Braden “Clavicular” Peters’ Israel trip has divided Jewish influencers, raising questions about redemption, influence, and where Israel draws the line.

Posted on July 15, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

UNPACKED
Should Israel have welcomed Clavicular? Inside the debate dividing Jewish influencers
Alan Zeitlin
July 14, 2026

Twenty-year-old influencer Braden “Clavicular” Peters had barely settled into his chair at Israel’s Channel 13 before the interview fell apart. The social media personality, who has amassed more than 1.5 million followers through content centered on “looksmaxxing” and self-improvement, was asked about a January incident in which he sang along to Kanye West’s “Heil Hitler” at a Miami nightclub alongside controversial streamers Sneako and Nick Fuentes. Rather than answer the question, Peters criticized the line of questioning and walked off the set. “Everyone in Israel is talking about what we’re doing in Israel, that’s good,” he said. “For you to start the interview in a negative manner doesn’t really make sense.” His visit to Israel has sparked a fierce debate both inside and outside the country. Critics argue that Israel is legitimizing a man accused of misogyny who has publicly associated with antisemites and faces allegations in an ongoing civil lawsuit. Supporters counter that in an era when anti-Israel content dominates social media feeds, reaching a massive Gen Z audience may be worth the risk. READ MORE

JTA AOC urges Clavicular, who visited Tel Aviv, to ‘shed some light’ on the plight of the Palestinians Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the influencer Clavicular should be informing his followers about the plight of Palestinians, in a sign of how widely Clavicular’s trip this week to Tel Aviv has registered among both Israelis and Israel’s critics…“We should be focusing on Palestinians and the fact that many of them have been displaced,” she told TMZ, adding, “I hope maybe he uses his platform to give also some light to that issue as well.”

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“Senator Graham “more pro-Israel than AIPAC,” while CUFl counted him among Israel’s most stalwart allies in Congress”

Posted on July 15, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

NOON IN ISRAEL
Israel Loses Its Greatest Friend on Capitol Hill
Amit Segal
July 12, 2026

It’s Sunday, July 12, and this morning the office of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham announced that he passed away Saturday evening after a sudden and brief illness—two days after turning 71. He had returned from Kyiv on Friday, where he met Volodymyr Zelensky, and was booked on Meet the Press for this very morning. Israel has lost its greatest friend on Capitol Hill. That isn’t an exaggeration; it’s the consensus of the Israeli opposition and coalition, who rose in unison this morning to eulogize the beloved senator. Born and raised in his beloved South Carolina, Graham grew up living in a cramped room behind his parents’ combined pool hall, bar and liquor store. Later becoming a lawyer and enlisting in the U.S. military, he entered Congress in 1995, becoming the first Republican to represent South Carolina’s 3rd District since Reconstruction. In 2003, he moved up to the Senate, where he and John McCain became a trio with Joe Lieberman—dubbed the “Three Amigos” by Gen. David Petraeus on one of their endless trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. Hawks, travelers and crossers of aisles for wars worth fighting. Especially Israel’s. READ

NEW YORK POST Lindsey Graham had among the lowest wealth in Congress despite a lifetime at the center of power The late Sen. Lindsey Graham ranked among the bottom half of Congress’ big earners despite more than three decades in office and a top role leading the GOP. Graham, 71, died Saturday night with a net worth of nearly $1.5 million, leaving the senator, who had a modest upbringing in South Carolina, ranked at 294th in wealth among the 535 voting members of Congress, according to data from the Quiver Quantitative tracker. As a point of contrast, Graham’s personal wealth is a drop compared to Congress’ wealthiest member, fellow Sen. James Justice (R-WV), whose net worth is estimated at more than $664 million, according to Quiver Quantitative. 

THE HILL FBI visits Graham’s DC home FBI personnel visited late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) home in Washington, D.C., on Monday, less than 48 hours after he died of an aortic dissection.  At least six men and two women in FBI gear were at Graham’s row house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of D.C., according to footage shot by Nexstar’s Vinay Simlot. At one point, an FBI agent entered the home after a man wearing a U.S. Marshals Service jacket exited it. Later on, two agents wearing blue and yellow FBI windbreakers entered the home. While agents went into and out of the home, a man wearing an FBI jacket stood watch outside near a large black container — at one point, another man wearing bureau gear retrieved a manila folder from the container. 

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“Khanna’s stunt was a warning. The congressman was soft-launching his presidential campaign, using scary-looking Jews as his background, and he is unlikely to be the only such member of his party to try it”

Posted on July 14, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

COMMENTARY MAG
How Israel Should Handle Progressive Palestine Pilgrimages
Seth Mandel
July 13, 2026

After Ro Khanna’s failed attempt to spark a potentially dangerous confrontation in the Hebron Hills, the Democratic congressman issued a threat to Israel: “Free advice to the Israelis: It’s not a good idea to detain long-shot presidential candidates.” Khanna is referring to his failed confrontation. Settlers reportedly stopped him at a closed military zone, and the police and the IDF showed up and cleared the way for him. The IDF would have preferred to have already been escorting the congressman, but Khanna apparently rejected Israel’s offer of coordination. And then once Khanna was safely on his way thanks to the government, he told the government to watch its back. This is a ridiculous man. But Khanna’s faceplant should not tempt Israel into complacency. Had a group with an ounce of savvy showed up instead of Ro Khanna and his juvenile keyboard warriors—he reportedly let a couple of inexperienced anti-Israel activists plan this trip—it could have been easier for them to get the confrontation they were after. READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Detained in Israel? Ro Khanna’s Inconsistent Claims That the Media Never Questioned On Saturday, July 11, US Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA) posted on his X account that he was “detained” by “Israeli settlers.” It was the public’s first hint that anything had happened — three days after the fact. Since then, it has made headlines worldwide, with the largest news outlets repeating his version of the story, while statements from the IDF or Israeli police were reduced to a brief afterthought. When looking more closely at the series of events, gaps start to emerge. More than that, there appears to be a deep absence of critical questioning by journalists, who simply reported on his story without investigating the events that led up to the incident.

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“In Europe,assimilation of immigrants has not taken place. When one imports the Third World, one becomes the Third World”

Posted on July 14, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
Do the Math: Why Europe May Not Pull Through
Drieu Godefridi
July 14, 2026

Europe as we have known it for centuries — a civilization founded on a native majority population, a common culture, industrial prosperity, and a certain idea of liberty and property — appears destined to disappear. This will happen not in some spectacular cataclysm, but through a slow, inexorable erosion, made inevitable by structural trends now too powerful to be reversed in the time it would take to stop it. Even if, in the years ahead, several European countries bring to power so-called “right-wing” coalitions that have never yet governed, this can no longer substantially alter Europe’s collective destiny. The problem is no longer merely political; it is demographic, energetic, economic, and institutional. These four processes interlock and reinforce one another in a sinister yet terribly efficient mechanism. In 2024, the total fertility rate of the European Union, migrants included, stood at 1.34 children per woman, far below the replacement threshold of 2.1. READ MORE

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“Iranian president Ahmadinejad being held by IRGC after authorities in Tehran uncovered his secret contacts with Israel”

Posted on July 13, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Israel reportedly recruited Ahmadinejad in secret plan to topple Iran’s regime
Staff
July 13, 2026

Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was at the center of an Israeli plan to overthrow the regime in Tehran, with then-Mossad Director David Barnea traveling to Budapest in 2024 for a personal meeting with him, according to a New York Times investigation. The investigation, based on accounts from US and Iranian officials familiar with the matter, said Ahmadinejad is currently being held under house arrest by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence branch after authorities in Tehran uncovered a significant portion of his contacts with Israel. The recruitment operation reached its peak in late February this year, during the opening days of the war between the US and Israel and Iran. On Feb. 28, the day the war began, Israel struck Ahmadinejad’s residential compound in Tehran, hitting a building housing his security guards as well as his vehicle. Shortly after the strike, according to four senior Iranian officials, a black Peugeot arrived at the scene, picked up Ahmadinejad and quickly drove him away. READ MORE

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“The vice president’s critique overlooks a long history of Israeli diplomacy, compromise, and reluctant wars. But worse, it invokes an age-old blood libel”

Posted on July 10, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

CLARITY
The Israeli Response to Vance
Michael Oren
July 9, 2026

…What they should have asked, “is JD Vance right when he said that Israel “can’t just kill [its] way out of solving every single national security problem that [it has]’?” The answer is adamantly “no!” The charge that Israel uses brute force to resolve all its security problems is firstly, and historically, false. This is the country which, in 1949, signed armistice agreements with four Arab countries that only a year before had tried to destroy us. In 1967, that same country offered to return almost all of the sizable territories we captured in the Six-Day War in return for peace with the Arab leaders who once again sought to annihilate it. Their response was the three “no”s—no recognition, no negotiation, no peace. This is the country, Israel, which returned the Sinai Peninsula, an area more than three times its size, in return for peace with Egypt. We are the nation that signed a peace agreement with the arch-terrorist Arafat who for decades specialized in murdering Israelis. He soon went back to murdering Israelis and still we sought peace with him. READ MORE

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“His pompous, fact-lite sermon on Gaza is a transparent effort to win back Muslim voters and the keffiyeh classes”

Posted on July 10, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

SPIKED
Andy Burnham’s shameful pandering to anti-Israel bigots
Brendan O’Neill
July 10, 2026

