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Sep 15, 2026· Updated

A Streamer Tells His Audience That American Jews Are Inviting Violence on Themselves — and Ten Weeks Before the Midterms the Democrat He Campaigned For, Michigan's Senate Nominee, Ends Up Apologizing for a Synagogue Attack He Called "Context"

On August 20, 2026, the Twitch streamer Hasan Piker told his audience that "if Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone is going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews." Within a week at least thirteen elected Democrats — including the House Democratic leader, three sitting senators and the DNC chair — had condemned the remark. The condemnations landed hardest on Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan's open Senate seat, who had campaigned with Piker after beating Rep. Haley Stevens in a primary in which AIPAC-aligned groups spent at record levels against him. Rep. Hillary Scholten, who had already broken with El-Sayed over the appearances, singled out Piker's naming of Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss — the Democratic nominee for Stevens's House seat, who is Jewish and openly gay — and called Piker "a hack who thrives on hate, shock and awe because he lacks substance." Moss answered that he would not "be lectured by a California podcaster." Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who is Jewish, said crimes against Jews for being Jews are "antisemitism plain and simple." Hakeem Jeffries called the claim dangerous and antisemitic. Rep. Josh Gottheimer went further and said anyone campaigning with Piker is "part of the problem." Sens. Cory Booker, Jacky Rosen and Jon Ossoff and Reps. Ritchie Torres, Jared Moskowitz, Brad Schneider, Greg Stanton, Jake Auchincloss and Haley Stevens also condemned the remarks. El-Sayed distanced himself from Piker without disavowing him, saying "nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople." Then, on Saturday, August 29, at the Michigan Democratic Party's nominating convention in Lansing, he went to the state party's Jewish Democratic Caucus and apologized for something older: his response to the March 2026 attack on Temple Israel, a suburban Detroit synagogue, where a man crashed a vehicle into the building and opened fire, wounding a security guard before being killed. El-Sayed had condemned the attack but added "hurt people hurt people," noting the attacker had lost relatives in an Israeli airstrike days earlier. "I made a mistake," he told the caucus. "What I was trying to do was offer context for why it happened, but it wasn't the time for context." Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish and had criticized El-Sayed for making excuses for domestic terrorism, did not attend the convention, citing antisemitic harassment directed at her.

“Even if you didn't vote for Abdul, you need to support up and down the ticket this November.”
Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) · Sep 15, 2026

The U.S. Ambassador to Israel Says the British Government's "Jew Hate … Knows No Boundaries" — Aimed at a Jewish Foreign Secretary — and When Britain Bans West Bank Settlement Goods Two Days Later, He Warns of "Repercussions" and a Florida Congressman Threatens to Cut Britain Off From "Billions of Dollars"

On Tuesday, September 8, 2026, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced that the United Kingdom will ban imports of all goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, along with services — financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate and advertising — that support them. Miliband, who is Jewish, told Parliament that "there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists" and that the government's "argument is not with the people of Israel … our argument is with the conduct of its government." He said France and Canada would follow. Prime Minister Andy Burnham briefed President Trump by phone on Monday before the announcement; Downing Street's readout did not describe Trump's response, and the Trump administration had privately urged London not to proceed. Israel's finance minister called for expelling the British ambassador and its security minister urged closing the British consulate in East Jerusalem. The American response came from the U.S. ambassador in Jerusalem and a Florida congressman. Two days earlier, on September 6, Ambassador Mike Huckabee had responded to a Miliband video describing medicines being blocked from Gaza by posting on X: "The Brits have lost it. The Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts." On the morning of the announcement Huckabee told the BBC's Today programme the ban was "a discrimination against the Jewish people," that "I don't know if they have thought it through," and that "the UK is a sovereign country; they can do what they want, but so is the US" — warning Britain could face "repercussions or retaliations" and suggesting states like Florida could act on their own. Rep. Randy Fine, who as a Florida legislator wrote the state's anti-boycott law, posted Monday night that any British company forced to comply would be barred from doing business with Florida's state and local governments: "Florida is one of Britain's largest trading partners. They should understand that their vanity project in support of Muslim terror could cost them billions of dollars." The episode lands as the Senate weighs a Democratic resolution on West Bank settlements and after the E1 settlement tenders that Britain cited as its trigger. No member of Congress had publicly criticized Huckabee's "Jew hate" remark about a Jewish foreign secretary as of the announcement, and the State Department had not issued its own statement on the British measures.

