Friday January 30, 2009

I've Been Thinking:

The World Economic Forum in Davos is known for being a place of polite, high brow dialogue.
It is where ideas are discussed and voices are never raised to the level of shouting matches.
At least, that's the way it used to be.

Yesterday, Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Simon Peres was on a panel with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
Peres passionately explained Israel's action is Gaza.
The Turkish president was in the middle of speaking when he was cut off by the moderator. At that point he raised his voice to shout: "you are killing people."
Peres pointed his finger and said you would do the same if rockets would fall on Istanbul.
The Turkish president stormed out of the Forum, his face was beet red.
These were not polite exchanges.

By walking out, Erdogan lost credibility.
Had he stayed it would have been obvious that his argument was based on untruth and misrepresentation of reality and law.

By responding in the way in which he did, Peres was pitching to his own strengths. Shimon Peres excels in confronting liberals with liberal theory and reality couching it in the terms they understand best.

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