A Series on our Enemies’ Fallacies, per Maimonides

A. Torah and Truth

In this week’s parsha we read of the commandment to listen to the rabbis:

Devarim 17:11 –

עַל־פִּ֨י הַתּוֹרָ֜ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר יוֹר֗וּךָ וְעַל־הַמִּשְׁפָּ֛ט אֲשֶׁר־יֹֽאמְר֥וּ לְךָ֖ תַּֽעֲשֶׂ֑ה לֹ֣א תָס֗וּר מִן־הַדָּבָ֛ר אֲשֶׁר־יַגִּ֥ידוּ לְךָ֖ יָמִ֥ין וּשְׂמֹֽאל:

“You must act in accordance with the law that they instruct you and the judgment they pronounce to you. You may not deviate right or left from what they tell you”.

Rashi comments: “even if they tell you that right is left and left is right”. It sounds like Rashi is telling us that when faith and reason are in contradiction, we are required to listen to faith. But Ramban comments that this Midrashic statement from the Sifrei  which Rashi cites cannot be taken literally. There’s an entire Talmudic tractate (Horayot) dedicated to when the rabbis make mistaken rulings. The rabbis are not infallible. Therefore, the Midrash is most certainly not teaching that if the rabbis say that 2 plus 2 equals 5, that you must accept it on faith. It’s only euphemistically teaching, as per the style of Midrash, that even if it seems to you that they’re saying that left is right and right is left, then you should try and be humble enough to realize that you might not fully understand their reasoning.

But, if you can actually demonstrate that they’re outright confusing right with left, then you don’t obey the rabbis. Rambam writes in his “Introduction to the Eight Chapters” to accept the truth from wherever it comes. The Talmud says (Shabbat 55a) that the seal of God is truth.

This is all be way of introduction, to explain why the endeavor in which we engage herein, of exposing the logical fallacies of our adversaries, should be seen as divine work: to elucidate the truth. But it’s also in order to justify my placing of the word “Maimonides” in the headline, so as to complete the rhyming effect.

In any case – Since October 7th I’ve noticed certain fallacies repeated over and over again on social media from Israel’s critics, and I present here to my fellow Jews and our allies a list of such fallacies to call out when you see them. This is just a preliminary list, which I’ll plan to follow up on and add to in future Blog posts.

B. Fallacies of the Far-Right

I’ve noticed many far-right types parroting something like “Jews were kicked out of over 100 countries, so they must have deserved it”. This runs afoul of at least four fallacies, all of which I’ll just take verbatim from what AI responded when I asked it about this:

“Such an argument contains multiple fallacies:

1. “Appeal to Popularity (Argumentum ad Populum) The Flaw: It assumes that because many governments or societies took the same action, their action must be justified. The Reality: Historical consensus or widespread action does not make an action morally or factually right. For centuries, multiple societies independently believed the earth was flat or practiced slavery, but widespread practice did not make those positions correct.
2. “False Cause (Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc). The Flaw: It incorrectly links the effect (expulsion) to a specific assumed cause (the group’s behavior). The Reality: It ignores the actual, documented historical causes of these expulsions. Most historical expulsions of Jewish populations were driven by political scapegoating, religious intolerance, economic envy, or rulers wanting to seize Jewish property and wipe out royal debts.
3. “Circular Reasoning & Victim- Blaming. The Flaw: The argument assumes what it is trying to prove. It starts with the premise that the expulsions were justified, using the expulsions themselves as the only proof of that justification. The Reality: This is a form of cognitive bias known as the Just-World Hypothesis, where people assume that victims of systemic actions must have done something to deserve their fate, ignoring the role of prejudice and institutional power”.

[End quote from the first AI response].

C. Fallacies of the Far-Left

Now moving on to the far-left: I’m grateful to Sam Harris for articulating something that’s been bothering me since October 7^th: when Jews are forced to prove the merits of “Zionism” in order to justify Israel’s present-day right to exist. My fellow Jews: please stop even bothering to litigate the merits of the Zionist ideology, as it’s completely irrelevant today! We don’t need to prove the merits of “Zionism” any more than a Belgian is required to prove the merits of “Belgian nationalism” in order to justify his present-day existence and nationality. Only Jews, amongst all the nations of the world, are subjected to these bizarre public disputations. Again, I’ll quote verbatim from how AI framed the issue when I asked it about this:

“The Genetic Fallacy – The genetic fallacy evaluates the current validity, right to exist, or nature of something based entirely on its origins or how it began.

“Historical Origins: Millions of Israelis were born into the country and have lived there for generations.

“Modern Reality: Demanding that modern residents justify a 19th- or 20th-century political movement to validate their current physical existence ignores the reality of their present life and citizenship”.

[End second quotation from AI].

Entire books have now been written based on this fallacy. There’s no burden of proof upon any of us to even engage with the substance of these books at all. We only need to point out that their entire premise is fallacious, and then move on.

To the extent that these books are arguing that Zionism was bad or mistaken, and therefore the State of Israel should be undone today, that is also a textbook example of the Counterfactual Fallacy. One final quote from AI in that regard:

• • The Past Premise: It assumes a baseline (“If Zionism had not occurred or was mistaken…”). 
  • The Present Leap: It asserts a definitive modern outcome (“…then Israel must be dismantled”) while ignoring decades of intervening variables. 
  • The Flaw: It treats history as a reversible equation. It assumes that correcting a past premise automatically yields a simple, predictable moral or practical resolution today”.

This is just the beginning of my musings on the subject, as there are so many more textbook examples of the fallacies of our enemies (as per Maimonides!) -which will have to wait for a future post.