Ep. 18: American Lives Lost: Israel's Protection Racket

When an Israeli government official was arrested in Las Vegas for trying to lure what he thought was a 15-year-old girl, he walked free on $10,000 bail and fled back to Israel within days. But this isn't just one case of justice denied—it's the latest example of a decades-long protection racket that has shielded Israel from accountability even when American citizens are killed.  How does a foreign lobby become so powerful that alleged child predators walk free while their critics get censured by Congress? This episode exposes the system that makes American lives expendable in service of Israeli impunity. 

Check out my substack page where I tackle some of the episode topics in depth and write about other issues our country and the world are facing today. https://substack.com/@ktdpodcast

Transcript

Raheel Khan: 0:02

Welcome back to another episode of Khannecting the Dots. Today I wanna start off with a story of Tom Artiom Alexandrovich. On August 6th, 2025, federal agents in Las Vegas arrested eight men in a child sex sting. One of them wasn't just any suspect, he was a senior Israeli government official. A 38-year-old division head in Israel's national Cyber Directorate working directly under Netanyahu's office. This wasn't a bureaucrat pushing papers. Alexandrovich had helped design Israel's so-called"cyber iron dome". Shaped national cyber strategy and managed multimillion dollar budgets. He was in Vegas for the Black Hat Cybersecurity Conference representing the Israeli government. According to the police report, Alexandrovich was charged with luring a child online for sex, a felony carrying up to 10 years in prison. He thought he was meeting a 15-year-old girl. He brought a condom. Instead, he met an undercover agent. When he was arrested, he claimed he thought he was meeting an 18-year-old, but then kept repeating how important it was that he catches flight back to Israel. He told officers it was very important he get numbers for his flight, which was on Friday to New York, and then to Israel afterwards. And here's the outrageous part, despite being a clear flight risk. Who literally said he needed to get back to Israel. Alexandrovich was released on just$10,000 bail. No GPS monitoring, no travel restrictions. He didn't even have to surrender his passport. According to one defense lawyer interviewed by Al Jazeera."Average Joe gets arrested. He would appear in front of the justice of the peace within 24 hours. The justice of the peace in that county would issue bail conditions. So the fact this individual was not only allowed to leave without an ankle bracelet or a GPS device, not only to leave the state, but also leave the country is highly unusual and suspect." By August 9th, he was back in Israel. On August 27th, he was supposed to appear in Nevada court but he never showed. The judge wasn't having it. She ordered him to appear virtually on September 3rd, which he did. But here's the reality. The judge can impose all the conditions she wants. No contact with minors, no dating apps, no social media. Who's going to enforce it though? Alexandrovich is sitting safely in Israel. And Israel almost never extradites its own citizens. So those virtual court appearances, they're basically theater. If he decides to stop showing up tomorrow, there's not much a Nevada judge can do about it. How did the Israeli government respond to all of this? Pure damage controlled. Netanyahu's officials even lied about it at first, claiming their employee was not arrested, just brought in for questioning and returned to Israel as scheduled. But here's what makes this case even more disgusting. It isn't an anomaly. This is Israeli impunity in action. When their officials get caught, they lie, they deflect, and they protect. And it's been this way for decades. Even when what's at stake are American lives. Since 2003, 13, American citizens have been killed by Israeli forces with zero consequences. And here's what I want you to remember. Israel isn't some hostile regime, a US designated terrorist organization. Its America's closest ally in the Middle East, the number one recipient of US military aid in the world. When Hamas killed Americans on October 7th, we called it terrorism, we sent billions in weapons to support Israel's response. But when Israeli forces kill Americans, silence, it's important that remember who these individuals were and how they were killed. Each one was an American citizen. Each one had a family, dreams, a life cut short. Let me tell you their stories. Rachel Corrie, in 2003, she was a 23-year-old peace activist from Olympia, Washington. She stood in front of an Israeli bulldozer trying to stop it from demolishing a Palestinian home in Rafa in the Gaza Strip. Despite her wearing an orange fluorescent vest, speaking through a bullhorn, and fellow activists screaming at it stop. The bulldozer crushed her. Israel later called it an accident. Her family and fellow activists called it Murder. Furkan Dogan. In 2010, he was 19. A Turkish American aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, a convoy carrying humanitarian aid to break Israel's three year blockade on Gaza. Israeli commandos boarded the ship and shot him at point blank range, five times. Four bullets to the chest, one to the head. Orwa Hammad. In 2011, he was only 14 years old. Born in New Orleans. Israeli forces shot him in the head during a protest. They said he was about to throw a Molotov cocktail. His family and neighbors say at most he was throwing stones. Mahmoud Shalaan In 2016, he was 16. A high school student with dreams of going into medicine. From Florida. He had returned to the West Bank only three days before his death. He was shot and killed at a checkpoint, allegedly for brandishing a knife. Attempting to stab a soldier. Witnesses denied that happened and said that the soldiers continued to shoot Mahmoud as he lay on the ground. Left him bleeding on the road for two and a half hours and prevented a Palestinian ambulance from taking him to the hospital. In the past three years, the killings have increased significantly. Omar Assad. In 2022, he was a 78-year-old grandfather from Milwaukee. He was detained at a checkpoint in the West Bank, forced out of his car, and then gagged, blindfolded, and dragged on the ground, according to witness accounts. He became unresponsive and the soldiers left him out in the cold at a construction site without any assistance or medical care. An autopsy later found that he had died of a heart attack. Due to the"external violence he was exposed to". During the investigation, soldiers said they thought he had just fallen asleep, and so they left him alone. That same year. Shireen Abu Akleh. 