
In October 2023, 92NY cancelled an event with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen because the author signed an open letter in the London Review of Books urging "an end to violence and destruction in Palestine.” Since then, 92NY has platformed and fêted the following people, despite repeated, well-documented, and well-publicized instances of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian bigotry and, in the cases of Alex Karp and Jake Sullivan, outright complicity in the Gaza genocide.
Alex Karp
Bari Weiss
Bret Stephens
Dara Horn
Dave Portnoy
Deborah Lipstadt
Debra Messing
Einat Wilf
Hen Mazzig
Jake Sullivan
Julianna Margulies
Mike Lawler
Richie Torres
Yair Lapid
92NY Event: Ritchie Torres and Mike Lawler in Conversation with Dr. Mijal Bitton
Claim to fame: Funding Israel's genocide in Gaza through repeated votes for military aid (including a vote for a $17.6 billion package in April 2024) while holding investments in weapons contractors, introducing and supporting multiple resolutions conflating anti-zionism with antisemitism, claiming that the European Union is "lying" about Israel using starvation as a weapon of war, repeatedly questioning the Gaza civilian death toll, labeling the global movement for Palestinian rights a “social contagion,” receiving more than $1.8 million in donations from AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby, obsessive pro-Israel posting on social media.
“The so-called Gaza Health Ministry—an arm of Hamas—has as much credibility as the health ministries of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan: none whatsoever.” –Twitter, April 17, 2025
“Jewish checkpoints are as fiction as Jewish space lasers.” –Twitter, November 22, 2023
“A Queer Palestinian is far freer and safer in Israel than in a Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas.” –The New York Times, June 22, 2024
92NY Event: Ritchie Torres and Mike Lawler in Conversation with Dr. Mijal Bitton
Claim to fame: Sponsoring more than 50 pro-Israel bills, voting to send tens of billions in military aid to Israel, introducing the Anti Boycott Act which would punish Americans for boycotting Israel, authoring H.R. 6090 (the Antisemitism Awareness Act) to weaponize the IHRA definition of antisemitism in defence of Israeli occupation, having AIPAC as his #1 campaign donor, accepting almost $700,000 in campaign donations from the pro-Israel lobby, leading a Congressional delegation to Israel in 2025, describing rabbis protesting the Gaza genocide as being “pro-Hamas,” meeting with ICC-wanted war criminal Itamar Ben-Gvir in 2025.
“I consider myself a Christian Zionist ... The United States of America should want to have God's blessing, not his curse. And if we want his blessing, we will bless Israel.”
“I was deeply moved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks to Congress … Unlike some of my colleagues who chose to boycott today's speech or hold up childish signs, I will always stand with Israel." – July 24, 2024
“The Free Palestine/Ceasefire Now crowd have nothing to say, because they don’t actually care about the Palestinians. It was always about a hatred of Israel and Jews.” –Twitter, October 15, 2025
92NY Event: Alexander Karp in Conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin: The Technological Republic
Claim to fame: Tech world Zionist Bond villain whose computational force multiplier company facilitates everything from roundups and deportations of undocumented immigrants at home to drone strikes of civilian targets in Gaza. Called Columbia anti-Israel protests 'pagan' and said he dreams of drone striking his enemies.
“Palantir is here to disrupt... and, when it's necessary, to scare enemies and, on occasion, kill them.” –Palantir 2025 earnings call
“From my perspective, it’s not just about Israel . . . It’s like, ‘Do you believe in the West? Do you believe the West has created a superior way of living?’” –CNBC interview, March 2024
92NY Event: The State of World Jewry Address with Bret Stephens and 92NY’s Rabbi David Ingber
Claim to fame: Conservative columnist, climate change denier, and avowed Zionist who once wrote that antisemitism is “the disease of the Arab mind.” Prominent public advocate for the invasion of Iraq. On the record saying he doesn’t consider West Bank settlements to be illegal. Wrote a column suggesting that Ashkenazi Jews are intellectually superior to other groups.
“I do not think Israel is the aggressor here. Insofar as getting the story right helps Israel, I guess you could say I'm trying to help Israel." –Haaretz, April 20, 2017
“If the Israeli government’s intentions and actions are truly genocidal — if it is so malevolent that it is committed to the annihilation of Gazans — why hasn’t it been more methodical and vastly more deadly? Why not, say, hundreds of thousands of deaths, as opposed to the nearly 60,000 that Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths, has cited so far in nearly two years of war?” –“No, Israel is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza” (NYT, July 22, 2025)
92NY Event: Is Fighting Antisemitism a Losing Battle?
Claim to fame: 1996 David Irving libel suit. Promoting the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Making beeper jokes after the 2024 Lebanon pager attack.
