Finkelstein.
Why Shlaim, Pappe, and Karmi thought that running away from worthy opponents like Trimble would help their cause is a mystery, but largely besides the point. It is in the nature of such ideologues to engage only in battles they are absolutely sure of winning. Apparently, Finkelstein’s absence undercut their advantage too greatly: instead of being five-sixths anti-Zionist, the panel would be only two-thirds. I predict that the trio will try to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by claiming that Finkelstein was “silenced,” and that their withdrawal was a gesture of solidarity with their “dissident” friend. To which one should reply with the words of Hillel Halkin, appearing yesterday in the New York Sun:
Deservedly, Mr. Finkelstein was recently denied tenure at De Paul because of a Jewish campaign to demonstrate that he lacked all academic integrity. It was a fight worth winning, not because qualified scholars with anti-Israel politics should not be allowed to teach at universities, but because men whose only qualification is their politics do not belong in institutions of higher learning.
Halkin could have written these words about Shlaim, Pappe, and Karmi as well.
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October 24th, 2007 at 8:00 AM
And so say all of us.Again.
This is no “victory”, though.
The Israel [and, usually, America as well] haters will soon be back with a vengeance, and, no doubt, with some new and even more dispicable antisemitic notions.
Count on it.
These bastards have to be “defeated” then, in the world of ideas, certainly, but also, more generally, and in whatever other arenas may be required, if we are to have any peace from Amalek, as he arises in every generation. The need to do so is as great as it was, when facing off against Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.The threat to our people and the dark places whence the present danger emanates, are the same as those we faced a mere century or less ago, including a threat from within, from the Kapos and Judenrat of those evil times.Chomsky, Finkelstein et al, that means you!
Please be advised.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:49 PM
Emanuele — that JPost article you linked to says nothing about Trimble protesting. It does say Paul Usiskin of Peace Now protested. What’s your source about Trimble?
October 31st, 2007 at 7:48 PM
The source is me. It is true.
November 6th, 2007 at 10:45 AM
Jonathan, are you Jonathan Hoffman? A first name without a last isn’t a much of a source.