Test Your Assumptions, You Schmoes!

There are a lot of well-meaning people who believe terrible things about Israel, and it’s hard to blame them. (But don’t worry, I blame them anyway.) A few weeks ago, I wrote about the magnitude of the media problem regarding Israel. The magnitude is so great, it’s hard to grasp. When the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the world is Sudan, when the bloodstains are so heavy you can see them from space, and when Sudan gets 1/100th of the coverage Israel gets, it’s easy to understand why people might have the wrong idea.

You see, a lot of these well-meaning people aren’t ignorant or stupid. Many of them are extremely bright and well-educated. They read The New York Times (may the Lord preserve us) and listen to CNN (may the Lord preserve us) and watch the BBC (may the Lord preserve us all).

If you ask Google if any of these sources are reliable, this is what you get:

Is the New York Times a reliable source? “The New York Times is generally considered a reliable and authoritative news source for factual reporting, though it carries a moderate-to-left-leaning editorial bias,” Google tells me. “The publication maintains strict internal ethics guidelines and a dedicated policy to promptly issue corrections for errors.” It then goes on to explain criticism of the outlet, which comes from the right.

Is CNN a reliable source? “CNN is generally considered a mostly factual news source for straight reporting, though independent media watchdogs and audience surveys note a slight-to-moderate political bias and occasional editorial lapses,” Google says (my emphasis). If you get your straight news from CNN, you can assume, according to Google, that it’s fairly reliable.

Is the BBC a reliable source? According to Google, it might be the most reliable of these three. “The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is generally considered a reliable and high-trust news source, though it faces frequent criticism and polarized perceptions regarding political bias,” Google says.

“Media watchdog organizations like Ad Fontes Media rate the BBC as ‘Reliable’ with a ‘Middle’ (center) baseline bias, while AllSides generally classifies its online reporting as ‘Center’ with occasional leanings toward the left,” Google continues.

After discussing accusations of bias against the BBC from both the left and the right, Google concludes with this bit of advice: “While its factual reporting and global newsgathering standards are high, most media analysts recommend consuming its coverage—especially commentary and politically sensitive topics—with critical awareness of institutional framing.”

So even you’re not just an average schmoe but a highly intelligent schmoe who consumes news from a “variety” of mainstream sources, you are going to be fed a steady diet of Hamas propaganda on Israel without your knowledge and consent.

But guess what? I’m still not letting these guys off the hook. They should test their assumptions, because if they just stopped to think about it for a minute, or maybe a minute and a half (let’s be generous), then they would realize something stark and scary.

They would realize that their views on Israel align — perhaps not perfectly, but rather closely — with those who hate Israel for no other reason than that it’s a Jewish state; in other words, they would find a great deal of overlap on the Venn diagram between their views and the views of good, old-fashioned antisemites on the left and the right.

And the next logical question that should immediately present itself to their minds is, when have the antisemites ever been right about the Jews?

I asked this question of a friend of mine who has been fiercely critical of Israel, and he said that was a silly and dangerous view because it’s unfalsifiable and can lead me to dismiss any evidence that contradicts my position.

So I said, two things can be true at once: One, it’s possible that the Jew haters can be right this time — I’m open to the possibility if you can show me compelling evidence. Two, it’s not silly and dangerous — because you do this all the time in other areas of your life.

It’s worth spending a little time on this, so bear with me. Our brains detect patterns, and we act on those patterns all the time, even when the pattern is not 100 percent consistent. For example, sometimes, when people go outside their home and walk down the street, they get struck by a drunk driver. I don’t say this flippantly. My friend’s son was killed by a drunk driver, right near the corner of my block as he was crossing the street. Although it happened about 20 years ago, I can’t breathe every time I think about it.

So I know that just because I have never been struck by a drunk driver when I leave my house, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen this time. There is a non-zero chance that it will happen. Still, I rely on the pattern that it hasn’t happened, and I regularly leave my house without giving it a second thought.

Think about all the decisions you make without thinking, relying on such patterns. (Another way to say this is relying on probabilities.) If pressed, you would even make high-stakes decisions based on much worse odds. Let’s say a doctor tells you that you have an 80-percent chance of dying if you don’t undergo a particular surgery, but a 20-percent chance of dying if you do. You’re going to choose the surgery!

Pharmaceutical companies running randomized drug trials don’t have to prove 100-percent efficacy to get their drugs approved. They can get drugs approved with rare but dangerous side effects. And most people take the drugs anyway.

In Jewish tradition, famous for arguing, we have a Talmudic argument called “kal v’chomer.” It means, literally, “light and heavy.” (In Latin, it’s called a fortiori.) For a silly example, if I wear a raincoat in a light drizzle, how much more so would I wear a raincoat in a heavy rain. But the inverse also works: If you make a high-stakes decision based on low probability of a positive outcome, how much more so would you make a high-stakes decision based on high probability of a positive outcome.

It’s very rare that we see a pattern that is 100 percent fixed. I pointed to a pattern that is 100 percent fixed: The haters of the Jewish people have never been right about us. I challenge the super intelligent schmoes to find me one example from Jewish history that disproves this statement. I believe it’s the opposite of what my friend said: It would be dangerous and silly to be credulous of the Jew haters now, a high-stakes decision based on high probability.

A high-stakes decision based on high probability of a positive outcome would mean assuming the antisemites are wrong again.

If your views on Israel align with the antisemitic Tucker Carlson right and the antisemitic Hasan Piker left — not exactly align but the Venn diagram would show a large overlap — why wouldn’t that make you uneasy?

Why is this high stakes? Because the consequences of the kind of harsh criticism we see of Israel, criticism that is neither fair nor legitimate, are literally deadly for Jews all over the world. Like the ancient blood libels of yore, they result in real, lasting harm to the Jewish people. If the intelligent news consumers have public platforms and spout off about the state of Israel, as many of them do, they are playing with fire and may end up with blood on their hands.

Addendum

In my writers’ group (where we end up talking about Israel and rising antisemitism more than about our writing projects), my friend Andrea raised an incident that she found very upsetting. She said that she told an acquaintance of hers who accused Israel of genocide to then please explain how Israel’s facilitation of the vaccination of nearly the entire child population against polio fits with her conception of genocide. When has a military ever, in the history of warfare, conducted a humanitarian pause in hostilities during wartime to facilitate such a humanitarian project on such a grand scale?

This is what her friend said: Israel did it because they didn’t want an outbreak of polio in their own territory.

I dismissed that as an insane anti-Israel talking point until my own friend said the same thing. And then I continued to dismiss it as an insane anti-Israel talking point.

You have to be pretty deeply into the Israel hate to consider that argument for more than one second, two if I’m being generous.

This view is insane for two reasons:

First, 95 to 98 percent of the population in Israel is vaccinated against polio. Herd immunity for polio is achieved between 80 and 86 percent. This means that even if Israeli soldiers, who are already immune to polio, nevertheless became infected and brought the disease back to Israel, nothing would happen.

Second, the most common way for polio to spread is the oral-fecal route. It’s gross, but bear with me for a minute. Assume the people in the following scenario are not vaccinated. A person with polio goes to the bathroom and doesn’t wash their hands properly. Then they touch something that someone else later touches and puts their hand in their mouth or touches their food, that then goes into their mouth. That second person might get polio.

I highly doubt that Israeli soldiers were using Gazan facilities and coming into such close contact with Gazans that they would have picked up polio germs this way. And even if they had, remember: They’re all immune anyway.

Even intelligent schmoes will come up with farkakte reasoning when they’re blinded by hate.