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Pro-Palestinian activists are wrong to shut down debates by pro-Israelis

Last night pro-Palestinian activists tried to disrupt a lecture by Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK, Alan Roth-Snir, at the University of York. According to a student newspaper, protestors from the University of York Palestinian Solidarity Society tried to break in to the hall where Roth-Snir was speaking, but were prevented by police.

And last month a talk by Roth-Snir at the University of Essex had to be cancelled, after protestors pushed their way into the lecture hall and drowned him out with chanting.

The incidents seem to be part of a coordinated attempt to prevent Israeli officials from speaking at university campuses in the UK. Protestors have been egged on by anti-Zionist activists like Ben White on Twitter.

Ironically, the protestors have justified their actions on the grounds of free speech, with one saying: ‘The university has argued that this is a case for freedom of speech. What we are concerned about is the freedom of speech and other human rights of the Palestinian people.’

For those in need of a recap, ‘free speech’ is supposed to apply to all kinds of views, not just those you agree with.

Free speech also covers the right to protest, of course. Which is why demonstrators are within their rights to protest a university’s decision to invite Israel’s deputy ambassador to speak, or its failure to invite a representative of the Palestinians. They are also within their rights to protest Israel’s policies in the West Bank, its obstruction of the peace process, or anything else they oppose.

But it’s time for supporters of the Palestinians to take a principled stand against attempts to silence advocates of Israel.

When pro-Israeli groups in the US tried to stop a talk by pro-Palestinian writer Judith Butler from taking place at Brooklyn College last month, their efforts sparked justified outrage. And significantly, some of the strongest condemnations of attempts to censor the talk came from those who stated their opposition to Butler’s views while supporting her right to be heard.

There’s a growing trend, on both sides of the Israel-Palestine debate, to try and silence the other side by presenting its views as not merely wrong but illegitimate.

So here’s a radical idea for those of us who support Palestinian liberation. When we encounter views we oppose, how about countering them with reasoned debate rather than shouting them down?

George Galloway’s hypocrisy in boycotting an Israeli in debate

I’m not sure there’s an awful lot to say about George Galloway’s astonishingly stupid decision to storm out of a debate at Oxford University when he discovered his opponent was an Israeli.

Not an Israeli government official, mind you. Not a spokesperson for the regime or a paid functionary of the occupation. Just a young man, called Eylon Aslan-Levy, with an Israeli passport and uncongenial views.

When challenged about his behaviour on Twitter, Galloway replied: ‘No recognition of Israel. No normalisation. Christ Church never informed us the debate would be with an Israeli. Simple.’

Galloway’s words echo the mantra of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Whether or not you agree with the aims or tactics of that campaign (and pro-Palestinian activists like Norman Finkelstein have criticised it heavily) it’s worth noting that BDS calls for boycotting ‘products and companies (Israeli and international) that profit from the violation of Palestinian rights, as well as Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions’.

By personally extending the boycott to include anyone of Israeli nationality, Galloway has taken it to an extreme that is as baffling as it is nasty.

The irony is that when Galloway is criticised for travelling to Iraq in 1994 to salute Saddam’s Hussein’s ‘courage’, ‘strength’ and ‘indefatigability’, he claims, falsely, that he was addressing the Iraqi nation – and says his critics should be able to see the difference between the people and the regime.

It’s odd that Galloway is so keen on this distinction when praising a blood-stained dictator, but seems unable to make it in the case of a young student at a university debate.

But it long ago became clear that Galloway is prepared to discredit everything he claims to stand for in order to advance his one true cause: himself.

Is Obama’s next Defense Secretary an anti-semite?

It’s being reported that President Obama has nominated former senator Chuck Hagel as his new secretary of defense. And a lot of people aren’t happy.

Hagel has expressed doubts about the wisdom of attacking Iran militarily. And, on Israel, he’s known to be somewhat less foamingly pro-Likud than many of his colleagues in the Republican Party.

As a result, the inevitable smear campaign is in already underway. Much of the criticism of Hagel centres around a remark he once made about the influence of pro-Israel pressure groups on Capitol Hill.

‘The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,’ he was quoted as saying. ‘I’m a United States senator, not an Israeli senator.’

Some have claimed that the phrase ‘Jewish lobby’ – as opposed to ‘pro-Israel lobby’ – is anti-semitic. One unnamed Republican aide, widely quoted in the US media, explained that the words are racist because they imply ‘the existence of a nefarious Jewish lobby that secretly controls U.S. foreign policy’.

If ‘Jewish lobby’ and ‘pro-Israel lobby’ strike many observers as synonymous, it may be because America’s biggest and richest Jewish organisations are now virtually uniform in espousing hardline Zionist and neoconservative views. (This is in contrast to the people they claim to represent, American Jews themselves, who are overwhelmingly liberal on domestic and foreign policy.)

Perhaps that’s why nobody raises an eyebrow when the phrase is used by other public figures – such as Malcolm Hoenlein, who spoke of the ‘Jewish lobby’ in an interview last month.

Of course, another reason may be that, as head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein is one of the leading figures of the Jewish (or should that be pro-Israel?) lobby himself.

Why only a two-state solution is now viable in Israel and Palestine

When seven Palestinian activists tried to channel Rosa Parks by illegally boarding a ‘Jewish’ bus in the West Bank last month, winning the world’s sympathy should have been easy.

After all, the Israel-occupied territory has two kinds of citizens. Jewish settlers have their own towns, roads, buses, and schools – from which Arabs are, naturally, excluded. Jews can vote for their leaders; Palestinians have few democratic rights. Jews have full access to a liberal justice system; Palestinians are tried in military courts, and can be held indefinitely without charge or trial in jails where torture is routine.

So why, when those activists stepped off the bus and were carted off to jail, didn’t they inspire a storm of moral indignation from the watching world?
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The real reason UK is talking about an attack on Iran

It’s being touted that a military strike is the only way of dealing with a rogue Middle Eastern state with a nuclear weapons programme, along with a record of aggression towards its neighbours and an evident disregard for international law.

But given the human casualties and regional instability that would result, it’s my firm view that we must exhaust every diplomatic option before attacking a nuclear site like the Dimona centre.

That’s Dimona, Israel, of course.
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