Alan Baker, Israel’s ambassador to Canada, was the special guest of the Hart House Debates committee last Monday night for the committee’s third formal debate of the year, on the subject: “This house believes that terrorism is the greatest obstacle to peace in the Middle East.”
The event took place under a heavy security presence as the Ambassador was accompanied by several personal bodyguards, security guards, and his motorcade-with police escort-to ensure his safety. The debate was in mock parliamentary style and adhered to the formal rules of conduct. The Speaker of the House was Ethan Hoddes; the Government, arguing for the resolution, was represented by prime minister Michael Kotrly and Chris Somerville; and the Opposition to the resolution was provided by James Renihan and Melanie Tharamangalam. All representatives were decked out in full legal robes.
The debates committee seemed to expect controversy: before the debate commenced, Hoddes reminded the audience that the views expressed by the Government and Opposition were only debatable positions and not necessarily the personal views of the participants. Each side gave a ten-minute opening speech followed by rebuttals and counter-arguments from their opponents. Those in the audience were considered full members of Parliament-after the debaters were finished their arguments, Hoddes opened up the floor to the audience. This portion of the event saw some fiery speeches supporting both sides, arguments that drew wild applause from the audience.
The Ambassador began his half-hour speech by offering his argument for Israel’s right to pursue whatever course necessary to ensure its security, followed by a definition of terrorism as issued by the Arab League. One of the major issues raised during the debate and the floor speeches was the right to self determination and mobility that Palestinians feel they are being denied, and the role that Israel plays in denying it to them. Ambassador Baker addressed this issue, particularly the ASC members, by quoting from the July 1993 agreement between Yasser Arafat and former Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin stating the rights and responsibilities that each side pledged to take in reining in terrorism. Ambassador Baker said that Israel’s use of roadblocks and the contentious “security wall”: “If somebody’s freedom of movement,” Baker said, “is being prevented by a roadblock or some other barrier in order to protect from the infiltration of terrorists, then once there is no longer infiltration by terrorists, then the right to movement is renewable.”
Before the debate, members of the U of T’s Arab Students’ Collective handed out a pamphlet that said Baker had been a settler in the occupied territories and called him a “trained apologist for Israeli war crimes.”
During the floor speeches portion of the debate, ASC members continued their attack on Israeli policies and conduct with several impassioned speeches that drew heavy applause from the clearly partisan audience. Their protest reached its climax at the Ambassador’s introduction when the ASC members all stood up and turned their chairs around and faced away from the Ambassador. Baker responded at the end of his speech.
“Terrorism is indeed the greatest obstacle to peace in the region, and until it is solved-and as long as people like those who are sitting with their backs to me continue glorifying and certifying terrorism-then there is not going to be peace in the Middle East.”
