Series: Palestine, the Lie · Part I of III

Palestine, the Lie — Indoctrination

By Michael Knighton · Christians Standing With Israel

"A lie, told one thousand times, is still a lie."

"Propaganda attempts to force a doctrine on the whole people. Propaganda works on the general public from the standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea."

— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler — Nazi propaganda poster

The vitriolic, anti-Semitic propaganda campaigns disseminated by the Nazis in the 1930s, and throughout Ha'Shoah, were as effective as they were brilliant. By way of their complete domination and control of the German mass media, the Nazi propaganda machine facilitated an unprecedented and unchecked barrage of anti-Semitism that radically shaped public opinion. With Hitler's propaganda machine running at full-throttle, it wasn't long before the court of public opinion and Nazism's ministers of propaganda found themselves on the "same page."

Sadly, we know how this story ends. Over the span of a decade, while millions of Jews were brutally and systematically slaughtered in the Nazi death camps of Europe, the rest of the world — conditioned over time by the Nazi propaganda juggernaut to see the Jew as worthless and "subhuman" — did absolutely nothing to prevent or stop it. It was Joseph Goebbels, himself a propaganda mastermind appointed by Hitler, who testified to its effectiveness with his infamous statement:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
— Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda

How Propaganda Works — The Mechanics of the Big Lie

Goebbels understood something that his contemporaries in the democratic West were slow to grasp: that the human mind, when bombarded with a consistent and emotionally charged message, will eventually accept it as truth — regardless of the evidence. Propaganda does not argue. It does not reason. It repeats. It saturates. It silences dissent. It replaces historical fact with emotionally resonant narrative, and it does so through every available channel of communication simultaneously.

The Nazi model had three essential components that made it so devastatingly effective. First, total media control — the suppression of any voice that contradicted the narrative. Second, the dehumanization of the target group — in this case the Jewish people, systematically portrayed as parasites, criminals, and the source of Germany's suffering. Third, the constant repetition of a simple, emotionally powerful lie — one that gave the masses a scapegoat and a sense of righteous victimhood. These three components did not die with the Third Reich. They were inherited, refined, and redeployed in the Middle East.

The "Big Lie" — A New Propaganda Machine

Palestinian activists protest — anti-Israel demonstration

Much like its Nazi predecessor, "The Big Lie" of today — a nonsensical fabrication spawned in the Middle East — has rapidly evolved into an Arab propaganda locomotive powered by the steam engines of anti-Semitic vitriol. The lie — this falsehood of our time — purports that the "Palestinians," a mythical people whose ancestral beginnings simply cannot be defined nor traced, were ejected from their own land — to which they refer as "Palestine" — and thus were "victimized" by the creation of the State of Israel in May 1948.

The historical record tells a different story entirely. The land referred to as "Palestine" was never a sovereign Arab state. It was a regional designation applied by the Romans, then the Ottomans, then the British Mandate administration. The Arabs who lived in the region prior to 1948 did not identify as "Palestinians" — they identified as Arabs, as Syrians, as members of various tribal and clan affiliations. The concept of a distinct "Palestinian people" with a unique national identity and an ancient homeland called "Palestine" is, as Goebbels would have recognized immediately, a modern political construction — a lie, built for the purpose of delegitimizing Jewish sovereignty.

After failing miserably in their attempts to militarily eradicate the Jewish state — in 1948, 1967, and 1973 — the Arab countries surrounding Israel subsequently and collectively unleashed their propaganda juggernaut into the international marketplace of ideas, where it has been globally fruitful. Seen as "refugees" unable to "return" to a land they claim as their own, the "Palestinians" have assembled an international community in their corner — including the United Nations, the global mass media, top universities and seminaries, and, of course, a long line of Western politicians eager to appear sympathetic to the underdog narrative.

The United Nations, the Media, and the Machinery of Delegitimization

No institution has been more thoroughly captured by Arab propaganda than the United Nations. Since Israel's founding, the UN has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than all other nations combined. The UN Human Rights Council — whose membership has included some of the world's most brutal regimes — devotes a permanent agenda item exclusively to Israel, while the systematic oppression of women, ethnic minorities, and religious dissenters across the Arab world goes largely unaddressed. This is not balance. This is not justice. This is the Goebbels model operating at the highest levels of international governance.

The global media has been equally complicit. The language of the conflict has been systematically shaped to favor the Arab narrative — "occupation," "settlements," "Palestinian territories," "disproportionate response." Each of these terms carries embedded assumptions that have been absorbed into the international vocabulary without examination. Israeli self-defense is reframed as aggression. Arab terrorism is sanitized as "resistance." The victims are inverted. The perpetrators are protected. And the lie grows larger with every broadcast cycle.

The Campus — Indoctrination of the Next Generation

Perhaps most alarming is the penetration of Arab propaganda into Western universities and seminaries. The academic world — which prides itself on critical inquiry and the pursuit of truth — has in many cases become a breeding ground for the most virulent strains of anti-Israel ideology. Students for Justice in Palestine, funded in part by organizations with documented ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, operate on hundreds of campuses across North America and Europe, disseminating the Palestinian narrative as unquestioned historical fact.

Even many Christian seminaries — institutions that should be anchored in the biblical record — have embraced replacement theology and Palestinian liberation theology as frameworks for understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These theological constructs, which strip Israel of its biblical covenant rights and reframe the Palestinian narrative in the language of Christian justice, represent perhaps the most dangerous form of indoctrination — because they come dressed in the garments of faith.

Perspective

"The Big Lie" of today represents a propaganda machine that, once again, has swayed public opinion in favor of all that is anti-Semitic. Once again, the Jewish people have witnessed an international community caustically aligning itself against them — effectively pushing the Jewish people not into the mass graves of genocide, but to the brink of demographic suicide. With foreign governments — including that of the United States — and a global media sympathetic to the "Palestinian cause," Israel continues to be pressured to relent and concede, relinquishing more of her land to a conglomeration of Arab states sworn to her demise.

The Christian community has a responsibility that goes beyond political commentary. We are called to "speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves" (Proverbs 31:8), to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" (Psalm 122:6), and to stand without apology on the side of God's eternal covenant with the Jewish people. That covenant — reaffirmed throughout Scripture and sealed in the promises of God — cannot be undone by a propaganda campaign, however sophisticated, however well-funded, or however widely repeated.

A lie, told one thousand times, is still a lie. And the truth of God's Word — concerning the land, the people, and the covenant — has been told not a thousand times, but ten thousand times, across four thousand years of recorded history. That is the counter-narrative. That is our ground. And on that ground, we stand.

Continue the Series — Palestine, the Lie

Part I · Indoctrination — You are here
Part II · Inveracity
Part III · Influx of Indignation