When Tucker Carlson announced he would be interviewing US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, it was clear this would not be a friendly exchange. Carlson, who appears to be funded by Qatar, a state that openly backs Hamas, has positioned himself as one of Israel’s fiercest critics in American media.
What followed was not the exposé Carlson likely imagined.

It was a two-hour display of confident ignorance.

Yet much of the media coverage focused on a single distorted headline: Carlson’s suggestion that biblical scripture implies Israel seeks to “take over the Middle East.”

That became the story.

It was also the least revealing part of the interview.

What went largely unreported was not Huckabee’s answers, but Carlson’s performance: his theological confusion, historical sloppiness, conspiratorial insinuations, and failure to grapple with facts that contradicted his narrative.

A Disaster From Start to Finish

Carlson opened the interview with a monologue that appeared designed to rehabilitate his own credibility.

He repeated claims that he had been “detained” at Ben Gurion Airport when leaving Israel after recording the interview, suggesting it was unsafe for him to travel to Jerusalem. He implied he felt endangered after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allegedly called him a “Nazi.”

That was among the first of his distortions. There is no verified record of Netanyahu making such a statement.

Footage from the airport shows Carlson in the VIP lounge, posing for photos and interacting amicably with staff.

He claimed he was “detained,” that security “took passports,” and his producer was “hauled into a side room.”

Footage from Ben Gurion’s VIP lounge shows Tucker Carlson hugging staff and posing for photos.

This pattern — reframing routine events as persecution –serves a rhetorical purpose. It casts Carlson as a dissident truth-teller under siege. It does not withstand scrutiny.

Huckabee directly confronted Carlson over his earlier interview with Aguilar, a former Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid worker who claimed he witnessed Israeli soldiers kill a young boy in Gaza.

As Huckabee pointed out, that account was later proven false when the boy was discovered alive.

Huckabee stated that he personally helped coordinate the child’s evacuation from Gaza, working with four countries to secretly extract the boy and his mother less than a week after the alleged “murder.” The operation had to remain covert, he said, because Hamas would have killed the child to validate Aguilar’s narrative.

And yet Carlson still entertained the claim as plausible, naturally failing to acknowledge his own role in broadcasting this fiction to millions.

For a commentator who brands himself as a skeptic of mainstream media narratives, the absence of self-scrutiny was striking.

Bethlehem and Basic Geography

Carlson cited Bethlehem – the birthplace of Christianity – as evidence that Christians are being driven out of the West Bank by Israel.

Bethlehem has been under Palestinian Authority control since 1995. Israel does not govern it, and there has been no Jewish community there for decades.

If the Christian population has declined, the obvious question is: under whose governance?

Huckabee raised precisely that point.

Carlson did not engage.

1/
The media’s takeaway from Tucker Carlson’s interview with Ambassador @GovMikeHuckabee?

A distorted headline about Israel “taking over the Middle East.”

That wasn’t the story…

The story was Tucker Carlson self-immolating for over two hours.

Watch the clip.

Then let’s… pic.twitter.com/e5AvpTMGW6

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 21, 2026

Theology as Geopolitical Caricature

Carlson invoked God’s promise to Abraham – “from the river of Egypt (Nile) to the Euphrates” – and suggested that this covenant implies contemporary Israeli expansionism across sovereign Middle Eastern states.

This is a categorical error.

The Abrahamic covenant is a theological concept, not a modern policy platform. No Israeli government has articulated a program to annex the Middle East based on Genesis.

By collapsing ancient scripture into a present-day territorial blueprint, Carlson substituted provocation for analysis.

Huckabee attempted to correct the framing.

Carlson appeared uninterested.

Ancestry as Legitimacy Test

In one of the interview’s most jarring moments, Carlson questioned Netanyahu’s right to live in Israel on the basis of ancestry.

“Netanyahu’s family is from Poland,” Carlson said. “There’s no evidence his ancestors ever lived here. On what basis does he have a right to be here?”

