Meet CookNSolo’s new Business Partner, Zionist billionaire Barry Sternlicht

1 Hotel/Starwood Capital CEO Barry Sternlicht at Aviv opening event alongside Starwood Chief Executive officer Raul Leal

In March of 2025, CookNSolo opened yet another new restaurant, this time in Miami Beach, Florida. Like most CookNSolo projects, Aviv is focused on promoting so-called “Israeli” cuisine and culture, with an extensive wine list including “Israeli” wines, and event partnerships with other chefs like Kalaya’s Nok Suntaranon. Aviv is located inside 1 Hotel, an “eco friendly” brand headed by Barry Sternlicht, CEO of Starwood Capital Group. A quick look at Sternlicht’s political and fundraising activity makes it clear that this business arrangement goes far beyond financial benefit: CookNSolo and Sternlicht share an ideological commitment to the genocidal project of Zionism.

Repression and influence

Through the Barry Sternlicht Foundation, Sternlicht has funded several major Zionist projects. Filings show donations to the ADL, an apartheid and genocide apologia and enforcement enterprise masquerading as a civil rights organization. The Anti Defamation League has historically carried out surveillance of communists, civil rights leaders, activists against apartheid in South Africa, and pro-Palestine activists. It also works directly with all levels of law enforcement in an attempt to shape policy. The ADL conducts trainings, makes “educational” recommendations, and leads attacks on educators—including here in Philadelphia. It also maintains a controversial database of so-called antisemitic incidents that conflates the presence of slogans or symbols of Palestinian liberation or even Palestinian identity with hate crimes. Its role in instigating and normalizing anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and especially anti Palestinian prejudice and political persecution is profound and ongoing.

Sternlicht’s foundation has also donated to Birthright Israel, a project aimed at increasing support for the occupation among Jewish youth worldwide through free propaganda trips to the occupation, funded by the Israeli government and private donors. On Birthright trips teenagers and young adults visit the occupation through highly mediated tours, are taught false history, are told how to advocate for the occupation when they return home, and are encouraged to socialize with young IOF soldiers. Birthright trips continue even in this time of heightened genocide, as the occupation attempts to shore up support from younger Zionists abroad. A study by Brandeis University, funded by Birthright in 2024 “found that last year’s cohort are “much more connected to Israel, and much more likely to identify with the political right.” Birthright participants were also “more likely to provide a counterargument to claims that Israel is committing genocide” after the trip. (source). Birthright also provides a much-needed injection of capital into the occupation’s imploding economy. In 2019 Sternlicht was the featured speaker at a private event for Birthright in Palm Beach hosted by his mother. That same year the CookNSolo restaurant Zahav also hosted a private dinner for the organization, which was attended by prominent Philadelphia Zionists like Joseph Zuritsky.

Table setting from the 2019 private dinner Zahav hosted for Birthright Israel

But Sternlicht’s Zionist activity goes far beyond his foundation’s donations. In 2023 he created a widely-reported leaked WhatsApp chat made up of wealthy and influential business leaders, in order to “change the narrative" in favor of Israel and “help win the war" of U.S. public opinion (source). Members of the chat included Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz, Founder of Dell computers Michael Dell, Bill Ackman, Len Blavatnick, Joshua Kushner (brother of Jared), and other Zionist CEOs, hedge fund managers, art world figures and real estate investors. In the chat members spoke about coordinating with and speaking directly to Israeli officials: “Earlier during the war, the group's members attended private meetings with former Israeli prime minister and now opposition figure Naftali Bennett, war cabinet member Benny Gantz, and Michael Herzog, Israel's ambassador to the US. The group's members also worked with the Israeli government to screen an Israeli military-compiled film displaying Hamas's 7 October attack.”(source)

The group organized to influence the treatment of Columbia University protesters against the genocide, directly pressuring the president and trustees of the university. They also hosted a group call with then-mayor Eric Adams to urge him to send police to brutalize and remove encampment protestors, which he ultimately did. “Some members also offered to pay for private investigators to assist New York police in handling the protests, the chat log shows — an offer a member of the group reported in the chat that Adams accepted.” (source) They discussed making donations to Adams’ reelection, presumably in return. The chat remained active for seven months before shutting down.

