Thanks for this post, Alex. Here is one answer that I didn’t have the time to give last night. It is so obvious that it is a wonder that it needs to be said at all:

To the woman who had been a student at Haifa University: She said that Zionism is the same as Nazism because both share the same central assumption: that Jews could not live in Europe. Yes, but what were their reasons? Nazis thought that Jews were an infestation, a disease in the body of Europe and so ought to be killed. Zionists thought that Jews couldn’t live in Europe because Nazis wanted to kill them. This is not really very similar, is it? So what kind of reason do you have for making such a silly claim?

Kudos and cheers to David!

Re the following:

"To Hirsh’s claim that Israel is not the worst human rights abuser in the world, that Israel isnot the most racist state in the world, that Israel is not responsible for the most serious campaign of ethnic cleansing in the world, Pappe’s weak (and very bizarre) answer is that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is the ‘longest occupation’ going on."

it seems extremely strange that a person purported to be an expert in history produces an answer like the one quoted above. Especially when that "discovery" is announced in England - a power that occupies Northern Ireland for more than 400 years and succeeded to "plant" there quite a lot of settlers. Duh.

Pappe showed how irrational he was last night when he accused "zionists" of laughing at his accusations of Israeli brutality ! In fact people were laughing at his ego and Pappe knew this ! I must say that Pappe's accusations reminded me of Lynne Jones MP who a couple of years ago posted unfounded accusations of Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women , and after pressure from anti-racists she withdrew these accusations (after Amnesty told her the allegations were untrue). Last night saw the usual tendencies towards portraying the anti-boycott campaign as some powerful force (see above for how Sue Balckwell did this). This idea of a zionist conspiracy seems to be standard in the boycott campaign - John Rose in an article in "Palestine News" trots out the same reactionary rubbish "Given the power of organised Zionism in Britain it was not surprising that the close-won vote was subsequently overturned". All was revealed when a member of the audience talked about Jews and then corrected herself by saying zionists ! It's amazing how anti-semitism disappears for these people when they substitute zionists for Jews !
It was heartening to see how many jewish students turned up for the debate and made several useful contributions (as they did in Manchester when Bargouti spoke on Monday evening). As the debate went on , Pappe became more bitter and nasty possibly due to his frustration at getting a good drumming from David Hirsh. I hope he puts more effort into preparing his lectures than he did for the debate last night!
Having heard Bargouti speak on Monday night (he actualy made Pappe look good - ior was it the other way round ?)i realise that the boycott campaign is more interested in demonising Israel than helping Palestinians.
On a more positive note i received a link to the following story this morning which shows what ordinary Palestinians and Israelis can do to help pave the way to peaceful co-existence.
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3169828,00.html

His arguments seem far more feeble than I had imagined.

Last night's meeting was the first time I'd heard Pappe speak. He had a formidable reputation and I was expecting an erudite, depressed but combative top-drawer academic who had, forlornly, perhaps desperately, lost his will to believe in the Israeli Peace Movements and was now hoping against hope that another agency could command his energies and integrity.

That was not the man who spoke last night. Last night we were given a speech premised on illusion and allusion. A fantasist and a double dealer.

Take the atrocities Pappe says he has seen, which in a simple,linear read off,underpin the boycott call. Pappe gave us a list of maybe 6 horrific incidents commited by Israeli soldiers, each worse than the last starting with the macarbe and ending up with the simply sadistic. I am prepared to belive these horrors happened. But not that he saw them all, and I'm not prepared to believe in them because Pappe told me they did.

I might have believed them if Pappe had not shown an extraordinary lack of judgement and lack of honour in the portrayal of his own treatement by Haifa University. He underminded his own authority. How can a man of longstanding service in the Communist Party stand there and tell us he is persecuted by his Administration and offer up as evidence the allocation of too small teaching rooms? (A room for 2 secretaries allocatd for his class of 100) As a CP'r Pappe knows about the fate of academics who are persecuted...all over the world. CP acadmics have been blacklisted and even killed...but no-shame Pappe takes the mantle of the persecuted because size matters! How could Pappe moan at his alleged treatment when all around him such atocities are committed? He was a laughable figure.


