How Pro-Hamas rhetoric is deluding Western audiences

In the days and weeks following the brutal October 7, 2023, assault by Hamas on Israel, a disturbing narrative began to emerge, effectively blaming Israel for the violence inflicted on it.

This rhetoric reveals a dangerous misunderstanding of both the situation on the ground and the broader context of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.Analysing and deconstructing these false narratives using Aristotle’s principles of rhetoric provides a powerful lens through which we can expose their flawed reasoning.

In his seminal work, The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle presents two key rhetorical devices for constructing arguments: the syllogism and the enthymeme.

An enthymeme, often called a "rhetorical syllogism," is a more subtle device. It assumes one or more of its premises are understood by the audience, leaving them unstated but implicitly accepted. This makes enthymemes particularly powerful in persuasive speech because they rely on the audience's shared beliefs or assumptions, often bypassing critical scrutiny. Using the example above, an enthymeme would be: “Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.” The implicit and agreed premise is that men are mortal, and thus can be left unsaid.

These two forms of reasoning are present in many anti-Israel arguments today, in misguided and fallacious forms.

Syllogistic fallacies in pro-Hamas rhetoric

The syllogistic reasoning often employed by those who defend or justify Hamas’s actions while attacking Israel frequently follows a pattern like this:
Premise 1: The Palestinians are oppressed.
Premise 2: Hamas represents the Palestinian people.
Conclusion: Therefore, Hamas’s actions are justified as resistance to oppression.

At first glance, this might seem like a valid syllogism. However, upon closer inspection, the premises and logical leaps are flawed. Yes, the Palestinians experience hardship, but the identification of Hamas as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian cause is deeply problematic. Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation by many countries including Australia, the U.S., Canada, and the European Union, does not represent all Palestinians. It rules Gaza through fear and violence, often at the expense of its own people, and has long prioritised its religiously inspired ideological commitment to the destruction of Israel and Jewish people over the welfare of the Palestinians.

Moreover, to argue that Hamas’s brutal tactics—massacres, kidnappings, and indiscriminate rocket attacks—are justified resistance to oppression is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of legitimate resistance. Violence against civilians, particularly the kind seen on October 7, is not "resistance" but terrorism. The syllogism is not only invalid because its premises are questionable, but also because it leads to a morally reprehensible conclusion.

The enthymeme: exploiting assumptions

Enthymemes, as rhetorical devices, are especially powerful because they operate on assumptions that audiences already accept without critical examination. In the pro-Hamas narrative, one common enthymeme is as follows:
Unstated Premise: Israel is a colonial occupier.
Stated Premise: Colonial occupiers are always in the wrong.
Conclusion: Therefore, Israel is always in the wrong, and Palestinian violence is justified.

The key to understanding the persuasiveness of this argument lies in the unstated premise: that Israel is a colonial state. This notion, rooted in unhistorical anti-Israel rhetoric, resonates with audiences familiar with anti-colonial movements in places like Algeria, Vietnam, and South Africa. By framing Israel as a colonial entity, pro-Hamas advocates position Palestinian violence as akin to the anti-colonial struggles of the 20th century.

But this comparison is both historically inaccurate and morally dubious. Unlike European colonial powers that sought to dominate foreign lands, the modern state of Israel was established through legal channels, recognised by the United Nations, and formed as a homeland for the Jewish people after centuries of persecution, culminating in the Shoah. Moreover, the Jewish people have historical and religious ties to the land going back thousands of years. We have archaeological evidence of the existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea.

The colonial framework, which the enthymeme relies upon, grossly misrepresents the historical reality and ignores the important and additional fact that Israel has repeatedly sought peace and co-existence, as evidenced by the offers it has made in various peace negotiations over the decades.

False equivalence: a common enthymeme

Another dangerous enthymeme used by Western critics of Israel, particularly in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks, can be summed up as follows:
Unstated Premise: Both sides engage in violence.
Stated Premise: Violence is always wrong.
Conclusion: Therefore, both Hamas and Israel are equally wrong, and Israel's actions are no more justified than Hamas’s.

This argument attempts to create a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas, suggesting that both are equally culpable in the ongoing conflict. But this reasoning fails to account for the profound asymmetry between the two. Israel, as a democratic state, is bound by international law and the principles of proportionality and distinction in warfare. While no country is perfect, Israel’s military takes measures to avoid civilian casualties—such as warning residents before airstrikes—despite facing an enemy that deliberately hides behind civilians.

Hamas, by contrast, violates international law as a matter of policy. It embeds its military infrastructure in civilian areas, uses human shields, deliberately targets Israeli civilians in its attacks, and takes and murders civilian hostages. To ignore this fundamental difference and present both sides as equally culpable is to commit a fallacy of false equivalence. It is an enthymeme that resonates with Western audiences because it plays into a broader cultural aversion to violence, but it is, in essence, a manipulation of facts.

The moral appeal to victimhood

One of the most pervasive rhetorical strategies employed by pro-Hamas audiences is the appeal to victimhood, which, when framed syllogistically, often looks like this:
Premise 1: The Palestinians are victims of Israeli occupation.
Premise 2: Victims have a moral right to fight back.
Conclusion: Therefore, Palestinians have the right to engage in violent resistance.

While it is undeniable that many Palestinians have suffered under difficult conditions, the leap from victimhood to justification of terrorism is a dangerous one. Victimhood, while deserving of empathy, does not grant carte blanche to commit atrocities. The emotional appeal to victimhood is disconnected from the ethical imperatives of justice and human rights, leading to a perverse justification of the obscene violence perpetrated on October 7.

Enthymemes and antisemitic tropes

Finally, many of the false narratives propagated by pro-Hamas audiences rely on age-old antisemitic tropes, disguised as legitimate criticism of Israel. For instance, an enthymeme might look like this:
Unstated Premise: Jews have disproportionate influence in Western politics and media.
Stated Premise: Israel is supported by Western governments.
Conclusion: Therefore, Jewish influence is responsible for the West’s support of Israel.

This argument, which taps into deeply rooted antisemitic stereotypes, shifts the blame for the conflict away from the complex geopolitical realities and onto the Jewish people. It assumes that support for Israel is the result of a Jewish conspiracy to manipulate global politics. The enthymeme here is powerful because it plays into pre-existing biases, but it is both false and dangerous.

Aristotle’s teachings on rhetoric offer a valuable framework for analysing and dismantling the arguments put forward by pro-Hamas advocates in the West. We must reject the flawed logic that underpin these arguments. To do otherwise is to allow emotional rhetoric, not reason, to guide our understanding of one of the world’s most enduring and complex conflicts. The stakes are too high for such inadequate thinking.