51. A Palestinian American journalist for Al Jazeera. She wore a vest, clearly marked PRESS. An Israeli sniper shot her in the head while she covered a raid. Multiple independent investigations, including by the UN concluded she was deliberately targeted. Adding insult to injury, israeli soldiers then attacked the Pall bearers during her funeral. After October 7th, 2023. The deaths escalated further. In 2024, Tawfiq Abdul Jabbar, 17, from Louisiana. Shot in the head while driving with friends near Ramallah in the West Bank. Mohammad Khdour, 17, from Florida. Eating cookies and taking selfies in a parked car when an Israeli vehicle opened fire. Killing him instantly. Jacob Flickinger, 33. An aid worker with the World Central Kitchen. His convoy was clearly marked. Their route was shared with the IDF. Israeli airstrikes, still destroyed them. Killing him and six colleagues. Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, a peace activist from Washington State. She stood quietly on the sidelines of a protest and Beita, in the West Bank. During a lull in the protest, an Israeli snipers shot her in the head. Kamel Ahmad Jawad, from Dearborn, Michigan, he was in southern Lebanon helping evacuate elderly residents from Israeli bombardments. An Israeli airstrike killed him, while he was assisting civilians. And in 2025, Amer Rabee, 14, from New Jersey, he was picking almonds with friends near his village when Israeli forces opened fire. Shooting him nine times in the head and upper body. And last but not least, Sayfollah Musallet, 20 years old from Tampa visiting family in the West Bank. Israeli settlers beat him to death. No one was ever held accountable. 13 Americans, 13 funerals, and not a single act of justice. But the exemption from justice doesn't end with the killings. It allows Israel to do what they want to the families left behind. After their loved ones are killed. American families get trapped in the occupied territories, blocked from leaving to grieve, blocked from pursuing justice. Some are even threatened to drop their cases. One father put it simply,"we are all American citizens. But here for us, being American means nothing". Israel's impunity doesn't stop with the dead. They have started to indefinitely jail American citizens as well. Mohammad Ibrahim, cousin of Sayfollah Musallet, a 16-year-old American from Florida, who has been detained by Israeli forces since February 2025. He turned 16 while in Israeli prisons. He was accused of throwing stones. No charges were ever filed. He's never even had a trial. He's now being held in one of Israel's most notorious prisons, and his health is deteriorating while in custody. As of this recording, his family continues to plead with the Trump administration to intervene. His local house representative has even gotten involved, but the response from Trump and his team, silence. Just think about that. In Israel's hands, an American passport means nothing. No protection from bullets. No protection from indefinite detention. To understand how American deaths get buried and Israeli officials walk free, you have to understand AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. In one sentence, AIPAC is the most powerful foreign influence operation in the United States. And from the very beginning, its mission has been clear. Protect Israel from accountability no matter the cost. AIPAC story starts in the shadows. Its predecessor. The American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs was founded in 1951. In 1959. It was renamed to AIPAC. Here's a part that many people don't know. In the early 1960s, the Justice Department ordered their parent organization to register as a foreign agent. Instead of complying, they consolidated all of their lobbying under the AIPAC name, deliberately dodging registration requirements. From the very beginning, AIPAC wasn't just a lobby, it was a shield protecting Israel and its actions from American scrutiny and blowback. Like the 1953 Qibya massacre, when Israeli forces dynamite an entire Palestinian village, killing up to 69 civilians, including women and children who are hiding in their homes. And from the start, AIPAC showed it could punish American politicians who crossed Israel. Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee dared to say AIPAC should be registered as a foreign agent. In 1974, after a massive pro-Israel campaign against him, he lost his seat. Adlai Stevenson, the third of Illinois. Another senator said openly that AIPAC targeted him for his Middle East positions. He lost too. Roger Jespen of Iowa. Same story in 1984, taken down after breaking ranks. Each defeat sent the same message. Speak out and your career is over. But the real turning point came later that same year. Charles Percy. Republican Senator from Illinois. He had served since 1967. His offense? supporting a Reagan administration plan to sell surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia. A routine arm sale to a US ally. AIPAC went all in. One donor spent over a million dollars on attack ads. Money poured in from across the country. Percy lost his reelection, and this time AIPAC didn't even bother to hide it. Their executive director bragged,"all the Jews in America from coast to coast gathered to oust Percy, and the American politicians, those who hold public positions now and those who aspire, got the message". The protection racket was no longer in the shadows. It was out in the open. Fast forward to today. AIPAC is bigger and bolder than ever. In 2024 alone, they spent over$53 million across 361 candidates. Their success rate 98%. But here's the key. The power of the racket isn't in just how many politicians they buy. It's in how many they destroy. Just like the AIPAC director bragged about back in 1984, they don't need to convince everyone. They just need to scare enough critics to keep the rest in line. Let's look at some of their recent scalps.$14 million to defeat to Jamal Bowman in New York.$8 million to defeat Cory Bush in Missouri. Both punished for the same thing, supporting Palestinian human rights. You might think I'm exaggerating about AIPAC's Control, but here's Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, one of the few members willing to speak openly, explaining how the system actually works to Tucker Carlson.

