How an accusation against Israel reaches the Jew

In the language surrounding Israel and Gaza, evil no longer requires a rare event, for its signs proliferate faster than the crimes they claim to name. The gravest words circulate in advance, until accusation becomes a moral glare beneath which every distinction fades into insignificance.

Under the older structure of judgement, moral language drew its force from restraint, since a word retained its gravity only while some acts remained beneath it and others beyond comparison. That structure has collapsed into the limitless reproduction of condemnation. Lesser crimes seize the names of greater ones, while the greater crime, when it returns, finds its name already consumed by imitation. Difference is deliberately sacrificed to equivalence, to the point at which every evil must appear absolute and the absolute can no longer be recognized.

Should the crime for which the word was once reserved return, it may find its name exhausted by repetition and incapable of recognizing what it was meant to condemn. The event........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)