Tucker Carlson is in the news because he just got dumped by Fox News. Some say it’s because of the lawsuit filed by former head of booking for the Tucker Carlson Tonight show, Abby Grossberg, against the network and several individuals at Fox, including Carlson. Grossberg says she “endured an extremely hostile work environment” and was subjected to antisemitic treatment by Alexander McCaskill and Justin Wells, both senior producers for Carlson’s show.
Carlson is accused of misogyny in Abby Grossberg’s suit—though not antisemitism. That hasn’t stopped the media from suggesting otherwise by
seeming to lump him together with McCaskill in blaring headlines about the suit
and perhaps with good reason: the scent of antisemitism does seem to cling to
Carlson, though there is never anything overt one can point to—no proof that
Tucker Carlson hates Israel or the Jews.
In a 2021 piece for Haaretz, “Tucker Carlson Is Now a Big Problem for pro-Israel
Conservatives” Jonathan S. Tobin writes, “One of the things that sets Carlson
apart from virtually any other prominent conservative figure is his distinct
lack of enthusiasm for Israel.”
On the Carlson show, the barbarous Assad regime in Syria is justified for its supposed defense of Syrian Christians. Worries about Iran or even criticism of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Tehran — as much of a Republican mantra as opposition to Obamacare — is never heard.
Nor, for that matter, is any direct criticism of Israel. It is, like Sherlock Holmes' "Hound of the Baskervilles," the dog that never barks on Fox at 8pm EST.
Even when he hosts figures from the left who are well-known for their hate for Israel, such as Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, a notorious BDS advocate, the Jewish state never gets mentioned. The same is true for frequent guest journalist Glenn Greenwald, another supporter of the Palestinians. Greenwald discusses his disdain for Big Tech censorship on Carlson’s show, but not the Middle East.
While Carlson never bashed Trump for his historic support for Israel, he seized any chance he could to single out the administration figures most closely associated with the Jewish state for attention and often vicious critique.
Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner was a particular object of Carlson’s vitriol. Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley — a favorite for Republican Jews and a 2024 hopeful who can likely count on the pro-Israel community’s support if she runs — is another Carlson punching bag.
That lack of enthusiasm has expressed itself
is through his pooh-poohing of the Iranian nuclear threat and its quest for regional
hegemony. More from Jonathan Tobin, this time from his 2021 piece, Why
are Tucker Carlson and Peter Beinart trying to help Iran?:
[While] Trump was careful not to get suckered into a war, [his]
vigorous approach to Iran, including the killing of its top terrorist—the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Gen. Qassem Soleimani—met with Carlson’s
disapproval. To his dismay, Trump’s policies on Iran were not much different
from the positions of the dreaded neo-conservatives that Carlson despises . . .
Carlson’s reaction to Biden’s attack on the terrorists who
killed an American last week was brutal, accusing the administration of “killing
strangers” in a “far-away land” and bringing “war back to the Middle East after
four years.” He mocked the idea that ISIS was a threat to the West and sees no
need for “counter-terrorism” measures. He also defended the brutal Assad regime
in Syria. Like Beinart, despite its genocidal threats towards Israel and his
aggression towards Arab states in the region, Carlson dismisses the whole idea
that the United States needs to do anything about Iran.
Curiously, Carlson is an outlier when it comes to the issue
on which nearly all Republicans move in lockstep: Israel . . . In contrast with
other Fox shows and other conservative venues, Israel is almost never mentioned
on his show. But though liberals and Democrats are the main targets of his
scorn, he reserves his greatest disdain for “neoconservatives” and others whom
he believes have duped America into fighting “forever wars” in the Mideast
instead of taking care of the needs of those at home. He seems particularly
angry at Republicans who have become beloved by the pro-Israel community like
former U.S. Ambassador the United Nations Nikki Haley.
Carlson is right that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have
been costly failures. But, like Beinart, he goes further and now claims that
Syria and its ally Iran aren’t worth bothering about.
These Iran apologists may start out from different points
and have different end goals. But both have little use for the alliance with
Israel and bend over backwards to dismiss concerns that Iran, and its Islamist
and authoritarian allies, are threats to America’s interests and values.
Many of those accusing Carlson of anti-Israelism and
antisemitism, both now and in the past, have pointed to ADL CEO and National
Director Jonathan Greenblatt’s call—to the World Federation of Advertisers—to boycott
Fox, pointing to Carlson’s “open endorsement of the Great Replacement
Theory.”:
Before I pause for Q&A, let me share with you another
vivid example of how hate speech and white supremacy is moving from the margins
into the mainstream.
Just two weeks ago on his Fox News program, Tucker Carlson
openly endorsed the white supremacist “Great Replacement Theory.” If you haven’t heard of it, this
is a virulently racist and antisemitic conspiracy theory that holds a secret
group of Jewish people are plotting to flood the United States with non-whites
and immigrants in order to commit “white genocide.”
