Friday 4 December 2015

Israel is a Rogue State Debate–Cambridge Union

Lively debate held at Cambridge University in, I think, March of this year. The proposition being debated is: “Israel is a rogue state.”
On the “Aye” side the speakers are Ben White, Prof. Ghada Karmi, and Dr. Norman Finkelstein (in that order). On the “Nay” side are (again in order of appearance) Vivian Wineman, Hannah Weisfeld, and Davis Lewin. Most people probably know who Finkelstein is. Wineman is the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews; Weisfeld is a liberal Zionist who feels Israel can’t possibly be a rogue state because it allows freedom of speech and Palestinians can get elected to the Knessett (never mind the war crimes, the occupation, and the blockade); Lewin is a bombastic blowhard from the Henry Jackson Society who departs in large measure from the formal debate etiquette adhered to by the other debaters and who hurls insults at Finkelstein.
Ghada Karmi is a Palestinian author and academic whose most recent book isReturn: A Palestinian Memoir; White is a freelance journalist and author of two books on the Palestine-Israeli conflict, his most recent being Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy, published in 2012 and which includes a forward by Haneen Zoabi.
The comments from the audience are perceptive in some cases, dull-witted in others, but overall it’s an entertaining hour and thirty-five minutes if you can spare the time to watch it.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

No comments: