by Taghreed Saadeh
In political debates, ready-made labels are often repeated to summarize positions and place them into narrow frameworks. Perhaps the most common among them is describing opinions as “black or white.” This expression, which on the surface appears to be a critique of simplistic thinking, in fact reveals a deeper issue related to how individuals form judgments, and the blurred boundary between analysis and impression.
It is not accurate to consider every clear or decisive stance as evidence of binary or simplistic thinking. Political work, like academic and journalistic work, is fundamentally based on reading facts, connecting them, and analyzing them to reach conclusions that may sometimes be firm, but are not necessarily reduced to a rigid dichotomy of “absolute right” and “absolute wrong.” However, the audience, who does not always have access to the full analytical process, may perceive the final conclusion as an oversimplification and thus describe it as “black or white.”
Here, the gap between producing a position and receiving it becomes evident. While the former is built on data and accumulated analysis, the latter is often measured through immediate impression or alignment with pre-existing beliefs. This is what makes some commonly used descriptions closer to reactions than to objective evaluations.
This issue becomes even clearer in public discourse, where judgments tend to become more polarized and contradictory. In the Palestinian context regarding Fatah, for example, a striking paradox can be observed: two leading figures belonging to the same organizational framework, both having worked under the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, sharing the same ideological reference, and having held prominent positions in both the organizational and field structures, one currently imprisoned and the other a former prisoner, yet one is labeled as a “fighter,” while the other is branded as a “collaborator.”
This sharp divergence cannot be understood without considering the influence of external factors in shaping judgment, most notably media representation and the personal experience of the recipient, where impressions are often formed without sufficient scrutiny. In this context, evaluation is not based on a fixed standard, but rather on a mixture of impressions and ready-made narratives that are continuously reproduced and reinforced.
This pattern of labeling, fighter versus collaborator, right versus wrong, reflects a mindset inclined to simplify political complexity into comfortable binaries. It is the same mindset that may lead some to describe opposing views as “black and white,” simply because they do not align with their own perceptions or allow space for ambiguity.
The core problem lies in the absence of clear standards upon which opinions are based. When standards are missing, evaluation shifts from analysis to impression, and from reading facts to reflecting public mood. In such cases, disagreement is no longer about facts themselves, but about how they are perceived and interpreted.
Restoring political discourse to a healthier path requires distinguishing between opinion grounded in analysis and opinion grounded in impression, and between criticism based on clear standards and that which extends into a broader, more fluid space. It also requires a degree of awareness of the limits of knowledge, and the courage to reconsider judgments before making them.
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