I am pleased to announce that Jerusalem Letters will begin carrying essays on public affairs by friends who are involved in various aspects of my work. The first guest essay is by Gita Hazani-Melchior, a well-known columnist on the Israeli political right who is also my colleague at the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem. This essay, translated from the Hebrew, was first published in Olam Katan on July 24, 2026. —Ed.

Although the United States has resumed military action against Iran, and Israel may well join forces with the Americans again, the waves of anger and criticism—together with feelings of betrayal—that have flooded Israeli public discourse over the administration’s bewildering policy reversal on Iran have not abated. Many Israelis continue to feel that our national interests and our honor have been abandoned, and that our country has been thoroughly humiliated.

Vice President J.D. Vance, already identified more than any other figure in the administration with a foreign policy perceived as diminishing and humiliating both Israel and the United States, has drawn even more fire in recent days following his controversial interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast on July 15, 2026. His responses to the host’s speculative, provocative questions about the war, foreign affairs, and conspiracy theories surrounding the Epstein files were interpreted by conservative leaders and commentators in Israel as evidence of anti-Semitism and of the erosion of the familiar, comfortable paradigm that long governed U.S.-Israel relations.

Yet that paradigm itself has for a very long time been one of childish dependence on the United States—one in which American presidents and high-ranking officials would shower us with eloquent declarations of their love and support for Israel’s right to exist, while at the same time systematically curtailing Israeli settlement growth and arms supplies, even as they advocated for the idea of a Palestinian state directly from the White House lawn.

For this reason, I would like to challenge the harsh interpretations that have been given to Vance’s rhetoric, and offer an alternative reading of both the substance of his remarks and the broader political context underlying them.

VANCE IS OFFERING ISRAEL A MORE MATURE ALLIANCE

In my view, the Republican administration is offering Israel a more mature, independent relationship than the dependency to which we have grown accustomed—one that could grant us greater freedom to conduct our own foreign policy in accordance with our genuine national interests, rather than those of foreign powers. Even if this newfound independence leads to future diplomatic clashes, and Mother America changes her mind and tries to bring her child back home, I suspect she will find that there is no way back. The new rules of the game will be those governing relations between two responsible adults, not between a mother and her infant.

As for the substance of Vance’s answers to Rogan, it is essential to note, first, that the interviewer framed his questions in an extraordinarily conspiratorial manner, clearly seeking to trap the Vice President into endorsing views well outside of the political mainstream. Yet the vice president responded with both sophistication and restraint. Second, a careful examination of Vance’s arguments on the show reveals a healthy commitment to political realism. He openly acknowledged that countries such as Israel, Russia and Qatar attempt to influence American foreign policy. Do we need to begin listing the names of pro-Israel lobbying organizations? Implicitly, Vance was admitting that states behave toward the United States exactly as the United States itself does in seeking to influence the policies of other nations. At the same time, he made clear that Israel—not Russia or Qatar—is America’s close ally. In measured, rational tones, he observed that allies sometimes have overlapping interests and sometimes conflicting ones.

Vance’s remarks about Jeffrey Epstein amounted to a remarkable exercise in media maneuvering, which ultimately worked to the benefit of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli nationalist camp. Any attempt to claim otherwise reflects, at best, contempt for journalistic integrity; and at worst, a deliberate falsehood.

WHAT IS VANCE TRYING TO ACHIEVE?

Now I would like to invite readers to consider the real political story that explains both the phenomenon of J.D. Vance and the broader policy shift we are seeing within the administration. For some reason, we have been reluctant to acknowledge the decisive role this political story has played in shaping the Republican administration’s evolving approach to our region.

The Trump administration is facing two critical elections—the midterms in November of this year, and the next presidential election two years later—that will determine not only the future of the Republican Party but also, in many respects, the future of the Western world, and indeed, the future of Israel. Victory in these elections is genuinely critical. However, a Republican victory is impossible without the support of the party’s electoral base, which is skeptical of ongoing American warfare in the Mideast. The administration therefore finds itself engaged in a Sisyphean effort to balance domestic political constraints with the demands of its international alliances—a balance that is needed to win the confidence of the American electorate.

The electorate in question has come of age in America over the past forty years, an era in which the Bible was removed from the American public-school curriculum. As a result, it feels little natural affinity for Israel’s security concerns, and at this moment also opposes war with Iran. Polls indicate that this electorate has grown increasingly disillusioned, believing that Trump has abandoned his campaign promises to make America great again, strengthen the economy, improve Americans’ living standards, and avoid becoming entangled in “unnecessary wars” overseas that threaten the very achievements his administration had made in these areas before the war. Its members now watch with growing frustration as the United States becomes increasingly drawn into action over the Strait of Hormuz, while the administration’s promise of “America First” seems to them to be slipping away.

Thus, an administration that recognizes the importance of defeating Iran no less than Israel does, and genuinely identifies with that objective, nevertheless finds itself caught in a direct collision between America’s domestic interests and its external interests, which are those it shares with its “model ally,” Israel.

Trump and Vance’s decision to prioritize domestic interests in order to win the elections is both understandable and logical. While Israel and the United States undoubtedly share strategic interests, we must also acknowledge that those interests do not always fully align. Recognizing this truth in no way diminishes the genuine achievements of the strategic partnership forged during the war with Iran. This is not an act of betrayal, but rather a rare moment in which the interests of the two allies really do clash, and in two different ways: There is a real tension between the domestic political constraints in each of the two countries, and their is a tension between our different international commitments. Yet these tensions come after an extended period of exceptionally close strategic coordination between America and Israel.

Guided by the principle of political realism, the administration has also chosen to keep the shared enemies of both the United States and Israel close. If Trump appears enraptured by Erdoğan’s neo-Ottoman ambitions or by the Qataris’ lavish gift-giving, this is merely an illusion. If Trump truly trusted the Qataris’ friendly offering a new luxury jet to replace the old Air Force One, why would the administration now have to invest nearly $300 million to “upgrade” the much-publicized new presidential aircraft?

It turns out that President Trump is not, as some here have suggested, a useful idiot for either Qatar or Turkey. The more plausible explanation is that President Trump is shaping the rules of the game in line with the timeless Machiavellian maxim, memorably echoed by Michael Corleone in Godfather II: “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” By keeping America’s and Israel’s common adversaries close, Trump seeks to monitor their schemes, intentions, and activities firsthand, and to gather intelligence should they contemplate acting against either the United States or its allies.

WHY SHOULD WE JOIN THE LIBERALS IN ATTACKING VANCE?

There is another point—seemingly minor yet in fact essential—that deserves attention: We must not be naïve about the source of the attacks now directed at Vice President Vance and the administration over their approach toward Israel. A closer look reveals that these criticisms almost always originate from the liberal wing of the Republican Party. When conservatives such as Ben Shapiro attack Vance, they are unintentionally sawing off the very branch on which Israel sits. After all, who will be Israel’s allies if J.D. Vance, as the Republican presidential nominee, ends up losing the 2028 election? Will we be happier if it’s someone like Joe Biden who is back in the White House? Will we be happier if it’s someone like Tucker Carlson?

Prominent journalists, politicians and right-wing activists on the Israeli political right are allowing themselves to be drawn into an unnecessary campaign against Vance—a campaign that merely echoes the arguments of America’s liberal Jewish establishment, which has no interest in having a nationalist-conservative president like Vance and prefers a liberal one. In joining this anti-Vance campaign, we are allowing the liberal camp to disrupt the natural alliance between Israel’s nationalist camp and its American counterpart, thereby strengthening the very forces on both the American Left and Right that are hostile to us.

Have we lost our minds?

TOWARD A NEW PARADIGM OF PARTNERSHIP WITH AMERICA

It may be uncomfortable to hear the cool, matter-of-fact rhetoric of the President and his Vice President. But whether this approach proves temporary or permanent, it is crucial to remember: It is not directed at us here in Israel. Rather, it is intended for the ears of the Republican Party’s electoral base. Trump and Vance are signaling to their supporters that they understand their fears and share their national priorities—just as Prime Minister Netanyahu repeatedly emphasizes the importance of maintaining Israel’s presence in the security zone north or south of the Litani River in Lebanon, or in Gaza, or of ensuring Iran’s defeat.

Among all the leaders of Israel’s nationalist camp, it was Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who emerged as the true statesman in recent weeks. He was the responsible adult who proved capable of seeing and describing the broader strategic picture. In an interview with Nadav Peri, he aptly captured that political wisdom which is now being required of us:

[President Trump] entered this war with Iran with only 40 percent public support.... And so I say to my friends: With all due respect to our interests— which are very important to us—[President Trump] is the leader of a country of 380 million people whose welfare he is responsible for, facing fuel prices that could double ..., and he has midterm elections ahead of him. I have an interest in seeing him win those midterm elections, so that he remains strong alongside me, alongside the State of Israel.... In any case, we know how to stand firm on our own red lines.

Indeed, Israel’s nationalist camp must grow up and adopt a broader strategic perspective. History is pushing us to move beyond the old paradigm of depending on the bear hugs of successive American administrations. History is pushing us to begin behaving as a mature nation, acting responsibly toward its strategic partner at a moment when that partner needs a decisive electoral victory at home.

For if the Republican Party loses the elections, the consequences will be unmistakable: A prolonged impeachment process and the collapse of the administration’s ability to continue its historic initiatives, including the defeat of Iran’s murderous regime. The world will once again begin sliding down the slippery slope toward the tyranny of the globalist Left and the renewed empowerment of the institutions of international evil. The entire West will lose.

J.D. Vance is offering Israel a new paradigm of partnership: A relationship of mutual respect between two sovereign nation-states that recognize each other’s national interests. It may sound formal, cool and distant. But it does not freeze the growth of the settlements. Nor does it lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state to endanger us. On the contrary, it leaves that idea firmly on ice.

Gita Hazani-Melchior is Vice President for External Relations at the Herzl Institute in Jerusalem. You can find a Hebrew version of this essay here.

A few weeks ago, a mutual friend asked me if I’d be willing to speak to Tucker Carlson off the record. I agreed and Tucker called me three weeks ago to talk. I continued texting with him for eight days after that.

