Natasha Soffer-Roth writes:

In a famous scene from the World War II-era classic “Casablanca,” the corrupt police captain Louis Renault orders the closing of Rick’s Café Américain on the pretext that it has effectively been functioning as a casino. Renault — who has been doing his own gambling in the cafe — loudly declares himself to be “shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here,” moments before a croupier hands him his winnings, which Renault gratefully accepts.

Last month, following a cozy, long-winded chat between the far-right commentator Tucker Carlson and the pro-Hitler influencer Nick Fuentes, a whole team of Louis Renaults fanned out across conservative media and gatherings to express outrage at the apparent sudden appearance of antisemitism within their ranks. Almost as soon as the interview aired, a number of conservatives began pressuring the Heritage Foundation — the Trump-aligned think tank behind the authoritarian blueprint Project 2025 and its anti-antisemitism spin-off, Project Esther — to cut its long-standing close association with Carlson.

The critique was at least in part due to the fact that Carlson’s platforming of antisemitism was not accompanied by the usual pro-Israel sentiment that the American (and global) far right often relies on to deflect from its bigotry against Jews. In fact, a sizable portion of Carlson’s interview with Fuentes was dedicated to criticizing Israel, its reliance on U.S. support, and Christian Zionists.

After a few days of pressure, Heritage president Kevin Roberts shared a video on social media in which he slammed the “venomous coalition” attacking Carlson and, in case that dog whistle wasn’t loud enough, smugly rebuked “the globalist class … [and] their mouthpieces in Washington.”

Further chaos ensued: Members of the coalition working on Project Esther threatened to resign or quit outright; Heritage staffers were shuffled around; Roberts apologized; a video of an internal clear-the-air meeting leaked to the press; long-time, senior Heritage members resigned; the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism that had produced Project Esther split from the foundation; and Republicans from Ted Cruz to Josh Hawley to Mitch McConnell sounded the alarm about antisemitism within their political tent.

Suddenly, the party that has sought to claim a monopoly on defending Jews — largely through the pro-Israel plank of its agenda — and a think tank that positioned itself as leading the charge against antisemitism are scrambling to grapple with a very public fallout over the anti-Jewish bigotry in their own backyard. [Continue reading…]