Wealthy Zionist donors behind NYPD crackdown on Columbia U protests

05/23/2024 / By Ethan Huff

A handful of wealthy Jewish billionaires plotted to persecute pro-Palestine protesters at Columbia University, a newly leaked series of chatlogs from WhatsApp appears to suggest.

The Washington Post is credited with dropping the news about the private chat logs, which point to a cohort of Zionists that worked secretly to advance the interests of Israel by undermining Americans’ free speech rights.

The billionaires paid politicians like New York City Mayor Eric Adams with “donations” to have the NYPD crack down on the campus protests.

Names on the list include:

Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind snack company
Daniel Loeb, hedge fund manager
Len Blavatnik
Joseph Sitt, real estate investor

These four held a Zoom call on April 26 with Mayor Adams during which they discussed ways to disperse the campus protesters. They spoke about transfer of money to get the job done, as well as about pressuring Columbia’s president and trustees to get in on the action.

One member of the private WhatsApp group where these same topics were discussed admitted to donating $2,100, the maximum legal limit, to Adams that month as part of a bribery scheme. There was even chatter about paying private investigators to help the NYPD exert greater force.

A group of business people raised tens of millions of dollars to “fund an information campaign against Hamas” and “win the war of US public opinion,” while lobbying high level officials, and we are told that the Washington Post is antisemitic for reporting on it bc many but not… https://t.co/cCRdAdEGgy pic.twitter.com/K3dUOTuTrX

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 17, 2024

(Related: Did you know that the people of Gaza are just days away from running out of food?)

Just say no to Zionism

In the WhatsApp group, there were thousands of chat logs recorded that included names like Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, Thrive Capital founder Joshua Kushner, the brother of Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

There were apparently a few moles inside the group because someone leaked the contents of the chat, which were obviously supposed to remain private. Remaining members of the group reportedly verified that the leaked comments are legitimate.

One of billionaire real estate mogul Barry Sternlicht’s staffers created the chat, though Sternlicht never actually joined and participated in the chat himself. He is apparently too good for such things and had the staffer do all his talking for him.

This would later turn out to be a mistake as the staffer on October 12 of last year, just days after the Hamas attack on Israel, posted a message telling all the other members that the goal of the group was to “change the narrative” in favor of Israel by spreading tales about “the atrocities committed by Hamas … to all Americans.”

Titled “Israel Current Events,” the group eventually expanded to reach multiple different countries and even the highest levels of the Israeli government. All in all, about 100 people participated in the chat, at least 12 of them having appeared on Forbes‘ annual list of billionaires.

Sternlicht, via his staffer, led a crusade online to help Israel “win the physical war” in Gaza, with group members also agreeing to “help win the war” of public opinion in the United States through a campaign they referred to in the chat as “Facts for Peace.”

“I’m sensitive to concerns about being less effective if it appears that this is a Jewish initiative,” the staffer wrote at one point on behalf of Sternlicht.

All throughout the ongoing conversation, the group’s members were seeking guidance and information from officials in the Israeli government as well, which spent a lot of time and money forging a false narrative aimed at beckoning the most public sympathy for full-scale war in Gaza.

“Most appreciative for the behind the scenes briefing by Naftali Bennett,” commented Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, in the group chat. “Quite extraordinary!”

As you might expect, nearly all of the members are overpaid moguls in real estate, finance and communications – you know, the types of people who control the world for their own personal benefit at everyone else’s expense.

The end result of all this inside chatter was an amping up of the police state in New York City and elsewhere where students, professors and faculty are protesting against the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza to “defend itself.”

As for the Israeli government officials who were involved in the chat, none of them are showing any willingness to speak to the media about these latest revelations.

Unsurprising to see this Israeli reporter — who was in the IDF reserves until last year and just won the top WH Press Award — spreading anti-semitism accusations against the WashPost for its *true reporting* about various influence campaigns from pro-Israel billionaires. https://t.co/pdtXBZtW4W

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 17, 2024