Michelle Goldberg, in her important essay: “How Israel Lost Americans,” makes an excellent case that American support for the only civilized country in the Middle East is indeed in freefall. And, not only on the part of the Democrats — they are leading the way in this regard — but also young people, independents, and even some Republicans have lost their way on this matter.
Horrifically, Goldberg reports: “… more Americans sympathize with the Palestinians than with the Israelis.” If that don’t beat all, nothing will. But her analysis of why this sad story is occurring, and who is responsible for it, leaves a lot to be desired.
Recommended Stories
Needless to say, Goldberg places great blame for this state of affairs on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She writes for the New York Times, after all, and they have been suffering from Bibi Derangement Syndrome for many years.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S LOVE AFFAIR WITH HATEFUL COMMUNIST HASAN PIKER
For example, she maintains that “… he said in a secretly recorded 2001 conversation, ‘I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.’” This, for those who have not been paying attention recently, is part of the oft-made charge that President Donald Trump is a puppet, and Netanyahu pulls the strings. This, of course, is a little bit difficult to reconcile with the U.S. president ordering the Israeli Prime Minister to cease operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon and forbidding Israel from annexing Judea and Samaria.
She states: “Israel’s imploding reputation is largely a consequence of its oppression of the Palestinians, in particular the mass killings in Gaza, which millions of Americans watched up close on social media.”
Hold on just one minute. The Israel Defense Forces have been more solicitous of Gazan civilians than perhaps any other army in the history of warfare. Yes, they have bombed hospitals, but before they do so, they send out leaflets warning non-combatants to leave the premises.
Why is the IDF pulverizing hospitals, schools, and residential areas in the first place? That is due to the fact that Hamas places drone and rocket launchers in such places, using its own people as shields. What is the Israeli military to do? Declare such places off limits as targets and thus be unable to defend their own residents from the scurrilous attacks? No, this is a despicable act on the part of Hamas, something Goldberg simply ignores.
She continues: “Israel’s occupation of the West Bank — which is increasingly turning into outright annexation — is making Zionism and liberalism seem incompatible.” Yes, leftists of her ilk do not recognize the fact that in a free society, property titles are based upon homesteading, and the Jews were there first, and thus are the rightful owners of that territory under dispute. Palestinians arrived there several centuries ago, while the Hebrews have been occupying that land for several millennia. The Al Aqsa Mosque lies above the Jewish Second Temple, not below it.
She avers: “As long as the possibility of a Palestinian state remained alive, liberals who feel warmly toward Israel could tell themselves that this system of de facto apartheid was only temporary. But Netanyahu’s government has done everything in its power to make a two-state solution impossible…”
Not so, not so. Apartheid, with Israeli Arabs as judges, policemen, professors, and members of the Knesset? With Arab emigration from Israel practically non-existent? The Likud party has no objection to a Palestinian state, located, perhaps, in the middle of the U.S., or, perhaps, in Australia. These Palestinians have preyed on Jews for too many years for them to be welcome as neighbors. It has not occurred to this woman that none of the Arab countries are exactly willing to host these people. They bite the hand that feeds them — just ask King Hussain of Jordan, who suffered through Black September.
Another explanation of this scribe’s is Israel’s role in American politics. “For decades,” she writes, “pro-Israel organizations in the United States have struggled mightily to control the parameters of acceptable debate about the Jewish state. … Israel’s allies have pushed speech codes defining anti-Zionism as antisemitism… They’ve passed anti-boycott laws…”
Stipulate, arguendo, that all of this is true. It still cannot be a good explanation for several reasons.
For one, Holocaust denial is legal in the U.S., but not in Canada and in much of Europe. For another, other groups, too, have attempted to “control the parameters of” free speech. Every attempt made in this direction by AIPAC, the ADL, and Betar has been more than matched by similar behavior on the part of the NAACP, the Urban League, UNCF, SCLC, and Black Lives Matter. Yet there is no parallel rise of anti-black sentiment. How many words or thoughts about black people are we now not allowed to articulate in public? Perhaps antisemitism is more deeply rooted in the sentiment of the average American than anti-black racism.
She then claims that Israel has been “behaving appallingly.” What appalling behavior? Israel has been under attack by its neighbors ever since its founding in 1948, and Jews in that area have been subjected to vicious pogroms long before and until then. Its military might has been wielded defensively, not offensively.
The main whipping boy of this editorialist, Netanyahu, stated: “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.” No truer words were ever said. Israel has never, ever, not even once, engaged in any initiatory war; all of its military actions have been purely defensive.
Goldberg claims that “Trump hasn’t bothered to explain why he might wage” war against Iran. He has too, often: no nukes for this appalling terrorist regime; no support for its “HHH” proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis; and no attacking traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. He has been very clear about that. She is simply not listening, or worse.
I have a far better explanation for the loss of American support for Israel. Hamas is a magnificent public relations enterprise, and Democrats in particular are extremely gullible. These Palestinians use their own women and children as shields, and then, when they are harmed, use these deaths to demonstrate the cruelty of the IDF in its attempts to stop its bombing of Israel.
Here is another explanation, closer to home: Goldberg’s own newspaper, along with other elite members of the media, has long been attacking Israel for no good reason. She, along with the Gray Lady’s editorial board, and especially Thomas Friedman and Nicholas Kristof, are the main culprits thereof.
MICHIGAN DEMOCRATS BECOME THE PARTY OF DEARBORN AND GAZA
They all ought to be ashamed of themselves. These writers would not dare undermine the black community in the way they have done for the Jewish community. They recall those “mostly peaceful” marches and do not want to be victimized by them. Ditto for the Muslims. The elite media also fully remember the fatwa case of Salman Rushdie and what happened to the Danish cartoonists.
But the Jews are fair game. They do not engage in such behavior. When is the last time a Jewish parade started rampaging? Never, that is when.
Walter E. Block, Ph.D., is the Harold E. Wirth eminent scholar endowed chair and professor of economics at Loyola University New Orleans.
