Debunking the Pro-Palestine Propaganda Machine

How they communicate to manipulate

In the aftermath of the October 7th terrorist attacks we have seen an unprecedented amount of both veiled and in your face antisemitism. Instead of the world rallying around the victims of this heinous terrorist attack, as happened with the US after 9/11, it only took a few days (or hours in the case of some Muslims) for the defenders of Palestine to shift the narrative away from October 7th and towards their historic grievances which was Hamas’ objective all along.

This has been one of the most disheartening world events of my lifetime, because the amount of antisemitism that’s been on display means that we’ve learned nothing from history.

Antisemitism is a reality in the Arab/Muslim world and anybody that denies this is ignorant…you only need to listen and actually believe what they are shouting to the rooftops.

But the antisemitism in the West is a reflection of what’s wrong with our society, not what is wrong with the Jews.

Just look at the intersectional coalition that are attacking Israel to understand this:

I’m sorry, but the company you keep matters. For the most part, these are the groups of people that are currently the biggest threat to Western civilization, and each and everyone of them is aligned with Palestinians against Israel.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali brilliantly summed up the three greatest threats to the West in this recent article for Unherd (probably the most intellectually honest media platform on the planet):

Western civilisation is under threat from three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilise a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation.

I’m not saying all the people that have come out in support of Palestinians are antisemites. Some people actually see any death as a tragedy and think that peace would be possible if only we all sat down at a table and talked this out. I think they are naive, ignorant and don’t understand the moral imperatives of the present situation, but I’m not sure that they actually hate Jews…and maybe ignorance is not an excuse, but that’s a debate for another day.

In any case, this ignominious coalition have put together a number of communication strategies, narratives and talking points to promote their agenda. There are many false, logically fallacious and immoral arguments currently being made in support of the Palestinian cause.

So in this article I’m going to break down how many of their arguments aren’t meant to communicate, but rather to manipulate.

Tactic: Shift the debate towards the historical context

This is the most common and the most effective tactic that they use because what they do is try to lump October 7th into the greater and more complicated story of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The effect is to minimize October 7th and deny Israel the moral high ground for their justifiable military response.

It is both immoral and dangerous to make this argument.

First, there is never any justification for terrorism. This was always a non-negotiable stance of the West. No, you don’t get to justify terrorism because you have some grievance…no matter how legitimate that grievance is.

Second, and this is the big one, if you accept this argument then you are legitimizing terrorism as a political tool and are inviting more of it in the future.

Hamas is an evil and barbaric death-cult that must be destroyed because they brutally massacred civilians. There is no nuance necessary in this context.

We could have had the bigger picture discussion on October 6th and we will have that discussion again after the military operation concludes, but for the time being if you’re talking about historical grievances then you are legitimizing terror.

You are sending the message to every terrorist organization on the planet that terror is a viable political tool so long as you have enough useful idiots willing to do PR for your cause…and there’s never been more useful idiots abound than today.

Tactic: Every death is a tragedy

Through the use of horrific anecdotal evidence, they will try to make you feel every single death is a preventable tragedy. They want to humanize the victims so that your compassion and empathy override the reality of the situation which is that war is always an atrocity.

But they don’t cover all wars or all victims of war this way. Just the Palestinian victims.

What they are doing here is trying to convince you that this conflict should be analyzed using only one variable: deaths.

If you follow their posts on X, it’s a never ending stream of war porn showing the most grotesque pictures of dead civilians. All they’re really proving is that war is horrific and should be avoided at all cost, but in their simple minds they think they’re exposing Israel.

There are no perfect solutions to the current situation. Israel really has no other choice but to wage this war because after 10/7, Hamas can not be allowed to continue to exist. We’ve eradicated other terror groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS because the nature of their crimes were too horrific to live with.

So if you can understand that this war is necessary and just, then you have to understand that civilian deaths happen because there are no perfect options, just tradeoffs.

This is the same exact tactic that was used during Covid-19 to justify their mandates and lockdowns. The argument was that if you don’t comply then people will die…you’ll kill grandma. They refused to analyze the situation through a more complex framework of understanding all the costs and benefits because it was easier to appeal to the emotional argument that human deaths are tragic.

In this case they’re making the case that war is horrific, but that just deflects from the current context of 10/7.

