[link removed]

FAIR
View article on FAIR's website ([link removed])
Fox News Can't Admit Jewish Identity of Anti-Israel Protesters Wilson Korik ([link removed])


AP: Jewish protesters flood Trump Tower's lobby to demand Mahmoud Khalil's release

AP (3/13/25 ([link removed]) ): "Demonstrators from [Jewish Voice for Peace] filled the lobby of Trump Tower...to denounce the immigration arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist who helped lead protests against Israel at Columbia University."

In its coverage of Jewish Voice for Peace’s Trump Tower protest ([link removed]) , Fox News obscured the Jewish identity of protesters—while echoing antisemitic conspiracy theories and racist tropes.

JVP ([link removed]) , an organization of Jewish Americans in solidarity with Palestinians, organized the March 13 sit-in of Trump's Manhattan property in protest against ICE’s detention ([link removed]) of Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestine protester Mahmoud Khalil.

As Jewish solidarity with Palestinians facing genocide does not fit neatly into the channel’s narrative that pro-Palestine protests are inherently antisemitic, Fox’s all-day coverage of the protest either cast doubt upon the organization’s Jewish identity or minimized mentioning JVP by name altogether—all while painting demonstrators as antisemites.

What’s more, discussion of the protest veered into unabashedly antisemitic conspiracy theories about how George Soros and his supposedly paid anti-American protesters seek to overthrow the West.

The coverage comes as an absurd reminder that while right-wing fearmongers cynically paint opposition to genocide or violation of due-process as antisemitic, the most-watched ([link removed]) US cable news network has no problem echoing Goebbelsian talking points.


** 'Don’t give them any advertisement'
------------------------------------------------------------
Fox News: Now: Protesters occupy Trump Tower, Chant "Free Mahmoud, Free them all"

"Look at some of the signage in here.... They hate Jewish Americans," says Outnumbered host Harris Faulkner (3/13/25 ([link removed]) ), while playing footage of protesters holding up signs proudly proclaiming their Jewish heritage.

The argument made on other programs that the protesters were antisemitic, anti-American and aligned with Nazis, requires a specific hesitance towards profiling JVP probably best captured in an interview on the Story (3/13/25 ([link removed]) ) with NYPD Chief John Chell. Asked who the group was that organized the protest, he responded, “We're well-versed in this group, I don’t wanna give them any advertisement.”

He only neglected to say the quiet part out loud—that a shout-out for JVP might advertise a reality in which protesters in solidarity with Palestine and campus demonstrators weren’t motivated by antisemitism.

On Fox's Outnumbered (3/13/25 ([link removed]) ), host Harris Faulkner and other panelists spent ample time portraying the protesters as antisemites—while intentionally obfuscating the overtly Jewish messaging of the demonstration.

It’s not as though the panelists or reporter Eric Shawn ([link removed]) were somehow unaware of who was protesting: About seven minutes into the coverage, panelist Emily Compagno read the back of one of the T-shirts, printed “Jews Say Stop Arming Israel.” Without missing a beat, she pivoted into an incoherent rant about how the Democratic Party and Ivy League universities venerate Hamas. A few minutes later, Eric Shawn stammered the group’s name once in passing, then never again.

Unsurprisingly, these two incidental mentions were drowned out by relentless accusations that the protesters voiced overt hatred for Jews.

Faulkner set the tone of the conversation with some of her leading remarks: “Look at some of the signage here.... They hate Israel, they hate Jewish Americans, they are Anti-American.” (Such virulently antisemitic signage ([link removed]) included “Fight Nazis, Not Students,” “Opposing Fascism Is a Jewish Tradition” and “Never Again for Anyone.”) She then asked her audience, “If you are Jewish in that building, do you feel safe?”

Guest panelist Lisa Boothe added that protesters “hate the West,” arguing that they “are supporting the Nazis.”


** 'Some said they were Jews'
------------------------------------------------------------
Fox News: The Left is Torching Teslas and storming Trump Tower

“Some said that they…were Jews,” the Five panelist Greg Gutfeld (3/13/25 ([link removed]) ) stuttered, “but will the media check that? I doubt it! And they will not check...who paid for those signs, who paid for those T-shirts, and...who paid for the protesters.”

