Ari Paul

Younger Americans are turning against Israel. “On both the left and the right, young Americans are growing more skeptical of offering unconditional US support to Israel,” Politico (9/29/25) reported. Brookings (8/6/25) ran the headline “Support for Israel Continues to Deteriorate, Especially Among Democrats and Young People.” According to the Forward (11/21/25), “Younger Jews are more than twice as likely to identify as anti-Zionist than the overall population.”

Pro-Israel media are looking for blame. It’s often easy to paint youth opinion that is out of sync with official state policy as emotionally driven social justice warriorism, the result of hearts not yet hardened by life’s cold realities. The Zionist media narrative is looking for the culprits who have apparently miseducated our youth, turning them not just into Israel critics, but Jew haters.

‘Panicked’ by young people

“Younger Americans…are likely to trust and get their news from lightly moderated social-media platforms,” writes Yair Rosenberg (Atlantic, 12/15/25), “which often advantage the extreme opinions, conspiracy theories, and conflict-stoking content that drive engagement.”

At the Atlantic (12/15/25), Yair Rosenberg wrote a piece headlined “The More I’m Around Young People, the More Panicked I Am,’” with the subhead, “Anti-Jewish prejudice isn’t a partisan divide—it’s a generational one.” To his credit, Rosenberg starts off reporting on very real instances of antisemitism, but then watch carefully what he does in the middle:

Young people also tend to be more critical of Israel than their elders, leading a minority to excuse or even perpetuate anti-Jewish acts in America in the name of Palestine. These critics are likely to consume anti-Israel content on their social-media apps of choice. The platforms then funnel some of those users toward antisemitic material—a sort of algorithmic escalator that ends up radicalizing a percentage of them.

In the first sentence, the only evidence Rosenberg cites is a link to his own article (Atlantic, 5/22/25) about how “Elias Rodriguez allegedly shot and killed two people as they were exiting an event at the Capital Jewish Museum,” with the headline “A Dangerous Disguise for Antisemitism.” Rosenberg said the “assailant used the Palestinian struggle as a pretext to harm Jews.”

But as I have previously written (FAIR.org, 5/29/25), much of the media framed this attack as antisemitic without any factual basis. While there was plenty of evidence that the act was political, with Rodiguez’s manifesto denouncing Israel as a “genocidal apartheid state,” there wasn’t any evidence that the attacker held antisemitic views, or targeted the event because of the faith of the victims. If someone obsessed with Saudi Arabia’s aggression in Yemen killed two Muslim workers at the Saudi embassy, that would certainly be anti-Saudi political violence, but not necessarily anti-Muslim terror.

‘Sewer of filth and lies’

The root of the antisemitism problem at X is not criticism of Israeli war crimes (FAIR.org, 1/23/25).

Rosenberg doesn’t quite say that today’s young critics of Israel are necessarily antisemites, but argues that by putting anti-Israel content on social media, they’re helping to drive traffic to actual antisemitism. This is a framing that lets Elon Musk—who famously gave a Nazi salute at Donald Trump’s second inauguration—off the hook for overseeing the rise of this antisemitic content on X (CNN, 9/29/25).

Nor does he recognize that Meta is aggressively policing against criticism of Israel, even as it ends efforts to proactively screen out hate speech like antisemitism (Washington Post, 2/25/25). Last year, Meta announced “that it will expand its policies to classify the misuse of the term ‘Zionist’ as a proxy for ‘Jews’ as antisemitic and Tier 1 hate speech” (World Jewish Congress, 6/9/24). Al Jazeera (10/24/24) also reported on “testimonies of routine deletion of Palestine-related posts and a deep-seated pro-Israel bias” at Meta.

Rosenberg is rightly concerned that there are too many far-right extremists promoting white nationalism and antisemitism on social media networks (Wired, 5/2/24; PBS, 8/13/24), and these corporate regimes are too tolerant of such activity on their sites. But Rosenberg manages to twist this into an argument that young people need to shut up about Gaza.

