For decades in the United States, absolute support for Israel was an unwavering consensus. The only discussion involving Israel during the election period was to see which candidate said he was “more pro-Israel” than the other.
All presidents have reaffirmed the premise that it is the US obligation to always finance, arm, protect and even mobilize forces in defense of Israel. Obama the weapons that bombed Gaza in 2014 and in 2016 an agreement for US$38 billion in military aid for ten years. Joe Biden and Donald Trump the destruction of Gaza after the October 7th attacks.
Last year, Trump joined Israel in bombing Iran. And now, Trump and Israel have launched a very dangerous regional war that has been accurately described by both the New York Times and by the Financial Times as being caused by Israel.
The two countries have now relentlessly targeted Tehran and other cities from Iranian civilians they claim they want to “liberate.” The US is on its way to doing to Iran what it did to Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya: not liberation, but annihilation.
For more than 50 years, prominent figures in the United States have been terrified of criticizing Israel or questioning American devotion to the country, at the risk of guaranteed reputational destruction. Anyone who questioned Israel was soon branded an anti-Semite by the powerful Zionist lobby. For years, this tactic worked.
But everything has changed in the last two years, especially among younger Americans. They saw, for the first time, the true face of Israel and America’s devotion to it. And they hate what they see. Support for Israel in the US has simply collapsed.
Today, all demographic groups, conservatives over 50, against Israel. This change, previously unthinkable, is reflected in the vehement opposition of American conservative leaders to Israeli wars, names such as Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and —before her assassination—.
The collapse is so extreme that the most recent Gallup data, reported by the Financial Times this month, shows that, for the first time since the institute began tracking sentiment, more Americans sympathize with the Palestinians than with the Israelis. A recent Democratic Party poll concluded that Biden and Harris’ support for the war in Gaza cost them the election.
The reasons are not difficult to understand. The world spent two years watching Israel daily incinerate families and children in Gaza and other Middle Eastern countries — all paid for by American taxpayers. International courts and countless genocide scholars — many of them — that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza.
However, although the debate about Israel has finally become more permissible in the US, it remains strangely stifled in the Brazilian mainstream media. Just over two years ago, in these same pages, this extreme pro-Israel bias, with a particular focus on Globo.
This trend has only gotten worse, and the examples cited at the time continue to repeat themselves. And still in Brazil, even anti-Zionist Jewish journalists like Breno Altman can be for pro-Israel groups.
The Brazilian right also maintains a truly bizarre reverence for Israel and for each new American and Israeli war. Bolsonaristas love to parade around declaring how powerful and just it is to bomb their “enemies” — from Venezuela and Iraq to Yemen and Iran — but, apparently, they never want to fight personally or have their own country pay for any of the wars they glorify.
Scottish philosopher Adam Smith warned 250 years ago—in his 1776 book, “The Wealth of Nations”—that people will always be ready to support and celebrate wars, deriving from them a distorted sense of excitement and purpose, as long as they are kept a safe distance from the fighting. The Brazilian right is superb at applauding other people’s wars, and equally superb at ensuring that it will not bear any of their costs or burdens.
Regardless of any other truth, basic journalism requires the inclusion of all reasonable perspectives; otherwise it’s just crude propaganda. Public opinion in much of the world has turned sharply against Israel and its joint wars with the US. It is past time for Brazilian journalism to give voice and prominence to this dissent.
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