[June 22, 2024] In Toronto, Canada, the Munk Debates, a semi-annual series of debates on major policy issues, concluded on 11 June. The policy question before them was whether anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. I was expecting the outcome to be in agreement with the proposition, and it was but by only a small margin. You can make up your mind by listening to the podcast here.
Douglas Murray and Natasha Hausdorff argued for the proposal and made their points strikingly clear and logical, giving a mountain of evidence to support the claim. Mehdi Hassan and Gideon Levy argued against it. Hasan and Levy’s presentation was emotionally draining as they relied upon cherry-picking and speculation. You can gain some background by going to their website here.
The audience gets to vote both before and after the debate. In this instance, 61 percent supported the proposition that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism after it was 66 percent. Melanie Phillips summarizes the arguments in her article on Substack channel, “Is anti-Zionism antisemitism?” here and is worth reading in its entirety.
I watched these debates because they are more than informative; they help articulate the pro and con positions particularly well. They also offer opportunities to deconstruct the opponents’ arguments and eliminate contradictions and lies. That is precisely what happened in one of my favorite takedowns. Melanie Phillps wrote:
“But it was Hasan who came most spectacularly to grief over an absolute whopper. In his opening statement, he purported to quote Lord Balfour, author of the eponymous 1917 Balfour Declaration in which Britain committed itself to creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Hasan quoted Balfour as “a man who referred to Jews as an ‘alien and hostile’ people.” But Hausdorff then read out what Balfour had actually said — that Zionism would “mitigate the age-long miseries created for western civilisation by the presence in its midst of a body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile but which it was equally unable to expel or absorb”.”
I watched The first Munk Debate between Charles Krauthammer and Niall Ferguson against Samantha Power and Richard Holbrooke. The proposition before them was whether the world is a safer place with a Republican in the White House. Pro was 17 percent. Two of my conservative heroes.
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Hausdorff argued “modern blood libels are widely believed — as widely believed as the ancient blood libel,” referring to the conspiracy that Jews killed children to use their blood in religious rituals. Hausdorff explored four modern libels: that Israel is a colonial state; that it has ethnically cleansed Palestinians; that it is an apartheid state; and that it is committing genocide in Gaza. Hausdorff argued these are projected onto Israel and reproduce the earlier form of bigotry. “This debate is about racism and creating a double standard, where you make an exception for the Jews,” Hausdorff said during her opening comments. “The genocide libel inverts reality. Hamas has spent 16 years embedding its terror infrastructure in mosques, schools, hospitals and every second house. Its central military tactic is to use civilians as human shields,” she continued. “Genocide is the latest modern blood libel that antisemites use to justify their anti-Zionism.” – from The National Post https://nationalpost.com/news/equating-anti-zionism-antisemitism
Abu, thank you for bringing this main point by Hausdorff to our attention.
Excellent comment abul
‘You would’ve thought there would be some sympathy from the world … But no, there was immediate outpouring of rage against the state that had been attacked,’ said Douglas Murray in the Munk Debates. And, well said.
Murray, a British author and political commentator, wore a yellow ribbon on his lapel throughout the debate, a symbol associated with the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in captivity in Gaza following the October 7 raids on Israel that saw around 1,200 people killed and 240 people taken hostage.
Thanks Gen. Satterfield for bringing this to our attention.
Watch the Munk debates and you decide. The audience decided that anti-Zionism is antisemitism.
Well the audience was unequivocally wrong. How can anti-zionism be anti-Semitic when there are Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu Zionists and not just Jewish Zionists. Zionism is clearly a political ideology (devised by people like Theodore Herzle who were Atheists) and not a religion.
Thank you Gen. Satterfield. I’d never heard of the Munk Debates before. Good to listen to these and make up my own mind instead of having “government experts” try to tell me what to think and do. Many Americans are not taught any longer how to think and that is a big problem as we dumb down our schools to accommodate a minority that have a devolving culture that pushes them down in the social strata rather than lifting them up. This is exactly why our Founding Fathers wanted a Republican form of government, not a Democrat one.
👍👍👍👍👍👍 YEP …
For those who want to listen to the debates, you can go here: https://munkdebates.com/podcasts/munk-dialogue-with-douglas-murray-natasha-hausdorff-mehdi-hasan-gideon-levy/
I just love listening to Douglas Murray and altho I didn’t listen to this debate in Canada, I would still listen to him anyway on any topic. I find that Douglas is one of the greatest defenders of Jews and yet he is attacked by Jews for being “far right” – which is a condescending tag.
Shawn, most Jews are leftist Democrats. That means they are stupid when it comes to voting since the only ones defending them are Republicans.
Let’s call the kettle black when we see it that way.
Yep, never understood that either. That is why, I tihnk, that Gen. Satterfield wrote a recent article about the parable of the frog and the scorpion.
Jews have a Scorpion on Their Backs”
https://www.theleadermaker.com/jews-have-a-scorpion-on-their-backs/
The Jews are “swimming across the waters” to reach a safe and prosperous place to live in peace with other like-minded people. They are the frog in this fable and voluntarily carry the scorpion. The anti-semites want to go where the Jews are headed, as well, to their promised land buy without Jews. The anti-Semites are the scorpion in the fable. The problem for the Jews should be obvious, but they cannot see that by carrying along the anti-Semites, their fate is sealed.
Gen. Satterfield sure nailed it with that article. 😎