MU Professor Refuses to Debate Me

This summer at the University of Missouri, VOX MAGAZINE published an article featuring five people who accuse Israel of committing crimes against the Palestinians. A journalist interviewed Professor Michael Volz, who is the Director of the International Studies Program. He shared his motivation: “As Christians, we are called to follow Jesus’ example, to speak out the truth and to work for peace and justice.” Professor Volz encouraged students to join a group called “Missourians for Justice in Palestine.” After I read the article, I confronted Professor Volz with a letter demonstrating that the organization openly calls for the dissolution of the Jewish State and its replacement with a Palestinian State. I also challenged him to a public debate, which he declined by denying that his organization calls for the eradication of Israel. Since he refused, I decided to publicly accuse Michael Volz of lying about his organization.

1. My personal experience with Missourians for Justice in Palestine.

I live in Columbia, Missouri, where the University of Missouri is located. For over a decade, I have attended events hosted by Missourians for Justice in Palestine (MJP). Originally, I tried to write a short response to Professor Michael Volz’s promotion of the group; but I feel like it is impossible, so my article became a short essay. I want to demonstrate four facts about his group: 1). The mission of MJP is to destroy the Jewish State and replace it with a Palestinian State through a process called the Palestinian Right of Return. 2). The mission of MJP is to strip the Jewish people of the right to self-determination, while simultaneously demanding the right to self-determination for the Palestinians. 3.) MJP supports Hamas staying in power. 4.) Currently, MJP is accusing Israel of committing a genocide, which is an propaganda libel that professors have been spreading about Israel for decades, and therefore MJP is spreading lies about the Jews.

2. Meet the leader of MJP:

The primary leader of Missourians for Justice in Palestine is a retired biology professor named George Smith. For over a decade, I have listened to Smith give his contradictory racist message. For years, Smith will start presentations where he tries to convince pupils that the idea of creating ethnic nation states is immoral; and thus it is racist to define a country as a Jewish State, and therefore Israel should be disassembled. That being said, later in the same presentations, Smith always contradicts himself and tries to convince impressionable youth to support the creation of a Palestinian State to replace the Jewish State, which would grant ethnic citizenship based on having Arab-Palestinian ancestry, which will be established through a process called the Palestinian Right of Return.

I have already written about George Smith several times; but one thing is for sure, Smith argues that the Jewish State should be eradicated. So I will just provide one example. In 2016, MJP hosted a Lebanese-Palestinian speaker named Amean Ashkar. In an interview, Ashkar revealed the purpose of her speaking tour, “I’m coming here to say that Israel has no right to exist.” George Smith was interviewed by the local news and publicly confirmed his agreement with her message, “What I mean by ‘Israel doesn’t have a right to exist’ is that Israel doesn’t have the right to exist as a specifically Jewish State.’” Smith is listed as the contact person on the MJP Facebook page; so when Professor Volz encourages students to visit the MJP Facebook page, then they will be put in direct contact with a man who will try to convince them that Israel should be destroyed.

3. MJP implores the Palestinians to reject The Two-State Solution.

Many well intentioned folks are concerned with bringing about an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One proposed solution is to create a Palestinian State next to Israel, which will be located in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This theory is named, “The Two-State Solution.” However, MJP is opposed to the Two-State Solution because it means that a Jewish State would still be allowed to exist, and their position is that the Jewish State needs to be eliminated. For years, MJP has brought speakers to argue that Palestinians should reject the Two-State Solution. For example, in 2014, MJP sponsored Professor Saree Makdisi, who is an advocate for a One State-Solution, where the Jewish State would be replaced with an Arab majority state. In 2015, MJP helped host an Israeli anti-Zionist activist named David Sheen, who implored the Palestinians to refuse to recognize a Two-State Solution. In 2017, the leaders of MJP published a letter in the local newspaper. They declared, “The two-state solution is dead. Nor is it a solution.”

