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THE BIG LIES ABOUT ISRAEL, ANTI-SEMITISM, AND TRUMP  
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Peter Dreier
August 5, 2025
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_ Israel has become a global pariah due to Netanyahu's crime spree.
And Trump is a laughing stock among world leaders for his
authoritarian policies, his ignorance, his megalomania, and his
pathological lies. _

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu - Sealing the deal., Photo
credit: Italian Institute for International Political Studies

 

Israel [[link removed]] has become a global
pariah—“increasingly isolated,”
[[link removed]] the _New
York Times_ recently reported. Polls in the United States and around
the world reveal growing opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza
[[link removed]], particularly since Israel has
no obvious plan to end its war.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has himself, and his
right-wing government partners, to blame. He doesn't give a damn about
Palestinian lives or the Israeli hostages taken by Hamas. He primarily
cares about expanding his power and staying out of prison
on corruption
[[link removed]] charges.
He thinks that extending the war in Gaza will help him do that. Sound
familiar?

I'm proud to be Jewish. I'm proud of the fact that Jews have
disproportionately been involved in all the major American progressive
movements since the 1800s. I believe in the core Jewish value
of _tikkun olam_ – repairing the world and ending human suffering.

I support Israel's right to exist. I've been to Israel three
times—the first time in 1965 and most recently in 2015. I have
family members there. But I am 100% opposed to Netanyahu's government,
its war crimes in Gaza, its support for Jewish settlements on the West
Bank, its racism, its attacks on the country’s progressive
organizations (which I wrote about
[[link removed]] in 2016), and
its efforts to undermine what’s left of Israeli democracy. I support
Palestinians' right to a sovereign homeland, but not one run by Hamas,
a theocratic, fascist, anti-woman, anti-gay terrorist organization.

Support among Americans for Israel’s military actions in Gaza has
plunged to 32%, according to a new Gallup poll
[[link removed]].
A growing number of Jews, rabbis, and Jewish
organizations—including, most recently, the Union of Reform Judaism,
the largest and most liberal of all Jewish religious
movements—oppose Israel's atrocities in Gaza, including
thwarting food, water, medical, and other aid from reaching those who
need it. (Yes, Hamas stole some of the aid that was sent there, but
not much of it. That's Netanyahu's lame excuse
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all humanitarian aid. That's an outrage).

I believe, along with a majority of Democrats in the Senate
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that the U.S. should end military aid to Israel until there is a
ceasefire and ultimately a peace agreement.

I know there's been an upsurge of antisemitism and hate crimes against
Jews in the United States. And yes, some of those incidents have
occurred on a handful of college campuses. But the overall number is
quite small—not close to the level that ADL wants you to believe,
which they falsely quantify by equating criticism of Israel with
antisemitism.

A few anti-Israel protesters use rhetoric that can be described
antisemitic and that understandably makes some Jews feel
uncomfortable. But college campuses are not hotbeds of Jew hatred.
That's a big lie that Trump and the ADL and groups like Mothers
Against College Anti-Semitism use for their own overlapping purposes.

In fact, most people protesting Israel's actions
are _not _anti-semites. They just want the killing and suffering in
Gaza to end. I've protested Israel's atrocities and I'm not an
anti-semite.

If colleges want to address antisemitism, limiting protest and free
speech (and caving in to Trump's demands over curriculum, admissions,
and DEI programs) is not the way to do it. Instead, colleges should do
more to educate students, faculty and staff about the history and
current reality of antisemitism—and how it is similar to and
different from other kinds of bigotry, including racism, sexism,
nativism, Islamophobia, and homophobia. More courses, more speakers,
more dialogue, and more opportunities for Jewish, Muslim, and
Christian students to work together on regular academic,
extracurricular, community-oriented, and social justice projects to
build and foster connections and trust.

The biggest threat to American Jews are not on college campus. They
are the right-wing hate groups who Trump has encouraged, emboldened,
and pardoned
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These are the "Jews will not replace us" Nazis who marched in
Charlottesville. These are the insurrectionists who wore "Camp
Auschwitz" sweatshirts on January 6, as they invaded the Capitol
building in Washington, D.C. to try to overturn the 2020 election.
These are the Trump supporters who shoot Jews in synagogues (in
Pittsburgh and elsewhere), at public parades (like the one in Highland
Park, Illinois), and at the Jewish museum in D.C. These are the
conspiracy theorists who spout antisemitic stereotypes about an
alleged international Jewish cabal run by George Soros and others.

It is no accident that the upsurge of right-wing antisemitism began
soon after Trump announced his first campaign for president in 2015.
That Trump is himself a long time anti-semite
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well-documented. He traffics in antisemitic stereotypes and he
cultivates and encourages hate groups, including neo-Nazi groups. He
has long admired Hitler.

Trump mainly cares about appealing to his base. Only 26% of Jews
voted for Trump
[[link removed]] last
year and few Jews support his policies or actions. A huge part of his
base, however, are white evangelical Christians. About 80% of them
voted for Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024, accounting for almost half
of his total vote
[[link removed]].

The extreme wing of the evangelical movement are the Christian
nationalists (like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several other
high-level Trump appointees), who now account for almost 30%
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all Americans. They advocate authoritarianism
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They are white supremacists and anti-semites. They believe that the
United States is and should be a Christian nation
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governed by Biblical doctrine and not by the Constitution. In that
scenario, Jews are, at best, second-class citizens.

Trump doesn't give a damn about protecting Jews from antisemitism. His
attacks, and those of the Republicans in Congress (led by Rep. Elise
Stefanik of New York), on universities for allegedly fostering
antisemitism are really about intimidating a major bastion of
liberalism and free speech. Trump is on a crusade against institutions
he considers his enemies—unions, artists and performers (and
institutions like the Kennedy Center), the courts, the media, and
universities and colleges. He wants to intimidate and silence them. He
is weaponizing antisemitism to gain more power and stifle his
opponents.

And so is Netanyahu. But it is backfiring on both of them. Israel has
become a global pariah. And Trump is a laughing stock among world
leaders for his authoritarian policies, his ignorance, his
megalomania, and his pathological lies. Trump’s declining support in
the U.S. is likely to help the Democrats win a majority of House seats
next year, which would allow them to neutralize many of Trump’s
policies, hold investigations and hearings to expose his corruption,
and even put pressure on Israel by limiting or ending U.S. arms sales.

In my fantasy world of the not-too-distance future, Trump and
Netanyahu share a prison cell. That would be equal justice under the
law.

_[PETER DREIER is the E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics
and founding chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at
Occidental College. For eight years he served as a deputy to Boston's
Mayor Ray Flynn. He is the author or coauthor of several books on
urban politics and policy, including The Next Los Angeles: The
Struggle for a Livable City and Place Matters: Metropolitics for the
21st Century
[[link removed]],
a 4th edition of which will be published in 2026.]._ 

_A version of this article appeared in Common Dreams on August 4,
2025._

* Israel
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* anti-Semitism
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* Gaza
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* starvation
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* Jewish community
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* American Jewish community
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* Donald Trump
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* Genocide
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* Benjamin Netanyahu
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* Palestine
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* Ceasefire
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* Hostages
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* Hamas
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* Oct. 7
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* war crimes
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* U.S.-Israel military aid
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* Israel-Gaza War
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* Authoritarianism
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