We are in the midst of a crisis with the Americans. The pro-Israel lobby was supposed to come to Israel's defense. Despite Jews' excessive representation in politics, culture, academia and media. Thus, antisemitic discourse represents Jews as a threatening and dangerous force, a monster with countless tentacles, controlling the world.
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Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer published the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. According to them, AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, dictates U.S. policy in the Middle East, and the special relationship with Israel led to the September 11 terror attack and Islamic terrorism against the West in general. Although the two insisted they were not antisemitic, those who were used the book as an academic source to buttress their ideology.
It's doubtful whether we needed October 7 to know that this supposed Jewish clout is a myth. Not only is it not real, but Jews are increasingly becoming a scapegoat. While there is no chance there will be an academic course in the U.S. on Islamophobia, there is a prestigious university that teaches a course connecting the "occupation" to "genocide" and quite a few universities that associate Zionism, a movement for self-definition in the historical Land of Israel, as colonialism.
How is that colonialism? Were my grandparents, who came to Israel over a hundred years ago due to persecution and oppression against Jews, colonizers? Were the Jews who fled pogroms in Russia and Poland colonizers? Are the rest of the Jewish refugees colonizers?
Tens of millions of people were displaced in the past century, and only the Palestinians received the honor of a historical event, defined as "one of the most serious crimes in modern history." This is one of the gravest lies in academia, which completely ignores Jewish displacement. Overall, more Jews were expelled from Arab countries than Palestinians from Israel. Do the Jews control academia?
192:1
Journalist Lilac Sigan analyzed articles from The New York Times in 2022 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was out of office. She found two mentions of Hamas, and only one was negative. Two mentions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both negative. There were four mentions of Hezbollah, only one negative. As for Israel, there were 361 mentions, 192 were negative.
Sigan and Prof. Eytan Gilboa will soon publish a study concerning coverage of Israel since October 7. The findings will be even more severe. Journalist Bari Weiss left the newspaper due to the antisemitic environment and animus toward Israel. It seems that this newspaper has more influence than any other newspaper on the Democratic Party and the Biden administration. Do the Jews control media?
Sharon's warning
Despite the anti-Israel activists' portrayal of AIPAC as a powerful lobby in American politics, it really isn't. It doesn't even chart on the country's top 20 lobbying groups. Proof of that "influence," which also appears in the book, would be the American decision to go to war in Iraq. Does Jewish influence really exist?
Although Netanyahu appeared before a congressional committee in 2002 and pushed for the removal of Saddam Hussein, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insisted the problem was Iran, not Iraq. But as always, the Jewish influence is to blame.
The Golden Age is ending
Recently, Franklin Foer wrote in The Atlantic, "The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending." There has never been a debate about antisemitism from the right, Foer writes, but there has been indifference to the growth of antisemitism from the left. In fact, there was Jewish influence, but from the anti-Zionist direction. Jewish academics, from Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler to Sara Roy, Ian Lustick and Norman Finkelstein, are at the forefront of the anti-Israel campaign.
They are not engaged in criticism. They provide legitimization for the demonization of Israel. While many Jews deny the Jews' right to self-definition, they always deny the accusation of being antisemitic. But they are antisemites. It seems to them that if they foster hatred of the Jewish state, the antisemitic hatred will pass over them. But this mendacious campaign is a boomerang. The fire will eventually reach their toes. They're in their comfort zone, enjoying the applause of the progressive herd. So in a sense, there is at least some Jewish influence. And it is anti-Jewish.
Influence for donations
"Jewish influence" being a myth does not mean there is not an ideally positioned machine pouring large sums of money into everything from culture and sports to media, academia and government. According to a study by Mitchell Bard, Arab countries have poured approximately $8.5 billion into academic institutions between 1986 and 2020, with Qatar leading with $4.34 billion alone. Even the Palestinian Authority is on the uptake, with $7.46 million.
Since when have the poor donated so much to the rich? According to another study, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard received $1.5 billion from foreign governments in the last three years alone. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. According to the U.S. Department of Education, universities received $22 billion in donations without records, and about half of the amount came from undemocratic regimes in the Middle East.
The differences between the studies also arise because universities, contrary to legal requirements, fail to report all donations.
This week, the House of Representatives Education Committee demanded that Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia reveal their books. This should be interesting.
Qatar's investments span the globe. It invested between $500 billion and a trillion dollars across several countries to acquire influence. Much of it goes to academia in the U.S. The most foolish claim is that there is no connection between donations and academic output. This proves not only that there is a connection but that it borders on criminal. It will prove difficult to sever the connection between the deep-rooted anti-Israel hostility and the influence of Hamas' patron.
There is no room for despair. The U.S., despite the differences and the current crisis, was and remains Israel's ally. But not because of the Jewish lobby. The key to our relationship remains our shared values, not only interests. We must not give them up.