Last month, on February 26th, 2024 Aaron Bushnell live-streamed himself walking up to the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. saying ‘-I will no longer be complicit in genocide-’ and ‘I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people in Palestine have been experiencing at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all.’ He then poured gasoline on himself and followed the ritual of many Vietnam War protestors and Buddhist monks in self-immolating himself.
Honorable, powerful, and compelling… if only there was a genocide. Aaron Bushnell suffered a real death for a fake narrative, and the western ideological polis now walks a thin tight rope as to how to intellectually navigate the Israel-Palestine conflict more now than ever before. There are many topics in the modern ‘enlightened’ age that are needlessly radioactive and unable to be discussed. I am grateful for my incredibly low profile as I can discuss this topic freely without harsh backlash, at least for now. Our age has managed to remove the ‘binary’ dichotomy from almost everything: gender, language, truth (e.g. true or false), polis vs. non-polis living (suburbs), but it has somehow made intellectual affiliations the most binary defined realm. Can you want a secure border without being labeled xenophobic or racist? Can you desire to support Ukraine without being labeled socialist or anti-American? Are you able to question your religion without being an apostate?
This useless hyper-partisan mode of communication does nothing other than further the collapse of civil discourse. I realize this writing on language and Aaron Bushnell cannot be written effectively without laying my cards on the table. I will provide a loose but not vague presentation of my views here and throughout the work but will note that a more detailed and conclusive presentation of my views are on my podcast, Veridical, in episode 15 with Hunter Rees and the soon to be released episode 19 with Dr. David Patterson. I believe the long form nature of the podcast charitably presents my understanding and lack thereof regarding notes on the conflict.
From the moment I began to understand the nature of the conflict between Israel and her neighbors, I became quite the critic of Israel. I do not believe there should ever be state that is centered around a particular religion, at least not a nuclear armed one. If said religion or philosophy proves itself to be politically secularized and all superstition is removed from foreign and domestic affairs regarding human rights, egalitarianism, legal punishment, and wealth distribution, I can potentially sway my perspective. As contradictory as a secularized religious state may seem to sound, Israel has strangely managed to pull it off barring the notion of zionism entirely. Despite what the Talmud has to say regarding homosexuality, gender roles, wealth and economics, and pious life, Israel is almost indistinguishable from Toronto, Austin, or Seattle. Rich with LSD infused raves, luxurious strip clubs, bellowing mansions with cocaine addicted CEOs, gender reassignment surgeries, and the annual LGBT+ Pride parade, Israel really has embraced the modern state. I mean just look at these folks living up the secularized life.
Of all the places in the Middle East, Israel is the most open and friendly towards the secular polis’ way of life. So why have progressive ideologues decided to take the side of movements bent on the destruction of Israel, a state that seems so in line with their values? Before I address that question, a few other personal notes.
I remain a critic of Israel, I am concerned that Netanyahu is a diabolical bleeding of Trumpist populism and Putinist conquest desire. I criticize the eastern expansion into the West Bank and the crude eviction of Palestinians from their homes. I believe Israel relies too heavily on airstrikes in densely populated areas and must incorporate its infantry significantly more.1 The usage of 2,000lbs bombs in populated regions is quite startling considering the fact that Israel possesses the most advanced military force in the Middle East. I believe the concept of Zionism in an eschatological sense is poisonous when it mixes with geo-politics. Despite all these criticism, my statement remains; because Israel has managed to- for the most part- prove itself to be secular and value modern democratic ideas, I find the preservation of the Israeli state to be essential as I do for the state of Ukraine. Preserving Ukraine and Israel should demonstrate our desire to see liberties and democracy upheld against anti-democratic forces, whether it be a neo-Soviet war machine or a barbaric terrorist organization. Ukraine has neo-Nazis, Soviet sympathizers, and its own internal corruption, however, these facts do not equate to Ukraine deserving annihilation and being consumed under the Russian empire. Israel may be too liberal with its air-force usage, its contradictory warnings of strikes2, and its unethical westward expansion, but that should not entice us to see it eradicated and replaced by a state ruled with illiberal Sharia Law. Those being my thoughts on Israel.. I now turn to the radical Islamic states surrounding Israel. I stand firmly placed against any and all ideologies that oppose western values or are not a clear upgrade from them. In-egalitarianism, persecution of LGBT+ individuals, stifled or rigged elections, laws based off of crooked and ethically questionable holy books, and leadership informed by a voice in a whirlwind are all ideas I believe should be left behind in the annals of human history. In an effort to return to the topic, I will provide a statement on moral relativism. Often times I am asked, ‘who are we to question the ideas of another culture? Does our culture not have its own flaws?’ A valiant question which does in fact force a concession on my end that our ‘enlightened’ culture is smothered in bad ideas. My response is not dissimilar to Sam Harris’ response in his Ted Talk: Who are we not to question and judge harmful ideas. Rather than provide a footnote, I believe this talk is essential to understanding where I stand on cultural and ethical relativism, so here it is.
