"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth"
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Max Blumenthal is a maniacal anti-Zionist activist who spreads conspiracy theories and hate about Israel and Jews, alongside apologies for terrorists, dictators and war criminals from Vladimir Putin to Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s Ayatollahs, Hamas and Hezbollah
From his early work as a journalist to being founder and editor-in-chief of Russia and Iran-supported "independent media" platform The Grayzone, Blumenthal has developed a dubious reputation for disseminating the disinformation of dictators while pushing antisemitic narratives. Beloved by fellow America-hating anti-Western "anti-imperialists" like the late John Pilger, George Galloway and Oliver Stone, his propagation of dangerous conspiracies reached new lows with a campaign of extensive denial of the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.
Known for his aggressive calls for the elimination of Israel, and belief that all roads lead to US foreign policy and the Jewish state being at fault, Blumenthal is an exemplar of the convergence of zealous anti-Zionism with outright antisemitism. As his incitement of hatred towards Jews has escalated— for example frequently posting on social networks that Jews control the entertainment industry and the US government or the ZOG 'Zionist Occupied Government'—he has evolved into an increasingly shrill apologist for authoritarian regimes and their war crimes.
From Bashar al-Assad's brutal dictatorship, to Vladimir Putin’s kleptocratic regime in Russia, Iran's mullahs and Latin American tyrants, it is hard to name a murderous despot Blumenthal didn't admire—and interview or profile flatteringly.
His work has consistently promoted Russian anti-Ukraine propaganda including in his contributions to Moscow newspeak agency Sputnik. He celebrates Islamist jihadist terrorist organizations with special preferences for his dear friends in Hamas and Hezbollah. The Blumenthal-Grayzone brand has been welcomed by neo-Nazis and far-right extremists like David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader. As a mark of his fealty and the depth of Moscow's appreciation for his work, Blumenthal was invited by Russia in 2023 to to speak at the UN Security Council against Ukraine. (He had already met Putin in Moscow at RT's invitation-only 2015 birthday bash).
With ties to a host of repressive regimes, who have sponsored his trips to their pariah states, Blumenthal has become a central figure in the dark, global web of conspiracies opposed to the Western liberal democratic order. He makes regular appearances on veteran dictator fan, and Trump supporter George Galloway's YouTube talkshow "MOATS". In one recent panel he showed up for, the Galloway show was guest-hosted by the violently antisemitic online influencer Jackson Hinkle, illustrating Blumenthal's own "grayzone" ideological crossroads where far left and far right US and Western-despising cranks meet.
Like many of his Assad-apologist fellow travelers Blumenthal has been struggling with the dramatic and sudden destitution of the Damascus dictator whose family dynasty terrorized Syria for five decades. The scenes of celebration of the demise of a war criminal responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Syrians in the drawn out civil war, including gassing his own civilians to death, and the mass imprisonment, systematic torture and execution of thousands more, has clearly shaken the devoted Ba'athist in Blumenthal.
On December 9, 2024 he posted bitterly on X that it was all an international conspiracy started long ago in the US, echoing his worn-out claims about the sinister agenda of the "neocons". "The dissolution of the Syrian government at the hands of foreign-backed militias was the outcome of one of the most expensive regime change public relations campaigns in history, and the Syria Campaign was at the center of it," Blumenthal lamented.
Earlier, on December 7, Blumenthal fumed that the Free Syrian Army's participation in the movement to remove Assad and his clan from power was merely another chess play in a US and Israeli game. "The FSA currently participating in the “liberation” of Syria promises “full peace” with Israel and a prompt abandonment of Palestine Which (sic) is why the West and Israel armed and managed the FSA in the first place," he declared on X. In another repost Blumenthal shared a message hurling a vulgar insult at Owen Jones, another far-leftist promulgator of antisemitic theories. Jones' crime was having dared to "call for the head of Assad for years" then expressed dismay like Blumenthal and co. that "Israel has invaded Syria" (which is not true, since Assad's downfall it has advanced into the demilitarized buffer zone created after a 1974 ceasefire between Jerusalem and Damascus).
