Tucker Carlson’s recent visit to Ben Gurion Airport, which Carlson billed as his “fact-finding” trip to Israel, has provoked a storm of criticism. He met with American ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, insisting that Israel mistreated Christians, and refused to listen to Huckabee’s rebuttal. Now one of the leaders of Christians in Israel, Shadi Khalloul, has also taken Carlson to task. More on his response to Carlson can be found here: “Israeli Christian Leader: Tucker Carlson ‘Doesn’t Want the Truth,’ Endangers Christians Elsewhere by Lying About Israel,” by Debbie Weiss, Algemeiner, February 19, 2026:
Firebrand podcaster Tucker Carlson drew a barrage of heat from Israelis after claiming he was “detained and interrogated” during a brief stop at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday, with former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett calling him “a chickens**t” and “a phony” and an Israeli Christian leader describing him as “an enemy of Israel” for lying about the country’s treatment of Christians.
Shadi Khalloul, founder of the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association and a former Knesset candidate, accused the former Fox News host-turned-far-right conspiracy theorist of “destroying Christian-Jewish relations” all over the world and “endangering the persecuted Christian community in the Middle East” by portraying Israel as hostile to Christianity.
“The truth is exactly the opposite,” he said, describing Christians in Israel as enjoying freedom and equal opportunity.
In Khalloul’s telling, Carlson is choosing scenes and storylines that travel well online, then skipping the reporting that might complicate them.
“Tucker Carlson doesn’t want the truth. The truth doesn’t exist in his lexicon,” Khalloul told The Algemeiner.
Earlier this month, 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.
“If he [Carlson] was really willing to help, he would come interview us, hear our views, our narrative,” Khalloul said, adding the podcaster would then be able to “expose the oppression of Christians in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Syria, and under the Palestinian Authority by a radical Islamic propaganda agenda,” rather than “talking about me and my community as being persecuted by Israel.”
Christians are persecuted, to varying degrees, everywhere in the Middle East save in one place — the state of Israel. It is only in Israel that Christians enjoy the same political, social, and religious rights as the majority population. But Carlson didn’t want to be confronted with the evidence of that equal treatment; he refused Khalloul’s invitation to meet with Christians and to hear their views on how they are faring as citizens of Israel. Ηis antisemitic mind was made up, and he didn’t want to hear anything that might undermine his views on Jewish malevolence toward Christians.
He [Khalloul] pointed to anti-Christian violence in Syria, including a recent church bombing in Damascus, and to the arrest of Maronite official Moussa el-Hajj in Lebanon after he was arrested by Hezbollah operatives at the Lebanese border carrying money and medicine sent from Israel’s Christian community.
In Syria, the Christian population has plummeted from 1.5 million in 2011 to 300,000 as of 2024, driven by persecution from jihad groups, including the Islamic State (ISIS). Anti-Christians violence, including church bombings, has occurred in Damascus, in Tartus, and in villages in the Suwayda Governorate. Attacks on Christians continue under the jihadist regime, and Christians continue to leave the country.
In Lebanon, Christians were the majority — 56% — of the population in the 1932 census, but the pressure from hostile Muslims has over time caused many Christians to leave the country for Europe and North America, and now Christians make up only one-third of the population.
Christians may not practice their faith in Saudi Arabia; no churches are allowed; expat nurses who quietly sing Christmas carols in their own apartments, behind closed doors, have been promptly booted out of the country.
In Libya, arsonists set fire to the main Coptic church in Benghazi, and a bomb destroyed a Coptic church in Misrata. Other major attacks on Christians took place in Tripoli. Libyan Christians have been sentenced to prison merely for possessing Bibles.
In Iraq, the Bishop of Irbil, Bashar Warda, has warned that the church in Iraq is “on the edge of extinction.” In 2003, there were 1.5 million Christians in Iraq; that number has now sunk to 250,000.
In Egypt, the Christian Copts are not allowed to repair old, nor build new, churches, and Copts are subject to intense discrimination in hiring and promotion for jobs in academic institutions, in the government, and in the military.
In Gaza, when Israel handed over Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005, there were 5,000 Christians living in the Strip. Today there are only 500, a decline of 90%.
Most telling of all, in 1949, there were 34,000 Christians in Israel, while today there are 185,000, an increase of 550%. Christians in Israel are thriving.
somehistory says
to quote that other guy, carlson “can’t handle the Truth.” He doesn’t want it to reach his ears because his mind is made up to believe the evil lies the muzzies tell him.
The muzzies ‘tickle his ears.”
Wellington says
I used to admire Tucker Carlson. Those days are long gone.
Siddi Nasrani says
That slimy Tucker will lie through his front teeth with a smile, he know the truth, but he is paid a fortune by the Arab Emirates to lie about Israel, Jews & Christians.
He has sold his Soul to Satan. His God is Money.
crown says
I have a pretty good idea of how Tuckergate™️ is going to play out.
Eventually, Carlson’s career is going to be shattered by the sheer weight of the lies he is telling. The Qatar money will be revealed, showing that he is a totally unprincipled sh*t. At that point, he will join the ranks of the rancid Jew-haters blaming all of their ills on the Zionist Jews who, in their fevered imagination, control the world. “I’ve been censored because the pristine TRUTH I have to offer can’t be allowed out”.
What a turd he has become. As others have said, I used to watch him every night because he seemed to be a sort of righteous gadfly. Now, he has just jumped the shark. Must be one of those Zionist-controlled sharks. Or maybe Tucker was just a putz all along.
I AM THE INFIDEL YOUR ALLAH WARNED YOU ABOUT says
Tucker Carlson is pure garbage
࿗Infidel࿘ says
The next time anybody speaks out in support of Tucker – MTG, Carrie Prejean Boller, I’m looking at you – this statement from Mr Khalloul should be played back at him! There are a lot of Christian communities in the region who would have benefited by Tucker speaking out on their behalf
Israel’s obviously ain’t one of them!
somehistory says
Just goes to show, like the deceased pope, there is no love for Christians in the heart of carlson How can he claim to be one? Jesus identified those who are claiming but are really “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
Cynthia says
He’s a bought and paid for charlatan. Now he is number one in being a useful idiot.
First the Saturday people then the Sunday people.
OLD GUY says
Fired from FOX and now shoveling s–t for Islam.
Winston 101 says
Carlson was sorely embarrassed, on the public stage of his Fox program, for having believed in and supported the claims of the Iraq War apologists and sending in American ground troops and nation building.
Then there were no WMDs. And it turned out Muslims really don’t want Western Values.
Tucker pivoted from his “Conservative” view of Foreign Policy, that was responsible for his getting embarrassed to Leftist Jimmy Dore’s views on Foreign Policy – including Israel.
Carlson has not learned from his mistakes. He’s just reacts.
If conservative views were wrong about Iraq then leftist views ,that opposed the war, must be right.
Carlson embodies the Reactionary Right.