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Netanyahu and Elon Musk talk antisemitism, judicial reform during friendly chat streamed on X
(JTA) – Elon Musk is famous for cracking down on staffers who criticize him, whether at Tesla, the electric car company he owns, or at X, the social media platform he purchased and renamed from Twitter.
So his confession to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the pair’s livestreamed conversation on Monday was notable.
“I, to be frank, probably got the most negative pushback from people at Tesla about this interview than anything else I’ve ever done,” Musk said.
Netanyahu and Musk entered the conversation dogged by criticism, Musk over his inflammatory statements about a Jewish civil rights group that has sought to tamp down hate speech on X and Netanyahu over his government’s efforts to overhaul Israel’s judiciary. In that context, Monday’s conversation was perhaps an opportunity for the two men — both right-wingers who trumpet the promises of technology — to find respite in a friendly conversation. Netanyahu wore a dark suit with an Israeli flag lapel pin. Musk, also the CEO of SpaceX, wore a partially unbuttoned white shirt and blue blazer with a patch that appeared to show spacecraft.
Israeli tech workers abroad, many living in the San Francisco Bay Area where the conversation took place, have been leaders in the movement of expats against the judicial overhaul. Musk mentioned anti-Netanyahu protests in San Francisco as he let Netanyahu know that he had faced criticism for choosing to sit down with the Israeli prime minister.
Local Jewish leaders in the Bay Area say the prime minister declined to meet with them during his visit to the area, which precedes his appearance at the United Nations in New York later in the week. The area’s Jewish Community Relations Council, which tried to set up a meeting with Netanyahu, sent him a letter referencing Musk’s inflammatory statements.
“We hope that you use your position of leadership to press for sorely needed reforms to protect Jews and other minorities from rising hate online,” the letter said. “Just last week, X owner Elon Musk fanned the flames of antisemitism by demonizing the Anti-Defamation League and amplifying white supremacist conspiracies.”
The letter also said that any changes to Israel’s judicial system need to occur via consensus, and urged the prime minister “to work with the president and opposition leaders to heal today’s divides and forge a unified path.”
Speaking with Musk, Netanyahu laid out his defense of the judicial overhaul, saying it was an effort to curb “the most activist judicial court on the planet,” and that he hoped to be a moderate consensus-builder. He added, “Israel will always be a democratic country.”
Regarding the protesters, Netanyahu said his conversation with Musk was “a good opportunity to tell people who are protesting, too, at least so they know what they’re protesting about. Because I think many of them don’t know. And there’s a concerted effort to make sure they don’t know.”
The two men appeared to get along, riffing on James Bond and “The Terminator,” and expressing admiration for Jewish science-fiction author Isaac Asimov. Musk also reminded the audience that he briefly attended a Hebrew preschool as a child in South Africa, and quipped, “I can sing a pretty good ‘Hava Nagila.’” At one point, Netanyahu asked what Musk would do if he were the “unofficial president” of the United States. (Musk, who was born in South Africa, is ineligible to become U.S. president.)
But Netanyahu also used the conversation to gently push Musk to consider how he can balance combating hate and maintaining a commitment to free speech on X.
The conversation followed accusations of antisemitism against Musk after he spent the past two weeks lambasting the Anti-Defamation League, which he blames for tanking X’s ad revenue, and threatening litigation against the Jewish civil rights group. During that time, he has also engaged with white supremacists on the platform. On Sunday, he posted that George Soros, the progressive Jewish megadonor and frequent target of antisemitic conspiracy theories, seeks “the destruction of western civilization.”
“I know your commitment to free speech. I respect that because it’s the foundational thing of democracies, really,” Netanyahu said. “But I also know your opposition to antisemitism. You’ve spoken about it, you’ve tweeted about it. And all I can say is I hope you can find within the confines of the First Amendment the ability to stop not only antisemitism, or roll it back as best you can, but any collective hatred of a people that antisemitism represents. And I know you’re committed to that. I hope you succeed in it. It’s not an easy task. But I encourage and urge you to find a balance. It’s a tough one.”
Musk responded that he is “against attacking any group. Doesn’t matter who it is.”
He added, “I’m in favor of that which furthers civilization and which ultimately leads us to become a space-bearing civilization where we understand the nature of the universe. So we can’t do that if there’s a lot of infighting and hatred and negativity. Obviously I’m against antisemitism.”
The conversation segued into a referendum on civilization. “If someone were, say, completely self-centered, how would you feel if you don’t have civilization?” Musk said. “It’s very easy to figure out. Just go into the forest with nothing. See how long you want to live there.”
