The bad news is that the good guys lost last week’s debate at the Cambridge Union. This means that, at a time when Iran and Hamas are threatening to wipe Israel off the map, Cambridge students agreed instead that 'Zionism is a danger to the Jewish People'.

The slightly better news, however is that the vote was 125 to 121, with 71 abstentions. This means that, at a time of unprecedented vilification of Israel and Zionism, the majority for this motion was only four people. One of the team that opposed the motion, Jeremy Brier, who with Ned Temko stepped in at the last minute after both Jonathan Freedland and David Cesarani dropped out, says that given the balance of the audience this meant that his side won over a lot of moderate and undecided people. This is because in his estimation, Arab supporters had secured a large turnout and the Jewish contingent was small. He writes:

What a sorry state of affairs that a motion like this passes. However, I was reassured by the fact that the majority of intelligent, neutral Union members who go to debates to think and learn all seemed to vote for us.

Apart, that is, from the 71 people who were apparently left unsure whether Jewish self-determination was indeed a danger to the Jews or not. My earlier post on this debate elicited this response from the president of the Cambridge Union, Sarah Pobereskin:

Your suggestion that the debate was 'Jew-baiting' reveals your misunderstanding of the whole premise of this debate. The fact that it was argued by Jewish speakers is an indication of the diversity of feelings on this issue, not of the Cambridge Union's desire to 'set Jew against Jew'...As our audience included a very large number of our Jewish community here, it is clear that this issue is one of genuine interest and concern. It was discussed in a serious and sensitive manner. Whilst there was of course strong disagreement between the two sides, the turnout, the nature of the speakers attending and the vote demonstrate that this is an issue which deserves to be debated. As the President of the Cambridge Union, I am interested in addressing the real issues of importance to our members, and this was clearly one of them. Whilst you may disagree wholeheartedly with the sentiment of the motion, to criticise it being discussed in this intellectual fashion denies both the genuine diversity of opinion, and the seriousness of this issue.

When I read a response like this – and other comments in similar vein about this whole issue – it’s as if I hear a steel door slamming shut. One is up here against a totally closed thought system. From the premise from which Ms Pobereskin starts, her argument is of course impeccable. Of course there must be debate on issues of ‘genuine interest and concern’. The problem is that the view that self-determination is a danger to a people whose homeland is threatened with extermination is not an issue meriting ‘genuine interest and concern’ but is tantamount to blaming them for their own annihilation and is therefore an expression of prejudice, ignorance and gross double standards. It would have been unthinkable, for example, while South Africa was ruled by apartheid, for the Union to have debated the proposition that ‘the activities of Nelson Mandela are a danger to the African people’ – and to have got six black Africans to fight it out. Or that ‘the campaign for Palestinian self-determination is a danger to the Palestinians’.

The fundamental problem is of course that to suggest that Israel is not the aggressor but the victim in the Middle East dispute is met by total, genuine incomprehension and bafflement. Such is the depth of ignorance and the corresponding total acceptance of propaganda based on lies as the unarguable truth. As a member of the audience at the debate writes:

Afterwards some of the students asked me questions and the sad thing is that the endless propaganda that they have been subjected to has become, in their mind, the established truth -- compounded by a staggering ignorance of the history of this dispute.

As a result, anyone who does attempt to present the truth is regarded automatically as being beyond the moral pale. Minds have simply snapped shut on this issue – and great evil is the result.