By Morton A. Klein, JNS
The lies spread against Jews and Israel by Carlson’s guests on his podcast are reminiscent of that same Nazi propaganda that led to the Holocaust.
For decades, the Heritage Foundation championed honest, intelligent, pro-Israel conservatism. The Zionist Organization of America proudly participated in Heritage’s Project Esther to combat antisemitism.
But things at Heritage have changed.
In a recent, disgraceful video statement, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts defended, whitewashed and allied with Jew-hating, Israel-basher Tucker Carlson after he said Christian Zionists are “heretics” infected with a “brain virus” and spouted other shocking antisemitic libels, while fawningly interviewing hateful, Jew-bashing, Holocaust-denying, neo-Nazis and racists, including Nick Fuentes, Darryl Cooper, Munther Isaac and Dave Collum.
Roberts outrageously emphasized that Carlson “will always be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation” and attacked those who rightly oppose Carlson, calling them a “venomous coalition” and a “globalist class” of “bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda,” echoing the “dual loyalty” libel used against Jews. Roberts also falsely accused all who oppose Carlson of “slander” and attempted to sow division between America and Israel.
Sickeningly, Roberts opposed “canceling” Nick Fuentes, a neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier, even though refusing to give neo-Nazis platforms is simply basic morality.
It is painful but necessary for the ZOA to make it clear that if Roberts does not retract and apologize for his statements praising with Carlson and vilifying the podcaster’s critics—and if Heritage doesn’t end all relations with Carlson, including stopping funding of his podcast—then the ZOA will have no choice but to cut ties with Heritage, including its participation in Project Esther.
As the child of Holocaust survivors who lost most of my family in the Shoah, I was taught by my parents that the foundations for the Holocaust began with extraordinary and frightening propaganda lies against the Jews. These lies spread against Jews and Israel by Carlson’s guests on his podcast are reminiscent of that same Nazi propaganda. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and Nation of Islam founder Louis Farrakhan would be proud of Carlson’s podcasts. Would Heritage ever affiliate with them?
Roberts’s only response to ZOA’s calls for him to apologize and disassociate from Carlson was a tweet condemning Fuentes for his support of antisemitism, Holocaust denial, misogyny, admiration for Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler, calling for the death of Jews, fomenting Jew-hatred and the goal of a “total Aryan victory.”
But Roberts has failed to retract his support of Carlson, making him unfit to continue as Heritage’s president.
As for Carlson, his record has become abominable. He is blatantly attempting to turn conservatives into antisemites and Israel-haters; as such, no decent organization should give him credence. He targets pro-Israel conservative news commentators Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro by falsely claiming that they are Israel-firsters who don’t care about the United States, who want wars to protect Israel and who are willing to endanger American soldiers.
Carlson has called the attacks on Iran’s nuclear program “the utterly pointless bombing of Iran,” saying the Islamic Republic is “not even in the top 25 threats to us.” Never mind that Tehran’s nukes endanger America. He tweeted that those who advocated for the United States to strike Iran and stop its nuclear-weapons program, including “Sean Hannity, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson,” were “warmongers” and “who casually encourage violence” and called those who support the Iranian and Palestinian regimes, “those who seek to prevent violence” and “peacemakers.” Terrorists are peacemakers?
In addition to saying that Christian Zionists are infected with a “brain virus” (apparently, U.S. President Donald Trump, Speaker of the House Tim Johnson, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and even some of this country’s leading figures like Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan all had the virus), Carlson called the movement “heresy,” saying he dislikes Christian Zionists “more than anybody.”
Carlson also abused his platform at the funeral for Christian Zionist Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, to invoke the anti-Jewish Christ-killing blood libel that led to the murder of millions of Jews throughout history. During an interview with Palestinian Hamas supporter Pastor Munther Isaac, he blamed “American weapons” for a murder at the Church of the Nativity in 2002, after dozens of Palestinian Arab gunmen seized the church and held its occupants hostage.
And it doesn’t stop there. During his interview with Isaac, Carlson helped his guest trot out every imaginable anti-Israel blood libel and falsely portray Israel as targeting Christians while ignoring the fact that Hamas, Islamists and the Palestinian Authority are the real persecutors of Christians. For instance, after the pastor falsely blamed Israel for Christians leaving the city of Bethlehem over the course of years, Carlson libelously added, “So you have people in the United States, self-professed Christians, who are sending money to oppress Christians in the Middle East.” (In fact, after the Palestinian Authority took over Bethlehem in the Oslo Accords, the Muslims mercilessly discriminated against, harassed and wrongly arrested Christians that led to them fleeing from Bethlehem.)
Carlson has also praised and platformed Hitler apologist Darryl Cooper as “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” Yet Cooper claims that the Nazis didn’t intend to kill Jews and blamed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and not Hitler, as the “chief villain” responsible for World War II.
Another horrendous Carlson interviewee, Dave Collum, shockingly argued that “one could make the case we should have sided with Hitler and fought Stalin.”
As president of the ZOA and a child of Holocaust survivors, I vowed to combat Jew-hatred everywhere it emerges. Sadly, Jew-hatred and hatred of the Jewish state have emerged with Carlson and, by association, Heritage’s alliance with Carlson.
Ironically, the podcaster is methodically doing exactly what he had decried antisemite political commentator Pat Buchanan for doing in the 1990s. At the time, Carlson stated: “It’s this … relentless bringing up topics related to Judaism … [Buchanan] always beats up on Goldman Sachs but never Morgan Stanley … . I’m not throwing the term antisemite around, but you reach a point when you say, ‘Well, gee, you know, here’s a guy who has gone out of his way to defend … accused Nazi war criminals, who’s constantly attacked Israel, who’s attacked American Jews for supporting Israel unduly, who’s implied that American Jews push America into wars in which non-Jews die.’ … there is a pattern with Pat Buchanan of needling the Jews. Is that antisemitic? Yeah!”
Respected conservative Catholic intellectual William F. Buckley eventually pushed antisemite Buchanan out of the conservative movement. Heritage and all conservatives need to likewise jettison Carlson.
