Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has for months been raising the alarm about the growing threat of antisemitism on the American right. During a visit to Los Angeles for the Milken Institute Global Conference, he called for elected officials — including in his own party — to take a clear stand on the issue. 

“I don’t want to wake up in five years and find ourselves in a country where both major political parties are unequivocally anti-Israel and unapologetically antisemitic. And I think that is a very real threat,” Cruz told Jewish Insider in an interview on Monday at the Milken conference. 

Among populist young conservatives, where the MAGA ideology of President Donald Trump has given way to an isolationist, America First worldview, Cruz sees a big shift on Israel. 

“Every elected official is going to have to decide where he or she stands, and what you believe,” said Cruz. “As Ronald Reagan said more than 50 years ago, this is a time for choosing, and each person can decide where he or she stands.”

When pressed about Vice President JD Vance — who, through his choice of staffers and comments suggesting skepticism of interventionist policies, is increasingly seen as sympathetic to younger conservatives’ worldviews — Cruz did not come to the vice president’s defense. 

“You got my answer,” Cruz told JI.

The Texas Republican was at Milken to speak on a panel about economic mobility. But Cruz was also eager to talk about what he saw as exciting developments in the war with Iran. He called for what he described as “regime collapse” in Iran: the U.S. working to free Iran from authoritarian religious leaders without necessarily sticking around to replace them with a new leader. 

He called for a more muscular U.S. approach to Iran; he wants to see the U.S. arming the Iranians, the Kurds and the Peshmerga — whatever it takes to bring down the Islamic Republic. 

“Removing that regime from power is unambiguously in America’s national security interest. Now, that does not mean we should engage in nation-building, and I have no delusions that we’re going to go transform Iran into some democratic utopia [or] we’re going to turn Iran into Switzerland. That’s not our job,” said Cruz. “For 25 years, Republican foreign policy has operated under what [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell described as the Pottery Barn rule: ‘You break it, you buy it.’ I think that’s nonsense.” 

Antisemitism is rising on the American right, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned on Tuesday, expressing concern that efforts to combat it are not doing so quickly or effectively enough. 

“I want us to be winning, but I’m not sure it is accurate as a descriptive manner that we are winning right now,” Cruz said at an antisemitism symposium in Washington organized by the Republican Jewish Coalition and the National Review. 

Cruz has emerged in recent months as one of the Republican Party’s most vocal critics of right-wing antisemitism. He has targeted influential commentator Tucker Carlson and his strain of isolationist, anti-Israel politics that has in recent months crossed over into overt antisemitism, though Cruz has bemoaned other Republicans’ wariness to criticize Carlson by name. 

At the RJC event, Cruz called Carlson “the single most dangerous demagogue in this country.”

But he said that not enough of his colleagues and allies on the right are aware of the extent of the problem. 

“I don’t want to wake up in five years and find myself in a country where both major political parties are unambiguously anti-Israel and unapologetically antisemitic, and I think that is a real possibility. If Tucker and his minions prevail, that will happen,” Cruz argued. 

Cruz expressed fear that this attitude is not just present but popular among young people on the right, as evidenced by two viral Turning Point USA events last fall where students at Auburn and Ole Miss cheered after deeply anti-Israel questions were asked.  

“I worry about the 19-year-olds who say, ‘Oh, that’s what our team believes. That’s who we are.’ Let’s be clear, if you are a young, ambitious Democrat, it is obvious what you should do. You should be viciously anti-Israel,” said Cruz. 

He applauded the people who came out to the Museum of the Bible on Tuesday to discuss antisemitism but pointed out that their concern does not reflect how the rest of the country thinks about the issue.

“The fact that this room is persuaded does not mean that the college campus is. It does not mean that the Capitol Hill interns are. It does not mean that the interns at Heritage, at [Conservative Partnership Institute] and every other conservative institution in this country, that they’re persuaded,” said Cruz. “We need to fight and engage it and take on the core premises, because if we lose the next generation, we lose the country.” 

Cruz posited that Carlson and other anti-Israel influencers are being paid by foreign nations like Qatar, China and Russia, though he acknowledged that he lacks proof for that theory. 

“I don’t believe all of these voices who have suddenly discovered that Israel is the source of all evil, that everything bad in the world was done by the Jews, that America is controlled by the Jews and that radical Islamic terrorists are really nice, wonderful people — I don’t think these people just arrived on this view organically and magically,” said Cruz. 

“I think many of these influencers are cashing a check,” he added. “The people in this room could do an enormous service by documenting that. I don’t have the evidence right now to prove it, but Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the right one.” 

Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz, in a speech to the Knesset on Monday, warned the American right about the dangers of rising antisemitism within its ranks.

“I stand here in Jerusalem to sound an alarm,” Illouz said. “We are used to enemies from the outside … but today, I look at the West — our greatest ally — and I see a new enemy rising from within.” 

Illouz, who was born and grew up in Montreal, took the unusual step of speaking from the lectern in English.

The right-wing lawmaker called for American conservatives to reject what he called the “poison” of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, mentioning the podcasters by name. 

“They claim to fight the ‘woke left.’ They are no different than the woke left,” Illouz argued. “The woke left tears down statues of Thomas Jefferson, the woke right tears down statues of Winston Churchill … It is the same hatred of the West dressed up in a different costume.”

He noted Carlson’s praise for World War II revisionism: “[Carlson] nods along when he’s told the Holocaust was a logistical error, a mistake by a camp that was unprepared. This is madness. He spits on the graves of American soldiers who stormed Normandy. … Why? To erase the line between good and evil.”

Owens, Illouz said, “spreads the sickest blood libels … claiming this state was founded by ‘pedophiles.’”

“She does not know history; she does not know the Bible,” Illouz added. “She only knows how to peddle hate.”

Illouz said that his message for Carlson, Owens and their ilk is that “we are the people of eternity. We buried the pharaohs who enslaved us. We buried the Greeks who tried to ban our Torah. We buried the Romans who burned our temple. We danced on the ruins of the Third Reich. And we will be here long after your YouTube channels are forgotten dust.”

“You think your lies can break the bond between America and Israel? You are small. This bond is giant,” Illouz stated.

The alliance between the U.S. and Israel is about shared values between “two nations who hold the torch of liberty while the rest of the world falls into darkness,” he said.

“Together we protect the values of freedom, democracy and the Bible against the barbarians at the gates,” Illouz added.

The Likud lawmaker implored American supporters of Israel not to accept defeat.

“The story of America and Israel is not over. It is just beginning. We have achieved miracles together, and we will achieve greater miracles yet,” he said. “Reject the lies. Stand with us, because when we stand together, Jerusalem and Washington, no force on earth can defeat us. Am Yisrael Chai.”