It’s important to look at what Radio-Canada reporter, Élisa Serret said, and what was wrong with it.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
On Monday afternoon, on Radio-Canada’s Ici RDI news channel, host Christian Latreille asked the network’s Washington, D.C.-based reporter, Élisa Serret, why the United States had not done more to distance itself from Israel. Her response led to Radio-Canada pulling her off the air and putting her on leave.
The uproar was more than justified. But it’s important to look at what she said, and what was wrong with it.
A headline in this newspaper said that Ms. Serret had been placed on leave for “antisemitic language.” That’s not quite it. She didn’t use an improper word, or employ a cancelled turn of phrase. Many people, particularly on the right, seem to think that’s what happened. Just politically correct language wars.
But this was something different. What was said should bother every journalist, regardless of their political opinions, and every consumer of journalism. A Radio-Canada reporter used words on air that were uninformed, unresearched and wildly conspiratorial. It was worse than offensive – it was factually wrong.
Radio-Canada reporter placed on leave after using antisemitic language on TV
Ms. Serret made a series of baseless claims, expressed clearly and with confidence, and by all appearances, under the impression that rather than trafficking in an ancient libel, she was doing journalism. Just sharing some established truths with the viewers.
Here’s the full exchange (my translation from French):
Mr. Latreille: “How is it, and how do you explain, that the Americans have such difficulty distancing themselves from Israel, even in the most difficult of times?”
Ms. Serret: “Well, my understanding, and that of many analysts here in the United States, is that it is the Israelis, in fact, it is the Jews, who heavily finance American politics, the Super PACs. There’s really a big machine behind it, which makes it such that it is very difficult for the Americans to detach themselves from Israel’s positions. It’s really money here in the United States, the big cities are run by Jews, Hollywood is run by Jews.”
The program on which this statement was made is called “Sur le terrain” – On the Ground. Its website says the show “dives into the heart of what’s happening in Washington.”
The question of why the Trump administration has not pushed back more forcefully against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy in Gaza, and the unprecedented attack on Hamas negotiators in U.S.-allied Qatar, is worth asking. Mr. Trump’s indulgence has been surprising, since Mr. Netanyahu’s actions have repeatedly undermined U.S. policy and the President’s stated desire for a ceasefire.
Ms. Serret, who has a master’s in international studies from the University of Montreal, said that the Jews and their money run America. Mr. Trump is powerless to resist, apparently.
Back here in what’s left of fact-based reality, the ethnic scorecard of the six biggest American cities that the Jews supposedly run includes only one mayor – Kate Gallego, the mayor of Phoenix, Arizona – who is Jewish. All six are Democrats. Ditto most big city mayors and voters. That’s why Mr. Trump and the MAGA movement treat the country’s big cities as mostly hostile entities and useful targets.
In any case, I’m not sure how one gets from imagining that the U.S. is run by Jews to imagining that these American citizens are all working for Mr. Netanyahu.
For generations, polls suggested that Jewish-Americans – just 2.4 per cent of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Research Center – tended to lean strongly toward the Democratic Party, though recent data suggests that voting patterns may now be less deep blue and more purple.
The most prominent Jewish-American politician is probably Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is more than willing to be loudly critical of Mr. Netanyahu. Loud criticism of Israel is one of the planks of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party; the result is a kind of civil war in U.S. politics over Israel.
But that civil war is entirely within the Democratic Party. Most Republicans remain strong supporters of Israel, and Democratic pushback may entrench that position. Evangelicals are particularly pro-Israel. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, is locked in a fight between a progressive wing that sees Israel as apartheid-era South Africa, and a traditional wing that backs Israel, while favouring a two-state solution.
The more Israel is in the news, the more the Democrats tear themselves apart over it. And the more Israel is in the news, the more the progressive wing of the Democratic Party says things that are liable to scare middle-of-the-road voters, such as how Zohran Mamdani, likely the next Democratic mayor of New York, was in the past, hesitant to criticize the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
Mr. Trump has reasons, sur le terrain of domestic American politics, for his Israel policy. “The Jews” have nothing to do with it.