Bibi's re-election and the future of teenage American Jewish support for Israel

By LEORA EISENBERG
 Every day, my Facebook newsfeed blows up with political cartoons, graphic images of the Middle East, and political commentary on the region. Caroline Glick's ecstatic "WE WON!" (Nitsachnu!) or Gideon Levy's gloomy "Netanyahu deserves the Israeli people, and they deserve him." Mira Awad's despairing "it seems Bibi is going to be prime minister again" and Mosh Ben-Ari's utter silence. 
It seemed like most of my adult Facebook friends who are at least somewhat interested in politics had mentioned the elections, and certainly the political groups that I follow had all posted either their support or their disappointment with the final results. Yet, there was a gaping hole amongst my teenage Facebook friends. Granted, they don't really use Facebook anymore (Instagram and SnapChat are the way to go; I haven't gotten there yet, don't judge), but whenever a social protest comes up, they post. So why not about the future of the Middle East? Isn't that important enough to post about?
Being a generation that "doesn't really care" about "hard" politics (this being actually policy not involving social protest) makes it easy for the average teenager to rely on graphic images of conflict and promises made in politicians' speeches. This means that pictures of the victims of Netanyahu's hard-line policy do not go down well with teenagers; the promises of Herzog's Zionist Union, however, do go down relatively well. 
Netanyahu's seemingly steadfast declaration of no Palestinian state causes teenage smirks and contempt (though I doubt the validity of that statement to some degree), Netanyahu's "hurting Obama's feelings" (we're all big boys now?) breaks the young liberals' hearts, and Netanyahu's foreign policy is, well, graphic. Netanyahu's "one-liners" and images create great contempt amongst my generation of people who usually don't finish reading a whole article (or facts) and would rather just look at pictures and listen to pretty let's-all-hold-hands words. (Hence the decrease in Facebook's popularity and the increase in Snapchat and Instagram's popularity.)
Herzog, on the other hand, has made himself very popular amongst my colleagues thanks to, at least in part, his promises to restart peace talks. This is, of course, in stark contrast to Netanyahu's declaration of "no Palestinian state." Herzog promises to rebuild relations with the White House, much to the delight of our die-hard young Democrats. Herzog's promises cater to the left, as well as much of my generation. They sound very nice in theory, but may in practice be unattainable. And Herzog also hasn't yet been a PM whose policies cause (perhaps inevitable?) death and destruction, so that means he's automatically the good guy, right?
I question that. But my colleagues and classmates may not. It's easier not to think when you can just read a poppy Haaretz headline or see an image from Operation Protective Edge, because if it's on the Internet the images are definitely not doctored (read: IDF soldiers carrying the wrong kind of weapons in propaganda) and the sources must be reputable (read: People magazine). Clearly, I'm oversimplifying the situation, but rarely do teenagers take the time to think about what they are reading rather than what they are seeing. 
I now am gravely worried about the state of teenage American jewry's support for Israel. With a more-conservative-than-most-teenagers-would-like PM, they will be reading more and more impassioned Haaretz articles (or rather, headlines) and seeing more photos of proactive Israeli attacks. I'm not saying that Bibi works wonders for himself in the PR department, but that very same PR department is destroying his fans in the teenage ranks, when in reality, we hope (and know) that he has Israel's best interests at heart.


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