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Joe Rogan’s Troubling Anti-Israel Podcast Episodes
At 14.5 million followers, The Joe Rogan Experience consistently tops the charts as the most popular podcast on Spotify.
With 16 million subscribers on YouTube and millions more on Apple Podcasts, it is clear that Joe Rogan’s unique interviews and charismatic personality both resonate with — and influence — a wide audience.
Part of the appeal of The Joe Rogan Experience is that it covers topics that are generally considered controversial, and features interviews with people who hold ideas that are seen as being outside the mainstream.
Naturally, this means that the podcast has touched on Israel and the Jewish people in the past.
However, just because The Joe Rogan Experience’s brand isn’t scared to go outside the mainstream, that doesn’t absolve the podcast of spreading misinformation by either Rogan himself, or one of his guests.
Here are just some of the times that Joe Rogan enabled the spread of anti-Israel misinformation or dangerous stereotypes about the Jewish people on his podcast.
Joe Rogan: Israel Is Committing Genocide
During a podcast interview with comedian Kurt Metzger recorded at the end of March 2024, Joe Rogan said that Israel’s ongoing defensive war against Hamas was tantamount to genocide due to the number of civilian casualties caught up in the fighting.
Rogan then went on to engage in Holocaust inversion, claiming that Israel was okay with imitating what was done to the Jews during the Holocaust. According to Rogan, “You guys [Israel] are willing to do what was done to you that led you to believe that you needed to start your own country? You’re willing to do that on a small scale in Gaza.”
Rogan also allowed his guest to openly claim that Israel’s war conduct in Gaza was worse than that of Putin’s Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, and that Israelis hated Palestinians as part of a “racial thing.”
Joe Rogan Defends “All About the Benjamins” Tweet
In 2019, Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar publicly commented on US Congressional support for Israel, tweeting “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby,” asserting that bipartisan support for the Jewish state is a result of lobby money and not shared values between the two countries.
With its allusions to the classic antisemitic stereotypes of Jews and money as well as dual loyalty, Omar’s tweet aroused a media firestorm and she subsequently apologized for her statement.
In February 2023, following a US House of Representatives vote to oust Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, her 2019 tweet arose as a topic of discussion between Joe Rogan and his guest, Krystal Ball.
Rogan jumped to the defense of Omar, quipping that her 2019 tweet was “not an antisemitic statement, I don’t think that is. Benjamins are money. The idea that Jewish people are not into money is ridiculous. That’s like saying Italians aren’t into pizza, it’s f—-ng stupid.”
Later, Rogan concurred with Ball’s assertion that the pro-Israel lobby movement and money are responsible for “uniparty consensus around our policy vis-à-vis the Israeli government and a total inability and unwillingness to criticize the Israeli government.”
Joe Rogan Interviews Roger Waters
For years, Roger Waters has spent his time spreading a wide variety of absurd claims about Israel, Zionism, and the Jewish people — some of which have crossed the line into outright antisemitism.
So, it was only natural that when he appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience in October 2022, the famed musician would take some time to spread his latest conspiratorial talking points about the Jewish State.
However, as pointed out by many on social media at the time, rather than push back against Waters’ extreme rhetoric, Rogan simply nodded along and even responded positively to some of Waters’ assertions, granting them an air of legitimacy.
As detailed at the time by the pro-Israel blog site Israellycool, some of the most egregious statements made by Waters during his Joe Rogan Experience interview included:
The claim that Israel behaves like “people in the past behaved towards Jews in northern Europe” [i.e. Nazis].
A legitimization of Hamas as the “democratically elected government of Gaza”; the claim that Hamas rockets are “ineffectual”; and the implicit validation of Hamas’ anti-Israel terrorism as “resistance” against occupation.
That Israel is hoping for another Palestinian intifada as a pretense “to kill them all.”
The oft-repeated claim that an Israeli audience reacted negatively to Waters’ suggestion at a 2006 concert that it was incumbent upon this generation of Israelis to make peace with the Palestinians, even though audio footage from this concert belies his claims.
