What I'm Reading on Gaza and Israel

And how I'm thinking about parsing disinformation and misinformation

Photo by nour tayeh on Unsplash

Today I wanted to share what I’ve been reading and listening to about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that has cost the lives of more than 25,000 Palestinians and some 1,400 Israelis, displaced the overwhelming majority of people in Gaza, and badly divided countries, communities, and even families around the world. This war continues to devastate Gaza; nowhere is safe, women and children are paying a particularly heinous price. The human toll is unfathomable, and no end is in sight — even if the fighting stops, there will be little in the way of homes, schools, hospitals, or basic infrastructure to return to. Israel continues to be led by corrupt, feckless, and bigoted men who disregard demands to prioritize bringing hostages home, and instead put their own country on more dangerous ground by the day — while so many ordinary Israelis remain shellshocked from a vicious pogrom, and worried about their future safety and security. Hamas continues to put Palestinian civilians at even greater risk, knowing that it benefits from a high body count.

Some things I have tried to hold through this conflict, and expand whenever I can: Compassion for sorrow and suffering. Anger at dehumanization, degradation, abuse, and fanaticism. Rejection of demands to oversimplify, or assign collective blame, or not speak the full truth, or take on any view, really, that erases a person or group’s humanity or history or pain.

On this particularly issue, I am doing a lot more reading and listening than writing and sharing.

In reading pretty voraciously, though, I see so, so much bad information being passed around, especially on social media: Outright fabrications, but also highly ideological and truth-bending propaganda masquerading as news reporting. The truth is that there is no single story of this conflict — no one easy explanation, no one universally agreed-upon telling of what started what when, certainly no one clear solution. There is reality, of course, and there is truth, but reality for a Palestinian father trying to keep his children safe while sheltering from bombs in Khan Younis looks different than reality for an Israeli mother who storms Parliament demanding that her loved ones be brought home. That isn’t to say that there is no objective reality, simply that reality is a many-layered thing. What is top of mind, what you believe should be at the forefront of any discussions of this conflict, what should take precedence within it — much of that depends on where you sit.

I sit very far away. But from my vantage point, I have found so much of the discourse around this war — not to mention the war itself — to be deeply disturbing, betraying a profound inhumanity, a retreat to one’s in-group along with an indifference to the pain suffered by those outside of it, an instinct to only believe that which comports with one’s pre-existing biases, and a willingness to set aside principle. I’m shocked to see some of this even from people I used to respect.

Part of the problem seems to be informational: What we’re seeing, which often comes from what others in our social circles and peer groups are sharing, shapes what we believe to be right and true. Human beings naturally trust information more when it comes from someone we know. But it seems like a lot of people frankly don’t understand how to sort news from opinion, and are quick to embrace that which confirms their beliefs and quick to reject as biased or propaganda that which challenges them. Most people do not understand how our media ecosystems work, and which tools they can use to determine which sources are trustworthy, which deserve a higher level of skepticism, and which should be set aside completely. That doesn’t mean people are stupid or ignorant; I think it means that journalists often vastly over-estimate how much the public understands about our work and our institutions.

So I wanted to share both what I’m reading and listening to, as well as a little bit about how I’m thinking about the media I consume: How I assess the relative credibility of various sources, who I decide to follow and who I decide to disregard, how I try to break through the noise. I’m far from a perfect media consumer, and my answers to these questions may be hugely different from yours. My own biases and preferences and blind spots absolutely inform what I find myself drawn to, as do yours. But I want to discuss the process by which I evaluate sources and information, because in this moment of extreme disinformation and misinformation, it’s worth considering how much we understand about how media ecosystems function, and how we’re deciding what we consume and what we share.

If you just want the list of what I’m reading and listening to, skip to the end.

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1. Know your sources, and understand their standards.

One of the most useful things to understand as a reader and consumer of media is how different media outlets operate — what their standards are, whether they have checks on those standards, and what they do when they get it wrong. Every news organization is made up of fallible human beings, with their own perspectives and biases; no newsroom is neutral. But some publications strive to be fairer or more balanced or more accurate than others, and have structures in place to facilitate that. They don’t always succeed, but understanding how different publications operate is crucial to deciding who and what to trust.