The MAGA influencers who've turned on Israel

Photos: Flash90

It’s clear that the progressive left in the US is hostile to Israel, and often also anti-Semitic. But American Jews hoping to find a political home among conservatives now have to contend with a new trend: a rising right-wing populism with unfortunate historical echoes. Mishpacha speaks with Jewish conservative writer David Harsanyi to get the lay of the land

ON university campuses, in the media, and in many Western parliaments, Israel faces growing antipathy as the Gaza war drags on. But while the post–October 7 environment has proven just how hostile the left has become, Israel now has to look out on the right as well.

While at the outset of the conflict, Israel enjoyed almost unanimous support from the center and the right, over time, a rising chorus of voices aligned with the right has begun to question the actions of the Netanyahu government. Perhaps most concerning of all is the way their rhetoric echoes that of the far left. Prominent right-wing figures with significant influence on public opinion, such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, have begun to scrutinize Israel, oblivious to the danger that Islamic terrorism poses to the Jewish People but also to Western culture as a whole.

Since Tucker Carlson departed Fox News to establish his own media venture, he has begun leveling critiques at Israel supporters. After October 7, he went on the attack against American conservatives who declared solidarity with Israel, accusing them of being “focused on a conflict in a foreign country as their own country becomes dangerously unstable.”

He recently hosted Palestinian evangelical pastor Munther Isaac of Bethlehem on his program. His decision to host Isaac — an outspoken anti-
Israel figure who subscribes to an old-school, anti-
Semitic Christian theology — instead of Israeli Arab Christians, or Palestinian Christians who have been driven away by Hamas, was seen by many as an attempt to sway the evangelical Christian demographic away from its longstanding support of Israel, and toward something darker.

To dismiss Carlson as a lone journalist would be a mistake: He boasts nearly 13 million social media followers, and his videos and interviews garner more views than many news channels.

Candace Owens, an African-American conservative voice who until recently contributed to Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, has gone even further, parroting the far-left canard that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza. “No government anywhere has a right to commit a genocide, ever,” she declared on Twitter.

Both Carlson and Owens serve as mouthpieces for a populist wing of the Republican Party that some have dubbed “MAGA world.” What started as a subset of the Trump coalition has evolved into a movement encompassing various ideologies. The resultant murky blend does not advocate for conservative principles, instead espousing a nationalist and isolationist strain that favors heavy government involvement in the economy. Adherents of this philosophy are fine with forsaking the fight for Western values and abandoning Israel in its quixotic struggle as the sole liberal democracy in the Middle East.

This should cause worry for the Orthodox Jewish community. During the difficult years of the Obama administration, many frum Jews found refuge on the right to freely express their ideas. The rise of a new anti-Semitic trend on the right, however, now has Orthodox Jews feeling unwelcome.

To delve into this phenomenon, we spoke with journalist David Harsanyi, who has written for the Wall Street Journal and National Review and is currently the senior editor of The Federalist, a highly ranked conservative media outlet with 4.2 million monthly visits.

Harsanyi — who is himself Jewish — remains a staunch conservative and supporter of the State of Israel. He says the Biden administration is slackening the strong US support for Israel to pander to a narrow segment of Democratic voters in its bid for reelection. But he acknowledges that Donald Trump’s political rise opened the doors to many who were disillusioned with traditional politics and set about exploiting the MAGA banner to further their own agendas.

Have you seen a shift in conservative media coverage of Israel since October 7?

I think, for the most part, most conservative outlets are still pro-Israel. But yes, there is a faction on the right, within the more populist faction, that I would call anti-Israel. Some of them are even anti-Semitic. And I don’t think they changed their minds. I don’t think they were ever pro-Israel, or anything like that.

And that’s a new wave that has appeared since Donald Trump became president. This a group of people who I would say resemble Patrick Buchanan [a longtime GOP apparatchik known for defending Nazi war criminals —Ed.]. They are very suspicious about foreign intervention, and they sometimes end up being anti-Israel, which leads them to blame Jews domestically for our involvement in those conflicts.

There are influential right-wing figures who seem to have shifted their stance on Israel, once staunch supporters but now vocal critics. Take, for instance, Tucker Carlson. He was the face of Fox News and, for many, a prime voice championing conservative values. However, since the conflict in Gaza erupted, he has urged Americans to “stay out of foreign conflicts,” and he has given a platform to a Palestinian evangelical leader who claims that Israel is “starving Gaza” and who praised “the strength of the Palestinians” on October 7.

I think Tucker is a perfect example of someone who has changed and become much more populist. Tucker Carlson is conservative socially. But when it comes to economics, when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to Israel, he has much more in common with progressive leftist ideas. Tucker Carlson is definitely someone who has changed, for sure.

Another notable case is Candace Owens, an African-American conservative voice who was hired by the Daily Wire, owned by the Orthodox Jewish commentator Ben Shapiro. She now speaks out against Israel whenever the opportunity arises, and has even asserted that “Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.”

It’s a real gamble hiring someone like Owens, because she doesn’t have any principles or coherent worldview. When it comes to the Middle East, she is a first-rate ignoramus. She’s probably never read a single book about the situation. She’s probably never given it a single serious thought. She’s just chasing anti-Semite clicks.

There are others who see themselves as pro-Trump and part of the MAGA world yet harbor no qualms about endorsing Iran or advocating for the destruction of Israel. What explains that phenomenon?

When Trump came into politics, he was an outsider candidate. He basically ran against the Republican Party. He said he was going to change the party. And he made the party his, there’s no doubt about that.

