WHAT A WHOPPER!

You’ve got to hand it to them.They are the best.

What are you talking about?

Israel. And its representatives.

Best at what?

Telling lies. When it comes to lying, Israel reigns supreme.

All politicians and spokespersons lie.

Yes, but Israel has elevated lying to a fine art. Boris Johnson is a child by comparison. If lying was an Olympic sport, Israel would be proudly standing 1,2 and 3 on the podium. No contest.They are the best.

That’s some achievement. Why do you think they’re so good at it?

Practice. They’ve been lying ever since the state of Israel came into being. Even before. ‘A land without a people for a people without a land.’ That was a good one. Past its sell by date now, though. Why are you pulling a face?

Well, I’ve watched Israeli officials being interviewed on TV and they’ve never been called out for lying.

Exactly. That’s because they’re so good at it. Next time you watch an Israeli representative being interviewed, count the minutes before he — or occasionally she — asserts that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East.

Isn’t it?

No. It’s an apartheid state.

According to who? Whom.

Israel’s human right organisation, B’Tselem, and America’s Human Rights Watch. How can it be a democracy when it defines itself as an exclusively Jewish state and its non-Jewish minority don’t have equal rights and are treated as the untermenschen?

The what?

Less than human.

By non-Jewish minority, do you mean the Arabs?

Palestinians.

I thought there was no such thing as Palestinians.

Ah yes. That was a Golda Meir lie back in 1969.

Anyway, Israeli spokespeople do tell the truth sometimes.

Never. Give me an example.

I saw an Israeli spokesman on the news recently explaining that when Israel bombed houses in Gaza they always warned the inhabitants first so they could escape.

That’s a variation on the lie that the IDF is the most moral army in the world. What a whopper! Even its name is a lie. Israeli Defence Force. This from an army that in its short life has launched five aggressive wars against its neighbours.

Still, warning people that they’re going to be bombed is a good thing, isn’t it?

I’m sure they are most grateful for that kind gesture.

You’re being sarcastic.

And knowing your home has been bombed to rubble by the most moral army in the world must be some consolation.

You are being sarcastic.

But in any case it’s a lie.

Is it?

Whole families have been wiped out without warning. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, babies. Thirteen members of the Abu al Ouf family, including 5 children, killed without warning; 19 members of the Al-Qalaq family, including 9 children and one baby, killed without warning; Abir Ashkontana and her 3 children aged 5, 9 and 2, and 2 other girls aged 13 and 10, relationships unknown. Killed without warning. And the massacres go on. And on. And on. Deliberately. Without warning.

How do you know that?

Amira Hass in Ha’aretz.

I still think you’re exaggerating.

Well, I’ve had personal experience of being lied to by Israelis so perhaps I’m a little bitter.

When was that?

Something like 7 decades ago when I was in a so-called socialist Zionist youth movement. Hashomer Hatzair.

And?

We were told by our Sabra leaders that if we emigrated to Israel, we would be part of a Jewish working class that would join with the Arab working class in helping to build a socialist Israel. That worked out well, didn’t it?

Did it?

I’m being sarcastic.

Maybe they believed it.

Maybe they did. They’d read Ber Borochov.

Who?

Google him. It’s all about upside-down pyramids.

You’ve lost me.

Don’t worry about it. Anyway, it was still a lie. They didn’t even tell us that the ‘Arabs’ at that time, the ones who hadn’t been driven out or massacred in the war, were living under military rule.

I thought the Arabs left because they were told to by their leaders.

That’s another lie well past its use by date. No evidence at all for it. Though someone tried it out on me quite recently. That’s the problem. These lies linger on in people’s minds, even when they’ve been totally discredited. Like the one Abba Eban told at the United Nations after the 6 Day War.

Before my time.

Israel’s foreign minister. He more or less claimed that Egypt started the war by attacking Israel. A complete fabrication. But I still come across people who believe it.

So why do you think Israel tells all these lies?

Perhaps because it can’t face up to the awful truth about its own history.

Can any country?