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There Is No Bigger Trump Lie Right Now Than Him Saying the Iran War Is Good for You—or the World
There is a popular view that this is a pointless war, being fought for nothing. But that is wrong—there is a purpose. Actually, there are several. You're just never told what they are.
Jun 14, 2026
On June 1st, despite a ceasefire ostensibly underway in the US-Israeli war on Iran, Israel’s prime minister launched a major escalation against Lebanon, including threatening airstrikes against the Lebanese capital. The US president called the Israeli leader, furiously demanding an end to Israel’s escalation. Six days later, Israel attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, long understood to be a red line for Hezbollah. The Lebanese resistance organization launched a limited response, sending 11 rockets towards Israel, almost all of which were intercepted; no one was hurt or killed. Trump called Netanyahu again, telling him in a brief call that now that Iran and Israel had each “had their fun,” that Israel should stand down.
Commentators across the Middle East and beyond debated whether Netanyahu would abide by Trump’s demand. What virtually none of them mentioned was that Trump had refused to even mention his most important pressure point: that if Israel resisted his order to stand down, the US would simply stop sending tons of weapons and tens of billions of dollars to the Israeli military. The close but sometimes divergent interests of the Middle East’s two powers, the global and the regional, was on full display.
It's now been 106 days since Trump launched his preemptive and illegal military attack on Iran. On February 28, 2026, the world awoke to the fury of a new war in the Middle East after the United States and Israel had launched their joint assault against Iran, with President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu standing shoulder to shoulder against their common foe. Claiming unbridled hegemony was on the agenda for both.
The US-Israeli war on Iran is rooted in longstanding US imperialist strategy and Israel’s national goals.
Today, with yet more fresh promises of a so-called "peace deal" that is nearly ready to be signed by Trump and Iranian leadership, the Israeli military is bombing the suburbs of Beirut despite ongoing claims of a "ceasefire." Trying to understand the current doom loop, it's vital we remember how we got here.
In the opening salvo of the US-Israeli attack, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, along with an unknown number of other top military and political leaders, was assassinated with a ballistic missile. Just an hour later, the US fired a Tomahawk missile directly at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the northern Iranian city of Minab—killing 156 people, 120 of them children, and destroying the school. The war’s official reasons, initially, were to eliminate the ostensible threat of Iran creating a nuclear weapon, and to destroy its conventional military capacity. The no-daylight US-Israeli partnership, Trump and Netanyahu as BFFs, the collaboration between the US and Israeli warplanes, bombers, drones, missiles… all seemed seamless and perfect.
Three months later, and half a dozen or so “ceasefires” announced, renounced, ignored and denounced, headlines around the world gleefully recounted a Trump phone call with Netanyahu. Focused on Israel’s escalating bombing of Lebanon threatening to derail the latest US-Iran ceasefire, the June 1 call reportedly started with Trump telling Netanyahu “you’re fucking crazy—you’d be in prison if it weren’t for me." The US president then went on to his “Everybody hates you now" remark. "Everybody hates Israel because of this,” he reportedly said.
Trump acknowledged saying it, and then, as is his usual style, moved on, quickly reclaiming his friendship with the Israeli prime minister. As was true with so many earlier ceasefires, Israel continued its massive bombing and its brutal occupation of south Lebanon, making a US-Iran ceasefire impossible. In the meantime, throughout the months of the war, commentators, politicians of all stripes, journalists and analysts across the globe were struggling to figure out what that war was actually being fought for.
War for What?
Real fear of an actual nuclear bomb was certainly not the answer. After all, US intelligence agencies have agreed for years that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”
Despite that clear assessment, US B-2 stealth bombers still dropped 14 of their 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bombs on Iran’s civilian centrifuges at Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz at the end of Israel’s 12-day war in June 2025. Trump and his supporters bragged of having “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. And then, eight months after that, in the early days of the US-Israeli 2026 war, those B-2s were back in the air, dropping more 30,000-pound and some smaller versions of the bunker-busters on Iran. Seems they don’t believe even their own intelligence agents.
They thought they could impose imperialism on the cheap—but it turns out not everyone is playing that game.
