Author and media critic Dr. Jack Shaheen presented excerpts from what he said are hundreds of racist and hate-filled, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim Hollywood films, and even popular network television shows produced openly and without any public rebuke, depicting Muslims and Arabs as hateful, remorseless murderers and terrorists—films, had they shown that same behavior perpetrated by Israelis against the unarmed Palestinian population—would have been condemned as anti-Semitic, out of hand.
The “Israel Lobby” conference at the National Press Club presented a microcosm of the battles now raging on college campuses all over the country as pro-peace and pro-Palestinian organizations work to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel over its treatment of those millions who were displaced in order to create the state of Israel.
The American public has increasingly begun to question the value of the incessant lobbying by the Israel Lobby, is it good for the United States, or is it even good for Israel? And even within the Jewish community, panelists revealed, Americans and Israelis are debating whether the lobby is helping or actually hurting Jews in the United States and Israel.