Useful Idiots

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If you haven’t seen this video yet, you’re in for a wild ride:

“It used to be that the media in America was American media,” begins former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz in a speech to the Jewish Federation that is about as antisemitic as anything you’d find on the dark corners of the internet. “It generally didn’t express extreme anti-Israel views. But today we have social media. So you have TikTok just smashing our young people’s brains all day long with video of carnage in Gaza.”

Hurwitz attempts to spin this to argue that the problem isn’t the carnage, but that young people are seeing it. “And this is why so many of us can’t have a sane conversation with younger Jews, because anything that we try to say to them, they’re hearing through this wall of carnage. I want to give data and information and facts and arguments, and they are just seeing in their minds carnage. And I sound obscene.”

Yes. You do. But not as obscene as you will after saying this next part:

“Holocaust education is absolutely essential, but I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism. Because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews. So when on TikTok all day long they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not surprising that they think, ‘Oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people.’”

………………

Yes!

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This week’s interview with Jasper Nathaniel is free to all. For our news of the week segment, check out our Friday Free-For-All: JD Vance Can’t Stop Laughing at Trump’s al-Qaeda Joke. Thanks for supporting independent media!

If you’re wondering about how the so-called ceasefire in Gaza is going, look no further than this BBC News headline:

Some ceasefire. And if you want to know about the even-less-reported-on West Bank, where settlers are committing unwatchable atrocities as you read this, listen to this week’s interview with Jasper Nathaniel, a Jewish-American journalist who is just back from the olive harvest, where IDF soldiers set him up for a violent mob attack from Israeli settlers. The videos he took are horrifying.

We asked Jasper about the situation in the West Bank, to describe the settler attack in which he caught on video the moment where a settler beat an elderly woman in the head with a stick, and the US State Department’s response to his plea for rescue.

Useful Idiots: Tell us about your own government’s response to the settler attack. You contacted the US Embassy, what have your elected representatives told you?

Jasper Nathaniel: They immediately sent out Marines to rescue me from the oil fields and put me on a private plane back to...

No, they did nothing. I actually did speak to two people at the US embassy who saw the video and they expressed horror and sympathy and fear. And when I told them we needed protection, one guy says to me, ‘Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do to protect you. It is the responsibility of the host government, meaning Israel, to protect you.’

And then I point out that it was the host military that led us into this ambush. And he says, ‘Well in the instances where the host government can’t protect you we pull our embassy, like Venezuela and Syria.’ So I say ‘Okay, so you’re pulling the embassy from Israel?’ And that was the last I heard from them.

Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, all completely ignored me.

Useful Idiots: It’s not surprising, it’s kind of predictable, and yet it’s still shocking. Can you talk about the outcome of your reporting on this and what effect it had on the people living there?

Jasper Nathaniel: People started to tell me that this might be one of those rare instances where something so heinous is caught or documented that Israel can’t spin it and might have to issue some sort of a response.

And sure enough, the next morning, there was a story in the Times of Israel where the chief of police in the West Bank, who is a far-right Ben Gavir acolyte, said ‘We must arrest him and demand justice.’ The next day I was back in the oil fields and there were Israeli soldiers there patrolling, protecting the Palestinians. And it was clear to me and to all the Palestinians that they didn’t suddenly grow a conscience and decide they wanted to protect these people. They understood that they had a PR disaster on their hands and they had to save face by preventing another attack.

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This week Trump met with Syrian President al-Sharaa, formerly known as Mohammad al-Jolani, the former leader of al-Qaeda in Syria. And he treated the former US-labeled terrorist in the most American way: literally showering him in perfume and laughing at jokes together.

Because if you implement US regime change and support Israel in the Middle East, beheadings and 9/11s are just water under the bridge.

Also in this week’s Friday Free-For-All: Bari Weiss and John Fetterman accidentally spill the truth about antisemitism, Eric Trump says the least-relatable thing you’ve ever heard, and a reporter gets breathless interviewing the latest Kennedy boy.

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*Don’t miss our new segment, the Friday Free-For-All: Elon Musk Short Circuits on Joe Rogan Over Zohran Mamdani*

In 2018, Ross Barkan ran for New York State Senate. His campaign manager was Zohran Mamdani.

This week, after an unprecedented surprise campaign, which began polling at 0% on announcement day, Zohran Mamdani pulled off an upset to become New York City’s next mayor. Ross Barkan explains how this happened, the forces and money working against Mamdani, and why this signals a tailspin for Israeli influence campaigns over US candidates.

Useful Idiots: The ADL has announced that they’re launching a comprehensive, citywide initiative to track and monitor policies and personnel appointments of the incoming Mamdani administration. And earlier, Jonathan Greenblatt said that Zohran wasn’t meeting with “the right Jews.” What is your response to the ADL’s effort against Zohran Mamdani?

Ross Barkan: It really backfired on them. They made this a referendum on Israel. And that helped Zohran.

Zohran himself did not make this election a referendum in Israel-Palestine. He did not talk about it in his campaign ads. He was not talking about it on the stump. It really was a locally-focused affordability campaign. And again and again, because he is pro-Palestine and has a long history in activism, he was attacked on it. And they lost the referendum bad.

They lost the primary by 13 points, they lost the general election by 9 points. Put into context the amount of money spent against him by the super PACs from the primary and general and you’re talking almost $60 million dollars, plus Cuomo’s own money. So they poured in $70 million dollars against him collectively and they were beaten.

Useful Idiots: Let’s look at what happens when Zohran takes office January 1st. Governor Kathy Hochul endorsed him, but yet she’s opposed a centerpiece of his campaign, which is a bit of a higher tax on the ultra wealthy to help fund some of his social programs: free buses, universal child care, and other measures. What kind of challenges is he facing on that front to actually push his agenda through?