There is a word for holding Jews—or the Jewish state—to a standard not applied to any other people or country. It is not “criticism.” It is not “accountability.” It is antisemitism.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews,” including “applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” That definition exists because antisemitism rarely announces itself plainly. It disguises itself as inquiry. As concern. As someone “just asking questions.”
That rhetorical trick is now everywhere.
Across influential media platforms, a pattern has hardened into habit. Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, and Matt Gaetz have each contributed—through monologues, interviews, or insinuation—to an obsessive focus on Israel that repeatedly crosses from policy critique into suspicion of Jews as Jews.
The common feature is framing. Israel is not criticized as a state among others but portrayed as uniquely controlling, uniquely corrupting, uniquely illegitimate. Jewish civic participation is cast as foreign interference. Claims are floated as questions. Conspiracy is implied rather than argued.
This is how modern blood libels travel—not shouted, but smuggled.
If Foreign Influence Is the Concern, Follow the Record
If the concern were truly foreign influence, the spotlight would look very different.
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted to prevent covert manipulation of U.S. policy. Today, Qatar has 31 registered FARA agents. Israel has 15.
From 2021 to 2025, Qatari agents logged 627 in-person meetings with members of Congress—more than any other country, by hundreds. These are not allegations. They are filings.
Yet Qatar is rarely mentioned.
Instead, the fixation is AIPAC, falsely framed as a foreign agent rather than what it is: an American lobbying organization composed of Americans advocating to their own government. You may oppose its views. That does not make it illegitimate.
Indian-Americans have USINPAC. Armenian-Americans have ANCA. Greek-Americans have HALC. Ukrainian-Americans have UCCA. This is how pluralistic democracies function.
If lobbying itself is the problem, debate the policy. But that is not the debate being had. Only one country—and one minority—is singled out.
In 2024, AIPAC spent roughly $100 million on lobbying and elections. In the same year:
- China spent about $500 million
- Japan spent $400 million
- Big Pharma spent $400 million
- Saudi Arabia spent $310 million
- Qatar spent roughly $250 million
Only one is treated as sinister.
The Myth of Jewish Control
If Israel “controlled” American foreign policy, history would look very different.
Presidents of both parties have repeatedly constrained Israel:
Truman in 1948. Eisenhower in 1956. Johnson in 1967. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush all forced withdrawals, imposed limits, or denied military responses.
The most inconvenient fact of all is the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). Israel opposed it. Benjamin Netanyahu opposed it. AIPAC opposed it. Most Jewish American organizations opposed it.
It passed anyway.
If Israel controls America, it is astonishingly ineffective.
Another claim—sometimes explicit, often implied—is that America’s enemies in the Middle East exist because of Israel.
That collapses under even basic history.
The first war the United States ever fought was against Islamist pirates off the coast of Libya—more than 140 years before Israel existed.
The real threat confronting the West is Islamist ideology, particularly over the last quarter century.
To name just a few examples:
- Nice, France— Islamists.
- The 2017 Paris attacks — Islamists.
- Why TSA checks your shoes — Islamists.
- The underwear bomber — Islamists.
- The New Orleans ISIS attack — Islamists.
- Westminster — Islamists.
- Boston Marathon — Islamists.
- Manchester Arena — Islamists.
- Pan Am bombing — Islamists.
- Fort Hood — Islamists.
- Beltway sniper attacks — Islamists.
- Bali bombing — Islamists.
- Moscow theater siege — Islamists.
- USS Cole bombing — Islamists.
- London Bridge attack — Islamists.
- Madrid train bombing — Islamists.
- Charlie Hebdo — Islamists.
- San Bernardino — Islamists.
- The U.S. Marines in Beirut — Islamists.
- Little Rock Army recruiting station shooting — Islamists.
- Chattanooga military attack — Islamists.
- Pulse nightclub massacre — Islamists.
- New York City ISIS truck attack — Islamists.
- Boulder, Colorado supermarket shooting — Islamists.
- Washington, D.C. shooting— Islamists.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, political commentator with PragerU said it best, “Jews wearing kippahs are not blowing up subway stations. Islamists are.”
Since 9/11, there have been more than 58,000 Islamist terrorist attacks worldwide. While commentators obsess over the world’s only Jewish state—fewer than nine million people, a quarter of whom are Muslim Arabs—actual extremists read Western moral confusion as weakness.
They exploit it.
When influential figures repeatedly frame Israel as uniquely malign and Jews as uniquely suspect, they do more than misinform.
They legitimize antisemitism and fuel violence.
They normalize the idea that Jews are a problem to be managed rather than a people to be protected. That is not courage. It’s rage baiting.
The Real Reckoning
Yes, foreign influence exists in the United States.
But the evidence is overwhelming: we have scapegoated the wrong country, targeted the wrong people, and ignored the real threat.
A serious society follows facts.
A moral society rejects blood libels—old or repackaged.
And a free and morally based society does not single out one minority under the guise of “asking questions.”
Truth demands better.
Credit: Portions of the factual framework and public-record analysis reflected here draw on commentary and research shared by Shabbos Kestenbaum , including educational materials disseminated through PragerU. January 10, 2026 debate with Michael Rectenwald on Foreign Influence.