Netanyahu meets pro-Israel influencers in US, hopes TikTok sale ‘goes through’
The Israeli prime minister has met with a group of pro-Israel influencers in New York, telling them that he hopes the “purchase” of TikTok “goes through”.
“We have to fight with the weapons that apply to the battlefield in which we engage, and the most important ones are social media,” Netanyahu told the influencers.
“The most important purchase that is going on right now is … TikTok,” Netanyahu added. “TikTok, number one, number one, and I hope it goes through, because it can be consequential.”
Billionaire supporters of Trump, including Larry Ellison and Lachlan Murdoch, are reportedly involved in bids to put the Chinese video-sharing app, which has been perceived as encouraging pro-Palestinian content, into US hands.
Netanyahu also said that X is important, noting: “We have to talk to Elon [Musk]. He’s not an enemy. He’s a friend. We should talk to him.”
The Israeli leader’s comments came as the Jewish Council for Public Affairs published a report on Monday, finding that more than 679,000 posts spreading anti-Semitism were shared on the X platform between February 2024 and January 2025.
New survey finds half of US voters oppose sending more military aid to Israel
A new poll has found that US support for Israel’s war on Gaza is continuing to fall.
Conducted by The New York Times and the Siena Research Institute, the poll found that just more than half, 51 percent, of respondents opposed sending “additional economic and military support to Israel”.
Some 35 percent of respondents said they were strongly opposed to sending economic and military aid to Israel, compared with just 19 percent who were strongly in support of doing so.
Some 40 percent of respondents also answered yes when asked, “Do you think Israel is intentionally killing civilians?”
An even higher 62 percent said that they thought Israel “was not taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties”. By comparison, just 25 percent said they thought that “Israel is taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties”.
The Trump administration has continued to provide weapons and other military assistance for Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as tens of millions of dollars in funding to the controversial GHF, which runs militarised aid distribution sites where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration was seeking congressional approval to sell more than $6bn in weapons to Israel, including Apache attack helicopters, and $1.9bn for 3,250 infantry assault vehicles.
