Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Netanyahu believes calls to destroy the Jewish state are evil



This is posted just as a straight-forward example of the Zionist moral universe. For me, this just sounds insane. A crime against humanity? One state that does not give 5 million Jewish people a majority state in Palestine is a crime against humanity? Netanyahu is being hyperbolic, but on the other hand, he, unlike I, starts from the premise that the Jewish people of Palestine having a majority state is of over-arching importance.
Netanyahu said that "there is a new call to destroy the Jewish state, it's our problem, but not only our problem."

"This is a crime against the Jews, and a crime against humanity, and it is a test of humanity," the Israeli PM said adding, that "we shall see in the following weeks whether the international community deals with this evil before it spreads.
How this plays in the West is that Netanyahu is so emotional that Westerners often feel uncomfortable challenging his statement, even though what he is saying is absurd for anyone who does not accept his basic premise. It is an argument that is trivial to refute if addressed directly, but often is made in an emotional environment where addressing it directly is uncomfortable, such as Netanyahu here making a speech at a Holocaust museum.

However, simply exposing the argument to skepticism is enough to nullify the effect. Asking was it a crime against humanity to destroy the communist state, was it a crime against humanity to destroy the white-majority state in South Africa undoes the impact that Netanyahu is working to accomplish. A problem with the the formation of US thinking on Israel-related issues is that there too often has not been a skeptical voice to offer a rebuttal. That is slowly changing.

No comments: