Last week, Bill Kristol’s son-in-law Matthew Continetti wrote an op-ed about the midterm elections for The Wall Street Journal titled “Anti-Semitism is on the Ballot.”
“Rising antisemitism isn’t only a problem for Democrats. No one who travels in Republican or conservative circles can have missed rising anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Jewish prejudice among young men,” the neoconservative wrote.
He went on, “Republicans have been able to remove antisemitic figures such as Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) and block antisemitic candidates such as Dan Bilzerian, a social media personality who ran for a Florida House seat. Yet antisemitism persists online and on podcasts.” [Emphasis added]
Continetti did not offer any evidence or cite an example of the outgoing congressman’s alleged anti-Semitism.
Justin Logan of the Cato Institute demanded a retraction:
There is not a scintilla of evidence that @RepThomasMassie is an anti-Semite and the WSJ should be called on this smear. https://t.co/dpdite7Rwu
— Justin Logan (@JustinTLogan) October 30, 2026
The Wall Street Journal was practicing nothing new, and Continetti did not offer a sliver of evidence to back up his charge against Massie, which is typically part of the point in how neocons use it: There doesn’t have to be any evidence of bigotry toward Jewish people. Only criticism of Israel’s government, or more so in Massie’s case, criticism of the Jewish state’s interference in the U.S. government and our politics.
That’s what’s considered “anti-Semitic” by this crowd.
“Israel has the strongest economy in the Middle East…They don’t need our money,” Massie has said. “American taxpayers should not be conscripted into funding the military adventures of Israel.”
This quote is an elected U.S. representative prioritizing his own country and its purse over that of another. With no other country would this be misconstrued as ethnic or religious hatred toward a group.
“We spend more on offensive weapons to Israel than we do on homeless veterans in the United States,” Massie has also said. Does such an observation mean the congressman hates Jews, and what honest person would possibly construe it that way?
Do politicians who vote to spend on offensive weapons to Israel hate homeless veterans? Some might argue their priorities are out of whack, but few to none would say they are against veterans, homeless or otherwise.
Because it makes zero sense.
Just yesterday, President Donald Trump announced that he favored discontinuing the annual aid package to Israel by the end of this year, the same position Massie received enormous flack for, including from the White House.
Massie has also rightly called what’s happening to the so many innocent Palestinians (are 4 and 5-year olds Hamas members?) at the hands of the IDF a “genocide,” another surefire way to get called anti-semitic by Zionists. Does the United Nations also just loathe Jews for saying the same?
Or are neoconservatives wary of that term for a better reason? (Because it’s true.)
When Massie shared an amusing meme in late 2025 portraying the current U.S. Congress as favoring Zionism over American patriotism, Democratic Minority Leader and committed Zionist Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blew a gasket in his rush to label Massie an anti-Semite. Schumer, like Continetti no doubt, fancies himself an expert on the subject.
Schumer also called the meme “disgusting” and “dangerous” and chastised Massie as a “sitting member of Congress” for posting it. His actual proof of anti-Semitism on the part of Massie was as empty as Continetti’s.
This is the kind of deception war hawks in both parties simply expect people to absorb unquestioningly.
When conservatives complain about the vast reach and evil done by George Soros’ billions, are they being anti-semitic because he’s Jewish? I can’t think of a single conservative who’s been singled out as such.
When Massie attacks an Israeli like Miriam Adelson or other Jewish billionaires who pour so much money into influencing American elections— including his—that’s no different than rightwingers attacking Soros.
On paper at least.
For many readers, I’m probably just stating the obvious. This is well known, tried and true and long established propaganda from the pro-war rightwing, but it bears repeating: What Continetti, George W. Bush alumnus Marc Thiessen, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), and pundits Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro and almost every other neocon is really saying in most of their uses of the “anti-semitic” slur, is that if you oppose their primary cause—the state of Israel and its Likud government—you’re a bigot.
No one ever thought the many generations of American conservatives who have questioned, challenged, and denounced their own government were anti-American. No one ever called Rush Limbaugh an “anti-Americanist.”
Neocons have never needed this tactic to actually make sense. They just need it to work, as it so often has.
Which is where Continetti’s accusing Massie of being anti-semitic is really coming from. That well-worn smear is losing its power. Republican hawks have used it so much, coupled with the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza, that more Americans than ever aren’t buying it anymore.
Especially among younger Americans, and especially on the young right.
Anti-semitism is as much a problem as any other racial, ethnic, or religious hatred, but when everyone is called an anti-semite, pretty quickly no one is.
How many right-leaning Americans clutch their pearls every time yet another Democrat accuses some Republican of racism? Few flinch anymore. It’s just what people have come to expect from the leftwing.
The same now rings true of “anti-semitism.”
Thomas Massie is no anti-semite. But if Matt Continetti and those like-minded really think he is, that’s what they are going to have to believe more and more Americans are becoming too.
