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Kash Patel's country singer girlfriend fends off ‘disheartening' conspiracy theories she's honeypotting the FBI boss

Kash Patel's country singer girlfriend fends off ‘disheartening' conspiracy theories she's honeypotting the FBI boss

New York Post3 days ago
FBI director Kash Patel's girlfriend Alexis Wilkins has been forced to fend off the 'incredibly disheartening' conspiracy theories that she is honeypotting the bureau's head honcho for a foreign government.
The 26-year-old country artist said the skeptics are contorting her backstory, even as she acknowledged she can 'understand' it.
'I think people see certain pieces and I get it,' Wilkins told the 'Megyn Kelly Show' on Wednesday.
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'They want to connect things, they want to justify, some of the pain that they've been through watching the last four years, and there's pieces of this that, you know, I can understand,' she continued.
'I think that they've taken just these pieces of evidence that you laid out and tie them together in all of the wrong ways.'
4 FBI director Kash Patel's girlfriend Alexis Wilkins denied being a spy for a foreign government.
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4 Alexis Wilkins expressed her frustrations at dealing with conspiracy theories about her relationship with FBI Director Kash Patel.
The Megyn Kelly Show / YouTube
Conspiracy theories about Wilkins exploded on the internet after the Justice Department and FBI's July 6 memo about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which concluded that the evidence suggests Epstein killed himself in prison and did not keep an 'incriminating client list.'
Some of the trolls speculated that the Arkansas-raised singer was a Mossad agent intended to compromise Patel, 45, and at least one of them misidentified her as Jewish.
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One thread used to make that conspiratorial leap is Wilkins' work for PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that seeks to educate the public on key political issues.
The CEO of PragerU, Marissa Streit, previously served in the Israeli army.
Wilkins is Armenian and Christian and does not appear to have any known ties to Israel.
4 Alexis Wilkins began dating FBI Director Kash Patel years before he began leading the bureau.
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When Kelly asked point-blank whether she was a spy for any foreign government, Wilkins replied, 'Definitely not, that is a firm no on that front.'
Earlier this month, the country singer ripped into the online conspiracy theorists, raging that they are 'farming' for attention 'because their engagement dried up after Trump's win.'
'It's disappointing to see people with no real contribution to political discourse spin ridiculous conspiracy theories out of thin air,' Wilkins bemoaned in an X post. 'These accusations are obviously insanely ridiculous.'
Patel and Wilkins met at a friend's event in Nashville in 2022 and began dating several months later in early 2023.
'We just happened to meet,' Wilkins recounted, noting that the 19-year age gap she has with him always felt irrelevant.
'I have always liked [him], when I met him, I just liked that he was so, so honest,' Wilkins gushed. 'He's exactly who he is all the time. His character is incredible. His values are incredible.
'We both are very patriotic. So obviously there are things there that we definitely agree on, but he's just the most honest, you know, most integrity I've really experienced in a person, he's fantastic.'
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The country singer, who hosts a Rumble show, acknowledged there's 'not enough information out there about me to glean a real conclusion on all of this kind of vigilante research.'
She mused that those gaps have given room for internet trolls to fill with conspiracy theories, which she lamented as 'incredibly disheartening.'
Patel has been 'very frustrated' and 'unhappy' with the hate and suspicion directed her way over the Epstein drama, Wilkins said.
4 Alexis Wilkins revealed that FBI Director Kash Patel is frustrated that she's taking heat.
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She also underscored that Patel's work on the Epstein drama is 'limited to the government side' and that she has 'no awareness besides what everyone else is seeing.'
'If people stop calling me a spy, absolutely,' she replied when asked if she wants to see more Epstein files released.
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U.S. envoy tells Israeli hostage families he is working on plan to end Gaza War
U.S. envoy tells Israeli hostage families he is working on plan to end Gaza War