Sternlicht also used his money and influence as leverage to pressure his alma mater, Brown University. When encampment protestors at Brown agreed to disperse in exchange for a vote on divestment from any university holdings contributing to the genocide in Palestine Sternlicht told the university he was pausing his significant financial contributions in retaliation.

“Facts for Peace”and Influencing U.S. public opinion

Sternlicht’s post-Al Aqsa Flood activities don’t stop there. He also founded his own multi-million dollar social media propaganda enterprise called Facts for Peace. He described the project this way: “as U.S and global media increasingly focus coverage on deaths in Gaza, potentially eroding sympathy and support for Israel... “Public opinion will surely shift as scenes, real or fabricated by Hamas, of civilian Palestinian suffering will surely erode [Israel’s] current empathy in the world community….We must get ahead of the narrative.” This could be achieved, he continued, by “defin[ing] Hamas to the American people as a terrorist organization.” (source)

In the early days of Facts for Peace Sternlicht reached out to his network for financial contributions. “The email was sent to more than 50 household names, including media mogul David Geffen, investors Michael Milken and Nelson Peltz, and tech luminaries Eric Schmidt and Michael Dell. All told, the recipients have a net worth of nearly $500 billion, according to Bloomberg and Forbes data. It’s unclear how far the effort has advanced or who is on board, but it has raised several million dollars, hired Josh Vlasto, a former aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to advise it, and quietly launched a website, people familiar with the matter said.” (source)

According to reporting done shortly after launch in 2023, “the largest single pro-Israel advertiser between Nov. 2 and Dec. 1 was…“Facts for Peace, which spent over $450,000 to target Meta users younger than 30 years old in major cities like Houston, Atlanta and Los Angeles. The paid messaging [was] the fifth largest ad buy by any individual organization over that time period.” (source) While there has been no further reporting on their expenditures, the accounts are still highly active, creating “man on the street” ambush-style content, travel influencer posts promoting Israel as a liberal haven, and posts attacking the government of Iran, most in collaboration with well-resourced professional hasbarists—including some who have been targeting Philly schools and teachers.

A sample of video thumbnails from the Facts for Peace instagram page

Epstein Files and Peter Thiel’s secret society

Of course, a highly networked and wealthy individual like Sternlicht can also be found in the Epstein Files, where he appears many times in released emails. Florida local reporting confirmed that he met with Epstein in 2018, 10 years after Epstein’s conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor and registration as a sex offender.

Screenshot of email from released Epstein emails confirming a dinner at Jeffrey Epsteins house

His name also appears in membership and attendant lists leaked in recent reporting on Dialog, a secret society and private retreat founded by Peter Thiel, head of the military and surveillance tech company Palantir. The guest list includes sitting senators, US army personnel, NATO officials, a “former middle east chief of intelligence,” a sitting U.S. ambassador, founders and directors of surveillance and military tech companies, finance and investment CEOs, and Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. “What ties the roster together more than any title or office is a shared preoccupation with artificial intelligence, longevity, and the near future. Asked on a sign-up form to predict the future, registrants returned again and again to the same theme: that AI will reorder work, war, education, and belief within a few years. Several foresee mass labor displacement and a swing back toward unions and government programs; others predict an “AI winter,” domestic terrorism targeting data centers, criminal defendants choosing AI lawyers over public defenders, or religious revival provoked by the disruption.” (source) This is a topic Sternlicht frequently opines on in tv segments.

