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How to Fight Anti-Israel Lies in a Post-Truth World
400 descendants of Holocaust survivor Shoshana Ovitz gather at the Western Wall to celebrate her 104th birthday. Photo: Twitter screenshot.
Shortly after the events of October 7, when Hamas attacked, killed, raped, and mutilated 1200 Israelis in southern Israel, including babies, a graduate student at my university in Canada (I am retired, but still receive university email), sent a message to our president and senior administrators. The message, forwarded to others in the university community, lamented the suffering of Palestinians and claimed that the accusations and videos of murder and rape by Hamas were not true; they were creations by Israel using AI.
Remember, this was well before the full force of the Israeli response to the Hamas massacre.
I thought of this incredible example of blindness to the truth when I read a recent New York Times article on the limits of moralism in the Middle East by Ross Douthat.
Douthat questions the Israeli government’s decisions, both before and after October 7, but he is especially critical of the pro-Hamas campus protestors for not seeing the truth of Hamas’ rule in Gaza, and for being comfortable in supporting a revolutionary struggle led by Islamist fanatics.
I thought of this blindness again when I read another recent article that makes the same point in the Times of Israel, based on an interview with Salmon Rushdie by the German tabloid newspaper Bild. In referring to the protesters’ demand to liberate Palestine, Rushdie finds it strange that progressive youth would support a fascist terrorist group like Hamas. He adds that although he has long been a supporter of a Palestinian state, it would likely become an authoritarian Islamist regime like Afghanistan.
In fact, Hamas’16 year rule over Gaza has shown the terror group to be against all progressive societal norms, including a free press, gender equality, LGBQT+ rights, and free democratic elections. On the other hand, the latest Economist Magazine Democracy Index 2023 (eiu.com) clearly indicates that Israel is still the only democracy in the Middle East.
Established in 2006, the annual Democracy Index includes 60 numeric scores measuring electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, political culture, and civil liberties. Countries are categorized as one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes.
The first Index listed Israel as a flawed democracy with a ranking of 47, while the US, a full democracy, ranked 17. Over the years, the ranking for the US has gone down, while that for Israel has gone up, in spite of periodic wars and existential threats. (Israel’s score was highest in 2021, at the time of the Bennet-Lapid government when, for the first time, an Israeli Arab party participated in the governing coalition. It has gone down somewhat since then because of efforts by the current government to curtail the power of the judiciary.)
For 2023, only 24 countries are full democracies, 50 are flawed democracies, 34 are hybrid regimes, and 49 are authoritarian regimes. Both the US and Israel are at the upper end of the flawed democracy range, the US ranking 29 and Israel 30.
Of the 20 countries listed for the Middle East and North Africa for 2023, only Israel is a democracy. Morocco and Tunisia are hybrid regimes while the rest are authoritarian. Turkey is a hybrid regime, “Palestine” has an authoritarian ranking, while authoritarian Saudi Arabia is number 150 and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is last at 167.
That the two million Israeli Arabs (20 percent of Israel’s population) participate fully in Israel’s electoral process does not matter when it comes to labeling Israel an apartheid regime, for we live in a post-truth world in which lies are easy to disseminate with the help of the Internet and social media.
Instead of lauding Zionism as the decolonizing effort of an oppressed indigenous people, the Jews (who have always lived in the Holy Land) are colonialists. Instead of recognizing that more than half of Israeli Jews stem from Jewish refugees forced out of Muslim countries, all Jews in Israel are Europeans. Instead of sanctioning Hamas for the genocidal organization that it openly and proudly claims to be, Israel is accused of genocide when it defends itself.
Whether in relation to the blood libel, or the fabricated Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or any one of a number of imagined conspiracies, lies have been the heart of antisemitism through the centuries. Today the technology used may be different, but the lying continues.
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, who taught at the University of Waterloo.
The post How to Fight Anti-Israel Lies in a Post-Truth World first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.