In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP’s Lara Friedman speaks with Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf about the deepening love affair between the American and Israeli “new right” – a topic that Noam examined in his recent article in +972 Magazine, An Israeli home for America’s New Right.

Noam Sheizaf is a Tel Aviv based journalist, the founding editor of +972 Magazine where he still writes, along with Haaretz and other publications. Noam recently completed a documentary about Hebron, titled “H2: The occupation Lab,” that premiered at the Doc Aviv film festival in Tel Aviv.

Lara Friedman is President of FMEP.

Resources:

• Follow Noam and his work on Twitter (@nsheizaf) and at +972 Magazine
• Noam’s recent article — +972 Magazine 7/18/22: An Israeli home for America’s New Right

Other resources:

• Vox 7/23/22: CPAC goes to Israel – Inside the American right’s effort to bring their ideas to Israel.
• Haaretz 7/21/22: What Brought These Young Israelis to Hear Ben Shapiro in Tel Aviv
• Haaretz 3/11/21: The U.S. Billionaires Secretly Funding the Right-wing Effort to Reshape Israel
• Haaretz 10/5/18: The Right-wing Think Tank That Quietly ‘Runs the Knesset’
• +972 Magazine 10/27/20: The Israeli right’s new vision of Jewish political supremacy

 Tweets by Hebron Settlements Spokesman Yishai Fleisher from CPAC in Dallas (where he was a featured speaker):

• 8/4: “At @CPAC #DALLAS: GREAT meeting with modern hero of nationalism, leader in the defense of Europe against Jihadist emigration, and ally of Israel – #Hungary PM Viktor Orbán @abouthungary @BalazsOrban_HU” [with photo of Fleisher with Orban]
• 8/6: “Why do you say authoritarian regime when he’s won three democratic elections? Also, where did you get the figures on antisemitism? And also, don’t Jews have a homeland when they feel unsafe? Didn’t the Holocaust reach Jews about the danger of living in Europe in general?”
• 8/6: “How the Left uses words to deligitimize: Orban has won three democratic elections in a row and makes major policy changes by referendum, yet they call him authoritarian…”
• 8/6: “We just had a Prime Minister with 6 seats in the Knesset… Anyway, today there is an axis of nationalists opposed to the axis of globalists. Israel and Hungary share an immigration-type problem, and along with Eastern block, share conservative views on family and religion.”
• 8/6: “I am not looking at Hungary as a Hungarian Jew or a Diaspora Jew, I’m looking at it as an Israeli Jew – a fellow sovereign. And from this nationalalist perspective nation states must unite against the globalist agenda which seeks to force open borders & erase national identities.”
• 8/7: “Not at all. Hungary clearly likes to be a national state, not a home for immigration. A tribal land. Japan and many others have a similar stance. Israel needs allies with these national-mindset states who are empowered to push back against the hostile takeover agenda.”
• 8/7: “A. Hungary has allowed over 1 million Ukrainians to come through its borders. 2. War refugees are not the same as Jihadist migrants. 3. Do all places have to be open, or can a society decide that it wants its ancestral land for its own peoplehood?”