your version of equal sins is not the reality.
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75 years ago: Israel's triumph became a catastrophe for Palestinians
MAY 15, 2023
HEARD ON MORNING EDITION
Daniel Estrin
Palestinians mark 75 years since what they call the Nakba, or "catastrophe,"
when Palestinians were displaced during Israel's founding war.
Sponsor Message
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
One nation's triumph became another people's catastrophe 75 years ago
today. Israel was established as a homeland for Jews and most of the
Palestinians there were displaced. As NPR's Daniel Estrin reports, this is not
just history for Palestinians today.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: A Palestinian family turns on some music, spreads
open a blanket and barbecues next to the ruins of their village that Israel
destroyed many years ago. Several Palestinian families are here doing the
same. Up a hill, 35-year-old Nael Abdel Rahman (ph) picks a wild herb for
tea.
NAEL ABDEL RAHMAN: This is my home, actually.
ESTRIN: Why do you come here?
N ABDEL RAHMAN: To remember our village. To remember our home.
ESTRIN: This longing is at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 1947,
the U.N. voted to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state.
That sparked fighting between Arab and Jewish militias. Israel declared
independence on May 15, 1948. Regional Arab armies invaded. Israel won the
war the next year. By then, the vast majority of the Arabs there had fled or
were expelled. Their homes were given to Jewish immigrants or were
destroyed. Palestinians call it the Nakba, the catastrophe. And many of them
call it an ongoing catastrophe. This family's village, Yalo, was destroyed by
Israel not in 1948 but in the 1967 war, one of the last Palestinian villages
entirely depopulated and destroyed.
REEM RUB: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: Forty-five-year-old Reem Rub (ph) walks me down the nature trail
that was her father's old village road.
RUB: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: Wow. This is where your grandfather's house was?
RUB: Yeah. (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: There's a berry tree. There's a pomegranate tree next to her
grandfather's old house.
What's no longer here today is mapped out in her mind.
RUB: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: She points. Here's the Abu Rub (ph) family home, the Abdel Rahman
(ph) family. Here's the mosque. Here's the village graveyard. Today, her
extended family lives in a West Bank refugee camp. Many of them need a
special Israeli permit to make this kind of visit to their old village. Today, it's a
popular park with a forest planted over the ruins.
RUB: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: She says her father's generation was scared after being expelled
and had no confidence to fight for their rights. Today, she says, the younger
generation asks, why do I live in a crowded place in the West Bank when I
have this land?
RUB: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: She says, today, Israel is stronger than us. They have weapons. They
have relations with countries around the world. But we have belief in God.
She believes Palestinians will return to their destroyed villages and rebuild
them. I asked Nael Abdel Rahman.
Do you actually think one day you will come back here?
N ABDEL RAHMAN: Inshallah. We hope that.
MOHAMAD ABDEL RAHMAN: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: His brother, Mohamad (ph), says the truth, as we see it, it's hard or
impossible to come back. But with God's help, we will. Israel says this is a red
line - the return of Palestinian refugees would spell the end of the Jewish
state. Israel even has a law that allows the government to penalize any
organization that commemorates Israeli Independence Day as a day of
mourning. As the displacement feels continuous for Palestinians, Israelis
continue to wrestle with the history of the Nakba in new ways.
SHAY HAZKANI: These are called village files. Quite astonishing.
ESTRIN: Israeli historian Shay Hazkani wrote "Dear Palestine," a book about
the 1948 war. He took me to an Israeli archive and showed me a recently
discovered trove of intelligence documents that Zionist forces compiled in
the years leading up to Israel's founding - hundreds of Palestinian villages
documented in meticulous detail, villages Israel later destroyed. There's been
controversy recently about how to handle these kinds of documents. Israeli
media have covered cases of defense officials removing documents from
archives and classifying them, reportedly saying they could stir up unrest.