Again, it’s single variable analysis: “War is bad because people die, so there should be no war, and if you don’t agree then you’re a neocon or warmonger”. This is a favorite argument of the new right or conspiratorial right. The same people that were calling out the left for lack of critical thinking are now doing the same exact thing and thinking they’re somehow clever.

Narrative: We don’t hate Israel, we just want peace for all people

False, peace is not on the table. It has never has been on the table.

Palestinian leaders have only one condition for peace: the dissolution of Israel.

You might want to believe people when they tell you what they think. Maybe this could change with future leadership, but so far Hamas have never compromised on this issue.

So you are being disingenuous if you say that if Israel just made some concession then peace could be possible.

The dissolution of Israel is never going to happen and pretending that this is not Hamas’ objective is intellectually dishonest.

Narrative: The dissolution doesn’t mean Jews need to leave the land…they can stay and share it with the Arab people under the flag of Palestine.

I’ve seen this argument made and the naivety of these people is astounding.

Hamas has shown no willingness to co-habitate with Jews, but even if that were theoretically possible, the whole purpose of Israel is a state for the Jewish people. A nation that is strong enough to defend Jews because history has shown that others will not stand up for them…and that’s certainly being demonstrated today.

A one state solution would mean a majority Muslim population which undermines the entire purpose for a Jewish state. That would mean that Jews would be entrusting their entire security needs to Palestinians which is crazy.

It would also mean Jews submitting to governance by Arab Muslims who don’t have a particularly good track record for governance or respecting human rights in the region. It would essentially be the end of the only real Democracy in the region.

And this is not even going into the history of very successful ethnic cleansing of Jews in every single Muslim country in the region.

If this conflict has demonstrated anything, it is that Jews were correct in seeking to secure a homeland, because they cannot depend on others to come to their defense. This has been sadly confirmed by the reaction of many in the west.

Narrative: This is a land grab by Israel

Israel will not move a single Israeli to live in Gaza. I would condemn any Israeli attempt to seize parts of Gaza for use by Israelis, but that’s not the case.

First off, I don’t believe they want anything to do with Gaza. They would govern it out of necessity until a suitable government could be established, but I don’t think they want to repeat their past experience. Remember that Egypt governed Gaza for a long period and they also don’t want anything to do with them.

Second, there would be zero international support for this and at the present Israel needs its foreign partners more than ever.

But I will say that I think illegal settlements by Israelis in the West Bank are wrong and seriously undermine the Jewish cause. This is an issue for another day, but Israel deserves some blame for the existence of this narrative and this is something that they are going to have to come to terms with internally.

Talking Point: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people

Israel is targeting Hamas because of a war that was started by Hamas on 10/7.

There is no debate to be had that Israel has the right to wage this war.

Wars are horrific.

Civilian deaths in wars are tragic, but also inevitable.

Hamas increases these deaths by breaking the rules of war and hiding military targets among the civilian population. The attempts to pretend this isn’t the case are just laughable and the people trying to prove otherwise are propagandists or conspiracy theorists.

Israeli soldiers that commit war crimes are prosecuted in Israel.

The eyes of the entire world are on how Israel conducts this war and there is no evidence that Israel has policies or rules of engagement that are different from how the US has conducted similar operation in Iraq.

Don't believe me? Here's what @SpencerGuard, a scholar and expert on urban warfare, writes for CNN:

John Spencer has been a trusted source by CNN on urban warfare since the Russians invaded Ukraine, yet now he’s lying all of a sudden? No, I don’t think so.

Narrative: Israel’s response is disproportionate to the attack of 10/7

Again, there’s no debate over whether this is a just war…so the reality is that in war civilian deaths, while tragic, are inevitable.

And wars are never fought proportionately. Rather, the idea is to respond dis-proportionally because the objective is to win the war.

But then the argument is that far too many civilians are dying.

Look, we don’t know how many civilians have died because everybody just repeats numbers provided by Hamas which has lied repeatedly. It’s perfectly reasonable to assume that Hamas is inflating these numbers. A New York Times report from 11/21 states that they have not seen a single civilian in their visit into Gaza City.

But even if the numbers are that high, who is really responsible?

• Hamas started this war.

• Hamas hides their military infrastructure within civilian buildings.

• Hamas tries to prevent civilians from evacuating areas that Israel have deemed military targets

So Israel has neither the obligation to constrain it’s military operation’s response, nor responsible for how this war impacts civilians, yet they do make efforts to minimize civilian casualties.

