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Propaganda for Tyrants: The Danger in Tucker Carlson’s ‘Pacifism’
Fox personality Tucker Carlson speaks at the 2017 Business Insider Ignition: Future of Media conference in New York, U.S., November 30, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
When Tucker Carlson sat across from comedian-turned-podcaster Dave Smith last week and declared that the “dividing line” between him and Ben Shapiro was that Shapiro “feels a thrill when killing the enemy,” he wasn’t making a point about morality. He was performing one.
With his trademark half-smirk of false humility, Carlson intoned, “We do not have a right to kill people… we do not have a right to kill the innocent.” Then, as he so often does, he cast himself as a noble voice of moral conscience surrounded by bloodthirsty warmongers. “That’s the dividing line between me and Ben Shapiro,” he said.
But that line doesn’t divide pacifism from bloodlust. It divides moral clarity from moral theater.
The Convenient Conversion
Carlson’s newfound pacifism would be more convincing if it weren’t so exquisitely convenient. He wasn’t always allergic to the use of force. In the early 2000s, he defended the Iraq War, mocked anti-war protesters, and called for “resolute American leadership.”
He praised US strikes in Syria as “necessary shows of strength.” Only after those wars became unpopular — and after populism replaced conservatism — did Carlson decide that any military action involving civilian casualties was inherently immoral.
Since then, he has transformed “anti-war” sentiment into performance art. He interviews strongmen like Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei with deference bordering on reverence. He portrays their regimes as victims of Western arrogance, scolds the United States for aiding Ukraine’s defense, mocks NATO as an “empire,” and treats every aggressor — from Hamas to the Kremlin — as a misunderstood nationalist simply protecting his homeland.
This is not pacifism. It is appeasement for tyrants, rebranded as empathy.
There’s a clear pattern to Carlson’s moral inversions. When Israel defends itself against fascist terrorist regimes, he insists that “killing civilians” can never be justified. When Russia invades a democracy, he claims the US “provoked” it. When Iran bankrolls terror proxies across the region, he shrugs and asks whether it’s “really our problem.”
He calls this “asking hard questions.” In reality, it’s moral inversion disguised as introspection. His sympathies reliably tilt toward those who wield cruelty as policy and away from the democracies that agonize over conscience even as they fight for survival.
That pattern reached its nadir when Carlson hosted white nationalist Nick Fuentes — a Hitler- and Stalin-admiring Holocaust denier whom he treated not with revulsion but with indulgent curiosity. Fuentes spewed bile about “Zionist media control.” Carlson nodded, called him “talented,” and moved on. In that same interview, Carlson calmly declared that he “hates Christian Zionists more than anyone.” When public outrage followed, he feigned contrition, claiming he’d merely been “mad.” It was the same pattern as always: provoke, deny, and reframe the provocation as misunderstood virtue.
Ben Shapiro and the Real Moral Divide
Carlson’s supposed “dividing line” with Shapiro reveals the delusion he’s selling. Shapiro’s worldview — rooted in Jewish ethics, classical liberalism, and just-war theory — recognizes the tragic necessity of force in confronting evil. The question is not whether killing may ever occur, but whether moral societies can survive without defending themselves.
Carlson now confuses moral restraint with moral paralysis. He accuses others of bloodlust because he has lost the vocabulary to distinguish between aggression and defense. He sees all war as equally corrupt, while Shapiro understands that refusing to confront evil ensures its victory.
Carlson’s selective pacifism collapses under the weight of reality — especially in the war Hamas started and sustained by cynical design. Hamas doesn’t merely fight Israel; it fights the very concept of moral civilization. It builds command centers beneath hospitals and schools, fires rockets from residential towers, and blocks civilians from reaching Israeli-designated humanitarian corridors.
Its 700 kilometers of tunnels, which could have sheltered ordinary Gazans, were reserved for its terrorists — not its children.
When ordinary Gazans protest, Hamas executes them. In October 2025 alone, it murdered hundreds accused — without trial — of “collaboration.”
This is not a movement that protects innocents. It is a fascist regime that feeds on civilian death. Every corpse is a press release. Every tragedy, a weapon. Hamas’s strategy is not merely to harm Israel — but to corrupt the world’s conscience by making morality itself seem impossible.
Israel, by contrast, spends billions on pure defense: Iron Dome interceptors, bomb shelters, warning systems, and evacuation zones — designed to protect civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian. Its moral imperative is the same as every democracy’s: to safeguard life even amid war. That effort often fails — not from malice, but from the impossible calculus of fighting an enemy that hides behind its own people.
Carlson’s moral arithmetic ignores that calculus entirely. If, as he claims, “no innocent death” is ever acceptable, then every democracy facing fascist regimes like Hamas is doomed. For if one side obeys the laws of war while the other hides behind them, only barbarism will prevail.