4. Here is the challenge I sent to Professor Volz:

“Hi Professor Volz, I want to challenge you to a public debate… I’ll debate you on the accuracy of your criminal accusations against Israel, the truth of whether calling for a ceasefire will bring peace or increase violence, and what should be considered the definition of legal discrimination against Jews.

5. Professor Volz refuses to debate me.

Here is Professor Volz’s dismissal: “Hello Daniel, Thank you for your invitation. I have some reservations regarding your proposal. Mostly, I do not think I am the best person to represent the positions you want to argue against.” And, “I also have reservations about just how constructive the combative format of a debate would be.”

7. Professor Volz states his motivation.

Professor Volz lamented: “I am motivated on this issue because I do not believe that the end goal as stated in the founding charter of the current Israeli government, ‘between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty’ (Jewish Virtual Library), justifies the massive killing of Palestinians in Gaza, the mass starvation of the civilian population (Btselem – Starvation), or the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and farmland in the West Bank (Btselem – Forcible Transfer).”

8. Professor Volz makes a false claim about the origin of the war.

Professor Volz falsely proposed that the war started because the Israeli government is trying to take over control of Gaza. As evidence, he offered the 1977 Likud Party Platform, which opposed ceding the territory of Gaza or the West Bank to the Palestinians. The problem with this faulty theory is that the 1977 Likud Party Platform is no longer applicable to the situation. In 2005, Israel ceded all of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in effort to achieve a Two-State Solution, so the land was already given away, and Israel has never tried to retake the territory. The war did not start because Israel is trying to establish sovereignty from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea; rather the fight started because Hamas has a mission to conquer Israel from the river to the sea, and Hamas terrorists broke through the border fence, kidnapped civilians, took them back into Gaza, and the Israeli army has a moral obligation to enter into Gaza in order to retrieve their citizens.

9. My first challenge: Israel is not committing a genocide.

Here was my first challenge to Professor Volz: “The organizations you promote have made the following accusations: First, I would like to challenge you to defend the accusation that Israel is committing a genocide. I’ll take the position that Israel is not committing a genocide.”

10. Professor Volz plays neutral on the genocide accusation.

Professor Volz also attempted to play neutral on the accusation of genocide. Volz retorted: “On the question of genocide, I personally don’t know enough about the legal definitions under international law to take a stand on that.” The issue with Volz pleading that he is not personally indicting the Jewish people of committing a genocide is that he is pushing undergraduates to join a network that is making this allegation every week on campus. Representatives of MJP have been joining weekly protests where members carry a banner across campus that reads: “Stop the Genocide.”

10. The Jews have been defending themselves against the blood libel that they have committed a genocide for decades.

The Holocaust inversion analogy, that the Israelis are similar to the Nazis, is not new. In 1948, the Seed of Abraham declared independence and the Seed of Ishmael waged a war to try to prevent them from gaining their freedom; as result of the war, several hundred thousand Arabs became refugees. Shortly after the Arabs lost the war, the Israelis were decried as treating the Arabs worse than the Nazis. In the 1950s, British Historian Arnold Toynbee was perhaps the most significant figure to label the “displacement” of the Arabs by Israel “an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis.” His denunciation did not go unanswered. In 1961, the Israeli Ambassador to Canada Yaacov Herzog summoned Professor Toynbee to a debate regarding the accuracy of the Nazi analogy, which Toynbee accepted. 

In 2014, Tablet Magazine published a story recounting the historical scene: “A prominent scholar and public intellectual visits an elite college campus to speak to students. In his remarks, he shocks his audience and the Jewish community by questioning the right of the Jewish people to a state, and asserting that the Zionist treatment of the Palestinians is morally equivalent to the Nazi treatment of the Jews.” During the sparring match, the Israeli Ambassador pushed Toynbee until finally it became evident that the analogy between the Israelis and Nazis was completely bogus.

