The Tartan

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It’s difficult to write meaningfully about the Israel-Palestine conflict. The whole thing is a mess, and The Tartan is just another voice trying to make arguments to an audience that largely has no power to make a change.

That’s not to say we should avoid the conflict. It’s important we hear student voices, and it’s important for college students to read, discuss, and write on such topics. We did it for Vietnam, we did it for Iraq, we’ll be damned if we don’t do it now.

Before I talk about the conflict, though, I wanted to talk about something very, very different. 

Dog whistling

Dog whistling is a tactic in which someone makes a heinous belief sound normal. It’s a way of implying something horrific without saying it, which can make it hard for an opponent to respond. You can’t call someone who dog whistles racist, because they’re not explicitly saying the racist thing. Your critics may even call you the racist for coming to that conclusion.

It’s infuriating, and it’s a staple of political discussion. I can rattle off a few examples, in fact, because they’ve been ubiquitous. “States’ rights” is a dog whistle for slavery. “Cadillac-driving welfare queens” was one of Reagan’s favorites. “Thugs” and “gangbangers,” which may seem to describe criminals, are often just a way to say “Black people.” 

It’s not hard to see why dog whistles are so effective. It’s hard to identify what’s wrong when your neighbor complains about “thugs ruining the neighborhood”, until you realize that the local crime rate hasn’t changed, there’s just a new couple down the street that has a bit too much melanin for your neighbor’s taste.

There’s another tactic used in dog whistling that involves making an argument and then quickly back off. Someone doing this may say their comments are just “for the sake of argument,” or that they’re playing the “devil’s advocate.” People can shirk responsibility for their claims by qualifying it with, “I don’t believe that, I’m just trying to ask questions.” This became a regular fixture when people talk about “crime statistics.” “I’m not saying minorities are predisposed to crimes but it really makes you think, huh?”

The abdication of responsibility in these comments is the main problem. The person dog whistling isn’t saying anything, they’re letting the audience draw conclusions for them. They’re just “asking some questions.”

Those two tactics are essential to dog whistling, and they can let someone say quite a bit without saying anything at all.

Accusing someone of dog whistling is very difficult, because making this argument involves taking statements that are on their face neutral, and applying subtext to them. It’s shaky ground at best and political death-of-the-author at worst. The best solution to dog whistling is to try to nail someone to a claim, but it’s like taking a stapler to jello — you’re not gonna have a good time and there’s gonna be jello everywhere.

I think I’ve set the scene enough. I want to discuss an article in the March 25 issue of The Tartan that, in my eyes, meets the standards for dog whistling. Dog whistling is often related less to malice and more to apathy. Not everyone who says a dog whistle knows the meaning — sometimes they’re just repeating what they’ve heard in a normal context. It makes these sorts of analyses even more difficult.

I’m here to talk about a piece published last week titled “War, misinformation, and Zionist terror: Perspectives of propaganda” by Anand Beh. I will try to demonstrate two things: that Beh uses minimizing language to talk about Hamas, and consistently compares Hamas to other organizations. This results in a piece whose conclusion is incongruent with its own rhetoric.

Minimizing language

Beh uses minimizing language to legitimize Hamas and the actions they have taken, while also attempting to minimize the harm they have done.

This one’s a bit complex, because it’s going to talk broadly about rhetoric. Early in the article, Beh talks about Israel’s last “good reason” for its actions, which he implies isn’t really so good. His reason is: “Hamas is evil, Hamas are terrorists, Hamas are demonic savages, and Hamas is coming to kill and rape Israelis.”

This is the so-called “good reason” that Beh implies to be faulty reasoning. He claims that this is “caricaturing members of Hamas as evil, inhuman terrorist animals.”

This is broadly minimizing. Hamas’ actions that Israel purportedly uses to caricature its members? Well, they all happened. It’s hard to take this claim of “caricature” seriously when it is literally what occurred on Oct. 7, something which was publicized and recorded by Hamas itself. Beh’s article wants to conjure up the idea that what Israel is saying about Hamas goes too far, that it is a group of lies and mischaracterizations tha t harm the international reputation of Hamas.

