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| Synagogue in Portugal defaced with "Free Palestine" on October 10, 2023 |
Two years ago, I noted that Jovan Byford, an expert on conspiracy theories, defined the line between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism to be the line where that criticism turns into a conspiracy theory.
The events since October 7 show this to be true, yet again.
Every accusation against Israel is a conspiracy theory. The Leftist antisemites and their Islamist partners have put forth an astonishing number of Zionist schemes:
* The accusations of rape and sexual abuse on October 7 are all lies made up to demonize Palestinians
* The civilians murdered on October 7 were really killed by Israel and blamed on Hamas
* The returned hostages are all now lying about any abuse they suffered or witnessed; their words at gunpoint in Gaza were the real truth
* The IDF is deliberately targeting civilians and their denials prove it
* Any Israeli statements that they are only going after Hamas is a cover story for their real desire for genocide of Palestinians
* But they are really bad at hiding that genocidal desire because they also say it explicitly, sometimes using secret code words like "Amalek"
* The entire war is a means for Netanyahu to stay in power
* Hamas members admitting atrocities on video have been tortured
* Any Western support for Israel is proof that Israel controls the West
* Israel doesn't really care about the hostages, all statements to the contrary are gaslighting
* Israel is hiding the real number of IDF soldiers killed
* Israel is digging up bodies of Gazans and stealing their organs to give to Jews
The list goes on and on.
But this is not only the domain of far-Left activists and Muslim antisemites. The major conspiracy theory being bandied about is one that every major media outlet is engaging in: the assumption that Israelis are lying in every statement, and nothing they say can be trusted.
This is the antisemitism of the BBC implying that the IDF forged evidence that Al Jazeera reporter Hamza al-Dahdouh was on the Islamic Jihad payroll.
Or CNN implying that that the photos of weapons found in Shifa Hospital were untrustworthy because the weapons were moved to create a photo-op.
Or the widespread assumptions by reporters who do not understand international law that Israel is obviously violating it.
Or that every Israeli denial of accusations of war crimes - from murdering Christian women to firing on hospitals to bombing fleeing Gazans - is suspect, even though the IDF readily admits when it makes mistakes.
I cannot count the number of times I've seen the media parrot Hamas claims about civilian casualties without any skepticism, while all Israeli evidence, photos, documents and videos are treated as inherently untrustworthy.
The subtext for all these stories is that Jews are liars. Not only that, but they collude to hide their lies from the world. Their evidence might be faked, their statements that they were nowhere near reported incidents might be lies, their refusal to allow reporters to wander in a war zone is proof that they have something to hide and every reporter who dies was deliberately targeted. And at the same time, the media can find "experts" to confirm that Israeli statements are suspicious, using the same methods that 9/11 "truthers" use to claim that airplanes could not have brought down the World Trade Center.
Somehow they never look for experts who can confirm Israeli statements.
By their nature, conspiracy theories resist debunking, because all evidence is categorized as part of the conspiracy. When Israel immediately issues a denial it cannot be true because it happened to fast; when they spend three days ensuring that there was no IDF activity in the spot they are accused of war crimes that is proof that they spent the time manufacturing evidence.
The only reason that the theories are so eagerly accepted is because so many people truly believe that Jews are always up to something. Having an audience eager to believe something is 90% of what the conspiracy theorists need to spread their poison.
The progressive Left loves to claim that only the far-Right engage in conspiracy thinking and that they are interested in science and evidence. But their own antisemitic theories are no less conspiratorial than those of Qanon or David Duke.
