Barrel Strength

What is regarded by many as the world’s most famous debating society has slipped the surly bonds of reason to punch the face of God:

Oxford University’s debating society is being accused of childishness and sensationalism by Jewish groups after inviting participants with alleged anti-Israel backgrounds to support a motion questioning Israel’s right to exist in a debate on Thursday.

[...]

Proposing the motion are Norman Finkelstein, formally of De Paul University in Chicago, and Ted Honderich, professor of philosophy at University College London.

[...]

Finkelstein is speaking at a number of campuses in the UK this week. His “UK tour,” entitled “Palestine’s occupation: Roots of conflict and prospects for peace,” is organized by the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, which support a “one-state” solution, and supported by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and Action on Palestine.

At a rally in New York opposing the 2006 Lebanon war, Finkelstein said: “Every victory for Hizbullah over Israel is… a victory for liberty and a victory for freedom…”

For his part, Honderich, in his book After the Terror, published in 2003, wrote: “All of us should take part in all forms of boycott against retail stores and other businesses dealing with neo-Zionist Israel, divestment, civil disobedience, non-cooperation, not voting, picketing, ostracism, naming, symbolic public acts, strikes and whatever else is rational against neo-Zionism.”

I’m prepared to venture that the topic remains within the boundary of the debatable: the UN has certainly expended much time and oxygen on the matter. And from experience I know that in competitive collegiate debate one is sometimes required to defend propositions that may not tally with one’s personal beliefs: that’s the challenge in learning expert argumentation.

But staging a public debate in which the proposition side speakers are akin to a defrocked priest uttering a faithless benediction beggars credibility. How much genuine clash can one foresee in a match-up more fitting of an in-house round at a madrassah?

If this is a benchmark of the coming ruling elite, God help Brittania.