The New York Times has published a story about a supposed Iranian plot to use chemical weapons which nobody actually believes.
Not even the perpetually war-horny New York Times tries to frame this as a real news report, presenting it instead as a subject of tense division inside the Trump White House. Here’s an excerpt:
“Israel has shared intelligence with the United States asserting that Iran is considering the use of chemical weapons against its adversaries, information met with alarm by some American officials and deep skepticism by others, according to U.S. and regional officials.
“Some American officials see the Israeli intelligence as part of a pressure campaign by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to persuade the Trump administration to return to major combat operations against Iran.
“Other officials believe the threats should be taken seriously, given the recent array of warnings about Iran’s preparations to attack American interests.”
To be clear, not one single person anywhere on earth believes this is true. Israel doesn’t believe it. Washington doesn’t believe it. Nobody reading about it in the New York Times believes it. But we’re hearing about it anyway like it’s a real thing, because too many powerful people want more bombing in Iran.
Israel supporters are unique in the way literally all of them constantly pretend to believe things they don’t actually believe.
Over the years I’ve argued with members of every political ideology on earth, and I’ve never encountered any group who does this like Zionists do. Other ideological factions might hold idiotic and downright evil beliefs, but for the most part they tend to actually believe the things they are saying.
Not so with Israel supporters. I’ve been interacting with them for years, often over extended conversations just to understand their arguments and their worldview, and what stands out the most in these interactions is the way they constantly lie about what they think is true.
They’ll pretend to believe a given high-profile critic of Israeli atrocities hates Jews just to help marginalize their voice. They’ll pretend to believe Iran is on the cusp of developing nuclear weapons in order to help drum up support for war. They’ll pretend to believe antisemitism is one of the most urgent and dangerous threats to our society today in order to push for more laws against pro-Palestine protests. They’ll pretend to believe every human rights group on earth is lying about Israel committing genocide in order to help Israel commit more genocidal crimes against humanity.
In my time I have argued with many individuals who misrepresent my beliefs and the beliefs of other people, but Israel supporters are the only ideological group I’ve ever encountered who consistently misrepresent THEIR OWN beliefs.
I’ve seen it over and over and over again. I’ll corner them on one of the claims they are making about what they believe, completely dismantling their given reasons for why they believe what they claim to believe, and they’ll just shift to some other reason justifying the existence of their belief.
And this should not be surprising. If you would support genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid, of course you would lie about your own beliefs to advance those agendas. Bad people do bad things. If genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid do not bother you, then you are unlikely to have ethical qualms about communicating without intellectual honesty.
These days I mostly just respond to such people by saying “You don’t really believe that. You’re just pretending to believe that in order to advance the interests of a genocidal apartheid state.” It’s the only way to deal with a group who literally never engages in good faith on any level.
Israel supporters need to do this because their worldview is not grounded in truth or morality. They don’t hold their position because it is morally or factually correct, they hold it to advance personal agendas like career advancement, ladder-climbing, getting into Heaven, getting those tasty hasbara bucks, or winning the approval of their Zionist friends and family.
In a healthy civilization, supporting Israel would be as culturally toxic as loving Adolf Hitler or advocating the legalization of child sex trafficking. But we do not live in a healthy civilization. We live under a murderous, globe-spanning empire that is held together by lies and endless bloodshed. Zionism is rewarded and amplified because its evils are shared with the evils of the rest of the western imperial power structure which is choking our world to death.
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