How the anti-Israel narrative has become so dominant in our era needs explaining, whatever our feelings on the Middle East. Even if you dislike Israel, what if your cause or people are next to be twisted by liars?
That there is a huge bias against Israel is beyond argument. It is backed by data but also obvious: a Western style democracy with full rule of law is painted as a “genocide” state by the great uneducated, and often unwashed, from the campus to street demos, to riots and in all types of media. Often the bias is unseen: Israeli responses to Palestinian violence is all that is reported so Israel is made to look like the aggressor without the predicate incidents publicized: in Hamas ceasefire breaks this very month, in rockets, stabbings, shootings and car rammings. We only get to see the Israeli response. Further, the myth that Palestinian grievance is “about land” is pushed, when Palestinian goals are actually religious.
This is the case with most private and almost all (US, UK, EU, Australian) public broadcasters and on social media forgetahbout it: all Palestine “victim porn” all the time. Some is hilariously absurd: fake “famines”, snow drifts, and one almost expects Zionist volcanoes in Gaza, Mossad trained bees and… sharks (the latter a real story in Egyptian media).
SO HOW DID THIS COME ABOUT?
There are three important factors here, trackable over time. Putting aside ancient antisemitism, modern “anti-Zionism” began in the 1960s with Kremlin propaganda basically magicing the “nation” and word Arab “Palestinian” into existence. Until the 1960s the word applied –only– to Jews, Arabs defined themselves as just Arabs and moreso, by tribe. Then the USSR decided to take up the “anti-colonization” fight and oppose the US/West, especially after Israel won the 1967 Six Day War.
Prior to 1967, the US was less pro-Israel, far from the much closer post-1967 era. From the 1960s, the KGB and later East German Stasi went full throttle in favor of Arab states and “Palestine”.
“Third Worldism*”, communism of poor countries and “liberation” were all the rage then and in an unintentional masterstroke, Soviet backed (and armed) Arab terrorists won the vibes war by… hijacking. Prior to Islamic suicide hijacking a la 9/11, non-lethal hijacking in the late 1960s and 1970s was insanely frequent: sometimes a hijacking a week. Airport security as we know it dates from that era: Palestine’s cultural contribution to humanity.
Constant photos and stories in the 1960s, 70s and even 80s featured cool, unshaved Arab men with sunglasses and keffiyehs in press conferences, on tarmacs, around planes, all “fighting for liberation” (doing terrorism) with few aviation related deaths. There was a cool revolutionary elan about, encapsulated by Tom Wolfe’s 1970 New Yorker essay: “Radical Chic, That Party at Lenny’s”, where murderous urban thugs and Third Worldism are kind of edgy and sexy to the elite Manhattan set. As an elite Manhattanite, I can assure readers this is still the case: witness Mayor Mandami.
This whole cultural mien and the lefty vibe back then ensured the (already left) poli-sci courses at universities adored the rebellious charisma (and usually darker skin) of “Palestine Liberation”, so that the 1970s generation of students became professors (mine, mainly) selling myths like “Palestine”. The PLO and other terrorists, all backed by the Soviets, were secular. Hijacking and Palestinian “resistance” took a turn for the religious, like the entire Middle East in the 1980s with the foundation of Hezbollah, Hamas, and later Al Qaida, the Taliban and ISIS. This religious revival in the entire Islamosphere was financed by Saudi Arabia. But hijacking and terrorism was less murderous – so “cooler” – prior to that. Suicide bombing didn’t start until the mid-1980s in Lebanon.
This formational, lefty pro-terrorist bias established the now intergenerational tradition of pro-Palestine university professors reproducing itself over 50+ years. I have personal experience: I came to America in the early 1990s to study graduate level Middle East politics at Georgetown University.
At the time I was advised that further study (say, a Ph.D.) was not really an option if I intended to study at an American university and not reflexively hate Israel. A course advisor and several professors confessed this and it was evident by the wildy pro-Palestinian, very left academy. This was thirty five years ago and it continues apace! Investigate any Middle East politics department today. Most are well funded by Jew hating Gulf governments, starting at Georgetown in the late 1980s.
Today’s news executives, editors, “Middle East experts”**, and academics drank their antisemitic pro-“Liberation” milk as impressionable young students and the ideas and fictions have been handed down even to today’s campus youthful, useful idiots, those now sucking on that big Chinese TikTok teat.
