This Pew report (5/21/21) should not come as a surprise to US journalists.
As protests erupt worldwide against Israel’s ferocious bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, which has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 Palestinians (Reuters, 11/6/23), US media ponder how all of this impacts Jewish people. Sadly, the way this is often framed completely mischaracterizes Jewish opinion and the pro-Israel movement, falsely acting as if Jewish opinion is unquestionably unified in support of Israeli military attacks and in opposition to Palestinian rights.
One might think corporate media might have learned better by now. The New York Times (10/27/23) reported on a massive “never again for anyone” protest at Grand Central Terminal headed by Jewish Voice for Peace. Descendants of Holocaust survivors were arrested for protesting military aid to Israel at Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s house (Business Insider, 10/14/23). More than 300 activists were arrested in Washington, DC, while calling for a ceasefire in a Capitol Hill protest organized by JVP and IfNotNow, another Jewish peace group (USA Today, 10/19/23).
CNN (10/23/23) reported, “Thousands more Jewish Americans continue to gather in protests across the United States, calling on President Joe Biden and other elected officials to rein in Israel.” Among those Jewish-led protests was one outside the Los Angeles home of Vice President Kamala Harris (LA Times, 10/19/23).
None of this should be surprising, as a Pew Research (5/21/21) survey “found that Jewish Americans—much like the US public overall—also hold widely differing views on Israel and its political leadership.” Younger Jews in particular are often sharply critical of Israel; a poll by the Jewish Electorate Institute (7/13/21) found that 38% of US Jews under 40 agreed that “Israel is an apartheid state,” and 33% believed it was committing genocide against Palestinians.
Binary framing
“Jewish writers reacted with horror to the guild’s refusal to condemn the attacks on Israel,” the New York Times reported (10/29/23)—although there were also Jewish writers on the board that made that decision.
Yet binary media framing persists. In the early days of the current Israel/Palestine violence, FAIR (10/17/23) criticized a New York Times article (10/13/23) that depicted Jewish New Yorkers as united in putting aside their political differences with the Israeli government in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack in southern Israel—ignoring the Jewish groups that were mobilizing against a military assault on Gaza.
More recently, the New York Times (10/29/23) reported on an internal spat within the Writers Guild of America over its initial reluctance to issue a statement about the Hamas attack. The paper characterized the affair as “Jewish writers” rebelling against the union’s leadership, even though some of its board members, like Raphael Bob-Waksberg (Hey Alma, 3/16/20), Justin Halpern (Reddit, 2/25/20; Tablet, 5/28/13) and Molly Nussbaum (Substack, 5/27/23), also identify as Jewish.
The Times got sillier when it ran a story (11/3/23) by Jeremy Peters headlined “Jewish Viewers Find a Refuge in Fox News,” in which the paper explained that “Fox News has wrapped itself in the Israeli flag in the weeks since the Hamas attack.” Admitting that “there are no specific metrics available on the religious affiliation of Fox’s audience since” the Hamas attacks, the paper said that “ratings data from major metropolitan areas with large Jewish populations, including New York, Miami and Los Angeles, show a spike in viewership that outpaces its rivals.”
The paper also noted that Jewish patrons of Manhattan’s Second Avenue Deli warmly embraced a visit by the crew of the Fox News show Fox & Friends. With all due respect to the wonderful menu at the storied institution, its clientele is hardly the beginning and end of Jewish opinion.
And at the very end of the story, Peters acknowledges that Fox coverage of the recent violence in Israel is similar to the hardline support for the Bush administration the network exhibited after 9/11. So the takeaway isn’t that Fox is popular to Jews specifically, but popular among those who support US policy in the Middle East. But the Times chose to frame it around Jewish opinion, specifically.
An AP story (10/15/23) on recent college campus protests said, “Many Jewish students and their allies, some with family and friends in Israel, have demanded bold reckonings and strong condemnation” after the Hamas attacks. Meanwhile, “some Muslim students have joined with allies to call for a recognition of decades of suffering by Palestinians in Gaza, plus condemnation of the response by Israel.”
This paints a false dichotomy. The fact is, people of all faiths, and those without religion or any ancestral connection to the region, exist in all corners of the great Middle Eastern debate.
‘Open call for eradication’
“Jewish students hear ‘the river to the sea’ as an open call for the eradication of Israel,” the Washington Post (10/31/23) reported—not mentioning that Jewish anti-war protesters use this slogan as well (Common Dreams, 10/27/23).