Joe Rogan Hosts Abby Martin
In 2017, Joe Rogan hosted independent journalist and former Russia Today host Abby Martin on his podcast, giving her a platform to spread her anti-Israel libels and misinformation.
As noted by the UK-based Israel Advocacy Movement in its takedown of Martin’s untruths following her appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, these are the most egregious claims that Rogan allowed Abby Martin to make without any pushback:
The claim that Palestinian political parties are illegal in the West Bank.
That Palestinians who share incitement to violence against Israelis and Jews on social media are punished based on how popular their posts are.
Her claim that someone she had interviewed had been shot in her vagina during a “peaceful protest” even though the woman admitted in her original interview with Martin that she had been shot in the leg while attempting to slingshot Israeli forces during a violent riot.
The absurd claim that 200 Palestinians had been shot during this violent riot even though there are no reports that it ever occurred.
The claim that Israel has a policy called “shooting to cripple,” where Israeli forces shoot men in their genitalia.
That barely any Palestinians are allowed to pray at the Dome of the Rock, “the most holy site in Jerusalem” (which also goes to show her general ignorance about the region in general).
The baseless claim that Arabs and Jews have different license plates (as opposed to different license plates in Israel and the Palestinian Authority).
The claim that Israel is a “white nationalist ethno-supremacist state.”
The claim that the UN “partitioned a country on top of another country” even though there was no independent state in the area during the 1947 UN vote.
That Israel has been the “crux of so many problems in the world.”
Despite the above examples, there have been other occasions where Joe Rogan has interviewed pro-Israel voices or made positive comments about Israel and the Jewish people on his podcast.
Unlike some of his guests, Rogan does not appear to have an inherent animus against the Jewish state. However, his apparent lack of understanding of the topic has allowed for the spreading of extreme and absurd claims about Israel and the Jewish people without any resistance.
As someone with an audience of millions of followers around the world, Joe Rogan has a responsibility to do better and not to allow his podcast to serve as a jump-off point for the proliferation of such baseless and dangerous claims.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Joe Rogan’s Troubling Anti-Israel Podcast Episodes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Says He Expects Gaza War to Reach ‘Conclusive Ending’ in 2-3 Weeks
US President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing-in ceremony of Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, May 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
US President Donald Trump said on Monday he expects the ongoing war in Gaza to reach a “conclusive” end within the next two to three weeks, even as ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas remain unresolved.
Speaking alongside South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at the White House, Trump told reporters he believed a resolution was close. “I think within the next two to three weeks, you’re going to have a pretty good, conclusive ending,” he said.
Trump also urged Americans not to forget the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust that started the war in Gaza.
“It has to end, but people can’t forget Oct. 7,” Trump said.
Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages while perpetrating rampant sexual violence during their onslaught, which led Israel to wage a military campaign aimed at freeing those who were abducted and dismantling Hamas’s rule in neighboring Gaza.
The comments came as Israel continued to deliberate over a ceasefire proposal agreed to by Hamas last week. Though Israel has not given an official answer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjmain Netanyahu said he commenced negotiations to secure an end to the war and a return of the remaining hostages.
The proposal, brokered by the US, Egypt, and Qatar, calls for a 60-day truce during which Hamas would free 10 living hostages along with the deceased bodies of 18 others. In return, Israel would release significantly more Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, and partially pull back its forces in Gaza.
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Cornell University Takes Cleaver to Budget Amid Trump Crackdown
Illustrative: Cornell’s anti-Israel divestment protests on May 25, 2024. Photo: USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.
Cornell University is taking a cleaver to its budget amid what it described as a “contraction” in government funding caused by the Trump administration’s impounding $1 billion previously awarded to it via research grants and federal contracts as punishment for its alleged nonresponse to campus antisemitism.
