Short answer: No. Lawrence Wilkerson, the retired US Army colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, is one of the most consistent critics of Israel in American foreign-policy commentary. He has called Israel a "strategic liability," predicted its collapse as a state, and argued that the pro-Israel lobby improperly steers US policy. As of August 2026, he is alive and continues to make these arguments in interviews.
What Lawrence Wilkerson has actually said and done
- 2007: Wilkerson appeared in the VPRO documentary "The Israel Lobby," per his Wikipedia profile, made in the wake of the Mearsheimer-Walt "Israel Lobby" controversy. He argued the pro-Israel lobby, naming AIPAC specifically, had outsized influence on US Iraq War decision-making and questioned whether some Jewish officials' primary allegiance was to the United States or to Israel, a claim that drew criticism from commentators including Newsweek.
- May 2013: Wilkerson speculated, without presenting evidence, that Israel might have staged a false-flag chemical-weapons attack in Syria, in the context of that March's Khan al-Assal incident, as reported by Haaretz. The remark was revisited years later by the Washington Free Beacon, which in 2020 called it an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
- June 2021: Speaking to Massachusetts Peace Action, Wilkerson said Israel "would not be a state in 20 years, it would be gone," as reported by Mondoweiss. He predicted the country would become internationally isolated "as an apartheid state," the way South Africa once was, and called Israel "a strategic liability of the first order" for the United States.
- January 2024: Asked by The American Conservative whether he still stood by his 2021 prediction, Wilkerson said he was "reinforced in that view by the powerful nature of the pariah state Israel is becoming because of its utterly brutal war in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem," and argued global opinion had turned decisively against Israel.
- March 3, 2025: In an interview aired on Iran's PressTV, Wilkerson argued the US-Israel relationship is transactional and framed for American benefit, summarized in the outlet's own headline quote: "We use Israel for our purposes, it's not like Israel uses us: we use them."
- October 28, 2025: Wilkerson appeared on a Middle East Monitor podcast with host Jasim Al-Azzawi discussing Iran, Israel, and Hamas, continuing his established critical posture toward Israeli and US Middle East policy.
Who is Lawrence Wilkerson, and where does his view come from
Lawrence B. Wilkerson (born June 15, 1945) is a retired US Army colonel best known as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, where he helped prepare Powell's 2003 UN presentation on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, a case he has since publicly repudiated as built on faulty intelligence. Since leaving government he has become a prominent foreign-policy commentator, a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at William & Mary, a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, and a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
There is no public record connecting him to any Jewish-identity claim. His commentary runs in the opposite direction: he argues that pro-Israel advocacy groups, naming AIPAC specifically, exert improper influence over US foreign policy, a framework drawn from the Mearsheimer-Walt "Israel Lobby" thesis. Several outlets and commentators, including Newsweek, the Free Beacon, and the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Rubin, have accused him of antisemitism over these arguments, particularly his unsubstantiated 2013 suggestion about a Syrian chemical-weapons false flag and his "dual loyalty" framing of Jewish officials.
Since October 7, 2023, his commentary has sharpened. He has repeated and reinforced his 2021 prediction that Israel will not survive as a state, called it a "pariah state" over the Gaza war, and continued making the case in interviews through at least March and October 2025 that Washington's relationship with Israel serves narrow US interests rather than the reverse. Nothing in the public record shows any visit to Israel, any donation to Israeli causes, or any boycott refusal on his part; his record is entirely one of public statements and interviews, not direct engagement or action.
The bottom line
Lawrence Wilkerson does not support Israel. His public record spans two decades of consistent, sharpening criticism, from questioning AIPAC's influence in 2007 to predicting Israel's collapse in 2021 and calling it a "pariah state" in 2024 and 2025 over the Gaza war. He is alive and remains active in this commentary as of late 2025.
Wear where you actually stand
Whatever any one commentator argues, plenty of people still want to say plainly that they stand with Israel. If that is you, our I Stand With Israel collection lets you make the statement simply, without a debate attached to it.
Related
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