“See how long you live. You’ll die very quickly,” Netanyahu said.
“I know, exactly,” Musk replied. “So, civilization, as it turns out, is pretty nice.”
The event had been marketed primarily as a chance to discuss the broader implications of artificial intelligence, which Netanyahu has previously discussed on the phone with Musk. They also participated in a roundtable discussion on artificial intelligence that also included Greg Brockman, the president and co-founder of artificial-intelligence company OpenAI, and Max Tegmark, a futurist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor whose father is Jewish.
Musk has connections to both men: He was a founding board member of OpenAI and is a funder of Tegmark’s organization, the Future of Life Institute, which last year reportedly offered a grant to a Swedish pro-Nazi newspaper. During the roundtable, Netanyahu praised a book Tegmark wrote without mentioning his connection to the Nazi outlet.
Netanyahu sat on the sidelines of the A.I. roundtable that followed his conversation with Musk. The guests, Brockman and Tegmark, afforded Netanyahu little attention, beyond a brief mention by Brockman of the many Israelis who work at Open AI. At multiple points, the prime minister tried to press them on whether the advancement of A.I. technology would lead to a “concentration of power that will create a bigger and bigger distance between the haves and the have-nots,” but none of the futurists offered much sympathy for this point, and Tegmark likened Netanyahu’s concern to worrying about “hunter-gatherers” during the Industrial Revolution.
During their one-on-one conversation, Musk told Netanyahu that he thought A.I. was “potentially the biggest civilizational threat.”
“When you’re talking about having something that is an intelligence far in excess of the smartest human on earth, you have to say at that point, who’s in charge?” he added. “Is it the computers or the humans?”
Netanyahu hopes to position Israel as an A.I. industry leader, joking at one point, “You know what A.I. stands for. It stands for America and Israel, obviously.” He called the looming influence of A.I. “a choice between two things, a blessing and a curse,” comparing the dilemma to one posed by Moses when he “steered the children of Israel to the promised land.”
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The post Netanyahu and Elon Musk talk antisemitism, judicial reform during friendly chat streamed on X appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Suffered Over 18,000 Terror Attacks in 2024, New Government Report Says
Israeli forces stand near the scene of a shooting attack in Jaffa, Israel, Oct. 1, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Israel endured over 18,000 terrorist attacks last year in which nearly 150 people were killed as the Jewish state faced an onslaught of terrorism from seven fronts in the Middle East, according to a new Israeli government report.
The National Public Diplomacy Directorate in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday released its annual “Summary Report on Terrorism Against Israel” for 2024. The report gathers information and data from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Israel Police, the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), and the emergency and rescue authorities.
In total, there were 18,665 terrorist attacks in Israel last year in which 134 people were murdered and another 1,277 were injured. A summary of the report noted that Israel “was attacked from seven fronts: Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen, and from within Israel.”
The report listed each attack as a single incident. For example, an incident in which several explosive devices were used was tallied as one attack.
The bulk of the incidents in 2024 were rockets fired at the Jewish state from terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon. Indeed, 15,400 rockets were launched from Lebanon and crossed into Israel, and approximately 700 rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip and crossed into Israel. Such “high-trajectory fire,” according to the report, resulted in 55 deaths and 699 injured people.
Hamas and allied Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, such as Islamic Jihad, fired several rockets into Israel last year as the IDF was waging its military campaign in the enclave. However, rocket fire from Gaza diminished in comparison to the last quarter of 2023, as Israel increasingly decimated Hamas’s weapons stockpiles and military capabilities. The report did not seem to count misfired rockets directed at Israel that fell prematurely in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah relentlessly pummeled northern Israeli communities with rockets, missiles, and drones almost daily throughout most of 2024, until a ceasefire agreement was reached in late November. The barrages forced roughly 80,000 Israelis to evacuate the country’s north.
The fighting to Israel’s south in Gaza and to its north in Lebanon was prompted by Hamas’s brutal invasion of the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023, which launched the war in Gaza and led Hezbollah to begin attacking in solidarity with Hamas.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran, which has long provided the Islamist terrorist groups with weapons, funding, and training.
Beyond rockets, 399 hostile unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) crossed into Israeli territory last year and caused significant damage, according to the report.
The rocket fire and UAVs together killed 71 people, 14 of whom were children, and injured 892 others. In addition, they caused 610 fires, which burned 92,417 acres of land belonging to the Nature and Parks Authority and more than 42,749 acres of agricultural land. Hundreds of acres of crops were burned in northern Israel as well.
