The recent poll released by the the ADL showing massive Jewish support for the Gaza invasion have provided fodder for the theories advanced by ADL leader Abraham Foxman. He has clearly gone off the deep end on many levels.
First, the poll results, if true, create more problems for combatting anti Semitism than they solve. If, as the ADL claims, Jews almost unanimously support IDF brutality, it is difficult to defend the tiny minority who do not. But one might question whether that support is as massive as the ADL and whether it will grow or decline as more exposes come forward of just how bad Israel's conduct really has been.
A few of the results follow: • 94% expressed sympathy for Israel over Hamas; only 1% for Hamas.
• 81% expressed the belief that Hamas was responsible for the escalation of the violence;
only 14% held Israel responsible.
The ADL, one of the largest
private intelligence agencies on the planet, has the wherewithal to hire very intelligent
operatives. If it wants to do an honest poll, it has the means to do so. Which leaves the
question: do American Jews really support the horrors perpetrated by the IDF to the degree
that Foxman et al contend?
If so, should the scope of the anti-Israel boycott movement be
more loosely or more tightly constrained with regard to institutions which seem to be more
about Judaism than about Israel and the support of Zionism? In other words, if the lead
agency which claims to combat "anti Semitism" claims that virtually all Jews support the IDF
attack on Palestine, should a conscientious boycott target not simply "Israeli"
corporations, but also institutions which claim to be simply "Jewish", if the members and
staff and shareholders and underwriters of those institutions are almost unanimously agreed
to support Israel
The obvious answer is that if any such institutions cross the line and actively support
Israel, they are legitimate targets of the Israel boycott. But the ADL-Foxman poll report
certainly means that supposedly merely "Jewish" institutions should at least be closely
scrutinized for aiding and abetting of the Zionist militarism of Israel's militarists.