Elder of Ziyon has compiled a list of the various logical fallacies the anti-Israel haters exhibit; it’s worth a long look here. I discussed the first seven here, and here are more:
8. Appeasement fallacy: “Divest from Israeli companies and the student protesters will stop destroying the campus.”
Divestment would merely whet, not sate, the appetites of student protesters. If their BDS demands are accepted, then they will demand even more from their institutions: a complete severing of ties with Israeli academic institutions and individual faculty, a promise not to admit Israeli students, the creation of required courses on “Islamophobia” and on “settler-colonialism” with examples of the latter taken from South Africa, Algeria, and Israel. The latest demand has been for Washington to end all military aid to Israel if the IDF goes into Rafah. There is no end to this.
9. Argument from Consequences fallacy: “Israel cannot possibly have any legal right to the West Bank because then Palestinians will have nowhere to go.”
There are three answers to this “argument from consequences” fallacy.
First, Israel’s moral and legal right to Judea and Samaria (a/k/a the West Bank since 1950) goes back 3500 years, when the Jewish presence on the land was first noted. The first Muslim Arabs, on the other hand, did not appear in the area until the 7th century A.D., nearly 2000 years after the Jews had begun living in Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. That right of the Jews to return to their historic homeland was recognized by the League of Nations when it created the Mandate for Palestine in 1922.
Second, the “Palestinian Arabs” in the West Bank know that there are 22 Arab states, encompassing four million square miles, where they could fit right in, sharing the same language, religion, and culture of the other Arabs. In particular, Jordan already has a population that is 70% Palestinian, and has room for any Palestinians who might want to leave the West Bank.
Third, a majority of Israelis, after October 7, now oppose that pie-in-the-sky “two-state solution.” But they have no desire to rule over the Palestinians in the West Bank. They want the Palestinians, as Prime Minister Netanyahu has put it, “to have all of the power to run their own lives, and none of the power to harm Israelis.” Why is that not a reasonable outcome? Why must a 23rd Arab state, that would mortally threaten the existence of the only Jewish state, be the only “solution” that is being contemplated by so much of the world, including the feckless Bidenites?
10. Argument from Incredulity fallacy: “We are supposed to believe that Jews have rights in the land because the God of the Bible says so?”
The Israeli claim to the land does not depend on what is in the Bible. It is a historical fact, not a religious one, that Jews have lived on the land for 3500 years, and that in exile continued to yearn for a “return to Zion.” Even an atheist should be able to recognize that fact.
It is the Muslims whose claim to Israel/Palestine is based solely on religious belief: first, that Muhammad made his Night Journey (miraj) from Mecca to the “farthest mosque” (al-masjid al-aqsa) which they placed in Jerusalem, and from there he ascended into the Seventh Heaven on his winged street al-Buraq, and then returned to Mecca, all in the space of 24 hours. How many non-Muslims are prepared to believe this fairy tale as justifying the Muslim claim to the Temple Mount?
Second, how many non-Muslims would agree with the Muslim claim to Israel/Palestine which, aside from Muhammad’s Night Journey from the “farthest mosque” on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, is also based on the belief, inculcated in the texts and teachings of Islam, that any territory once held by Muslims must be forever Muslim?
11. Argument from Inertia fallacy: “Jews weren’t allowed to pray on the Temple Mount for centuries so we must keep the status quo.”
If a wrong goes on for a long time, does this mean we are supposed to continue to endure it? Slavery has existed for millennia, so why should we abolish it now? Torture has been used to extract confessions for centuries, so why should we abolish it now? Women were once regarded as unequal to men; why should that be changed now? And so on in the same vein. That is a sure way to stop all moral progress.