With my personal positions roughly given, I return to the tragedy of Aaron Bushnell and the the true genocide taking place: the genocide of linguistics. Language is one of the many feats that sapiens have accomplished, our capacity for language has enabled us to maintain our position of superiority over all other species: the ability to plan, coordinate, imagine, reason, and critique are all beautiful realities granted to us via our conquering of language. But I argue and worry that the values and literal meanings we have attributed to words are being eroded by ‘top shelf picking’. I steal this idea from comedian Louis C.K. who does a really insightful bit on our word choice being too ‘top shelf’ for things quite mundane and typical. Though this was a comedy bit, I believe there truly is some wonderful gleaning to be done regarding our current state of linguistics so here it is.
We use the word ‘amazing’ on a bucket of chicken wings, so what do we call the return of Christ? We use the word ‘genius’ for someone who has a cup in case we need another cup, so what do we call the person who develops the cure for cancer or solves homelessness via an economic model? We use ‘unlivable’ for a region (Palestine) where the population has grown by almost three million persons since the 1990s.3 I will note that I am not saying the living conditions in Gaza are by any means desirable and the single open port of aid to Gaza regulated by Israel is certainly demanding of harsh criticism.4 Gaza’s living conditions might be miserable and even dangerous, but people are ‘living’ there, however miserable. If we use the term ‘unlivable’ for Gaza, what is a proportionate term for Somalia where infant mortality is 62 out of every 1,000 babies?5 Gaza suffers from a haunting 13 out of every 1,000 infant mortality rate6, but is that not more ‘livable’ than Somalia, which means it is indeed livable to a degree? It is interesting to note that as I finish this paragraph today, the first day of Ramadan, the New York Times made a post regarding how difficult it is for Palestinians to find food they ‘want’ for Ramadan and the prices of produce. Ironically, the video the Times posted is full of vendors stocked with canned goods, fresh veggies, meat, fish, and even seasonings.7
Aaron Bushnell stated he would not be complicit with genocide. Recall the genocides of the 20th century. There is the infamous and most known genocide carried out by the Nazis which exterminated 66% of all European Jews.8 There was the Rwandan genocide in 1994 which killed 75% of all Tutsis in just 100 days.9 We also cannot over look the Armenian genocide where out of 1.5 million Armenians, up to 1.2 million were killed. It is interesting to note that it was the caliber and sheer scale of the Armenian genocide that birthed the very term ‘genocide’.10 These numbers should absolutely shock us. When over 50% and in some cases up to 90% of a particular people were processed and exterminated, we devised a word for our lexicon: ‘genocide’. Brittanica defines the term as ‘the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race.’11 Has Aaron Bushnell abolished our opportunity to stay accurate with our use of the term? I worry so. I have heard on the internet the refutation against my argument that genocide is not necessarily all about numbers, but rather intent. To that I posit many questions.
If Palestinian nationality is the target of genocide how are there Palestinians in the Israeli parliament?12
If Islam as a religion is the target of genocide why do we not see Israel targeting Muslims within its borders with not just violence, but deadly violence, violence intended to kill? More so, why do we not see Israel targeting civilian population centers in other surrounding Muslim countries? Even more so why do Muslims live in relative peace and attend mosque in Israel, where there is no de jure persecution of Islam?
