"I was part of the camp that swallowed all that brainwashing"

Ex-Barak aide: "They lied to me for years"

Dr. Yaacov Ben Shemesh, who served as legal aide to former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, describes the great shift in his life and his move from the left to the right: I lived thirty years under propaganda of lies

Gila Isaacson

OCT 11, 2026 12:52

2 min read

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Dr. Yaacov Ben Shemesh, senior lecturer in public law at Ono Academic College and former legal aide to Aharon Barak, the retired president of Israel's Supreme Court, has spoken publicly about the political awakening he underwent and his shift from the left to the right.

In an interview Sunday on Galei Israel radio, Ben Shemesh said: "I was part of the camp that swallowed all that brainwashing. When you hear it day after day for thirty years from every media outlet, that's what everyone says, that's what everyone talks about, that's what everyone at work and at university thinks, even a person with education and critical thinking can believe it."

"You already 'know' that Netanyahu 'incites and divides and lies.' You no longer check. They told you these things so many times that it becomes truth," he said.

Ben Shemesh continued: "When the judicial reform began and I saw the media campaign against it, interviewing former Supreme Court justices and law professors, I saw they were lying, because that's my field of expertise. It was easy for me to see it was a false campaign, a foolish propaganda drive."

"And then came October seventh, and I said to myself: wait, so they also lied to us about Oslo, they also lied to us about the disengagement. Everything collapses. Within a few months, everything collapses. I lived thirty years under propaganda of lies," he said.

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