ISRAEL = IN UK = LOSING EVERY DEBATE USING SAME OLD PROPAGANDA + LIES + OFFENSIVE SMEARS

“Israel is losing the debate – in more ways than one” by Ben White MARCH 6, 2015 on MiddleEastMonitor

Click for Source Article on MiddleEastMonitor

Debate at Cambridge Union = ‘This House Believes Israel is a Rogue State.’ = ISRAELI POLICIES

 

Extraordinary contribution from Davis Lewin = 10 minutes of screaming, finger-jabbing, and insults directed at both speakers and Union members = Combination of Twitter troll and YouTube commenter.

Speakers = Ghada Karmi + Norman Finkelstein for the proposition

BEN WHITE Opposed = BIG Takeaway from Debate = Sheer weakness of Israeli Opposition’s arguments = SAME OLD pro-Israel propaganda that simply no longer works.

Motion was carried by 51% to 19% = A 7% swing from the pre-debate vote.

At End of Debate = Cries of ‘Free, Free Palestine’ rang out.

BEN WHITE = Opening speech = Israel is NOT ‘perfect’ and makes ‘mistakes’, but Real issue is whether Israel violates international law and human rights, and whether it does so systematically.

BEN WHITE = Debate was not about Iran + Syria + Hamas + ISIS + North Korea + Russia.

BEN WHITE = The question was plain – is Israel a rogue state?

Next speech Vivian Wineman, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, opened up for the opposition = ‘Israel is not perfect’ = Israel’s apologists predictable talking point.

Wineman like two other opposition speakers = Indulged in familiar tactic of citing abuses by Israel’s enemies + Regurgitation of tired talking points on Israeli’s morality and so forth.

Next speakers were Hannah Weisfeld, head of liberal Zionist advocacy group Yachad, and Davis Lewin, deputy director of the Henry Jackson Society.

Weisfeld’s stated she had no intention of defending the occupation or settlements. She attempted to demonstrate that Israel could not be a rogue state because it has parliamentary democracy, an independent judiciary, a free press, and that critics of the government are not arrested + She claimed her ability to visit Israel freely as a critic of the occupation (opposite her was a speaker excluded from her homeland because she is Palestinian). BUT even FINKELSTEIN WAS ARRESTED AND CAN NEVER RETURN + THOUSANDS of PALESTINIANS ARE IN PRISON + Democracy does NOT apply to millions of Palestinians living for half a century under a military regime.

Wineman + Weisfeld + Lewin = Variety of Israeli propaganda strategies = Historical fantasies + Faux-liberal concern + Offensive smears.

RESULT = University of Cambridge students voted with their feet, and found Israel to be a rogue state by an overwhelming majority.

FACTORS = Ethnic cleansing + Colinization + War crimes = Disregard for and defiance of a global international law and treaties = Attitude from Zionist founders of Israel through to its politicians and leaders of today.

1955 Israel’s first prime minister Ben-Gurion stated that: “Our future does not depend on what the nations [the international community] say, but what the Jews do.”

2007 Tzipi Livni – former minister and so-called ‘moderate’ – revealed: “I am a lawyer…But I am against law – international law in particular. Law in general.”

FACT: Israel commits grave, systematic violations of international law; expands beyond its borders; and seriously abuses the human rights of Palestinians terrorized by settlers acting with impunity. The evidence is irrefutable – and the theatrics of apartheid apologists can no longer hide it.