Here he comes, pandering Andy Burnham. The King of the North throwing out the red meat of Israelophobia to keep certain voters sweet. The incoming PM yapping piously about Israel’s possible ‘war crimes’ in a bid to win back restive Muslim voters and the keffiyeh classes who’ve abandoned Labour for the crackpot Greens. That’s what I saw in Burnham’s staggeringly pompous digital sermon on Gaza – not an act of geopolitical conviction but a masterclass in demographic toadying. It was in a video chat with the Guardian – where else? – that Burnham promised to get tough on Israel when he succeeds Keir Starmer as PM this month. In classic therapy-speak, he acknowledged that ‘Labour’s initial response to the treatment of Gaza caused huge hurt’. Hurt to who? Those mobs who swarmed our streets after 7 October hollering for further holy war against the Jewish State? Cry me a river. ‘We got it wrong and I am sorry for that’, he said in his clinical-feeling mea culpa. READ MORE

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“As a Jew, I can no longer stand with a movement that is antisemitic and anti-Israel at its core”

Posted on July 10, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Why I will no longer fight for the LGBTQ community
Paul Miller
July 9, 2026

…To the LGBTQ movement, I must now say that, because of my Judaism, I was given an opportunity to show my love in the most personal way. But ironically, for the same reason, I can no longer stand with you. When “intersectionality” entered the mainstream in the 2010s, historically disenfranchised and oppressed groups banded together to embrace inclusion, diversity and social justice. Yet the most persecuted group in human history, people who endure the systemic racism built into humanity itself, are not only excluded but also recategorized to fit this new narrative. Jews are now classified as privileged colonizers and oppressors. The progressive movement, in which the LGBTQ community plays an integral role, has become a regressive campaign that embraces exclusion and antisemitism. Before you jump on the intellectually dishonest bandwagon, claiming that “It’s not antisemitism, it’s anti-Zionism” or “We aren’t anti-Jewish, we are anti-Israel,” spare me your progressive talking points. READ MORE

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I knew the evening was in trouble when the hostess described the table as “a safe space for difficult conversations”

Posted on July 10, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

MORAL CLARITY
The people who know nothing know everything
Nachum Kaplan
July 7, 2026

The dinner was being held in an immaculate apartment overlooking the city. The furniture was Scandinavian, the lighting was flattering, and the books had been arranged not alphabetically but morally. Edward Said sat beside Frantz Fanon. Judith Butler leaned against a large volume on de-colonising architecture. There were several books about Israel, none by Israelis, historians, military analysts, Arabic speakers, Hebrew speakers, or anyone who had recently burdened themselves with the region’s chronology. The apartment belonged to Oliver and Beatrice, who had invited 12 people for what they called “an evening of food, friendship and necessary conversation.” I had been included, I later realised, as the necessary conversation; the one in need of “education.” Beatrice greeted me at the door with the expression of a person welcoming a recently rehabilitated extremist. “We’re so glad you came,” she said, touching my arm. “We were worried you might feel uncomfortable.” READ MORE

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“As the crisis worsens, Israel and the US are examining steps to bring down the Iranian regime”

Posted on July 9, 2026 by ArchitectGuy

ISRAEL HAYOM (by agreement with JNS)
Pezeshkian at risk of ouster as Israel, US explore ways to topple Iran’s regime
Danny Zaken
July 9, 2026

Diplomatic officials from the region and the West have voiced concern for the fate of Iran’s political and civilian leadership, which advanced the memorandum of understanding with the US. According to these officials, the attempts to harm Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Masoud Pezeshkian during the mourning events and funeral procession for Ali Khamenei point to a loss of restraint toward them by the heads of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. One official, who is well versed in developments inside Iran, told Israel Hayom that as part of the internal dispute in Iran, which has intensified following the signing of the memorandum of understanding, Guard commanders could take control of the civilian leadership and move to oust Pezeshkian’s government. Israel Hayom reported that Araghchi made clear in his latest messages to his American interlocutors and to mediators from Pakistan and Qatar that Iran’s political leadership was unable to secure the Guards’ consent to the terms of the agreement or to the cessation of fire at tankers and ships passing through the Gulf. READ MORE

THE TELEGRAPH The Iranian Regime Is Fracturing; Open Conflict Could Be Next The Iranian regime’s oligarchic clans are at war with each other—and this conflict may soon spiral beyond control. This fight is not over ideology or the future direction of the Islamic Republic: all the oligarchic clans are Islamist; some wear turbans, others wear military uniforms, and some wear suits. In other words, they all subscribe to the core tenets of Shia Islamism in Iran: the forceful imposition of Sharia law domestically, support for the so-called Axis of Resistance militia network, anti-Americanism, and the goal of eradicating the Israel (driven by innate anti-Semitism). But they are competing to protect and advance their power and economic interests amid the vacuum that emerged after the elimination of Ali Khamenei, the former supreme leader, who had operated as the godfather of these clans.

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