On the night of June 12, 2025, Israel launched preemptive strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets, sparking a 12-day conflict with global consequences. In response, Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israeli civilian areas, killing 28 people and injuring thousands. The U.S. later entered the fight, striking three critical Iranian nuclear facilities with bunker-busters and Tomahawk missiles before a cease-fire was reached.
As the war dominated headlines, a troubling pattern appeared among certain extreme far-right voices in the United States. While most Republican figures backed Israel and the U.S. intervention, a vocal faction of far-right influencers — many with large social media followings — seized the moment to revive old antisemitic conspiracy theories, claiming Jewish control over U.S. foreign policy.
When Criticism Morphs Into Conspiracy
One of the most prominent is far-right commentator and author Candace Owens, who has become a leading spreader of modern antisemitic conspiracies. On the first day of the war, she wrote on social media: “Our foreign policy is dictated by Israel. Trump will continue to do as he is told by Netanyahu… We are a colony of Israel. Your politicians are bought and paid for.”
Dr. Simon Goddek, who describes himself as a “Hardcore Libertarian,” posted: “It’s especially Jewish Americans pushing hardest to drag the U.S. into a full-blown war with Iran — while being, demographically, the least likely to ever send their own kids to fight it.”
Podcaster Darryl Cooper — notorious for Holocaust minimization — suggested: “Now that even the long-time doubters see that Overseas Israelis run US foreign policy, the next pill is to understand that it’s not some random coincidence that every war we’ve fought this century, with the partial exception of Afghanistan, has been against Israel’s primary rivals.”
White supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes claimed: “For 25 years, Israel has used its control over America to systematically destroy all of its enemies… They are using the United States to build an Israeli Empire and destroying it in the process.”
Even figures once considered mainstream joined in. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, now an independent podcaster, said: “Israel just shows up and says we’re doing this.” In a heated exchange with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Carlson argued that AIPAC should be forced to register as a “foreign lobby” under FARA.
Steve Bannon, ex-White House strategist and host of the “War Room” podcast, mocked Jewish broadcaster Mark Levin as “Tel Aviv Levin” — invoking the classic antisemitic “dual loyalty” trope.
The Shadow of Pat Buchanan
This wave of rhetoric is not new. It’s a digital-age echo of ideas championed by Patrick “Pat” Buchanan, a former presidential candidate and conservative commentator. Though retired, Buchanan left behind an ideological legacy that still feeds the far-right’s hostility toward Jews and Israel. His arguments — often copied word for word — remain gospel among today’s influencers.
In 1990, on The McLaughlin Group, Buchanan notoriously claimed “Capitol Hill is Israeli-occupied territory” and said “only two groups… are beating the drums for war in the Middle East — the Israeli Defense Ministry and its ‘amen corner’ in the United States.”
He also pushed for investigations into AIPAC for allegedly passing classified U.S. intelligence to Israel and blamed Israel and its supposed “fifth column” in America for steering the U.S. toward conflict with Iran.
Much like Owens’ tweet implying “white American men” would “go die for Israel again,” Buchanan once asserted Jews wouldn’t fight America’s wars, unlike “kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales, and Leroy Brown.”
This is the ideological foundation that today’s far-right antisemitic narratives build upon.
From Margins to Mainstream
What Buchanan once spread in hushed tones on TV panels is now shouted on podcasts and social media feeds — dressed in populist language, amplified by algorithms, and repackaged for mass consumption. Rhetoric once considered unacceptable is now a quick route to viral fame and growing influence.
Just as some accuse the far-left of trying to “Corbynize” the Democratic Party by making it a space hostile to Jews, these far-right figures are attempting to “Buchananize” the Republican Party.
A Historical Warning
In 1992, the late William F. Buckley Jr., founder of National Review and a giant of modern American conservatism, dedicated an entire book, In Search of Anti–Semitism, to analyzing Buchanan’s words. Buckley concluded, after careful review, that Buchanan’s remarks were indeed antisemitic. His judgment helped push Buchanan’s ideas to the edges of conservative discourse.
Ironically, even Tucker Carlson once recognized this. Appearing on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal in September 1999, Carlson remarked:
“You reach a point when you say, well gee, you know, here’s a guy… who’s constantly attacked Israel, who’s attacked American Jews for supporting Israel, unduly, who’s implied that American Jews push America into wars in which non-Jews die. There really is… a pattern… with Pat Buchanan… Is that antisemitic? Yeah.”
Vigorous debate is healthy in a democracy. Demonization is not.
Antisemitism — no matter its political clothing — must be called out, condemned, and rejected.
Authored by the Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM)