There were also a couple of points that the Arab speaker made that were feeble, but hard to answer: unequal rights of Israeli Arabs (answer: yes, they’re unequal, but getting better); his statement that, if you count the West Bank, it is apartheid since Palestinians have no rights there (answer: that’s an occupation in a war, not part of Israel, where are rights being given by the PA); that Christians and people of “other ethnicities” are suffering in Gaza (answer: the very few Christians left there suffer from Muslim persecution; what other ethnicities?); that Israel’s being a Jewish state means religious discrimination (answer: Jewish in national terms, not religious, i.e., Israel is Jewish the way Arab states are Arab)…and so on.

I guess the Jewish guy did as well as possible given the tight format.

One thing, though: When the moderator did indeed put words into his mouth by saying that the Jewish guy held that Israeli Arabs had EQUAL rights in Israel, the Jewish guy should have begged off, saying that Israeli Arabs have lots of great rights, that they are improving their lot but that Israel is developing as a democracy in a war situation yet dealing with the needs of many less-educated groups, but progress is being made, and so on. The fact is that Arabs in Israel do not have equal rights, so this was an easy gift of a debating point for the Arab rep. The Jewish guy’s answer that Israeli Arabs could vote was fine, but it was clear that he had no other points up his sleeve. So the Arab had to concede that point, but the result was still feeble.

The moderator was very fair, but ironically fairness can create a trap, albeit an unintended one. The Arab in this debate made points that were disingenuous but hard to answer in a sound bite, hard to answer to an audience that doesn’t have a lot of background knowledge. The trap happened when this fair moderator demonstrated balance by giving equal credence to the Arab debator’s dubious points, thus aggravating the damage.