Democrat politicians and pundits have long claimed that Fox News is the media home of racistsexisthomophobicantisemites, and a lot of Jews took them at their word.

Then 10/7 happened, and Jews were shocked to see that people who they thought were allies in the social justice and political world turned out to be raging antisemites.

This included many in the news media, where the MSM places a lot of emphasis on the horrors of living in Gaza and argues that Israel is being too aggressive in rooting out Hamas. There have been exceptions, but they are so few that they actually surprise you.

So something odd has happened: Jews are turning to Fox News because it has not spent the past few weeks accusing Israel of genocide.

Fox News — with the largest audience in all of cable television — draws a sizable number of Democratic and liberal-leaning viewers. Among viewers 25 to 54, FNC had more people who identify as Democrats watching in prime time than either CNN or MSNBC…https://t.co/5nqGgf9Kr4 https://t.co/yCas8l0UtU

— johnny dollar (@johnnydollar01) November 3, 2023

There are no specific demographic studies that focus on religious affiliation and TV viewership available to confirm the shift, but the viewing patterns of Democrats in largely Jewish areas have shifted, and plenty of Jews are speaking up about how Fox has been much fairer to Israel.

Ross Abramson, a software engineer and recent New York University graduate, had a fairly conventional news diet until recently. He regularly checked his phone for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. And as a Jew with an interest in Israel, he would browse a handful of outlets like The Times of Israel.

Then the brutal Hamas-led attack on Israel happened on Oct. 7, and Mr. Abramson found himself turning to an outlet he said he didn’t rely on much before: Fox News.

“Did I watch it religiously before? No,” he said, adding that he found Fox’s reporting and commentary on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza “less antagonistic for sure” than that of other news organizations. “You don’t feel as attacked,” Mr. Abramson said.

Fox News, long a preferred source of news for the right, has lately become an information refuge for American Jews who believe that the mainstream media has been too hostile to Israel.

It’s somewhat of an improbable alliance. Jews overwhelmingly identify as Democrats. And as the Republican Party came to embrace a more populist brand of politics that vilifies “globalist” corporate interests and wealthy liberal businessmen like George Soros — something many see as coded antisemitism — Fox News hosts and guests promoted those views.

But more than any of the major cable news channels — and perhaps more than any other major American media outlet — Fox News has wrapped itself in the Israeli flag in the weeks since the Hamas attack. Its coverage tends to emphasize the radical and antisemitic elements of the pro-Palestinian opposition, particularly on college campuses, while playing down the civilian casualties from Israeli strikes.

It should surprise nobody that Fox News and its viewers are far more friendly to Israel than most of the major news channels. First, Israel is an outpost of Western Civilization in a region dominated by governments and populations that are hostile to our values. Second, the anti-Israel movement is based almost entirely on a SJW/CRT/DEI agenda and not any genuinely historical understanding.

Toss in the older demographic of Fox viewers and you get a recipe for warm feelings for Israel. Fox viewers don’t see Hamas as anticolonialist freedom fighters but rather death cultists driven by hatred and barbarism.

Some Jews who paid little attention to the conservative network in the past are now tuning in — and surprising themselves. In an interview with The Free Press, an outlet that has been critical of mainstream coverage of Israel, one liberal Jewish woman from Minneapolis said, “My friends and I are like, ‘My God, we find ourselves watching clips on Fox News.’ ”

One liberal Fox host, Jessica Tarlov, said in a recent appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher” that her pro-Israel perspective put her out of step with younger Democrats but not with many of her fellow older millennials, some of whom recently started watching Fox News.

“My Jewish liberal friends will text me and they’ll say, ‘Oh, this is where you go in the afternoon?’ because they never watched Fox before,” she said.

Fox anchors, especially those who offer the most steadfast defense of Israel on their shows, insist that they are shining a light on reports of antisemitism that other media overlook and are displaying support for an American ally that is being wrongly vilified.

On Thursday, Fox broadcast its morning show, “Fox & Friends,” live from the Second Avenue Deli on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a New York institution that bills itself as “an authentic Jewish culinary experience.” It was the site of antisemitic vandalism last month after someone drew a swastika near the restaurant’s back door.

Lawrence Jones, a co-host of the show, received a loud ovation from the patrons picking at their corned beef hash, bagels and scrambled eggs when he said the media hadn’t done an adequate job of reporting on Israel’s plight.

Jews have been inundated by propaganda that suggests that conservatives are Nazis, but on the morning of October 7th they woke up to a world where their erstwhile allies were calling for Jews to be raped, murdered, and kidnapped before being wiped off the face of the Earth.

It was pretty jarring for many of them, as you might imagine. It’s not like any of them wanted to leave the Matrix, but they had little choice.

The Great Betrayal.

The left’s reaction to the massacre in Israel has many progressive Jews in the West rethinking their past activism, political affiliations, and friendships.

By @SnoozyWeiss and @FrancescaABlock in @TheFP:https://t.co/ETOYax607u

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) October 30, 2023

It’s hard to predict what the political consequences of being slapped by reality will be; some Jews will rethink their allegiances, while others will find solace in cognitive dissonance. It is on this latter option that Democrat hopes rest because Jews are not especially important to their electoral coalition due to their concentration in heavily Blue areas, but they are a key part of their donor and influencer class. The political influence stems from their place in the economy and the culture, not their voting strength.

Israel’s opponents, on the other hand, are the inverse: they form the activist base and control a significant number of votes, while they are largely irrelevant to the Party infrastructure. Democrats are pulled in both directions, needing the cash and cache of the Jewish influencers and the votes and boots on the ground of the antisemitic SJWs.

The more Jews turn to Fox News, the less scared they will be of conservatives, who actually aren’t scary in the real world. It takes a steady diet of New York Times, Washington Post, and MSNBC propaganda to buy into that nonsense. And the monopoly is being broken.

I am skeptical that there will be a massive shift in Jewish voting patterns, despite it being long past time for Jews to abandon the Democrats based on decades-old allegiances. But the antisemitic Left will never give up, and that will have an impact in the long run.

Let us hope so.

UPDATE:

Rashida Tlaib demonstrates exactly the dilemma Democrats face. Masses of Leftists hate Israel, while the establishment is inclined to support it.

.@POTUS, the majority of the American people are not with you on this one. #CeasefireNow pic.twitter.com/rV97zrMkad

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) November 3, 2023