Marjorie Taylor Greene Responds to 'Jewish Lasers' Video

Marjorie Taylor Greene—famed for her 2018 conspiracy theory that a Jewish "space laser" may have been responsible for wildfires in California—has returned to the subject five years on, this time applauding reports of the early deployment of a new Israeli laser weapon.

"Love Jewish lasers. Space or land. Zap 'em!" the Georgia Republican congresswoman wrote in response to a video by The Wall Street Journal explaining the Iron Beam, posted by conservative commentator Jack Posobiec with the caption: "[Greene] was right about the lasers after all!"

In early 2021, Greene faced ridicule and criticism for her suspicions in a resurfaced Facebook post that the Rothschild family—a common target for antisemitism—may have used a space laser to profit from the 2018 wildfires. This led to the phrase "Jewish space lasers" going viral on social media, while a spokesperson for Greene described the allegation that she had used that phrase as "fake news."

The Iron Beam—a high-wattage laser designed to shoot short-range missiles and projectiles out of the sky, and intended as a replacement to Israel's Iron Dome system—has received renewed attention following local reports that it could be deployed in the current conflict with Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.

Since roughly 1,500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants staged armed assaults on Israel on October 7, including the killing of civilians and the taking of hostages, Israel has targeted militant sites in Gaza, while Hamas has continued to launch rockets from the Palestinian territory.

Videos on social media emerged over the weekend purporting to show the Iron Beam in action—in one case accumulating 2.3 million views on X, formerly Twitter—but fact-checkers at the BBC found the footage to have come from the Arma 3 video game.

While the Israeli Ministry of Defense and Rafael, the military contractor that developed both the Iron Dome and Iron Beam, denied the authenticity of the videos, according to CTech, an Israeli news outlet, they have not denied testing it in the current war.

Newsweek approached the Israeli Ministry of Defense and Rafael via email for comment on Monday.

Expected to be rolled out by 2025, experts have said that the system could work now, but needed to be hooked up to Israel's existing defense infrastructure.

"The laser works," Yehoshua Kalisky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, told The Daily Telegraph. "The only problem that I see is to integrate it into all the early warning systems. It's not a standalone system. It must be coupled with all the air defense. If it's not integrated, then it would be useless."

While the Iron Beam could prove cheaper than its interceptor missile precursor, it does have its downsides: not only is it less effective in wet weather, it also requires a direct line of sight to the target, which the Iron Dome does not.

Israel is not the only nation developing a defensive laser weapon system; in November, the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence successfully tested a laser cannon capable of destroying an object measuring less than 14 inches by 14 inches up to a range of 2.1 miles.