Symphony Hall afforded a sanctuary of sorts from the turmoil of the final presidential candidates’ debate for attendees of the second installment of the 2016-17 season of Lesley University’s Boston Speakers Series. But they received a sobering firsthand account of the strife outside the United States, especially in the Middle East, from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, center, with student Noah Mulgay
and College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Dean Steven Shapiro in Marran Gallery.
“This is a good night for a distraction,” quipped moderator Jared Bowen of Lesley’s media partner WGBH.
But the mood quickly took a less jocular turn.
The rugged and urbane 74-year-old Barak, prime minister from 1999 to 2001, and who had risen to fame via an auspicious military career leading Israeli special forces, spoke of the precarious position of his country, and ours, existing under the shadow of ISIS, as well as Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Of the recently struck nuclear pact between Iran and the United States (as well as Russia, the UK, France, Germany and China), , Barak said, “It’s a bad deal, but it’s a done deal.” He said he has at best “mixed feelings” about the agreement, then went on to define “mixed feelings” as “your mother-in-law driving your BMW off a cliff.”
The disharmonious jape was one Barak had trotted out earlier in the day, speaking to students, faculty and staff in Marran Theater on Lesley’s Doble Campus, where he spoke to a more intimate audience of a few dozen people. However, Barak tried to replicate that sense of closeness at Symphony Hall by requesting the house lights be brought up to improve his view of the audience. “An early warning,” he quipped.
Barak struck a more serious, even urgent, tone regarding the Middle East, where he said the “Arab Spring” had given way to the “Islamist Winter,” a situation exacerbated by the decline of American and former Soviet roles as military superpowers. The United States, he emphasized, is on the verge of being perceived as being weak, unable to stanch the worldwide threat of terror.
Ehud Barak at Boston's Symphony Hall
And the consequences of that perception of weakness are substantial.
“You have witnessed it since 9/11,” Barak said, talking about Islamist terror attacks across Europe and even into China. In addition, Barak said, “Beheading people is very common in the Middle East.”
The civil war and mass killings in Syria is only the latest example of the worldwide threat of terror, Barak indicated.
But the threat isn’t only on the battlefield or war-torn city streets, he added. ISIS is adept at recruiting adherents via the “Darknet” — the hidden Internet of terrorists, human traffickers and other elements of the criminal underworld.
“Israel is a villa in the jungle, and the laws of the jungle prevail,” said the former prime minister.
Yet, Barak insisted, while none of the terror threats should be ignored, “none is an existential threat to Israel” or the United States.
However, Barak said that Israel, like America, is experiencing internal, as well as external, strife. He pointed to the Palestinian situation as one of extreme urgency, bereft of easy answers. One on hand, he said, giving Palestinians full voting rights as citizens will instantly jeopardize the Jewish majority and imperil the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish homeland. However, his home country cannot morally or practically maintain a system of apartheid.
“If they cannot vote in the Knesset, it is not a democracy,” Barak said. And, while he said he tries to view the situation with optimism, leadership requires the willingness to “look reality in the eye.”
“Israel will never capitulate to terror,” he said, to considerable applause.
Series notes
Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s appearance was moderated by Jared Bowen of WGBH, Lesley’s media partner for the series, and was sponsored by the construction firm John Moriarty & Associates.
The next Boston Speakers Series lecture features actress and multidimensional entertainer Rita Moreno, whose decades-long career includes starring roles in “West Side Story,” the children’s educational TV program “Electric Company” and HBO’s prison and social commentary drama “Oz.”