For many decades, I’ve argued against making Zionist nationalism a centerpiece of American conservatism. I came to this view after having unintentionally offended high-placed Zionists in the American conservative establishment. In 1987, I discovered to my shock that several of these people called the dean of humanities at Catholic University of America to warn against giving me a graduate professorship in political theory. The reason for this admonition, as I later learned, was that I was “not quite reliable in the matter of Israel.” 

This accusation was ridiculous for two reasons. One, it had nothing to do with my ability to teach classical political thought. I’ve no idea why explaining Aristotle or Hobbes to university students would require me to take a stand on contemporary Middle Eastern politics. Two, at the time this accusation was made, which had the effect of disqualifying me from the desired academic post, I strongly supported the Israeli right-wing and I held the same positions on the question of Israeli security as did the editors of the most pro-Israel American conservative magazine, Commentary. Apparently, I had published something about Israel that failed to meet movement conservative standards, although I’m still speculating on what exactly my faux pas was. 

It still boggles my mind almost 40 years later, why a self-described supporter of Israel, who voted twice for Ronald Reagan for president, was professionally done in by self-identified “conservatives” for not being sufficiently pro-Israel. I could understand if that exceedingly stringent standard were applied to a candidate for the directorship of a far-right party in the Israeli Knesset. But it’s unclear why this standard should have been applied to someone seeking a professorship in a non-Zionist discipline at an American university. 

This incident points to a problem that has not gone away, and which may be inherent in the American conservative movement. It is overly dependent on Zionist donors, like the Murdoch family and the widow of Sheldon Adelson, so that defending the present Israeli government while attacking its critics are activities that beneficiaries of that largess routinely engage in. This truckling has undoubtedly contributed to the bitter opposition against Israel coming from the outlying right, typified by the Ron Paul Institute, the Mises Institute, as well as some writers for Chronicles.

Undoubtedly, other factors drive the over-the-top enthusiasm for Israel on the right, for example the politics of Christian Zionists, who support Israel passionately for religious reasons. But it seems to me that the professional and financial advantages that accrue to Zionist advocates have only a marginal relationship to the Christian Zionist vote. They have everything to do, however, with making a career at The Wall Street Journal, becoming a Fox News celebrity or editor at National Review, and being allowed to hobnob with influential conservatives.

Anti-Israel commentators extend across a wide spectrum on the right that includes anti-war Christians, libertarian isolationists, and finally, anti-Jewish “Groypers” of the Nick Fuentes persuasion. But lots of people on the right have less complicated reasons for being skeptics of Zionism. They just don’t take kindly to how the Zionist benefactors of the conservative movement throw their weight around. To be a conservative in good standing, it seems that one must be an unqualified Israeli nationalist. (As proof of my assertions, please turn on Fox News for a few hours or read the WSJ editorial page.)

One might note what I’m not saying (though I’m sure my qualification won’t be of any interest to the usual suspects). I am not urging anyone to denounce the Israeli government, let alone join a pro-Hamas demonstration at one of our many woke universities. Conservatives should be free to praise and defend as well as castigate Israel and its government. They should also be free to cheer any endorsement of Israel they hear on Fox News. I am not in any sense an enemy of the Israeli state and, in fact, I admire many of its accomplishments. Moreover, I think Israelis had every right to react furiously against Hamas after what its agents did to hapless Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023. Countries do have a right to defend themselves against vicious, sadistic enemies.

But I’ve also noticed the devastating bombing of Palestinian civilians and I’m not particularly impressed by the neoconservative argument that what’s befallen the Gazans is just collateral damage like what happened in World War II, which as everyone knows, “saved democracy.” (In fact, the Allies’ ghastly terror bombing of German cities did nothing of the kind. It wiped out defenseless people and eradicated much of Europe’s medieval architecture.) Conservatives and others should have the right to criticize how the Israelis wage war without being denounced by Conservative Inc. as anti-Semites. Would that our conservative gatekeepers reacted with the same fury against gay marriage, the deep state discrimination against white males, or the tearing down of America’s historical monuments! 

My main point, however, is not to endorse or reject what American conservatives say about Israel, the Arabs, or the Middle East generally. Nor would I go as far as The Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh in expressing utter indifference toward Israel during an interview on The Tucker Carlson Show, although one must admire Walsh’s verbal boldness, considering that his employer is a fervently Zionist “conservative” enterprise. Unlike Walsh, I don’t begrudge the Israelis at least some American taxpayers’ money, which Walsh maintained is being used “to prop up a country” that couldn’t exist on its own. 