CNBC

time2 hours ago

  • CNBC

U.S. envoy tells Israeli hostage families he is working on plan to end Gaza War

U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy told families of hostages being held by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Saturday that he was working with the Israeli government on a plan that would effectively end the war in Gaza. Trump has made ending the conflict a major priority of his administration, though negotiations have faltered. Steve Witkoff is visiting Israel as its government faces mounting pressure over the deteriorating humanitarian conditions in the enclave. In a recording of the meeting, reviewed by Reuters, Witkoff is heard saying: "We have a very, very good plan that we're working on collectively with the Israeli government, with Prime Minister Netanyahu ... for the reconstruction of Gaza. That effectively means the end of the war." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his remarks. Witkoff also said that Hamas was prepared to disarm in order to end the war, though the group has repeatedly said it will not lay down its weapons. In response, Hamas, which has dominated Gaza since 2007 but has been militarily battered by Israel in the war, said it would not relinquish "armed resistance" unless an "independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital" was established. Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza war and deal for the release of half the hostages ended last week in deadlock. On Saturday, Hamas released its second video in two days of Israeli hostage Evyatar David. In it, David, skeletally thin, is shown digging a hole, which, he says in the video, is for his own grave. "They are on the absolute brink of death," David's brother Ilay said at a rally in support of the hostages in Tel Aviv, where thousands gathered holding posters of those in captivity and chanted for their immediate release. "In the current unimaginable condition, they may have only days left to live." Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Sa'ar said the "world cannot remain silent in the face of the difficult images that are the result of deliberate sadistic abuse of the hostages, which also includes starvation". Witkoff, who arrived in Israel with Benjamin Netanyahu's government facing a global outcry over the devastation in Gaza and the starvation growing among its 2.2 million people, met the prime minister on Thursday. Afterwards, a senior Israeli official said an understanding between Israel and Washington was emerging that there was a need to move from a plan to release some of the hostages to a plan to release all the hostages, disarm Hamas and demilitarize the Gaza Strip, echoing Israel's key demands for ending the war. On Tuesday, Qatar and Egypt, who are mediating ceasefire efforts, endorsed a declaration by France and Saudi Arabia outlining steps toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As part of it, they said Hamas must hand over its arms to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. The crisis in Gaza has also prompted a string of Western powers to announce they may recognise a Palestinian state. On Friday, Witkoff visited a U.S.-backed aid operation in southern Gaza, which the United Nations has partly blamed for deadly conditions in the enclave, saying he sought to get food and other aid to people there. Dozens have died of malnutrition in recent weeks after Israel cut off all supplies to the enclave for nearly three months from March to May, according to Gaza's health ministry. It said on Saturday that it had recorded seven more fatalities, including a child, since Friday. Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, air drops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys. U.N. agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease the access to it. The Gaza war began when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel's offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

