Show pageOld revisionsBacklinksNew pageNew folderBack to top This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong. Subsequent to the campus intifada of 2024, and our proposed [[israel palestine debate|public disputation on the Israel / Palestine question]] under rules of parliamentary debate. ===== Sophistic Refutations of Anti-Israelism ====== // Originally published in [[PSU#Open letter to PSU]] and [[Open letter to UO#Endorsing_faculty_shared_principles_denouncing_the_bigoted_ignorance_of_the_students_union|Open letter to UO - Endorsing faculty shared principles denouncing the bigoted ignorance of the Students Union]] // Three or more fallacies compounded on top of one another, do not make a sound argument. Mere volume and duration are not proof, but merely ad nauseum. * **Appeal to Ignorance** is not a justification for indiscriminate murder and taking of civilian hostages. In their official propaganda and at rallies by campus affiliates, The AMP/SJP, JVP, DSA, and PSL, and PFLP/Samidoun have refused to even mention the 1,400 Israeli dead and 134 hostages still held by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza, let alone denounce the massacres or call for "release of the hostages". This the same strategy used by holocaust deniers - it didn't really happen, but then again, 6MWE. The incoherence leads to circular moral reasoning and victim blaming, where a war of aggression launched by Hamas is held to be morally justifiable given Israel's lethal response. * **Appeal to Pity** We can mourn the 34,000+ Palestinian dead, as a result of the Israeli counterattack. But pretending that Jews don't exist in Palestine doesn't honor the memory of those Palestinian dead, and neither does appropriating their memory into a death cult for military terrorism. Hamas was the efficient cause of their death, even if the IDF was the proximate cause. * ** Fallacy of equivocation in use of the terms "apartheid"** as applied to Israel. Apartheid may exist the territories of Judea and Samaria, the former west bank, is due to a de facto cold-war that Palestinian Legislative Council and the Arab world as a whole have never abandoned - as the PA still maintains a "pay to slay program" from its "martyr's fund", and as most Arab countries refuse to admit Palestinian refugees as asylum seekers. * ** Fallacy of equivocation in use of the term "settler colonialism".** Palestine was originally a colony of the Greek and Roman empire, with the indigenous Jewish population semi-autonomous and later subjected as sub-altern natives. Oregon was a "settler colony" of the American empire, and America itself of the British empire; much like Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia were settler colonies of various Arab empires with conquered, occupied, and colonized those regions and subjected them to an Islamic Arab monoculture. The crusaders also settled an colonized Palestine. Unlike these, and contrary to the anti-semitic conspiracy theories borrowed by the Hamas charter from Nazi ideology, there is no "international Jewish empire" that settled and colonized Palestine - merely Jews returning to their homeland from exile, mostly in Europe and in Arab countries, and joining the Jews who were already there or never left. Moreover, the Diaspora Jews were not the authors of the French revolution, WWI, the League of Nations, the United Nations, as the Hamas charter claims, and all Palestinian nationalists should renounce these ignorant and disproven conspiracy theories. * **Projection, scapegoating, false accusations** of murder, war crimes, attempted genocide. Of these, Hamas is demonstrably guilty, and the projection of its own guilt onto Israel appears to be a process of scapegoating the victim in order to justify the perpetrator. Moreover, Hamas's campus propagandists teach that "resistance is justified, by any means necessary". But if we admit that immoral premise of the Caribbean revolutionary Frantz Fanon, then Israel would also be justified in anything to achieve Jewish national liberation from the Arab empire, and the case against Israel self-defeats because all of these are permissible. But they are not permissible, therefore our adversaries should renounce that premise, and impartial judges should bring accusations against Hamas before we entertain further analysis of the facts that are issue in the case against Israel's counter-attack. * **Appeal to Brute Force** [[wp>fallacy ad baculum]] - occupying shared space, denying access, and threatening the use of force, might enable you to subdue an opponent from making his argument, but it won't enable you to actually prove your counter, or make 2+2=5. A confession or admission obtained under such duress, is not valid in court and does not constitute sincere agreement, any more than it changes the underlying reality. Also, coercing worshippers to bow before an idol, does not constitute actual worship. Nevertheless, Jews are forbidden to submit to such duress, and required instead to sacrifice their lives for "sanctification of the name". * **Verbal abuse** [[wp>fallacy ad hominem]]. "punk", "bitch", "bastard". A bitch is a not a bad thing to be, if you're dog. A female is not bad either. Your deliberate misgendering me, a man, is not only an act of verbal sexual violence against me, it is a misogynist insult to women everywhere, and to females of any species. Your dehumanization and sexist misogyny will not defeat my arguments, but they will corrupt your thought process. No, not all cops are bastards, but even if some are, [[http://BastardsLivesMatter.org|Bastards Lives Matter]]. * **Prejudicially false accusations** framed as a [[wp>loaded question]], assuming