My own objection to the Israel connection is a bit different. I just don’t think the Zionist litmus test that the conservative establishment imposes on its members is proper, and it’s time to underline the harm caused by that practice. An obsession with Israel has, among other things, caused members of the right to fight bitterly among themselves. Right now, I’m reading about longtime friends at the Ludwig von Mises Institute who have gone after each other with hammer and tongs over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Those who take the pro-Israel position generally have properly called attention to the fact that Israel is politically and economically a far more attractive society than any of its Arab neighbors. They have also reminded us that the Israeli government struck back after being viciously attacked by Hamas terrorists. All this is true, but there are certain relevant facts that these advocates studiously avoid discussing, for example, that Israeli forces in 1948 drove out of their homes hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and some of these refugees ended up in Gaza. This indicates how complicated the historical situation we’re looking at truly is.

For balance, it should be noted that those expulsions occurred after the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors rejected a United Nations partition plan for what is now Israel. This plan offered the two warring sides territory and the prospect for peace. The Jews accepted that partition, but the Palestinians and their allies went to war against the Jewish settlers. Many of their later troubles could have been avoided if the Palestinians accepted the partition plan available in 1947. 

Another standard argument I’ve heard from American Zionist apologists, most recently from my longtime friend Walter Block, who until 2024 was associated with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, is as follows: the Palestinians settled in Israel as latecomers, long after Jews had been there continuously since ancient times. There is an element of truth in Block’s argument. Some Jews remained in Israel following the Roman dispersion that took place after the last Jewish revolt ended in AD 136, but the truth is more complicated than some may realize. Those Jews who managed to stay in their homeland became Christians and, later, Muslims, depending on the dominant power in the area.

Other Palestinian inhabitants came from the Levant centuries later and formed their own communities in a then culturally layered region. In any case, Israel was not an empty land waiting for European Jews to reclaim it. I wonder where Block, who is a perceptive libertarian philosopher, got the idea that Jews who arrived from Eastern Europe during the late 19th century, were the long-absent owners of Palestine. Am I supposed to believe that the Palestinians whom these Jews encountered were all recent squatters? 

Block insists that Jews resided in Israeli territory several thousand years before the Palestinians came on the scene. But those Jews who arrived thousands of years later were different from the people whom the Romans drove out. They came from a different culture and part of the world, and contrary to Block, these Europeans did not have a moral right as “original settlers” to dispossess the Palestinians. 

In Block’s defense, I should add that the treatment the Mises Institute has accorded him since he became a Zionist advocate has been less than polite. An institute with which I too have been associated, but more remotely than Block, has turned its back on its associate and coworker of more than 30 years because of their differing views on the Middle East. This should not be the case, even if the Mises staff rejects Walter’s views. Middle Eastern politics should not be a hill on which those who are members of the independent right should have to die on. Nor should this contentious subject tear apart long-term friendships. We should be able to agree to disagree on Middle Eastern politics.

I would also raise the problem that many public figures who are otherwise generic leftists, particularly on cultural issues, are awarded conservative accreditations for “being good on Israel.” The elevation of Pennsylvania Democrats Senator John Fetterman and Governor Josh Shapiro to junior membership in the establishment right is based mostly on their pro-Israel opinions, a position for which they receive extravagant praise from the Murdoch media and Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire. But it’s hard to see how pro-Israel leftists become conservatives simply by expressing support for Israel. On social and cultural issues, these figures fit snugly into their leftist party. 

Zionist litmus tests have created a false standard for who is on the right, something that was already apparent in how the movement treated the late Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut U.S. Senator who was known for his outspoken Zionist views. In 2004, William Bennett expressed eagerness to vote for Lieberman in that year’s presidential election because the Senator took the proper position on Israel and had a hawkish, neoconservative foreign policy. 

It didn’t matter to our conservative celebrities that, as a Democrat, Lieberman voted with his party on every social issue, whether it was abortion or gay marriage; his support for Israel gave him a passing grade for membership in the conservative establishment. I doubt that if a liberal Democrat oozed such affection for any other foreign country, he would have received the same praise from the same sources. I also doubt that anyone on the right who fails to sound effusively pro-Israel can enjoy the good graces of our conservative establishment. 

In any case, it’s time for the right to rid itself of  its unseemly obsession with Israel loyalty tests. There is a difference between hating Israel and sounding like a cheering gallery on steroids.