A Washington Post report (10/31/23) on the Jewish response to pro-Palestinian protests on campuses stated, as a factual observation, that “Jewish students hear ‘the river to the sea’ as an open call for the eradication of Israel, a haunting proposition given the legacy of the Holocaust that led to Israel’s creation.”
There are a few problems here. One, it is hardly established that the American Jewish student body is monolithic on this issue. College groups that support Palestinian rights often include Jews; in fact, FAIR (5/22/23) reported how a Jewish staffer at the AP was forced out of her job because of her past pro-Palestinian advocacy in college. Two, the phrase “the river to the sea” is often mischaracterized, as it refers to a one-state solution, not anyone’s deportation.
However, to back up this assertion, the Post quotes Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League, saying that while “there’s nothing wrong with advocating for a Palestinian state,” there is also “nothing wrong with advocating for a two-state solution.” However, he says, “there’s something profoundly wrong with advocating for a final solution.”
The “final solution” is a reference to the Jewish Holocaust, or Shoah. But many Jews and non-Jews alike advocate for a one-state solution where all people have rights, regardless of their religion or ethnicity. It is intellectually dishonest for the Post to quote a pro-Israel partisan to assert that the choice for Jews is between a two-state solution and Auschwitz.
For example, in the post-Brexit economy, the idea of Irish reunification is becoming more and more real (Guardian, 10/6/22). Yet no one would seriously characterize the Republic of Ireland absorbing the North as a Protestant genocide. Nor were white residents of South Africa exterminated or forced to emigrate when their country turned to a democratic one-person-one-vote system.
‘Have you considered converting?’
Rep. Ritchie Torres framed the Israel/Palestine story as a conflict between “humanity” and “inhumanity” (Daily News, 10/9/23).
Media’s love affair with Democratic New York Rep. Ritchie Torres and his outspoken pro-Israel position is also telling. New York’s tabloids have given Torres’ attacks on critics of Israeli policy top coverage (Daily News, 10/9/23; New York Post, 10/11/23, 10/14/23, 10/15/23). But a recent interview with Torres in Politico (10/27/23), painting the non-Jewish Democrat as one of Israel’s biggest cheerleaders in Congress, truly exposes some key misunderstandings about Jewish politics and Israel.
For example, the first question in the back-and-forth with writer Jeff Coltin acknowledged that Torres has Jews in his district. But that’s also true of the Democratic Socialists of America–backed Jamaal Bowman, who represents the neighboring district; he also boasts support from the Jewish community (Forward, 10/19/23), though he is a constant target of pro-Israel PACs (Jewish Insider, 8/9/23).
Then Coltin asks Torres, “Have you considered converting to Judaism,” to which Torres answers no. But what kind of question is that? Zionism is just not synonymous with Judaism or Jewishness. In fact, Israel has increasingly looked for support from evangelical Christians for support (Brookings Institution, 5/26/21; Jerusalem Post, 9/3/23; New York Times, 10/15/23).
Coltin also takes Torres at face value when the Bronx lawmaker said that his “belief in Israel as a Jewish state is based not on religion, but history,” because “there’s a long and ugly history of antisemitism.” He never ponders if Torres’ fervor is at all related to his history of fundraising with AIPAC and other Israel supporters; the Open Secrets website lists “pro-Israel” as the third-largest source of funds for Torres’ 2022 campaign, behind only Securities & Investment and Real Estate.
FAIR (11/5/21) has previously reported that when Politico was acquired by the German media group Axel Springer, the new owner included support for Israel’s “right to exist” as one of the ideological principles employees must endorse.
Media organizations are well within their rights to portray debates about Israel’s assault on Gaza and the Hamas attack on southern Israel as having high emotional intensity, where passion often overtakes cold analysis. But they shouldn’t give us a muddled vision of Jewish politics—or anyone’s politics, for that matter.
Featured image: New York Times photo (10/27/23) of a Jewish Voice for Peace protest at New York City’s Grand Central Terminal (photo: Bing Guan).
