Controversial conservative political commentator and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson made several false statements during his Feb. 18 interview with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
He claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s family did not speak Hebrew and had no historical ties to the region.
This is incorrect: the leader’s paternal grandfather, Nathan Mileikowsky, was a Zionist rabbi who delivered sermons in Hebrew—uncommon at the time—and ensured that his family spoke the language at home.
His father, Benzion Netanyahu, born in Warsaw, was a historian of medieval Jewish history who spoke Hebrew fluently, taught Hebrew literature and served as editor-in-chief of the Hebrew Encyclopedia.
Netanyahu’s mother, Tzila Segal, was born in Petach Tikvah and spoke Hebrew as her native language. While the family has Eastern European roots, they were members of the Zionist movement, with documented Hebrew usage and ties to the Land of Israel dating back generations.
Carlson also claimed that Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s “pedo island,” while, in fact, he did not. The slander appears to stem from a 2014 Epstein email, released by the Justice Department, that falsely listed Herzog as a potential guest.
Under the threat of legal action, Carlson on Sunday retracted his claim that Israel’s head of state had any links to the convicted child molester.
Another allegation made by Carlson was that Israel intentionally attacked the USS Liberty in 1967, knowing it was an American vessel. However, all 10 official U.S. investigations—including those conducted by the Navy, CIA, NSA and congressional committees—as well as three Israeli military inquiries, concluded that Jerusalem did not know it was a U.S. vessel.
Instead, the incident was found to be a tragic mistake resulting from misidentification amid the chaos of the 1967 Six-Day War. Jerusalem apologized, paid compensation to the families of the sailors who were killed, and the United States officially accepted the incident as an error.
Carlson further claimed that Israel sold American secrets obtained from Jonathan Pollard to the Soviets. But U.S. investigations, including a 1987 CIA damage assessment, found no proof that Jerusalem transferred the information to Moscow; Israel has consistently denied the allegations.
Carlson then asserted that Netanyahu had “attacked” his children. In reality, Netanyahu has never mentioned, much less attacked, his family.
While Netanyahu has slammed Carlson’s views, including in statements and messages through intermediaries, suggesting that some of his rhetoric veers into antisemitism, he never referenced his family.
Carlson also claimed that Qatar has more Christian citizens than Israel. In fact, while some 400,000 Christians live in Qatar, they are primarily migrant workers on work visas; there are virtually no Christian citizens.
By omitting the fact that Christians in Qatar are non-citizens and subject to strict restrictions, such as limitations on public displays of crosses or church bells, Carlson’s claim is misleading.
The Jewish state, by contrast, counts some 185,000 Christians among its residents, most of whom are citizens with full political and social rights.
Israel’s Christian communities have grown consistently since the state’s founding in 1948, and members enjoy freedoms not available in Doha.
Sharp declines in Christian populations have occurred—primarily in Palestinian Authority-controlled cities such as Bethlehem, which has been under P.A. control since 1995, not within the pre-1967 lines.
Beyond these lies and libels, Carlson refuses to acknowledge that Israel has a right to exist.
When repeatedly challenged on this point by Huckabee, the podcast host declined to affirm the Jewish state’s right to exist, and instead preposterously suggested that Israeli Jews take a DNA test.
“Who are [Abraham’s] descendants now?” he asked Huckabee. “How do we know who they are? “What you’re saying is that certain people have a title to a highly contested region. They own it in some deep sense. So I think it’s fair to ask: who are they and how do we know?”
The U.S. ambassador responded that if people worship the same God and follow the same Bible, pray toward Jerusalem and seek to return there, “does that not give you a little bit of a clue as to who they are?”
