{"id":36762,"date":"2025-10-10T14:53:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=36762"},"modified":"2025-10-10T14:53:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:53:50","slug":"neocon-arch-zionist-ben-shapiro-issues-a-very-hopeful-development-about-conservative-christian-right-waking-up-to-israels-secret-anti-american-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=36762","title":{"rendered":"

Neocon arch-Zionist Ben Shapiro issues a very hopeful development about conservative Christian Right waking up to Israel’s secret anti-American agenda.<\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘A conspiratorial Right is rising’ in America, Ben Shapiro tells ‘Post’<\/h1>\n

US political commentator Ben Shapiro in candid conversation with The Jerusalem Post: ‘You get a lot more likes and clicks if you are promoting an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish agenda.’<\/h3>\n

By ZVIKA KLEIN
\nThe Jerusalem Post<\/p>\n

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“There is a part of the Right that is extraordinarily conspiratorial and sees Jews as a conspiratorial force\u2026 It is rising because social media rewards it,\u201d\u00a0Ben Shapiro<\/a>\u00a0said in an interview with\u00a0The Jerusalem Post\u00a0<\/em>last week. \u201cOn X and TikTok, you often get more clicks if you push anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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The\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0met Shapiro during his recent visit to Israel, days after the announcement at the White House of a potential hostage release and ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Shapiro said during the interview that while hostility toward Israel on the Left is well documented, Israel should not ignore a parallel danger growing on parts of the Right, where conspiratorial thinking finds a ready audience, and algorithms incentivize it.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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\u201cThe important thing is the conspiracy itself,\u201d he said. \u201cConspiratorialism is an incredibly seductive storyline, particularly for young people who are being told that the problems in their own lives are not their fault, and they can be solved by externalizing those problems onto a different group.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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He argued that the dynamic is structural rather than episodic. \u201cYou get a lot more likes and clicks if you are promoting an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish agenda than if you are doing the opposite,\u201d he said. \u201cVirtually every conspiracy theory ends up pointing at the Jews because the narrative needs a villain, and it is easier to recycle an old one than to make an honest argument.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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Shapiro linked the problem to the narrowing of mainstream debate online. \u201cThe Overton window was narrowed so tightly that \u2018normie\u2019 opinions could get you banned from social media or fired from your job,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is different from there being truly awful opinions. There should be social consequences for rooting for the Nazis.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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What has changed, he suggested, is that the reward system of social media platforms \u201celevates the most inflammatory, fact-free content, then presents it as brave truth-telling.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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He wouldn\u2019t get into the specifics of exactly who these extreme-Right figures are, though it is clear he was hinting at people such as political commentator Tucker Carlson.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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From that warning, the conversation turned to the region and Shapiro\u2019s new book,\u00a0Lions and Scavengers: The True Story of America<\/em>, which he is promoting on a whirlwind, jet-lagged tour.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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Shapiro laughed that what his team calls \u201cafter dark\u201d interviews tend to produce the most candid answers. The premise of the book, and much of his diagnosis of the current media climate, rests on a simple contrast.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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\u201cEveryone has two competing forces,\u201d he said. \u201cThe part that builds, and the part that says it is all somebody else\u2019s fault and tries to tear down institutions. Scavengers want to rip things down. Lions want to maintain institutions worth preserving and change the ones that actually need change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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\u2018A diplomatic triumph\u2019 that puts the onus on Hamas<\/h3>\n

On the\u00a0emerging road map<\/a>\u00a0being championed from Washington, Shapiro called the moment \u201ca diplomatic triumph\u201d that could reshape incentives across the Middle East. \u201cTo get Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and key European partners oriented against Hamas is amazing,\u201d he said. \u201cFor President [Donald ] Trump and Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu to do so while maintaining Israel\u2019s core interests is the remarkable part.\u201d<\/section>\n<\/section>\n

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Pressed to define those core interests, Shapiro listed two. \u201cNo security threat from Gaza, and no future Palestinian state unless the Palestinian Authority or whoever follows it jumps through hoops that everyone knows are nearly impossible,\u201d he said. The deal\u2019s structure, in his view, puts accountability where it belongs.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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\u201cIf Hamas says no to the deal, Israel essentially has carte blanche to finish the job,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously, it would be better if the deal goes through and the hostages come home; but if they [Hamas] refuse, the rest can proceed whether Hamas acquiesces or not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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What if rockets fly in the middle of a phased release, the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0asked. \u201cI think the prime minister has already implied that any violation would reset the terms,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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\u201cI do not think President Trump would be tolerant of Hamas breaking the deal. If they launch rockets, Israel will go finish off the remnants, and the president is not going to be upset about that.\u201d The broader point, he added, is that successful diplomacy \u201corients the civilized world against a terror organization and makes their refusal the final indictment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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Whom he will and will not platform<\/h3>\n

