Rhetoric & Logic

Exhibit A · From the river to the sea

Verdict · Equivocation · equivocation

From the river to the sea is an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.

Rhetoric · Six words, defended as an aspirational call for freedom. The gloss arrives after the slogan has already done its work. The audience is asked to hear coexistence.

Logic · The phrase names a geography that is Israel plus the territories. A gloss is not the meaning the phrase carries in the organizations that use it as a program. The House censured her, 234–188. A censure is a vote, not a proof of intent. The logic still fails if coexistence is not entailed by the slogan as it is used. She offered a reinterpretation. She did not show that the reinterpretation is what the sentence does.

Source · Her post, Nov 2023. House vote 234–188 on 7 Nov 2023, 22 Democrats in favor. Washington Post.

Exhibit B · Genocide, aimed at the Jewish state

Verdict · Equivocation · equivocation

Not a quotation. The file had this sentence in quotation marks. It is a description of the video, and the marks are removed.

The Washington Post described the video as accusing President Biden of supporting the “genocide” of Palestinians and including a crowd chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” An earlier version of this file invented a verbatim line. That line is withdrawn.

Rhetoric · The word is spent on the Jewish state. The audience is handed a completed moral category. Objection is cast as refusal to see.

Logic · Genocide is a legal conclusion with elements: intent, and a protected group, and the acts. Naming the war with the word does not establish the elements. The rhetoric borrows the conclusion. The logic still has to supply the premises. They are not in the label.

Source · Video accusing Biden of supporting genocide, same week. JNS on the censure.