MAGA does not agree on Israel. Israel is not a unifying issue in the MAGA movement. In fact, the issue of Israel creates the most division in the coalition. Will that disagreement destroy the movement or weaken it to the extent that it is not strong enough to repel the coalition of the left in the United States? Does political unity require agreement on this issue? This political purity is unlikely to happen.
Some, maybe many, would draw a line at virulent antisemites, the worst of the spectrum accepted in the MAGA movement. It’s not that MAGA accepts antisemitism. Something very close to one hundred percent of MAGA opposes that. Acceptance rests in the MAGA position on freedom of speech. But still, antisemitism is held by a small number for understandable reasons. I’m not saying right reasons. Understandable ones. If you can’t or won’t understand the motivating factors for antisemitism on the right, besides a rejection of the true gospel, you won’t help disabuse any of these typically younger men with this notion.
Antisemite Seed Thoughts
Just today, a conservative Jew, David Azerrad, writing about this very point that I started on Monday of this week, admitted this as an understandable ingredient for MAGA antisemite seed thoughts:
Jews—more specifically, Ashkenazi Jews—are vastly overrepresented in all left-wing movements. I teach a class on “American Progressivism and Liberalism,” and about a quarter of the authors on the syllabus are Jewish (in a country where Jews make up about 2 percent of the total population). Marx, Lassalle, Trotsky, Luxemburg, and countless other leading communists were at least ethnically Jewish (Marx’s family had converted to Lutheranism and he was baptized). The godfather of the sexual revolution, Sigmund Freud, was a Jew, as was the renegade disciple who actually coined the term, Wilhelm Reich. The two most important American feminists of the twentieth century, Betty Friedan and Shulamith Firestone, were both Jewish. Emanuel Celler, one of the two Congressmen who introduced the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, was a Jew. The list goes on.
He also wrote the following as a representation of an espoused anti-Jewish narrative:
Jews have been behind every left-wing cause and degenerate social trend since Marx launched his assault on Western civilization. In America alone, we are told, Jews bankrolled the civil rights movement, which destroyed the Constitution; championed open borders and the resulting demographic transformation of the country; and are behind the soft-on-crime policies that have ruined countless American cities. Jewish intellectuals devised and promoted communism, psychoanalysis, sexual liberation, feminism, critical theory, multiculturalism, and a host of other corrosive ideologies that have rotted the American mind and destroyed the fabric of society. Meanwhile, Jewish control of the media and Hollywood allows them to deceive honest gentiles (to say nothing of what their seedier cousins in the porn industry have done to public morals).
Antisemitical Woke Left
Some call these antisemites members of the woke left, and I see the truth of that. They have problems and they blame them on their Jewish oppressors, giving their selves a very woke kind of victim status. Jews didn’t waste America’s heritage, eradicate it through sinful practices, and then choose representatives who threw away the amazing blessings inherited from the past. Local school boards of ruined schools aren’t controlled by Jews. Less than three percent of the population of the United States did not do this to the other ninety-seven plus percent. Rather than blame the Jews, these beta males should look in the mirror.
Some of the greatest supporters, philosophers, and teachers of conservatism within MAGA are Jews. Stephen Miller, a main speaker at the Charlie Kirk funeral, one could argue has the most influence of any one person on the MAGA movement, working feverishly for what is most important to the MAGA goals. Other Jews, including right wing Jewish activists, stand out as vitally important supporters of the values and strategies that would make America great again. They do exponentially more for MAGA than the very often insolent, loud mouthed MAGA antisemites.
Eliminating the Jews doesn’t make America great again. In fact, Jewish contributions to the success of the United States and the rest of the world far outweigh their numbers in percentages. Even if a relatively few leftist Jews dedicate themselves to implementing their nefarious views, the Bible espouses the net gain of blessing Jewish people. The benefits, such the polio vaccine of Jonas Saulk, and then milions of lives saved, far outweigh the negatives produced by the others. Countries that rejected their Jews, just like those who killed Bible believing Christians, did and do it to their own demise.
2. ANTI-ISRAEL
Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference, but some people, who are not antisemites, are still anti-Israel. This faction of MAGA is much larger than sheer antisemites, but in their own way, because they despise overall the administration and goals of the nation Israel, it’s difficult to separate them from hatefulness toward Jews themselves. Among the anti-Israel are actual Jews though, who are hardly antisemites, but their Israel opposition appears as a kind of self-loathing nature. Some of the most outspoken anti-Israel in the MAGA movement are Jews.
Foreign Aid
An important pillar in the MAGA movement with a special emphasis on America First is the diminishing if not outright eradication of foreign aid. In 2024, the United States apparently doled out 82.3 billion dollars in foreign aid, which was 1.2% of the federal budget. Surely other nations receive far more than that from the U. S. taxpayers through many other various means, such as the billions Somalia bilked through fraud in Minnesota. Israel though received a lot in 2024 — $6.82 billion — which is more than twice as much as the normal amount.