And the way Pappe handled the subsequent, mocking laughter, wasn't endearing either. Nor did it build confidence in his veracity. Maybe, just maybe, the speaker in the audience who said we were laughing at the atrocities misunderstood the laughter. Maybe he did think people were laughing at the atrocious tales... but I dont think so. Pappe was laughed at because he had set himself up.

I forgave this opportunism, this lying and point scoring from a member of the audience. But not from someone of Pappe's former status. Pappe seized the moment and repeated it in his summation. Perhaps he thought it was a tale ('zionists laughed - yes, they actually laughed as i told them about solidiers playing football with a baby's head') that will warm and grow in its future tellings. But I'm sure he also repeated it in order to co-opt the guy in the audience who first raised it.

I think this because he deployed the same device when another audience speaker insisted that anti-semitism was not a useful concept because arabs are semites too.
Now, there is no way that Pappe did not immediately compartmentalise this nonsense as precisely that. But did he demur? No. Did he keep quiet and not mention such an embarrassment? No. Instead he repeated it from the platform. He held it as his own...and the only imaginable reason was to co-opt the guy who raised it. To make him feel part of Pappe's gang, to keep him warm.

Pappe hoovered up any old rubbish the audience offered him. Not for him a desire to establish a truth or an honourable framework for debate. Maybe that is what a broken man is reduced to.

Well done David. It was good to be there last night.

I found the way Sue Blackwell talked about "powerful lawyers" who had acted for Princess Diana very funny. After the debate a copy of the letter from Mischcon de Reya to the AUT was circulated in the meeting. I hd not seen that before. Is it possible to publish that letter, or at least the substantive points, on this site?- It may have already been done and if so I apologize.

As Linda Grant states above, the arguments used by Ilan Pappe were quite poor. Alexandra reports very well above the way Pappe tried to twist what the audience were laughing about and this showed how politically bankrupt he really is.

There are some that argue, and I see their point, that Pappe should not be debated with as by sharing a platform with him in some ways legitimizes his arguments. Irrespective of someones opinion on that matter, the debate was carried out and Pappe was both exposed and outclassed.

One down, Sue to go!

What about a debate with Blackwell next?

"What about a debate with Blackwell next?"

I am not sure this would be a wise step. I have not seen (being an Israeli and rarely venturing to the foggy Albion) the lady speaking.

However, from what I have read - both about her and her own produce, she is

a) an expert in linguistics - for some reason many of that ilk are demagogues of a highest caliber (no names, please) and

b) she builds her current (and past) self on pure fanaticism, and is not amenable to logic and/or common sense.

It will be difficult to impossible to win the audience in this case. Why bother?

Aside of beating on the head 2x4 or a sudden change of faith, nothing will cause dear Sue to change her ways, I believe.

Your report of of my contibution to the debate includes a number of points that I did not raise in my contibution from the floor: they are very good points, that I wish I had mentioned, and - probably - other speakers did: But I didn't. My contribution (as far as I can remember) was about Pappe's arrogance, dishonesty and irrelevance from the real and serious argument that is going on about Palestinian rights and Israel's right to exist; to debunk his claim that his is some kind of victim of "persecution" (hence the laughter when he included his cramped working conditions in with a list of atrocities against Palestinians). I had assumed that this man was a serious anti-Zionist academic and "New Historian": What I saw was a dishonest, dissembling, Stalinist liar. And not a very good one, at that. Hirsch made mincemeat of the bum: not because Hirsch was that much better as a debater, but because he (Hirsch) was at least honest. And didn't conflate his own situation with that of the Palestinians.

Debate Sue Blackwell?

Why on earth would one want to do that? No base, nothing to say, represents nothing but hotair. We wont be wasting our time on that one!

I think the next debate should be between a Peretz representative and a boycotter. I'd like to see if they have the balls to stick to their line that Peretz is a 'Jewish Supremicist'.

Sue Hamilton:

"Debate Sue Blackwell? Why on earth would one want to do that?"

Uh... maybe precisely BECAUSE she's got "nothing to say, represents nothing but hot air." Personally I think she's slightly more dangerous than that, but if you're sure there's nothing to her then why not let Hirsh, who's clearly good at this, demonstrate it for all to see? You yourself described how the debate with Pappe shattered your illusions of Pappe's seriousness and integrity. So if Blackwell is such a lightweight, then the obvious thing to do is show her up, and thus undermine her influence. This is trepidation masquerading as disdain.