Rationales for the sudden war in 2026 (launched in the midst of US negotiations with Iran for a long-term ceasefire) were tossed around like confetti, ranging from stopping a nuclear threat (which of course didn’t exist because Iran didn’t have, wasn’t trying to make, and hadn’t even made a decision to try to build a nuclear weapon), to ending Iran’s support for its regional allies, to destroying Iran’s navy, to crippling its missile capacity, to protecting Iranian civilians or maybe encouraging a popular uprising, or perhaps even full-scale regime change. Later, once Iran had responded to the attacks by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Trump shifted to trying to justify the war as a means of forcing the reopening of the Strait, in effect waging the new war to get back to the situation that had existed until the US and Israel launched the war in the first place.
Not a Senseless War
None were very convincing arguments. The popular view emerged that this was a pointless war, being fought for nothing. But that was wrong—there was a purpose. Actually, there were several. The Israeli prime minister has shaped his political career, for more than 35 years, around the claim that only he could bring down the Iranian regime, falsely claiming it as an “existential threat” to Israel. (In fact, even if Iran changed its internal decisions and decided to try to build a nuclear weapon some day, it would not represent an existential threat to Israelis but only to Israel’s 47-year-old nuclear weapons monopoly in the Middle East.) Netanyahu needed the war to continue—any ceasefire, under any conditions, would weaken him politically.
On the US side, some of the war’s goals had to do with the personal obsessions of the president and his minions. Trump’s fixation on expanding US power around the world, and more importantly being seen as presiding over a return to the glory days of unchallenged US global domination, remain a driving force—as does his determination to “get a better deal” than Obama did with the successful Iran nuclear deal in 2015. For his self-defined “secretary of war” Pete Hegseth, the pageantry of a powerful military—not only “the most lethal” force in the world but more white, more male, and even more slim than any other army—could compensate for Hegseth’s lack of experience. For Secretary of State Marco Rubio, all roads lead to regime change in Cuba—and supporting all of Trump’s military assaults, including attacks on fishing boats in the Caribbean, kidnapping the president and seizing the oil resources of Venezuela, bombing Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria, all help set the stage for his life-long goal of destroying the Cuban revolution.
The Search for Hegemony
All those personal obsessions likely played some roles. But the US-Israeli war on Iran is also rooted in longstanding US imperialist strategy and Israel’s national goals. While Trump has shown himself for years as far more committed to maximizing his own and his family’s wealth and power than he is accountable to any particular faction of US capital or US elite power (except perhaps “the billionaires,” writ large), the trajectory of imperial expansion, especially in an era of greater and rising powers around the world, continues to shape much of US policy.
That is where the search for hegemony comes to the fore. For Israel—and especially for its longstanding prime minister—the attack on Iran both demonstrates and reinforces its role as unchallenged regional hegemon. That means asserting its power—a derivative power, given its strategic dependence on the United States, but power nonetheless—to seize land, dispossess and expel whole populations, and exert permanent control over countries, economies, and people—whenever, wherever, and for however long it chooses. Without being held accountable.
For Israel—and especially for its longstanding prime minister—the attack on Iran both demonstrates and reinforces its role as unchallenged regional hegemon.
To be recognized as the regional hegemonic power in the Middle East, Israel needs to not only “mow the grass” in Lebanon and in Gaza (as well as arming and empowering ideologically driven settlers in the West Bank to escalate their violent seizure of Palestinian land and ethnic cleansing of its population), it needs to continue to weaken, threaten, and when possible (with US backing) go to war against Iran, its sole challenger for regional control.
Mowing the Grass
Israelis—military and government officials, academics, journalists and others—routinely use the term “mowing the grass” to describe Tel Aviv’s consistent attacks against Israel’s neighbors. The phrase was first coined to describe Israel’s brutal 22-day assault on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, that began the day after Christmas 2008 and killed more than 1400 Palestinians, most of them civilians and including 300 children. Since then, it describes the frequent attacks on Gaza or Lebanon—ostensibly aimed at militant organizations but designed originally to kill massive numbers of civilians, displace hundreds of thousands or millions from their homes, and destroy huge swathes of homes, schools, churches, mosques, businesses—to remind everyone who it is who actually holds power.
