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From Coughlin to Carlson: The Return of the ‘Jewish War’ Libel
Tucker Carlson speaks on first day of AmericaFest 2025 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: Charles-McClintock Wilson/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Nearly every generation in America produces the same refrain in moments of conflict: this is not our war.
Sometimes that argument reflects prudence. Sometimes it reflects hardheaded cost-benefit analysis. But in American history, it has also carried something more corrosive — the suggestion that America is not acting on its own interests at all, that shadowy “foreign” forces are pulling the strings, and that those forces are Jewish.
In the 1930s, Father Charles Coughlin aligned himself with the isolationist fervor that would later crystallize into the America First movement. He warned about foreign entanglements and demanded neutrality. In practice, that neutrality meant opposing American support for Britain, while leaving Nazi Germany untouched.
Coughlin spoke darkly of “international bankers” and “alien powers.” His audience understood the code: Jews were cast as the hidden drivers of war and finance, steering the United States toward bloodshed for their own purposes.
Henry Ford dispensed with code altogether. Through The International Jew, he accused Jews outright of orchestrating global conflict and corrupting nations from within. His antisemitic publications were celebrated in Nazi Germany, and Hitler publicly praised him.
It wasn’t realism. It was antisemitism in a patriotic costume.
Reasonable people can debate military intervention. What they cannot responsibly do is attribute war to a secret Jewish hand.
Nearly a century after Henry Ford and World War II, many Americans treat this rhetoric as archival — something from black-and-white newsreels. It isn’t. The nouns have changed. The structure hasn’t.
“International bankers” becomes “the Israel lobby.”
“Dual loyalty” becomes “Israel-funded traitors.”
“Alien interests” becomes “Zionists dragging America into war.”
The accusation is the same. Americans aren’t really in charge. Jews are.
Carrie Prejean Boller recently urged Americans to promise “to never elect another Israel-funded traitor ever again.” That is not foreign-policy analysis. It is an explicit charge of treason tethered to support for the only Jewish state.
Candace Owens operates in a more theatrical register, but the mechanism is familiar: insinuation over evidence, suggestion over argument — the steady implication that Israel lurks behind everything bad.
One grotesque example was the insinuation that Israel somehow bore responsibility for Charlie Kirk’s death because he opposed war with Iran — despite Kirk explicitly supporting Trump’s decision to bomb Iranian nuclear sites this past June and rejecting the false choice between isolationism and endless war.
But facts are incidental in this antisemitic ecosystem. Suspicion is the product. Hate is the goal.
On the far-left, the tone changes but the inversion remains. Cenk Uygur recently posted a poll asking who has done more damage to the world: Benjamin Netanyahu or Ali Khamenei. An elected leader in a democracy — where citizens protest freely and newspapers criticize the government daily — was framed as morally interchangeable with an unelected theocrat who imprisons women for “immodesty,” executes dissidents, hangs gay people, mass-murders protestors, and exports terrorism across continents.
Calling that comparison analysis flatters it.
Tucker Carlson now amplifies similar narratives at scale. Two days into the conflict with Iran, he alleged that Mossad agents were arrested in Saudi Arabia and Qatar planting bombs — a claim for which no credible evidence was produced and which regional officials, including in Qatar, publicly denied. The allegation mattered more than its veracity. Israel as covert arsonist. Israel as manipulator. Israel as the nefarious hand pushing America into war.
It is Coughlin’s playbook, translated for social media and YouTube.
Watch the pattern unfold. October 7th recedes. Casualty numbers are stripped of battlefield context and redeployed as moral indictments. Blame narrows to Netanyahu, widens to Israel, then to “Zionism,” and eventually to anyone who defends Israel’s right to exist or defend itself.
And eventually the word returns: traitor.
Once that vocabulary reenters political discourse, history supplies the rest.
We already see open talk of blacklists, deportations, and political cleansing — often from voices that simultaneously claim Israel suppresses free speech, even as they excuse regimes that imprison journalists, issue fatwas, and execute protesters.
Israel is among the most scrutinized countries in the world. Its press assails its leaders without restraint. Its citizens often fill the streets in protest. Yet those who demonize it claim victimhood and warn of censorship, while defending governments that criminalize dissent and murder dissenters as a matter of state policy.
Conspiracy theories do not demand coherence. They require a villain.
What makes this moment volatile is the current convergence. Significant elements of the American far-left and segments of the woke-right arriving at the same charge: Jews are the hidden engine of war. Israel manipulates American power. Jewish loyalty is suspect.
