MORNING GLORY: 2026 should be year antisemitism becomes unacceptable in America again
There has been a more-or-less constant but relatively small level of antisemitism in the post-World War II United States, but it was widely shunned and those who gave voice to it were marginalized. Opposition to antisemitism was part of the "American Consensus" after the war and the Holocaust. Along with the breakthrough in race relations that accompanied the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the turn against antisemitism was sharp, sustained and broadly shared.
Although relations between the United States and Israel rose and fell, the acceptability of Jew hatred plummeted to near zero in the U.S., and from the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War, American support for the State of Israel has been high and steady.
Israel has become one of America’s most important strategic allies — a nuclear and intelligence superpower with the will to project hard power when necessary in its own national interest, which usually coincides with America’s. Prior to Hamas’ invasion of Israel and the massacre and kidnapping that followed in the Jewish State on October 7, 2023, attacks on Jewish synagogues and centers in the U.S. had been infrequent, though sometimes tragically deadly.
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From the shooting on March 23, 1960, at the Congregation Beth Israel in Gadsden, Alabama, when a White supremacist wounded two of the congregants, to the deadliest antisemitic attack in the country’s history at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in October 2018 in which 11 victims were murdered and six more wounded – attacks on Jewish gatherings were rare.
When another murder and wounding happened at Chabad of Poway in Poway, California, six months later, concerns rose dramatically, but the United States did not thereafter witness more deadly attacks on Jews, and the concern focused on White supremacist hate groups.
Compared to the vast ocean of antisemitism in Europe and especially the Middle East, American Jews lived in peace and security — though with an awareness of the need for vigilance against the deranged.
That has changed since the atrocities of Oct. 7.
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In the aftermath of Hamas’ invasion, Hezbollah attacked Israel from its stronghold in Lebanon, as did the Houthis in Yemen and various Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria. When Israel began its counterattacks, the vast majority of Americans saw a "just war." But opportunists in the United States saw in that just war a chance to use the massacre and its aftermath to make big bucks via the "attention economy," as I first heard my fellow Fox News contributor Mary Katharine Ham describe it. They began so first by attacking first Israel’s counterattacks and efforts to recover its hostages and slowly by expanding their rhetoric to age-old antisemitic tropes about Jews.
Israel’s "just war" continues. The ceasefire on the Gaza front in that war is largely holding though Hamas continues to violate its terms. Hezbollah has repeatedly violated the terms of its ceasefire, drawing Israeli responses, and Iran has rushed to build ballistic missiles to replace the thousands it fired at Israel in the 12-day direct battle with Israel which President Trump brought to a rapid end with Operation Midnight Hammer, which crushed Iran’s decades-long effort to develop nuclear weapons.
A handful of the post Oct. 7 attention-economy opportunists used their podcasts and websites to intentionally chase the "return-on-investment" that antisemitic content suddenly offered as the conflict around Israel intensified. Those parasites benefitted from outright supporters of Hamas and enemies of Israel who staged demonstrations, marches, "occupations" across the country —mostly on college campuses.
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Vile rhetoric against Jews skyrocketed online. So did "antisemitic incidents," in the jargon of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Whether it was Jewish students trapped in the Cooper Union College Library in Manhattan or Jewish students denied access to parts of the UCLA campus, the past two years have been full of overt assaults against American Jews that were previously unthinkable — until Hamas launched its massacre and Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen joined in, with all of the terrorists bankrolled and trained by "the head of the snake" in Iran.
The international reach of the web allowed the enemies of Israel, the United States and the West generally to take those U.S.-based voices/platforms which decided to monetize antisemitism in the U.S. and amplify them globally, using bots and digital stooges to drive traffic. The goal was to take marginalized, discredited views and force them into the mainstream of American discourse.
Even as President Donald Trump returned to office – restoring the strongest supporter of Israel ever to occupy the Oval Office — and appointed serious prosecutors of hate crime and illegal discrimination, including Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division to the Department of Justice, antisemitic rage continued to blossom online. While this phenomenon is primarily rooted in the American political left, some elected officials in both parties have echoed antisemitic tropes or lent support to the anti-Israel jihad.
The upcoming year should mark the withering of American antisemitic platforms as the general American public grows very tired, very fast of the anti-Jewish hate and lunatic conspiracies, and finally realizes that arguing with or debating people who depend on the "attention economy" is the last thing to do.
Refusing to notice much less platform the profiteers is the best tactic. Starve them of real attention. They cannot survive on bot farms alone. Ignore them. All of them. Do not engage online. Instead, to borrow from former Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, who borrowed from author Alex Haley: "Find the good and praise it." I’ll add: "And subscribe to it."
Two examples from among many which cost a few dollars: "Call Me Back Insider," where Dan Senor is building a great enterprise, and the Patreon account of Israel’s version of the late Charles Krauthammer, Haviv Rettig Gur. These, along with the Commentary magazine and its podcast, are the heavy weights of anti-antisemitism and anti-anti-Israel hate.
I urge you to pay attention and consider patronizing them. There is an effect similar to Gresham’s Law about bad money driving out good money: Good speech, sound logic and persuasive argument eventually drive out bigoted rants and conspiracy theories every time. Bottom line: Shut the pipelines of bigotry off. You don’t need them.
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Legacy media in the U.S. simply doesn’t understand what has happened in the aftermath of Oct. 7. When it recognizes the antisemitic tidal wave at all, it reflexively warns of a largely non-existent anti-Islamic hatred across the land. This faux "balance" is just the most obvious symptom of a diseased content provider.
Most of the legacy outlets are captained in their various besieged castles by legacy journalists who came out of legacy pipelines with worldviews formed by the old left at the legacy elite schools who sit atop a DEI-poisoned "newsrooms." A handful of wealthy people/foundations are keeping the lights on at a few of those platforms because of their mistaken conviction that there is a vast struggle underway to undermine "democracy" in the U.S. and that President Trump is some sort of modern-day Savonarola instead of a popularly elected president with three years remaining in his term.
They also refuse to acknowledge — much less applaud — that President Trump has already achieved a successful second term by crushing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and restarting the vast American economy, largely by extending and expanding his initial tax cuts, cutting regulations and supercharging energy production, thus lowering the cost of everything.
"Trump Derangement Syndrome" has helped empower the antisemitic fringe by marginalizing previously important voices who are shackled by their anti-Trump sunk costs. They refuse to applaud anything "45-47" does though they once were vocal and influential supporters of Israel — and Trump remains the most pro-Israel president in U.S. history.
Like the British Tories who kept on hating Winston Churchill long after the invasion of Poland made every important choice crystal clear, the "Never Trump" rump have sidelined themselves in this crucial era because they cannot bear to support Trump or his appointees in any way. The years 2026 through 2028 will be choosing years at the ballot box on antisemitism and support for Israel. Side with the Constitution and its protection of all faiths and individuals — or don’t.
As has been the case for hundreds of years, the choosing begins with the Jews. Stand with them – and the world’s only Jewish State – or stand with the other side, which, in a word, is Mordor.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
