MAGA divides over Israel as Trump stirs Iran debate

Here’s a bet for you: President Trump’s decision to begin war with Iran, in support of Israel, will divide the Republican Party in this year’s midterms and in the 2028 presidential race. 

The breach is already showing. 

Top right-wing influencers with millions of MAGA followers — among them Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson — are increasingly opposed to Trump administration policy toward Israel, and they are growing ever more brazen in saying so. 

For Fuentes, the U.S. strike on Iran was a breaking point dramatic enough to lead him to urge his followers to abandon the MAGA Republican establishment entirely and vote for Democrats.

Israeli influence on right-wing politics is not new. Republican Pat Buchanan famously called the U.S. Congress “Israeli-occupied territory” in 1990. More recently, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) raised eyebrows when he remarked at a press conference, “I come to Israel every two weeks, whether I need to or not.”

The Republican split on Israel is exacerbated by the brass-knuckle extremist pressure coming from the Christian right. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), Trump’s ambassador to Israel, inflamed tensions across the Arab world by telling Carlson last month that Israel would be biblically justified in seizing land from neighboring countries across the region.

“It would be fine if they took it all,” he said.

It is also true, in that extreme evangelical worldview, that all Jews must be gathered in Israel so that when Jesus returns, he can make a demand of all Jewish people: Either convert to Christianity or face death and eternal damnation.

Since World War II, Israel enjoyed genuine bipartisan support among Americans. That consensus fractured as........

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