ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt Pins Biden’s Bad Polling on TikTok and ‘Humanitarian Disaster’ in Gaza
President Joe Biden’s poll numbers have continued to drop as the Israel-Hamas war rages on, especially among young voters. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, had an explanation why when he spoke to Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin and Diana Falzone for The Interview podcast.
An NBC poll out last week saw Biden, who has been strongly supportive of Israel’s war effort, drop in approval among Democrats. A whopping 70% of younger voters said they disapprove of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
On the latest episode of The Interview, which is available now, Greenblatt recognized not just the rising civilian death toll in Gaza — more than 10,000 people have reportedly been killed in the enclave since the start of Israel’s bombing campaign — but the images from the war-torn region reaching young social media users on a daily basis.
“Number one, the images from Gaza are wrenching,” Greenblatt said when asked about Biden’s numbers. “They’re heartbreaking.”
“Every Palestinian life, every civilian who gets killed is a tragedy,” he said, continuing:
Every loss of life is a world destroyed. Just like every Israeli who is killed. Every one of those who were killed are the 1,200 plus or kidnapped on October the 7th is again a world destroyed. We should have the humanity to mourn for every innocent killed. It’s just wrong and it’s unfortunate.
We, at the same time, can recognize, well, why is this happening and what started this? It started with Hamas, unfortunately, it’ll probably end with Hamas, unfortunately, with them being destroyed. But I mean, I would hope, I would hope that the president’s moral clarity in recognizing this would be appreciated by voters.
That said, Greenblatt argued younger voters are receiving one-sided and often unreliable information from social media. He explained:
But I get why, for a young population that gets its news from TikTok, that sees things not with any nuance but gets images and short-form video for 15 seconds. I mean, nuance is flattened and details are obliterated when all you see are images. And, you know, there are no fact-checkers on TikTok. There’s no standards board on TikTok. There’s no ombudsman on TikTok. There’s no letters to the editor on TikTok. So, and frankly, it’s a company owned by ByteDance in Beijing.
So the challenge there is serious because there’s none of the typical checks and balances that, as you guys know, as a company and as a brand that studies the media, that’s usually a plight with the media we consume. So considering how young people intake information and considering what a humanitarian disaster it is in Gaza.
Greenblatt emphasized how impossible it is to see images like the ones coming out of Gaza and not be moved by them:
I’m not surprised that people are deeply upset about it. I’m deeply upset about it. If you are a living, breathing, sentient person and you’re not upset about it, I think you’ve got to look in the mirror.
Watch above, and listen to the full conversation with Jonathan Greenblatt on Mediaite’s The Interview here.
