RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14412/conspiracy-theory

“To try to defeat an irrational supposition – especially when it is firmly held by its proponents – with a rational explanation is virtually impossible. Any information that does not correspond with the conspiracy theorists’ preferred social, political, or ethnic narrative is ipso facto false. Social scientists have described such theories as having a “self-sealing quality” that makes them “particularly immune to challenge.” — Deborah Lipstadt, Antisemitism Here and Now, 2019 pp 7-8.

The lies about the State of Israel are amplified in the West through the “mainstream media”, such as: The New York Times, The New Yorker, the BBC, The Guardian, MSNBC, and CNN. Churches join in, and of course the United Nations, as well as so-called human rights organizations where pretty well anything goes: The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch.

This bias is well monitored by a number of websites that work to identify their inaccuracies and deliberate distortions about Israel, the IDF, or Palestinian terrorism. CAMERA, Honest Reporting, UK Media Watch, and BBC Watch all dissect bad reportage, and contact editors to request corrections.

How often have we seen commentary concerning the situation in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, made with intensity even passion which purport to tell readers the “facts” about Israel? They often narrate falsehoods that might put to shame a string of fraudsters, conmen and conspiracy theorists.

It seems, at times, that there is no limit to anti-Semitic modern fantasies about the Jewish state of Israel that overwhelm the even older libels about Jews controlling world affairs, as in the totally fraudulent forgery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Today, we are given to believe that it is Muslim Palestinian children who are slain by sneering Zionists and that the government of Israel works hand in hand with a global network of Christians and Jewish bankers, politicians, and media bosses.

It is not surprising to see ordinary folk taken in by anti-Semitic meanderings and anti-Israel fiction. A 2015 study by Chicago political scientists, J. Eric Oliver and Thomas J. Wood, provided evidence that belief in conspiracies and other falsehoods is widespread even in the United States:

Using four nationally representative surveys, sampled between 2006 and 2011, we find that half of the American public consistently endorses at least one conspiracy theory and that many popular conspiracy theories are differentiated along ideological and anomic dimensions. In contrast with many theoretical speculations, we do not find conspiracism to be a product of greater authoritarianism, ignorance, or political conservatism. Rather, the likelihood of supporting conspiracy theories is strongly predicted by a willingness to believe in other unseen, intentional forces and an attraction to Manichean narratives. These findings both demonstrate the widespread allure of conspiracy theories as political explanations and offer new perspectives on the forces that shape mass opinion and American political culture.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14677/iran-torture-execution

“[T]orture is widely used against suspects after their arrest and in the pre-trial phase in order to extract a confession,” in spite of the fact that “Article 38 of the Iranian Constitution bans all forms of torture and forced confessions.” — Latest Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, Iran Human Rights.

“In 2014, a man who had confessed to the crime but was absolved of all charges 48 hours before his execution was to be carried out was asked as to why he had confessed to a murder he had not committed. He answered: ‘They beat me up so much that I thought if I don’t provide a false confession I would die during the interrogation.'” — Latest Annual Report on the Death Penalty in Iran, Iran Human Rights.

“So far in 2019 [just the last six months] at least 140 people have been executed and 80% of them were charged with murder. At least two of them were juveniles, under the age of 18.” — Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, a neuroscientist who fled to Norway from Iran, to Gatestone Institute.

“The escalation of military tension is something that the Iranian authorities are seeking, as a way of diverting all the world’s attention to the Persian Gulf, thus enabling them to get away with abusing their own people. Leaders of the Islamic Republic consider the freedom-seeking Iranian people as their main threat.” — Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam to Gatestone Institute.

More than a dozen political prisoners in Iran recently launched a hunger strike to protest the unspeakable conditions under which they have been living since their incarceration for civil-rights activities, according to Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, spokesperson for the NGO, Iran Human Rights (IHR).