Brokaw’s Dog Whistle on Jerusalem

The U.S. recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. That’s a good thing. Though it shows Israel’s political situation is far from great when its capital is finally recognized 70 years after having already been its capital. That aside, President Trump deserves credit for bucking long-standing U.S. foreign policy which simply denied reality.

Of course, not everyone is happy about it.

One in particular irked me: Tom Brokaw. He was part of a panel discussion on MSNBC. And he gave what in my view was a dog whistle to antisemites. He made it sound like the man behind Trump’s Jerusalem move was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire contributor to Republican causes. The “rich Jew pulling the strings” meme is about as old and malicious as it gets. I’m not saying Brokaw is an antisemite. I’m just saying he sounds like one on TV.

Brokaw has a history of less-than-fair coverage (to put it mildly) on Israel. During the Lebanon war, NBC was exposed in the film “NBC in Lebanon” for favoring the PLO. The New York Times, which reviewed the film, ultimately agreed that the 1982 coverage of ”NBC Nightly News,” which Tom Brokaw co-anchored, was “faulty.”

As people get older they tend not to care what they say.

It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of Brokaw’s mouth as he gets even older, more ornery and more beady eyed.