Huckabee responded bluntly: “I’m totally unable to process what you’re saying.”

The exchange spoke for itself.

Framed as a critique of one politician, the logic extended further – implying that Jewish belonging in Israel requires genealogical proof acceptable to Carlson.

It was delivered not tentatively, but with certainty.

And then there was the subject of Qatar.

Carlson appeared surprised when Huckabee noted that Christians in Qatar are overwhelmingly migrant workers confined to a restricted church compound, with no Christian citizens and limited public expression of faith.

By contrast, Israel has approximately 184,000 Christian citizens, hundreds of churches, open Easter processions, and church bells ringing weekly.

Carlson initially leaned on a cursory reading of Wikipedia before conceding he did not know the details.

For someone positioning himself as a defender of Christianity in the Middle East, all while seemingly receiving funding from the Qatari state, the disconnect was difficult to ignore.

Conspiracy, Recycled

Carlson floated additional insinuations and conspiracy, including the absurd claim that the United States went to war in Iraq after September 11 because of Israel.

This trope, that Jewish or Israeli influence dragged America into war, has circulated for decades across ideological extremes.

Reducing complex American strategic decisions, Congressional votes, and post-9/11 security policy to “Israel made us do it” is not serious analysis. Yet here it was, presented as such by a former Fox News host watched by millions.

By the end of nearly three hours, a pattern had emerged.

Carlson repeatedly blurred theology into policy, questioned Jewish historical continuity, recycled war-blame insinuations, dismissed counter-evidence, and spoke authoritatively on subjects he appeared not to have mastered.

And he did so with confidence.

That is what much of the media missed.

The story was not Huckabee’s answer to a distorted Biblical question.

It was watching a prominent commentator unravel under the weight of his own thinly sourced claims.

Criticism of Israeli policy is legitimate. Debate over strategy is healthy.

But when interrogation gives way to insinuation, and skepticism morphs into selective credulity, the result is not fearless journalism.

It is confidence without comprehension.

And it was watched by nearly two million viewers in under 24 hours.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

(JTA) — When he’s not working at the local dog care and boarding center, 24-year-old Raffi Stein-Klotz is usually playing kickball or tending to the garden at his residential facility in Boca Raton.

But once a week, Stein-Klotz can be found in an adult Jewish learning class series created specifically for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, like him and his housemates at JARC, the Jewish Association for Residential Care.

“We learn the book of Genesis,” Stein-Klotz, the son of two rabbis, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And we get to know how everything is in Hebrew and English, and every morning we say ‘boker or,’ ‘boker tov,’” referring to the Hebrew expressions for “good morning.”

Stein-Klotz’s class is possible thanks to a new curriculum from Melton, the adult Jewish education network that offers in-person and online classes. The program, called What’s Mine is Yours, aims to provide Jewish academic resources for adults with disabilities, who advocates say have few if any options for formal Jewish education tailored to their needs.

“There’s really not a lot specifically designed for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to have a continued adult learning experience,” said Carol Morris, Jewish disabilities advocates coordinator at Jewish Family Service of Colorado. “That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some educational programs that they could attend or be part of, but not really anything designed specifically for them as adults to do higher-level Jewish learning.”

The curriculum was developed in partnership with Matan, an organization that educates Jewish community leaders on how best to include people with disabilities. After a successful precursor curriculum with Melton took off in Atlanta in 2021, What’s Mine is Yours began piloting the Melton and Matan curriculum in 2023. Four cities are offering the curriculum for the first time this year.

The rollout comes as the Jewish world has otherwise made significant strides in some aspects of disability inclusion in recent years. (February is Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month, a global Jewish organizational initiative.)

“One of the things that’s so important here is the Jewish world, to a great extent, has embraced the importance of inclusion, the importance of adding ramps where there are stairs to get into the synagogue, to get up to the bimah in the front, they’ve thought about the ways to include people with disabilities,” said Morey Schwartz, international director of Melton.

