A dark cloud is spreading across America, casting an ominous shadow of malice and mendacity, and threatening to split open perilous fault lines in the rich tapestry of the nation’s socio-political fabric.
High-profile vitriol
One of the most disruptive figures driving this detrimental trend is media personality Ana Kasparian, a well-known public figure of Armenian origin (which she regularly invokes) and a frequent participant in popular talk-shows. A comely blonde, she is co-host of the TV program The Young Turks, an incongruous career choice, as originally, the term “Young Turks" is widely associated with the 1915-Armenian Genocide, particularly as she frequently raises this tragic event publicly.
Recently, Kasparian has adopted an acutely acrimonious attitude towards Israel-and is often afforded high-profile platforms to spew her vitriol.
For example, in a recent podcast of well-known political comedian/satirist, Bill Maher, she demonstrated the malevolence, ignorance, and double standards that underlie anti-Semitism, in general. and its current post-2023 manifestation, in particular.
Thus, Kasparian attempted to belittle the perils Israelis face from Palestinian Arab stone-throwing, ignoring that over a dozen Israelis, including toddlers, perished as a result of Palestinian rock-throwers. Astonishingly, Kasparian suggested that, because of its purported nuclear capabilities, Israel has little to fear from Palestinian Arab stones-apparently implying that Israel could always “nuke" the stone-throwers? Curiously, she dismissed the prospect of Palestinian Arabs ever using nuclear weapons if they ever possessed them, since this would make the land, they allegedly love, “unlivable"-raising the question of why that would not hold equally for Israelis! (Note the Palestinian Arab propensity for purposely setting forest fires as well as the Gazan incendiary balloons meant to set the land on fire)
“…if we had a nuke, we’d use it this morning…"
Interestingly, when Maher interjected that while Israel never used its nuclear capability, if the Palestinian Arabs had it, they would use it in a matter of seconds, Kasparian protested that he had no way of knowing that. In response, Maher pointed out that the “obliteration" of Israel is the express goal of Hamas-articulated in the opening clause of the organization’s Charter. Indeed, this genocidal intent is not confined to Hamas. Thus, Jibril Rajoub, a high-ranking Fatah member, publicly pledged that if Palestinian Arabs “had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning (sic)."
Further in her self-contradictory rant, Kasparian, under pressure from Maher, was forced to concede that, rather than live in any one of Israel’s numerous pro-Palestinian adversaries, she would prefer to reside in Israel, admitting she: “would probably feel the most comfortable in Tel Aviv." Go figure.
Later in her litany of lies, Kasparian labeled IDF operations in Gaza as “random slaughter" of civilians, ignoring that the high toll of civilian casualties was largely because (a) Hamas used them as “human shields"; (b) Egypt refused to allow Gazans to flee the war zone, as was the case in every other military conflict, from Syria to Ukraine. Moreover, Kasparian's allegations are totally at odds with assessments of objective professional observers such as Col. Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, who remarked that no other army has exercised such care in avoiding civilian casualties, attaining the lowest ratio of civilian-to-combatant deaths ever in urban warfare.
Similarly, John Spencer, chairman of urban warfare studies at West Point, described Israel's minimizing collateral casualties as "unprecedented," asserting that it was setting the "gold standard" for avoiding civilian casualties.
Characterizing Khamenei as “courageous"?
In a later appearance, on the Piers Morgan Uncensored show, Kasparian shied away from condemning the theocratic Iranian regime for the reported slaughter of Iranian demonstrators. Hotly contesting the validity of the widely-cited number of 30,000, she was, however, unable to provide any alternative estimate and unwilling to indicate exactly how many dead protesters would be “acceptable".
Apparently willing to whitewash all of Israel’s adversaries, no matter how barbarous, if this serves to cast aspersions on the Jewish state, Kasparian balked at condemning her co-host on The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, for characterizing the brutal tyrant, Ali Khamenei, as “courageous". She interjected: “…well, he never capitulated to the Israelis and we live under a government [that], regardless of which party is in power, is on its knees on behalf of Israel. So, I understand what he's talking about. He didn't embarrass his people by getting down on his knees to…Israel, as our leaders in the United States…[Many] Americans are embarrassed by the fact that our leadership ...seems to prioritize the best interests of Israel."
Clearly, this astounding premise seems to imply the Germans should laud Hitler because he avoided “embarrassment" by choosing to commit suicide, rather than surrender.
Portraying America as a subservient lackey of Jews?
Of course, while all this is reminiscent of the anti-Semitic trope that “Jews control the world", it leaves one to ponder how the diminutive Israel could somehow impose its will on the most powerful nation on the planet. Indeed, this mendacious portrayal of the US as a subservient lackey of the Jews should be deeply offensive to America-and the American electorate.
Kasparian and some of her like-minded conspiratorial Judeo-phobic kinfolk (e.g., Alex Galitsky, Policy Director of ANCA, and the boorish Dan Bilzerian (who dubbed murderous Yahya Sinwar a “hero" - see here for the New York Times obit)) have accused Israel of dragging the US into numerous armed conflicts-including the present campaign against Iran.
Apart from the prima facie absurdity of the allegation, it also runs counter to Trump’s enumeration of US imperatives for the war, invoking "menacing [Iranian] activities [that] directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies…"
Indeed, they run starkly counter to Trump’s later White House address concerning the reasons for American involvement in the war. In response to a question as to whether Netanyahu “pull[ed] the United States into this war, Trump’s riposte was “… if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand."
Anti-Semitic and un-American
Clearly, the accusation that Washington is Israel’s perennially pliable puppet is logically ludicrous and factually false. Indeed, over recent decades, both Democratic and Republican administrations have passed resolutions which Israel opposed-often bitterly.
Even a brief review of presidential decisions, from Eisenhower through Bush to Biden, should suffice to repudiate any allegations that America is in the iron grip of some diabolical Judaic cult, compelling it to sacrifice US interests (and lives) for those of Israel.
A few notable examples include
- Eisenhower's 1956 decision to force an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula;
- The 1991 decision of the Bush White House to withhold promised loan guarantees to aid the absorption of refugees from the former USSR;
- The 2015 decision by Obama to enter into the fatally flawed JCPOA nuclear agreement;
- The Biden administration's partial-but damaging--embargo on munitions during the Iron Swords Operation in Gaza.
This brief, and far from exhaustive list, should suffice to repudiate any allegations that the US is in the iron grip of some diabolical Judaic cult, compelling it to sacrifice American interests (and lives) for those of the Jewish state.
This catalog of Judeo-phobic invective by Kasparian and her like-minded cronies underscores an ominous truth. Their fact-free, often foul-mouthed, harangues are a menace that is not only anti-Semitic but profoundly anti-American. It is a development that must be nipped in the bud, before its toxic fruits contaminate ever-widening circles of the public.