Supporting Ecocide in Palestine and Lebanon while Greenwashing in Miami

As part of his public brand as CEO of an “eco- friendly” hotel chain, Sternlicht frequently cites the importance of “green” building practices, design in harmony with nature, and funding for tree planting, ocean restoration and wildlife protection through the hotel’s membership program. In an interview about his approach, Sternlicht embodies ecology as a branding exercise above all else: “I want people to realize that in today’s world of gadgets and gizmos, nature is the greatest luxury of all. It’s the most beautiful thing that we have. It should be revered. And we all have a role in protecting that one world. What we want people to realize with this hotel is that tiny changes do add up. It’s all about small steps, whether you’re eating organic food, shopping local, recycling, taking shorter showers, etc., and you don’t have to sacrifice your luxury aspirations in the process.” (source)

At the same time, he is personally committed to funding and advocating for a genocidal project that has been committing ecocide since its inception, carrying out a non-stop bombing campaign that raises global temperatures while poisoning the water, air, and soil of Palestine, uprooting trees, killing wildlife, destroying 98.5% of Gaza’s agricultural land, and blanketing towns in Lebanon and Gaza in white phosphorus. Like the U.S. Border Wall, the Occupation’s Apartheid wall not only stops the free movement of human beings, but is also devastating to local ecology, interrupting migration patterns and seed distribution and disrupting ecosystems where endangered species live. “So pervasive are the effects of the Israeli occupation on the climate vulnerability of Palestinian communities that the occupation – in and of itself – is considered here a ‘risk,’ alongside environmental risks such as sea-level rise and altered rainfall patterns.”(source)

Graphic from Visualizing Palestine

The destruction of the land is just a part of the broader colonial project, which seeks to destroy the native people who care for the land and wildlife as well as their ability to remain rooted in the place where they have lived for centuries and to maintain their own sustainable systems. In 2025, the occupation bulldozed and destroyed the Union of Agricultural Work Committee’s seed bank in Hebron: “According to a press release by the UAWC, the devastation was swift and unannounced, with bulldozers and heavy machinery reducing into ruins the tools, propagation materials, and infrastructure essential to food sovereignty, constituting “a direct blow to Palestinian efforts to preserve local biodiversity and ensure food sovereignty.” (source) Last month, the Israeli army deliberately struck the “Orange House,” a bed and breakfast that hosted conservationists from around the world, killing beloved Lebanese sea turtle conservationist Mona Khalil, who cared for sea turtle hatchlings along Al-Mansouri beach in Tyre. Journalist and environmentalist Fadia Joumaa said of Khalil: “She always told me: Defend the beach, defend the turtles, defend your country.”

Mona Khalil

What are Steve Cook and Mike Solomonov saying about this new partnership?

Like most of their culinary projects, Aviv is a way of promoting the myth of “Israeli” cuisine as rooted in the culinary traditions of Palestine and other regional cuisines, while also drawing out similarities between the settler projects of Tel Aviv and Miami:

“AVIV will embrace ancient Israeli cooking methods together with the one-of-a-kind modern energy of Miami and Tel Aviv. We’re really looking forward to the incredibly vibrant flavors of Israel shining in this atmosphere.” -CookNSolo co-owner Michael Solomonov

“Miami is a lot closer to the kind of climate you find in Israel. It’s cool to be working with produce that’s not in season in Pennsylvania most of the year.” -CookNSolo co-owner Steve Cook

And they are very proud to partner with Sternlicht’s 1 Hotel:

“We had an incredible experience with the 1 Hotel team producing a 2019 Art Basel pop-up together and from there, we dreamt of becoming true partners – now, that dream has become reality.” -Solomonov

“We've been fortunate to get to pick and choose. Finding a partner like 1 Hotel, I understand how special their approach is." -Cook

Aviv joins other out-of-state hotel collaboration projects such as the NYC branches of Jaffa, Laser Wolf, and K’Far, which are housed in the Hoxton Hotel Williamsburg.  Know people in Miami Beach? Let them know who owns 1 Hotel and Aviv, and tell them to BOYCOTT COOKNSOLO!!!

Mike Solomonov at the opening of Aviv