zbird:

By "nice platitude" I meant just that: a trite comment with good intentions. I don't agree with him, but don't think he meant ill. Also, I don't think he intended on dehumanizing Yiddish speakers, but just the opposite - to deify them. By claiming they are inherently nonviolent, he's making a parallel, conscious or not, with Christ. 

invisible_hand: 

His point doesn't stand. Don't rely only on the two examples I gave. There are hundreds of Yiddish words for violent acts: Matthue's "potsh" can be first among them. There's also frask, trask, and zbeng, among may other terms for a direct hit.

More important here is the fact that Burg was paraphrasing Bashevis-Singer. The original quote is:

The high honor bestowed upon me by the Swedish Academy is also a recognition of the Yiddish language - a language of exile, without a land, without frontiers, not supported by any government, a language which possesses no words for weapons, ammunition, military exercises, war tactics; a language that was despised by both gentiles and emancipated Jews.

And can be found here: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1978/singer-lecture.html

What Bashevis-Singer says here about "no words for weapons, ammunition, military exercises, war tactics" is also not true. The late Yiddish linguist, Mordkhe Schaechter published an article on Yiddish military terminology.