The Levantine:

Your words of caution about Blackwell's demagoguery and fanaticism are reasonable as far as they go, but mightn't seriousness and substance win out? Think of that Hitchens-Galloway "debate": Galloway played to the crowd much better, but ended up looking exactly like the demagogue he is, and undermined his own cause as a result. If Blackwell is (as I believe) nothing but an empty Israel-hater and controversy-addict, then hey, give the girl a platform and let her hang it all out -- then everyone will know!

I appreciate getting the email updates to this site, and value the seemingly verbatim transcription of David Hirsh's speech. I've tried to make it to the meetings near me where this issue arises, ever since I signed the open letter against the boycott way back when, and David articulates the position eloquently, urgently yet measuredly. I can see from here that he's still got game.

However, if you're going to recap the debate, it would be nice if there was a pretense of reportage rather than rah-rahing. Would it have been impossible to report Pappe's words dispassionately and verbatim as you did for his opponent, and kept personal perspective (and, yes, audience reaction) to report afterwards? I felt like I was handed campaign literature for two candidates, one of which had funny classes and a goatee crayoned on. How is one meant to assess the relative impact of each of the sides in a debate which I presume matters to everyone reading this site, when there is no attempt to channel the impact of one side of the debate? Yes, I know that everyone who disagreed with Pappe beforehand continues to be unimpressed, but give me the tools to assess the rhetoric for myself! Disappointing.

I'd be very happy to post Ilan Pappe's text, if I had access to it. If anyone has seen it posted somewhere, let me know, and I'll post it or link to it. Alex

Message to Jim Denham,

Jim,
You did say what it says you said. But I didn't say the second bit of what it says I said. Wish I has though as I agree with it and have said it before.

General points

What struck me about Pappe was his academeocentric view of the world. Expose the evil Israeli universities and the occupation ends. Wierd stuff.

Quoting Bishop Desmond Tutu to prove sanctions brought down apartheid wasn't particularly rigorous. After all, imagine the good bishop being so rude as to say to people "Well thanks very much, we know you meant well, but the boycott didn't have any impact".

I must say the whole tone and use of personal invective against Pappe in this report smacks of self congratulation and deniasl.

How deeply embedded is the 'boycott' movement?

Is it the result of stupid, crude and opportunist politics of parts of the left, post-48 or post-68? Undoubtedly it was mainly carried for years by the SWP. But will it survive long, as that organisation dwindles?

What to me is bizarre is that some of its strongest advocates of the boycott are people who have broken from the SWP and deeply hostile to it, like Sue Blackwell. Sue was a long-term SWP member who was repelled and either expelled or resigned (I can't remember which) because of the SWP's pursuit of alliances with muslim communalist organisations like the MAB. Which is all well and good.

I do fear that the feeble arguments repeated by the boycotters and reported here rest on a wider ignorance than that simply kept alive by the SWP.

Sue Blackwell, who I knew during the Socialist Alliance's demise, is undoubtedly respected by Birmingham AUT, probably because she is a good trade unionists etc. It would be interesting to know what the views of Birmingham AUT were at, and after, yesterday's debate.

Are 'commentors' unpleasantly triumphalist? Maybe...maybe that's a bit vulgar...but maybe its pretty justified.

On the human level, of course its justified! This wasn't an academic debate. This was a debate about whether blacklisting Israeli Jews is an acceptable practice for trade unionists in all its symoblism, echoes and potency and in all its practicalities. It was about relations between the labour movment and Jews. It was about the world and Israel - a state and its citizens to be outlawed (and take what's coming to them)or not. It was about the very, very serious matter of stopping left anti-semitism getting a hold in our movement.

Should Engage have been more formal in its reportage? That's another question. And now I repeat the formula of the site. The Forum will always have space for comments where people will let off steam. The posts which start these threads are more serious. And even more serious will be the journal, (first issue out in Jan) where normal academic standards and proprieties will be observed.

There is an interview in today's Independent books section with the Lebanese writer Elias Khoury whose novel on the Nakba has just been translated into English. He will be appearing at an event at Jewish Book Week in London in Febtuary with the Israeli novelist David Grossman.