“I'll be speaking to Israel, I'll be speaking to them, and I'll find out what's their thinking... I understand what's going on. But I want to find out why all of a sudden has that happened.”
Donald Trump (R-FL) · Sep 9, 2026

The House Votes 237-169 to Strip Federal Student Aid From Colleges That Boycott Israel — a Bill Written by a Democrat, Opposed by His Own Leadership, and Passed With 33 Democrats and All but Two Republicans

On September 3, 2026, the House passed H.R. 4795, the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act of 2026, by a vote of 237-169. The bill bars colleges and universities that engage in what it defines as a "non-expressive commercial boycott" of Israel from participating in federal student aid programs — including Pell grants and federal student loans. The bill was written by an unusual pair: Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the former chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), one of the most pro-Israel Democrats in the House. It had cleared the Education and Workforce Committee 24-9 after a June 25 hearing. The floor vote split both parties, but far more unevenly on one side than the other. Republicans voted 203-2 in favor, with only Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Warren Davidson (R-OH) opposed. Democrats voted 167-33 against — meaning 33 Democrats broke with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Whip Katherine Clark and the rest of the leadership team, all of whom voted no. Supporters framed the bill as an answer to campus antisemitism. Opponents, led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) — who has spent decades opposing the BDS movement itself — argued it punishes constitutionally protected speech, and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), the ranking member on Education and Workforce, argued on the floor that no American university administration has actually adopted the policies the bill describes. The vote landed the same week House Democratic leaders were weighing discipline against two members who crossed the aisle on a procedural rule, and ten weeks before the midterms — sharpening an intra-Democratic fight over Israel that has been building all year.

“The antisemitic rot that has corroded college campuses must be eradicated — enough is enough.”
Virginia Foxx (R-NC) · Sep 3, 2026

Ten Weeks Before the Midterms, a Second Person in Mike Collins’s Orbit Surfaces With Nazi and Klan Imagery — a Former Staffer Who Calls Himself a "Twink Fascist," and Jon Ossoff Says It Is "Disqualifying"

On Thursday, August 27, 2026, The Washington Post reported that Preston Parra, 24, who interned for Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) in 2024 and then worked as a contractor for the congressman's political action committee into 2025, had posted a swastika to his X account in June and July and shared an image of himself in Ku Klux Klan robes. Parra, who describes himself online as a "twink fascist," defended the posts to the Post as satirical and provocative, and said the Klan image was generated with X's Grok AI tool. Collins is the Republican nominee challenging Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in what is expected to be one of the most expensive Senate races of the 2026 midterms. A spokesman said Parra has no affiliation with Collins's office or campaign and that Collins "unequivocally condemns" the posts. The report landed on top of an earlier and unresolved controversy. In July 2026, CNN's KFile reported that Collins's son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II — who is registered to vote at a Collins-owned property, has appeared in Collins campaign photos, and attended Collins's June primary victory party — had shared content from the white nationalist group Patriot Front along with antisemitic conspiracy material and calls to deport Muslims. Collins abruptly ended a press conference at Monroe County Hospital on July 30 after reporters repeatedly pressed him on the relationship, saying only that he had "fully addressed" it before pivoting to attacks on Ossoff. On August 11, more than 50 Black Georgia state legislators signed a statement condemning Collins and demanding answers; Collins responded that "no one speaks for me" and condemned antisemitism generally without disavowing his son-in-law by name. The Washington Post framed the Parra posts as part of a pattern that some Republicans have begun to notice, coming as Republicans defend a Senate majority and Georgia sits near the center of the map.

“This time, it's swastikas and the costume of the Ku Klux Klan, unacceptable and disqualifying.”
Jon Ossoff (D-GA) · Aug 27, 2026

A Career Civil Rights Lawyer Says the Administration's Campus Antisemitism Investigations Were "Predetermined, Without Regard to the Evidence" — and Jamie Raskin Opens an Investigation Calling Them a "Pre-Baked Frame-Up"

On August 18, 2026, lawyers for Haley Van Erem — a career attorney who spent nearly a decade in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division before being detailed to the multi-agency antisemitism task force — filed a 28-page whistleblower disclosure with the inspectors general at DOJ and HHS and with the Office of Special Counsel. The disclosure alleges that the Title VI investigations of Harvard, Brown, Columbia and Cornell were marked by "extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined outcomes without factual or legal support," that "the outcomes of the investigations were predetermined, without regard to the evidence," and that the whole exercise was a "politically mandated effort" to extract money through settlement demands and funding freezes. It says hundreds of millions of dollars were suspended before the investigations were finished, that Columbia investigators flagged false statements and constitutionally protected activity being cited as Title VI violations, that a Harvard-assigned attorney warned the proposed settlement demands were unrelated to remedying antisemitism and likely violated the First Amendment, and that the task force also targeted Muslim professors. Van Erem left the department in May 2025, she says, because she was "unwilling to be made vulnerable to further participation in politically motivated investigations unsupported by facts and contrary to law." Columbia agreed to pay $200 million over three years and Brown agreed to spend $50 million on Rhode Island workforce development, both without findings of wrongdoing. The same day the disclosure surfaced, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on House Judiciary, wrote to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon demanding documents and a transcribed interview before September 1. A Justice Department spokesperson said Van Erem "did not work on university investigations" and that the department "stands behind the integrity of these investigations."

“It is a shameful stain on the Department of Justice and a clear and present danger to American academic preeminence in the world.”
Jamie Raskin (D-MD) · Aug 18, 2026