The Anti-War Pose as Anti-Moralism
Carlson’s evolution — from conventional conservative commentator to sanctimonious defender of authoritarians — mirrors a deeper sickness that is growing the West: the belief that moral complexity is hypocrisy, that self-defense is indistinguishable from aggression, and that survival itself is suspect.
It’s the same mindset that brands Israel an “occupier” for refusing to surrender its ability to defend itself, calls NATO “imperial,” and derides Churchill as a “warmonger.” At its core, this is not compassion, but cowardice marketed as virtue.
Carlson’s moral theater now serves those who thrive on Western self-doubt. Russian state television airs his commentaries. Iranian media echoes his talking points. Hamas officials cite his words when denouncing Israel.
He plays the role once filled by the isolationists of the 1930s — the celebrity preachers, pilot, and industrialists who mocked Churchill as a warmonger and thought peace could be purchased with silence. Those voices, too, claimed to be true moral realists. History judged them otherwise.
The Real Dividing Line
Carlson says the dividing line between himself, and Ben Shapiro is the “thrill of killing.” The real line is between moral seriousness and moral vanity — between those who know that defending life and free societies sometimes requires force and those who posture as saints while others bear the cost of courage.
Under very limited circumstances, pacifism can be noble. But Carlson’s brand of pacifism isn’t noble — it’s narcissistic: the comforting illusion that moral purity can be preserved by staying on the sidelines.
Slavery didn’t end through persuasion. Nazism wasn’t defeated by restraint. Evil stops only when it’s resisted — sometimes by force, always by moral clarity.
Carlson wants his audience to mistake cowardice for compassion and indulgence for conscience. If that illusion continues to spread, he won’t just distort history — he’ll help repeat its darkest chapters.
Micha Danzig is an attorney, former IDF soldier, and former NYPD officer. He writes widely on Israel, antisemitism, and Jewish history and serves on the board of Herut North America.
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Strong start for Virginia’s first Yiddish culture festival
It’s not every day that you encounter a man in a Stetson hat singing Yiddish folksongs in the former capital of the Confederacy.
Yet that wasn’t the most unexpected thing this reporter experienced over Richmond Yiddish Week’s opening weekend. The grassroots Yiddish cultural festival, which began on Saturday, got off to an energetic, well-attended start.
The festival’s opening concert, a double billing of local klezmer bands The Vulgar Bulgars and My Son The Doctor, took place Saturday night at Gold Lion Community Café, an art-space in Richmond’s up-and-coming Manchester neighborhood.
Even before the concert began, the venue was standing-room only. “This is clearly the place to be in Manchester tonight,” remarked one attendee as he squeezed into a seat.
Before the first set, festival co-founder Sam Shokin addressed the audience, expressing her delight at the large turnout. “We weren’t sure how many like-minded people we were going to find for a Yiddish culture festival,” she said, “but judging by the crowd it seems like there are a lot of you.” Her remark elicited enthusiastic applause.
Thirty minutes into the first set, the space was so crowded that service staff had difficulty delivering customers’ food and drink orders to the tables. At least one woman gave up waiting in line to place her order until the break between sets.
The Vulgar Bulgars opened with several tightly harmonized and adventurously arranged klezmer instrumentals. Local singer Nina Lankin then joined in for a power ballad-esque and refreshingly non-maudlin rendition of the Yiddish theater classic Papirosn (Cigarettes).
She and the band also shined with a heartfelt rendition of the messianic Yiddish song Shnirele Perele (Ribbons and Pearls). Between sets, as attendees reordered food and drinks, this reporter had a chance to speak with a few attendees.
“I’ve been here for three years or so,” Rachel Enders, a local preschool teacher who told me she’s Catholic, said. “But I had no idea there was this big, vibrant Jewish community here.”
Festival co-founder Danny Kraft said that the local community has some “conservative and insular” tendencies. But at a time when many Jewish communities are retreating into explicitly Jewish spaces, the organizers of RYW chose more public venues for their programming. The local Jewish Federation lent support by funding security. One of Shokin’s and Kraft’s stated goals was to “bring some Yiddishkayt into the local arts community.”
Maribel Moheno — a language instructor at a local university who recently discovered her Jewish ancestry — was the first to start dancing. The rest of the audience got on their feet and joined Moheno during the second set. That set, played by My Son The Doctor, was less polished or interestingly arranged, but far more danceable.
Having finished the circle dance called a freylekhs with Moheno and a dozen or so others, this reporter refueled with a bagel made by local bakery Cupertino’s NY Bagels. It wasn’t bad. Also on offer was an unexpected soft drink called Palestine Cola.
As it turns out, the Gold Lion cafe has, like many such establishments of late, hosted pro-Palestine events. After some community members expressed concern about the festival being held there, the organizers explained that the festival had no stance vis-à-vis Israel-Palestine.
“People on both the left and the right who don’t know much about Yiddish think it’s synonymous with queer, anti-Zionist culture,” Kraft said. “That’s very reductive. Some people in the mainstream community saw this Yiddish event as a dog-whistle or code-word for anti-Zionism. Once we clarified this with the local Federation, that cleared the air a bit.”
