Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
The NYT has always been anti-Israel, and I toy with calling it “antisemitic” because it always downplays antisemitism. And it did it big time this week in an article called “A progressive and in a body made for the ‘manosphere.’ Read it by clicking below or find it archived here.
This handsome, manly, handsome, and much-followed podcaster on Twitch and YouTube (4.5 million total), Hasan Piker turns out to have some nasty views on Israel. But of course the NYT downplays those views greatly. Have a read; it’s short.
They add up, to me at least, to deem him an antisemite, as does NY Representative Ritchie Torres. Click to go to the thread.
The NYT article is mostly about how his wonderful physique, his diet, his workouts and his avid following, noting just this on his views about the war:
Mr. Piker is similarly unfiltered with his viewpoints. Some can be extreme.
A vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, Mr. Piker has been labeled anti-American by people across the political spectrum for saying the country “deserved” the Sept. 11 attacks. His recent accusations that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and his diatribes against the Zionist movement have led many supporters of Israel, including liberals like Representative Ritchie Torres of New York, to call Mr. Piker antisemitic.
“I find antisemitism to be completely unacceptable,” Mr. Piker said on a call in April. “I find the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism to be very dangerous,” he added.
It’s not a very explicit explanation (what foreign policy does he oppose?), and the conflation of antisemitism and antiZionism have turned them nearly into the same thing: hatred of Jews because most of them think that Israel is okay as a Jewish homeland.
The Free Press, however, took a deeper dive (click if you subscribe0:
Here are a few quotes from the FP (bolding is mine):
Because Piker records for up to 10 hours a day, and has done so for five years, it is hard to paint a comprehensive picture of his views. But even a cursory look at his work reveals a person who dismisses violence against Israelis, celebrates Islamist terrorists, and advocates for treating pro-Israel Americans as neo-Nazis.
“It doesn’t matter if rapes happened on October 7th,” Piker said while livestreaming on May 22, 2024. “It doesn’t change the dynamic for me.” Apparently, not even the most brutal, inhumane crimes committed during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 invasion of Israel could justify the Israeli military response—which he repeatedlyrefers to as an “ethnic cleansing campaign.”
Just this week, he claimed on Twitch that “in a totally just world, regardless of your background, any kind of fucking Zionist tendency should be treated in the same way as being a fucking rabid neo-Nazi.” (The vast majority of Jews identify as Zionists.) He went on: “You shouldn’t even let someone be the fucking local dog catcher . . . if they have exhibited any sort of positive feelings about the state of Israel.”
At the same time, Piker implies that acts of violence committed by Islamists are justified. On November 29, 2023, he described the attacks of October 7 as “a retaliation for an ongoing apartheid.”
Piker doesn’t only justify terrorism. Sometimes, he glorifies it:
On December 20, 2023, Piker played a Hamas propaganda video on his livestream for an audience of 25,000. In it, dramatic music plays as members of the terrorist group forge and demo guns. The title card reads: “We will continue Killing your Soldiers by our locally manufactured Snipers.” Piker reads it aloud, then says: “Wow, there’s a little message for the Americans out there as well!”
In January 2024, Houthi pirates seized a commercial ship in the Red Sea, and took the crew hostage. Among the rebels was 19-year-old Rashid Al-Haddad, who went viral in the U.S. for posting videos of himself from the vessel. (Al-Haddad later denied affiliation with the Houthis.) Piker tracked down Al-Haddad via social media and interviewed him on his stream with the help of a translator. In the interview, Piker compared Al-Haddad to the pirate hero from a popular anime called One Piece.
In a later stream on October 14, 2024, Piker likened Al-Haddad, who grew up in Yemen, to a victim of the Holocaust: “For most of his life, he has withstood genocide,” Piker said, before saying that speaking to Al-Haddad was like “talking to fucking Anne Frank, basically.” (Later, in a now-deleted tweet, Al-Haddad posted this image of a man impaled on a stake with the caption: “The execution that we will carry out on all Zionists.”)
On September 28, 2024, Piker shared what he called a “music video,” which was actually a Houthi propaganda clip. In it, gun-toting Islamists sing a rallying cry to “defeat the masses of infidels.” They march over burning American and Israeli flags and wave banners emblazoned with the Houthi credo—which translates to “God is Great. Death to America! Death to Israel! Damn the Jews! Victory to Islam!”
