Senator Merkley Boldly Issues Fake Call for Ceasefire
A bizarre case of insane-washing
Imagine it’s 1968, and you’re worried about the human toll of the Vietnam War. You happen to be a US Senator, so you call a press conference. “The war must end,” you say. “The US must cease hostilities and withdraw all troops from Vietnam immediately.” The press corps shift in their seats — you’ve made a bold statement. But you continue: “And North Vietnam must withdraw to the 17th parallel and permanently cease all operations below that line.”
In the seconds that elapsed between the first part of your statement and the second, your status as person with a clear stance on a contentious issue completely evaporated. Because, obviously, North Vietnam is not going to withdraw to the 17th parallel and stay there — that’s what the entire war is about, after all. Containing North Vietnam above the 17th parallel is what the US would have gotten if we had won. Your statement functionally says “The US should withdraw if North Vietnam surrenders,” which — if you think about it — is the exact same position as the hawkiest hawk in the Pentagon.
Yesterday, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley made a proclamation that follows these contours. In a statement titled “My Call for a Ceasefire”, Merkley makes an impassioned call for peace. He writes in detail about his personal experiences in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, and emphasizes the humanity on all sides. He then proceeds to call for an end to hostilities pending conditions that will never exist in this life nor on any plane of existence that I’m aware of. What’s strange about Merkley’s statement is that he demonstrates such an intimate knowledge of the conflict in the first part of his message that he surely must know that the second part of his message is contradictory gibberish.
After describing his reservations about the carnage wrought by the war, Merkley writes:
After grimly witnessing accelerating body counts, many Americans, including thousands of Oregonians, have raised their voices to say more must be done to stop the carnage.
I agree. So today I am calling for a ceasefire.
It’s worth noting that the normal meaning of “ceasefire” differs from how the word is commonly being used right now. The dictionary definition of “ceasefire” is “a temporary suspension of hostilities…” emphasis on the “temporary”. But most advocates of a ceasefire don’t want a temporary pause; they want an end to Israel’s Gaza campaign. A ceasefire, strictly speaking, requires both sides to stop fighting, but since Hamas has made it abundantly clear that they will stop attacking Israel when AC/DC becomes a smooth jazz quartet focused on the dulcet sounds of the tenor sax, Biden instead talks of “humanitarian pauses”. “Ceasefire”, meanwhile, has mostly come to mean “Israel ends its campaign immediately”.
Merkley seems to know the dictionary meaning of the word “ceasefire”, because he wants a mutual pause to lead to negotiations. But he reveals that he’s not being serious when he describes the conditions required for that ceasefire to hold. He writes:
Hamas must release all the hostages without conditions and lay down their arms. And Hamas, which continues to defend the savage slaughter of Israeli citizens on October 7th and advocate for the obliteration of Israel, has to go. It can no longer have operational control of Gaza.
Well, garsh, Senator: If Hamas agreed to those conditions, then there wouldn’t be a war to begin with! Read the three sentences above one more time — Merkley wants Hamas to: 1) Unconditionally release all hostages; 2) Disarm; and 3) Cede power. That is a comprehensive list of Israel’s demands! And Hamas is very obviously not going to willingly do those things! If the Vietnam analogy didn’t work for you, then here’s another one: If you and I both reach for the last slice of pizza, and we end up in a slap fight over that slice, and I yell “let’s stop fighting and you give me the slice!”, then obviously the fight’s not about to end, is it? I would think that that would be obvious to everyone, but apparently I need to make an exception for Jeff Merkley.
“Sanewashing” is when someone downplays the radical implications of an idea to make it seems less extreme. Merkley is doing the opposite here: He has taken a moderate position, but is presenting it as far left-leaning, presumably to please his progressive constituents. I’ve never heard the word “insane-washing” before — I’m not even sure that I’ve even encountered the phenomenon — but I can’t think of what else to call this.
Merkley could have issued a statement saying that because Hamas refuses to release the hostages, disarm, or cede power, he supports Israel’s military campaign, but would like them to use more caution in pursuit of their goals. And, in fact, Merkley did issue that statement — he just gave it a misleading title. If you parse Merkley’s words, his position is basically identical to Joe Biden’s and only different Benjamin Netanyahu’s with regards to the tactics that should be used in pursuit of agreed-upon goals. If you’ve never heard of the “motte-and-baily fallacy”, then good news: Jeff Merkley has provided a textbook example here that should make the concept easy to learn.
Why didn’t Merkley title his statement something like “Israel Should Slow Its Campaign Against Hamas” or “A Call For Increased Caution”? Well, perhaps because he wanted a catchy title; as someone who once ran an article called “Why Is Homelessness a Municipal Issue?”, I can attest that milquetoast headlines will limit your writing’s appeal. But I would guess that the bigger issue was that Merkley wanted to use the word “ceasefire”, because it’s the buzzword du jour.
Many have noticed the progressive left’s predilection for buzzwords and pithy slogans.1 Words like “decolonization”, “equity”, and “intersectionality” — as well as rallying cries like “abolish ICE” and “defund the police” — signal that you’re part of the in-group. In a truly depressing way, much of the progressive left has become like the furniture in Pee Wee’s Playhouse: They’re thrown into a fit of ecstasy when someone utters the secret word. The secret word today is “ceasefire”, so Merkley used it.
The reality is that Jeff Merkley appears to support a ceasefire in Gaza only in a parallel universe that bears no resemblance to our own. He has issued a statement that has all the relevance of a bold proclamation on the conflict in Narnia, or a stance on the Federation-Borg War. He has wrapped his position in language that will please some of his constituents, but will allow him to retreat to more defensible ground when pressed. Reports are calling Merkley the second Senator2 to call for a ceasefire. It would probably be more accurate to say that Merkley is the second Senator to throw around the word “ceasefire” while holding basically the same position as just about everyone else.
This phenomenon isn’t limited to the progressive left; it exists to some extent at every point on the political spectrum. Though I would argue that it’s particularly common right now on the progressive left.
The first senator was Dick Durbin (D-IL), who called for a pause in hostilities dependent on the immediate release of all hostages. In the House, Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called for a pause dependent on the release of all hostages and Hamas ceding power. Honestly, I might have written this article about Durbin or Raskin, whose position is essentially the same as Merkley’s, but Merkley made the mistake of articulating his position in detail.
This is what happens when you play the I Support The Current Thing Game. Buzzwords and talking points and gobbledygook that mean nothing but make sure that people know you “care.”
FWIW there's been a big letter-writing campaign in Portland, Merkley's power base. People are organizing postcard-writing parties, sending him cards demanding that he demand a ceasefire, end all US funding to Israel, retroactively prevent Zionism, etc. So this is maybe a bone-throw to those people?