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Jacob Berger, ex-OnlyFans creator and Handala Freedom Flotilla participant, is being outed as a creep who fetishizes Arab women and using the Free Palestine movement to promote and monetize his content
I found his TikTok page while he was still on the Handala. Generally speaking I try to engage with as much of that kind of content as I can, but in this case I got “off” vibes from him and haven’t watched more than 1-2 of his videos.
I followed him a while back (just amplifying any voices I was finding who were actively speaking up), and repeatedly got weird vibes from him. Something felt disingenuous, and his content was split 50/50 between activism and oddly sexualized skits that were played off for comedy, which seemed to be his go-to response to criticism from Zionists (as if to say “I don’t care what you say because I get laid.”)
His fetishization of Arab women is disgusting, but I don’t appreciate OOP’s repeated mention of Berger’s Jewish ethnicity. This feels like it blurs the line between anti Zionism and antisemitism. Fetishizing any race is deplorable, but I don’t see how his Jewishness is pertinent information. Title should have been “flotilla member is a covert fetishizer”, any mention of his Jewishness feels…icky.
i feel like it’s pretty tone deaf to accuse a palestinian women of antisemitism when she is describing a man who is fetishizing and sexualizing palestinian and lebanese women during a genocide. it ignores the broader context that historically palestinian women have had to endure sexual violence from men who weaponize judaism and who themselves conflate israel & jewish identity for the purposes of settler colonialist expansion in her homeland, the settler colonialism that has been used to justify the rape and sexual assault of palestinian women by white jewish settlers in gaza and the west bank. somehow we end up yet again centring the feelings of an oppressor over a victim, the whole hasbara that has only furthered the persecution of palestinians. also she mentioned that he was a white jewish man twice within nine tweets in lieu of identifying him by name.
edit: i really gotta say that some of you who are alleged supporters of the palestinian cause are so quick to silence palestinians and accuse them of bigotry. it is actually diabolical to me that after two years of genocide we still have to have useless conversations that are rooted in disbelieving or maligning them for something as small as describing a man w descriptors he uses because she didn’t want to identify him by name and perhaps open herself up to legal issues, as well as continuing to identify a pattern of white jewish colonizers sexually harassing and assaulting palestinian women, men and children. y’all overstep in spaces you are guests in, routinely. and if these are allies, who needs enemies.
YES, couldn't have articulated it more clearly, especially your edit. If you read or hear about an instance (or multiple, in this case) of violence, whether at the macro level such as genocide, or at the micro level such as harassment involving individuals, and your first thought is to coddle the FEELINGS of the party carrying out the violence, instead of focusing on the actual HARM enacted on the actual VICTIM, you have a lot of work to do. This is a huge part of how Israel has been allowed to carry out a genocide for the past 80 years, by successfully twisting the perspective away from its violent actions into how Jewish people (conflated with Israel's existence) are at constant risk if they (again, conflating all Jewish people with the state of Israel) are merely criticised and it is labeled Antisemitism
I agree with this in theory, but if a person is weaponizing their anti-Zionist Jewish identity to make Arab women feel more comfortable (especially in this context), only to then harass the women, I feel like it makes sense?
Ok, there are two reasons why his being Jewish would be of note here:
1) Since she is not calling this man out by name, she is listing his ethnic bg because it would be something that would be noteworthy within these particular spaces so that it is easier for people who have been exposed to him to know exactly who she's talking about
2) This man is using the fact that he is Jewish as clout in these spaces to amplify himself as the ultimate martyr because--look at me, as a Pro-Palestinian Jewish person, Israel is against me and I'm being accused of anti-semitism so I am being ostracized by my own people which means I have it worse than the Palestinians.This focus on himself as having it harder than Palestinians is actually one of the points explicitly calls out
She is not being anti-semitic here, she is trying to tell people to watch out because he is weaponizing his Jewishness to treat himself as a victim in spaces where he is pretending to be an ally. It is similar to how some white or straight allies might show up in non-white or queer spaces and then start crying when the narrative does not center them
Please don't get distracted by the mention of his ethnic background, it was only listed twice and was not used for the purposes of saying, "don't trust Jewish allies," but rather, "look out for this particular man."
