{"id":40928,"date":"2025-11-19T06:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T11:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=40928"},"modified":"2025-11-19T06:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T11:38:12","slug":"as-israels-image-collapses-us-billionaires-move-to-silence-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=40928","title":{"rendered":"

As Israel’s image collapses, US billionaires move to silence dissent<\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gregory Shupak
\nMiddle East Eye<\/p>\n

Facing record opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, America’s elites are seizing control of news and tech companies to suppress criticism and rescue a crumbling narrative<\/h3>\n

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\nTeenagers pose for a photo while holding smartphones in front of a TikTok logo in this illustration taken on 11 September 2025 (Dado Ruvic\/Reuters)<\/h5>\n
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Public support for\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0United States<\/a>\u00a0has reached historic lows.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0Gallup poll<\/a>\u00a0in July found that 32 percent of Americans approve of the Israeli campaign in\u00a0Gaza<\/a>, while 60 percent disapprove, a 10 percent drop in support from the previous September.<\/p>\n

Pew Research Center\u00a0findings<\/a>\u00a0showed that a third of American adults (33 percent) say the country sends Israel too much military aid, a larger portion of the population than those who say the US provides the right amount (23 percent) or not enough (8 percent).<\/p>\n

A\u00a0majority<\/a>\u00a0of Americans hold a negative view of Israel and report being “extremely” or “very” concerned about its military strikes killing\u00a0Palestinian<\/a>\u00a0civilians and about\u00a0starvation<\/a>\u00a0among Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n

A New York Times\/Siena\u00a0poll<\/a>\u00a0revealed that there are slightly more Americans who sympathise with the Palestinians than those who sympathise with Israel.<\/p>\n

Israel’s popularity crisis is particularly acute among young Americans, with only nine percent of those aged\u00a018 to 34<\/a>\u00a0backing Israel’s military action in the Strip. Forty-two percent of those in the\u00a018 to 29 cohort<\/a>\u00a0say the US grants Israel too much military aid, compared to 21 percent whose opinion is that the US is giving the right amount or too little.<\/p>\n

One influential ghoul after another – from\u00a0Hillary Clinton<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0wealthy tech investors<\/a>\u00a0and members of Congress – has attributed this shift to TikTok, as if American youth are incapable of independently concluding that it is wrong to repeatedly\u00a0set fire to tents<\/a>\u00a0filled with displaced persons.<\/p>\n

Amid the decline in pro-Israel sentiment, which is\u00a0functionally the same<\/a>\u00a0as a decline in support for US imperialism in and beyond the Middle East, the US ruling class is aggressively asserting control over powerful media organs.<\/p>\n

Control of the narrative<\/h3>\n

On 25 September, US President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0issued an\u00a0executive order<\/a>\u00a0mandating that for TikTok to continue operating in the US, one or more Americans had to own the majority of the platform.<\/p>\n

Trump’s actions, it is worth noting, build on the Biden administration’s\u00a0approach to TikTok<\/a>, which also called for US control of the app, a position with bipartisan support in Congress.<\/p>\n

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War on Gaza: Why Israel deserves to be singled out for criticism<\/div>\n

Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/div>\n

Accordingly, a group of US investors led by the\u00a0software firm Oracle<\/a>\u00a0is taking control of 65 percent of TikTok.<\/p>\n

Oracle is set to oversee TikTok’s US operations, provide cloud services for user data storage and secure a licence to take charge of the app’s algorithm.<\/p>\n

Oracle founder\u00a0Larry Ellison<\/a>\u00a0is one of the top donors to the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), a US nonprofit that effectively subsidises the Israeli military. He has said that he feels a “deep emotional connection to the State of Israel” and “we”, seemingly a reference to Oracle, will “do everything we can to support the country of Israel”.<\/p>\n

A similar process has unfolded in traditional news media. In August, the Ellison family’s media company, Skydance – an outfit financially supported by Larry Ellison and run by his son, David – acquired Paramount, a movie studio that owns CBS and a host of cable channels.<\/p>\n

Bari Weiss, a\u00a0talentless behind-kisser<\/a>\u00a0and tattle-tale passionately\u00a0opposed<\/a>\u00a0to free speech and to Palestinian freedom, has been named CBS News’s editor-in-chief.<\/p>\n

Now, the Ellison family has its sights set on Warner Bros Discovery, which owns HBO, TBS and CNN.<\/p>\n

Media capture<\/h3>\n

While there is ample space for pro-Palestine messaging on TikTok, it is not as if traditional news outlets like CBS have a record of supporting Palestinian liberation.<\/p>\n

CBS, like\u00a0all major corporate media<\/a>\u00a0in the United States, far more often than not produces content favourable to US-Israeli objectives in West Asia.<\/p>\n

For example, in the last year, the CBS News website ran 2,575 stories that mention Gaza, with only 388 containing the word “genocide”.<\/p>\n

In other words, in a period that mostly predates the Ellison-Weiss regime, only 15 percent of the site’s Gaza coverage mentioned the crime of crimes, even as one credible source after another has\u00a0concluded<\/a>\u00a0that Israel has carried out a genocide in the Strip.<\/p>\n