37 Times Celebs Revealed Their Biggest Secrets
37 Times Celebs Revealed Their Biggest Secrets

Buzz Feed

time4 hours ago

  • Buzz Feed

37 Times Celebs Revealed Their Biggest Secrets

In an Instagram Live, Cardi B revealed that when she worked as a stripper, she used to invite men back to her hotel room and drug and rob them. When this video resurfaced at the height of her fame, she wrote a response on Instagram, saying, "I never glorified the things I brought up in that live [video], I never even put those things in my music because I'm not proud of it." However, she wrote, "Whether or not they were poor choices at the time, I did what I had to do to survive." Snoop Dogg once revealed that he smoked weed in the White House. On his show GGN: The Double G News Network, he told Jimmy Kimmel that he excused himself to use the bathroom, telling the "alphabet boys" (the CIA or FBI) that he had to go "No. 2." He told them, "Look, when I do the No. 2, I usually, you know, have a cigarette or I light something to get the aroma right.' They said, 'You know what? You can light a piece of napkin.' I said, 'I'll do that.'" Indicated an imaginary blunt, he concluded with, "And the napkin was this." On Call Her Daddy, Miley Cyrus revealed that she lost her virginity at age 16 to Liam Hemsworth, who she dated for a decade afterward. However, she also revealed that she'd lied to him, telling him she was not a virgin "so I didn't seem like a loser." She actually gave him a name — this man later ended up marrying Hemworth's friend when Miley was 24, at which time she finally told Hemsworth the truth. In the interview, Cyrus also revealed she had been initially attracted to women (Cyrus is pansexual), and that her first sexual experience was with two other women who she went "past first base" with. She also talked about her preference for women's bodies, at least when it comes to foreplay. In her "Used to be Young" TikTok series, Cyrus also revealed more about her divorce from Hemsworth, saying she knew it was over with him just before going onstage at Glastonbury Festival in late June 2019. "Glastonbury was in June, which is when the decision had been made that me and Liam's commitment to being married really came from, of course, a place of love first — because we'd been together for 10 years — but also from a place of trauma and just trying to rebuild as quickly as we could," she said. "The day of the show was the day that I had decided that it was no longer going to work in my life to be in that relationship. So that was another moment where the work, the performance, the character came first." "And I guess that's why it's now so important to me for that to not be the case — that the human comes first," she added, mentioning how she's always dealt with past trauma through performance and work, until the pandemic forced her to slow down. A few years after her divorce from Russell Brand, Katy Perry revealed to Vogue that he had ended their marriage via a text message. "Let's just say I haven't heard from him since he texted me saying he was divorcing me December 31, 2011," she told the publication. She also revealed the heartbreaking moment she came to surprise him at one of his comedy shows, only to hear him making jokes about her, not knowing she was in the audience. However, Perry wouldn't reveal the "real truth" of why the relationship ended, which she found out after the fact, saying, "I can't necessarily disclose because I keep it locked in my safe for a rainy day." Probably one of the most bizarre entries on this list is that Keith Richards once snorted his dad's ashes along with some cocaine. "The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," he revealed in an interview. "He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared, he didn't give a shit. It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive." Last year, Dave Grohl admitted having had a child out of wedlock in an Instagram post, writing, "I've recently become the father of a new baby daughter, born outside of my marriage. I plan to be a loving and supportive parent to her. I love my wife and my children, and I am doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness. We're grateful for your consideration toward all the children involved, as we move forward together." In 2011, Arnold Schwarzenegger similarly revealed that he'd fathered a child with a woman on his household staff — back in 2001. She was kept on the staff while Schwarzenegger reportedly paid for the child's care, claiming all the while it was her husband's child. Schwarzenegger did not reveal the truth to his then-wife, Maria Shriver, until after his term as governor ended. The two ended up splitting. David Letterman also admitted his live TV after being extorted. In 2009, he found a box in his car with a letter that said, "I know you do some terrible things," and that the writer was working on a screenplay about Letterman. "He's going to take all this terrible stuff he knows about my life and put it in a movie unless I give him some money," Letterman later said the letter revealed. He was actually able to find out the identity of