By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
Cancel Culture is alive and well under the Trump administration when it comes to critics of Israel.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s attempt to appoint Israel critic Daniel Davis for the position of deputy DNI for mission integration was scuttled at the last minute on Wednesday in response to complaints from the Israel Lobby and their mouthpieces.
Jewish Insider first put out a hit piece lobbying for Davis to be canceled and the Anti-Defamation League and Mark Levin joined in on the campaign.
From Jewish Insider, “Anti-Israel commentator tapped as a deputy director of national intelligence”:
Daniel Davis, a senior fellow at the isolationist Defense Priorities think tank with a record of strident criticism of Israel, has been tapped as a deputy director of national intelligence, three sources with knowledge of the selection told Jewish Insider. Davis has also lambasted U.S. support for the war in Gaza as a moral and strategic mistake.
He has opposed military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and suggested that it is only U.S. and Israeli policy and actions that are pushing Iran toward pursuing a nuclear weapon.
Three sources told JI that Davis, a retired military officer and early critic of the Afghanistan war, has been offered and accepted the position of deputy DNI for mission integration, one of the top jobs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under DNI Tulsi Gabbard, and is waiting on the completion of his background check.
The mission integration role “serves as the DNI’s principal advisor on all aspects of intelligence,” according to the DNI website, and does not require Senate confirmation.
Davis joins a growing series of appointees in key positions across a number of national security agencies who fall far outside of the mainstream on Israel and Middle East policy, several of whom, including Michael DiMino, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, and Dan Caldwell, a Pentagon senior advisor, are also alumni of the Koch-linked Defense Priorities.
As recently as Jan. 12, Davis called U.S. support for the war in Gaza a mistake.
“On a practical level, we give away enormous leverage and credibility globally to hold *anyone* accountable for acts of w[a]nton violence, bc we not merely turn a blind eye to it, we cheer it on and supply the means to do more,” Davis wrote on X. “On a moral level this is a stain on our character as a nation, as a culture, that will not soon go away.”
Davis has suggested Israel is pursuing “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza and compared Gaza to a “prison.”
He has argued that the conflict did not begin on Oct. 7, 2023, with the Hamas attacks, echoing narratives that seek to push blame for the attack and the ensuing war on Israel.
“Let me say before anyone else brings it up: to those who would scream ‘October 7th!’ let me reply. The history of this conflict did not begin on that day. In the summer PRIOR to 10/7, the IDF was on a brutal fight against Palestinians,” Davis wrote. “And of course this goes back *decades* of repression and the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip being effectively incarcerated, with limited or no freedoms, and no path to a future and a hope.”
The piece goes on and on.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos writes in Responsible Statecraft, “Mr. Trump, you would’ve been lucky to have Dan Davis on your team”:
Earlier today the Jewish Insider magazine ran a story saying that the White House tapped retired Lt. Col. Danny Davis for Deputy Director of National Intelligence, working under the newly confirmed DNI Tulsi Gabbard. It was a hit piece by a pro-Israel platform that primarily focused on Davis’s critical views — published only in articles and on his popular podcast — on Gaza and Iran.
Within hours, he was informed there would be no job, Responsible Statecraft has confirmed. “Investigative journalist” Laura Loomer celebrated. We are sure neoconservative radio jock Mark Levin, who helped spread the Insider story to his 4.9 million followers on Wednesday, celebrated. We should not. President Trump should not.
Danny is a friend whose astute, informed military analysis has graced these pages over the last four years. I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing him countless times since 2009 when on active duty he sent a report to Congress and published an article excoriating the Afghanistan War generals– including the much vaunted Stanley McChrystal — for essentially lying to the American people.
In 2009 he had just returned from an inspection tour of the country and was pretty much shocked when what he saw there didn’t line up with what the military was telling Congress and the mediahere. “I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.”
“Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.”
From his explosive Armed Forces Journal article, which is well worth reading today:
When it comes to deciding what matters are worth plunging our nation into war and which are not, our senior leaders owe it to the nation and to the uniformed members to be candid — graphically, if necessary — in telling them what’s at stake and how expensive potential success is likely to be. U.S. citizens and their elected representatives can decide if the risk to blood and treasure is worth it.
That is the very essence of civilian control of the military. The American people deserve better than what they’ve gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start.
Today, more than 20 years later, everything he said about the war has been born out. The truth was out there and our military and civilian leadership tried to keep it from us — until they couldn’t.
It may be obvious but that is exactly what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and DNI Gabbard said they wanted to bring to the table — a refreshing, dramatic shift from the status quo, which had become sclerotic, secretive, and punishing of dissent.
If he was proven right about everything, then Trump’s not interested.
Criticizing Israel makes you a “foreign policy threat” under the Trump administration and the ADL is now seemingly running Trump’s domestic policy.
“Anti-Semitism” is a “public health crisis” and Thomas Massie needs to be booted from the House for putting the interests of America before the interests of Israel.
We’re in the middle of the exact same pivot from MAGA to MIGA that characterized Trump’s first term.
Trump standing before Israel First megadonor Miriam Adelson and pledging to give the Israel Lobby total power over our Congress was a major red flag which should not have been ignored.
Though Trump’s breaking all his promises when it comes to conducting mass deportations, restoring free speech and ending cancel culture, he’s keeping all his promises to the Israel Lobby.
For his part, Davis protested his cancelation in a post on X and insisted he wants the best for Israel and America.
It’s not going to get him anywhere. There is no room for “America First” in the MIGA movement.