Conservatives and Jews and are lashing out at Tucker Carlson, who has exposed his true colors, after a scathing podcast episode in which he was highly critical of Israel.
Carlson accused Israel of persecuting Christians during a friendly interview with a Palestinian pastor that sparked outrage from conservatives.
After an extensive monologue in which Carlson said that “a consistent but almost never noted theme of American foreign policy is that it is always the Christians who suffer,” Carlson hosted Reverend Munther Isaac, a pastor from Bethlehem — which is controlled by the PLO — to discuss the Israeli government’s treatment of Christians.
The interview focused on Christian casualties in the war in Gaza, as well as Israel’s treatment of Christians generally. “It would be pretty easy for Republicans in the U.S. Congress to say we support the government of Israel. But if you touch a single Christian, harm a single church, or prevent any Christian from practicing his religion, you’re done. Not a single dollar will come from the U.S. Congress for you,” suggested Carlson. He did not say whether he thought a similar standard should be applied to other conflicts in which “a single Christian” was harmed.
“If you wake up in the morning and decide that your Christian faith requires you to support a foreign government, blowing up churches and killing Christians. I think you’ve lost the thread,” added Carlson.
Allow me to respond to @TuckerCarlson’s interview here with @MuntherIsaac by talking about the facts, rather than speculating about whether Tucker hates Israel, or is an antisemite. He says he is concerned about Christians; I’ll accept that. But there’s no excuse for this.
First, a fact about Bethlehem. Christians used to be a majority there; they are now a minority. The Palestinian Authority has been Islamizing the city since taking control of Bethlehem 30 years ago. Israeli “occupation” is hardly the primary issue.
Another fact: Bethlehem has become an antisemitic city under Palestinian control, far worse to Jews than even to Christians. In 2007, I was told not to speak Hebrew there; in 2023, I was told to remove my yarmulke, or cover it with a hat. In the birthplace of Jesus, a Jew.
Rev. Isaac does not believe Israel should exist, a fact Tucker does not discuss. He also repeats many false claims about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, like the claim Israeli snipers killed 2 civilians in a church, which the IDF (which admits other mistakes) refuted.
Remarkably, Rev. Isaac criticizes the Abraham Accords, a peace agreement between Israel and several Arab states. One who is truly interested in peace should welcome that development. For Rev. Isaac, that peace deal is bad because it distracts from the Palestinian struggle.
Rev. Isaac is an activist who campaigns worldwide against evangelical Christian support for Israel. He tells Carlson evangelicals should not use the Bible as a basis for supporting Israel. He is entitled to these beliefs but they are not authoritative in any broader sense.
Rev. Isaac says Israel is “not as free as people say” for Christians, claiming it is tough to register conversions. (Bureaucracy is tough for everyone in Israel, due to laws dating to the Ottoman era.) Tucker extrapolates, falsely, Christians have “fewer rights” in Israel.
Carlson adds some of the interview’s most incendiary comments, suggesting that the U.S. should not give Israel aid if one Christian is killed and should not support a foreign government that he says is guilty of “blowing up churches and killing Christians,” which is false.
One suspects Carlson’s real target is Republican foreign policy. He mocks “self-professed Christians” in the U.S. whom he says are “sending money to oppress Christians,” another false and inflammatory statement. He attacks evangelical @SpeakerJohnson for supporting Israel.
There are many pro-Israel Christian Arabs (talk to @YosephHaddad). Concern about Christians would suggest backing Israel against Islamist Hamas and opposing Palestinian Authority policies. Tucker has taken his opposition to a U.S. role in foreign wars to an absurd extreme.
Pastor Isaac has been accused of being sympathetic to the October 7 terrorist attack the day after it occurred, in a sermon he delivered in Arabic.
According to a professional sermon translation quoted on Mediaite, Isaac said on Oct. 8 that he was “shocked the most by the strength of the Palestinian person who challenged his siege.”
“Every pressure gives birth to explosion,” he said.
Later in the sermon, he said that the targeting of innocent civilians attending the Nova music festival “left a strong impression” on him, for all the wrong reasons.
“There was a scene of Israeli youth who were celebrating a party, by its form, since the dawn. And suddenly they saw militants and fled. Maybe you saw them running in the desert, or an empty area. This scene turned my attention to the strength of the contradiction,” mused Isaac. “Youth come at dawn, party … next to the borders. Within the borders, people live in the most extreme conditions of oppression and poverty. And one is not interested in the other. This is, unfortunately, the reality of our world. And Gaza, continues not just to challenge the conscience of humanity, but it reveals the world’s hypocrisy.”
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