The media say they are the torch for freedom and the key to a healthy democracy. So it’s no surprise that they’re outraged at President Trump, who has branded much of them as “fake news.” But the president is right.

The Founder of ‘Fake’ News

What exactly is “fake” news? The word fake means to conceal the truth in order to deceive. Who decides what is news? What is the objective of the news? Is it to deceive? Why is the majority of the news the same? Why is it rarely ever good news?

Propaganda is partial information used primarily to influence an audience and advance an agenda by presenting selective facts. It is lying by omission. It has been used since the beginning of time to collapse civilizations.

Fake news has been around just as long. The founder of fake news is Satan, the Deceiver. He is the Father of Lies, murderer, the accuser of the brethren, and the god of this world.

For decades, The New York Times touts its coverage as “all the news that’s fit to print.” Really? Who are they to tell me that their news is all I am fit to know? Are they truly telling us what we need to know? The mainstream media bangs away day and night on a 24/7 cycle trying to convince the American people that Donald Trump was complicit with the Russians in gaming the 2016 U.S. election. Is that news, or simply “fake” news and propaganda? The Times’ new slogan is “the truth is more important than ever.” If only they believed it.

War and the Media

Who puts a moral value on the news? Is it simply to deceive and dumb down the American people? The new wars of the 21st century are media wars, ideological wars, economic wars, and proxy wars.

I asked a former chief of staff the question: When do wars begin and when do they end? He replied, “It’s determined by the media.”

So much of what we hear is propaganda and lies used to manipulate the masses.

During an interview, Farah Pahlavi told me that then-President Jimmy Carter pressured her husband, the Shah of Iran, to allow freedom of the press in his country, to free political prisoners, and allow freedom of religion. Unless the Shah did so, he would receive no replacement parts for airplanes or helicopters. Carter told the Shah that he was making this demand because of human rights.

The former queen of Iran relayed her husband’s response to Carter’s demands: “If I do this, the Russians will invade Afghanistan; there will be an Islamic revolution; Iraq will go to war against our country, and who knows what horror will come upon the earth.”

‘Fake’ News as a Weapon

As a journalist who has specialized in the Middle East for over forty years, there is no doubt in my mind the lies of which the mainstream media is capable. I watched a reporter in the Palestinian Territory set up riots and tell the participants when to throw rocks in order to make the evening news. I saw a network reporter in Somalia being driven around in a warlord’s pick-up truck, staying in the warlord’s home, and holding up a sack of narcotics while claiming it was maize. The reporter wanted to do a story on humanitarian aid. In Haifa, which is in Israel, a CNN reporter dressed in a helmet and flak jacket stood atop a 4-star hotel and went live on the evening news claiming he was in Lebanon.

There is no doubt in my mind the lies of which the mainstream media is capable.

The media is a powerful weapon if terror is taken as a prime example. Many of the suicide bombings would not happen without media coverage, an effective recruitment tool for jihadists. It attracts funds and recruits while memorializing terrorists and lionizing the organization. Why do the names of terrorists have to be acknowledged in the media?

The Israel/Palestinian crisis has never been a self-inspired narrative of propaganda; it has been spread by the mainstream media. It has been called the “key to Middle East peace.” That peace resolution will not come with a resolution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The Jewish people in Israel have never been killed over land, but always for being Jews. The media won’t reveal that fact. This same approach is used when Christians are massacred in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan. These attacks go mostly unacknowledged by the mainstream media.

When ‘News’ Distorts Reality

I arranged the Fox Network interview with former Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Following his television appearance, I asked him why was the lifespan of Zionists eighty-two years and that of Iranians sixty-two years. Why was there such a disparity? He looked at me and replied very seriously, “That is a very good question, and we have found the answer: It is because of rats. The Zionists infect rats with poison and turn them loose in our fields. The rats eat our crops and we die twenty years sooner.”

Looking back at him, I asked, “Is this a joke?”

He replied sternly, “I don’t joke!”

“How are the rats taught to swim 200 miles across the Persian Gulf?” I asked.

During a Middle East Peace Conference, I debated Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi. She stated that Jesus was the first Palestinian Christian born in the Muslim town of Bethlehem. My response to her was that Jesus Christ was a Jew, born in the Jewish town of Bethlehem. She responded, “Don’t confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up. Don’t distort my reality.”

Yes, Donald Trump is correct about fake news. So much of what we hear is propaganda and lies used to manipulate the masses.

Mike Evans is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with 72 published books. He is the founder of Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem. www.fozmuseum.com