Tucker Carlson is “totally wrong” about the experience of Christians living in Israel, Shadi Khalloul, founder of the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association NGO and a former Knesset candidate, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
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 he told the Post that Carlson had failed to respond to the invitation.
Khalloul had offered to bring Carlson to his home in the Galilee to meet with his brother-in-law, the head of the Maronite Church of Israel, and hear directly from Christian leaders as well as visit holy sites.
Carlson has been vocal about Israel, regularly criticizing the support the Jewish state receives from its closest allies in Washington, and 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, focused on claims about the treatment of Christians in Israel and the wider region, sources earlier 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 explained.
“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,’” Khalloul said, adding that the lack of response showed him 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, the sources said. 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 shared, while becoming visibly angry about Carlson’s apparent attempts to represent his experience.
“Maybe he’s serving Qatar; maybe he’s serving the Islamic regime. [I don’t know] who is paying him,” Khalloul wondered.
When asked whether he thought Carlson truly believed the rhetoric about Israel he was sharing, the Khalloul answered, “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 for the Doha Forum and interviewed Qatar’s prime minister and foreign affairs minister last year, as well as Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Carlson condemned for platforming Islamists
Khalloul was especially critical of Carlson’s decision to platform the Islamist officials, noting that much of the Arab and Islamic world is “very hostile” to Christians.
“We build churches freely in Israel; the state allows us freedom of worship, the freedom of movement, the freedom of speech.
“The reality of our ladies – 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,” Khalloul described. “They are harassed; they are oppressed. They are living in fear. That’s the difference that people should know about.”
Khalloul drew attention to neighboring Syria and the recent bombing of a church in Damascus, where 25 worshipers were killed and 60 wounded.
He also noted 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 for allegedly normalizing relations with the Jewish state in his charitable efforts.
Khalloul said that Iraqi and Lebanese Christians were prevented by Islamists from making pilgrimages to the land Jesus Christ once inhabited.
“Lebanese Christians cannot speak with us. We have families there, and we cannot speak with each other because Hezbollah is oppressing them and will accuse them of being collaborators,” he explained.
“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. 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?”
Acknowledging reports of Christians being spat on in Jerusalem, Khalloul assured the Post that it was 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] – 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 also runs a coexistence project for youth and is currently working to see an Aramaic village established, said that Carlson’s comments on the safety of Christians in Israel weren’t just incorrect, but they were actively creating divisions.
“We enjoy life, and he’s trying to show the opposite image of us and of our Israel. It’s even destroying our alliance as people here together, and this is something that bothers me,” he shared.
“It also destroys the connection and the beautiful life, the coexistence that we are living here in Israel. 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 to clarify how it would impact his children, Khalloul confessed he feared that his Jewish neighbors would begin thinking that his community hated them, and it would create more hate in response.
“Maybe these guys will hate us, and they will think that everybody thinks like Tucker Carlson and they hate the Jews,” he concluded.
“He is hurting our existence.”
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.