“Urgent action is necessary, both to reduce costs immediately and to correct our course over time — achieving an institutional structure that enables us to balance our budgets over the long term,” Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff wrote in a letter to the campus community. “Our work toward this goal will progress in several phases, beginning with immediate budget reductions already underway for the current fiscal year across our Ithaca, Cornell AgriTech, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Cornell Tech campuses.”
He continued, “Hiring on all campuses remains restricted indefinitely, with rare exceptions from campus-based position control committees.”
Cornell announced the cuts even as it inches closer toward a reported $100 million settlement with the federal government to restore the confiscated funds. It has already resorted to borrowing, having placed over $1 billion in bonds on the market since April — according to Bloomberg — and refused to publicly discuss the decision.
Cornell University has seen a series of disturbing antisemitic incidents since the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre perpetrated by Hamas across southern Israel.
Three weeks after the atrocities which ravaged Israeli communities, now-former student Patrick Dai threatened to commit heinous crimes against members of the school’s Jewish community, including mass murder and rape. He was later sentenced to 21 months in federal prison.
Cornell students also occupied an administrative building and held a “mock trial” in which they convicted then-school president Martha Pollack of complicity in “apartheid” and “genocide against Palestinian civilians.” Meanwhile, history professor Russell Rickford called Hamas’s barbarity on Oct. 7 “exhilarating” and “energizing” at a pro-Palestinian rally held on campus.
Cornell University and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) sparred all of last academic year, with SJP pushing the limits of what constitutes appropriate conduct on campus. In September, school officials suspended over a dozen SJP affiliated students who disrupted a career fair, an action which saw them “physically” breach the area by “[pushing] police out of the way.” In February, the university amnestied some of the protesters, granting them “alternate resolutions” which terminated their suspensions, according to The Cornell Daily Sun.
In January, anti-Zionist agitators at Cornell kicked off the spring semester with an act of vandalism which attacked Israel as an “occupier” and practitioner of “apartheid.” The students drew a blistering response from Kotlikoff, who said that “acts of violence, extended occupations of buildings, or destruction of property (including graffiti), will not be tolerated and will be subject to immediate public safety response,” but the university has declined to say how it will deal with the matter since identifying at least one of the culprits in February.
Other elite colleges may soon face the same hard choices as Cornell.
Just last week, the US Department of Education began investigating Haverford College over alleged violations of civil rights laws stemming from inadequate responses to antisemitism.
“Like many other institutions of higher education, Haverford College is alleged to have ignored antisemitic harassment on its campus, contravening federal civil rights laws and its own anti-discrimination policies,” acting civil rights secretary Craig Trainor said in a statement. “The Trump administration will not allow Jewish life to be pushed into the shadows because college leaders are too craven to respond appropriately to unlawful antisemitic incidents on campus.”
Earlier this month, a coalition of leading Jewish civil rights groups called on the higher education establishment to prioritize fighting campus antisemitism during the upcoming academic year, citing an unrelenting wave of anti-Jewish hate that has swept the US in recent years.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Jewish Federations of North America, Hillel International, and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations issued a joint statement, putting forth a policy framework that they say will quell antisemitism if applied sincerely and consistently. It included “enhanced communication and policy enforcement,” “dedicated administration oversight,” and “faculty accountability” — an issue of rising importance given the number of faculty accused of inciting discrimination.
“These recommendations aren’t just suggestions; they’re essential steps universities need to take to ensure Jewish students can learn without fear,” ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “Jewish students are being forced to hide who they are, and that’s unacceptable — we need more administrators to step up.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, colleges campus across the US erupted with effusions of antisemitic activity following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, an uprising which included calling for the destruction of Israel, cheering Hamas’s sexual assaulting of women as an instrument of war, and dozens of incidents of assault and harassment targeting Jewish students, faculty, and activists.
At the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), anti-Zionist protesters chanted “Itbah El Yahud” at Bruin Plaza, which means “slaughter the Jews” in Arabic. At Columbia University, Jews were gang-assaulted, a student proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, and administrative officials, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting. At Harvard University, an October 2023 anti-Israel demonstration degenerated into chaos when Ibrahim Bharmal, former editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo encircled a Jewish student with a mob that screamed “Shame! Shame! Shame!” at him while he desperately attempted to free himself from the mass of bodies.
