Former Fox News host turned far-right influencer Tucker Carlson claimed Israeli security forces briefly detained him at the airport after a trip to Tel Aviv for a chat with former Arkansas Gov. and current U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
According to the Daily Mail, Carlson “flew into Tel Aviv for a sit-down with Mike Huckabee, who challenged Carlson to speak to him directly following an online spat about the country’s treatment of Christians. Carlson, who also frequently criticizes Israel for its military actions in Gaza, took Huckabee up on his offer.”
After that event, however, Carlson said that at the airport for the return trip, “men who identified themselves as airport security took our passports, hauled our executive producer into a side room and then demanded to know what we spoke to Ambassador Huckabee about.”
“Two sources familiar with the matter … told the Daily Mail that the Israeli government initially did not want to allow Carlson into the country, prompting a delicate negotiation involving the State Department,” said the report. “In the end, the Israeli government decided to not bar Carlson from entering the country in order to avoid a ‘diplomatic incident,’ according to a Channel 13 report.”
In recent years, Carlson has been caught in a growing divide on the far right, between those who align with the traditional Christian Right’s apocalypticist-motivated political support of Israel, who often legitimize their beliefs as support for the Jewish people, and the more overt neo-Nazi elements with antisemitic motivations against Israel, who often tie their cause to the increasingly dire welfare of the Palestinian people amid the invasion of Gaza.
Carlson has positioned himself on the latter side, having given a platform to overt Nazi apologist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. A publicly aired disagreement about the merits of this engagement caused a schism at the right-wing Heritage Foundation near the end of last year.
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