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Assault on Journalists Shows How Israeli Military Acts 'In Service of The Settler Movement': CNN Reporter
"Messiah complexes, talk of revenge, and the use of force against journalists are just symptoms of what's been happening to the army over the past three years," said one Israeli journalist.
Mar 28, 2026
Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces on Friday were caught on camera assaulting and detaining a crew of CNN journalists while they were reporting from the occupied West Bank.
A video of the incident posted on social media by CNN Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond shows the CNN crew walking near the Palestinian village of Tayasir, which in recent days has come under assault from Israeli settlers who established an illegal outpost in the area.
The crew are then accosted by armed members of the IDF, who order them to sit down. After the crew complies with their commands, the soldiers come to seize the journalists' cameras and phones that are being used to record the incident.
A soldier then puts CNN photojournalist Cyril Theophilos in a chokehold and forces him to the ground. Writing about the assault later, Theophilos said that the soldier "pushed and strangled me," adding that this kind of violence "is just a symptom of the IDF's actions in the West Bank."
According to Diamond, the CNN crew were subsequently detained for two hours. During that time, Diamond wrote, it became clear that the ideology of the Israeli settlers movement was "motivating many of the soldiers who operate in the occupied West Bank" and that the Israeli military regularly acts "in service of the settler movement."
For instance, one IDF soldier acknowledged during conversations with the CNN crew that the settler outpost near Tayasir was unlawful under both international and Israeli law, but insisted "this will be a legal settlement... slowly, slowly."
The soldier also said he wanted to exact "revenge" on local Palestinians for the death of 18-year-old Israeli settler Yehuda Sherman, who was killed last week by a Palestinian driver. Palestinians who witnessed Sherman's killing have said that the driver was trying to stop Sherman from stealing sheep.
The IDF issued an apology to CNN over the incident, insisting that "the actions and behavior of the soldiers in the incident are incompatible with what is expected of IDF soldiers."
However, this apology was deemed insufficient by Barak Ravid, global affairs correspondent for Axios.
"Apologies are not enough," he wrote on social media. "There is a need for clear accountability. 99.9% of the time there is zero accountability."
The soldiers' actions also drew condemnation from Haaretz reporter Bar Peleg, who argued that problems in the IDF have only grown worse under the far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Messiah complexes, talk of revenge, and the use of force against journalists are just symptoms of what's been happening to the army over the past three years," Peleg said. "The chief of staff and the commanding general can write another thousand letters and wave flags all they want, but the process already seems irreversible."
Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan argued that incidents like the one captured by CNN are all too common for the IDF.
"The Israeli army arrests and assaults journalists, while settlers who commit horrific crimes against Palestinian civilians enjoy total impunity," he wrote. "This is state-backed terrorism."
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‘Hegseth Wants State Media’: Pentagon Chief Says He Can’t Wait for Son of Pro-Trump Billionaire to Control CNN
In a tirade against media coverage of the Trump administration's illegal assault on Iran, Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth said, "The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better."
Mar 13, 2026
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth used part of his Friday press conference to complain about what he described as negative and "fake" news stories about the administration's illegal war on Iran, openly pining for the day the son of billionaire Trump donor Larry Ellison takes control of CNN.
"The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better," said Hegseth, pointing specifically to CNN's report Thursday that "the Pentagon and National Security Council significantly underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes while planning the ongoing operation."
"CNN doesn't think we thought of that," said Hegseth, a former Fox News host who is facing mounting backlash over the US military's bombing of an Iranian elementary school on the first day of the war and poor strategic planning overall.
"It's a fundamentally unserious report," Hegseth added.
Watch:
Hegseth: "Some in the press just can't stop. Allow me to make a few suggestions. People look at the TV and they see banners, headlines -- I used to be in that business, I know everything is written intentionally. For example, a banner -- 'Mideast War Intensifies.' What should the… pic.twitter.com/mbz70e7SsY
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 13, 2026
David Ellison is the CEO of Paramount Skydance, which is poised to acquire CNN owner Warner Bros. Discovery after a lengthy bidding war with Netflix. The deal still must receive regulatory approval from the Trump administration and in Europe, and some state attorneys general have vowed to closely scrutinize the agreement.
"Hysterical Hegseth wants state media," Jim Acosta, a former CNN anchor and White House correspondent, wrote in response to the Pentagon secretary's comments on the looming Ellison takeover.
Hegseth rejected as "patently ridiculous" the notion that the Trump administration—whose deadly incompetence has been on full display since the start of the war—would fail to adequately plan for Iran to retaliate against a military attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz, a route through which roughly 20% of the world's oil supply travels each year.
"Don't need to worry about it," Hegseth said Friday of the strait's closure, as oil prices skyrocket.
Hegseth's latest attack on the US media, which he called insufficiently "patriotic," came days after it was revealed that the Pentagon decided to bar press photographers from briefings about the Iran war after the secretary's staff reportedly deemed some of the photos taken during a March 2 briefing "unflattering."
