Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

In Part I, we looked at recent events that seem to have reignited the feud between Buchanan isolationists and the general MAGA movement, at least as defined by Trump himself.

Whether one looks at the money spent on Israel, or the lobbying efforts of AIPAC, or the conduct of the GAZA war, Israeli critics distort the numbers, provide no context, and demand things of Israel not expected of others. Why do you think that is?

Why are they so eager to split apart the Conservative movement just as we are getting things done for our agenda?

And more importantly, do we want to turn foreign policy over to people who purposefully distort the record?  One can have allies without “forever wars.”

Moreover, why are they willing to corrupt the principles of the Conservative movement to get what they want?

As the American right seems to be wavering, the European right is swinging solidly in a pro-Israel manner.

Leaders like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, France’s Marine Le Pen, and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán now frame Israel as a civilizational ally against jihadism and “woke” globalism, often visiting Jerusalem or blocking EU criticisms of Netanyahu’s government.

Key examples as of November 2025:

• Italy’s Brothers of Italy (Meloni): Moved the embassy to Jerusalem in 2024; pledged €100M+ in arms. Meloni: “Israel fights our battles against Islamization.”
• France’s National Rally (Le Pen): Backed Israel’s 2025 Iran strikes; parliamentary resolutions against Hamas. Ties it to anti-migrant security.
• Hungary’s Fidesz (Orbán): Vetoed EU sanctions on settlers; hosted Netanyahu in July 2025. Orbán’s “Christian Europe” narrative casts Israel as kin vs. “Soros-Islam.”
• UK’s Reform UK (Farage): Pushed post-Brexit trade deals; slammed Labour’s “naive” two-state push. Farage visited Israel in October 2025 for solidarity.
• Broader Trend: Netanyahu’s team quietly engaged the far right in Spain and Sweden (May 2025 talks), viewing them as EU veto allies. Even figures like Tommy Robinson (EDL founder) joined 2025 Israel solidarity trips, blending anti-Islamism with philo-Semitism.

So oddly, as some elements of the American right turn away from Israel and flirt with anti-Semitism, the European right is going the other way!

So why this shift in America?  Why are certain elements making such a big deal early on in Trump’s Second Term?  The Epstein scandal involves Mossad, they say. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, they say. Charlie Kirk was murdered before he went public against Israel, they contend. That seems to be the incessant line, no matter what the news story.

There is no news unless you’re slamming Jews.

We can’t read men’s hearts better than others, but knowing human nature, a good guess is that they want power.  Power to change the direction of the Conservative movement in the direction they desire.  They want to hijack MAGA.

Also, they may be infected by the ancient prejudice, Jew-hating.

The challenge for many of us will be how to resist their ideas without making the rift worse among Conservatives than it already is.  We must be cautious about what we will call “the Streisand effect.”

Named after Barbra Streisand back in 2003, when she sued to bury an aerial photo of her Malibu mansion from a public erosion study—her lawsuit made the image go mega-viral, viewed by millions instead of the handful who cared before. In short, sometimes calling attention to a problem makes it worse.

Attacking Fuentes, Kanye West, Tucker, and Owens risks turning them into martyrs and drawing undue attention to them.  Yet clearly, we must answer their charges, or their arguments win by default in the court of public opinion.

The event perhaps most precipitating this was Tucker’s softball interview with Nick Fuentes.

So, at the risk of the Streisand effect, who is this guy?

Nick Fuentes is a 27-year-old political commentator, live streamer, and activist born on August 18, 1998, in Illinois. He rose to prominence during the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally as a young white nationalist voice, and he hosts the podcast America First, where he promotes “groyper” ideology—a blend of paleoconservative isolationism, Christian nationalism, and explicit white supremacism aimed at infiltrating and “owning” mainstream conservatism. Fuentes leads the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), a rival to CPAC, and has built a following among disaffected young conservatives through memes, trolling, and anti-establishment rants.

Fuentes has a right to speak, and we have the right to reject him.  It is that simple.

In October of 2025, Fuentes said the following:

“Organized Jewry is the big challenge to unifying America—they’re unassimilable, control everything from AIPAC to Hollywood. When white Christians win back power, we’ll deal with them decisively, like Stalin did his enemies.”

After the killing of Charlie Kirk, Fuentes had this to say:

“I took your baby, Turning Point USA, and I fcked it… I’ve been fcking it, that’s why it’s filled with groypers.” Post-Kirk killing: Mocked Kirk’s widow as “fake” and “happy he’s dead”; claimed Kirk was “becoming a groyper” (anti-Zionist), implying motive.

In October 2025:

Fuentes seems to have made some headway among Young Republicans and even the government. “There’s groypers in every department, or so he claims.”

We think an approach of  “principled exposure” (data + principles, no ad hominem attacks) is smarter than pure attacks, and it exposes the flaws in their arguments without feeding into the “censored hero” script.

Not only is Fuentes crude, but he also lumps everyone together, a collectivist mindset.  Jews this, Jews that.  Dennis Prager is a Jew.  Adam Schiff is a Jew. Leon Trotsky was a Jew.  Milton Friedman was Jewish.  They have nothing in common.  Their ideas and philosophies are opposites. Yet he peddles the lie that they are all the same and that they are all evil.

This is both crude and vicious. It does not belong in the American Conservative movement.

Sticking to principles is the North Star here, clearly differentiating us from them—it’s what separates a movement worth joining from a grudge club. Judging by actions, not ancestry, isn’t just right; it’s the only way to keep conservatism (or libertarianism) coherent and credible.

