Are Israel and its advocates driving potential supporters into the arms of white nationalists with accusations of anti-Semitism?
Heritage chief Kevin Roberts last week claimed that criticism of Israeli and anti-Semitism were being conflated by Israel supporters, and that was echoed throughout the weekend by public intellectuals who claim there are “legitimate questions that are being shut down with false accusations of bigotry…. pushing the antisemites and the people with legitimate concerns onto the same team.”
Mistaking friends for enemies—or, worse, turning friends into enemies—would be a costly error indeed. But is that what is happening regarding Roberts and those for whom he presumably speaks? I don’t think so, and I’ll explain why.
When someone asserts that “legitimate criticism of Israel” is being conflated with anti-Semitism and “silenced,” we are rarely treated to any examples of A) the specific criticism of Israel and B) the record or identities of those calling the critic an anti-Semite. But it just so happens that Kevin Roberts gave us something to go on.
In his initial video, the one that sparked an outcry, he merely alluded to supposed good-faith criticism of Israel that was getting people “canceled.” But the following day, Dana Loesch subjected Roberts to a sharp interview about the latter’s defense of Tucker Carlson, in which Loesch cornered him into offering specifics. Roberts said:
“Some weeks ago, I asked a question online—very thoughtful, very careful, it was after my family and I got back from mass, days after a Catholic church in Gaza was possibly bombed by the Israel Defense Forces. I asked a question: Could we please get to the bottom of this?”
And what happened when Roberts asked this question? “Just by virtue of asking that question, I and Heritage were charged with anti-Semitism. Not by a lot of people, but by a handful of people in Washington, DC.”
All right. So we have part of our desire for specifics accommodated here. We do not hear who, specifically, accused Roberts and Heritage of anti-Semitism for asking Israel to “please get to the bottom of” what happened when a shell hit a church in Gaza. Roberts says he asked the question publicly and privately, so we don’t know exactly how he phrased it each time. It’s possible he said “Can we please get to the bottom of this?”
It’s doubtful such phrasing invited much of a backlash, obviously. But even if we suspend disbelief and give him the full benefit of the doubt, the reaction he claims he received from an unnamed “handful of people in Washington, DC” was surely disproportionate to his response, which was to call them a “venomous coalition” comprising “the globalist class” and “their mouthpieces in Washington.”
How do I know this? Because when the church in Gaza was struck, President Trump also registered his disapproval—and he did so in more pointed terms than “can we please get to the bottom of this?”
On July 17, a reporter asked Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt what Trump’s reaction was. She responded: “It was not a positive reaction. He called Prime Minister Netanyahu this morning to address the strikes on that church in Gaza, and I understand the prime minister agreed to put out a statement. It was a mistake by the Israelis to hit that Catholic Church. That’s what the prime minister relayed to the president — and you should look at the prime minister’s statement that will be coming out.”
Indeed, Netanyahu expressed regret for the mistake publicly and even in a phone call to the pope.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce was asked about it the same day at the department’s press briefing. Bruce said that “President Trump also spoke to the prime minister, and I think it’s an understatement to say that he was not happy.” Bruce said the administration has “asked that Israel investigate the strike.” She added: “Obviously, everyone is appalled.”
Earlier in July, false accusations flew that Israelis had set fire to an ancient church not far from Jerusalem. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called it “an act of sacrilege” and “an act of terror” for which Israel must ensure there are “harsh consequences.”
Perhaps I missed it, but I don’t remember Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Mike Huckabee getting “canceled” by mysterious pro-Israel forces in Washington. All three men are regarded by the Jewish community here and in Israel as monumental friends of the Jewish nation.
One more point to make. I reject the idea that being falsely accused of something should make that person choose to become what they’ve been falsely accused of. I fully understand that tempers flare in the heat of the moment, but that is different from embracing ideas one recoiled from the day before. Put simply, I don’t believe someone turns into Pat Buchanan overnight.
if you think Tucker Carlson is being criticized for embracing a guy who praises Hitler because there’s a foreign-aligned cabal of manipulative Jews in Washington, you have stumbled upon the problem—and it isn’t other people.
