Bad Arguments Re: Israel/Palestine

Unfortunately, Twitter/X is still the go-to place for ignorant dialog. I’m there myself because very little is happening for me at BlueSky and not a whole lot on Mastodon. I’ve been on it for years and have yet to crack 2,000 followers. In light of the legions of certifiable idiots there with many more followers, I have to conclude it’s me, or that I’m one of the idiots.

An annoying case in point is discussion of Israel and Palestine. Much unedifying discussion boils down to tit-for-tat. You cite an example of Israeli brutality, I counter with something about Hamas. There is no lack of examples on either side, so it can go on forever. Nobody is informed or persuaded, either way.

Another unproductive course is the Simon-says problem. Somebody began a discussion of either Israeli or Hamas criminality but failed to cite the other side’s transgressions first. It’s so stupid. If I had information to impart about, say, Hamas commandeering medical supplies needed by Gaza civilians, I don’t need to start in about the Nakba in 1948.

A third faux-objective tack is to acknowledge suffering on both sides, but to fail to accept the vast disproportionality of it, to the disadvantage of Arabs, of course.

One source of the ignorance is that nobody reads linked texts that support the argument in a tweet. The exchanges are based on the thinnest familiarity with the substance at issue, when they are not simply back-and-forths between boosters for each side.

A case in point can be observed in replies to a tweet from my DSA North Star caucus Twitter/X feed linking to my friend Katha Pollitt’s article for The Nation on pro-Hamas rape denialism on the Left and among Hamas supporters and apologists. One sort of response is what about Israeli crimes, even though Pollitt acknowledged those at the start of her article.

Another is that there were no such rapes, and that allegations of same are just Zionist propaganda. Pollitt does point to evidence of rapes, which evidence is simply dismissed out of hand. But why, a sensible person could ask, should we believe anonymous Twitter egg you instead of an established human right organization (in this case, Physicians for Human Rights)?

My favorite class of stupidity is from other DSA members. The column is written by a North Star member, but it is in no way an approved statement from the Caucus, which decides on such things democratically. In fact, one prominent of the Caucus objected to the tweet in the replies.

The article is linked in a tweet on the North Star twitter feed, but such decisions are not made by the Caucus, but by the person running the account. There has been some anxiety within the caucus in the past about the account diverging from the views of the caucus. To me this is not an issue. We’re not a Trotskyist cult of one mind on everything. My preference is to let people vent in their own way. I don’t have to agree with every tweet.

One DSA comrade accuses us of being Nazis. Another that the tweet shows women are not safe around us. Others that we are pro-IDF, CIA, or on an Israeli payroll. What childishness. Is there any doubt such people are not prepared to engage in grown-up politics?

I caution to close with the fact that Twitter/X is not real life, real politics, nor the real DSA. But it does come uncomfortably close on the last count.