Israel’s response to Oct 7—Hamas’s barbaric invasion (1,200 slaughtered, 250 hostages) and Hezbollah’s nonstop rockets (5,000+ since ’23, per IDF counts)—wasn’t vengeance; it was self-defense 101, a moral imperative under any just war ethic. 

And the restraint? John Spencer’s work seals it: Amid urban shields and a maze of underground tunnels that no army had to crack before, Israel’s 1:1 ratio and 1.5M warnings make it the gold standard of urban combat, not the war crime smear it gets painted as.

Besides countering the lies they are telling, what other positive steps can be taken?

The real leverage lies in proactive, principle-driven moves: Shine sunlight on the money trails to deter donors, while rebuilding acceptance through education and coalitions that appeal to conservatism’s core (actions over ancestry, fusionist big tents). This isn’t about purges; it’s about outmaneuvering the poison with transparency and moral clarity, letting the “inner moral sense” of Conservatism do the heavy lifting. 

In a sense, we all must do what Buckley did: call them out for their prejudice. We don’t need to ban them, but we do need to say we want no part of them in our movement.

The only public intellectual with real clout who comes to mind—and the bridge between MAGA Conservatives and the older Conservative movement—is professor and now podcaster Victor Davis Hanson. He has not been silent.

In a May 13, 2025, YouTube discussion “Post-Oct 7th Anti-Semitism,” Hanson intoned:

“Carlson’s flirtation with revisionists like Cooper isn’t isolated—it’s part of a right-wing undercurrent excusing jihadism by blaming ‘Jewish neocons.’ No pretense anymore; it’s raw antisemitism, and we must call it out to honor our Judeo-Christian debts.”

In a September 2, 2025, YouTube clip from his Hoover talks, Hanson linked Carlson’s “endless wars” narrative to antisemitic undertones: “Tucker’s isolationism echoes Buchanan’s—ditching allies like Israel isn’t pragmatism; it’s laced with old tropes about ‘Zionist lobbies’ pulling strings. It’s a flirtation with the paradox: Jews as victims and villains controlling policy.” He warned it “poisons the movement,” urging conservatives to “ostracize, not cancel” such voices to preserve fusionism.

On November 1, 2025, X post Hanson wrote:

“Tucker and his antisemitism should not be canceled but ostracized from the Republican Party.”

The Prickly Pear is a small platform in comparison, and we all need to build alliances with VDH and others who don’t want to follow Tucker down the anti-Semitic rabbit hole.

It would be helpful if Donald Trump would address this problem.  MAGA is primarily his creation, and his words would carry considerable weight.

Yet his actions speak volumes. Trump’s deep personal and political ties to Israel and Jewish communities—they’re not just optics; they’re woven into his family and inner circle. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner (Jewish), brokered the Abraham Accords; his daughter, Ivanka, converted to Judaism; and his chief aides, like Stephen Miller (Jewish) and David Friedman (former ambassador to Israel), shaped his Mideast policy. Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognized the Golan Heights, and cut off UNRWA funding for its Hamas links.

He’s called himself Israel’s “best friend” and, post-Oct 7, 2023, issued an executive order expanding antisemitism protections in schools. Given this, it’s hard to imagine him countenancing Fuentes’ bile—like calls for a “holy war against Jews” or “dealing with organized Jewry’ decisively.” Yet, as of November 3, 2025, Trump has not directly addressed the Carlson-Fuentes interview or the broader “virus” of antisemitism infiltrating MAGA fringes.

It is not that Trump is an intellectual leader like Buckley was, but he is one of the most prominent political leaders, so some clear words from him would be beneficial.

Besides publicly condemning people like Fuentes, concrete steps should also be taken.  Among these could be:

Target funding streams surgically—Qatar’s $18 million 2024 lobbying blitz (5x AIPAC’s direct spend) and indirect grants—by empowering watchdogs and donors, not grand inquisitions. The goal: Make it costly to back the fringes.

Push for stricter DOJ audits via petitions or congressional letters (e.g., expand the DETERRENT Act to mandate disclosure for media “story pitches”)—partner with groups like the Middle East Forum for public FARA dashboards tracking Qatar’s 74 agents.

The referenced FARA dashboard is a public online tool from OpenSecrets (the Center for Responsive Politics) called Foreign Lobby Watch. It’s a searchable database and visualization platform that aggregates and displays data from U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings, enabling users to track, in real time, foreign governments’ lobbying activities, expenditures, registrants, and principals.

Quietly rally conservative foundations (e.g., Bradley, Scaife) to condition grants on “no foreign influence” clauses, publicizing anonymized “red flag” lists of tainted outlets/think tanks. Over time, this disrupts by default: Money flees scandals, acceptance follows clarity.

Invest in alternatives, educate without excoriating, ally broadly.

Conservative Jews and Conservative Christians need an alliance to keep poisonous characters out of our movement. 

Let the marketplace work. We have admired Tucker for years, but this was a bridge too far. We are not suggesting banning him; we canceled our subscription. He should not be invited to Conservative functions. He has made his bed, and we need to make ours.

What are we trying to conserve? The principles of the American Founding and the Judeo-Christian ethic. That is the opposite of what Fuentes is selling.

The public needs to know that he does not speak for us and that we vigorously oppose his views.

That is what we at The Prickly Pear have decided to do.

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