HAZKANI: I would say that what they're mostly concerned of is the actual
remnants and story of Arab Palestine that is contained in these files - right? -
you know, that people would read them, that scholars would write histories
that resurrect a civilization that once existed here and was, essentially,
almost entirely destroyed. The heritage of that place is gone.
ESTRIN: Today, millions of Palestinians live stateless with the violence of an
entrenched Israeli military occupation. Israel has had its most ultranationalist
government in history, with far-right ministers who have called to erase a
Palestinian village and campaigned to encourage Palestinians to leave. Some
Palestinians say they fear a second Nakba and say their role is simply to stay
put and prevent another historic displacement.
MAHMOUD MUNA: It's haunting, this book, haunting to read.
ESTRIN: Another way the history of the Nakba stays alive is in books. Forty-
year-old Mahmoud Muna runs the Educational Bookshop in Jerusalem. His
father-in-law lost his home when Israel was founded in 1948. On his
bookshelves, Muna sees a new trend in what Palestinians are writing about
today.
MUNA: Writings that's not necessarily about memory but about political
solutions.
ESTRIN: He says Palestinian thinkers are not exploring the two-state solution
like they did 30 years ago. That's the compromise that the U.S. still supports,
where Israelis keep the land they captured in 1948 and Palestinians get their
own state in the territories Israel occupied in 1967. In the absence of that
outcome, many Palestinian writers today are imagining a one-state future
together with Israelis. Muna says this will take mutual recognition of each
other's histories.
MUNA: The Israelis need to acknowledge that they have responsibilities for
the displacement of the Palestinian people and the killing and creating the
Palestinian refugee issue. And for the Palestinians, that we need to also
acknowledge that the Jewish people have roots in this place and have
reasons of belonging to this place. And it's a very huge step from both sides,
but I think it is essential to be taken.
ESTRIN: That's the future he imagines. The present he describes as injustice
for Palestinians and what many Palestinians call a continuing catastrophe.
Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Jerusalem.
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False Equivalence: The Problem with Unreasonable Comparisons
False equivalence is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone incorrectly
asserts that two or more things are equivalent, simply because they share
some characteristics, despite the fact that there are also notable differences
between them. For example, a false equivalence is saying that cats and dogs
are the same animal, since they’re both mammals and have a tail.
False equivalences, which generally exaggerate similarities and ignore
important differences, can be used to equate a wide range of things,
including individuals, groups, actions, or arguments, either implicitly or
explicitly. Accordingly, false equivalences are frequently used in debates on
various topics, especially when it comes to suggesting that there is a moral
equivalence between two or more things that are being equated.
Because false equivalences are so widely used, it’s important to understand
them. As such, in the following article you will learn more about the false
equivalence fallacy, see examples of how it’s used, and understand what you
can do in order to counter it as effectively as possible.
Contents
What makes an equivalence false
Examples of false equivalences
How to respond to a false equivalence
How to avoid using false equivalences
Related fallacy: false balance
Summary and conclusions
What makes an equivalence false
An equivalence is considered false when it’s fallacious in some way, meaning
that there is an issue with the reasoning that’s used to explain why the things
under consideration are equivalent to one another. The most common issues
that make an equivalence false are the following:
The equivalence exaggerates the degree of similarity between the things
being equated. For example, this could involve stating that two people share
a certain personality trait, while ignoring the fact that they only share certain
aspects of this trait but not others.
The equivalence exaggerates the importance of the similarity between the
things being equated. For example, this could involve focusing on a
personality trait that two people share, while ignoring the fact that many
other people also share this trait.
The equivalence ignores important differences between the things being
equated. For example, this could involve mentioning a way in which two
people are similar to one another, while ignoring the many ways in which they
are different.
The equivalence ignores differences in orders of magnitude between the
things being equated. For example, this could involve equating different acts
that two people performed, and focusing on the fact that these acts are
conceptually similar, despite the fact that they’re widely different in terms of
their impact.
