Left vs. Right vs. Israel
Sam Harris is pro-Israel and anti-Trump, yet many people claim Donald Trump is a puppet for Israel (because Trump seemingly gives Israel everything they want and won’t release the Epstein files). If “Zion Don” is truly an Israeli puppet, shouldn't a Zionist like Sam Harris support Trump? Yet Harris has one of the most severe cases of TDS. So what gives?
Sam Harris is not a knowing asset of Israel. Israel simply funds and supports influencers who support them—on both sides (the left and right). Then they criticize or defund those influencers if they stop supporting Israel, which is exactly what was happening to Charlie Kirk before his assassination. The funding serves as a carrot to lead influencers to being loyal to Israel for their own self-interest (the success of their podcast and making money). It is better to elevate organically successful influencers who already support you, rather than trying to change the beliefs of those who are already successful without your support—or to try to launch your own influencers from the ground up.
Israel is like a VC fund. They invest in influencers who support Israel, boost their profiles, help make them more popular and earn more money, so they reach a wider audience and influence more people. While at the same time, they finance hit-pieces, smear campaigns, and cancellation efforts against influencers who criticize Israel. They target influencers on both the left and right, people like Sam Harris and Dave Rubin, who have very different political opinions of Trump, so that no matter who wins in America (left or right), Israel wins.
As a side note, while Trump has given a lot to Israel, he has not given them everything they wanted (such as a war with Iran). Therefore, anti-Trump figures like Sam Harris are useful for the Israeli influence campaign in criticizing Trump for not being Zionist enough.
Israel (usually) doesn't directly influence the influencers or tell them what to say, so the influencers don't realize they are shills. The influencers legitimately speak their honest opinions, which just so happen to be in support of Israel. But if they were to change their opinions to be critical of Israel, as was beginning to happen with Charlie Kirk, then Israel will pull its funding and/or launch hit-piece campaigns to smear their reputations and try to cancel them. And if all else fails, just shoot them in the neck (jk… maybe).