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Marjorie Taylor Greene is considered one of the most polarizing figures in Washington.
Image: Keystone
The Maga camp is increasingly faltering: after the Epstein affair and the US attack on Iran, a Republican politician is now causing an uproar for the first time by calling Gaza "genocide".
The Maga Tower is crumbling. Again. More and more.
After Trump was able to reassure his supporters with a quick success in June with the US airstrikes against Iran, he has been denied this success for weeks in the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now comes the issue of Gaza.
For the first time, a Republican in the US Congress has described Israel's actions in Gaza as "genocide". "It is the most honest and simplest thing to say that October 7th in Israel was horrible and all hostages must be returned, but the same goes for the genocide, humanitarian crisis and famine in Gaza," wrote Marjorie Taylor Greene on X at the end of July.
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She is the first Republican in the US Congress to break with the party's stance and shows that skepticism towards Israel's warfare is growing noticeably among the right. This is despite the fact that Greene has harshly attacked Democrats in the past when they have publicly criticized Israel, describing them as anti-Semitic sympathizers of terror.
Marjorie Taylor Greene comes from Georgia and is a highly polarizing figure in the US Congress, known for her extreme right-wing positions, provocative statements and her penchant for QAnon - the first in the US Congress to do so.
Greene is not alone in her opinion on Gaza. Former congressman Matt Gaetz and Trump's ex-advisor Steve Bannon have also recently criticized Israel's actions. They warned that this issue is straining the president's relationship with his political base.
"Marjorie Taylor Greene is just a reflection of her constituency, I don't think she's in any way exceptional," Bannon said in a recent interview.
Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, sharply criticized Greene's statements, calling them "part of an ongoing pattern of her saying outrageous, outlandish and ridiculous things," according to theNew York Times. At the same time, he emphasized that Trump's clear and unequivocal support for Israel defines the position of the Maga movement.
However, Brooks also acknowledged that skepticism about Israel has increased on the right among younger people, which he attributed to their ignorance of the issues. "What we're seeing among young maga supporters is an ill-informed view of things," Brooks said.
He adds that it is a challenge to "educate this generation" while working with other groups. "I don't think they're anti-Israel, I think they're getting misinformation and being influenced by social media," he says.
Skepticism about the war is apparently also growing among the general population. According to a Gallup poll conducted at the end of July, six out of ten US citizens now oppose the Israeli campaign. Only 32% of respondents support it - the lowest figure since the survey began in November 2023.
But in the Senate, there is little sign of change among Republicans, with Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, saying there is no genocide taking place. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said the label was an inflammatory distraction. And when asked for his opinion, Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio simply repeated "Hamas! Hamas! Hamas!" Once the group lays down its arms, he added, "we're good to go."
Donald Trump is still sticking to his position. When he recently admitted at a meeting with European representatives in Scotland that there was a "real famine" in the Gaza Strip, he was contradicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump also announced additional American aid to "feed the children" in particular. He did not want to push Israel towards a long-term solution to the conflict, he told reporters on the presidential plane. This would simply "reward Hamas".
Incidentally, this was not the first time that Marjorie Taylor Greene had criticized Israel. At the beginning of July, she accused Israel of bombing the only Catholic church in Gaza and spoke of the entire population being wiped out by the ongoing war.
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She had previously tried unsuccessfully to cut 500 million dollars in US military aid to Israel; only six MPs, including the Palestinian-born Democrat Rashida Tlaib, supported the motion.
Greene once accused Tlaib of anti-Semitism after she criticized the humanitarian situation in Gaza at a pro-Palestinian demonstration.
However, the evangelical core voters of the Republicans apparently remain steadfastly loyal to the Jewish state. One representative of this wing is Trump's ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. He recently played down the situation in Gaza. "Is there suffering? Yes. Is it as bad as some Europeans claim? No," he told Fox News.