Note that there is generally some subjectivity involved in determining
whether an equivalent is false or not. For example, in a situation where there
is a difference in the order of magnitude, in terms of impact, of two acts that
are being equated, the person presenting the equivalence might believe that
this difference is small enough that the equivalence is reasonable, while
someone else might argue that the difference renders the equivalence false.
In such situations, it’s up to each party in the discussion to argue either in
favor or against the equivalence. Specifically, the burden of proof initially
rests with the person who proposes an equivalence, meaning that they must
provide proper support for the equivalence. Then, their opponent has a
burden of proof if they claim that the equivalence is false, meaning that they
must provide proper support for their argument against the equivalence.
Examples of false equivalences
A simple example of a false equivalence is saying that a knife and dynamite
are both tools that can be used as weapons, so they’re pretty much the same
thing, and therefore if we allow people to buy knives at the store, then we
should also allow them to also buy dynamite.
The issue with this argument is that while both these items indeed share the
characteristics that are mentioned (being a tool and having the potential to
be used as a weapon), there is a significant difference between them in other
domains, such as their potential for causing damage, which makes this
equivalence fallacious.
In addition, false equivalences are often used together with other logical
fallacies and rhetorical techniques.
For example, false equivalences are often used in conjunction with ad
hominem attacks, such as the appeal to hypocrisy (tu quoque) variant, where
the person using the fallacy is attempting to discredit someone by claiming
that their argument is inconsistent with their previous acts. For instance,
consider the following statement:
“You’re criticizing the company for allowing the oil spill to happen, but what
about that time I saw you litter at the park.”
Here, the person using the false equivalence is attempting to equate two
events, that are somewhat similar conceptually, but involve completely
different orders of magnitude, both in terms of the actions that led up to the
negative events in question, as well as in terms of the outcomes of those
events.
This approach can also be seen as combining a false equivalence with a red
herring in cases where the fallacious argument is meant to distract people
from the original line of discussion. This approach, which is associated with
the concept whataboutism, has the basic following structure:
“You’re blaming [the entity in question] for [major event], but what about [the
other entity] who did [something relatively minor and/or only weakly
relevant]?”
Furthermore, false equivalences can also be used used in conjunction with
other logical fallacies. For example, they can be combined with strawman
arguments, which are arguments that distort an opposing view in order to
make it easier to attack, in cases where the false equivalence equates a
distorted version of an opposing stance or action with something that is
perceived in a highly negative manner.
Finally, a classic example of a false equivalence has been described by
author Isaac Asimov:
“…when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people
thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that
thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat,
then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”
— From “The Relativity of Wrong” in The Skeptical Inquirer (1989)
In this case, Asimov is referring to the fact that while the earth is not a
perfect sphere, it’s much closer to being a sphere than it is to being flat.
Accordingly, it’s fallacious to suggest that being wrong about the earth being
a sphere is equivalent to being wrong about the earth being flat, and an
argument claiming that this is the case would be an example of a false
equivalence.
How to respond to a false equivalence
As we saw above, the issue with false equivalences is that they incorrectly
suggest that two (or more) things are equivalent, in a situation where that’s
not the case. Accordingly, the main approach that you should use in order to
counter this fallacious reasoning is to demonstrate the issue with the
equivalence that’s being presented. You can do this in various ways,
including the following:
Show that the similarities between the things being equated are
exaggerated, overemphasized, or oversimplified.
Highlight the differences between the things being equated, and explain why
these differences are more significant than the related similarities.
If the similarity between the things being equated is flawed due to a
significant difference in terms of order magnitude, point this out and explain
why it’s an issue.
Provide counterexamples which, under the current classification, would also
be considered equivalent to the things being equated, but which contradict
the point that the person using the false equivalence is trying to make.
Ask your opponent to justify why they believe that their equivalence is valid,
and then demonstrate the issues with the reasoning that they provide.
Note that, as we saw earlier, the false equivalence fallacy is often used in
conjunction with other logical fallacies and rhetorical techniques. For
example, this can involve a misleading representation of the two sides in the
equivalence, through the use of cherry-picking, with the aim of making one
side appear more positive and the other more negative than they really are.
