Before I considered converting to Judaism, I didn’t think much about Israel. We didn’t talk about Jews and Israel in my Seventh-Day Adventist home. Instead, I heard 20 times more negative things about Catholics than I did about Jews. My friends weren’t much interested in Jews & Israel. To the extent we paid attention, we saw Israel as the plucky underdog and we cheered its military victories. Israel’s enemies such as Iran, the PLO, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and company seemed much more evil to us than Israel. <\/p>\n
Pro Palestine demonstrations after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel are often described as orgies of Jew hatred. From my Zionist perspective, these rallies seemed satanic. From my American perspective, the pro Palestine crowd seemed anti-American. Either way I looked at it, this rising anti-Israel sentiment was bad for me, bad for Jews, and bad for America. <\/p>\n
When Israel attacked Hamas in Gaza and killed thousands of Gazans, I didn’t lose any sleep. As long as Israel is threatened, I don’t care what it does to its enemies (though I’d prefer it to be as economical with life as possible so I can virtue signal about how moral my side is). <\/p>\n
It is not realistic to expect people at war to forgive their enemies. Stanford University Psychology Fred Luskin<\/a> (who doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry) wrote the book Forgive for Good<\/a>, but he doesn’t work with groups at war. He says there’s no point teaching forgiveness in an active conflict. He only gets involved after a political solution such as Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday Agreement<\/a>. <\/p>\n Given that peace between Israel and its neighbors now might be at hand, I wonder if these 2023-2024 Pro Palestine rallies could also be understood as celebrations for a group (Palestinians) that has only known loss over the past 80 years? What if I put myself in their shoes? How would I understand the rallies then? Certain levels of understanding are only available to those in the dance. <\/p>\n If the October 7, 2023 attack developed my in-group identity as a Muslim, Palestinian or Palestinian-sympathizer, I’d also become more anti-Israel because when you love something, you hate the enemies of your love. <\/p>\n I would not be surprised if most Palestinians wished that Jewish Israelis would disappear and that most Jewish Israelis wished that most Palestinians would disappear. On the other hand, publicly advocating for this type of genocide is not a good PR tactic. <\/p>\n Remember how Egypt could only make peace with Israel after it pulled off an audacious attack on Israel on Yom Kippur 1973 and regained some pride? Perhaps Palestinians can only make peace after they restored their own pride through a devastating attack on Israel? <\/p>\n The position of the observer is often a key part of the data. American white Christians tend to be neutral to positive about Israel, while other groups are usually more hostile. As America becomes less white and less Christian, it becomes more anti-Israel. <\/p>\n From the 10,000 foot level, it is obvious that Americans (like every other people) primarily care about their own country. I grew up in Australia where the general feeling was that if you weren’t Australian, you weren’t worth much. <\/p>\n Answers that feel good aren’t usually true.<\/p>\n How do you know in this area if something is true? Truth bites. Truth bleeds. <\/p>\n ChatGPT says: The dominant interpretation\u2014that these demonstrations are purely antisemitic\u2014is emotionally satisfying for Israel\u2019s defenders, but it misses the deeper social and psychological current animating them.<\/p>\n Yes, much of the rhetoric and imagery is hostile to Jews and Israel. But it\u2019s also true that for much of the Arab and Muslim world, and for their diasporic descendants, the Israel\u2013Palestine story is an unbroken chain of defeats\u20141948, 1967, 1973, Oslo, the blockade, normalization deals, tech disparities, global prestige gaps. The only moments of visible \u201cvictory\u201d have come through shock and symbolism, not durable power.<\/p>\n From that perspective, October 7\u2014and the demonstrations that followed\u2014represent a cathartic inversion of the usual emotional script: a chance to feel victorious, righteous, seen. It\u2019s less about geopolitical realism than psychic relief. For a population whose historical narrative has been one of humiliation and powerlessness, the sudden image of Jews afraid, of Israel shaken, activates something primal\u2014a reclamation of agency, however dark or destructive.