the blackmailer with the help of the Manhattan district attorney's office. CBS producer Robert J. "Joe" Halderman was arrested, and that very same night, Letterman went on his show and admitted, "Yes, I have had sex with women on my show." He was married at the time with a five-year-old child. In one of the biggest celeb reveals of the last few years, Pusha T basically revealed the existence of Drake's secret son in the diss track "The Story of Adidon" in 2018. The song calls Drake a "deadbeat" and says he has a four-month-old son named Adonis that he was planning to reveal in an Adidas campaign that summer. Drake would ultimately confirm Adonis' existence months later on his album Scorpion. In an interview for the 2003 documentary Living with Michael Jackson, Jackson admitted to sleeping in bed with young boys. "I've slept in the bed with many children. I'd sleep in the bed with all of them," he said. "When Macaulay Culkin [was] little, Kieran Culkin would sleep on this side, Macaulay Culkin's on this side. His sister's in there. We'd all just jam in the bed. And we'd wake up at dawn and go in the hot air balloon." When questioned on if this was "right," Jackson said, "It's very right, it's very loving. ... What's wrong with sharing the love?" He also said he had footage of them all sleeping together. On other occasions, Jackson denied sharing his bed with children, saying he'd slept on the floor: "I didn't sleep in the bed with the child. Even if I did, it's OK. I slept on the floor. I gave the bed to the child," he told 60 Minutes in 2003, the same year as the documentary referenced above. This was a bombshell revelation, given Jackson had settled in 1993 after being accused of child sexual abuse and was constantly plagued by rumors regarding his relationships with children. Jackson was later found "not guilty" in 2005 after another accusation, and the sexual abuse allegations continued after his death in 2009, most notably in the documentary Finding Neverland. Another unforgettable reveal comes from Frank Farian, a name you might not recognize. Back in the late '80s, R&B duo Milli Vanilli reached worldwide fame with their debut album, leading them to win the award for Best New Artist at the 1990 Grammy Awards. But producer Frank Farian soon revealed they didn't sing on their albums. When the two "singers" were confronted by the Los Angeles Times, member Rob Pilatus admitted it was true. "I feel like a mosquito being squeezed. The last two years of our lives have been a total nightmare. We've had to lie to everybody. We are true singers, but that maniac Frank Farian would never allow us to express ourselves," he said. The Grammys would then revoke their award and essentially end their careers. In 2020, Jada Pinkett Smith famously admitted to an "entanglement" with singer August Alsina while she and her husband, Will Smith, were separated but still married. She made this admission on an episode of her show Red Table Talk, with husband Will present. And in 2023, Jada Pinkett Smith revealed on The Today Show that she and Will had been separated since 2016, living "completely separate lives." She later revealed that she and Will had not referred to each other as "husband" or "wife" in years — and that she was surprised to hear Will refer to her as his "wife" when he slapped Chris Rock. The Smiths apparently do not plan on divorcing. Speaking of Will admitted in his memoir Will that he once considered murdering his father. This came decades after witnessing his father punch his mother in his youth, "so hard that she collapsed." He continued, "I saw her spit blood," stating that the moment — and his failure to stand up for her — defined who he is. As an adult caring for his father, who had cancer, he thought again of this moment. "One night, as I delicately wheeled him from his bedroom toward the bathroom, a darkness arose within me. The path between the two rooms goes past the top of the stairs. As a child I'd always told myself that I would one day avenge my mother. That when I was big enough, when I was strong enough, when I was no longer a coward, I would slay him." He realized, at the top of the staircase, "I could shove him down, and easily get away with it." However, "As the decades of pain, anger, and resentment coursed then receded, I shook my head and proceeded to wheel Daddio to the bathroom." In her memoir, Jessica Simpson admitted to having had an "emotional affair" with Johnny Knoxville. She was married to Nick Lachey at the time, though she said things never got physical. "But to me, an emotional affair was worse than a physical one," she wrote. "It's funny, I know, because I had placed such an emphasis on sex by not having it before marriage. After I actually had sex, I understood that the emotional part was what mattered. Johnny and I had that, which seemed far more of a betrayal to my marriage than sex." Britney Spears also had a lot to reveal in her memoir, especially when it came to her relationship with Justin Timberlake. In the book, she confirmed the longstanding rumor that she had cheated on Timberlake, revealing she'd made out with Wade Robson one