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Conservative donor’s Nazi memorabilia collection in spotlight amid revelations about his Clarence Thomas ties
(JTA) – A collection of Nazi memorabilia on display at the home of Republican megadonor Harlan Crow has come under renewed scrutiny following revelations that Crow lavished Clarence Thomas with expensive, unreported gifts.
Crow has for more than two decades treated Thomas, the conservative Supreme Court justice, to complimentary vacations and private jet and yacht rides, according to a recent investigation by the news organization ProPublica. Thomas subsequently acknowledged that he failed to disclose those excursions, which analysts say is a likely violation of federal laws. Democratic senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced plans to hold hearings on the issue, while Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has even suggested Thomas should be impeached.
Crow is a Dallas-based real estate mogul who founded the conservative activist group Club For Growth. The news about his deep ties to Thomas has drawn renewed attention to his home’s extensive collection of Nazi artifacts, including a signed edition of Hitler’s antisemitic manifesto “Mein Kampf,” two of Hitler’s own paintings and a set of linens emblazoned with the Nazi insignia. Crow also maintains a garden full of statues of Communist leaders he calls the “Garden of Evil.” His other historical artifacts reportedly include documents signed by George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower’s military helmet.
Crow’s collection of Nazi memorabilia has generated controversy in the past, including in 2015 when then-presidential candidate Marco Rubio held a fundraiser at his house on the eve of Yom Kippur. At the time, the National Jewish Democratic Council and the Democratic National Committee heavily criticized Rubio’s decision to hold the fundraiser at Crow’s house. This go-around, the Jewish Democratic Council of America said it was “deeply disturbing” that Thomas’ “donor friend proudly collects Nazi memorabilia.”
The Nazi artifact market is contentious, with laws prohibiting it in some European countries and criticism of auction houses that sell the items fierce in places where it is permitted. Much of the criticism centers on the idea that the people purchasing the artifacts are sympathetic to the Nazis, although one frequent purveyor of Nazi artifacts in the United States told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last year that his typical buyers “are NOT neo-Nazis, who are too poor and too stupid to appreciate any kind of historic material.” In 2019, a Lebanese-French buyer of Nazi paraphernalia revealed that he was gathering the items to keep them out of the hands of neo-Nazis and turned them over to Jewish groups instead; others have indicated interest in purchasing the items to destroy them.
Crow keeps them on display. In the past, he has maintained that his interest in Nazi artifacts is purely historical. His mother, Margaret Crow, told local news outlets she was a survivor of the S.S. Athenia, the first British ship to be sunk by Nazi Germany during World War II.
In the wake of the recent reporting on Crow, some conservatives have defended his collection. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish, suggested on his podcast that the collection may be a way “to remember the things that you hate.”
Current and former staffers at the conservative publication The Dispatch, which Crow funds, also defended his collection. “I know Harlan Crow and I’m proud to call him a friend,” tweeted the columnist Jonah Goldberg, who is Jewish. Crow’s “Garden of Evil,” Goldberg said, is “an attempt [to] commemorate the horrors of the 20th century in the spirit of ‘never again.’”
And New York Times columnist David French, a former senior editor of the Dispatch, tweeted, “The idea that he’s a Nazi sympathizer is utterly ludicrous. He abhors tyranny, from fascism to communism to everywhere in between.”
Others criticized the public display of the artifacts. NBC News reporter Ben Collins, who reports on the far right and said his grandfather fought for the United States in World War II, said his family had recently found war artifacts “including some Nazi stuff” in a basement. “He didn’t put it in a special little room to show guests because he didn’t find horrible things cute and fun,” Collins tweeted.
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The post Conservative donor’s Nazi memorabilia collection in spotlight amid revelations about his Clarence Thomas ties appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The Netherlands Shows Her True Colors Once Again
A view shows the Peace Palace, which houses the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in The Hague, Netherlands, April 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
I never thought I would write these words, but I have lost respect for my own country. I say that with sadness, not anger. For years, I believed in the Dutch reputation for fairness, nuance, and moral clarity. Today, that image has crumbled. The way Dutch media covers Israel is not just biased; it is intellectually lazy, historically empty, and socially dangerous. Worst of all, it fuels a rising wave of antisemitism in a nation that should know exactly where that road leads.
The most recent example came from Trouw, a newspaper that once claimed to value journalistic integrity. It published an uncritical article praising the views of Ta-Nehisi Coates, who labeled Israel an “apartheid state.” That accusation was presented to readers as if it were self-evident truth, not an opinion. No context. No history. No pushback. No mention of equal rights for all Arab citizens. No mentions of terrorism, of facts on the ground, of the repeated rejection of peace initiatives, or of the lives Israelis have been forced to defend from relentless violence. It was a piece of writing that replaced journalism with activism, and knowledge with slogans.