I'm pleased to say attempts to impose a cultural boycott by British academics are failing miserably. It will be interesting to see if Khoury is denounced by those same mouths as a collaborator.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/interviews/article327677.ece

I opposed the boycott from the beginning, which is why I became in touch with Engage. I regret now reading both a confrontational tone and a format that doesn't do justice to a fair debate. If Hirsh's speech is posted in full, then so should Ilan Pappe's speech.
We are falling in an age old trap which consists on keeping on concentrating on what divides us rather than what unites us. I have great respect for Ilan Pappe's work and recommend his books to my students. I do not think it is constructive to adopt such a confrontational tone when discussing his arguments.
It would seem much more constructive to first look at the situation, sincerely, from Pappe's point of view. This is not possible from this website as his speech doesn't appear. Then, in a second step, we should examine point by point why we think the boycott would not achieve what is in fact our common goal: a just and sustainable peace in the Middle East. This website doesn't do this. Most comments here simply demean Pappe's points.
I regret that what I read here is only cementing divisions among people who should be working together.

As I have already said here, I'd be very happy to put Pappe's speech in full, if I had it. As to a fair, or balanced view, I'm not prepared to pretend that this was a normal, balanced academic debate. I'm not prepared to pretend that Pappe didn't manipulate and lie. Because that's what he did, I was there, and I was offended by his 'debating' technique.

Quick question for Julie Trottier:

If you want to recommend Pappe to students, that's fine.

But do you get them to engage with Pappe - and other post-Zionists like B. Morris & A. Shlaim - critically?

In other words, do you also recommend work by critics of post-Zionism like Y. Gelber, E. Karsh and L.J. Silberstein?

These latter scholars highlight the factual and interpretative problems of the post-Zionist revisionists.

"I don't like false accusations of antisemitism (they act as smokescreen apologetics, they're exaggerated opportunistically, they're
counterproductive)"

Not like being harrangued...........has Brian ever been in a room when Steven (I told Kirsty Walk to ssssshhhhh) Rose "speaks? Was Brian at the AUT conference when the boycott motion was first passed?

And,what about accusations of antisemitism that are not "false"? Are they just "smokescreen apologetics"; another Zionst ploy to stop the truth coming out? Since when is the unearthing of racism "counterproductive"?

And, finally, how can "false" accusations be "exagerated", does not the one include the latter?

Something disturbs me very much in the accounts of Ilan Pappe's speech. Pappe apparently claimed to have seen, with his own eyes, Israeli soldiers using a baby's head as a football. Is this possible? Sadly, it can't be dismissed out of hand; the most bestial behaviour can be found on occasion in any human society. But it must be common in Israel. If it were rare, what are the odds of it happening right in front of one of the country's most prominent critics? As much to the point, if it were rare - even though it would be every bit as unspeakable, and absolutely unforgivable on the part of those who did it or allowed it - of what relevance is it in debating the overall conflict? There is no cause whose partisans are absolutely free of taint; certainly not the Palestinians. And yet, if it's common, why is it under-reported? Because, even though the country is awash in correspondents and there is no shortage of media, Israeli and other, able and willing to tell bad news about Israel, there are precious few verified accounts of deliberate Israeli attacks on civilians, let alone acts of savagery such as this. The nearest I can call to mind off the top of my head would be the deliberate killing of Mohammed al-Dura, the massacre in Jenin and the multiple shooting of Iman al-Hams by an IDF officer "confirming the kill." And of these, the "Jenin massacre" is completely discredited and the al-Dura case is staggering under the burden of more complete exposure of the evidence.

As Jenin and Mohammed al-Dura both show, it is easy to tar your enemy with accusations, much harder to disprove them, and impossible to fully undo the damage of a lie. And because Israel is a democracy with a citizen's army, the stain of the charge, whether true of false, penetrates all the way through the society. So here comes Pappe, making a brutal, almost incredible accusation. Prove he didn't see it: you can't - at least, not without resources most of us don't possess. Yet Pappe offers no corroboration, and there's no verified report of this event that I can remember. There has been no public stink and mass protest, such as is typical when Israelis feel their government or army has shamed them. But people who are predisposed to believe him will do so. Brian Robinson clearly does, for one. And so stories like this become ammunition in the campaign against Israel, and they make it that much easier for the next accusation to be believed, too. In these circumstances, I would expect people motivated by a desire for justice to regard such claims, and the people who make them, with the greatest suspicion.

