Last week, Kevin Roberts, the President of the Heritage Foundation, a prestigious conservative think tank, issued a video in which he made it very clear that they will stick by their association with Tucker Carlson, despite his anti-Israel and anti-Semitic stances. Worse, Carlson invited as a guest the virulently anti-Semitic Nick Fuentes.
Fuentes is an open admirer of Hitler and a downplayer of the Holocaust. Carlson, in that interview, said that Christian supporters of Israel suffer from a “mind virus,” while Fuentes lamented the challenge Christians faced from “organized Jewry.”
Roberts, for his part, condemned as abhorrent some of the things that Fuentes says. He nonetheless slammed the “venomous coalition of bad actors” who are “serving someone else’s agenda” and “sowing division” in calling for Carlson’s suppression.
To their credit, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Ted Cruz were quick to condemn Roberts. “Conservatives should feel under no obligation to carry water for anti-Semites,” said McConnell. And Senator Cruz blasted Carlson and Fuentes while issuing strong condemnation of Roberts for not taking a clear stand on either.
What I find intriguing is that the perpetrator is always ready to claim foul – that they are victims of some type of organized bias. Here, Carlson is clearly the one who is “sowing division,” yet his defense is that he is a victim of a “coalition” lined up against him. During the Black Lives Matter revolution, when cities were being burned to the ground, those who dared criticize them were called racist. In fact, when any African American politician is criticized, the charge of racism quickly arises. Now with Zohran Mamdani, who is totally divisive with his anti-Israel rhetoric, he is quick to have others like Rashida Tlaib criticize his detractors as Islamophobic. He himself raised the specter of Islamophobia by recalling his “aunt” who was afraid to ride the subway in her hijab following 9/11. Excuse me, but wasn’t it those hijab-wearing comrades of yours who blew up the World Trade Center?
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld is the Rabbi Emeritus of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, former President of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, and the Rabbinic Consultant for the Queens Jewish Link.