But this past Friday, Tucker released a video in which he reported to the public on his off-the-record conversations with me. Inaccurately, of course. So here’s some additional information on my short-lived discussions with Tucker Carlson about anti-Semitism on his show.

Tucker called me on Sunday, February 1. We talked for 1 hour and 23 minutes. Here’s what I noted down on my desk calendar right after the call:

8 am Tucker Carlson 83-minute call wanting to know how to end the charges of anti-Semitism against him. Trump told him to end it on Jan 11.

As you can see, Tucker explained that he was calling because he had come under pressure from President Trump at his famous meeting at the White House on January 11. He told me the administration wants him to find a way to stop his high-profile fights with Jews and Zionist Christians. Tucker told me that he wanted my advice on “practical steps” he could take to change the impression that he is an anti-Semite.

I thought he was asking me to host him in Israel. So I explained to him that I can’t do much to help him, because just about every Jew I know believes he’s been waging a savage campaign against Jews, Judaism, and Israel for the past 18 months—and that most think his aim is to drive Jews and Zionist Christians out of the Trump coalition and out of the Republican party. I said that even a year ago, quite a few Jews would probably have jumped at the chance to appear on the Tucker Carlson Show and to present an alternative point of view, but that this looked impossible to me now—and that it would stay that way as long as there’s no change of direction on his part.

Tucker wanted me to explain to him why anyone would think he was an anti-Semite. I answered that question for more than an hour, giving him a series of examples of statements he and his guests had made on his show that seemed completely unhinged and motivated by a desire to slander Jews, Judaism, Israel, and Zionist Christians in order to do as much harm as possible. He kept expressing amazement that anyone would think he was an anti-Semite, and I kept giving him more examples of why I thought any fair observer would reach that conclusion if they were familiar with the relevant conversations he had hosted on his program.

The conversation ended with my agreeing to continue the discussion. I didn’t feel he was open to dialing down the hostility toward Jews, Judaism, Israel, and Zionist Christians constantly being expressed on his program. But I also didn’t want to close the door to the possibility that the pushback from the administration would eventually get him to make a change. (Anyone who has been following Tucker’s program in the weeks since January 11 knows that, so far, there hasn’t been any such change.)

On February 3, Tucker wrote to me asking if he could speak at the first Israeli National Conservatism Conference (NatCon), which is scheduled to be held in Jerusalem on June 8-10. I was taken aback that he would ask for something like that, given the content of our conversation two days earlier. But I did my best to draft a reply that would reinforce my previous description of what a great many Jews, Israelis, and Zionist Christians think of Tucker right now. Here’s what I wrote in response to his request to speak at the first NatCon conference in Israel:

Tucker, I appreciate the offer. But I need people to show up at this event. Realistically, Jews and Zionist Christians are not going to share a platform with you or come to hear you under the current circumstances. I’m just speaking descriptively about the situation: Much of the lineup will revolt if you join the program and that story will blow back on you [and other public figures] in addition to blowing up the conference. If you want to change this situation, there are things you can do unilaterally to shift the dynamic and I think that’s the way to move forward.

I thought Tucker had finally gotten the message that he should stop asking me for favors, and instead consider how he could make unilateral changes that would help people get past the impression that he is one of the leading Jew-haters of our generation.

But then on February 9, he wrote to ask me if I would set up a meeting for him with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I’m not sure why he thought I was the right address for that request. But I knew very well that if someone were going to contact the Prime Minister’s office with such a misguided idea, it wasn’t going to be me. Here’s what I wrote in reply to his request that I arrange a meeting for him with Bibi:

I don’t see how that could happen. It doesn’t serve any interest I’m aware of. It could only damage him.

This was a perfectly honest answer, and Tucker could have thanked me for giving him my honest assessment of the situation he has created. But Tucker wasn’t happy with it, and he typed an agitated little speech into his phone to indicate that our conversation had come to an end.

On February 20, Tucker released a peevish summary of the contacts between us as part of a wild video in which he also suggested that Israel might be trying to kill him and his family.

That’s the story. I’ll just add one comment. Most of what I do in public life is building coalitions. That means I talk to a lot of people who don’t agree with me on all sorts of things, and sometimes that means meeting with people who don’t like me very much. I have these in-person, off-the-record conversations because often people turn out to be quite different in private. Sometimes, I’ve just misunderstood who they are from their public appearances. Sometimes, I’ve understood very well who they are, but it turns out they are willing to explore the possibility of making a change. And also: Even when nothing else comes of it, I learn a tremendous amount about people from these private conversations.

In Tucker’s case, the private person turns out to be exactly who we’ve been seeing in public. As of now, I’m not seeing any sign that he is willing to play ball with the mainstream nationalist camp in the Republican party, much less that he has any regrets about who and what he has become since leaving Fox News in 2023. Whatever his motives for turning his podcast into what seems to be a circus of anti-Jewish messaging, right now that project is clearly more important to him than helping the administration keep its coalition together so it can govern effectively and win elections in 2026 and 2028.

Quite a few liberal Jews have expressed their displeasure with my speech on “Anti-Semitism and the American Right,” delivered at the Second International Conference on Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. Their unhappiness has largely been directed at my observation that most of what American Jews have done over the past fifty years in the name of “fighting anti-Semitism” has been unsuccessful, and that this failure continues down to the present moment.

As an example, I mentioned that appropriate materials have not yet been produced making the case that Tucker Carlson’s popular podcast has become a kind of clearing house for promoting savage anti-Semitic messaging of every kind. As I said in my speech, I believe this is the case. But I have not yet seen anything—whether a written report or an explainer video—that is comprehensive and well-documented enough to be persuasive to an unbiased decisionmaker who isn’t familiar with this material and wants to understand this accusation.

Among the many supportive communications I have received in the wake of my speech, there is one letter in particular that seems worth sharing with you. It is from a Jewish professional who works in another field, but researches and writes about the current plague of anti-Semitism on the right in his spare time. What follows is the full text of his letter, published here with the author’s permission but with his name omitted:

Dear Yoram,

I read your [speech] about Tucker. You’re right about the diagnosis: No one has been willing to put in the effort to run a proper investigation, or “research” as you put it, into Tucker and what’s really going on—and show that to the world in a strategically minded way.

There are indeed people out there who are capable of doing what you’re alluding to. I’m one of them. My work has disrupted several major anti-Israel digital propaganda operations, including at the state level. Most of this has been in a journalistic framework over the past 18 months.

But I’m not alone. There are people and groups I work with who not only are equipped to run exactly the kind of initiative you seem to be pointing to, but, in some cases, have at least preliminary plans for exactly this particular one already in place.

What we do is not rocket science. But it does require resources—and that is what we lack. For the past 2 1/2 years, people active in this space have either (a) worked for free, doing research/investigation/information ops of this kind in their spare time, while running real careers; or (b) scrounge for contributions on a per-project basis, going out for $20k for this, $30k for that (sometimes down to the level of “I need $500 for a plane ticket to meet with a group of top-tier editors in NYC on a story”); or (c) work as journalists, which means they’re at the whim of editors, news cycles, etc.

This is how the ecosystem is structured. Part of the reason for this is that, in many cases, our adversaries are state funded. We are not, which puts the donor world in the position of filling an enormous gap. Either way, it’s by far the biggest constraint. Most of the people in the space (and there are enough of us) have simply thrown up our hands. We face personal risk doing this—I’ve been targeted by numerous Hamas-aligned propagandists online for months—with little professional upside. The influencers get the adoration and the resources (look at who was invited to the recent antisemitism confab in Jerusalem, and who wasn’t), though their impact is, at best, murky and unmeasurable.

That’s where this rests. It’s not because no one has come up with dozens of possible project ideas, and tactics to back them, that could move the needle in a big way to expose the truth about what’s going on. It’s not that we don’t have the skills, the tech, the experience, the risk tolerance, the strategic direction or (least of all) the dedication.

We have all that. But we don’t have funding for it—and, in the final analysis, with all that we put into this effort, with the risk we take on, if we can’t get enough people in this world to care enough to fund efforts not just adequately but amply, then what are we really doing?

The Jewish world is years, if not decades, behind. The Qataris and the Russians are racing ahead. We’re still doing sweet lectures at kiddush, buttoned-up panel events, and inside-baseball podcasts that “build community” and sound super soothing but don’t bring real-world results.

I tend to believe there are no unintended consequences, at least not in this context. This is, more or less, what the Jewish world wants. Perhaps it “affirms” members of the community in some way. Perhaps—with notable exceptions—they are afraid of truly fighting. But without addressing this at the top level, nothing will change and Tucker (and people like him) will continue to dominate the battlefield while barely even trying.

Anyone interested in supporting this kind of work can be in touch with me at yhazony@herzlinstitute.org.

NatCon Jerusalem

Since 2019, my colleagues and I have organized ten National Conservatism Conferences in the United States, Britain, Italy, and Belgium. On June 8-10, 2026, we will host the eleventh NatCon conference in Jerusalem. This will be the first time that such an event will be held in Israel. I hope to see you there. More information will be posted soon at natcon.org.

I. Anti-Semitism in the Republican Party

I’d like to say a few words today about the place of Jews—and of anti-Semites—in the Republican party in America. The subject is pressing because since October 2023, Democrats have largely made their peace with the anti-Jewish hatred of the neo-Marxists and Muslim Brotherhood supporters in their party. In fact, the influence of anti-Semites on the American left has become so blatant and so ubiquitous that most of my American Jewish friends have concluded Jews have no future in the Democratic party of Zohran Mamdani and Ilhan Omar. And if the Republicans were to go down this same road, it’s not clear what would be left of Jewish life in America.

Over the past eighteen months, the possibility that the Republicans, too, would embrace anti-Semitism has become all too real, with some of the most influential podcasts on the political right transforming themselves into platforms for relentless anti-Jewish messaging: Not just for arguing against Israeli policies toward Gaza or Iran, but for the explicit and savage targeting of Jews, Judaism, and Zionism on a regular basis.

And so the question has to be asked—and it has been asked loudly and combatively by some of you over the past six months: Do these shows represent the future of the Republican party?

