Israel Lobby the Greatest Threat to First Amendment in U.S.: Mearsheimer

Author said in an earlier interview that the lobby in the U.S. has nearly complete influence over mainstream news outlets

Professor John Mearsheimer, the professor and co-author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, said in an interview Thursday that the Israel lobby is the greatest threat to the First Amendment.

Mearsheimer spoke with Judge Andrew Napolitano, the host of “Judging Freedom,” about the campus protests across the U.S. and the subsequent crackdown by police.

“The greatest threat to the First Amendment in this country, at this point in time is Israel’s supporters; it’s the Israel lobby and what's going on here – to dig a layer deeper – is that Israel is doing horrendous things in Gaza and all sorts of people are talking about it and criticizing Israel and what the lobby wants to do is shut down that criticism before it goes too far and before too many people recognize exactly what's happening. And the only way they can shut down that criticism is to basically throw the First Amendment out the window and that's what's happening here,” he said.

Mearsheimer said in an earlier interview that the lobby in the U.S. has nearly complete influence over main news outlets like The Wall Street Journal and New York Times, so it will likely turn its attention to TikTok, which is more influential to young Americans than either of these outlets.

“The lobby is very effective and all you have to do is look at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times… The Wall Street Journal supports Israel down the line it; supports the Netanyahu government down the line. There is hardly ever any meaningful criticism of Israel in the Wall Street Journal it's quite remarkable and this has been the case for a long time.”

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He continued that critics of Israeli policy can have their voices heard in the alternative
media “and this is a huge problem for the lobby and they are scrambling to do everything they can to control the alternative media and you see this most clearly with regard to TikTok. There's no question that the lobby is going to enormous lengths to shut down TikTok because TikTok is filled with pieces that are critical of Israel and lots of young people get their news from TikTok, not from the Wall Street Journal
and not from the New York Times.”