I can always count on Salon to offer me the most America-hating (and Israel-hating) slant on any story.  David Palumbo-Liu took a Pew Research Center poll titled “Hamas Seen as More to Blame Than Israel for Current Violence” and used it in a post headlined “Millennials are over Israel: A new generation, outraged over Gaza, rejects Washington’s reflexive support” with an even more biased subhead “Angered by the immoral and inhumane assault on Gaza, Gen Y is shaking up the conventional view of Mideast politics”.

Really?  How someone could take a survey that says one thing and turn it in to the polar opposite argument is mind-boggling.  Such a blatant perversion of truth in favor of a pre-determined conclusion can only be called propaganda.  The best response to propaganda is to present the Real Facts™.

Here’s one: the biggest divide over supporting blaming Israel for defending itself is political ideology, not age.

Liberal Democrats are among the most likely to view Israel’s response as excessive: 44% say they have gone too far in the conflict with Hamas, compared to 33% who say the response has been about right. At the other end of the spectrum, 51% of conservative Republicans say Israel’s response has been about right; just 10% say it has gone too far.

Palumbo-Liu’s claim that “[more] and more younger Americans, growing up well past the postwar era, find the Holocaust narrative to be less than absolutely and unquestionably a good reason to support the horrible killings in Gaza.  And as they learn more, their support will wane further” has no basis.  In fact, young Americans can be shockingly ignorant of all kinds of facts, including the Holocaust.

It’s shameful when a Stanford comparative literature professor like Palumbo-Liu can take Real Facts™ and twist them into his own hateful screed against Israel.  The article reads like an Israel-hater’s wish list:  that anti-Semitism is not Jew-hatred (of course!), that international support for Israel is ebbing (when has it grown?), that the Holocaust is irrelevant, that Israel is fabricating its figures.  He sums up with this:

The fact that more and more younger Americans are increasingly skeptical of supporting Israel’s military efforts is encouraging in the long run.

But it’s not a fact.  Going back to 2006, the percentage who think Israel went too far with response to rocket attacks is about the same.  The percentage of “don’t know” is what’s rising.  If anything, this simply shows that younger Americans are more ignorant than they have been in the past, not more skeptical.

I can imagine they’ll only get dumber if people like Palumbo-Liu keep teaching them.