Israel And “The Big Lie”

The Global Nonviolent Action Database details some 40 cases of mass movements overcoming tyrants through strategic nonviolent campaigns. Occasional actions that simply protest a particular policy or egregious action aren’t enough.

By Robert Fantina, World BEYOND War

The concept of ‘the Big Lie’ was, ironically, coined by Adolph Hitler. To explain what ‘the Big Lie’ is, we will look at his own words: he said that the masses “more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

Joseph Goebbels expanded on the Big Lie. He said: “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.”

Now, why is this writer introducing this essay with this definition? And why was it ‘ironic’ in a modern context when it was formulated by Hitler one hundred years ago? To answer these questions, we must look at recent rulings from the International Court of Justice concerning Israel’s behavior in Palestine’s Gaza Strip.

An article in The Guardian of October 22, 2025, describes the rulings. They are summarized here:

• Israel is in breach of its obligations under international law.
• Israel has a duty to not imped aid into Palestine by United Nations organizations.
• Despite Israel’s claim that UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Association, the U.N. organization primarily responsible for providing aid to Palestine) is infiltrated with Hamas ‘terrorists’, it has not produced adequate evidence for this accusation. Therefore, Israel is bound by international law to cooperate with UNRWA.
• Israel has ignored, and therefore violated, its obligations as an occupying power.
• Israel must be held accountable for killing UNRWA staff members, mistreatment of staff and destruction of UNRWA facilities.

These particular findings took over an hour to read, and were supported by ten of the 11 judges on the court. They are the findings and rulings of the highest court on the planet. One hundred and twenty-five states are parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Notably, the United States and Israel, two countries with horrific records of violating international law, are not signatories. And while the rulings are not binding, they carry considerable political weight. For nations that are signatories, they are required to abide by the court’s decisions. This includes arresting anyone for whom the court has issued a warrant, if that person sets foot in a signatory nation.

One will not be surprised to learn of the Israeli government’s response to these findings. In a message on X, Israel’s foreign ministry stated that “Israel fully upholds its obligations under international law.” And there we have ‘The Big Lie’.

The International Court of Justice, after long and painstaking investigations, has reached determinations that the average person on the street who has a cell phone has known for two years. Israel’s brutal crimes – bombing U.N. refugee centers, schools, university, mosques, tent cities, civilians walking the streets, killing men, women and children, anyone from infancy to old age – have been seen by millions of people around the world. This despite the fact that Israel has killed at least 210 journalists, and forbids foreign journalists from entering the Gaza Strip. Occasionally, a journalist is allowed in but only if escorted by IDF terrorists, and only to see the sites that the Israeli government wants them to see. This is how ‘freedom of the press’ is utilized in the Israeli ‘democracy’.

Now, to the Big Lie: as Hitler, one of the most savage mass murderers in modern history, so astutely stated, everyone tells little white lies, but most people would be ashamed to lie on a massive level. Therefore, big lies are more readily believed. No one, it is thought, could imagine anyone telling a lie of monstrous proportions. Surely, despite all the evidence that is right in front of us, Israel must be adhering to international law. Could there be any way that major government figures would tell a lie of such a gigantic magnitude?

Well, yes. Many government figures have well learned the lesson of the Big Lie. Think of Henry Kissinger, announcing two weeks before the 1972 presidential election, when the U.S.’s imperial misadventure against the people of Vietnam was still raging, that ‘peace is at hand’. The war raged for another three years. Ronald Reagan denied an ‘arms-for-hostages’ deal that included selling weapons to Iran – despite a U.S. embargo on doing so – and funnelling the profits to the Contras, an anti-government group in Nicaragua. Bill Clinton’s statements about his involvement with Whitewater investments, and the details of the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens and others in Libya were hardly straightforward. The ‘big lies’ told by current president Donald Trump are too numerous to list here.

And the irony of it all is that Hitler first discussed the ‘Big Lie’ in the context of saying that Jews used it to blame German General Erich Ludendorff for Germany’s loss in World War 1. And today, the government of the ‘Jewish State’ is using its ‘Big Lie’ to justify and continue its genocide of the Palestinian people.

Does anyone outside of the disgraceful halls of the U.S. Congress believe this ‘Big Lie’? Does anyone who doesn’t received huge campaign contributions from pro-Israeli lobbies really believe that Israel is abiding by international law? There is little evidence to support the idea that the masses believe this lie; when information is right in front of them, it is hard for anyone to doubt their own senses.

So we have a propaganda method created by a mass murderer of Jews now being used by the ‘Jewish State’ to justify the mass murder of Palestinians. One could ponder the irony of this, if the tragedy of it were not so blatant.

The best way to combat this lie is to expose it. Through public addresses, letters to editors, op-eds, private discussions with friends and family members – whenever and however thinking people can address this lie, they should do so. The time will come when our grandchildren will learn about the genocide of the Palestinian people. They will realize that we were adults during that time, and they will ask: what did you do to prevent that genocide? We might say we didn’t know about it, which will be our own ‘Big Lie’. We might say we were too busy, and they will say: ‘to busy to save innocent lives?’ Either of those responses to their question will equate to ‘nothing’, and we must be prepared for their reaction, if that is our response.