Tucker Carlson’s Christmas Tale: Fake Persecution, Real Antisemitism

Tucker Carlson depicts the Holy Land’s Christians as powerless and endangered—and casts himself as their self-appointed protector. Yet the evidence—from Jerusalem to Qatar, Egypt, and northern Cyprus—shows that his outrage is not about defending Christians at all, but about attacking the Jewish state.

In Carlson’s passion play, real places, churches, and histories are props that allow him to cast Israel as the villain. Christians are reduced to supporting roles so that Carlson can ride to their rescue. Their centuries-old institutions—exemplified by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—disappear. Their histories are flattened. And in Carlson’s tale, antisemitic tropes are repurposed to defend persecuted believers.

Carlson’s narrative collapses the moment one looks at the governance of Christianity’s holiest site—a place that embodies Christian agency in its purest form. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre operates under a rigid Status Quo. It grants primary custodianship to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Franciscan Custody, and the Armenian Apostolic Church, with smaller Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian communities also represented. These churches—not the Israeli state—decide who may excavate, who may restore, and under what terms.

In 2016, the Israel Antiquities Authority sounded the alarm that the Edicule was on the brink of collapse, declaring it unsafe and prompting police to temporarily close the site. Yet when a response was required, it was the Christian custodians who determined how the problem would be addressed and who would be entrusted with the work. They commissioned a team of Greek conservators and engineers from the National Technical University of Athens—experts with experience on the Acropolis and Hagia Sophia—to stabilize and restore the Edicule. National Geographic participated in the project’s scientific and documentary work at the behest of the Church custodians. Fredrik Hiebert—an acknowledged expert in Central Asian archaeology—was present as National Geographic’s archaeologist.

Later, when the basilica’s floor began to deteriorate, the same pattern held. The Christian custodians—not the State of Israel—initiated and directed the response. They commissioned an Italian team from Sapienza University of Rome, led by archaeologist Francesca Romana Stasolla, to carry out one of the most extensive investigations ever undertaken beneath the Holy Sepulchre. The work proceeded under a license from the Israel Antiquities Authority, as required by Israeli law. The scope, agenda, and personnel, however, were set entirely by the churches. Sapienza’s researchers excavated, documented, and analyzed the subfloor layers because the custodial communities chose them—not because the IAA directed or managed the project.

In both the restoration of the Edicule and the excavation beneath the basilica, Christian authorities exercised decisive institutional control—the very reality Carlson refuses to acknowledge.

In Tucker’s tale, he casts himself as the champion of Christian heritage. In reality, he wields Christian heritage as a cudgel against the Jewish State. His argument only works if Israel can be cast as uniquely hostile to Christians. Carlson’s script is consistent. The thinner the evidence of Christian persecution in Israel, the louder he gets. But when he encounters the real thing, he falls silent.

Consider Qatar—a country Carlson now praises and in which he intends to purchase property. Qatar permitted the construction of churches only in 2008, and only on the condition that they display no visible trace of Christianity: no crosses, no steeples, no bells. Each church must be architecturally indistinguishable from its surroundings, essentially camouflaged. All officially registered churches are confined to the Mesaimeer (Mesaymeer) Religious Complex on government-owned land outside central Doha. Here, public Christian worship is restricted, activities are monitored, and community life is kept deliberately out of sight. Although Qatar does not formally prohibit Qatari citizens from entering the complex, the social, legal, and political pressures effectively bar them from doing so. Qatar also bars the public sale of Bibles and other Christian literature, which are unavailable in mainstream bookstores. Oddly, Carlson has nothing to say about any of this. Why?

In Egypt, Christians endure the very abuses Carlson insists are happening in Israel. Christian inheritance law grants Coptic men and women equal shares, yet courts routinely impose Sharia-based rules instead. Coptic women lose rights guaranteed by their own tradition as the state looks the other way. In Upper Egypt, Christian women face open harassment, Christian schoolchildren are routinely bullied, and blasphemy accusations ignite mob violence that forces families from their homes. Oddly, Carlson says nothing. Why?

And then there is northern Cyprus—occupied by Turkey since 1974—where more than 500 churches have been desecrated, looted, stripped of their icons, converted into stables, or simply left to collapse. No other place in the region has seen Christian heritage destroyed so systematically. Again, Carlson has nothing to say. Why is that?

Christians in the Holy Land are not passive victims awaiting Tucker Carlson. They are institutional actors with deep histories, established rights, and control over Christianity’s most sacred spaces. Carlson erases this reality because it obstructs the anti-Israel—and ultimately antisemitic—tale he is selling.

Acknowledging the plight of Christians in Qatar, Egypt, and northern Cyprus would shatter the antisemitic trope Carlson’s rhetoric relies on. Therefore, he chooses to ignore the persecution of these Christians and flips the script. Carlson coos over the Qatari skyline and proudly announces his intent to buy real estate there. In an act of self-actualizing narcissism, Carlson proclaims, ‘I’m an American and a free man.’ His proclamation channels the quintessential ‘ugly American,’ and it conveniently ignores the grim lives of the migrant laborers who built the skyline he coos over. Unlike Tucker Carlson, migrant construction workers are not free men; their lives are widely described as akin to slave labor. But I digress.