II. The Trump Administration and Tucker Carlson

The Trump administration and its allies have been blindsided by these podcasts, and by the Jewish outrage over them. For months, they largely failed to respond. But in recent weeks, the Trump administration has stepped in to impose order.

On January 11, President Trump took the clearest possible stand against anti-Semitism in his political coalition. Asked if he condemns anti-Semitism on the right, he said, “certainly,” and then added: “I think we don’t need them. I think we don’t like them.”1

But then on January 16, President Trump met with Tucker Carlson for lunch at the White House—which also arranged to have Tucker photographed together with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles.2

Finally, on January 19, Tucker aired a show in which he said some kind things about two Jews sympathetic to the administration—Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and myself—and then concluded by saying: “That’s why I would never be anti-Semitic. You can’t generalize.”3

These events were obviously choreographed to put an end to six months of nightmarish infighting on the political right. Which makes sense. The Republicans are facing tough midterm elections in November, and they don’t want to lose Congress over anti-Semitism.

III. Tucker’s Show and Anti-Semitism

The problem is that by now, not too many Jews are likely to accept Tucker’s disavowal of anti-Semitism at face value.

Why? Because for the last eighteen months, Tucker’s interview show has become a circus of aggressive anti-Jewish propaganda. Anti-Semites know you can tune into Tucker’s show if you want to hear:

1. That Jews are a demonic force in history.

2. That Jews have a plan to systematically destroy every Christian community in the Middle East.

3. That Jews control the American government.

4. That Jews shot Kennedy.

5. That Jews propped up Winston Churchill financially so he could start an unnecessary war with Hitler.

6. That the Jewish Bible is about revenge and genocide, and doesn’t teach us to be gracious to one another.

7. That Christians who think Jews are God’s chosen people aren’t Christians at all, but heretics.

And so on.

There’s much more of this. But you get the picture.

These aren’t normal political messages, disagreeing with other members of the Trump coalition on legitimate policy issues. They’re abusive, wild slanders, and their repeated appearance on Tucker’s show has persuaded almost every Jew I know that the program’s purpose is to drive Jews—along with tens of millions of Zionist Christians—out of the Trump coalition and out of the Republican party.

And if that’s not anti-Semitism, then what is?

IV. How Was the Fight Over Tucker Lost?

For at least the last six months, Jews and Zionist Christians have been saying that Tucker is one of the leading promoters of anti-Semitic propaganda in our time—and that for this reason, he shouldn’t be treated as a partner in good standing in the Trump coalition. They said it to Charlie Kirk. They said it to Kevin Roberts. And they’ve been saying it to the Trump administration.

So how is this effort to distance Tucker from power and influence in the Republican party going?

Judging by President Trump and Secretary Rubio’s photo op with Tucker at the White House two weeks ago, I’d say it’s been a total failure.

How do we explain this defeat?

One possibility is that Tucker is just too powerful, and no one’s going to touch him politically right now. Tucker is an influential supporter, the Republicans need him to win elections, and that’s just the way it’s going to be.

A second possibility is that Jews and Christian Zionists are just too weak in Republican circles to take him down a notch politically. A lot of people have this idea that we Jews are connected all over the place in the Republican party. But maybe that view isn’t exactly right. I’ll come back to this point in a moment.

A third possibility is that Jews and Zionist Christians have plenty of connections in the Republican party, but that the case against Tucker over the last six months just wasn’t presented in a way that was professional, serious, and competent enough to be persuasive.

Sure, many of you think that Tucker is a leading promoter of anti-Semitism, and that the Trump movement should just ditch him.

But that’s obviously not what President Trump thinks about Tucker, who did extraordinary work building up the Trump movement over seven years as a host on Fox News. On top of that, Tucker is a very smart, passionate, and very likeable man when you meet him in person. I had lunch with him once, years ago, and I thought he was great. I invited him to NatCon 1 and he gave one of the best speeches we have ever hosted.

And Tucker has been saying—as clear as the day—that he is not an anti-Semite.

Now, if you think otherwise, you are going to have to convince people. You will have to make your case, in a persuasive way, to people who don’t spend a lot of time watching podcasts.

Have Tucker’s critics done that? Well, if they have, where is the 15-minute explainer video, that I can show my friends on the political right, which proves that this very serious accusation against Tucker is true? Where is the carefully assembled research, with links and dates and timestamps, that could convince an impartial public figure who is open to being convinced?

The answer is: There is no such 15-minute explainer video. There is no such serious research. They don’t exist because, for some reason, there are no Jews or Zionist Christians, who think it’s their job to produce such things. Or if there are people who think it’s their job, they haven’t circulated anything of the sort—to me or to anyone else in Washington who’s in a position to do anything with it.

This is an extremely high level of incompetence by the entire anti-Semitism-industrial complex, some of whose representatives are sitting right here in this room. Maybe some of you think you were persuasively “fighting anti-Semitism” over the last six months. But the unfortunate truth is that you weren’t.

V. Jews and the Republican Party

Let’s go back to the question of how well-positioned Jews and Zionist Christians are to have a say in the Republican party today. Right now, the party is divided into three distinct factions:

First, there’s what I’ll call the liberal wing of the Republican party, which is led by figures such as Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz. This liberal wing once dominated the party. But since 2016, it’s been shrinking, and it’s unlikely that a candidate with liberal-Republican views would win the support of more than 25 percent of the party’s primary voters today.

Second, there’s the nationalist wing of the Republican party, as represented by President Trump, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth. This camp is distinguished from liberal Republicans by its support for an industrial policy to restore America’s manufacturing capabilities, its outspoken rejection of compromise on immigration issues, and its skepticism of long foreign wars. The nationalist camp today represents the great majority in the Republican party, with a likely vote-share of 65 percent or more in a contested primary.

Finally, there’s the alt-right (or “alternative right”), which was mostly a fringe phenomenon until 2023, when big-name media figures Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens moved into this space. Still, it’s unlikely that more than 10 percent of Republican voters would support a presidential candidate with alt-right views.

As you know, liberal Republicans are very supportive of Jews, Judaism, and Israel these days, whereas the alt-right is strongly anti-Semitic.

That leaves the nationalist wing, which has been pretty quiet on these issues over the last six months, leaving the whole, noisy shooting match to be fought out between the liberal wing of the party and the alt-right. So it’s been Mark Levin or Ted Cruz, for example, dishing it out and taking it from Tucker Carlson—week after week, month after month.

VI. Jews and Nationalist Republicans

However, the struggle for the soul of the Republican party is not taking place in these overheated, firing-squad-style, online confrontations between the liberal Republicans and the alt-right.

The actual battle over the future of Jews in the Republican party is taking place where the majority is: Within the big nationalist camp at the center of the party.

Many Jews, including some Israelis, mistake the online fights for political reality. So you get all these Jews jumping on the bandwagon and amplifying the rhetoric and arguments coming out of the liberal Republican camp. They think that by retweeting Mark Levin, they’re somehow “fighting anti-Semitism.”

But they aren’t doing anything of the kind. That’s because most nationalist Republicans aren’t too inclined to trust the arguments and rhetoric of the liberal camp on very many issues, including this one. In fact, most nationalist Republicans still remember how liberals spent eight years falsely accusing President Trump of anti-Semitism. So it’s not surprising that they find the overheated rhetoric coming out of the liberal camp on the subject of anti-Semitism to be bellicose, alarmist, and unconvincing.

For example, most nationalist Republicans don’t think America today is anything like 1930s Germany. They don’t see any Nazi party in America poised on the threshold of victory. And for that reason, they don’t jump to deplore the agitprop of right-wing podcasters the way liberal Republicans want them to. And when they don’t, this drives liberal Republicans—both Jews and non-Jews—to start misbehaving. They start lashing out at the nationalists, and accusing them of being anti-Semites, or of protecting anti-Semites, or of protecting Nazis, or of being Nazis.

I’ve heard all of this with my own ears. It’s a disgrace. And if the goal is to persuade Trump’s nationalists to build an alliance with Jews on these and other issues, it is also counter-productive.

VII. Political Stupidity of the Jews

In June 1999, I invited Irving Kristol to deliver a public lecture in Jerusalem. His topic was “The Political Stupidity of the Jews.”4 His thesis was that because Jews don’t have a living tradition of thinking about political power, we tend to respond to political situations by pronouncing moral judgments—as if pronouncing moral judgments in an agitated way was going to win us friends in high places.

What we’ve seen over the last six months is a textbook case of the same “political stupidity of the Jews” that Kristol described. It’s clear who is in charge of the Republican party: The nationalists are in charge. And they may be for a generation or more.

Given this fact, what would Jews and Zionist Christians be doing right now if they were thinking politically, and were willing to “fight anti-Semitism” using political means?

In short, what would Mordechai and Esther do?

1. They’d be doing everything they can to understand how nationalist Republicans think, what they care about and what’s important to them.

2. They’d be looking for ways in which Jewish interests can be the basis for common ground with nationalist Republicans.

3. They’d be looking for ways to build bridges and friendships and rock solid, mutually beneficial alliances with nationalist Republicans.

But that simply not what’s been happening.

Mostly what Jews and Zionist Christians have been doing for the past six months is sitting outside the nationalist camp—looking at it from a distance, through the distorting medium of tendentious leaks and conspiracy theories, which certain liberal publications regularly publish with the aim of hurting the Republican party as much as they can.

It’s absurd, but a lot of Jewish Republicans and Israeli Likudniks buy into this rubbish. Why? Because it’s a lot easier to believe whatever you read in Jewish Insider—thereby allowing yourself to become a tool in the hands of the left—than it is to do the difficult political work of opening doors and building bridges to the American nationalist camp.

What would you find if you actually invested the time and effort, and opened those doors? Mostly, you’d discover that nationalist Republicans are not anti-Semites. That they are strongly committed to having Jews in their coalition. That they would like to have closer relations with the Jewish community. That many of them see Israel as an inspiration and wish America were more like Israel. In short, you’d discover that most of them are potential friends and allies.

And you’d discover that nearly all them are mystified as to why so many Jews and Zionist Christians invest so much time and energy in attacking them—instead of trying to build strong friendships with them.

