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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's my show, the Scott Horton Show.
Yeah, man, I'm on the Liberty Radio Network here noon to two Eastern Time on the weekdays.
Archives at ScottHorton.org, etc, like that.
Next up on the show today is our friend Grant F. Smith.
He is the founder and director of the Institute for Research Middle East Policy, Middle Eastern Policy, IRMEP, I-R-M-E-P, IRMEP.org.
And you know what you should do is search Google, go site colon IRMEP.org, and then just search for .pdf and see what you find.
I bet you'll have a lot of fun.
Grant, what he does is he's like the Jason Leopold of the Israel lobby.
That's all he does is is FOIA documents and do journalism about the Israel lobby and their criminal.
Role in American politics.
Welcome back to the show, Grant.
How are you doing?
Very well, Scott.
Thank you very much for having me on again.
Good, good.
Very happy to have you here.
Interesting new piece here.
Americans holding favorable views of Israel decline by 16 percent over what period of time, sir?
And according to who?
Okay.
According to a survey that we did on February 20, 19 to 20, using Google consumer surveys of a thousand twenty nine people for three questions on three countries.
But then we compared that data to Gallup data because I didn't do one last year and then publish the results.
So it's it's an interesting little look.
Just as a side note, Gallup did release data from their survey on the same day, but they didn't release anything on the decline in favorable views of Israel and they didn't release anything on favorable views of Palestinian authority.
They did release their data on Iran, which is pretty close to ours.
It's about one point six percentage points off, but still well within their margin of error, which is huge, about four percent, whereas on these polls, it was two point three percent at the maximum.
Anyway, the story here, which I think the important thing here is that if you were responding about Iran, your average American, you either liked it much more or hated it much more.
So the categories, you know, basically your deal.
Yeah.
Basically moved into, oh, this is great or I still hate it.
I hate it more.
In terms of the Palestinian Authority, you hated it a little bit more, but others liked it a lot more.
And in terms of Israel, the most interesting results vary and mostly unfavorable, one out at the expense of very, excuse me, very favorable.
So you have this big shift of Americans responding favorably into very unfavorable.
So we pin that in the analysis.
It's at antiwar dot com on all of the shenanigans where you had this constant Israeli government intervention in U.S. politics to try and get Congress to not well, obviously oppose the deal.
Yeah.
OK, well, now, so back to the Iran thing in a second.
But as far as the Palestinian Authority.
Right.
Yeah.
I can't think of anything that's really happened that made them look very good or anything like that.
And what is very good to say about them, unless it's just sort of a reflection on, you know, if I have to choose sides between these two, I pick the Palestinian side.
Is that basically it?
Well, I think it's basically people are conflating Palestinian Authority with Palestine in general.
And they heard about maybe the fact that they've got a flag in front of the U.N., the fact that they're trying to do things nonviolently to oppose the occupation.
Not a lot of bad news, really, except for recently.
So what you have there is an awful lot of people, both in Gallup's poll and in our poll, 11 percent in their poll, 12.9 in ours, really don't have any opinion and say things like, I don't know much about this.
So that's the largest category of these three questions we ask of people saying that.
But in general, what you had in terms of a shift was from mostly unfavorable to a lot more people saying they viewed it favorably.
But I would agree with you that not too many people track, understand, receive news about the Palestinian Authority.
I mean, even, you know, if if raising the flag is a boss's big political stunt of the year or whatever, I shrug.
I mean, who even noticed, right?
Nobody, you know, in this country, in this country, not huge moves, not huge moves.
OK, so now I wonder this.
Have you ever polled or do you know of research about to what extent do Americans even understand that there is an occupation by the Israeli military and police forces on the West Bank?
And that, you know, where millions of Palestinians live, that's the kind of question that should be polled.
There's a large pool of questions that are never asked.
And we've asked some of them, like, do you think Israel has nuclear weapons?
No one ever asked that.
Most people think they do.
We asked a couple of years ago, do you think Iran has nuclear weapons?
Oh, like 58 percent of Americans also thought that they did, which was wrong.
So I would agree that that question should be asked.
I'd love to ask that question.
But this is still expensive.
I mean, the only reason we're able to do this is that Google consumer surveys are accurate and they're cheap and they're fast.
And so you can do a survey if you have a good question and either compare it to someone else's survey data, if you ask the same question or do something new.
And I would agree that is a new question that should be asked because it never is.
I've never seen that question asked.
My impression is that people just they can't really understand it or they kind of have contradictory information about it, don't really or maybe just not enough at all.
But I believe and maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that when Americans have it explained to them about the results of the 67 war and the occupation ever since then, you know, taking Israel itself, you know, from 48 on as a fait accompli, Nakba or otherwise.
But when they understand about the occupation ever since 67, I think people, you know, Americans like to choose the side of the underdog in that they're obviously being treated very unfairly.
If it was any country, any other country in the world that was doing it to them, we'd be on their side.
Yeah, well, I would think that the fact that people have so much more access to different views and alternative and new media that that may have an impact.
But I've heard you say it on your show many times.
