Overview
- Casablancas, in an uncut SubwayTakes episode posted Tuesday on YouTube, said “American Zionists get the benefits of white privileged people, but talk like they are Black people during slavery.”
- Host Kareem Rahma agreed “100%” and criticized claims of oppression, saying people attend weddings in Tel Aviv while citing 80,000-plus Palestinians killed nearby in Gaza.
- The show shared shorter cuts on Instagram and TikTok without the Zionism line, while the full quote remained on YouTube, shaping how different audiences saw the exchange.
- Casablancas added that Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack was “bad” but argued past violent rebellions, like Native American and slave uprisings, do not justify broader atrocities.
- The clip drew strong, mixed reactions, with online praise from pro-Palestine voices and analysis in The Forward warning the rhetoric normalizes antisemitic tropes, and coverage also noted The Strokes’ recent Coachella montage on U.S. interventions and destruction in Gaza.