Of course, many people are upset about anti-Israel content on social media not because it leads to antisemitism, but because it’s anti-Israel: The reason for the shift in youth opinion isn’t Israel’s behavior, the argument goes, but social media’s influence. Hillary Clinton blames youth criticism of Israel on TikTok (Hollywood Reporter, 12/2/25). The Australian (12/12/25) wrote: “Young people live now on social media. And social media is an unregulated sewer of lies and filth.” The Israeli government has reportedly recruited social media personalities and public relations firms to tell its version of the story (Jerusalem Post, 10/3/25; Al Jazeera, 10/30/25).

‘Brainwashed’ into opposing sex pests

“Younger Jews have shifted away from Israel,” Free Press (12/17/25) reported. “That has put some of them on a collision course with their more traditional parents, many of whom view Mamdani as a totem of the anti-Zionist movement and a threat to the safety of Jews in New York City.”

The issue of this generational divide is the center of a piece at Free Press (12/17/25) by Olivia Reingold, called “The Jewish Parents Who Raised Mamdani Voters.” For the unacquainted, Free Press was bought by Paramount (10/6/25), now controlled by oligarch David Ellison, thus turning the once-marginal publication into the closest thing the right has to the New Yorker. (The acquisition also elevated Free Press co-founder Bari Weiss, noted right-wing pundit, to CBS News editor-in-chief.)

Free Press quoted one parent in particular, Sagra Maceira de Rosen, whose bio describes her as “chair of SIO Global, an investment and advisory firm working with private equity and investment.” She said she was “horrified” that Mamdani won the election. What’s worse for her was that her grown child campaigned for him. “I fear that kids I care for—my children—are brainwashed.”

Parents looked for answers. Reingold reported:

They wondered if they should have parented differently. Did their children get enough Jewish education? Were they brainwashed by their elite private schools? Where did they go wrong?

“Maybe I failed in the sense that the kids didn’t go to Israel enough,” a 63-year-old physician in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, told me. He said his daughter, a civil rights attorney, holds anti-Zionist views and refused to vote for former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo due to his alleged sexual harassment. “It would’ve been better if they went more, just to see the lies they’re being told.”

It’s not clear if the doctor or Reingold knows what they’re saying here. Jewish kids need to 1) go to Israel to get indoctrinated and 2) stop being appalled by sexual harassment. These issues are more connected than one might think, as a Jewish Currents (4/18/18) investigation by Lilith executive editor Sarah Seltzer found widespread problems of sexual violence within Birthright, the program offering young Jews free guided trips to Israel.

Lacking ‘a capacity for critical thinking’

It’s hard to accuse B’Tselem (1/12/21) of not going to Israel often enough.

Another parent, Lisa Fields Lewis, lamented that her grown children liked Mamdani:

Lewis was raised by an Israeli mother; her father survived Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She said the rise of Mamdani awakened a “generational trauma” in her. Now, she can’t shake the feeling that history is repeating itself. And kids don’t seem to realize just how dangerous Mamdani’s views are, Lewis said.

With Mamdani set to be sworn in just after midnight on January 1, Lewis doesn’t know if their relationship can return to normal any time soon. “I feel sad,” Lewis said. “I feel envious of my friends whose kids are proud Zionists, or at least have the capacity for critical thinking.”

It’s not FAIR’s job to comment on others’ parenting skills, but Lewis just told the world she thinks her children don’t have a “capacity for critical thinking”; the tension in this household might have to do with a lack of respect, rather than just differing politics. What’s really dangerous here is that the author doesn’t challenge the absurd suggestion that “Mamdani’s promise of providing free buses and righting the city’s widening income gap” is the first step in sending the Jews to the camps.

By what measure does the Free Press think Mamdani is dangerous for Jews? It pointed out that he “has consistently denied Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state,” saying instead that “Israel should exist ‘with equal rights for all’—a bar the nation already meets.”

