How Propaganda Works

“Security” is so powerful and vague an idea that it can be used to justify absolutely anything.

How to defend a massacre as the only logical solution? 

In this Current Affairs essay, Nathan J. Robinson argues that a masterful use of propaganda on the part of the Israeli regime and its allies has managed to largely paper over the horror that was the recent act of mass violence against protestors in Gaza. 

News outlets, he says, continue to publish one-sided opinion pieces about the importance of “defending the border at all costs”, up to and including murder. He says this constitutes an incredible feat of propaganda.

But how does successful propaganda work? Robinson outlines a list of tactics, such as framing the opponents as maniac radicals and/or terrorists, belittling shame about violence, and insisting there is no alternative to force. 

In listing these, Robinson ultimately underlines that the news media is rife with propaganda by no means limited to this particularly incident—it's what we consume daily.