Sammy Ben of Los Angeles, California, United States is Jewish. He is a U.S. citizen but not a citizen of Israel.
Who is Sammy Ben?
For two months, Ben served as an Israel Defense Forces soldier in Gaza for months, according to him. He bragged on his Instagram stories about the destruction the IDF inflicted on residential areas of Gaza.
On social media, Ben shared videos of how he mistreated and humiliated Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. In one Instagram story, he showed how he threw grenades into Palestinian water wells in Gaza, a Zionist tactic aimed at poisoning Palestinian water sources.
When Ben was interviewed upon his return to the U.S., he claimed that he joined the IDF after the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups that started on October 7, 2023 in and around the Gaza Strip. According to him, he was visiting Israel on a tourist visa when he joined the Israeli army.
On April 24, 2024, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) office in Los Angeles called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate reports that Ben allegedly committed war crimes in Gaza while serving in the IDF. The DOJ has yet to release a statement about him.
On May 5, 2024, Ben and Dr. Jonathan Yudelman were caught on camera harassing a woman wearing a hijab at a pro-Israel rally in front of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, USA, which employs Yudelman as an instructor. Ben used his cellphone to film the encounter.
“I’m literally in your face,” Yudelman told the woman. “That’s right.”
“You’re disrespecting my religious boundaries,” the woman said while walking away. Both Ben and Yudelman kept following her.
“You disrespect my sense of humanity, b—h,” Yudelman told the woman. After a video of the encounter went viral, Arizona State University put him on leave.
CONAN Daily 