Good morning, children.
Today we are going to learn about two common rhetorical tricks that help greatly with the cynical manipulation of arguments.
First, disingenuousness. The Oxford Shorter English Dictionary defines disingenuous as “lacking in frankness, insincere, morally fraudulent”, in the sense of pretending not to know what you in fact know very well.
Second, the straw man argument. Wikipedia defines this as misrepresentation of an opponent’s position, to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the straw man) and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original proposition.
Today, thanks to Mr Netanyahu, we have one handy slice of well-worn rhetoric to illustrate both rhetorical tricks.
Mr Netanyahu, speaking for his government, said on Sunday that he could not give in to a demand by Washington to halt plans to build homes for Jews in disputed East Jerusalem : “We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jeruslalem,” he said. “I can only imagine what would happen if someone would suggest Jews could not live in certain neighbourhoods of New York, London, Paris or Rome. There would certainly be a great international outcry.”
Yes, there would indeed. Because such discrimination could be nothing other than anti-Semitic, as Mr Netyanyahu knows. Therefore, his argument implies, any barrier to Jews building and buying in East Jerusalem must also be nothing other than anti-Semitic. So, if critics of his policies do not wish to be accused of anti-Semitism, they had better drop demands not to build in East Jerusalem…
But as Mr Netanyahu really knows very well, though he pretends not to, New York, London, Paris, and Rome are not disputed cities divided by 60-year-old ceasefire lines. Part of New York has not been captured in a war then annexed by one country in a move that is not legally recognised by the rest of the world, which considers that the other party to the dispute, the Palestinian party, also has a claim to the city.
So all Mr Netanyahu has really “refuted” is a straw man, which leaves the original proposition unanswered. Is he the only political leader to employ such dubious rhetorical devices? By no means. Has he advanced the argument? That’s very doubtful.
In fact, this could fairly be called “insulting the intelligence”. But that’s next week’s lesson.
PHOTO: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem July 19, 2009. Netanyahu, saying he would not take orders over Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, rejected on Sunday a U.S. demand to halt plans to build more homes for Jews in the disputed area. REUTERS/David Silverman/Pool
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Then let us consider some other factors, in the spirit of getting rid of all the ‘disingenuous’ arguments:
1. The fact that settlements are not recognised as legal by other governments, does not in itself have any bearing on the legality of those settlements.
2. For that matter, have the UN made any legally binding resolutions on the settlements? Have the ICJ made any legally binding orders? Do people consider such things to be relevent?
3. The legality of those settlements could be determined by reference to the relevent Geneva convention. Which if I know my international law, was supposed to apply to forced transfers. Yet it seems interesting how the relevent section is now being reread to apply to *all* transfers.
4. People forget that neither Gaza nor the West Bank are sovereign territories. There is no nation of Palestine recognised by the UN. The territories are understood to be occupied and controlled by Israel. And prior to Israel’s occupation, they were occuped by Egypt and Jorden.
5. And regardless of all of these things, the fact remains that occupied land remains such until a relevent peace treaty is signed. And the results of the treaty may very well result in those settlements becoming Israeli land, or becoming legal settlements owned by Israelis. Or there may never be peace. It is arguable that the legality of these settlements will be settled in an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty, and not a moment before.
- Posted by AnonAs far as I remember this is about Jewish settlements, right? For Jews? I.e. not for non-Jews? So isn’t Netanyahu just arguing with himself? His example is precisely why he shouldn’t be permitting the building in the first case. Imagine if areas of London, Paris, Rome or New York were ONLY for Jews…
- Posted by NicWhen did Netanyahu say that splitting Jerusalem would be anti-Semitic? Talk about setting up a straw-man, that’s precisely what the author does. Accuses Netanyhu of saying anyone who disagrees with him is an anti-Semite, when he does not do anything of the sort. Since when does Reuters publish this sort of solicitous pablum anyway?
- Posted by WilliamRevisionism has also a meaning.
- Posted by VincentThe arab claim to Jerusalem started very late. Neither during the Ottoman regime nor during the british mandate or the Jordanian occupation any move was made to make Jerusalem any capital.
Note that in the Jordanian occupations no access to holy sites was granted to other religions but the temple mount is under the rule of the waqf which is neither jewish nor christian.
Bibi (Netanyahu) may be disingenuous but still far from the PLO revisionism that calls for muslim only area as between 1948 and 1967.
I often wonder if the anti-Israel propagandists at Reuters like Douglas Hamilton and Alistair MacDonald sit around the table at Starbucks on Oxford Street sipping on lattes and dreaming up new and contemptible ways to slander Israel and its leaders.
At various points in their histories, sovereignty over New York, London, Paris, and Rome was also in dispute. The same holds true with Prague, Toronto, Istanbul, Pittsburgh, and today, Belfast, Gibraltar, and Jerusalem.
Jerusalem has been invaded, conquered, and colonized over a longer period of time than any other city in the world but only one nation can lay original claim to sovereignty and that is the Jewish nation. Despite numerous bloody conquests and expulsions, there has always been a Jewish presence in Jerusalem and the city has had a majority Jewish population since the 19th century. The fictitious “city” of East Jerusalem – which Reuters correspondents guilefully capitalize in an effort to demarcate as separate from the rest of the city – is home to the most sacred Jewish antiquities and, despite ethnic cleansing by Jordan between 1948 and 1967, 42% Jewish by population.
Of course, neither Douglas Hamilton nor any of the other Reuters crop will tell you the above nor will they explain that the 1947 UN resolution to internationalize Jerusalem was to be followed 10 years later by a vote among the city’s residents on the issue of sovereignty – a vote it is clear the Jewish majority in Jerusalem would have held in favor of Israel.
In these willful refusals to report the truth, it is Hamilton who is guilty of “insulting the intelligence”.
- Posted by HIS