
Alex Soros fumes at left-wing climate group over 'Palestine' obsession: 'What the hell'
Alex Soros, the son of notorious billionaire George Soros and chair of the Open Society Foundations, took aim at a left-wing climate group, saying: "All they do is talk about Palestine."
In an interview with New York Magazine in which he detailed his plans to fund efforts to foil the Trump administration's agenda, Soros expressed his frustration with the leftist environmentalist group "Sunrise Movement," which is heavily funded by Soros-backed organizations.
"What the hell did they do, by the way?" Soros, who is Jewish, complained. "We gave them money, and now all they do is talk about Palestine. It's ridiculous."
During the 2020 election season, Sunrise Movement, whose website says it wants to "force the government to end the era of fossil fuel elites," received nearly a third of its funding from the Soros-backed Democracy PAC and Sixteen-Thirty Fund, totaling $750,000.
Shortly after receiving these funds, Sunrise stepped into a massive controversy sparked by its Washington, D.C., chapter posting an antisemitic statement in which it vowed to boycott any events co-sponsored by "Zionist" Jewish groups.
In an October 2021 statement on "future coalition spaces with Zionist organizations," Sunrise DC said it was declining to participate in a D.C. statehood rally specifically because of the inclusion of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, the National Council of Jewish Women and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, which it said "are all in alignment with and in support of Zionism and the State of Israel."
Sunrise DC called Israel a "colonial project" that "treats all Palestinians, as well as Black and brown Jewish-Israelis, as second-class citizens." The group went on to ask the event organizers to remove the Jewish groups from participation, saying that the D.C. statehood movement is "incompatible with Zionism."
The statement was quickly slammed as blatantly antisemitic.
One user named Blake Flayton, a Jewish podcaster, called out the group, commenting, "You are intentionally pushing Jewish people outside of your movement."
"You are associating Jews in the United States with the actions of Israel," added Flayton. "This is antisemitic. You are antisemites."
In a follow-up post published several days later, Sunrise DC apologized for singling out the three Jewish organizations while not mentioning other groups associated with the event "with similar positions." The group doubled down on its stance against Zionism, calling it an "ideology that has led to Palestinians being violently pushed out of their homes since 1948."
The group said it was "committed to learning and growing as we continue to stand against Zionism, antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism, and all other forms of oppression."
This post was also widely panned as antisemitic, with one user named Joel Petlin commenting that Sunrise was "trying to get out of a hole they dug for themselves by digging it deeper."
"*We apologize for singling out 3 Jewish organizations when we should've singled out everyone who doesn't hate Israel* is not actually an apology. It's just doubling down on Antisemitism," said Petlin.
This past October, Sunrise Movement published a long Instagram post railing against Israel, saying, "Climate justice means freedom for Palestinians."
"Why? Because Israel's ongoing oppression of Palestinians means they will suffer some of the most devastating impacts of climate change, and Israel's constant bombing harms the climate, ultimately harming us all," Sunrise Movement continued. "While committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the Israeli military – which is backed and armed by the US – has released more carbon emissions than 20 of the world's most climate-vulnerable nations combined.
Democrats and left-wing leaders have long called criticisms of George Soros, who is a Hungarian-born Jew, antisemitic attacks. However, the Soros family's funding of progressive anti-Israel agitators across the country, including those who mobilized at New York City's Columbia University, has raised eyebrows as well.
Fox News Digital previously reported on Israel's minister of diaspora affairs and social equality, Amichai Chikli, saying that Alex is a mirror image of his father's anti-Israel agenda.
When asked if Alex will continue to fund anti-Israel entities that bash the Jewish state, Chikli said it "looks like the son is a replica of his father. We have no expectation that his son will be a big Zionist."
Chikli noted that the Soros foundation "gives money to radical small Palestinian organizations in Israel that describe Israel as a colonial state and a moral sin."
