Intelligence Squared Debate June 2019 – Anti Zionism is Anti Semitism – It is! Given the Chance – This is What I would Have Argued.

Back in June, at an Intelligence Squared debate in London they debated the motion, “This house believes, Anti Zionism is anti-Semitism.  Speaking for the motion where journalist Melanie Philips and ex member of Knesset, Einat Wilf.  Speaking against the motion where “academic”, Ilan Pappe and journalist, Mahdi Hassan.

As one might expect in London, the dice were loaded and Melanie and Einat where presenting their case to a mainly hostile audience.  From the poll taken of the live audience before the debate, 15% were for the motion, 59% were against the motion with a further 26% undecided.  Melanie and Einat fought the good fight and made their points as best they could.  True to character, Pappe peddled his usual fabrication and “alternative facts” dressed up as historical fact.

Don’t get me started in Pappe.  Mehdi however, presented brilliantly in a highly entertaining and convincing manner, always a winning strategy, regardless of your points being inaccurate or highly disingenuous.  The result was never in doubt and not surprisingly, the motion was defeated with 19% for the motion, 76% against and only 5% undivided.

I have attended several Intelligence Squared debates in the past, where I enjoyed the debate but was always frustrated at not being able to make my own contribution, any more than a brief question. 

This is of course a subject for which I have a great passion, not to mention string opinions.  I was disappointed at the result and am not saying that I could have necessarily improved upon the result however, I have decided to present my own argument as to why indeed anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, had I been invited to speak in the debate…  I will welcome your comments.

Although the history and geopolitics surrounding our motion today may be highly complex, the motion before this house, “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism” is in fact fairly simple and I believe, an incontestable statement of fact… I will tell you why.

But first let me set a few things straight…

If you decry the plight of the Palestinian people, this does not make you an anti-Semite, nor does it make you an anti-Zionist.  If you are offended by the needless death and injury of Palestinian children, women and men in Gaza, that does not mean you are an anti-Semite, nor does it make you an anti-Zionist.

If you object to what you perceive as illegal Jewish settlement on private Palestinian land that too does not make you an anti-Semite, nor by the way does it mean you are necessarily an anti-Zionist.  If you take issue with the nation state law passed in the Israeli parliament , and see it as racist and wholly undemocratic, again this does not make you and anti-Semite nor does it mean that you are necessarily an anti-Zionist. 

For your information, there are many Zionist both in Israel and around the world who object strongly or are even outraged by the issues I have just mentioned. 

So, to be clear, objecting to or being outraged by many of the policies and practices of the Israeli government of the day, do not make you anti-Semitic or even anti-Zionist.  Israel like any other functioning democracy is open to and often deserving of criticism and even condemnation of its policies and actions when appropriate.

However, if you support the policies and actions of Hamas, a terrorist organisation dedicated to the destruction of the sate of Israel and indeed to the killing and slaughter of Jews everywhere.  If you support the rockets fired indiscriminately into Israel to kill and maim innocent Israeli men women and children.  If you admire the incendiary explosive balloons, floated into Israel to destroy land and property and to kill innocents, then yes you are an anti-Zionist and an anti -Semite. 

By the way in this instance, I would suggest you are also callously anti Palestinian, where your hatred for the Jewish state allows you to rationalise and even justify the oppression, exploitation, rape, torture and murder of Palestinians in Gaza by Hamas. There is ample evidence, so as they say, "denial is not a river in Egypt".

If you support Hezbollah, the terrorist group and Iranian proxy, now pretty much running Lebanon on behalf of the Iranians, which calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and which also calls for the killing and slaughter of Jews across the world.  If you rationalise and justify their amassing of hundreds of thousands of missiles to attack Israel, if you justify their terror attacks around the world aimed at Jews.  If you dismiss the calls for the destruction of Israel by Hezbollah and their patron Iran as rhetoric, then yes, you are anti- Zionist and you are anti-Semitic. 

So too you are anti Palestinian.  Look at the racist and discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in Lebanon.  You are also anti Syrian, where Hezbollah, along with Iranian militias and the Iranian Republican Guard are complicit in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Syrians over the past decade.  A slaughter which continues in Idlib, as we speak.

But here we are in the UK in the comfort of this hallowed hall.  Now, in the UK, if you believe that anti-Semitism has been weaponised to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and his cohorts in the Labour Party and put it all down to a Israeli slash Jewish conspiracy, if you are blind to anti-Jewish racism and deny it in a manner which you would never dare allow yourself to do when it comes to racism and bigotry against people of colour, against Muslims, against the LGBT community and other minorities.

When you believe yourself better able to define anti- Semitism or Jew hatred than the Jews themselves, if you give a free pass to those who use traditional anti-Semitic tropes and conspiracy theories, but replace the word Jew with Zionist in order to make it socially acceptable. 

If you accept and indeed are not outraged by a UN resolution condemning Israel as the sole violator of women’s rights, while among those voting against Israel are Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, Russia, Venezuela and other questionable regimes, then yes, you are anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic. 

If you delegitimise, demonise, single out and apply double standards to the Jewish state and call for its ultimate destruction or support those who do, then yes, you are an anti-Zionist and an anti-Semite. Because you need to understand, the two go together, they are indistinguishable.

Like many functioning democracies, indeed all of them, Israel is riddled with flaws and inconsistencies. It sometimes acts in a highly questionable manner, and when it does it should be questioned, criticised and even condemned, however, when you single out the Jewish state and question it’s right to exist, when you seek to deny Jews the same right to self determination and a nation state in their historical homeland, as you afford to other peoples and other nations, then yes you are anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic.

 If you question Jewish history and Jewish connection to the land of Israel or what you might call Palestine, despite all the hard evidence which exists, then yes, you are anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic.

As I said earlier, the motion before you today, is not complex, it is simple.  For what is Zionism?  Zionism is nothing more than “the belief in and support for the Jewish people’s right to self determination and a state of their own in their historical homeland. 

You can argue what the borders of that state should be, you can argue the Palestinians also deserve a state of their own. You can have an opinion as to how the Jewish state should behave, just as you do in regard to the US, the UK, France, Germany or any other country in the world. 

You can criticise, judge and condemn the country.  And again, I stress to criticise Israeli policies, to detest the Israeli government, to condemn Israeli actions, to support Palestinians, to want to see a Palestinian state, to want to right what you perceive as the injustices suffered by the Palestinians, all of these are legitimate and none are necessarily anti-Zionist, or anti-Semitic.

But, when you deny the right of the Jewish state to exist.  When you single out the Jewish state as the only illegitimate state in the world, when you deny the Jews’ connection and history in the land of their ancestors, when you are an anti-Zionist, then you are an anti-Semite. 

For those of you who came here tonight able to put your preconceptions and biases aside, if you came her to to listen to the arguments and vote based purely on the strength of the arguments, it is simply a fact that anti-Zionism is indeed anti-Semitism and I ask you to support the motion.