Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray at the “Freedom of Zion” conference in Jerusalem (Photo: Screenshot)
Approximately 3,000 Israelis attended the “Freedom of Zion” conference at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, where Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray discussed “the spirit and strategy of Israel’s fighting forces and a plan for Israeli renewal, reconstruction, and prosperity on the day after the war.”
One matter that arose was the propensity of American Jews to vote for Democratic Party candidates, even at the expense of Israel’s welfare during the current war. Shapiro warned the audience that “after speaking glowingly about Jewish unity” he was about to be “incredibly divisive,” before launching into a speech about his frustration with Jewish voting habits in the United States.
“The reality is that a very high percentage of American Jews don’t prioritize either Judaism or Israel. And so speaking to them in that language is utterly ineffectual because you’re talking about secular atheists who identify as Jewish, that they can be part of the woke coalition, and not be considered white. That’s just the reality. And I wish this weren’t the reality, but it is the reality.”
Shapiro continued: “Now, with that said, a historic percentage of Jews in the swing states particularly voted in favor of the Republicans. I was talking with a data analyst, one of the best data analysts in the United States, and he said the single greatest predictor of the size of the swing in the vote from Democrat to Republican was the percentage of Jews in a particular district.”
Furthering the point that Trump closed the margin in the swing states, including those he lost, Shapiro added, “And you saw that in New Jersey, which is a state where Donald Trump last time lost by 13 points – he lost it by five this time. You’ve seen it in Florida, which has gotten extremely Jewish, like a lot more Jewish. And Florida went from a dead-even state to a state that Donald Trump won by 13 points. You saw it in New York, where in New York City, Donald Trump won 33% of the vote, almost entirely in Jewish precincts of New York. And so I think that what you’re seeing, actually, in the Jewish vote in the United States is that October 7th was a polarizing moment.”
Shapiro shared that he has zero tolerance for people criticizing Israel or focusing on humanitarian aid to Gaza. He said, “And what I’ve said to people is my tolerance level for not being, sort of on the ‘pro-Israel bus’, my tolerance level is now gone. It was barely existent before October 7. It is now gone. If you find yourself protesting Israel, or worrying about whether Israel is shipping in enough humanitarian aid in the most insane policy that I’ve ever seen; in the middle of a war, you’re shipping tons and tons of humanitarian aid into [Gaza to] be hijacked by the very people who are currently holding Israelis and Americans hostage.”
“If somehow Jews can’t get on board for that in the United States, well, I mean, f** them. Like, seriously. There comes a point where you’re on the bus or you’re not on the bus. And I feel this is true regardless of the population,” Shapiro said.
Cognizant that Europe is facing similar issues, Shapiro invited Murray to add his opinion before ending with some challenging words about Jews who refuse to support Israel.
“I’m sure that Douglas feels the same way about Westerners in Europe, who somehow can’t find it in their hearts to defend their own civilization. If you can’t find it in your heart to stand up against literally the worst scum on the face of the earth and their defenders on the left, then frankly, I don’t want you standing near me, nor do I consider you a potential ally.”
Murray concurred, saying: “First of all, as Ben says, people are shifting. Secondly, the 2015 election in the UK was the first time when the majority of British Jews voted conservative before the Labour Party even elected a rabid anti-Semite as its leader… Jews in the UK were voting majority conservative. And when I told this to my friend Norman Podhoretz, who had written the book ‘Why are Jews liberals?’ he couldn’t believe it. And I said, maybe one day you’ll have to write a new foreword for this book. But there’s just one thing I’d say, which is that I sometimes joke that I’m a non-Catholic, ultra-Orthodox Catholic and a non-Jewish, ultra-Orthodox Jew.”
“What I mean is simply that I share much of Ben’s critique,” Murray added.
He added, “One of the ways I have noticed in the last year that somebody is going to say something utterly inane to me is if they start by saying, ‘Judaism is all about Tikkun Olam’, and then I just go, ‘Yeah, we know those’. So then, I know that the person is what I call ‘spilled Judaism’. It’s just fallen over somewhere and it’s just not really the thing anymore.”
Murray said he agreed with Shapiro, adding, “You have to have minimal patience for the utter maniacs, you know, Jews-for-suicide types, but you also have to encourage those people who are there, and they are there in larger quantities in the last year.”
Murray reflected on his experience living in Israel for most of the past year, following the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, noting that he encountered delegations of Jews who had visited Israel from the U.S., Canada and Australia.
”A number of them who I met at various things said to me, ‘You know, Douglas, I don’t understand it. You know, I was,’ – this was mainly American Jews – ‘I was there for #MeToo. I was there for Black Lives Matter, and no one’s been there for me.’ And I started to realize the only thing I could say was, ‘Well, welcome!’ By which I meant like, welcome to the real world. It was always going to be like that. This was never going to be reciprocated.”
The one-off event was sold out well in advance and lauded as “an opportunity to celebrate the heroism of the Israeli people, and to lay the conceptual foundations for continued victory in an existential battle.”
