Posted on 02/26/2026 3:16:34 AM PST by Jan_Sobieski
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…
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“Christians have been fleeing the West Bank (where most Christians lived) in droves because of Jewish settler violence and shocking ill treatment from IDF and Israeli authorities.”
They are leaving because THEY ARE UNDER THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY and subject to abuse from MUSLIMS! Many of them move...TO ISRAEL!
Good grief. Bethlehem went from 80+% Christian down to 10%, and it wasn’t because JEWS were abusing them! There are no Jews in Bethlehem!
Facts aren’t high on things the Fuentes Acolytes care about.
Why are you calling the West Bank Israel? If it was Israeli land, annexed by Israel, it would thrive like Gaza pre-2005 and Israel proper today. Why are you a liar? That’s not Christian. It is Islamic though in permissible lying the Taqiyya. Are you a Muslim? Why don’t you read what Israeli Christians have to say about their country?
LOL…Do your supposed Christians even live in Israel proper? Or in Islamic dominated West Bank and Gaza? Christians expressing Israeli sympathies in the West Bank and Gaza lose their lives in strange incidents and accidents, or flee for their lives.
The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since they annexed it in 1967. Since then, Palestinians have been squeezed into “islands” in the West Bank surrounded by (and separated by) areas that are occupied by more and more Israeli Jewish settlers.
Here’s a map from the Beeb. It’s six years old and there are more Jewish settlements now, but it’s easy and simple:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-52756427
Here’s a rather long and somewhat detailed explanation of what has been going on in the West Bank since 1967, along with interactive maps (yes, this one appears to be in sympathy with the plight of the West Bank Palestinians, but I found no factual errors:
https://conquer-and-divide.btselem.org/map-en.html
No need to falsely accuse me of lying. Or resorting to claiming I must be A Muslim (eye roll). How about acting like a grownup and discussing facts instead of slinging wild unfounded insults? Doing so only makes it obvious to all you are on the losing end of and argument and have nothing but ridiculous insults to offer. I get that you are very emotionally invested in this issue for some reason or other, but goodness gracious.
Why don’t you listen to what West Bank Christians have to say? Why don’t you watch that video? Scared? Closed mind?
LOL. These are the various Christian patriarchs and bishops who operate out of Jerusalem. Is Jerusalem under Israeli control or Islamic control? The unfortunate truth is that it’s simply a wishful fantasy that more than a handful of Palestinian Christians are on board with “Christian Zionism.” You guys can wish and hope and pray that Palestinian Christians adore their Israeli overlords as much as you do, but it’s not reality.
They are leaving because of Jewish settlers (some of whom are violent), lack of security, restriction of movement, fears the war in Gaza will spread and economic hardship.
See:
“Since the 1967 war between Israel and neighbouring Arab countries, Israel has occupied the West Bank, which Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state.
Israel has built Jewish settlements, deemed illegal by most countries, across the territory. Israel disputes this, citing historical and biblical ties to the land. Several of its ministers live in settlements and favour their expansion. See:
“The West Bank has been transformed by the rapid growth of Jewish settlements over the past two years, with strident settlers pushing to impose Israeli sovereignty on the area.”
Also see:
But for the past two years, the doors of Christmas House have remained closed, Jack Issa Giacaman told Middle East Eye.
“You don’t see anybody around. Unfortunately during the last years Israel converted Bethlehem to be a big prison,” said Giacaman, who currently manages the family business.”
“Pressed up hard against the separation wall between Israel and the occupied West Bank, corralled on surrounding hills by settlements, and choked by a network of dozens of checkpoints and security gates, Bethlehem’s Christian and Palestinian identities exist under an ever-tightening siege.
Christians accounted for 85 percent of the population of Bethlehem governorate when Israel was created, but by 2017 that figure had collapsed to about 10 percent.
The Israeli assault on Bethlehem has accelerated at a blistering rate since February 2023, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handed Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Jewish ultra-nationalist Religious Zionism party and a settler himself, authority over the West Bank.
More from the second link,but this time about The Shepherds’ Field instead of Bethlehem:
“Bulldozers arrived in Beit Sahour last month to prepare the ground, triggering panic and fear among local residents.
“There is a sense of terror. A big spirit of sorrow and grief. The wound is still open. We are actively losing our land. We cannot conceive the idea,” said Dalia Qumsieh, a human rights activist and local resident who spoke to MEE before Sunday’s announcement.
For anyone familiar with the Nativity story, Beit Sahour holds significance as the place where angels brought the news of Jesus’s birth to shepherds “keeping watch over their flock by night”.
But every Palestinian knows what the arrival of settlers portends.
The destruction of an ancient way of life. The building of new “Apartheid” roads that carve through the landscape and redraw the map. Farmers - and shepherds - driven off their land. The smashing of agricultural equipment. Settler pogroms and daily intimidation.”
The wonderful Baptist pastor in the video I posted in my #7 is from Beit Sahour. Why don’t you give the video a chance and hear what he has to say about what life is like for Christians in the West Bank?
You’re not mocking Christian Zionists. You’re merely showing yourself to be biblically illiterate to God’s prophetic activities. BTW…Have you converted to Islam yet? The Muslims run Ireland and you worry about Jews!? ROFL!!
