Left-wing streamer Hasan Piker stumbled through an explanation of why he cared more about Muslim persecution in Israel than in China, the latter of which he openly praises and glamorizes.
In an interview on the Axios Show, Alex Thompson questioned Piker over his love of China, known for its heavy persecution of Uyghur Muslims, despite frequently decrying Israel for its own treatment of Muslims. In a long answer, Piker struggled to square the contradiction.
“Yeah, because Israel is murdering not just Muslims but Christians as well with my tax dollars, and that I think is unacceptable,” Piker said in response to Thompson. “It’s the same principle behind America’s Global War on Terror, that is, an abject failure, that I oppose as well. That many Americans also oppose, as a matter of fact.”
When Thompson suggested he wouldn’t be talking about Israel if it weren’t a U.S. ally, he first agreed, then qualified his answer.
“Yeah, I would not be,” Piker said. “I would not be as frustrated with the actions. Of course, I would still talk about it, because it’s a genocide, and … I believe Amnesty International considers what China has done to the Uyghur Muslims to be a cultural genocide, if I’m not mistaken.”
When asked if he agreed with the description, Piker said he did. He also said there were “different terms applied for different actions” and implied there were different tiers of genocide, with Israel committing an “outright genocide.”
The left-wing commentator tried to give a comparative example when Thompson pressed him on whether China was also committing a genocide, presenting the Russian invasion of Ukraine as bad, but not as bad as the war in Gaza.
“Having said that, it’s a different standard between, and a different weight, in the immorality of these actions as opposed to what Israel is doing in Gaza … and also the 75 years of apartheid and occupation,” he said, after noting his disapproval of the war in Ukraine.
When Thompson suggested there was a different level of outrage when it came to Israeli violence compared to Chinese violence, Piker disagreed, saying there was a “sufficient amount of outrage” against China, “not just coming from myself, but also from American society broadly.”
As Thompson pressed him further on the apparent contradiction, noting his heavy praise of China, Piker justified his favorable stance by citing China’s cumulative output, as opposed to his negative view of Israel’s output.
“I think that Israel’s totality, like its entire output, its entire existence, is still built on the principles of ethnic cleansing and never truly addressing the inhumanity of the acts that came even at the inception of the Nakba and continued onward with full-blown American support,” Piker said.
“If Israel existed as a nation with a binational commitment to the Palestinians, but every now and then there … was like back and forth struggle, I think the calculation would be far different, not only by myself but also by many others in American society and all around the world,” he said.
Piker has based much of his commentary around his belief in the evil perpetrated by Israel, while simultaneously holding up the People’s Republic of China as a model state to emulate.
The Chinese Communist Party distinguished itself throughout the 20th century as one of the world’s most severe regimes, with a death count in the tens of millions through man-made famines and heavy-handed political persecution. It founded the modern People’s Republic of China in 1949 and committed its worst atrocities in the ensuing decades, a year after the exodus of Palestinians mentioned by Piker as integrally connected to the evildoings of Israel today.
The consensus among human rights organizations and scholars is that China’s behavior toward its Uyghur minority has met all the criteria for a genocide. It’s also known for its heavy-handed persecution of other ethnic and religious minorities, including Tibetans and Christians.
Piker has consistently held up China as a preferable model to the United States. The socialist streamer’s love for China includes overt praise for its dictatorial structure, which he claimed was more favorable to the working class than the decentralized, democratic structure of the U.S. and other Western countries.
“China gets to make decisions at the top that are, one, beneficial for its own working class and, two, China can dramatically restructure their economy almost overnight if they choose to do so,” he said in an Oct. 22 video, appropriately titled, “TRUMPS VENEZUELA GAMBIT AND WHY CHINA IS JUST BETTER.” He went on, saying, “This is not something that the decentralized system of capitalism, the decentralized system of governance that Western liberal capitalist nations have.”
His admiration of the CCP culminated in a trip he took in November, filled with praise for the Beijing government and denigration of the U.S.
“I talk about China quite a bit, as far as, like, lessons to learn and what America could adopt and emulate, and seeing it in real time, I think, is a lot different,” Piker told the state media outlet China Global Television Network in an interview during his trip. “This has been a dream come true for me.”
He streamed himself watching the ceremonial raising of the Chinese flag next to Chinese dictator Mao Zedong’s portrait at the Tiananmen Gate, where he noted his lack of love for the U.S.
HASAN PIKER DECLARES US WORSE ‘POUND FOR POUND’ THAN AL QAEDA AS HE GOES ON MEDIA BLITZ
“This is awesome,” he said, as the Washington Free Beacon reported. “Like, like, I just don’t, like, I, I’m not — I don’t have any sort of patriotism in my heart … for America.”
Piker’s Axios interview had plenty of other viral moments, including his declaration that the U.S. was worse than Al Qaeda, speaking hot on the heels of the 25th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.