In Mein Kampf, Hitler used The Big Lie to explain how Jews had manipulated the results of World War I. Chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels and his minions of Nazi propagandists used The Big Lie as a fulcrum to galvanize mainstream society against Jews. Their goal was to justify their own murderous operations against the Jews.
The concept is simple. Tell a lie often enough and people will believe it. People are gullible. If the lie is told over and over, voiced with conviction, and echoed by the right people in the right places, it becomes internalized by the masses.
Today, especially across university campuses, we are witnessing The Big Lie emerge with ferocious momentum. The biggest Big Lie circa 2024 is that Jews and Israel are perpetrating genocide against the people of Gaza.
Around the globe, lies are being spread about Jews and Israelis. The more they are told, the more people believe them. They are part of an organized campaign, formulated by an organized machine that disseminates vile untruths about the IDF, Jews, and Israelis.
This Big Lie is all over social media, and it comes in all forms.
The lies, spread like a violent current, like a powerful stream, are confirmed over and over again. And that is why we see so many protests – across America and across Europe, with such vast numbers of participants. The masses, especially the young masses, are being convinced by the lies.
The only response to The Big Lie is that truth can disprove the lies. But unlike lies, truth must be proven to be believed – and that is not easy.
According to the latest Pew Research Center findings, the vast number of Americans, the overwhelming majority, reject the Hamas massacre of October 7. To their thinking, Israel’s response to the “so-called” massacre is part of the problem.
Because of The Big Lie, many people believe that Israel is unjustified in their response to Hamas. The vast exaggeration of the number of dead Gazans is one reason. It is also one of The Big Lies. Even pencil pushers in the US administration parrot Hamas’s numbers. We know their numbers are not and cannot be true, and yet the fake numbers are still quoted all the time. They are an essential part of The Big Lie.
The three options for young people
AS JEW-hatred gains momentum people, especially young people – university students as well as those in their professional and social lives – are confronted with the dilemma of Israel vs Hamas. Many who love Israel, love their family, and love their Jewish history feel tremendous social pressure to downplay their loyalty and, instead, join the haters of Israel. These young people are caught in a terrible bind.
They have three options. Option one is to stand up against the lies. That requires great internal fortitude, personal strength, and a strong sense of self. It also requires great knowledge – enough to confront the lies and the ability to take “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune… and by opposing them end them.” That is not easy.
Option two is to do what many in the established Jewish community have done and what the US administration has done: Make a clear distinction between Israel on the one hand and Netanyahu and his government on the other. This group proclaims that they are not anti-Israel nor anti-Jewish, they are merely anti-Prime Minister Netanyahu. They claim that they could never be pro-Bibi and his government; that Bibi is the cause of this problem, and that they support Israel and Israel’s right to exist.
This group tries to thread and needle and thereby save face in front of Jew-haters and haters of Israel and stop just short of appalling or even being ex-communicated by their families. By saying that they would never support Netanyahu and his government – the root of the problem, they are doing what President Joe Biden is doing in response to the small, stridently vocal, extreme left flank of the Democratic party.
Then there is the third option – to embrace the haters, justify the mass murderers, and excuse the mass rapists. Members of this group believe the rhetoric and actively spread The Big Lie.
For young Jews, it is a hard decision to make. Afraid of the social repercussions and public humiliation, not wanting to be ostracized by their colleagues, classmates, and peers, knowing that they will likely suffer for being labeled as supporters of Israel and defenders of the Jewish people – they swallow hard, bite the bullet and choose an option they do not wholly believe in. And in so doing – in public gatherings and conversations – they are in step with supporters of genocide.
These people hide the fact that their siblings might be in Israel studying for their gap year or that they are joining their family in Israel for Passover. They live in shame and quake in fear of being unmasked.
They know it is wrong and that Israel is right. They understand that Israel may have made some mistakes but is not raping and massacring Palestinians. They know that The Big Lie is a great big lie. What they don’t know is how to tell their world the truth.
The writer is a social and political commentator. Watch his TV show Thinking Out Loud on the Jewish Broadcasting Service.