Brian writes "I didn't think he stressed enough what I often think is one of Engage's best arguments (it's Jon Pike's) - the criticism/punishment distinction (you can criticise a state all you like without criticising the equally bad or worse ones, but to single out one for punishment is invidious - a boycott being a punishment). I wasn't sure myself how to answer that one until the other day it occurred to me that it wouldn't go down too well if the police were to announce that they weren't going to go after one particular criminal because they couldn't at the same time catch all the others."

That's an interesting analogy that need to be taken a bit further IMO. You have only one policeman and the dispatcher (the person in the US who tells policemen where to go) tells this policeman that there is a case of domestic violence, a pending homicide, and a call regarding a petty robbery of an ice cream parlor.

The policeman can only go to one place. Should he go to the ice cream parlor?

Regards,

Inna

Brian
There is nothing necessarily wrong or malign about devoting political energies to the cause of Palestinian statehood.
The trouble comes with the justifications for such prioritisations which are often grandiose and consciously or unconsciously play on jewish stereotyping and the pernicious world view which relies on good-nations and bad-nations. This is especially when the conflict is understood as far greater than the regional probelm that it is. Then the politics of Pal solidarity become probably anti-semitic in content, or more simply, Jew-baiting in practice.
It isnt essentially the case that Palestine solidarity is anti-semitic: of course it isnt. Its just that much of it is.

Very good point, Inna. And the analogy could be taken further still. From among these choices, Israel is: a) the wife-beater, b) the murderer, c) the ice-cream parlour robber, or d) none of the above? The correct answer is d.

Israel is a schoolboy involved in a fight he didn't start but which he is currently winning. He was the new boy in school and on his first day a bunch of the others ganged up on him and tried to kill him. But he was tougher than he looked and he beat them off, and has since established himself as dangerous and unbeatable. But that does't keep the others from coming up behind him and hitting him in the back of the head. When this happens he turns around and gives the cowards a good thrashing. But he has also become very angry so sometimes he beats up the other boys just for good measure.

But remember that he didn't arrive at the school wanting to cause trouble, he just wanted to go to school like everyone else. Around the corner, a mass-murderer is operating unhindered, but the town and the neighbouring towns aren't worried about that; everyone is up in arms about the schoolboy who is portrayed as a vicious bully. Some even openly wish he would die.

Excellent observations from Paul Malin. And there are so many such lies (Jenin, Al-Dura, etc.) that they get perpetuated even by those whose intentions are honorable. As I pointed out on another post, Engage for example repeated the myth of the Palestinian forced to play his violin at a checkpoint. Who knows what percentage of the stories reported by the mass media are actually true?

It is in all probability the case that there are some errant soldiers in the Israeli Army. Even if the case about 2 soldiers kicking the head of a Palestinian baby is true, and I certainly hope it isn’t, the question comes down to what is the correct response? Firstly do the Israeli courts have a way of dealing with such issues? The answer to this is “Yes”.

Let me make a comparison. There were stories in the British press about British soldiers urinating on Iraqi prisoners and other stories about Iraqi soldiers being forced to simulate sex acts a year or two ago. There was at the time in response to these stories, a public outcry and rightly so. There was not however a call from Sue Blackwell to boycott British Universities.

I find these debates almost useless at this point. There seems to be no common experience; everyone says their partisan performed perfectly while the other guy stunk.

I have little respect for people like Ilan Pappe, a self-righteous left-wing extremist who has made a career of bashing the existence of his country abroad to friendly audiences. And given his other statements referring to Palestinian "resistance", I simply don't believe him when he condemns suicide bombing. The sad part is that any teacher in Britain could find his story about Haifa University, an integrated school with affirmative action, grounds for launching a boycott, which, as Hirsh pointed out, is opposed to the will of many prominent Palestinian academics, and to my mind, is a form of left-wing intellectual imperialism.

Paul writes: "Pappe apparently claimed to have seen, with his own eyes, Israeli soldiers using a baby's head as a football."

