Julian Casablancas, the lead singer of American indie-rock band The Strokes, probably raised a few eyebrows when he called out American zionists during an appearance on Subway Takes, the YouTube show in which people tell the host their most outrageous opinions on anything and everything.
Sitting next to host Kareem Rahma on a train in New York, the singer saved his most “controversial” take for the end, which was that, “American Zionists get the benefits of white privileged people, but talk like they are black people during slavery.”
His answer got a nod of approval from Rahma. Casablancas went on to say he found it “shocking” when they spoke about being “afraid” and “oppressed”.
Rahma recalled a time he faced a similar situation. “I’m like you are going to a wedding in Tel Aviv right now when there are 80,000 dead people, and more, 80,000 plus dead people, including women and children, half a mile away.
Casablancas said he didn’t think it was wrong to say this and his response to anyone bringing up Hamas and the October 7 attacks was, “Yes, bad, but you know, Native American rebellions didn’t mean it was okay to do what we did. Slave rebellions that were violent didn’t mean that slavery is not bad.”
When the host called such people “media illiterate”, the singer said indoctrination was a strong thing and that you can’t be mad at people for believing something when it was “rammed down their throats”.
In a separate take, Casablancas said he believed people from both sides of the political spectrum need to come together to fight the “real billionaire gang agenda villains”.
When Rahma compared that to class conflict, the singer said it was a little more nuanced, but essentially “it’s not left versus right, it’s top versus bottom”.
He went on to clarify that he meant the wealthy elite should be kept away from politics as a “separation of private wealth from state power”.
“If you want to be a billionaire, the only influence you can have is voting, you know, but you can’t deceive people or you know, own newspapers,” the singer said.
This is not the first time Casablancas or his band have made their position clear on political issues clear. During their performance at Coachella last week, The Strokes displayed pictures of world leaders deposed by Western-backed elements including Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, Chile’s Salvador Allende and Iran’s Mohammad Mosaddegh.
The on-stage montage ended with with a message about the 30 universities destroyed in Iran by US-Israeli airstrikes and footage of the demolition of Gaza’s Al-Isra University by Israeli forces.
