The Munk Debates are displaying a paternalistic and even imperialistic tone based on tenuous assumptions about power and relevance that are increasingly alien to public sentiment.
These Canadian debates occur in a country whose government refuses to act against the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran or Israel’s perpetual aggression. Therefore, it is unsurprising that victims of these outrages are unwelcome on the Munk stage.
Moreover, as a private institution operating at the publicly-funded university of Toronto, the Munk Foundation has certain ethical responsibilities commensurate with its academic affiliation.
Strategically gatekeeping discussion
Since 2008, the University of Toronto’s Munk Debates have claimed to, “help the world rediscover the art of civil and substantive public debate by convening the brightest thinkers of our time[…]” In this case, the term “rediscover” casually discredits other debates as if all are inferior to the Munk forum.
While Munk organizers are free to define intellectual brilliance, their choice of speakers seems designed to create the impression of fairness while literally confining the debate to the narrow corridors of dominant assumption. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe describes such gatekeeping tactics, “These people long ago forgot how to distinguish between the mesmerizing power of language and the reality it purports to represent.”
While Munk debates are usually civil and even substantive, notable exclusions occur when South West Asian and North African matters are concerned. These exclusions were as blatantly obvious in the May 20th Munk debates as they were at the December 3, 2025 two-state solution event.
The May 20th Munk debate featured the following resolution: Be it resolved, don’t go hunting monsters. Of course, the current and illegal U.S.-Israeli war on Iran since the Islamic Republic is the obvious monster du jour.
Behind this colorful resolution lies a sordid foundation of American brutality and casual arrogance. As Kelley Beaucar Vlahos recently wrote, “…the U.S. has been bombing, regime-changing, occupying and fending off terrorist insurgencies created by its own policies in Central Asia, the Horn of Africa and the Middle East since 1999.” While the modern era of American hegemony started in 1945, the U.S.A. has conducted massacres and military interventions since the early 19th century, so they have had over 300 years to debate the proposition.
Unfortunately, the May 20 debate specifically excluded Iranians, who might have offered some valid points. The event featured four Americans debating the ongoing wisdom of their nation’s established history of manipulating other states through military, economic and diplomatic force.
The motion will be opposed by former Trump Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo and U.S. Foreign Service veteran Victoria Nuland. Supporting the motion are noted American “realist” scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.
A debate between advocates of unilateral U.S. aggression and detached analysts effectively removes the vital ethical and moral dimension from the rhetorical equation. Such public forums reflect the mistaken assumption that the United States still dominates the global stage.
Excluding Iranian and Palestinian perspectives
Contrary to perceived wisdom, the world has not entered a new and more brutal era but rather an era where global institutions have been neutered and corrupted by shameless state actors. Today, the brutality of power has merely become more obvious to any who care to notice it.
This exclusion of Iranian voices from the upcoming debate is reminiscent of the December third, 2025 debate on the discredited two-state solution debate featuring the following resolution: Be it resolved, it is in Israel’s national interest to support a two-state solution. This event featured two teams of supposedly adversarial Israelis but no Palestinians.
Supporting the motion was former Israeli prime minister and Jerusalem mayor, Ehud Olmert. His debate partner was Israel’s former justice minister and the chief peace negotiator Tzipi Livni, who once expressed great enthusiasm for Israel’s massive air assaults on Gaza.
It is disturbing to see a Canadian institution welcome two figures who had once been the subject of serious criminal complaints in Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Switzerland due to their roles in Israel’s bombing of Gaza. In December 2009, a UK court issued an arrest warrant for Livni on the basis of alleged war crimes committed during the 2008-2009 Gaza War.
Similarly, Olmert had previously served a 17 month prison sentence for fraud and political corruption while serving as mayor of Jerusalem. Perhaps Munk organizers believe that the passage of time has somehow reinvented these Israeli luminaries.
The two-state motion was opposed by historian Michael Oren, who had previously served as Israeli ambassador to the United States under Netanyahu. Oren was partnered with former Israel justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, a keen proponent of illegal settlements and West Bank annexation who opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
Rudyard Griffiths, chair and moderator of the Munk Debates, actually defended the decision to exclude Palestinian panelists in a 2025 CBC interview. “As we do with every Munk Debate, we try to really assemble people who have hard-won insights, in-depth experience that they can bring to the topic,” he said.
Griffith’s vague explanation omits the fact that many Palestinians have developed “hard-won insights [and] in-depth experience” while existing under Israel’s brutal occupation which includes targeted assassinations, arbitrary arrest and so-called administrative detention without charge or due process. Such details are seemingly irrelevant to Griffiths.
Such exclusions display a dismissive attitude to Palestinians, Iranians and others who are assumed to have no right to participate in debates about their fate, which are better arranged by American and Israeli politicians and the powers they serve.
Perhaps the Munk Debates might adjust their perspective and craft resolutions favorable to the sentiments of working people in Canada and around the world. Here is an example:
Be it resolved that Israel and the United States are terrorist entities according to Canada’s official definition of the term.
Unfortunately, neither the Munk Foundation’s leadership or Canada’s government are likely to challenge or even acknowledge the gravity of Israel’s increasingly aggressive and self-destructive behaviour. For the time being, corporate influence and the fear of American displeasure will ensure that official Canada confines itself to indignant platitudes on Middle East strife.
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