You know, while I wonder if most Americans think Israel occupies Palestine or Palestine occupies Israel, I mean, there's a question that's worth asking.
Just it's kind of like the Iran nuclear weapon question.
People are so pounded into their heads that this is a major threat.
And they still think so, that it's worth asking just to see how misled people are.
Right.
Doesn't really help, though.
Well, then again, if you can get it reported and make it a news story that this is a question that we just don't ever hear asked, this is a map we just don't ever see on TV.
You know, these kinds of things that.
Yeah, there's a lot of it.
Well, this is worth saying, because polls can be very political, as I just noticed.
Gallup fielded their questions.
They could have put out information about Israel and Palestine and Iran.
And they censored themselves.
And they didn't do it.
They put out their major headline.
Go to Gallup dot com.
You'll see America's enemies list.
And it's talking about China, Russia, Iran, North Korea as being the top enemies.
This is from the survey, the same survey set that they do.
They could have fed the thing that we did, but they didn't release it.
So all Gallup has done with their data so far is bash America's greatest enemies.
You know, they show an uptick on Iran favorability, but they're holding back the Israel and Palestinian data and kind of one of the dirty little secrets.
You've asked if I've done surveys before.
The answer is yes.
I used to work at a company that did a lot of surveys.
It was owned by Reuters.
And what would tend to happen, and I hate to say this dirty little secret to any ears that might be burned by it, but omnibus customers who have subscriptions sometimes cancel those subscriptions if bad news comes out.
So there's a profit motive.
There's a pecuniary motive to when and how you release data.
So, you know, sorry about that.
Well, yeah, and of course, as we all know, the sample size and the way the question is phrased and it can mean all of the world, you know, when it comes to the results that you get as well.
Well, it's changing the definition of opinion to be in something that you answer yes or no to rather than a thing you explain.
Yeah, but I'll be right back with Grant Smith in just one sec.
Sorry, man.
Hold it right there.
All right.
Hey, I'll Scott Horton here.
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All right, guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton, I'm talking with Grant F.
Smith.
Israel lobby slayer.
Author of Divert, the book on how the Israelis stole a bunch of weapons grade uranium from the United States of America for their illicit nuclear weapons program.
And anyway, at the break, I'm sorry I had to interrupt you there, you were going to say a thing when we were talking about the polls and how they're done here.
Right.
Well, just just the final fact that, you know, sometimes there are customers behind these polling series that have a lot of influence, direct or indirect on when and how they're released.
And the fact, again, the Gallup has not released this data.
Sometimes they wait a long time and then, you know, release it and show a positive uptick.
I just find that to be a little bit worrying, but it's good that you can kind of preempt and do it without their consent.
So but just overall, I don't think I mentioned properly that we're talking about very low levels of favorability for Iran and the Palestinian Authority.
You know, yeah, it's a 42 percent uptick, but they're from very low numbers, you know, in the teens to the higher teens and low 20s.
Right.
Whereas Israel's decline seems small, you know, 16 percent decline.
But that's going from 70 percent favorability to the 59 percent level, with most of that shifting into very unfavorable.
So I think, you know, we may not see that data from Gallup, but, you know, comparing the Iran numbers and the fact that the questions are exactly the same, I suspect if they ever do release it, it'll be almost exact.
Yeah.
Well, now.
So this is a really important phenomenon here going on where it used to be before Walter Mearsheimer wrote the Israel lobby that, yeah, you can read Justin Raimondo talk like this at antiwar.com.
But, oh, geez, I don't know.
I'm afraid someone's going to call me an anti-Semite or something.
And the role of the Israel lobby in American politics is hardly ever discussed at all.
And yet now it's so out in the open and just with the fight over Chuck Hagel, the fight over whether or not to bomb Assad in the late summer of 2013 and then the huge fight over the Iran deal.
It seems like they've just way overplayed their hand time after time after time in such very public ways where, you know, you think and, you know, I think the impression is left.
Probably most people don't remember 2013 that well in the way it worked out.
But the impression is still there from that time when the Israel lobby were the only people in America who wanted a war against Syria in 2013 and everyone else in America defeated them on the issue.
And we didn't have it.
I mean, the CIA kept doing their dirty work, but they didn't send in the Air Force like they were going to.
And so it seems like this is really having an effect.
And in your article here again, it's at antiwar.com.
Americans holding favorable views of Israel declined 16 percent.
You really chalk a lot of this up to the Netanyahu's direct intervention in Obama's negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program.
Right, because they were well reported for the most part.
There was good reporting on the fact that many of the groups that are associated with the Israel lobby, such as AIPAC, the Conference of Presidents, the American Jewish Committee and others, they all basically sided with Netanyahu's government.
Meanwhile, Pew is putting out polls saying most American adult Jews were saying this is a great deal.
And so the question arose between Pew and the reporting and these intransigent leaders of these large Israel lobbying and Israel affinity networks, you know, who do you represent?
And the answer was, well, Netanyahu.
And so that story and that fallout and the fact that there's so many great groups out there that are challenging what has traditionally been very poor establishment media reporting, saying these groups represent, you know, every single American of the Jewish faith.
