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IMHO, it's hard to come up with a litmus test because both sides of the debate kinda like the standard motte-and-bailey structure of "criticisms of Israel". In

IMHO, it's hard to come up with a litmus test because both sides of the debate kinda like the standard motte-and-bailey structure of "criticisms of Israel". In fact, not only are the arguments often motte-and-baileys, there's often a super-bailey, a bailey for the bailey that basically invokes some kind of "I win either way" gotcha. For example: Motte: Israel's use of Palestinian "guest workers" who have no opportunity to participate in either a robust Palestinian economy or a neighboring Arab economy, even when those workers receive the Israeli minimum wage or higher, does fit into an analogy to the treatment of black South Africans under apartheid as captive cheap labor. If Israel wants to avoid being subjected to this analogy, it should simply stop exploiting Palestinian labor this way. Bailey: Israel is an apartheid state, and not exploiting Palestinian labor would just be covering it up. The only way for Israel to stop being an apartheid state is to stop being Jewish-Israeli: dissolve itself into a single state of Palestine ruled by its natural Arab majority. Super-bailey: Israel is so apartheid, white-supremacist, and settler-colonial that not exploiting Palestinian labor, were it possible or even implemented at some point in existing history, would only make it more racist (see: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/kibbutz-labor-zionism-bernie-sanders-ben-gurion/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/10/kibbutz-labor-zionism-ber...). Israel owes these jobs to the Palestinians, as a precursor to the genocide reparations it will pay when it dissolves itself into a single state of Palestine ruled by its natural Arab majority. So yeah. The people who could just lay down the motte as a serious moral charge don't want to. They want the bailey, or preferably the super-bailey. Likewise, the people who could just admit to the motte and fix the problem are assured that, were they to actually do so, the goalposts would only be moved to the bailey. Then the bailey will be moved to the super-bailey.

ars 5y ago
Reminds me of when the IDF was criticized for not raping Palestinians: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2017/02/17/israeli-army-veteran-criticized-for-not-wanting-to-rape-palestinian-women/ https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2017/02/17/israeli-army-veter...
woodruffw 5y ago
Who could have guessed that one of the world's oldest ethnoreligious territorial debates could be so pernicious ;)? I agree with your analysis: it's very easy to play the trump card at the onset and rest safely knowing that your position is insurmountable. Argumentatively, it's the equivalent of two opposing armies refusing to leave their respective high grounds to get down to the dirty business of war (or peace, in this case). I am not an Israeli and I have never been to Israel, so I'll spare the world from another opinion on how to solve the problem. It is only my perspective, as a diaspora Jew, that many of Israel's actions qua sovereign state are not defensible on the basic plane of human rights.
WaxProlix 5y ago
I think there's a bit of distance between that motte and the initial ("standard") bailey. It isn't just the status of 'guest worker's but also the ongoing asymmetric violence, theft & active bulldozing of homes, harassment/hacking of activists' phones, military checkpoints & other core indicators of an occupied land, etc. I heard someone point out that Israel can't help but kill children in Palestine because the median age there is 20. Like what do you even say to something like that? The conversation is just totally hosed at this point. I think you're right though in a lot of ways - critics of Israel tend to fall into a trap of over-exaggeration which does their arguments no favors in some highly educated circles. Subtlety doesn't spread fervor though, and I don't think it's ever toppled regimes.
- eli_gottlieb 5y ago
  >I think there's a bit of distance between that motte and the initial ("standard") bailey. Isn't that the point of a motte and bailey? The motte is what you think you can defend to an outgroup member without prior convictions, or even an actively skeptical outgroup member. The bailey is what you and your ingroup believe and act upon when nobody's asking you to justify yourselves. They're very different.
  - WaxProlix 5y ago
    Sort of - the motte is usually the strongest easily defended claim. The bailey is a much harder-to-defend claim. In this case, there's a very easy, substantially stronger, and often-used claim that might make a better 'motte'.

ars 5y ago

Reminds me of when the IDF was criticized for not raping Palestinians: https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2017/02/17/israeli-army-veteran-criticized-for-not-wanting-to-rape-palestinian-women/ https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2017/02/17/israeli-army-veter...

woodruffw 5y ago

Who could have guessed that one of the world's oldest ethnoreligious territorial debates could be so pernicious ;)? I agree with your analysis: it's very easy to play the trump card at the onset and rest safely knowing that your position is insurmountable. Argumentatively, it's the equivalent of two opposing armies refusing to leave their respective high grounds to get down to the dirty business of war (or peace, in this case). I am not an Israeli and I have never been to Israel, so I'll spare the world from another opinion on how to solve the problem. It is only my perspective, as a diaspora Jew, that many of Israel's actions qua sovereign state are not defensible on the basic plane of human rights.

WaxProlix 5y ago

I think there's a bit of distance between that motte and the initial ("standard") bailey. It isn't just the status of 'guest worker's but also the ongoing asymmetric violence, theft & active bulldozing of homes, harassment/hacking of activists' phones, military checkpoints & other core indicators of an occupied land, etc. I heard someone point out that Israel can't help but kill children in Palestine because the median age there is 20. Like what do you even say to something like that? The conversation is just totally hosed at this point. I think you're right though in a lot of ways - critics of Israel tend to fall into a trap of over-exaggeration which does their arguments no favors in some highly educated circles. Subtlety doesn't spread fervor though, and I don't think it's ever toppled regimes.

eli_gottlieb 5y ago
>I think there's a bit of distance between that motte and the initial ("standard") bailey. Isn't that the point of a motte and bailey? The motte is what you think you can defend to an outgroup member without prior convictions, or even an actively skeptical outgroup member. The bailey is what you and your ingroup believe and act upon when nobody's asking you to justify yourselves. They're very different.
- WaxProlix 5y ago
  Sort of - the motte is usually the strongest easily defended claim. The bailey is a much harder-to-defend claim. In this case, there's a very easy, substantially stronger, and often-used claim that might make a better 'motte'.