In a further unintentional masterstroke, the UN’s terrorism production office, UNRWA and the Arab/Islamic countries have united on this common, unifying cause, when they all actually hate each other. Qatar and Saudi Arabia finance any type of antisemitism they can – with the built in advantage that the Koran is itself wildly antisemitic. What luck!
Propaganda wise this vast network has expanded into a well funded industry, including the Boycott Divest Sanction movement, just as the terms “genocide” “apartheid” and “colonialism” were all once a glint in the Kremlin propagandists eyes. Billions of Qatari endowment dollars skew Middle East/International politics departments, think tanks, NGOs and “charities”. Islamists and Arab oil states also finance social media “influencers” and buy populist weirdos like Tucker Carlson outright to ensure propaganda reaches the poorly educated and low IQ.
Mentioned above, Tik Tok is the most recent and effective mechanism of the anti-Israel pogrom and it has been the largest cause of (elite, note) university poop encampments, city clogging demos and murderous attacks on Jews worldwide. Even before Oct. 7 attacks on Jewish dressed or appearing citizens were the most frequent “hate crimes”.
Evidence for the TikTok factor is obvious: over the last century there have been many serious Arab Israeli dust ups, most attracting much less attention before social media. Tik Tok is where a majority of Westerners under 30 get their “news”, a platform owned by the CCP that provably skews 98+% pro-Palestine. For campus sheep and activists, TikTok is their teacher. For second opinions, they go to the wildly false Al Jazeera or state broadcasters whose “experts” were all trained as I outline above. It is a closed loop ecosystem.
If you add to the above three factors some ol’ timey European antisemitism, tropes about Jews and all manner of crazy Arab conspiracies, large blocks of Islamic immigrants: all these horrors come together and help us explain why so many seemingly normal people have come to hate Israel.
ENDNOTES:
**Most experts in the Middle East politics field are quite left of center: From smart but wrong Tom Friedman to circus charlatans like Peter Zaidan
More on the Soviet invention of 1960s generated “Palestine”. Defectors from the Eastern Bloc, like high-ranking Romanian official Ion Mihai Pacepa, revealed how the KGB, the Soviet secret service, helped craft the PLO’s charter in Moscow in 1964. The Hidden Agenda Behind the Marxist Palestinian Cause.
Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s by Tom Wolfe, The New Yorker, 1970. An excellent read.
This article has been cross-posted with the author’s permission from Democracy Chronicles.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
David Anderson, welcome here. I guess you are new, b’cos there was one word that made no mention of your article above. The word being “islam”!
Nobody here wonders why anybody is anti-Israel/antisemitic. Usually, there are 2 explanations:
⮞ One is a Leftist
⮞ One is a muslim
Yeah, there are antisemites on the extreme Right as well, illustrating the horseshoe theory of the political axis line, but those are far fewer than the other two
gravenimage says
+1
Saint Louis says
It is simple. There’s billions of Muslims on social media and hundreds of million of them living in the west. All posting, all protesting all spreading propaganda.
Our people are generally stupid and just go with whatever is flooding the zone. Anti Israel is everywhere anti Jewish. Now, Tucker and others do the work of the Muslims for them, and it will spread slowly because there’s so much, the other side can’t match that volume.
I don’t like Israel. But this stuff is just garbage Tucker and these people are putting out, something is going on, there’s some agenda of desperation.
It defies common sense. Tucker won’t talk about if he could preach Christianity on the corner of a middle eastern street. He can’t. Can you vote in Qatar. No you can’t. It is garbage propaganda but he’s got credibility among the right, so he’s washing brains left and right.
He’s spreading fake news. Qatar came out and said no Israelis were arrested for some supposed false flag. Tucker says that a real story. I mean this shit goes on and on and on and on. It’s all fake against Jews and Israel. And I’m not a supporter of Israel.
ploome says
Why don’t you like Israel?
mgoldberg says
Just a thought: you state you don’t like Israel: I’ll bet you that you’ve never actually been there to explore those opinions.
Saint Louis says
I don’t have a strong opinion either way on Israel. I don’t dislike or like it.
They should receive zero funding and be paying protection money to us. I don’t want to see them be destroyed, we should help. But zero tolerance for any money spent on their weapons going there any more.
We should be paid back for these “packages”, and all aid from before adjusted to inflation.
gravenimage says
Wait–you think that Jews should pay you *protection money*–as in Jizya?
Israel is one of our greatest allies–but of course you would not think that if you are for enforcing the payment of “protection money”. *Ugh*.
ploome says
to “Saint Louis”
are you aware that you wrote:
I don’t like Israel. But this stuff ……….