This conversation is not about Ireland... to which I have no connection beyond ancestory. But when we start giving $38 billion to Ireland, and Ireland starts asking us to fight wars with Iran for them, then we can start debating Ireland. You guys are just pathetic with your biblical prophecy stuff. Oh I see, the actual Christians other there (i.e., the Latin patriarch; the Maronite, Melkite, Syriac, and Armenian Catholic patriarchs; the Armenian Orthodox patriarch; the heads of the Coptic and Greek Orthodox churches; and leaders of the Lutheran and Anglican churches) are ALL WRONG about Christianity... and Mark Levin and your local preacher in Odessa, Texas, have got it right. Got it.
Reality isn’t found in bullshit propaganda. Ever been to a Muslim country? I have. Where does the violence come from? Hint. Jews are not known for murdering neighbors or teaching their children to become suicide bombers. And while Saudis turned a blind eye to Americans bringing in bibles for personal use, they reserved the right to confiscate them. Jews do not.
In Afghanistan, men killed their wives and daughters if they had been seen by westerners and insisted on the right to do so at any time. Never heard of a Jew doing that!
How many Qatari citizens are Christians? ZERO! It is illegal for them to be anything other than Muslim.
Peddle your garbage to someone who has never been in Muslim dominated countries! Been there and know better!
lol, no. Vance will be the Nominnee.
Christian stints is Jewish. The Apostles were all Messianic Jews. They wrote the New Testament. And that Bible is the bases of our Nation. The foundation of America stands on Messianic Judaism.
Tucker is the crackpot Judas. It is conservatives who are calling him out for being the turncoat that he is.
Yes, I have been in Muslim countries. I have also lived and worked among Muslims in other foreign countries where I was the only Christian for miles around. Let’s just say I don’t care for their false religion — at all. There are differences among them, though. The ones from Malaysia are far more civilized than from some other countries (like Afghanistan), but still I don’t care for their religion.
Yes, it’s horrible how many Afghans abuse women and children.
But I never mentioned Muslims. The issue is how Christians fare under Israeli rule.
I merely posted quite neutral articles (with one exception, which I noted, that appeared to sympathize with Palestinians but did not fudge the facts).
Yes, you can keep your Bible when you visit Israel. But if you’re a Jew who converted to Christianity, you aren’t eligible to make Alliyah under Israel’s Law of Return:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return
And Christian proselytizing is very much frowned upon there, and visas may be denied if you are suspected of planning to conduct “intense” missionary activity. Okay on both by me. It’s their country. And yes, it’s much worse in Muslim countries.
You do not want to believe that Palestinian Christians have been mistreated by Israeli Jewish settlers despite evidence that they have because — you have a very low opinion of Muslims and that magically makes all Israelis with Jewish ancestry somehow perfect angels? Because Muslim countries generally treat Christians worse than Israel does (and I agree with that) — Israelis therefore treat Christians perfectly? So you dismiss anything that challenges your opinion as “propaganda” and “garbage”.
Okay. People believe what they want to believe. I’d like to believe Christians in the West Bank are treated as well by Israelis as Christians in the US are treated by their Jewish neighbors. Only I can’t, because they aren’t. Once upon a time I believed all the Israeli propaganda (and there is plenty of it!), but no longer. No way would I donate money to help Israeli settlers (who displace Christians). I’m not interested in being part of that.
What I would like to see: Israeli Jews feeling safe and secure and prospering — and the same for the Christians there, all living in peace (including the Muslims being peaceful and living in peace with their neighbors). Yes, maybe an impossible wish, but one can dream.
LOL. I’m sitting here with a Christian Arab from Israel reading your post to him.
He appreciates your concern, but the only problems he’s ever had in Israel are: (1) Muslim Arabs beating him up; (2) the time in Middle School when he was held down by Arab boys, while a teacher watched, and they tried to make him say the Shahada; and (3) shopkeepers and others treating him like a potential criminal until they saw the giant cross around his neck.
I’m glad your friend had a better experience than many Christians in the West Bank.
They do come under attack by settlers (one example among many):
Huckabee condemned this settler attack on Christians:
Do you think Huckabee is lying about this attack?
Did your friend watch the video of the Baptist pastor from the West Bank I posted in my #7?
“The issue is how Christians fare under Israeli rule.”
Obviously and excruciatingly clearly, BETTER THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!
“magically makes all Israelis with Jewish ancestry somehow perfect angels?”
Perfect? no. But far better than anywhere else in the Middle East, where witnessing can get you killed.
The hubris of you people in believing that your relatively tiny group of evangelicals who subscribe to these wacky interpretations are the only true Christians is quite breathtaking. Your hubris will be your downfall... “quia omnis qui se exaltat humiliabitur”
I don’t doubt there are random attacks, but what you allege is hardly the experience of 99% of Christian Arabs in Israel.
Christian Arabs literally the richest and most educated group in our country.
Using a handful of random events to condemn Israel is like me condemning America because I had a giant red slushy thrown on me by a car full of blacks screaming “Jooooo”, while I was pumping gas in Houston.
Do I hate America because of that? Do I think I’m persecuted? No, I think the black kids in the car were assholes.
Now, if you actually want to know the facts, another poster posted (right here on this thread) a very interesting, in-depth, study by a Christian group who studies Christian persecution. Israel came out as No. 78 of 78. And, by far, most of the serious issues came from Muslims.
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