Israel is winning the battle for hearts and minds in America
Happy thanksgiving! If Americans didn’t have enough to discuss around the dinner table – Trump, Napoleon and that lunatic in Argentina – they can also go at it over Israel. Polls suggest the divide is real and, like everything else, generational.
Let’s be honest: some people have taken the opportunity of a bloody Mid-East crisis to get off their chest how they really feel about Jews or Muslims. In New York City, a bizarre creature called Stuart Seldowitz was filmed approaching a Halal vendor and unloading every Islamophobic cliche that entered his head. You are a terrorist, he said; Mohammed was a rapist; the Koran belongs in the lavatory; oh, and “if we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn’t enough.”
Seldowitz has been arrested. He says the vendor expressed support for Hamas. True or false? We don’t know, because the vendor – who speaks enough English to feel “afraid and annoyed” – appears only to have recorded part of the conversation. Either way, Seldowitz is an insight into views found even at the highly-educated end of US society, for it turns out he is not just a former government official but worked in the state department (including under Obama). He won the department’s coveted Superior Honor Award three times.
On the other side of the Israel debate, campuses have seen alarming demonstrations not merely of sympathy with Gazan civilians, which is legitimate, but for the semantically inaccurate fight against Israeli “occupation”. The National Students for Justice in Palestine called the Oct 7 attack an “historic win”. At Harvard, over 30 student groups issued a statement holding Israel “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence”.
Earlier this year – ie long before this conflict began – Gallup reported that more Democrats now sympathise with the Palestinians than with the Israelis, for the first time in history. This shift in attitude is driven by Millennials, stoking fears that universities have become hotbeds of far-Left indoctrination.
According to Quinnipiac, over half of voters under 35 today oppose sending military aid to Israel – attitudes being shaped not by party but by cohort and media consumption. Hence a moral panic erupted when TikTok users were observed sharing Osama Bin Laden’s infamous “letter to America” justifying the 9-11 attacks on the grounds of US/Israeli imperialism. Could it be that citizens under a certain age, with no memory of the Twin Towers, have fallen prey to terrorists posing as freedom fighters?
Probably not. As calmer heads noted, the original TikTok videos received a relatively small audience for the platform: it was the fuss made about them, and the Guardian’s decision to take down the original letter, that sent the story viral. Classic Streisand Effect: silencing discussion of a topic is the best way to generate interest in it.
If you take a bird’s eye view of institutional power in 21st century America, the pro-Israeli consensus remains strong – arguably an “elite” position. According to Ipsos, a clear majority of voters back a cease-fire, yet only around 40 congressmen have called for one. Democrat leaders have distanced themselves from radical protests, isolating the tiny contingent of US socialists; Bernie Sanders himself favours only a humanitarian pause. Student demonstrations have been answered with donor strikes, forcing universities to issue clarifying statements and promising to fight anti-semitism on campus (which, dissident academics say, means an assault on their freedom to speak).
Even the entertainment industry, which prides itself on taking up left-wing causes before their time, has buried its head in the sand. Some Jewish colleagues were understandably furious that organisations happy to issue press releases denouncing the “violent and systemic opening of an envelope” were oddly quiet about Oct 7 – betraying either sympathy with Hamas or anxiety over what was the wokeist position to take (“consensus [is] out of reach” explained the Writers Guild of America). Then again, colleagues who have crossed a clearer line on the Palestine issue have paid a price for doing so.
Susan Sarandon said at a rally: “There are a lot of people… that are afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of how it feels to be Muslim in this country.”
It was a vile remark; she’s since been dropped by her talent agency. Tom Cruise reportedly had to step in to save the career of agent Maha Dakhil after she accused the Israelis of genocide. The actress Melissa Barrera, who has also charged the Israelis with ethnic cleansing, has been sacked from “Scream 7”. The fact that Hollywood is halfway towards making a dozen Scream movies is a nod towards its artistic stagnation, and had Ms Barrera not been dropped from the lead role, I honestly would never have known she was going to be in it. On the subject of Israel, as on so many others, Hollywood is clueless and irrelevant.
While there is unquestionably a generation gap in public opinion, while hate is in some cases being articulated under the guise of “thoughts and prayers”, and while people are right to be alarmed by deranged statements couched in trendy ideology, it probably remains the case that there is greater risk to one’s American career promoting a cease-fire in Gaza than in opposing one.
This despite reports that America – Israel’s #1 ally – has, behind the scenes, been encouraging Netanyahu to stop the shooting. Don’t be surprised if we wake up one morning and find that the de-escalation some were calling for a month ago, and being denounced for it, is suddenly official US policy.
