Ethos is one of the three aspects of rhetoric based on the reliability and general authoritativeness of the rhetor or the one that is trying to persuade us. Pramana theory (Indian epistemology) of the sources of valid knowledge regards the utterance of an ‘apta’ (reliable person) as a source.
What I sense is that once you lose that reliability seal of truth telling even when you speak sooth that can be objectively checked it somehow lacks its force. The virtue has gone from the utterance. The Israelis have reached that point. Even the truth falls dead from their lips.
