Right-wing firebrand rips Israel while defending whites-only Arkansas town

Right-wing pundit and erstwhile Trump promoter Ann Coulter claims that Israel practices “de jure and de facto discrimination” in Tel Aviv.

By World Israel News Staff

Right-wing commentator Ann Coulter falsely accused Israel of practicing discrimination in Tel Aviv as she defended a whites-only homesteading group in Arkansas that is facing a federal civil rights lawsuit.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Coulter criticized The New York Times for its coverage of Return to the Land, a private homesteading association in rural Arkansas that describes itself as a community for white Christians and has been accused in court of excluding applicants on the basis of race and religion.

“NYT covers a private white homesteading club in Arkansas like a LYNCHING. NYC Co-ops, Tel Aviv, and the Hamptons do the exact same thing. You’re only allowed to discriminate against white people — not anyone else,” Coulter wrote.

Coulter made similar remarks on a podcast, describing Return to the Land as “some little group in Arkansas, backwoods of Arkansas” on 130 acres “near nothing.”

“The closest grocery store is 30 miles away,” she said. “And they want to start a membership club for white Christian straight homesteaders.”

Coulter described the group as “kind of a small, distinctive group, alone in Arkansas bothering no one.”

She also attacked the Times reporters who covered Return to the Land, including Debra Kamin, saying that “in Tel Aviv where one of the New York Times reporters lives, they actually practice de jure and de facto discrimination in Tel Aviv.”

Tel Aviv-Yafo, home to nearly half a million people, had a Jewish majority of 88.5% in 2023, while non-Druze Arabs made up 5.6% of the city’s population.

Contrary to Coulter’s claims, there are no policies restricting non-Jewish Israeli citizens or legal residents from living in Tel Aviv.

The comments followed a column Coulter published Monday on her website under the headline “NYT: Only the Rich Can Discriminate,” in which she argued that elite communities and private housing arrangements are tolerated when they exclude or price out others, but not when a white identitarian group tries to form its own enclave.

“Given her abhorrence of segregation, it’s odd that Kamin lives in Tel Aviv, a city that enthusiastically practices both de jure and de facto segregation and is wildly undiverse,” Coulter wrote. “In fact, there is no city in America as white as Tel Aviv is Jewish; not Dubuque, Iowa; Burlington, Vermont; or Livonia, Michigan (once called ‘the whitest city in America’).”

She later added a correction comparing Tel Aviv to wealthy New York summer communities.

“The places where people like Times reporters summer are as white as Tel Aviv is Jewish,” Coulter wrote. “Well-heeled New Yorkers would have to drive pretty far from their homes in East and South Hampton, Rhinebeck and Chatham, New York, to find Our Greatest Strength.”

Coulter also wrote that Kamin had mocked Return to the Land’s founders for saying they wanted to “preserve their culture,” and asked whether the Hamptons’ and Tel Aviv’s “impressive lack of diversity” amounted to the same thing.

Return to the Land founder Eric Orwoll responded approvingly on X.

“So true!” Orwoll wrote. “And now we’re in a lawsuit backed by the NAACP because we didn’t admit a wealthy Jewish woman with a Black husband who’s politically active against anything pro-White, and who probably hates people like us, into our private, European heritage club.”

The woman at the center of the lawsuit, Michelle Walker, is not herself Jewish, and identifies as a Christian, though she has stated she has Jewish ancestry.

The lawsuit alleges that Walker was denied the chance to buy land because of her Jewish ancestry and because she has a black husband and biracial children.

The suit, filed in federal court in Arkansas, names Return to the Land, its Ozarks chapter and several officers. It says the group’s founders are “explicitly attempting to establish an all-white community” and alleges violations of federal and state fair housing and civil rights laws.

The complaint says Walker was asked during the application process about her ancestry, religion and family. Return to the Land has promoted itself as a private membership association for people with “traditional views and common continental ancestry,” according to AP.