Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Jessica
Tarlov is the snotty token Democrat on the Fox News political talk show, “The
Five.” The petulant downturn to her mouth is annoying, as are her righteously
angry rhetoric and whiny voice. But in some ways, Tarlov’s most important
quality is that she always comes armed with facts with which to debate the far
more numerous conservatives weighing in on the discussion. Tarlov interprets
that data from her liberal perch and bias, but at least the Democratic
Party political strategist is using facts.
Or so I thought.
In a discussion regarding the anti-Israel protesters and
their new nickname for Kamala Harris, “Killer Kamala,” Tarlov remarked that “The
majority of American Jews, and also Israelis, favor a peaceful two-state
solution.”
70% of American Jews vote for the Democrats and I believe that number will be the same come November 5th. I don’t think any of this is going to make a substantial difference, but I think Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have firmly stood with Israel. They have given all the arms Netanyahu has asked for. He has said multiple times that he thanks the administration for it.
If people think Donald Trump is going to be better for Israel, they have another think coming. Because guess what? The majority of American Jews, and also Israelis, favor a peaceful two-state solution and Donald Trump doesn’t care about that at all.
Now, I listen to The Five on my phone with half an ear as I
do everything I play on Youtube to keep me company as I prepare lunch or cook
for Shabbos. But when I heard that last bit about the two-state solution, my
ears perked up. “That’s not true,” I said to myself, mentally making a note to
check the numbers on Google.
It was conceivable to think that a majority of American Jews
would be in favor of a two-state solution, but I didn’t know this absolutely.
Since she was wrong about the Israelis, I thought, maybe she’s wrong about the
Americans, too. Even if the majority of Israelis were in favor of a “peaceful
two-state solution” whatever that means—it’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one—they
sure aren’t in favor of it now, after October 7. That ship has sailed.
Gallup did a survey
of Israelis between Oct. 17 and Dec. 3, in the weeks and months following
October 7. What they found is that “Israelis no longer support a two-state solution”:
One in four Israeli adults currently support the existence of an independent Palestinian state, while most (65%) oppose it. This is almost a complete reversal of where they stood on the issue a decade ago, when twice as many Israeli adults supported an independent Palestinian state (61%) as opposed one (30%).
So there you have it. A majority of Israeli Jews do not want a two-state solution. And if that were true it meant that Tarlov was wrong—or at least using way outdated figures. That’s if we are to give Tarlov the benefit of the doubt and assume that she made an innocent mistake as opposed to telling an out-and-out lie. The truth is, it makes no difference. Tarlov’s recitation of false facts robs her of credibility.
Fact-checking Tarlov’s claim that the majority of American
Jews favor a two-solution, brought mixed results. A March Pew Research Center survey
found that 46% of Jewish Americans think a two-state solution is the best
possible outcome, while 22% support a one-state option, preferring all the
land to be one country under Israeli rule. 46% of anything, by definition,
cannot be a majority—a plurality, yes—but not a majority. That’s an important
distinction. 46% of American Jewry does not represent even half of that sector.
A May survey by the Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs (JCPA), on the other hand, does indeed find
that a majority of American Jews, 60%, support a two-state solution. I consider
the JCPA to be an absolutely credible organization, whose august panel of
experts includes Dr. Dan Diker, Khaled
Abu Toameh, and Amb. Alan Baker. The survey offers a snapshot of “the
viewpoints of 511 American Jews regarding the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict.”
“Conducted between May 9-11, 2024, the survey provides
critical insights into the attitudes and concerns within the American Jewish
community during this turbulent period. The survey has a margin of error of ±4%
and includes a balanced representation by gender and age.”
Of course, the Pew survey had a sample of nearly four times
that size, with 1,941 Jewish American respondents weighing in. And I really
doubt that the progressive-leaning Jessica Tarlov went digging around on the ‘net,
like I did, and stumbling on the JCPA survey, decided to use it as a statistic more
to her liking than the one from Pew. Why the suspicion? Aside from the JCPA
luminaries already mentioned above is Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s advisor on none
other than . . . drumroll please. . .
Israel.
It is difficult to believe that Jessica Tarlov would cite,
unless by accident, the results of a survey published by a think-tank with a
Trump appointee as its senior director of Arab-Israeli diplomacy. More likely,
Jessica Tarlov was thinking of the March Pew survey. In which case, we really need
to wonder at the conflation of “majority” with “plurality.”
Not that anyone did at “The Five.” No one among full-time
cohosts Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, Jesse Watters, and Jeanine Pirro said a
thing in response to Tarlov’s erroneous statistics about Jews and the two-state
solution. They must have figured that yet again, they, the non-Jews have been caught
flatfooted, undercut by actual Jews when non-Jews try to speak up for them. They
certainly wouldn’t have been splitting semantic hairs over “majority” and “plurality.”
At any rate, there wouldn’t have been a way for the cohosts to
verify Tarlov’s claims on the spot, while they were live on air, even if some
unseen guy were feeding them facts through some gewgaw in their ears. I, on the
other hand, had the luxury of time and a laptop to actually investigate Tarlov’s
wide-of-the-mark assessment of Jewish attitudes in regard to the stupidest,
most unworkable concept on earth: the two-state solution.
The main thing for me, at any rate, was that I learned a
lesson, or at least had one reinforced by the exercise. Don’t easily accept
stats, especially when it comes to Israel and the Jews. Always question further,
even when the one citing those stats seems like a serious person, even if you
do disagree with them. Which was how I’d seen Tarlov until now, someone I
respected, even if I disagreed with her. Now, even the respect is gone.
Tarlov may be snappy with the stats, but she isn’t being
either careful or accurate, playing fast and loose with the numbers as she
apparently does. In my eyes, going forward, Tarlov is forever tarnished, and by
extension, so is everyone else.
I’ve lost trust.
Can you blame me?
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