But, he added, “Inclusion can’t just be about ramps. It has to be about giving them inspiration, education, engaging, thought-provoking materials that can give them also the ability to participate fully to the extent that they can to the enterprise of Jewish learning. It can’t be like some watered-down version of something else. That’s not what we’re doing.”

What’s Mine is Yours includes units about prayer, holidays, Shabbat and rituals that are structured to be accessible for adults with intellectual disabilities without giving up on the core elements of advanced Jewish learning: open-ended questions, engagement with original texts and group discussions. Lesson plans ask students to relate the ideas they encounter to their own lives, and materials include prominent visual markers to enable students who might have trouble accessing text-based materials to follow along.

The pilot class in Atlanta, in 2021, was supported by a local Jewish disability support network. “Then we got feedback: We should take this over, nationalize it, scale it up,” Schwartz said.

The result is a customizable system that can be used wherever Melton classes are held, such as synagogues, JCCs and Jewish federations — or in residential facilities, day programs, specialty organizations, adult camp programs, community centers and educational networks. It’s in use in nine cities, mostly in the United States but also in Cape Town, South Africa.

Each module in the curriculum is three lessons, but can be stretched over more classes if teachers prefer. The first collection of four adapted modules has been completed, and another 12 are still in process.

Subject matter includes the meaning and purpose of prayer; the Exodus story; the miracles of Hanukkah and Purim; symbols in Judaism; and marriage, divorce, and conversion in Judaism.

“There are suggestions made, and everyone can kind of enter at a different point of where their knowledge is,” said Judy Snowbell Diamond, director of curricular development at Melton. “In addition to the course book, there’s a faculty guide, which gives the faculty some suggestions as to how to modify it depending on the learners.”

At JARC in Boca Raton, teacher Harvey Leven’s class recently completed the “Sacred Cycles” module, where students learned about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. During a recent class, which JTA viewed by Zoom, six students, roughly mid-30s and older, sat around a conference table. (The rest of the class was on a field trip to Orlando.)

In his class, Leven reviewed relevant terms with students like “atonement,” “repentance” and “self-denial.”

Leven also played a three-minute video where a narrator, speaking quickly, recapped the basics of the holiday. Before playing any video, Leven tells his students a few of the things they might see, and a few things to look out for.

“Some people participate a lot, and some never say a word,” said Leven.

Stein-Klotz said he counts himself as one of those quieter students.

“For me, it’s hard, because I have autism, and it takes my brain a little bit to get it,” he said.

Leven has worked in Jewish education for more than 20 years, teaching both children and adults. But teaching the Melton curriculum marks the first time he has adapted his teaching specifically for students with special needs.

“Sometimes, like today, the vocabulary in the material often needs translating for these students,” Leven said. “And so you have to spend some time helping the students to understand what exactly is being said there.”

It can be difficult to measure how much information is getting through to his students, Leven said.

“We don’t do tests,” he said. “Today, one or two barely said anything. So I’m hoping that something sinks in.”

Over the past two years of teaching from the What’s Mine is Yours curriculum, Leven has had a number of returning students. Having worked with them in the past, he is already familiar with their learning styles and with their personalities, which has been helpful in the classroom.

“Every one of those students has particular idiosyncrasies that I had to learn and to be able to work with in order to make this class meaningful and fun for them, enjoyable for them,” Leven said.

But he said he had identified challenges in executing the curriculum. Leven said he avoids the suggested physical activities, for example, because many of his students have limited mobility, and the space and shape of his classroom is not conducive to much movement.

And though the program seeks to be accessible to all, in practice, it doesn’t work for every person’s needs.

Alissa Korn is the mother of two adult daughters, including 27-year-old Jillian, who has intellectual disabilities and mental health challenges. After learning about the success of the adapted curriculum in Atlanta, Korn was inspired to introduce the What’s Mine is Yours curriculum to Jillian’s adult living facility in New Haven, Connecticut.

