Tucker Carlson 'totally wrong' about Christian mistreatment in Israel, NGO founder says - interview
Khalloul extended an invitation to the right-wing American commentator in early February, hoping to shed light on the true experience of Christians in Israel, but Carlson had failed to respond.
Tucker Carlson is totally wrong about the experience of Christians living in Israel, according to Shadi Khalloul, founder of the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association and a former Knesset candidate.
In early February, he had invited the right-wing American commentator to his home in the Galilee to meet with his brother-in-law, the head of the Maronite Church of Israel, hoping to shed light on the true experience of Christians in Israel, but Carlson did not respond, he told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
Khalloul said he had offered Carlson an opportunity to hear directly from Christian leaders and to visit holy sites.Carlson has been vocal about Israel, regularly criticizing the support it receives from its closest allies in Washington. He also has repeatedly made claims of widespread mistreatment of Christians in Israel.
The media personality briefly visited Israel on Wednesday for a filmed sit-down with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. The interview focused on claims about the treatment of Christians in Israel and the wider region, people familiar with the matter told the Post.
“I wanted to take him to different locations in the Galilee, to take him to different villages of Christian communities, and let him hear the truth,” Khalloul told the Post. “I wanted to see if he will write about this truth if he would hear it in his own ears, but he didn’t respond… It’s not the first time I sent him invitations. Every time on Twitter I’m tagging him and sending him letters by email.”
This time, “I said, ‘Okay, he’s coming. It’s a good opportunity. Let’s invite him officially,’” he said, adding that the lack of response indicated that Carlson“doesn’t want to know the truth.”
Carlson conducted the conversation with Huckabee inside Ben-Gurion Airport and did not travel beyond the airport complex. He departed Israel at around 3 p.m., ending a trip that lasted only a few hours.
“He’s speaking about me, about my people who live here in Israel, and it’s totally wrong, total lies,” Khalloul said angrily.
“Maybe he’s serving Qatar,” he said. “Maybe he’s serving the Islamic regime. [I don’t know] who is paying him.”Asked whether he thought Carlson truly believed his rhetoric about Israel, the Khalloul said: “I don’t know what the reason is, why he’s doing it, where this hatred for the Jews and Israel [comes from].”
Carlson recently visited Qatar to attend the Doha Forum. Last year, he interviewed Qatar’s prime minister and foreign affairs ministers, as well as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Carlson condemned for platforming Islamists
Khalloul criticized Carlson’s decision to platform the Islamist officials. Much of the Arab and Islamic world is “very hostile” to Christians, he said.
“We build churches freely in Israel,” he added. “The state allows us freedom of worship, the freedom of movement, the freedom of speech.
“The reality of our ladies [is that] they can go out for work and drive their cars, and nobody harasses them, and go in the streets, and nobody harasses them, while in Arab countries, everything is the opposite: They are harassed. They are oppressed. They are living in fear. That’s the difference that people should know about.”
KHALLOUL CITED Syria and the recent bombing of a church in Damascus, where 25 worshipers were killed and 60 were wounded.
He also cited the case of Moussa el-Hajj, a senior member of the Maronite Church, who was stopped at the Lebanese border with money and medicine from the Christian community in Israel and arrested by Hezbollah operatives for allegedly normalizing relations with the Jewish state in his charitable efforts.
Iraqi and Lebanese Christians were prevented by Islamists from making pilgrimages to the land Jesus Christ once inhabited, Khalloul said.
“Lebanese Christians cannot speak with us,” he said. “We have families there, and we cannot speak with each other, because Hezbollah is oppressing them and will accuse them of being collaborators.”
“That’s the reality here in Israel: We have the freedom to speak with our Christian brothers and sisters anywhere in the world, even in countries that define us as enemies,” he added. “Why does Israel allow us that? Because they trust us, because they know we are not dealing with terror, we are not dealing with a spy against the country. We only talk about it as a humanitarian issue with our brothers and sisters on the other side. Does Tucker Carlson speak about it?”
Regarding reports of Christians being spat on in Jerusalem, Khalloul said the perpetrators were a “fanatic, tiny minority” and not an issue the large majority of his community has ever encountered.
“We condemn them as Christians, and we go against these guys, and we ask the government to punish them, and they are punished, and they are followed by the secret service and police,” he said. “But these are very tiny minorities that don’t represent the Jewish majority.”
“Christians feel free to walk in the streets, and if they are spat on, the people go to the authorities, and they will punish the guy [responsible],” he added. “That’s the difference. In Arab countries, they do suicide bombings on churches, and those jihadis go and are being praised by their fellows in these countries.”
Carlson's comments actively causing divisions
Khalloul, who runs a coexistence project for youths and is currently working to establish an Aramaic village, said Carlson’s comments on the safety of Christians in Israel were not just incorrect; they were actively creating divisions.
“We enjoy life, and he’s trying to show the opposite image of us and of our Israel,” he said. “It’s even destroying our alliance as people here together, and this is something that bothers me.”
“It also destroys the connection and the beautiful life, the coexistence that we are living here in Israel,” he added. “And that’s very, very dangerous, and I don’t want to have my children who are living here suffer because this Tucker is pushing only a satanic agenda, propaganda, and lies, and spreading these lies will actually make a wall between the Jewish community and us.”
Asked how that would impact his children, Khalloul said he feared his Jewish neighbors would begin thinking that his community hated them, and it would create more hatred in response.
“Maybe these guys will hate us, and they will think that everybody thinks like Tucker Carlson, and they hate the Jews,” Khalloul said. “He is hurting our existence.”
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.
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