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What the Chuck? Murdoch Defends Bibi From Senate Leader Ari Paul ([link removed])

The United States government has historically exercised a lot of opinions when it comes to who should be in charge of Middle Eastern countries. Former President Barack Obama on several occasions called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “to go” in order to end that country’s civil war (Washington Post, 8/18/11 ([link removed]) ; BBC, 9/28/15 ([link removed]) ; Wall Street Journal, 11/19/15 ([link removed]) ).

Then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (CBS, 10/20/11 ([link removed]) ) joked about Libyan leader of Muammar Qaddafi’s summary execution, saying of the US role in the Libyan civil war, “We came, we saw, he died.” The US has battered the Iranian economy with sanctions (Al Jazeera, 3/2/23 ([link removed]) ) and has supported anti-government protests there (VoA, 12/20/22 ([link removed]) ).

When it came to Obama’s policy on ousting Assad, Wall Street Journal (5/31/13 ([link removed]) ) editors lamented that they were “beginning to wonder if he means it.” They said (10/24/11 ([link removed]) ) of Qaddafi that he shouldn’t be “pitied for the manner of his death,” and that Libyans have “earned their celebrations.” They said “President Obama, Britain's David Cameron, France's Nicolas Sarkozy and even the Arab League deserve credit as well” for militarily aiding Libyan rebels.

A bylined op-ed in the Journal (6/11/18 ([link removed]) ) not only celebrated the idea of regime change in Iran, but rewrote the history of the 1953 CIA-sponsored Iranian coup as ultimately the fault of a democratically elected leader who governed poorly in the eyes of the West.


** 'An obstacle to peace'
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New York Times: ‘Part of My Core’: How Schumer Decided to Speak Out Against Netanyahu

The New York Times (3/19/24 ([link removed]) ) reported that the Republican Jewish Coalition said that “the most powerful Democrat in Congress knifed the Jewish state in the back.”

One might expect, therefore, that the Journal would not be shocked to learn that Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer ([link removed]) , the highest-ranking Jewish American in US politics, had called for new Israeli elections to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ([link removed]) (New York Times, 3/19/24 ([link removed]) ).

Schumer, after all, didn’t call for an anti-government mob to remove Netanyahu from the Knesset and send him into exile. No, he just suggested it would be in Israel's interest to hold elections to replace Israel’s longest-serving leader, whom Schumer described as "an obstacle to peace."

Schumer's view shouldn’t be surprising, because Jewish American voters are still overwhelmingly liberal (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 6/26/23 ([link removed]) ), while in recent decades Israel’s political center of gravity has moved far to the right. Polling shows that Netanyahu is deeply unpopular among Americans as a whole (Jerusalem Post, 1/8/24 ([link removed]) ).

Yet the Journal—along with the Murdoch empire’s other main US newspaper, the New York Post—professed outrage at the idea of an American official intervening in the politics of another country.


** 'Unwelcome interference'
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The Wall Street Journal opinion page (3/14/24 ([link removed]) ) expressed umbrage that Schumer would engage in such "unwelcome interference" in a democracy, which it argued was entirely unwarranted:

Precisely because Israel is a democracy, accountability for Mr. Netanyahu is baked in. The prime minister at this moment represents a broad consensus in Israeli society that the country can’t afford to allow Hamas to continue its violent and corrupt control of Gaza after the horrors unleashed on October 7.

Of course, the primary form of accountability to voters in a democracy comes with elections, so if Netanyahu truly represented a broad consensus in Israeli society, why should he or the Journal fear them?

In fact, a large majority of Israelis want early elections—a recent poll put the number at 71% (Haaretz, 2/6/24 ([link removed]) ). Prior to October 7, Israelis regularly took to the streets to protest the Netanyahu government's anti-democratic judicial overhaul.

And let's not forget that Israel isn't really a "democracy" at all, by the standard definition of the word: The approximately 5 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, over whom the Israeli government exercises its authority, have no say in that governance, and the 2 million Palestinians in Israel are relegated to second-class citizenship (FAIR.org, 5/16/23 ([link removed]) ). Leading human rights groups have used the word "apartheid" to characterize Israel's domination of Palestinians (B’Tselem, 1/12/21 ([link removed]) ; Human Rights Watch, 4/27/21 ([link removed]) ; Amnesty International, 2/1/22 ([link removed]) ).