The reaction was no surprise. Blumenthal has been defending the Syrian client regime for more than a decade, in keeping with his obedience to the geopolitical dogma proclaimed by its Russian and Iranian patrons.
In 2019 Blumenthal was widely castigated for taking a regime-sponsored junket to Damascus. Taking to social media for selfies and in videos from his "reporting trip" he spouted approval for Syria's leadership while ridiculing the US Ambassador as "fake". Critics pointed out that he filmed himself standing in front of a tall building that only two years earlier had been used by Assad soldiers to take sniper shots at peaceful protesters below. He was also very close to a detention center where the dictatorship's security goons had conducted mass torture of its opponents. Blumenthal was "reporting" from the region which was targeted in a chemical weapons attack engineered by Assad in August 2013 that killed more than 1400 people. However, Blumenthal never mentioned the atrocities that had been committed in the areas he visited.
Before the journey, over several years, the crusading journalist repeatedly denied that Assad had unleashed chemical weapons on his own people on multiple occasions. As usual Blumenthal went further, making fun of Syrians for wearing plastic bags to protect their heads from feared chemical attacks, and going so far as to accuse the aid group the White Helmets of having perpetrated the war crimes Assad was responsible for. Blumenthal's Assad adulation has brought him ideologically closer to Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump's pick for national intelligence director. Accused of being a paid Russian asset including by Hillary Clinton and nicknamed "Russia's girlfriend" on Moscow TV, she infamously met with Assad in Syria 2017 and has engaged in denial about his chemical attacks civilians. In 2021 The Grayzone published a flattering editorial about Gabbard saying she had criticized her former (Democratic) Congressional colleagues "for ignoring the ongoing US dirty war and sanctions on Syria". "Gabbard only stands apart—and is even vilified—for being willing to call it out," the report said. "After a decade of proxy warfare that empowered Al Qaeda and ISIS, the US is now occupying one-third of Syria and imposing crippling sanctions that are crushing Syria’s economy and preventing reconstruction."
In 2015, Blumenthal was paid to travel to a Kremlin-funded gala celebrating the 10th anniversary of RT (Russia Today) where he met Putin. This marked a turning point in his geo-political coverage. The Grayzone was launched shortly afterwards and Blumenthal escalated his repetitions of Russian talking points. Since Moscow's 2022 invasion and war, he has become a more vocal supporter of Putin's narratives, including the false claim that Ukraine is a “Nazi state,” and dismissing evidence of Russian war crimes as Western fabrications.
Hacked documents revealed in June 2024 by The Washington Post show that The Grayzone editor Wyatt Reed received payments of thousands of dollars from Iran’s state-funded Press TV, and had worked at the same time for Sputnik the Russian state news agency. Blumenthal himself frequently appears on Russian and Iranian state media, and receives payments from these propaganda outlets. The revelations prompted congressional calls for an investigation into Blumenthal, Reed and The Grayzone and allegations the journalists had broken US law by not declaring themselves foreign agents.
At Russia’s invitation on June 29, 2023, Blumenthal spoke in a briefing at the United Nations Security Council, denying, as the Kremlin does, the fact that Ukraine is a democracy.
“…We have been told by people like Senator Dick Durbin that Ukraine is literally in a battle for freedom and democracy itself,” Blumenthal said in his UN address. “And therefore, everyone who opposes military aid to Ukraine opposes the very defensive democracy. According to this logic. So where was democracy in Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s decision to ban opposition parties, to criminalize the media outlets of his legitimate political opponents, to jail his top political rival and his deputies, to raid Orthodox churches and jail clergyman?”.