“This is a week of celebrating Yiddishkeit,” said Shokin. “We’re focusing on arts and culture — politics, not so much.”
Despite this shturem in a glezl tey (tempest in a teacup), the opening concert had more than 100 people in attendance. Young families with toddlers and tweens mingled with elegantly dressed retirees, long-haired baby boomers, and 20- and 30-something hipsters.
The evening closed out with two lively songs that the audience joined in for: Ale Brider (We’re All Brothers), a popular anthem about Jewish unity, and the Yiddish birthday song Tsu Dayn Geburtstog in honor of an audience member’s birthday.
On Sunday afternoon, the Richmond Public Library’s main branch hosted a Yiddish story time event, which Kraft, who is also a poet and Yiddish translator, led. More than a dozen young families attended.
The program began with a brief Yiddish lesson. Kraft, himself the father of a toddler, then regaled children and parents with the unique Yiddish-Spanish-English picture book Beautiful Yetta: the Yiddish Chicken, using the book’s dialogue to teach more Yiddish phrases.
One high point of the afternoon was an interactive game called “Guess the Animal” where the audience learned the Yiddish terms for familiar animals, including the non-kosher khazer (pig), which got plenty of laughs.
A lot of Yiddish programming today tends to be adult-focused, often geared toward retirees. So a Yiddish festival for children and young parents seems like an expression of hope for Yiddish continuity — a leap of faith, even. Yet despite a small budget and all-volunteer staff, Kraft and Shokin seem to have stuck the landing.
The post Strong start for Virginia’s first Yiddish culture festival appeared first on The Forward.
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UK Prosecutors Try to Reinstate Terrorism Charge Against Kneecap Rapper
Member of Kneecap Liam O’Hanna, also known as Liam Og O hAnnaidh and performing under the name of Mo Chara, speaks to supporters outside Woolwich Crown Court, after a UK court threw out his prosecution for a terrorism offense, in London, Britain, Sept. 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hannah McKay
British prosecutors sought to reinstate a terrorism charge against a member of Irish rap group Kneecap on Wednesday for displaying a flag of Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah at a London gig, after a court threw out the case last year.
Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, whose stage name is Mo Chara, was accused of having waved the flag of the banned Islamist group Hezbollah during a November 2024 gig.
The charge was thrown out in September after a court ruled it had originally been brought without the permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney General, and also one day outside the six-month statutory limit.
But the Crown Prosecution Service said it would challenge the ruling and its lawyer Paul Jarvis told London’s High Court on Wednesday that permission was only required by the time Ó hAnnaidh first appeared in court, meaning the case can proceed.
Kneecap – known for their politically charged lyrics and anti-Israel activism – have said the case is an attempt to distract from what they described as British complicity in Israel’s so-called “genocide” in Gaza. Israel strongly denies committing a genocide in the coastal territory, where it launched a military campaign against Hamas after the Palestinian terrorist group invaded Israeli territory.
J.J. Ó Dochartaigh, who goes by DJ Próvaí, was in court but Ó hAnnaidh was not required to attend and was not present.
KNEECAP SAYS PROSECUTION A DISTRACTION
Ó hAnnaidh was charged in May with displaying the Hezbollah flag in such a way that aroused reasonable suspicion that he supported the banned group, after footage emerged of him holding the flag on stage while saying “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah.”
Kneecap have previously said the flag was thrown on stage during their performance and that they “do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah.”
The group, who rap about Irish identity and support the republican cause of uniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland, have become increasingly vocal about the war in Gaza, particularly after Ó hAnnaidh was charged in May.
During their performance at June’s Glastonbury Festival in England, Ó hAnnaidh accused Israel of committing war crimes, after Kneecap displayed pro-Palestinian messages during their set at the Coachella Festival in California in April.
Kneecap have since been banned from Hungary and Canada, also canceling a tour of the United States due to a clash with Ó hAnnaidh’s court appearances.
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German-Israel Deal Strengthens Cyber Defense, German Minister Says
A German and Israeli flag fly, on the day Chancellor Friedrich Merz meets with Israeli President Isaac Herzog for talks, in Berlin, Germany, May 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Liesa Johannssen
A new German-Israel agreement aims to counter cyber threats and enhance security infrastructure, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told parliament on Wednesday.
Dobrindt signed the agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem over the weekend.
The collaboration includes the development of a joint “cyber dome” system, an artificial intelligence and cyber innovation center, drone defense cooperation, and improved civilian warning systems.
“We have already had a trusting partnership in the past, which we want to strengthen further,” Dobrindt said. “Israel has extensive experience in cyber defense. We want to benefit from that.”
The German Interior Ministry said on Monday the agreement would extend to protecting energy infrastructure and connected vehicle networks, in addition to enhancing collaboration in civil protection, counter-terrorism, and criminal prosecution.
European countries are facing increasing pressure to fortify their cyber defense systems against sophisticated attacks.