How Israeli Propaganda Works: Oppose the Occupation and You Become “Hamas”, “Muslim Brotherhood”, or “Anti-Semitic”! |
As Palestinians mark the seventy-eighth anniversary of the Nakba, I found myself once again turning over old photographs and fragments of memory from my destroyed village, Majdal Al-Sadiq; a village erased during the creation of Israel, from which my father was expelled as an eight-year-old child.
On a day heavy with remembrance, grief, and inherited loss, I was confronted instead with yet another inflammatory article in an Israeli newspaper targeting me and several other activists.
Even on a day that symbolises one of the greatest collective traumas in Palestinian history, there was no pause, no restraint, no recognition of human pain, only more incitement, more smears, more attempts to dehumanise those who speak for Palestinian rights.
Even on a day that symbolises one of the greatest collective traumas in Palestinian history, there was no pause, no restraint, no recognition of human pain, only more incitement, more smears, more attempts to dehumanise those who speak for Palestinian rights.
But perhaps expecting sensitivity from a propaganda machine that continues to justify mass killing and devastation in Gaza is itself misplaced. Those who normalise the destruction of entire families are hardly likely to concern themselves with the feelings of the survivors.
Accusations no longer require evidence.
It is enough to criticise the occupation, reject genocide, or question the official narrative, and suddenly you find yourself labelled “pro-Hamas”, “Muslim Brotherhood”, “extremist”, or — in its most overused and intellectually hollow form — “anti-Semitic”.
It is enough to criticise the occupation, reject genocide, or question the official narrative, and suddenly you find yourself labelled “pro-Hamas”, “Muslim Brotherhood”, “extremist”, or — in its most overused and intellectually hollow form — “anti-Semitic”.
It really is that simple.
Through relentless overuse, these accusations have become little more than ready-made stamps deployed against every voice that unsettles the pro-Israel lobby and every writer who dares step beyond the boundaries of what is considered acceptable within mainstream Western discourse. It no longer matters whether the target is Islamist, left-wing, liberal, or even someone with no political affiliation whatsoever. The only real criterion is this: did they make Israel uncomfortable or not?
The greater the discomfort, the harsher the accusation.
This is why we have seen such allegations........