The gap between right-wing philosemitism and right-wing antisemitism is razor-thin because both are based on the same fundamental error.
For the past several months, I've been working on a theory that the common denominator of all antisemitism - the reason it wants to rid the world of Jews or Israel or Judaism unlike other types of bigotry - is that Jews don't fit in with the philosophies of the antisemites.
Marxism can't handle Jewish success without resorting to conspiracy. Postcolonialism can't process indigenous Jews exercising sovereignty without inventing new categories. Intersectionality can't accommodate genocide victims who thrive without erasing Jewish suffering entirely.
The pattern is consistent: a framework claims to explain the world, Jews refuse to fit the categories, and rather than admit the framework is inadequate, the ideology redefines Jews as threats that must not exist for the system to remain coherent. This is what I call eliminationist thinking, and it's a diagnostic. Any framework that produces this pattern has structural flaws.
I was wondering about the philosophy of the new far-Right - the Candace Owens and Tucker Carlsons of the world, that have been newly energized with an infusion of old fashioned antisemitism. What is their philosophy? Why does the existence of Jews threaten them?
As I looked at it, I realized what is scariest of all: the gap between right-wing philosemitism and right-wing antisemitism is thin because both are based on the same fundamental error.
To understand what's happening, I need to introduce a concept I've been developing: derech. The Hebrew word means "path" or "way," but in the framework I'm building, it refers to the consistent pattern of how an entity moves from values to actions. Every person has a derech, every institution has a derech, and crucially, every nation has a derech.
A national derech is the particular path a political community walks through history, shaped by its founding principles, historical experiences, and the obligations its people recognize toward each other and the world. Different nations have different legitimate derachim (plural) because they were founded for different purposes and face different circumstances.
America and Israel have fundamentally different national derachim. The category error made by both the philosemitic Right and the antisemitic Right is that it treats both America and Israel as being two sides of the same coin,.
They aren't.
The ethno-nationalist right has a clear worldview. The world is a zero-sum competition between ethnic or civilizational groups. Success comes from maintaining group purity and solidarity. Diversity weakens nations by fracturing loyalty and diluting identity. Immigration is invasion. Multiculturalism is suicide. The strong survive, the weak are conquered, and any group that doesn't prioritize its own will be displaced.
Within this framework, nations are extended families bound by blood, history, and culture. Political legitimacy flows from ethnic continuity. Borders aren't administrative lines, they're civilizational boundaries. Sovereignty means the right to exclude outsiders and prioritize your own people without guilt or apology.
The framework has genuine insights. Globalism often does hollow out local bonds. Rapid demographic change creates real social stress. National identity matters for political cohesion. These aren't crazy observations.
But the framework is rigid. It divides the world into those who belong and those who don't, those who strengthen the nation and those who dilute it, insiders and outsiders. And like every rigid framework, it eventually encounters something it can't categorize: Jews.
Jews are a categorical nightmare for ethno-nationalist thinking. We're successful minorities who maintain distinct identity. We have a diaspora and a homeland. We're integrated enough to thrive but particular enough to remain recognizably Jewish. We've been accused of being both capitalist exploiters and communist subversives, cosmopolitan elites and tribal nationalists. The framework can't process us except through conspiracy.
The new Right looks at America as being a white, Christian nation. To accommodate Jews, many fall back on the idea of "Judeo-Christian" values But this is itself revealing. It assumes Jews fit into a Christian framework, when in reality Jewish values and Christian values have significant differences. Judaism isn't Christianity-lite, and trying to squeeze it into that mold is its own form of erasure.
The American derech is dramatically different from this idea of an ethnic core of original Puritans or majority Protestants. America truly is exceptional because it rejected those ideas in the times of the Founding Fathers. George Washington himself wrote in his famous letter to Touro Synagogue in 1790:
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
This is the best summation of the American derech. It has been repeated and enlarged over the years - from Emma Lazarus' poem on the Statue of Liberty welcoming immigrants: "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." The concept of America as a melting pot for diverse cultures became popular in the early 20th century. It took until the middle part of that century for America to truly think of Black people as equal citizens in every respect.
The European model since the 18th century is one where there is an ethnic majority that magnanimously gives rights to its minority citizens. The American derech is unique in that everyone is truly on an equal foot - tolerance isn't the key, being good citizens is. That is the covenant America has with its people - if you are a good citizen and work hard you can succeed, and your ethnicity or color or national origin is irrelevant.
The Right looks at Israel as if it has the same derech as the US. This is perhaps understandable - the Israelites entering Canaan were seen as the prototype for the colonists in the New World, and countless American cities are named after Biblical cities for that reason. The Zionist Right sees Israel as a model for the idea of an ethnic core that generously gives rights to the minorities.
But Israel's derech is completely different from America's. It is not meant to be a refuge for all the huddled masses yearning to be free - but for the oppressed Jews who have nowhere else to live where they can feel truly a part of the nation. It is an ethno-state by choice, and as such it has the same tensions as European nations between being tied to a particular people and history, and granting rights to those who do not share the same origins.
Israel's Right of Return for Jews to become citizens is directly related to its entire reason for existing - it is part of Israel's derech. But America cannot use that as a model because its derech is much different. Its immigration policy, according to the American derech, is that anyone who will become good citizens are welcome.
Neither the American derech or the Israeli and European derachim are right or wrong. They are just different, born under different circumstances. There is no moral problem with America allying with Israel just as there is no problem with American friendship with any country that gives priority on citizenship to those who share the same national origins. But America's equality is based on its very derech, not on tolerance for the other.
Those who use Israel as a model for America are making a category error. And that error brings in the possibility of antisemitism. Because under that model, Jews are not real Americans and it is no small leap to go from that logic to start blaming the Jews for destroying a concept of an ideal post World War II America as white people with white picket fences around their single homes.
The antisemitic Right see Jews in America supporting legal immigration for all ethnicities and think that this is hypocritical because they support Israel's Right of Return for Jews only. But there is no hypocrisy, because both are consistent with each nation's own derachim.
After events like Charlie Kirk's murder, this narrative intensified. Kirk was pro-Israel but also a nationalist conservative. When segments of the right blamed "Zionist donors" for his troubles or speculated about Jewish conspiracy in his death, it revealed how quickly philosemitism can flip. The moment Jews don't play their assigned role as nationalist allies, they become the explanation for everything that goes wrong.
I fear that the current version of right-wing, patriotic America is in tension with the American derech as it has been viewed for over 200 years. It is only a small step from redefining Jews as a tolerated minority and not real, red-blooded Americans to discriminating against them.
There's a deeper confusion here about what pluralism means. National conservatives support pluralism between nations - each defining its own character. But they miss that America's founding derech requires pluralism within the nation as well. It is not only between states as following the 12 Tribes Biblical model, but in treating all ethnic, religious and national communities within America with equal respect, majority and minority. As long as a community respects the basic American derech, it must be respected as fully part of the American derech.
I fear that both the Left and the Right are abandoning the American derech for their own political purposes, even as both claim to represent the "real" America. The frightening part is that the Right's philosophy can so easily flip from philosemitism to antisemitism within the same philosophy. The real America was defined by George Washington - full equality in exchange for being good citizens, not mere tolerance and not blindly accepting as citizens those who do not share the American ideals.
That is what covenant means.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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