Ep. 219: Can Israel Beat the World’s Biggest Smear Campaign?

Israel has been put on trial every day throughout its history. But according to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, the case against it—including blood libels about it committing “genocide” or being an “apartheid state”—are nothing but myths and lies that can be systematically exposed and refuted by simple research and legal logic. He’s joined on this week’s episode of Think Twice by federal Judge Roy Altman, who has written a book that does exactly that. Altman, who serves on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida is the author of the new book Israel on Trial: Examining The History, the Evidence and the Law. In it he goes about the task of exploring each of six major accusations against the Jewish state: That Jews are colonists in the Land of Israel; That Israel’s founding was illegitimate or aberrational; That Israel has prevented the establishment of a Palestinian state; That Israel was occupying Gaza (and had turned Gaza into an open-air prison or a concentration camp) before October 7; That Israel is an apartheid or white-supremacist state; and that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. All are false. The judge says he was motivated to write the book not so much because of the atrocities committed on October 7, 2023 by Hamas and other Palestinians when they attacked southern Israel. Rather, it was because of the way American institutions turned their backs on Israel and the Jews in the wake of the massacre. But he believes that the truth about the accusations against Israel can help turn public opinion around. Altman estimates that about 10% of Americans believe the lies about Israel, while another 30% are patriotic and understand that Jews are an integral part of what has made America flourish, and therefore don’t believe the blood libels. The rest, he says, are persuadable if they are given the truth. His book treats the various false assertions against the Jewish state as legal charges that rise or fall based on objective evidence. Examining each through a judicial lens, he renders a final verdict and declares Israel innocent on all counts. Altman believes that at the heart of the case against Israel is the fact that anti-Zionism is indistinguishable from antisemitism, and the effort to delegitimize Israel and treat Palestinian Arab claims as credible is an inversion of the truth. Watch more Think Twice: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsksduy16U5Kb-ZQdW5aIj7xGhY1kk6i0 Listen/Subscribe to weekly episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, iHeartRadio, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Watch new episodes every week by subscribing to the JNS YouTube Channel. Register for the JNS International Policy Summit here: https://jns-summit.org