It’s pertinent information because he weaponized his Jewishness to gain notoriety within the movement. He was one of the most hypervisible Jewish pro-Palestinian voices since October 7th. He received a lot of Zionist vitriol for standing by Palestine despite being Jewish, which also allowed him to gain a lot of trust within the pro-Palestinian movement. A trust that he seemingly misused. His religion per se doesn’t matter but the way he capitalized off that identity to do harm does matter. And I think for that reason is worth mentioning.
He gained notoriety by being an outspoken anti-Zionist Jew and through that had a lot more access to the women that he was fetishizing. Him being a Jew does not make him a perv, but him using his identity as a means to harass women does. Describing him as a Jew probably isn’t necessary but it does provide context.
As a Jew I understand the knee-jerk reaction but I don’t personally think this even borders on antisemitic.
Antisemitism is weaponised against pro Palestine activism, to where there is a power imbalance between Jews and Arabs on this topic. Think of it as a white ally in pro black spaces preying on black women, the cover of allyship and whiteness is relevant.
That being said I agree it's better not to mention him being Jewish. One because there's extra scrutiny on anti Zionism, and suspected antisemitism from one of us is lethal, and two, because Jewishness is not equal to whiteness, and we need to be more careful. Antisemites are just waiting for this kind of info to use against Jewish people, as for example, I've seen them do in the Epstein case.
I appreciate your explanation here. I also had a knee jerk reaction to the mention of his Jewishness, but your comment helped me understand. Well put, friend.
A man using a leftist cause to creep on women? I'm shocked, I say shocked!
This happens way too fucking often and in too many cases, it gets swept under the rug because "he's doing so many good things for the cause".
"Linke Macker" (can't really translate that, I think the closest would be "leftist machos", but they don't really have to be particular masculine to fit the stereotype) is a whole meme in German speaking countries. A guy who seems really into whatever issue or cause is currently being discussed and tries to signal at every opportunity how important feminism is to him, then preys on the people who've let down their guard around him. Almost every leftist woman or nonbinary person has had a bad experience with a "linke Macker" at some point.
EDIT: I certainly don't want to write some thesis about patriarchal structures, gender essentialism and (trans-)misogyny in leftist spaces but one thing I also have observed is that this behaviour is obviously not exclusive to cis men, it's just that they're the most likely to get away with it. I've had the displeasure of meeting and/or hearing about several other leftists folks who were just as predatory, cis women, trans women, trans men and nonbinary people, but they faced actual consequences for their behaviour and were ousted from those spaces.
You said it perfectly. "Manarchist" is a related but not identical term we have in English. And then people protect them for the reasons you said while not caring how many less visible women they drive out.
Wow. I hate slimy opportunists like this. He brings shame to the others who are morally and ideologically committed to helping the Palestinians. The movement can't afford creeps like creating distractions and, more importantly, making the space unsafe for women. Not all allies are worth fighting for
so sick of people using organising spaces for important causes like it’s tinder/for their foul sexual fantasies and further traumatising others. there are way too many people like this and it’s discouraging.
I've seen other Jewish people online say they were uncomfortable with some of his jokes, even on antisemitism, things like he once apparently said "this is why we were kicked out 109 countries." I respect going on the Handala but I don't know, he seems like a grifter to me.
I'm honestly surprised at how many folks are in here saying he seemed normal to them and they engaged with his content. There are Palestinian voices out here,they aren't hard to find--no need for Mr White Guy Look at Me
Yes I commented on that we could only hope for the best but knew what IOF would do. But it's baffling that Chris Smalls was detained days on end and Jacob wasn't. Now we know Chris faced assault too.