I had been wondering about this ever since I read about it on this site. And my question is basically this:

1. If Pappe saw this horrific activity, did he intervene? Did he call the police? Anyone in authority? If not, what does that say about him?

2. If Pappe heard about such an incident and was decided that (for whatever reason) it would "sound better" if he claimed to have seen it himself, what does that say about him as a person?

The central question in both cases, of course, is this: did Pappe in fact intervene?

Regards,

Inna

One thing that I'm most curios about, is what actions did Mr. Pappe take after allegedly witnessing the Israeli soldiers using a baby's head as a football. Has he ever backed this claim with trivial information such as location, time and date? Surly, being Israeli, he would have easily been able to identify the military unit that supposedly enacted this barbaric act. Did he lodge a complaint? If so who did he address his complaint to; The IDF, Israeli Police, the Red Crescent/Red Cross, Perhaps he contacted the UN? Can he produce a copy of his complaint, and the ensuing correspondence?

The eventuality that would disturb me most, would be that he took no action at all.

Pas de commentaires

Brian Robinson should pay more attention to the comments on this website. I posted a reply to his query about the Foundation for Al Quds Medical school in response to his request. Here is the url again:

http://www.fqms.org/about/index.asp

Other people who have done important work in supporting Arab Israeli dialogue are Barry Steirer at Brighton University, working with Bethlehem University, the Olive Tree Project at City, and the Football for Peace team also at Brighton. We have published details of these on the website.

His counter-example to my distinction between criticsim and punishment doesn't work. The AUT boycotters were not prevented from pursuing a consistent policy because they lacked resources to implement it: the policy didn't require resources. They didn't care about consistency at all, and responded to pleas for consistency by dismissing them as irrelevant. That was one of the problems. Again, he should pay more attention to what we have said on this site, particularly the piece by Eric Heinze from the archive.

One obvious point which is in danger of being overlooked - why should we feel any sympathy for Pappe for the oppression he has allegedly suffered at the hands of his colleages and his employer given what he has only tried to do to his colleagues and his employer through the boycott. We may support his right to free speech and his right to academic freedom, subject to the laws of defamation, but sympathy?

Without subscribing to Dylan's politics, Paul Malin and the analogy of the school boy in a fight reminds me of Dylan's song the 'Neighbourhood bully'.

Whilst I agree with Julie about the cold methodical approach which should be employed when analysing Pappe's arguments (in so far as they can be so subjected)I am confused by Julie's further comments about who she thinks we should be working with. Can she clarify please as well as in connection with what? Actually her critical comments of Engage present a distilation of much of the criticism of Israel and indeed the Jewish Community's response to anti semitism. An aggressor launches an unprovoked attack, the victim acts in self defence and beats the aggressor, the victim is blamed for beating the aggressor too effectively and loses the sympathy of the assembled bystanders, including those who turned a blind eye to the original attack or gave the aggressor the knuckle duster. Should Hirsh have deliberatly lost the debate, tried for a draw or refused the debate? Perhaps we should just cut lose the Jews at SOAS because they are an inconvenience whilst we try to make nice to our Blackwell and friends.

This whole debate is bizarre. Both debaters are anti-Israel. They only differ on method. Surely Pappe should debate someone who supports Israel?

David Frankfurter,

Are you sure you have worded your statement correctly? "Both debators are anti-Israel". You may be more accurate if you had said "Both debators do not support the actions and policies of the Likud government of Israel".

Criticism of a policy and criticism of the raison d'etre of the State itself are very different things. If you take the time to read some of the excellent articles on this web site you would realise what this site is about. It is not a propaganda arm of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What it tries to do is to highlight anti-Semitism, specifically the Anti-Semitism that emamates from the left of the political spectrum.

There is nothing stopping a supporter of Ariel Sharon or Bibi or any one else debating Pappe. The debate was not about Israel but about the resulting anti-Semitism (either knowingly or unknowingly) arising from actions that support the boycott of the State of Israel.

Mikey, a small but important point: Israel has not had a Likud govt for some time now! It's been a coalition govt made up of several elements, including Likud and Labour.

Such a national unity govt was necessary to achieve inter alia Sharon's sensible centrist plan to withdraw from Gaza this summer.

Jonty... Fair point.