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Comment and Opinion

Huff Post UK: The Silencing of Israeli Voices Must Stop, by Toby Greene

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“Why did George Galloway run away from debating with a student who announced that he was an Israeli citizen?

Here is a man who has gone eye ball to eye ball with prime ministers and Senators, and indeed who has supped with some of the most brutal dictators of our age, from Saddam Hussein to Bashar Al-Assad. Why then should he grab his tailored jacket and flee from a relatively harmless looking Oxford undergrad, faster than you can say, ‘bring on the revolution’?

What is so abhorrent to him about conversing with an Israeli? Why is he so adamant that the Israeli should not be seen; that the Israeli should not be heard?

Perhaps he is afraid that if people hear from Israelis first hand, it will belie the demonic image he would like to create of them. People will see Israelis as they generally are: no horns, no fangs, a people like others, who care about reasonable things like: how can we make peace with our neighbours in a way that doesn’t make us more likely to be blown up by extremists.

Galloway himself is of course irrelevant. His repeated, ridiculous acts of buffoonery are a gift to those who reject his opinions and a liability to anyone who might share them. It is frankly hard to understand why anyone would invite him to speak anywhere on any subject of importance.”

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