In December 2024, Blumenthal dutifully parroted his puppet masters when he ridiculed Romania's decision to annul its election after heavy interference by Russia through a paid TikTok voter influence campaign, and condemnation by the European Union and Western powers of Moscow's attempts to manipulate the outcome in its favor. Blumenthal shared a post from his fellow reporter Wyatt Reed calling ultranationalist far right presidential aspirant Calin Georgescu, a spreader of false claims and slanders about Ukraine, the "peace candidate".
Blumenthal is often wheeled out to flesh out antisemitic tropes in media outlets like Turkey’s Erdogan-controlled state network TRT where he is invited as the Jew who espouses the elimination of Israel and that “Zionist organizations and Israel weaponize antisemitism”.
While Blumenthal has whitewashed the atrocities of Assad’s regime in Syria, he has similarly defended Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Any criticism of the regime is for Blumenthal part of a US-led campaign of imperialism.
Blumenthal’s selective outrage reveals an ideological agenda that prioritizes opposition to the US and its allies over a consistent commitment to human rights. His work often portrays dissidents, victims and critics of his favored states as agents of Western conspiracies.
The Grayzone's content frequently aligns with authoritarian powers from Moscow, Tehran and Caracas, attacking their critics while amplifying conspiracy theories. A 2019 report by Mosaic Magazine noted that The Grayzone routinely accuses opponents of these tyrannies of working for the CIA, Mossad, or other so-called nefarious actors.
In September 2024 he hosted a YouTube program with his wife and fellow Grayzone journalist Anya Parampil recounting in glowing terms their meeting with the new President of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian, held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Blumenthal has regularly indulged in hagiographical coverage of Iran's Ayatollah-dictator Khamenei, and he has shared post on social media from accounts decrying those who have "insulted" the Iran-backed late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israeli military in a Gaza operation in 2024.
Blumenthal’s platforms (his personal account and Grayzone count more than a million followers on X) have gained traction among fringe political movements and conspiracists of multiple varieties. He has developed an affinity with figures Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The vaccine conspiracist and adept at bolstering antisemitic falsehoods is the next likely secretary for Health and Human Services under Donald Trump. RFK Jr. has amplified Blumenthal’s broader claims, such as sharing what he tagged his "brave UN speech on Ukraine" even if it was on behalf of Russia, further highlighting the journalist-activist's crossover appeal in the conspiracy world.
The son of former Hillary Clinton adviser Sid Blumenthal, Max Blumenthal began his career with a focus on progressive causes. But his radicalization was evident early on. His 2013 book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel quickly became infamous for depicting Israeli Jews as manipulative, villainous, and deceitful. Denounced by Eric Alterman, his former colleague at the left-wing magazine The Nation, the book was packaged in a way that resonated with white supremacist and neo-Nazi audiences. Chapter titles like “How to Kill Goyim and Influence People,” could easily have been lifted from the most toxic corners of the Jew-hating online world.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center included Blumenthal and his book on its 2013 list of the “Top 10 Anti-Semitic/Anti-Israel Slurs” in the category “The Power of the Poison Pen”. The language Blumenthal used and the themes he espoused—depicting Israeli policies and Jews broadly as evil and threatening—appealed to Neo-Nazi forums like Stormfront and VNN Forum, who have regularly cited Blumenthal’s work as evidence for their antisemitic narratives. Critics of Blumenthal, including publications like The Tablet, have described him as a “creepy anti-Zionist” and “bullying hater.” His attacks on Israel and Jewish figures have been relentless. Blumenthal’s obsession with Israel is not simply about policy critique; it is about constructing a narrative where Jews are invariably portrayed as perpetrators of violence and manipulation.
Blumenthal’s work frequently portrays Israel as a uniquely malevolent entity, aligning with fringe platforms like Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss. These outlets, along with his Grayzone platform, have become hubs for conspiracy theories about Israel, oaccusing the Jewish state of fabricating incidents of antisemitism to serve its interests.
