In February 2024, Tucker Carlson took immense criticism for flying to Russia to interview Vladimir Putin, an interview that I thought was important to happen. But the interview was an infamous softball, with essentially zero pushback or analysis from Carlson. Carlson claimed, however, that his role as a journalist is merely to give the public an opportunity to hear and understand Putin’s perspective, rather than to insert his own. Fast forward two years to February 2026, about one week before the Israeli-US operations against Iran began, and Carlson flies to Israel to interview US Ambassador Mike Huckabee. But this time, Carlson wages a full-scale debate on Israel’s right to exist, its record in war, and whether it controls the United States.

In stark contrast with his Putin interview, Carlson challenged Huckabee and maligned Israel every step of the way, seemingly speaking himself a majority of the time. Carlson has been opposing any intervention in Iran or American support for Israel, and he seems to have entirely forgotten his journalistic philosophy when it comes to the Jewish state. Carlson’s hostile treatment of Israel and the particular theories he peddles reveal his ideological hatred of the Jewish state.

The hypocrisy is staggering. Carlson sat across from a Russian dictator whose regime invaded Ukraine, targets civilians, poisons dissidents, and jails journalists, without asking him a single tough question. Carlson also interviewed Nick Fuentes this past year, a blatant ideological racist, sexist, and antisemitic online personality, again without any critique.

Yet, when facing an American ambassador defending a democratic American ally, which has had to fight for its entire history against neighbors seeking to destroy it, Carlson launched endless accusations. He falsely claimed that Israel harbors child molesters, murders children, and oppresses Christians. He further accuses Israel of forcing the United States into wars on its behalf, insisting that the tiny Jewish state pulls the strings of American government and foreign policy. In contrast with the Putin and Fuentes interviews, each of which is generically titled “Tucker Carlson Interviews …”, the Huckabee interview is emotionally titled “Tucker Carlson Confronts Mike Huckabee on America’s Toxic Relationship With Israel.”

Carlson claims to critique Israel from a secular, geopolitical angle, but Carlson goes far beyond ordinary critiques of Israel’s conduct in war. Curiously, the thumbnail of the Huckabee interview video on YouTube reads: “WHO ARE GOD’S CHOSEN PEOPLE?” Carlson tries to evoke a resentment of Jewish theology front and center while purporting to launch political critiques of the Jewish state.

Despite denying any animosity toward Israel, Jewish individuals, or the Jewish people, Carlson is obsessed in practice with casting the only Jewish state as an evil and illegitimate pariah in the world.

Performing a psychoanalysis of Carlson’s perspective on Israel is impossible from afar. Is it classic antisemitism, an adolescent-esque petulance toward a perceived constraint against criticizing Israel, or a resentment of the positive bilateral American relationship with Israel? We cannot know. The only thing we can know is the outcome.

Carlson has developed a pathological resentment against the Jewish state, seemingly a blend of anti-Zionism and theological antisemitism. That resentment boiled over in the most apparent way during the nearly three-hour sit-down at Ben-Gurion Airport. A little over two hours in, as Carlson’s emotions fully burst out, he exclaimed “Can you feel the resentment? Because it’s real.”

While Huckabee, a lifelong evangelical supporter of Israel, tried to ground the conversation in history, law, and religion, Carlson repeatedly and invariably attempted to demonize and delegitimize Israeli statehood. These attempts included agitated arguments that Ashkenazi Jews, who suffered and fled pogroms and a genocide during their diaspora in Europe, lack any actual tie to the land of modern Israel. While this argument ignores that ancient Israel is the genetic and spiritual origin of Ashkenazi Jews, it also ignores that the majority of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews from throughout the region of West Asia. Carlson exercises a specific form of Jew-hatred referred to as “erasive antisemitism”: denying the history and identity of Jews.

Moreover, Carlson drilled claims about Christians in Israel that are the opposite of the truth. Carlson repeatedly claimed and insinuated that Israel mistreats and oppresses Christians, despite the fact that Christians, as well as Muslims, are equal citizens in Israel with a growing population and legally protected rights, including Christian holy sites. Somehow, Carlson absurdly argues that Qatar, a country in which Christian public worship and conversion to Christianity are outlawed, treats Christian minorities better than Israel does. One day before Carlson published the Huckabee interview, he posted a separate interview titled “Israel’s Purging of Christians from the Holy Land and the Plot to Keep Americans From Noticing.” Outrageous lies like this are merely gaslighting. And that, combined with his glaring hypocrisy, is the big tell of Carlson’s pathological perspective.

Carlson does not want to uncover facts or understand various perspectives about Israel, as a “journalist.” He wants to instill and stoke hatred toward the only Jewish state on Earth. A few days after publishing the Huckabee interview, Carlson posted another video titled “Israel’s Sinister Agenda to Use the US Military to Defy Trump’s Plan for Peace.” Carlson’s aggressive obsession with Israel and its relationship with the United States cannot get more obvious.

Carlson has revealed himself. The mask is officially off. And this will only diminish the efficacy of his strategy on any rational person who is not already on his bandwagon. Carlson’s hypocritical crusade against Israel therefore backfires, and serves to further justify the necessity of statehood and self-defense for the Jewish people in the face of perennial hatred.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)