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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 41 No. 21. August 28 1978

The other side begins

The other side begins

I expect that I will be accused of biased reporting of this debate as Mr Canon's arguments have been presented in greater detail that Mr Hirshfeld's will be. Not that the latter spoke for any lesser an amount of time, but rather that much of what he said had little bearing on the topic for discussion. It is certainly proper to attack the claims of other speakers, that is what debating is all about. Hirshfeld went further than that however.

He spent much time pointing out errors and inaccuracies in various articles which have appeared in Salient from time to time, although none of the articles he referred to had been written by Carson. He spent a long time rubbishing Carson for mistakes he was supposed to have made in previous debates. This went on for so long that it appeared he was indulging in a character assassination campaign, directed not only at Carson, but at anyone who had had the temerity to question in public the Zionist position.

The Zionist position is also harder to report on, as unlike Canon, Hirshfeld did not methodically run through his arguments, but jumped around the place, speaking in terms of isolated incidents rather than considering the general picture. By sifting the fragments into some sort of order, it seems Hirshfeld's argument went something like this.

Concerning the trade relationships between South Africa and Israel he said, "New Zealand also has contact with South Africa, we do not for that reason deny New Zealand the right to statehood." With regard to Canon's comments on the views of the ultra-orthodox Jews he said, "ultra-orthodox Jews comprise less than 1% of the Israeli population."