Israel’s foreign minister has said that an arms embargo on his country would lead to the elimination of the Israeli state and “a second Holocaust”.
Gideon Saar was speaking on Tuesday at an international conference on antisemitism in Jerusalem.
Israel’s foreign minister has said that an arms embargo on his country would lead to the elimination of the Israeli state and “a second Holocaust”.
Gideon Saar was speaking on Tuesday at an international conference on antisemitism in Jerusalem.
I haven’t been arguing against new slogans, I’ve been arguing in defense of existing slogans and pointing out that the slogans themselves aren’t as flawed as you perceive, but that your perception of their flaws is a result of circumstances that would exist even if we changed the slogans.
You’re talking about people having knee-jerk reactions to slogans like “destroy Israel” due to established powers. In this case, I don’t think the established powers need to do anything to cause this knee-jerk reaction. It’s quite automatic when somebody says something like “destroy <somebody’s home>.” The problem is that the slogan itself is not that it’s incendiary, but misleadingly incendiary.
I even think it might be a Motte-and-Bailey – it sounds obviously physically destructive, but when interrogated, proponents of the slogan retreat to “no, we just mean societal restructuring, in the abstract sense.” I’ll admit, I don’t know if there’s any way that one can defend against being accused of a Motte-and-Bailey, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
My tinfoil hat theory is that the established powers seeded the phrase “destroy Israel.” I think it’s that self-defeating of a slogan.