Greek rhetoricians, who knew a thing or two about debates, always insisted that, before starting a verbal joust, the parties should agree on the terms.
This insistence presupposes the existence of accurate and inaccurate terms, those that elucidate an issue and those that confuse it. Alas, if I were to single out one characteristic of modernity, that would be its unopposed tendency to use words loosely or in a deliberately misleading manner.
Take the much-vaunted ‘natural selection’, a term invented by Francis Bacon, popularised by Charles Darwin and raised to a religious status by his followers, such as Richard Dawkins.
Darwin and Darwinists insist that natural selection accounts for the endless variety of flora and fauna so exhaustively that there is no need for God. Darwin explained how it works by analogy with cattle breeders and horticulturalists.
They select animals or plants that possess the characteristics that selectors see as desirable. Having identified specimens with such characteristics, they then start breeding and cross-breeding until they end up with the desired result.
The same, explained Darwin, happens in nature, which is why it’s called natural selection. His Origin was already published when Darwin realised his mistake. For domestic breeding doesn’t just happen. It’s the work of a rational agent, zoologist or horticulturalist. So who acts as the rational agent in nature?
The word ‘selection’ implies a selector. Darwin, who in the introduction to The Descent of Man stated the debunking of God as his intention, achieved exactly the opposite result by his loose use of words. Later he tried to correct that mistake, but his followers have greatly exacerbated it.
I’m using this as strictly an illustration of how our progressive modernity, partly adumbrated by Darwin, uses words imprecisely or even nefariously. This gets me to Israel’s current attempt to save herself and her people from annihilation, and, at one remove, our civilisation from extinction.
Verbal chicanery is a salient constituent of both the deliberately mendacious accounts of the current events and those that are well-meaning but loosely phrased. One ubiquitous loose phrase is ‘Palestinian refugees’.
The word ‘refugee’ is close to my heart because over 50 years ago I myself emerged out of Russia with only a scrap of badly printed paper for ID. It identified me as a refugee, a word that has a precise legal meaning.
This was defined by the UN as a status that applied only to the person seeking refuge, not his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so on, ad infinitum. In other words, the refugee status isn’t a hereditary title of nobility passed on from generation to generation.
This definition is ignored by, well, everyone, from the UN itself to various governments, international organisations and certainly commentators. Some like ‘Palestinian refugees’, some don’t, but practically everyone refers to them as such.
Moreover, regardless of where or not the underlying conflict has been resolved, refugees legally retain their status for 10 years only. However, ‘Palestinian refugees’ are still described this way 75 years after their progenitors were driven from Israel in 1948-1949. That’s three, almost four, generations of refugees, who now outnumber the original ones by an order of magnitude.
Displacement of large groups of people isn’t unique in history, lamentable though it may be. But ‘Palestinian refugees’ in the fourth generation are unprecedented. What exactly affords them their special privileged status?
The answer is evident: It’s not love of those poor people, but hatred of Israel – as such and also as a proxy for the hatred of Western civilisation, represented in the region only by Israel. This hatred is multifarious, including aspects of common-or-garden anti-Semitism, anti-capitalism, totalitarian longing, religious loathing, loathing of religions – it’s not my task here to identify them all.
But hatred is typically syllogistic in that it requires an antithesis of love to be truly synthesised and focused. Hence the urgent need for ‘Palestinian refugees’ who can be used as a cudgel to bust those Israeli heads with, literally or figuratively.
Another misnomer invariably popping up in this context is ‘genocide’. It’s a dagger taken out of its scabbard every time Israel responds to murderous attacks by killing a few hundred Arabs, especially those ‘peaceful Palestinian refugees’.
It has to be said that the word ‘genocide’ is often used, or rather misused, in all sorts of contexts. In his books Lethal Politics and Murder by Government, Rudolph Rummel explains that, though all genocide is mass killing, not all mass killing is genocide.
He defines genocide as mass murder by category, mainly racial or religious. Thus six million Jews were victims of Nazi genocide, but the 500,000 German civilians killed by American and British bombs weren’t victims of Allied genocide. The Nazis were out to kill all Jews indiscriminately simply because they hated them as a group. The Allies bombed German cities not because they wanted to kill all Germans but because they wanted to win the war.
Prof. Rummel, whose books I wholeheartedly recommend, distinguishes genocide from democide, any killing of large numbers of people. As a linguist manqué, I welcome that distinction as a significant contribution both to language and political science.
The word ‘genocide’ is being bandied about by all and sundry in relation to the alleged bombing of a Gaza hospital by the IDF. I say ‘alleged’ because the evidence I’ve seen, which convinced President Biden that it was “the other team” that was responsible, shows no photographs of a bombed hospital – nor indeed of 500-600 victims.
There was a fire in the hospital courtyard and adjacent buildings, which is consistent with the Israeli videos showing a crude Hamas bomb detonating over the area. Those bombs can weigh up to 1,500 kg, of which 500 kg is the payload and the rest is the fuel.
I’m not an expert in such matters and have to defer to those who are. However, I’m happy to concede that it’s possible that indeed an Israeli missile hit the hospital and killed a few hundred people.
My point is that, most unfortunate as such an incident may be, it still doesn’t constitute genocide. Israel has demonstrated in neither word nor deed her intention to kill all or large numbers of Palestinian Arabs simply because they are Palestinian Arabs.
All instances of genocide known to history have always proceeded from a solid ideological premise. Moreover a premise explicitly stated in the founding documents of the ideology involved. All genocidal ideologies have their Mein Kampf, or at least an oral equivalent thereof.
Israel has no such thing, and neither has she ever tried to exterminate all Palestinian Arabs. When civilians die as a result of IDF’s action, it’s always collateral damage produced in response to aggression.
On the other hand, not only Hamas, but leaders of practically all Muslim countries have stated in so many words their explicit intent to “drive Israel into the sea” (Nasser’s phrase), meaning to kill all Israelis. They may even cite scriptural justification, what with the Koran containing 107 verses, conservatively counted, that call for violence towards infidels. Some verses identify Jews specifically.
People who use language loosely think badly. Such intellectual failings may result from either innate mental frailty or pernicious intent. Looking at Hamas fans, I wonder if we have to choose one or the other.
Mr Boot, insofar as you comment on Israel and the Palestinians you have my complete agreement and admirati0n of your powers of expression.
They are refugees from common sense, basic human dignity, and common decency.
The assault on language is in full force. You get more than your share reading the broadsheets and watching sports, but business is perhaps the worst offender. There is always some new word or phrase that sets my teeth on edge.