11. Spreading lies about the Jewish people is not promoting peace. 

Israel is not committing a genocide against the Palestinians. The Israeli Defense Forces targets Hamas terrorists, not civilians. Likewise, Israel is not starving the Palestinians. The reality is that there is a way to determine if an army is committing a genocide. When an army is fighting an enemy, then one can compare the number of combatants killed to the number of civilians who perished in the fighting. Israel kills far fewer civilians than almost any other modern army during combat. Professor John Spencer is a combat veteran and the head of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point. Professor Spencer is an expert in comparing the tactics of armies in urban combat zones. Spencer has visited Gaza and documented how Israel performs at one of the highest ethical standards of any army in human history.

Israel sends out countless warning calls to prevent innocent deaths. Professor Spencer observed: “The IDF uses tactics that no army has ever seen to prevent harm to civilians.” Now, even if Spencer were exaggerating a little bit, it is impossible to believe that an internationally renowned expert on warfare could arrive at the conclusion that Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties than any army in human history, if there were not some truth in it. All of this evidence means that there is no way to demonstrate that Israel is committing a genocide based on observable data. Instead it is made up propaganda. The allegation is just a pure lie about the Jewish people. In my opinion, there is no moral difference between the Christians in the Middle Ages, who spread the lie that Jewish people killed Christian babies to use their blood to bake matzah crackers, and the crowds who scream that Jews are committing a genocide. Both are equally disconnected from tangible reality.

12. My second challenge: Calling for Hamas to stay in power is not calling for peace. 

Since the war started, Professor Volz joined a cohort of activists who are pleading for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Here was my second challenge to Professor Volz: “Second, I’ll debate your claim that a ceasefire is a call for peace. I’ll take the position that a call for a ceasefire is actually a call to keep Hamas in power, and supporting a terrorist organization to stay in power is not supporting peace. I’ll take the position that calling for Hamas to be removed from power is calling for peace.”

In 1987, Hamas was founded in Gaza as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The goal of Muslim Brotherhood is to establish a Muslim king and spread Islamic rule across the entire Middle East. Hamas believes that they have a divine injunction to sweep aside the Jewish State and replace it with an Islamic State. If Hamas does not surrender, then they will only use the pause in fighting to rebuild their arsenal and wait to start the next war. All of this means that the only way to stop the bloodshed is for Hamas to be removed from power, thus Israel has the absolute moral imperative to defeat Hamas. Right now, Hamas is being slowly beaten. But, if I had my choice, then Hamas would surrender their weapons peacefully. This means that if a person wants to see peace, then he will campaign for Hamas to abdicate. However, if an individual does not want to see peace, then he will advocate for a ceasefire to keep Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip. The purpose of calling for a ceasefire is to rescue Hamas from being dethroned, which means that Professor Volz is actually bolstering Hamas.

As a local Pro-Israel advocate in my town, quite a few characters in Volz’s community have tried to denounce me as only caring about the Jews and not the Palestinians. But, I wish to reverse the question on them. Hamas oppresses the Palestinians. Hamas arrests Palestinian peace activists, tortures gay people, suppresses democratic rights, and oppresses women. Gaza has a population of over two million people, but there is no diversity of religious practice in Gaza. In realpolitik, Hamas has created a territory where only the religion of Islam is allowed to be shown in public. There are no Jewish Synagogues, Buddhist Temples, or Hindu Shrines in Gaza, and the Arab Christian population has dropped to roughly one thousand people. And yet, Missourians for Justice want Hamas to rule over Gaza.

In contrast, I want to see Hamas disappear, because I hope for a better future. How can the same clan who want to see Hamas stay in power be described as peace activists and the people who want to see Hamas removed from power be described as violent? There are many potential ways to unseat Hamas; for example, perhaps a coalition of nations could be employed to govern the Gaza Strip. But, Professor Volz doesn’t plead for a new leadership in Gaza, instead Volz is literally campaigning for Hamas to stay in power, which is why he cannot be defined as working “for peace and justice.

13. My third challenge: Calling for the eradication of Israel is not calling for peace.

Here was my third challenge to Professor Volz: “Third, you are a volunteer with Missourians for Justice in Palestine. The official published position of Missourians for Justice in Palestine is that the Jewish State needs to be eliminated.”

