Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - He Was Tortured in an Israeli Prison for Speaking Out

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

FREE SPEECH FRIDAY SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/c/taylorlorenz  Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co    Tommy Marcus, better known online as Quentin Quarantino online, first became famous during the early days of the pandemic. He posted timely memes and news roundups, but what started as a funny Instagram account quickly turned into a massive fundraising machine. Tommy got more involved in activism and political causes and began using his platform to raise money for humanitarian issues and injustice around the world. A few months ago, he joined an aid boat headed to Gaza, hoping to deliver supplies to people caught in the ongoing crisis. His ship was intercepted just miles off the coast and the IDF abducted him and fellow activists before holding them in a notorious Israeli super prison. Tommy, one of the few Jewish activists on the boat, was tortured and abused by the IDF. He finally made it out and is speaking about the experience for the first time. He opens up about how the experience affected him and changed his beliefs about power, justice, and the United States sanction of the slaughter in Palestine.Follow me:https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz     https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0    https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenz

I was yelling at the guard to shoot me and telling him, why don't you shoot an American Jew and see what that does for your Nazi country? A few weeks ago, my friend Tommy Marcus was captured by the Israeli military and put in a torture prison. I met Tommy years ago back in 2020 when he started his like meme Instagram news page. And his political evolution has been wild to watch. At first, Tommy was promoting a lot of pro-Israel propaganda. Then he sort of slowly evolved and became more. and more outspoken about the genocide in Gaza,

to the point that he ended up on one of the freedom flotillas trying to bring aid to Gaza with people like Greta Tunberg a couple months ago. Everyone on those flotillas was captured. Tommy was thrown in jail and suffered through unimaginable horrors at the hands of the IDF. I wanted to have Tommy on to talk about his political evolution, his story, what happened to him in Israeli captivity,

how he went from someone promoting Zionist talking points to millions of people to fighting for Palestinian freedom and advocating for the Palestinian resistance. movement. This is a very special episode to me and the conversation that I had with Tommy, I think is very important. But unfortunately, as everyone knows, there is aggressive shadow banning on social media. I've posted previous videos criticizing the Israeli government on my YouTube channel and on TikTok and Instagram and seeing the effect that that has on my pages. Because I have zero brand deals right now, in large part because I've been targeted for my advocacy

around Palestine and other progressive issues, I hope that you'll consider buying a paid subscription to my Patreon via the link below. You're helping. to support content like this and ensure that journalism that actually speaks truth to power has a place online outside of these horrible big tech censorship systems. So without any further delay, here's my conversation with Tommy. Hi, Tommy. Welcome to Free Speech Friday. Thanks so much for having me, Taylor.

Tell me a little bit for people who don't know who you are. Give people a little 101 on you and your background. What is it that you do online? I am the founder of an Instagram page called Quentin Quentin Quentin. I started on the first day of the pandemic. and it kind of serendipitously turned into a crowdfunding beacon that has raised tens of millions of dollars for a multitude of charitable causes over the past six years. And I use my platform to deliver news and to help people.

Yeah, I feel like you're one of those early Instagram news pages that I started following for updates when COVID started. And then you started to do, like you mentioned, a lot of charity fundraising. You fundraise for Planned Parenthood, refugees, all of these different causes. When the genocide started in Gaza, I feel like, you know, initially you were one of those news pages that it seemed like was trying to keep it pretty neutral and you didn't really say that much. Where did you sort of start on this whole Israel issue?

And what sort of speech were you engaged in back then? Yeah, my background is that I grew up with the belief that Israel is a safe harbor for Jewish people. So I was very scared in 2023 in the fall. I didn't know how to properly cover what was happening in Palestine. So what ended up happening was I leaned on Zionist influences in my life to help me craft my narratives and craft my news stories. And I ended up sharing things that would get me reposted by the government of Israel. on October 10th, 2023. Wow.

