A Rhetorical Siege

“Accuse your enemies of that which you are guilty”

-Joseph Goebbels

In a war of words, the one who speaks the most usually wins.

In a war of bullets, an ill-trained machine gunner will always kill more enemies than even the best-trained sniper – it is a fact of warfare.

The same is true in a rhetorical war. In a rhetorical war, combatants fight each other to win over the “hearts and minds” of the non-combatants. These wars are fought with propaganda rhetoric, and they usually precede and precipitate a war of bullets that will follow.

The rhetorical war that preceded World War II was between Communism and Fascism, two competing political ideologies that claimed to best represent the will of the people and promote the general good.

In the 20 years between the Treaty of Versailles and the bifurcation of Poland, Communists and Fascists waged rhetorical war against one another in the newspapers and radio waves of Europe.

In the 100 years between Martin Luther’s Redress of Grievances and the start of the 30 Years War, Protestants and Catholics waged rhetorical war against one another in the newly invented newspapers of the day.

And in the 10 years between the Arab Spring and October 7th, Antizionists and Zionists have waged rhetorical war against one another in social media campaigns and internet slogans.

Rhetorical warfare is one of the most under appreciated historical phenomena of the past 500 years of human history.

Since the invention of the printing press and mass media, the ability for combatants to craft and shape public opinion towards their strategic goals has been a necessity. Usually, whichever side could most effectively shape public opinion had the strategic advantage.

In Germany, the nazis ruled the air waves. Joseph Goebbels developed the most effective propaganda machine of all time, and Adolf Hitler had the oratorical skills to take it to the next level.

Between the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 and Hitler’s ascension to power 10 years later, the nazi propaganda machine had a vice-grip on German minds.

To this day, Goebbels remains unchallenged as the world’s greatest mental manipulator.

But the antizionists are giving him a run for his money.

By employing his propaganda playbook and using the ill-understood machinery of the internet, antizionists have been mounting a highly successful rhetorical siege against Israel.

In order to mount an effective siege, one must completely surround their enemy and ensure that nothing leaves or enters the city. Soon enough, those who live in the besieged city will become hungry and frustrated, and eventually they will surrender the city.

Zionism is the city under siege.

Zionism, the idea that Jews have a right to live safely in their ancestral homeland, was once an almost universally accepted political idea.

There are two basic tenets to Zionism: that Jews should be safe and that Israel is their ancestral homeland.

That is not, however, what most young Americans now think Zionism is. Most of them think that Zionism is a modern reinterpretation of ethno-fascism, a Jewified version of Nazism.

How did this come to be? How did a generation of Americans come to be so geopolitically illiterate?

It was not by accident; it was by force.

By systematically deploying Goebbels’ propaganda tactics on social media, antizionists surrounded young American minds and laid siege to our cognition. After over a decade of day-in, day-out, rhetorical siege warfare, our citizens got tired, and they began to fall victim to the propaganda machine.

If we want to understand just how this happened, we must look at how certain words have been weaponized by our besiegers.

A Dictionary of Deception (Abridged)

Antizionist

Illegal State

International Law

Civilian

Genocide

Occupation

Indiscriminate

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In addition to the rhetorical siege against our vocabulary, there has been a social siege against our ability to use it.

The public forum of 2024 is the internet. A man who goes to speak his mind in public and is surrounded by an angry mob of hecklers is not safe to speak his mind.

Surely, we would all agree that any speech given under those circumstances is not “free.” Certainly, we would know that everything he said was spoken under duress and, as such, does not represent a truly given opinion.

Can the same be said of threats made to a man’s financial and emotional well-being?

We who grew up in America and grew accustomed to free speech take this idea for granted. The idea that an American would get fired for their political beliefs, or their opinions of a foreign war, or for anything like that for that matter, is foreign to us.

And, to be sure, it is almost impossible for an employer to fire an employee for their political beliefs.

But what about those who are employed by the public? What about people whose livelihoods are entirely dependent upon social media? What about celebrities whose careers could be ruined by one social faux pas?

Regardless of how one may feel about social media and its massive expansion, the truth of the matter is that it is here to stay. The internet is the new public forum, and anyone who denies that is living in an anachronism.

So how would one lay siege to the internet? How would one attempt to surround a speaker when they are not physically present? How can one threaten someone who lives across the world?

Virtually.

Zionist voices have been completely surrounded on the internet such that, whenever someone expresses a Zionist belief, no matter how mild of a statement it may be, one can expect immediate pushback.

Every single Israeli or Zionist influencer has had their posts invaded by angry commenters spreading hate and nastiness.

It can sometimes be hundreds and hundreds of hateful comments directed against someone with barely any followers.

This is how they surround Zionist voices.

If you are unwilling to submit to their rhetorical demands, they will overload your feed, your comments section, and your direct messages with hate.

This is Phase 1 of the Rhetorical Siege.

Then, the account that posts pro-Israel content is typically reported to the platform, which automatically bans or shadow bans any account that has been reported enough.

This is Phase 2 of the Rhetorical Siege.

They attempt to alienate the Zionist voices from their audience – do not let any material or information in or out of the besieged city.

And then, finally, they execute the “social media blackout” followed by an inevitable attempt at cancellation.

A “social media blackout” is an attempt to starve the Zionist voices out.

By threatening to deprive influencers of their audience, they are laying siege to these people’s careers, the very careers that they had spent years building.

For example, during the recent “social media blackout for Palestine,” a list of famous people was released who were deemed “too Zionist to support.”

The crime that many of these people committed generally was simply empathizing with Jews or being silent about the war.

For instance, Kim Kardashian lost 4 million followers in one day. Her crime? She had not posted anything about the war in Gaza (that was anti-Israel).

(This was called #blockout2024. You can read more about it here)

Simply for staying quiet on an issue that, ultimately, had nothing to do with her or her career, she lost 4 million followers.

Now, for Kim Kardashian, who has upwards of 350 million followers, 4 million is just a drop in the bucket.

However, for a young, up and coming influencer, think about what is at stake here.

In exchange for posting a small little thing condemning Israel, you can keep your career.

If you don’t, you could lose it.

If you are foolish enough to say something in support of Israel, you open yourself up to personal attack in the comments and your DMs.

It is not surprising that so few influencers are “Zionists” or “Pro-Israel” – the stakes are just too high.

To label oneself a Zionist while antizionists are laying siege to our community online is social suicide.

The rhetorical siege is clearly working, but, as in any siege, there are cracks within the siege line. A handful of brave influencers have chosen to run the gauntlet and have broken through enemy lines in an attempt to bring truth from inside our rhetorical city outside of the city walls.

And the cracks in the siege lines are widening, in large part due to these people’s bravery.

People on the outside are starting to see just how brutal this rhetorical siege is, and they are starting to recognize that they too are under attack from the same forces of falsehood.

As much as the enemies of reason have been trying to convince the world that “there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian,” most people still believe that babies and their grandparents are civilians, and that people who hold hostages in their homes are not.

The rhetorical warriors were not prepared for this breach in their attack. You can tell because they have not figured out how to fill in the line yet.

But they will.

They will take a few days to regroup, and then they will try to recast Israel’s heroic rescue of four hostages as a great tragedy.

They are already starting to claim that anyone who would trade four Israeli hostages for 200 dead Palestinians must be a racist - watch how this narrative will develop in the next few days.

That will show you exactly how this rhetorical war is being fought.

We, the besieged believers of truth, should take this opportunity to study our enemy. We do not need to act rashly. As the great rabbis say, when your enemy is attacking himself, don’t get in his way.

Then, once we understand their rhetorical strategy a bit more, we can strike.

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Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai