By Robert Inlakesh

Despite a real rise in antisemitism, which comes almost entirely from segments of the right, the Israelis are still obsessing over left-wing activists who stand side-by-side with their Jewish peers in condemning genocide.

The ongoing battle for the heart of the MAGA movement has escalated again in the aftermath of a Nick Fuentes appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast. At the heart of the debate is the topic of Israel and an ongoing Zionist campaign to recapture ground amongst American conservatives.

As American public opinion continues to shift against Israel, so, too, have the opinions espoused by leading figures on both the right and left in the United States. While the left-leaning population of the United States took to aligning themselves with the Palestinian people almost immediately after the genocide in Gaza began, right-wingers took a little more time to catch up.

While universally it would be correct to say that the live-streamed genocide has certainly drawn outrage and condemnation from across the political spectrum, the right-wing framing of the question of Israel and Palestine is very different.

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While on the left, the primary arguments you will hear are to do with the suffering of the civilian population in Gaza and how their tax dollars are funding that suffering, the conservative argument tends to center domestic policy questions much more than broader concerns over human rights, racism and ethno- or religious supremacy.

As of now, popular conservative commentators, journalists and content creators are pitted on two separate sides: pro-Israel or anti-Israel. A range of more mainstream figures like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, all the way to podcasters like Myron Gaines, or even someone like Nick Fuentes, have been at the forefront of a right-wing shift away from supporting Israel.

Meanwhile, on the other side, there are the likes of Laura Loomer, Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin who are leading the charge in favor of Israel. Both sides claim to represent the true core of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement that was built around the first Trump campaign in 2016.

Among American conservatives, the majority is still shown to be more supportive of Israel than the Palestinians, yet Republicans, 49 years old and younger, were shown to be 50 percent unfavorable of the Israelis. Understanding their audiences, a range of right-wing figures began to shift their views and delve deeper into the American special relationship with Israel.

Although many of the above-mentioned conservative commentators vary in their brands of right-wing ideology, they share in common a criticism of Israel’s influence on American foreign and domestic policy, particularly the power exerted by the pro-Israel Lobby and Zionist billionaires.

Instead of arguing the merits of America’s unconditional support for Israel, which someone like Candace Owens is opposed to – the America First ideology that the MAGA movement supposedly embodies – figures like Laura Loomer are trying to pivot and fear monger about an alleged Muslim threat, instead.

The Culture Wars and Israel’s Failure

Throughout President Donald Trump’s first term in office, what is often labeled as the ‘American Culture War’ was ignited. This created an enormous schism between the Republican and Democratic Party bases. The Democratic Party evolved into a political movement that claimed to champion diversity and clung to identity politics.

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On the opposite side of the aisle, conservatives claimed to be rallying against cancel culture, often building straw man arguments against the more hardline advocates of identity politics. Out of this grew various online personalities, including Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and, later, Matt Walsh with his “What Is A Woman?” documentary.

The Daily Wire and Turning Point USA became the leaders of this self-identifying “anti-Woke” movement, which worked in perfect synch with Donald Trump, whose persona embodied the controversial pushback against political correctness that was being advocated amongst the new right.

However, a large contingent within this right-wing camp was also anti-interventionist and argued that America should stop paying for “forever wars”, a position Trump himself had even taken. Many of these right-wing commentators then took to criticizing the Biden Administration’s funding for the war in Ukraine, and, while on the campaign trail, Donald Trump had himself argued that he would end the war immediately upon taking office. On top of this were issues like the Epstein Files, which also played a role amongst Trump’s MAGA base.

Following October 7, 2023, the political landscape began to dramatically transform. Suddenly, the Democratic Party’s identity politics were put to the test, as its base became more critical of the Party’s backing of Israel.

To Democratic Party voters, they were sold on the ideas of anti-racism and inclusion, yet the Biden administration was now backing a clearly racist regime in its mass extermination of Palestinians, something they clearly could not stomach. At the end of the day, you can either oppose a racist regime murdering people of color or you can support it; you cannot claim to be anti-racist and inclusive while funding genocide.

Meanwhile, the conservative movement began growing more and more critical of Israeli influence on Washington. They watched on people like Ben Shapiro and Laura Loomer, who suddenly began to embody the very cancel culture politics they had built their followings criticizing. Everyone criticizing Israel was labeled an anti-Semite and was being cancelled for their views.

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The difference here was that, from both sides of the political aisle, voices critical of Israel were being smeared as anti-Semites, terrorist sympathizers or agents of foreign countries. They were also being cancelled and subjected to crackdowns, but not from online public pressure; this time, it was coming from the top down: the government and major corporations were doing the cancelling.

As the Democratic Party was experiencing a crisis, so too was the Republican Party. Enter the Trump administration and, suddenly, this issue exploded on the right. Conservative support for Israel declined further, and even elected Republican officials like Marjorie Taylor Greene began to seize the opportunity to rally against American unconditional support for Israel and anti-constitutional bills pushed by the Israel Lobby.

Today, there is a huge amount of focus on Nick Fuentes, a right-wing political commentator who earned the title “the most cancelled man in America”, due to his being blocked on every major social media platform. X (formerly Twitter) allowed Fuentes and others, like Laura Loomer, back onto the platform following Elon Musk’s purchase of it.

Fuentes and Loomer are great examples of the more extreme ends of what the MAGA civil war looks like. Both have been openly hateful and/or stereotypical of different groups of people. Loomer is a diehard defender of Israel and espouses a message opposing Islam and Muslims, claiming that the biggest threat to America is also the threat that is posed to Israel and the rest of the West.

For Loomer, she adopts the typical far-right anti-Muslim message that was heavily promoted during the early 2000s to justify the so-called “war on terror”. Her rhetoric is more hard-line than someone like Ben Shapiro, but the messaging is, in essence, the same thing. This framing pits the “Judeo-Christian West” against Muslims and immigrants.

The Nick Fuentes worldview is very different; while he has made it clear that he opposes Muslims, his ideology blames Jews for all of the major issues, and he argues that Jewish people are pulling the strings that lead to mass migration and the decline of White populations across the West. He is an open opponent of Israel, and his views are similar to those of a typical white nationalist outlook.

Understanding this issue properly requires looking at the underlying context. Americans were losing faith in governance across the political spectrum; in response to this, both the Republican and Democratic Parties had transformed. Now, on both sides of the political divide, the people are again disillusioned with their failed two-party system.

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The result of this disillusionment, compounded with the ever-rising cost of living and myriad social issues, is a public that is becoming rapidly more politically inclined and searching for answers. Typically, this feeling of hopelessness and that the system is broken results in a search for alternatives.

For a limited period of time, those on the left side of the spectrum clung to the Democratic Party’s identity politics as their answer, while the right flocked to Donald Trump. On one side, it became the religion on progress while, on the other side, there grew the religion of the “good ole days”. But both failed and crumbled under, first Biden and, now, Trump.

What we are currently witnessing is the birth of brand new movements. Within the Democratic Party, the public is rapidly gravitating towards its more progressive, socialist-oriented wing, represented by the likes of Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner. In a way, they are also advocating what their Republican opposition is, “America First”, without the Trump affiliation, of course.

On both the left and conservative sides, the public has begun to take the view that major corporations and lobby groups like AIPAC are poison. The new litmus test is becoming about whether you can stand up to Israel or not.

For the MAGA movement, a Shapiro or a Loomer are desperately trying to push a pro-Israeli narrative through misdirecting public anger towards Muslims, but the argument is falling flat. The issue now is that people are angry and will often take to a rather simplistic view of the world, which involves pointing the finger at one specific group. The pro-Israel crowd wants that target group to be Muslims, or what they may call “radical Islamists”, while elements of their opposition are pointing to “the Jews”.

The Israelis themselves have lost all their sway on the left and are only really bothering to target right-wingers in their propaganda campaigns as of now. This is largely due to the fact that Israel is a far-right regime that is built on ethno-supremacy; they are, therefore, seeking out alliances with other ultra-nationalists and supremacists, attacking “the left” as if they are the true anti-Semites.

Looking at this through the lens of time, the Israeli strategy is nonsensical. They seek to ally themselves with the people who ideologically align with them, yet seem to forget that they are Jewish. After all, it was not the left that persecuted the Jewish people; it was the right. Hitler was not a Communist; he butchered them.

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Although they may seem separate issues, the genocide in Gaza has reshaped American politics completely. It has exposed the lies told by both major Parties to their bases, awoken a new political uprising and ushered in a new era. Yes, it is not the only reason, but Gaza was the straw that broke the camel’s back, it was ‘the emperor has no clothes’ moment.

Where events go from here is very hard to call. One thing, however, is for certain – Israel’s enormous involvement in American politics has massively backfired on it and, as a result, it was not simply X allowing Nick Fuentes back on the platform that made him a prominent voice; he simply filled a hole. Whether it was him or someone else, first there had to be an audience for the kind of views he espouses.

After non-stop labeling everyone who opposed genocide as an anti-Semite, these pro-Israel organizations, commentators and politicians have become the ‘boy who cried wolf’. Now, none of these groups are taken seriously because, when an organization like the ADL spends more time obsessing over a progressive politician like Zohran Mamdani than actual white supremacists, nobody takes these claims seriously.

Despite a real rise in antisemitism, which comes almost entirely from segments of the right, the Israelis are still obsessing over left-wing activists who stand side-by-side with their Jewish peers in condemning genocide. Meanwhile, the pro-Israel propagandists on the right have transformed into the exact name-calling, cancel culture caricatures that they built their followings lamenting.

(The Palestine Chronicle)