The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it Resolved, anti-Zionism is antisemitism

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

On this special edition of the Munk Debates podcast we are sharing the opening statements from the Munk Debate on anti-Zionism, which took place on June 17th in front of a sold out crowd of 3,000 people at Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall. The debate resolution was: Be it resolved, anti-Zionism is antisemitism Arguing for the motion was award winning journalist, best-selling author, and former Munk Debater Douglas Murray. His debate partner was Natasha Hausdorff. She’s an attorney, international law expert, and legal director for the UK Lawyer for Israel Charitable Trust. Opposing the resolution was Mehdi Hasan. Mehdi is a best-selling author, former MSNBC anchor, and the CEO and editor-in-chief of the new media company Zeteo. He was joined on stage by the award winning Israeli journalist and Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy. As with all our live Munk Debates, the audience voted on this resolution prior to hearing the debate. Initially, 61% of attendees were in favour of the debate motion, and 39% were opposed. We did another poll after the debate to find out how many people had changed their minds once they listened to arguments from both sides.  The full 90 minute debate is available exclusively to Munk Donors. Find out how to become a Munk Donor here.   The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths  Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz Producer: Daniel Kitts Editor: Kieran LynchBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You don't help the poor by making everybody poorer. The media has a frame, and the frame is Israel is the oppressor, and the Palestinians are the oppressed. I shouldn't be forced to acknowledge my privilege unless I desire for that to be part of my interaction with somebody else. What I know to be true and what all of my fellow Gen Z know to be true is that this is the most talented generation yet. With respect to every indicia of disadvantage, there is still a racial hierarchy. And though I am, of course, in Anglo. I'm certainly not a Fri-Saxon. Welcome to the Monk Debates.

Every episode we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issue of the day. Our goal is to arm you, the listener, with enough information, to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved, anti-Zionism, is anti-Semitism. Jews are hated not for their religion or their race, but for having a state. notion is not about whether you are pro-Israel or pro-Zionist. It's about whether the rest of us

have the right, the freedom, to take a different view. Zionism means national supremacy of one people over the other. When it comes to the Jews, would you let the anti-Zionists define anti-Zionism? No, ladies and gentlemen, no minority should have its identity dictated to it. Welcome to this special edition of the Monk Debates podcast. On this episode, we're sharing the opening statements from the monk debate on anti-Zionism, which took place in front of a sold-out crowd of 3,000 people at Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall on Monday, June 17th. Resolution before the House was, be it resolved.

Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Arguing for the motion was award-winning journalist, best-selling author, and former monk debater, Douglas Murray. His debate partner was Natasha Hausdorff, an acclaimed attorney, international law expert, and legal director of the UK Lawyers for Israel Charitable Trust. Opposing the motion was Medi Hassan. Medi is a bestselling author, former MSNBC and Al Jazeera anchor, and CEO and editor-in-chief of the new media company Zateo. He was joined on stage by the award-winning journalist and Haharet's columnist, Gideon, Levy. As with all of our monk debates, the audience voted on the resolution prior to hearing the debate. Initially, 61% of attendees were in favor of the motion, 39% opposed. We did another poll at the end of the debate to find out how many people had changed their minds after they'd listened to arguments on both sides. Before we give you those results, let's now join the debate with Douglas Murray and his opening statement in favor of. the resolution, be it resolved, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.

It's a great pleasure to be back to the Monk debates. When I was last here a couple of years ago, I just returned from the front line of the war in Ukraine, where I was with the Ukrainian armed forces. And for most of the last eight months, I've been in Israel and Gaza following the war there as closely as I can. and I won't go into all the details now that I could give you of what's happening.

But I would just put it in perspective in this way, first of all. What happened on the 7th of October was not just a massive attack on innocent people inside Israel. It was the equivalent to about 6,000 Canadians being massacred and burned in their homes in one day. It's the equivalent of about 1,500 of your fellow Canadians being taken hostage. You know, you would have thought after an attack, like the one that Hamas instigated, that started this terrible war, you would have thought that there would be some sympathy for the world,

from the world. You might have thought the world would pay attention to the attack and at least pay attention to the people behind it. you might have expected like me that there might have been a worldwide opposition to the terrorists and rapists and murderers of Hamas you might have thought there would be hatred around the world erupting that the government of Qatar and its mouthpiece and al-Jazeera its funding of Hamas and its hosting of the leadership of Hamas in Qatar you might have thought there'd have been an outpouring of rage at the Islamic Revolutionary Government in Tehran, but no, there was an immediate outpouring of rage against the state that had been attacked.

