Disinformation Wars, 3

This is the third in a series on the disinformation war against Israel and its right to exist, a war spearheaded in the Muslim world and carried around the world via social media and the news, especially left-leaning news sources. I see at least eight areas of slander and disinformation against Israel and Judaism that have been propagandized into “facts.” I lay them out simply and briefly so you, the reader, can more easily hold them all in memory as you wade thru the barrage of disinformation online and in the streets.
They are:

1. Jews are colonialists
2. Jews have no, or limited, historical connection to the land
3. The Palestinians are a national entity displaced by the Jews
4. Anti-Zionism is not driven by Jew-hatred
5. Israel is apartheid
6. Palestine in the 19th century was a vibrant and populous region
7. Israel’s responses to Palestinian aggression and violence are extreme and disproportional
8. Jews are supposed to be victims

This week I’ll briefly expand points 7 and 8.

Disinformation 7. Israel’s responses to Palestinian aggression and violence are extreme and disproportional.
Here we see a classic example of psychological displacement, projecting a vast regional and cultural conflict into a local issue. Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is only a small portion of its greater conflict with the Arab and Muslim world, a conflict that, so long as it exists, will be of existential proportions to Israel’s existence, while having virtually no existential meaning to any other nation in the region.

The large majority of people living in the Muslim world seek Israel’s destruction. It is an ideology that pervades their societies, from their educational institutions, to news and social media, to government think-tanks and policy-makers, to secret and overt funding of military, para-military, and terrorist operations. This hatred is summarized in the Arab declaration, “No peace, no negotiations, no recognition,” and remains the defining ideology of most Arab and Muslim nations. Even with Israel’s “peace” partners, Egypt and Jordan, it remains the private agenda of the vast majority of the population, including the upper echelons of government.

Bottom line: the Palestinians are simply the “shock-troops” of Muslim hatred, massively funded by Qatar and Iran and other Israel-hating nations. Israel’s responses to their violence must stand as disincentives to the vast reach of Islamic hatred, which extends from Mauritania in the west to Malaysia and Indonesia in the east, a vituperation and hatred that poisons the waters for 1.3 billion Muslims around the world.

Disinformation 8. Jews are supposed to be victims.
This is a more subtle aspect of anti-Zionism and Jew-hatred, and in that sense, perhaps the most insidious and damaging of all. It semi-consciously or unconsciously drives points 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7 above. It is an age-old belief extending from its origins in Christian polemics thru nazi racialist hatred (epitomized by the nazi chant, “…when Jewish blood spurts from the knife, things are twice as good…”), to Islamic denigration of Jews and Judaism, particularly when Jews are not subjugated under Islamic law, and ultimately to the calls for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of Israel’s Jews.

This driver of Jew- hatred is insidious and well hidden, working on the imagination of Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike. Yes, Jews too are bound in this destructive, but largely unconscious belief. From the lachrymose histories of Jewish life written by Jewish scholars to the so-called Jewish humor of people like Woody Allen, Jews are cast as eternal victims, and this becomes a pernicious norm and expectation.

This is the subtext that drives The New York Times and NPR reporting on Israel: ‘when Jews don’t act like victims, there’s something very wrong going on.’ It is the driving force behind the constant accusations made against Israel that it responds to Palestinian “provocations” with “excessive force.” Both terms here, ‘provocations’ and ‘excessive force’ are euphemisms driven by the expectation that Jews should be victims: viz, there’s nothing so very out of order with Palestinians murdering Jews (mere provocations), but any Jewish response quickly becomes excessive. The extreme right-wing may be ignorant enough to say out loud that ‘Jews should be victims,’ but the liberal and far left is equally driven by this subconscious and repugnant face of hatred.

Next week I’ll begin presenting some of the extensive documentary evidence I have compiled to substantiate the disinformation and slander summarized above.

Until then, be strong and of good faith, “khazak v’ematz.”