VIII. An Opportunity to Build Bridges

At this point, we know that much of what was done in the name of “fighting anti-Semitism” in America over the last 50 years was a complete failure. None of it prevented the takeover of the Democratic party by anti-Jewish movements. None of it appears to be helping in the present battle over the place of Jews in the Republican party either.

But the good news is that the future relationship between nationalist Republicans and Jews hasn’t been decided yet. To a significant degree, it’s up for grabs. Which means we are looking at a truly historic opportunity: The opportunity to build bridges and a potentially solid alliance with the dominant nationalist camp in the Republican party, which could stand for a generation or more.

Finding common ground with nationalist Republicans is the most important thing we could be doing to actually “fight anti-Semitism.” And if we do that well, then maybe we have a shot at pushing anti-Semitism back into the embarrassing irrelevance it deserves.

The speech was delivered at the Second International Conference on Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. You can watch the video of the speech here:

4

Irving Kristol, “The Political Stupidity of the Jews,” Azure, Autumn 1999.

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In the wake of the Trump administration’s air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22, a number of right-wing podcasts escalated their anti-Jewish messaging. These attacks on Jews and Judaism, and the backlash from Jews and Zionist Christians, has left the Trump coalition in disarray.

This raises some obvious questions: Now that the US Democratic Party has come under the thumb of its anti-Jewish wing, will Republicans go down the same path? And will Vice President Vance (or any other Republican candidate) be left with a working coalition that he can lead to victory in 2028?

In recent weeks, these questions seemed to come to a head with the highly publicized debate over the Heritage Foundation’s response to podcaster Tucker’s Carlson’s interview with the anti-Jewish provocateur Nick Fuentes. Although the debate has been bitter on all sides, it did finally put the issue of right-wing antisemitism on the table in a way that has made it impossible to avoid.

On November 3, I traveled to Washington to take part in conversations on how the political right should respond to this challenge. On November 13, I joined Ross Douthat of The New York Times to assess where things stand after the online right’s long summer of antisemitism.

You can watch our conversation here:

Some comments about the Trump administration and Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank):

1. The Saudis, Turks, Qataris and Egyptians aren’t going to support Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria.

2. The overwhelming majority of Israelis wanted a deal to bring home the 20 living Israelis being held prisoner by Hamas in Gaza.

3. President Trump got the Israeli hostages released by promising the Saudis, Turks, and Qataris and Egyptians that there would be no Israeli annexation of parts of Judea and Samaria. There would have been no deal without that.

4. Therefore, it’s now US policy that Israel shouldn’t annex parts of Judea and Samaria.

5. Netanyahu knew all this and agreed to the deal because he, like the Israeli public, wanted the hostages freed.

6. But it’s not at all clear this deal is going to hold. Hamas has already renounced three of the central pillars of the deal: (I) That it would disarm completely, (II) that it would give up on ruling Gaza, and (III) that it would give back the bodies of murdered Israelis it is holding.

7. Of course the Trump administration is still hoping the release of the Israeli hostages will be followed by other diplomatic achievements like formal relations between Israel and the Saudis. Netanyahu and his government are hoping for that too. That’s why they’re working so hard to try to keep the deal on life support even though several of its central pillars have already been renounced by Hamas.

8. But neither the Trump administration nor the Netanyahu government are stupid. They know the deal is on life support. They also know the Israeli public won’t stick to the terms of the deal indefinitely if Hamas has clearly reneged, and the Turks and Qataris are either unwilling or unable to enforce them.

9. Many Israeli parliamentarians, both to Netanyahu’s left and to his right, believe the deal has already collapsed. They also believe Britain, France and others need to get some serious blowback for declaring that they’ve “recognized” a Palestinian state that doesn’t exist. And so these parliamentarians feel justified in scoring political points at Netanyahu’s expense by advancing (as yet non-binding) legislation to annex pieces of Judea and Samaria that the Israeli public would like to see remain a part of Israel.

10. President Trump, VP Vance, and Netanyahu himself, are completely justified in thinking this behavior in the Israeli parliament is irresponsible, insulting, and tiresome—and in saying so in strong terms so the Saudis don’t just announce that the deal is off and walk away.

11. Still, the behavior of Israel’s parliament is just a sideshow. The real issue is that Hamas has clearly reneged on its side of the deal, and that the Turks and Qataris appear to be either unwilling or unable to enforce it.

12. That means that sooner or later, President Trump and Netanyahu are going to conclude that they’re whipping a dead horse, and that it’s time to move on. At that point Netanyahu may decide to go forward with the annexation of some parts of Judea, Samaria, or Gaza—if Israeli public opinion supports that as a reply to Starmer and Macron. At that point President Trump may decide to just accept that, or even to give Bibi the green light, depending on what else is happening (with Ukraine, with Iran, with Israeli elections, etc.).

13. But it’s also possible that the death of the deal with Hamas will give birth to a different deal. In 2020, Netanyahu gave up on annexation of the Jordan Valley in exchange for a peace agreement with five Muslim countries. It’s not impossible that Netanyahu will take Israel to the brink of annexation again—only to exchange it for a peace deal with a few more Muslim countries.

14. President Trump was justifiably pleased with that outcome in 2020, after he got sick and tired of waiting for the Palestinians to come to reasonable terms. Could be that he’ll end up reaching a similar conclusion this time around as well.

Photo credit: President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a joint press conference on September 29 at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

A version of this essay appeared in The Free Press on July 1, 2025.

On June 21, the U.S. launched a meticulously planned strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Ahead of the attack, skeptics warned that by bombing Iran, President Donald Trump would be starting another “forever war.” But a ceasefire followed less than 48 hours later. The United States reportedly used some 75 munitions on targets in Iran, before declaring the country’s nuclear weapons program devastated and the central aim of the campaign against Iran achieved.

Both before and after the strike, the public debate over President Trump’s decision has been largely conducted as though he had to choose between two competing foreign policy frameworks: a liberal internationalist (or “neoconservative”) policy, whose advocates press the administration to overthrow authoritarian regimes and rebuild them as liberal democracies; and an isolationist (or pacifist) policy, which assumes the U.S. has few genuine interests in Europe, the Middle East, or South Asia, and that the right thing to do is almost always to “stay out of it.”

The trouble is that neither President Trump nor key figures in his administration, such as Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, seem inclined to accept the simplistic neocons vs. isolationists binary that the media has been trying to impose on them. Republican voters are not sold on it either.

As the Iran strikes demonstrate, President Trump is guided by an entirely different strategic vision—a nationalist foreign policy that neither the liberal mainstream media nor the alternative media on the right seem very interested in discussing. Perhaps the Iran strike has finally gotten their attention, and a more serious conversation about U.S. foreign policy will now be possible.

In recent years, Trump-friendly writers and foreign policy thinkers have been working to describe and articulate what they understand to be a third, distinct theory of foreign policy. Michael Anton, now director of the State Department’s policy planning staff, named it the “Trump Doctrine” in an essay in Foreign Policy in 2019. Elbridge Colby, now the undersecretary of defense for policy, published his influential book on the subject, The Strategy of Denial, in 2021. David Goldman, now senior adviser on the State Department’s policy planning staff, likewise contributed a crucial book on countering China, You Will Be Assimilated: China’s Plan to Sino-Form the World, in 2020. My own 2018 book, The Virtue of Nationalism, also addresses the question of what a nationalist foreign policy looks like.

So what is the Trump Doctrine? As described by Anton and others of this school, it starts with a recognition that the post-Cold War “liberal internationalist” project had been a resounding failure. That policy, with its promise of a U.S.-led liberal empire backed by NATO, the EU, and other supranational institutions, has delivered neither peace nor stability. Instead, it produced a long series of reckless interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and other countries that cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars, eroding the moral confidence of Western nations and leaving their international position far weaker than when they embarked on these actions.

In place of liberal internationalist principles, the Trump Doctrine is founded on the following premises:

1. Resources really are scarce. The heart of the nationalist critique of liberal internationalist foreign policy is that it implicitly assumed unlimited resources. Foreign wars and externally induced “regime change” operations were pursued as though America could be everywhere. But in reality, America’s ability to deploy troops and manufacture munitions, to fund foreign wars, and to devote presidential attention to winning and ending them is severely limited. Given those limits, why should America accept primary responsibility for the security of regions more than wealthy enough to provide for their own defense?

2. China must be the focus of U.S. foreign policy. Nationalist writers have consistently been troubled by the liberal internationalists’ willingness to regard almost every region of the world as strategically significant, and every war as strategically necessary. The principal consequence of this flattened understanding of foreign affairs is that for most of the last 35 years, the United States was preoccupied and distracted while America’s great adversary, Communist China, was permitted to grow economically and militarily to the point that it now poses a genuine and unprecedented threat to the United States. America must recalibrate foreign and domestic policies to address its Chinese rival—or find itself overtaken.

3. Real allies must be regional powers, not protectorates. America has permitted and even encouraged its Cold War allies in Europe to dismantle their armed forces, military industries, and cultures of patriotism and military service. As a result, these “allies” became helpless protectorates and dependencies. The United States must reverse this trend, helping build up regional powers that are capable of taking primary responsibility for their own security and that of their regions. In so doing, they would advance America’s interests, but at a drastically lower cost to the United States.

The Trump Doctrine is not, in other words, a compromise between the “principled” positions of the liberal internationalists, on the one hand, and those of the isolationists, on the other. It is a principled foreign policy of its own, built on a completely different set of principles.

It is a nationalist foreign policy for two reasons: first, because it focuses attention on America’s national interests, rather than on attempting to provide security for the entire world. And second, because it is built on the principle that powerful, independent nations taking primary responsibility for their own defense are the most prudent path to securing American interests overseas, and, in fact, the only allies worth having.

Consider the Israeli-Iranian War from the perspective of the Trump Doctrine.

For 20 months, beginning with Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has demolished the Iranian war machine and its proxies—destroying the offensive capabilities of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria, and finally those of Iran itself. Through all of this, Israeli forces have fought almost alone.

