When advocacy, rudeness and a lack of facts replaces evidence

There is nothing whatsoever wrong with being a passionate advocate for a political cause. There is, however, something very wrong with treating passion as a substitute for evidence, repetition of common derogatory tropes as a substitute for proof, and shouting over an interviewer as a substitute for answering a question.

A recent interview involving Mick Napier of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, conducted by Julia Hartley-Brewer of TalkTV, raises precisely these questions. It offered a revealing illustration of how difficult a serious discussion can become when both sides make sweeping claims, and the exchange deteriorates into interruption and accusation.

The issue is not whether Napier is entitled to condemn Israel’s conduct in Gaza. He plainly is. Nor is it whether the suffering of Palestinian civilians deserves serious scrutiny. It unquestionably does.

The question is whether those who make the most emphatic accusations are prepared to subject their own claims to the same scrutiny they demand of others. Whether the people making the strongest accusations are prepared to distinguish evidence from assertion. This is something the Palestine Solidarity Campaign has a long track record of never doing.

The starting point

The interview opened with the 7 October 2023 Hamas atrocities, but Napier, conveniently, did not offer any form of condemnation during the exchange. It was, after all, the catalyst for the Israeli military response. It seems to be the theatre of hate’s mode of operation, that is, to totally forget, or even dismiss, why the war started. Would he have been so dismissive had the IRA committed a similar atrocity on his doorstep in Scotland?

The parroted claims about genocide

Napier repeatedly described the war as an Israeli “genocide”, citing the World Council of Churches and the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS). The latter an organisation anyone can join and become a ‘scholar’ for $30, if your income is below $4,999, an income many of the rent-a-mob share. Concerning casualties in Gaza, the IAGS did not make any differentiation between combatants, non-combatants and those who died of natural causes.

It is also very bizarre that the IAGS passed a resolution in March 2016 condemning ISIS for a list of genocidal crimes, every one of which was later committed by Hamas. There appears to be one partisan rule applied here that strangely overlooks the terrorists of Hamas, a fact that alone discredits the IAGS from the outset. Could that rule be because it involves a group directly terrorising Israel? I will let you decide.

When a contested legal conclusion if offered as an established fact, casualty figures are quoted without adequate explanation, or a challenge is met with rude and noisy interruption rather than solid evidence, the public is entitled to ask for more than another repetition of the same political message yet again.

An ever-changing death toll, an estimate of combatant deaths and a model of excess mortality measure different things. Such statements are relevant to a debate, but they do not end it. A faux scholarly association’s resolution, an advocacy organisation’s position and a very partisan court’s final legal judgement, a court that is regularly taken to task, are very different things.

Anyone invoking them should explain exactly what has been concluded, by whom, under what process and with what limitations. Yes, the fact that the UK government has not made a formal determination is not, by itself, proof that the allegation is false. But a government that has recognised ‘Palestine’, a government that has applied sanctions to Israel, has not declared the war a genocide, well, that speaks volumes by itself. The UK government is far more qualified than a PSC rabble-rouser who demonstrates recognised traits of being an antisemite.

The casualty figures

Julia Hartley-Brewer referred to roughly 70,000 deaths quoted by Hamas and reminded viewers that a number of those, admitted by Hamas, were combatants. Napier countered with an unverified figure of 150,000, invoking The Lancet, a publication not necessarily bipartisan at the best of times, and one that is quoted selectively by groups like the PSC when it suits them, together with the possibility of deaths not recorded in the official tally.

These numbers cannot responsibly be treated as interchangeable. But the fact that Napier is suddenly saying Hamas’s own figures, which anti-Israel supporters have always taken to be rock-solid proof despite their often sudden release to minutes after an Israeli attack, are suddenly themselves disbelieved as wrong, is just incredulous.

Suddenly, he is disbelieving figures that have been quoted by Gaza’s own governing body. That is bizarre, even by the very low standards of the PSC who have always taken the Hamas figures as correct over the past 3 years.

The conduct in the interview

The exchange was also marked by repeated interruptions and accusations that the other person was lying. That conduct can obstruct scrutiny, but it does not settle the factual argument.

But the fact that Napier chose to consistently talk over Julia Hartley-Brewer, not answer direct questions, constantly parrot his slurs and tropes, and shout, to the extent that his microphone had to be turned off by the producer to allow Hartley-Brewer to finish a question or statement, says it all. This is the tactic employed by all Israel detractors, the likes of Owen Jones of The Guardian and Cenk Uygur, the Turkish-American political commentator in every interview concerning Gaza.

The standard that should apply

The public has every right to expect campaigners to defend their claims with evidence, acknowledge uncertainty and answer reasonable questions. That standard applies to Israel’s defenders as much as to its critics.

Napier’s performance in this interview raises questions about whether the exchange advanced understanding or simply repeated familiar theatrical positions more loudly.

This is not an argument about personality. It is an argument about standards. And those standards should apply equally to all of Israel’s defenders, its critics and the campaigners who claim to speak in the name of justice.

The question is whether a campaigner applies consistent moral standards. But these standards never appear to be applied by the PSC.