This episode documents how American citizens are being murdered by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank with US-supplied weapons while the US government and media largely ignore or cover up these crimes, illustrated through the story of Sayfollah Muslit, a Floridian beaten to death in July 2025, and the censorship of a Catholic news outlet that tried to report on the persecution of Christians in the Holy Land.
The murder of Sayfollah Muslit and his father’s testimony
Sayfollah Muslit was a birthright American citizen born in Port Charlotte, Florida, who worked at his family’s ice cream shop in Tampa and traveled to the West Bank in summer 2025 to visit family and potentially find a spouse.
On July 11, 2025, Sayfollah was ambushed by roughly 50 Israeli settlers while attempting to access his family’s legally owned land in Area A (ostensibly under Palestinian Authority control), beaten to death while Israeli soldiers watched and blocked ambulances for 2.5 hours.
His brother Muhammad reached him first and held him as he died; the first ambulance was turned back by settler stone-throwing, and the second arrived only after a permit delay — Sayfollah took his last breath five minutes before loading.
Kamal Muslit, Sayfollah’s father, grew up in Clewiston, Florida, runs an ice cream shop and smashburger restaurant in Tampa, and emphasizes his family’s deep American roots: his grandfather arrived in New York in 1895, his father in the 1960s, and their village near Ramallah is 80% American citizens (20,000 people, 15,000 living abroad).
The settlers who killed Sayfollah were armed with M16s (US-supplied), sticks, and rocks; they have occupied the Muslit family’s land since April 2025 despite Israeli Supreme Court orders to remove them.
One year later, Kamal returned with a CNN crew in an armored car and bulletproof vests to visit the site; settlers attacked the convoy with knives and rocks, slashing tires and chasing them, while Israeli soldiers harassed the journalists instead of arresting the attackers.
No one has been punished for Sayfollah’s murder; four settlers were briefly detained the day of the attack but released, and Israeli authorities have provided no updates despite the case remaining “open.”
US government inaction and political complicity
Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), Kamal’s own representative, has refused to meet with him or take any action; Kamal traveled to DC and met with other senators (including Van Hollen and 27-28 others who signed a letter demanding a US-led independent investigation), but nothing resulted.
Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, called the murder a “criminal and terrorist act” and visited Kamal’s home promising answers from Israeli authorities; one year later, no answers have come.
The FBI director publicly declared: “If you kill an American citizen in an act of terrorism, we will hunt you down… and you will face justice here in America” — yet no investigation or prosecution has occurred.
Kamal notes that since 2003, over a dozen Americans have been killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank; two more were killed after Sayfollah, and the violence continues with new settler outposts appearing as recently as three weeks before the interview.
Kamal emphasizes that his tax dollars fund the weapons and system that enabled his son’s murder: “Imagine what it feels like like my own tax dollars that I pay… contributed to my own son’s murder.”
The episode draws a direct parallel to the 1967 USS Liberty attack (34 Americans killed, 171 wounded by Israeli forces), which the Johnson administration covered up and which US officials still refuse to discuss — arguing the same dynamic of moral cowardice and passive evil is operating today.
Censorship at a Catholic news organization
Stephen Harriet, longtime political editor at Zeal News (the news outlet of Catholic Vote), resigned after leadership imposed a new editorial policy drastically reducing coverage of Israel following the Napa Institute conference in California.
The Napa conference included US Ambassador to the Vatican Brian Burch (former Catholic Vote president), Catholic Vote CEO Kelsey Reinhardt, and major donors; afterward, executives conveyed that coverage of Israel must be curtailed until the midterm elections, with any exceptions requiring CEO approval and extra scrutiny.
Harriet objected on grounds of conscience, noting the policy violated the outlet’s mission to report on the persecution of Christians in the Holy Land; his direct supervisor was sympathetic but leadership proceeded.
The policy explicitly banned citing the Vulnerable People Project (VPP), a US-based Catholic apostolate with on-the-ground contacts in the West Bank that had been Zeal’s primary source and had been favorably covered by Vatican News.
Harriet describes the pressure as coming from “powers and principalities” — not simply bad actors but a systemic force that even the “best of us” succumb to, noting that Catholic Vote and Zeal had arguably been the best US outlet covering this issue.
The Taiba case study: how coverage was distorted
Taiba is the last all-Christian town in the West Bank, an ancient community descended from Christ’s first followers, facing repeated settler incursions, property destruction, intimidation, and attempts to establish permanent settler presence.
Under Harriet’s editing, Zeal published exclusive reporting with direct quotes from Taiba residents and Father Bashar (the local pastor) alleging Israeli forces facilitated or were complicit in settler violence.
Hours after Harriet’s resignation, Zeal published a new report on Taiba under the new policy: it contained zero quotes from residents, cited only an Israeli military press release declaring Taiba a “closed military zone” to “protect residents from settler violence,” and omitted all local voices.
Father Bashar and residents told Harriet the military zone is not working: settlers still enter armed and unchecked, Christian movement is restricted, and they feel more threatened, not protected — “protection must mean real protection of this community, its freedom of movement, its property, and its future.”
Father Bashar’s message to American Christians: “Do not look at us only as Christians who need sympathy. See us as your brothers and sisters who are asking for justice, dignity, and the right to remain in the land where Christianity was born… Use your voices, your churches, your institutions, and your relationships with your elected representatives to ensure that the protection of Christian communities in the Holy Land is not only spoken about, but translated into concrete action.”
Broader implications: Christian complicity and the corruption of witness
Harriet frames the censorship as a betrayal of the Christian mandate to stand with the marginalized: “Christ identified himself… especially with people who are not let in on the program… and he died like one of them. And he said, ‘You have to treat them like they’re me.’”
He criticizes right-wing messaging that demonizes Muslims (including the “inshallah = declaration of war” trope), noting that Arab Christians in Dearborn, Michigan — social conservatives who partnered with Christians against school LGBT policies and voted for Trump — are now targeted by this rhetoric.
Harriet notes the Trump administration has been increasingly critical of Netanyahu (Trump decrying high civilian casualties in Lebanon, Vance warning about domestic pressure to comply with Israel’s interests, repeated objections to annexations and settler violence), making the censorship at a Catholic outlet even more inexplicable — “not even in the interest of the current administration.”
He recounts weeping when Trump addressed the Knesset and boasted of US arms used in Gaza, telling Netanyahu “you used them well” — “I helped get this man elected and this is evil.”
The episode connects this to the persecution of Christians in Ukraine (Zelensky banning the largest Christian denomination) funded by US tax dollars, suggesting a pattern of American Christians being made complicit in the destruction of their co-religionists abroad.
Harriet’s final warning: the danger is not direct persecution of Christians in America but their “inveiglement into complicity and attacking their innocent neighbors who are not Christian” — a betrayal of the gospel that becomes “a stumbling block to our neighbors to whom the gospel is meant to be good news not a threat.”