When this happens, you will generally benefit from addressing the particular
issues with these additional fallacies. How you do this will depend on the
fallacy in question, as different fallacies are countered in different ways.
Nevertheless, one course of action that is effective in most cases is to simply
point out the logical flaw in the fallacious argument, and explain why it
invalidates that argument.
Finally, when responding to a false equivalence, there are several important
caveats that you must keep in mind:
Not every comparison is an equivalence; it’s possible to compare things
without suggesting that they are equal to one another.
Not every equivalence is a false equivalence; in many cases, an equivalence
may be entirely reasonable.
Not every false equivalence is intentional; in many cases, people might use a
false equivalence without realizing that there is an issue with it.
Equivalence is subjective; it’s not always possible to clearly determine
whether a certain equivalence is false or not.
How to avoid using false equivalences
To avoid using false equivalences, you should make sure that whenever you
equate two or more things with one another, you have proper justification as
to why the things in question are equivalent, based on relevant criteria.
If necessary, you should explicitly explain why you believe that the
equivalence in question is reasonable. This will help you ensure that your
equivalence is indeed reasonable, and help you demonstrate this to the
people that you’re talking to.
Furthermore, keep in mind that you can use the same techniques that you
would use if you thought someone else was using a false equivalence, in
order to ensure that you’re not using one yourself. For example, if you’re
unsure about whether an equivalence that you’re thinking about is
reasonable or not, you could attempt to highlight the differences between
the things that you’re equating, and ask yourself whether the equivalence
still holds.
Finally, you can help address some potential issues with your proposed
equivalences by being upfront about them, and using appropriate language
when presenting the equivalences. For example, if you’re equating two
actions that are similar in nature but whose outcomes are different in terms
of orders of magnitude, you could address this directly, and explain why the
equivalence is still sound. Doing this can turn an equivalence that would
otherwise be fallacious into an argument that is generally viewed as
reasonable.
Related fallacy: false balance
“If one person says that it’s raining and another person says that it’s dry, it’s
not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the window and find
out which is true.”
— Attributed to Journalism Studies lecturer Jonathan Foster
False balance is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone suggests that, if
there are two or more opposing positions on a certain topic, then the truth
must rest somewhere in the middle between them. This concept often plays
a role in the media, where it’s also referred to as bothsidesism, in situations
where journalists present both sides of a story as if they are balanced and
equal to one another, even when evidence shows that this is not the case.
For example, false balance might play a role in a group interview, if equal
weight is given to the opinions of two opposing interviewees, one of whom is
an established expert in their field who relies on scientific evidence, while the
other is a false authority with no valid credentials, who relies solely on
personal anecdotes.
False balance can occur as a result of a false equivalence, in cases where
two sides are presented as being equal, despite the fact that they’re not. The
two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, though they have distinctly
different meanings, as is evident in the different definitions of each term.
Summary and conclusions
False equivalence is a logical fallacy that occurs when someone incorrectly
asserts that two or more things are equivalent, simply because they share
some characteristics, despite the fact that there are also notable differences
between them.
An example of a false equivalence is saying that a person shouldn’t criticize a
company for allowing a catastrophic oil spill to happen, because that person
littered once.
When responding to a false equivalence, you can show that the similarities
between the things being equated are exaggerated, highlight the differences
between the things being equated, present counterexamples that
demonstrate the issues with the equivalence, or ask your opponent to justify
why they believe that their proposed equivalence is reasonable.
To avoid using false equivalences, you should make sure that whenever you
equate two or more things with one another, you have proper justification as
to why the things in question are equivalent, based on relevant criteria.
It’s important to remember that not every comparison is an equivalence, not
every equivalence is a false equivalence, and not every false equivalence is
intentional, and to keep in mind that there is some subjectivity involved when
it comes to determining whether an equivalence is reasonable or not.
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