‘Some people thought this debate wouldn’t happen, that the risks of protests would be too great,’ host Rudyard Griffiths said. ‘Well, so much for that argument.’
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Douglas Murray and debate partner Natasha Hausdorff succeeded in persuading two-thirds of audience members at the Munk Debates on Monday night that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are the same.
While 61 per cent of listeners supported the proposition before the debate, that number grew to 66 per cent following the discussion. Support for the other side of the argument dropped from 39 per cent to 34 per cent.
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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.
“You would’ve thought there would be some sympathy from the world; you might’ve thought the world would pay attention to the attack and at least pay attention to the people behind it. You might’ve expected, like me, there might have been worldwide opposition to the terrorists and rapists and murders of Hamas,” Murray said. “But no, there was immediate outpouring of rage against the state that had been attacked.”
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In his opening monologue, Murray spoke about attempts by anti-Israel activists to infiltrate a Jewish community centre in early June. The anti-Israel activists, many of them carrying massive Palestine flags and with their faces covered, walked through a Jewish neighbourhood in North York and intimidated several residents along the way.
“F–king filthy f–king Zionist pig,” one masked male demonstrator screamed at an onlooker. “You’re a dirty Zionist rat. That’s what you are. Happy about killing babies, right? Happy about killing babies?”
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Murray and Hausdorff, a lawyer in the United Kingdom, argued that double standards exclusively applied to Israel were emblematic of antisemitic tropes of the past.
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.”
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Arguing against the motion, former MSNBC and Al Jazeera English anchor Mehdi Hasan and Israeli journalist Gideon Levy asserted that equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism silenced critics of Israel.
“Look, I get it. I do. I get it. Antisemitism is undeniably on the rise; hate crimes are on the rise; ancient tropes and conspiracy theories are back in circulation. No one is denying that. And so Jewish people, understandably, feel unsafe, threatened, insecure. So we should take a stand,” Hasan said eloquently during his concluding remarks.
“But this isn’t it. This is not it. This motion is not it, I’m sorry. This motion is an attempt to play you, to manipulate you, to gaslight you, by propagandists and apologists for Israel’s current government. In fact, this motion could’ve been written by the Israeli government.”
Despite enhanced security measures and fears of protests, the Munk Debates proceeded smoothly in downtown Toronto with a massive line of attendees queued along King Street waiting to enter.
“Some people thought this debate wouldn’t happen, that the risks of protests would be too great,” the long-time moderator and host Rudyard Griffiths told the packed crowd at Roy Thomson Hall on Monday night. “Well, so much for that argument.”
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“Others went further, though, and lobbied me, the Munk Debates, people associated with our organization; that these proceedings shouldn’t happen; that our topic tonight was too divisive; our society too divided and that this debate would cause more harm than good,” Griffiths continued in his opening monologue before thanking the audience for “support(ing) this debate; to support our shared belief that its through more and better debate that we learn and confront difficult ideas.”
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