Reingold can’t decide what she wants here: a Jewish state or a state that doesn’t discriminate.  Maintaining the former requires preventing the latter, as Palestinians that have been under Israeli control for nearly 60 years need to be denied the right to vote in Israeli elections. Jews from anywhere in the world have a “right to return” to Israel, but non-Jewish refugees from pre-1948 Palestine do not. A number of human rights groups, including an Israeli one, have found that the legal separation of peoples in Israel proper and the Occupied Territories amounts to apartheid (B’Tselem, 1/12/21; Human Rights Watch, 4/27/21).

Reingold went on, “More recently, the mayor-elect has caught flack for his controversial appointments to his transition committees, which include fringe anti-Zionist rabbis.” Again, there’s nothing here that represents antisemitism–instead, there’s inclusion of Jews. The problem is that Mamdani is close to clergy whose politics don’t align with the Weiss editorial regime. To put things into perspective, Mamdani won a third of the city’s Jewish vote (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/5/25)—not a majority, but not exactly a “fringe” either.

‘A problem of disobedient children’

Though the Oslo Accords produced great optimism in the West, Maha Nassar (Conversation, 9/12/23) noted, “life for Palestinians became worse during the post-Oslo years, not better,” as “Palestinians lost further control over their lands, homes and resources.”

These pieces spend a lot of ink displaying anxiety for this generational divide, but never really ask why it exists. If they did that, they might find out that while many in the older generation could indulge the fantasy that a pre-Netanyahu Israel was engaged in a peace process, when mainstream Israeli leaders paid lip service to the idea of a two-state solution, younger Jews only know a place of extreme bellicosity.

Any voter in their 20s doesn’t remember the Oslo Accords or Yitzhak Rabin shaking hands with Yasser Arafat (Conversation, 9/12/23). Instead, what they know is a country that has mostly been under the control of the right-wing Likud party and its extremist allies, an anti-democratic slide into authoritarianism (Haaretz, 10/30/25; Committee to Protect Journalists, 12/11/25), government corruption (New York Times, 11/30/25), settlement expansion (UN News, 9/29/25), alliances with the European far right (CNN, 3/26/25; Foreign Policy, 5/9/25) and several lopsided wars against Gaza.

But neither the Atlantic nor the Free Press can say this. The answer can’t be that Israel’s actions against Palestinians and its decaying political system are turning people off. No, the problem is that young people are led astray by social media and distance from real education.

“While Israel’s actions have always been structured by apartheid and ethnic cleansing, the scale and the visibility of its structural violence has been placed at the center of American political discourse,” said Benjamin Balthaser, author of Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left. “Americans, not just Jews, are compelled to respond.”

He added, “That the Free Press sees this as a problem of disobedient children or a lack of Torah school is not unlike Hillary Clinton blaming outrage at Israel on TikTok videos and social media.”

[…]

Via https://fair.org/home/looking-to-blame-anyone-but-israel-for-youths-anti-israel-turn/

A protester holds a sign related to the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., November 12, 2025. SAUL LOEB AFP via Getty Images

Brian Shilhavy

Former President Clinton has apparently flipped the table by agreeing to testify on the Epstein Files, because it would expose President Trump

From the Miami Herald (https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article314609810.html): The FBI’s Own Unclassified List of “Prominent Names” in the Epstein Files Who Were Investigated Released

After the Justice Department shut the door on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files in July 2025, FBI agents worked on drafts of a 21-page presentation of all the evidence the FBI had gathered in the case, including a summary of allegations against 11 men [Trump, Weinstein, Prince Andrew, Jes Staley, Leon Black, Les Wexner, Alan Dershowitz, Bill Clinton, Howard Lutnick, William Barr]

One woman, who said she was abused by Epstein, told the FBI a 13-year-old friend of hers was forced by Trump to perform oral sex in the 1980s.

[…]

Via https://t.me/healthimpact/3027

https://t.me/healthimpact/3026

By Kit Klarenberg

BBC reports a US policy shift toward Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, as Washington adapts to the rise of the anti-imperialist Alliance of Sahel States.