I am of Jewish ancestry and I have had, under protest, some Jewish religious education as a child. My family was not observant and were fairly acultural Jews. I was born in 1943 in Cleveland, OH, so my experience WWII was through stories, news, films, etc. after the fact. My parents didn’t talk about our European relatives much, although I can estimate there could have been on the order of a hundred or so. The only thing my parents did tell me was that only five survived. Four of them, a family, were disappeared by the Russians when they tried to flee during the Hungarian uprising in 1956. If you look on the Yad Vashem site, it lists hundreds of people with my last name as murdered.
As a child and young adult, I did experience the sentiments people had after the war and about the establishment of Israel. Most of the Jewish people I knew had very positive feelings about it. My father didn’t. While he didn’t criticize Israel openly, he was clear that he was skeptical about it. Perhaps that is what allowed me to arrive at this perspective of why Israel was created.
1. Israel is indeed a racist country. But not just racist to Palestinians. Racism there exists against Ethiopian, Yemenite, and Sephardic Jews. Ashkenazi and Russian Jews run the show, and the Ashkenazi probably still feel superior to the Russians. Along with racist, Israel is also colonialist, toxic capitalist, and misogynist. Remember that Israel turned a blind eye to the extermination of Ethiopian Jews until American benefactors threatened to end their support if Israel didn’t save them.
2. Palestine had a Jewish population continuously since Biblical times as did all the other countries in the Middle East. They prospered, were oppressed, etc. in varying cycles, but mostly got along with other minorities and Muslim rulers. They had misgivings about the establishment of Israel.
3. The Jewish celebration of Passover celebration ends with the saying “Next year in Jerusalem.” This was a not so harmless acknowledgement that somehow, even after millennia, Jews had some political claim on Palestine. Remember they could go live there, they just didn’t run the show. This myth of returning to Israel seemed simplistic and unattainable until a bunch of British, American, and German Jews, the Zionists, started pushing for it. They leveraged quaint, magical thinking, and religious dogma into a movement.
4. At the end of WW II, there were several million displaced Jews in Europe, most of them highly traumatized and feeling very vulnerable. Europe is still very anti-Semitic, and in 1945 the Jews that escaped the European holocaust presented a serious problem to the European countries. Creating Israel and sending the Jews off to it was a huge act of anti-Semitism on the part of the British and other European countries. It was a fake win for Jews, a disaster for Palestinians, and a double win for Europe. They got rid of the Jews who they despised and figured the Arabs would either finish the job Hitler started, or Israel would destabilize the Middle East for generations. Great idea! Ship a bunch of traumatized people off to take over someone else’s country on land they had no idea how to live on.
5. The popular view of Israel is that it is a homeland for the Jews. But one could look at it as the last vestige of the Third Reich. The Israeli leaders were Germans who had assimilated the culture of WW I and WW II Germany, and Russians who grew up under the Lenin and Stalin. Jews had served with distinction in the German army of WW I. Many of them would have done the same in WW II if they had been allowed to play. So why is anyone surprised when they treated the Arabs like Stalin or Hitler would have treated them? They had assimilated the same racism and feelings of colonial privilege the rest of the Europeans had.
6. Israel survived only by huge support from American Jews. Their enthusiasm for Israel came from the faulty idea that there should be a country where all Jews could be safe and seek refuge. And because they were brought up on the “next year in Jerusalem” meme, they didn’t question Palestine as being possibly the worst place to start a new country, although certainly there were no good places. The other impetus for American Jewish support of Israel was the feeling that Jews could be brave and good at war, not always the victims of mob violence. I saw otherwise decent, progressive people who bought into that at the same time they marched for civil rights here. And none of the people I hear going on about the right of Jews to their “ancestral” homeland appreciate the irony that they are living on the ancestral land of Native Americans.
7. The US supported Israel because it had two constituents. Obviously American Jews. But also the rabidly anti-Semitic christofascists. They wanted Israel to regain Jerusalem as its capital, and then survive long enough to be destroyed to satisfy their vile end times superstitions.
8. My opinion is that Israel never should have been created. I have no idea what the way forward is for those desperate people in Palestine and Israel.
BRAV
BRAVO, Mr. Ullman!!! Thank you so much for your most astute analysis!
Thank you, John, for that insightful account.
1948—–a horrific year for Palestinians. NAKBA…I recently learned of it. Jewish groups reached into Palestine and began murdering Palestinians. The ;land theft began and with Netanyahu the lives of all Palestinians are at risk. All land is being stolen and it appears that Israel is in the midst of clearing Palestinians from their homeland —forever.