“When the beat drops, it’s like jihad drops in your heart,” Piker said to an audience of nearly 30,000. Of the Houthis, he said: “They’re very musical people.”
Piker himself is aware of his influence on young people. In November, he posted a news article about that rise in pro-Hamas sentiment among Jewish-American teenagers to his Discord server—with the comment: “i did this.”
There’s more, but I’ll give just one more bit of NYT censorship to show how they downplay Piker’s antisemitism. There was no reason for the NYT do do this save to avoid tarnishing Piker’s reputation:
But amid all the descriptions of Piker’s attractiveness—and all the photos that back it up—the Times let something small yet grimly revealing slip into its profile of the streamer. One of the images shows Piker’s monitor, during one of his livestreams. If you zoom in, you can see a comment from a Twitch user referring to an Israeli Defense Force soldier: “I’d phuck this idf btch to death and make his mother shove missles up her ass.”
The Times has since updated the photo with the comment cropped out of the picture.
Piker did not respond to a request for comment.
Apparently the NYT cannot trust readers to make their up their own minds, so they slant the news to make Piker look better than he is. So it goes. Right now with what’s going on in the world, and with the huge influence that Piker has, it’s just like the NYT to concentrate on his manliness, muscles and handsomeness instead of his dislike of Jews anti-Zionism.
23 thoughts on “NYT whitewashes antisemitic podcaster”
That photograph of him in shorts which “priviledges” his crotch as the central focus, is pathetic instantiation of left-wing male self-hatred:
Perhaps I missed this in Dr. Coyne’s commentary, but the title of the NYTimes article at first was “in a MAGA body” not “manosphere”. But it was changed by the NYTimes.
Yes the main takeaway from the original article was that if you were fit you had a MAGA body.
This further discussion of anti-semiticism is a lot more serious but was brushed over in the article.
Interesting as the Mearsheimer and Walt book of 2007 labeled the NYT as part of the Israel Lobby.
You don’t need the same comment twice. At any rate, Mearsheimer and Wait are no friends of Jews or Israel. If you are implying that the NYT has been pro-Israel, well, that’s a label by two people who dislike Israel, and of course everyone who reads the paper knows its ideological slant. The NYT has never lobbied for Israel, not in my lifetime at least.
We have a lot of turds in NYC.
We just step over them and go on our way.
D.A.
NYC
You always have a wonderful way with words, David. Whoops, meant as a reply to D.A. In comment 3 above.
It’s not obvious to me why the NYT decided to do a feature on this guy at all. Did an editor think that a handsome “bro” who breaks the rules of “bro-ness” would be interesting to its readers? Did they want to introduce this antisemite to their audience in a positive light so as to give him credibility? Why?
Although I subscribe to the NYT they often have stuff like this. I’ve noticed they’re anti-Israel and never read their coverage.
I’ve heard of Hasan Piker before (nothing good—he is a virulent anti-Semite and misogynist.)
The Free Press continues to do better on Israel.
Read a couple of articles about him. Yep, ole Hasan represents a number of things I dislike about the left: hypocrisy (lives the good life, but wants to eat the rich); hate (rapes don’t matter); and arrogance (I’m so hot).
Typically, I wouldn’t make a comment like this, but so much was made about his appearance that I will simply say this: I’ve been around bodybuilding for 40+ years. When I lived in Texas as a college student, I belonged to a gym that was frequented by a female who was destined to place in the Ms. Olympia (top IFBB [International Federation of Bodybuilders] competition) – SHE had more muscle than him. And let’s not even begin to compare him to male lifters, because there is no comparison.
This streamer is a piece of work. And his defense of Hamas is just scratching the surface of the things he believes and defends. The NYT is getting worse and worse it seems.
I don’t think it’s “whataboutism” to ask what the NYT and the cool kids that it caters to would think about an uneducated, overweight, middle-aged guy from Mississippi saying similar things.
The Ivy League university system has been an active breeding ground for antisemitism for a while now, and that same system graduates journalists who get employed at the premier media outlets, such as the NYT. Is it any surprise then that the NYT would paint a positive picture of a person who peddles such content?
