When Uncle Tom Crosses Uncle Shmuel
In America’s NGO space, some topics are so taboo that even renowned public intellectuals aren’t safe when they dare criticize sacred cows such as the state of Israel.
Just ask Black economist Glenn Loury.
A former Reagan-era conservative, Loury has held a distinguished career in the field of economics. After earning his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Loury began as an assistant professor at Northwestern, then joined the University of Michigan, becoming a full professor in 1980. In 1982, at age 33, he became Harvard’s first Black tenured economics professor.
Loury would later join Brown University in 2005, where he held the title of Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Economics at Brown University. Additionally, he is a Professor of International and Public Affairs at the same institution. In late 2020, Loury joined the Manhattan Institute as a senior fellow and got the conservative think tank to sponsor his podcast “The Glenn Show” for a few years.
Everything was going well for the economist until he crossed into politically dangerous terrain. During his May 9, 2025 interview with Tucker Carlson, Loury revealed that he was fired by the Manhattan Institute for criticizing Israel.
In 2024, Loury started to criticize Israel for the way it conducted its military campaign in Gaza. According to Loury, the Manhattan Institute first expressed concerns about his stance on Gaza after he published his interview with Israeli historian Omer Bartov, who has been critical of the Israeli hard right and the Netanyahu coalition government’s actions in Gaza.
Loury endorsed historian Omer Bartov’s analysis, which aligned with international human rights organizations’ warnings that Israel’s conduct might constitute a genocide. Further, Loury openly condemned Israel’s actions in the summer of 2024 in a post titled “I Was Fired by the Manhattan Institute. Here’s Why.”
Loury conceded that Hamas’ attack on Israel was indefensible but stressed that Jewish state’s response was disproportionate. He wrote:
…killing thousands of noncombatants, subjecting hundreds of thousands to injury and starvation, and destroying the homes of millions is too high a cost to pay for the goal of “eliminating” or “eradicating” Hamas, especially since it is not clear whether and how that goal is to be accomplished. It seems likely that the scope of the death and destruction in Gaza will inspire more people in Gaza, the West Bank, and abroad to take up arms against Israel than would have been the case had the response been less catastrophic.
Interestingly, Lowry praised Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2024 book The Message for its coverage of the plight of Palestinians living in the West Bank settlements, saying “there’s much to admire in it.”
It was his appearance on Carlson’s show where he finally broke the silence about his departure from the conservative think tank. In the show, Loury discussed the chilling effect that such actions have on open debate. The former Manhattan Institute fellow could no longer tolerate self-censoring and holding his opinions back on Gaza. Carlson summed up the incident: “For decades, conservative think tanks celebrated and supported black economist Glenn Loury. Then he expressed an unauthorized opinion on the Middle East and they dropped him in a second.”
Glenn Loury [00:00:00] And I said, what has been proceeding there in Gaza as a collective punishment that I don’t think is justified. And I got notified the next day the Manhattan Institute was discontinuing its relationship with me as a senior fellow.
Tucker [00:00:13] If you’d said that about the United States, would you have gotten the same reaction?
Glenn Loury [00:00:17] Ah, good ques-
Tucker [00:00:18] Do you think you’ve been bamboozled?
Glenn Loury [00:00:20] Are we really going to go to war with Iran and turn the world economy upside down? Is it really Jim Crow 2.0 if they want to ask for a driver’s license before you cast the ballot in Georgia?
In a follow-up post on Substack, Loury noted that the Manhattan Institute “disapproved of my opposition to the Gaza War, my criticisms of Israel’s prosecution of that war, and my praise of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s meditations on the West Bank settlements. “
Loury’s call for proportionality and Palestinian rights violated an unspoken rule in U.S. politics: unconditional support for Israel supersedes intellectual independence, even for Black thinkers, who are largely privileged by the United States’ anti-White system.
Being the token Black in Conservatism Inc. could not even shield Loury from professional harm at the hands of Manhattan Institute—an organization bankrolled by billionaire Jews such as Paul Singer and John Paulson.
Other Blacks have shared a similar fate as Loury when they dared touch the Hebraic third rail in the post-October 7 world. Progressive Black commentator Briahna Joy Gray learned firsthand about the risks of criticizing Israel’s industrialized child ritual murder project in Gaza.
