In political and ideological debates, few words carry as much quiet weight as “counterproductive.” It is a term that cloaks deep moral issues in the language of strategy, substituting ethical clarity with tactical calculus.
Recent uses of the word by political figures and organizations—such as Cenk Uygur’s response to the murder of two Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., and J Street’s condemnation of the student takeover of Columbia University’s Butler Library—highlight the way moral outrage is increasingly filtered through the lens of utility.
The Language of Outcomes
When Cenk Uygur called the murder of the diplomats “counterproductive,” he minimized his “obviously immoral” charge. He reframed the cold-blooded murder of two young Israelis at a Jewish event through a critique that the violence would “harm the Palestinian cause.” Similarly, J Street’s reaction to the Butler Library takeover focused not on the pain caused to students studying for finals but on the effectiveness of the mass action.
Both statements imply a worldview where the ends can justify the means IF the means produce desired outcomes. Violence and disruptions aren’t inherently wrong, full stop; they’re wrong if they don’t work.
This mode of thinking belongs to a form of strategic utilitarianism—actions are weighed not on whether they are ethically sound, but whether they are instrumentally successful. Murder isn’t condemned for its cruelty or injustice, but for its inefficiency. Protest isn’t wrong because it defies norms, but because it alienates potential allies or invites political backlash as in: it “provide[s] the Trump Administration with ammunition…” and “it allows people to frame the whole peace movement as violent.”
The Profound Delusion
How is the October 7 massacre of 1,200 people and mass rape of women and butchering of babies a “peace movement?” a sane person would ask. How is the killing of a young couple in Washington – thousands of miles from Gaza – an issue of “framing” for the masses (read “potential allies”)?
The idea that victims’ deaths were simply “counterproductive” is chilling. It suggests they were not wronged, but miscalculated. Their humanity becomes a variable in someone else’s flawed strategy. The moral frame disappears; only the tactical one remains.
There is a profound gap between calculated language and moral reality. For the political commentators, everything is a chessboard; for the people on the ground, it is their lives.
Question If The Entire Movement Is Unjustified And Immoral
Uygur and J Street – different parts of the socialists-jihadi alliance – use of “counterproductive” is an attempt to separate the actions of the violent offenders in the United States from the Hamas-led war in Israel. It seeks to sanitize the Gazan war to “Free Palestine” as a noble goal, while the tactics of some people – including possibly the October 7 massacre itself – are flawed.
Lost on those absorbing this insidious narrative of “Free Palestine” is that the movement is immoral. The chants of an “ongoing Nakba” are not cries for peace but a desire of SAPs and their supporters to destroy Israel and ethnically cleanse the Jewish Promised Land of Jews, marketed under the banner of human rights. Yes, local Arabs deserve self-determination which can be achieved in multiple ways. No, they don’t have an “inalienable right” to their own country nor to move into houses where grandparents once lived.
The only way of achieving their stated desired goal of ending Israel is via violence, both there and here. The murder of two Israelis outside a Jewish event in America’s capital city isn’t “counterproductive” but an unspoken essential component of the global jihad. It is the definition of “by any means necessary.”
Conclusion
Language shapes how we see the world. When murder is called “counterproductive” – whether of two Israelis in Washington or 1,200 people in Israel – the victims’ moral worth is sidelined in favor of strategic impact. Worse, the soft wording obfuscates not only the evil of the immediate killings but that the entire “Free Palestine” mission is about the mass murder of Jews.
The issue isn’t optics. There is a reason the hordes are yelling “we are all Hamas,” “gas the Jews” and “Heil Hitler,” and it isn’t coexistence. The alt-left’s shielding of violent antisemites has made them complicit in the both the violence against the Jews and the ongoing trauma the Jewish community is enduring.
Related articles:
Genocidal Jihadists Come For ‘Soft Targets’ (September 2024)
When Enemies Of The Jews Use “Any Means Necessary” (May 2024)
The Normalization Deformity: No To Zionism and Peace; Yes To Massacres and Terrorism In a Global Intifada (January 2024)
{Reposted from the author’s blog}
