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Format: Lecture/Debate
Speaker: Dr. Katerina Dalacoura, LSE
Date: 20th May 2009
An event held by the Dialogue Society on Holloway Road, an organisation which is growing in popularity and this particular event would’ve only aided its continual growth.
I enjoyed this event which was reasonably attended. The speaker defined a terrorist to be anyone or any organisation that harms or threatens to harm civilians. She implicitly indicated that states can be terrorists though she explicitly called Hamas a terrorist organisation. She did contend that it was far more than a religious organisation and that they do not use religion to justify suicide bombings thereby severing the causal link between religion and terrorism which I agreed with. However, her labeling of Hamas as a terrorist organisation did cause a stir among the audience, especially a young Palestinian woman who questioned this label.
I pushed Dr. Katerina to clarify her position as I felt the audience may not be fully aware of her position with regards to Israel by asking to essentially clarify her position on Israel as per her definition after highlighting that Hamas was an elected government and the fact that Hamas has not undertaken any suicide bombing since 2004. By this time Dr. Katerina was already feeling very passionate and she exclaimed, “Do you want me to say Israel is a terrorist state? Yes it is.”
Is Israel a terrorist state?