A Glorious Polemic

President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu have taken part this week in a super-classic of rhetoric, in the best American tradition. The Europeans have a “new” old resort from the impending political tsunami: the international conference.

The word “debate” doesn’t have an accurate translation into Hebrew, but perhaps not for nothing. The title of the awesome movie with Denzel Washington about a group of African-Americans who stunned America in 1935 when they won a university-level debate competition, “The Great Debaters,” was translated over here into “The Great Arguers,” while the debates of candidates for the premiership we’re accustomed to call “confrontations,” no less. Arguers and confronters — that’s us, whereas genuine debaters are those whose oration mastery and fluency are glorified, — and such people, usually, are not us.

In every high school and every university in America and in Britain, there is a “club” or “society” of debaters, who take part in a league of organized disputes. These guys conduct controversies about this and that in accordance with fixed formats and strict rules which can’t be deviated from. The winners in national debating competitions enjoy huge prestige, and that can also serve as a springboard for a career in business, law or politics.

The theory of rhetoric and the art of oratory constitute, of course, is a centerpiece in Western culture, and was also this way in Jewish culture from a long time ago, — see Jeremiah, Cicero and Demosthenes; however, in the Anglo-Saxon countries they occupy a place of honor to this very day. In American history, brilliant speeches are considered major milestones, from the speech of the revolutionary Patrick Henry (“Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!”), through Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Franklin Roosevelt’s “A Date which will Live in Infamy” speech (after the Pearl Harbor bombing), John Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you” speech, and naturally, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Within this magnificent rhetorical heritage, debates are reserved a special place. Three senators from the early 19th century — Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John Calhoun — are renowned in American history as the “Great Triumvirate,” primarily due to the wisdom of their speeches and the eloquent debates they carried out for decades over fundamental issues in the American experience. The seven sessions between Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, two senators of the state of Illinois in 1858, paved Lincoln’s way to the Republican candidacy for presidency and are studied till today in every American school. And you can’t forget Richard Nixon, who most likely won the Republican presidential candidacy in 1960 thanks to the notorious Kitchen Debate he had a year prior to that with the then-leader of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, on the advantages of the capitalism over communism — only to lose the presidency in the most famous debate of our days, against John Kennedy.

And that’s what we had this week in Washington: an illustrative rhetorical duel, in the best American tradition, between two craftsmen of the first degree, champions of irony and artists of metaphor, whizzes of the rhetorical question and specialists in dramatic pause; fluent speakers whose talent, first and foremost, is a gift of God, from the workshop of Calliope, Zeus’s daughter and Homer’s muse, a goddess of poetry and command of language. For Obama is gifted, you can’t deny, with a talent in the melodic rhetoric of black preachers, while Netanyahu is breastfed by the splendid Zionist Jabotinsky* [style] canons which see the conquering lecture and the convincing argument a key weapon in the Zionist struggle.

The match-up between the two, we must admit, couldn’t have been more fascinating, — an oratorical super-classic between two champs in rhetoric, a political ping pong match that was carried on from Knesset to the State Department, to AIPAC and Congress, with a direct face-off, oppressive in its own right, in the White House. It’s been a remarkable debate, one of the best we’ve heard, that has left fans of the genre wanting more, even if the victory or the defeat is a matter of opinion and despite the possibility that in actual fact, nothing has come out of it.

20 Years Later

Because the world did not stand still with Bibi’s return from Washington, now there are less than four months left till the middle of September, and the braking mechanism to hold back the move of declaration of Palestinian statehood in the U.N. hasn’t been created yet. Although, against the forecasts of a “political tsunami,” an oppositional force has developed, teaching that contrary to the cries, — there is no tsunami, the U.N. will decide whatever it decides — and the matter will come to an end; nonetheless, it’s unclear on what the ostrich concept is leaning on by ignoring what is happening all around other than wishful thinking, and in any case, the author of these words does not share this assumption.

The Europeans, by the way, have a “new” old solution: the international conference; Madrid plus 20 years. Its principal patron is France, while Russia is supporting, the British are considering, and all are together trying to convince Obama, who’s currently distancing himself from this, but doing so with a wink. The international political initiative is indeed consistent with Obama’s multilateral approach and his tendency, as it was expressed in the Libyan campaign, “to lead from behind.”

Naturally, in Israel the proposition evokes an instinctive opposition, for the reason that the term “international conference” has turned, on our side, through the course of time into a code name for a forced solution: Yitzhak Shamir spent most of his years as a prime minister in a stubborn fight with the international convention, until he was compelled to surrender and attend the Madrid conference in 1991. But before we take a posture in a Pavlov fashion against the idea, the shortcomings of which are clear, its benefits should be at least mentioned, too — in a nutshell. Since we assume that direct negotiation between Israel and Palestinians is impossible at this hour, it may be that only the ladder of international legitimacy can bring the Palestinians down from the tree of unilateral proclamation in the U.N. A conference might also engage the Arab countries themselves in Egypt and Jordan; for instance, which are swinging at the moment in the face of pressure from an ill-tempered public opinion to renew their open commitment to the peace process; and whilst doing so, also intensify the isolation of Iran and its satellites, who’ll refuse to cooperate, — which is certainly positive. And only international effort, let’s not forget, can afford to raise tens of billions, which will be needed, if and when, to fund the security arrangements and settle the refugee problem.

As we learned in Madrid, the critical stage in the international conference is in the formulation of its powers — or their absence — and the regulation of its guidelines. It’s understandable that Israel would now adopt, with both hands, the guidelines of the Madrid conference and all the rest of the international conferences where it declined to participate in the past, — but this is the way it goes on our side: missing today what we’ve pushed away the day before yesterday. On the other hand, this week, a mammoth-sized job has been performed: the Palestinians will be able to live with Obama’s address at the State Department, Israel will be able to live with the elaborations the president provided in his second speech at the AIPAC conference — and all that remains is to haggle over seating arrangements.

*Translator’s Note: A legendary Revisionist Zionist leader, author, orator, soldier and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization; also helped to form the Jewish legion in the British army in the World War I.