Carlson has regularly accused Israel of persecuting and even killing Christians, despite the fact that they enjoy freedom and equal opportunity in the Jewish state.
By Corey Walker, The Algemeiner
An Israeli Christian leader and a prominent American Jewish pundit on Monday night pushed back on efforts on the political right, especially in the United States, to defame Israel and dismantle Judeo-Christian unity, exposing what they described as the malign motivations of some of the world’s most watched online personalities.
In a sit-down discussion at David’s Harp Hotel in northern Israel, Shadi Khalloul and Josh Hammer castigated the notion that Israel oppresses and marginalizes Christians, an assertion popularized by far-right podcast hosts Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.
Khalloul, founder of the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association and a former Knesset candidate, suggested that Qatar has possibly paid Carlson to spread falsehoods about the Jewish state, noting a broader Qatari effort to ruin the reputation of the Jewish state through infiltrating popular media and trusted institutions such as university curricula.
“One of the conditions” to accept Qatari money, according to Khalloul, “is to speak badly about Israel and Jews in order to weaken the state of Israel.”
He argued that support from the broader Christian world is “essential for the state of Israel.”
Carlson, who in December revealed his plans to purchase a home in Qatar, has regularly accused Israel of persecuting and even killing Christians, despite the fact that they enjoy freedom and equal opportunity in the Jewish state.
In February, Khalloul invited Carlson to a tour of Christian communities and holy sites in Israel, including a meeting with his brother-in-law, the head of the Maronite Church of Israel, but received no response.
Khalloul argued on Monday night that Muslim-majority areas are “more dangerous” for Christians, calling attention to the mistreatment they face in public venues.
Conversely, he added, Israel treats Christians with dignity and respect.
“You will not be able to walk freely in markets without being harassed by Muslims,” he said. “It’s a culture in which they do not know what respect is. Unfortunately, I don’t know why.”
Khalloul cautioned that the Islamic world’s campaign against Israel is part of a larger crusade against Western civilization, contending that Islamists will not relent until they eventually capture Europe.
“Under [the Islamic world’s] holy doctrine, whatever was conquered by them in the 7th century, and it was occupied by them, should not come back to the original people. It becomes Islamic land,” he said.
“By the way, Spain was conquered for over 700 years,” he added.
However, Khalloul lamented the rise of what he called “Jewish extremists” in Judea and Samaria, arguing that the documented attacks by settlers harms Israel’s image and inflames tensions with the global Christian community.
“They close progress to all of us. They make damage to the Israeli reputation even though they don’t represent even a half of a percent of the population,” he said.
Khalloul also revealed that he’s helping spearhead a project to build the world’s only town catering to the Aramaic Christian faith, an opportunity he contends only the Jewish state makes possible.
Meanwhile, Hammer, senior editor-at-large of Newsweek and host of “The Josh Hammer Show,” lamented the rise of antisemitism on the American political right, describing it as part of a broader effort to weaken Western civilization as a whole.
“The attempt to fracture the ecumenical biblical alliance that built the West is ultimately an attempt to tear down America and the West itself,” he said.
“This information operation is the greatest gift that China, Russia, Islamism, and America’s other greatest foes could ever ask for. It is, in short, evil — and it must be confronted head-on and stopped in its tracks before it takes us all down.”
Hammer, who is Jewish, stated that Carlson and Owens are both operating as chaos agents to demoralize the American right and undermine US interests.
Carlson and Owens, two of the most famous and popular right-wing commentators, have spent the better part of the last three years, in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, using their platforms to attack Israel and promote antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Carlson has repeatedly platformed Holocaust deniers, cast doubt on the characterization of Hamas as a terrorist group, downplayed the extent of the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, and accused Israel of “apartheid” in Judea and Samaria and “genocide” in Gaza.
Owens has been far more aggressively antisemitic, calling Judaism a “demonic” and “pedophilic” religion and accusing Jews of hunting and murdering Christians.
Hammer took aim at widespread allegations on social media that Israel intentionally bombed Christian churches or prevents Christians from engaging in religious practices in the Middle East.
He said that these falsehoods spread like “wildfire” online with the explicit purpose of harming Israel’s reputation.
Hammer noted that these allegations often lack context, omitting the well-known practice of Hamas repurposing Christian churches as military operations centers in an attempt to goad Israel into striking them.