Again, under the international rules of war, they are required to do their best to minimize civilian deaths, but civilians do not make valid military targets immune from attack.

So then the narrative inevitably turns to the next argument that they use:

Narrative: Israel is killing for revenge, not for war

I am sure that revenge is in the hearts of some Israelis. And maybe that creates some situations where some Israelis behave reprehensibly. I don’t deny that this can happen, but to use individual instances of such behavior or statements as a reflection of the Israelis as a whole is not consistent with the facts.

As far as how this war is being conducted, Israel is already held to a higher standard than any other western military.

For example, they announce their targets in advance so that civilians have time to evacuate. That’s unheard of in a war.

They also try to use anecdotes of hateful statements made by Israelis in the past. You can’t condone that, but it’s a reality of human nature. There is fear, anger and hate…and people say terrible things.

But you can only evaluate Israel, as a whole, through the lens of how their military is conducting this operation and so far there is no evidence that they are acting outside of appropriate rules of engagement.

Talking Point: There are even Jews that have come out in support of Palestine

Again, there are plenty of useful idiots abound. There are also LGBTQ people that “stand with Palestine” even though they’d be murdered if they ever set foot in Gaza.

Talking Point: Israel/Netanyahu created Hamas

This falls into the category of conspiracy theories where things are taken out of context to misrepresent reality. There’s a very good technical explanation which would require way too much space for the purpose of my article.

Here is the detailed explanation for anybody that wants to go down this rabbit hole:

Talking Point: We just want freedom for Palestinians

The only stated goal of Hamas is the elimination of Israel.

Again, the idea that peace is even possible is nonsense.

And their supports believe in the same exact thing.

Watch this report by Unherd where they ask people exactly what they are protesting for. When they say "Freedom for Palestine", they unambiguously mean the expulsion of all Jews from Israel.

So it’s not like there is a disconnect between the people and the leadership.

I was shocked to recently discover that it wasn’t just Hamas that was killing Israeli civilians on 10/7. Some of the worst atrocities were actually perpetrated by Gazan civilians who partook in the massacre.

They use words like freedom, peace and justice to manipulate, not to communicate. There is no interest in peace or a two state solution so when you align yourself with this cause, keep in mind that you’re not just calling for peace. You are aligning yourself with people that want to see Israel cease to exist.

Narrative: Killing Palestinians just leads more people to become radicalized against Israel

Radicalization happens at the educational and cultural level.

Palestinian children are being radicalized as a matter of policy, not because their relatives were killed and they’ve organically migrated to radicalization.

And by the way, the United Nations funds the indoctrination of school children through UNRWA which is basically just an extension of Hamas at this point.

If you are teaching children to hate, then they will be radicalized to hate for the rest of their lives.

The fact of the matter is that we are already dealing with a radicalized Palestinian population. 75% of Paestinians support the terrorist massacre of 10/7. That’s the very definition of radicalization.

So ultimately it’s a silly premise. How are you going to radicalize a society that has already been inducted into a death cult? It makes absolutely no difference if 85% rather than 75% are radicalized...it’s still the vast majority.

And until you get rid of the cult leaders who push this type of radicalization, you’re not going to begin to see any positive changes for Palestinians.

Talking Point: Gaza is an open air prison

The events of 10/7 demonstrated that whatever security measures were put in place by Israel to protect themselves from Hamas terrorists were insufficient to protect against the worst massacre of Jews since The Holocaust.

Ask yourself why such security measures are necessary.

Hamas makes propaganda videos about how they repurposed water pipes to make rockets.

Of course Isreal has to be vigilant about what is transported into Gaza because Hamas is going to use anything they can get their hands on to attack and kill Israelis.

I’d also like to hear an explanation of what Israel should have done. Allow Hamas to bring in all kinds of rockets and weapons? That’s what happened with Hezbollah to their north and now there are many thousands of Iranian rockets pointed at Israeli cities.

Argument: At some point, the number of civilian deaths will be too high to further justify a military operation by Israel

This is a point I heard Piers Morgan make on his recent show during an interview of Eylon Levy. His argument is that at some point the sheer weight of Palestinian civilians death will create too much of a moral burden for Israel to continue military operations.