What is it about Israel that you don’t like?
Approximately 175 countries and territories received U.S. assistance in FY2023.
Top U.S. bilateral aid recipients have been strategic allies, countries in humanitarian crisis, counterterrorism partners, and global health focus countries. The top 10 FY2023 recipients accounted for about 62% of aid obligations
from “congress.com”
What other countered do you think should be denied foreign aid?
mgoldberg says
First you said you did not like it.. now you ‘don’t dislike or like it’. And now you want protection money from them. They are the biggests source of intelligence to the US, and they also provide real world evidence of all the weaponry that they pay for, by having to spend in in the US by the way. The inventions and loyalty they give to the US has not been evidenced by the US over the decasdes because of many factors. But protection money they do not owe the US.
ploome says
do you think the Saint will respond?
Saint Louis says
You are aware or polling right. More Americans support Hamas terrorists over Israel. And that figure is rising.
Netanyahu himself said the time is coming to get off of aid from America, which they don’t need anyway, they have the money.
gravenimage says
“You are aware or polling right”?
ploome says
I don’t think it’s the physical country he doesn’t like……he states he doesn’t support Israel
he means the culture and people and maybe the existence
You think he can tell us why? Or will he tell us why?
Saint Louis says
I don’t have any problem with Israel. I hope they win their conflict and wish them luck. I’m not going to go and argue for them. We should be giving them zero. America is a run down country.
ploome says
you have not responded to any of my questions regarding you comments above…
but I am sure we all understand why
you are too transparent – “run down “, shallow, and pathetic
somehistory says
I may be alone in this, but I don’t like the drawing. A man on a donkey, a dove with an olive branch….and the man is an Egyptian muzzie. He was no Jesus Christ, even if he was said to be working for peace.
And the enmity between Israel….Jews… and those of “satan’s seed”…was prophesied in the Bible Book of Genesis. This is not something to be “put aside.” It’s where and when it all began.
ploome says
It would be interesting if there were some comments on the subject of this article…..
Why is the Media and Mob so Anti-Israel?
does no one have any idea why?
somehistory says
Any who hate Israel…The Jews…. because they are Israel, is of the “seed” of satan. Just like the Bible says in Genesis.
Genesis also shows the difference, the hatred, in the example of Cain and Abel. Cain hated Abel because his brother had a “good” heart and wanted to please God. Cain had a wicked heart, hated and murdered his brother.
It’s good vs evil.
Elder G says
It’s a camel, not a donkey.eler
Daniel Bielak says
Excellent article.
However, the cartoon from 1978 gives a wrong impression. The reason that Sadat pursued peace with Israel was not altruism on his part or beneficence on his part. It was because the USSR had stopped supplying him with weapons to attack Israel, and he realized that he could gain more by offering peace to Israel than by continuing to militarily attack Israel. And with Carter’s collusion, he got Israel to give him back the Sinai (which Israel had rightfully won during one of the then-recent intendedly genocidal Arab military wars of aggression against Israel) and to officially recognize the existence of “The Palestinian People”—a fictional concept meant to destroy Israel.
Daniel Bielak says
And, in the cartoon, Sadat is riding a camel, not a donkey.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Yeah, Daniel. Sadat was a very overrated leader from a Western POV, even though he pulled off a great heist on the Israelis at Camp David. The other lesser known factoid about him was that he, like his pal one country below Gaafar Nimeiry, was pretty sympathetic towards jihadists, unlike Nasser, who had Sayyid Qutb executed
40 rounds says
Buck Sexton’s theory, and I think it is valid, is that the media portrays Israel as being racially white so therefore can be harshly criticized. While there are many European Jews living in Israel there are many “brown” and “black” Jews as well.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
That’s one reason that I am not a fan of Israel being categorized w/ European countries. Culturally, Israel may be a Western country, but it has little in common w/ Europe. Particularly since its own people as well as Jews from Africa and the rest of Asia are not racially White. And it’s not like European countries are much friendlier towards Israel than Arab countries
Kepha says
As an American with a “mixed race” family (actually, we all descend from Adam via Noah), I have no problem with Mizrahi-majority Israel as an ally of the West. Western civilization is wide and welcoming, and its Christian root teaches that there is “neither Jew nor Greek” in Christ.
Denise says
It’s not a donkey – it’s a camel.
Brigitte from Germany says
Important petition:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/fire-un-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese/
Can you sign and share it please.