Israel is saying that it will not allow Iran to remain an obstacle to Tel Aviv’s claim of full-blown dominance of the region. Netanyahu is making good of the threats he’s issued for the last 30 years.
Iran has historically been the main obstacle preventing Israel from consolidating that regional hegemonic role, and part of Netanyahu’s political power depends on his ability to keep the US-Israeli “special relationship” strong and to deal effectively with Iran. So going to war against Iran in complete and willing partnership with the United States serves to strengthen his still-shaky political position. What’s different now is that Israel is saying that it will not allow Iran to remain an obstacle to Tel Aviv’s claim of full-blown dominance of the region. Netanyahu is making good of the threats he’s issued for the last 30 years.
So Netanyahu remains committed to continuing this war against Iran, opposing ceasefires regardless of their terms—and most recently, escalating attacks against Lebanon precisely because they could prevent or shatter any ceasefire. Following the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire in 2024, UN peacekeepers on the ground documented more than 10,000 Israeli violations of the agreement in just the first year. When a wobbly US-Iran ceasefire was announced on April 8, 2026, Israel responded with massive force against Beirut, launching more than 100 airstrikes within 10 minutes across the capital and killing 357 people, many of them civilians and at least 101 of them children and women.
Back in the USA….
For the United States, going to war against Iran could strengthen Washington’s longstanding commitment to maintaining global domination—a goal particularly relished by its power-obsessed and erratic president. The war was designed to both demonstrate and bolster the US role as unchallenged global hegemon. And doing so arm in arm with Israel, the regional version.
What a team they thought they would make. What they didn’t reckon with was the reality of Iran—its military, its government, its people. While there is no question US-Israeli military might massively outstrips that of Iran, it turned out that Tehran was able to use its not-insignificant drone and missile capacity in ways that maximized its power.
While there is no question US-Israeli military might massively outstrips that of Iran, it turned out that Tehran was able to use its not-insignificant drone and missile capacity in ways that maximized its power.
For example, Iran’s relatively few strikes on US bases and sometimes domestic facilities in the surrounding US-backed Gulf states had political consequences beyond their comparatively low levels of casualties. They showed how “protection” in the form of US military bases, weapons and troops in those countries did not keep their people safe, but rather laid a target on their backs. Most especially, Iran’s few direct attacks on ships attempting to cross the Strait of Hormuz early in the war, had the much broader effect of shutting down the vital waterway entirely, as shipowners and insurance companies refused to take the risk.
Miscalculations
When Israel carried out its guided missile attack on the first day of the war, killing the supreme leader and a number of other top officials, the cheering in Washington and Tel Aviv reflected the assumption that the decapitation of the government would lead to chaos and its inability to function. The cheerleaders were wrong. As Narges Bajoghli and Vali Nasr noted in Foreign Affairs, the US and Israel “expected a quick victory through targeted assassinations of Iran’s leadership. But decapitation did not produce regime collapse. Instead, it opened the door for a new generation to take over.” Not only did Khamenei’s son take over his father’s position, but younger military, political, and business leaders filled in the gaps across the structures of power.
And while the Iranian leadership had been significantly weakened by public mobilization against both governmental inability to solve the escalating economic crisis and its increasingly repressive attacks against protesters, it appears it was not further weakened by the US-Israeli assault. As Nasr and Bajoghli describe the situation, the public anger of January 2026 in response to escalating repression of the mass uprisings, didn’t disappear with the US-Israeli assault. They wrote:
The war’s destruction has been vast: public infrastructure, factories, schools, hospitals, historic monuments, and even entire neighborhoods lie in ruins. As Israeli and American bombs and missiles pummeled the landscape, Trump threatened to arm separatists, redraw Iran’s borders, crush its economy and annihilate its civilization. Together, these military and rhetorical assaults provoked a nationalist reaction that cut across political divisions. Public anger has not disappeared. The grief, frustration and accumulated resentment of decades of misrule and repression remain. What has changed is the political landscape in which those feelings find expression. Dissent is now refracted through a national struggle against a foreign enemy that Iranians compare to Alexander the Great, who conquered the Persian empire in the 4th century BC; the Arab armies that invaded in the 7th century AD; and the Mongols, who came six centuries after that.