In September 2022, Gray joined The Hill’s popular web program “Rising” as a co-host. The show was noted for its bipartisan format and focus on breaking political news and analysis. However, her tenure on “Rising” was brief. On June 4, 2024, Yarden Gonen, the sister of Israeli hostage Romi Gonen, appeared on “Rising.” As a strong advocate of Palestine, Gray was skeptical of the narrative being put forward by Gonen and other defenders of the Jewish state. The interview was suffuse with tension.
At the end of their conversation, Gonen said she hoped that Gray would “believe” Israeli women. Gray rolled her eyes, interrupted Gonen, and ended the segment. This moment sparked backlash, with many perceiving Gray’s reaction as dismissive toward the families of Israeli hostages. Shortly thereafter, Gray was unceremoniously fired from “Rising.”
Addressing her termination, Gray stated: “The Hill has a clear pattern of suppressing speech — particularly when it’s critical of the state of Israel. This is why they fired @kthalps, & it was only a matter of time before they fired me.”
As I’ve written before, the once stout Jewish-Black alliance appears to be fraying. Jews’ historically reliable golems in the Black community are beginning to venture outside of the Zionist plantation, thereby compelling the Jewish community to find new proxy forces to carry out their bidding and even throw Whites a bone.
Blacks are getting a hard lesson that their political relevance is predicated on Jewish funding and organization. Once that funding and support dries up, they become just another non-White minority group fighting for political attention in the Empire of Mongrelia.
When one strips everything away, the real sovereign in American politics is not in Congress, but in a synagogue near you.
The Jews rule the world
@ Robert Tate
Including China, Russia and the Muslim countries?
Not Vietnam and not all of China. Not Venezuela. Not Yemen or Iran. I just hope somebody throws a wrench into their global ambitions.
Thanks. They need to listen to their own, but that is a problem across the board. The irritated genie, Malcolm x, etc.
I just purchased Farrakhan’s “Secret History of Blacks and Jews.” It is well referenced but could use some clean up. Anyway, it would be very positive if more blacks were aware of it I think. It might make a great first book kinda like “Anne Frank’s Diary” but truthful and not pervy. Jews have suffered so much to make black/white relations better I suggest we return the favor.
Jews don’t give a damn about Blacks. They used Blacks as a battering ram to get anti-discrimination and hate crime laws passed to benefit Jews, not Blacks, whom they detest along with the White race.
“When one strips everything away, the real sovereign in American politics is not in Congress, but in a synagogue near you.” The Zionists are the utmost of an enemy to those nations wherein they dwell. How the history of jews for centuries, millenniums perhaps, has been riddled with problems caused by something in their character, can not be dismissed. Now, the Zionist International is the “real sovereign”. Its partisans are individuals. Its partisans are organized conglomerates. Its partisans are in government. Its partisans are a “nation within a nation.” Its partisans are wealth. Its partisans are killers and spies and provocateurs and saboteurs and subversives, owing no loyalty except to the Zionist International.
While I don’t believe Jews rule the world–if they do, why have I dated every poor Jewish man alive today? –I did want to comment on the Nation of Islam’s series of books on Black-Jewish relations. I did read the one on the Leo Frank trial. For those who don’t know, in 1913, a 13-year-old white, Christian factory worker, Mary Phagan was found murdered in the National Pencil Company basement. There were two murder notes found near the body that tried to pin the blame on an African American male. There were two suspects: a Jewish man, Leo Frank, and an African American, Jim Conley. Leo Frank was put on trial, convicted, sentenced to death, had his sentence commuted, and was lynched.
First of all, I liked the respect the authors showed toward the victim, Mary Phagan, and the other very young females exploited as child labor. Often, this sensitivity was missing in other works–like Steve Oney’s ‘And the Dead Shall Rise. I also liked the way they did not automatically dismiss claims that Leo Frank sexually harassed these very young employees. The book was not as anti-white as I had expected.
The authors discussed issues in novel ways and presented a case very different from the standard ADL line. While they exaggerated Jewish power at a time when many Jews were working in sweat shops and living in tenement slums, they did a thorough and impressive job of analyzing the murder notes and dissecting evidence at the crime scene.
It is worth a read.