When the Five (3/13/25 ([link removed]) ) first mentioned the Jewish identities of the protesters about eight minutes into the broadcast, they did so to cast doubt upon the premise that Jews would engage in such an act: “Some said that they…were Jews,” Greg Gutfeld ([link removed]) stuttered, “but will the media check that? I doubt it!”

(It’s unclear who Gutfeld considers to be “the media,” given that he’s a panelist on the top-rated show ([link removed]) at the most-watched cable news network.)

Like on Outnumbered, the Five panelists accused protesters of supporting antisemitism while only mentioning the demonstrators’ Jewish identity in passing. Jesse Watters ([link removed]) summarized the panel’s position best, stating that protesters were “supporting an antisemite” who “hates Jews” and “[blew] up Columbia.”

The commentary hinges on the assumption that an Islamophobic audience will hear that an antisemitic crowd rallied at Trump Tower in support of Mahmoud Khalil “blow[ing] up Columbia”—and not follow up on who organized the rally, or why.

Such buzzword-laden obfuscation reveals a paranoia in such coverage: If viewers do choose to follow up and learn more about the protesters, it might give the game away. The hoards of supposed antisemites might be raising perfectly reasonable questions about erosion of due-process and US bankrolling of genocide. Some such protests, like the one at Trump Tower, might even be Jewish-led.


** 'Hands in many protest pots'
------------------------------------------------------------
Fox News: Figure: Jewish Voice for Peace's Funding Network, NGO monitor 2019-2021

Fox News discussed George Soros as though he's the Palestine movement's top financier—though according to its own graphic (Will Cain Show, 3/13/25 ([link removed]) ), Soros is only JVP's fifth-biggest funder, donating a third as much as its largest donor, and accounting for less than 2% of the group's total financing.

Curiously, for all of their concern for antisemitism, Outnumbered, the Story, the Five, the Will Cain Show (3/13/25 ([link removed]) ) and Ingraham Angle (3/13/25 ([link removed]) ) all had one thing in common: a conspiratorial fascination with allegedly astroturfed leftist financing. Laura Ingraham was particularly explicit:

The group Jewish Voice for Peace…bills itself as a home for left-leaning Jews…and it gets its biggest funding from groups associated with George Soros…. Soros himself has his hands in many protest pots, stirring up a toxic brew of antisemitism and anti-Americanism.

She cited a graphic displayed on the Will Cain Show, which was also referenced on the Five. It depicted Soros' Open Society fund as the fifth-biggest funder of JVP for 2019–21, contributing $150,000. Given that JVP has an annual budget ([link removed]) of more than $3 million, this suggests that Soros is responsible for less than 2% of the group's financing.

Ingraham nonetheless felt the need to rail against Soros and the broader Jewish left. She also went on to characterize the pro-Palestine movement as “the overthrow-of-the-West cause.”

So the "antisemitic" pro-Palestine protests are bankrolled by an anti-American Jewish billionaire ([link removed]) seeking to overthrow the West? Like her peers on Outnumbered and the Five, Ingraham is empowered to advance such harmful tropes, so long as she also tacks on a spurious charge of “antisemitism.”


** Anti-Arab, anti-immigrant tropes
------------------------------------------------------------
Fox News: Radical Rage: Left-Wing agitators mob Trump Tower for mahmoud Khalil

Five panelist and former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro (3/13/25 ([link removed]) ) condemned protesters "want[ing] Mahmoud [Khalil] to have all of his constitutional rights," implying that violation of Khalil's due process is legal because he "hates all of our Western values."

Fox’s obfuscation of the protest’s overtly Jewish messaging is underpinned by another assumption—that Palestinian-led or immigrant-led protest against the genocide is somehow less legitimate than Jewish American–led protest. Coverage not only obscured JVP’s role in organizing the protest, but used anti-Arab tropes and calls for deportation to smear the legitimacy of protesters’ demands.

When Jesse Watters ([link removed]) evoked fantasies of student protesters blowing up universities, or Outnumbered guest panelist (and former Bush White House press secretary) Ari Fleischer ([link removed]) accused protesters of being illegal residents that “should all be deported from this country,” they played to the racist impulses of their audiences.