Contrary to American and Israeli expectations, the war has not sparked street demonstrations. The longer it went on, the less the regime appeared threatened by public uprisings. Iranian society mobilized not against the state but alongside it, holding daily rallies across the country, forming human chains and gathering on bridges threatened by Trump. The sharp divide between state and society that had characterized Iran in January blurred—not through persuasion or repression, but through the shared experience of living through the bombing and witnessing its destruction.
Palestine
There was another reason for the US-Israeli war, that explains at least the timing, if not the overall rationale—Palestine. Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza for two years and eight months. There are now more than 73,000 known, identified, named Palestinians in Gaza who have been killed by Israeli bombs, tanks, bullets, drones, missiles, almost all paid for (and to a large degree produced) by US taxpayers. Thousands more lie dead under the rubble of what were once the cities, towns, refugee camps of the decimated Gaza Strip. The statistics belie the lives lost—babies, elders, children. Journalists and health workers in staggering numbers. And Israel’s genocide continues, people are still being killed by Israeli bombs, tanks and drones, as well as deliberately-imposed shortages of water, food, medical supplies, shelter.
The Gaza genocide is not unrelated or incidental to the US-Israeli war in Iran—it is a primary enabler. It is precisely the level of impunity, the absolute lack of accountability for any of the perpetrators of this crime against humanity, that has given Israeli and US leaders the confidence to go ahead with what many have called the “Gazafication of Iran” and the “Gazafication of Lebanon” without fearing there might be a price to be paid.
The Gaza genocide is not unrelated or incidental to the US-Israeli war in Iran—it is a primary enabler.
The international arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against Israeli leaders (Israel assassinated the Hamas leaders who were similarly charged) are ignored in most of the US-allied countries that Netanyahu and his former defense minister might want to visit. South Africa’s unprecedented effort to hold Israel accountable at the International Court of Justice for its violations of the Genocide Convention resulted in a powerful preliminary ruling that Israel’s actions plausibly do constitute genocide. Israel was ordered to carry out specific actions—starting with an end to killing people in Gaza—but it has yet to face any consequences for ignoring those orders. And no one knows when the final ruling might be issued—or if it will lead to some level of enforcement, either in the United Nations, by a coalition of governments, or, most likely by a newly-enraged, newly-engaged global civil society ready to move with ever greater energy, strategic clarity and political power to impose serious consequences on the governments and individuals responsible for the first genocide in history to be carried out openly, proudly, and visible to the world.
War Over War
For now, while the war against Iran continues, it looks like both Israel and the United States are moving into a different phase. They are still looking to claim power, still working to reshape political relations and consolidate regional and global power across the middle east. But rather than simply escalating again, as Israel still is in Lebanon, or continuing a grinding daily assault as it still is in Gaza—both actions armed and paid for by the US—they are facing some changed circumstances. Just maybe Washington and Tel Aviv are finding that it’s harder than they thought to re-order the whole Middle East—and to do that in tandem is harder than ever.
Trump seemed to think he could accomplish something dramatic and “beautiful” in Iran—encourage a popular uprising, maybe seize the oil and replace the leadership’s political orientation as if it were Venezuela—but then found that wasn’t so likely. Turns out Iran is not Venezuela. Netanyahu has massive public support among Jewish Israelis for continuing the war in Iran, though support for the war in Lebanon is not so popular. (It should not be forgotten that after 18 years of occupying South Lebanon, Israeli troops were finally pulled out in 2000 primarily because the government could not survive the mobilization of Israeli mothers angry that their sons in the IDF were occasionally being killed by Hezbollah’s retaliation actions..)
Trump seemed to think he could accomplish something dramatic and “beautiful” in Iran—encourage a popular uprising, maybe seize the oil and replace the leadership’s political orientation as if it were Venezuela—but then found that wasn’t so likely.
