Netanyahu Blames TikTok for American Sympathy Shift Toward Palestinians

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that the growing American sympathy for Palestinians stems from social media exposure, not from Israel's extensive and deadly military actions against Palestinian civilians.

In a conversation with CNN’s Dana Bash, Netanyahu expressed concern over a February Gallup poll revealing that 41% of Americans now sympathize more with Palestinians compared to 36% for Israelis.

This marks a historic shift, as it is the first time in 25 years of Gallup polling that Palestinians have garnered more sympathy than Israelis.

Despite this alarming trend, Netanyahu dismissed any link between the ongoing conflict in Gaza and the changing American sentiment, claiming that support for Israel had been declining prior to the outbreak of war.

“You see the decline in support for Israel … and it’s years before, several years before the Gaza war took place, OK?” Netanyahu stated.

He continued, “And you ask, why did that happen? Well, the one correlation you see, which is almost a perfect correlation, is the penetration of TikTok and other social media in the United States, and as the penetration increases, the support for Israel decreases.”

Netanyahu further attempted to connect Israel's situation with American perceptions by attributing negative views of both nations to social media manipulation.

“I think that what has happened here is that there’s several countries and organizations that have penetrated the social media and abused them by putting in — bot farms and other things — especially directed at young Americans, to not only hate Israel but also to hate America,” he claimed. “Those who say they hate Israel usually end up hating America. They burn our flag, and they burn your flag as well.”