facts not in evidence: "why'd you touch those kids?", "have you registered yet as a sex offender?". (FYI - that is a heinous crime, and anyone who does it ought to be severely prosecuted, since a minor can't given informed consent. I've never even been tempted to do this; as I feel sexual attraction only toward adult women. Why are you asking me this loaded question? To start an unfounded rumor, in attempting to discredit my political argument? This is amounts to another ad hominem fallacy, and we should reject these deliberative deceptive tactics, which are intellectually dishonest.) We should honor and value children as little humans, teach them good boundaries so they can protect themselves, and help them to mature into healthy and successful adults. But child exploitation is like rape or enslavement, it is "stealing a human life", and as such a capital crime, punishable by heaven if not by human court. But perjury is also a crime - "You shall not bear false witness against the life of your neighbor". And a witness found to be false, should suffer the penalty he conspired to bring on his fellow - in this case, expulsion and mob violence. Spreading these rumors and insinuations merely in order to defame a political adversary, does not merely smear the adversary's reputation, it leaves the rumormonger prejudiced and ignorant, and worse - it appropriates and exploits the trauma of children who have actually been victimized, risks undermining the credibility of their testimonies, and turns them into pawns for disinformation campaigns of political agitators. Avoid the such liars; expel them from your activist group; do not share their company as they will discredit and destroy your movement. This was a [[wp>red herring]], and a distraction, but hopefully those hunting dogs who've read this far have eaten the herring, and learned something that is morally useful. * [[wp>fallacy ad nauseum]] - repeating a falsehood dozens of times doesn't make it true, it just makes you ignorant, prejudiced, and incapable of critical thinking. Repeating a moral error dozens of times doesn't make it righteous, it only makes you a totalitarian who does evil by statute. * [[wp>Overgeneralization]], false equivalence - "IDF, KKK, PPB, you're all the same". Military and police are not the same in their purpose, discipline, or jurisdiction, although they fall in the general class of "organizations that bear arms", as do the KKK. The KKK differs in that it was organization that whose purpose was to terrorize black people (and occasionally Jews and Catholics) by burning crosses and wearing white hoodies to hide beyond anonymous mobs and maintain plausible deniability, which neither the IDF or PPB do. Antifa and other PFLP/Samidoun affiliates, however, are similar to KKK in that they wear hoodies as part of their security culture, and they target institutions perceived as Jewish, as do also Hamas, PIJ, and pro-Palestinian militant protestors generally. Pro-Israeli counterprotestors in America generally do not cover their faces or seek anonymity. Also, the IDF now operates over a territory smaller than New Jersey, whereas the KKK operated over the most of the American south and much of the Western states. Within that area, it operates against Palestinian militants who, like many protestors here in America, support the total destruction and abolition of Israel, to establish an independent Palestine in its place. Southern blacks never sought the total destruction of the U.S., nor did they ever conduct a massacre of whites, even remotely close to the 1,200 Israelis massacred during the Oct 7th, "Al-aqsa flood", nor did they take hostages. * [[wp>Genetic fallacy]], overgeneralization, appeal to ridicule: - "All Cops Are Bastards" - Disproven by counterexample: Officer Jones has two parents and is not bastard, therefore NACAB. Whether or not he is a "bad" cop remains an open question, but even if he is bad, it isn't on account of his status at birth. But the latter genetic fallacy is the same dyslogic at the root of racist thinking, and is a manifestation of violence against the disabled. On the contrary, [[www.BastardsLivesMatter.org]]. The anarchist who say otherwise are worthy of the ridicule that they give out. =====Ecstatic Protest Poetry ===== // Composed 2 May 8am // From the river to the sea / Palestine is not for free Free, free, free PSU / The library is not for you From the river to sea / Holy God it belongs to thee The land belongs to thee alone / Let the truth be heard and known Who can sojourn on thy hill? / On thy mount of holiness? / Only the righteous can, and Israel will / and his prophets bear witness. //Composed 2 May 12-2pm and shouted aloud at PSU plaza// //free, free, free Palestine// Where do you draw the line? Free, free, free, Italy / and liberate its colony //The people united, will never be divided/defeated// You will be divided, you will be defeated / The truth will be heard, and the words will be repeated. //Composed 3 May ~ 2pm and inscribed on gates of County courthouse // From the river to the sea / Palestine is not for free The land belongs to the LORD / Of heaven and earth, of his word / The distant coastlands have heard / When his mighty zeal is stirred He will surely draw the line / and possess the gates of Palestine ==== University of Oregon ===== [[Open Letter to UO]] [[wp>2024_University_of_Oregon_pro-Palestinian_campus_occupation]] ==== Official Statements and media accounts ==== * [[https://www.pdx.edu/campus-protest-updates|PSU Campus Protest Updates]] * [[wp>2024 Portland State University pro-Palestinian campus occupation]] refutations_of_antiisraelism.txt Last modified: 2024/05/23 16:50by rcif