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<\/a><\/p>\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu records a video refuting online theories that Israel was involved in the murder of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk, Sept. 18, 2025. (Screenshot via X)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cJoseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, said that the bigger the lie, the faster it will spread,\u201d the Israeli prime minister said in the video, in English. \u201cWell, somebody\u2019s fabricated a monstrous big lie: that Israel had something to do with Charlie Kirk\u2019s horrific murder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without getting into specifics about the accusations, Netanyahu asserted that the young conservative pundit \u201cloved Israel\u201d and \u201cloved the Jewish people.\u201d Quoting from a letter he said Kirk had sent him a few months prior to his killing, Netanyahu said that advocating for Israel was one of Kirk\u2019s \u201cgreatest joys as a Christian,\u201d adding, \u201cHe told me, \u2018The Holy Land is so important to my life, it pains me to see support for Israel slip away.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, some are peddling these disgusting rumors, perhaps out of obsession, perhaps with Qatari funding,\u201d Netanyahu continued. \u201cWhat I do know is this: Charlie Kirk was a great man, and a great man deserves honor, not lies.\u201d<\/p>\n
No law enforcement official has raised the possibility that Israel was involved in the assassination that sent shockwaves through the United States last week. The FBI has charged only 22-year-old Tyler Robinson with Kirk\u2019s murder, and text messages reprinted in his indictment suggest he acted alone.<\/p>\n
What Netanyahu is responding to, instead, are theories being loudly entertained by popular right-wing Internet pundits and politicians \u2014 figures standing to inherit Kirk\u2019s mantle of influence. They include Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, and white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nA video posted by antisemitic right-wing Internet personality Nick Fuentes on Sept. 15, 2025, promoting his belief that Israel was behind the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Few if any of the most prominent voices have outright said they believe Israel is behind Kirk\u2019s assassination. But they are posing questions \u2014 and at times citing the questions as a cause for suspicion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI severely mistrust people who rush to misrepresent things,\u201d Owens said on her streaming show on Monday. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not a good sign when somebody has to ask you, as Greta Van Sustern asked Bibi Netanyahu \u2026 if you did have anything to do with the assassination. Doesn\u2019t make you a great person, OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Responding to Van Sustern, Netanyahu said on Newsmax that the theory was \u201cabsurd\u201d and \u201cinsane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuentes, the streamer who launched what he called the \u201cgroyper war\u201d against Kirk in 2019 because he believed the Turning Point USA founder was insufficiently antisemitic and anti-Israel, posed the question himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cDID ISRAEL KILL CHARLIE KIRK?\u201d Fuentes titled an episode of his show on Monday. The stream, rife with sinister imagery of Jewish stars and Jewish politicians, garnered around 1 million views in 24 hours.<\/p>\n
Some of these figures were themselves close with Kirk; others, such as Fuentes, were his sworn adversaries. A minority, like the Jewish anti-Zionist blogger Max Blumenthal, are more readily identified with the left. But they now share a growing fury with Israel and Netanyahu, often in the process echoing progressive arguments against Israel\u2019s war in Gaza. The growing MAGA divide over Israel, fueled by young voices in particular, threatens to splinter a formerly ironclad base of support for Israel on the American right.<\/p>\n
For his part, Kirk expressed public fondness for Israel, and the Zionist Organization of America said after his death that he was planning to address its upcoming gala in November. He also publicly rejected antisemitism, even as he trafficked in some ideas, including the Great Replacement theory, that critics denounced as antisemitic.<\/p>\n
But Kirk was also willing to publicly entertain more debate about Israel than many other leading conservatives, particularly at his conferences and on his podcast. Soon before his death, with support for Israel on the decline within his party, he said he loved Israel but also wanted to see the United States focus on other priorities.<\/p>\n
Those on the far right who have turned to attacking Israel following Kirk\u2019s death are particularly infuriated by Netanyahu\u2019s insistence, starting even before Kirk\u2019s death had been confirmed, that Kirk\u2019s support for Israel was unwavering.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nPolitical Commentator Tucker Carlson speaks alongside Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump during a Turning Point Action campaign rally at the Gas South Arena on October 23, 2024 in Duluth, Georgia. (Anna Moneymaker\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI was shocked and sickened by the ghoulish, and really repulsive, reaction of the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to Charlie\u2019s death,\u201d Carlson, the former Fox News host and a close associate of Kirk, said in his own video this week prior to Netanyahu\u2019s own. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen anything lower than his attempt to hijack Charlie\u2019s memory and use it for his own political ends.\u201d<\/p>\n
Days earlier Carlson had made similar comments, condemning \u201cforeign heads of state\u201d whom he said were exploiting Kirk\u2019s death, on a posthumous episode of Kirk\u2019s show hosted by Vice President J.D. Vance. But at the time, Carlson did not say which heads of state he was referring to.<\/p>\n
On his own show, he was now clear: he meant Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
Kirk, Carlson said, \u201cfelt that Bibi Netanyahu was a very destructive force. He was appalled by what was happening in Gaza. He was, above all, resentful that he believed Netanyahu was using the United States to prosecute his wars, for the benefit of his country, and that it was shameful and embarrassing and bad for the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the video, Carlson claimed he had recently spoken with Kirk backstage before an event in July about whether he should highlight the Jewish disgraced financier and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s purported connections to \u201cIsraeli intelligence,\u201d a line Carlson has promoted for months as MAGA speculation around Epstein has continued to swirl.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know your donors hate this,\u201d he said he remembered telling Kirk. \u201cHe looked at me, I\u2019ll never forget it, and said, \u2018Go all the way, man. Go all the way.\u2019\u201d He and Owens have both said that Kirk had recently come under pressure from pro-Israel donors, specifically naming Jewish activist investor Bill Ackman \u2014 who on X has refuted the allegation.<\/p>\n
Carlson is no mere fringe figure: He has more than 16 million followers on X, where he took his interview show after leaving Fox News, and campaigned with President Donald Trump in 2024. He is also scheduled to speak during Kirk\u2019s televised memorial Sunday in Glendale, Arizona, along with Trump and several other top members of the administration, including Vance and Stephen Miller.<\/p>\n
Carlson\u2019s prominence has alienated many Jews, including conservatives, for his willingness to not only vocally criticize Israel but also interview Holocaust revisionists and entertain conspiracy theories. Sometimes, as in his manner of addressing theories about Israel\u2019s involvement in Kirk\u2019s murder, he does so obliquely.<\/p>\n