By painting a picture of an army that never attacks civilians, that indeed goes out of its way to protect them, the Big Lie says Israelis are civilized and humane, and their Palestinian opponents are inhuman monsters. The Big Lie serves the idea that the slaughter in Gaza is a clash of civilizations, a war between democracy, decency and honor on one side and Islamic barbarism on the other. And in the uncommon cases when news of atrocities penetrates to the wider public, Israel blames the destruction and casualties on Hamas. George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four called this form of propaganda doublethink. Doublethink uses logic against logic and repudiate[s] morality while laying claim to it. The Big Lie does not allow for the nuances and contradictions that can plague conscience. It is a state-orchestrated response to the dilemma of cognitive dissonance. The Big Lie permits no gray zones. The world is black and white, good and evil, righteous and unrighteous. The Big Lie allows believers to take comfort—a comfort they are desperately seeking—in their own moral superiority at the very moment they have abrogated all morality. The Big Lie, as the father of American public relations, Edward Bernays, wrote, is limited only by the propagandist’s capacity to fathom and harness the undercurrents of individual and mass psychology. And since most supporters of Israel do not have a desire to know the truth, a truth that would force them to examine their own racism and self-delusions about Zionist and Western moral superiority, like packs of famished dogs they lap up the lies fed to them by the Israeli government. The Big Lie always finds fertile soil in what Bernays called the logic-proof compartment of dogmatic adherence. All effective propaganda, Bernays wrote, targets and builds upon these irrational psychological habits.” truthdig/report/item/why_israel_lies_20140803 #Israel #IsraelLies #IsraelGenocide #IsraelWarCrimes #Gaza #GazaUnderAttack
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 19:00:01 +0000
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