Bring back our girls, we had 10 years ago in the war in northern Nigeria, which I also covered. Bring back our girls. No international campaigns saying bring back our Jewish children. Believe all women, we've been told, for years. But, turns out, not if the raped women are Jewish. Israel is the only country in the world which, when it's attacked, gets attacked more.

You know, the interesting thing about anti-Semitism is, as my late friend Jonathan Sachs said, it's a shape-shifting virus. It moves across the centuries. When you could hate people for their religion, the Jews were hated for their religion. Then you couldn't hate people for that anymore. So people hated the Jews for their race.

And then after the 20th century, people realized that wasn't such a great idea either. Now the Jews are hated not for their religion or their race, but for having a state. People around the world hate them so much for it that Israelis are attacked when they have hostages taken, and this is to remember the 100 hostages still in captivity in Gaza, who if they were given back by Hamas today, the war would be over. And they're also attacked when they rescue their hostages. You know, the interesting thing about anti-Semitism,

is the Jews can never win because historically they've been hated for being rich and for being poor. They've been hated for integrating and for not integrating. They were hated for being stateless. Remember rootless cosmopolitans, the far right used to say. Now they're hated for having a state. Today, the only really acceptable form of anti-Semitism,

and aside from the sewers of the far right, the only real, tolerated form of anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism. Zionism, as we've just heard, is simply the right of the Jews to self-determination in their historic homeland. That's all. Anti-Semitism, as we've also just heard,

is double standards against Jewish people or cruel and unfair treatment of people because they're Jews. This isn't very far away from home, here. If this isn't anti-Semitism, can the audience here tell me why the following things have happened since October the 7th? Why in a Montreal suburb, a synagogue should be firebombed, as happened in November, where there should have been gunshots against the Shiva, why in Toronto a bookstore owned by a Jew should be attacked, why a Molotov cocktail was

thrown through a Jewish community centre in Montreal, why a Toronto Jewish Delhi in North York, was firebombed, why in Toronto, the Orthodox synagogue was vandalized, why in Toronto two men opened fire the other week on a Jewish girls' school. If it isn't anti-Semitism, tell me why just a week ago pro-Hamas protesters try to go through Jewish areas in this city shouting not just al-Aqba, but, and I quote, sorry for the language, fucking filthy, fucking Zionist pigs, dirty Zionist rats. Have you heard that language before? The Jews have. Now look, if you are interested in this motion,

just bear this in mind. It's not about Netanyahu, it's not about this war, it's about double standards, and one question hovers over it above all. The question of who would protect the Jews. Who would you trust to protect them? The Europeans? The Arab world?

No, history shows only one people will protect the Jewish people. The Jewish people. That's what Zionism is. Thank you. For that opening statement, Douglas, it's now Medi Hassan's opportunity to present the con side of the argument. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in 1917, over 100 years ago, Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Second, a card-carrying anti-Semite, a man who had denounced the evils of Jewish immigration into the UK,

a man who referred to Jews as an alien and hostile people. He issued his Balfour Declaration, which promised a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. It was the first time a major world power had come out in favor of Zionism, which at the time was a pretty new and pretty controversial movement, calling not just for a Jewish homeland, but for the building of a Jewish majority state in Palestine. And yet the only Jewish member of the British cabinet at that time, a man named Edwin Samuel Montague, adamantly opposed both Zionism, which he called a mischievous political creed, and the Balfour Declaration, which he referred to as anti-Semitic and a rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country in the world.

The only Jewish member of the British cabinet, that is what he said. And yet tonight here in Toronto, over 100 years later, we are being asked to vote for a motion that would damn Montague as the anti-Semite while praising Balfour as the champion of Jews and Judaism. That's ridiculous. In fact, this entire motion tonight is ridiculous, disingenuous, a historical. It says, be it resolved, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. It doesn't say some anti-Zionists engage in anti-Semitism,

which I don't disagree with. It doesn't say some anti-Semites hide behind the country. cloak of anti-Zionism, which again, I don't disagree with. Everything Douglas listed about what's happened in Toronto, disgusting, reprehensible. Those people are shameless bigots. But that's not what the motion says. The motion says anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. No ifs, no butts, no caveats, no exceptions. Anyone, anyone who takes an anti-Zionist position is automatically inherently, unavoidably anti-Jewish, an anti-Semite, a racist. That is what you would be voting for

if you make the mistake of voting for this motion tonight, which I'm sure you won't do because you are far too smart and nuanced an audience to do that. You are Canadians! And I have great respect for Canadians. I say that for no apparent reason whatsoever. I like Canadians.