14:50

Everybody but me has an AIPAC person like, what's that mean? An AIPAC person? It's like your babysitter, your AIPAC babysitter, who is always talking to you. For AIPAC, they're probably a constituent in your district, but they are firmly embedded in AIPAC and every member has something like this. That's how it works on the Republican side. And when they come to DC you go have lunch with them and they've got your cell number and you have conversations with them. That's absolutely crazy. I've had four members of Congress say, I'll talk to my AIPAC person and it's clearly what we call them. My AIPAC guy. I'll talk to my AIPAC guy, see if I can get'em to dial those ads back. Why have I never heard this before? Why would they want to tell their constituents that they've basically got a buddy system with somebody who's representing a foreign country? It doesn't benefit the congressman for people to know that, so they're not gonna tell you that.

Raheel Khan: 15:39

There you have it, a sitting Congressman casually admitting that most Republican members of Congress have an AIPAC handler. But it's not only Republicans. Democrats are equally as guilty. Just take a look at the website, track AIPAC.com. These aren't lobbyists you meet once in a while. It's a babysitter with your cell number monitoring your every vote. And as Carlson and Massie later point out, no other country does this. Not Russia, not China. Not even our closest allies. Only Israel. Because of things like this interview, AIPAC is going after Massie as well. Running ad campaigns against him. potentially backing a challenger in 2026. Silence the dissenters and even dead Americans aren't enough to demand accountability. While AIPAC enjoys red carpet treatment on Capitol Hill, American Congress members who dare to criticize Israeli policy face a very different standard. Take Ilhan Omar. In February, 2023, she was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Her offense asking Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. A simple question,"if the US blocks war crime investigations at the International Criminal Court where are victim's supposed to seek justice?" For asking that. For questioning accountability, Omar was stripped of her committee seat and targeted with repeated censure attempts. And then there's Rashida Tlaib the only Palestinian American in Congress. In November that same year. She was censured by a bipartisan majority of 234 to 188. Her crime, defending the phrase from the river to the sea as an aspirational call for freedom and coexistence, not violence. On the house floor, her voice broke as she said."I can't believe we have to say this, but Palestinian people are not disposable. We are human beings just like anyone else." For saying that, for affirming that Palestinians are human. She was censured. Now compare that to Benjamin Netanyahu. He has addressed Congress more times than any other foreign leader in history. Standing ovations every time. This is the same Netanyahu who has been Prime Minister while 12 of the 13 American citizens were killed by Israeli forces. Only Rachel Corrie died between his tenures. And it doesn't stop with Congress. The same playbook is being used against Muslim civil rights groups right here in America. Senator, Tom Cotton, who's received over a million dollars in donations from AIPAC and other pro Israel groups. Sent a letter to the IRS demanding that the Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR, lose its nonprofit status. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who's also received over a million dollars from pro-Israel Groups. Told a radio show that labeling CAIR a terrorist organization was in the works. And in Florida. Representative Randy Fine, who's collected more than$400,000 from pro-Israel groups introduced the bill to designate CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization. Think about that. American Congresswoman gets censured for defending human rights. Muslim civil rights groups get branded as terrorists,. But AIPAC an organization that coordinates with the foreign government and spends tens of millions to control. American politics, operates carte blanche For decades, AIPAC's protection racket operated within certain limits, kill Americans abroad, covered up. Shield, war criminals, no problem. As long as it stayed in the foreign