Kaufman assesses Israel and Hamas in black-and-white terms
Analyzing the article
Our Analysis: 2 Fallacies
Nothing more acutely conveys the differences between Israel and Hamas than the storming of the Knesset (Israel's parliament) earlier this week by the families of the hostages currently held in Gaza. The scenes were chastening and heart-wrenching: anguished parents and siblings and spouses of the kidnapped literally holding Israel's government hostage as they demand their lawmakers do anything -- everything -- to bring their loved ones home.
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Although the protesters numbered barely 20, their cries were seen and heard around the world. As they should have been. Israel is an open and democratic society where politicians are elected by its citizens to serve its citizens, Jews and Arabs alike. It's an imperfect democratic system, just like every democratic system, but it is a democracy. And aggrieved mothers shouting "Shame on you" as they implore their government to find their kidnapped children -- this is how democracy is supposed to work, 1 this is democracy in action. And this is clearly not Hamas.
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Everything about this scenario -- the Knesset fracas, the aggrieved families, the sheer public nature of it all --- conveys Israel's moral authority throughout their battle in Gaza against Hamas.
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Indeed, while Hamas leaders burrow within secret tunnels hidden deep from public scrutiny, Israel is airing its dirty laundry for all the world to see. And that laundry, is at times, incredibly dirty... We know Israel is responsible for the deaths of at least three hostages in Gaza and we know that the soldiers who mistakenly killed them had not followed protocols. And we also know that the Israeli public is becoming increasingly fed up with Netanyahu's rule -- with some three-fourths of Israelis looking for him to resign.
We know all these things because, like those parents screaming for action at the Knesset this week, Israel tells us.
And allows the global media to tell us, as well. To contrast this with Hamas in Gaza would 2 verge on the comical.
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Unlike in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where mass anti-government marches have raged in some form for over a year now, there have been almost no protests against Hamas by Gazan civilians -- despite the penchant of the former for stealing relief aid from the latter.
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Beyond a well-oiled propaganda machine, we actually haven't seen anything from Hamas in the form of governance over the past three-and-a-half months except for the thousands of rockets launched into Israel and the ghoulish thugs who accompanied freed Israeli hostages during their final moments in Gaza.
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2 Desperate and relentless, the global anti-Israel machine will seize upon any moment -- any image -- as proof of Israel's supposed fascistic nature and genocidal intent. But more often than not, 1 those moments, such as the outburst in the Knesset this week, confirm just the opposite.
- False dilemma • By setting up a dichotomy between "the global anti-Israel machine" that supposedly portrays Israel as "fascistic" and "genocidal," and the idea that incidents like the Knesset outburst "confirm just the opposite," it frames the issue in an overly simplified, binary way. A more reasonable framing would acknowledge that criticism of Israeli policies falls along a spectrum, and that specific incidents like the Knesset protest can be complex events open to multiple interpretations. For example, it is conceivable that the event could simultaneously demonstrate a degree of virtuous democracy and also legitimate grievances against Israel at the same time. Rather than just two possibilities -- that the event either shows Israel to be "fascistic" or else "just the opposite" -- the situation could be interpreted as landing somewhere in between those extremes. So, the false dilemma rests in acting like there are only two possible takeaways or perspectives here, when in reality the issues involved likely require more nuanced analysis instead of black-and-white categorizations.
- Loaded language • Phrases such as "desperate and relentless" and "verge on the comical" use loaded, emotionally-charged language to seemingly malign or delegitimize critics of Israel, rather than address the substance of anti-Israel arguments.
References
- David Christopher Kaufman (2024, Jan 27). Israel -- unlike Hamas -- has nothing to hide.
https://nypost.com/2024/01/27/opinion/israel-unlike-hamas-has-nothing-to-hide/
Disclaimer
Note that there being one or more apparent fallacies in the arguments presented in this article does not mean that every argument the arguer made was fallacious, nor does it mean there are not other arguments in existence for the same or similar position that are logically valid. Also note that checking for fallacies is not the same as verification of the premises the arguer starts from, such as facts that the arguer asserts or principles that the arguer assumes as the foundation for constructing arguments. For more about this, see our 'What is Fallacy Checking?'
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