‘Outrageous’ that college debaters were asked to defend Palestinian stabbing attacks, says ADL

[shira]

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Anti-Defamation League said it was “outrageous” that a debate topic at an inter- university debating competition in Atlanta required participants to justify Palestinian stabbing attacks against Israelis.

At the U.S. Universities Debating Championship at Morehouse College on Sunday one of the topics was “This House Believes that Palestinian Violence Against Israeli Civilians Is Justified.” The question’s wording required half of all participants to argue that perspective.

“It is outrageous and deeply offensive that students participating in the debating championship, some of whom were Jewish, were essentially forced to choose between losing points in the national championship or advocating for violence against Israeli civilians,” Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the New York-based group, said in a news release.

“It is hard to imagine that the organizers would ever have asked students to defend Al Qaeda’s attacks against the U.S. on 9/11, and this shouldn’t be any different,” he said, adding that “whoever devised the question exercised extremely poor judgment.”

more...
http://www.jta.org/2016/04/15/news-opinion/united-states/outrageous-that-college-debaters-were-forced-to-defend-palestinian-stabbing-attacks-says-adl

[oberliner]

1. I disagree

I did Model UN throughout high school and it was always a fun challenge having to represent repressive countries led by horrible dictators, espousing views that I would personally find reprehensible. I would have to figure out a way to defend and justify the behaviors of these rogue regimes. I quite enjoyed it.

[aranthus]

2. There's a difference between Model UN and a debate tournament.

Last edited Thu Apr 21, 2016, 07:36 PM - Edit history (1)

No one expects a UN session to be moral or fair. It's power politics. You don't have to be reasonable, or intellectually honest, just diplomatic. You can lie. A debate is a reasoned argument in the search for truth. There are limits to what you can say. It's unfair to the pro-side in this case to force them to come up with a reasoned argument for the unreasonable.