When the narrative IS antisemitism, the world is heading for disaster ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, August 01, 2025

When the narrative IS antisemitism, the world is heading for disaster

Here is a chart (not to scale) that describes how the media has treated narrative vs. facts over the past few hundred years in the US.

The Partisan Press Era was in the 1700s–1800s. Early newspapers (in the US at least) were explicit organs of political factions. No one pretended to be objective and the public knew exactly what they were getting.

The "Objective" Journalism Movement dominated from the 1890s–1950s. Here's where the media concentrated on providing facts first, context second. There was still plenty of bias but the methodologies of reporting were more professional.

The Broadcast Consolidation Era (1950s–1980s) saw three major US networks and major wire services that dominated the news gathering and reporting. Again, there was bias, but it was normally pro-American, anti-communist, pro-growth.

The Cable & Culture War Era from the 1980s to 2000s, with talk radio and Fox News, saw the country begin to bifurcate ideologically. This resulted in more biased news sources on the left and the right. News became entertainment and storylines started replacing events.

Now we are in the Algorithmic Attention Economy where the media is emotion-driven and platform-optimized. Social media and SEO incentivize outrage, virality, and moral certainty. Traditional media adapted by embedding moral binaries and identity frames - but, crucially, still positioning itself as it was 50 years ago, pretending to be objective. The line between op-ed and reporting is blurred.

Facts are now secondary to framing and narrative in even the most prestigious news sources.

Given the influence of social media and faux morality, the actual facts are harder to come by. And people are being bombarded with contradictory messaging from different places. They are confused and need some sort of way to make an increasingly bizarre world make sense.

Conspiracy theories, by definition, pretend to find a simple answer to complex problems. And conspiracy theories always end up moving towards the mothership of conspiracies - the Jews.

Antisemitism offers what the confused public seems to need. It turns complex problems into simple accusations. ("The bankers," "the Zionists," "the media.") It channels guilt, shame, or rage into a target that can never be fully exonerated. It recasts Jewish practices and ideas as metaphors for domination, thereby preserving ideological purity. It adapts across ideologies because it is morally empty and symbolically rich - it can mean anything while still blaming Jews.

Right now we are in a perfect antisemitic propaganda storm.

I noted earlier this week that Palestinian human rights is horrendous and a Palestinian state would be a disaster for the Palestinians themselves. This is a fact. But, as I showed, no one is interested in this fact - practically no one even researches Palestinian human rights abuses and corruption.

These should be relevant facts in any discussion about recognizing a Palestinian state, as it would be for any other state, but they are completely absent. The moves towards Western nations recognizing a Palestinian stare are not positioned as anything other than punishment of Israel for its role in a perceived humanitarian disaster in Gaza.

But while many (hardly all) Gazans are indeed suffering, it isn't because of Israel. Israel has done more to feed enemy civilians than any nation in history. The facts show that most aid is being stolen, that Hamas is weaponizing aid, that Hamas will endanger civilians for political gain, and that Hamas controls the information about casualties and hunger coming out of Gaza.

The media is ignoring these facts. The reason? Because the narrative is more important than the facts, yet the medias still frames its reporting as fact-based and not narrative-driven. The facts of Palestinian human rights violations, Palestinian support for terror in every poll, Palestinian Authority corruption, Hamas stealing aid, Hamas using human shields and fomenting riots to force violence at aid sites - all of these are well documented but violate the narrative of Israeli evil.

The narrative is antisemitic.

But too many people are attracted to antisemitic narratives that they will not demand the same standards of objectivity that they pretend to uphold.

Up until recently, governments understood the difference between narrative reporting and objective facts. But under the tsunami of antisemitic lies, facilitated by the UN and human rights NGOs, together with coordinated violent anti-Israel demonstrations and concern over rising extremism in their own countries, together with latent antisemitism that has never really gone away, they have started to swallow and embrace the lies that have been broadcast non-stop since October 7.

Hence, supporting a Palestinian state without scrutiny. Hence, blaming Israel for food shortages that are directly the result of Hamas policies. Hence, the deliciousness of accusing the Jewish state of genocide, of turning into the Nazis that tried to destroy the Jews as policy.

For sure, Israel's public relations efforts have been execrable. But that is only part of the problem when the world assumes everything Jews say are a lie.

The narrative is the driving force for which facts are believed and which are discarded. The world has fallen for the lie that the media and NGOs are objective. The desire for a simple explanation makes antisemitism more attractive than at any time since the 1940s.

Until we restore a distinction between narrative and fact, and hold moral claims to account, antisemitism will continue to wear the mask of virtue - and the decisions made by world leaders will lead to disaster.