The aura of superiority that Israel enjoys, which placed it above the moral, intellectual, and collective considerations of the will of the Almighty, has ended (Photo by the Israeli army spokesman circulated for the free use of the media)
There is nothing worse than a conspiracy theory, when it spreads among peoples, as it disrupts reason and logic. It is a theory that contradicts the theory of action. It is an opium that disrupts the mind and a chronic psychological illness that does not support the will to change. While it is said in the law of rumor that the amount of rumor is directly proportional to the amount of ambiguity, the level of belief and spread of a conspiracy theory is directly proportional to the levels of internal defeat and helplessness, in addition to the levels of ignorance about the issue.
Conspiracy theory is a term that refers to an explanation of an event or situation based on an unwarranted conspiracy, generally taken to mean illegal or harmful actions carried out by a government, organization, or individuals. In most cases, conspiracy theories produce assumptions that contradict the prevailing historical understanding of simple facts.
In the sciences of international relations, there is no concept called conspiracy. Quite the contrary, as the researcher becomes more specialized in international relations, he moves away completely from the paradigm of conspiracy in analyzing conflicts and interpreting events, and becomes more capable of using scientific analysis tools that explain relationships of interests, power, and conflicts. This means that there is no scientific logic for the followers of this school.
Interpreting every major event as a conspiracy is ignorance even of the principles of planning and building strategies and alternatives.
Over time, the conspiracy theory turned into an ideology in the Arab mentality, and the basic method for interpreting events and facts. This is due to many reasons, including the long time frame of defeat and collective and personal defeat, which created a fertile environment for coexistence with the conspiracy theory for many decades of setbacks. It turned from a non-scientific tool of analysis into a belief and ideology among not a few groups of people in defeated societies, including the societies of our region, while also not diminishing its spread in all societies, but it is more so in our societies.
Conspiracy theory has also become a source of profit in the field of writing and publishing, and because it is not based on scientific rules, there are many people who profit from provocateurs of antics and strangeness who exploit people's ignorance to write books that establish or analyze major phenomena and events based on the conspiracy theory. Even natural phenomena, such as the earthquake of the century in Turkey, spread to a large number of people that it was an American conspiracy through artificial earthquakes, so they believed it and believed in it!
Composing according to the conspiracy paradigm is considered one of the easiest methods of writing. Because it does not require scientific evidence or logic, it is just superfluous interpretations of events to connect them in ridiculous ways. There are four categories behind the framing and dissemination of conspiracy thought and theory:
The first: They are looking for fame and earning money, knowing that there is a fertile environment and a wide audience.
Second: Authoritarian regimes and their arms in the region in order to justify their inability and unwillingness to act, and because the social contract between them and their societies is not a natural contract, and therefore it is built on cultivating doubt, not building trust, to ensure its continuity.
Third: They are the fatalistic people who explain events with unseen and superstitions that are not at all part of the true religion, far from understanding the contexts of interests, power relations, exploitation, and the dominance of greedy capitalism and its tools.
Fourth: They are the internally defeated people who have lost confidence in everything around them.
Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote in her memoirs that she was very tired of the level of interpretation of events by many Arab elites with conspiracy theory by America during her dialogues with them in Libya and Egypt after the Arab Spring.
Clinton and others are certainly not a good example for martyrdom, but the witness here is when it is possible to break away from this mind-numbing thought to the thought of action, initiative, and influential action emanating from faith in the masses and peoples and the process of change.
Interpreting every great event as a conspiracy is ignorance even of the principles of planning and building strategies and alternatives. For example, the occupation of Palestine is not a conspiracy, but rather an overt and organized colonial act in which great colonial powers openly allied themselves with their subordinate powers in the region.
Suffice it to say that the Zionist movement, at the Basel Conference in 1897, when it decided to establish the State of Israel on the ruins of Palestine, specified fifty years for that, and identified (57) alternative paths, including alternatives in the event that the entire state project in Palestine did not succeed.
Likewise, the ability of the United States of America to change its strategies and bring up alternatives during crises according to its system of interests, making it appear as if it were the maker of the event, results from its ability to build alternatives versus randomness and work according to the reactions that move us, and make us imagine that it stands behind every great matter.
This introduction is sufficient to frame the contexts of conspiracy theory and thought, and let us now go to a new society that has become haunted by conspiracy theory, and has been infected by the region after it was condescending to it and classified by others as a different society, which is the post-October 7 Israeli society.