<\/p>\n There\u2019s another layer: these rallies have become a stage for vicarious belonging. For many younger Western activists\u2014disaffected, secular, rootless\u2014Palestine offers a myth of resistance, of the oppressed rising against the powerful. It\u2019s a ready-made morality play in which they can play the role of righteous witness. Their identification with Palestine isn\u2019t about the Middle East per se; it\u2019s about giving shape to their own sense of dispossession and alienation.<\/p>\n So yes: what looks like an orgy of hatred can also be read as an ecstatic expression of reversal\u2014of people long cast as history\u2019s losers briefly imagining themselves as history\u2019s avengers. That doesn\u2019t excuse the hatred, but it explains the passion. These demonstrations are less about policy than about psychic theater: after decades of humiliation, the defeated finally feel, for a moment, like protagonists.<\/p>\n LF: There’s a lot of talk about MAGA and the American Right turning against Israel. Let’s reframe that as turning towards. What are they turning towards?<\/p>\n ChatGPT says: They\u2019re turning toward a more nationalist, civilizational, and anti-globalist framework that sees foreign entanglements\u2014especially those driven by moral or historical obligation\u2014as liabilities rather than expressions of virtue. In that framework:<\/p>\n 1. National interest over alliance loyalty.<\/p>\n Israel used to be treated as a proxy for Western strength and moral clarity; now many on the populist right see it as a client state draining U.S. resources, dragging America into endless conflict, and shaping U.S. policy through lobbying and elite networks. \u201cAmerica First\u201d replaces \u201cthe West versus evil\u201d as the core narrative.<\/p>\n 2. Civilizational identity at home, not abroad.<\/p>\n Instead of projecting moral power outward, the focus is inward\u2014on defending Western civilization domestically (borders, culture, religion, demographics). Support for Israel once symbolized Judeo-Christian solidarity; now it\u2019s seen as distraction from America\u2019s own survival fight.<\/p>\n 3. Distrust of global institutions and cosmopolitan elites.<\/p>\n The MAGA right views the foreign policy establishment, neoconservatives, and large donor networks (many pro-Israel) as part of the same \u201cglobalist\u201d system that offshored jobs and diluted sovereignty. Turning away from Israel is partly turning toward autonomy from those forces.<\/p>\n 4. Sympathy for multipolar realism.<\/p>\n They\u2019re moving toward a realist or isolationist foreign policy\u2014accepting spheres of influence, opposing democracy-promotion wars, and preferring transactional diplomacy with powers like Russia, Hungary, and even China. \u201cAmerica First\u201d becomes \u201cAmerica as one strong power among many.\u201d<\/p>\n 5. Cultural realignment.<\/p>\n Social media populism rewards transgression against sacred cows. For decades, unquestioning support for Israel was a Republican piety; now attacking it signals independence from the old guard. The movement\u2019s cultural gravity is shifting toward online nationalist and Christian-identitarian communities that frame the Middle East not in biblical terms but in anti-imperial, ethnonational, or even quasi-traditionalist ones.<\/p>\n In short, the right isn\u2019t simply turning against Israel\u2014it\u2019s turning toward an inward-looking, sovereignty-centric, and post-imperial vision of the West.<\/p>\n LF: Instead of talking about Tucker Carlson turning against Jews, let’s talk descriptively and not normatively about what Tucker is turning towards.<\/p>\n ChatGPT says: Tucker Carlson isn\u2019t turning \u201cagainst\u201d Jews so much as he\u2019s turning toward a different moral and political center of gravity\u2014one that defines itself apart from the post-1945 liberal order in which Jewish experience and moral authority were central.<\/p>\n He\u2019s turning toward a post-Cold-War, post-liberal worldview built around the collapse of elite legitimacy and the search for rooted order. <\/p>\n 1. From moral universalism to civilizational particularism.<\/p>\n Tucker\u2019s move isn\u2019t \u201cagainst Jews\u201d so much as \u201cagainst universalism.\u201d He\u2019s rejecting the idea that America\u2019s mission is moral export or global stewardship. He\u2019s turning toward the idea that every civilization should preserve its own traditions, religion, and hierarchy.<\/p>\n 2. From Enlightenment liberalism to pre-liberal order.<\/p>\n He\u2019s turning toward a vision that treats liberal democracy, free markets, and individual autonomy as corrosive of family, nation, and meaning. His sympathies lie with traditionalist regimes\u2014Orthodox Christian Russia, Orb\u00e1n\u2019s Hungary\u2014that fuse nationalism, religion, and hierarchy.<\/p>\n 3. From American exceptionalism to post-imperial nationalism.