Earlier this year, Charlie Kirk rejected an offer from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to channel massive Israeli funding into Turning Point USA. According to a longtime friend who spoke to the Grezone, Kirk believed Netanyahu was trying to silence him after he began publicly questioning Israel's outsized influence in Washington.
In the weeks before his September 10th assassination, the source said Kirk had come to view Netanyahu as a bully. Kirk was disturbed by what he saw inside the Trump administration where Netanyahu personally pushed for key appointments and used wealthy allies like Miriam Adelson to keep the White House firmly in line. Kirk's friend, who also had access to Trump and his inner circle, recalled Kirk warning Trump not to bomb Iran on Israel's behalf. Charlie was the only person who did that, they said, adding that Trump barked at him and shut down the conversation. That moment convinced Kirk the US president was under the thumb of a foreign power.
By the following month, Kirk was facing a campaign of intimidation from Netanyahu's allies, figures he described in an interview as Jewish "leaders" and "stakeholders". "He was afraid of them.", the source emphasized. Kirk's career had been fueled from the start by Israeli donors and for years he returned the favor with anti-Palestinian rhetoric and trips to Israel. But as Israel's genocide against Gaza triggered backlash on the right, Kirk began shifting course. At his July Student Action Summit, he gave space for speakers like Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, and comedian Dave Smith to slam Israel's war crime, expose Epstein's ties to Israeli intelligence and ridicule Israeli billionaires like Bill Ackman. The blowback was immediate. According to Kirk's friend, donors bombarded Kirk with angry calls and texts ordering him back into line. Kirk seemed outraged during an August 6 interview with conservative host Meghan Kelly as he discussed the messages he was receiving from pro-Israel "top" figures.
[Charlie's conversation with Megan Kelly, in an interview before his assassination]
Charlie: "It is all of a sudden, 'oh, Charlie: he's no longer with us.' Wait a second. What do you mean? What does 'with us' mean exactly? Right. I'm an American. Okay. I represent this country. The more that you guys privately and publicly call our character into question, which is not isolated, right? Megan, it would be one thing if it was one text or two text. It is dozens of texts."
Megan: "Yes."
Charlie: "Then we start to say, 'Hold the boat here." And to be fair, some of my really good Jewish friends are like, 'That's not all of us.' But these are leaders, too, though, right? These are stakeholders, right? I have less ability sometimes online to criticize the Israeli government without backlash than actual Israelis do."
Kirk was killed on September 10th, shot by a rooftop sniper during a rally in Utah.
One day before his death, Kirrick told Ben Shapiro, "Maybe we should also ask a question, 'is the media totally presenting the truth when it comes to Israel?' Just a question. You know, that maybe we shouldn't believe everything the media says. Because I know I've been conditioned to ask a lot more critical questions over the last couple of years."
While no evidence links Israel to the assassination, speculation spread rapidly. A viral post read: "He was their friend. He basically dedicated his life to them and they murdered him in front of his family. Israel just shot themselves." Others pointed to a warning from Infowars host, Harrison Smith, who said a month earlier that Kirk feared Israel would kill him if he turned against it. The storm of accusations rattled Tel Aviv, forcing Netanyahu to deny involvement in a NewsMax interview on September 11, even as he broke from his war cabinet to memorialized Kirk on Fox News.
Al Mayadeen English, https://youtu.be/6gyvsTQGTDs?si=tgpyqhEJNv0pqmRs