A staple of the Israeli nightly news these days is a roundup of global antisemitism and support for Hamas. The shocking demonstrations at Columbia University – my once-beloved alma mater – took center stage this week.
Viewers might conclude we are reliving 1930s Germany, with Jew-hatred spiraling while the forces of civilization are routed.
Can it be this bad? Is it a psychosis driven by celestial events? Is Israel at all to blame? An accounting seems in order.
Time for accounting to understand what is going on
To be sure, I have myself derided “progressives” who deploy selective, ignorant, and twisted narratives of decolonization against Israel. In TV interviews I have called them the “useful idiots” of jihad – a far stupider version of the originals, Western intellectuals sympathetic to the (incredibly) less vile Soviet Union.
I have also bemoaned the indisputable revelation that antisemitism is not only alive and well but more widespread than had been thought.
At the same time, one might plausibly argue that much of what gets labeled antisemitism is just opposition to the war (or perhaps to Israel itself), purposely brash and loud in order to discomfit Jews and move opinion.
I might not always like it, but a proponent of free speech cannot bar it. I also know many critics are mainly not supportive of the Israeli government’s actions, which include a very flawed war that has killed many thousands of innocents and appears to lack a strategy. A different story coming from Jerusalem could sway them.
To better understand how US support of and opposition to Israel is broken down, I offer the following breakdown of Americans’ stance on the matter.
Pro-Hamas Muslim Americans or extreme progressive anti-colonialists: Perhaps 5%.
Many of them don’t believe or don’t care about the October 7 atrocities and hope Hamas will overwhelm Israel with no regard for the fate of the Jews. This group should be carefully monitored as their anti-Israel, anti-Zionist activities barely mask the fact that they hate Jews, and some of them are dangerous.
Pro-Palestinian progressives and liberal young people: About 20%.This group shows varying degrees of support for the Palestinians and are exposed to information real and fake that highlights Israeli bad behavior in Gaza.
They generally resent US tax money being spent to assist mass bombings, hunger, and potentially, in their view, genocide. Israel has lost them because its story today is one of forever war and punishment of Palestinian women and children, with extremists in Israel wanting to kill and expel them.
Many of them are deeply swayed by social media culture that makes everything a battle of narratives and Israel is currently being “canceled.”
Israel could dent this group substantially with a regional peace and cooperation initiative that includes the Palestinians and is generous toward civilians while continuing to fight Hamas aggressively.
This would pave the road for wider legitimacy to fighting Hamas to the finish, now or in the future – but making it distinct from anything resembling a war on the Palestinians.
Instead, Netanyahu drove them away with outrageous policies, including the 2023 Putinization effort, sneering indifference to Israel’s traditional alliance with the democratic West, and stubborn refusal to engage in the world community’s day-after plan.
Pro-Israel liberals including some Jews: About 25%.
This group recognizes the fundamental right of Israel to defend itself, doesn’t believe Israel should have carte blanche but definitely doesn’t support Islamic radicals, and understands that they’re insane and must be dealt with. But they lament Israel’s failure to grasp opportunities to escape this cycle, hate Netanyahu and his endless machinations against peace, and don’t want Israel to drag the US into a regional or even global war.
Nonetheless, they still support Israel, distinguish between the benighted government and the Israeli people, and hope the US will find a way to push Israel in the right direction, largely supporting President Joe Biden’s policies.
Non-MAGA classic conservatives and “concerned Christians”: About 15%.These largely support Israel but are concerned about the huge amounts of money, the destruction and death in Gaza, and the risk of the US losing control.
Some of them are concerned about the way US technology is being used to harm Palestinians including Christians in Gaza. Tucker Carlson may not be what he once was in terms of influence, but it should be a warning sign when you lose him, as Israel appears to have done.
It must also be remembered that these types of besuited conservatives were not necessarily pro-Israel. When George W. Bush won the White House 24 years ago, there was real concern that his fellow travelers were so pro-business that they cared about practicalities only and would side with the Arabs if only for the oil interests that might serve.
History, of course, took a different turn.
Trump republicans, Evangelists, and right-wing, religious, and “one issue” (Israel’s survival) Jews: About 35%.
This group features full-throated support of Israel, little love or trust of Islam, and a healthy hatred of extremist groups like Hamas.
They think Biden and the US should never sanction or constrain Israel and that Israel’s government (preferably right-wing) should be able to do what it wants.
Most would probably support a peace agreement, depending on terms, but they are overwhelmingly in favor of the war.
Many of the Evangelicals are of the type that believe in a preordained end-of-days scenario that requires Israel to arise, fight, and ultimately be wiped out in some fashion for the Messiah to return. That will make them quite favorable to Israeli pyromaniacs today.
But this group is volatile. If Donald Trump returns to office there is no telling what he might do.
If he comes out against war with Iran or turns on Israel for whatever reason, much of his cult will abandon Israel faster than you can say “Yahya Sinwar.” That’s partly because the far Right can teach the clueless progressives a thing or two about true-blue antisemitism.
WHILE YOU could dig deeper and come up with more granular differentiations, this seems a reasonable way to group the body politic, which also roughly aligns with broader US voting patterns.
I cannot prove the breakdowns are exactly as I’ve outlined, thus is my best estimate based on over a half-century of following American politics, and two decades of watching the digital-driven freak show unravel.
Look carefully, and you’ll see that the numbers I propose do align with polls that show that although many want the war to end, when pushed into a binary choice a strong majority of Americans back Israel – while about half the youth do not.
It is a complex picture – not as bleak as catastrophists and propagandists might have you believe. And on Israel, movement is possible. To understand why, consider how radically the world view of America changed with the election of Donald Trump, as the Pew Research Center has shown and as anyone who has traveled knows.
And just as there are very different versions of America as a function of which side ekes out an election victory, so it is with Israel.
The easiest way to move US sentiment is to win the war and seek regional peace, instead of blundering into a decades-long descent into madness.
And it’s possible: Largely because of shared fear of radical Islam and Iran, and especially with enough carrots, moderate Arab states, and moderate Palestinians would join with the West and a benign version of Israel.
President Biden has proposed a version of this, which would include restoring the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and reaping peace with Saudi Arabia. Netanyahu appears to have rejected all this.
He has done so chiefly to keep the far-right snug and secure in his coalition. In the view of masses of Israelis, he also seeks to prolong the war – because for as long as a war can be said to be going on, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can scheme to delay the inevitable reckoning over October 7, and his likely defenestration.
Rarely has a forever war so served a political purpose.
This path endangers global and US Jewry by conflating being against the war with being antisemitic. And its proponents are playing with fire, since the ensuing conflagration will not spare the pyromaniacs.
If even a part of this analysis is correct, then the government’s behavior could fairly be labeled treasonous. Viewed through that prism, Israel has a bigger problem than a bunch of clueless students.
The writer is the former chief editor of The Associated Press in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, the former president of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, and the author of two books about Israel. Follow his newsletter “Ask Questions Later” at danperry.substack.com.