How can we discern truth from propaganda? How do we know who is lying and who is telling the truth when we hear debates about political topics? I have written an article about this in the Spring Issue of Logos which focuses on the Middle East.
Perhaps the best approach to evaluating the truth about a conflict can be to look at 4 things, Tactics Targets, Glorification and Demonization. Let say we want to evaluate the truth of whether the creation of the modern state of Israel was the result of an evil occupation in which innocent Arabs were murdered by Jewish terrorists and expelled from their land or it was the result of Jews returning to their land and buying their land back from Arabs who shouldn't have been there in the first place. We can try and wade through the allegations of each side to answer this question and there are ways to determine the likelihood of the allegations or we can use the indirect approach I have just mentioned.
We can look at who do the Israelis target and who do the Palestinian Arabs target. Of course the Palestinian Arabs will claim that they Jews deliberately target Palestinian civilians but there is no doubt that the Arabs deliberately target Jewish civilians. The Israelis attempt to target specific terrorists, often at considerable danger to themselves, the Palestinian Arabs shoot rockets indiscriminately. Looking at tactics and targets is helpful but the most effective approaches to understanding the Middle East are to look at Glorification and Demonization. Who are the Palestinian role models? Who do they glorify? They glorify Samir Kuntar, who smashed a four-year-old girl's head between a rock and the stock of his rifle. They glorify Al-Mughrabi who with her comrades murdered 12 children and 25 adults in cold blood on March 11, 1978. Al-Mughrabi and her comrades shot an American photographer named Gail Rubin, carjacked a taxi, murdered the driver and his passengers, shot at traffic on the highway, hijacked two buses, and ultimately blew up the last bus - with all passengers aboard. For an example of this glorification see http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1805.htm. The other approach is to ask does one side demonize the other? The word demonize I use to indicate painting the other side as worse than they really are. The Palestinian Arabs accuse the Jews of spreading disease, of breeding rats to drive them out, of using Palestinian blood in Matzah of being apes and pigs and so forth.
Once you see this you know with great likelihood the answers to the other questions.
The method I generally use for discerning truth from propaganda can be broken down into the following steps:
In the drop down menu above I have started a list of allegations that have been made. If the user clicks on the allegation they will see an application of this method to evaluate that allegation. There are other methods for discerning truth for propaganda as well. If one side is trying to create hatred toward the other side the believability of their accusations will decrease, the application of the believability test toward evaluating the innocent and guilty in the Middle East can be viewed by clicking here. Another method of evaluating the innocent and the guilty in a conflict is by the severity with which they wish to deal with their opponents. An application of this method can be viewed by clicking here. An approach to determining the truth about the causes of a conflict is to examine predictions made by people with different points of view. Those whose predictions came to pass are the ones who understand the root causes of the conflict. An application of this method can be viewed by clicking here.
Dr. Lawrence Davidson wrote a rebuttal to my article in Logos, which I have answered. To view my response to his article click here. Click on the drop down menu above to view allegations and evidence that they are fabricated.
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