Tucker Carlson Questions Evangelical Support for Israel in Gaza Conflict

American Evangelicals are partly responsible for the deaths of Palestinian Christians in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, a prominent anti-Israel Palestinian cleric and activist told Tucker Carlson this week. That cleric is among many among the fast-shrinking Palestinian Christian population who highlight their opposition to Israel and blame American Christianity without acknowledging Hamas or Hezbollah terrorism.

“… many Evangelical leaders in the United States
care “much more about the highly secular government of Israel
than they care about Christian communities in the Middle East.”

Tucker Carlson

The Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, who serves as academic dean of Bethlehem Bible College, was featured by Carlson on his X (formerly Twitter) streaming show. The former primetime cable television host, who historically draws a conservative audience, expressed concern that the United States was providing aid to Israel in its ongoing conflict with Hamas. The radical Islamist group was itself unmentioned during the 43-minute conversation, which was limited to criticism of Israel and U.S. foreign policy.

Carlson, an Episcopalian, has more often been sympathetic to Evangelicals, and critical of his own Episcopal Diocese of Washington, including a resolution calling upon the denomination’s General Convention to “avoid the use of gendered pronouns for God” spotlighted on his Fox News show in 2018. More recently, Carlson has drawn criticism for an interview of Vladimir Putin, in which the Russian President was across two-hours afforded meandering answers by an interviewer unafraid to be confrontational with other guests.

Almost the entire April 9 interview was Isaac speaking at length, with Carlson leaving the Palestinian pastor’s claims unchallenged. Isaac, perhaps aware that he was addressing a more conservative audience, was himself more measured than in previous pronouncements, in which he has accused Israel of an intentional “genocide” against Palestinians, even as he live-streams from a studio in the West Bank with electricity and internet access and freely travels to the United States.

Isaac serves as director of the Christ at the Checkpoint, a recurring conference that seeks to neutralize Evangelicals as a key pro-Israel constituency in America.

Isaac is the pastor of Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, which simulcasts a Bethlehem Prayer Service with the Episcopal Church’s Washington National Cathedral. Isaac was among those clergy urging President Biden to push for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas. In Arabic language posts on X and Instagram marking Ramadan, Isaac, who has more than 37,000 followers on the latter platform, recently referred to the ongoing conflict as “the genocide war on Gaza”. Isaac also employed similar language in an Easter vigil, claiming “genocide has been normalized.”

Asked by Carlson how Palestinian Christians are doing, Isaac reported that they are fragmented living across the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. Many have emigrated elsewhere seeking a better life, and the remaining small religious community has been disproportionately affected. Isaac estimated that there are between 800-900 Christians in Gaza (the total population of Gaza was 2.048 million in 2020).

“When you look at the so-called Religious Right, we receive no sympathy, whatsoever,” Isaac insisted when asked by Carlson what aid or messages his community has received from Christian members of the U.S. Congress. “Sometimes we are just pleased to be heard, and to have our perspective taken, seriously.”

Isaac credited this to a “very shallow,” awareness of the situation on the ground all while holding “very strong opinions” formed without the aid of visits and investigations. Isaac decried American pastors advocating to “turn Gaza into a parking lot.”

“You have people in the United States who are sending money to oppress Christians in the Middle East?” Carlson asked.

“A lot of the money that comes from the churches goes not just to the Israeli military, but to the building of settlements,” Isaac alleged, insisting that financial contributions from American Christians were damaging to Palestinians.

Israel unilaterally withdrew all settlements from Gaza in 2005. Isaac lives in the West Bank, where settlements recognized under Israeli law have increased in size and those unrecognized have increased in number. The Palestinian theologian insisted this was facilitated by the confiscation of land from Palestinians, some of whom are Christians.

Carlson stated that it was very clear to him that many Evangelical leaders in the United States care “much more about the highly secular government of Israel than they care about Christian communities in the Middle East.”

Isaac attributed this to “a theology of Christian Zionism” in which support for Biblical Israel was taught, and now an end-times theology that the presence of Jews in the Middle East is seen as preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Reasons other than premillennial dispensationalist theology in support of Israel, such as Evangelical support for the rule of law and constitutional democratic government accountable to its citizenry, were unmentioned. Palestinian legislative elections have been indefinitely postponed since April 2021, with the last elections held in 2006.

Isaac placed blame on “not holding Israel accountable,” which he insisted “drove us to this mess right now with the catastrophe of thousands of Palestinians killed, and October 7, and all of that.”

Isaac’s brief mention of “October 7” was the only indirect reference to Hamas, which perpetuated an attack on Israel killing more than 1,200 persons and kidnapping 200 Israeli citizens and foreign nationals.

“We continue to say that the church has been part of the problem,” Isaac stated.

Asked about the destruction of a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza, Isaac noted that other church buildings had also been damaged and two congregants had been killed by Israeli snipers. The Lutheran pastor reported that the chief concern he hears from Christians in Gaza is a lack of food and medical care.

Carlson asked why Christians would not be allowed to leave Gaza.

“It’s collective punishment against all Palestinians,” Isaac alleged.

“It’s hard to believe that we would send any money to a government that would treat Christians that way,” Carlson said in response to Isaac’s words about the difficulty of transiting from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.

Isaac stated that the solution was “to put pressure on Israel to end the occupation” and that even with an Israeli peace treaty (the Abraham Accords) with other Arab countries “if you don’t start with the Palestinians, not going to help.”

Israel, Isaac insisted, “is not as free as people think” in regards to religious freedom, claiming that Christian evangelism is illegal there, and those who convert from Judaism face legal challenges since Evangelical churches are not formally recognized by the state as denominations. Isaac did not speak to the status of Muslim background converts to Christianity in the West Bank and Gaza.

Isaac also pointed to anti-Christian graffiti in East Jerusalem scrawled by radical Jewish groups.

“The impression that it’s flowery here for Christians is definitely not true,” Isaac insisted.

Carlson noted U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson’s support for Israel, citing the Louisiana Congressman’s Evangelical Christianity, and asked if there was anything in scripture mandating support for the modern, secular government of Israel.

Isaac articulated that there was a conflation between biblical Israel as a historic covenant people and the secular state of Israel birthed as a 20th century political movement.

“The Bible doesn’t talk about a chosen state,” Isaac noted.

“It’s the credibility of Christian witness that is at stake,” Isaac insisted of American politicians’ support of Israel in the Gaza conflict, such as comments by Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) that “It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick”

“They need to repent of these ways,” Isaac stated. (Walberg has insisted that his comments were taken out of context and “I used a metaphor to convey the need for both Israel and Ukraine to win their wars as swiftly as possible.”)

“If you wake up in the morning and decide that your Christian faith requires you to support a foreign government, blowing up churches and killing Christians, I think you’ve lost the thread,” Carlson stated, thanking Isaac “for his decent and sensible analysis.”

Prior social media posts by Isaac can be viewed below (clicking on the posts provides an option for translation from Arabic to English):

 نهاية حرب الإبادة على غزة. نصلي من أجل من أجل أن يسود الخير والعدل والحق في ارضنا وفي كل العالم.
Translated from Arabic by Google

Eid al-Fitr Mubarak to our beloved Muslims around the world, and our people in Gaza in particular. We pray for the end of the genocidal war on Gaza. We pray for goodness, justice, and truth to prevail in our land and throughout the world.