National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan made the antisemitic claim Monday in a White House press briefing that Israel interferes in U.S. politics.
He provided no evidence of his claim, while admitting that it had nothing to do with the question he had been asked, about policy differences between the U.S. and Israel in the ongoing war against Hamas.
Sullivan was asked to respond to Netanyahu’s claim that he had the support of the majority of the Israeli people in his plans to attack Hamas’s final stronghold in the city of Rafah, and whether Biden could speak directly to Israelis.
Netanyahu’s claim is backed by polls. One recent survey found that 75% of Israelis support an attack on Hamas in Rafah, where the terrorist leaders are believed to be hiding, and keeping the remaining 134 Israeli hostages.
Sullivan responded with what he admitted was a non sequitur.
“Well, first of all, inherent in the question is a kind of an interesting irony, which is you have the prime minister speaking on American television about his concerns about Americans interfering in Israeli politics, and then your question is should Americans be speaking into Israeli politics, which in fact we don’t do nearly as much as they speak into ours,” Sullivan said.
“But that’s not a constructive answer to your question, just an observation,” he added.
The Anti-Defamation League has specifically identified the claim that Israel or Jews control American politics as a form of antisemitism, common in anti-Israel propaganda in the Middle East.
There is no known example of Israel interfering in an American election — and certainly no Israeli leader has ever demanded that the U.S. replace its president, as President Joe Biden did last week with regard to Netanyahu.
Sullivan also said that in a phone call, Biden summoned officials from Israel to a meeting next week to discuss Rafah. Biden said it was “nonsense” that opposing an attack on Hamas in Rafah meant allowing Hamas to win the war.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