On February 2^nd, the BBC published an extraordinary report on how the Trump administration “has declared a stark policy shift” towards Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, the governments of which have sought to eradicate all ties to Western imperial powers, and forged the Alliance of Sahel States (AES). The independent bloc is a revolutionary enterprise, with the prospect that further countries will follow its members’ lead. And Washington is under no illusions about the new geopolitical realities unfolding in Africa.

The British state broadcaster records how Nick Checker, State Department African Affairs chief, is due to visit Mali to convey US “respect” for the country’s “sovereignty”, and chart a “new course” in relations, moving “past policy missteps.” Checker will also express optimism about future cooperation with AES “on shared security and economic interests.” This is an absolutely unprecedented development. After military coups deposed the elected presidents of all three countries 2020 – 2023, the trio became Western pariahs.

France and the US sought to isolate and undermine the military governments, halting “cooperation” projects in numerous fields. Meanwhile, the Economic Community of West African States, a neocolonial union of which all three were members, first imposed severe sanctions on Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, before its combined armed forces prepared to outright invade the latter in summer 2023. The three countries didn’t budge, and in fact welcomed Western isolation, forging new international partnerships and strengthening their ties. ECOWAS military action never came to pass.

In January 2025, the trio seceded from the union and created AES. Western-funded, London-based Amani Africa branded the move “the most significant crisis in West Africa’s regional integration since the founding of ECOWAS in 1975,” claiming it dealt “a significant blow to African…cooperation architecture.” Meanwhile, Burkina Faso’s leader Capt Ibrahim Traoré has become a media hate figure. A disparaging May 2025 Financial Times profile slammed him as a cynical opportunist leading a “Russia-backed junta”, and his supporters a “cult”.

As the BBC unwittingly explains, such antipathy towards Traoré stems from establishing himself “as a standard-bearer in resisting ‘imperialism’ and ‘neocolonialism’.” Via “vigorous social media promotion, he has gained huge support for this stance and personal popularity among young people across the continent and beyond,” ever since seizing power in September 2022. Far from just talk, Traoré and his fellow AES “junta” leaders have systematically sought to neutralise malign Western influence locally, while pursuing left-wing economic policies for the good of their populations.

France and the US have proven markedly powerless to hamper, let alone reverse, this seismic progress. While officials in Paris and Washington hitherto relentlessly hammered AES’ members over “democracy and human rights” concerns, the BBC reports such considerations will be wholly “absent from the agenda” when State Department officials now visit Mali. In other words, the Empire recognises it no longer has the ability to dictate the composition or policies of regional governments and must engage administrations on their own terms.

‘Despotic Governments’

While generating only occasional mainstream interest, the push by Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to rid themselves of Western imperialism has been remarkable in its scope and efficacy. French and US media programmes and channels have been blocked throughout AES. In August 2022, Paris’ forces were sent packing from Mali after a nine-year-long occupation. Two years later, Russian soldiers took over an airbase in Niger housing American forces at the government’s invitation, after authorities demanded Washington withdraw from the country.

These purges have had a knock-on effect in the wider region. For example, in November 2024, Chad abruptly terminated a military agreement, ending France’s long-running occupation of the country. Around the same time, Senegal demanded that the French close their military base in Dakar. The last troops departed in July 2025, leaving Paris with no permanent installations in Central or West Africa. Meanwhile, efforts by AES members to drive Britain, France, and the US out of every major sector of their economies are ongoing.

Right when Chad and Senegal were bidding bon voyage to French forces, Niger seized control of local mining firm Somaïr, a component of state-owned French nuclear company Orano. Somaïr provided a quarter of the uranium supply to European nuclear power plants. Resultantly, EU imports of uranium from Russia rose by over 70%, despite the supposedly crippling sanctions imposed over the Ukraine proxy war. In another bitter irony, Moscow has concurrently cemented itself as a close partner of AES member states in economic and military fields.

This burgeoning relationship has triggered a predictable chorus of condemnation and fearmongering from Western journalists, politicians, and pundits. Yet, a March 2024 poll published by the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation found 98% of Malians approve of their country’s bond with Russia, with 83% being “very satisfied” and 15% “rather satisfied”. More generally, the same survey highlighted how Mali’s “junta” enjoys overwhelming public support, about which Western governments can only fantasise.

