Refocusing on right-wing anti-Semitism

WASHINGTON—The National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism gathered supporters and colleagues at 10 round tables in a basement event room at the Line Hotel on Tuesday. It was the group’s first meeting dedicated to addressing right-wing anti-Semitism and extremism. Its former sponsor, the Heritage Foundation, was not in attendance.

“We’re here today and not at the Heritage Foundation because we needed a neutral ground,” co-chair Luke Moon told the assembled crowd.

Two weeks ago, the task force formally left the conservative think tank and joined forces with another organization Moon co-founded: the Conference of Christian Presidents for Israel (CCPI). The exit from Heritage came after the think tank’s president, Kevin Roberts, defended conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson for interviewing Nick Fuentes, an increasingly popular right-wing commentator known for hateful and offensive comments about Jews, women, and ethnic minorities.

“We did see in the corner of our eye the rise of anti-Semitism on the right,” Moon told attendees about working with the task force at Heritage. “When you have people align themselves with those movements, the Democrats on the left did not call them out, did not stop that growth. We are heading in that direction unless we organize and rally and gather ourselves and build a robust coalition that is willing to take on the challenge we have on the right [wing] now.”

In the past year, the anti-Semitism task force’s mandate was to find ways to counter left-wing anti-Semitism, particularly on college campuses. To that end, it published Project Esther, recommending actions to take against liberal universities that failed to crack down on protests targeting Jewish students. It also recommended limits on foreign student visas. The Trump administration has not acknowledged Project Esther, but the State Department has adopted similar positions.

Now, the task force is directing its attention to the conservative movement as well.

“We will continue to monitor and deal with countering anti-Semitism on the left and Islamists, that hasn’t stopped,” task force co-chair and Florida pastor Mario Bramnick told me. He criticized Democratic leaders like New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, along with independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

“The lack of accountability within the Democratic Party to deal with anti-Israel, anti-Semitic policies, rhetoric, and personalities, has led to a Mandami-AOC-Bernie Sanders leadership of the Democratic Party,” he said. “And if we fail to hold accountability because it’s on our side or we want to be politically correct, the same outcomes would happen.”

Moving forward, the task force hopes to hold more speaking sessions in major cities across the United States. Tuesday’s convening, sponsored by the CCPI, featured political, cultural, and theological arguments from current and former Trump administration officials and conservative leaders. The speakers represented a range of pro-Israel groups, as well as Faith and Freedom Coalition founder and chairman Ralph Reed, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.

“Heritage has been a beacon of conservatism. We appreciate all the space that they gave us and all the support to the task force,” Bramnick said in his speech. “But the conservative movement, MAGA, and the Republican Party cannot flirt with anti-Semitism. We need to hold proper accountability, which is what the left did not do. … We will be pushing for a Republican Party platform for the next cycle that has very strong language, condemning and combating anti-Semitism in all of its forms.”

Roberts apologized for some of the comments he made in a video supporting Carlson, but he has not removed the video, in which he called anti-Carlson conservatives a “venomous coalition.” Along with the anti-Semitism task force, some scholars and one board member—Princeton professor Robert George—have resigned from Heritage in recent days.

Reporters earlier this week asked President Donald Trump about the controversial interview and fallout.

“If he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don’t know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word out, let him,” Trump said. “People have to decide.”

Trump himself hosted Fuentes for dinner with rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago in 2022. Vice President J.D. Vance has not commented on Carlson’s interview, but at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi, Vance answered a question from a student about Israel’s influence in the administration.

“When people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they’re not controlling this president of the United States, which is one of the reasons why we’ve been able to have some of the success that we’ve had in the Middle East,” Vance said. “What I’m not OK with is any country coming before the interest of American citizens, and it is important for all of us, assuming we’re American citizens, to put the interest of our own country first.”

At the meeting in Washington, Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein criticized Vance’s remarks, saying they fell into the anti-Semitic trope that Jews control governments. He also said he wanted to see Vance retract his statements characterizing anti-Semitic group chats among the New York State Young Republicans as childish antics.

“I’m disappointed,” Klein told the group, noting he’d voted for Trump three times. He said conservatives should not hesitate to oppose the administration if it comes up against combatting anti-Semitism. “We have to express our concern. … I want [Vance] to condemn it, to call this despicable,” he said.

Another speaker, Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla.—one of four current Jewish Republican congressmen—urged conservatives to reject Carlson, whom he has previously called “the most dangerous anti-Semite in America.”

“He is dangerous because people remember who he was. They remember the brand that was built over two decades on Fox News,” Fine told the group on Tuesday. “The choice is, are we going to do what the Democrats did … ignore it and hope it will go away? Or are we going to stand up and are we going to punch it right in the face?”

Other speakers focused predominantly on Christian views of Israel, pushing back on Carlson’s claim that Christian Zionism is a heresy. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sent in a 12-minute video message in which he pointed to various Bible passages he argued supported Israel’s permanent right to the Promised Land in the Middle East.

“I realize there is a very, very warped theology that is catching hold in certain parts of the Christian faith. It’s often called replacement theology,” Huckabee said, referring to the belief that the Christian church has replaced Israel in terms of God’s promises. “God is not finished with the Jewish people, never has been, and even if they didn’t keep their side of the covenant, to say that God not will keep His end of the bargain, I think that’s close to blasphemy.”

FRC President Tony Perkins told attendees his organization is working to educate the Christian community and urge pastors to start referring to the West Bank by its historical name, Judea and Samaria. The organization plans to launch tours of Israel and educational videos for pastors in 2026, arguing that Biblical promises of land to the Jewish people still apply.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Moon said he hopes to hold similar sessions in other major cities around the country. Generation Zion, another group founded by Moon, is planning a boot camp training for young people attending Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in December. Organizers expect the annual conference to attract Nick Fuentes’ own young adult audience.

“Where’s the line between Tucker and Nick, and what do we do with Tucker? This whole thing is still an ongoing conversation,” Moon said. “I think a lot of people have just woken up over the last several weeks to how bad this problem is.”