True, the militaries of American, European, and Middle Eastern states have been active in helping Israel shoot down incoming ballistic missiles and drones. But the harrowing offensive operations Israel has conducted against Iran and its proxies have been carried out by the Israeli army, navy, air force, and Mossad without the participation of combat forces of any other nation. The thousands of casualties have been fully shouldered by Israeli troops, most of them reservists leaving their families and their businesses for months on end to engage in military operations on half a dozen fronts across the Middle East.

In short, Israelis have had help from their friends. But they have largely fought this war alone, acting as a regional power securing not only Israeli interests, but those of the Gulf States and other countries throughout the Middle East that have not been able to effectively resist Iran’s imperial aspirations.

This brings us to the question of Trump’s decision to bomb the strongly fortified Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz. Although the administration has been providing Israel with weapons, intelligence, and logistical support, the involvement of American combat forces in the campaign against Iran has thus far been restricted to the use, on one occasion, of offensive weapons such as the B-2 bomber and the 30,000-pound bunker-buster munitions that Israel does not have, and which the Americans prefer to operate themselves.

Notice what is not being discussed after President Trump’s 37-hour-long operation against Iran. We see no indication that the Trump administration is contemplating a military occupation of Iran. There has been no talk of nation-building blueprints being prepared for American forces to take with them to Tehran. The Trump administration does not want to be the world’s policeman. It doesn’t have any interest in being the world’s schoolteacher either, feeding Enlightenment liberalism to recalcitrant Islamist radicals.

What President Trump does want is for aggressive powers that kill Americans and pose a threat to American interests to be dealt with in some way. This is why he has worked consistently, beginning with the Abraham Accords negotiated during his first term of office, to establish a new alliance system for the Middle East—one in which Israeli military and technological prowess will be combined with the wealth and prestige of the Gulf States to counter the threat from Iran. In other words, the Abraham Accords provide a model for how a rising regional power, Israel, can become the cornerstone for a regional security system that can relieve the United States of primary responsibility for Middle East security.

Viewed from this perspective, the Trump administration’s strike on Fordow and Isfahan is seen as a limited effort to strengthen the emerging regional alliance augured by the Abraham Accords. In the days leading up to June 21, Israeli officials had repeatedly signaled their willingness to go it alone, attacking Fordow and other Iranian nuclear sites using the difficult bombing techniques and commando operations that Israel had successfully employed in operations in Lebanon and Syria over the last year. But the Trump administration evidently concluded that an Israeli solo effort was too risky and that a surgical U.S. strike with specialized American weapons could have extensive long-term benefits for the regional alliance emerging from the Abraham Accords and for America itself.

When the Trump Doctrine is put into practice, this kind of limited operation to bolster a regional military power and strengthen an emerging regional alliance may sometimes be a bet worth taking.

The same principles apply in other parts of the world. Consider Poland, a country of 38 million people where there are currently 10,000 U.S. troops stationed. The dramatic increases in Poland’s defense spending since 2022 (already approaching 5 percent of GDP, comparable to Israel’s defense budget in 2023) signal that Warsaw sees itself as a potential regional power—one that knows the danger of Russian expansionism intimately, and is moving toward assuming primary responsibility for regional security in Eastern Europe. The Poles’ determination to attain national self-reliance, and the prospect of bringing those American soldiers home, is exactly what makes Poland an attractive potential ally under the Trump Doctrine.

This is the context for last week’s public announcement by NATO countries that they intend to follow Poland’s lead and aim for defense budgets of 5 percent of GDP by 2035. For Britain, France, and Germany, currently spending around 2 percent of GDP on defense, and for Italy, currently spending 1.5 percent, this would amount to a fundamental revision of their relationship with military power. For U.S. foreign policy under the Trump Doctrine, this is a test of whether any of these countries can remake themselves into allies worth having.

A nationalist foreign policy starts with the understanding that the world is not a homogeneous blob of converging liberal democracies, but a collection of distinct nations, some of them powerful and motivated enough to become regional powers that can advance American interests.

According to the Trump Doctrine, America’s role in such a world is focused on countering China and on rebuilding itself at home. Beyond that, America will be interested in alliances with powerful, independent nation-states that can take care of themselves and their regions, coordinate with each other where beneficial, and look to America to supplement their strategic capabilities where necessary. That is how to understand the Trump administration’s limited intervention in Israel’s war with Iran—a move that teaches us a great deal about how the United States is likely to view foreign policy from now on.

The Conservative Partnership Institute invites you to a special evening of discussion, reflection, and fellowship as we highlight the impact of Yoram Hazony’s The Virtue of Nationalism on the occasion of the launch of the second edition.

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Since the publication of his best-selling book The Israel Lobby in 2007, Prof. John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago has been known as one of Israel’s most outspoken critics in the United States. But Mearsheimer is more interesting than that. He has also been one of the leading scholars associated with the “realist” school in the theory of international relations. Although he supported Bernie Sanders for President in 2020, Mearsheimer’s books such as The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001) and The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities (2018) have been an important influence on public discourse on the nationalist right.

On Tuesday, June 17, the fifth day of Israel’s war effort in Iran, I debated John Mearsheimer in a virtual discussion elegantly moderated by Freddie Sayers, Editor-in-Chief of UnHerd. Understandably, the war has been accompanied by a great deal of heated rhetoric. By contrast, I think this exchange was thoughtful throughout, with useful points on both sides. For example, although Mearsheimer is strongly opposed to the war, his explanation of Israel’s considerations in seeking to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program is very well constructed and worth listening to with care.

On the whole, I believe this is the most informative discussion of the two sides—for and against Israel’s attack on Iran—that I’ve seen so far. Give it a listen.

In the early hours of Friday, June 13, Israel began directly striking the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s military capabilities. We have now entered what is hopefully the final stage of the Iranian-Israeli war that began 20 months ago when Gazan forces invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.

On the fourth night of the war, I appeared on Steve Bannon’s War Room broadcast to discuss why Israel had entered the war, why President Trump might decide to bring US forces into the campaign, and why discourse on the nationalist right has grown so wild and embittered in recent weeks.

Here is what I posted to social media at 5 am on Friday, June 13, a few hours after the Israeli assault began. The full text is below, or you can click on this image to read it on X:

Israel attacks Iran tonight because we believe Iran is assembling nuclear weapons to be used against us. This is not an assessment of one Israeli political figure or party. It represents a consensus here in Jerusalem.

Anyone saying this attack is an affront to the United States is serving Iranian regime propaganda, whether out of gullibility or malice. Israelis love the United States and especially revere President Trump and his administration. No one has been better to us than President Trump. Israelis are grateful for all he has done for us.

But President Trump understands what some clearly do not: That it is Israel’s responsibility to protect its people against a fanatical regime that has sought to destroy us using every means at its disposal.

If we choose to attack a potential arsenal of between 10-15 nuclear weapons before they can be made ready for use, we are only doing what any other nation would do in our shoes: Protecting our country and our people against and a clear and present danger that cannot be dealt with in any other way.

My love and gratitude go out to my many friends in America, Europe, and Asia—both those who know that they would do the same if they were in our place, and those who cannot fully see this yet.

We are all of us brothers in a war against forces that openly and shamelessly seek our annihilation. Whatever happens in this Israeli-Iranian war, we will still be brothers and will still have much work to do together when it has ended. I look forward to seeing you all again on the other side.

A version of this essay was published by Blaze Media on May 18, 2025.

I’d like to talk with you about a dirty trick that handful of liberal intellectuals and media personalities have been playing on you over the last few months. Their goal is to delegitimize the nationalist right—and in doing so, to destroy the “anti-woke” coalition that’s been looking like it just might save America from neo-Marxist cultural revolution.

So what’s the trick?

Until recently, everyone knew what the word “woke” meant. Woke was a slang term used to describe a vicious neo-Marxist movement that sought to smash traditional power structures in America and other democratic countries through cultural revolution.

The “woke” neo-Marxists said the U.S. was “systematically racist,” and that it had to “abolish whiteness” through revised hiring educational and hiring practices that would eliminate whites, Jews, and conservatives from positions of influence. The “woke” claimed that America was a sexist “patriarchy,” and worked to overthrow male dominance by “ending heteronormativity” and transitioning children to a world in which gender and sexuality would be infinitely “fluid.” Mass immigration, defunding the police, men in women’s sports, mixed gender bathrooms, trans-gender surgeries, naming your preferred pronouns, trigger warnings on books and college courses, safe spaces where whites and Jews weren’t allowed in, “sensitivity training,” censorship, land acknowledgments, taking the knee—all of these were the familiar characteristics of the “woke” cultural revolution. And through it all, we were also treated to street violence, burning cities, shooting cops, looting stores and Maoist-style persecutions of anyone who objected.

These things were “woke”. That’s what the word “woke” meant.

And for 10 years, whenever we used the word “woke,” we knew exactly what it meant.

“Woke” was a word that liberals, nationalists, and conservatives, Christians and Jews—all of us engaged in the desperate struggle to defeat this neo-Marxist plague—had in common. It was a term we could use to communicate with one another. To understand one another. In other words, the term “woke” played a crucial role in building a broad coalition that looked like it could be strong enough to defeat this enemy.

It was a pretty big achievement for such a small word.

But in recent months, something astonishing happened. Suddenly, a handful of anti-woke liberals—people we knew because they were out there fighting the “woke” cultural revolution together with us—decided to turn this formerly unifying, coalition-building term into a weapon to use against the political right.

Suddenly, a handful of anti-woke liberals started attacking other members of our anti-woke coalition—calling us the “woke right” and seeking to smear us with all the horrific and truly unspeakable evils that the word “woke” has come to represent.

The truth is that there are actually two different kinds of people who have suddenly started applying the word “woke” to different parts of the right. Some of the most malicious liberals are intentionally using “woke right” to cover just about the entire nationalist right. While other, more naive liberals, having taken the bait, are trying to apply the term “woke right” only to the what used to be called the “alt-right” or “white nationalists.”

I get it. I really do. I understand that some of the liberals who’ve been pumping up the term “woke right” are deceitful scoundrels, and that others are just honestly, nerdishly trying to work out a way of answering real questions in political theory that are bothering them.