Mahmoud Khalil is a Palestinian-Syrian immigrant ([link removed]) —thus, his opposition to a genocide in which Israel has killed ([link removed]) at least 51,000 Palestinians in Gaza, with another 10,000 presumed dead under the rubble, is illegitimate. And if JVP protesters are Arab immigrants too, then their opposition to repression and genocide is meritless and antisemitic.

It's another reason why it’s in Fox’s best interest not to identify the Trump Tower protesters—to allow for the assumption that they’re Arabs, or immigrants, which somehow discredits them.


** Enemies with no name
------------------------------------------------------------
JVP: If your focus is on Palestinian liberation, why do you focus on organizing Jews? Why not just participate in Palestinian-led efforts?JVP has a specific, critical role to play in the movement for Palestinian liberation. As Jews, we work to answer the call of our Palestinian partners to build a Jewish movement that can effectively form a counterweight to Jewish Zionist support for Israeli apartheid. That often includes defending our Palestinian partner organizations, when they are accused of antisemitism for criticizing the policies of the Israeli state. Our role in the movement for Palestinian freedom is to shake the U.S.-Israel alliance by fundamentally changing the financial, cultural, and political calculus of Jewish support for Israeli apartheid and for Zionism.

As a Jewish-led organization in solidarity with Palestinians, JVP stresses ([link removed]) the importance of challenging false antisemitism smears against their Palestinian partners and in creating a Jewish future divested from Zionism.

Fox News’s hesitancy to identify JVP is a striking contrast to Fox’s general proclivity for naming enemies. A search on FoxNews.com for the “New Black Panther Party,” a fringe Black nationalist group, yields more than 100 results; compare that to less than 30 hits on AP's website. A Search for “Dylan Mulvaney,” a trans influencer who was targeted in a mass-hate campaign in 2023, yields more than 5,000 results on Fox, compared to AP’s 50.

Fox News thrives upon enemies—but Jewish Voice for Peace is different. As an openly Jewish-American group, JVP challenges Fox News’ narrative that protests against genocide in Gaza are rooted in antisemitism.

"We organize our people and we resist Zionism because we love Jews, Jewishness and Judaism," JVP's website ([link removed]) says. "Our struggle against Zionism is not only an act of solidarity with Palestinians, but also a concrete commitment to creating the Jewish futures we all deserve."

To be clear, conservative ([link removed]) and centrist ([link removed]) outlets’ continued preoccupation with the supposed antisemitism of opponents of Israel’s genocide is never in good faith—as when the New York Times (4/14/25 ([link removed]) ), reporting on "Trump's Pressure Campaign Against Universities," blithely claimed that "pro-Palestinian students on college campuses...harassed Jewish students," without noting that many of the pro-Palestinian students were themselves Jewish. But the charge of antisemitism is even more ludicrous coming from an outlet that uses antisemitic tropes to make its own attacks on the pro-Palestine movement.

And the charge is most ridiculous coming from a network that is too afraid to name its enemy, as if the mere acknowledgement that some Jews oppose US support for Israel’s genocide might shake the foundations of its whole narrative.
Read more ([link removed])

Share this post: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Twitter"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Twitter" alt="Twitter" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Facebook"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Facebook" alt="Facebook" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Pinterest"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Pinterest" alt="Pinterest" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="LinkedIn"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="LinkedIn" alt="LinkedIn" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Google Plus"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Google Plus" alt="Google Plus" class="mc-share"></a>
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="[link removed]" title="Instapaper"><img border="0" height="15" width="15" src="[link removed]" title="Instapaper" alt="Instapaper" class="mc-share"></a>
​

© 2021 Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you signed up for email alerts from
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting

Our mailing address is:
FAIRNESS & ACCURACY IN REPORTING
124 W. 30th Street, Suite 201
New York, NY 10001

FAIR's Website ([link removed])

FAIR counts on your support to do this work — please donate today ([link removed]) .

Follow us on Twitter ([link removed]) | Friend us on Facebook ([link removed])

change your preferences ([link removed])
Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp
[link removed]
unsubscribe ([link removed]) .