James Zogby
Author's Posts
Speaking the truth about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians shouldn’t hurt
May 21st, 20260 Is it anti-Semitic to say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza? Is it “hurtful and insensitive” for someone to acknowledge the suffering that Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people? In recent weeks, actions by two institutions of higher learning brought these questions to the forefront. On April 15, faculty and...
Poll signals sharp decline in U.S. support for Israel
May 15th, 20260 Recent polls of U.S. voters demonstrate a steep decline in overall support for Israel. For example, in February, when Gallup asked with whom they most sympathized, 41 percent of respondents said Palestinians, while only 36 percent named Israel. This markedly contrasts with results to Gallup’s same question in 2023 when 54 percent of...
Iran war has President Trump In a box
April 24th, 20260 With the apparent collapse of the U.S. talks with Iran, President Trump finds himself in a box with no easy way out. Polls are showing that key elements of his winning electoral coalition are growing weary of the war and frustrated with its domestic consequences. As we approach the midterm elections, Republicans in Congress are also...
The impact on the many fronts of the war on Iran will continue
March 27th, 20260 The costs associated with any war — losses of lives, treasure and security — are to be expected. And so it is with the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. It was unnecessary. It has been massive. And it has been waged without any clear objective or strategic purpose. Though only a few weeks old, and still too early to project how it will play...
Polls show growing Democratic shift away from unconditional support for Israel
March 6th, 20260 A mini-brouhaha has erupted over whether or not the Democratic National Committee has buried an “autopsy” report on its party loss in the 2024 presidential election. Some fear that the report isn’t being released because it suggests the defeat was the Harris campaign’s failure to break with the Biden administration’s...
Trump’s Board of Peace ignores Palestinian history and rights
February 27th, 20260 When President Trump convened his Board of Peace in Davos, Switzerland, a key agenda item was his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s extravagant (and detached from reality) plan for a “New Gaza.” The scheme’s rendering depicts more of a luxury resort for tourists than the foundation of a just future for the Palestinian victims of...
Ignoring Palestinian rights won’t bring peace
February 20th, 20260 When President Trump convened his so-called Board of Peace in Davos, Switzerland, a key item on the agenda was to endorse his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s extravagant (and, I might add, detached from reality) plan for a “New Gaza.” The rendering of Kushner’s scheme shows it to be more of a luxury resort for wealthy tourists than...
Understanding Donald Trump
February 13th, 20260 To understand how President Donald Trump promotes his presidency and policies, especially when challenged, one must understand the impact of Roy Cohn, the late New York attorney, on his approach to politics and power. Cohn was a behind-the-scenes player, a ruthless practitioner of “dirty tricks” and power politics who attached...
Trump’s military assault on Venezuela may not end well
January 23rd, 20260 President Trump might be popping corks, toasting “one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might and competence in American history.” Celebrations, however, are premature. In reality, the assault on Venezuela and kidnapping and transfer of President Maduro to stand trial in U.S. court are by no...
U.S. media coverage of Gaza continues to be disconnected from realities
January 8th, 20260 After more than two years of Israel’s assault on Gaza, one might think that there would be appreciable improvement in the way the Israeli/Palestinian issue is understood and presented. But U.S. press treatment of last week’s meeting between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear we still have a...
Washington analysts are misreading voters on Israel and Palestine
December 19th, 20250 U.S. voters’ attitudes towards the Israeli Palestinian conflict have changed, but media commentators and political consultants haven’t figured that out. They are stuck in the past with outdated assumptions about the electorate and as a result continue to operate from an old playbook. A feature article in last week’s Washington...
The Gaza and Ukraine plans compared
December 12th, 20250 In one week, the Trump administration passed a United Nations Security Council resolution on Gaza and released a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine. Commentators and critics have noted both similarities and profound differences between the two initiatives. First, both plans appear to be driven by the simple and commendable goal of...
No end in sight to Israel’s wars
November 21st, 20250 In the days after October 7, 2023, then-President Biden cautioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to make the same mistakes the U.S. made following 9/11. Biden never publicly spelled out his meaning, but it was understood as a warning to Netanyahu: Don’t overreact or overreach, as President George W. Bush had done by...