But for present purposes, it doesn’t matter if you’re a deceitful scoundrel or an earnest nerd. Every liberal using the term “woke right” is being a shmuck.

Because what they are all doing is taking a flag and a symbol that for 10 years was highly effective at rallying opposition to the neo-Marxist revolution—and worked well to cement a coalition that could defeat it—and throwing that flag to the ground and trampling on it so it can’t be used any more.

Yes, you shmucks, “woke” always meant exactly one thing: It referred to that part of the Left which anti-Marxist liberals, conservatives, nationalists, Christians, and Jews had to join forces to defeat. And by repurposing that term as a weapon against parts of this coalition, you’ve turned it into gall in our mouths. You’ve taken a shared term of discourse, gutted its common and universally accepted meaning, and mangled it so we can’t use it to talk to one another anymore.

That’s why so many on the nationalist right are so amazed by the treachery of certain anti-Marxist liberals who’ve been promoting the theory of the “woke right”—and by the incredible foolishness of so many other liberals who’ve walked right into the trap. Turning the term “woke” against the nationalist right isn’t just re-defining any old term. It’s a betrayal. A betrayal which, if it goes through, will mean the termination of the anti-woke coalition that looked, for a few short months, like it could actually win.

Sure, there were always different streams on the right. (A) There was always an “alt-right” (as Richard Spencer called it) or a “white nationalist” right, or an “identitarian right”—that set itself up in opposition to mainstream nationalist conservatives. (B) There was also the “dissident right,” which was a little broader in its reach. (C) Then there were mainstream nationalist conservatives (the “NatCons”), like the people you’d see at National Conservatism Conferences over the past ten years. (D) And finally, over toward the political center, there were the “anti-woke” liberals—people who were never really nationalists or conservatives, but who understood that we were living through a neo-Marxist cultural revolution that was going to destroy America and other democratic countries if it wasn’t stopped.

All of these were all well-known and reasonably accurate terms for talking about the various movements on the political right.

And of course, if you didn’t feel like using these reasonably accurate labels, you could always use one of the lefty media’s go-to favorites like “illiberal right” and “Christian nationalist right”—which is what they usually use when the idea is to show how much they despise just about anybody who isn’t a liberal.

In other words, if you were an anti-woke liberal, and all you wanted to do was to express some completely legitimate criticism of various parts of the right, well there were plenty of terms available that you could have used. Those labels existed and everyone who cared about this kind of thing knew what they were referring to.

So why weren’t all these existing categories good enough? Why did some of the super-geniuses who spend their time competing for the title of Grand Poobah in the anti-woke liberal camp feel like they had to manufacture this entirely new term— “woke right”—and work day and night to get it to take off?

Well, obviously, it was because, in the eyes of a few liberals, “woke right” had advantages that more accurate terms like “alt-right” or “white nationalist right” didn’t have.

Let’s count the advantages these aspiring Poobahs thought they could milk out of using “woke right” instead:

1. “Woke right” is intentionally designed to be humiliating. The whole point of the term “woke right” is to target people who have devoted years of their lives, often with really serious personal and professional consequences, to opposing the “woke” cultural revolution. That’s who the “woke right” smear is targeting. The whole point of it is to tell them: Sorry pal, but don’t think you’re any better than the Maoist revolutionaries you were out there fighting. And coming out of the mouths of anti-woke liberals, who were at least sometimes out there on the barricades with us, that’s in fact a pretty awful thing to hear.

2. “Woke right” is perfect for virtue signaling. Because the term “woke right” signals a rupture and a betrayal of the coalition that some anti-woke liberals forged with the right, it serves as proof of ideological purity. Because it says: As for me, I’m still untainted. I’m going to keep on delegitimizing and cancelling nationalists and conservatives forever.

3. “Woke right” succeeds as a provocation where previous terms of contempt like “illiberal right” and “Christian nationalism” failed. The fact is, the term “woke right” really has outraged many nationalist conservatives. And for a small number of especially thuggish liberal trolls, causing that upset and confusion in the ranks of nationalist conservatives, well that’s an achievement in itself.

4. “Woke right” is a term that neutralizes the power of the term “woke” to forge a broad coalition between anti-Marxist liberals and nationalist conservatives. The term “woke right” destroys the flag and symbol of that broad coalition and makes it impossible to rally around it any longer.

5. “Woke right” is a term that actively works to destroy the possibility of mutual respect, political alliance, and friendship between anti-Marxist liberals and the nationalist right. Because of its strong connotations of intentional humiliation and provocation, betrayal, and the destruction of shared symbols, getting this term into wide circulation, well that’s the best weapon anyone has come up with yet to make sure that anti-Marxist liberals and nationalist conservatives will truly despise one another, and do everything possible to avoid working together going forward.

So that’s a lot of reasons why a liberal intellectual, or media personality, might want to use the term “woke right” instead of all the previously existing terms for talking about the right. But notice that he would only use this new term, if his goal was to drive a wedge between anti-Marxist liberals and the nationalist right, increase mutual distrust and mutual resentment between them, and cripple the ability of the two camps to work together.

That’s why I say that every anti-woke liberal using this term is being a shmuck. Because either (A) you are purposely trying to destroy the anti-woke coalition, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory; or (B) you are completely clueless about the damage you’re doing to the anti-woke coalition, and don’t have the political sense to know when you’re being played like a fiddle and who’s playing you.

Of course, none of this means that it’s illegitimate to criticize the nationalist right. There are vicious people and bad ideas in every political movement and in every religious faction. We’re only human, and human beings are fallible and easily corrupted. There’s no question about that. And it’s certainly true of the nationalist right in America and in other democratic countries right now.

So we need to be able to challenge and criticize the nationalist right, just like we need to be able to challenge and criticize everyone else.

But does that mean that the nationalist right in America is “woke”? That it’s fair or reasonable to smear just about all nationalist conservatives, with the term “woke,” which is a synonym for one of the most potent and destructive evils that we’ve seen in our lifetimes?

No, it’s not. Whatever problems we may have on the right, being “woke” isn’t one of them.

There is no “woke right.”

And anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is being a shmuck.

* * *

There are lots of things I find aggravating and distasteful about having to work with liberals to achieve common aims. But probably the worst is the way that certain big shot liberals continue to find ever-new ways of expressing their disgust and loathing for their nationalist and conservative allies—no matter how much nationalist conservatives may have contributed to a common political effort, and no matter how recent the memory of it.

I know some of you are too young to remember the end of the Cold War. So for you younger people, let me just add a relevant historical observation. If you want to know what happened in 1989 to transform the victorious anti-Communist alliance between liberals and conservatives, into a dystopian reality, in which liberals worldwide ended up trying to persecute their former nationalist and conservative allies into the ground—well it looked just like what we’re seeing now, with this despicable “woke right” campaign.

What happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall was that a small number of fanatical liberal commissars, decided that the victory over Communism was the perfect moment to try for a world without nationalists, and without real conservatives, in any positions of influence anywhere. When they talked about a “unipolar” world, they didn’t mean that America was going to be the single great power on earth. What they meant was that their liberalism was going to be the single great power on earth, so that no one with any power or influence would ever be anything other than a liberal again.

Frank Fukuyama’s grotesque fantasy about banishing anyone driven by “thumos,” to jungles at the edges of the political world, was only the best known example of this ideal.

Well, it seems like we’re going through an attempted replay of this same liberal fantasy now, although still on a much smaller scale. A small number of fanatical liberal commissars are giddy with the feeling that the Berlin Wall has fallen again. They think (mistakenly) that the war against “woke” is basically over and that our side has already won. They think (mistakenly) that they can safely turn their attention to trying to remove nationalists and genuine conservatives from whatever positions of influence they’ve succeeded in gaining in the last ten years.

For now, admittedly, this effort still looks pathetic. For now, the anti-woke liberals, who really believe these things, are still just a fanatical few. But when you see how quickly they’ve hoodwinked, so many in their camp, into embarking on an immediate war against their nationalist and conservative coalition partners, it just makes your head spin.

President Trump and Vice President Vance were right to bring anti-Marxist liberals into their coalition and into their administration. They couldn’t have won without broadening their appeal. And that broad coalition is going to be needed for many years to come if any part of the nationalist and conservative agenda is going to be implemented in reality.

But there’s not going be any hope of holding this coalition together if certain fanatical liberal commissars, continue inflating the lie that nationalist conservatives are an immanent threat to all things good and beautiful—“just like the Left.”

The second edition of Yoram Hazony’s award-winning book, The Virtue of Nationalism, will be published in June and is available for pre-order now.

We know now that he was right.

Israel has conducted a protracted campaign to destroy enemy forces in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, in addition to preliminary engagements in Samaria, Yemen, and Iran. Yet the end is not in sight. Nor will it be until the existential threat to the Jewish State posed by Iran and its allies has been eliminated.

The prosecution of such a lengthy and difficult war has taxed Israel’s soldier-citizenry in ways that none of us expected to see again. Many reservists have had to leave their families and businesses for most of the last year and a half. Even very small communities have had to bury many victims of Hamas and Hezbollah atrocities. And the numbers of our fallen and wounded continue to mount.

Under these circumstances, it is important to remember what Israelis are fighting for. A little more than a year ago, on February 28, 2024, I was asked to present Israel’s cause at the University of Colorado—Boulder. At the request of my hosts at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at UCB, the topic of my talk was “In Defense of Israeli Nationalism.”

Neither my speech nor the intense question and answer session that followed have become dated in the intervening year. On the contrary, this is a subject whose relevance has only grown.

I’m pleased to be able to present you with the full 85-minute video recording of my talk and of my conversation with the students afterwards.

On December 8, a branch of al-Qaeda conquered Damascus and declared itself to be the government of Syria. In the wake of these events, Israel this week announced plans for establishing a demilitarized zone in Syria south of Damascus. At the same time, the Druze majority in the Suwayda region to the east have declared a united Druze fighting force, which will apparently be allied with Israel. These dramatic events have once more awakened the dream of a Druze state in southern Syria. Ten years ago, the historian Ofir Haivry and I explored this important idea in an essay published in Tablet Magazine on July 7, 2015. The present developments in southern Syria have made this essay more relevant than ever before. For those who haven’t yet read it, I’ve posted it below.

