When Conspiracy Theories Really Are Conspiracies

What do you think?

The nativity scene at Bethlehem’s Evangelical Lutheran Church features baby Jesus in a manger of rubble. Photo by Munther Isaac

Did you hear the one about how the Israeli government intercepted Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 attack more than a year before it happened? How Israeli intelligence observed Hamas practicing the “Jericho Wall” assault three months prior? That’s what the New York Times reported on Nov. 30 in a story titled, “Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan More Than a Year Ago” by Israeli correspondents Ronen Bergman and Adam Goldman.

“What could have been an intelligence coup turned into one of the worst miscalculations in Israel’s 75-year history,” the pair opined, citing Israeli officials who claimed the advance warnings were dismissed as “aspirational” and that the plan was considered too tough for Hamas to pull off. The news was carried by everyone from Al-Jazeera to Rolling Stone.

As with many war stories – from Vietnam to Iraq to Ukraine – the question is raised: are intelligence services just lame or are governments actually complicit? In the present context, did Israel miscalculate or did it want Hamas to attack for its own sordid reasons? One conspiracy narrative is that Israel encouraged and financed the rise of Hamas in order to divide and conquer Palestinians – pitting the Islamic Hamas in Gaza against the secular PLO on the West Bank in an effort to head off the formation of a Palestinian state.

In 1994, Israeli whistleblower Victor Ostrovsky wrote that Mossad’s general vision for the Arab world was backing fundamentalists who would never negotiate with the West, leaving Israel as “the only democratic, rational country in the region.” A former Israeli religious affairs official working in Gaza told the Wall Street Journal in 2009, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.”

Two years ago, former Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Shipler wrote, “In 1981, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, Israel’s military governor of Gaza, told me that he was giving money to the Muslim Brotherhood, the precursor of Hamas, on the instruction of the Israeli authorities.”

When does a conspiracy theory turn out to be an actual conspiracy? My answer: when the facts deem it so. Speculating about what “they don’t want you to know” is much easier than documenting what really happened. The latter takes sources, skepticism, neutrality and patience. Arguments with family members around holiday meals and get-togethers brings out the impatience in us all.

I’m a journalist. I’m a newshound. I also like history – and hope that history will get some of these stories right, which takes a huge amount of patience. What do you want to know? Which conspiracy theories are driving you crazy and which make you go, “Hmmm…?” In the past year, we’ve published 15 articles on everything from new disclosures about the assassination of President Kennedy to the latest twists and turns in the information wars over climate change. We’d really like to hear from readers now about subjects to tackle in 2024.

Please take a moment to comment. That would make my day. And have serene, courageous and wise holidays!