This is horrifying—Netanyahu and others in the Israeli government are horrifying. The next step is to push all Palestinians who haven’t yet been murdered into Egypt. Oh the irony with the story of what’s his name….Moses leaving Egypt to have his people’s
own land—-and yet Palestinians have been having their land stolen for such a long time. 1948 until today.
I cannot support anyone running for President—as none seem honest enough, or even care enough about the Palestinian lives being killed daily. Most Jewish Americans are horrified—for some reason most in Congress are not. Perhaps when Congress
supports such a war, perhaps they should suit up and go. Sadly, the awful Netanyahu sees Palestinians as insects of no matter to be squashed into oblivion ..
What happened to Jews in WW 2 was horrific—WHY Netanyahu and company do YOU seem to want to play the part of the nazis this time around?
I would suggest you look into Cornell West. He strongly supports Palestinian rights.
a couple of key passages that highlight the empty, dead-end liberalism which underlies Paul’s (and most others’) analysis:
“The fact is, people of all faiths, and those without religion or any ancestral connection to the region, exist in all corners of the great Middle Eastern debate.” — The great Middle Eastern debate? That’s a particularly glib formulation considering the scale of oppression and death.
“Media organizations are well within their rights to portray debates about Israel’s assault on Gaza and the Hamas attack on southern Israel as having high emotional intensity, where passion often overtakes cold analysis.” — This final takeaway perversely asserts the “rights” of corporate media organizations while real people (with or without “rights”) are being slaughtered.
This is the “cold analysis” of liberalism: We, safely removed from the carnage we indirectly support, can have a “great debate” and assert the “rights” of corporations while others suffer and die. We don’t try to stop the killing, we only critique the media’s presentation of it to make sure certain airy principles are upheld.
Liberalism is barbarism.
Well, yes. This is the underlying weakness of FAIR, which is essentially a liberal project that critiques only the appearance of the capitalist, imperialist system that owns the vast majority of our media. “If only genocide were reported more honestly by corporate journalists, the world would be a better place.” Would it? Hardly.
Nothing you wrote counters the historical facts and truths of Zionist terrorism and theft of land that isn’t theirs. The theft and murder are covered up by western corporate media so that most of the population isn’t even aware of the truth. Israel is a nation founded on terror and terrorism. Palestinians, British, anyone that stood in their way during the original reign of terror which began before the Nakba.
And nothing you wrote counters the points made by FAIR and Ari Paul. Namely, that criticism of Israel is not the same as anti-Semitism. Leaving aside that Palestinians are Semites too, there are numerous – hundreds of thousands to millions – of Jews including Israelis who recognize this truth.
Scratch a liberal, reveal a barbaric fascist. That is true. Only socialism will empower the working class and poor to actually do something about the Israeli Zionists’ slaughter of innocent people. In the mean time, all we can do is debate and protest. Do you have any better ideas?
I was particularly taken aback by this New York Times article, which included these paragraphs in a section called “The Attacks” alongside several very real instances of threats of anti-semitic violence on American campuses. I think that this is a very dangerous game to play and promotes anti-semitism.
“Many Jewish students say that while these attacks are alarming enough, they are also pained by the slogans that harness the horrors of the Holocaust and turn them against Jews or Israel — like accusing Israelis of “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing.” In this telling, Jews are not victims but “Nazis” and “fascist” oppressors.
To many Jews who believe Israel had a right to self-defense and retaliation after the Hamas attack, accusing Israel of such atrocities against Palestinians is an insidious form of antisemitism.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/us/antisemitic-speech-palestine-israel-protests.html
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“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”
With blatantly anti-Jewish student groups and professors allowed to operate with complete impunity, it sends a clear and distressing message that Jews are not only unwelcome, but also unsafe on campus, Outrageous
This is pretty on point – Jews should not support the Jewish state! But I still have a bone to pick with FAIR. The Washington Post reported that Hamas “cut open the belly of a pregnant woman and dragged her fetus onto the ground.” For people who don’t know the truth (most brainwashed people!), it sounds like something out of Charles Manson. That’s why FAIR should be doing its job! Like all Israel people, the fetus was a settler colonialist. It was fair game, like any other target for militants resisting. And don’t tell me the fetus is too young – if it can kick it’s mother’s belly, it can damn well stand up to settler colonial racism! FAIR needs to write about this, and ASAP. Or I’ll tell my friends FAIR is just one more mainstring media!!