Ted Cruz calls on Christians in San Antonio, Texas, to confront right-wing antisemitism

Sen. Ted Cruz used his keynote address at a major gathering for Christian supporters of Israel this week to warn of “a growing cancer” of antisemitism on the right, which he said church leaders are failing to address. Speaking on Sunday at a megachurch in San Antonio led by John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which claims more than 10 million members, Cruz said he had seen antisemitism rising on the right “in a way I have never seen in my entire life.” He added, “The work that CUFI does is desperately, desperately needed, but I’m here to tell you, the church is asleep right now.”

In the days around Cruz’s speech at Hagee’s 45th annual Night to Honor Israel, several conservative voices made similar appeals, arguing that antisemitism within parts of the right can no longer be dismissed as fringe. Essays in The Free Press and Tablet described how extremist figures and ideas have been normalized.

In The Free Press, conservative columnist Eli Lake published an essay titled “How Nick Fuentes Went Mainstream.” Lake argued that Fuentes, a far-right activist long shunned for racist and antisemitic rhetoric, has recently been welcomed by a number of popular podcasts and livestreams. In Lake’s account, the “stigma” around Fuentes has “melted away,” which he presents as evidence of how the Overton window has shifted in parts of the online right.

At Tablet, a first-person essay by a libertarian insider, headlined “Hitler Is Back in Style,” traced what the author describes as a libertarian-to-alt-right pipeline. The author says this pipeline, over the past decade, normalized conspiratorial thinking about Jews and open flirtations with Hitler apologetics. The author argues that “antiwar” rhetoric has turned into reflexive anti-Israel sentiment and a broader hostility to Jews, naming podcast ecosystems and ideological crosscurrents as contributing factors.

Tikvah, a Jewish educational center and think tank that the source describes as one of the most prominent right-wing groups in the Jewish world, noted in an email to supporters on Thursday that it has tracked the same trend. “Today, there is a clear faction of the right that is overtly hostile to Israel and to Judaism. And though small, it is no longer marginal or possible to ignore,” wrote Avi Snyder, a senior director at Tikvah. The organization pointed to essays it began publishing in 2023, which warned that some on the right were reviving old suspicions about Jewish loyalty, casting the U.S.-Israel alliance as a trap, and disputing the moral superiority of the Allied fight in World War II. Honest speech about such claims, the kind Ephesians 4:15 calls speaking the truth in love, is the standard Cruz and these writers were implicitly invoking.

The source places these appeals against the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination last month. That event, the source says, unleashed a torrent of conspiracies that quickly turned antisemitic in parts of the right’s online ecosystem. Fact-checkers documented a flood of false claims, and some influencers speculated about Israeli or “Mossad” involvement. That rhetoric gained enough traction that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, felt compelled to issue a rebuttal. Prosecutors in Utah have charged a suspect and outlined a motive that, according to the source, has nothing to do with Israel.

Cruz said in his speech that he has talked with Netanyahu about declining support for Israel on the right, and that the two men see the issue differently. He recounted a recent conversation in which Netanyahu’s first instinct was to attribute much of it to foreign amplification from places like Qatar and Iran, including bots and paid misinformation networks. Cruz pushed back: “I said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, yes, but no. Yes, Qatar and Iran are clearly paying for it, and there are bots, and they are putting real money behind it, but I am telling you, this is real, it is organic, these are real human beings, and it is spreading.'”

Later in his address, Cruz turned to the theological dimension of the issue. He warned of a resurgence of replacement theology, which he characterized as a “lie that the promises God made to Israel and the people of Israel are somehow no longer good, they are no longer valid.” According to the source, replacement theology holds that the Israelites were supplanted as God’s chosen people once the Christian church was founded. Cruz did not blame anyone by name. The source notes, however, that figures with long records of inflammatory commentary about Jews or Israel have continued to gain attention. Fuentes has moved from ostracism to high-visibility bookings, Tucker Carlson draws millions of viewers, and Candace Owens’ conspiratorial comments about Israel continue to attract audiences.

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