Own Goal
'I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' - are noble, high-minded words attributed to the French philosopher - Voltaire.
The young Israeli student who was debating with George Galloway recently - when the Respect (how ironic) MP stormed off the platform - has had his revenge with a comment piece in The Times which is reproduced below.
What an 'own goal' to use a footballing metaphor - and what an embarrassment to everyone who supports the cause of securing genuine and lasting peace in Palestine - as opposed to GG's small-minded, self-obsessed behaviour.
"The best way to expose Galloway is to debate with him"
My experience with him this week has not put me off
By Eylon Aslan-Levy
It’s a strange feeling to be on the receiving end of a racist outburst from a Member of Parliament. That is exactly what happened on Wednesday, however, when George Galloway stormed out of my debate with him in Oxford, blustering: “I don’t debate with Israelis.”
If an MP were caught on camera saying “I don’t debate with Pakistanis”, it would be front-page news and the British public would be in uproar.
Mr Galloway refused to share a platform with me for no reason other than my nationality: not because of anything I had done or said (I had barely begun my speech), but because of the passport I hold. One of the grounds for discrimination, as defined in the Race Relations Act 1976, is nationality. Mr Galloway has revealed his true colours.
The MP for Bradford West later tweeted that an Israeli citizen could “by definition” not be a member of his constituency. I’d love to know what definition that is. I am actually a dual British-Israeli citizen, born and raised in London. Mr Galloway may not “recognise” Israel, but I doubt that even my British passport would have convinced him to enter into a dialogue with me: it is quite enough that I have grandparents in a country he does not like, to be the victim of his righteous (and selective) bigotry.
Clearly Mr Galloway knew that he was accepting an invitation to debate with someone who would oppose him: that’s what a debate is. The motion was “This house believes that Israel should withdraw immediately from the West Bank.” He was happy to listen to my introduction, which said that such a withdrawal should happen within the context of a permanent peace treaty. Only when he realised that I am an Israeli did he take up his coat and leave.
He later claimed that he had never been warned that he would be debating with an Israeli. (He was also never told that I’m a vegetarian.) But given his own self-imposed rules, it is surely his responsibility to ask about and research the background of people he is debating against: a simple Google search would have done the trick. Next time I’ll circulate a full family tree, on request.
Mr Galloway and I had our first encounter in 2007, when he gave a speech at my school. I challenged him on his claim that “no decent person should ... talk with ... any part of the apartheid state of Israel”. I asked him: since citizens are part of a state, and I am an Israeli citizen, will you talk to me?
Mr Galloway, outraged, denied that he had ever said this. “You, sir,” he bellowed, “are an L-I-A-R: Liar!” So with a personal reassurance that his boycott of Israel did not cover Israeli individuals, it was game on. At least this week Mr Galloway has finally answered my question truthfully: “I don’t debate with Israelis.”
I hope that this episode will encourage people to invite more bigots to public debates, in order to tear off their masks. We should encourage radical extremists such as Mr Galloway and Nick Griffin to air their views precisely so that we can systematically demolish their arguments and send the evidence viral on the internet. This works both ways: Mr Galloway had a sterling opportunity to make a fool of me by destroying my arguments. Instead he made a fool of himself.
I can only hope that this event opens people’s eyes to the true nature of anti-Israeli bigotry in the UK. Mr Galloway cannot pass off this stunt as a legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy. This was an act of bullying , pure and simple.
Eylon Aslan-Levy is an undergraduate at Brasenose College, Oxford
