Censorship and Thuggery Won’t Save Israel’s Reputation

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Censorship and Thuggery Won’t Save Israel’s Reputation
Jay Solomon's post on Trita Parsi (Ana Kasparian)

Unable to defend the indefensible, Israel’s ardent defenders seek to dismantle liberal democratic values to squash debate. They’re failing.

By Ana Kasparian, reposted from Ana Kasparian’s Substack, June 13, 2026

The Zionist activists moonlighting as “journalists” over at The Free Press erroneously claim the State Department is looking to deport Quincy Institute co-founder Trita Parsi, whose calls for restraint in U.S. foreign policy run counter to Israel’s endless thirst for bloodshed and border expansion.

Citing anonymous White House sources in a post titled “Will the U.S. Deport Trita Parsi?” disgraced contributing writer Jay Solomon claims that the State Department launched an investigation into Parsi for supposedly amplifying propaganda from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Solomon writes:

“The State Department has launched an investigation of Parsi and could try to deport him, according to U.S. officials and documents reviewed by The Free Press. Parsi was born in Iran, grew up in Sweden, has lived in the U.S. for over 25 years, and holds a green card.

“The secretary has been very clear,” said a Trump administration official about Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s efforts to combat Iranian influence inside the U.S. “Anyone who seeks to undermine the U.S., we’re taking a hard look at.” That includes “people who support adversaries of ours and whose work furthers their agenda and undermines our security.”

The Quincy Institute took Solomon’s reporting seriously and lawyered up. However, the latest update from Parsi himself, along with a statement from the State Department, uncovers just how far some are willing to go to punish and silence anyone who poses a challenge to the Zionist project.

Parsi writes:

“…the State Department issued a statement to reporters clarifying that ‘the State Department has no plans to revoke the green card of Mr. Parsi at this time.’ Nor did it provide any confirmation for the central premise of the Free Press story—that an investigation of me existed in the first place.

I don’t believe there was any investigation against me. Rather, some elements within the State Department wanted to start one and thought external pressure could help move things forward. I say “additional” because for weeks, pro-Israel social media influencers had been urging the U.S. government to deport me, while some activists—or intelligence operators—even produced an AI-generated video of me being arrested by ICE.

At the Quincy Institute, we heard from sources inside the administration that there never was an investigation, that none of the principals were aware of the issue, and that the alleged source for the Free Press story may have been a “rogue actor.” That, presumably, is why the State Department took the highly unusual step of publicly refuting Solomon’s report.”

It’s unsurprising that “elements within the State Department” would lean on The Free Press and Jay Solomon as tools to carry out their censorious thuggery in lieu of healthy debate.

Solomon is no journalist.

He was fired as chief foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in 2017 after an Associated Press investigation uncovered his financial dealings with one of his key sources: an Iranian-born gunrunner named Farhad Azima.

Emails and business documents obtained by the AP revealed that Azima, a CIA asset involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, discussed with Solomon a $725 billion contract with the UAE to surveil Iran. One of the documents, dated March 2015, showed that Solomon was a partner in one of Azima’s companies. NPR also reported at the time that Azima had offered Solomon a 10 percent stake in Denx LLC, a private intelligence firm.

“That Jay Solomon and The Free Press would play [a role in triggering an investigation], wittingly or unwittingly, should surprise no one,” Parsi said.

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft happens to be one of the few think tanks in Washington that pursues diplomacy over bloodshed. The organization’s website clearly explains that its mission is to “…connect and mobilize a network of policy experts and academics who are dedicated to a vision of American foreign policy based on military restraint rather than domination.”

I’ve had several interviews with Parsi, and the idea that he would pose a threat to anyone in the U.S. is absurd.

One of the most admirable elements of Parsi’s project is that he uniquely seeks to enhance cooperation among the anti-war left and right. As a result, he has offered his expertise and perspectives on political shows that span the ideological spectrum, from Steve Bannon’s War Room to Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.

So, why would someone like Parsi draw the ire of adherents to the Zionist cause? It should be obvious at this point. Nonetheless, political scientist John Mearsheimer laid out the reason perfectly in a recent conversation with Tucker Carlson:

“In large part, Israel and the [Israel] lobby have a deep-seated interest in making sure that the United States is militarily involved all over the world because they want an American military that’s at the ready if Israel gets into trouble. So, whenever you talk about restraint, like the Quincy Institute in Washington talks about restraint, this raises the hackles of the lobby.”

In targeting Parsi, Solomon now joins the ranks of literal mental patients like Laura Loomer and a particularly violent faction of the Iranian diaspora that revels in the bombing of their homeland, which has already killed thousands of Iranian civilians.

Congrats, I guess?

The whole debacle involving Parsi touches on a broader issue facing the U.S. and its media landscape. Zionists are under the impression that the winning strategy is to get Israel’s critics fired or deported rather than engage in debate.

Unable to defend Israel’s indefensible slaughter campaigns in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, self-important “intellectuals” like Sam Harris shamelessly declare they “Won’t Debate Critics of Israel” because they’re “not interested in all the ways Israel has missed the mark.” Intellectualism in America has devolved into willful ignorance.

Zionists whine that it’s “antisemitic” to call out their increasing control of the media as they shell out billions to control as much media as possible. Just a few examples:

  • Oracle CEO and IDF donor Larry Ellison purchased TikTok to censor content critical of Israel and the Zionist movement. Currently, U.S.-born Erica Mindel, who proudly served the IDF instead of the U.S. military, censors videos deemed unfriendly toward Israel on the platform.

  • David Ellison, Larry Ellison’s son, merges Skydance Media with Paramount and promptly installs Bari Weiss, who founded The Free Press, as the editor-in-chief of CBS News.

  • David also spent $150 million to acquire Weiss’s The Free Press and fold it into CBS News. In July 2025, the Financial Times explained that “Weiss won over Ellison partly by taking a pro-Israel stance…”

  • More recently, the younger Ellison launched a successful hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, promising to make sweeping changes to CNN as soon as the deal is finalized. One of those changes would involve installing Weiss to wreck the cable news channel, much like she has done at CBS.

The same forces have also attempted to banish me from public discourse. They’ve had some success in getting me fired from RealClearInvestigations, where I reported on California politics and not foreign policy. Good job! You’ve accomplished nothing. CNN has also stopped booking me for debates on Abby Phillip’s program. But most of my views on Israel are shared on The Young Turks, where the demands Zionists carry hold no weight.

So, they decided to target and harass my non-political family members as punishment for my own political views. As a result, family members who typically pay no attention to Israel or U.S. foreign policy are suddenly curious. They’re reading up about the genocide in Gaza and the destruction of entire villages in Lebanon.

Zionists have accomplished the exact opposite of what they were hoping for with their pricey censorship campaigns. Getting critics fired or harassing their family members isn’t conducive to winning people over, which is why Israel’s reputation among Americans is at an all-time low. The latest Pew Research poll reveals that a whopping 60 percent of Americans now have an unfavorable view of our special ally.

It would have been cheaper, and far more effective, to simply end Israel’s slaughter campaigns. Instead, Zionists insist on digging themselves into a deeper hole with most counterproductive strategy imaginable. Some will be scared into silence. Others refuse to.

So, we persist.

Ana Kasparian is the Host & Executive Producer of The Young Turks.

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