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Good evening. It's Monday, November 29.
Tonight: Elon Musk has spent the last two weeks being widely accused of anti-Semitism by media outlets and Liberal activist groups like Media Matters, for nearly every institution of power, including in Congress and the White House. As we covered on our show last night, he traveled to Israel, where he paid homage to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all of the Israeli bromides about its current war in Gaza, nodding and laughing and agreeing with everything Netanyahu said. That act of penance worked with some – he proudly accepted reprieves, mostly from the American right, people who are thrilled that he did what he did in Israel – but many liberals continue to insist that he was anti-Semite and even attacked Israel and Netanyahu for agreeing to meet with him at all.
Earlier today, Elon Musk changed tone on this quite radically and even violently. He appeared at a forum hosted by The New York Times and when questioned by its Wall Street reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, about all the corporate advertisers such as Disney, who stopped advertising on Twitter or X in response to claims that Musk was permitting anti-Semitic content to proliferate and was even affirming anti-Semitic content, he didn't try to assuage those concerns at all but instead offered an extremely defiant message, one that caused all sorts of employees the media corporations and journalists to express shock and horror at what he said and yet it's a message that far more media corporations and social media platforms should express in the face of corporate advertisers trying to dictate political speech but they lack the courage to do so, which is why they were so horrified by the way Elon Musk said. And we'll show you that video.
Then: Rashid Khalidi is a historian at Columbia University who, among other things, is a specialist and scholar in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the history of the Middle East more broadly. Columbia has been the epicenter for many decades in the United States when it comes to campus conflicts about Israel and Palestine or Israeli-Arab conflicts and it still is. Right before the show that airs live right now, we sat down with Professor Khalidi just a few minutes before we went live on air to talk about the Israel-Gaza war, about Joe Biden's request for $14 billion more in American funds to send to Israel to fund that war, changing public opinion about Israel and the United States support for it, attacks on free speech on college campuses, including Columbia, where two pro-Palestinian groups were banned, the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Palestinian animus in the wake of this war, and much more.
Because Professor Khalidi is a clear advocate for Palestinian rights and a critic of Israel, he makes no bones about that, we have secured for tomorrow night's program a guest who is a very vocal and steadfast supporter of Israel and a defender of its war effort in Gaza: Max Abrams, who has been on our show before. We're very much looking forward to engaging his pro-Israel arguments on tomorrow night's show and seeing how they withstand critical scrutiny.
For now, welcome to a new episode of The System update starting right now.
