The horrific 7 October terror attack by Hamas and the consequent yet expected retaliation by Israeli Defense Forces has resulted in the anti-Israel protest movement becoming more vehement in its criticism of Israel. This has evolved quickly into an increase in antisemitism.

As Lord Mann claimed in his recent report into antisemitism in the UK, the vocal and aggressive Palestinian protesters comprise about one-third Muslims, one-third extreme left-wing ‘Trotskyites’ and one-third ‘sheep’. Many of the latter are young and, as recently pointed out in an interview with ‘celebrity’ Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, they simply support the underdog. With little understanding of history or geography, they are swept along with the collective emotion.

Many supporters of the Palestinian cause knowingly sustain the myth that Israel practises apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide and is a colonial power. The strategy of repeating baseless claims is intentionally promulgated by the leadership of these protest groups. The distorted narrative has gained increased traction in recent times, echoing the historical ‘Big Lie’ conceived by Adolf Hitler and prosecuted by his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.

The term ‘Big Lie’, mentioned in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, described a lie so colossal that no one would believe that someone ‘could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously’. This approach, ironically utilised by Hitler himself, involved perpetuating falsehoods about Jews to manipulate public opinion, laying the blame for Germany’s woes after the first world war upon a specific group, ultimately resulting in the horrors of the Holocaust. Goebbels, the mastermind behind Nazi propaganda, recognised the power of repetition in shaping public opinion. He famously stated, ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.’ This strategy has permeated modern discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where sensationalised or misrepresented claims, including those related to how maps have changed over time, have gained unwarranted credibility through constant repetition. The illusory truth effect, identified in psychological studies, denotes the tendency to believe repeated information, regardless of its accuracy.

An example of the illusory effect is the repeated claim that Israel is apartheid. Clearly, the facts prove otherwise. The population comprises 20 per cent Arabs who have equal rights with all Israelis. Arabs are represented in Israel’s Knesset and as judges on the bench of the Supreme Court. In 2011, an Arab judge, George Kara convicted President Moshe Katsav of rape. Surprisingly, Arabs can even choose to serve in the military though they are not conscripted.

The actions of Israel in the disputed territories are different. These territories are a legacy of the war the Arabs started in 1967 but lost. The subsequent years saw the bizarre situation of the winning party seeking a negotiated settlement with the losing belligerent in order to end the military occupation. Israel on several occasions offered statehood to the Palestinians but these were rejected on each occasion with no counteroffers. The second Oslo Accord of 1995 broke the territories on the West Bank into three segments, one under full Palestinian Authority control, one under shared control and one under full Israeli control. This was meant to be an interim measure on the so-called ‘road map to peace’ and eventual Palestinian statehood but the violent intifadas stopped progress. The proximity of West Bank towns to Israel and, in particular, Jerusalem clearly required a partial Israeli army presence in these disputed territories and, as with any occupied territory (e.g. in Germany after the second world war), military occupation continues until a peace settlement is negotiated.

Gaza is quite different. Hoping for peace, Israel forcibly evicted 9,000 settlers in 2005 and, based on pressure from President George W. Bush, a crusader for democracy, insisted that elections be held. Hamas won the election, assumed control and then went on to eliminate any political opposition from the Palestinian Authority by pushing its members from the roofs of buildings. Apartheid does not apply to Israel here but maybe it could apply to Hamas who have treated the embattled civilians of Gaza with disdain.

Ethnic cleansing is an emotive term that in no way can apply to Israel. This term refers to a planned, systematic and deliberate effort to remove specific groups from a particular territory. Israel currently limits non-Israeli citizens moving into Israel from Gaza and the West Bank and, until recent events, many thousands entered each day for work. Given years of missile attacks from Hamas in Gaza culminating in the atrocities committed on 7 October, with a similar risk of the same from the West Bank, this continued enforcement of security is understandable. If anything, the Palestinian protest movement chanting their mantra ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ reflects the true intent which is for Israel’s people to be expelled from Israel or, in reality, annihilated. This is the real example of ethnic cleansing.

The claim that Israel practises genocide is repugnant and simply stokes hatred. The populations of both the West Bank and Gaza have been increasing at around 2 per cent per annum, much greater than Israel and around double that of Australia.

Israel is accused of being a ‘colonial project’ due in part to the claim, refuted by historians, that Palestinian land was stolen and the original owners displaced. Others also see the term ‘colonial’ as applicable to Israel’s establishment, noting the backing it received from Western powers. This support, notably through the Balfour Declaration in 1917 by the British government, is perceived as akin to historical colonial actions by which territories were divided without sufficient regard for the rights or desires of the native population. Though the least offensive of the accusations, colonialism is one that helps fuel the left’s hatred of Israel. Many direct the term at Israel due to its ‘white’ ethnicity though 850,000 Jews, expelled from Arab countries such as Iraq, Iran and Lebanon at the time of the 1948 war, were non-white. Later, supplementing these refugees were the immigrants from Ethiopia. The left’s self-hatred and guilt is associated with being part of countries embedded in Western capitalism. Jews have had an uninterrupted presence in the land now known as Israel for over four thousand years with no home and no empire to build, so the term colonialism is misdirected.

It is counter-intuitive but correct to suggest that the end of the war with Hamas will likely accelerate the path to creation of a Palestinian state as the status quo is untenable. This state will need to be demilitarised and a new governing body put in charge perhaps supported by a police force manned from neighbouring Sunni Arab countries or even the US. The UN cannot be considered to provide a peacekeeping force as it and its agencies have failed in their roles to assist in the restoration of Gaza. Hamas was permitted to build over 500 km of tunnels, construct missiles and locate command centres under and within hospitals right under the noses of representatives of UNRWA. The billions of dollars of aid money should have gone to building a city not a fortress.

It will be impossible to change the intentionally twisted platform of the leaders of the Free Palestinian movement but, to the extent left-wing academia permits, teaching at school and university might educate the ‘sheep’. Irrespective, those who repeatedly accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing, genocide and apartheid in order to justify the destruction of the only democracy in the Middle East need to realise Israel’s 10 million people are not going anywhere. They have nowhere to go.