I like Israelis. My debate partner tonight, Gideon Levy, Israeli writer, is one of my journalistic heroes. It's a privilege to be on the stage with him. but this debate fundamentally at its core and I kind of agree with Douglas here it's not about Israelis it's not about Israel it's not about Gaza and by the way on the subject of Gaza given Douglas gave us some math about the death toll on October the 7th horrific death toll which we all condemn I would remind you also that the death toll inflicted on

Gaza the deaths and injuries in Gaza are the equivalent if we're going to do the ratios of two million Canadians two million Canadians but that's not what the debate is about It's not even about Zionism itself. It's about the legitimacy of anti-Zionism, whether you can be anti-Zionist, opposed to Zionism, which, remember, is a political ideology, a nationalist movement, not a religion, not a race, not a protected class, whether you can be anti-Zionist

without being smeared, tarred, demonized as an anti-Semite. And I want to be clear tonight. You could be the most pro-Israeli person in this room tonight, the most proud and ardent Zionist here, and still vote against this motion with a clear conscience. Still vote with our side, the right side. Because this motion is not about whether you are pro-Israel or pro-Zionist. It's about whether the rest of us have the right, the freedom,

to take a different view on Israel, on Zionism, on Benjamin Netanyahu even, without being silenced, without being told we're racists. We're not. Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. I'll tell you three reasons why. Three reasons why you should oppose this motion tonight. Number one, if you vote for this motion tonight,

you are throwing logic, history, and the English language under the bus. Because anti-Semitism is hating Jews, the people and Judaism, the religion. Anti-Zionism is opposing Israel, the state, and Zionism, the ethno-nationalist ideology that underpins that state. Zionism is not Judaism. Let me say that again for the people up top. Zionism is not Judaism. Right?

It's a very modern, secular, political ideology movement that was founded less than 150 years ago by an atheist named Theodore Herzl, who said, and I quote, the anti-Semites will be our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries, our allies. His words, not mine. Number two, if you vote for this motion, you're throwing Palestinians as a people under the bus.

You're telling an occupied people, a dispossessed people, to accept their own occupation, their own dispossession, meekly, in silence. Otherwise, they're racists. As my friend Yusuf Manaya, the Palestinian-American activist, says, to ask Palestinians not to be anti-Zionist, is to ask Palestinians not to be. And number three, last but not least, if you vote for this motion,

you're throwing a lot of Jews under the bus as well. Not just Jews like Edwin Samuel Montague, but Jews today. If you vote for this motion tonight, you'll say my debate partner, Gideon Levy, whose grandparents were killed in the Holocaust, who served for Shimon Perez, who's written for Horat's for over 40 years, just won Israel's top journalism prize three years ago.

He's an anti-Semite. You're saying the Satmar, the world's biggest Hasidic Jewish sect, which says it is fighting God's war against Zionism is anti-Semitic. You're saying Jewish college students on campus, maybe some of them are your kids, members of if not now and Jewish voices for peace. They're anti-Semites. You're saying some of the most respected Jewish voices in the world,

like Avraham Berg, the former Speaker of the Parliament. Miriam Margolis, the actress from Harry Bloody Potter, they're all anti-Semites. That is what you are saying. That is what you're signing off on if you vote for this motion tonight. So I have a simple solution for you all. Don't do it. Vote instead for common sense,

for free speech and the right to criticize a foreign country, the right to criticize a foreign country and the political ideology. I beg to oppose. You're listening to a special edition of the Monk Debates podcast featuring the opening statements from our recent Monk debate on anti-Zionism. Details on how to watch the full 90-minute debates in beautiful high-definition video. One you are not going to want to miss. Visit our website right now, Triple W.

Monk Debates. That's M-U-N-K Debates with an S.com. Now, back to the program where we pick up with Natasha Hausdorff's opening remarks. Arguing in favor the motion, be it resolved. Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. Thank you, and good evening. What a privilege it is to be here stood on this stage, on what I consider to be the most important topic of our age.

