This week’s interview with Jasper Nathaniel is free to all. For our news of the week segment, check out our Friday Free-For-All: JD Vance Can’t Stop Laughing at Trump’s al-Qaeda Joke. Thanks for supporting independent media!
If you’re wondering about how the so-called ceasefire in Gaza is going, look no further than this BBC News headline:
Some ceasefire. And if you want to know about the even-less-reported-on West Bank, where settlers are committing unwatchable atrocities as you read this, listen to this week’s interview with Jasper Nathaniel, a Jewish-American journalist who is just back from the olive harvest, where IDF soldiers set him up for a violent mob attack from Israeli settlers. The videos he took are horrifying.
We asked Jasper about the situation in the West Bank, to describe the settler attack in which he caught on video the moment where a settler beat an elderly woman in the head with a stick, and the US State Department’s response to his plea for rescue.
Useful Idiots: Tell us about your own government’s response to the settler attack. You contacted the US Embassy, what have your elected representatives told you?
Jasper Nathaniel: They immediately sent out Marines to rescue me from the oil fields and put me on a private plane back to...
No, they did nothing. I actually did speak to two people at the US embassy who saw the video and they expressed horror and sympathy and fear. And when I told them we needed protection, one guy says to me, ‘Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do to protect you. It is the responsibility of the host government, meaning Israel, to protect you.’
And then I point out that it was the host military that led us into this ambush. And he says, ‘Well in the instances where the host government can’t protect you we pull our embassy, like Venezuela and Syria.’ So I say ‘Okay, so you’re pulling the embassy from Israel?’ And that was the last I heard from them.
Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, all completely ignored me.
Useful Idiots: It’s not surprising, it’s kind of predictable, and yet it’s still shocking. Can you talk about the outcome of your reporting on this and what effect it had on the people living there?
Jasper Nathaniel: People started to tell me that this might be one of those rare instances where something so heinous is caught or documented that Israel can’t spin it and might have to issue some sort of a response.
And sure enough, the next morning, there was a story in the Times of Israel where the chief of police in the West Bank, who is a far-right Ben Gavir acolyte, said ‘We must arrest him and demand justice.’ The next day I was back in the oil fields and there were Israeli soldiers there patrolling, protecting the Palestinians. And it was clear to me and to all the Palestinians that they didn’t suddenly grow a conscience and decide they wanted to protect these people. They understood that they had a PR disaster on their hands and they had to save face by preventing another attack.
Thanks for supporting independent media. It’s moments like Jasper’s video that couldn’t happen without your support.
To join the community and get our analysis on Bari Weiss, John Fetterman, JD Vance, and Trump’s al-Qaeda Oval Office visit, please subscribe for $6 a month.