In all, 81% of respondents believed life in Mali had improved since the military administration took power. A staggering 99% expressed satisfaction with the work of security forces, 95% were optimistic about the country’s future prospects, and 87% rejected calls for an election. Similar results were found in a poll of Burkina Faso’s population in August. A stunning 66% of citizens said it was legitimate for the military to seize power, if “elected leaders abuse their power for their own interests.”

As a fascinating paper by Senegalese academic Ndongo Samba Sylla forensically details, ever since supposed independence was granted to Africa in the 1960s, France and other imperial powers have worked concertedly to ensure its constituent countries are ruled by pliant puppets. Along the way, the West has “shown no scruples in backing odious civilian or military regimes” favourable to their interests. This produces “choiceless democracies” across Africa, with “despotic governments” that come to power “through fraudulent elections and…do not create any welfare for their people.”

‘Lasting Solutions’

Sylla cites the example of Chad, where France sustained a corrupt, brutal dictator, Idriss Deby Itno, in office 1990 – 2021. Following his death, Emmanuel Macron diplomatically backed his son’s “unconstitutional succession”. The French President’s unabashed advocacy for an illiberal, nepotistic power grab is to be contrasted with Macron’s furious censure of the military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, demands they hold elections, and calls for “financial sanctions from African countries, the Wes,t and its financial institutions.”

France could impose sanctions directly on the trio due to Paris’ control of the Central Bank of West African States, the financial arm of ECOWAS. Membership ties states to the CFA Franc, a currency created after World War II that allowed Paris to maintain grossly iniquitous trading relationships with its African colonies, when its economy was ravaged and its overseas empire rapidly unravelling. The CFA Franc makes it cheap for members to import from France and vice versa, but prohibitively expensive for them to export elsewhere.

Such forced dependency creates a captive market for the French, and by extension, Europe, decisively blunting local development. Member states are impotent to enact meaningful policy changes, as they lack control over their own economies, forced to take orders from the IMF, World Bank, and Western investors. As Sylla remarks: “No matter who you elect, they will have to stick with the basic economic policy blueprint.” Creating a replacement currency is AES’ next major challenge – although its members have already started constructing a central bank.

AES’ continued existence and successes are anathema to Paris. Since “decolonisation” in Africa in the early 1960s, the French have launched 50 overt interventions in Africa, which doesn’t account for assassinations of anti-imperialist leaders, palace coups, rigged elections, and other skullduggery employed to maintain France’s mephitic, exploitative grip over its former holdings. Delusions of keeping the continent wedged under their heels have not faded, despite the dramatic collapse of French power locally. In April 2024, General Francois Lecointre, former French Army Chief of Staff, declared:

“What we Europeans have in common is the Mediterranean and Africa, where our destiny is at stake…Europe will have an obligation to return to Africa to help restore the state and bring back administration and development. It’s not China, Russia, or Wagner [Group] who are going to provide lasting solutions to the very great difficulties facing these African countries and their people.”

Residents of AES evidently beg to differ, and stand ready to defend their leaders from foreign destabilisation. US officials aren’t unwise to the region’s new power dynamic. In an October 2025 interview with Le Monde, Trump confidante and State Department senior advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos, rejected any suggestion Washington would criticise the Sahel’s military governments, as while “democracy is always appreciated…people are free to choose whatever system is appropriate for them.” The anti-imperialist struggle continues apace in Africa – and for now, revolutionaries are winning.

[…]

Via https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/collapsing-empire–us-bows-to-african-revolutionaries

Douliery Olivier/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)

J.D. Tuccille

After threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act to put down sometime-violent protests in Minneapolis with military force, President Donald Trump appears to have backed off, standing-down the troops slated for deployment. That’s a win for domestic peace, reducing the chances of worse conflict on city streets than we’ve already seen over the past year. It’s also a boon for taxpayers, given the high price tag—a half-billion dollars to date—that comes with deploying soldiers to patrol American communities.