Lots of us see the ADL and Greenblatt as irredeemably radical
left, among them, this writer. We tend to discredit anything Greenblatt says or
does. Some, in fact, point to Greenblatt’s decrial of the former Fox employee
as proof that Tucker Carlson is innocent of these accusations and is neither a
conspiracy theorist nor an
antisemite. But even Greenblatt and the ADL sometimes get it right—just as a
broken clock is right, twice a day.
Ben
Sales expands on Greenblatt’s assertions:
On Monday, [Tucker Carlson] delivered a 20-minute defense of his “replacement”
idea. At the end he took aim at the ADL, saying its defense of Israel’s Jewish
majority and opposition to the return of Palestinian refugees contradicts its
advocacy for immigrants in the United States.
“In the words of the ADL, why would a government subvert its
own sovereign existence?” he wondered, referring to an essay on the ADL’s
website. “Good question. Maybe ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt will join
‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ some time to explain and tell us whether that same
principle applies to the United States.”
Perhaps this sounded simply like Carlson going after a group
that has been challenging him.
But for far-right extremists, his question went beyond a
debate about immigration policy. Carlson was alluding to a meme that has
traversed white supremacist circles for years and is a direct corollary to the
“replacement” theory: Jews want to replace white people in the United States
through mass immigration, the theory goes, but in Israel they protect their own
race by restricting immigration.
White supremacists often refer to this idea by calling for
“Open borders for Israel” — trollishly suggesting that American Jews should
support similar immigration policy for the US as they do for Israel.
“Open borders for Israel” was a rallying cry at the 2017
rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where far-right marchers chanted “Jews will
not replace us.” A Facebook group called Open Borders for Israel features Pepe
the Frog, a cartoon appropriated by the “alt-right.” An “Open Borders for
Israel” face mask featuring an anti-Semitic caricature is available for
purchase on at least one website, and a white supremacist group distributed
flyers with the slogan at Texas Christian University last year, according to
TCU360, a campus news website.
The contradiction only works in white supremacists’
imaginations. In reality, while American Jews tend to sympathize with
immigrants and refugees, few Jews actually call for “open borders” in the US
And many Jews and Jewish groups, including the ADL, are particularly critical
of Israel’s restrictive refugee policy, which has been a topic of heated debate
there for a decade.
In the “open borders for Israel” meme, white supremacists
take substantive debate beyond the pale of legitimacy. Beyond critiquing
policy, they suggest (falsely) that Israel’s immigration system is one more
piece of a Jewish conspiracy to destroy white society, and that Jews are
playing a dishonest double game by advocating separate policies for the United
States and Israel.
Responding to Carlson’s salvo, directed at Greenblatt and
the ADL, CAMERA Senior Research Analyst Gilead Ini tweeted:
Tucker is wrong because the ADL opposing a "right of
return" is about preserving a single, functioning refuge for an oppressed
people, slaughtered in the millions *as Jews,* expelled from their countries
*as Jews,* whose population today is still below pre-Shoah numbers.
Surely Tucker understands the difference between what's
described above and the situation of, say, Americans of English descent. But he
doesn't care. He's about dulling rather than sharpening viewers understanding,
for the sake of scoring his point.
Ini isn’t shy here. He says it very clearly: Tucker “understands
the difference” between Israel’s “right of return” and the Biden
Administration’s “open borders” policy in the United States. Carlson is
being cagey and misleading here, suggesting to his viewers that when Jews make Aliyah
to their indigenous territory, it is exactly the same as illegal immigrants
flooding the border in Texas.
There is more than a hint of antisemitism here, but only if
you’re willing to let go of loyalty to Tucker for the sake of loyalty to Israel
and the Jewish people. Tucker knows better—knows exactly what he is doing when
he says these things about Israel. The now-terminated Fox News employee is too
smart not to understand the import of his own words, and the theory that some
conclude lies behind these words. In other words, those who so “reasonably”
deduce that Tucker was pointing only to what he sees as the double standard of
the ADL, and not really suggesting that Jews have no right to immigrate to the
Jewish State, delude themselves. Otherwise, he would not leave the matter
fuzzy, unclarified, and open to interpretation.
Where do we draw the line in our understanding of Tucker’s equivocal
rant? Did his words mean nothing more than a pointed rebuke of the liberal,
two-faced ADL? Or was he couching his words to avoid outing himself as someone
who, at the very least, thinks that Jews demand special treatment. At worst,
Tucker may be, as Greenblatt asserts—though I am loathe to give the ADL credence
or legitimacy in these matters—a firm believer in the Great Replacement Theory.