Shapiro was explicit about his own red lines regarding with whom he would create dialogue and with whom he wouldn\u2019t. \u201cLife is only so many breaths. Some conversations are not productive,\u201d he said. \u201cI do not feel an obligation to sit with people who advocate violence.\u201d<\/section>\n<\/section>\n

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That is not the same as avoiding adversaries. \u201cIf I could interview the president of Iran, I would ask why he denies women basic rights, why he builds a nuclear program in a country rich in oil and gas, why they refuse real elections, why they export terrorism, and why they are developing missiles that can hit Europe,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you have the opportunity to sit with a hostile leader and you only toss softballs, that is not an interview.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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He applies a similar standard at home. \u201cI am aligned with\u00a0Prime Minister Netanyahu<\/a>\u00a0on many core points, and I am much more aligned with him than with Vladimir Putin,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is natural that I would ask more difficult questions of an adversary. But being aligned does not mean you never ask the hard question.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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He said that sympathetic figures still get pushed. \u201cI am very sympathetic to Ukrainians, but when I interviewed President [Volodymyr] Zelensky, I asked what the Right was asking about corruption and conscription,\u201d he said. \u201cAccess is not an excuse to stop asking real questions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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Shapiro\u2019s new book translates his media critique into a civic creed. \u201cA healthy society has a few core principles,\u201d he said. \u201cPrivate property, equal rights before the law, freedom of mind, and traditional virtue. If you are not doing those things as a society, you are failing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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He elaborated on three kinds of \u201cscavengers.\u201d There are \u201clooters,\u201d who look at others\u2019 resources and conclude that the system should give those resources to them. There are \u201clecturers,\u201d who \u201cdeclare traditional family values patriarchal or oppressive and demand that those institutions be razed.\u201d And there are \u201cbarbarians,\u201d often \u201ccoming from outside the civilization, who blame the West for their own societies\u2019 failures, then import that critique into Western institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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The\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0asked whether that taxonomy is simply a dressed-up partisan map. \u201cIt does not have to be conservative,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are people who disagree with me on marginal tax rates who are lions, who want to build things that are good and approach the world responsibly. And there are people who consider themselves on my side politically who are focused on tearing pretty much everything down and see the world as filled with conspiratorial forces.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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The \u201cpride in the game\u201d he champions, he said, is less ideology than ethos. \u201cDefend what is worth preserving. Change what truly needs change. That is the lion\u2019s path.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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Marriage, policy, and personal life<\/h3>\n

Critics in Israel seized on Shapiro\u2019s stance on same-sex marriage when he was honored with lighting a torch at Mount Herzl last year, representing Diaspora Jewry. He called some of the commentary a distortion of a policy argument.\u00a0<\/section>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cI am not in favor of same-sex marriage as governmental policy,\u201d he said. \u201cThat does not mean the state should police bedrooms. A society has a specific interest in a man and a woman marrying and having children. Other arrangements are your personal life.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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He noted that Israel recognizes marriages performed abroad but does not provide civil marriage at home. \u201cPeople looking for controversy will always find it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut a disagreement about what the state incentivizes is not hatred of people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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Shapiro\u2019s connection to the late conservative activist\u00a0Charlie Kirk<\/a>\u00a0was both professional and personal. He first met Kirk as a teenage organizer pitching the fledgling idea for Turning Point USA and would go on to share stages with him at TPUSA\u2019s marquee student conferences while frequently praising Kirk\u2019s talent for mobilizing young conservatives.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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After Kirk\u2019s assassination in Utah on September 10, Shapiro published a tribute recalling that first meeting and framing Kirk\u2019s campus project as a generational force, then publicly highlighted his wife, Erika Kirk\u2019s, memorial remarks and said the loss would change how he appears in public, vowing to avoid outdoor events, even as he pledged to keep engaging students.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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In Shapiro\u2019s telling, their alliance paired his media platform and debate style with Kirk\u2019s grassroots machine, a complementary partnership that helped turn youth activism into national influence.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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In a recent interview, Shapiro made waves by saying, even as an Orthodox Jew, that one lesson from Kirk was to \u201cgo to church.\u201d He did not back away from that line in his interview with the\u00a0Post<\/em>. \u201cAmerica is a Christian country,\u201d he said. \u201cThe founders were either deists or Christians, drawing on a 2,000-year Christian tradition with Judaic roots. Saying otherwise is dishonest and counterproductive. People who go to church tend to engage with a biblical morality that is valuable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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He said that Kirk\u2019s movement had a Christian bent because of Kirk\u2019s own faith but that the work was \u201cfundamentally political outreach, not a religious crusade.\u201d As for their personal relationship, Shapiro described it as long and close. \u201cI knew Charlie since he was 18,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was ubiquitous, texting with everyone, always in motion. We spoke relatively frequently.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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Oct. 7 and a reassessment among liberal American Jews<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve interviewed Shapiro in the past, both for this publication and for\u00a0Makor Rishon<\/em>, almost a decade ago, where we discussed American Jewry.\u00a0<\/section>\n<\/section>\n

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\u201cYou have to understand, Reform Jews want something from Israel that will make them feel warm and fuzzy, without having to support Israel in a time of danger,\u201d he told me in 2018.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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\u201cThey want to be what I call \u2018a Peter Beinart Jew\u2019 \u2013 Jews who proclaim moral superiority regarding Israel and detach themselves from it whenever they feel uncomfortable supporting it. To me, it is puzzling for Israel to invest so many resources in those who oppose it. I doubt Peter Beinart is a Zionist,\u201d he said of the progressive journalist.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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In our recent interview, the\u00a0Post<\/em>\u00a0asked whether\u00a0Oct. 7<\/a>\u00a0changed anything in American Jewish life outside the Orthodox community. \u201cSome,\u201d Shapiro answered. \u201cI get calls from people who are less religiously observant than my family but who now recognize that the fellow-traveling with hard-left circles demands they dissociate from their Jewishness. Some discovered that the people they marched with really do not like them very much.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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He believes that shift surfaced in voting behavior. \u201cMany who would normally vote straight-line Democrat could not bring themselves to vote for President Trump, but they also stayed home rather than vote for Kamala Harris while she was taking certain positions on Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cYou will not see it if you just look at top-line national numbers, but it mattered in places like Pennsylvania and parts of Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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The larger lesson, he suggested, is that there is \u201cless room than people thought to treat Jewish identity as a fashionable accessory while adopting the politics of those who regard Israel as uniquely illegitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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Returning to his opening warning, Shapiro said the supply of conspiracism responds to the demand created by algorithms. \u201cAlgorithms reward outrage,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the incentive is to enrage, you will get more enraged content, and antisemitic tropes are a ready supply.\u201d He is skeptical that platform policy alone can fix the problem. \u201cThe answer is courage and clarity,\u201d he said. \u201cTell the truth. Defend the good. Refuse to indulge the lie, even when it is popular.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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At the same time, he drew a line between judging ideas and canceling people. \u201cYou can read cancel culture too broadly, to mean no one should ever say anything bad about you because it is mean,\u201d he said. \u201cThat becomes a weird countervailing cancel culture where someone says something terrible, they get feedback, and they cry cancellation. That is not cancellation. And also, there are truly awful opinions that do not deserve the time of day.\u201d\u00a0What worries him is when \u201cmainstream, fact-based views are treated as forbidden speech, while fever-swamp narratives are treated as courageous.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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The Trump plan and the path to a post-Hamas Gaza<\/h3>\n

Shapiro\u2019s analysis of the Trump-led framework speaks of failure modes. \u201cIf they refuse, you finish the job,\u201d he said of\u00a0Hamas<\/a>. \u201cIf they violate, you reset the terms and finish the job.\u201d Success is equally blunt. \u201cThe best outcome is that the hostages come home, and the civilized world stays aligned against Hamas,\u201d he said. \u201cThe ground has been laid for better relations with key nations in the region. That is why orienting everyone against a terror organization matters.\u201d<\/section>\n<\/section>\n

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He does not think Israel should treat Arab and European buy-in as a sentimental achievement. \u201cIt is about shared interests,\u201d he said. \u201cYou get alignment when the civilized world decides that a genocidal terror organization cannot dictate the region\u2019s future. That is the realignment this deal aims at.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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We ended where we began, with the question behind Shapiro\u2019s lion metaphor. If social media rewards outrage and conspiracy, how do you convince young people to prefer the slow work of building? \u201cBy telling them the truth about meaning,\u201d he said. \u201cIf your life is rooted in duty and virtue, you will be happier and more free. If you spend your time tearing down what is good because it is easier than fixing what is broken, you will be emptier.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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He does not pretend the pitch will go viral. \u201cThe scavenger\u2019s promise is intoxicating because it absolves you of responsibility,\u201d he said. \u201cThe lion\u2019s promise is quieter. It asks something of you. But it is the only way a free society survives.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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Shapiro\u2019s prescription is old-fashioned. \u201cTeach private property and equal rights under the law,\u201d he said. \u201cTeach freedom of mind. Teach traditional virtue. Reward work, marriage, and family. And stop treating people who tell obvious lies as brave for telling them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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In an ecosystem designed to amplify the loudest voice, he is asking readers to listen for something else. \u201cDefend what is worth preserving. Change what needs to change. Refuse the lie. That is the work of a free people.\u201d \uf03c<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n
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The writer is editor-in-chief of\u00a0<\/em>The Jerusalem Post.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n

____
\nhttps:\/\/www.jpost.com\/diaspora\/article-869858<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘A conspiratorial Right is rising’ in America, Ben Shapiro tells ‘Post’ US political commentator Ben Shapiro in candid conversation with The Jerusalem Post: ‘You get a lot more likes and clicks if you are promoting an anti-Israel, anti-Jewish agenda.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}