At home Netanyahu may be able to get away with claiming victory over Iran even if a ceasefire is imposed, by continuing Israel’s longstanding practice of assassinating Iranian scientists and political/military leaders, and occasional bombing raids. But Israel’s plummeting losses in the war of global legitimacy are certainly not likely to be reversed any time soon. The most recent Pew survey indicates sky-high majorities holding negative views of Israel and Netanyahu around the world—up to 95% in Pakistan, 78% negative in Sweden and Spain.
The global Palestinian rights mobilizations and the even broader movements for ceasefire and an end to genocide of course play a major role. Social movements and civil society activists around the world will continue to hold up the ICJ decisions and the UN General Assembly resolutions requiring governments to impose arms embargoes, boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israel.
And as the Strait remains closed and food shortages mount in the poorest countries, as Arab governments fearing public opposition at home reduce their ties with Israel and reject expansion of the Abraham Accords, and as Israel continues to kill Lebanese and Palestinian families, Trump’s claims will be less likely to be believed. With the mid-terms only a few months off, his claims of “We’re the winner, we won” are already ringing increasingly hollow. It doesn’t mean he won’t make the claims, it just means they’re not going to work.
For Trump, given the unexpected level of resilience in Iran, Tehran’s access to a virtually unlimited supply of cheap drones that are doing real damage to Gulf Arab states hosting US bases and troops, and its willingness to close the Strait as a pressure point with global ramifications, it’s going to be difficult to claim this war as a victory.
The search to consolidate regional and global power continues. It’s a big part of the reason the US and Israel are launching new wars and escalating longstanding attacks. People are still losing lands and lives as these hegemons rely on war to consolidate their positions. But neither Israel in the Middle East nor the United States in the world are unchallenged. They thought they could impose imperialism on the cheap—but it turns out not everyone is playing that game. The search for hegemonic power is far from settled.
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'Evidently Hoping to Sabotage' US-Iran Deal, Israel Bombs Beirut
Iran's chief negotiator accused the Trump administration of giving the Israeli government a "green light" to continue attacking Lebanon and undermining diplomatic talks.
Jun 14, 2026
The Israeli military bombed the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday just as Iranian and US officials voiced optimism that a diplomatic agreement is in reach, prompting accusations that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to derail the negotiations.
Israel's strikes reportedly targeted a five-story apartment building, killing at least three people, according to Lebanese authorities. Netanyahu said the bombing was a response to Hezbollah rocket fire into northern Israel.
The latest bombing of Beirut came hours after US President Donald Trump said he expected a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to be signed as early as Sunday, potentially setting the stage for negotiations to end the illegal war Trump started in late February. Iranian officials have pushed back on the US president's claim that the MOU will be signed Sunday, but Iran's foreign minister said Friday that an agreement had "never been closer."
The Associated Press reported Sunday that Israel's new strikes on Beirut "threatened to hamper negotiations over a deal, which in its current form is a deep disappointment to Israel’s government."
"The last time Israel struck the Beirut suburbs a week ago, it set off the most serious escalation of fighting between Iran and Israel since the tenuous ceasefire took hold April 7," AP added.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote on social media that "as a US-Iranian deal seems like it might be closer, Israel predictably bombs the Beirut suburbs, evidently hoping to sabotage the deal."
"Why does Trump put up with this and continue to arm and fund such obstructionism?" Roth asked.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's chief negotiator and speaker of parliament, said Israel's strikes indicate that the US "either does not have the will or the ability to fulfill its obligations."
"You cannot gain concessions by giving [Israel] a green light," he added. "The good cop, bad cop routine has become old. If you do not have the will or the ability to fulfill your commitments, then there is no basis for talking about continuing down this path."
As the US & Iran reportedly near a deal that includes ending the war in Lebanon, Israel is attacking Beirut again.
Either Trump can't restrain Netanyahu, or the deal is already being violated before it's signed.
