CONTENTS

Introduction
Sellers' Market
Will to Believe
Rules of Thumb

"The truth is out there "
Use & misuse of words
False information signals more false information
Technical whiz-bang
Understand the Context
Lies, More Lies, Damn Lies and Newspapers
Beware of Generalizations
Theology and scripture
Misleading Statistics
Smoke in your eyes
What is Missing?
Myth versus fact versus narrative
The past was not like the present; the future will be different

Fallacy Recognition in the Middle East

Fallacies and Arguments
Cause and Effect
Slippery Slope
Gambler's Fallacy
Ad Hominem
Authority
Beliefs
Appeal to Novelty
Appeal to Emotion
Appeal to Tradition
False Dilemma or Black and White Thinking
Special Pleading
The Spotlight Fallacy
Who is to Say?

Fallacy Handbook

In history, what people believe to have happened, or believe is about to happen, is often more important than what really happened. It is at least as important to understand that many people thought Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction as it is to understand that after the fact, no such weapons were found. But despite some uncertainty about every history, we can know with fair precision what really happened, and what was fabricated. The fabrications cannot claim equal recognition with facts as "another point of view." In 1939, the Germans claimed that their invasion of Poland was due to Polish "provocations," a border attack by Polish forces. In fact, the Nazi government faked the entire attack, dressing up dead people in uniforms. The claim is not another legitimate "narrative." The claim that Zionists massacred 500 people in Jenin in April of 2002 is not a "point of view" to be taken into account, any more than are claims that the Holocaust was fabricated, or that no Arabs lived in Palestine 100 years ago, or that Jews and Arabs lived together in Palestine in a paradise of equality prior to the arrival of the Zionists. They are all demonstrably false. Believing doesn't make it so.