If Dutch journalists insist on making comparisons, then honesty requires them to explain what real apartheid actually looked like. South Africa enforced legally defined racial categories, stripped millions of their citizenship, banned interracial marriage, separated schools, hospitals, beaches, toilets, buses, universities, and neighborhoods. Black South Africans were barred from voting, from certain jobs, and from owning land in most of the country. They were forced into impoverished “homelands,” denied freedom of movement, and subject to routine torture and violence by the state. None of this resembles Israel. Not even remotely.
But the truth no longer seems to matter in Dutch newsrooms. Nuance has disappeared. Context has vanished. Emotion has replaced evidence, and ideology has replaced inquiry. Israel is guilty by default, while its critics are treated as prophets whose words require no verification.
The Dutch media’s relentless one-sidedness reveals something deeper and more troubling than mere ignorance. It reflects a renewed comfort with blaming Jews for the world’s problems, a habit with a long and ugly history in Europe. When articles like the one in Trouw are circulated without challenge, they do not educate the public; they radicalize it. They normalize anti-Jewish hostility. They transform a complex conflict into a morality play, where Israelis are cast as colonial villains and Palestinians as blameless victims, regardless of reality.
As a Dutch citizen, I am ashamed. Ashamed of the intellectual laziness in our press. Ashamed of the moral posturing that ignores Jewish suffering. Ashamed of how quickly we have forgotten our responsibility to truth after the darkest chapter in European history. And ashamed that my country, once known for moral clarity, now prefers fashionable outrage over honest reporting.
Israel is not perfect. No nation is. But the apartheid accusation is not journalism. It is propaganda. And when the Dutch media amplifies it, they are not holding power to account — but are helping to spread a lie with real consequences for Jewish communities and for the possibility of peace.
It is time for Dutch journalists to rediscover integrity. And it is time for readers to demand it.
It is also time, more than ever, to stand up for Israel, because truth still matters.
Sabine Sterk is CEO of the NGO Time To Stand Up For Israel.
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Famine Claims in Gaza Fell Apart, But Western Media Outlets Never Reported It
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid and fuel line up at the crossing into the Gaza Strip at the Rafah border on the Egypt side, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in Rafah, Egypt, October 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
For months, Western media outlets amplified one of the most dramatic accusations of the Israel–Hamas war: that Israel was causing famine in Gaza.
The IPC, a UN-backed hunger monitor that has been criticized for faulty methodology, published a report in August 2025, claiming that over half a million Gazans were already experiencing famine. The report was shared and repeated across major outlets with almost no scrutiny.
Headlines warned of “mass starvation,” photos of emaciated children (mostly with pre-existing conditions) filled front pages, and Israel was vilified as deliberately starving civilians.
But when new data emerged that undermined the entire famine narrative, those same outlets suddenly lost their desire to report.
The updated numbers, released in July-August by the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC), a group of UN and other aid agencies, paint a starkly different picture.
The GNC found malnutrition rates roughly 23% lower than those used by the IPC. The highest rate measured was 11.9%, which is below the 15% malnutrition threshold that defines famine. This is not a minor revision. It is a total collapse of the most alarming claim made about Gaza’s humanitarian situation.
And yet, the media that treated the original IPC report as gospel did not cover this correction.
Not one major Western outlet ran a headline acknowledging that the famine claim had been based on flawed data. The story simply evaporated. No accountability. No follow-up. No explanation.
The Nutrition Cluster finally published the materials from their Sep 17 meeting, confirming that the IPC “analysis” was indeed based on fabricated data that misrepresented the raw, unweighted malnutrition statistics as if they were the properly age-weighted data required by IPC… https://t.co/WOk7RYOK3F pic.twitter.com/QQqfNNo41W
— Mark Zlochin – מארק זלוצ’ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) October 15, 2025
This silence matters.
The IPC’s famine declaration did not unfold in a vacuum. Its figures were used to hammer Israel diplomatically, spark UN condemnations, inflame protests, and put Jewish communities at risk worldwide.
Once “Israel is starving Gaza” became a viral talking point, it didn’t matter that Israeli officials and independent analysts questioned the report’s accuracy. It didn’t matter that key data was missing. It didn’t matter that the numbers were inconsistent or that the methodology was weak. What mattered was that the accusation fit the narrative, so it was believed.
Now we know more about those flaws. Critics pointed out that the IPC relied on incomplete datasets, pulled numbers from clinic-only screenings that do not represent the general population, and shifted to MUAC-only measurements — a quick arm-circumference test that is known to overestimate malnutrition. These issues were substantial enough to cast doubt on the entire famine declaration.
But instead of revisiting their own coverage, the same outlets that amplified the original claims chose to ignore the updated data. The famine panic was newsworthy; the correction, apparently, was not.
This is not just a journalistic failure. It’s a dangerous one. Once a humanitarian accusation of this scale is made, it becomes a weapon. It shapes protests, justifies threats, and fuels antisemitism. If the story collapses, but the media refuses to report it, the lie continues to live.
And this is exactly what happened.
Even as the GNC data undercut the famine claim, the global discourse remained stuck in August: Israel was still being accused of starving Gaza. The emotional imagery that accompanied the IPC report continues to circulate online. The outrage it generated still shapes public perception. The correction never got the same megaphone.