<\/p>\n Where the old right saw America as a city on a hill, Tucker sees a failing empire that should retreat from moral crusades and restore domestic strength. He\u2019s turning toward a self-contained nationalism: America as a bounded civilization, not a universal model.<\/p>\n 4. From neoconservative geopolitics to populist realism.<\/p>\n He\u2019s turning toward a world where nations pursue their own interests, power is regional, and moral language masks manipulation. His skepticism of Ukraine and Israel fits the same pattern: hostility to elite-driven wars justified by moral rhetoric.<\/p>\n 5. From cosmopolitan elites to local moral authority.<\/p>\n He\u2019s turning toward a populist spiritualism that valorizes farmers, preachers, cops, parents\u2014what he calls \u201cnormal people.\u201d It\u2019s anti-bureaucratic, anti-managerial, and anti-expert.<\/p>\n 6. From Judeo-Christian to explicitly Christian identity.<\/p>\n He\u2019s shifting from the Cold-War fusion of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish moral consensus toward a more sectarian, even mystical Christianity. The unity is not interfaith \u201cJudeo-Christian civilization\u201d but Christian-national coherence.<\/p>\n In short: Tucker Carlson is turning toward a sacralized nationalism that rejects both global liberalism and managerial conservatism\u2014a politics of rootedness, hierarchy, and moral re-enchantment against the flattening forces of modernity.<\/p>\n LF: Israel has enjoyed a strong position in American life for the past 70 years but there are some downsides to this success that might not be good for Israel.<\/p>\n ChatGPT says: Israel\u2019s extraordinary success in embedding itself into the American imagination and political system came with hidden costs that are now showing up as liabilities. A few of the biggest:<\/p>\n 1. Over-identification with U.S. power. 2. Dependence on bipartisan consensus. 3. Moral exceptionalism fatigue. 4. Perception of asymmetrical power. 5. Association with cosmopolitan elites. 6. Complacency born of dominance. 7. The end of sacred status. In short: Israel\u2019s success in becoming woven into the fabric of American power, morality, and identity worked brilliantly in the old order\u2014but as that order fragments, Israel finds itself exposed, over-leveraged, and without a plan for a post-hegemonic America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before I considered converting to Judaism, I didn’t think much about Israel. We didn’t talk about Jews and Israel in my Seventh-Day Adventist home. Instead, I heard 20 times more negative things about Catholics than I did about Jews. My … Continue reading
\nIsrael\u2019s alignment with American hegemony made it an extension of Washington\u2019s moral and military project. As that project loses legitimacy\u2014from Iraq to Ukraine to the culture wars\u2014Israel inherits the backlash. Its fate got tied to America\u2019s imperial image, and as America turns inward, the halo dims.<\/p>\n
\nFor decades, Israel\u2019s strength rested on an elite consensus across both parties\u2014AIPAC, Congress, the think-tank world, evangelical churches. That infrastructure insulated it from normal political debate. Now, populists on both the right and left reject that elite world. What once was insulation now looks like entanglement with a distrusted establishment.<\/p>\n
\nThe story of Israel as a moral democracy surrounded by enemies resonated when America still believed in its own exceptionalism. As Americans grow cynical about their own myths, they\u2019re less moved by others\u2019. Israel\u2019s claim to moral exemption from scrutiny now reads as special pleading to a generation raised on skepticism and moral relativism.<\/p>\n
\nIsrael\u2019s image as a vulnerable underdog has inverted. It\u2019s now a regional superpower with nukes, high-tech surveillance, and American funding. In a populist era, being powerful and globally networked makes you a target. The emotional script that once protected Israel\u2014David versus Goliath\u2014has flipped.<\/p>\n
\nBecause so many of Israel\u2019s American defenders operate in elite media, finance, and political circles, Israel\u2019s brand became tied to the very networks populists despise. Its success at elite integration now feeds conspiratorial and class resentment from below.<\/p>\n
\nThe certainty of unconditional U.S. support made Israeli leaders less adaptive diplomatically and morally. Now, as that support erodes, Israel lacks the practice of persuasion\u2014it\u2019s forgotten how to make its case to skeptical publics.<\/p>\n
\nFor half a century, Israel was untouchable in American discourse\u2014beyond normal debate. But in a culture that now delights in iconoclasm, that sacred status is a provocation. Once something becomes sacred, its eventual desecration is inevitable.<\/p>\n