Short answer: As of July 2026, Anne Applebaum, the American-Polish Jewish journalist and historian at The Atlantic and a Pulitzer Prize winner, supports Israel's existence and security while sharply criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu's government. She has written extensively and specifically about Israel, including a widely read Atlantic piece arguing that Netanyahu's assault on Israeli democracy left the country unprepared for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, and she is affiliated as an expert with the Israel Democracy Institute, an Israeli think tank. She has never called for Israel's dissolution or boycotted it. Her criticism targets Netanyahu's judiciary overhaul and governance, not Israel's right to exist.
What Anne Applebaum has actually said and done
- January 21, 2002: Applebaum published "Kill the Messenger" in Slate, arguing that official Palestinian Authority radio and TV stations were legitimate wartime targets during the Second Intifada, calling them "a combatant, and therefore a legitimate target, in a painful, never-ending, low-intensity war." The piece resurfaced in 2024 alongside her German Book Trade Peace Prize, and she said at the time that the headline "could have been less provocative" while standing by the substance about Palestinian incitement propaganda, according to Wikipedia and The Column.
- September 29, 2016: Breitbart columnist Matthew Tyrmand attacked Applebaum in print as a "Polish, Jewish, American elitist," language that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Times of Israel identified as an antisemitic trope, a clear public marker of hostility toward her from the far right specifically because of her Jewish identity.
- Summer 2023: Applebaum spent a research week in Israel on a trip organized by the Israel Democracy Institute, which she advises, meeting with Israelis across the political spectrum in Tel Aviv during the height of the anti-judicial-overhaul protests, according to the Times of Israel. She is listed as an affiliated expert with the institute on its official site.
- October 21, 2023: Applebaum published "Netanyahu's Attack on Democracy Left Israel Unprepared" in The Atlantic, arguing that Netanyahu's judicial overhaul and polarizing rhetoric damaged Israel's national unity and left the country vulnerable to the October 7 attack. The piece is framed around Israel's security and survival and calls for a sustainable two-state peace for Israel's own security, per anneapplebaum.com and RealClearPolitics.
- In late 2025: An opinion piece renewed criticism of Columbia University for keeping Applebaum on the Pulitzer Prize Board despite the 2002 Slate column. Columbia had not removed her as of this reporting. This is a single advocacy piece, not documented evidence of an organized campaign, per The Column and Israel Palestine News, and should be read as advocacy framing rather than neutral reporting.
Her Jewish identity and where Israel fits in her work
Anne Applebaum was born in Washington, D.C. to a Reform Jewish family; her great-grandparents emigrated from what is now Belarus. She is best known for her books on Soviet and communist history (Gulag, Red Famine), for which she won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and, more recently, for her work on global authoritarianism (Twilight of Democracy, Autocracy, Inc.). Israel is not her primary subject, but she has written repeatedly and specifically about it since 2023, almost entirely through the lens of her core expertise: democratic backsliding. Her central argument is that Netanyahu's judicial overhaul weakened Israel's institutions and national cohesion, and that this contributed to the failures around October 7. That is criticism of a specific Israeli government and prime minister, not opposition to Israel or a call for boycott. She has separately worked with the Israel Democracy Institute, an Israeli pro-democracy research institute, as an affiliated expert. Her most Israel-hawkish public position is arguably her oldest one on the subject: the 2002 Slate column defending Israeli strikes on Palestinian Authority broadcast infrastructure as legitimate wartime targets, a piece she has since said she would word differently but has not disavowed in substance. That column is also the basis for renewed criticism, aired in an opinion piece in late 2025, of her seat on the Pulitzer Prize Board.
The bottom line
Anne Applebaum supports Israel's existence, security, and democratic institutions, and has taken a genuinely hawkish pro-Israel-security position in the past (her 2002 defense of striking Palestinian Authority broadcasters), while being a consistent critic of Netanyahu's specific judicial-overhaul agenda, which she blames for weakening Israel ahead of October 7. She has not boycotted Israel, has worked with an Israeli democracy-focused think tank, and her Jewish identity has itself been the target of antisemitic attacks from the far right.
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Last updated July 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