I.

As the Syrian state unravels, the United States and other Western powers are finding it increasingly difficult to see how they can stem the rise of jihadist organizations like al-Qaida and the Islamic State (IS), while limiting the unfolding humanitarian and security disaster that has left more than 200,000 dead and made refugees of close to 10 million people so far.

The extent of the current U.S. predicament in Syria has been made clear by the Defense Department, which on June 18 reported that attempts to recruit a small rebel force of 5,000 fighters from the largely Sunni Arab population of Syria that would be both “moderate” and willing to devote itself to fighting IS continue to falter. After months of effort, no more than “100 to 200” such individuals willing to join the U.S. effort have been identified. In Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s words: “It turns out to be very hard to identify people who meet both of those criteria.”

And for good reason. U.S. policy is asking these Sunni fighters to turn their guns against their own kinsmen in IS, who are fighting a desperate war to overthrow their longtime oppressor, the brutal Alawite minority regime of Bashar al-Assad. As long as Assad is still massacring the Sunni population in his bid to stay in power, the concept of recruiting Sunnis to fight IS will remain implausible in the extreme.

In the meantime, just a few kilometers from the failing U.S. recruitment points in southern Syria, a potential fighting force of tens of thousands of Syrian Druze is asking to be armed so that they can fight the IS and al-Qaida formations that have repeatedly attacked their villages and have attempted to force Druze under their rule to convert to Islam. Since the only prominent successes against jihadists in Syria have been by the self-governing Kurdish region in northern Syria, might the solution in the south be to back the establishment of a self-governing Druze region along the Israeli and Jordanian border? So far, neither American nor Israeli leaders have indicated their support for what would seem to be the most effective action that could be taken in this area, both tactically and in humanitarian terms.

II.

In the United States, the two most famous Druze are probably the late host of American Top 40 Casey Kasem, and human rights lawyer Amal Clooney (née Alamuddin). But in the Middle East, the Druze are legendary as fierce fighters, famous for taking on larger powers that threatened their mountain retreats. In Israel, the Druze community is known and revered for their prominent role in the Israeli armed forces. There are about 140,000 Druze in Israel, and the community has served with distinction in the Israel Defense Forces since the 1950s, some of them rising to top positions like Col. Ghassan Alian, current commander of the Golani infantry brigade; Brig.-Gen. Imad Fares, who commanded the Givati Brigade and later the Galilee Division; and Maj.-Gen. Yusef Mishlav, who became a member of the IDF general staff and head of the Home Front Command. A Druze member of parliament, Ayub Kara, is presently a deputy minister in Israel’s Likud government. In November, Israelis from across the political and religious spectrum attended the funeral of a Druze police officer, Zidan Sayif, who lost his life while attempting to save worshipers in a Jerusalem synagogue that had been infiltrated by terrorists.

The Druze are a monotheistic people who trace their lineage back to the biblical Jethro, father-in-law of Moses. Calling themselves “the Unitarians” (al-Muwahidun), they adhere to a secretive religion based on a combination of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Gnostic doctrines. (Traveling through the region in the 1100s, Benjamin of Tudela reported that the Druze are “mountain dwellers, monotheists, who believe in reincarnation and love the Jews.”) Druze are regarded as heretics by Islam and have suffered a long history of persecution and attempts to force their conversion. Today there are perhaps 1.5 million Druze, with the overwhelming majority concentrated in the region in which Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan intersect. Approximately 750,000 now live in the area surrounding the Druze capital of Suwayda in southern Syria, constituting the majority population in much of the border region with Israel and Jordan. Under the Ottomans, the Druze enjoyed a high degree of local self-rule under hereditary princes. From 1921 to 1936, a state called the Druze Mountain State (Jabal al-Druze) existed under French tutelage.

In conversation with Tablet in recent weeks, Israeli Druze religious and military figures have expressed frustration with the inaction on the part of Western and Israeli policymakers who have the power to arm them against IS and al-Qaida (called Jabhat al-Nusra, the “Nusra Front” in Syria).

The most important religious figure among the Israeli Druze is Sheikh Muwafak Tarif. Tarif, who is in constant contact with religious Druze leaders from Lebanon and Syria, paints a stark picture of what is approaching for the Syrian Druze. He warns that a jihadist massacre of Druze in Syria is imminent and says that if it materializes, many Israeli Druze, including himself, will cross the border to fight alongside their brothers—just as Jews would have, if a Jewish community abroad was being massacred.

“Druze are not Yazidis,” he said. “They will not flee from the jihadists. They will stay in their villages and fight, even if it means death. Israel has to decide if it wants to watch a bloodbath or do something about it.”

However, he is quick to emphasize that he is not asking for American or Israeli “boots on the ground.” “The Druze in Syria do not want someone else to fight their battles,” he said. “They are asking for only two things from the West: Supplies of military and civilian equipment that would enable them to fight back the jihadist armies attacking them, and air cover that would neutralize the jihadist artillery now regularly bombarding their villages.”

But his voice grew particularly still as he added one more point, perhaps as important to him as the others: “Many Druze who are veterans of the best Israeli units are requesting that they be permitted to go as individuals, to fight alongside their Syrian brethren, to defend their villages, and to train them militarily. This too is something that Israel should consider seriously granting us.”

A high-ranking Druze officer presently serving in the Israel Defense Forces echoed Tarif’s frustration with Western and Israeli responses to the Syrian crisis. “Certainly the hour of decision is fast approaching for the Druze,” he said. “But I believe this is also an hour of decision for Israel. Israeli policy is currently in total denial about the deep changes going on around us in the region. Like the frog sitting in a pot being slowly heated, afraid to jump out and hoping the water will simply cool off by itself, we might soon find ourselves in a pot of boiling water with no possible way of getting out. Do we really believe the new sectarian-jihadist dimension of regional conflict will simply disappear? Do we want to be left with only a choice between [Iranian-backed] Hezbollah or IS sitting on our borders? If not, we have to consider other options, including helping the Druze establish an autonomous region on our borders before it is too late.”

III.

For decades, the Syrian Druze community has been loyal to Assad’s Alawite-dominated government, which combined a ruthless reign of terror over the country’s overwhelming Sunni Muslim majority, with a system of distributing the spoils of power to its allied minorities, the Druze among them. Indeed, on June 23, Druze leaders in Suwayda issued a press release once again reaffirming that “we depend only on our Syrian identity for protection, and that Suwayda is an indivisible and inseparable part of Syria, our motherland.”

But relations between the Syrian Druze and the Assad regime are not quite what such protestations of loyalty imply. The Alawite-controlled regime has indeed protected the Druze from the Sunni Muslim majority. But it has also conducted a systematic effort to suppress the traditional leading Druze families, especially the Al-Atrash clan, who come closest to being hereditary leaders of the Druze people. After two generations of political repression by the Assads, the only remaining influential figures among the Syrian Druze are their religious leaders, foremost among them Sheikh al-Aql (“wise elder”) Hamoud al-Hinawi, now generally regarded as the leading figure among Syrian Druze.

When the Syrian civil war began in 2011, most of the Druze religious leadership attempted to remain formally attached to the regime, while at the same time refusing to denounce Druze defectors from Assad’s army. Sheikh al-Hinawi’s position, however, was from early on one of neutrality. Initially it was a dangerous position to embrace in Assad’s Syria, and events have proved him right. In the last year, as Assad’s forces have grown thin in southern Syria and al-Qaida and IS contingents have begun raiding their villages, growing numbers of Druze have openly distanced themselves from Assad’s regime. Druze sources estimate that 14,000 young Druze are now wanted by the regime for fleeing conscription. Those who are still joining the army do so on condition that they be posted only within the Druze-populated areas.

At the same time, the Druze have been accumulating what weapons they can and forming self-defense militias. In most cases, these are still village militias, but some larger organizations have also been formed. Numbers are hard to come by, but the most prominent of these militias seems to be the “Army of the Unitarians” (Jaysh al-Muwahidun). Much like the Kurdish militias in the north, the Army of the Unitarians was established in early 2013 as a response to attacks on Druze civilians. It has been cooperating with Assad’s forces insofar as they are fighting off rebel attacks in the Druze Mountain area. But like other Druze militias, Jaysh al-Muwahidun mostly eschews the symbols of the Alawite-dominated Syrian state, and instead its insignia features an Iwo-Jima-like raising of a Druze-national flag.

The past year has also seen the emergence of a new movement called “Sheikhs of Dignity” headed by the maverick Sheikh Waheed al-Balous. This movement also has a militia, composed primarily of the religiously devout, with peculiarly many sheiks, including Balous himself, taking prominent part in the fighting against jihadist attacks. Think of it as a militia of “fighting rabbis,” and you get the sense of centrality of armed self-defense in the Druze tradition. Balous has made a number of speeches against the regime, including a video posted online in which he declares: “We have ended mandatory conscription.” Indeed, Balous says that it is religiously forbidden for Druze to assist the authorities in drafting young men, “whether they are of conscription age, or wanted for desertion, or for reserve duty.”

Balous has lately withdrawn from view for what he termed a “spiritual” retreat and recuperation—obviously having gone underground to evade Assad’s assassins, who regard him as a thorn in their side that has to be removed.

IV.

One need not look far to find the reasons for the increasingly independent line of the Druze leadership in Syria. The Assad regime has only a tenuous presence on the Druze Mountain, from which it has been removing its heavy weapons to keep them from falling to the enemy. No one believes that when al-Qaida or IS finally make their move against the Druze in Suwayda, Assad’s loyalists are going to save them.

Al-Qaida and IS are sharply aware of the Druze vulnerability, and they have been progressively turning up the pressure in the hope of creating a dynamic of despair and surrender. After the Nusra Front wrested the province of Idlib in northern Syria from Assad’s forces this spring, it declared what it calls Dar al-Qaida (or “Al-Qaidaland”), in which it enforces its interpretation of Islam on the population. In March, 18 Druze villages—some 20,000 people who are geographically detached from the rest of the Druze population—were forced to accede to a capitulation in which they agreed to their “conversion” to Sunni Islam and the destruction of traditional Druze shrines. Even this, however, did not suffice to dissipate the hatred of the jihadists toward the Druze heretics, and on June 11, a group of Nusra fighters went on a killing spree in the Druze village of Qalb Lawza, leaving 23 dead and many more wounded.