In January of this year, Tucker insulted Ahinoam Nini, a
singer of international renown, known simply as “Noa,” no last name, outside of
Israel—her real name is probably too difficult for most non-Hebrew speakers to pronounce.
Nini is rabidly far-left, and her political views are anathema to Israelis on
the right. Under the cover of Nini’s leftwing politics, Tucker gave himself
permission to mock her singing and hand gestures. Then Carlson went further,
drawing attention to the fact that Noa is Jewish: “Yeah, and those people run
the world? They are so impressive!”
Was Tucker making fun of the Great Replacement Theory,
leftists, the singer herself, or the Jewish people? All of the above? Who
knows? Only those of us who have come to believe that where there’s antisemitic
smoke, there’s antisemitic fire, will interpret these words as yet more
evidence that Tucker Carlson is, indeed, an antisemite.
On October 6, 2022, Tucker Carlson hosted Kanye (Ye) West on
his show. Not long after, Kanye took to Twitter, in his now famous antisemitic
rant. You know—the one where he said, “I’m a bit sleepy now, but when I wake
up, I’m going death
con 3 on the JEWISH PEOPLE.”
The indefatigable Jonathan Tobin once more documented the evidence
of and the slippery nature of Tucker
Carlson’s probable antisemitism six days later, when he drew a line between
the Ye’s appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight, and the “death con 3” tweet:
Carlson became something of a tribune for conservatives for
his forthright condemnations of the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020 and
willingness to speak out on other issues dear to the hearts of those on the
political right. That made him a target for the left, with groups like the
Anti-Defamation League seeking to de-platform him for his discussions of
so-called “replacement theory” about immigration. This said more
about the ADL’s partisanship than Carlson, since the idea that demographic
change will alter American politics is one that originated with and continues
to be advocated for by Democrats.
Here again, the fact that liberal groups have already “cried
wolf’” about Carlson makes it easier for him to dismiss criticisms when he
actually does something to mainstream hatred. This is what happened in the wake
of the West interview.
Carlson embraced West because some of what he says is in
line with conservative views about race-baiting (his endorsement of a “White
Lives Matter” shirt) and opposition to abortion. On the program, the
rapper/fashion mogul was allowed to claim that Jared Kushner pursued the
Abraham Accords for financial profit rather than to advance peace.
Carlson is unique among leading conservative media figures
in that he is not a supporter of Israel. He is careful, however, to stay away
from discussions about the Jewish state, lest he run afoul of mainstream
conservative opinion, which is overwhelmingly Zionist.
The word “Israel,” thus, is a word almost never heard from
8-9 p.m. on Fox News. And it is not surprising that Carlson would allow
one of the Trump administration’s greatest triumphs to be denigrated in this
particular manner.
While Carlson trumpeted the interview as proof that West was
not, as many claim, a disturbed individual or a hatemonger, what was left out
of the broadcast was as interesting as what was left in. In outtakes that
have subsequently been published, West made numerous allusions to hateful
Jewish stereotypes.
He even echoed assertions of the Black Israelite sect that
African-Americans were the real Jews—effectually denying the existence of a
Jewish people. That Carlson would leave this out of his show demonstrates that
he was attempting to hide West’s anti-Semitism.
Days later, West dropped the veil. In a series of tweets, he
announced that he was going to “def con 3 against the Jewish people.” Yet
conservative talk-show host Candace Owens defended him, in essence instructing
Jews on what does or does not constitute anti-Semitism.
Like liberals circling the wagons around left-wing haters of
Israel and the Jews, Carlson and Owens are doing the same for West and for the
same reason. In each case, legitimizing anti-Semitism is considered justified
if it defends a political ally, regardless of the consequences.
Though Carlson censored the interview with Ye, editing out
all West’s antisemitic crazy talk, Tucker ended the show by, according to Vice:
“declaring that the artist—whose erratic behavior has for years been at the
center of discussions about mental health and how Black men with mental health
issues are treated— is ‘not crazy’ and ‘worth listening to.’ He also added,
approvingly, that Ye was ‘getting bolder’ in what he has to say.”
Was Ye emboldened by the interview with Tucker? Did the fact
that Tucker hid Ye’s hateful ravings from the public, encourage the bipolar
rapper that Carlson actually approved of these antisemitic sentiments?
Why did Tucker tell his audience that Ye is “not crazy,” “worth listening to”
and “getting bolder in what he has to say” if not to show admiration and approval for Ye’s
virulent dislike of the Jewish people?
The mask is slipping and some of us already see Tucker Carlson for what he is: a covert antisemite. Maybe it's time for Tucker to come out of the closet and put all doubt to rest. Unless, of course, he's afraid to be canceled—a process Fox News appears to have already begun.
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Wednesday, September 06, 2023
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