Yoram Hazony is surprised by blatant antisemitism in the MAGA coalition — but antisemitism is second nature for nationalists | Religion Dispatches

Last week Yoram Hazony, far-right Israeli theorist & leader of National Conservatism, said in an interview with NYT columnist Ross Douthat that he was surprised by antisemitism in MAGA. For Religion Dispatches, I break down why he missed what the rest of us obviously saw coming.

In 2022 & 2024 I went to Hazony’s NatCon conference, a who’s who of US & global far-right leaders. In 2022 the Jewish nationalists I spoke to insisted antisemitism wasn’t a big problem in their movement. By 2024 they started changing their tune.

In last week’s interview Hazony still wanted to deny that Gaza has anything to do with the rise in MAGA antisemitism. “I have not discovered that the openness to antisemitic messaging on the Right under the age of 45—I have not noticed that it is a reaction, almost at all, to supposed Israeli genocide or accusations of war crimes in Gaza,” he told Douthat.

But that’s ridiculous. Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson & others are rejecting the old-guard, neoconservative establishment consensus, and Israel is central to that fault line. As I write- “we still need to ask why some arguments gain more currency than others in specific historical moments. At this moment MAGA antisemitism has crystallized around nationalist rejection of the US-Israel relationship. Since October 7, meaningful blocs within MAGA have grown tired of US entanglement in another Middle East war, outraged by scenes of a livestreamed genocide, skeptical at a clear pattern of Israeli belligerence, and irritated by the heavy-handed accusations of antisemitism they face whenever they try to talk about it…This is the central contradiction Fuentes and Carlson are seeking to exploit—between an old-guard neoconservative establishment and an ascendant America First wing that has no patience for the ‘special relationship.’” 

For years Hazony & the rest of the pro-Israel Right have been feeding the flames of MAGA antisemitism, scapegoating George Soros as a progressive puppetmaster & liberal Jews as illegitimate. Their gamble was that Christian nationalism would remain ‘Judeo-Christian’ and pro-Israel. They were very wrong. “Now that his house is on fire,” I write, “Hazony stands flailing amidst the conflagration…but his hands are covered in gasoline.”

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