The ironic thing is that Trump was derided as a racist for the “fine people on both sides” comment when, after his initial statement, he explicitly said, “Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans”. But he’s a racist, and Piker, who doesn’t give a s*** about the lives ended and women raped on 10/7 and has posted hatred toward Jews, is celebrated.
The New York Times and Harvard may be holding hands as they skip down the anti-Zionist/anti-semitism road together.
Is this the emerging orthodoxy of America’s elite? Hey you populists, don’t eat the rich, attack the Jews instead? If so, hello history, here we go again.
“Spraying Perfume on a Sewer
What the university’s report (on anti-semitism on campus) offers no solution for is the fact that there is a deep ideological commitment among much of the faculty that is anti-Western, anti-Israel, and often antisemitic. By David Wolpe.” https://www.thefp.com/p/david-wolpe-harvard-antisemitism-report
It sure seems like the emerging orthodoxy. I regard the NYT and other as assigners of opinion for a certain group of the masses (similar to how I regard FoxNews as the assigner of opinion for a different group).
Thanks for the article. Very interesting.
I found this troubling on so many levels. Particularly unnerving for me was watching this guy (“Hasanabi”) interviewing a local Yemeni through the 3rd party translator. The young Yemeni looked way too much as my ex-husband did when I married him (in 1983) and he has the same sweet, harmless demeanor as he casually describes his beliefs. The distance between those who view Hamas and the Houthis, etc as heroes and those of us who are fearful of and sickened by them is SO great. I see little hope for bridging this gap. Hassan Piker is a real creep.
The NYT was pro-Israel at one time. Later it changed to being anti-Israel. The ‘left’ once supported Israel. Not anymore. For example, Truman recognized the new state of Israel immediately.
Second only to the Soviet Union, IIRC.
In 1948, the USSR was very pro-Israel. Why? Because the Arab states were closely tied to Hitler. Indeed, many of the Israeli weapons to fight the 1948 war came from Czechoslovakia with Soviet support.
The USSR changed sides in the 1950s. The US did to a degree as well. Eisenhower blocked the joint Israeli, French, and British effort to take back the Suez canal. The same Eisenhower backed Israel to the hilt in 1967.
I would disagree with the word ‘second’ to a degree. The US (Truman) provided diplomatic recognition. The Soviet-bloc provided the weapons. Which was more important? Not clear to me.
I meant the chronological order of official recognition. Sorry for any ambiguity.
The Times is intent that readers know about Piker, but doesn’t allow readers to comment, such as asking whether the Times touched up that monitor image, and what his opinion of women is.
Sigh. In the old days, “managing the news” was Bad. O tempora, o mores!
The Big Brother Zionist Jew provost at Columbia University wants another aircraft carrier E Mediterranean to protect a country that won’t join sanctions against Russia N Korea and harbors oligarchs. And of course, as Mein Kampf predicted, where most Jews don’t live
That photograph of him in shorts which “priviledges” his crotch as the central focus, is pathetic instantiation of left-wing male self-hatred:
Perhaps I missed this in Dr. Coyne’s commentary, but the title of the NYTimes article at first was “in a MAGA body” not “manosphere”. But it was changed by the NYTimes.
Indeed! The internet never forgets: https://web.archive.org/web/20250427092014/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/style/hasan-piker-twitch-youtube.html
Yep, I didn’t add that.
Yes the main takeaway from the original article was that if you were fit you had a MAGA body.
This further discussion of anti-semiticism is a lot more serious but was brushed over in the article.
Interesting as the Mearsheimer and Walt book of 2007 labeled the NYT as part of the Israel Lobby.
You don’t need the same comment twice. At any rate, Mearsheimer and Wait are no friends of Jews or Israel. If you are implying that the NYT has been pro-Israel, well, that’s a label by two people who dislike Israel, and of course everyone who reads the paper knows its ideological slant. The NYT has never lobbied for Israel, not in my lifetime at least.
We have a lot of turds in NYC.
We just step over them and go on our way.
D.A.
NYC
You always have a wonderful way with words, David. Whoops, meant as a reply to D.A. In comment 3 above.
It’s not obvious to me why the NYT decided to do a feature on this guy at all. Did an editor think that a handsome “bro” who breaks the rules of “bro-ness” would be interesting to its readers? Did they want to introduce this antisemite to their audience in a positive light so as to give him credibility? Why?