In response to a statement suggesting that, “After October 7, there was a feeling around the world that Israel was weaker,” Lipstadt disturbingly joked, “Do you want a beeper?” – an appalling celebration of Israel’s recent wave of indiscriminate detonation of beepers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon, which resulted in the tragic murder of several children and the injury of thousands. –CAIR press release, September 22, 2024
In January 2026, Lipstadt asserted that an arson attack on the Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi was "another step in the globalization of the intifada." Forced to walk back her comment after the arsonist was revealed to have been motivated by far-right antisemitism and not the pro-Palestinian movement.
"Those of us who were in synagogue yesterday heard Parshat Zachor, a very brief reading from Deuteronomy about Amalek, what Amalek did to you. What are we told to do? Don't forget…remember…and wipe them out!" (from 92NY event)
92NY Event: Is Fighting Antisemitism a Losing Battle?
Claim to fame: Repeated genocide and apartheid denial and narrative warping (on stage, in the Atlantic, on podcasts). Claiming that IDF soldiers have deliberately put themselves in harm’s way in order to protect Palestinian civilians.
“On campuses around the country, students began gathering regularly to chant ‘There is only one solution: intifada revolution!’—a reference to a suicide-bombing campaign in Israel a generation ago that maimed and murdered well over 1,000 Jews. (If there is only one solution, perhaps one could call it the Final Solution) . . . there are nuances to sadistic barbarity against Jews, we are told, and sometimes gang-raping Jewish women is actually a movement for human rights . . . –The Atlantic, February 15, 2024 (extraordinarily long and unhinged article)
“Tomorrow night is Purim, and I think it's clear to all of us now that the best way to fight anti-Semitism is to take out Haman with an F-15." (from 92NY event)
Claim to fame: Supporting the Iraq war. Defending Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon as a form of educating" Israel's opponents. Saying that Palestinians are “gripped by a collective madness” and that Afghanistan is the equivalent of a “special needs baby.” Writing a 2024 column comparing the Middle East to a jungle and Arabs to insects.
Following the US invasion of Iraq, Friedman stated on Charlie Rose that the goal was to make "them" (the Arab world) "suck on this," in reference to American power. “[The Islamic Republic of Iran] “is to geopolitics what a recently discovered species of parasitoid wasp is to nature … We have no counterstrategy that safely and efficiently kills the wasp without setting fire to the whole jungle … Sometimes I contemplate the Middle East by watching CNN. Other times, I prefer Animal Planet.” –New York Times, February 2, 2024
92NY Event: Modi Rosenfeld in Conversation with Debra Messing: And Here’s Modi Live
Claim to fame: Will & Grace. Hundreds of unhinged, racist social media posts about Palestine and Zohran Mamdani (including calling him a jihadist and sharing a meme referring to him as “Osama Bin Mamdani”) between Oct 7 and her 92NY event. Traveled to Gaza during genocide with Israeli military to create and platform propaganda from her social media.
“If you scream 'from the river to the sea Palestine will be free'—Hamas' phrase for killing all the Jews and wiping Israel off the map—you are antisemite.”
92NY Event: An Evening with Hen Mazzig, Eitan Levine, and Jackie Goldschneider
Claim to fame: Recruited by Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote pro-Israel propaganda on social media in October 2023. Shared the false claim in late 2023 that Palestinian babies killed in Gaza were actually dolls. Worked for Hillel International and StandWithUs. Received money from Netanyahu government for American campus propaganda efforts, without registering as a foreign agent. Founded Tel Aviv Institute (“dedicated to combating delegitimizing of Israel on social media”).
“Did This Pro-Israel Superstar Work As a Secret Agent on College Campuses” – The Forward, October 23, 2028
“If Hamas stops firing, the Israel-Hamas war ends tomorrow. If Israel stops defending itself after October 7, Israel disappears."
“GHF is doing its job and doing it well. So why is the UN trying to block it instead of helping? Because this was never about helping Palestinians. It’s about preserving power, and protecting Hamas.” (Twitter)
“In a recent NYT opinion piece, 65 healthcare workers reported that they saw bullet wounds in children. A normal newspaper would highlight that they did not observe IDF soldiers shooting children. They might have highlighted alternate, equally probable scenarios: That Hamas, or anyone, could have shot the children with stolen IDF weapons. That’s not journalism. That’s antisemitism.” (Twitter)
92NY Event: The State of World Jewry: Bari Weiss
Claim to fame: Political appointment to Editor-in-Chief of CBS following the network’s corporate takeover by Larry Ellison, Gaza coverage/famine denial in Free Press, putting target on Refaat Alareer’s back with her Tweets, lengthy history of anti-Palestinian activism dating back to her college days trying to get Columbia professors fired.
