There’s this thing going on right now in Israel that is getting a lot of media attention, and a disproportionate amount of that has been focused on Mia Khalifa, an entertainer by trade who is not very skilled at crafting a nuanced political message. It simply is not her area of expertise — that’s OK, and she’s not the only entertainer struggling with that right now. Today, there’s a thread on Reddit discussing a response to Khalifa by an educated Muslim man who is clearly skilled at crafting propaganda. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find his name.
Disclaimer: I’m not clear on what Khalifa’s full position on the situation is, so I do not endorse her position, even though everything I’ve seen her express about this issue has been true. Please don’t assume I’ve seen everything she’s ever expressed about it.
Factually, the history of the region currently called “Israel” is incredibly complex and riddled with horrific, bloody conquests perpetrated by various ethnic groups. To say it “belongs” to any one ethnic group inherently, in the sense of a natural connection between blood and soil, is to embrace a fascist perspective. From an ethical perspective, every person should have a right to a home, including all Israelis and all Palestinians.
Below is the animation “This Land is Mine” by Nina Paley featuring “The Exodus Song” by Andy Williams. It’s a nice summary of the history of the region. There’s a link to more detail in the YouTube description. Paley is ethnically Jewish.
To get back to Mia Khalifa, she and the fellow rebutting her are both saying things that are true, yet they clearly have a strong disagreement with one another. Khalifa isn’t lying in any sense — she’s saying things that are factual (though lacking nuance) and that she believes are true. On the other hand, the guy rebutting her is saying things that are true, but he’s purposefully being deceptive.
First off, what do they mean when they say “Israel”? Khalifa means the word to refer to the current iteration of Canaan (that’s the earliest known name for the region, so I’m going to use that for just a moment). There have been other iterations of Canaan that were called Israel, but they are not qualitatively the same as this iteration of Canaan that is called Israel. The guy rebutting her is claiming that Israel is much older than 75 years, and that’s true, but he’s being purposefully deceptive by using a different definition of Israel from what Khalifa is using. Using Khalifa’s definition of Israel, it is, in fact, only 75 years old. (Does that detail really matter?)
In case you’re wondering, the Canaanites were neither Jewish nor Muslim, but their genes are present in both groups today. If we’re using “firsties” to determine who the region belongs to, both Israelis and Palestinians have a valid claim, so it isn’t even an interesting perspective.
Using a different definition is a common strategy in conservative media (which would include both right-wing media and liberal media). For example, obviously, chaos is bad, and if you define anarchy as chaos, then obviously anarchy is bad, too. The point is to pretend that actual anarchist agree with this definition of the word anarchy, which isn’t true; anarchists understand anarchy to be order. Conservative media will never address the fact that their enemies (in this case, anarchists) are using a different version of the word. This is the propaganda strategy of using variant definitions of words to delegitimize your opponent.
People get really mad about “semantic arguments” which just means defining terms, or sometimes defining terms in a way that allows you to win an argument. However, if we are not agreed on what the key terms of an argument mean, we cannot have a meaningful argument, and in many cases, the meanings of words are the meat of the argument itself. Using a different definition of a word is a propaganda technique that goes hand-in-hand with selective facts. In the case of the man rebutting Khalifa, he uses a different definition of Israel from what she uses, and then leaves out a huge chunk of history as well. When the two participants in an argument are using different definitions of words, and also a different set of true facts, the result is “talking past each other” and it only serves to reinforce whatever position each audience member brought with them to the debate. It does not serve to inform or enlighten.
This is the essential difference between how right-wing media lies versus how liberal media lies. Right-wing media just straight up says things that are not true (some incredibly crazy shit), whereas liberal media lies by omitting particular facts and defining terms in a beneficial way. In the reporting of the current round of conflict in the region, we’re seeing both types of lies. The claims that Hamas was killing civilians, beheading babies, and raping people all now appear to have been lies in the fullest sense (special thanks to that dumb-ass Biden for repeating and legitimizing right-wing media lies). We’re also seeing things like Palestinians being called “Palestinians” while Israelis are called “Israeli people“; there’s technically nothing untrue about it, but it creates a very different overall narrative.
The tricky little question that people like to ask is, “Does Israel have a right to exist?”
As I understand it, if you say “yes” it means you support Jewish people but you also support all actions of the Israeli government and military, details of how the British established this particular version of the region, and the idea that Palestinians do not belong in the region.
If you say “no” it means you are anti-Semitic.
I support the existence of the Jewish people and the existence of the Palestinian people. Moreover, I support both groups being safe and living without fear. I support both groups having free access to trade so they might pursue happiness. I support both groups living in their homes without another group forcibly seizing or destroying those homes. I support both groups obtaining homes if they do not currently have homes, but not at the cost of depriving another group of homes.
The funny thing about that question — Does Israel have a right to exist? — is that many anti-Semites in the US would say “yes” to it, but their yes would have a very peculiar subtext. American anti-Semites want all Jewish people to be confined to Israel, and while they hate Jewish people, they also hate Muslims, and see the US-backed establishment of Israel as a Jewish-only state as a means of diminishing both groups by pitting them against each other. Some American anti-Semites are also adherents to a particular type of Christian millenarianism that hates Jewish people, but also sees the control of the region by Jewish people (including the re-building of the Temple) as a vital component to the necessary and desired Apocalypse, during which a few Jewish people will convert to Christianity, and the rest will be destroyed. Essentially, this group sees Israel as a means of destroying the Jewish people as well as all of their other enemies.
In essence, it is time to find better questions.
Do people have a right to live?
Do people have a right to exist as a people?
Do people have a right to a home?
Do people have a right to pursue happiness?