The recurring struggle for the soul of America
October 31st, 20250 You Have Your America, I Have My America: Lessons from Gibran and the Struggle for Democracy A century ago, Khalil Gibran wrote a love poem to Lebanon, "You have your Lebanon, I have my Lebanon." He spoke of his affection for the Lebanese people’s generosity and hospitality and Lebanon’s beauty in contrast to its bickering...
Trump’s Gaza “peace plan” falls short: vagueness, distrust, and the illusion of progress
October 17th, 20250 If President Trump hopes to earn a Nobel Peace Prize, he’s going to need to do better than his 20-point “Comprehensive Plan to End Gaza’s Conflict.” Characteristically exaggerating, Mr. Trump called the plan’s release “one of the greatest days in human history”, but poring over Arab, Israeli, and U.S. press reveals that......
How using religious language muddies up politics
October 3rd, 20250 On September 10th, conservative Republican political activist Charlie Kirk was murdered while speaking on a college campus in Utah. The reactions to his death have reflected the deep divisions that plague American society today. While most critics of Kirk’s extreme views on race, women and gender issues were respectful in their...
Poll shows being tough with Israel is what voters want
September 19th, 20250 What to do or say about Israel’s war on Gaza has establishment Democratic consultants and the elected officials for whom they work in a tizzy. One recent news account reported that Senate and House Democratic leaders are worried about the “Mamdani effect” — that a Zohran Mamdani win in the 2025 New York City mayor’s race......
The Hague group’s proposals, not hollow recognition of Palestine statehood, are the way forward
August 23rd, 20250 We’ve reached a tipping point in Western political leaders’ reaction to Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza. It’s maddening for two reasons: how long it took to get an official response from Western capitals; and how decidedly ineffectual their responses are. The nightmare in Gaza has been unfolding for 22...
History didn’t begin on October 7th
August 15th, 20250 Our understanding of an historical event’s meaning is a function of two factors. The first is what we choose to identify as the starting point leading up to the event. The second is the lens through which we view it. This should be obvious, but unfortunately it is not, and the failure to acknowledge or understand it has consequences in...
Trump and Netanyahu: Masters of duplicity
July 18th, 20250 Meetings between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are more akin to a master class in posturing and duplicity than in diplomacy. Last week’s meetings were no exception. Both men are master manipulators, products of our media age. They create illusions that they insist are real. They repeat a lie over and...
Mamdani’s authenticity was key to his victory
July 6th, 20250 In 2006, shortly after Tim Kaine won the Virginia gubernatorial election, I attended a meeting at Democratic Party headquarters. One party official opined, “One lesson we should learn from Kaine’s victory was that we need to talk more about our religion. Kaine did and he won. We should do it too.” After seeing that same official......
What did Pope Francis do for American Catholics?
May 2nd, 20250 For American Catholics, Pope Francis was elected to lead the Roman Catholic Church at a time of crisis for both the institution and the faithful. The church in the United States was reeling from the aftershocks of continuing exposés of widespread sexual abuse by priests and the growing rift separating the church’s leadership from...
Three months later: Still no lessons learned
January 5th, 20240 One day last week, the New York Times printed two separate articles describing Israeli and Palestinian reactions to the ongoing war that, together, paint a disturbing portrait of where we are three months after October 7. The piece about Israelis was headlined “Oct. 7 Is Forcing Israelis to Rethink Their Identity,” with the subhead......
For Arab Americans, blue is not blue
July 25th, 20230 News last week that the U.S. and Israel were about to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) advancing Israel’s entry into the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP) shouldn’t have caught us by surprise. But it did. For months, we had been assured by various Biden administration officials that Israel could not meet the requirements of the...
No Visa waiver for Israel until Arab American rights are protected
January 12th, 20220 Last week the Jerusalem Post ran a story under the headline “Palestinian Americans to be allowed to land at Ben Gurion Airport.” Israeli officials are now saying that instead of only permitting Palestinian Americans to cross over the Allenby Bridge from Jordan, they will allow them to fly into Israel’s airport and proceed from......
