In Jerusalem this week, a convergence of Israeli ultranationalists, European far-right politicians, American Christian nationalists, and Trump administration figures gathered under the banner of National Conservatism — a movement seeking to stitch together a unified ideology across borders and faiths. The assembly, organized by the Edmund Burke Foundation at Jerusalem's International Convention Center, reveals how disparate strands of exclusionary politics are attempting to find common cause, even as scholars warn that the coalition's internal contradictions — particularly around antisemitism
Far-right figures gather in Jerusalem as Trump official withdraws from controversial conference
It is racism that binds these forces together.
Mark
Why does it matter that these particular people are gathering in Jerusalem right now?
Mimi
Because it shows how the international far-right is trying to build a unified movement across countries and ideologies—Israeli nationalists, Christian nationalists, European far-right figures—all in one room. The conference is testing whether those alliances can actually hold.
Luke
But are they actually unified, or are we watching them discover they can't be? The scholars quoted seem to suggest real tension.
Mimi
That's the thing. They share enemies and share a vision of ethnonationalism, but one side is deeply antisemitic and the other side is trying to build a pro-Israel coalition. That's a fundamental contradiction.
Mark
What does Gorka's withdrawal actually tell us?
Mimi
It tells us the White House saw a political problem and wanted distance from it. But it's also a small gesture—his name was still on the website, and he had already recorded advice to Israeli leaders.
Luke
Do we know if the scheduling conflict is real or a cover story?
Mimi
The White House said it was a scheduling conflict. We don't have evidence it wasn't. But the timing—right after the Guardian asked about his attendance—suggests the optics mattered more than the schedule.
Mark
Is Hazony trying to police antisemitism at these conferences or not?
Mimi
He's trying to draw a line between what he considers acceptable and unacceptable far-right politics. He banned Tucker Carlson from speaking. But scholars say the antisemitism is baked into the alliances he's made.
Luke
That's a fair critique, but it's worth noting Hazony is actually doing something—he's refusing Carlson a platform. That's a real choice, even if it's incomplete.
Mark
What happens next?
Mimi
The conference runs through Wednesday. After that, we'll see whether these alliances hold or fracture, and whether the Trump administration tries to distance itself further from figures like Gorka who are openly aligned with this movement.
O Pulso
- A roster of figures facing antisemitism allegations, sanctions for inciting violence, and associations with white nationalist ideology assembled in one of the world's most symbolically charged cities, signaling how normalized far-right international networking has become.
- Trump's counter-terrorism czar Sebastian Gorka was pulled from the program only after the Guardian contacted the White House — his name had remained on promotional materials until that moment, underscoring how thin the line between the administration and the conference's more extreme elements had become.
- The ideological fault lines are stark: American Christian nationalists advocating demographic preservation of white majorities share a stage with Israeli nationalists, creating a coalition that scholars say is held together not by shared values but by a shared logic of racialized exclusion.
- Organizer Yoram Hazony publicly barred Tucker Carlson for platforming antisemitism, yet critics note that his own movement has trafficked in conspiracy frameworks — about globalist elites and secret cabals — that echo the very antisemitic traditions he claims to oppose.
- Scholars warn the conference is less a moment of ideological triumph than a stress test: the Christian nationalist wing is fracturing between those aligned with Israel and those drawn toward antisemitic currents, suggesting the coalition may be approaching the limits of its own coherence.
In Jerusalem this week, a convergence of Israeli ultranationalists, European far-right politicians, American Christian nationalists, and Trump administration figures gathered under the banner of National Conservatism — a movement seeking to stitch together a unified ideology across borders and faiths. The assembly, organized by the Edmund Burke Foundation at Jerusalem's International Convention Center, reveals how disparate strands of exclusionary politics are attempting to find common cause, even as scholars warn that the coalition's internal contradictions — particularly around antisemitism and competing visions of ethnic and religious nationhood — may be as defining as its shared ambitions. That such a gathering should take place in Jerusalem, a city whose symbolic weight is immeasurable, only sharpens the questions it raises about who belongs, who is excluded, and in whose name civilizational identity is being claimed.