Military Occupation of American Cities

In response to vigorous resistance to the Trump administration’s often-brutal immigration enforcement, the federal government several times deployed National Guard and active-duty military personnel to American cities. In the name of suppressing crime (in the nation’s capital) and protecting federal personnel and property, the president sent or attempted to send troops to Democrat-led cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, Memphis, Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. The deployments look as much like schemes to humiliate the president’s political opponents as they resemble enforcement of federal policy.

Judicial responses to the deployments have been mixed, though leaning toward deep skepticism. A federal judge ruled that use of the National Guard and Marines in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts domestic use of the military. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked military deployments to Chicago, also with reference to the limited permissible use of the military. Now, with tensions rising, the White House looks to be pausing its efforts to militarize immigration enforcement.

Given the conflict we’ve already seen related to immigration enforcement, including the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, that’s a relief to those of us hoping to avoid worse social unrest and to avert—or at least delay—what appears to be a looming national cataclysm. But at a time of rising federal deficits and debt and semi-serious attempts to slash government expenditures, stepping back from sending troops into the streets could also save money.

Deployments Come With a High Price Tag

“Since June 2025, the Administration has deployed National Guard personnel or active-duty Marine Corps personnel to six U.S. cities: Los Angeles, California; Washington, D.C.; Memphis, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon; Chicago, Illinois; and New Orleans, Louisiana,” the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) responded to a query from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D–Ore.). “The Administration has also kept 200 National Guard personnel mobilized in Texas after they left Chicago. CBO estimates that those deployments (excluding the one to New Orleans, which occurred at the end of the year) cost a total of approximately $496 million through the end of December 2025.”

The CBO analysis makes clear that calculating future costs is a bit speculative because of variables that are unknowable ahead of time. These include the size of potential troop deployments, duration of their stay, and expenses that might be greater or lesser depending on locations where troops could be sent. Also, legal challenges to the domestic use of the military might raise costs or lower them. That said, the CBO can look to costs incurred in 2025 and extrapolate to similar situations going forward.

The High Cost of Future Occupations

“The factors CBO used to estimate the costs of deployments in 2025 suggest that continuing the ongoing deployments at their size as of the end of 2025 would cost $93 million per month,” the report noted. “More generally, deploying 1,000 National Guard personnel to a U.S. city in 2026 would cost $18 million to $21 million per month, depending mainly on the city’s cost of living.”

To arrive at its figures, the CBO looked at the cost of transporting, feeding, and lodging troops while they’re deployed. In the case of National Guard troops the costs are particularly high because they are added to the federal payroll, while active-duty personnel are already being paid.

“When National Guard members are called to federal service, they are compensated at the same rate as personnel in the military’s active component,” the report explained. “Using DoD’s 2025 budget documentation, CBO estimates that the increase in military personnel costs associated with activating National Guard troops—that is, the average increase in costs when changing Guard personnel from nonmobilized to mobilized status—is approximately $95,000 per person per year, or $260 per person per day.”

Those costs aren’t just a matter of pay; they also reflect the expense of benefits for Guard personnel and their dependents—healthcare, in particular—with such costs put at $9,100 per person per year, or $25 per person per day. Mobilizations, as the CBO points out, typically last longer than actual deployments. Each day Guard troops spend on duty brings them closer to qualifying for Veterans Administration benefits including education and disability (if they’re injured while in uniform).

These costs add up. While the CBO puts the costs of new urban deployments between $18 million and $21 million per month in each city, maintaining the nearly 3,000 troops currently deployed to pricey Washington, D.C. comes in at $55 million a month.

Additional Costs to Life, Liberty, and Political Culture

Basically, maintaining a domestic security force to enforce locally unpopular policies and to intimidate political enemies is really expensive. It’s an expense that raises tensions in a country already simmering with partisan hatreds, in which people openly discuss “national divorce” and don’t debate whether America’s near-term political future will be violent, but just how violent.

[…]

Via https://reason.com/2026/02/04/deploying-troops-to-u-s-cities-cost-half-a-billion-dollars-in-2025/