There are two basic conditions necessary for public brainwashing. The first is the continued feeding of the public with baseless information, a well-known method that was developed into an art by dark regimes, in which repeating a lie enough times turns it into the truth. The second is the blocking of credible alternative information. If the public runs into the same information time after time and there is no one to undermine it, the chance to succeed in engineering public consciousness is high.

These two conditions clearly exist in the way Europe’s attitude toward Israel is being presented here, following the decision on labeling products of the settlements. The great majority of the Israeli media have taken a stand alongside the government to carry out this mission. A unified chorus has sounded the hysterical cry, free of all doubt, which none can challenge. European anti-Semitism has once again arisen. Once again the Europeans have isolated Israel, and once again acted according to their familiar double standard.

On Channel 1’s Mabat news program, shoppers in a Jerusalem grocery store were asked if, in response to the “boycott,” they are planning on boycotting European Union products – even though there is no European Union boycott of Israel, not even of the settlements. Northern Cyprus and Western Sahara rolled off people’s tongues on every street corner, even off the tongues of those who a minute earlier did not know that Nicosia is also divided by a Green Line and who would later struggle to find Western Sahara on a map. The flock of commentators enlisted to present the hypocrisy of Europe, which does not label products from these occupied territories, which remains silent in the face of regimes that violate human rights such as China and Iran, and it is only Israel they “boycott.”

These lies were showered on the public with such intensity, until between the huge headlines about the poor, mistreated prima donna, there was no room left for the basic facts that would have refuted them. Citizens who were nonetheless interested in formulating their own opinions on the basis of facts were forced to conduct an independent investigation on the Internet.

What can we discover through such an inquiry? For example, that the Europeans (those anti-Semites) gave nearly 2 billion shekels (almost a half-billion euros) in support to projects in Israeli industry and academia just in the last year.

We could learn that to the credit of the free trade agreement with the Europe Union, which very few countries outside the continent enjoy, trade with Israel will reach 200 billion shekels a year – a third of Israel’s foreign trade. The European Union donates millions of shekels a year toward making Israeli government ministries more professional in their fields.

Yes, the government of the State of Israel is also funded by this foreign political entity.

Whoever bothered to check certainly found that the reason why the Europeans do not label the products of occupied Northern Cyprus is that they are simply boycotting it completely, and do not buy its goods, labeled or not. At a time when Maccabi Tel Aviv competes in the Champions League, athletes from Northern Cyprus are unable to participate at all in international competitions under the flag of their “country.”

A simple investigation would also have shown that a few European nations have made it clear that the free trade agreement between the European Union and Morocco does not apply to Western Sahara, similarly to the way it doesn’t to Judea and Samaria. And this is without considering the enormous difference in the scope of human rights violations in Western Sahara and Northern Cyprus, compared to the West Bank: In the occupied territories in Cyprus and Morocco, local residents enjoy citizenship and nearly equal rights.

Whoever has managed to break through the information walls that the government maintains, aided by the media and partisan commentators, discovered that there are no less than 36 countries, including China, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon and Russia, that are under various types of economic sanctions by the European Union. And it is important to remember: Against Israel there are no sanctions, not even against the settlements. The tougher European treatment of them means only that they no longer enjoy the advantages accorded to Israel under the free trade agreement with the European Union.

This brainwashing we are being subjected to about Europe’s relations with Israel is very effective, and it is just one example. The image and actions of Mahmoud Abbas as chairman of the Palestinian Authority are another example. So is the policy of U.S. President Barack Obama. This imaginary world that the government and media in Israel present to its citizens works to justify Israelis’ feeling of victimization and the constant willingness to fight the entire world. It’s a shame that what gets lost along the way are truth and reality, which could offer people a somewhat more normal life in this country.

The writer is a lecturer in the law school at the College of Management and a doctoral student in law at Tel Aviv University.