If Israel is genocidal towards Palestinians, meaning like the aforementioned genocides, it seeks the complete extermination of a people group, is it not ironic they maintain the ‘gold standard’ for warnings before munition strikes?13
Why is Israel deterred by human shields if they are genocidal? Is a Hamas terrorist using a Palestinian civilian as a human shield not a ‘kill two birds with one stone’ opportunity for the genocidal IDF?
I believe the ‘intent’ of Israel is not to eliminate Islam from the Middle East, but rather all groups that pose a threat to her existence and express genocidal aims in their charter. Hamas, the fetish of western progressives14, not only calls for the destruction of Israel in the preamble of their charter, but labels the Jews as specifically worthy of elimination.15 If Israel’s intent is to eliminate Palestine completely from the region they are in fact the worst genocidal movement I have ever, or history, has ever seen. Ironic coming from a group that should be very well versed in genocide.
I restate my position, one can criticize Israel for its actions and how it handles Hamas terrorists within Gaza, but is it not massively hyperbolic to label this conflict a ‘genocide’ when all statistics show it lacking the texture of other genocides? I view the corruption and condemnation of Israel as many viewed Soviet-communism in the wake of Nazism: there was a clear need to triage the Nazi problem before bothering with the Soviet problem.
I do not know the channels and think tanks that Aaron Bushnell was associated with, and though his video was passionate and powerful, the poverty of his intellect was orchestrated by the greedy brainwashing of illiberal and unprogressive one liners. Language must maintain its meaning, and in our dichotomous and binary socio-political landscape, to correct the word ‘genocide’ to a term condemnable but more proportionate such as ‘indiscriminate bombing’ is seen as showing solidarity with Israel. Ameen Hudson and Kevin Burgess, personal heroes of mine, noted on their podcast, Southside Rabbi, that it is sinful for Christians (and people generally) to deliberately misrepresent a person or group. I knew Ameen and Kevin were passionate about the subject when the example they provided was to argue that it is sinful to misrepresent the Satanic Church and even Satan himself. Evil does not need us to embellish it to appear evil, let its deeds and aftermaths present themselves fairly so as to warrant a proportional reaction. When Hamas and Islamic terrorism is eliminated, our eyes will turn to Israel. Our eyes will see the children turned to puddles due to indiscriminate bombing campaigns, homeless Palestinians unlawfully evicted from their homes in the West Bank, and a Putin-like political leader attempting to consolidate power in his branch. And the time will soon come when the democratic values of Israel are called into question, and we shall strive for a proper response, until then however, the continuous and now unsurprising threat of Islamic terrorism does not just threaten the justified state of Israel, but its European neighbors. And now we are beginning to feel its full frontal assault on our former liberal allies and the very fabric of our moral language.
As mentioned, to define Israel’s military operations accurately will unfortunately label one as sympathetic to Israeli nationalism and as a genocidal maniac. We now inhabit a polis that has made it a thought crime to think truth. Ironic that one of Christopher Hitchens’ targets on Christianity was that God condemns us for wrong thoughts. Thankfully I can trust my knowledge on Hitchens to know that he would condemn radical religious demagogues bent on genocide before a secular and supposedly democratic state like Israel. Now, the illiberals of the west will shout you down for your thought crimes as if they were the ‘sky daddy’ himself. Aaron Bushnell has convinced us, more like forced us, to use the term ‘genocide’ to describe Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. If we do not use the word ‘genocide’ does that mean Bushnell died in vein? Did he die for a lie? I think so, but the amoral cogs of reality will continue to churn and break the fingers of those bent on tampering with the machinery.