Although I subscribe to the NYT they often have stuff like this. I’ve noticed they’re anti-Israel and never read their coverage.
I’ve heard of Hasan Piker before (nothing good—he is a virulent anti-Semite and misogynist.)
The Free Press continues to do better on Israel.
Read a couple of articles about him. Yep, ole Hasan represents a number of things I dislike about the left: hypocrisy (lives the good life, but wants to eat the rich); hate (rapes don’t matter); and arrogance (I’m so hot).
Typically, I wouldn’t make a comment like this, but so much was made about his appearance that I will simply say this: I’ve been around bodybuilding for 40+ years. When I lived in Texas as a college student, I belonged to a gym that was frequented by a female who was destined to place in the Ms. Olympia (top IFBB [International Federation of Bodybuilders] competition) – SHE had more muscle than him. And let’s not even begin to compare him to male lifters, because there is no comparison.
This streamer is a piece of work. And his defense of Hamas is just scratching the surface of the things he believes and defends. The NYT is getting worse and worse it seems.
I don’t think it’s “whataboutism” to ask what the NYT and the cool kids that it caters to would think about an uneducated, overweight, middle-aged guy from Mississippi saying similar things.
The Ivy League university system has been an active breeding ground for antisemitism for a while now, and that same system graduates journalists who get employed at the premier media outlets, such as the NYT. Is it any surprise then that the NYT would paint a positive picture of a person who peddles such content?
The ironic thing is that Trump was derided as a racist for the “fine people on both sides” comment when, after his initial statement, he explicitly said, “Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans”. But he’s a racist, and Piker, who doesn’t give a s*** about the lives ended and women raped on 10/7 and has posted hatred toward Jews, is celebrated.
The New York Times and Harvard may be holding hands as they skip down the anti-Zionist/anti-semitism road together.
Is this the emerging orthodoxy of America’s elite? Hey you populists, don’t eat the rich, attack the Jews instead? If so, hello history, here we go again.
“Spraying Perfume on a Sewer
What the university’s report (on anti-semitism on campus) offers no solution for is the fact that there is a deep ideological commitment among much of the faculty that is anti-Western, anti-Israel, and often antisemitic. By David Wolpe.”
https://www.thefp.com/p/david-wolpe-harvard-antisemitism-report
It sure seems like the emerging orthodoxy. I regard the NYT and other as assigners of opinion for a certain group of the masses (similar to how I regard FoxNews as the assigner of opinion for a different group).
Thanks for the article. Very interesting.
I found this troubling on so many levels. Particularly unnerving for me was watching this guy (“Hasanabi”) interviewing a local Yemeni through the 3rd party translator. The young Yemeni looked way too much as my ex-husband did when I married him (in 1983) and he has the same sweet, harmless demeanor as he casually describes his beliefs. The distance between those who view Hamas and the Houthis, etc as heroes and those of us who are fearful of and sickened by them is SO great. I see little hope for bridging this gap. Hassan Piker is a real creep.
The NYT was pro-Israel at one time. Later it changed to being anti-Israel. The ‘left’ once supported Israel. Not anymore. For example, Truman recognized the new state of Israel immediately.
Second only to the Soviet Union, IIRC.
In 1948, the USSR was very pro-Israel. Why? Because the Arab states were closely tied to Hitler. Indeed, many of the Israeli weapons to fight the 1948 war came from Czechoslovakia with Soviet support.
The USSR changed sides in the 1950s. The US did to a degree as well. Eisenhower blocked the joint Israeli, French, and British effort to take back the Suez canal. The same Eisenhower backed Israel to the hilt in 1967.
I would disagree with the word ‘second’ to a degree. The US (Truman) provided diplomatic recognition. The Soviet-bloc provided the weapons. Which was more important? Not clear to me.
I meant the chronological order of official recognition. Sorry for any ambiguity.
The Times is intent that readers know about Piker, but doesn’t allow readers to comment, such as asking whether the Times touched up that monitor image, and what his opinion of women is.
Sigh. In the old days, “managing the news” was Bad. O tempora, o mores!
The Big Brother Zionist Jew provost at Columbia University wants another aircraft carrier E Mediterranean to protect a country that won’t join sanctions against Russia N Korea and harbors oligarchs. And of course, as Mein Kampf predicted, where most Jews don’t live