Fox News Digital reached out to Open Society Foundations and the Sunrise Movement for comment, but neither responded in time for publication.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Federal panel rules in favor of state in Arkansas congressional redistricting lawsuit
(Getty Images) A three-judge federal court panel on Friday dismissed with prejudice a case challenging Arkansas' congressional district map. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas by a group of voters and the Christian Ministerial Alliance. It claimed boundaries for Arkansas' 2nd Congressional District were racially gerrymandered and diluted the votes of Black Arkansans. Congressional and state legislative districts are redrawn after the U.S. Census each decade in a process known as redistricting. The goal is to create districts that contain roughly the same population. The Ministerial Alliance's lawsuit was one of four filed to challenge Arkansas' 2021 redistricting process and the only one that hadn't been dismissed. On Friday, U.S. Circuit Judge David Stras, U.S. District Judge D.P. Marshall Jr. and U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. granted the state's motion for summary judgment, saying there was not enough evidence to support the plaintiffs' racial discrimination claims. 'Multiple Arkansas citizens challenge how the General Assembly redrew the state's congressional district lines,' Friday's order states. 'Although their allegations were plausible enough to survive a motion to dismiss [Docs. 35, 42], the evidence does not back up their claims of racial discrimination. For that reason, we grant summary judgment to Secretary of State John Thurston.' Thurston, who was secretary of state when the lawsuit was filed in 2023, was elected state treasurer in 2024 during a special election. The governor appointed Cole Jester to succeed Thurston. Previously, the entirety of Pulaski County was included in Arkansas' Second Congressional District, which is represented by Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill. During the 2021 redistricting process, Pulaski County was split between three congressional districts. Plaintiffs alleged the General Assembly considered racial data when redrawing district lines and unconstitutionally 'cracked' the Black voting bloc in southeast Pulaski County. The state's attorneys submitted a motion for summary judgment in favor of the state last October. According to Friday's order, the original complaint alleged two constitutional claims — one for racial gerrymandering under the Fourteenth Amendment and one for vote dilution under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The federal panel said race needed to be 'the predominant factor' motivating the General Assembly's decision and that awareness or acceptance of a 'racially disparate impact is not enough.' Three-judge panel hears arguments but doesn't rule in Arkansas redistricting lawsuit Creating 'an alternative map' is one way to prove redrawn boundaries were racially motivated, the panel said. However, that only works if the alternative map still accomplishes the Legislature's partisan goals. 'If it does not, then it just highlights how the pursuit of a nonracial aim — like retention, partisanship, or geography — could have led to an unintended racial disparity,' the panel wrote. 'All three of the plaintiffs' alternatives fall short in exactly this way.' Citing a U.S. Supreme Court reversal of a decision by a three-judge panel that found South Carolina had discriminated against Black voters in a 2023 redistricting lawsuit, Stras and his counterparts noted the high court emphasized that the courts must 'start with the presumption that the legislature acted in good faith.' 'Absent direct evidence of racial discrimination and with only weak circumstantial evidence supporting the plaintiffs' case, the presumption of legislative good faith tips the balance,' Stras wrote. That coupled with the fact that no alternative map achieves the General Assembly's goals with 'significantly greater racial balance,' meant the judges could not reasonably find that the plaintiffs had proved enough for their claim of racial gerrymandering to survive summary judgment, according to the ruling. The primary obstacle of the presumption of good faith holds true for the plaintiffs' vote-dilution claim, according to Friday's order. While the vote-dilution claim requires race to be a 'motivating factor' instead of the predominant one, the panel argued 'the plaintiffs do not have enough evidence to get there.' 'Most of what the plaintiffs offer are the materials we have already discussed: maps, statistics, and legislative history, none of which are enough to infer a racial motivation,' the panel wrote. The federal judges acknowledged as evidence a report from a university doctoral candidate that describes Arkansas' 'long history' with racism and resistance to Black voters, but wrote that much of that predates the passage of the 1964 Voting Rights Act. 'Even if he identifies a few scattered examples since then, none are 'reasonably contemporaneous with the challenged decision,' giving us little insight into what the General Assembly may have been thinking four years ago,' the panel wrote. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

19 minutes ago
Israel arming Gaza militias fighting Hamas, Netanyahu says
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has confirmed Israel is arming militias in southern Gaza that are opposed to Hamas. Netanyahu admitted to the arrangement after Israeli politician Avigdor Lieberman, formerly the country's deputy prime minister and minister of defense, told the press about it on Thursday. "What did Lieberman leak? That on the recommendation of security officials we launched groups that oppose Hamas?" Netanyahu said during a press availability. "What is wrong with this? It's only good. it saves the lives of Israeli soldiers. But the publication of this is only good for Hamas." Netanyahu has faced internal criticism in Israel for the move, including from Lieberman, a long-time political rival. Aid distribution on indefinite pause The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation closed its aid distribution sites on Friday, without giving a date on when they would reopen, as Palestinians in Gaza remain at risk of extreme starvation and famine, the United Nations and other aid groups have warned. The GHF has previously paused aid delivery in Gaza earlier this week after several people died and were injured trying to reach the sites to obtain food, according to eyewitness reports on the ground, international aid organizations working in Gaza and the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. The majority of victims suffered gunshot wounds, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged they "carried out warning fire approximately half a kilometer from the aid distribution center, targeting a few individuals who were approaching in a way that posed a security threat," in a video statement by IDF spokesperson Effie Defrin. The GHF, a joint operation by the U.S. and Israel, is now the only major organization delivering aid in the war-torn Gaza Strip. The U.N. has said Aid distribution resumed at two sites on Thursday before being put on hold again Friday. The GHF asked people to stay away from the distribution sites for their "safety," it said in a post on social media on Friday. This comes after the Israeli government imposed an 11-week blockade on all humanitarian aid entering Gaza. The Israeli government said the blockade was put in place to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages being held in Gaza. Food distribution centers in southern Gaza have been overrun with thousands and thousands of Palestinians in search of food and medicine after the partial lifting of the Israeli blockade. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it has responded to five mass casualty incidents, four of which occurred in the last 96 hours alone in a statement Tuesday.

Epoch Times
21 minutes ago
- Epoch Times
Hakeem Jeffries Declines to Say Whether Democrats Should ‘Embrace' Musk
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Friday cautiously avoided saying whether Democrats should seize on Elon Musk's public falling-out with President Donald Trump as an opportunity to forge political ties with the tech billionaire. Musk and Trump clashed openly on Thursday over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act budget legislation, which is pending in the Senate after narrowly passing the House last week. Musk, aligning himself with the fiscally conservative wing of the Republican Party, criticized the Trump-backed legislation as rife with pork barrel spending and raised alarm over its potential to exacerbate the national debt, which is approaching $37 trillion.