I have to begin with a debating tip coming from, a land with a culture of a rich history of debate. And that is that in debates, it is for the proposition to define the motion. And Douglas did that for you, loud and clear. Medi seems to think that he can redefine anti-Zionism without you noticing, but the proposition are not going to allow him to pull the wool over your eyes

and conflate Zionism with politics. Who has the right to define Zionism? Well, apart from the proposition in this debate, because that's how the rules work, would you ask a misogynist to define misogyny? You wouldn't ask a sex offender to define rape? You wouldn't ask the KKK to define anti-black racism. So why, when it comes to the Jews, would you let the anti-Zionists define anti-Zionism? No, ladies and gentlemen, no minority should have its identity dictated to it.

And we have defined Zionism. it concerns the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancient homeland. Zionism is not a political ideology. Zionism does not stipulate how the Jewish state should be governed, which is what a political ideology does. It simply says it should exist.

It doesn't dictate borders or the makeup of population. It does not say that Israel should be socialist Kibald-Seem or capitalist startup nation. Israel has exemplified both. those and everything in between. This is not about political ideology. This debate is about racism and creating a double standard where you make an exception for the Jews. Now, you don't have to support Zionism. But if you are anti-Zionist, if you are against the Jews having a state, you are against the Jews. Medellazhan is lying about what Zionism is in an attempt to win this

debate and to provide cover for his own anti-Semitism. We usually hear a series of lies spewed by anti-Semites and anti-Zionists in an attempt to justify their anti-Zionism, and these are the modern blood liable. They are widely believed, as widely believed as the ancient blood liable, that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood for religious ritual, as widely believed and as false. I'm going to take you through four blood liables that anti-Zionists rely on. one, the liable of colonialism. Israel is the ultimate decolonization success story. Against all odds after Arab imperialism, Islamic conquest and British colonialism, the Jews indigenous to Judea re-established Israel. My family lived under Ottoman and then British colonialism in Jerusalem

long before Yasser Arafat, who was born in Cairo, created Palestinian national identity in the 60s. Number two, the liable of ethnic cleansing. In 1948, when five Arab armies and the local Arab population attacked the fledgling state of Israel with the stated intention of annihilating its people, 700,000 Arabs escaped the fighting. Those that remained became Israeli citizens. The Arab population of Israel has increased tenfold. This is ethnic cleansing?

No. Ethnic cleansing is what happened to the Jews. Jews in 1948 when Jordan occupied the West Bank. Ethnic cleansing is what happened to 850,000 Jews expelled from Yemen, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq where they'd lived for thousands of years. Ethnic cleansing left Arab countries Jew free. Meanwhile, two million Arabs live in Israel today. Number three, the liable of apartheid. Because those Arabs that remained in Israel are now 20% of its population, the only free Arabs in the Middle East. They are represented in every area of Israeli society, as mayors,

army officers, police commanders, members of parliament and the Supreme Court. I served under Salim Joubram, who put both an Israeli Prime Minister and a president in jail. And those who propagate the lie of apartheid seek to conflate Arab citizens of Israel with Arabs living under the Palestinian Authority, who have an autonomy and should be voting for their leadership, but President Mahmur Abbas is now in his 19th year of his four-year term. Number four, the libel of genocide, the reprehensible smear that maliciously accuses the Jews of perpetrating the very crimes committed against them. October 7th was the latest in a long history of genocidal acts

by Arabs against Jews in the Middle East. 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. And in the face of these unprecedented challenges, the IDF has taken greater measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other army in history,

far exceeding the requirements of international law. Genocide is the latest modern blood libel that anti-Semites use to justify their antique Zionism. And it is central to Hamas' war strategy. Today, its only aim is to survive. and to achieve this with international pressure on the Jews to cease their self-defense. Voting for the opposition supports Hamas in this endeavor by legitimizing, aiding and abetting their anti-Zionist aim to wipe out the Jews from the river to the sea.

Don't stand with the terrorists and anti-Semites. Stand on the side of moral integrity. Stand with the proposition. Thank you, Natasha House for. Gideon Levy, we're going to have your opening statement now. Thank you very much. This couldn't have happened in Israel that so many people will have

so much interest and come to such an evening. I can't prevent a remark that I didn't plan to say to what Douglas had just said. To stand here today eight months after this war started and to talk only about the Jewish victims totally ignoring

38,000 people who were killed in those eight. month, totally ignoring the starvation, the destruction, the tens of thousands of children which were killed tells the whole story. After this, you almost don't need to continue. Because when you don't see the other, when you're victimizing yourself and totally ignore the other suffer, the other agony, then really we have no basis here. Now I want to get back to my I couldn't help it, sorry. I will start with a personal note.

