By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban
“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable,”George Orwell said.
President Trump’s plan to displace over two million Palestinians to a ‘parcel of land’ in Egypt and Jordan, among other fantasies on Canada, Greenland, etc., teems with various political tactics, fallacies and manipulation, most probably for US domestic consumption. Let’s try shining a light on some of them.
Denaming and erasing
President Trump is intentionally avoiding naming the key parties of the issue: Gaza, the Palestinians, the heads of states required to receive the displaced Palestinians, and the process of forced displacement itself. Here’s an example, “I think they (the Palestinians ) should get a good, fresh, beautiful piece of land ( in neighbouring countries) and we get some people ( wealthy countries) to put up the money to build it.” Another example is “I don’t know how they ( the Palestinians) could want to stay (in Gaza).” Further example are: “They ( the Palestinians) are not going to want to go back to Gaza,” and “I’d like Egypt to take people ( some Palestinians from Gaza) and I’d like Jordan to take people (some Palestinians from Gaza).”
Flooding the zone
Ostensibly, the Palestinians are deeply rooted in their ancestral lands; the problem is that the US President is ‘flooding the zone’, a tactic recommended by his former strategist Steve Bannon, to swamp the media, opponents and enemies with massively stunning news and appalling controversial statements on a particular issue or event so as to make it difficult for them to catch up. President Trump employs many types of faulty reasoning or logical fallacies.
Appeal to pity
President Trump says he will ask neighbouring countries with “humanitarian hearts” and “great wealth” to take in Palestinians. Paradoxically, he never shows pity to the 48,000 Palestinians killed by American and European weapons or to hundreds of thousands others who have faced the same destiny in the over-century-atrocities the Palestinians have been subjected to.
Appeal to Consequences, special pleading
President Trump, a former real estate developer, is focusing on the positive side of his plan which is rebuilding Gaza and making it habitable and enjoyable, the “Riviera of the Middle East”, which is a noble mission, while ignoring the fact that Gaza was flattened by American and European weapons. He is also turning a blind eye to the glaring moral and legal consequences of the ethnic cleansing of an indigenous people.
Red herring
President Trump’s statements on Gaza are thought to aim at distracting attention from mounting domestic concerns over the consequences of his policies regarding cost-cutting plans, deleting some agencies, reducing federal workforce, evicting illegal migrants, among other thorny issues. It’s smoke and mirrors. The red herring and straw man fallacies are also utilised when President Trump cites the unexploded weapons and the widespread destruction in Gaza as a justification for mass displacement, a matter triggering much outrage. Here is an example:
Appeal to Authority
Being the president of the first superpower in the world, President Trump is using his authority to enforce his political views on the rest of the world: Greenland, Canada, Panama, Gaza, etc. In fact, Trump is the master of the brinkmanship game.
Straw man fallacy
“I believe we’ll have a parcel of land in Jordan. I believe we’ll have a parcel of land in Egypt,” said Trump. “We may have someplace else, but I think when we finish our talks, we’ll have a place where they’re going to live very happily and very safely.”
Lexical and syntactic choices
One’s choice of words, whether used individually or in combination with other words, and sentence structures reflects their worldview and ideology, with the aim of manipulating, persuading, or swaying others. Think about the following elliptical sentence:
“I say they will.”
Here, President Trump is using the booster ‘will’ rather than one the hedges like ‘ possibly’ or ‘probably’. ‘Will’ indicates a high degree of certainty and force of propositions or ideas. He is so confident that they ‘will’ do what he asks them to do. This is an epistemic kind of modality.
International outrage
Finally, Trump’s displacement plan triggers an avalanche of angry reactions almost worldwide on humanitarian, political grounds. However, the vocal one is that voiced by leaders of the American Jewish community in a message to New York Times. Here’s an extract from it:
“Jewish teaching is clear: Trump is not God and cannot take away Palestinians’ inherent dignity or steal their land for a real estate deal. Trump’s desire to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza is morally abhorrent. Jewish leaders reject Trump’s attempts to wring profit from displacement and suffering and must act to stop this heinous crime.”
By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban Professor of linguistics Faculty of Arts Kafr el-sheikh University
Email: [email protected]