"I, along with print photographers, have been denied entry to cover today’s Pentagon briefing," reported Nancy Youssef, a journalist with The Atlantic, on Friday morning. "All other media were allowed in."
Mark Schoeff Jr., president of the National Press Club, called the Pentagon's decision to bar photographers from briefings "deeply troubling," saying it "runs counter to the fundamental principles of transparency in a democratic society."
"A government confident in its actions welcomes scrutiny. It does not restrict it," said Schoeff. "When the government decides which images the public is allowed to see, transparency is replaced by control. Accountability doesn't take place behind closed doors."
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CNN Cuts Off Pelosi Primary Challenger's Discussion of NSPM-7
"Look how CNN shut down his question and moved on," said one viewer.
Oct 21, 2025
Saikat Chakrabarti, the progressive organizer who is challenging US Rep. Nancy Pelosi for the House seat she has held since 1987, was met with stone-faced stares and laughter on CNN when he spoke during a panel discussion Monday about the Trump administration national security memo that one journalist said amounts to a "declaration of war" on the president's political opponents.
Chakrabarti was joined by author and historian Max Boot, journalist Bata Ungar-Sargon, commentator and former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin, and former spokesperson for the George W. Bush administration Pete Seat in a panel discussion hosted by Sara Sidner.
The discussion covered the weekend's No Kings rallies, racist texts attributed to a nominee of President Donald Trump, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) raids in cities across the country before turning to the administration's recent strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea, which it says have been aimed at stopping drug trafficking and which have killed dozens of people.
Chakrabarti said the administration's policy of bombing boats in the Caribbean—vessels that, Vice President JD Vance admitted, could very well be fishing boats—to kill people the White House has claimed without evidence are "narco-terrorists," raises alarm about the president's push to unilaterally define who qualifies as a "terrorist."
Trump's policy in the Caribbean, Chakrabarti suggested, represents just one way in which the president is attempting to designate groups as terrorists. In the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's killing—which he baselessly blamed on left-wing groups—he signed an executive order in September designating "antifa"—an anti-fascist ideology embraced by autonomous groups and individuals—as a "domestic terrorist organization," despite the fact that there is no such legal designation in the US.
Days later, Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which focuses on left-wing and anti-fascist organizations and mandates a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”
The memo has recently garnered outrage from Democratic lawmakers, more than 30 of whom signed a letter condemning Trump's threats against progressive groups and organizers, but it has received little attention in the corporate media, and Chakrabarti's fellow guests on CNN Monday displayed little recognition of what he was talking about when he raised alarm about NSPM-7.
"Here's what concerns me—Trump is saying, 'I can define who's a terrorist, and that means I can kill him.' At the same time, we're seeing executive orders defining whole parts of Democratic Party as domestic terrorists," said Chakrabarti. "Here we're seeing NSPM-7, which says any anti-American or anti-capitalist or anti-Christian speech, is extremist speech."
While claiming to protect the US from drug traffickers, he added, the administration has created "a task force of 4,000 agents who are being taken off of drug trafficking and human trafficking, and the actual crime, and being put on prosecuting those people who are saying anti-capitalist things."
"Do you think that's okay?" he asked the other panelists. "Can you put two and two together about what's going on here?"
Pelosi primary challenger @saikatc raises NSPM-7 on CNN just now:
"NSPM-7, which says any anti-American or anti-capitalist or anti-Christian speech is extremist speech. We have a task force of 4,000 agents...being put on prosecuting those people who are saying anti-capitalist… pic.twitter.com/3lj26pRIQh
— Ken Klippenstein (NSPM-7 Compliant) (@kenklippenstein) October 21, 2025
None of the other guests responded, and Seat looked blankly at Chakrabarti before Sidner said the show was going to a commercial break.
"We will answer that question, coming up," Sidner said, laughing. "We're going to leave it there for that conversation."
When the show returned, the conversation turned to Ukraine and Russia.
"Look how CNN shut down his question and moved on," said commentator Guy Christensen.
Ken Klippenstein, who has reported on NSPM-7 and tracked mentions of the memo in the corporate press—some of which have downplayed the threat—expressed alarm that "the moment NSPM-7 comes up, [the] CNN anchor laughs nervously and ends the segment."
On Tuesday, however, Klippenstein reported that the "NSPM-7 dam" in the corporate media was continuing to break, with CNN airing a second segment that mentioned the memo.
The NSPM-7 dam continues to break, with a second CNN segment referencing the directive.
Former homeland security chief of staff @MilesTaylorUSA says: " NSPM-7 that was issued by the White House last month says that people who directly or indirectly support those domestic… pic.twitter.com/CXEVWxJpOu
— Ken Klippenstein (NSPM-7 Compliant) (@kenklippenstein) October 21, 2025
"This would be like if George W. Bush had said CodePink was al-Qaeda," explained former national security official Miles Taylor, "or people protesting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were associated with the Islamic State."
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