When Repetition Replaces Truth

How Antizionism Lies Stay Alive and What we Can do to Counter them

The genocide libel against Israel is beginning to fray under the weight of reality itself.

This week, images emerged of large public marathon events involving thousands of participants in Bethlehem and Gaza alike — including beachside races, cheering crowds, and community gatherings. None of this means Gazans are not suffering. War brings suffering. Loss brings suffering. But it does complicate the relentlessly warped social media portrayal of Gaza as nothing more than an uninterrupted landscape of extermination.

Yet the lies continue unabated. So a closer look at why and how the libel persists is long overdue. So is guidance on how to counter it. Here I’ll take a stab at both in the hope that any interruption to this train wreck helps.

Many of us, myself included, have talked a lot over the last few years about the erosion of critical thinking — and how dangerous that becomes when bad information is repeated often enough to seep into the psyche.

Any credible psychologist could explain how people gradually discard truth and absorb falsehood instead. We see versions of this dynamic in cults, abusive relationships, propaganda movements, and even domestic violence situations. The mechanism is often the same:

Repetition.

Repeated claims — even false ones — begin to feel true simply because they become familiar. Over time, the repetition itself starts overriding the original falseness.

That’s part of what makes so much of today’s antizionist messaging so effective.

Repeat a slogan often enough, simplify it enough, flood social media with it long enough, attach it strongly enough to moral identity and social belonging — and eventually many people stop examining whether it is accurate at all.

Familiarity alone begins masquerading as truth.

And if embracing the narrative also helps buttress what feels like a larger “common cause,” there is even less motivation to challenge it critically. Herd mentality takes over. People often fear social isolation more than they fear being wrong.

History has shown us repeatedly that propaganda does not require universal belief to succeed.

Only saturation.

So how do we counter it? Yes, better PR. Better marketing of truth over lies.

By explaining the dynamic to whomever will listen and insisting people stop outsourcing their thinking to slogans, influencers, mobs, algorithms, or tribes.

We need to implore people to read beyond headlines, ask harder questions, and tolerate discomfort when facts complicate the narrative we emotionally prefer.

We also need to reward breaks in groupthink — and applaud the courage it takes to stand apart from the herd when the herd is wrong.