Equivocating things by the phrase “On the one hand… on the other hand…”

Common sayings and phrases facilitate smooth speech, but sometimes they tend to suppress an undesirable truth or to introduce a desirable lie. For example, the saying “not everything is black or white” can be an introduction to questioning the predominant participation of Pakistani immigrants in the abuse of underage English girls in the north of England, because there were also cases where other ethnic groups  participated  in the abuse,  or when the girls were of age. The relevance of Pakistani

gangs can also be obscured by the phrase: “On the one hand, twenty thousand English girls were abused by Pakistani men, on the other hand, these cases became cheap ammunition for the extreme right” (here, here, here). It reminds me of this sentence: “It is true that the Nazis did not treat the Jews well, but on the other hand, we must admit that the Jews did not like the Nazis either.”

Journalists love to employ contrasts, whether explicitly or implicitly. The phrase “on the one hand… on the other hand…” can also be used to present contrasts without any ulterior motives, but what about this one, writing about the alleged genocide in Gaza: “Yes, there are problems in the Gaza strip, bloodshed, and in some specific cases perhaps even war crimes; but genocide is a higher league” (here). So on the one hand, there are Israeli crimes, but on the other hand, it is not a complete genocide; the confused author may believe that he helps Israel (and I am not angry with him, also because he often quotes me, as  here or here). Still worse are completely unambiguous “news” like: “Israeli strike kills dozens sheltering in Gaza school, officials say“ (here). This message is not obscured by the phrase “on the one hand...”, but by the addition “officials say“; so maybe it didn't happen, but some “officials“ claim it did, and some people unfortunately tend to believe the officials.

Similarly, readers of almost every newspaper in the world will learn that “the Israeli army uses Palestinian detainees as human shields during military operations, as the AP agency claims” (here); unfortunately, some people trust the AP, Reuters and other agencies, including PR agencies, despite their proven corruption (here, here). However, even the most respected scientific journals have engaged in falsification of the facts, a good example being the article in The Lancet claiming that the Palestinian sources underestimate the number of deaths in Gaza, since “scientific studies” show many times higher numbers of victims of the Israeli genocide than Hamas claims (here). Analysis of financial sources shows that most of these agencies receive money from agents hostile to Western civilization (e.g. here, here).

Not only good sayings but also quoting “experts” helps in selling lies: “Experts accuse Israel of genocidal acts“ (here). Popularly, not everything is black or white: Iran may be a terrorist state (here), but the Jewish state, even if threatened by Iran, is still the aggressor (here). On the one hand, Iran has killed thousands of Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Argentinian and many other civilians, as well as American soldiers, not to mention tens of thousands of its own citizens, but on the other hand, forty years of threatening another state with being wiped off the map is not a sufficient reason for a defense or an attack. On the one hand, Israel is fighting for survival against the nuclear threat of mad ayatollahs, also being hit by ballistic missiles from Iran and Yemen and defending itself against Arab terrorists from Gaza, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and even from within Israel, but on the other hand, the world is worried about the safety of Arabs (here, here, here, here).

It seems possible to divide political actors into two sides (for example painted black and white): on one side there will be China, Russia, Arab states, oppressive regimes, chaotic states, and on the other side there will be the others. It is subjective and someone would divide them differently. Moreover, it seems to me that it can be said, maybe haphazardly, that on the one hand there are people who perceive everything through the prism of some ideology or media clichés, and on the other hand there are relatively normal people who perceive reality less distortedly. On the one hand there are people who only go with the flow, on the other hand there are people who try to distinguish some regularities around them. On the one hand there are people who do not resist chaos and violence, on the other hand there are people who strive for order. On the one hand there are people who mainly support those who feed or pay them, on the other hand there are people who care for logic or altruism.

Some groups of people tend to lean a little more to one side, such as lawyers, journalists, and politicians. Regarding ethnic groups, everyone can check by oneself the ethnic composition of developing and developed countries (without slipping to racism), or the composition among those who illegally enter developed countries, or among those who loot stores in the riots. On the one hand, George Floyd was a convicted criminal who died of an overdose, on the other hand it was unacceptable for the police officer who arrested him to be white (he received 22 years in prison for this). On the one hand, communists in the USSR killed tens of millions of people, on the other hand, their opponents in America were labeled as primitive anti-communists.

If a Muslim kills or injures 70 Christians in a Syrian church (here), the other side of this event is not the fact that the terrorist suffered as a child or that the Jews crucified Jesus. If Israelis defend their country from terrorists, the other side is not the fact that these terrorists claim the country belongs to them. Things are simply not blurred, unclear and indistinguishable as humanistic scholars and humanitarian activists present them; on the contrary, things are often sharply black or white, clearly on the left or right, they are either on one side or the other (and not on both at the same time). It is important to distinguish, not to mix and not to blur. Whoever speaks the truth on the one hand, but not on the other hand, is a liar.