In my challenge to Volz, I explained, “In June of 2017, the members of MJP published a group  letter in the Columbia Tribune. The group included the main leaders of MJP: Nancy F. Browning, Jalal El-Jayyousi, Rose Marie Muzika, George P. Smith and Jeff Stack.” The leaders of MJP asked, “But does Israel really have a right to exist as a Jewish state,” followed by answering that Israel is a Jewish supremacist state, and Americans need to unite and say, “no.” I explained to Professor Volz, “Missourians For Justice in Palestine published a letter explicitly stating that they oppose The Two-State Solution because it means that a Jewish State would still be allowed to exist, and their position is that the Jewish State needs to be eliminated.”

14. Professor Volz responded by falsely denying that MJP calls for the elimination of Israel. 

Professor Volz dodged: “I am also not able to argue in favor of the assertion that ‘the Jewish State needs to be eliminated’. It is not my position, nor is it the position of Missourians for Justice in Palestine. The only official pronouncement from MJP that I am aware of is in their statement of Principles on their Facebook page, which does not mention anything along the lines you describe. Individual members of MJP are entitled to their own opinions, but their statements do not necessarily represent the organization.” I sent Professor Volz a published pronouncement by MJP declaring that they want the elimination of the Jewish State, and immediately after reading it, his reaction was to say that he doesn’t know it existed. For this reason, I chose to accuse Michael Volz of lying.

15. Historical Background: The Jewish people were granted the right to self-determination.

In order to understand the message of MJP, I need to unpack some historical details about the establishment of nations. The United Nations functions like a social club based on a social contract. When it first began, the club established a set of rules that must be met to be handed membership. When a group of people meets these requirements, then they are granted statehood. In the legal structure of the United Nations, there are essentially two categories of rights: national rights and civil rights. National rights are given to a set of people who meet the criteria to be granted a state, which is also known as the right to self-determination. In contrast, civil rights are given to individuals within a country. In 1948, the Jewish people were granted the right to self-determination, meaning the Jewish people achieved statehood. In my letter to Professor Volz, I applauded the historical decision by the international community, “The Jewish people were granted the right to self-determination as a collective group by the United Nations.”

16. The concept of establishing a Jewish State is not racist.

Most of the countries in the world are fashioned based on some type of ethnic or religious identity; for example, there are fifty-seven countries that self-identify as Muslim states. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation is an international coalition of countries founded in 1969, consisting of 57 member states. They champion themselves as “the collective voice of the Muslim world.” There are 22 Arabs states which comprise the Arab League, representing roughly 460,000,000 citizens. 

The 2003 Palestine Constitution defines Palestine as an Islamic-Arab State. The Constitution declares: “Palestine is part of the larger Arab world, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab nation.” And, “Islam is the official religion in Palestine.” Currently, Palestine has a peculiar limbo status in the United Nations, where it is only recognized as an observer state and has not been granted full membership. There are already fifty countries devoted to preserving the religion of Islam, and there are twenty-two countries designed to preserve Arab culture. If Palestine were recognized as a full member state in the United Nations, then it would be the twenty-third nation focused on maintaining Arab culture. In contrast, there is only one state devoted to preserving Jewish culture.

Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel, because their nationhood, language, and religion all formed in the Holy Land. In contrast, the Palestinians define themselves as Arabs, and therefore define themselves as being indigenous to the Arabian Peninsula. The purpose of creating a Jewish State is to have a country devoted to preserving and protecting the Jewish people. The purpose of creating a Jewish State is to establish a land where the national language is Hebrew, where the state holidays are Jewish holidays, and where Jewish kids learn Jewish history in the public schools.

