Arab-Israel conflict in the era of the big lie technique: Part 2: Examples

Like the press, the Internet has become an arena for ideological combat, though people still think of it as a source of information.  Truth and knowledge may fall by the wayside.  A small percentage of readers key in whatever insults they can imagine, against author or source.  Sometimes they just pass judgment on the author.  They do not promote any exchange of ideas.  There is no point to their comments. 

For example, they accuse me of being a paid Israeli agent.  Amusing, but sad that they can sink to nasty libel.  Sometimes there is just nastiness.  There is no good reason for personalizing their comments, especially since they do not know the author.

For one thing, they accuse me of lying.  It doesn’t occur to them that someone can have studied the issue and honestly disagree with them.  They will claim that I do not know the subject but also that I know the subject and will not admit their truth.  Alternatively, they cover their own dissimulation by accusing opponents of it.

Citing counter-arguments that I already have disproved, sometimes in the same article they comment about, they urge me to “admit” the case against Israel.  How can they expect me to admit what I have just disproved?  That is a failure of logic on their part.

Another failure of logic is to denounce Israeli defensive measures, such as checkpoints, without seeming to understand that those measures were forced on Israel by Arab terrorism.  They should blame Arab terrorism as the cause of checkpoints.  They do not blame Arab terrorism for its many crimes.  It is they who do not admit obvious truths.

These illogical responses are not just by my readers.  Human rights organizations and the State Dept. also make such errors, even after having been advised of the errors.  Truth is no object, to them, either.

In a failure of chronological logic, some critics assert that the Israeli presence in the Territories caused terrorism.  They seem unaware that terrorism preceded the Israeli take-over of the Territories.  And Arab aggression caused the Israeli take-over.  Terrorism now is a continuation of terrorism earlier.  What came later can’t cause what came earlier.  Elementary logic.  They do not grasp it. 

Some of the comments are frankly antisemitic.

I have explained the rules to readers, that the Examiner does not tolerate insults.   The critics would not submit insulting comments to the New York Times.  They know that newspaper would not publish them.  I delete them.  Too bad those critics do not try to contribute to adult discussion.  If they disagree with decorum, their comments stay.

Some complain of censorship, when their nasty posts are deleted.  They imagine they have a right to force nasty remarks upon a publisher.  How absurd!  It reveals either lack of understanding of democracy or an attack upon civilized behavior.

One tells me I cannot properly judge the Goldstone report without having read the whole report.  I explained how, from numerous admissions by and about the Goldstone mission and the UN, from reading its conclusions and many excerpts, from understanding its sources and the material that it copied, from noting that one of those sources, Human Right Watch, has recanted several of its accusations, from logical analysis, and from knowledge of the situation, I could judge the UN effort.  Nevertheless, he keeps repeating his claim.  That means he keeps turning into that blind alley, because all he cares about is having something to accuse one of, not to discuss.  I think such people suffer from a deliberate inability to learn contrary notions. 

This deliberate inability to learn contrary notions prompts critics to comment about the general Muslim-Israel conflict, as if in answer to my specific points.  That is either a failure of logic on their part, implicit admission that they do not know about those specifics, or a ploy for changing the topic.  The general points they make I have refuted.  Their bringing them up, again, makes no sense.  I have tried to engage them in debate, but they ignore my specifics, change the topic, repeat what I have refuted, and inject more churlishness.  It doesn’t pay to bother with them.

If I report a specific war crime by Hamas, the anti-Israel critics retort by asserting a general war crime effort by Israel.  They remind me of when I condemned some move by the Soviet Union, and Communist “fellow travelers” replied, “What about Little Rock?”  (A locus of school segregation.)  Arkansas had segregation, but did that excuse Soviet purges?  As for Israel, I had explained that it fought more honorably than all other armies, did not commit war crimes, kept civilian casualties low, but not being omniscient, did make some battlefield errors, bound to happen in war.
 
The critics probably did not read my refutation of their general doctrine.  They dabble, picking out very few samples of my 1,400 articles.  That leaves them in a poor position to judge the whole opus.  Nor do they want to be in such a position.  They reject in general and in specifics whatever runs contrary to their ideology.  Prejudiced in their review, they do not realize how little basis there is for their views.   

When I discuss the specific reasons that the Israeli presence in the Territories is legal and proper, they ignore my points and just assert what my points explain are not correct.  They go on to tell me that since most of the world now agrees with them, I must be wrong.  But the world did not come up with new arguments.  It came up with new or more widespread prejudice and vested interests.  Bandwagon propaganda, does not persuade an intelligent person.  It reflects badly on its disseminator.  Truth cannot be determined by vote.

Arabs spread blood libel against Israel, as I report, but so far my readers have not joined in.  However, neither have the critics expressed disapproval of those libels.  Where is their moral fiber, they who claim to represent ethics?

They have the same moral lapse as Goldstone, in accusing Israel (erroneously) of war crimes, but exhibiting no indignation for the obvious war crimes by Hamas, which fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians and endangered their own civilians.  Since their ethical bias or blindness is apparent, they forfeit credibility.

 Ethics, credibility, truth – they make much of it.  However, they have made no comment about my demonstrating that Goldstone witnesses contradicted themselves, were proved to have lied, were sent by Hamas, and were not vetted.  Likewise about my showing that the Palestinian Authority makes statements in Arabic indoctrinating its people in bigotry and war, while making more pleasing statements in English to Sec. Clinton.  Like Clinton, the critics assert that Abbas recognizes Israel and wants peace, assertions that I disproved by quoting Abbas.  The blood libels by Arab leaders forfeit credibility, but the critics ignore it. 

History, they simply pervert.  During the wars I lived past, the news about Arab aggression and Arab flight was clear.  As memory fades or witnesses die, the critics call it Israeli aggression and expulsion of Arabs.  They revise the historical record to suit their prejudice. 

They coin misleading terminology that implicitly makes the Arab case: “Palestinian” nationality, “West Bank,” “occupied,” “settlement” within an existing and historically Jewish city.  Israeli leftists and the New York Times use adjectives such as “extremist” to denigrate opponents.   

They constantly lament in behalf of the Palestinian Arabs, but ignore the oppression of those Arabs by their rulers.  Their rulers run dictatorial or even totalitarian, regimes.  That means murder, embezzlement, arrest of dissidents, lower status for women, sacrificing their own people a human shields, making war instead of peace, etc..  Critics’ silence about that indicates lack of compassion for the people they claim to champion.  If they do not care about the Palestinian Arabs, then they must be against Israel out of sordid motives. 

Enough, for now.