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Netanyahu speaks with and praises Elon Musk, who has recently drawn criticism from multiple Israeli ministries
(JTA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he spoke by phone with Elon Musk on Sunday, calling the businessman and Twitter CEO “a person whose intelligence and contribution to humanity I greatly appreciate.”
The tech mogul, currently the world’s richest individual despite notching steep losses at Twitter, has drawn controversy for his tweets about the Holocaust survivor and liberal megadonor George Soros and about Israeli data on COVID-19. The U.S. antisemitism envoy, Deborah Lipstadt, decried the Soros tweets as trafficking in antisemitic tropes, while Israel’s health ministry called him out for sharing “fake news” about the country’s COVID record.
Netanyahu did not mention those recent statements in his account of their “long conversation,” instead noting that the two had discussed artificial intelligence, an area Musk is reportedly preparing to enter.
“He expressed his view that Israel could become a significant global player in the field,” said Netanyahu, who added that he planned to convene a team to bring more AI into Israeli society. He added, “Just as we turned Israel into a global cyber power, we will also do so in artificial intelligence.”
Musk himself has not addressed his phone call with Netanyahu. On Monday he planned to host a live event with Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has compared COVID-19 vaccines to “Hitler’s Germany.” Musk, too, has implied that the vaccines — which Netanyahu eagerly made Israel the first country to offer widely — are not needed, last week joining a Twitter conversation questioning Israeli data about the number of healthy Israelis who have died as a result of COVID-19.
Israel’s Health Ministry responded to him, saying, “Fake news is dangerous.” It was the second Israeli ministry to criticize Musk’s recent remarks, even as others in the government have praised him.
After Musk suggested that Soros “hates humanity” and “reminds me of Magneto,” the “X-Men” villain who is also a Holocaust survivor, Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League condemned his comments. Israel’s foreign ministry said he was encouraging antisemitism on the social media platform.
But the country’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, disavowed his own ministry’s critique. Also rushing to Musk’s defense was Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs who is charged with combating antisemitism.
A member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, Chikli praised Musk, tweeting that “the vast majority of Israeli citizens see Elon Musk as an amazing entrepreneur and a role model,” and added that criticizing Soros was “quite the opposite” of antisemitism. He later told The Atlantic that he had not been responding to Musk’s actual tweets about Soros, and refused to say whether he believed they were antisemitic.
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Tucker’s Ideas About Jews Come from Darkest Corners of the Internet, Says Huckabee After Combative Interview
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – In a combative interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, right-wing firebrand Tucker Carlson made a host of contentious and often demonstrably false claims that quickly went viral online. Huckabee, who repeatedly challenged the former Fox News star during the interview, subsequently made a long post on X, identifying a pattern of bad-faith arguments, distortions and conspiracies in Carlson’s rhetorical style.
Huckabee pointed out his words were not accorded by Carlson the same degree of attention and curiosity the anchor evinced toward such unsavory characters as “the little Nazi sympathizer Nick Fuentes or the guy who thought Hitler was the good guy and Churchill the bad guy.”
“What I wasn’t anticipating was a lengthy series of questions where he seemed to be insinuating that the Jews of today aren’t really same people as the Jews of the Bible,” Huckabee wrote, adding that Tucker’s obsession with conspiracies regarding the provenance of Ashkenazi Jews obscured the fact that most Israeli Jews were refugees from the Arab and Muslim world.
The idea that Ashkenazi Jews are an Asiatic tribe who invented a false ancestry “gained traction in the 80’s and 90’s with David Duke and other Klansmen and neo-Nazis,” Huckabee wrote. “It has really caught fire in recent years on the Internet and social media, mostly from some of the most overt antisemites and Jew haters you can find.”
Carlson branded Israel “probably the most violent country on earth” and cited the false claim that Israel President Isaac Herzog had visited the infamous island of the late, disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘pedo island.’ That’s what it says,” Carlson said, citing a debunked claim made by The Times reporter Gabrielle Weiniger. “Still-living, high-level Israeli officials are directly implicated in Epstein’s life, if not his crimes, so I think you’d be following this.”
Another misleading claim made by Carlson was that there were more Christians in Qatar than in Israel.
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Pezeshkian Says Iran Will Not Bow to Pressure Amid US Nuclear Talks
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Saturday that his country would not bow its head to pressure from world powers amid nuclear talks with the United States.
“World powers are lining up to force us to bow our heads… but we will not bow our heads despite all the problems that they are creating for us,” Pezeshkian said in a speech carried live by state TV.
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Italy’s RAI Apologizes after Latest Gaffe Targets Israeli Bobsleigh Team
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 4-man Heat 1 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 21, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel, Menachem Chen of Israel, Uri Zisman of Israel, Omer Katz of Israel in action during Heat 1. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Italy’s state broadcaster RAI was forced to apologize to the Jewish community on Saturday after an off‑air remark advising its producers to “avoid” the Israeli crew was broadcast before coverage of the Four-Man bobsleigh event at the Winter Olympics.
The head of RAI’s sports division had already resigned earlier in the week after his error-ridden commentary at the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony two weeks ago triggered a revolt among its journalists.
On Saturday, viewers heard “Let’s avoid crew number 21, which is the Israeli one” and then “no, because …” before the sound was cut off.
RAI CEO Giampaolo Rossi said the incident represented a “serious” breach of the principles of impartiality, respect and inclusion that should guide the public broadcaster.
He added that RAI had opened an internal inquiry to swiftly determine any responsibility and any potential disciplinary procedures.
In a separate statement RAI’s board of directors condemned the remark as “unacceptable.”
The board apologized to the Jewish community, the athletes involved and all viewers who felt offended.
RAI is the country’s largest media organization and operates national television, radio and digital news services.
The union representing RAI journalists, Usigrai, had said Paolo Petrecca’s opening ceremony commentary had dealt “a serious blow” to the company’s credibility.
His missteps included misidentifying venues and public figures, and making comments about national teams that were widely criticized.