Unfortunately, Jewish people were always second class aliens when they lived in both Christian or Muslim lands. In the last century, the Chosen People were the victims of a genocide by Europeans and ethnic cleansing by the Arabs. From 1920 and 1970, approximately, 900,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed from Arab lands as a method of retaliation against the Seed of Abraham for their desire to break free from the rulership of the Seed of Ishmael, and nearly all of their property was stolen. It is evident that Jews cannot rely on the kindness of Christians or Muslims to protect them, and therefore they need a piece of land where they can form an army to defend themselves. Israel was founded as a safe haven for Jews, which is why Israel established a law granting automatic citizenship to anyone born Jewish. 

The heart of the Jewish State is characterized by the right of every Jew to move to Israel and become a citizen. There are two main types of citizenship laws. In Latin, “jus soli” means the “right of the soil.” The idea is that if a child is born on the soil of a country, then he is granted citizenship. In Latin, “jus sanguinus” means the “right of the blood.” The idea is that if a child has the same blood as the parents, then he can be given residence in a country, even if he was not born on the soil. Simply speaking, for centuries in Europe, citizenship was granted based on the notion of possessing the blood of one’s parents. In 1488, a route was discovered around Africa’s southern coast, followed by the discovery of America across the Atlantic in 1492. These new sea routes enabled Europeans to travel to the New World and Africa. When Europeans began to settle and build new colonies in these lands, the question arose of whether their children born on new land would still be granted citizenship back in Europe. Essentially, every European country adopted the principle that a child could inherit citizenship from the blood of their parents. Likewise, most of the Arab countries have laws granting citizenship through the father. 

Israeli citizenship statutes are based on the principle of jus sanguinis. In 1950, the State of Israel created a law named the Israeli Law of Return, the legislation bestows automatic residence to anyone who was born Jewish. The Israeli law granting citizenship to Jewish people is similar to the laws practiced in nearly every European country, and Israel defining itself as a Jewish nation is comparable to every country that declares itself to be an Arab state, and thus there is nothing unique or racist about establishing a Jewish State.

17. Michael Volz directed me to a second group that wants Israel to disappear. 

Unfortunately, instead of recognizing Israel’s declaration of itself as  a Jewish State as creating a safe haven for Jews, Israel’s enemies try to maliciously portray their citizenship laws as an example of Jewish supremacy. When Professor Volz responded to me, he referred me to an organization called “B’Tselem,” which purports to be an Israeli center that documents abuses against the Palestinians. Volz sent two documents by B’Tselem contending that Israel is starving the Palestinians in Gaza and ethnically cleansing Palestinians in the West Bank. However, I have my doubts about the reliability of B’Tselem’s credibility, because they also hope for the dissolution of the Jewish State based on the slander that a homeland defined as Jewish State should be considered a form of racism.

In 2021, B’Tselem published a position paper that laid out the Israeli Law of Return, they explained the way the law is applied: “Any Jew in the world and his or her children, grandchildren and spouses are entitled to immigrate to Israel at any time and receive Israeli citizenship.” B’Tselem portrayed this legislation as a form of “Jewish supremacy.” As NGO Monitor reported: B’Tselem’s position paper is designed to be an “attack on Israel’s role as a haven for the Jewish people (the Law of Return).” If Israel is a Jewish supremacist state, then obviously it has no right to exist, which is why the paper uses “the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ echo long-standing Palestinian terminology for the destruction of Israel.” B’Tselem, hypocritically, does not label the Constitution of Palestine or the twenty-two Arab states as being Arab supremacist states.

18. MJP demands that Israel grants the Palestinians the Right of Return, which is the belief that a Palestinian State should replace the Jewish State.

Professor Volz referred me to the MJP Statement of Principles. But, here is the problem: The MJP statement of principles advocates for a campaign known as the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement against Israel, which is abbreviated as the BDS movement. The BDS movement demands that Israel grants the Palestinians the Right of Return, which is the insistence that the State of Israel establishes a legislation that grants automatic citizenship to anyone who is born Arab-Palestinian. Obviously, if the Jewish State has to implement a rule that it must grant automatic citizenship to anyone who is born an Arab-Palestinian, instead of anyone who is born Jewish, then it would mean that Israel ceases to be a Jewish State and is replaced with a Palestinian State.

