HonestReporting

Hamas claims 70,000 tents flooded and $3 million in damage, all calculated within just 12 hours of a Gaza rainstorm. And the BBC, Reuters, and Al Jazeera dutifully repeated the figures without verifying them. How did Hamas count tens of thousands of flooded tents so quickly? Why do its damage estimates barely add up? When Hamas supplies the numbers, basic journalistic integrity goes out the window. honestreporting.com/as-rain-…

Fortnite, one of the world's most popular video games, has a new rare item called a “Pirate Token” that gives players free access to everything in the game's shop for two weeks. As players rush to find it, a fake “hack” is spreading on social media: switch your game server to Israel, play the Jewish song Hava Nagila, and offer money to Netanyahu. None of this has anything to do with Israel or Jews. It's the same old antisemitic conspiracy that Jews secretly control everything, disguised as a gaming trick. But here's the disturbing part: people in the comments are actually asking if it works. Millions of kids and teens play Fortnite. Many know little about Jews or Israel. Now, while looking for gaming tips, they're being exposed to antisemitic stereotypes. They're being taught that even their favorite video game is secretly controlled by Jews. Presenter: @jvcobgold #Fortnite #Antisemitism #PirateToken

Six Jewish-owned restaurants. One “anti-fascist” bike ride through Philadelphia. Their message? “No business for Zionists! Not in our city!” Targeting Jewish businesses and telling their owners they don't belong isn't fighting fascism. It's antisemitism.

McKenna Grace, who stars in the upcoming Hunger Games movie, was asked on the red carpet how she prepared for the role. Her answer went viral on X, but not for the reasons you’d think. She listed boxing, cardio, and Krav Maga, and that last one was the problem. Krav Maga is Israeli, so pro-Palestinian accounts on X immediately started calling for her to be canceled. They also brought up that she starred in Scream 7, the movie Melissa Barrera was fired from over antisemitic Instagram posts, as if the two were somehow connected. To these accounts, Israel is a stain on everything it touches, so even a workout class becomes grounds for cancellation. Presenter: @jvcobgold #McKennaGrace #KravMaga

A UN commission accused Israel of extermination in the West Bank. Within hours, it was everywhere. A charge that serious should rest on evidence anyone can check. Dozens of the report’s citations to earlier commission reports give no paragraph or page number. And Israel investigated most of these deaths, yet the report doesn’t give Israel’s findings in a single one. Israel made that information public months before the report came out. This isn’t a claim about whether the events described happened or not. Rather, it’s about how a conclusion becomes common knowledge when nobody checks it. Presenter: @jvcobgold #UN #WestBank

Genocide is no laughing matter. Good thing there's no genocide in Gaza or SNL's “joke" would fall even flatter than it already has.

Another wave of posts is claiming Gaza is facing a new “famine,” and they’re pointing to the World Food Programme to make the case. Here’s the part of the World Food Programme’s release the headlines skipped: food insecurity in Gaza has improved since late 2025. The same release warns that progress could reverse if funding keeps dropping, and that funding is easy to trace. According to the World Food Programme’s own contribution ledger, US funding fell from $4.45 billion in 2024 to roughly $2 billion in 2025. Funding gaps like that are a real story about budgets and aid, and they deserve accurate coverage. But they aren’t a famine. Presenter: @jvcobgold #Gaza #WFP #UN

How do Israeli elections actually work? 🇮🇱 On October 27, Israelis will head to the polls. But unlike in the US, they're not voting directly for their next prime minister. They're voting for political parties. So how does Israel choose its next government? Here's the process explained in under 2 minutes.

Brad Lander is running for Congress in New York. With Election Day less than two weeks away, he’s in the West Bank picking olives and filming campaign content. He says the trip is about exposing the “reality of the occupation.” But the timing makes the political calculation hard to miss. Instead of spending the final stretch before an election talking to New Yorkers about New York, he’s attaching himself to one of the most viral international stories of the moment. No new policy. No solution. No meaningful change for Israelis or Palestinians. Just a foreign conflict @bradlander turned into congressional clickbait.

When @DavidEllison's Paramount closed its takeover of Warner Bros., it put HBO, DC, CNN, and CBS News under one company: @Skydance. @AJPlus built a video around a simple idea: one pro-Israel family now decides what America watches. It spread everywhere. The Murdochs own Fox News and the New York Post. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Neither got this video. What AJ+ never tells you is who is making that argument. AJ+ is Al Jazeera, and Al Jazeera is owned and funded by the government of Qatar, a country with numerous human rights abuses. Here's what else they never tell you. Qatar's sovereign wealth fund owns 10.6% of the company AJ+ just made a video attacking. They're not outside observers. They're shareholders. Why is a state broadcaster warning you about a private owner's influence, while never once disclosing its own? That's not a question about media ownership. It's a government using a newsroom to decide which owners you should distrust. And of all the men who own American newsrooms, they picked the Jewish one. Presenter: @jvcobgold #Skydance #AlJazeera #Paramount #WarnerBros

“Resistance is justified when people are occupied.” But no claim of occupation gives anyone the right to murder civilians, rape, or take hostages. International law explicitly prohibits these acts. October 7 wasn't justified resistance. It was terrorism. No slogan can change that.

American Jews and Israeli Jews share a history, an identity, and a future. But do they still understand each other? October 7 exposed a divide that had been growing for decades. On this episode of The Honest Take, Ben Chertoff sits down with author Daniel Gordis to discuss why American and Israeli Jews see the world so differently, how antisemitism and the war have reshaped their relationship, and whether the growing rift can be repaired. Two communities. Two very different realities. One Jewish people. Listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.