George Orwell disliked peace propaganda as much as he disliked war propaganda. Like war propaganda, he wrote, peace propaganda “concentrates on putting forward a ‘case,’ obscuring the opponent’s point of view and avoiding awkward questions.”

I spent an Orwellian few days watching new documentaries about Oct. 7 and its aftermath, specifically on how the Hamas attacks in Israel and the fallout from Israel’s war in Gaza played out in the United States. “October 8,” a film about how American Jews experienced the fierce and at times antisemitic backlash to Israel and the war, and “The Encampments,” an intensely sympathetic portrait of the anti-Israel protests at Columbia University, fit Orwell’s gripe to a T. Neither even acknowledges that there may be a different point of view, and the awkward questions are left to cranky viewers like me, who have to look for the answers elsewhere.

The films’ one-sided arguments thus raise a few questions of their own: Who are these films for? Are they meant to persuade, and if so, persuade whom? Who are the hypothetical viewers who care enough about the issue to watch films like these and haven’t already made up their minds?

Of course, persuasion may be beside the point. It might be more useful to compare “October 8” and “The Encampments” to religious services, where the faithful go to validate their beliefs and seek healing in the company of other believers.

“October 8,” executive produced by the actress Debra Messing and directed by Wendy Sachs, describes the explosion of anti-Israel activism that to many Jews felt indistinguishable from antisemitism, because in many cases it was. The most compelling segments of the film focus on Jewish college students who found themselves on the wrong side of the Israel question — in this case, of the side of not hating Israel.

“October 8” is effective at reinforcing the ways anti-Zionism can be antisemitic. Students such as

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