At the same time, he opened the door to many people who were, I would say, less than sincere, but trolls. I don’t know if that word translates well, but they’re out there getting followers by saying radical things that gain them notice, allowing them to collect followers. I think they have a far bigger presence on social media than in the real world. None of these people as far as I know, served in the Trump administration, or win elections or anything like that.

But don’t get me wrong: I think that these voices are a problem for sure. But there are always going to be anti-Semites around.

You mentioned that these stances can garner support from both the left and the right. Some argue for a “horseshoe” political spectrum, in which the extremes meet. Do you think that’s the case?

Yes, for sure. That’s always been the case. The progressive left and the populist right, when it comes to economics, Israel, and some other issues, are very similar. They’re very interested in class warfare, and in blaming Israel. One of the reasons they both blame Israel is that they view it as “capitalistic” and “colonialist.” It shows all these kinds of ideas that they share. The progressive left and the populist right in the United States have many, many things in common.

How does populist right-wing ideology align itself against capitalism?

It’s a very difficult question to answer. When Reagan became president, he brought with him a set of free-market economic ideas that haven’t always been embraced by the right. There are many, many people on the right who think that corporations have too much power, and they think that the government has to be more involved in the economy to help families, and things like that.

Some of it is very mainstream. But as you move to the extremes, you start to get people who go further and further —they want price controls, for example. It’s complicated because there are many different factions. I still think overall most conservatives probably are more free-market-oriented than the left, certainly, but also more than the populist right wing.

Support for Israel used to be a bipartisan cause, with both Democrats and Republicans in agreement. Now we see increasing anti-Israel attitudes on both sides of the fence. What happened?

Well, on the right, you have a lot of people like Tucker Carlson, who have a big online presence but don’t have much power within the Republican Party. They have big audiences, but they’re not affecting policy.

On the other side, there are a couple of problems. One is that the progressive leftists, who are anti-Israel for the reasons I mentioned before — because they think Israel is a colonial power, etc. — they gained much, much more power during the Obama administration. And they changed the way the Democratic Party thinks about them. Joe Biden has surrounded himself and filled his administration with people like this. He hired Rob Malley, for instance — a completely pro-Iran, pro-Hamas guy. So that changed.

But also what else changed is that many of the Jewish people in the Democratic Party care less about Israel than ever before, in my opinion. So you have a lot of these Jewish progressive organizations that call themselves Jewish, but they really have no attachment to Judaism, in any way, really. But they’re anti-Israel. And they have more power.

And then you have a big, growing Muslim population here, many of whom are against Israel, and they are more passionate about the issue than the Jews within the Democratic Party.

So I would say that the Republican Party is now far more pro-Israel than the Democratic Party. And based on the way Joe Biden has acted, and the things that he’s done, I would say that the Republican Party is actually the only pro-Israel party in the United States.

I just quickly want to take a step back and say that Donald Trump himself has been very pro-Israel — obviously, when he was president, but even now, he says very pro-Israel things most of the time. So just because the right wing has moved away doesn’t mean that the main Republican Party has moved that way.

We’ve talk a lot about the trend among certain commentators against Israel. But in a self-critical vein, is there something Israel should be doing better in terms of communication?

I don’t really think so. What these commentators do is they say “Israel is bad,” or “Israel is doing something wrong.” And they always blame Netanyahu —they make it about him. So a lot of fire has been directed at him over the last year, even though I wouldn’t say he’s a very ideological person — I think he’s actually a very careful person, in many ways, maybe too careful.

They will always aim their fire at something that Israel does that’s hard to defend against. Not because Israel is wrong, but because it’s just hard to defend. So they show pictures of Gaza, and all the buildings destroyed. And you can explain it a million times that the casualty ratio is excellent, and all of that. But if you’re against Israel, that argument’s not going to do anything. So I don’t really know what kind of PR should be applied.

When you look at polls, most Americans actually still think highly of Israel. And they think more highly of Israel than they do of Palestinians, and certainly of Iranians. Sometimes what we see on social media, or what we see in media, is not reflective of people’s general attitude.

The reason Joe Biden has turned against Israel is that he’s trying to win an election. And in Michigan, there are a lot of Arab-Americans who are anti-Israel, and he’s trying to gain their vote. And he doesn’t worry about losing Jewish votes. It just kind of shows a political shift. I wouldn’t say it’s a mainstream shift, it’s a very factional thing that I don’t think represents most Americans.

You’re a Jewish journalist writing for a publication read by thousands. Has the attitude of your readers toward you changed in any way since October 7?

Yeah. I’ve been writing about Israel for 20 years. I’m very pro-Israel. It’s the country that has the moral high moral ground, and I put a lot of effort into studying the history of Israel. But none of that matters in an emotional argument, and a lot of times, I get anti-Semitic remarks.

This happened during the Trump election in 2016, when a lot of these racists began participating. And when something like this [October 7] happens, I get a lot of reaction on social media. Some of it, I think, is just because there’s an anonymity on social media, and they can get away with say things like that. So I don’t take it very seriously. But obviously there’s a shift.

I think there’s more anti-Semites in America, and I think it has to do with Israel, but I also think it has to do with shifting demographics here, to some extent. The kind of people who are immigrating here, sometimes they’re just anti-Semitic. It’s clear if you poll them that they’re anti-Semitic, and it’s a problem. So I actually think there’s a shift. I don’t think it’s a huge thing. I don’t think people should overreact, but it’s definitely a thing.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1009)