It's time for our officials to condemn anti Semitism,
not just with their words, but with their actions.
You can't denounce anti Semitism, but
waver on Israel's right to exist and defend itself.
I'm starting an organization called Progressives for Israel.
And I'm going to call the question for Democrats.
Do you stand with Israel or do you stand against Israel?
Because silence is not an option.
>> We're not gonna be silent, Andrew Cuomo.
We're definitely gonna talk about this latest move from the former governor
to try and pivot into raising money for
a state that has been accused by human rights organizations of apartheid.
In terms of what it has done to the Palestinian people and
continues to do encroaching on their territory.
But there's Cuomo, claiming to be a progressive starting the progressives for
Israel pack.
And once again, conflating anti Semitism with any critique of Israel,
which is how Democrats consistently try to say that progressives, real progressives.
Like Representative Ilhan Omar, Representative Rashida Talib,
are in fact anti Semitic when all they are doing is calling into question
the support that we consistently give to a human rights violator.
But anyway, if you thought Gee Cuomo progresses for Israel?
Is he? What do the American people think?
What do Democrats think?
Are we on board with this?
Are they on board with this?
In fact,
no, Cuomo, funnily enough is actually very out of touch with the people.
Funny fact, because there's a new Gallup poll that shows that, Palestinians
actually hold now an 11-point lead in Democrats sympathies over Israelis.
With 49% of respondents sympathizing with Palestine and
38% with Israel, 13% responded neither, both or no opinion.
But this is a huge shift, actually, from just a year ago,
the shift in opinions has caused sympathy towards Palestine to reach its highest
point among all respondents, at 31%.
And a year ago, Democrats favored Israel 40% to 39%.
And I think a lot of folks are pointing to younger generations,
as Sharon Zhang does here.
Says, the shift is driven by younger generations with millennials and
Gen Z slightly favoring Palestine overall.
Now there's a number of reasons why this could be.
Let's talk about the violence.
Last year, Israeli forces killed the most Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem and
the West Bank in decades.
And are continuing that violence this year at a rate that could potentially surpass
last year's grisly death toll.
In January, just this year,
Israeli forces carried out a raid against the Jenin Refugee Camp in
the West Bank in which they killed at least nine Palestinians.
In what the UN analysts say was the deadliest single Israeli operation since
2005.
Since then, Israeli forces have killed dozens more Palestinians,
with at least 83 Palestinians killed so far this year.
So, when you kill a lot of people, civilians, folks are gonna start taking
notice, and especially younger generations who again have Tiktok at their fingers.
And honestly are doing a pretty damn good job breaking down some pretty complex
issues, because it's not actually that complicated when it comes to trampling
human rights like this.
But I did want to ask, Mas, do you think, is this surprising to see this turn?
Yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
>> It's not surprising, as you said, they conflate, a lot of times people conflate
anti Semitism with any kind of criticism of what the government of Israel is doing.
Clearly, there's Israelis, Jewish Israelis who want to coexist and
they want peace with Palestinians and vice versa.
And clearly, there's members of the Palestinian government that
are also committing acts of atrocities and killing innocent people.
So that clearly exists.
But if you criticize these early government for
doing some of the atrocious acts that it does, that doesn't make you anti Semitic.
And what sometimes boggles my mind is when I see conservatives say,
if you criticize Israel, that's anti Semitic.
And then you go, what about when those guys were marching in Charlottesville and
saying Jews will not replace us and they're far right extremists?
You guys are okay with those guys being in your camp and that's not anti Semitism?
But when you criticize Netanyahu and some of the far right actions that
are being taken and killing innocent Palestinians, that's anti Semitic.
It's mind boggling.
And I think the statistics we're seeing as you said are coming out of once.
I think you decentralize where any information is coming to the American
public, you're gonna see a lot of people go, wow, I didn't know it was like this.
And you're gonna see those numbers changed, and that's what we're seeing.
>> I think that fear of being labeled anti Semitic has really what's
been driving the coverage of what's happening over there for years and
years and years and years.
But as you pointed out, because we now have, especially the younger generation,
they have different means of getting their news.
They're watching the videos on Youtube, they're watching it on Tiktok,
they see it on Instagram and Twitter, and suddenly it's without that filter and
they are making up their minds for themselves.
They're watching what's happening, they're seeing videos of the people there.
So they're not getting this filtered version to avoid any
appearance of anti Semitism and they're able to make these,
in my opinion better judgments about what's happening.
And there is a world of difference that Republicans and
even a lot of Democrats, apparently like Cuomo, don't wanna acknowledge
that you can criticize a government while not criticizing the citizens.
That's not what's happening here.
[LAUGH] We're not saying that, everyone in Israel is guilty of this,
you're all bad people, that's not happening.
That is what people do to shut down these arguments so
that we can't have these conversations and they know it works.
And that's why they continue to do it and they're going to continue to do it.
And it's also disgusting that Cuomo has hijacked the word progressives for
his little group.
That's also very, just- >> Very rich, he spent his time in office,
cutting deals with Republicans and punching left at progressives, time and
time again, working families, party, and many other grassroots groups.
So, spare us on the label progressive which now that Cuomo is using it has no
meaning, literally, just no meaning.
So, as well as the words Italian and anti Italian discrimination, which he loves.
They were just handsy.
I'm like, my God, stop.
But speaking of Israelis, and it's important that this fair and pointed out,
they are not adequately represented by this government.
In fact, just recently, just in January,
over 100,000 Israelis protested the Netanyahu government.
100,000 marched in the streets of Tel Aviv,
one of the biggest protests in Israel in many, many years.
So that's important to keep in mind here.
And I think, it's a really good point to say, look,
when you see the bombing of the Al Aqsa mosque.
When you see, the IDF, the Israeli army,
basically throwing smoke bombs and flash grenades at worshippers.
You don't need a filter, you got your eyes to tell you what that looks like,
when you see an own elderly woman being beaten by a military police officer,
by the army, you don't need a filter.
So, in a time of, sort of believe nothing, everything's on the Internet,
it's all kind of a wash.
I do feel like there are still these stories and videos and shocking images.
We saw it out of Iran, earlier last year that you cannot deny
that still are there and cannot be falsified, at least not yet.
And so I think it's really important.
And the last thing I just wanna say,
is that we are also on the other side of an election, that in the United States in
the midterm election where the Israeli lobby poured tons of money.
Millions of millions of millions of dollars into defeating whom,
progressive candidates, and who did they side with, either centrist democrats or
far right insurrectionist republicans.
So don't tell us that you're progressive and
that you care about basic human rights.
Either here in this country or in Israel in the occupied territories because we see
what you're doing and it's not lost on young people.