night, but also said he had already cheated on her multiple times in their relationship. She also revealed that she'd had an abortion while the two were together and claimed she hadn't wanted to but that Justin had pushed her to abort. Prince Harry had plenty to reveal in his memoir Spare, including that the first time he had sex was "a humiliating episode with an older woman who liked macho horses and who treated me like a young stallion" and took place in a field behind a pub. He wrote, "I mounted her quickly, after which she spanked my ass and sent me away." He also revealed a story about getting frostbite on his penis after a charity expedition to the North Pole. His ears and cheeks also got frostbite, but quickly healed: "While the ears and cheeks were already healing, the todger wasn't. It was becoming more of an issue by the day," he wrote in the book. He tried using Elizabeth Arden cream, eventually giving in and going to a doctor when that didn't work. Unfortunately, he was still dealing with the issue at his brother William's famous wedding to Kate Middleton. One more Prince Harry reveal from his book: he clarified old reports about him and William not being circumcised. "Mummy had forbidden it, they all said, and while it's absolutely true that the chance of getting penile frostbite is much greater if you're not circumcised, all the stories were false. I was snipped as a baby," he revealed. Ariana Grande once seemingly revealed the size of Pete Davidson's penis, tweeting that it was "10 inches." Davidson denied the rumors, calling them "simply not true" and saying that Ariana "has very little hands. Everything is f—ing huge to her." In one of the more bizarre confessions in this post, Colin Farrell revealed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that he was once an attempted murder suspect. During a "true confessions" game, he said that as a teenager, he'd been brought in for questioning about an attempted murder — which, by the way, was never solved — because he looked like the pencil sketch of the perpetrator. "I was in Sydney, Australia, and I was pulled in by the cops. And they showed me a photo of the pencil sketch of the guy that had attempted to murder this other gentleman, had beat him up and left him in his own apartment and set the apartment on fire and split, thereby leaving the guy to burn to death, and it was me. They said, what do you think about that picture? And I went, 'I think I'm in trouble,'" Farrell revealed. "Yeah, it was terrifying. I was there for about six hours, and then thankfully, a friend of mine had kept a journal, and that particular night, and that particular time, we were at a party on the other side of town doing Ecstasy." In another bizarre confession, Kevin Gates once revealed he not only had sex with his cousin but continued a multiyear relationship with her. After the two were already sleeping together, he introduced her to his grandma, who revealed, "Baby, that's your cousin!" But, Gates continued, "I ain't about to stop! The damage has been done. I didn't know you my whole life. I just found this out. We've already been thuggin'. And we still good friends to this day." Halsey kind of iconically revealed that G-Eazy had cheated on her while performing onstage at SNL in 2019. During her performance of "Without Me," text appeared on the stage behind her, reading "I'm so sorry Ashley I cheated" with multiple places popping up, such as "At home in Los Angeles," and "In Minneapolis," along with "more places I can't even remember." Fans assumed this was in reference to Halsey's most recent ex. Hunter Schafer revealed that Dominic Fike had cheated on her during an episode of Call Her Daddy. She said she'd discovered his cheating by going through his phone, which she wasn't proud of. However, she chose not to go into more detail: "What happened with that was between me and him, and I want to keep it, and I want to protect that," she told host Alex Cooper. Also appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast, Megan Fox revealed the plastic surgeries that she's gotten done — a nose job and three boob jobs. She also said there's a third procedure that she's done, but she declined to say what it was. "There's one thing I had done that I'm gatekeeping because it was really good, and it's not a known plastic surgery. People don't even really know about it," she told Cooper. Kylie Jenner similarly admitted she had gotten lip fillers after long denying the rumors on an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. She later told Complex she had been worried about being a bad influence on young fans and that she "didn't want people to think you had to get your lips done to feel good about yourself." She continued, "But they thought it was crazier that I was lying about it because it was so obvious. I wish I had just been honest and upfront." After also having previously denied plastic surgery, Bella Hadid admitted to having had a nose job at 14 — and said she regretted it. "I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors. I think I would have grown into it," she said. However, she also said, "I have