policy realm, Washington looked away. But Tom Alexandrovich represents something different. This wasn't halfway across the world. This was here on American soil. An Israeli official accused of trying to abuse an American child, and somehow he just walked away. Now, here's what should have happened. When you've got an international official, a clear flight risk, and federal agencies running the investigation, that normally screams federal prosecution, tougher bail conditions, passports seized, the works. But that's not what happened. Instead, the US Attorney's office under Sigal Chatta, announced the case was being handled strictly by local prosecutors. As a result, Alexandrovich got routine bail,$10,000. No passport restrictions, no ankle monitor. Within two days, he was back in Israel. The backlash was immediate. House Republicans called it a failure. The State Department had to deny they intervened. And Chatta? She pointed fingers at the local prosecutors saying they should have taken this passport. But here's the thing about Chatta, that makes this whole situation so suspicious. She's Israeli born, allegedly has deep ties to pro-Israel donors like Miriam Adelson, the same lady who donated$100 million to the Trump campaign, which some claim came in exchange for a promise that he allowed Israel to take the West Bank. A claim adelson spokesperson denies, but Adelson opposes the formation of a Palestinian state. And favors the annexation of the West Bank. And according to multiple reports from Jazeera and other outlets, Chatta's now deleted social media account included post calling Palestinians,"animals" calling for Israel to"wipe Gaza off the map", and reportedly suggested that even the"children in Gaza are terrorists". Look, maybe there's no smoking gun here. Maybe it was just bureaucratic gaps between federal and state authority. But when an alleged child predator walks free because he happens to carry the right passport, or when the DA in charge of disseminating his case has ties to the, same foreign government as the alleged perpetrator, that's a system that needs fixing. Maybe this time can be different. Unlike most cases involving Israel impunity, this one hasn't disappeared quietly. Social media keeps bringing it up. Reporters keep following the court proceedings. Even some Republican politicians are asking the difficult questions. For 70 years, the protection racket, silence, criticism of Israeli policy. But now it's struggling the silence criticism of an Israeli official accused of preying on American kids. So where does this leave us? We've seen how the protection racket works. AIPAC silences critics, prosecutors shield criminals, and 13 American families bury their dead in silence. But there's one American who I haven't talked about yet, whose story cuts through all the political noise. Someone who saw the system clearly and couldn't live with what it meant. Aaron Bushnell was 25 serving in the US Air Force. Friends described him as thoughtful and sincere. Someone who took his oath seriously. On February 25th, 2024, disturbed by what he saw as government complicity in atrocities. Bushnell walked to the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC and set himself on fire in protest. An act covered around the world. Before he set himself on fire, Bushnell said,"I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I'm about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it's not extreme at all". But Bushnell left us with something even more challenging. In his final statement before the act. He said;"many of us like to ask ourselves, what would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide? The answer is you're doing it right now". Rachel Corrie, Shereen Abu Akleh. Mohamed Khdour. 13 Americans dead at Israeli hands. Tom Alexandrovich walking free. The American government doing nothing about any of it. Bushnell saw what AIPAC has spent decades hiding. That our silence makes us complicit, that our weapons enable war crimes, that our protection racket has a body count. The question he posed isn't rhetorical. It's the moral test of our time, and right now we're failing it. Thanks for listening to Khannecting the Dots. If this episode resonated with you, please share it. These stories matter. These names matter. Until next time, stay curious, stay critical, and stay connected.