Queensberry for Eggheads

Stephen Howe, an academic at Oxford, advertises his credentials to write about the Western conflict over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by boasting that his own writings on it irritate people on both sides.

That's a star-worthy resumé item. In his latest piece in Open Democracy, Howe takes a walk around the vicious academic disputes about Israel and the Palestinians, at Columbia U. in America and in various British institutions.

There is a good rule of thumb for social arguments, now applicable to almost any subject and circumstance. It goes simply: whoever first mentions the Nazis loses the argument.

Aye. And he offers this list of ground rules for civil discourse on heated topics:

• Comparisons between countries or political processes are supposed to be precision tools, not bludgeons wielded against the nearest enemy. They should actually tell us something useful about one or both the things being compared.
  
  
• It is in principle illegitimate to bring your opponent’s ethnic, national or religious background into the argument – unless of course he/she has explicitly and deliberately done so first.
  
  
• Try to work on the assumption that your opponent is acting in good faith, unless he/she absolutely forces you to believe otherwise.
  
  
• Don’t pretend to be offended or intimidated, when all that’s really happened is that your views have been challenged.
  
  
• There is nothing morally praiseworthy about being simple–minded.
  
  
• And above all – don’t mention the Nazis!