The right’s Israel fracture

As the joint American-Israeli military campaign in Iran continues, President Trump’s coalition is starting to exhibit some cracks. The war in Iran has emerged as a proxy battle over a broader, long-simmering conflict within the right about Israel. And the fight over Israel is, in some important ways, a proxy battle about Jews in general.

Big picture, what we’re seeing now is that the traditional divisions on the right between paleoconservatives and neoconservatives, between hawks and doves, are being reshaped into a battle over Israel specifically. It’s a very difficult subject; this issue has become highly emotional and personal for those on both sides, and even in my world, it’s set friends against one another. How far do the emerging divisions go, and how should we respond?

First, the baseline. Both factions in this debate seem to have accepted the fact that President Trump has a very personal and long-standing pro-Israel position. Even those who oppose America’s support of Israel acknowledge that Trump will continue to support Israel with the full force of the American government. But it seems that the anti-Israel faction – they would say “anti-Zionist” – believes that it can ride a wave of public, mostly online energy and youthful voter enthusiasm to change the posture of the Republican party over time and perhaps influence the next president.

We see this dynamic playing out with Vice President J.D. Vance. The Vice President has been very cautious, on the one hand supporting and rationalizing Trump’s policies, but on the other hand, being careful not to alienate Tucker Carlson and other influencers on the other side of the Israel issue. The anti-Israel faction, cognizant that it can’t change Trump, wants to make the debate about the GOP’s future, and Vance is awkwardly positioned between the two sides.

This is a significant development. For many decades, Israel has had virtually universal – and in some ways fanatical – support on the right. And the change is being spurred mostly because young right-wingers have shifted dramatically on the Israel issue, with growing segments explicitly opposed to Israel and much larger swaths feeling indifferent.

Trump is a baby boomer. The most fervent pro-Israel senators and congressmen are standard-issue, factory-made Republicans who are also above the age of 65. There is a linear generational change happening on the right: the oldest are the most pro-Israel, and the youngest are the most anti-Israel. As a youth movement, barring some dramatic change in trajectory, it will only swallow up greater market share. When David Duke was doing his anti-Israel routine, he could be dismissed out of hand. But this current shift seems more durable. Those of us who are generally pro-Israel must grapple with this transformation.

I’ve noticed that many well-intentioned people on the right have entertained the idea of using censorship or smear campaigns to tamp down anti-Israel sentiment. This is a mistake. During the woke era, our political institutions tried fighting “disinformation,” sanitizing the epistemic sphere, and conducting digital hygiene so that only “correct” opinions could be reached. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. There has been an enormous top-down attempt to control or stop the divisions on the right over Israel. But the truth is that this debate is beyond containment.

Likewise, reflexive smears and accusations are not a productive way forward. By liberally making accusations such as “anti-Semite,” which some prominent Republicans have been doing, the coalition is harming its ability to make meaningful distinctions between actual anti-Semites and good-faith critics of American foreign policy, which makes mediating this dispute more difficult. The browbeating, moralizing boomer is only going to push young, disaffected right-wingers further toward cartoonish characters on the internet, who harvest resentment about Israel to garner attention and monetized content.

As someone with sympathies toward Israel, it’s imperative, to my mind, that we grapple with the anti-Israel faction’s arguments honestly and sincerely, as best we can. If there is a widespread debate about any subject in the United States, we should have both the constitutional freedom and the intellectual honesty to have a reasonable debate about it. If we have a country where most people can respond reasonably, we can have democracy. But if we can’t have reasonable and sincere debates, what are we doing? Why do we even have democracy in the first place?

If we’re going to have these divisions, the best time to have this debate is now – not during the 2028 primary. Take reasonable representatives from both sides, make substantive arguments, take them to the people, and let the chips fall where they may.

I don’t really think that many MAGA conservatives are against Israel. Tucker Carlson has way too much attention paid to him for the amount of influence he actually has. There are a couple of people who are internet conservatives like Carlson, Meghan Kelly, Candace Owens, they are just trying to make a buck and it’s hard when you are self employed. They have some followers but also they are bot assisted and also they have the appeal of the roadside accident aftermath that you can’t help but look at. They get lots of clicks from people who disagree with them. And bots.

I think the attitude the author is describing here is less about opposition to Israel and more about ambivalence or antipathy.

I'm surprised the author didn't touch on what I see as the biggest contributor to this growing sense of ambivalence/antipathy among many conservatives toward Israel: immigration.

One of things that has happened over the last 40+ years is that more and more of the immigrants coming into the U.S. are coming from regions of the world outside the Western Hemisphere. And as time goes on, Americans are interacting more regularly with people from immigrant families who aren't much different than the immigrants from the last generation who were primarily from Latin America. If anything, many of these more recent immigrants have assimilated more easily because they have come from professional classes in Asian countries and frankly arrive here speaking the English language better than Latin Americans.

As a standard issue Pro-Israel guy, I’m of the opinion that it is best for Israel and America for Israel to be fully financially and largely defense industry independent of the U.S. They’ve got the money, smarts, and industrial base (mostly) to do it. And it frees their action from the likes not *resident Bidet and the American Left.

I distinguish between folks who have policy differences with Israel, or don’t want to fund them, from a different group who goes looking each day in every possible way to find tangential or fictive indictments of Jews and Israel because they are Jewish. The former are fine folk with whom I’ll sometimes agree or disagree. But the latter are just sharpening their swords and tongues at every juncture because (apparently) they hate Jews. And it is easy to see.

I have a problem with islam, for example. It seems a massive minority of them feel obligated to murder me. I take that personally and behave accordingly. But beyond that evil feature of islam, I really don’t care about what they do, how they behave among themselves, etc. I do also care that they seem intent on implementing Sharia against us all, so there’s that. But theologically, economically, socially, dress, food, whatever, they can do whatever. It’s the murdering me part that has my full attention.

Mainly, we conservatives needn’t have a schism over the funding or involvement of America with Israel. We’ll both get along together or more separately but still on the same side of Western Civilization. We can civilly discuss the intertwinement or segregation of funding and interests, and let the politics of each nation settle out the next phase. Without spending well over half one’s time slamming Jews as Jews.

“I don’t really think that many MAGA conservatives are against Israel.”

That may depend on how you define “against Israel.” If you’re not for them in the same way that, say, Lindsey Graham is for them, are you against them? There’s a divide, and it’s real.

There are those who see no daylight between Israel’s interests and those of the U.S. (Mark Levin, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Ben Shapiro would certainly fall into this category). Such folks tend to see Israel as our Biblically-established 51st state.

Do you think that’s the majority opinion of MAGA? I don’t think so. There are people within MAGA who are not “against Israel” any more than they’re “against Lithuania” or “against Costa Rica,” but don’t think the U.S. needs to fund any of those countries nor get involved in those countries’ defenses or foreign policies.

7.5 million Jews live in Israel.

Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis (in Yemen), are Jew hating terrorist groups that are fully funded by Iran oil money, plus drug and human trafficking.

If the USA desires a reliable ally in the Middle East, Israel is the only choice.

In peace time - Israel receives $3 billion a year.

In peace time - the USA commitment to NATO (Europe), Japan, and South Korea, costs $125 billion a year.

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