According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, a growing number of otherwise marginal right-wing voices are joining forces with most of those on the left to bash Zionism and the State of Israel. He is joined in this week’s episode of “Think Twice” by Breitbart.com’s Joel Pollak, who believes that Zionism isn’t just a movement of Jewish rights, but a model for how every group and nation can emphasize success rather than a harmful focus on being victims.
Pollak is the author of the newly republished book The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You and believes that instead of demonizing Zionism, the rest of the world, including the Palestinians, ought to learn from it. In his view, it provides a model for empowering and bettering the lives of non-Jewish minorities who are otherwise mired in divisive minority-group woke politics.
He sees anti-Zionism from the left, in part, as being derived from anti-American ideas that oppose all successful nations as morally suspect. The hatred for Israel that has surged in the last two years is rooted in a desire to spread fear among Jews.
The anti-Israel attitudes that are coming from the right are partially the result of traditional antisemitism and also based on envy of Israel, as well as delusional conspiracy theories about the Jewish state controlling the United States. Those who oppose Israel are also putting themselves on the wrong side of history and opposing President Donald Trump.
Tobin and Pollak disagreed about how to handle people like podcaster and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and the openly antisemitic political commentator Candace Owens. Pollak sees Carlson’s anti-Israel attitudes and platforming of antisemitic guests, including Holocaust deniers, as the result of the Anti-Defamation League’s attacks on him before he was openly antisemitic.
Tobin believes that Carlson was always an opponent of Israel and that his departure from Fox News just removed the guardrails that existed there, which deterred him from platforming hatemongers in the way that he does now in his podcast. Tobin believes that prominent conservatives need to denounce antisemitism even when it comes from friends and allies. Pollak prefers to accentuate the positive and thinks it’s not too late for Carlson to change, but agrees that even a “big tent” has walls, meaning that some things must always be unacceptable.
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