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Jewish Neocon Warhawks Want the United States to Resume its War with Iran

By Jose Nino | Occidental Review | July 7, 2026

The hawks who pushed the United States into its most expensive military operation in decades are already planning the next one. Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin, two of the most listened-to Jewish voices in conservative media, have made clear in the immediate aftermath of the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding that they view the current peace not as a resolution but as an intermission, one they intend to use to rebuild the political and military conditions for a return to war.

Ben Shapiro published a Daily Wire piece titled “Why Trump Signed The Agreement With Iran,” explaining the MOU while making clear his deep reservations. In the same Fox News appearance hours after the text was released, he simultaneously called the war “the signal act of political bravery, perhaps, of my lifetime” and labeled the Memorandum of Understanding “a disaster that does not achieve any of the actual signal goals that were set by the administration at the beginning.” Shapiro laid out five specific objectives he said the administration had named —ending all nuclear enrichment, dismantling ballistic missiles, ending support for so-called terrorist proxies, permanently reopening the Strait of Hormuz toll-free, and conditioning sanctions relief on Iranian compliance—and argued the MOU met none of them. Despite his public condemnation of the deal, he nonetheless stopped short of urging Trump to reject it, thus revealing something more significant than mere disagreement. It exposed a proposed recalibration among hawkish commentators who now appear to be laying the groundwork for a resumption of hostilities after the November midterm elections.

While commentators debated the terms of the deal, the war itself had already delivered its verdict in blood. The war they championed exacted a staggering price. Operation Epic Fury, which began on February 28, 2026, killed between 7,144 and 9,676 people across multiple countries while wounding approximately 46,965 more. Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs confirmed 3,468 Iranian deaths while independent monitors documented higher figures. Among the dead were 240 women and 212 children. One American strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, Hormozgan province on February 28 killed approximately 175 to 180 people—the majority of them schoolchildren—a strike investigated by the New York Times, BBC Verify, Reuters, NPR, and CBC all of which concluded the United States was likely responsible. Over 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon according to its Health Ministry.

The economic devastation proved equally severe. The Pentagon reported spending $29 billion by May 12, though this figure excluded damage to American military bases from Iranian retaliation and the costs of munitions expended. By June, the Pentagon sought an additional $87.6 billion supplemental from Congress to cover the full costs of the campaign. Harvard economist Linda Bilmes projected that total costs could reach $1 trillion when accounting for long-term ripple effects including veteran care, replenishment of depleted weapons stockpiles, and regional economic disruption. Iran estimated its losses at $270 billion and demanded compensation as a condition of broader peace negotiations. CSIS independently assessed the total U.S. military campaign cost at approximately $34 to $42 billion—a figure that excluded base damage, munitions replacement costs, and long-term obligations.

This catastrophic toll apparently failed to satisfy those who pushed hardest for the conflict. Mark Levin emerged as the most explicit voice calling for a strategic pause followed by renewed military action. On June 18, the same day CNN reported that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was actively using pro-Israel media figures to influence the deal, Levin posted on X/Twitter his prescription for the path forward. “Time for a change in strategy. We should consider slow walking the enemy, building up our munitions, our oil reserves, get the price of gasoline down, get through the midterms, then knock them out. Instead of rushing to a deal, building up their oil industry, transferring billions to them, etc.”

Levin had advocated for military action against Iran long before the war began. He reportedly lobbied Trump directly at a private White House lunch in early June, falsely warning that Iran was “days away from a nuclear weapon”—a claim the U.S. intelligence community did not support. On his show in May he had argued that “The mass-murdering death cult that is the Iranian regime is not going to commit suicide” and that “they cannot” abide by any deal “because as a matter of religious and political ideology and doctrine, they will not in the end bend to the demands of the great Satan.”

Shapiro adopted a position less explicit but functionally identical. After the MOU was signed at Versailles on June 18, he declared the agreement a disaster and hoped that Trump would return to bombing Iran after November’s midterms. He had previously called the war “the single bravest foreign policy move of my lifetime,” telling Lara Trump on Fox News that what Trump was doing in Iran “has the potential to be a true game changer for America’s role in the world,

The broader hawk faction echoed the same framework for restarting the conflict. Hugh Hewitt called the MOU “halftime” and predicted a return to war after the election. Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade added that “After the midterms, the gloves come off.” Media Matters described this as the hawks’ new “cope” strategy—a way to avoid criticizing Trump directly while keeping the door open for future military escalation.

These commentators built their case for war over several years. Shapiro praised Trump’s 2020 killing of IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani as “utterly righteous,” calling Soleimani “one of the worst human beings on the planet,” and he consistently argued that Iran required direct confrontation rather than the appeasement he accused the Obama administration of pursuing. When Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear program in June 2025, Shapiro published a syndicated column declaring that “two lies die: the lie that only negotiations can end the threat of a rogue state seeking nuclear weapons, and the lie that every conflict must necessarily become Iraq.” Levin appeared on Hannity right before the 2026 conflict to argue that “If this Islamic Nazi terrorist mass killing regime gets a nuclear weapon, will they use it? The answer is yes” and that “We don’t need to put up with their crap. It’s time to put it to an end.”

Despite the memorandum of understanding being signed on June 17, the conflict remains far from resolved. The deal lifted the U.S. naval blockade, reopened the Strait of Hormuz, created a 60-day window to negotiate permanent terms, and proposed a $300 billion reconstruction fund. Critics noted that despite the war’s enormous costs, Iran’s government remained intact, its ballistic missile program is still functional, and its support for regional resistance organizations like Hezbollah is still unwavering. The statements from Shapiro and Levin give the game away. They have already begun conditioning their audiences for a second round of bellicosity against the Islamic Republic.

For the likes of Shapiro and Levin, conservatism is merely a skinsuit they don, carefully tailored to win trust and influence within the American Right. But the substance beneath it has nothing to do with American national interests. Every war they cheer, every deal they oppose, every argument they make is calibrated toward using American blood and treasure as a battering ram for the interests of World Jewry. The consequences for the United States, the American people, and the families who bear the cost of their wars are simply not part of their calculation. It is time to stop mistaking their fluency in conservative language for loyalty to this country.

July 8, 2026 Posted by aletho | Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, United States, Zionism | Comments Off on Jewish Neocon Warhawks Want the United States to Resume its War with Iran