Netanyahu's 19th-century Colonial Thesis: His War on Palestine is a Civilizing One.

 Just like the old days back in 1850.

This sort of Zionist bullshit used to work before, but not anymore. Netanyahu says he is waging his war against Palestine is a civilizing one: To prevent Palestinians from raising children to kill Jews (by killing the children!); to make sure Israel is a “paragon of freedom” and a decent "Democracy for Jews only"; to liberate Palestinian women from their status as “cattle” in Gaza; and ignoring altogether the ultra-religious extremist Jewish barbarians in his government whose treatment of women is not exactly post-colonial. 

Enjoy this trip down colonial memory lane with 19th-century memes and tropes.

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YouTube Pranksters Thought a Netanyahu Interview Would Be Good for Business. Then Something Surprising Happened.

Aymann Ismail
Mon, August 18, 2025 



The video’s thumbnail looks like something ripped from the nightmare of an Onion editor: Benjamin Netanyahu—the leader at the center of one of the world’s deadliest conflicts—sits flanked by “The Nelk Boys.” But it’s real. The prime minister of Israel, one of the most sought-after interviews on the planet, gave an hour-plus exclusive to a pair of YouTube pranksters.

The video’s opening line is perhaps its most honest: “We are so not qualified to do this,” Kyle Forgeard says to his co-host, Aaron “Steiny” Steinberg. They weren’t wrong. Over the course of the 73-minute video, Netanyahu grins his way through breezy questions about “bromances” with Trump and whether he prefers Burger King to McDonald’s. (It’s Burger King, which one of the hosts quipped was Netanyahu’s “worst take.”) 

And things got even worse as the trio delved into more serious topics. The prime minister repeated racist talking points about Palestinians raising children to kill Jews, repeated the trope that Israel is actually a “paragon of freedom,” and claimed the liberation of Palestinian women as central to his mission, suggesting they are essentially “cattle” in Gaza.

Here’s what’s true: In March, a U.N. commission found that Israel has used sexual violence as a military strategy, including rape, forced nudity, and the destruction of fertility clinics, affecting over half a million women of reproductive age in Gaza. It’s the grim reality behind the very racist rhetoric about women being “cattle.” Since launching an invasion of Gaza following the Oct. 7 attacks in 2023, Israel’s military has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians—including 18,500 children and counting. Gazan civilians are now enduring a regime of deliberate starvation, which has been deemed an illegal weapon of war by multiple human rights groups, like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Netanyahu himself faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

All of this would have been worth raising during the interview, but the Nelk Boys pressed the prime minister on almost none of it. What Netanyahu got instead was an hourlong, humanizing PR spot that, as of this writing, has more than 2 million views.

And yet, the absurdity of the setting is what made it effective. Netanyahu sipping espresso while bantering about junk food made it easier to disengage from the reality of what he’s accused of doing. That’s the danger of the influencer interview pipeline: It reduces life-and-death matters into fluffy, clickable content. Chill out. It’s a vibe, bro.

It’s tempting to belabor how massively irresponsible it was for the Nelk Boys to let Netanyahu propagandize without pushback, particularly given the relationship between U.S. support for Israel and what actions the country takes. The disconnect between tone and stakes here is dizzying. U.N. surveys say 96 percent of children in Gaza believe they will die soon; nearly half say they want to. Toddlers are suicidal. It’s completely reasonable to be upset that the person responsible is asked to joke about hamburgers.

But amid the many (rightful) condemnations is another story. Their failure to hold power to account isn’t so different from what we see in “serious” press. Both rely on the same underlying assumption that Netanyahu’s narrative deserves every benefit of every doubt, no matter how implausible, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The Nelk Boys made that difference look goofy. Traditional media makes it look credible.

And as abominable as the Nelk Boys’ interview was, it was, perhaps, not even the month’s worst case of Netanyahu-related media malpractice. And it’s what happened after the Nelk Boys’ bit of disasterpiece theater that’s most interesting.

Just weeks later, Netanyahu sat down with Fox News. The interviewer, Bill Hemmer, wore the look of professionalism, but the questions were hardly tougher. The interview was strikingly similar. It was another platform for Netanyahu to insist there is no starvation, that he should be believed over dozens of health care professionals and global aid institutions. Even Israeli genocide scholars and human rights organizations are condemning him and the Israeli military.

If the Nelk Boys didn’t know any of this, fine. They said they didn’t. What’s Hemmer’s excuse?

Ironically, the Nelk Boys’ Netanyahu move may have backfired. The Nelk Boys subscriber count shrank by more than 20,000. Comment sections turned against them. While Netanyahu sought to launder his image, he may have dragged theirs down with him. The goofy espresso gaffe makes it easier to tune out the gravity of what’s being said. But whether the audience is as credulous as both Netanyahu and the Nelk Boys seemed to believe is another question entirely.

And here’s the part the media should actually learn from the Nelk Boys: They admitted their shortcomings, and they broadened their sourcing. They hosted a chaotic “debate” livestream with critics including Hasan Piker, Sneako, and—for reasons unknown—white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Then they gave an hour to Bassem Youssef, who scolded their “total lack of critical thinking” and bluntly told the pair of thirtysomethings to stop infantilizing themselves. Kyle Forgeard, chief Nelk Boy, looked genuinely embarrassed, calling the interview with Netanyahu a move they would “always regret,” adding they should have pressed him “100 times harder.” That willingness to listen and accept responsibility is a humility many of us in mainstream news could use. Too many outlets still default to assuming Israel has the moral high ground, while holding Palestinians to the standard of “perfect victims.”

Coverage of this war matters because voters need reliable reporting to hold power to account. That’s why I got into this work. And moments like this are powerful reminders that it’s not access or high-profile interviews that make a story worthwhile, but the proliferation of verified facts. Reporting is best done on the ground, and the story of Gaza can be best told by the local journalists, who are both bearing witness and being directly targeted by Israel’s war effort. Since October 2023, at least 192 journalists and media workers have been killed, the deadliest period in the records of the Committee to Protect Journalists; the International Federation of Journalists puts the toll at 226. On Aug. 11, an Israeli airstrike targeted a journalists’ tent outside Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital, killing Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif and several colleagues. This makes the stakes plain.

And you can’t expect Netanyahu to tell you any of that in a friendly sit-down interview.