Tucker Carlson's disgraceful pre-Passover modern 'Blood Libel' on public television.
By Jonathan Feldstein
If there was ever a doubt about Tucker Carlson being an antisemite, not anymore. It's clear that he's a card-carrying member of a club that embodies and propagates the oldest hate.
His recent 43-minute diatribe with Rev. Munther Isaac is nothing more than a modern antisemitic blood libel. How appropriate that he aired this hate and lie-filled program just before Passover, around which antisemites have propagated blood libels against Jews for millennia, accusing Jews of murdering Christians to use their blood to bake matza. Tucker didn't miss a cue, and his lies were as bald as the blood libel itself.
Manipulators of Facts. Tucker Carlson (left) falsely accuses Israel of persecuting Christians during a friendly interview with a Palestinian pastor, Rev. Munther Isaacs (right) while ignoring Hamas' sexual atrocities or murder of Israelis nor any mention of the hostages.
There are too many lies in Tucker's hate fest to debunk one by one. (These will be addressed in a follow up article.) What's clear is that Tucker was in his prime, inviting someone who is not also just a card-carrying lifetime member of the antisemite club, but who has made his career in it. Rev. Isaac hides behind a collar pretending that he's a theologian, but he's a nothing more than a Palestinian Arab Christian pedaling in 'replacement theology' - a doctrine that the Christian Church has superseded the Jewish people, assuming their role as God's covenanted people.
Throughout most of the conversation, Tucker sits silently, staring, absorbing Isaac's lines, and plotting his next ones. It's almost as if they rehearsed, with Tucker slowly lobbing Isaac a loaded question, and Isaac knocking it out of the park with baseless lies behind every swing. In some instances, Tucker interrupts Isaac to hone down on a point, but never once challenges even Isaac's most blatant transgressions.
Inviting Isaac for this platform is bad enough. Tucker and his producers should know better. It seems facts don't matter. The question one is left with is to what degree Tucker is motivated by gross ignorance, or malicious hate. But either way, he goads Isaac repeatedly.
One instance that was glaring, Tucker states that Evangelical leaders care more about the "highly secular" government of Israel than they care about Christians of the Middle East. This of course leads Isaac to excoriate Christian Zionism, based on a (false) belief that Christians must support Israel because the Bible says so, citing theological reasons with which he disagrees why this is the case. As if he's an authority, Isaac dismisses Jews as descendant from the ancient Israelites selected to be in a covenant with God as the Chosen People. This conveniently leads to the negation of the Jewish people being seeded by God the Land of Israel, hence no rightful Biblical claim.
Propaganda Pastor. Tucker Carlson's 'pastor from Bethlehem', Rev. Munther Isaacs. This high priest of antisemitic Christianity justified the Hamas October 7 attack and is on board of an organization calling Judaism a "dead letter".
Tucker continues to set up Isaac for his fact-less monologue, saying that the US is "paying for a lot of these military operations" that they claim, target and persecute Christians. Isaac doubles down on Tuckers assertion, drawing conclusions from the most sweeping and baseless generalizations.
By repeatedly delegitimizing Israel as secular, Tucker and Isaac suggest that Israel doesn't have a right to exist, and that God's covenant is conditional on whether the Jewish people are secular or religious. Tucker and Munther manipulate and trample all over the Judeo Biblical narrative and then use it to hold Israel to a different standard. If that's not antisemitic, I don't know what is.
One didn't need to watch the entire grueling program/pogrom to recognize the contrived diabolical drift. At the beginning of the diatribe, it was clear where it was going. Isaac conflates allegations of human rights abuse and genocide against all Palestinian Arabs in general with the status of Christian Arabs. He lets Tucker (and Tucker's vulnerable followers) believe that a war against a terrorist organization in a Palestinian culture - that allows, celebrates, and supports terror and kidnapping - is de facto the same as the situation for Palestinian Arab Christians. Isaac blames Israel and Israel alone for problems facing Christians rather than Israel's extremist Islamic neighbors.
This is a well-documented lie. Both interviewer and interviewee know only too well that the Christian population of Bethlehem – Rev Munther Isaac's hometown - used to be 80% before the Palestinian Authority took control in the 1990s, and that today it stands at a paltry 10%. They both also know that true cause for this dramatic drop has nothing to do with Jews - the traditional and convenient scapegoat - but the conduct of Palestinian Arab Muslims.
I've experienced this personally. A few years ago, I decided to buy custom made coffee mugs from a Palestinian Arab Chrisian from Bethlehem. The product is high quality but I also wanted to support Christian business in this once thriving Christian city. Off course, I could not safely enter Bethlehem, so we arranged to meet at an agreed spot outside the city. Everything was friendly and cordial until I suggested that we take a selfie together. "Why," he panicked as his demeanor morphed from warm, to cold, to fearful.
"What are you going to do with it?" he asked, clearly terrified.
When I replied that I wanted to share with my Chrisitan friends overseas who would be pleased to know that we were supporting Christian business in Bethlehem, he told me "NO"; he cannot have a photo taken. "It would be dangerous for me," he explained, "if it ever got out that he was doing business," with me – the enemy!
As innocuous as having a joyful photo taken, became for this hard-working Christian Arab from Bethlehem, a life and death issue.
In addition to slandering Israel as "secular", not once but four times, Tucker literally doesn't blink as Isaac accuses Israel of "occupation" a whopping six times, and mentions the "Nakba/catastrophe," "settlements", "siege", "genocide", "war crimes", "human rights abuse", "international law", "collective punishment", and "apartheid" all to slander Israel. Delegitimizing Israel oozes out of Isaac's pores, using these to blame Israel for the plight of the Palestinian Arabs. Never once do Tucker-Munther mention Hamas or the actual massacre and kidnapping that took place on October 7. Tucker does not push back once on Isaacs' barrage of attacks, even hinting that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority MIGHT be just a little responsible.
Carlson's True Colors. Carlson urged Republicans to cut off military aid to Israel saying, "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, prevent any Christian from practicing his religion, you're done. Not a single dollar will come from the U.S. Congress for you."
There was no mention of Hamas' sexual atrocities or murder of Israelis nor any mention of the hostages or Iran's fiendish influence. What Carlson really seemed to be saying without saying was that "Jews are killing Christians." It was a disgrace.
Master at mainstreaming antisemitism, Carlsons' conduct was nothing more than a shocking antisemitic interview with a Palestinian propaganda pastor.
About the writer:
Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians - is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
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