Facts lessen tension, instead of inflaming

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/12/2023 (953 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

We are living in an era of extraordinary polarization.

On any given issue, people are expected to take sides in emotional, winner-take-all, black-and-white conflicts. Canada, the “unquiet country,” is no stranger to divisive, intense debate. But current conflicts feel particularly damaging.

But what if the decision to take one side over another is based on inaccurate information? To what extent would correcting misinformation moderate conflict and lessen rather than enflame tension?

The current conflict between Israel and Hamas illustrates how misinformation can shape public opinion, and how extremists can marshal ignorance to serve their own interests.

Consider the oft-heard chant repeated by pro-Palestinian protesters in both Canada and the U.S.: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Consulting Google Maps reveals that handing territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to Palestinians would mean the effective end of the state of Israel.

Do the protesters repeating this slogan comprehend its implications?

Having observed throngs of American university students repeating the mantra, political scientist Ron Hassner set out to investigate that question. He commissioned a survey of U.S. university students to probe their support for the slogan.

Not surprisingly, a majority of students surveyed supported the sentiments expressed in the “From the river to the sea” slogan.

But Hassner also found that this support was built on a remarkable degree of misunderstanding of the conflict and its history. Less than half of those surveyed could identify the river and sea in question, with some thinking that the slogan was referring to the Caribbean Sea or the Atlantic Ocean.

Less than a quarter of these students knew who Yasser Arafat was, with some guessing that he was Israel’s first prime minister. Over a quarter denied that the Oslo Accords had ever been signed.

These findings are depressing. But Hassner was also interested in whether learning some basic facts about the conflict might shift students’ support for the “From the river to the sea” slogan.

It worked. When some of the students were shown a map of the region between the Jordan and the Mediterranean and were able to contemplate the implications of the slogan, 75

per cent changed their minds. Even the slightest injection of basic facts about the conflict strongly affected support for the slogan.

Hassner probed further. Of those students who thought a Palestinian state should simply replace Israel, 60 percent changed their minds when they learned that doing so would result in the expulsion (or worse) of seven million Jews and two million Arab Israelis from the region. Others dropped their support for the chant when they learned that many American Jews find it ominous and threatening.

In total, 67.8 per cent of the students who supported the “River to the Sea” mantra changed their minds after being provided with a small number of basic facts about the conflict and the history of the region, and some of the straightforward implications of the chant.

Why do Hassner’s findings matter? I’d argue that they matter for two reasons. First, because they suggest that at least part of the dialogue about current conflicts is driven by ignorance and that peoples’ positions can shift when they learn more objective facts. Clearly, this applies to the Israel-Hamas conflict. But one could surmise that it would apply to a whole range of contemporary hot-button issues on which people intensely disagree.

Second, Hassner’s findings matter because they show how learning can moderate rather than enflame tension.

In the past year in particular, we’ve seen how conflicts in places on the other side of the world can tear at Canada’s social fabric. But domestic opinions are often formed with little direct experience or knowledge of those conflicts. Extreme opinions often depend on ignorance, and extremists are quick to capitalize on ignorance to help pursue their own goals. We’ve heard from some of those antisemitic extremists right here in Canada.

One solution is better learning and more emphasis on objective facts. That is a burden that falls on those, like me, who teach about some of these issues, and on the media which covers them.

But this is not consistent with a model of education or journalism that prioritizes allyship over teaching and reporting objective facts. Some scholars argue that trying to provide context to the current conflict in Gaza, for example, is a woeful attempt at “both-sidesism” and that it is incumbent on scholars to stand with Palestinians. One of my colleagues at the university was subjected to this criticism after giving a media interview which tried to place the current conflict in a wider historical context.

Needless to say, I disagree with this view. Hassner’s research demonstrates how important objective understanding continues to be for contemporary debates, and also how increasing learning could help to moderate tensions and thwart extremists in our midst.

Royce Koop is a professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba and academic director of the Centre for Social Science Research and Policy.