Ben Shapiro: Claiming Israel controls US foreign policy is 'antisemitic'

Does Israel control American foreign policy in the Middle East? If you listen to the radical far left and far right, you might be convinced they do. It’s a charge heard with increasing frequency in the debate over America’s relationship with the Jewish state.

In my one-on-one interview with influential Podcaster Ben Shapiro from his television studio in South Florida, he says not only is the claim demonstrably false, but when it becomes a theory about Jews secretly manipulating American decision-making, it crosses into something much darker.

I asked The Daily Wire co-founder a pretty basic question: What exactly is antisemitism? After all, the term gets thrown around constantly these days, particularly when the subject turns to Israel.

Shapiro acknowledged that criticism of Israel, by itself, is not antisemitic. His definition centers instead on conspiracy theories involving Jewish power.

“What antisemitism really is, is a conspiracy theory about the power of Jews in the world,” Shapiro told me. “That’s what it is: the idea that there is a collective Jewish body that is desiring to keep you down through manipulation of the systems. And so when you say Israel runs American foreign policy, that’s an antisemitic conspiracy theory, because first of all, it’s immoral and untrue, but also it’s a conspiracy theory about the power of Jews in the world that is rooted in nothing.”

That gets directly to the heart of a major argument taking place today, especially within parts of the political right.

JUST IN: Ben Shapiro on this crazy idea that Israel controls America's foreign policy decisions in the Middle East: "When you say Israel runs American foreign policy, that's an antisemitic conspiracy theory, because first of all, it's immoral and untrue, but also it's a… pic.twitter.com/PCXWmgmBFU

— David Brody (@DBrodyReports) September 16, 2026

The United States and Israel unquestionably have an exceptionally close strategic relationship. The two countries cooperate extensively on military and regional security matters. The current 10-year memorandum of understanding between the United States and Israel has committed $38 billion in military assistance and missile-defense funding for fiscal years 2019 through 2028.

But Shapiro says close cooperation and influence are very different from Israel actually directing American policy.

“If Israel ran America’s foreign policy, I promise you America’s foreign policy would look radically different,” Shapiro tells me. “For example, there probably would be 200,000 American troops right now in Tehran. Let me just take a perfectly obvious example. If America ran Israel’s foreign policy, then presumably there would be no debate over anything that had happened in Gaza, ranging from the Gaza deal that Trump is pushing to what Joe Biden was doing in Gaza. So obviously that’s untrue. But that conspiracy theory has legs.”

Shapiro believes part of the confusion comes from defining antisemitism simply as another form of racial prejudice.

In his view, antisemitism frequently operates differently: rather than simply claiming Jews possess certain negative characteristics, it casts Jewish power as the hidden explanation behind political, economic or social problems.

“I think what people think antisemitism is, is just racism against Jews,” Shapiro explained. “And so the defense to a charge of antisemitism is, ‘But I have friends. I know Jews. I hang out with Jews,’ or, ‘I would never discriminate against Jews.’ But that’s not what the charge is. Antisemitism is a different definitional category than racism. It’s not saying that all Jews are 𝕏. What it’s saying is that Jewish power in the world is the reason for my specific problem.”

Shapiro says that the same basic conspiracy framework can be poured into numerous political or cultural bottles. “You can have religious antisemitism in the Muslim world, which says the Jews are responsible for the plight of Muslims everywhere,” he said.

“You can have economic antisemitism, where people say Jews are responsible for the shortcomings of my personal economic situation. You can have a wide variety of sort of bottles that you can pour liquid into,” he continued.

JUST IN: Ben Shapiro on Tucker, Candace and antisemitism: " Tucker traffics in anti-Semitism as a matter of course.... I would say that that Candace's view of anti-Semitism is more overt, pretty obviously. I mean, she spreads theories up to and including the idea that Jews drink… pic.twitter.com/wBCR0nBYLM

— David Brody (@DBrodyReports) September 16, 2026

Interestingly, Shapiro also believes the word "antisemitism" itself has been overused enough that arguing over the label can sometimes get away from the more fundamental question.

“Because the term has been so abused and misused, it’s kind of lost its efficacy,” he told me. “And so instead I prefer to say, ‘Is this true or is it moral?’ which is really the only thing we should care about anyway.”

That led me to ask Shapiro directly about one of his fiercest adversaries on the right: Tucker Carlson. Would he consider Carlson antisemitic? Shapiro didn’t hesitate, though he framed his answer around what he believes Carlson promotes rather than simply attaching a label to him personally.

“I would say that Tucker traffics in antisemitism as a matter of course, literally every day,” Shapiro said. “There’s not an episode of his show that I can recall in which is not posited the disproportionate power of conspiratorial Jewry. And he does it by saying it’s Zionists, or he does it by saying it’s Israel. But if you just substitute the word ‘Jew’ for ‘Israel’ or ‘Zionist,’ then you can see what he’s actually saying.”

I then asked Shapiro whether he sees a difference between Carlson and former Daily Wire personality Candace Owens when it comes to antisemitism. He does.

“I would say that Candace’s view of antisemitism is more overt, pretty obviously,” Shapiro said. “She spreads theories up to and including the idea that Jews drink Christian blood, which is like full-scale blood libel, Middle Ages kind of stuff. And Tucker is frankly, higher IQ than Candace, so I think that he doesn’t tend to fall into that trap.”

“Instead, he tends to channel it into what is his preferred sort of foreign policy critique, which is that a cabal of various Jews is controlling American foreign policy,” Shapiro explained.

“Famously, he suggested that I had manipulated the president into the war on Iran, which would come as a shock to both me and the president, since we’ve had a grand total in our entire lives of three conversations, all of them public,” he said.

Shapiro pointed out the irony that Carlson himself has had greater personal access to some of the administration’s most important figures. “Tucker talks to the president far more often, on a far longer basis, than I ever have,” Shapiro said. “He’s obviously much closer to the vice president than I am. But yeah, this is sort of what Tucker traffics in.”

For Shapiro, it all comes back to the definition he offered at the beginning of our conversation. “If you see the through line of what Tucker is talking about, it’s that the Jews are exerting disproportionate control over global events, and they are conspiratorially manipulating things in order to harm, quote-unquote, ‘the rest of us,’” he said.

“And that is sort of the theme of his show,” Shapiro continued. “Now, he won’t say it in that many words, but he tends to launder it through his guests. His guests will say much of this, and then he’ll nod along and say, ‘Yeah, that’s so true.’”

Ultimately, Shapiro’s argument draws a sharp distinction. Criticizing Israel is not inherently antisemitic. Questioning American foreign policy is not inherently antisemitic. Debating U.S. military assistance to Israel is not inherently antisemitic. But claiming that Jews, acting collectively and conspiratorially, are secretly controlling American foreign policy? Shapiro says that is something very different.