92NY Event: Yonit Levi and Bianna Golodryga in Conversation with Julianna Margulies: Don’t Feed the Lion
Claim to fame: Claimed that Black and LGBTQ supporters of Palestine have been “brainwashed to hate Jews.”
“It’s those kids [who use gender-neutral pronouns] who are spewing this antisemitic hate that have no idea if they stepped foot in an Islamic country. These people who want us to call them they/them or whatever they want us to call them — which I have respectfully really made a point of doing, like, be whoever you want to be. It’s those people that will be the first people beheaded and their heads played [like] a soccer ball. Terrorists who don’t want women to have their rights, don’t want LGBTQ people … this is who you’re supporting? … You know, there was a film being shown by this Black lesbian club on the Columbia campus and they put up signs that said, ‘no Jews allowed’ … And as someone who plays a lesbian journalist on The Morning Show, I am more offended by it as a lesbian than I am as a Jew, to be honest with you … I want to say to them, ‘You fucking idiots, you don’t exist [to Hamas]. You’re even lower than the Jews [to Hamas] “…the fact that the entire Black community isn’t standing with us, to me, says they don’t know, or they’ve been brainwashed to hate Jews.”
92NY Event: The State of National Security with Ian Bremmer and Jake Sullivan
Claim to fame: Part of the Biden inner circle during Gaza genocide. One of the chief architects and cheerleaders for Israel's assault on Gaza. Lobbied Democratic members of Congress against voting to block arms transfers to Israel.
“Although the Middle East remains beset with perennial challenges, the region is quieter than it has been for decades.” –Foreign Affairs, October 2, 2023
92NY Event: Unravelling the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Claim to fame: Dismissing the Palestinian right of return. Characterizing anti-Zionism and left-wing anti-Israel activism as a form of "domestic violence" against the Jewish people. Championing Israel’s attack on Gaza. Being investigated for assaulting a six-year-old boy.
“If the Ayatollahs' regime collapses, the Palestinians are once again isolated... We must make sure we do not save them from this (and do not allow) other actors to become the supporters of Palestinianism.”
“To end up in the dustbin of history, you have to be a supporter of Palestinianism. This condition was met by the Nazis, the pan-Arabists, the Soviets and the Ayatollahs are on their way"
“A war against Gaza at the minimum, and certainly against what I call Palestinian-ism, a war to defeat the ideology like Nazism, like imperial Japanese racial ideas, that the ideology has to die. We should have declared that as our goal. Nothing less. We should have said on October 7th, this ends here. This is not about anything negotiable. The Homo sapiens that currently go by the name Palestinians will have to become a people who no longer believe in the complete destruction of the Jewish state.” –18Forty.org
92NY Event: Dave Portnoy in Conversation: Cancel Me If You Can
Claim to fame: Sexual assault allegations, multiple videos of showing him using the N-word and joking about blackface, making rape jokes, targeting employees and union busting, calling for Greta Thunberg to be bombed.
“Even though I never condone rape if you're a size 6 and you're wearing skinny jeans you kind of deserve to be raped right?"
“I am voting for Donald Trump. I don't care if he's a joke. I don't care if he's racist. I don't care if he's sexist. I don't care about any of it. I hope he stays in the race and I hope he wins.”
“[Greta Thunberg is] sailing there [to Gaza] … and I hope they hit a fucking missile on her boat. Knock that boat down."
92NY Event: Former Prime Minister Yair Lapid in Conversation with News Anchor Lucy Aharish
Claim to fame: Supports annexation of the Golan Heights and the expansion of Israel’s territory based on “biblical borders.” Supported Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's decision to impose a total blockade on the Gaza Strip after October 7. Championed Donald Trump’s Gaza plan. Repeatedly accused the United Nations of “anti-Israel bias” and blamed UNESCO for “erasing Jewish history.”
“Zionism is based on the Bible. Our mandate over the land of Israel is biblical, [and] the biblical borders of the land of Israel are clear… Therefore, the borders are the borders of the Bible.” – Al Jazeera, February 24, 2026
“Netanyahu needs to stop being cowardly and procrastinating, expand the attacks inside Yemen, mainly on infrastructure, launch sites, and production plants, begin to assassinate Iranian experts and Revolutionary Guards inside Yemen who are there to support terrorism, expand the cyber attacks on the country's vital systems, including paralyzing electricity and water in Yemeni cities, and block Yemen's ports and all sea and air traffic to it.” – Twitter post, May 9, 2025
“I am enthusiastically in favor of annexing the Golan. My principle says maximum Jews on maximum land with maximum security and with minimum Palestinians.” – The Jerusalem Post, January 26, 2016