poll<\/a><\/span> on the subject showed, support for Israel is now largely a partisan issue. Democrats now back the Palestinians against Israel by 58% to 17%, and Republicans support it by a margin of 77% to 6%. Even when adding in those who identify as independents, who support the Palestinians by a smaller though still decisive 42% to 26% margin, it still leaves Americans as a whole split about the conflict, with 39% in favor of Israel, 36% for the Palestinians, 12% declaring they back both, and 13% saying they don\u2019t know or didn\u2019t answer.<\/p>\nThat Democrats and Republicans are operating with different sets of facts about the Middle East is the tip-off that what we are seeing isn\u2019t a normal reaction to a bad leader but the result of biased media.<\/p>\n
Americans live in a hyper-partisan era in which they have effectively become part of a bifurcated society. They read, listen and watch different sets of media outlets which put forward competing narratives about virtually every issue. With respect to the Middle East, that is especially true. The point being is that if you get your news from places like the Times and<\/i> by scrolling social-media platforms whose algorithms promote anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda, including the blood libel about \u201cgenocide,\u201d you\u2019ve heard little if anything to refute such smears.<\/p>\n
And that won\u2019t change no matter who wins the next Israeli election.<\/p>\n
If, in a few months, the prime minister of Israel is Gadi Eisenkot or any of the others who hope to replace Netanyahu, the circumstances that led to the Macklemore-Sheeran-Kraft debacle won\u2019t have altered one bit.<\/p>\n
At a moment when international media, academia and the arts world treat the genocide blood libel as a fact, antisemitism rooted in the ideas that Israelis and their Jewish supporters are bloodthirsty monsters killing children will continue to spread. Supposedly respectable outlets like the Times<\/i> are backing up the blood libels with pieces that valorize antisemites like Macklemore or treat<\/a><\/span> the documentary \u201cNAZA\u201d<\/a><\/span> as an accurate depiction of Israeli criminality by writers like Gay or Michelle Goldberg, who are open about their opposition to the existence of a Jewish state. So long as that is true, the idea that all of this is Netanyahu\u2019s fault falls apart.<\/p>\nThink what you like about Netanyahu. But keep in mind that his lengthy tenure in office has resulted in a situation where he has become a symbol of his country and the false assumptions about it more than anything else. In a media environment where antisemitic blood libels are treated as inarguable, Israel\u2019s image isn\u2019t likely to improve no matter who is leading it.<\/p>\n
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS. Follow him: <\/i>@jonathans_tobin<\/i><\/a><\/span>.<\/i><\/p>\n
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