More recently, Eden Deckerhoff — a female student at Florida State University — allegedly assaulted a Jewish male classmate at the Leach Student Recreation Center after noticing his wearing apparel issued by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“F—k Israel, Free Palestine. Put it [the video] on Barstool FSU. I really don’t give a f—k,” the woman said before shoving the man, according to video taken by the victim. “You’re an ignorant son of a b—h.” Deckerhoff has since been charged with misdemeanor battery.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Trump Admin Reviewing Visa Applications of ‘Terrorist Sympathizers’ Set to Appear at Pro-Palestinian Conference
Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The US State Department is actively reviewing the records of foreign speakers at the upcoming People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit for potential ties to terrorism, The Algemeiner has learned.
A spokesperson for the State Department told The Algemeiner that officials have “noted” the conference, which is set to take place from Aug 29-31, and will also watch out for visa applications for invited international speakers, citing a preponderance of “terrorist sympathizers” on the program’s lineup.
“Given the public invite lists seems to include a number of terrorist sympathizers, we are going through and ensuring all international speakers slated to attend the conference are being placed on a ‘look out’ status for visa applications, so we are alerted if a request is submitted and can ensure they are appropriately processed,” the spokesperson said.
“In every case, we will take the time necessary to ensure an applicant does not pose a risk to the safety and security of the United States and that he or she has credibly established his or her eligibility for the visa sought, including that the applicant intends to engage in activities consistent with the terms of admission,” the spokesperson added.
The People’s Conference for Palestine will feature dozens of anti-Zionist activists, academics, artists, and political organizers, including US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
Tlaib’s appearance at last year’s iteration of the conference sparked intense backlash, with critics pointing out the event’s connections to Wisam Rafeedie and Salah Salah, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization.
The conference is convened by a coalition that includes the Palestinian Youth Movement, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, among others. Several of these groups have maintained ties with PFLP, openly supported boycott efforts against Israel, and called for an arms embargo in the wake of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. The programming highlights sessions on “Documenting Genocide” and “Breaking the Siege,” rhetoric that critics argue mischaracterizes Israel’s actions as it seeks to defend itself against terrorist attacks following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
The Detroit gathering is expected to attract thousands of attendees, with dozens of speakers and activists scheduled to participate. Among the roster are well-known anti-Israel figures such as Linda Sarsour, Miko Peled, and Chris Smalls.
The planned presence of several alleged “foreign terror sympathizers” has sparked outrage among observers.
Abed Abubaker, a self-described “reporter” from Gaza, is expected to make a physical appearance at the Detroit conference later this month. Abubaker has repeatedly praised the Hamas terrorist group as “resistance fighters” on social media and won a “journalist of the year” award from Iran’s state-controlled media outlet PressTV. In a January 2025 social media post, he showered praise on long-time Hamas leader and Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, saying that the terrorist’s “love of resistance and land is seen very clearly.” In a March 2025 post, Abubaker argued that international supporters of the Palestinian cause should “attack your governments.” He also defended Hamas’s murdering of dissidents, saying that the victims were “collaborating” with Israel.
Since returning to the White House earlier this year, the Trump administration has launched a major overhaul of the US visa system, part of what officials have described as an effort to root out individuals sympathetic to terrorism or those espousing antisemitic views. The sweeping measures include expanded social media vetting for new applicants, continuous monitoring of the 55 million current visa holders, and the revocation of thousands of student visas.
The Trump administration’s sweeping visa crackdown has ensnared high-profile foreign academics and students, fueling outrage among pro-Palestinian activists. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese professor at Brown University, was deported after officials flagged content on her phone as sympathetic to Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist group. Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and green-card holder, was arrested and assigned criminal charges for alleged ties to Hamas before he was released. At Tufts University, Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk was detained after co-authoring an opinion piece on Gaza.