Constant Repetition of Anti-Israel (and Antisemitic) Disinformation
Rather than think or verify claims, media and activists senselessly repeat misinformation about Israel
The original notion of a “meme” was defined by Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist, and means a unit of culture (a thought or idea) that replicates and grows in the minds of the people encountering it, causing them to spread it.
A meme is like a thought virus.
Of course that shifted over time, and most people now define a meme as a re-usable cute picture with alternate captions. But let’s talk about these “thought virus” memes.
Anti-Israel memes
A shocking number of terms and phrases are now reflexively used not just by propagandists such as Qatar or Hamas, or Palestinian political supporters, but also uncritically repeated by a broad swath of media.
And of course the internet, being the disinformation cesspool that it is, amplifies and spreads this disinformation rapidly.
Here is a short list, with objective reasons or links about why they are disinformation.
- “Stealing Land” — I wrote about this extensively in the article below. Jews immigrated, mostly legally, to what is now Israel under Ottoman and British rule. Then more came as refugees later. Most of them bought the land they built their homes and farms on. There was no “stealing” and even in 1948 and 1967, after Israel was legitimately established, Israel gained territory after being viciously attacked by genocidal hostile forces, and gaining land after a war was typical in the mid-20th century.
- “Genocide” — Genocide means killing off every last person in an ethnic group. The Germans of course tried this in WWII and killed 6M Jews. About half of the worldwide population. Turkey tried to kill all the Armenians and killed 1M. Hutus in Rwanda hacked apart about 800,000 Tutsis with machetes in 1994. Genocides are massive, target civilians with no military objective, and are personal. Israel’s tragic killing of about 20,000 civilians (not 30,000 which includes the 10,000 Hamas fighters killed) is not a genocide. It is only 10% of the deaths of other regional wars such as Syria and Yemen, and overall the Palestinian population is going to remain, and has actually grown rapidly over the years.
- “Indiscriminate Bombing” — Almost every attack we know about by Israel targeted some military target, and hit the target accurately. There are a few stray shells, and probably a handful of illegal attacks (as in all wars). But the vast majority are targeted, reviewed by lawyers, and accurate.
- 10,000 children dead — This is always possible, but unlikely and misleading at best. All casualty numbers are from Hamas’ own health ministry, and we know they lie often. Hamas recruits what we in the West consider to be children (older teens) as fighters, and Hamas doubtless includes teenage fighters as “children” even if the numbers are remotely correct.
- “White European Jews” — Most Israelis are brown-skinned, from Arab ancestors in the region. There were certainly many European Jewish refugees to various countries, including Israel, after WWII, and Israel took in those who wanted to come. But more Jews were expelled from Arab and Persian lands than Palestinians were expelled during the ’48 war. 900,000 Jews left Syria, Iraq, Iran, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran… For whatever reason, Israelis are not predominantly white.
- “Settler colonialism” — Israel fought the British imperial power, and the Brits were colonial. But Israelis only fought for their own homes for decades, not to expand. Recently, the conservative Likud government has supported settlers expanding into the West Bank, which is a mistake, but is unrelated to the founding, forming and existence of Israel. And irrelevant to Israel’s right to exist.
- “Zionists” as intending to gain territory — Media uses this term as a slur, and mis-define it in an antisemitic way. “Zionism” actually simply means that Jews should have their own government, military, and country so they can defend themselves, rather than always and only be a powerless minority in other countries. It does not mean anything about land or expansion. In fact, Israel accepted the original 1947 borders dictated by the U.N. without any desire for Gaza or the West Bank or even current post-1967 Israeli borders. Of course six Arab countries plus militant Palestinians all attacked Israel to destroy her in 1948, but Israel fought to survive, not seek more land.
- “Ethnic cleansing” — Israel has 20% of her citizens as Palestinian Arabs, who enjoy full rights, including voting, freedom of movement, education, jobs etc. Also Druze, Bedouin and Christian. Before the 2nd Intifada in 2000 where Palestinian terrorists killed over 1,000 Israelis over 5 years, most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza also had freedom of movement throughout Israel. The security barrier/wall and checkpoints were only added as limits because of a specific, constant and lethal threat. In contrast — when Jordan conquered Jerusalem in 1948, they ethnically cleansed every last Jew from Jerusalem for the first time in thousands of years. Israel won Jerusalem back in 1967, and there are still thousands of Palestinians there now as a multi-ethnic society.
Propaganda vs truth
Why do even the best media so often repeat inaccurate propaganda terminology? I suspect a few reasons:
First, the “best” media are full of young people from the “best” schools, such as Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Berkley etc. These schools are quite antisemitic, due to a reductionist fixation on oppression. I wrote about this at length here:
Second, journalism has declined, and now the very notion of objective journalism is out of fashion. Again this is actively embraced at even the very “best” schools who are ideologically pushing intersectional (or so-called “woke”) thought. This is beyond progressive, and is fixated on power dynamics rather than truth, and advocacy rather than neutrality. Garbage thought pieces such as this one correctly say that true objectivity is impossible, but then (incorrectly) reject objectivity as an ideal or goal, and fully embrace biased misinformation over truth in journalism.
Third, most people simply don’t think. Or not really. They hear terms and ideas from their friends and colleagues, internalize them as memes, and then they pop off with matching terms in response to any event or question.
Those people are more like a slot machine or AI program than a true thinking human. They hear “Israel bombed a terror tunnel with a Hamas leader and also killed 5 civilians” and they just trot out “indiscriminate bombing” and other false narratives like a vending machine of hate.
Misinformation, Disinformation, Bias, Propaganda
Technically, this is mostly now misinformation. Meaning the people who repeat and spread false and harmful memes do not know it is false. Disinformation, in contrast, is technically defined as spreading falsehoods knowingly, and while these ideas all started in some Islamic or Palestinian propaganda machine as disinformation, they are now widely established and more innocently repeated as misinformation.
But not you, dear reader. You are reading this and now know the difference, and to some extent actual facts.
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Please share this article with those you know who have adopted false memes, and who are actively spreading them to all our detriment. I write, always for free, in the hope of spreading truth, and your sharing my articles helps.