This is not merely ugly rhetoric. It is strategically reckless.
The Iranian regime chants “death to America.” It arms extremist militias responsible for the deaths of American soldiers. It coordinates militarily and economically with Russia and China. It advances its nuclear program while expanding a ballistic missile arsenal designed to make any future intervention incredibly costly in blood and treasure or impossible.
Yet parts of the American right now argue that confronting such a regime cannot possibly serve American interests — because Israel is involved.
They offer no strategic framework explaining how appeasing a regime aligned with America’s principal adversaries strengthens the United States. They do not explain how allowing that regime to entrench militarily across the region with an arsenal of over 20,000 ballistic missiles enhances American security. They return, instead, to a familiar suggestion: Israel must be the problem.
That is not isolationism. It is fixation.
It is the same fixation that drove Ford to publish The International Jew. The same fixation that animated Coughlin’s warnings about “alien powers.” The same fixation that made “America First” in 1939 supportive of Nazi Germany over Britain.
As Charlie Kirk has bluntly observed, antisemitism is loser behavior. Historically, it has also been strategically disastrous behavior.
The recurring story is simple: if Americans suffer, if America bleeds, someone insists that Jews must be pulling the strings.
That story has never strengthened the United States. It has never preserved peace. And it has never ended well for the societies foolish enough to fully embrace it.
Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, Zionism, antisemitism, and Jewish history. He serves on the board of Herut North America.
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Israel Expands Iran Strikes as Tehran Moves to Name New Supreme Leader
People stand near a destroyed vehicle as smoke rises after a reported strike on Shahran fuel tanks, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 8, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Israeli forces expanded their bombardment of Iran overnight, striking fuel depots near Tehran, while Bahrain said an Iranian attack had damaged one of its desalination plants, signaling a widening assault on vital infrastructure across the region.
As fighting escalated on day nine of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, Tehran moved closer to naming a new supreme leader after the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with every indication suggesting his powerful son Mojtaba could take charge.
Israel’s military threatened to kill any replacement for Khamenei, while US President Donald Trump said the war might only end once Iran’s military and rulers had been wiped out.
BLACK SMOKE HANGS OVER TEHRAN
Thick, choking black smoke hung over Tehran on Sunday, residents said, after strikes on oil storage facilities had lit up the night sky with plumes of orange flame.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said the large-scale attack marked a “dangerous new phase” of the conflict and amounted to a war crime.
“By targeting fuel depots, the aggressors are releasing hazardous materials and toxic substances into the air, poisoning civilians, devastating the environment, and endangering lives on a massive scale,” he wrote on X.
Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters the depots were used to fuel Iran’s war effort, including producing or storing propellant for ballistic missiles. “They are a legal military target,” he said.
Shortly after the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government would press on with the assault and strike Iran’s rulers “without mercy.”
“We have an organized plan with many surprises to destabilize the regime and enable change,” he said in a video statement. “We have many more targets.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he was not interested in negotiating an end to the conflict that has sent energy prices skyward, hurt business and snarled global travel.
“At some point, I don’t think there will be anybody left maybe to say, ‘We surrender,’” Trump said.
IRANIAN DRONES STRIKE GULF STATES
The governments of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain reported Iranian drone attacks in their countries on Saturday and early Sunday, with a huge fire engulfing a government office block in Kuwait.
Kuwait’s interior ministry said two of its officers were killed “while performing duties,” while the UAE said four migrant workers had died in Iranian attacks there so far.
Showing the intensity of the offensive, the UAE said air defense teams had knocked out 16 ballistic missiles and 113 drones fired towards the Gulf state on Sunday. One missile fell in the sea and four drones hit the country’s territories.
Bahrain said on Sunday that an Iranian drone attack had caused “material damage” to a desalination plant, though the country’s electricity and water authority said the strike had not disrupted water supplies.
It was the first time an Arab country has said Iran targeted a desalination facility during the conflict. On Saturday, Iran said a US attack had struck a freshwater desalination plant on its Qeshm Island, disrupting water supplies in 30 villages, calling it “a dangerous move with grave consequences.”
Saudi Arabia has told Tehran that continued Iranian attacks on the kingdom and its energy sector could push Riyadh to respond in kind, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Lebanon has also been pulled into the conflict after the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel last week, with nearly 400 people killed by Israel over the past week, the health ministry said.
Israel killed at least four people when it struck a hotel in central Beirut on Sunday, saying it had targeted Iranian commanders operating in the city — the first such strike on the heart of the Lebanese capital — amid heavy bombardment of the southern suburbs and the country’s south and east.
