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Kanye West: ‘Watching Jonah Hill in 21 Jump street made me like Jewish people again’
(JTA) — Kanye West announced on Saturday that he now is a fan of Jewish people, reversing the stance he revealed back in October when he vowed to “go death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.”
The latest twist in a saga that has fueled antisemitic rhetoric across the United States was prompted, West said on Instagram, by seeing the Jewish actor Jonah Hill in the 2012 buddy cop comedy “21 Jump Street.”
“Watching Jonah Hill in 21 Jump street made me like Jewish people again. No one should take anger against one or two individuals and transform that into hatred towards millions of innocent people,” West wrote in a caption accompanying an image of the movie poster. He later added, “Thank you Jonah Hill I love you.”
West also included a line that echoed some of his earlier self-defense: “No Christian can be labeled antisemite knowing Jesus is Jew.”
West had previously indicated that his October tweet — which caused him to be suspended from social media, criticized from all corners and cut loose from a deal with Adidas — was prompted by anger at specific Jewish people he knew in the entertainment industry.
The tweet also resulted in West consorting with the far right: In late November, he had dinner with former President Donald Trump and Nick Fuentes, a right-wing provocateur and avowed antisemite. Several days later, he spent three hours as a guest on “Infowars,” the streaming show hosted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in which West proclaimed multiple times that he loved Adolf Hitler.
Pictures of the Goyim Defense League banners supporting Kanye West’s comments about Jews went viral after they were captured in Los Angeles, Oct. 22, 2022. (Screenshot from Twitter)
The Anti-Defamation League last week said that nearly 60 antisemitic incidents in last year’s highest-ever total in the United States involved direct references to West, who also goes by Ye. Members of the Goyim Defense League, one of the country’s most active white supremacist groups, unfurled a banner in Los Angeles and broadcast a light show in Florida with the words “Kanye is right.”
West has a long track record of provocations, as well as a history of bipolar disorder that he has said causes him to become paranoid. He has also said it is “dismissive” to question whether he has stopped taking his medication whenever he “speaks up.”
West’s post about “21 Jump Street,” the only one on his recently restored Instagram account, elicited a slew of jokes. “Bro is gonna convert to Judaism after he sees Superbad,” one Twitter user wrote, naming another Hill film. The Jewish comedian Alex Edelman offered a suggestion, naming the notoriously antisemitic head of the Nation of Islam: “Does anyone know somebody who can screen 21 Jump Street for Louis Farrakhan?”
Hill has not yet commented publicly on West’s latest comments. The actor starred in the recent comedy “You People” about a relationship between a Jewish man and a Black woman. The movie, which included West’s music on its soundtrack, was meant to show how “people grow to understand each other” through challenging encounters, its producer said.
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The post Kanye West: ‘Watching Jonah Hill in 21 Jump street made me like Jewish people again’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.