Hillary Clinton is facing a deluge of criticism after stating that young Americansā growing support for Palestinians is influenced by ātotally made-upā videos on TikTok and suggesting that American youth - including young Jews - ādonāt know history and donāt understandā Israelās war on Gaza.
Speaking on Tuesday at a summit hosted by the right-wing Israeli paper Israel Hayom in New York City, the former Democratic presidential candidate expressed her concerns that āsmart, well-educated young peopleā in America and around the world are getting a lot of their information, including about Israel and Palestine, from social media platforms like TikTok.
The former US secretary of state described it as āserious problem for democracyā, remarking that when she attempted to have āreasonable discussionsā with young people, it was challenging because āthey did not know history, they had very little context, and what they were being told on social media was not just one-sided, it was pure propaganda".
She might be right about young people not having much context as a general rule - Iāve seen this kind of Dunning-Kruger thing before when someone in their teens/twenties first comes across something and they start to have some political awakening. Think of the way that some people fall into the most maximalist of positions on the spectrum and how cringe it often seems, often to later versions of that very person, LOL.
Anyway, I think the cracks on Israel being some united front on our āspecial relationshipā with them and as far as the average U.S. citizen supporting it w/o question have been starting long before TikTok was even a thing.
And most of the people Iāve talked to over the years, or things Iāve seen others write/say online has had plenty of context. Hell, Chomsky has been out there talking about this for decades. Itās just that the gatekeeping corporate media chokehold on people being able to talk to one another about this, en masse has been loosened, starting in the late 90s.
Used to be someone could yell āanti-semiteā at anyone questioning us doing Israelās every whim and that was the end of the conversation. That tacticās effectiveness started to erode with the rise of the 'net. Are some of the people that obsess about Israel/Gaza and Jews/Palestinians anti-semitic? Of fucking course they are. Is everyone? Hell no.