Speak to Pro-Israelis + destroy their symbols

Symbols or icons people believe in

(This is a transcipt of the video by Dr William Barylo regarding the situation in Palestine which is still ongoing and how to communicate with Pro-Israelis.)

1.

Dr William Barylo:^[1]
People won’t respond to facts because any kind of dehumanization process relies on symbols. You may have seen or tried to reason with people and you will realize that those who support Israel’s current policies, no matter if there’s 10, 100, 1,000, 1 million civilians killed, head workers, press workers killed, they won’t react to it. It doesn’t mean anything to them and the reason for that is that because the current discourse relies on symbolism, the power of symbols, the thing that represents something.

Let me illustrate.
For example, you probably know that Israel has been branding itself as an example of democracy, you know the only democracy in the Middle East, the beacon of civilization, the embodiment of good.

So these are the symbols we’re talking about and people believe in and anything that stands against these ideas would be completely irrelevant and therefore evil could be justified. Kids, they’re just human shields, press workers, collateral damage, head workers, well they’re just an annoyance. These people are not human, they represent something and this occurrence they represent evil, we represent good. So this is essentialization when we generalize something like that.

2.

So how do you deal with people who only think in terms of symbols? Drawing their attention on anything external to that won’t work.

If you want to catch their attention you need to draw the attention on these symbols. Why are these symbols false ideas that actually work against the people they’re supposed to serve?

In another way it’s about smashing the idols. So to smash idols it means using their own vocabulary to show their own incoherences.

For example,

– What beacon of civilization violates the Geneva Convention?

– Does the right to defend themselves mean employing terrorist tactics?

– Why can’t the most advanced army in the region afford surgical hits?

– Israel brands itself as being the Jewish state. But again, what Jewish state created for the safety of Jewish people sacrifices their own hostages?

– What Jewish state silences the voices of its own Jewish citizens who advocate for peace? And you’ve seen videos of Orthodox Jews being attacked on the street by the police.

– What Jewish state created to keep traditions alive, erases its own natural and cultural and historical heritage? You know the churches being bombed, which are very very old, or plantations of olive trees, why are they being erased if they claim to care about the tradition and the history? They also play in the fact of being the state as a safe haven for Holocaust survivors. But ask:

– What kind of safe haven for Holocaust survivors greets these survivors and their families so badly? I’ve got a professor from University of Tel Aviv when I was in my master’s. He came to France giving three lectures on the situation and he told us about how Holocaust survivors families are treated in the settlements. It’s just horrible. The insults, I won’t repeat them on screen, and they’re thrown garbage out. It’s just horrible.

– Where is democracy when their own citizens are not treated in a democratic way?

– Where is civilization where Holocaust survivors are insulted and thrown garbage at?

– How come this independent democracy is de facto a US dependency who relies heavily on US funding?

3.

It is a tale old as history. People don’t like realizing that the ideas that were sold are in fact lies. And the people at the head of the state selling these ideas have actually been covering their own selfish endeavors under the cover of democracy, civilization and good at the detriment of their own citizens.

People believe it’s about defending the Jewish state Holocaust survivors while in fact it is a simple matter of geo-strategical and political interest. Netanyahu has an election coming very very soon and he knows that he needs to act on it and do something to save his seat.

And this philosophy works with any kind of political movements.

If for example the far right, people who are on the far right, you can tell them anything you like about migrants, refugees groaning in the sea and so on and so on or being you know nice people, qualified people. They won’t respond to that. It won’t enter their mind because what they have in their mind is the symbols that we are the nation, the people, the culture, the heritage, the traditions.

So if you want people to respond you need to play on the same field. Anything external is just outside of what we call their cognitive universe.

It’s outside of what they can think on a daily basis. But if you say yeah nation, country, government, corrupt, elites, yeah they will start clicking and then maybe you can bring them on the turn.

But again you know everyone’s different.

So that was a very quick opinion from the top of my mind. I don’t know if it’s gonna be useful but again thanks…

4.

There are certainly more such contradictions and incoherences. If you some others to add: Contact

– Why Empathy Doesn’t Work With Pro-Israelis? Dr William Barylo