First, I want to say that I think Piers has been fair in his coverage of events so I’m not suggesting he’s part of any propaganda. And he’s not wrong in his reasoning because if this military operation were to kill one million civilians then we’d all agree that was too steep a price to pay. So where does one draw that line?

First, I should emphasize that we don’t really know what civilian deaths are beyond what Hamas says they are. I don’t trust them because they’ve lied repeatedly and because it’s impossible to have accurate figures in the fog of war.

Second, we should recognize that civilian deaths are the objective for Hamas. It’s the only leverage that they have in compelling the west to force Israel to stand down. So giving into this argument is to allow Hamas to win and further embolden more global terrorism because they know that they can always turn western public opinion with endless pictures of dead children on social media.

Third, the nature of war has not changed. Social media is just showing us what war has always looked like. It’s a form of manipulation meant to weaken our collective will to fight back. The problem is there is no forthcoming compassion from the people on the other end of this conflict. It’s a sort of pacifist dilema where our values are weaponized against us even though we aren’t the ones who started the conflict.

Fourth, Palestinians civilians are not completely without blame in this conflict. As I mentioned, 75% support the terror attacks of 10/7 and 76% support Hamas. They voted Hamas into power. Gazan civilians participated in some of the most gruesome attacks on 10/7. Yes, it was not just Hamas…Palestinian civilians participated in the massacres. So I think it’s fair to say that the civilian population does bear some blame for what is currently happening in Gaza.

Fifth, this is a radicalized population not unlike the citizens of Germany and Japan after WW2. No civilian death toll was considered too high in order to accomplish the objective of unconditional surrender. Fascist regimes can not be allowed to continue to exist because they will continue to generate the same problems and conflicts.

And finally, I think we need to look at the problem in terms of the future. There are no good solutions at the moment. There are only horrible options for the short term. But those options need to be weighed against their future consequences. If Hamas is allowed to remain in power, they will have won. And there were be consequences to this in the future because death cults do what death cults do. It will only extend the suffering of the Palestinian people indefinitely to allow them to exist under this type of leadership. You’re just creating more pain over a longer period of time, but you’re fooling yourself into thinking that is compassionate because you are spared seeing death and suffering in the short term.

These are very complicated issues to parse and ultimately I don’t have an answer to how many civilian deaths is too many. I don’t even think there is one, but what we need to do is not to confound the analysis through emotional thinking. As horrible as that sounds, there are no great solutions…just tradeoffs.

Final thoughts

I’ve been asked repeatedly whether I am Jewish as if that would explain my very strong convictions about the nature of the present moment. Well I’m not. I have no particularly strong links with Israel beyond the fact that I’ve educated myself on the region as it is frequently a driver of world events. I’ve never posted anything about Israel before, although I have commented in the past that I’ve seen growing anti-semitism.

So why do I care? Why wade into such a polarizing topic?

First, because it’s the moral thing to do. I’ve been horrified to watch the world turn on Israel after enduring what they did on 10/7. I’ve been disgusted by the mainstreaming of antisemitism in western society.

I believe that holding onto objective morality is critical for our society, and I’ve been shocked to see how so many can shift so quickly into embracing moral relativism. The inability of people to understand very simple concepts about right and wrong baffles me. And it probably scares me because it shows how little we’ve learned from history. And just how malleable most people are unfortunately.

The second reason is more pragmatic. If you think this is only about “The Jews” or about Israel, you are wrong. You need to also see this through the prism of the current attack on western civilization by a number of forces; both internal and external. I look at what the Jewish people are currently facing as the proverbial canary in a coal mine situation. Something has gone seriously wrong with our society for this to be happening. This is the point that Ayaan Hirsi Ali makes in the Unherd article I shared earlier so if you didn’t read it yet, I urge you to circle back and understand the issue she is highlighting. There is no guarantee that western civilization will endure if we don’t fight for the values that are important to us.

Finally, there’s the obvious issue of Islamic terrorism which is still a clear and present danger. The situation in Israel has been a PR win for Hamas and will embolden other terrorist groups to bring the terrorist attacks back to western soil. Our divided response only legitimizes terrorism as a viable political tool. I’m not sure why people can’t see this. It hasn’t been that long since we all faced waves of terrorism in the west. In fact, the lull in recent years has been the exception rather than the rule during my lifetime.

If we don’t learn from history then we will be doomed to repeat it.