If not Zionism, I wouldn't have been here tonight. My father said goodbye, my late father said goodbye to his parents and fiancé in the railway station of Prague in 1939. He went on a boat, illegal boat, five months in the sea. No port would accept them. detention in Beirut, Lebanon, and finally illegally arriving in Israel.

He had no idea about Zionism. He hardly knew Judaism. He never knew the difference between Purim and Pesach. Until his last day, I always had to explain him when Puri him, you eat Matsot. No, it's Pesach when you eat Matsot. But he came here, here to Israel, and Zionism saved him. Zionism at its beginning was a just cause which was performed with many, many mistakes and even crimes. But the idea that the Jews deserve a rescue place was the most moral idea that I could have thought at those days.

But years passed by Zionism, which nobody today in Israel knows to define exactly. Many Israelis will tell you that to help an old lady to cross the road, even if she doesn't want to cross the road, that's Zionism. But Zionism today is the scaffold. That's a word that I wrote myself, and I will never know to pronounce it, the scaffolding of a building which was built already. And once you built it, you don't need it anymore. Zionism today has only one meaning and nobody can find any other meaning. It is Jewish supremacy between the river and the sea. That's the real meaning of Zionism today.

I was a good boy in Tel Aviv for many years. I got Zionism with the milk of my mother. You mentioned all my sins. Yes, I was in the army. I was working for Shimon Peres. I was a Zionist. until I realized that Zionism means national supremacy of one people over the other.

And I cannot support any kind of supremacy anywhere. Yes, it was a nice lie to tell that the people without a land, arrived to a land without a people. And we were brought up according to those stories. I heard the word Nakba first time in my life when I was 20. I saw the ruins along the street and they were on the roads in Israel. I never asked, where are the people who lived in those ruins? What happened to them?

We had no interest for this. But you get adult and I started to cover the occupation. It's now 40 years that I'm covering the occupation and I cannot accept Jewish supremacy. But that's my problem. It's not necessarily your problem. What must be really understood is that, is that Zionism, as my friend, Meadhi just mentioned, is an ideology. You might support it. You might not support it.

Israel, the Jewish people, had defined themselves already. We have a strong regional superpower, and we live in a state which is more Jewish than democratic, and the struggle should be between the two, and this struggle is still ahead of us. but Zionism finished its role many years ago. It is meaningless today, but still people might believe in it. That's fine with me. My request from you tonight is don't fall to the trap of the Israeli propaganda. The strategy of Israel in recent years is efficient and successful,

and you shouldn't fall to the trap because it's finally also your problem. Not any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism. Not every policeman who writes a ticket to a Jewish driver is an anti-Semite. You may be anti-Israeli in the way that you are anti-occupation, anti-apartheid, and still have nothing to do with anti-Semitism. I'll tell you more than this. Israel has succeeded by this to silence any criticism. and take my word, there is nothing that Israel needs now more than criticism.

Because Israel will never save itself by its own. Israel will never put an end to the occupation without you, without the criticism of the world. Thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed these opening statements. And now let's have those final results. How did this audience change its mind after listening to 90 minutes of hard-hitting, debate. You can grab that on our website right now, by the way, triple w monk debates.com. Watch the whole debate in beautiful high definition video. All you have to do is become a donor

to the monk debates for as little as $25 a year. Not only will you get two of our live stream debates, this one and our upcoming fall 2024 debate. You also get our much loved Friday focused podcast on international relations. All back to that vote. As you know, we started the evening with 61% of attendees in favor of the motion, 39% opposed. We had final results of 66 in favor of the motion, a gain of five percentage points by the team of Douglas Murray and Natasha Hausdorff.

So we crowned them the winners of the monk debate on anti-Zionism. And congratulated Medi and Gideon for a heart. hard-fought debate on the other side. If you have questions or feedback on what you've just heard, please send us an email to podcast at monkdebates.com. That's MUNK DebateswithanS.com. Thank you for lending your time and attention to bringing back the art of public debate, one conversation at a time. I'm your host and moderator, Rudyard Griffith. The Monk Debates are a project of the Oriah and Peter and Melanie Monk Charitable Foundation.

The Monk Debates podcast is produced by Ricky Gerowitz and Daniel Kitts. Karen Lynch is the editor. Be sure to download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like us, feel free to leave a five-star rating. Thank you again for listening.