Either way, it undermines the deal's value for Iran. pic.twitter.com/v08c21i7wa
— Sina Toossi (@SinaToossi) June 14, 2026
While the MOU that's reportedly under consideration has not been released in full, its broad outlines have been reported in media outlets and divulged by Iranian and US officials in recent days. Reuters reported Sunday that "a final draft of the memorandum of understanding with the US covered a range of issues, from Tehran’s nuclear work to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and US waivers on oil sanctions, with a final deal to be discussed in the 60 days following agreement by the two sides."
Under the MOU, Iran would immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the US would end its illegal blockade of Iranian ports, according to Reuters. The US would also agree to waive oil sanctions on Iran and release $25 billion in frozen Iranian assets, while Iran would agree to "maintain the current status of its nuclear program, refraining from further uranium enrichment and expansion of nuclear facilities."
Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, said in a television interview on Friday that the MOU's proposed 60-day ceasefire extension would include Lebanon.
Axios reported that Netanyahu has "found himself in the dark" as US-Iran negotiations have progressed in recent days, "calling allies close to the Trump administration to try and gather information."
Following Sunday's strike on Beirut, Trump told Axios' Barak Ravid that Netanyahu "has no fucking judgment."
"I passed this message on to him—that I am very unhappy with the attack in Beirut," said Trump, whose administration has approved billions of dollars worth of weapons sales to the Israeli government.
Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, warned that "Israel will do more sabotage unless Trump imposes a cost on Israel."
"Netanyahu knows exactly what he is doing and is judging that an attack on Beirut—rather than southern Lebanon—is exactly what's needed to derail the pending US-Iran deal," Parsi argued.
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Why the Mainstream Media Should Stop Using the ADL as Their Go-To Antisemitism Source
The group uses dubious reporting methods and tends to conflate right-wing racial extremism with pro-Palestine speech and activity.
Jun 14, 2026
More than a decade ago, a video (Mondoweiss, 8/7/14) showed Jodi Rudoren, then The New York Times‘ Jerusalem bureau chief, having a casual and friendly meeting with Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League. The cozy relationship in the video was telling enough, but when the video captured Foxman complaining that the “Arabs” had taken over a famous New York City hotel, and Rudoren shrugging it off, many skeptics viewed this as a window into the Times’ pro-Israel bias.
The recently deceased Foxman (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 5/12/26), famous for promoting the pro-Israel viewpoint and insinuating that critics of Israel were antisemitic, wasn’t Rudoren’s source in this video; they were pals.
Emmaia Gelman’s new book, The Anti-Defamation League and the Racial State, is a history of the group, framing it not as a racial justice organization but as a deputy sheriff for the US empire. Gelman shows how the ADL crafts a narrative for the public that pushes Western imperialism rather than equality. In recent years, the ADL’s main focus has been smearing criticism of Israel or support for Palestinian human rights as Jew hatred. As the group (4/4/23) says, “anti-Zionism is indeed antisemitism.”
The book is loosely part of the #DropTheADL campaign, which encourages both progressives and schools to stop citing the group as a source on political extremism, because of its “racist and right-wing” track record. The movement has had limited success: The delegates of the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, voted to sever ties with the ADL, a move that was overruled by the union’s governing board (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 7/21/25).
Over the decades the ADL has established itself as a one-stop research depot for media when it comes to antisemitism.
When major newspapers write about the definition or prevalence of antisemitism, they frequently look to the ADL (New York Times, 2/27/28, 12/10/23, 10/6/24; Washington Post, 10/27/21; Wall Street Journal, 5/6/26; USA Today, 4/22/25, 5/6/26). In the Times obituary for Foxman (5/10/26), the paper wrote:
One reason Mr. Foxman was consulted by journalists and academics was that he made sure his organization could back up its claims with facts and statistics.
Gelman’s research challenges that record, arguing that ADL documentation of antisemitic incidents lacks context, allowing the group to “conflate small ambiguous acts like some kid writing a swastika on their desk with burning a synagogue,” Gelman told FAIR. That’s where their research “got fudgy” and “showed spikes” in antisemitism, leading to reporting filled with “stark terms without context.”
