Julian Casablancas elaborates on previous Zionism comments in Oxford Union address
After his comments on American Zionists during his SubwayTakes appearance went viral earlier this year, the Strokes frontman spoke more in depth during his recent speech at the Oxford Union.
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images
The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas has expanded on previous viral comments that he made on “American Zionists.” In April 2026, he called out what he referred to as the “privilege” of American Zionists during his appearance on Kareem Rahma’s viral YouTube series SubwayTakes. “American Zionists get the benefits of white privileged people, but talk like they are Black people during slavery… the people that are gonna be like ‘Hamas, October 7th’ [was bad], 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.”
Speaking at the Oxford Union on May 28, with a recording of his speech shared for the first time last Friday (July 3), Casablancas discussed his views in more detail. “I think the true nerve point really comes down to one thing, and that is expansion,” he said. “Expansion is the key concept, I think, more than a vague nationalism or love of a country—meaning Israel settlements and greater Israel.” He added, “You can love England and want it to be safe without wanting it to control India, for example. The greater America project is insane to me, but I don’t feel the need to be defensive ‘cause I’m American. I can say reparations, large reparations, are far overdue.”
Casablancas went on to say that, “from the perspective even of Jewish peace activists, if there is a weird reciting of certain propaganda points, which includes not being able to say it’s a genocide, it’s kind of akin to not being able to say Black Lives Matter. You’re showing you maybe don’t quite get what the issue is. If the only thing you can bring yourself to say is ‘Netanyahu is the problem’ or, ‘Well, I believe Israel has the right to exist,’ you are perhaps accidentally signaling to some that you…are supporting Jewish supremacy and white supremacy. In a sense, it is a sort of dog whistle to those who are fighting to see basic equal rights for any and all.”
Casablancas differentiated between “green liners”—those who agree on the boundaries of Israel as set out in international law—and expansionists, who he described as “the good old settler types just shooting at Palestinians and taking homes daily.” The word Zionist, he said, “is all mixed together [with other connotations], so it gets very confusing. So what I should have said maybe in the SubwayTakes thing is let’s call it settler-style Zionist expansionists and maybe some good-hearted indoctrinated moderates, when they’re talking in this kind of victim language is weird because they get many of the perks of white privilege in America […] I was not talking about my friends who say Israel has a right to exist, even though to them I would lovingly say all the Arab countries and the world has agreed on set borders [for Israel] for a very long time.”
Casablancas has previously spoken out in support of Palestinian rights, signing an open letter in 2021 that called for “justice, dignity and the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people” as well as urging for a boycott of music performances in Israel. Just weeks before Casablancas’ SubwayTakes video was released, The Strokes had also made a statement against U.S. foreign intervention and the genocide in Gaza during their Coachella set. Watch Casablancas’ full address and Q&A session from the Oxford Union below.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.