Cut-and-paste at Electronic Intifada

El Fassed has basically cut-and-pasted this text, without attribution, into his letter. Compare the Wikipedia text with El Fasseds letter and you will see that aside from a few minor edits (done, perhaps, by the staff at Business Day and not by El Fassed himself), the text is the same. It is possible that El Fassed himself is the author of the Wikipedia text, but nevertheless he failed to cite his original source.

This sort of cut-and-paste fakery seems to be standard practice among Israel-haters. I was pondering the Wikipedia text when I suddenly realized Id heard it somewhere recently. Of course!Hadas Thier had recited chunks of it in her opening statement during our debate last week. Had I realized that, I would have called her on it; I will definitely ask future opponents about their sources.

Much false anti-Israel propaganda is circulated this way. People simply repeat what they find on various websites, without attribution, giving the impression they know what they are talking about when they are really peddling recycled garbage. False claims of Israeli apartheid, Jenin massacre and so on are given credibility in this way, proving Goebbelss propaganda tactics remain potent in the Internet age.

It is interesting to note that Goebbels actually described the technique of the big lie not in describing his own methods but in attacking British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous. (Other uses of the term big lie by Goebbels seem to be unreferenced.)

In the same way, Arab states accuse Israel of racism and apartheid when in fact their own discriminatory and repressive policies are more comparable to those of apartheid South Africa. Over time, the terms racism and apartheid are actually stripped of their meaning. And when words lose their meaning, as Moynihan and others have pointed out, human rights are in danger of losing their substance.