Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist turned media provocateur, urged the immediate overthrow of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, charging that Mr. Netanyahu’s government had repeatedly misled American officials and imperiled U.S. interests.
Speaking on his program, War Room, Mr. Bannon argued that criticism of Israel by some on the right had been mischaracterized and that the core problem was not “Israeli Derangement Syndrome” but a political project in Jerusalem that lacked American consent. “Netanyahu’s government has been atrocious and we should have regime change in Jerusalem and we should have it immediately,” he declared. “They’ve lied to the American government, they’ve lied to the American people consistently.”
Mr. Bannon’s remarks came during an exchange with Laura Loomer, an informal Trump adviser, who complained that conservative commentators had become “so obsessed with Israel” and were neglecting what she described as “the threat of Islam.” “You don’t see these people ever talk about Islam,” Ms. Loomer said. “You never see these people talk about the threat of Islam, Stephen. They gotta stop being so obsessed with Israel and so obsessed with the Jews.”
Mr. Bannon pushed back on that framing, insisting the dispute was rooted in transparency and accountability. “If the Israeli government had dealt straight with us, you wouldn’t have had this problem. They’re liars. They’ve been stone-cold liars, they gave bad information, so I’m not gonna let that go unchallenged,” he said. “That’s just bullsh**.”
The blunt intervention from Mr. Bannon — who retains a fervent following among populist conservatives — underscored a fracture within the pro-Israel coalition on the right: a debate over when American support should be conditioned on fuller candor from an ally.
Mr. Bannon suggested that strategic initiatives emanating from Jerusalem were advanced without adequate consultation in Washington. “What I have [a problem with] is the Greater Israel Project that was never done– no due diligence done, the American people never signed off on that, the Trump administration never signed off on that. That’s on Netanyahu,” he said.
Mr. Bannon has increasingly cast his critique in terms of American sovereignty and the avoidance of foreign entanglements. He accused Mr. Netanyahu of attempting to “drag the United States into a conflict with Iran” and warned against being drawn into wars that do not serve clear U.S. interests. “We need regime change in Jerusalem and we need it tonight, okay? Everything that comes out of Netanyahu’s government is a stone-cold lie, okay?” he said, conceding that “the Muslim Brotherhood is 100 times worse” and acknowledging the broader Islamist threat.
The tone of Mr. Bannon’s comments — and his insistence that American officials have been deceived — reflects a strand of conservative thinking that prizes blunt realism over perceived obligations to foreign partners.
For critics, however, calls for regime change in an allied capital will sound extreme and risky, potentially alienating long-standing friends in a volatile region.
Mr. Bannon’s critique is not new. In August, after Mr. Netanyahu declared, “You can’t be MAGA if you’re anti-Israel,” Mr. Bannon responded on social media: “American Citizens Do Not Give 2 F***s About Your Thoughts on MAGA, or What Our Citizens Need to Believe—They Care About Exposing Your Pathological Lies in Order to Keep Us Out of Your Next War.”
Whether Mr. Bannon’s pronouncements will prompt a policy reckoning in Washington is uncertain. But they crystallize a tension within the conservative movement: how to balance unshakable support for allies with relentless scrutiny of whether those allies act in America’s strategic interest.
As Mr. Bannon put it bluntly on Tuesday, “They’ve lied to the American government, they’ve lied to the American people consistently.”
[READ MORE: Tucker Carlson Apologizes to Nick Fuentes for Claiming He Was Gay]