UN’s Gaza Famine Fraud Exposed:
IPC tested 15,700 kids for malnutrition in July and found 12%—below 15% famine threshold
Problematic. So what did they do?
Solved. Now UN can claim famine in Gaza!
Evidence & sources: pic.twitter.com/Re1grOvGsQ
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) August 24, 2025
This should be a wake-up call. In conflict zones, information is a battlefield, and humanitarian terminology, like “famine,” “siege,” or “starvation,” can be misused for political ends. When journalists fail to interrogate their sources or revisit their own reporting, misinformation hardens into “truth.”
Readers should take note: if journalists won’t be skeptical, you must be. Every dramatic humanitarian claim warrants scrutiny. Every alarming statistic should be questioned. Every institution, even UN-affiliated bodies, must be held accountable for accuracy. Because if not, falsehoods travel, outrage spreads, and real people pay the price.
In this case, Israel’s reputation was smeared, global discourse was distorted, and Jewish communities were exposed to heightened risk, all based on data that didn’t hold up. And the media, which should have corrected the record, simply looked the other way.
So next time a headline declares catastrophe, treat it with the skepticism journalists should have shown in the first place.
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.
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Why do people want ‘Zootopia 2’ to be about Israel?
This article contains spoilers for Zootopia 2.
Since Zootopia 2 takes place in a world of talking animals, it might be the last place one would expect to find commentary on Israel and Palestine. But several viewers have read the film’s plot — which concerns the division of Zootopia’s weather-controlled neighborhoods — as providing exactly that.
In this sequel to Disney’s 2016 animated hit, the sinister and wealthy Lynxley family plans to expand Tundratown, the part of the city where polar species reside, into Marsh Market. The Market is a home for already ostracized animals, such as aquatic mammals, and a hideout for reptiles, who were banished from the city. Because each neighborhood has a specific climate controlled by “weather walls,” the merging of one section with another would necessitate the immigration of those unable to live in the new climate.
The more powerful animals use a lot of hierarchical language referring to the “lower” or “lesser” species who would lose their homes because of this plan. Reptiles are also stigmatized as being “dangerous” due to a fatal incident a century earlier that involved a snake and a turtle. For viewers of the first film, which took on racial profiling, the existence of speciesism in the Zootopia-verse won’t come as a surprise. But what has captured viewers’ attention is the film’s discussion of the stolen Reptile Ravine neighborhood.
“Did Disney get tricked into making a pro-Palestine movie?” one user of the movie review platform Letterboxd wrote with their five-star rating. “Yes they did 🫡.”
Commenters under the review had mixed opinions:
“Do you seriously think a Zionist company made a pro-Palestine movie?” someone responded.
“Finally saw someone thinks so too, the ethnic cleaning theme is indeed pretty strong on this one,” said another user.
Some reviewers have also likened the plot to settler-colonialism, which feels like a bit of a stretch given that none of the animals in charge of the expansion travelled from one place to another in order to conquer it and therefore don’t really qualify as settlers. All of the contested land is already within the constituted borders of Zootopia, so the plan involves expanding the qualities of one neighborhood into another, not completely redrawing territorial boundaries.
A more apt comparison might be gentrification in American cities and the way that has impacted racial minorities. The buried reptile neighborhood feels more reminiscent of communities such as the San Juan Hill neighborhood in Manhattan that was eliminated by Lincoln Center or the Hayti community in Durham, North Carolina that was all but wiped out by a freeway and urban renewal. The accents, music, and general appearance of Marsh Market are clearly inspired by the American South, specifically the bayous of New Orleans, which have always been an important landmark in Black American culture.
Of course, it wouldn’t be wrong to also think of Palestinian towns that have been renamed and replaced with Israeli neighborhoods. And to get into the nitty gritty of gentrification versus settler-colonialism might seem futile — many activists and social scientists would probably tell you that despite being different strategies, they have the same oppressive result.
But why focus on Israel? Clearly, there are numerous examples of subjugation from across the world and across time that Zootopia 2 could be mirroring. Israel’s government is not the only entity to ever be accused of ethnic cleansing.
The focus on comparing the Lynxleys to Israel feels especially problematic in this case since the Lynxleys also operate the weather walls and are shown to secretly determine Zootopia politics. This would make the Lynxleys wealthy Jews who control the government and the weather.
Maybe because Israel and Palestine have taken over headlines, there is a recency bias influencing the comparisons people are making. It could also be because the star of Zootopia 2 has found herself at the center of controversy related to the recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last year, Ginnifer Goodwin, who voices the Zootopia protagonist Judy Hopps, was criticized for allegedly condemning the statement “globalize the intifada” as a threat to Jews and encouraging defunding UNRWA. Several months ago, that post was shared to a Boycott Divest Sanction subreddit, where users called for the boycott of Zootopia 2.
The post-credits scene of Zootopia 2 hints that avians will be at the center of a future film. Who knows how viewers will interpret the birds’ role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The post Why do people want ‘Zootopia 2’ to be about Israel? appeared first on The Forward.