One of the most bizarre and telling moments in Blumenthal’s career came in 2014 during the “Toiletgate” scandal. Blumenthal and his peer activist David Sheen chased German politician Gregor Gysi, the chairman of Left Party Die Linke, down a hallway in the Bundestag and into a bathroom. The confrontation, filmed and widely circulated, showed Blumenthal and Sheen accusing Gysi of calling them antisemitic—a claim Gysi denied. When Gysi sought refuge in the bathroom, Blumenthal and Sheen attempted to force their way in.
The theatrical harassment stunt highlighted Blumenthal’s often erratic behavior and apparent willingness to cross any boundary in his ideological crusades. It was widely condemned by German media across the political spectrum. Blumenthal and Sheen, both Jewish by birth, were called out for their obsessive anti-Zionist behavior, with many critics pointing to the irony of two individuals who, in their pursuit of attacking Israel, had become indistinguishable from the very antisemites they purported to oppose.
Blumenthal regularly traffics in conspiracy theories that downplay or deny antisemitism. For instance, following anti-Jewish attacks in Amsterdam and Paris in November 2024, Blumenthal attacked CNN journalist Bianca Golodryga for highlighting the incidents, accusing her of peddling "disinformation on behalf of Israel’s genocide machine".
Most recently Blumenthal has been blasted for his blatant denial of Hamas’s murders of more than 1200 Israelis on October 7, 2023. Haaretz newspaper published a forensic investigation and exposé of Blumenthal’s negationism in November 2023.
“Blumenthal…wrote a piece on October 27 (2023) that can only be described as a master class in manipulation. His article provided the basis for the now widespread conspiracy theory denying that Hamas murdered hundreds of Israeli civilians,” wrote biologist Dr Michal Perak.
“No one who knows Blumenthal or The Grayzone was surprised by this: They have a history of denying war crimes committed by Russia, China and the Assad regime in Syria, so this new episode was almost unavoidable. The Grayzone denied the March 2022 massacre by Russian soldiers in Bucha, Ukraine, and accused the Syrian aid group the White Helmets of war crimes that were actually committed by the Assad regime.”
Perach detailed how Blumenthal painted a false picture to make Israel responsible for most of the victims, then pretended his claims were based on Israeli sources.
"Blumenthal calls the thousands of testimonies, photos and videos describing the massacre “lurid allegations.” He calls the video filmed by Hamas terrorists themselves “snuff films” and its presentation by Israel “an off-the-record propaganda session.”
“One of Blumenthal's most egregious attempts to deny Hamas' actions, has to do with the claims of sexual violence. In his attempt to deny the rape allegations, he refers to a photo of a woman’s body found naked from the waist down and claimes women at the festival were dressed in skimpy attire.”
Hezbollah is another Islamist terrorist organization Blumenthal loves to promote. In December 2024 he conducted a sycophantic video interview with Hezbollah member of the Lebanese Parliament Ibrahim Moussawi that was actually a puff piece and tribute to the "resistance" and "legacy of Hassan Nasrallah", the terrorist group's founder who was killed in a targeted attack by Israel.
In recent years, Blumenthal has been a leading promoter of ancient blood libel accusations against Israel, reviving slanders used since the middle ages to accuse Jews of using the blood of Christian children to make Matzah for Passover.
For example Blumenthal published an X post on November 24, 2024 asking: “Has Israel kidnapped Shifa hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya as punishment for exposing the Israeli military’s theft of bodies from the hospital’s morgue & courtyard? Will it use the stolen bodies to construct a new lie, or do something even more gruesome - like organ theft?”
Blumenthal’s diatribes and alliances have alienated former allies and elicited denunciations from across the political spectrum, however he continues to have a strong influence in the conspiracy sphere in some parts of the Arab and Muslim world and among far left and far right pro-Russia activists. The question remains whether the fall of some of his favorite dictators and terrorists from Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran will damage Blumenthal's reputation with even these diehards, and cast him into irrelevancy.
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