Reply #4: Not a real debate at all. [View All]

[aranthus]

Real debate is founded on truth, and there was precious little in this exchange. For example, in his opening remarks Rabbi Waskow takes as the basis of the discussion that the issue is how best to end the occupation. The problem is that Omar Barghouti has explained just before that, that the goals of the BDS are NOT merely the end of the occupation; that it's also about enforcing the right of return (which Barghouti claims is a good thing, and that effectively ending the Jewish state isn't demonizing Israel or anti-Jewish). While Rabbi Waskow does argue that BDS demonizes Israeli society, he ignores the major problem; that the demonization directly derives from the goals of the movement in the first place. So what we have here is a conversation between Rabbi Waskow's misrepresentation of what the BDS is about, and Barghouti's misrepresentation of what the BDS means. Only in the fantasyland of Democracy Now could two men talking past each other's fabricated realities be called a debate.