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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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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The Jews Who Live on Stolen Land (Judean Rose)

Note: Not written by Elder of Ziyon

What makes Progressive American Jews so dogmatic about “Palestinian” rights to statehood on Jewish land? Is it that they don’t know that Israel is indigenous Jewish territory—that the Arabs are latecomers? Or is there something else in play? Perhaps they feel just a wee bit guilty, as latecomers themselves, to be living on stolen Native American territory? In supporting the Arab cause, progressive American Jews may be making a subconscious statement that he who is last, has dibs, thereby giving themselves moral permission to steal.

They may reason, if they reason at all, that no one expects Americans to vacate America. Least of all the Native American people. Everyone accepts that it’s a fait accompli. Today the land belongs to America, whatever the motives or the rightness or wrongness of the land grab at the time that it happened. That’s just a fact. To the victorious Americans go the spoils.

No one does anything about this. There is simply no impetus for anyone to do anything about returning the stolen object that is America, to its rightful owners, the Native American people. If you were to speak about this to someone at a party, you’d see their disdain, the unspoken words they would be privately thinking: “That’s a bit silly, isn’t it? Unrealistic, immature, a nonstarter. No one expects us to just leave. No one. Even THEY, the Native American people, don’t expect us to go.”

I will be bold: Americans are thieves. They are living on land that doesn’t belong to them. Yet the Progressive Jews who are supposedly all about “tikkun olam” don’t do anything about this. They don’t think about it in the morning when they’re catching up on email; drinking soy lattes; and eating their almond croissants. And if you think about it, for Progressive American Jews to disagree with this unspoken yet accepted policy would be, well, un-American. And the thought that they may not be real Americans, or not American enough, just may be more upsetting to your average Progressive Jew than the thought of some faraway cousins being forced to abandon their home to violent squatters.

Because what is tikkun olam to them anyway? According to Nave Dromi, director of the Middle East Forum in Israel, "[Tikkun Olam] seems to have overtaken all other precepts formulated in millennia of Jewish life and tradition, in certain quarters. Its modern use was popularized in the early to middle of the last century, primarily among liberal Jewish movements in the United States. It was adopted as a way of finding a way to ensure that Jews felt common cause with the many social action and justice causes that were springing up.

“It is an extreme universalist interpretation of Judaism,” says Dromi, “and, while worthy in itself, holds nothing uniquely Jewish. Many have argued that it is a way to mold a frame of Judaism into their already held belief system to provide religious legitimacy.”

Hence, stealing Jewish land and giving it to “Palestinians” is tikkun olam, repairing the world, even though it is the exact opposite of that. Giving asylum to all illegal immigrants is tikkun olam. And yet some pigs are more equal than others: American rights over Native American rights. Illegal immigrant rights over the rights of American citizens in border towns who are already in the country and are adversely affected by this flood of illegals. And of course, Arab rights over Jewish Israeli rights.

But that’s not exactly the point of this piece. The point is the betrayal of Progressive American Jews in putting pressure on Israel to cede Jewish land to a non-native people with origins in Saudi Arabia. Progressive American Jews claim to be Jews and Israel is Jewish land. They should be defending Jewish rights as “tikkun olam.” How sick is it that they demand an indigenous people—their own—vacate its bustling, modern state? Particularly considering they themselves identify as belonging to that people.

Perhaps, subconsciously, shilling for the Arabs makes non-native Progressive “American” Jews feel better about living on stolen Native American land, rather than on their own. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

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Book review: "Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership"

I generally abhor divisions in the Jewish community. There are too few of us to be able to afford partisanship and needless hate for our own.

For those reasons I have been reluctant to criticize fellow Jews outside of the fringe who are anti-Zionist or anti-Judaism. And I have been equally reluctant to criticize the leaders of American Jewish organizations, trying and wanting to assume that they do the best they can with the resources they have.

That position is no longer tenable after reading Betrayal: The Failure of American Jewish Leadership, a new book of damning essays edited by Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser.  