The problem I am raising here is reflected in the atmosphere around a film I recently watched: The Zone of Interest, by Jonathan Glazer. The film depicts Rudolf Höss, the director of Auschwitz, and his cultivating of a Garden of Eden for his family and friends as he lives along the walls of the camp. His family lives aimlessly and joyfully with pool parties, gardening excursions, bountiful feasts, big beds, and comfort as the sounds of gunshots, churning crematoriums, and bellowing guards kill, torture, and rape meters away. In one scene Rudolf continues to tend to his garden with human ashes for fertilizer while he overhears a guard order another guard to drown a Jew in the river for fighting over an apple. Rudolf does his gardening with peace and indifference. The film invoked waves of emotions of sorrow and desperation. But all my emotions and love for the movie were put on pause when I read one of the highest rated comments on the film’s Letterbox review section. An account by the name. of Mitchell Beaupre gave the film 3 stars and wrote, ‘Truly horrifying how many people are going to watch this movie, rate it highly and bestow it awards and whatever, and then still be pro-Israel. This is literally about you.’ I have noted many times that illogical thinking does not surprise me in our current socio-political landscape, but my anger arose when I noticed this comment has (at the time of writing) 19,316 likes. This is the hijacking of language and meaning I am outlining in this essay. Show me proof that the IDF is encouraged by its leadership to execute and torture Palestinian civilians, show me the video of the IDF dragging a Palestinian body through the streets while Israelis spit and mutilate it- oh wait that was a video of Hamas dragging an Israeli body through the streets, oops.16 Show me the concentration camps, the gas chambers, the equivalent to the mass graves of Balkan Jews executed by Himmler’s firing squads. When I see images of an Israeli Einsatzgruppen developing similar images to these, I will stand and say these are equal times.
‘Israel is not doing that killing, but it is just as evil’ they will cry… My response is to say that then. Aaron Bushnell would be a hero if he died for something like the atrocities in these images, but rather he died for a group that democratically elected a political regime that celebrates these images.. Let that statement reside in your mind, the illiberals of today will say that supporting Israel’s war on Hamas is equal to the Holocaust while members elected to Hamas deny the Holocaust.17 Not only do these genocidal terrorist deny the Holocaust, they wish it did happen and/or wish to enact one of their own. These are the words and language we must turn our attention to, and these are not exaggerations on my end, though I wish they were, for I trust these sources. Aaron Bushnell has laid our already precarious language choices on the tip of a needle with all-out linguistic anarchy beneath it.
I desire a world where violence and war is a regretted and an embarrassing night terror of the enlightened way. From a utilitarian perspective I must confront the reality that there is such thing as a ‘just war’. The utilitarian must view that lives taken by a terrorist regime which would not have otherwise been taken had there been action against said terrorist regime, as blood on the utilitarian’s hands. Of course the theoretical and what-ifs extend ad-infinitum into the wasteland of probabilities, but there is a clear degree of assumptions that can be safely made regarding lack of action. How much more oppression and how many more Oct. 7th attacks await the liberal democratic polis’ future if these threats are not terminated? Our language and its meaning is suffering its own hang-glider assault by pseudo martyrs like Aaron Bushnell and commentators like Hasan Piker who insist that proportional language is the way of genocidal Zionists. When we criticize Christianity we do not get labeled as ‘Christophobic’. When we criticize capitalism or communism we are not labeled ‘capitalphobic’ or ‘commiephobic’. Ideas deserve criticism, and Islam has not earned a seat above this criticism. However to question or criticize a culture that insists that women should live in cloth bags, have battery acid thrown in their face when they go to school, and push homosexuals off rooftops labels you with the career ending endowment of ‘Islamophobic’. What is this word and where did it come from? Someone once said that Islamophobia is a word ‘invented by fascists, used by cowards, to influence morons.’ Oh how true this judgment appears today. Islamophobia is the only ‘phobia’ used to deter one from questioning a religion. One might retort that ‘antisemitism’ is the Jewish equivalent but I push back and argue that antisemitism is targeting the Jewish race and not the religion. Somewhere along the path of history, probably around 9/11, we began to view racism towards brown people (which is unjust and deplorable) as equal to criticizing the Muslim faith (which is fair and just). If there is not a collective effort to retake the hill of an ethical criticism of ideas then our language will join the postmodernist wasteland of Derrida’s deconstruction. Aaron Bushnell might have died in vein, but purpose can be given to his death if we use it as a motivation to regain the intellectual crow’s nest on global affairs from cushioned western illiberals. I like to think I veer left in my politics, championing the down-trodden, the underprivileged; I like to believe I champion the western notion of objective reality and secular movements towards maximizing wellbeing. However, the ‘left’ is beginning to erode into a movement that is not dissimilar to far-right extremism. There is a war of linguistics being waged between forces of darkness and light, and if we do not support the light and ensure this victory, language will cease to have meaning. For our children, for our future, and for Aaron Bushnell, we must protect meaning.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/israel-gaza-war-2000-pound-bombs-mk-84-no-safe-ground-how-israel-used-2-000-pound-bombs-in-gaza-reports-4722623
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/idf-hamas-duty-to-warn/#:~:text=However%2C%20there%20is%20no%20question,concept%20is%20understood%20in%20IHL. As West Point and I both acknowledge, Israel is the ‘gold standard’ for warning areas of strikes. However, I argue that though the IDF holds the gold standard of warnings, there still exists far too many civilian casualties due to strikes regardless of warnings, and this is due to the dense population of Gaza. There remains a deep philosophical argument around what is the ‘appropriate’ degree of retaliation, an argument in which the conclusion I remain skeptical of.
https://www.worlddata.info/asia/palestine/populationgrowth.php#:~:text=Population%20growth%20is%20the%20result,increased%20by%20about%20119%2C000%20inhabitants.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2024/03/07/background-press-call-on-humanitarian-aid-for-gaza-ahead-of-the-state-of-the-union/
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/SOM/somalia/infant-mortality-rate#:~:text=The%20current%20infant%20mortality%20rate,a%202.03%25%20decline%20from%202022.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN?end=2021&locations=PS&start=2021&view=bar
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/11/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/gallery/jewish-population-of-europe
https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/1994-rwandan-genocide-facts#:~:text=BACK%20TO%20QUESTIONS-,What%20happened%20during%20the%201994%20Rwandan%20genocide%3F,died%20in%20the%20mass%20killings.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-armenian-genocide-1915-16-in-depth
https://www.britannica.com/topic/genocide
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2019/09/israel-discriminatory-measures-undermine-palestinian-representation-in-knesset/ As this article depicts and as I concede, Israel is quite discriminatory towards Palestinians in the Knesset which poses a threat to liberal democratic values, a threat I do not take lightly. But this serves my point of using proportional language; is ‘discriminatory towards Palestinians’ more appropriate than ‘genocidal’. ‘Discriminatory’ might be too innocent of a term for Israel at this time, but it is certainly closer to the truth than ‘genocidal’ is.
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/idf-hamas-duty-to-warn/#:~:text=However%2C%20there%20is%20no%20question,concept%20is%20understood%20in%20IHL.
I refuse to refer to these people as ‘liberal’ for everything they stand for is opposite of the ‘liberalism’ I originally signed up for. I understand these people are not ‘progressive’ in any literal sense of the word either… maybe I should find another term, perhaps ‘illiberals’.
https://embassies.gov.il/holysee/AboutIsrael/the-middle-east/Pages/The%20Hamas-Covenant.aspx#:~:text=The%20Hamas%20charter%20is%20the,18%20years%20of%20its%20existence.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/20/hamas-executes-informants-israel-gaza
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/palestinian-holocaust-denial
It seems like your primary arguments here (correct me if I’m wrong) are that you wouldn’t call what’s happening a genocide because genocides require a larger percentage of the population to be wiped out, and that Palestinians in Israel are not being slaughtered in the same way.
There is a standard, internationally recognized definition of genocide that I didn’t see you mention, and if there is a dedication to using the word properly then we should look there. Neither argument holds up when you look at that definition. There is no requirement for how many people must die, and it also includes a definition of targeting people who live in a specific area (instead of or intersecting with an ethnicity)— in this case, the Gaza Strip.
From an ethical standpoint, I think it’s also important to consider — is debating the term genocide vs ethic cleansing really the fight we want to be having?