All experienced debaters know the importance of not overstating one’s case. A skilled opponent will seize on that one misstep and make it the crux of the debate. As with most of life’s valuable lessons this one usually has to be learned through bitter experience.
I was once debating someone with a kippah srugah on the Torah community’s conduct during World War II in front of a very mixed audience. He criticized the fact that funds were sent to Shanghai during the war to the remnants of the European yeshivah world and demanded to know why the yeshivaleit had not shut their Gemaras. There were five or six strong responses to his criticism and I made them all. But then I added that my opponent “hates Torah.” When the audience gasped I knew I had gone too far.
For the same reason it would be a terrible mistake for opponents of former senator Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense to charge him with being an anti-Semite. For one thing if you accuse a person of possessing a negative quality that he does not recognize in himself he will hate you for it. It is possible to create anti-Semites where none existed.
More important the whole debate would then center on that accusation and the accusers would quickly be put on the defensive. The issue would become one of whether the “Israel Lobby” employs McCarthyite tactics to intimidate critics of the allegedly right-wing Likud government.
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