Charlie Kirk, a top podcaster and supporter of President Trump, was shot and killed by a sniper on Wednesday during a public appearance at a college in Utah. He was 31. Ki4rk was also known as a passionate advocate for Israel, frequently basing his pro-Israel stance in his Christian faith.
Kirk, an evangelical Christian, was powerfully pro-Israel and often debated pro-Palestinian college students in videos shared online. Kirk’s Turning Point USA has maintained ties with pro-Israel organizations and regularly hosted pro-Israel speakers at its conferences.
Kirk visited Israel in 2019 for a fact-finding tour that deepened his advocacy. He told a crowd at a Jerusalem bar during his second trip: “I’m very pro-Israel, I’m an evangelical Christian, I’m a conservative, I’m a Trump supporter, I’m a Republican, and my whole life I have defended Israel.”
Prime Minister Nertanyahu lamented Kirk’s death in a post to Twitter.
“Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking truth and defending freedom. A lion-hearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization. I spoke to him only two weeks ago and invited him to Israel. Sadly, that visit will not take place.
“We lost an incredible human being.”
“His boundless pride in America and his valiant belief in free speech will leave a lasting impact.
“Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog lamented the assassination, stating that, “Israel has lost a true friend and huge ally. I strongly condemn this terrible act of violence, and together with all the Israeli people, send my thoughts and prayers to Charlie’s wife, children, and all his loved ones.”
“The collusion between the global Left and radical Islam is the greatest danger to humanity today,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in his own statement regarding Kirk’s assassination. “Charlie Kirk saw the danger and warned about it. But the bullets of the despicable murderer struck him. Thank you, Charlie, for your support of Israel and for your struggle for a better world.”
Transportation Minister Miri Regev commented that Kirk was murdered “only because the propaganda machine couldn’t handle him. Charlie was a true friend and one of Israel’s biggest supporters. He raised a brave voice and fought lies for the sake of truth and justice.”
Morton Klein, CEO of the Zionist Organization of America, said Kirk had recently accepted an invitation to speak at the group’s national gala later this year.
“Charlie Kirk was a great man, a personal friend and an ally who loved Israel and the Jewish people,” Klein said in a statement. “I had the pleasure of walking all over Jerusalem with him and sitting for an incredible interview with him on his radio show where for over an hour, Charlie asked great questions to better understand the Arab-Islamist war against Israel, the Jewish people and the West.”
Israeli advocacy activist Yoseph Haddad shared a video clip of Kirk confronting a pro-Palestinian student and eulogized him after the news of his death.
“Charlie Kirk died from his wounds,” Hadad tweeted. “Murdered in broad daylight in cold blood in front of a large crowd. We lost a true friend of the State of Israel, a brave man who defended our country in the last two years with determination, confronted hostile pro-Palestinians and gave it to them straight without pulling punches, and did strong Israeli advocacy for us even though he’s not Israeli and not Jewish, out of faith and determination.
“When they tell the history of the war in the future, he will have a place of honor in the chapter on advocacy and the battle for public opinion in the world. This brutal murder is a dark event for the USA, but also for us in Israel.”
“We will remember him always.”
Pro-Israel influencer Emily Schrader added: “We cannot live in a world where violence against those we disagree with is tolerated.”
“Like all of you, I am utterly stunned and heartbroken and sick to my soul today,” political commentator Ben Shapiro wrote. “It is unimaginable to write these words. I met Charlie Kirk when he was 18 years old, a young man so eager and determined that I immediately turned to a friend and said, ‘That kid is going to be the head of the RNC one day.’ Charlie became even bigger and more important than that.”
“It was a privilege to watch this principled man stand up for his beliefs and create the single most important conservative political organization in America. But more importantly, Charlie was a good man, a man who believed in right and wrong, who stood by his Biblical values.
As a staunch right-wing conservative Christian, Kirk was sometimes misunderstood and wrongly accused of antisemitism. He opposed censoring anti-Israel protests on campus.
“Once ‘antisemitism’ becomes valid grounds to censor or even imprison somebody, there will be frantic efforts to label all kinds of speech as antisemitic — the same way the left labeled all kinds of statements as ‘racist’ to justify silencing their opposition,” he tweeted. “Not only that, but all of this won’t even work.”
After Kirk was given a prime-time speaking slot at the 2024 Republican National Convention, the Democratic Majority for Israel launched a petition calling on the Republicans to rescind their pick over what they called Kirk’s “long record of antisemitic statements.”
In a backgrounder about Turning Point USA from the Anti-Defamation League, the ADL accused Kirk of creating a “vast platform for extremists and far-right conspiracy theorists” and promoting “Christian nationalism.”
“No non-Jewish person my age has a longer or clearer record of support for Israel, sympathy with the Jewish people, or opposition to antisemitism than I do,” he posted on X in April, rejecting the accusation.