See Brian Baird in action in the video this debate below:

Weiner-Baird debate lived up to its billing

http://mondoweiss.net/2011/03/weiner-baird-debate-lived-up-to-its-billing.html

Last night at the New School in New York, we had a great debate between two Democratic Party antagonists on the Israel/Palestine issue: Brian Baird, the former Washington state congressman, and Brooklyn congressman Anthony Weiner. The conversation was deftly moderated by Roger Cohen of the New York Times, who was not afraid to call Weiner out when the congressman said there are no Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, or when he said that all the settlements are in Israel.

The chief response to the debate so far (besides the predictable at the National Review) has been shock at Anthony Weiner's contempt for international law and Palestinian humanity. A politician who has distinguished himself on healthcare reform and economic justice issues in the U.S. resorts to "It's war, and war is hell" arguments when Brian Baird, a clinical psychologist by training, describes the destruction of schools and innocent families and U.N. compounds by Israeli bombing, and the collective punishment of millions of people denied lentils, toothpaste, building materials, and the freedom to move beyond a territory less than the size of New York City.  

When Cohen pressed Weiner on where Israel's eastern border is, he said something about the Jordan River. I have the tape-- I have to dig that out. At this point a man in the audience shouted, Are you in Israel now? It was a New York crowd. A heckler from the other side attacked Brian Baird over his statement that the Israelis had bombed Al Quds hospital with white phosphorus. The heckler said that there were militants hiding themselves at the hospital. Baird (a contributor to our book on the Goldstone Report) shook his head in consternation. He said it was no credit to the heckler or the country he was supporting that he was actually defending the bombing of a hospital.

Writes one friend who was in attendance:

what I gathered is something rather surprising: I actually got the impression that Weiner doesn't really know much about the Israeli Palestinian conflict beyond some basic talking points. Him making a fool of himself claiming there was no occupation in the West Bank or that the border was on Jordan River are gaffes that an actual advocate for Israel in America was not likely to make. It suggests to me that Weiner is just badly informed and that his attachment to Israel is rather shallow: he is not really thinking about Israel beyond some ideal he has known ever since growing up in Brooklyn.

Writes another friend:

To my surprise, I learned something from tonight's debate.  I thought about Anthony Weiner's insistence that the borders of Israel extend from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River -- a shocking statement to me even though I know this is the viewpoint of the settler movement in Israel.  I didn't realize that it was the common currency of a "proud Zionist" as Weiner described himself.  So, if Weiner and his ideological pals believe that all the land taken in the 1967 war is "Israel", no wonder negotiations can go nowhere even with the ever pliable Palestinian Authority.  Weiner and his pals believe negotiations are "giving" land to the Palestinians -- an offer of any territory at all is a generous offer.  And to hell with the UN resolutions establishing the state of Israel and its borders, and even to hell with the Israeli juridical position that the land is disputed territory.  Does this mean that Israel no longer claims its legitimacy from the 1947 UN partition resolution?  Mondo bizarro.

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