Truth, opinion formation and manipulation

11 February 2025 ·

Most of us perceive Hamas as a terrorist organisation that rules Gaza without democratic legitimacy and that started a war against Israel with a terrorist attack on 7 October last year. Zelensky, on the other hand, is perceived as the democratically elected leader of Ukraine, who, with a mandate from the people, is heroically fighting against the Russian invasion force. This image is factually correct, but the world is always more nuanced than that. In both conflicts, it is equally valid to portray the parties in the opposite light, and this can be done without saying anything that is factually incorrect. As with a soap advertisement, it is not a lie that Ajax or Vanish Ultra can clean, but the advertisement does not say that clean water without soap will usually be just as effective. An objectively true statement can create an image in the recipient's mind that distorts their perception of reality. True statements can convey a false message. Hamas is on the US list of terrorist organisations and Zelensky has been elected president of Ukraine. These are facts. But they are selected facts, and therefore do not tell the whole story. Are these facts really enough to take sides in a conflict that may be more nuanced? Let's take a closer look at Hamas and Zelensky. Hamas was elected in the 2016 parliamentary elections in Gaza on a platform of fighting against the continued ethnic cleansing and persecution of the Palestinian people by Israel since 1949 and the illegal Israeli occupation of Gaza, among other places, since 1967. Hamas wanted to introduce Islamic rule to replace the Western-inspired democracy that was dysfunctional under Israeli occupation and apartheid oppression. For the people of Gaza, a functioning hospital system and judiciary were more important in the given situation than a Western democracy with the corruption that usually accompanies unstable societies. Under international law, an occupied people has the right to armed resistance against an occupying power, while the occupying power does not have a corresponding right to defend itself against legitimate resistance to the occupation. Neither an occupying power nor freedom fighters may deliberately target civilian targets or engage in combat that exposes the civilian population to unnecessary harm. Both Israel and the Palestinians have violated the rules on harm to the civilian population. Up until 7 October 2023, Israel had killed around 20 Palestinian civilians for every Israeli killed in the conflict, and after 7 October 2023, Israel has escalated the situation and killed 40 Palestinian civilians for every Israeli killed, including those killed or captured during the attack on 7 October. Both parties are therefore guilty of violating international law, but looking at the overall figures and history, everything points to the Palestinians having international law on their side in the conflict and that the continuing conflict is caused by Israel's ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population, the apartheid regime it has implemented, the illegal occupation, and that Israel far exceeds the Palestinians in inflicting illegitimate civilian casualties on the other side. Nevertheless, Hamas is systematically referred to in the Danish media as ‘the terrorist organisation Hamas’, while Israel is referred to as a democratic country. Israel's original Jewish population 100 years ago was 56,000 people, so Israel's current Jewish-dominated population has been created by immigrants with no connection to the area and by the ethnic cleansing of the original population of other religious communities to concentration camps in neighbouring countries, except for a few who managed to flee to other countries. Although the Palestinians in the illegally occupied territories are legitimate freedom fighters in terms of international law, they are always referred to in our media as ‘fighters from the terrorist organisation Hamas’, while the illegal occupation troops from the Israeli apartheid regime are referred to more neutrally as ‘soldiers’. All of this is objectively true, but it nevertheless creates a false picture of the relationship between the parties to the conflict. If we look at Ukraine, Zelensky is referred to in the media as Ukraine's legitimate president, which he is, since Ukraine is recognised as an independent nation in the UN and he was democratically elected, so there is nothing wrong with that. Zelensky was elected in 2019 with 73% of the vote on a platform of negotiating peace with the Russians, including recognising Russian as a minority language, recognising the Russian Orthodox Church, complying with the Minsk Agreement and other sensible peace-promoting initiatives that would be necessary ingredients in any peace negotiations. However, Zelensky never delivered on any of the peace-promoting initiatives on which he was elected, and by the time Russia attacked in 2022, he had become an increasingly unpopular president in Ukraine. It is, of course, difficult to determine exactly why Zelensky pursued a policy contrary to the one on which he had been elected by an overwhelming majority, but at least one of the reasons was the massive