It was inevitable that following the U.S. military’s successful strikes on Iran’s three top nuclear sites, Israel-haters would trot out the same tired, antisemitic tropes about undue Jewish influence over Gentile leaders to the benefit of Jews and detriment of the non-Jewish world. And so it was. CAIR (The Council on American Islamic Relations), with its ties to anti-Israel terrorist groups, immediately put out a statement predicated on falsehoods to that effect:
But it wasn’t only the terrorist-affiliated group that jumped on this theme. Journalists, forced to weigh in on breaking news events before they had a handle on all the facts, responded quickly to the breaking news about the U.S. strike. And how media outlets and pundits reacted was a litmus test of their anti-Zionist bias.
Thus, it was unsurprising that MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin wasted no time in following CAIR’s example, using precisely the same metaphor that had landed the New York Times in hot water in 2019 when editors ran a political cartoon depicting Netanyahu as a dog leading a blind President Trump. “There were questions,” he said, “as to whether or not Israel dog-walked… the Israeli prime minister dog walked President Trump into this war.”
The trope was so reminiscent of Nazi propaganda that the newspaper was ultimately forced to issue an apology. But that was six years ago. The anti-Zionist journalists of today and the mainstream media outlets that employ them no longer exhibit any compunction about doling out tropes that were once a staple of Der Sturmer.
Later that day, MSNBC political analyst and former Obama administration official Rick Stengel revisited the same theme. The Israeli prime minister, according to the MSNBC analyst, “managed to find in President Trump somebody who was willing to go with his intelligence over the American community’s intelligence” – that is, to favor Israel’s interests over those of the U.S.
An article by Reuters’ correspondent Crispian Balmer published early the next morning was titled “Despite clashes with US presidents, Israel’s Netanyahu usually gets his way.” Littered with snarky, hostile comments about Israel’s leader, the article strayed far from responsible journalism and thoughtful analysis. Balmer employed false argumentation unsupported by the historical record and even by Reuters’ own archived reports and analyses to pen a caricature of an abrasive and abusive Israeli leader browbeating and manipulating American leaders to yield to his demands in order to benefit Israel. According to the Reuters’ reporter:
“The U.S. attack underscores a broader truth that has defined Netanyahu’s career: no matter how fraught his relationships with successive presidents, he normally ends up getting what he wants. For over three decades, Netanyahu has clashed – often spectacularly – with American leaders. He has lectured them, defied them, embarrassed them publicly and privately. And yet, across Democratic and Republican administrations, U.S. military aid has flowed largely uninterrupted to Israel.”
In the UK, both the Financial Times and the Guardian presented the US strike with the same trope. According to Financial Times’ US Editor Edward Luce, it was the Israeli leader and not the American one, who has been “dictating the agenda” and “dictating events.” The editorial board concurred, with the contention that the American leader was being “drag[ged] into a war” by the Israeli leader who “has wanted it for a decade.” Meanwhile, the Guardian claimed that the Israeli prime minister had “manoeuvred” the US president into the strike, suggesting the latter fell “into Netanyahu’s trap.”
These media outlets relied on the reflexive reaction of their journalists to inform the reporting and analysis – a reaction based on the ancient antisemitic trope of nefarious Jewish manipulation, rather than on journalistic investigation.
Israel had, in fact, done the heavy lifting, paving the way for the US to enter Iranian airspace under stealth and use their “bunker busters” to destroy Iran’s subterranean nuclear site that was used to secretly produce of weapons-grade nuclear materials. According to Axios, “the Israeli Air Force took out multiple Iranian air defense systems in the 48 hours leading up the U.S. strike” and this was done “at the request of the Trump administration” which “provided Israel with a list of air defense systems it wanted eliminated ahead of the strike.”
That is why the U.S. President publicly thanked Israel “for the wonderful job they’ve done,” and noted that the U.S. and Israel worked as a team to eliminate the nuclear threat posed by Iran.
Nor was the strike carried out merely for the benefit of a U.S. ally facing an imminent existential threat from Iran. The US too was endangered by Iran’s race to build a nuclear weapon. “Death to America, Death to Israel” has been the refrain at rallies organized by Iran’s regime which labels the U.S. the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan.” From the regime’s start in 1979, it occupied the US Embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage and holding 52 of them for 444 days. Iranian military action, through its terrorist proxies, has killed more than a thousand American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 15 years. And there was more than one attempt by Iran to assassinate the US president.
Still, Israel did not push the U.S. into launching the attack. The U.S. had given Iranian leader Ali Khamenei ample chance to negotiate a peaceful solution to the nuclear threat, offering even back channel negotiations in Turkey. When Khamenei did not respond, the US president convened his national security team to discuss whether or not to carry out the strike. Following the strike, the president indicated that this was a one-off event and that “now is the time for peace.”
The age-old canard of Jews dragging and manipulating unwilling Gentiles into undesirable actions has been used for centuries to fuel further Jew hatred. It is alarming in an age of rising antisemitism and especially ominous when used by journalists purporting to be reporting on breaking events.