Hunter Biden alleged on London radio that Israel deliberately allowed the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, a claim built on a disputed newspaper report that Israel's own prime minister has denied and threatened to sue over.
The son of former President Joe Biden appeared on LBC radio in London and accused Israel of knowing in advance that Hamas planned its October 7, 2023, attack and choosing to let it proceed. Hunter Biden claimed Israeli leaders "knew what was coming" and "allowed it to happen" so that Israel could pursue a military campaign in Gaza that would otherwise never have received a "green light," i24NEWS reported.
The basis for the accusation is thin. Hunter Biden cited a disputed report from Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, which alleged that an unnamed leader of the United Arab Emirates personally warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the intentions of Hamas's Gaza chief, Yahya Sinwar, roughly a month before the attack. Netanyahu denied the account and threatened to sue the newspaper.
Hunter Biden offered no evidence beyond that contested report to support the extraordinary charge that a nation allowed its own citizens to be slaughtered. He accused Netanyahu of doing "absolutely nothing about it" after the alleged warning, a claim that rests entirely on a story the accused party disputes and that no second source in the public record has confirmed.
The LBC interview went further than the foreknowledge allegation. Hunter Biden described Israel's subsequent military campaign in Gaza as "akin to genocide." He acknowledged the term was "very loaded", then used it regardless.
Israel has rejected genocide allegations and stated it sought to limit civilian casualties during the war. Israeli officials have pointed to Hamas's practice of using civilians as human shields and conducting military operations from homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Hunter Biden did call Hamas "horrific." But the weight of his public remarks landed squarely on Israel, not on the organization that carried out the attack, an attack widely described as the single deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
The pattern is not new. Hunter Biden has repeatedly criticized Israel during recent appearances on the podcast circuit, making the LBC interview part of a broader media campaign rather than an isolated remark.
Hunter Biden holds no elected office, no diplomatic post, and no intelligence clearance. He is a private citizen whose primary public distinction is being the son of a former president, and a former president who maintained the U.S.-Israel alliance throughout his term in office.
Yet he has positioned himself as a regular commentator on matters of war, intelligence, and international law. His willingness to level accusations of deliberate mass-casualty deception against a U.S. ally, based on a single disputed newspaper article, raises an obvious question: on whose authority does he speak?
He has shown a similar appetite for headline-grabbing claims on domestic matters. He previously admitted his father's presidential pardon was "not good" for the Constitution or the American people, a concession that undercut the elder Biden's own defense of the decision.
And his public commentary has occasionally been so far afield that even sympathetic voices pushed back. Democratic commentator Ana Navarro broke with Hunter Biden after he claimed Donald Trump is "already" a dictator, a charge even a reliable Democratic media ally found too much to endorse.
Alleging that a democratic government deliberately allowed a terrorist attack on its own people is among the most serious charges a public figure can make. It requires hard evidence, intercepted communications, whistleblower testimony, declassified intelligence, or at minimum a confirmed and corroborated investigative report.
Hunter Biden produced none of that. He produced a reference to a Haaretz article that the subject of the article denies and has threatened legal action over. No independent intelligence assessment, no named source, no documentary proof.
Meanwhile, the former president's son has continued to make candid disclosures that hold back headlines and raise questions about judgment. He recently revealed sensitive details about his father's cancer diagnosis, describing it as "very painful and very debilitating", the kind of private medical information most families guard closely.
The October 7 conspiracy claim fits a pattern: bold assertions, weak foundations, and no accountability when the claims fall apart. Hunter Biden called the Gaza war "akin to genocide" while acknowledging the word is "very loaded." He accused Israel of engineering its own catastrophe while citing a single contested report. He condemned Hamas as "horrific", then spent the rest of the interview blaming the victims' government.
Conspiracy theories about October 7 have circulated since the day of the attack, mostly in corners of the internet hostile to Israel's existence. When the son of a former American president repeats those theories on a major London radio station, it lends them a veneer of respectability they have not earned.
Hamas murdered, kidnapped, and terrorized civilians on October 7. Israel responded with a military campaign it said was aimed at dismantling the group responsible. Reasonable people can debate the conduct of that campaign. But claiming Israel orchestrated the slaughter of its own people, without credible proof, is not debate. It is reckless.
A private citizen with no intelligence background, no diplomatic role, and a well-documented history of poor judgment has decided he knows more about Israeli national security than Israel's own government. The claim tells us nothing reliable about October 7, and everything about the person making it.