Norman Finkelstein is Jewish, but he is regarded as a hero of the Palestinian cause. And yet, Finkelstein articulated the end goal of the ideologues who promote the BDS movement: “They don’t want Israel.” He imitated them in their own words, “They call it their three tiers… We want the end of the occupation, we want the right of return, and we want equal rights for Arabs in Israel. And they think they are very clever, because they know the result of implementing all three is what? What’s the result? You know and I know what’s the result: there’s no Israel.”

In 2018, I attended an event where a local Palestinian man named Jalal El-Jayyousi was the main speaker. He started his presentation by showing a slide on a projector screen, which outlined the 1950 Israeli Law of Return. The law mandates that anyone with Jewish ancestry can be granted citizenship in Israel, even if the Jewish person was born outside of the land. He told the audience that the Law of Return was founded on an unjust concept of citizenship rights, and that a law which grants residence based upon Jewish ancestry is a racist law. He lamented that granting Jewish people who were not born in the land the right to move to Israel and become citizens is the cause of the conflict. He believed that all of the countries in the world should oppose granting citizenship to Jews in Israel based upon having Jewish ancestry. All the nations should unite in opposition to this law and should impose sanctions on Israel, like the ones on “North Korea” and “Iran,” until Israel stops granting citizenship based upon having Jewish ancestry.

Toward the end of the presentation, El-Jayyousi showed a slide which outlined the Palestinian Right of Return. The Palestinians Right of Return is the idea that anyone with Palestinian ancestry should be granted citizenship in Israel, even if the Palestinian person was born outside of the land. He declared to the audience that the Palestinian Right of Return is founded on a just concept of citizenship rights, and that a law which grants residence based upon Palestinian ancestry is not racist. He expressed joy as he told the audience that granting Palestinian people who were not born in the land the right to move to Israel and become citizens is the solution to the conflict. He believed that all of the countries in the world should support granting citizenship to Palestinians in Israel based upon having Palestinian ancestry. All of the nations should unite in opposition to Israel’s refusal to enforce the Palestinian Right of Return and should impose sanctions on Israel, like the ones on “North Korea” and “Iran,” until Israel starts granting citizenship based upon having Palestinian ancestry. That being their vision for the future, obviously, anyone can see their racist hypocrisy

19. Fourth challenge: Calling for Jewish people to be stripped of equal national rights is not calling for peace. 

Isleen Atallah is a Palestinian student, who is a regularly featured speaker at MJP events, she argues that it was unfair to the Arabs to create a Jewish State. Isleen likes to say that “Israel was founded on the blood of Palestinians.” Clearly, the implication is that the Jews should go back in time and be stripped of owning any territory. In 1965, Black people were given the right to vote. When members of MJP preach that it was unjust to the Arabs to grant the Jews a state, then it would be similar to teaching it was unfair to white people to give black people the ability to choose their own leaders. This is why in my letter to Professor Volz, I compared advocating for Jewish people to be stripped of the right to self-determination “to arguing that black people should be stripped of the right to vote.”

In my letter to Professor Volz, I applauded the historical decision by the international community, “The Jewish people were granted the right to self-determination as a collective group by the United Nations.” When members of MJP host events demanding that the Jewish State be kicked out of the United Nations, then in effect they want to go back in time before Jews were granted the right to self-determination. This is why I also explained that: “Calling for the United Nations to rescind their decision to recognize a Jewish State means calling for the Jewish people to be stripped of the right to self-determination.” Hence, this is why I wrote pointedly: “I will debate your claim that you have joined an organization that seeks to promote equal rights. In reality, you have joined an organization that seeks to strip the Jewish people of their rights.

20. Lastly, I hope I am wrong about Professor Volz.

In 2017, MJP published a letter in the local newspapers arguing that it is racist to define a country as a Jewish State, and therefore Israel should be disassembled. If I am wrong about MJP, then all Michael Volz has to do is meet with the leaders and publish a new letter clarifying that MJP believes that the Jewish people have the right to a Jewish State. But, it will never happen.