OPINION
The decision by Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, to stand beside Tucker Carlson at the moment the latter descended into explicit antisemitic rhetoric is not just unfortunate.
It's a clarifying moment for conservatives, a test of moral seriousness.
So, for that matter, is the Heritage Foundation's apparent decision, through its Trustees, not to terminate Roberts as its president.
The resignation Monday of its respected Trustee and leading conservative intellectual Robert P. George over the Carlson matter indicates at least one board member understood the severity of the crisis.
The Heritage Trustee's failure to act is deeply troublesome because Roberts has yet to criticize, condemn and disassociate himself from Carlson's wanton antisemitic rhetoric.
Worse, the remaining Heritage Trustees are demonstrating complicity by failing to act.
For years, Jewish and other advocates warned as antisemitism festered on the Left, camouflaged behind jargon-laden conversations about imperialism, colonialization, and intersectionality.
These warnings were dismissed, and no one in the Democratic camp forced a reckoning.
No one in power said: choose a side. Mainstream Democrats ignored the issue, or, worse, made false claims of antisemitism directed at the political right, distracting them from what was happening under their noses.
By 2016, Palestinian flags outnumbered the Star-Spangled Banner at the Democratic National Convention.
In 2018 a Squad of Antisemites was elected to the House of Representatives.
In 2020, BlackLivesMatter leaders like Patrisse Cullors were celebrated despite their antisemitism.
And by 2023, the masks were gone entirely: the left had allowed bigotry against Jews, couched in a false narrative about Israel and the Middle East, to take full control of its cultural engine.
Today the "progressive" movement has largely been reduced to an antisemitic mob. NYC’s mayor-elect has made no bones about his support for a "globalized Intifada" that targets Jews.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., admitted honestly that, as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, put it, antisemitism has "consumed the Democratic Party."
So it's perhaps ironic that thanks to Roberts and the Heritage Foundation, conservatives will have a clear and early decision to make about the future of the Republican Party.
The conservative movement now has something the left never had: a moment to choose.
The Coalition for Jewish Values, representing more than 2,500 Orthodox rabbis nationwide, was founded during the first month of President Trump's first term with a simple goal: to reaffirm that classical views on faith, family, the sanctity of life, and moral clarity in the face of antisemitism are not merely aligned with traditional Jewish values; they are Jewish values.
Which brings us back to Kevin Roberts.
There is no "new" antisemitism; it always justifies itself through, as Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks of England's House of Lords explained, "recourse to the highest source of authority available within the culture."
Today, what a culture deems its highest authority differs by persons and political party.
Roberts appears to be guided by his "close personal relationship" to Carlson, and the notion that no matter how crazed his statements might be, he should not be "cancelled."
Yet Carlson has clearly and deliberately crossed into hateful territory, in ways that transcend bringing antisemites like Nick Fuentes or Agapia Stephanopoulos onto his show for softball interviews that confront none of their lies.
Joining the podcast of the equally antisemitic Dave Smith, Carlson recently said that Israel and its supporters are "openly pro-violence," that Jewish self-defense is about the "the thrill. . . the godlike power they imagine they have when they extinguish human life."
The truth is that while Arab states universally responded to the State of Israel with massacres and ethnic cleansing of their Jewish citizens, Israel gave Arabs medical treatment, higher education, and the right to vote.
Today Israeli Arabs, especially Arab Christians, have higher high school graduation rates than Israeli Jews.
Carlson knows this but doesn't care.
This is not about foreign policy or criticizing Israel's democratic government; it's about a narrative in which Jewish self-defense itself is criminalized.
Like the blood libel of the Dark Ages, his verbiage is a quintessential example of accusing Jews of being inherently hostile.
And shockingly, neither the Heritage Foundation nor Roberts will not condemn such Jew hate in unequivocal terms.
The departure of the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism from the Heritage Foundation is evidence that a vast segment of the conservative movement rejects antisemitism regardless of political source.
The Task Force is primarily composed of non-Jewish individuals and organizations, and they universally rejected Roberts' backing of Carlson.
Conservatives, far beyond those in the Task Force, must choose courage and moral clarity over a familiar descent into darkness.
If Roberts and the Heritage Foundation will not disassociate themselves from Carlson, conservatives must act to distance themselves from this once great institution.
We can't choose the cowardice of silence.
It's no exaggeration to say that American civilization itself is at stake.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken serves as Executive Vice President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, which was until recently a charter member organization of the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
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