The Houthis in Yemen were responsible for many of the projectiles fired at Israel from places other than Gaza and Lebanon, with the Iran-backed terrorist group joining its Islamist allies in attacking Israel following the outbreak of the conflict with Hamas.
About 1,900 other terrorist attacks were perpetrated against Israel in 2024, including stone throwing, Molotov cocktails, vehicle rammings, shootings, stabbings, assaults, explosive devices, and throwing objects.
The most common type of attack was stone throwing, with 1,248 incidents, followed by throwing objects, arson, and tire burning (162), throwing Molotov cocktails (140), shootings (132), explosive devices (89), stabbings (41), assaults (29), and vehicle rammings (26).
The shooting attacks last year resulted in 41 murders — including 13 hostages who were murdered in Hamas captivity with their bodies returned to Israel — and 108 injuries.
July 2024 had the highest number of non-rocket or UAV terrorist incidents with 191 attacks.
However, October had the greatest number of rockets fired at Israel, with more than 6,900 launches. It was also the most violent month, in which 37 people were murdered and 394 injured.
The post Israel Suffered Over 18,000 Terror Attacks in 2024, New Government Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Gaza 70-Degree ‘Cold’ Chills Media Curiosity as New York Times Depicts Israel as Baby Killer
A general view shows destroyed buildings in northern Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, near the Israel-Gaza border, Nov. 11, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The “cold” temperatures in Gaza have been a staple of New York Times and other news coverage — and of anti-Israel activism in the US — in recent weeks. But just how cold is it, actually, in Gaza?
“At Least 5 Babies Are Dead From Cold as Winter Grips Gaza,” was a Dec. 31, 2024 headline in the New York Times. “Dead From Cold” was something of a euphemism, as the real baby-killers, the Times made clear with echoes of classical libels against Jews, were the “Israeli military’s bombardment and attacks.”
Toward the end of the article came a mention of “more heavy rain expected in the coming days, and lows in the mid-40s Fahrenheit.”
The Times doubled down on this with a follow-up piece in its Jan. 2, 2024 edition headlined, “No Respite for Gazans as the War Grinds On.”
“Over the past few days, Gazans have endured chilly winter rainstorms; Gazan officials say some infants have died from the cold,” the article said, with no mention of any temperature readings.
Such claims were widespread. “Born at war, dying in the cold,” was an NBC News headline. “Babies are dying in the cold,” said a Washington Post article published on Jan. 6, about “at least seven infants in Gaza who have died in the cold in recent weeks, according to relatives, doctors, and the enclave’s Health Ministry.” The Post, too, made clear who the real baby-killers were — the Jews — referring to :ongoing Israeli restrictions on aid convoys.”
So, how cold has it been in Gaza? According to TimeAndDate.com, which seems reasonably reliable, the coldest it got in Gaza City for the entire month of December 2024 was 45 degrees Fahrenheit. On Dec. 25 the temperature hit 70 degrees. According to Google, the weather in Rafah, Gaza on Jan. 7, 2025 was sunny with a high of 69, a low of 51, and zero precipitation. Not exactly the Yukon permafrost.
Any infant’s death is tragic. It is indeed possible to die of hypothermia in wet conditions in the 40s, especially without adequate shelter and clothing. Yet it’s also possible to survive in even lower temperatures, even without a fire.
You wouldn’t know it from the press coverage, but infants also do die for reasons other than cold or Israeli bombardment. In New York City in 2021, 400 infants died before their first birthday, for causes including respiratory distress, infections, cardiovascular disorders, sudden infant death syndrome, and congenital malformations. The Times has paid those New York City deaths less attention than the ones in Gaza, perhaps because they don’t provide as ready an opportunity to vilify the Jewish state.
The “Gazan officials” the Times mentions are part of a Hamas power structure dedicated to defaming Israel. Those officials use information as warfare against the Jewish state they are dedicated to destroy. The Gaza doctors are largely the same. Any claims coming out of Gaza deserve to be treated with a substantial dose of skepticism. They often reflect not so much the reality on the ground but the propaganda agenda of what remains of the Hamas terror organization.
Time and time again, the most extreme claims coming out of Gaza have proven false. There was the New York Times claim that Israel had bombed a hospital. The Times published an editors’ note after it had accompanied the original claim with a photograph of a different demolished building, and after it turned out that the damage to the hospital site was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket meant for the Jewish state, not an Israeli air strike targeting terrorists in Gaza.
There was also the New York Times claim that Israel was starving Gazan children to death, which left out the UN statistics showing Gazans about as well fed as children in India, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.
Now the Times and the rest of the media crowd are claiming that Gazan children are freezing to death in a place that enjoys 70-degree sunshine during the day and 40-50 degree lows at night.
