{"id":322533,"date":"2026-03-05T04:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T04:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/322533\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T04:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T04:16:10","slug":"a-new-war-revives-some-old-tropes-about-jewish-and-israeli-influence-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/322533\/","title":{"rendered":"A new war revives some old tropes about Jewish and Israeli influence"},"content":{"rendered":"

JTA \u2014 As the United States and Israel engage in a joint assault on Iran, accusations that Israeli or Jewish influence drove America to war are resurfacing, reviving the uncomfortable narratives, conspiratorial rhetoric and fears of an antisemitic backlash that shadowed the Iraq conflict of the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the Anti-Defamation League warned on X that \u201cantisemitic and anti-Zionist groups are framing the U.S.-Israel operation against the Iranian regime as the latest evidence of the so-called \u2018Zionist war-machine\u2019s\u2019 efforts to co-opt American foreign policy to advance Israeli and\/or Jewish interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ADL added that \u201cInfluencers who regularly traffic in antisemitic or anti-Zionist rhetoric are leveraging the U.S.-Israel operation\u2026 to promote longstanding conspiracy theories about Israel, such as blaming Israel for 9\/11.\u201d<\/p>\n

These accusations are coming from far-right and far-left accounts as well as anti-Israel groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, that are inclined to discredit Israel. An SJP Instagram post read: \u201cImperialism and Zionism are one enemy \u2014 the common enemy of the entire region, and indeed, the people of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such accusations are building on statements by both Democrats and Republicans that the war serves Israel\u2019s interests more than America\u2019s.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA war between Israel and Iran may be good for Netanyahu\u2019s domestic politics, but it will likely be disastrous for both the security of Israel, the United States, and the rest of the region,\u201d said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, in a statement. \u201cWe have no obligation to follow Israel into a war we did not ask for and will make us less safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican influencer Tucker Carlson, who reportedly met with US President Donald Trump three times in the weeks preceding the war, implied in an interview last week with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee that Trump was threatening to strike Iran at the behest of Israel \u2014 a sentiment Huckabee slammed as \u201coffensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York Times later reported<\/a> that in one of his meetings with Trump, Carlson urged Trump to \u201crestrain\u201d Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that Israel\u2019s desire to attack Iran \u201cwas the only reason the United States was even considering a strike.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pop culture is also picking up on the theme. On the \u201cWeekend Update\u201d segment of \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d comedian Michael Che joked that while critics argued Trump lacked authorization for the war on Iran, \u201che actually did: Netanyahu said it was OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those accusations have gotten under Israel\u2019s skin. On Friday, Michael Leiter, Israeli Ambassador to the US, slammed Carlson as \u201cdisgusting\u201d and \u201cantisemitic\u201d for, among other things, suggesting that Israel had maneuvered Trump into the war. \u201cIt\u2019s just such nonsense to say that Netanyahu is dragging President Trump. And it\u2019s just bordering on pornography. It\u2019s so disgusting,\u201d Leiter told the New York Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an old antisemitic trope: the Jews are in control,\u201d he continued. \u201cAmerica acts in its own best interest \u2026 It\u2019s so insulting. He\u2019s insulting to the president and downright antisemitic to the Jews and Jewish state.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tAn anti-Israel protester wears a t-shirt with images of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a protest against the war in Iran on March 2, 2026, in New York City. (Adam Gray\/ Getty Images via AFP)<\/p>\n

The echoes of history are striking. In the mid-2000s, controversy erupted around the claim that the \u201cIsrael lobby\u201d and neoconservatives \u2014 a hawkish wing of the Republican Party seen as pro-Israel and dedicated to using American military might to aggressively spread democratic values \u2014\u00a0 played a pivotal role in pushing the US into the Iraq war. The charge gained credibility \u2014 or at least plausibility \u2014 because some of the highest-profile neocons were Jewish. They included government officials Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Elliott Abrams, and pundits like William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer and Norman Podhoretz.<\/p>\n

The debate reached academic heights in 2007 when political scientists Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer published a paper, which became a book, arguing that pro-Israel voices were \u201ca critical element\u201d in leading the US to war in Iraq. Around the same time, Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee of having \u201cpushed\u201d the war.<\/p>\n

Jewish groups quickly denounced these claims, warning that they risked feeding dangerous stereotypes about Jewish power.<\/p>\n

Yet there were key differences between Iraq then and Iran now. Israel did not directly fight as a combatant in the 2003 Iraq War. While the government officially offered its support, especially for the removal of Saddam Hussein, its leadership was wary of the war, fearing it would destabilize the region and put Israel at risk of retaliatory attacks.<\/p>\n

Moreover, during the Iraq war, the Jewish community could effectively argue that framing the conflict as a Jewish neocon conspiracy was baseless, even as some neoconservatives influenced policy. Other influential figures in the Bush administration were not Jewish, including vice president Dick Cheney and secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tAnti-Israel demonstrators protest against the war in Iran on March 2, 2026, in New York City. (Adam Gray \/ GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA \/ Getty Images via AFP)<\/p>\n