So you were basically just doing Israeli propaganda, it seems like. And, you know, it was accidental. I didn't realize what I was doing. And even in the moment when Israel reposted me, I didn't like that. But it was happening and I had to reflect on it. Yeah. Well, so that starts happening. The genocide begins and the killing begins.

And you start to see what goes on. And I mean, I was the same place as you, October 7th. Like, I also didn't know anything about the history of Israel and Palestine and, you know, I'd been to Israel, like, thought it was this amazing place. And then I feel like the months went on and people started to, like, I definitely started to learn more online. How did you progress, like, as a news page covering the genocide and sort of like as you moved through, like, what were some milestones that you remember from those early days in terms of looking at what was going on and kind of realizing that the story might not be as simple as they were, you know,

promoting it? So my political inspiration has always been Bernie Sanders. So when I started to see Israel really do an assault on Gaza, I was still so scared and still so uneducated about the background of Israel that I was just like, I'm going to just kind of tow the line and share the things, like only go as far as Bernie Sanders will go. And I felt that was the safest strategy. And so I didn't call it a genocide for a year.

For a full year, I did not call a genocide. I called it an unfortunate war. And, you know, I was told that I couldn't trust the journalists in Gaza, that they were some sort of propaganda machine. And the people who were telling me this are educated people, journalists and scholars. But they were all Zionists. So I was kind of in this box of just listening to people who really, truly were these,

and I didn't realize it. So I was listening to them and echoing them. And upon reflection, I realized that I was really running a n-the-apology campaign. And it felt terrible. So tell me how you sort of came to this realization that your initial beliefs on what was happening were wrong. Like, when did you really start to? to question things and speak to a more diverse array of sources. Because I do think what you're saying, I mean, I worked with the Washington Post at the time.

There was this like appeal to authority. And as you know, these pro-Israel groups are so aggressive, right? They're so intense. They don't allow you to have room for any sort of questioning, right? Like, I mean, I remember asking questions when I wrote my story about people getting news on TikTok right after the war started. And I quoted one Palestinian journalist, just one. And that got me, I mean, weeks of attacks.

and not even saying anything controversial. And I was just like, okay, this is really, like, I've never in my entire journalism career experienced something like this, you know, where it's this sort of like aggressive assault to just silence any speech that's critical or, you know, any speech that sort of challenges the Israeli narrative.

And very quickly, I felt like there was like pressure to do that even editorially, you know? So I'm curious kind of like, when did you start to have those realizations and what moments started to bring you clarity on this issue? You know, first of all, I had, have covered in a journalistic fashion a lot of different horrific things. I've covered the war in Ukraine.

I've covered the Taliban taking over Afghanistan. So I'm familiar with bad things, with war on a high level. I know what that looks like. And so when I started seeing the level of slaughtered that children were undergoing, something wasn't really adding up for me because I knew it didn't compare to the war that I had covered. And at the same time, every time I would open my mouth and say something that in hindsight was very milk toast, I would get 100 messages telling me that I am stoking anti-Semitism. We're talking back in 2023 when I was not calling it a genocide and not being critical of Israel,

but just pointing out the fact that some children were dying and I'd be called an anti-Semite. And I think that the viciousness of the Zionist cracking down on me when I was trying to be, quote, unquote, unbiased in a genocide, kind of open my eyes like, wow, like, I, so I can't say any. I'm not allowed to say anything at all. Because in that case, I don't know how to cover it. And, you know, I felt silenced for a while. I stopped talking about it for a bit because it just, it was so overwhelming to see myself be painted as, like, like an anti-Semite anytime I tried to bring up the fact that, you know, perhaps some, a few too many children are dying or perhaps a few too many children are starving. And somehow this is like

dangerous for Jewish people. And I didn't know any better. So I'm being told this. And it was as someone who grew up with, you know, a really Jewish background being told like what you're doing is harming Jewish people. I didn't really know. how to react to that and I kind of shut down. Yeah. I mean, I think that this is something that so many people experience, although I think it's not working anymore, thankfully, right? I think for a couple years, they would call anybody that criticized what happened. I mean, even Ms. Rachel, right?