In the south, al-Qaida and forces allied with it have been closing in on the Druze Mountain area from the west, even as IS has taken control of Bir Qasb on its northeastern side. In both cases, the jihadists control Bedouin Arab villages on the outskirts of the Druze-populated area, from which they launch periodic attacks. Recognizing that the Druze Mountain is for the moment still too big a bite to swallow, al-Qaida has been concentrating its firepower on an isolated cluster of Druze villages situated near the border with Israel on the slopes of Mount Hermon. Since June 16, al-Qaida has repeatedly attacked and shelled the Druze villages of Talal, Beit Jan, Harpa, and Hader.

In the face of this growing threat, the Lebanese Druze’s socialist leader, Walid Jumblatt, has been outspoken in arguing that the Syrian Druze have no choice but to seek “reconciliation” with the fanatical Sunni forces closing in on them. The Lebanese media have quoted Jumblatt as denying that al-Qaida is a terrorist organization and calling for talks with IS—although, as happened in Idlib, such discussions could only be about the Druze disarming and accepting Islam. In pursuit of an agreement to save the Druze, Jumblatt has in recent days reached out to Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. But in line with his tilt to al-Qaida, he dismisses support from non-Muslim powers out of hand: “Please let me be far from the empathy of Obama,” he says. And in an interview last week: “I don’t want at any price the so-called help of the Israelis.”

Jumblatt’s views are far from representing the Syrian Druze. But in the absence of any opening from the West, the strategy of accommodation and surrender that he proposes has to be regarded as a grim but all-too-real possibility.

V.

For obvious reasons, Israeli officials are quite wary of public declarations about what is to be done in Syria. However not for attribution, several of them have voiced their concerns about what is transpiring across the border. A colonel in the IDF Intelligence Corps confirmed in a background briefing that the IDF has made serious preparations for the eventuality of a mass influx of Druze refugees fleeing from jihadist massacres in the direction of the Golan Heights. Now, he said, there is also the beginning of thinking within the IDF about other, more pro-active options, in keeping with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement on June 17 that Israel will “do what is necessary” to prevent a massacre of Druze on its borders.

But the IDF colonel throws cold water on the idea that even a potentially larger role of some kind for the IDF is sufficient to deal with changed circumstances in southern Syria. “It is important to understand that this is a process that cannot be conducted only within the military and security circles,” he told us. “Besides tactical and operational military aspects, this is an issue with clear political and moral dimensions, which cannot be decided by the army, but rather has to be decided within the public sphere. Military involvement carries a price. Abstaining from involvement also does. The IDF will carry out successfully whatever goals it is required to achieve, but someone has to set these goals.”

In Israeli decision-making circles—both Jewish and Druze—the last three weeks have seen the first sustained conversations about the possibility that Druze autonomy or even an independent state might be the preferable outcome of this crisis. Some prominent Israeli figures who are not currently serving in official roles have been willing to state publicly what many others are voicing privately: Uzi Dayan, a major-general (res.) and former head of Israel’s National Security Council, has recently called for Israel to provide the Syrian Druze weapons, military training, and logistical support, as well as emphasizing that it is in Israel’s interest that there be a “friendly entity” controlling Syrian territory bordering on Israel. Similarly, Zvi Hauser, a former cabinet secretary under Netanyahu, has remarked that an independent Druze state may very well become a component of a larger pro-Western alignment that could also include the Kurds and other anti-jihadi populations seeking self-definition in the current territory of Syria.

As the majority population along large stretches of the Syrian frontier with both Jordan and Israel, the Druze, like the Kurds in the north, have something significant to offer in exchange for Western assistance in attaining self-government and the capacity to defend their people. Neither Israel nor Jordan have tolerable options at the moment with respect to the future disposition of their northern border. Whether it is Iran and Hezbollah or a Salafist Sunni regime dominated by al-Qaida or IS that ultimately consolidates control over this frontier, it is clear that these pro-Western governments will eventually face a formidable and determined terrorist enemy to their north.

At the moment, the only realistic alternative to these outcomes would appear to be the creation of an autonomous and perhaps ultimately independent Druze region: one that will have the resources to defend itself, to absorb persecuted Druze from Idlib and elsewhere, and, in collaboration with other elements in the region, to serve as a forward defensive line for Jordan and Israel, and for the West more generally. The Druze appear to have both the potential and the motivation to field a force several times larger than the few thousand fighters that the West has been dreaming about for Southern Syria, so far without success. But Western leaders have for the most part maintained a thunderous silence. As yet another minority people in Syria and Iraq faces destruction, the ball is again in our court.

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I’m troubled by the attacks on Bridge Colby coming from certain parts of the Jewish community. The fact that the word “isolationist” is being used suggests that these critics have never talked to Bridge, have not read his book, and don’t understand what he stands for.

Bridge is not remotely an “isolationist.” He has risked alienating the nationalist right for years with his argument that the US must secure Taiwan and other Asian front-line states to prevent China from establishing hegemony over Asia. Such an outcome, he persuasively argues, would necessarily bring about America’s rapid decline.

Bridge also argues that in order to focus on preventing Chinese victory in Asia, the US has no choice but to hand primary responsibility for security in other strategically important parts of the world to America’s allies.

This means that countries like Britain, France, and Poland need to take the lead in European security affairs. And that countries like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates need to take the lead in the Middle East.

Neither of these positions indicate that Bridge “doesn’t care” about America’s European allies or about Israel. On the contrary, they suggest that he wants to build up the strategic capabilities of US allies and to allow them to become genuine partners in world affairs.

Every Israeli nationalist understands how much Israeli security has suffered, especially since October 7, 2023, from short-sighted, non-stop America interference—both in Israeli defense affairs and in Israeli domestic politics.

Bridge stands for a new era in American strategic thinking. One in which America would actually respect its allies’ independence and support their right to make crucial security decisions, rather than trying to micro-manage every move from the White House.

In other words, he wants to see America’s allies become genuine, active partners in world affairs, instead of keeping them pinned down forever as mere dependencies and protectorates of the US.

This is why Bridge is exactly the kind of man Israelis and friends of Israel should be pleased to see heading up policy making at the Pentagon. If there is anyone in DC who understands what Israel has been through and the kind of support Israel really needs to win the present war and emerge as a much stronger and more independent country, it’s Bridge.

Bridge is a man of exceptional courage and character. He is one of the few foreign policy professionals in DC to have successfully resisted the stifling groupthink of the old liberal internationalism, while at the same time refusing to fall into line with the cranky anti-Semitism of the “Why should I care?” circles on the right.

I don’t see how President Trump can achieve his ambitions for countering China, while pushing Europe and Israel towards strategic independence, without Bridge Colby at his side. Like the President himself, Bridge is unique, and uniquely well suited to play the crucial role that President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have proposed for him.

People who care about Israel should get out of President Trump’s way a let him post Bridge Colby where he needs him in the Pentagon.

As you know, the publication of my new book Conservatism: A Rediscovery, is set for next week. The book argues that it isn’t enough to promote conservative policies. To change the world you have to change your life—which means becoming a conservative person, leading a conservative life.

I am, therefore, excited to share two ISI/Modern Age sponsored book launch events. The first is entitled “Whose Right—The Fight for Conservatism,” on May 18th, at the Union Club in New York City. This off-the-record, Modern Age panel discussion, will bring together leading conservative thinkers to debate and discuss Matthew Continetti’s new book, The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism and my book. Dan McCarthy, Editor-in-Chief of Modern Age, and James Piereson, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, will be on the panel as well. The program begins with a 5:30 p.m. reception. Both Matt and I will be signing copies of our new books.
The dress code is jacket and tie for men, and comparable business attire for women.

Importantly, this is an invitation-only, off-the-record event. Tickets are non-transferable and the event page is not publicly listed. You can register for the discussion at: https://isi.org/whose-right-the-fight-for-conservatism/.

On May 25th ISI and Modern Age magazine will host a DC book launch event at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. In addition to myself, this event will feature Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation; and Matthew Continetti. The event is free and open to the public and will be preceded by a 5:00 p.m. reception. Both Matt and I will be signing copies of our new books.
For tickets: https://isi.org/events/rediscovering-conservatism/#Register

To get the book, order here.

I hope to see you there!

I am excited about the upcoming publication of my new book Conservatism: A Rediscovery, now just a couple of weeks away.

The books argues that it isn’t enough to promote conservative policies. To change the world you have to change your life—which means becoming a conservative person, leading a conservative life.

If you are in the Washington DC area, please join me for the gala launch event sponsored by ISI and Modern Age magazine on May 25th at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

In addition to myself, this event will feature Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation; and Matthew Continetti, author of The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism.

The event is free and open to the public and will be preceded by a 5:00 p.m. reception. Both Matt and I will be signing copies of our new books.

For tickets, register here.

I hope to see you there!

Here are videos of my two talks:

So the question of how to meet the Russian challenge over Ukraine is one that seems to require an answer from European nations, especially Poland, Britain, and France. Will there be an answer commensurate with the challenge?

With these questions in the air, my colleagues and I are sponsoring a National Conservatism Conference in Brussels on March 23-24. The conference will open as the prime ministers of Europe are assembling for a fateful meeting of the European Council.

Registration is open for NatCon Brussels. Space is limited, so make sure to sign up now.

The conference had two distinct aims:

First, we continued the work of consolidating a substantive and intellectually coherent nationalist conservatism in America and other democratic nations.

Second, we explored the possibility of establishing a working partnership with anti-Marxist liberals to contend with the effective collapse of traditional liberalism in institutions across the United States, Britain, and other countries.

These are obviously two different projects. But both are pressing right now. In Orlando, we took important steps forward on both fronts.

The speeches from the conference will be released on video here over the coming weeks.

Articles about the conference are being collected and posted here.

For my views on the subject, take a look at this short video I taped with Dave Rubin in Orlando while the conference was taking place around us: