Charlie Kirk’s death has ignited a war over Israel on the right, and the Israel lobby is worried

The battle for the legacy of Charlie Kirk continued this week with the publication of a long letter from the late evangelical activist to Benjamin Netanyahu last May. Kirk professes love for Israel and the Jewish people, then warns Netanyahu that Israel is getting “CRUSHED” on social media in the United States over charges of “apartheid” and “genocide” but suggests how an active p.r. campaign can undo those losses.

Israel advocates, including the financier Bill Ackman, pointed to the letter as evidence of the charismatic leader’s devotion to Israel. And not—as commentator Candace Owens and others have said– that Kirk was turning on Israel in recent months.

The controversy is important because Kirk, who at 33 was killed during a speech in Utah September 10, led a youthful movement to help get Trump elected. If Israel loses Kirk’s base, it really is in crisis in the U.S. discourse.

Or as Kirk himself said in July: “I’ve been trying to tell them [Israel supporters], There’s an earthquake coming in this country on this issue and in the country, and they don’t believe me.”

Kirk’s letter to Netanyahu only shows that he was souring on Israel. It warns that consumers of social media know that the U.S. gives billions to Israel but “they’re less aware of what we get in return.” It would have been nice if Israel had sent an airplane with a star of David on it full of aid to the U.S. after a hurricane, he says, and suggests the action team that Israel could put together here to counter its reputation for genocide.

The letter was surely circulated to donors. Kirk was dependent on donors to support his political organization, Turning Point USA.

Kirk Letter by pmcnamee

In statements last summer, Kirk was plainly anguished about the Israel issue. “I’m trying to find this new path,” Kirk said of his Israel views in a “focus group” on Israel he convened with young conservatives. “I love Israel… I saw where Jesus rose from the dead and he walked on water…”

But he questioned American aid to Israel. “Also I’m an American, and I represent a generation that can’t afford anything.”

In that focus group, Kirk sounded many criticisms of Israel, though not always endorsing them:

–Supporting  Israel is not in the U.S. interest. We’ve spent hundreds of billions and Israel may have dragged the U.S. into the Iran conflict. Maybe the U.S. should “decouple” from Israel, Kirk ventured.

–The antisemitism charge against Israel critics has lost its meaning. “If you call everyone an antisemite, if they don’t take a puritanical view of the Netanyahu government, that’s bad for everybody,” Kirk said.

–The Israel lobby works against U.S. interests. “I’m told by some people that if I criticize AIPAC that’s antisemitic,” Kirk said, before speculating that AIPAC goes against American interests. “Do you think that AIPAC represents, I’m not saying I believe this, a sort of cutting in line in prioritization away from the American people… We vote, we’re citizens, but a separate group gets higher priority…”

–Israel is like other “broken” institutions. It keeps saying it has a “messaging problem,” when it is actually “doing something wrong,” Kirk said.

–Kirk refused to cancel Tucker Carlson after Carlson’s attack on the Israel lobby and its wealthy Jewish supporters.

The last issue was particularly volatile. Last July Carlson gave a speech to a Kirk summit in Florida that smacked of antisemitic themes. Carlson said that rich financiers in Jeffrey Epstein’s “constellation” who care only about Israel are wrenching Americans away from their real concerns, such as the affordability crisis, and telling them to care about Iran. Carlson said that the career of Bill Ackman, the most important pro-Israel activist in the country right now, demonstrates that “useless” people end up with billions.

Ackman called the speech “defamatory.” But the financier took the criticism so seriously he sought to show how he had made his money honestly.

Then Ackman hosted a gathering with Charlie Kirk in August in the Hamptons to discuss Kirk’s Israel messaging. Reports suggest that Ackman demanded that Kirk cancel Carlson for his views and Kirk refused.

Another pro-Israel donor cut off funds to Kirk over the Carlson issue. Tech billionaire Robert Shillman angrily withdrew a $2 million donation in the days before Kirk’s death, Max Blumenthal reports.

Ackman is the most important player in this controversy.  The 59-year-old hedge fund manager from Chappaqua, NY, is, as Carlson has said, “super aggressive.” After the Gaza war began, he became a terror to liberal and left critics of Israel, because of his financial clout and uninhibited twitter feed that reaches 1.8 million followers. Wielding a donor boycott, Ackman helped to bring down Harvard President Claudine Gay and Penn President Liz Magill nearly two years ago by claiming that they fostered an “explosion of antisemitism on campus” including “calls for violence against Jews.”

Like other Israel lobbyists before him, Ackman jumps from one party to the other depending which is more pro-Israel. Long associated with Democratic candidates, Ackman announced in spring 2024 that he was not voting for Biden because of his supposed lack of support for Israel, then he backed Donald Trump, and has backed Trump’s actions as president.

Despite his support for Trump and attacks on DEI initiatives, Ackman has the run of liberal institutions—surely because of his Israel bona fides. He routinely justifies Israeli killings of civilians as the responsibility of Hamas. He is married to an Israeli academic and former Israeli military officer (whom he met through Marty Peretz).

Charlie Kirk’s waffling left Ackman in a difficult position. He has thrown around the antisemitism charge against the left for pro-Palestinian statements. Now the rightwing base is turning, with even more venom toward the Israel lobby, and Ackman is stuck with the right.

If you watch Kirk’s July focus group, you will see that smart young activists on the right are as aware of Israel’s human rights abuses as those on the left, setting aside the bible verses.

Recent polls show that the “seismic” shift in American public opinion on Israel extends to the right. Roughly a third of Republicans call for an end to the Gaza military campaign and say that Israel is intentionally targeting civilians.

A reflection of those numbers is Marjorie Taylor Greene, the right-wing Georgia Congress member, who said Christians see Israel committing a genocide, in an interview with the New York Times last week:

“You can’t un-see dead children…That’s not fake. It’s not war propaganda. They’re not actors. And journalists getting murdered and blown up? I don’t see that happening in any other war, and that’s shocking to me…

“I spoke to several Christian pastors. They’re saying this is really a genocide, innocent people are being killed.”

The right-wing awakening is a big problem for the Israel lobby. It has lost traction in the Democratic Party because the base despises Israel, and candidates such as Zohran Mamdani are running against Israeli genocide, and a growing faction of politicians seeks to end military aid to the apartheid country.

Young conservatives are also sickened by the genocide. Netanyahu sought to dismiss these voices as the “woke right” in a discussion with young influencers at the Israeli consulate last month.

Charlie Kirk’s memorials demonstrate that these voices will only get louder and threaten a political “earthquake.”