New York Times Blames Capitalism, Israel, Climate Change for Charlie Kirk’s Death
Author of essay is “poster child for...antisemitism,” congressman says
Capitalism, Israel, and climate change are to blame for the murder of Republican activist Charlie Kirk, an opinion essay published in the New York Times claims.
The essay, by Hasan Piker, says, “The social challenges include rising rents and homelessness, the destruction caused by climate change, titanic levels of inequality, and too many others to name here. Our capitalist way of life — always accumulating, never evening out — leaves more and more people to deal with these problems on their own. This produces feelings of isolation and resentment as material conditions worsen. …it is little wonder that a country of stressed-out gun owners would have so many grim, needless gun deaths.”
It adds, “The genocide in Gaza has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives. Meanwhile, Israel has carried out brazen assassinations and attempted assassinations in Iran, Qatar, Lebanon and Yemen. Backed up by Mr. Trump and, previously, by Mr. Biden, our government’s virtually unyielding support for Israel tells a scary story about the country we live in. It suggests that, merely because we designate them as such, American enemies can be marked for death….Pulling a gun or launching a missile has become part of our national character.”
It shouldn’t be necessary to say, but that is crazy. For starters, blaming capitalism for political violence ignores the reality that the communists excelled at murder, killing Leon Trotsky with an ice axe, poisoning Georgi Markov. Soviet-backed Palestinian Arab terrorists shot Leon Klinghoffer and threw him overboard into the Mediterranean sea. The Communist regime in Cuba killed Christian pro-democracy activist Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas. The Chinese Communists murdered plenty of people at Tiananmen Square. National Socialism in Germany and Soviet Communism murdered tens of millions.
As for the claim that Israeli military action somehow stokes American violence, the essayist does not explain how American support for Israel’s wars of self-defense somehow inspires violence in America but support for Hamas and its agenda on American college campuses does not serve a similar function. By Piker’s logic, President Obama encouraged violence by authorizing a raid against Osama Bin Laden, but Al Qaeda’s 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, or the Boston Marathon bombing, don’t count as contributing to the violent climate.
Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley were all assassinated while in office before the establishment of the modern state of Israel, so using U.S. support for Israel as an explanation for American political violence is nonsensical.
Who is the author of this New York Times piece? Here is a press release from Rep. Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York:
Hasan Piker has emerged as the poster child for the post-October 7th outbreak of antisemitism in America. Mr. Piker has demonized Orthodox Jews as “inbred” and has dehumanized a Jewish man as a “bloodthirsty pig dog”: the association of Jews with pigs and blood-thirst is textbook antisemitism. Mr. Piker has all but exposed himself as an apologist for the sexual violence and savage rapes of October 7th. “It doesn’t matter if rape happened on October 7th. It doesn’t change the dynamic for me,” Mr. Piker declares before finally admitting that “Palestinian resistance” (his euphemism for terrorism) is not perfect.”
Mr. Piker has said he has “no issue” with Hezbollah, the world’s the most heavily armed terrorist organization in the world, and has given a platform to a suspected terrorist from the Houthis. The US government has declared Hezbollah a Foreign Terrorist Organization (in the case of the former) and the Houthis a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. Platforming any of these terrorist organizations, as Piker has done, is beyond the pale. Piker has even gone as far as to incite violence, telling his followers to “kill” and “murder” people “in the streets” and “let the streets soak in their red-capitalist blood.” The incitement of violence merits scrutiny from federal law enforcement.
Outside the context of October 7th, Mr. Piker has even joked and mused about men date-raping women on a college campus and has posted an image of a handgun on top of a United States Senator in what appears to be open invitation to gun violence against a sitting elected official. Inviting one’s followers to shoot an elected official, whether it be done in earnest or in jest, is the kind of threat that warrants serious attention from federal law enforcement.
When he is not joking and musing about rape, Hasan Piker alternates between rape denial and rape apologia. He either denies the sexual violence of 10/7 or he denies that it matters. Mr. Piker once described the sexual violence of 10/7 as “rape fantasies” or “rape hallucinations.” Despite his disdain for and dismissiveness toward Jewish victims of rape in Israel, Mr. Piker remains one of the most popular political influencers on Twitch. What does his popularity reveal about the devaluation of Jewish lives in American society and Twitch’s role in deepening the devaluation of Jewish life?
Hasan Piker has come out as an apologist not only for 10/7 but also for 9/11, compounding antisemitism with anti-Americanism. Here is Mr. Piker in his own words: “America deserved 9/11.” The 3,000 Americans incinerated or otherwise murdered in the Twin Towers; the falling men and women plummeting to their deaths from 110-story skyscrapers; according to Mr. Piker, all of them had it coming. They deserved it. One wonders whether Mr. Piker has ever seen an anti-American or antisemitic terrorist attack he didn’t like? He seems to live in a morally inverted universe where the true terrorists on 9/11 and 10/7 were not the perpetrators but the victims.
Speaking of siding with terrorists, Mr. Piker has glorified “brave mujahideen” for wounding US Congressman Dan Crenshaw, who honorably served his nation in the Navy Seals; Mr. Piker’s loyalty lies not with the members of the US Armed Services but with the mujahideen who murder and maim them on the battlefield.
Here is a statement from Ed Cox, the chairman of the New York Republican Party, issued earlier this month after the New Yorker festival invited Piker to speak:
Statement from Ed Cox after New Yorker Festival Invites pro-9/11 Radical
September 4, 2025
NEW YORK CITY – NYGOP Chair Ed Cox released the following statement in response to the New Yorker Festival’s invitation to Hasan Piker, a radical zealot who has expressed support for the 9/11 attacks, open anti-Semitism and called for violence against Republicans:
“As we approach the 24th anniversary of 9/11, a supposedly mainstream gathering of left-wing New Yorkers has invited a speaker who openly expressed his support of the attacks, in addition to calling for violence against Republican officials and numerous instances of overt anti-Semitism.
“This takes place against the backdrop of a Democratic Party that has nominated a defund-the-police, globalize-the-intifada Communist as their candidate for Mayor.
“Kathy Hochul and Hakeem Jeffries have spent months hemming and hawing about whether to endorse Mamdani. Their silence is pathetic cowardice. They must immediately and unequivocally repudiate both Hasan Piker and Zohran Mamdani: anything less is complicity in these radicals’ war on Western Civilization.”
What were the New York Times opinion editors thinking when they agreed to publish such a flaky essay from such an extreme author?
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