Like anti-Semite. And I'm sorry, but there is actually nothing more anti-Semitic than committing a genocide in the name of the Jewish religion, which is a peaceful, wonderful religion that, you know, that by the way, is not. nothing to do with the government of, you know, Netanyahu and all of these other sort of far-rate political figures in Israel. So, I mean, you said you felt like you couldn't trust Palestinian journalists and you felt like you were silenced already. You were sort of self-censoring. When did things flip? And what made that flip? There wasn't like one aha moment. I think it was

a combination of things. It was a combination of, you know, I still was following Palestinian journalists. I had Palestinian friends. They were very patient with me and I was kind of just, you know, watching how it affected them and how they reacted to it. In addition, I was researching more. And I frequently talk about things that were smaller that stuck out to me. Like, I remember watching this video that was filmed in the West Bank of these two IDF military trucks ramming into a bus full of Palestinian women. And like the first one hits the bus and you're just kind of like maybe that was an accident.

And then you watch another IDF truck just smash into the bus right after. And like I started to see the cruelty that is kind of embedded in Israeli society, whether it be the messages I was getting from Israelis or, you know, the videos I was watching that didn't even necessarily have to be from Gaza. They could be from the West Bank. or around the world just about how Israelis and Zionists view Palestinians. And I started to see that dehumanization pattern that I'm familiar with. I know you're saying that there's this shift and it was gradual.

I will say, I mean, we have a lot of mutual friends. And like, I think there was one point, maybe nine or 10 months ago when you posted something and I was like, oh my God, he finally gets it. Like he finally sees how wrong what's happening is, I guess. And I can't even remember. the post, but I do feel like at some point you, like, crossed this threshold where, like, people, I think, who had felt like maybe you were not being, you know, not seeing things clearly for like the first year, sort of like started to realize that you had. And then, of course,

you went and joined one of the flotillas. So tell me about that process. And when did you make that decision? How were you approached? And how did you end up on one of these ships? So the whole year of 2024, I would say was a process of realizing it's genocide. and then watching Kamala Harris lose and watching her insults Palestinian protesters and realizing that the liberals and the Democrats are also complicit. That was a big eye-opening moment for me. And so by the fall of 2024, following Trump winning, following reflecting on that, I was so ashamed of my work that I took some time off and I knew when I came back, I was like, I have to. start being real about this genocide even though I'm scared. What was the response like when you started being real? It's interesting because I was not expecting to be forgiven.

I was very sure that it was important for me to speak out. I knew that there are people that would listen to me. There are people that don't pay attention to the Middle East in general who rely on me for news. And I knew that I needed to start telling them the truth of what was happening. What was interesting to me was that I did not expect to be forgiven by Palestinian people, by pro-Palestine people. And once I put myself out there and made a lot of posts saying, I was really wrong and I feel horrible about it and I know that I've been complicit in genocide, essentially. It was so surprising to me to hear from Palestinian people and pro-Palestine advocates that not only, did they forgive me, they would like me to join their fight.

It was both awesome for me, and it's also kind of depressing in the same light of, you know, Miss Rachel having to be one of the most important pro-Palestine figures is that, like, I realized that the reason that I was kind of led into this and accepted into this circle is that there's so few people willing to speak truthfully about the, the, the depth of the genocide and of Israel's existence without, you know, doing the cop out of Netanyahu and his right-wing government. So yeah, it's both reassuring and very depressing. So how did you end up on this boat? I had raised $2 million for the PCRF and I wanted to continue to make an example of myself and also protect people with my American whiteness. And I got the opportunity

I received the invitation to join the flotilla, and it was an immediate yes for me because I knew the importance of potentially opening a humanitarian corridor, of bringing attention on a larger scale. So it was a no-brainer. So what boat were you on? Who were you with? I was on the family boat. I was with Greta Toonberg and Tiago Avila, a lot of politicians and Al Jazeera journalists. and Palestinians like Rima Hassan, who's a member of French parliament, a really inspiring group of people.