never used filler. Let's just put an end to that. I have no issue with it, but it's not for me. Whoever thinks I've gotten my eyes lifted or whatever it's called - it's face tape! The oldest trick in the book." In contrast, Heidi Montag revealed pretty much right away that she'd gotten plastic surgery at age 23. And not just one procedure — she'd gotten ten done in one day. "I think I look way better and I'm way happier," she told People. "Nobody ages perfectly, so I plan to keep using surgery to make me as perfect as I can be." Later, in 2018, she revealed she actually died for a minute as a result of the surgeries, scaring her husband, Spencer Pratt. "Spencer thought he lost me," she said. "My security guards called Spencer and told him, 'Heidi's heart stopped. She's not going to make it.' And I easily could've. Cutting yourself up isn't something I'd recommend." She has continued to express regret in later years, revealing she had long-term health complications and saying, "I was way too young to make such a life-changing decision." One more Call Her Daddy example: Cole Sprouse admitted on the podcast that he'd lost his virginity at age 14. He was on a family vacation in Florida and "met this girl who was older." After initially making out the first night, he knocked on her hotel door the next night and invited her to the beach. There: "I finally mustered up enough courage to deliver a line that my brother has never, ever let down for me. I looked at her, and I was like: 'So are you, like, DTF?' She goes: 'What?' And I go: 'You know, down to fuck?'" They had to kick Cole's brother Dylan and a friend out of the room, and Cole told Dylan "to go play chess or something." Cole revealed he "lasted about 20 seconds and never talked to her again." Ashton Kutcher has also told the story of the first time he had sex. He called his first time "horrible" and "really awkward" and said that it happened "out in the woods with a girl I had just met" when he was only 15. "The whole thing lasted two seconds," he said. However, a couple of years later, he had sex with her again "just to show her the first performance was a fluke and I'd gotten better.' Zayn Malik admitted he wasn't sure if he'd ever been in love, despite having been engaged and sharing a child with Gigi Hadid after a long-term relationship. "When you ask me, 'What is love?' I think the reason that's hard for me to answer that question is I don't know if I've ever actually truly been in love," he said, waxing poetic about what love is. While he loves his child, he said, he wasn't sure he'd been "in love with somebody who is a complete separate entity. They're not my family. I have no blood with them, like, 'I'm in love with this person.' I don't know." "You can never really pinpoint, I think, what is love. There's ways you can show love. You can express it. That's our human understanding of it, but what is love? It's an intangible thing, right? We can't hold it in our hands. It's not something that exists," he said. Looking back at times he thought he'd been in love, he said, "Your perspective changes it, right? You look back on it with new eyes, and you're like, 'Well, maybe I wasn't in love there.' But that's time. So, is it love? Or is it life experience that we are going through? Who knows?" Dax Shepherd similarly admitted in 2019 that he wasn't sure he wanted to be with Kristen Bell when they were first dating. "I never ever was like, 'Oh, I hope I can keep Kristen.' I was going, 'Do I want to be with a Christian, who has eight people living in her house for free, who has to get out of a car when there's a dog who doesn't have a leash and ruin her whole day to rescue this dog? That's great, and she's good, but that's not what I want to do," he said he thought. "I'm not that good. I don't want to spend my day finding the owner of a dog. So I wasn't fearful I would lose her. I wasn't certain I wanted to be with someone like that." Bell also admitted that the two actually broke up a few months into dating and that Shepherd was seeing other people. "He sat me down and said, 'I can't have this right now. I think you're wonderful, but I am still dating other people.' And then I, like, liquefied and fell to the ground, but I felt incredibly respected that he had the balls to tell me we weren't in the same place." However, Shepherd changed his mind, calling Bell to tell her, "I don't know what I was thinking. I was dating someone else, but they're just not as interesting as you, and I don't know what I'm doing." Bethenny Frankel admitted that she had never liked sex with her ex-husband Jason Hoppy, saying on her podcast that she used to have to "force" herself to have sex with him. "He used to say to me, 'You're like a block of ice,' because I did not want to be intimate. I did not want to have sex," she said. "I used to force myself, gag myself through doing it…it is torture." And finally, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Chad Kroeger revealed years ago to Playboy that he'd once performed oral sex on himself. So...I guess it is possible. What celeb reveal can you never forget? Let us know in the comments.

