Tucker Carlson Accuses Israel of ‘Killing Christians’ In Interview with Pastor Who Noted ‘Strength of the Palestinian Person’ On October 7
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Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson accused Israel of persecuting Christians during a friendly interview with a Palestinian pastor that sparked outrage from conservative commentators.
After an extensive prologue in which Carlson asserted that “a consistent but almost never noted theme of American foreign policy is that it is always the Christians who suffer,” the ex-cable news veteran brought Reverend Munther Isaac, a pastor from Bethlehem — which is controlled by the Palestinian Liberation Organization — into the fold to opine on the Israeli government’s treatment of Christians.
Notably, Isaac has been accused of being sympathetic to the October 7 terrorist attack the day after it occurred, on the basis of a translation of a sermon he delivered in Arabic.
According to a professional translation solicited by 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 same sermon, he said that in the targeting of innocent civilians attending a music festival in southern Israel “left a strong impression” on him, but not for the reasons one might think.
“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.”
Carlson and Isaac’s conversation focused on Christian casualties in the ongoing war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza, as well as the American ally’s treatment of Christians more generally. In one notable moment, Isaac falsely claimed that Christians residing in Israel were not allowed to evangelize to others.
Carlson, meanwhile, suggested that “self-professed Christians” in the United States were “sending money to oppress Christians in the Middle East,” and asked a number of leading questions, wondering why “evangelical leaders in the United States care much more about the highly secular government of Israel than they care about Christian communities in the Middle East?”
“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,” suggested Carlson. He did not say whether he thought a similar standard should have been enforced during 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,” concluded Carlson toward the end of the interview.
Carlson has been laying the groundwork for more overt criticism of Israel since October 7. Just a few days after the attack, he objected to calls for the destruction of Hamas, the terrorist organization that carried it out, and brought Vivek Ramaswamy on his show, who attributed support for Israel to “financial and corrupting influences.”
Later, he hosted Candace Owens for a softball interview amid her feud with Ben Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew, over the conflict. Shortly after that, Carlson asserted that Shapiro’s concern for Israel proved that he doesn’t “care” about the United States.