So you guys set sail, you're making your way. I feel like very quickly there was a lot of attempts to derail this mission. The floatillas were framed as selfie yachts. It was framed as like, oh, this is just a silly stunt, right, initially. And then you guys got closer and closer into international waters, and it seemed like, you know, the public was also supporting the flotillas. And then your boat got attacked, right, by a flare? It wasn't a flare.

It was an Israeli drone strike. Oh my God, yeah. The first drone strike, they immediately came out with the lie that it was a lit cigarette that made our boat catch fire. And then a video came out of a flame coming down on our boat. And then they changed the lie to we threw a flare at ourself. And then when I got out of prison, actually, it came out that it came out that, It was officially confirmed that Netanyahu directly ordered this drone strike in Tunisia.

And that was only the first of two. A few days later, we would be drone struck 14 times in one night. It's terrifying. You ended up, I think, that boat was damaged. You had to switch a boat. You ended up getting closer and closer before eventually being intercepted. What was it like when the IDF intercepted you? How did that all go down?

The IDF really struggled to capture us. It was surprising as someone who had always been taught that this military is so incredible. They took probably, I think, 10 hours to get all of us. And then, you know, we, my boat, the O'Wyla boat that I had moved to, made it second furthest of all the boats. And there was a moment where we really thought that we were going to reach Gaza because they were having such a difficult time to intercept us. But then they did get us, put guns in our faces. and drove us to the port. You get to the port. What happened next?

Interception was soft. You know, there were guns in our faces, but it wasn't intense. And then we got to the port. We're ripped off of the boat and dragged into this setting of 500 people, all sitting on the floor, facing down, head down. You pick your head up, they'll hit you and make you stare back down at the ground. And then myself and David Adler, another Jewish American, are approached by IDF guards and they ask us,

You two are Jewish, right? Yeah. And they pick us up and they drag us to the back and they put us in the corner where Greta Toonberg is holding an Israeli flag at gunpoint and they make a stare at an Israeli flag and yell at us about being fake Jews and ask us if we speak Hebrew and we say we don't and makes them very mad. And then we get dragged out of there. David and I were very confused.

Why are we getting dragged out by the IDF when everyone else is not? And then we see Itamar Ben-Gavir, who we were very sure was not in control of this entire situation. We see him from afar approaching with his 40, 90s soldiers. And he goes in for this video op to yell at all of the flotilla members except David and I. Why do you think you and David were removed? I think they didn't want two people with Jewish backgrounds in that video, which is very... Anyway, we are then taken first into the processing facility, sat down individually, and Ben Gavir comes up to each of us and yells at us like, you are thirst. Video cameras behind him, like clearly for some sort of social media video that they wanted to do.

But I don't think our reactions were good enough because it never made it to light. Seeing Ben Gavir, like the moment that David Adler and I saw Ben Gavir, we looked at each other and we were like, we're, We didn't expect him to be involved. So seeing his face, we just immediately knew that it was going to be significantly more intense than we had expected. Tell me what happened next. I mean, how was it intense? After that, we're blindfolded, zip tied, beaten, thrown onto a metal prison bus. And with the blindfolds on, shipped off four hours to the Negev Desert where no one would hear from us for days.

And what was it like when you got to that prison in the desert? What was your experience like there? We're put into this freezing cold sardine can cage. We're all just sitting there for hours, not knowing what's next. And what would be next was that we were stripped, changed, searched, and then thrown into these massively overcrowded cells of what I now know to be Kittsiaat prison, which is one of the most significant prisons that holds Palestinian hostages in the Negev Desert. So what was it like in Kitschiat prison and how did they treat you?

