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Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Jessica Tarlov and Her False Statistics About Jews and the Two-State Solution (Judean Rose)



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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