In an extraordinary article published on 7 April, the New York Times described how Donald Trump decided to go to war with Iran. It is highly unusual for the White House Situation Room to be used for in-person meetings with foreign leaders. But this time, the Situation Room was not just used for a meeting with a foreign leader. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin, Netanyahu took over the presentation space, backed on a screen by the leader of the Mossad as well as Israeli military officials.
As the New York Times describes the scene, “Arrayed visually behind Mr. Netanyahu, they created the image of a wartime leader surrounded by his team.” The article makes it clear that Netanyahu’s “hard sell” of a quick war was pivotal to the US president’s decision to partner with Israel in attacking Iran.
This article is unusual in recent mainstream media about the war, which typically avoids mention of the role of Israel in Trump’s decision. Here is one example, from a journalist I admire. When it comes to Russia, Rachel Maddow has been forthright and heroic on the topic of foreign influence on US policy. But in a 28 February MS Now episode, Follow the Money, devoted to exploring Trump’s reasons for going to war with Iran, Maddow exhibits diminished virtue on this topic.
In it, she asks the listeners to consider the question: “Who wants Iran bombed off the map and for their own reasons, who are Iran’s rivals and enemies?” Maddow’s subsequent discussion suggests that it is the Gulf Arab states that are primarily responsible, who, she says, “appear to have rented the services of the United States military”. Maddow’s February discussion of the causes of Trump’s decision to go to war, in hindsight, with the information provided by the New York Times article, should raise alarm bells for those concerned for the status of democracy and a free press.
More generally, the article stands in stark contrast to the self-censorship across western media about what has long been obvious: that there is an unambiguously “close association” between Netanyahu and Trump that has been an “enduring feature” of Trump’s two administrations.
The western media has been admirably clear that Putin has a closer relationship with Trump than any previous US president (and admirably critical of this relationship). But there has been no similar level of transparency in the media about Israel’s influence on US policy, even though Israel’s foreign influence on US policy now and over time is much more transparent than Russia’s (after all, Russia is an ally of Iran).
Crucially, propaganda does not just take the form of lies. Omitting mention in the news media of crucial facts is also paradigmatic of state propaganda. For example, if the media reports that an opposition politician was arrested, without mentioning that the arrest was a set-up by the government, this is propaganda, even though the media has not in this case lied; it has simply omitted crucial information.
Or suppose that two groups threaten the country, communists and fascists – but the government media only ever mentions the communists as a threat. This, too, is media propaganda – it covers up the threat by the fascists. In both cases, omission functions as propaganda. A country whose media systematically omits facts in this way lacks a free press, even if (as in this case) this systematic omission of facts is due to fear of societal stigma rather than government censorship.
Propaganda regularly occurs via omission. In fact, painting a partially true picture of reality is a particularly insidious form of propaganda. Whether they intend it to or not, the silence on one topic of media actors who are brave truth tellers on other topics provides cover for the actors whose malfeasance they omit from their analyses. This silence is complicity.
Russia and the Gulf Arab states have engaged in foreign influence on US policy in various ways. But Israel’s foreign influence on US policy, now and over time, far outstrips that of these other countries. To emphasize the role of the former, while omitting the role of the latter, is a form of propaganda. Omission of crucial facts is no different, from a moral perspective, than lying.
Across the political spectrum, and over many years, even when, as in the last decade, the topic of foreign influence on the US was central, the US news media has systematically omitted Israel as a problematic source of foreign influence (the omission has been so obvious as to have been a source of late-night comedy more than a decade ago). From a moral perspective, nothing justifies this propaganda on behalf of Israel.
Those who omit mention of Israel’s pernicious influence on US policy are not intentionally bad actors. Rather, I suspect the main reason they avoid criticizing Israel in this way is that they believe criticizing Israel is antisemitic, or at the very least foments antisemitism (or, more likely, they worry about being accused of antisemitism for criticizing Israel). But this is not a good justification. This very reasoning is antisemitic.
Why is this reasoning antisemitic? Well, even the most problematically restrictive definitions of antisemitism, such as the IHRA definition, state (in some form or other) that it is antisemitic to conflate the State of Israel with Jewish people. To excuse the failure to mention Israel as a problematic source of foreign influence on the grounds that it is antisemitic to do so is itself antisemitic, as it conflates the State of Israel with Jewish people. We should not condone such antisemitic reasoning in the news media. The news media should not contribute to antisemitism by acting as if critique of Israel is an attack on Jewish people worldwide.
It is antisemitic to treat criticism of Israel’s foreign influence as antisemitic. But it is not just antisemitic - it also contributes substantially to antisemitism. An antisemitic trope central to Nazism is that Jewish people control the media. By acting as if the concerns of Israel are the same as the concerns of Jewish people, and restricting criticism of Israel on this basis, the news media strengthens societal belief in this pernicious antisemitic trope.
Finally, the State of Israel is now committing genocide against the Palestinian people (and forced displacement and ethnic cleansing in Lebanon). To mask the actions of the current government of Israel on the grounds that to decry them is antisemitic is to associate Jewish people with these crimes. And this is classic antisemitism, reaching back many centuries (a form of “blood libel”). We should never accept this reasoning with other groups either. There are Islamic regimes that commit horrible crimes. It is obviously Islamophobic to connect all Muslims with these crimes, however indirectly.
There is no moral case for hiding Israel’s foreign interference in US policy.
A press that openly lies is not free. But a press that tells only partial truths may be even more unfree, as these half-truths serve as a mask for its unfreedom.
Jason Stanley is the Bissell-Heyd chair in American studies in the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto, and also has an appointment in the department of philosophy. His latest book is Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to control the Future