Because of course Israel has said that you guys were treated wonderfully. They treated us like animals, you know, from their own words. They viewed us as animals. The guards when an old man was being deprived of insulin and we were trying to get that man insulin, we were told no medicine for animals. They beat us, they starved us, they didn't give us clean drinking water. They let some people out of the cell. They didn't let me out for the entire time.

I was tracking the days by looking at the reflection of the sun in a window. I frequently lost track of how many days I had been in there. They treated us with a different red line that Palestinians are treated with in these prisons. We were tortured, but we also were not imminently facing death. What did you learn about how the IDF operates from being in this prison and really witnessing it firsthand?

for 10 days. You know, there's that phrase, there's no good German about Nazi Germany. And I was really thinking about that by day four and day five, where I had interacted with hundreds of IDF soldiers, prison guards, the same people that torture Palestinians and kill Palestinian children. And there was never one moment where there was some sort of compassionate person who came by and maybe offered us water or said, sorry about some of the very brutal things that were happening to us. There was no good person. They were all there and enjoying our suffering with glee.

In fact, I think it was for a lot of them, maybe the most fun they've ever had, because they viewed us as these people that were trying to help terrorists. So the suffering that was inflicted on us was very fun for them. And it was like, I guess we were like a new toy. They usually have just Palestinians, but now they have. had these Westerners who they were allowed to treat with 90% of the torture experience that they get to give Palestinians. So you guys are all thrown into this prison.

You're being beaten. It's this nightmare experience. You're giving, you know, they're not giving you guys fresh, you know, water and things like that. Did they give you any sense of like the time that you would be in there until you were released, whether you would be released? I never spoke to a lawyer. I never spoke to anyone from the outside world.

So all I had to rely on was what I was watching and what I was watching and what I was being told by the prison guards. So when three days in, half of the prison was empty, I started to get nervous. When the next day, an American, Greg Stoker, was let out, started to get even more nervous. And by the end, the prison was 90% empty. The guards were telling me that I wasn't going home. And I very confidently believed based on what I had been told and what my surroundings were that I was a long-term political prisoner. I was 100% certain that I was not getting out for months or years even. And I had resigned to my fate all the way to the point of on the final day, one of the many times I had a gun pointed at my head. I was yelling at the guard to shoot me and

telling him, why don't you shoot an American Jew and see what that does for your nasty country, in a much more fairer way, but that is what I was yelling at him. I heard from other people on the flotilla that said that you were very outspoken while you were in there. Outspoken would be one way to put it, yeah. So when did you find out that you were getting out? What was that process like? We never did find out.

We were put onto a bus. And so on the bus was half American and half Tunisian. and some of the people that Israel had been accusing of being terrorists publicly. So on that bus, I did not know what was going to happen. I did not know where we were headed. Luckily, there was a Palestinian-American man who, through tracking the location of the sun and looking at signs out of the one little, like, hole in the blacked-out windows,

was able to tell that we were headed northeast towards Jordan. Besides that, I didn't know it was going to happen. And I thought that David Adler and I, the two Jewish people, it was October 7th. And I thought that we were perhaps being brought to Tel Aviv for some sort of ceremony for people to spit on us for, you know, whatever they would come up with. I didn't fully know that we were free and getting let out until we got off the bus in Jordan. Like there was nobody ever told us anything. So they dropped you off in Jordan. I think there was an aid group to meet you guys.

Obviously, the news broke that you were out. You ended up back in America. Thank God. You're back in L.A. I think I was very glad that you got a little bit of sleep, although I feel like you probably need like 100 years sleep after what you've been through. How do you feel about the experience now? I'm so glad that it happened.

And I think as someone who works in media and really understands how campaigns work, like strategy campaigns work, I put myself in the position of, It's Mar-Bengivir and of Israel and imagine myself how I would handle the flotilla if I was, if I was one of these genocidal Nazis and trying to do the best job that I could to make Israel look good. And I would have done the exact opposite of what Israel did. I would have continued with the selfie op propaganda. I would have put us up in a hotel. I would have given us great food.

