From October 31st to November 2nd, the mother of all right-wing intellectual conferences is scheduled to be hosted in Orlando, Florida.
The event, titled the National Conservatism Conference, will include keynote speeches from three Republican 2024 presidential contenders (Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley), a prominent billionaire (Peter Thiel), and a 2022 Senatorial favorite (J.D. Vance), whose campaign is being bankrolled by said billionaire. They are joined by 86 of the most prominent paleo-conservative, Traditionalist Catholic, neo-reactionary and conservative writers, academics and pundits in the United States.
The conference is being hosted by an Israeli, Yoram Hazony, through his non-profit, The Edmund Burke Foundation.
According to the description of the event, the National Conservatism Conference seeks to chart a new path for the American right, with a special focus on the “best path forward for a democratic world confronted by a rising China abroad and a powerful new Marxism at home.”
The section expresses interest in creating an “intellectually serious alternative to the excesses of purist libertarianism” that is “in stark opposition to political theories grounded in race.”
Yet despite the large number of Jews and even Rabbis set to speak at the conference, the Edmund Burke Foundation and Yoram Hazony do not mention a pertinent fact: the conference is a Zionist influence operation being directed from Jerusalem.
According to The Edmund Burke Foundation’s Form 990 tax filings obtained by National Justice, the group shares the same Israeli staff as the Jerusalem-based Herzl Institute: Yoram Hazony, Ofir Harvry, and Rabbi Raphael “Rafi” Eis.
Burke Foundation employees not listed on the Herzl Institute’s website, such as David Brog, belong to other pro-Israel activist groups like the Maccabee Task Force, whose sole purpose appears to be to fight Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns.
The Herzl Institute is, according to its own description, a propaganda initiative that specializes in training Christian scholars to advance Israeli and Jewish interests around the world.
The link between the National Conservatism Conference and the Herzl Institute is not advertised but neither is it hidden. While scrolling through the Florida conference’s website, a link to its 2016 inaugural event is openly hosted by the Herzl Institute, with the theme “Christian-Jewish Alliance: Reclaiming and Building Conservatism.” Many of the speakers from the 2016 conference will also be speaking at the 2021 meeting.
What adds intrigue to the nascent network of prominent right, even “far-right,” thinkers that will be present at the Florida event is that it appears to signal a Jewish abandonment of traditional conservative sources — Evangelical, libertarian, and so on — for a new neo-conservatism that is Catholic, somewhat illiberal, and fixated on combating China.
Some of the sponsors listed for National Conservatism 2021, such as The American Conservative — which in the past has published numerous articles critical of Israel — are surprising. Others represent the new reactionary tendency in American politics, such as Peter Thiel’s Claremont Institute, along with the Catholic stalwart First Things.
Many liberal outlets have commented on the rise of this new “reactionary right” as being centered in Hungary around the presidency of Viktor Orban, which deliberately ignores the Israeli nucleus that seems to bring all these disparate actors together. The Danube Institute, which is based in Hungary, is listed as a sponsor and represented at the conference through its president John O’Sullivan. Many Catholic and paleo-conservative figures present at the National Conservatism Conference such as Rod Dreher, Patrick Deneen, and others have recently been traveling to and from Hungary and meeting with prominent state figures there.
One stark omission at the coming event is Tucker Carlson, who is arguably the most important right-wing figure in America at the moment. Carlson was a keynote speaker at Hazony’s event last year and has also been traveling to Hungary, yet he will not be present at this event. The Fox News pundit’s high profile jousts with the Anti-Defamation League this year is undoubtedly playing a role in him not attending.
Yoram Hazony’s 2018 book, The Virtue of Nationalism, promoting what he believes are Anglo-Saxon liberal civic values as an alternative to both racial nationalism and leftism, quickly came and went without leaving much of an impact.
Yet the low level Israeli academic’s mysterious ability to introduce often ignored and fringe intellectuals in Catholic and neo-reactionary groups to European leaders, American presidential contenders, and deep pocketed billionaires is bound to undoubtedly influence their discourse on Jews and Israel as the conservative right and Republican party move on from Trumpism.