IRAN GETTING CLOSER TO NAMING A NEW LEADER
The clerical body charged with choosing Iran’s next supreme leader could meet as soon as Sunday to name a successor to Khamenei, who was killed in an attack early in the conflict, Iranian media reported.
A majority consensus over the successor has more or less been reached, said Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohammad Mehdi Mirbaqeri, according to the Mehr news agency.
Another member of the council, Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir, said in a video that a candidate had been selected based on Khamenei’s guidance that Iran’s top leader should be “hated by the enemy.”
Two Iranian sources told Reuters last week that the clear favorite was Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who amassed power under his father as a senior figure in the security forces and the vast business empire they control. Choosing him would signal that hardliners remain firmly in charge.
Trump has justified the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq by saying Tehran posed an imminent threat to the United States, without providing evidence. He has also said Iran was too close to being able to build a nuclear weapon.
The US and Israel have discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium at a later stage of the war, Axios reported, citing four people with knowledge of the discussions.
Asked on Saturday about sending ground troops to secure nuclear sites, Trump said it was something they could do “later on.”
The US-Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,332 Iranian civilians and wounded thousands, according to Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani.
Iranian attacks have killed 10 people in Israel. At least six US service members have been killed, with Iran saying on Sunday it had struck US bases in Kuwait. Israel said on Sunday that two of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon.
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Iran Has Lost Nearly 70% of Its Missile Launch Capabilities
An Iranian missile is launched during a military exercise in an undisclosed location in Iran, Aug. 20, 2025. Photo: Iranian Army/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Iran has reportedly suffered a significant reduction in its missile launch capabilities since the start of the military campaign.
According to information broadcast Saturday evening by Israeli public broadcaster Kan, a large portion of Iran’s missile launch systems have been destroyed or disabled during ongoing strikes carried out by Israel and the United States.
Estimates suggest that roughly 70% of Iran’s missile launchers have been either destroyed or rendered inoperable since the beginning of the offensive. Prior to the campaign, intelligence assessments indicated that Iran possessed approximately 420 missile launchers. Current estimates now place the number of operational systems at around 100.
Reports indicate that about 150 launchers were completely destroyed in precision strikes, while another 150 were damaged in air attacks, leaving them temporarily unusable. Some of the damaged launch systems are believed to have been moved into underground facilities, preventing their immediate deployment.
Despite these losses, military operations are continuing with the objective of further weakening Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities.
The broader military campaign has entered its eighth day. The strikes are targeting not only missile launch platforms but also wider military infrastructure and institutions linked to the Iranian regime.
According to the report, the campaign is being coordinated between Israel and the United States, with each focusing on different operational zones across Iran.
Israel is primarily targeting missile launch sites in western Iran, which are viewed as posing a direct threat to Israeli territory.
US forces are concentrating their strikes in southern Iran, where missile launches have previously targeted Gulf states and American military bases in the region.
The ongoing air campaign is part of a broader strategy aimed at permanently degrading Iran’s offensive missile capabilities and limiting its capacity to carry out long-range strikes across the Middle East.
Military operations remain active, and regional tensions continue to run high as the conflict enters its second week.
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Two Israeli Soldiers Killed in Southern Lebanon, Israel Military Says
The late Master Sergeant Maher Khatar, 38. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
i24 News – The Israel Defense Forces announced that Master Sergeant Maher Khatar, 38, from Majdal Shams, was killed during combat operations in southern Lebanon. Khatar served in the Combat Engineering Corps in the 91st Division.
The IDF said another soldier was also killed in the incident, though the name has not yet been cleared for publication. In addition, one combat officer was lightly injured and was evacuated to a hospital for medical treatment. The officer’s family has been notified, the military said.
According to the military, Khatar fell during an overnight incident in which missiles were fired toward IDF soldiers operating in the area.
The troops were attempting to retrieve a broken vehicle from a position in southern Lebanon when the attack occurred. The specific type of missiles used in the strike has not yet been determined, officials said.
Immediately following the attack, Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck multiple targets in the area, while Israeli forces carried out heavy fire against positions linked to the attack, according to a military official.
The IDF said its forces remain deployed in forward defensive positions along the northern front in order to protect residents of northern Israel. Military officials said regional divisions are conducting ongoing situational assessments and remain prepared for potential escalation.
“The IDF will continue to operate with force and determination to prevent enemy attacks and eliminate any threat posed to the State of Israel and its residents,” a military official said. The army added that it shares the family’s grief and will continue to support them.