And I would have put it all on tape and say, look at these dumb little self-righteous act. being put up in the lovely luxury Israel. And, you know, I think that might have worked. But instead, they threw us in the same chambers that they torture and kill Palestinians in, the same ones that we've seen 2,000 Palestinians get out of in some of the worst conditions humanly possible. That's what they did to us.

And they allowed us and they allowed people like me to get out of this experience. It may not be the same. as the Palestinian experience in these horrific internment camps. But I know how these guards look at people. I know that they view them as animals. And that wasn't like a new concept to me, but personally experiencing it is a whole other story.

I can now connect to people who have been in Israeli prison and tortured, which is to me like a very stupid mistake. by Israel. And that's why I say I'm thankful. It's because I got out of there and all I want to do is continue to expose on an even larger scale how evil Israel is to Palestinians and how their entire goal of their genocidal, militarized, fascist state is to erase Palestinians, whether it be through genocide or ethnic cleansing. Yeah, I totally agree on the strategy. It's bizarre, but I think they get excited to be cruel to people. And it's wild that you, you know, were able to witness that dehumanization. And did the U.S. government ever do anything to intervene and try to get you guys out? I mean, was there any sort of activism from lawmakers behind the scenes that were sort of advocating for you guys? No, it was the absolute reverse. We had a 20-minute meeting with the U.S. consulate from Israel, who basically told us that we were on our own and to go fuck ourselves.

And then when we got to Jordan, the consulate from Jordan also told us that they were not, quote, our babysitter. They told us to go figure it out ourselves. So we were left with our passports, no money, no phone, to fend for ourselves when every other country was giving their citizens support. The United States Embassy in Jordan covered our $35 transit visas and said, we can get you a bus to the airport and you can figure it out from there. I think it just shows how America acts in interest of Israel. I mean, like, I think America, like, is on the same side, essentially of Israel, it seems like, in terms of the way that you were treated, where they just have had this hostility towards any sort of activists in this space. And I'm so sorry that you experienced that. Okay. I'm glad it happened.

How do you plan to use your platform now and how do you plan to fight for free speech? We're seeing this crackdowns. We just had Gavin Newsom passed some ridiculous law related to criticism of speech in Israel here in California. There's an aggressive effort from the Trump administration and Democrats. as you mentioned, to censor all criticism of Israel. I think people on both sides of the political aisle are getting absolutely sick and tired of it. What do you plan to do to fight for free expression

and to be able to use your voice to criticize this horrific, you know, government? I plan to do the same things that I was doing, which is platform Palestinian journalists in Gaza, platform Palestinian voices outside of Palestine, raise money for Palestinian causes, and continue to bring to light to people who don't necessarily understand still what Israel is all about to continue to expose that. And I am very dead set on doing that.

Well, Tommy, I'm so grateful for the way that, you know, you've been speaking out. And I know you've done tons of speaking out as well, too, about, you know, more details of this story on your own channels. Where can people continue to follow your work and keep up with what you're doing? Quentin Quarntino on Instagram and T-G-M-A-R-C on Instagram, YouTube as well. Yeah, you have a new YouTube channel. So everyone subscribe to Tommy. He's going to hopefully be posting a little bit more on here.

And thank you so much for everything you do and for speaking out and talking about all of this. It's what's happening is just so horrific. Even since the alleged, you know, ceasefire we've seen Israel continue to just slaughter innocent Palestinians. And it's completely unacceptable, not to mention the thousands and thousands of innocent Palestinians that are still trapped in these prisons like you were in with no trial, no justice, no chance of getting out, no. legal recourse, it's terrifying. I mean, they are hostages. I think Israel has thousands of Palestinian hostages that are still in captivity.

Free Palestine. Thanks so much for watching this special episode. And thank you so much again for your support on Patreon. You guys are the reason that I can continue to remain an independent journalist, and I can't explain how grateful I am.