The amount that goes to Israel could be deceiving, because a large percentage of that aid is essentially “store credit” for the American economy. The United States required Israel to spend nearly all its foreign military financing within the United States. This aid directly supports an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 American jobs in the defense industry across states like California, Texas, and Georgia, where companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing manufacture the jets and munitions Israel buys. Israeli tech and healthcare companies are major investors in the U.S. economy.
Donald Trump won both of his presidencies with a major emphasis on putting the needs and desires of Americans above the rest of the world. I would assess that he is majorly fulfilling that commitment as he understands it. Buttressing Trump’s foreign policy philosophy is the repudiation of the previous beliefs and practices of the Republican party, dating back decades. Trump won his elections by attacking the concepts behind what seemed like endless wars, especially in the Middle East, draining the United States of its blood and wealth. Many MAGA blame Israel for this.
Sachs and Mearsheimer
Totally disconnected from MAGA, many anti-Israel apologists infiltrated and influenced the movement. Part of the exegesis in support of an anti-Israel position explains overt Israeli manipulation of the United States for deciding on the military intervention and nation building in the Middle East especially. Columbia University professor, Jeff Sachs, in an interview with Tucker Carlson told him that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and “neocons in the U.S.” are “dragging the United States into countless wars in the Middle East.” Sachs says the “Netanyahu wars” have resulted in “a million or so deaths” and cost America $7 trillion.
While Trump’s first term was marked by record-breaking support for Israel, such as moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a wing of the movement uses what are called, Realist arguments, to question and oppose a U.S.-Israel alliance. The main intellectual proponent of a Realist foreign policy for the United States is the University of Chicago professor, John Mearsheimer, who with Stephen Walt wrote the influential book, The Israel Lobby. Even though the views of Trump originate almost entirely in his own mind (or gut), when examined, one can see that his dovetail very closely with those of Mearsheimer’s Realism.
Borrowing for Anti-Israel Claims
Mearsheimer argues that Israel has become a “strategic liability” rather than an asset. He posits that U.S. support for Israel fuels anti-Americanism in the Middle East and risks dragging the U.S. into unnecessary regional wars (e.g., with Iran). In his books, he claims that American policy is “distorted” by domestic interest groups (AIPAC, etc.), which leads the U.S. to act against its own national interest. This narrative appeals to the MAGA “anti-Establishment” and “anti-Deep State” sentiment.
The MAGA movement is deeply skeptical of the Middle Eastern interventions that defined the 2000s. Many influential major MAGA voices have borrowed from Mearsheimer and Sachs to validate their anti-Israel claims. Jewish comedian and podcaster, Dave Smith, uses Mearsheimer’s and Sach’s arguments to tell his audience that the U.S. is occupied by a foreign policy elite that prioritizes Israel’s security over the lives of American soldiers and taxpayers. Candace Owens popularized the idea that Zionism is a globalist force and has leaned into more conspiratorial rhetoric regarding the influence of Jewish donors and the Mossad.
Theological Standing for Anti-Israel
False eschatology also fuels the anti-Israel position. This has an ancient theological standing for Roman Catholics and those groups proceeding from amillennialism (later postmillennialism) and then replacement theology or hard supersessionism. Tucker Carlson said he dislikes not just Zionists, but Christian Zionists, more than anyone. Later he retracted that to say he really didn’t hate all of them, but he still stood with the idea that Christian Zionism is a Christian heresy. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but this shows the influence.
The biggest anti-Israel influencers in MAGA are also anti-Zionist and anti-Christian Zionist. They are Roman Catholic or some other originally state church, like Carlson, Owens, Fuentes, and Bannon. This is anti-Israel position does proceed from religious belief. Almost always does it view Zionism as a conspiracy as well, fueled by the Jews. An example of this is that C. I. Scofield was a puppet of the Rothschilds, who funded his famous dispensationalist reference Bible.
In Conflict with Evangelicals
35% of Americans are evangelical. 65% of evangelicals are dispensationalists. That is 23% of all Americans. 23% of 340 million Americans is 74 million. Trump had just over 77 million votes in 2024. That’s a lot of people to hate for Carlson and others. I would contend that the 23% who take a dispensationalist position vote far more consistently than those who do not, so these people are over 50% of MAGA. The anti-Israel position has a lot of explaining to do and they’ll need more than high pitched mocking and ear piercing, cackling laughter to accomplish that.
I would say the anti-Israel people do not and could not possibly understand the American people and the influence of premillennialism and a literal approach to scripture. A lot of Americans are Zionist. Then you can add to that 80% of American Jews are Zionist or somewhat Zionist. Then only 2% of American Jews are anti-Zionist.
Anti-Israel is a faction of the MAGA movement, and again a very loud or outspoken faction. It’s a growing number because of the reasons I communicated in this post. An additional argument used by anti-Israel is Israeli genocide or murder (whichever word will work the best) of Palestinian women and children. They call this non-Christian or anti-scriptural, trying to pick off Zionists who are against murder, who are all of them. This bit of propaganda might be effective or it at least gives some cover for anti-Israel advocates, because they can claim that reason to ward away criticism.
More to Come