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A senior officer at the Pentagon has come under scrutiny over a series of social media posts sharply critical of Israel, its leadership, and US foreign policy in the region.

Colonel Nathan McCormack, who leads the Levant and Egypt branch at the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J5 planning directorate, has used a semi-anonymous account to post numerous comments targeting Israeli actions and US support.

The posts, reportedly written since the 7 October 2023, have sparked outrage among pro-Israel circles in Washington. Here’s what he said:

  • “Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies are determined to prolong the conflict for their own goals: either to remain in power or to annex the land.”
  • “Israel’s actions over decades have prompted the accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide.”
  • “The Western states go to great lengths to avoid criticism of Israel, much out of Holocaust guilt.”
  • “Our worst ‘ally.’ We get literally nothing out of the ‘partnership’ other than the enmity of millions of people in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.”
  • “The US has not been an honest broker. We have overwhelmingly enabled Israel’s bad behavior.”
  • Responding to the idea of relocating Gaza’s population, McCormack wrote that Israel wants “to expel them and cleanse ‘Eretz Israel’ (Greater Israel) of ethnic Palestinians.”
  • Since June 2024 he also called Israel a “death cult”
top 31 comments
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[-] RizzoTheSmall@lemm.ee 30 points 1 day ago

Person best placed to know what Israel is really like tells what Israel is really like

[-] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 day ago

The people hated him because he told the truth.

[-] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 35 points 1 day ago

I was expecting these statements to actually be controversial and not just the truth. The only one even remotely spicy is the last one.

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago

The US regime is preparing for a holy war and removing anyone who isn't a true believer from the ranks.

[-] skisnow@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 day ago

Making sure your advisors only tell you what you want to hear has always gone well for past dictatorships.

[-] Mrkawfee@feddit.uk 33 points 1 day ago

When you run on deception, you are outraged by the truth.

[-] DancingBear@midwest.social 1 points 12 hours ago

Only because death cult has a kind of ethereal meaning

[-] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 16 points 1 day ago

I'll keep saying it: left unchecked, Israel will be the catalyst for WW3.

[-] njm1314@lemmy.world 30 points 1 day ago

An intelligence organization that fears intelligence

[-] nezrock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 day ago

Historically, not awesome.

[-] Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago

Refreshingly factual

[-] ctrl_alt_esc@lemmy.ml 33 points 1 day ago
[-] pinkapple@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 day ago

"The posts have sparked outrage among pro-foreign nation circles in Washington." Can't think of any other US ally including the no. 1 lapdog UK that would ever receive this royal treatment.

[-] kayky@thelemmy.club 17 points 1 day ago

This is how they control the narrative.

Either support Israel, or suffer the consequences.

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

No lies told

[-] KindnessIsPunk@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

Remember during the election when the Trump admin was supposed to be good for Palestine. So many people on ML specifically were convinced that Trump was going to solve the crisis.

it's almost like the issues with the United States government run deeper than the President.

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 2 points 13 hours ago

So many people on ML specifically were convinced that Trump was going to solve the crisis.

Literally no one said this; you're lying through your teeth because you're bitter your genocider of choice lost.

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

So many people on ML specifically were convinced that Trump was going to solve the crisis.

That’s ridiculous—no they weren’t. Links or it didn’t happen.

it’s almost like the issues with the United States government run deeper than the President.

They do run deeper, and that is fundamental to Marxist historical materialism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism#%22Great_man%22_history

"Great man" history

Marx rejected the enlightenment view that ideas alone were the driving force in society or that the underlying cause of change was guided by the actions of leaders in government or religion. The "great man" and occasionally "great woman" view of historical change was popularized by the 19th-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) who wrote "the history of the world is nothing but the biography of great men". According to Marx, this conception of history amounted to nothing more than a collection of "high-sounding dramas of princes and states".

[-] rumimevlevi@lemmings.world 18 points 1 day ago

I don't remember that. I remember how people say both parties are terrible for palestinians

[-] KindnessIsPunk@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

well we experienced different posts at different times then I know obviously it's not a homogeneous board, nowhere is, but I can tell you that the subset I dealt with did.

that being said I'm not so interested in laying blame as I am with getting people to engage with the Democratic process outside of major elections.

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 1 points 13 hours ago

You're lying.

[-] Grapho@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)
  1. nobody said that, and

  2. I don't see how that's in any way relevant to an advisor being removed from his post because he ain't frothing at the mouth chanting death to all Arabs

[-] KindnessIsPunk@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

leave it to ML users to debate subjective experience. Don't you think you're being needlessly incendiary?

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 1 points 12 hours ago

"You said this!"

"What? No I didn't!"

"How dare you debate my subjective experience!"

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

leave it to ML users to debate subjective experience.

Then support your “subjective experience” with Lemmy comment links of actual examples.

Don’t you think you’re being needlessly incendiary?

You libelled our community, which was incendiary.

[-] eldavi@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago

leave it to ML users to debate subjective experience

here's the needlessly incendiary part of this exchange.

[-] apotheotic@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago
  1. I definitely saw a lot of people from ml who were saying stuff like that when trump started talking to Israel in the first week or so of his presidency. They're not representative of all of .ml, but they were quite a vocal minority
  2. Absolutely right
[-] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

The only thing remotely close to this that I saw was people saying something like: "will be really funny if Trump solves that shit now after the DEM doing nothing for months"

[-] apotheotic@beehaw.org 2 points 14 hours ago

I guess we were looking at different posts :D

[-] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 2 points 13 hours ago

No, you're just lying.

[-] Thebigguy@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago

Meh I never really thought that. I thought that Trump is so erratic that anything could happen but I’m a pessimist so I expected the worst.

this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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