Why Many American White Supremacists Seem to Love Israel
The paradox of America’s far-right support for a Jewish state
Years ago, when I lived in the United States, I observed a phenomenon that was both interesting and curious to me. In the small town where I resided as an international student, three houses around my area displayed the Israeli flag; one alongside a banner, another beneath the US flag, and a third with an Israeli decal on their truck. The people flying Israeli flags were the same ones displaying seemingly Qanon-oriented signs or messaging and White supremacist militia bumper stickers. I was very doubtful the reason behind these displays was because the flag-fliers were Israeli or Jewish.
I should clarify to start: not every display of the Israeli flag is problematic. There is an important distinction between flying it as an expression of genuine support for human beings versus as a coded message.
“I’m flying the Israeli flag because I support Israel’s citizenry” is one thing. “I’m flying the Israeli flag because I want Jewish people out of the US” is another completely.
This may be a distinction often lost on those who seek to simplify varied and complicated geopolitical sentiments into convenient binaries of support or opposition. As a woman whose mother fled Gaza for the United Arab Emirates and later assimilated into a Filipino community in Dubai before I was born, I understand to some reasonable extent the complexities of sentiment that can coexist within a single space. Perhaps this is why I believe such distinctions matter.
The white nationalist perspective
For a lot of US white nationalists (), whose generally center around opposition to Judaism, Israel represents an ideal ethnostate model; fascists typically love Israel’s , its use of to demoralize and destroy the Arabs (Palestinians) who live within its borders, its , and its unapologetic promotion of an Israeli identity.
They also like the of Israel as a tiny fighter nation amid a sea of supposed uncivilized Muslims. It hardly matters whether this depiction of Israel is accurate or if it is contested by many and, worldwide, by many ; its value is as a symbol of supposed ethnostate.
This worldview conveniently ignores within it. Instead, these White supremacists construct a simplified narrative that fits their agenda; Israel becomes merely a tool for justifying their own ideologies, a reductive approach that flattens the lived experience of millions into a singular monolith serving external purposes rather than internal needs.
White supremacist leader Richard Spencer has even referenced Israel as an example of the kind of “” he aspires to create in the US. He stated during a speech at the University of Florida that Israel serves as a model for his vision, a troubling appropriation that reveals the ideological opportunism at work in such movements, wherein any example can be twisted to serve nativist ends.
The paradox of antisemitism and pro-Israel sentiment
Here lies the fundamental contradiction: many of these White supremacist groups harbor deeply antisemitic views while simultaneously pointing to Israel as their model state. This paradox exists because their support is not for Jewish people themselves, but for the concept of ethnic separation and purity that they believe Israel represents.
For these White nationalists, Israel functions as a practical example of their ideal — a nation defined explicitly by ethnicity and religion. These supremacists admire what they perceive as Israel’s unapologetic commitment to maintaining a Jewish majority; they see this as validation for their own desires for White Christian dominance in the US.
Israel-as-model-ethnostate consolidates the world’s Jewish population into a relatively small geographic area. Although not all White nationalists will admit to it (and the Christian nationalists who support Israel might not even recognize that they are supporting a White nationalist agenda in their “support” of Israel), they see Israel as an appropriate dumping ground for the Jewish people they want out of the US.
Religious justification and end times theology
The entwined support for Israel from certain evangelical Christians who may not necessarily be outright White supremacists adds another dimension to this phenomenon. Their Jewish people to control Israel as a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. However, this “support” comes with the belief that Jewish people will ultimately either convert to Christianity or face damnation.
This eschatological view produces a paradox; these Christians simultaneously support Israel’s existence while believing in an ultimate future where Judaism no longer exists. Their apparent philosemitism is merely a means to an apocalyptic end; it is conditional support predicated on Jewish people fulfilling a specific role in their religious narrative.
As John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, : “Recognize this fact: that God’s clock only moves when the Jewish people are in the land of Israel.” And when they are in the land, as he further explained, “the clock starts ticking” on the end times, or the rapture, a theological framework that reduces an entire people and nation to mere actors in an apocalyptic drama written by and for others.
The theological foundation of support
Christian philosopher and professor at Houston Baptist University, , explaining why the ancient Israelites should have obeyed God and fully driven out those they found living on the lands they sought to occupy or even killed them, :
“I would say that God has the right to give and take life as he sees fit. Children die all the time! If you believe in the salvation, as I do, of children, who die, what that meant is that the death of these children meant their salvation. People look at this [genocide] and think life ends at the grave but in fact this was the salvation of these children, who were far better dead . . . than being raised in this Canaanite culture.”
This theological justification for ancient genocide provides the overall framework through which many evangelical supporters of Israel view the between Israel and Palestine. Americans reading this post now may be asking themselves, as I did: why are there Israeli flags flying in my city this week that were not there two weeks or two months or two years ago?
The answer connects directly to the aforementioned religious worldview: there is a kind of American Christian who is eager to see Israel kill all Palestinians, to finish what they believe the ancient Israelites started but failed to achieve. They perceive the failure of ancient Israel to fully receive God’s promise of prosperity as a consequence of that nation’s tolerance for foreigners, including foreign religion and foreign wives; a historical revisionism that conveniently ignores the complex association between religious identity and political power that has characterized Jewish-Christian relations throughout the centuries.
The underlying agenda
Do not be confused: these US White supremacists and Christian nationalists (with overlap) do not love Israel (no matter what they say), nor do they love Jewish people. Many of them mistrust Jewish people living outside of Israel and often consider themselves to be more faithfully aligned with Jewishness than these people who reject their mandate to “return” to Israel to usher in the end of time.
Getting all Jewish people to Israel and everyone else out is only partly about making sure that “the clock starts ticking” toward the apocalypse. It is also about laying a foundation for in the US. These Christian nationalists endeavor to overturn the official variants of their respective national identities which embrace pluralism and secularism, signaling their authentic nation by flying the Israeli flag alongside their own in order to convey biblicality, a strategy that attempts to sacralize political space while excluding those who do not conform to their narrow vision of national identity.
They do not care if Canaanite children died because to be dead but in heaven* is better than to be Canaanite on Earth. How do you think such Christians think about Palestinian children?
*offer valid for children who have not yet reached an age when they could consent to the religious faith they are raised in; adults can go to hell under this theological framework.
The white supremacist and Christian nationalist “support” in the US for Israel represents an exploitation of a terrible and contentious geopolitical situation to advance a dangerous domestic agenda. By pointing to Israel as their idealized ethnostate, these groups attempt to normalize and justify their own ideologies.
This argument may not apply in the same way to large cities, where people frequently have actual connections to Israel, but in rural towns in particular, someone flying an Israeli flag alongside far-right symbols is rarely anything except support for White Christian nationalism, a phenomenon that demands careful examination rather than facile dismissal, especially as we witness the increasing entanglement of religious and political identities in the public sphere of the US.
Understanding this relationship helps explain the seemingly contradictory position of individuals who display both antisemitic beliefs and pro-Israel symbols. This perspective is not about justice, peace, or genuine support for self-determination; it concerns appropriating another nation’s struggles to justify an agenda of separation, exclusion, and supremacy at home.