October 7th changed many things in Israeli society that this article has no room to enumerate, but those who follow Israeli affairs know full well that it has become a different society in which all the social ills that were a stain on the surrounding societies spread.
The superior aura enjoyed by Israel, which placed it above the moral, intellectual, and collective considerations of the total will, has ended, and that is what made the difference for it in light of periods of regional calm.
Conspiracy theory became an essential interpretation tool for not a few groups in Israeli society after October 7, and it became part of a pattern of thinking and managing relationships. The Israelis became not only immersed in distributing conspiracies among themselves, but they even invoked metaphysical stories from their Talmud about battles. The last time.
This does not need much explanation. The social contract upon which the relationship between society and the state in Israel was built, which is trust in the army and security, has been broken. It is also the first time since 1948 that this society senses the reality of defeat and feels the bitterness of brokenness. This is the incubating environment for the spread of Conspiracy theory and thought in any society.
Recently, the head of the Israeli Shin Bet intelligence service, Ronen Bar, asked the Comptroller General of Israel and the government to form an official investigation committee into the events of October 7, in response to the accusations of Knesset member Tali Gottlieb, from the Likud Party, who said: “The theory of A conspiracy was behind the events of October 7, and accused the Israeli army and Shin Bet of colluding with Hamas in the attacks of October 7.”
The Shin Bet added in its statement requesting the investigation committee: “The public yearns for this, and the Shin Bet yearns for it. This way there will be an end to all lies and conspiracy theories.”
The above reflects only a simple example of the state of obsession that has not yet been able to comprehend that Israel would be subjected to such a setback in normal conditions of action within the state of chauvinism and arrogance that this society was raised on, so it reproduced its own conspiracy ideology. It is not unique and different from the societies in which it lives. This behavior, where questioning everything, accusations and lack of trust between society and leadership, sensing the spirit of conspiracy in everything, was reflected in an unbelievable state of hysteria in dealing with the Palestinians inside, and even among the Jews themselves.
The British newspaper The Telegraph indicated in a report that Israelis these days fear “Armageddon” and expect the end of the world after the attacks of October 7, the war on Gaza, and indicators of war in the north with Lebanon.
For those who do not know what “Armageddon” means, in the Biblical and Old Testament thought of Jews and Evangelicals it means the battle of the end of the world, which will take place in the Megiddo region in Jenin in the northern West Bank, in which much blood will flow, the majority of the Jews will be exterminated, and Christ the Savior will appear. This is Israel today, it is not what was before October 7.
It is not possible to limit the level of spread of conspiracy thought in Israel after October 7, as it has become part of the paradigm of political and social analysis of events. There are two types of conspiracy theories in Israel today: the first type, how did Hamas militants enter southern Israel?; The second type: Why did they enter?
One of the popular conspiracy theories in Israel, according to a report by the Hebrew "Haaretz" about the spread of the conspiracy theory, says: that the "Al-Aqsa Flood" operation penetrated the Israeli fortresses because of "treason."
While Israelis see it as a political trick carried out by Benjamin Netanyahu to remain in his position as Prime Minister, and to appear as a savior of Israel from destruction.
What is ironic is that each group in Israel designs a conspiracy theory according to its whims. For example, Netanyahu’s supporters accuse the Israeli army of colluding and conspiring with Hamas in order to overthrow Netanyahu. Because the army is loyal to the opposition in Israel and the demonstrations it organized to oust Netanyahu following the judicial reform protests.
While opposition supporters in Israel say: Netanyahu ordered the army to delay its intervention in order to eliminate the anti-demonstrations against him!
What is important in the above is not what any party says against the other in designing its own conspiracy theory model, but what is most important is that the Israeli army and the security system are the focus of the conspiracy theory, which means a loss of confidence in it in all cases, and this is the basis for the establishment of the State of Israel. Society's loss of trust in the army means the beginning of the collapse of a society that was designed based on the relationship of trust between the army and society.
It can be said that Israeli society, after October 7, became similar in its thinking to a not insignificant segment of Arab societies and elites who are deeply inhabited by conspiracy thinking. As a result of the great defeats and setbacks that you have experienced.
Opponents of the resistance in Palestine and the Arab region are not in a better position when they attribute the “Al-Aqsa Flood” to a global plan to complete the Ben-Gurion Water Canal or to establish a global city in the place of Gaza after the displacement of its population, or other nonsense that has no scientific basis except in the social media space, and to justify impotence and betrayal. Demonizing others to justify inaction.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.