The murder of conservative American influencer and activist Charlie Kirk has sparked wide debate. In Israel too, it drew broad coverage and commentary, both on social media and from public figures including the prime minister and the president. They were not unusual in this regard: leaders across the Western world condemned the killing and sent condolences.
But while Kirk was familiar to many on the Israeli right and within the conservative camp, he was almost unknown to opinion leaders and figures on the left. That fact says less about Kirk himself than about the left’s lack of familiarity with the Israeli right.
For “the right” is a worldview in its own right. The right tends to place greater faith in human nature and therefore sees war as an unavoidable reality—not because it seeks conflict, but because there will always be a rival or enemy ready to fight you. In the Israeli and Jewish context, this is all the more evident.
Similarly, power is not viewed as inherently negative; in the right hands it can advance liberty, freedom and development. The belief in human nature, combined with a commitment to human freedom, underpins positions on a wide range of issues, from international relations to economics. From this perspective, socialist or communist thinking suppresses the human spirit, forcing people into lives they did not freely choose.
How does this worldview connect to the fact that many on the Israeli left had never heard of Kirk? Through disinterest. Nearly every person on the right who follows politics knows names like Thomas Friedman, Christiane Amanpour or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represent the American left and whose views resonate with the Israeli left.
The right in Israel follows them because doing so also reveals something about the Israeli left. By contrast, the American right holds little interest for the Israeli left, just as the Israeli right itself does not. The left regards it only as something to oppose or replace, without making an effort to understand the foundations of a conservative worldview—why, for example, judicial reform might be seen as advancing liberty, or why an offensive security doctrine might be viewed as essential to protecting individual freedom.
Naveh Dromi Photo: Ilya MelnikovWhen your ideological rival does not interest you and you make no effort to grasp the values behind their positions, the debate sinks to the shallowest levels—like throwing around labels such as “primitive,” “Bibi-ist” or, at times, “fascist.”
This lack of effort to understand the rival worldview leads to surprise when that rival wins. That is what has happened to Israel’s left in recent years. Time and again, the right has prevailed—except for brief left-wing interludes when major historical steps were pushed through, such as Oslo, the Gaza disengagement or the Lebanon withdrawal, rooted in left-wing ideals of lofty concessions that ultimately led to violence. Because human nature seeks security, the Israeli right repeatedly wins public support while the left struggles to understand why.
So one may dismiss Kirk, or scoff at a security-first, offensive mindset, or at conservatism as a whole. But such dismissal does not pay. Again and again, it results in electoral losses, which breed frustration and, at times, violence in the streets. The global left already carries a reputation for violence, from Lenin and Che Guevara to Antifa, BLM and others. The right, by contrast, has long understood the importance of studying its opponents—and has done the work to know the left.