People saw that for a lie.
And finally, I think it really hurt them as revealed in this massive decline.
Yeah.
Well, and, you know, again, as you talked about before, about people believing falsely that Iran had nuclear weapons just because of all the deluge of lies.
Well, everyone on the left, all the you know, very, very broadly speaking, every Democrat, basically, especially young people who like Obama and were taking Obama's side in the fight over the Iran deal.
They come to be even slightly acquainted with the facts of the case.
They come to understand that they weren't even making nukes at all.
This is just to make sure that they don't start to try to.
And, you know, that's a pretty big slap in the face to be lied to, you know, that big on such a big issue for so long.
And I think that's part of this, too, is they kind of got inoculated against the lobby by actually being forced into a position of arguing for the Obama administration and the Democrats against the lobby in the way that they were.
Whereas before they you know, the split wasn't so definitive.
They weren't being made to choose.
Right.
Right.
I think so.
And, you know, Obama helped out helped this case by making that speech at a university saying basically, you know, an American, the same group that's piling on.
This is the same group that, you know, basically dragged us into war with Iraq, blah, blah, blah.
So that was OK.
I mean, that was a productive conversation to have.
But even again, if you go to Gallup dot com and look, they're still pounding on, you know, this Iran and nuclear weapons theme.
It's a dead horse, but they're still beating it.
And the you know, if you keep seeing that sort of thing going on, the implicit argument is that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
And that is a message that has not yet gone away.
So, you know, the the drumbeat of propaganda is always, always out there.
And it's only rarely when it comes to a head and we can finally walk away and say, oh, that's not really happening.
So the situation is still bad.
That's all I have to say.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, this isn't your poll, but, well, it's polling and it's on topic here this morning in Mondoweiss.
Right.
Frank Luntz, the evil Frank Luntz, Republican pollster who has specialized in propaganda for Israel over the years and has done, you know, numerous studies and focus groups about how to lie to and manipulate people into being pro-Israel, because that's the only way to do it.
But boy, in this case, the results are almost unbelievable.
A survey of young Jewish American students, only 42 percent believe that Israel wants peace.
Only 38 percent believe Israel is civilized and Western.
Thirty eight.
Those are George W.
Bush approval ratings here.
And just 31 percent believe Israel is a democracy, acquainted as they are with the fact that half the population lives under conditions of basically lawless slavery.
And then it says here no less than 21 percent.
Again, we're talking about American Jewish students.
No less than 21 percent, a fifth of them believe the US should side with the Palestinians.
Holy crap.
And that's according to Luntz, who did not want to hear it and did not want to have to tell it to his clients.
And did not release it publicly, I should add.
You know, this is the person, the king of the dial test, the person who wrote the Israel projects guide on how to change the subject whenever these types of facts come up.
And it really does show that the data, you know, once again, proving kind of my argument.
If it's this bad, it's top secret.
It's not released over, you know, at least mainstream channels.
And Frank Luntz is certainly not going to release it.
But I just think it goes to show that a lot of these programs such as Birthright Israel, you have groups of students guaranteed to go over and check out the situation and feel more, you know.
They're supposed to feel more sympathy with Israel.
They come back and a lot of them write, you know, horrific tales about the checkpoints, people being stopped, Palestinians not being able to get medical care because of these constant intrusions on their life.
And basically the entire investment in them from this multi, multi, multi hundred million dollar operation is basically for naught.
And so there are a lot of these programs that are backfiring.
And I just I just think that this type of information about public opinion, especially when it's not a push pull, when it is actually neutral language.
What do you think about this?
It really reveals a lot.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right.
Now I'm keeping you a minute over time here.
So let me ask you one more thing real quick.
I guess we don't have time to do the lawsuit.
I'm sorry, but I'll have you back tomorrow or whenever to talk the lawsuit.
Yeah.
Tell them real quick about the event coming up, because this thing's going to be huge.
And more people are going to hear this on the podcast feed later than live anyway.
So go ahead.
No.
Great.
Well, so on March 18 at the National Press Club, there's an all day conference called Analyzing Israel's Influence.
It's called Israel's Influence, Good or Bad for America.
Because you're listening to this podcast, if you go and get a ticket to this all day event with lunch and reception and enter Partner 2016, you'll get twenty dollars off on your ticket and you will hear some of the best speakers on this topic.
Lawrence Wilkerson, Philip Weiss, Justin Raimondo, Tarek Rady, Roger Madsen, Jim Loeb, Gideon Levy, Maria LaHood, Rula Jibril, Kirk Beatty, who's got a great new book on the lobby, Susan Abulhawa.
You'll be able to talk to people.
You'll be able to understand the situation better as it pertains to this political campaign season and the future of America.
So people need to come go to Israel's Influence dot org and check out the speakers in the program.
Awesome.
And again, that's March the 18th, March 18th.
Thanks again, Grant.
Thanks Scott.
See you.
All right, y'all.
Israel's Influence dot org and EarMip dot org.
Right back with Daniel Larrison in just a sec.
When you sign up, add me as a friend on there.
Scott Horton dot Liberty dot me.
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