The Journal board (3/18/24 ([link removed]) ) followed up to complain that President Joe Biden "has also endorsed Sen. Chuck Schumer’s extraordinary declaration last week that Israelis must depose the elected Mr. Netanyahu." The word choices here—"deposing" an "elected" leader—paint an early election as an anti-democratic coup.

Counter that, for example, with how an op-ed at the Murdoch-owned New York Post (1/15/20 ([link removed]) ) said of Iran, just weeks after the US military assassinated ([link removed]) the country’s top general:

Can US policy afford to tip the internal balance against the mullahs, even as Trump tries to extricate us from the region? The answer is yes. These goals—regime change in Iran and ending endless wars—are, in fact, complementary.


** 'Wrong to raise the issue at all'
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WSJ: Schumer Has Crossed a Red Line Over Israel

Joe Lieberman (Wall Street Journal, 3/20/24 ([link removed]) ) complained that Schumer "treats Israel differently from other American allies by threatening to intervene in their domestic democratic politics"—as if the United States hasn't overthrown the governments of US allies (e.g., South Vietnam ([link removed]) , 1963; Australia ([link removed]) , 1975; Ukraine ([link removed]) , 2014) when they weren't to its liking.

Bylined opinion pieces in the Journal agreed that Schumer was overstepping his authority by encouraging Israel to hold an election. Journal columnist William Galston ([link removed]) (3/19/20 ([link removed]) ) said Schumer “was wrong to raise the issue at all,” because Israel “is a sovereign nation with robust if imperfect democratic institutions,” rather than a “banana republic.” (In "banana republics"—that is, poor countries with nonwhite populations—US meddling is apparently unobjectionable.)

In another Journal op-ed (3/20/24 ([link removed]) ), Joe Lieberman ([link removed]) , a former Connecticut senator and one-time Democratic vice presidential candidate, castigated Schumer for his position. The Middle East hawk ([link removed]) said:

This is a shocking statement that treats Israel differently from other American allies by threatening to intervene in their domestic democratic politics. In making American support for Israel conditional, Mr. Schumer harms Israel’s credibility among its allies and enemies alike.

Mr. Schumer’s statement will have every other democratic ally of the US worrying that America may try to bully our way into its domestic politics.

For anyone who knows about the pro-Israel lobby’s influence over US elections (Guardian, 5/17/22 ([link removed]) ), or the history of the US toppling democratically elected leaders in Chile ([link removed]) , Guatemala ([link removed]) , Iran ([link removed]) and elsewhere, this objection comes off as both ignorant and hypocritical


** 'Placating the anti-Israel left'
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New York Post: Chuck Schumer’s shameful Netanyahu-blaming is all about serving Democratic Party interests

In the looking-glass world of the New York Post (3/14/24 ([link removed]) ), Israelis are solidly behind ([link removed]) Netanyahu, Americans enthusiastically back ([link removed]) Israel's war, and Gazans are "suffering far less than in most Mideast wars."

Another worry Murdoch outlets expressed was that the US might change its foreign policy in response to US public opinion. The Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/14/24 ([link removed]) ) worried that Schumer was “placating the anti-Israel left in his party,” which reflects a “political neurosis developing among Democrats,” in which the party wants “Israel to ‘win’ the war against Hamas in a way that would minimize the anger of the anti-Israel left” inside and outside of the party.

In its follow-up editorial about Biden's support for Schumer's comments, the Journal (3/18/24 ([link removed]) ) similarly warned that the president was "catering to the anti-Israel left without alienating the bulk of US voters who would find it unconscionable to turn on the Israeli people in wartime."

Meanwhile, the New York Post editorial board (3/14/24 ([link removed]) ) wrote that the once-reliably pro-Israel Democrat is “now echoing Hamas’ line,” because a faction of “Arab-Americans and most Muslim voters, plus the rising number of hard lefties” within the party, is growing in influence.

If we can get past their blasé conflation of protesting the killing of innocent Palestinians with the agenda of Hamas, the Post and Journal editorial boards aren’t wrong: Protests ([link removed]) against the massacre of Palestinians, outspoken pro-peace lawmakers ([link removed]) , "uncommitted" ([link removed]) votes in Democratic primaries and voters generally turning ([link removed]) against ([link removed]) Israeli policy are all putting pressure on Democratic leadership.

That's the kind of "democracy" Murdoch's papers can't get behind.
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