The international reputation of Hamas was harmed when the group decided to commit a terror act against the Israeli people on Oct. 7. It’s hard to put the videos and images released from that day under the category of “caricature,” and it’s something Beh’s article is eager to follow along with.

Following the caricature argument, Beh begins to argue that Hamas isn’t actually an internationally recognized terror organization because they’re not so-called by the United Nations. He spins a narrative of how Western scholars are the strange ones, as they only sometimes call Hamas a terror group, and even then, sometimes only referring to Hamas’ military wing.

I would like to point out that the military wing of an organization being a terror group does not disqualify the entire organization from being a terror group. And if Hamas is a “governing entity,” as Beh gladly points out some scholars claim, then it’s a state sponsor of terrorism, which isn’t much better. 

The goal seems to be minimizing Hamas’ actions and conflating them with a normal government that has a strange militarized wing, as opposed to the perpetrators of such a horrific attack. While I know there’s a bit of a joke about making people rotely repeat “I condemn Hamas,” what Beh presents is not so much a lack of condemnation but instead a very heavy “non-condemnation.” Not only has he pooh-poohed the more severe acts of terror done by Hamas, he’s started to argue the entire organization is more of a government than anything. He wants Hamas to be taken as seriously as any other world government, something which I believe minimizes their actions.

Comparison of Hamas with other organizations

I am not a fan of the judicial and legal system which was used in South Africa to segregate the society on racial lines. As someone who dislikes apartheid, I personally believe that the African National Congress (ANC), who were the most vocal and most vociferous in their opposition to Apartheid, were good, and as such, I was shocked to find out that Beh was drawing similarities from Hamas to the ANC. After giving us “something to think about” with regards to Hamas, Beh brings up that another group had once been called a terrorist organization — the ANC!

This really made me think — if the ANC was a terror organization, but ANC did something good, and Hamas is also a terror organization then…

Of course, Beh doesn’t make this claim. He merely points out the similarities, and lets us draw our own conclusions. 

Here’s the thing: the ANC was designated a terror organization for attacks on military outposts, fuel storage tanks, and later, car bombings on military installations. In fact, if you look at the list of reasons the ANC was on a terror watch list, you’d be dissatisfied — the argument for their terror designation is honestly quite flimsy. Moreover, the ANC did not want to kill civilians. In fact, it published apologies when the targets of its actions were civilians. While the ANC does not seem like a terror organization aimed at the destruction of the state, Hamas is one. The ANC targeted government infrastructure, not civilians. Its scale, level of violence, and targets do not compare to what Hamas has done.

In drawing this comparison, Beh wants to give Hamas credence, because it’s similar to other unfairly designated terror organizations. By choosing the ANC, he draws comparisons to an organization instrumental in toppling apartheid — as well as part of the government that brought an International Court of Justice case against Israel recently. I would argue that the positive connotations that this comparison brings inordinately give Hamas the air of being a mere resistance organization, as opposed to taking full account of its stated goals and actions.

“From the river to the sea”

This one is a more difficult one to discuss, because the phrase “from the river to the sea” has become contentious since the war began. I think this may be a case of a phrase losing its meaning as it translates cultures, but I firmly believe that this issue is far more complex than is layed out.

During the First Intifada, the statement had multiple meanings. While some used the phrase to argue for a free secular state, others used the phrasing “Palestine is Arab,” a far more nationalist phrase, and the one I believe many people are alleging is a call to violence. 

This phrasing, which was used during a period of intense violence towards Israelis, is concerning. I think brushing those connotations aside is an unproductive way to have this discussion, much like assuming that everyone who chants “from the river to the sea” endorses Arab ethno-nationalism. Phrases can oftentimes diverge in meaning depending on the audience. Much like the way dog whistles can oftentimes mean different things to people with different perspectives of the situation, so can phrases like “from the river to the sea.”

