A network of figures like Ben Shaprio, think tanks, and foreign policy advocates helped shift the right from advocating free speech to embracing blacklists.

Since the early 2000s, writer and activist David Horowitz has been at the center of a movement that claimed to defend free speech while portraying Muslims and leftists as existential threats to Western civilization. In the aftermath of 9/11, Horowitz called for the profiling of “Palestinian” and “Islamic” people and infamously stated that “the Palestinians are Nazis.”

Through the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC), founded in 1998, he and his donors built a media and policy network that shaped the careers of nearly every major pro-Trump conservative figure active today. The Southern Poverty Law Center designated the DHFC a hate group, and it has received anonymous dark money routed through Donors Trust, which has also funded white nationalist causes.

Following Horowitz’s death on April 29, 2025, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk acknowledged his influence: “Without David Horowitz, I’m not sure Turning Point USA would exist. Over 90% of our earliest major donors were introduced at a David Horowitz event—thanks to his warm endorsements and generous introductions. His support opened doors that would have otherwise remained closed.”

Elon Musk’s growing alignment with Israeli policy became publicly visible in 2024, when he forged a surprise relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu. But his ties to the Freedom Center ecosystem began earlier. Musk has amplified Freedom Center talking points, including a study falsely claiming that USAID helped fund the Taliban—a narrative later used to justify calls to defund the agency.

More consequentially, when SpaceX sought to raise $750 million in January 2023, the lead investor was the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, co-founded by Ben Horowitz—David Horowitz’s son.

  • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
    0·
    19 hours ago

    The Gatestone Institute, another key node in the network and donor to Tommy Robinson, was founded by Nina Rosenwald—dubbed by critics as “the sugar mama of Muslim-hate” for her role in bankrolling anti-Muslim and pro-Israel media initiatives.

    Gatestone has supported figures like Douglas Murray, a British pundit who was recently mocked for making a bizarre appeal to authority during his appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” where he called for more airtime for pro-war “experts” to push a pro-Israel narrative. Murray has described anti-Muslim blogger Robert Spencer as a “brilliant scholar.” Unsurprisingly, Spencer’s website, Jihad Watch, was long sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

    Betar’s resurgence has been widely attributed to Israeli-American public relations executive Ronn Torossian, a contributor to FrontPage Magazine—an outlet created by the David Horowitz Freedom Center

    Betar activists have revived street-level intimidation tactics, including threatening prominent scholars and UN officials with symbolic “pagers”—a reference to a notorious 2024 Israeli covert operation involving explosive-laden devices that caused mass casualties in Lebanon.