Growing number of Jewish American groups speak out over Gaza famine
Growing number of Jewish American groups speak out over Gaza famine

Yahoo

time4 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Growing number of Jewish American groups speak out over Gaza famine

As global outrage intensifies over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a growing number of prominent Jewish American organizations, including some traditional defenders of Israel, are speaking out and imploring the country to ensure that humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza. This week, a UN-backed food security group warned that a 'worst-case scenario of famine' is unfolding in Gaza and health authorities there report dozens of deaths from starvation. On Sunday, the American Jewish Committee, a prominent Jewish advocacy organization, released a statement affirming that it stands with Israel in what it described as 'its justified war to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas and secure the release of the remaining hostages'. At the same time, the group called for Israel to take steps to alleviate civilian suffering. 'We feel immense sorrow for the grave toll this war has taken on Palestinian civilians, and we are deeply concerned about worsening food insecurity in Gaza,' the statement read. 'We urge Israel, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the UN, and all responsible parties involved in aid distribution to increase cooperation and coordination in order to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Palestinian civilians in Gaza.' The GHF is an Israel- and US-backed aid group that has attracted condemnation for the killings of hundreds of civilians seeking food at the hands of Israeli forces and private contractors. The AJC statement reflected a cautious critique of Israel's aid blockade echoed by other groups noteworthy for their typically staunch support of the country, even as their statements condemned Hamas for refusing to release the Israeli hostages it continues to hold. The Reform movement in North America, which represents the largest Jewish denomination in the US, also issued a lengthy statement: 'Neither escalating military pressure nor restricting humanitarian aid has brought Israel closer to securing a hostage deal or ending the war,' it read. 'Hamas has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice the Palestinian people in its pursuit of Israel's destruction, but Israel must not sacrifice its own moral standing in return. Starving Gazan civilians neither will bring Israel the 'total victory' over Hamas it seeks, nor can it be justified by Jewish values or humanitarian law.' The Rabbinical Assembly, a New York-based association of conservative rabbis, said last week that they were 'increasingly concerned about the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza' and called for 'urgent action to alleviate civilian suffering and ensure aid delivery'. 'Even as we believe Hamas could end this suffering immediately through the release of the hostages and care for its civilian population, the Israeli government must do everything in its power to ensure humanitarian aid reaches those in need,' it added. 'The Jewish tradition calls upon us to ensure the provision of food, water, and medical supplies as a top priority.' Jewish groups associated with the left have been prominent fixtures at protests against Israel's offensive since it began. On Tuesday, 27 rabbis and Jewish clergy affiliated with the group Jews for Food Aid for People in Gaza were arrested at a protest in the Washington office of the Senate majority leader, John Thune. But it appears clear that discomfort has significantly broadened outside the Jewish left. On Monday, eight rabbis were arrested outside the Israeli consulate in New York while protesting against the humanitarian crisis in Gaza – including clergy who had not been so outspoken before. 'The protests we've typically seen at the Israeli consulate in places like that are from the further left of the community,' Phylisa Wisdom, executive director of New York Jewish Agenda, told Gothamist. 'This represents an escalation from rabbis in this political lane.' More than 1,200 rabbis have signed a public letter calling on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. 'The Jewish people face a grave moral crisis, threatening the very basis of Judaism as the ethical voice that it has been since the age of Israel's prophets,' reads the letter. 'We cannot remain silent in confronting it.' The developments reflect shifting public support for Israel and the Israeli government within the US, which has accelerated as the war has gone on. A recent Gallup poll reported that support for Israel's military action in Gaza has precipitously declined among US adults, and is now at 32% – the lowest reading since Gallup first asked the question in November 2023. Support for Israel drops further among younger Americans – including US Jews. 'It's a tense time in the Jewish family group chats,' Ezra Klein wrote in a recent New York Times column. 'The consensus that held American Jewry together for generations is breaking down.' While emotional attachment to Israel is widespread among Jewish Americans, polling has consistently found that support for the state's current policies drops with age, a phenomenon perhaps best reflected in the community's support for the New York Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, whom opponents have sought to tar with accusations of antisemitism over his vocal support for Palestinian rights. Despite those accusations, however, a recent poll found him leading with 67% of the votes of American Jewish voters in New York under the age of 44. That figure dropped to 25% of voters over 45. 'Zohran Mamdani's triumph in New York City's Democratic primary for mayor has forced, among many Jews, a reckoning with how far they have drifted from one another,' Klein wrote. Organizers of an action planned for Monday in New York City hope that groups that have not turned out before will do so to protest under the banner 'Jews Say: No More'. 'Our tradition teaches us that if we can protest [against] our people's actions and we don't, we are responsible,' said IfNotNow's executive director, Morriah Kaplan, in a statement to the Guardian. The group is helping organize Monday's action. 'As Jews and as Americans, whose government is funding this atrocity, we all must choose whether we want to bear responsibility for a policy of forced mass starvation.' The shift is also playing out within institutions whose members want their leaders to take a tougher stance on a country many had long reflexively supported. More than 200 alumni from Young Judaea, a Zionist youth group, this week called on the organization in an open letter to depart from its pro-Israel line to speak out against starvation in Gaza and call for a permanent ceasefire, including a release of the hostages. 'We see our families and friends, colleagues and teachers, rabbis and Jewish institutions – in Israel and abroad – join a growing movement to stand courageously in opposition to these policies,' the letter reads. 'Young Judaea cannot remain silent in this moment and maintain any moral credibility.'

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