Betrayal is a strong indictment of those American Jewish leaders, on both the national and local levels. 

The single biggest issue that should unify American Jews is the fight against antisemitism. But as Betrayal shows, the mostly self-appointed American Jewish leaders have been more interested in maintaining their positions of power than in going toe to toe with today's antisemites.

Worse, in example after example in this book, when grassroots Jewish groups organize to fight a specific threat to American Jews, these pseudo leaders generally try to dissuade and discourage them. They claim that their connections with other powerful people, and their quiet diplomacy, will carry the day. Their message to ordinary Jews who want to defend themselves from specific threats is "sha, shtill" - shut up and be quiet.

We cannot read minds, but the overwhelming impression given is that these so-called leaders enjoy their perks of being considered as such. They love to attend their interfaith breakfasts and to attend meetings and parties with local and national secular leaders. They don't want to make waves, to risk their positions and their perceived prestige, their speaking engagements at Temples, their parades for progressive causes.

Problems which should and could have been attacked early on - mosques with terror links, undermining K-12 and university education with the concepts of "wokeness" that slot Jews as oppressors and supremacists, BDS and campus "apartheid weeks" as well as the other constant attacks on Israel that these leaders prefer to sympathize with instead of battle against - have metastasized into major sources of today's American antisemitism. 

An essay by Jonathan Tobin sets the tone with his analysis of how the Anti Defamation League has turned its back on fighting antisemitism and instead steered the ship to be more progressive and partisan rather than defending Jews.  The organization's hiring of a rabidly anti-Zionist Tema Smith as "director of Jewish Outreach" was particularly risible. 

Richard Landes describes how American Jewish leadership has exhibited cowardice in the face of the jihadist threat, preferring to partner with their Muslim friends rather than to ever confront them. Of course, this peculiarly Jewish tendency to compromise on principles in order to seek approval from others is not mirrored by the openly pro-Hamas Muslim American leadership, who - if anything - feel empowered to more extremism because the Jews are on their side.

Josh Block describes the failure of American Jewish leaders to push back against Ilhan Omar's antisemitic statements, and this led directly to her emerging from the controversy as more influential than ever. 

Caroline Glick observes that the "two state solution" has become a religion of sorts for American Jewish leaders, and instead of defending Israel they are defending cutting Israel in half and abandoning nearly all Jewish holy sites. 

Naya Lekht notes how liberal Jewish groups have replaced Judaism with "social justice," a philosophy that comes from Stalin's Soviet Union and that is ultimately used against Jews.

The ADL, the AJC, the local JCRCs and Federations, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs - all of them are stridently criticized as becoming part of the problem rather than the solution for the one theme that Jews should unite around, fighting antisemitism. Specific examples from grassroots groups who were stymied by their local Jewish "leaders" abound. 

The only national organization that has held on to its principles of unwavering support for Jews and Israel is the Zionist Organization of America, and its president Morton Klein writes an essay as well demonstrating how the eagerness by other Jewish leaders to make nice with the anti-Israel and ultimately antisemitic progressive philosophy hurts the Jewish community and makes everyone lose respect for their leaders.

One of the most interesting essays is by M. Zuhdi Jasser, of the Muslim Reform Movement, who has tried to partner with American Jewish leaders - only to be spurned because they prefer their partnerships with Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations that are actively antisemitic. His frustration of being abandoned by those who should be his natural allies is palpable.

Jacobs and Goldwasser's own essay doesn't only describe the problems, but offers a ten point program towards solutions - the exact thing that the supposed American Jewish leaders avoid. These pro-active ideas are what real leaders should come up with and implement. 

Betrayal describes outrageous examples of failed and counterproductive leadership. It will make you angry, and it should.

American Jews pour millions into these organizations that have little or nothing to show for themselves. It is time to replace those fossils with real leadership, real ideas, and real passion. The authors of these 22 essays are all fine candidates to be true leaders of the North American Jewish community. 

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Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.  Read all about it here!

 

Read More