Pentagon suspends Israel adviser from Joint Staff after discovering posts calling Israel a 'death cult' and the country's 'worst ally'

A senior officer at the Pentagon has come under scrutiny over a series of social media posts sharply critical of Israel, its leadership, and US foreign policy in the region.

Colonel Nathan McCormack, who leads the Levant and Egypt branch at the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J5 planning directorate, has used a semi-anonymous account to post numerous comments targeting Israeli actions and US support.

The posts, reportedly written since the 7 October 2023, have sparked outrage among pro-Israel circles in Washington. Here’s what he said:

• “Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies are determined to prolong the conflict for their own goals: either to remain in power or to annex the land.”
• “Israel’s actions over decades have prompted the accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide.”
• “The Western states go to great lengths to avoid criticism of Israel, much out of Holocaust guilt.”
• “Our worst ‘ally.’ We get literally nothing out of the ‘partnership’ other than the enmity of millions of people in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.”
• “The US has not been an honest broker. We have overwhelmingly enabled Israel’s bad behavior.”
• Responding to the idea of relocating Gaza’s population, McCormack wrote that Israel wants “to expel them and cleanse ‘Eretz Israel’ (Greater Israel) of ethnic Palestinians.”
• Since June 2024 he also called Israel a “death cult”