This is also where Beh’s first statement is made — that this is not a conflict between equally responsible sides. Given the nature of his article up to this point, I can only assume this puts more of the blame on the Israelis, and holds them responsible for the war, and the situation writ large. 

Unfair comparisons, generalizations 

Later in the article, Beh begins to talk about inverting various common statements made about the Israel-Palestine conflict. We are given a list of non-statements designed to “make us think.” This list is prepended with a disclaimer that the author disagrees with these reframings. I believe that is true, but the word choice, phrasing, and implications belie some dog whistles. 

While Beh includes many disclaimers and reasons about why these are merely interesting thought experiments, rhetorically, this piece must be taken as a whole. 

The audience can read rhetorical decisions in many ways, and as an author, Beh must consider how his words are communicated. I do not think these problems were done intentionally, but I do think that the framings can, and ought, to be examined.

Furthermore, the claims that these are “intentionally provocative” phrases is another key indicator of dog whistling — using specific phrases can carry certain ideological implications,, and couching them as a thought experiment does not change that implication.

Firstly, we have the transformation of “We must free Palestine from Hamas,” which has become “We must free Israelis from Israel.” The issue here is the obvious — Hamas is not all of Palestine, it is an organization that controls Gaza, a part of Palestine. 

Israel is not just the government, it’s the state itself. A state and an organization are not comparable — unless Beh wants to argue that Hamas is Palestine. The better transformation is “We must free Israelis from Netanyahu’s government,” which is far less objectionable, and doesn’t carry the same connotations as wanting to end a country. While nit-picky, the strange formulation further lends credence to my prior arguments: Beh’s article wants us to think of  Hamas as the legitimate governing or state body.

A second inversion Beh used was: “Seeking the dissolution of Hamas is Islamaphobic.” By replacing “Israel,” a country, with a political organization, Beh completely removes Palestine, the nation, from the equation. Again, this conflates Palestine with Hamas.

This point is followed by a profession of good faith: If we are meant to be neutral, we must challenge the orthodoxy and interrogate the narrative. However, it’s obvious these aren’t neutral interrogations — they are clearly designed to endorse Beh’s own interpretation of the situation. 

We’re then followed up with the both-sides condemnation. Both the IDF and Hamas are bad, the IDF ought to be condemned for its actions throughout the conflict, and Hamas should be too for the actions of Oct. 7. 

This is good, but it does not track with the rest of the article. With the amount of good faith Beh gives Hamas, this condemnation is a lackluster way of addressing that. The piece goes out of its way to portray Hamas positively, and rhetorically, it’s another example of dog whistling. Beh gives a contradictory, mollifying statement to pretend he’s not implying anything. We must examine the body of work as a whole, and in this case, this statement feels incongruent.

We’re then followed up with Beh’s view for what should happen. He calls for the release of all hostages and acknowledgment that Hamas is effectively the governing entity of the Gaza Strip. This is a tall order, since it requires Israel to recognize a terror organization that has its genocidal intent so clearly portrayed. Regardless of the situation, Hamas desires the destruction of Israel, and asking the international community to recognize an organization like Hamas as a governing body is a problematic precedent for future conflicts. Additionally, this would involve recognizing the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as two separate, independent states, which brings its own problems. 

This proposal belies a lack of nuance. While this is separate from the general claim of dog whistling, it’s nevertheless important — Beh has structured an article which says very little, but ends with a conclusion that says very little itself. Beh ends his piece with this facile point that everyone needs to stop doing bad things. However, the body of the work, the leeway given to Hamas, the equivocation, and the legitimization of the organization seem to imply that this meek condemnation is not what he wants to communicate to the reader.

When it comes to dog whistling, it’s often very easy to try to dismiss criticism by pointing to explicit, mollifying statements, but the general tone and rhetoric in the piece must be taken at face value. In this case, that tone and rhetoric seems incongruent with the final conclusion.