And president Bush and his circle articulated a number of reasons why war was in America\u2019s interests \u2014 most famously, in order to neutralize Saddam Hussein\u2019s alleged intent to manufacture \u201cweapons of mass destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

America, still reeling from the 9\/11 attacks, was also understandably concerned about a repeat. As Bush said in a 2002 speech in Cincinnati, \u201cThe Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. \u2026 This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its citizens.\u201d The administration made a compelling case that such concerns, if true, were directly in America\u2019s interest, and Congress voted overwhelmingly in October 2022 to authorize Bush to use military force against Saddam\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Israel and the United States are partners in combat in the current fighting, while reports suggest Israel played a direct advocacy and operational role in the lead-up to the Iran strikes. Netanyahu openly indicated that he had urged Trump \u2014 who tends not to put decision-making through a team of advisers and policy experts \u2014 to act.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlone among US presidents that I\u2019ve worked with,\u201d Netanyahu said of Trump, he \u201ctook action\u201d against the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tThis photo provided by the White House, which has been partially blurred, shows US President Donald Trump talking with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, left, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, during Operation Epic Fury on February 28, 2026. (Daniel Torok\/The White House via AP)<\/p>\n

At the same time, Trump has offered a patchwork of justifications for the war \u2014 ranging from preventing an unnamed imminent threat to countering nuclear weapons to supporting Iranian freedom \u2014 without presenting a single, compelling case framed entirely around US interests.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Secretary of State Marco Rubio inflamed the isolationist wing of the MAGA movement when he suggested Monday that the United States joined the fight because Israel was about to attack Iran (remarks he later walked back).<\/p>\n

The close US-Israel coordination has fueled concern among analysts that conspiracy narratives, indistinguishable from traditional antisemitic tropes, could gain traction without a clearly articulated US mission.<\/p>\n

New York Times columnist Ezra Klein spoke last week<\/a> with Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security advisor in the Obama administration, about the risks. \u201cThe centrality of Israel in the operation has raised some concerns for me about what this is going to mean for antisemitism,\u201d Klein, who is Jewish, said on his podcast. \u201cYou see the amount of talk\u2026 about Israel\u2019s leverage over Donald Trump or that this is all just some kind of Israeli plot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rhodes, whose mother is Jewish, echoed the concern, noting that even absent allegations of manipulation, the perception that the war serves Israeli interests could stoke resentment. \u201cA lot of what we\u2019re doing is removing threats to Israel. If it goes poorly, who is going to get blamed?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tUS President Donald Trump, right, shakes hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, December 29, 2025. (Alex Brandon\/AP)<\/p>\n

Israel, for its part, has been vocal in rejecting such narratives. Netanyahu dismissed the claims <\/a>that he pushed Trump into the war in a Fox News interview, stating, \u201cDonald Trump is the strongest leader in the world. He does what he thinks is right for America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has taken a similar approach. Asked Tuesday in the Oval Office if Israel had pushed the US into the strikes, he said, \u201cNo, I might have forced their hands,\u201d referring to Israel. The Iranians, he asserted, \u201cwere going to attack. If we didn\u2019t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tThis handout image shows aircraft on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) that are operating in support of the war in Iran, March 3, 2026. (US Navy via AP)<\/p>\n

Despite such denials, the narrative is gaining traction in digital media, at a time when Jewish groups are deeply concerned about Carlson\u2019s growing influence on the right, particularly among young voters and several outsider GOP candidates and popular right-wing influencers who have pushed the \u201cIsrael First\u201d trope.<\/p>\n

Like the anti-Israel left, such groups seemed primed to pin the war on Israel, especially if it goes badly. Between late December 2025 and mid\u2011January 2026, according to an analysis <\/a>by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Iranian state media and allied Western far\u2011right and conspiracy accounts aggressively amplified claims that Israel was manipulating the United States into striking Iran. \u201cThe accounts circulated antisemitic tropes asserting covert Israeli influence over American military action,\u201d the ISD found.<\/p>\n

The debate over the Iran operation illustrates a recurring challenge: distinguishing legitimate criticism of Israeli policy or US foreign policy from conspiracy theories that echo age-old antisemitic stereotypes. It also comes with a twist unseen during the Iraq war: Global bad actors who exploit social media platforms as tools of digital warfare, using a combination of bots, spoof accounts and coordinated networks to amplify divisive narratives, spread misinformation and stoke political or social discord.<\/p>\n

In both the Iraq war and the current Iran conflict, mainstream Jewish groups tended to support the war. In the case of Iraq, polling among Jews suggested that a majority came to oppose the war even as Jewish leaders continued to voice support. It\u2019s too early to know where the Jewish public is on this current war.<\/p>\n

For some Jews, no matter what they feel about the war, the unease is palpable: The historic pattern of blaming Jews or Israel for American military action is resurfacing, this time against the backdrop of a real war involving Israel at its very center, and a social media landscape where hate spreads faster than facts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JTA \u2014 As the United States and Israel engage in a joint assault on Iran, accusations that Israeli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-322533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}