The Invisible Weapon: Propaganda Operations Behind Global Antisemitism and the Israeli-Palestinian Narrative
Of the many, many world events that have surprised and confused me over the past 4 turbulent years, perhaps the most shocking was seeing mass demonstrations across the Western world in support of Hamas in response to their Oct 7th terrorist attack on Israel.The Human-Rights Establishment
From street protests and traffic blockades to a flood of social media posts, a strong narrative has taken hold globally and is driving a mass anti-Israel activist movement. The narrative goes something like this: Jews are white colonizers who stole Israel’s land from the native Palestinians, created an apartheid state, are holding Palestinians in prison-like conditions, and are committing genocide against them.
Amazingly, every single part of this narrative is definitively false; yet it is widely and passionately believed around the world- especially among young people.
The goal of this text is not to prove why the narrative is wrong, as many other people are already doing so and the facts are readily available to anyone willing to do research. My goal is rather to bring light to the side that no one is talking about, to expose where the narrative comes from and reveal what might be the world’s most successful propaganda and psyop campaign, ever.
Could it be that the widespread falsehoods and misunderstandings about the history of Israel and the long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians organically emerged and found ideological adoption around the world? It turns out, no.
In this work, I aim to clearly and concisely demonstrate how the Soviet Union and subsequently the current Russian regime have developed and propagated a fabricated narrative and recruited, trained, planted, and supported a network of agents to carry out a wide-reaching campaign of deception and ideological subversion with the intent to advance their geopolitical interests in the Middle East and beyond — and that this Russian effort is at the heart of modern day global antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment.
In making my case, I will rely heavily on firsthand accounts from expert witnesses who held high ranking positions in Soviet intelligence and verified classified Soviet documents. By definition, the work of the KGB or any intelligence organization, if effective, is supposed to be undetectable and untraceable; which is why it’s crucial to rely on sources from the inside.
Past critiques have shown that regulatory and legal gaps leave significant flaws in how NGOs answer to donors and the governments of countries where they operate, as well as in their responsibility to affected communities when their projects and interventions go awry.Leo Dee: We Are All "Settlers" Now
Too often, rights groups have been able to swat away allegations of bias without meaningful proof or challenge. Too frequently, NGO issues have arisen only to disappear from the radar as rogue incidents, rather than being connected as points in a possible pattern. There are too many examples of malpractice that have come to light only because of leaks, rather than because rights groups practice the transparency and accountability that they demand of others.
Shamefully then, they must be made to do so. The push for them to prove, not just claim, their rectitude must be exerted from without and targeted at what does matter to them.
Needless to say, the media must treat NGOs as they would any other source: critically and with fact-checking.
As tax-exempt entities under section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, U.S.-based human-rights groups should face rigorous congressional scrutiny like that applied to similarly tax-exempt Ivy League universities in December 2023. Groups based in other countries need similar governmental oversight.
Human-rights organizations must also submit to independent, thorough, external reviews of their operations, with the findings made public — and not only after a reporter happens to find that such a review has been sat on for months.
These audits should include investigating their editing, corrections, and fact-checking processes, as well as complaint mechanisms, meeting minutes, research priorities, resource allocations, terminology, and organizational operations. Staff must be interviewed for their experiences related to workplace culture and management. (In nearly 14 years, I formally reviewed my managers once. Budget reasons, I was told.)
Concerned staff must speak out and join forces if they want to change the course of organizations they feel are gravely distorting their values. One place to start is for them to share their experiences so that the nature and scope of problems can be understood, a first step to forging solutions. NGO Confidential is a new platform designed for this purpose. The often-heard rationale that was my own for many years — “I don’t like what’s happening, but at least if I’m here, I can try to do something about it” — is doomed to fail if everyone thinks it alone.
Focusing on the warped thinking and practice, never mind the deafening silence of many NGOs on Hamas’s wanton savagery of October 7, does not abnegate Palestinian suffering or Israeli abuses.
Rather, pointing this out is to show that the failures of rights monitors before and after October 7 reveal wider problems so fundamental to accuracy and fairness that they ultimately collapse NGO claims to be reliable and apolitical when they serve as society’s presumptive moral ambassadors in the halls of power and influence.
And this focus is about noting the dismal reality that the capacity of people to rejoice at, ignore, and relativize Jewish suffering has historically often been the canary in the coal mine, a portent of society’s wider moral slide.
As such, the corruption of human-rights organizations is a warning light not just for Jews and Israelis, but for all.
The Gazans had independence for almost 20 years, after Israel evacuated the 10,000 Jews living in Gush Katif in 2005.
They have enjoyed self-rule and billions of dollars of foreign aid since the Disengagement, with UNRWA-funded schools and Qatar-funded mosques and hospitals.
By attacking Israeli kibbutzim and launching heavy missile attacks into Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Tel Aviv, the Gazans made something very clear. They regard every Israeli as a "settler."
This should not have been so surprising since Palestinians and their supporters have been calling for a Palestinian state "from the river to the sea" for many decades, a term that defines the entire State of Israel as their rightful homeland.
We are all "settlers" now. Hamas has made clear that they see no difference between any type of Israelis.