Prominent Munk Debates on two-state solution to feature four Israeli politicians, no Palestinians

A prominent debate series in Toronto, Canada, has drawn outrage for its plan to host four former senior Israeli lawmakers in a discussion about the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

No Palestinian debaters have been included or invited. 

The Munk Debates, loosely tied to the prestigious Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, is set to livestream the debates on Wednesday evening. It's scheduled to feature former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Israeli justice and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni arguing in favour of a Palestinian state, and former Israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, along with former Israeli justice and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, arguing against it. 

The debates only take place twice a year, usually to a crowd of thousands. In this case, the official site appears to only be selling livestream tickets to paid Munk Debates members, rather than the general public.

"This is not an oversight. It is a statement of worldview: the colonizers debating the fate of the colonized while the colonized are silenced. It is an erasure. It is racist. And it is deeply dangerous," Gur Tsubar with Jews Say No To Genocide wrote in a press statement. 

Alongside other pro-Palestinian community groups, he is calling for the debate to be cancelled. 

Rudyard Griffiths, the chair of the debates, had previously made it clear that his choices for the event were indeed not an oversight, but a "conscious decision". 

Speaking on the 31 October episode of The Munk Debates Podcast, Griffiths appeared to suggest that until there are "duly and democratically elected" Palestinians who can speak to the issue, "Israel itself needs to figure out if, when, how, where a Palestinian state could and should exist," he said. "It’s a prequel to that larger conversation." 

Middle East Eye reached out to representatives for The Munk Debates but received no response. 

Planned protests

Tsubar said protesters are expected to gather outside the site of the event, Meridian Hall, ahead of the scheduled start time of 7pm to protest against what he described as "a carefully curated stage for genocide apologists". 

"All four [former Israeli lawmakers] have either been pursued internationally for war crimes, faced arrest warrants, been implicated in atrocities, or barred entry into other countries because of their roles in Israel’s violence," he added. 

Olmert, while most recently posited by US and Canadian mainstream news platforms as a liberal Israeli voice for his domestic opposition to current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was leading the country when Israel's Operation Cast Lead, in 2008-2009, killed 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza.

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Livni, who joined the Israeli negotiating team for the now-dismantled "peace process", has been the subject of investigation in Europe for her role in Operation Cast Lead. 

The Hind Rajab Foundation, the Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights have all now called on Canadian authorities to arrest them both in compliance with Canada's obligation under Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. 

Oren has publicly advocated for the relocation of some two million Palestinians outside of Gaza. 

Shaked, while interior minister, said a citizenship bill that she had proposed to ban Palestinian family unification was intended for "demographic reasons" and meant to stop the "creeping right of return".

A year ago, she was banned from entering Australia over fears of "incitement".

While it's unclear exactly how much input, if any, the University of Toronto's Munk School has on the logistics or themes of The Munk Debates, the series is officially a charitable initiative of the Aurea Foundation, which was co-founded by Peter and Melanie Munk, who are Canadian investors and philanthropists. 

There is a history of inviting speakers with provocative and even unfounded viewpoints.

Steve Bannon, the far-right podcaster and former adviser to US President Donald Trump, was part of the debates in 2018, when protests against his inclusion amassed outside. 

More recently, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is now Trump's health secretary, was due to partake in the debates just before he was nominated for his current role, but had to pull out.