A three-day National Conservatism conference opened in Jerusalem on Tuesday, assembling a roster that functions as a kind of atlas of the international far-right. Israeli ultranationalists, European politicians disciplined for antisemitism, American Christian nationalists, and figures from the Trump administration gathered at the city's International Convention Center — organized by the Edmund Burke Foundation and its intellectual architect, Yoram Hazony, who now sits on the Heritage Foundation's board.
The Trump administration's counter-terrorism czar, Sebastian Gorka, had been scheduled to keynote on the meaning of October 7. His name remained on the conference website until the White House withdrew him, citing a scheduling conflict, after being contacted by the Guardian. From Israel's government, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich — sanctioned by five countries in 2025 for inciting violence against Palestinians — was among the speakers, as was Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, who once suggested dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza and against whom Israel's high court ordered disciplinary proceedings for racist incitement.
The European delegation included Hans-Georg Maaßen, the former head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency expelled from the CDU for language described as belonging to 'the milieu of antisemites,' and Harald Vilimsky of Austria's Freedom Party — a party whose first two post-war leaders were former SS officers. Among the Americans were William Wolfe, a Christian nationalist who has called for mass deportations to preserve a white Christian majority, and Jonathan Keeperman, unmasked last year as the operator of a prominent far-right internet persona.
Scholars studying the gathering see it as a revealing stress test for the far-right's attempt to forge a unified ideology. Brendan McGeever of Birkbeck University's Institute for the Study of Antisemitism argued that what binds these forces is not shared faith or shared nationhood but a shared logic of racialized exclusion — with Israel functioning, for many attendees, as a blueprint for the ethnostate they wish to build at home. Matthew Taylor of Georgetown observed that the coalition is fracturing along a fault line that may prove fatal to its ambitions: one wing of Christian nationalism is deeply pro-Israel and Zionist, while another is leaning into antisemitic impulses that cannot be reconciled with Israeli partnership.
Hazony himself has recently distanced himself from Tucker Carlson, calling Carlson's show 'the leading clearinghouse for antisemitism on the political Right in America' and refusing him a speaking slot. Yet both scholars noted that Hazony's own movement has long promoted conspiracy frameworks about globalist elites and secret cabals — language that mirrors the antisemitic traditions he now publicly condemns. The conference, in this sense, is less a moment of ideological arrival than a mirror held up to a coalition still negotiating the terms of its own contradictions.
A three-day National Conservatism conference opened in Jerusalem on Tuesday with a roster that reads like a map of the international far-right: Israeli ultranationalists, European politicians who have faced discipline over antisemitism allegations, American Christian nationalists, and officials from the Trump administration. The gathering, organized by the Edmund Burke Foundation and running through Wednesday at Jerusalem's International Convention Center, represents perhaps the largest recent assembly of Israeli nationalists, Christian nationalists, and European far-right figures in a single venue—a convergence that scholars say exposes deep ideological fault lines even as it binds these movements together.
Sebastian Gorka, the Trump administration's counter-terrorism czar, was scheduled to deliver a keynote address on "The Meaning of October 7" alongside Israel's diaspora affairs minister and the former Polish president. Gorka's May anti-terrorism strategy had promised to target groups "whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist." His name remained on the conference website and promotional materials until the White House withdrew him from the program, citing a scheduling conflict, after being contacted for comment. In a previous video, Gorka had advised Israeli leaders on Hamas with blunt language: "Kill every single one of them. God bless Israel. God bless Judeo-Christian civilisation."