For sure, I’d rather be here in the US than there in Gaza. I don’t doubt that some young Gazan children are genuinely miserable. There are also Israelis who are miserable because they are in bomb shelters hiding from Iranian-supplied rockets and missiles, and because their family members are kidnapped or serving on reserve duty.
The best way to improve the lot of innocent Gazans would be for Hamas and Islamic Jihad to immediately put down their arms, surrender, and release to freedom the hostages who were kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023.
The coldest things of all in Gaza are the hearts of the Hamas terrorists. That is a fact that the international press, in its newfound fascination with the not-actually-that-frosty Gaza weather, seems intimidated by, and also a fact that the press is all too frequently unwilling to share directly with readers.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
The post Gaza 70-Degree ‘Cold’ Chills Media Curiosity as New York Times Depicts Israel as Baby Killer first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Free Palestine’ Activist in Arizona Wearing ‘Israel Kills Children’ T-Shirt Gets Arrested After Refusing to Leave Gym
A pro-Palestinian activist who was kicked out of a gym in Gilbert, Arizona, and arrested after he wore a shirt that read “Israel Kills Children.” Photo: Screenshot
A pro-Palestinian activist wearing an offensive T-shirt critical of Israel was kicked out of a gym in Gilbert, Arizona, and arrested this week after he ignored requests by gym management to leave the premises.
The man, who goes by the social media handle Resistance is Beautiful, posted videos of the incident on Wednesday on Instagram. It began when he was exercising at a Life Time gym in Gilbert while wearing a black short-sleeve T-shirt that said “Israel Kills Children.” He said that when he arrived at the gym and was checked in, a gym employee told him that he needed to take off the shirt, whose message was an apparent commentary on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war falsely accusing the Jewish state of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. He refused to take off the shirt.
Shortly afterward, the gym’s manager approached the activist and told him that he must leave the premises for not having “an active membership, or the gym would call the police. When the activist refused to leave the facility, police were called to escort him out of the building.
“You don’t have an active membership so I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the gym’s manager, Mike Esposito, said to the anti-Israel activist in a video shared on Instagram.
“I just paid for my membership, what do you mean?” the activist replied. “I pay for my membership … I’ve been a member here for three years. Payment goes through every month.”
“Someone from corporate … the cops are on their way,” Esposito said. “Your membership is not active so we called the police because you’re trespassing here in the club.”
The activist then asked Esposito, “Is the problem the shirt? Or is it the skin color?” He also told the manager: “You know where there are no more gyms left? In Palestine. Because you guys bombed it all. Are you offended by the shirt or the fact that you guys kill all the Palestinians in the gyms over there [in Gaza]. Is the problem the shirt?”
Esposito, who is reportedly not Jewish or Israeli but of Italian descent, ignored the man’s questions about the T-shirt and his remarks about Palestinians. Instead, the manager repeatedly said that the activist does not have an active membership at the facility. “You just don’t have an active membership, so right now you’re trespassing because you’re in the club without an active membership,” he said. “We have to ask you to leave.”
Two Gilbert police officers arrived not long afterward and arrested the anti-Israel activist for trespassing. Before they escorted him out of the gym, he told police, “There’s a Holocaust going on in Palestine … there are no more gyms left in Palestine, you guys bombed all of them. Free Palestine.” He also shared that he wore the “Israel Kills Children” T-shirt previously at the gym, and staff members told him in the past that it was offensive. “They’ve always said, ‘Oh that shirt is offensive.’ You know, typical Gilbert white supremacy stuff,” he said.
The founder, CEO, chairman, and president of Life Time is Bahram Akradi, who was born in Tehran, Iran, and emigrated to the US months before the 1979 Iranian revolution. He founded the chain of gyms in 1992.
The activist was released from the Gilbert police station shortly after the incident at the gym. “There is no greater honor in the world than to sit in a jail cell for Palestine,” he said in an Instagram video posted on Wednesday after his release. “And we’ll do it over and over and over again until we break this enemy and we get Palestine back. That’s my word.”
The man has shared other photos and videos on social media of him clashing with police officers in Gilbert, trespassing while carrying a Palestinian flag and getting arrested for his anti-Israel activism. He also shared clips of himself wearing other anti-Israel shirts, including one that read “Israel is a terrorist project, Free Palestine,” and another that said, “Israel KILLS and America covers it up.”
The post ‘Free Palestine’ Activist in Arizona Wearing ‘Israel Kills Children’ T-Shirt Gets Arrested After Refusing to Leave Gym first appeared on Algemeiner.com.