Bulwark of the West
Why is the ADL so influential? In Gelman’s telling, the ADL worked hard in the early days of the Cold War as a news source for Washington, DC officials. It blanketed congressional offices and newsrooms with briefings, newsletters, and press releases, making it a go-to source for civil rights information. Its stances neatly aligned with pro-US Cold War policy, unlike other other civil rights organizations, which anti-communists tended to view with political suspicion.
The book documents much of this history, including how the ADL produced influential media of its own:
One measure of the ADL’s reach into political culture was the ADL Bulletin, a glossy, often chatty magazine of news features and insider tidbits on domestic and international civil rights issues. The Bulletin started the decade with a paid circulation of 150,000—already a major publication, matching about 11% of the concurrent circulation of the New York Times. By 1967 it had grown to nearly 169,000 subscribers.
In particular, she cites the organization’s role in changing US perception of Israel after the 1967 war, establishing the Israeli side as the West’s bulwark against a Soviet-aligned Arab alliance. The group’s
reporting heralded a new project of blanketing US media with articles about Israelis as salt-of-the-earth Westerners, mixing human interest with political argument, and flatly denying Palestinian dispossession.
In the 1970s, the ADL created the radio series Dateline Israel, which “was distributed at no cost to thousands of radio stations and reportedly aired on 500 stations,” where “episodes presented Israel as bustling, hopeful, modern.” Gelman adds:
Dozens of 15-minute radio segments highlighted Jewish ingenuity, character, and desire for peace. They highlighted an ostensible pluralism alongside grateful and supportive Arabs who welcomed colonization.
‘A Bit of Selection Bias’
Gelman wants to see news organizations stop using the ADL as a go-to source, not just because of what she sees as dubious reporting methods, but because the group tends to conflate right-wing racial extremism with pro-Palestine speech and activity.
It’s a long road ahead, she said. “We have progressive media moving away from the ADL,” she said. “What’s left is the legacy media and the big-reach media. The only way I can see that shifting is if journalists themselves begin to revolt.”
Part of the problem is that over the decades the ADL has established itself as a one-stop research depot for media when it comes to antisemitism. Last year, for example, when FAIR asked the Southern Poverty Law Center about a rise in antisemitic and white supremacist content on social media networks like Facebook, a media handler suggested FAIR send its request to the ADL.
There are small signs of change. In a long interview with ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt, New York Times writer Lulu Garcia-Navarro (8/9/25) asked the leader about “young Jews who might self-describe as anti-Zionist or have problems with the state of Israel at the moment.” Greenblatt dismissed them, comparing them to “Hispanic people who support President Trump’s policies at the border.” “There are Blacks for Trump,” he added.
When the writer continued to press this issue, he bit back:
What polls are you seeing? I understand anecdotally you may have heard it from some people. I believe there may be a bit of a selection bias there. Have you gone to any of the mainstream synagogues in New York City, the ones with the largest membership, and asked them? I would encourage you to go to 92nd Street Y. Go to the West Side JCC. Go to Central, Park Avenue, Rodeph Sholom, go to KJ. Go to all these large Jewish synagogues and ask where their young people are.
Later that year, the Forward (11/21/25) reported that “younger Jews are more than twice as likely to identify as anti-Zionist than the overall population.” A Washington Post poll (10/6/25) taken in September 2025 found only 36% of Jewish Americans aged 18 to 34 saying they were emotionally attached to Israel, while 50% of Jews in that age group said that Israel has committed genocide.
A 2026 poll by the Jewish Voter Resource Center found 44% of Jewish Americans under 35 supported a democratic, binational government in Israel-Palestine elected by both Jews and Palestinians—”even as most major Jewish organizations classify calls for a single state as an expression of antisemitism,” the Forward (5/27/26) reported.
But in his interview with the Times, Greenblatt redefined which Jewish opinions mattered to him: not just pro-Israel opinions, but those of monied religious congregations in upper Manhattan, an elite that towers above Jewish communities elsewhere. The exchange makes the leader seem woefully out of touch.
He and his group still enjoy a kind of media access the rest of society can only dream about. But the pushback from the Times reporter is a small signal that some outlets are beginning to look at this group more critically.
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