From Israel's government, the conference features Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister who has described himself as a "fascist homophobe" and who was sanctioned by Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway in June 2025 for inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. Also speaking is Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, who in a November 2023 lecture posted to YouTube suggested dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza as a policy option. Israel's high court ordered disciplinary proceedings against Eliyahu for racist incitement against Palestinians in 2020, though the hearing was not held until June 2024 and its outcome has not been made public.
The European delegation includes Hans-Georg Maaßen, a former head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency who faced expulsion from the CDU in 2023 over what the party described as "statements in the language of the milieu of antisemites and conspiracy ideologues." Maaßen has rejected this characterization as a politically motivated label. Also attending is Harald Vilimsky of Austria's Freedom Party, whose organization has been subject to a policy of non-engagement by Israel's government despite Vilimsky's efforts to build diplomatic ties. The Freedom Party's first two leaders after its 1956 founding were former SS officers. In April 2024, Vilimsky told a Budapest conference: "We do not want Mohammed to become the most common name in our countries."
The American contingent includes William Wolfe, a self-described Christian nationalist who has called for "mass deportations, denaturalizations, and remigration" to preserve a white Christian majority. In February, Wolfe told a Texas audience: "My boys all look like me. And I want my children to grow up in a country where they're not minorities." Also present is Jonathan Keeperman, unmasked by the Guardian in 2024 as the operator of the far-right internet persona "L0m3z." The Heritage Foundation, a major conservative institution, is represented by its president Kevin Roberts and Victoria Coates, now vice president of Heritage's Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. In October 2024, Roberts defended Tucker Carlson after the broadcaster gave a friendly platform to white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, calling critics a "venomous coalition." He later called that phrase "a terrible choice of words."
Scholars studying the conference see it as a revealing moment in the far-right's attempt to forge a unified ideology across national and religious lines. Brendan McGeever, co-director of Birkbeck University's Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, said: "Many attendees at NatCon view Israel not just as an ally but as an embodiment of the exclusionary ethnostate they wish to establish. National Conservatism sees in Israel a blueprint for the realization of a white, Christian nation built on racialized exclusion, while far-right Israeli attenders at NatCon often argue that partnering with white Christian nationalists is the best way to protect Israel. It is racism that binds these forces together." Matthew Taylor, a senior visiting fellow at Georgetown's Center for Faith and Justice, suggested the coalition is discovering the limits of its own project: "You can't simply stir up abstract Christian nationalism. One side of the Christian nationalist coalition is very aligned with Israel, is very Christian Zionist, the other side is leaning hard into this antisemitic impulse."
The conference is organized by Yoram Hazony, an Israeli nationalist intellectual who now sits on the Heritage Foundation's board. Past National Conservatism conferences have featured JD Vance, Viktor Orbán, Giorgia Meloni, and Nigel Farage. At the first Washington conference in 2019, a speaker argued for immigration policy favoring "more whites and fewer nonwhites," and Hazony reportedly said those views were "legitimate and should be heard and debated." In 2024, a Brussels mayor ordered police to shut down a NatCon event before a court overturned the decision. Hazony has recently distanced himself from Tucker Carlson, refusing him a speaking slot in Jerusalem and calling Carlson's show "the leading clearinghouse for antisemitism on the political Right in America" on September 28. Yet Taylor and McGeever both note that Carlson remains mainstream in Republican politics, and that Hazony's own alliances have promoted conspiracy theories about "globalist elites" and "secret cabals" that mirror antisemitic frameworks.
Citações Notáveis
Many attendees at NatCon view Israel not just as an ally but as an embodiment of the exclusionary ethnostate they wish to establish.— Brendan McGeever, co-director of Birkbeck University's Institute for the Study of Antisemitism
You can't simply stir up abstract Christian nationalism. One side of the Christian nationalist coalition is very aligned with Israel, is very Christian Zionist, the other side is leaning hard into this antisemitic impulse.— Matthew Taylor, senior visiting fellow at Georgetown Center for Faith and Justice
Quer a matéria completa?
Leia o original em The Guardian ↗
Politics & Governance