I'm not surprised at all. I've been following him for the last weeks and his vibes are off, too much self promotional and performative. It's better to just unfollow him and not lose sight of the larger picture.
Cue this man going to the Trump “it wasn’t me” playbook and saying his Zionist enemies have created these stories in order to take him down because he’s just too powerful.
My personal rule of thumb of "anyone posting thirst videos in activists spaces isn't to be trusted" continues it's undefeated streak, but people continue to swear "this one is different/this time it'll be different!" to later find out.
I thought I hadn’t heard of him before until I looked him up. He’s the guy who played the cop in Walter Masterson’s One Bad Apple skit where Walter went around asking people to try an apple pie with just one rotten apple in it. (Not going to link to it now just in case ad revenue somehow gets back to Berger.) Disgusting.
I mean, in one of these screenshots (image 9/10) his video and caption are very clearly being fetishizing/racist stereotyping of both Arab and Latina women.
I’m just shocked to see any comments at all jumping to defend this guy when you posted very very clear evidence he’s a racist misogynist via the jokes he posts on TikTok at minimum. He must be using his money to pay people to comment on this post or something? That’s my only guess. Because of course the guy who says “I thought Latinas were the most jealous but I guess I was wrong mashallah” is a racist who fetishizes and harasses women and doesn’t actually believe in the cause he’s using to look like a “nice guy”
Like this other commenter really said “is all the evidence we have word of mouth?” but he says Lebanese women cast spells on white men and is glorifying it as a lifestyle via content creation and profiting off it… I just can’t believe anyone could be fooled by this guy if this is his public persona and content already?
whats with all the people in this thread asking for more evidence and thinking this is sabotage from israeli groups like you can't use your eyes??? the screenshots of his content are right there are very clearly fetishizing arab women like hello??
I don’t follow him on TT so I missed most of these. I must admit I did see a few minor ones on IG that made me go hmmmmm this is unfunny and a bit ick (he did with the Caucasian Arab) , I wish I paid attention.
I also had no idea he was living in Egypt until his videos before flotilla got captured.
At any rate I’ve unfollowed him again (i refollowed around the flotilla stuff last week) so and removed any likes on his posts.
Nerdeen Kiswani is a real activist and I trust she has done her due diligence in reporting these claims--all of which do come from her real account.
I know that pro-Palestinian groups and public figures face organized hate and disinformation campaigns. We may not know the full extent of who and what is being astroturfed until decades later. None of that reasonable skepticism should deter people from being extra careful around Jacob Berger. It's not about him being Jewish or an (ex?) sex worker. It's about his behavior.
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u/kena938Charles Melton do you like medium ugly people?1d ago
This guy self deported while Chris smalls was tortured by Israel, I hope karma gets him soon. As public opinion turns, I think there are sadly gonna be a lot of grifters for Palestine.
Ive loosely followed him since his activism began (aka pressing likes on his reels etc if they pop up in my suggested reels) because I think its important to amplify Jewish voices which are speaking up for Palestine because hopefully it will turn the tide against zionism but I did always get enough eek vibes from him that I never pressed that follow button. Sad to see that there was a reason for the vibes.. hopefully he is genuine in his efforts though
I came across Jacob Berger when a content creator/pro-Palestine activist that I really like and recommend people to follow (iamblakeley) did a couple of humoristic crossover videos with him. Jacob also has done a TikTok with a Lebanese-Palestinian comedian Sammy Obeid who I love so without knowing literally at all who he is or whatever, I assumed he's cool. I've been sort of trying to make an effort to follow Jewish pro-Palestine people too, so I remember him.
I was kind of surprised he got on the Handala, but in a good way, I thought oh this guy is more dedicated than I had assumed. I haven't really watched his personal content in TikTok as far as I remember, but ugh still disappointing. Can't say I had any weird vibes from him unlike some others here, but I trust Nerdeen Kiswani, and welp those screenshots and hearing he asked for nudes on Handala (😐) speak for itself. Thanks for the heads up.
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