Saturday, July 7, 2012

[PL 211] What's the fallacy?

In response to the UN council's appointment of a fact-finding mission to investigate human rights violations in the West Bank, Israel issued the following statement:
The mission's existence embodies the inherent distortion that typifies the UNHRC treatment of Israel and the hijacking of the important human rights agenda by non-democratic countries.
Israel was left with no other choice than to take this decision, after it became apparent that putting the disproportionate focus on Israel, while systematically ignoring massive human rights violations in the very countries who bear responsibility for this focus, only leads to the contempt and degradation of the important cause of universal human rights.
One example among many: in times when president Assad's regime massacres thousands of its own people, the UNHRC only dedicates it symbolic time, as if to go through the motions, while turning its resources to obsessively focus on Israel, yet again.
Putting aside for now the false claim that the UNHRC is ignoring the human rights crisis in Syria, what sort of informal fallacy is being committed here?
  1. Red herring
  2. Appeal to pity
  3. Straw man
  4. Two wrongs make a right

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