Who pulls the strings of public opinion?

A recent children's puppet show, labeled an "Israel-bashing hate fest" by the New York Post, highlighted how "culture producers" move radical ideas into the mainstream. The article traces the lineage of groups like Boxcutter Collective, behind the puppet show, to explicitly political troupes from the 1960s. A key figure in this network is NYU professor Amin Husain, who was suspended in January 2024 after recordings surfaced where he rejected Hamas's terrorist designation, dismissed Oct. 7 atrocity reports as lies, and called himself a "proud antisemite."

• Husain, along with Monica Hunken, co-founded Occupy Wall Street and taught "protest choreography" in a cartoonish style, including techniques for confronting police.
• The festival featuring the anti-Israel puppet show received support from various institutions and foundations, including New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
• Creative Time, a platform that gave Husain and his collaborators a public stage during the Occupy Wall Street era, also received funding from several of these organizations. Its programming during this period platformed Husain and Nitasha Dhillon, who presented Palestine, BDS, and Occupy as interconnected struggles.
• The network's origins trace back to 16 Beaver Group, a hub for radical discussions since 1999, which circulated pro-Palestinian material and hosted anti-Israel figures. Husain stated, "I purposely didn’t push the Palestinian issue front and center because I knew what I was doing … was helping Palestine."
  Automatically generated summary based on the original article; quotes are from the source.