“My daughter, it wasn’t great for her, because she really learns best in a one-on-one setting,” Korn admitted. “And with adults raising their hands and talking over each other, it was very challenging for her.”

Still, Korn finds value in the program, and her family continues to support it at her daughter’s living facility.

“It doesn’t necessarily need to be the perfect match for my daughter,” Korn said. “It just makes me feel good to be involved in anything in the special needs world, where we can feel like we’re empowering people and making them feel good about themselves.”

Erica Baruch, Jewish disabilities advocates adviser at Jewish Family Service of Colorado, said just offering the program takes the burden off families like Korn’s.

“Oftentimes families don’t ask for things because they make the assumption that it wouldn’t be possible or it would be a burden on the community,” she said. “Learning is such a big piece of Jewish life.”

Stein-Klotz is exactly the kind of student Melton is trying to reach. He fondly recalls marking his bar mitzvah at 13, when his godfather, who is also a rabbi, taught him his Torah portion — the story of Noah and the ark. He recalls having fun, learning about the animals and getting to sing songs.

“It was great, because I had people helping me, and I remembered everything,” he recalled of his bar mitzvah. “Learning it was hard for me, and I didn’t want to do it, but I took my time and learned well, and I still remember it, and I’m still Jewish throughout this day.”

Now, he is able to play a helping role in his Melton course, which he said has been a great way to get to know his neighbors from JARC and from the garden.

“It’s great to see them in the Melton class and learn what their disability is and what their strong skills and what their weaknesses are,” Stein-Klotz said. “So that’s a good thing, so I help them with that, if I can.”

Stein-Klotz said he even helps some of his classmates who are new to Judaism or interested in converting one day.

“They make me feel happy and good and strong,” he added. “Like I’m helping people, or like a good mitzvah.”

The post A new curriculum brings adults with intellectual disabilities into Jewish learning appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — An Australian man is facing hate crime charges after he allegedly rammed his truck into a historic synagogue in Brisbane, in an attack that has spurred calls for increased security from the synagogue’s rabbi.

Matthew De Campo, 32, of Sunnybank, was arrested on Friday after he allegedly backed his pickup truck into the Brisbane Synagogue in Queensland, Australia, narrowly missing a person as he struck its gates. He has been charged with willful damage, serious vilification or hate crime, dangerous driving and possession of a dangerous drug.

The ramming comes two months after gunmen opened fire on a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, killing 15 and injuring dozens more. Last month, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the launch of a Royal Commission inquiry, the country’s highest level of inquiry, which is slated to hold its first public hearing on Tuesday.

In the wake of the attack, the Australian government also tightened gun ownership laws and introduced legislation to curb hate speech, efforts that have been echoed by Queensland Premier David Crisafulli, who earlier this month introduced a package of legislation to combat antisemitism.

“This is another signal as to why we have to put strong laws before parliament to protect all people where they worship,” wrote Crisafulli in a post on X following the attack.

Libby Burke, the vice president of the Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies, said that the local Jewish community had been “deeply distressed” by the incident, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“A synagogue is a sacred place, a place of prayer, reflection, and community,” said Burke. “To see its gates viciously rammed is profoundly devastating and is not dissimilar to what we have seen throughout the globe, vehicles used as weapons to kill and harm Jews.”

North Brisbane District acting Superintendent Michael Hogan said that police did not consider the ramming a “terrorist act,” though he added that it was “definitely a targeted attack against the Jewish synagogue.”

During an appearance Saturday before the Brisbane Magistrates Court, De Campo, who represented himself, claimed that he “did not do any hate crime or anything like that” and said that he was a “man of good faith,” according to The Courier Mail.

“Last night was a bit of a brain snap and I believe there is something more sinister going on behind the scenes,” De Campo said.

Rabbi Levi Jaffe of the Brisbane Synagogue told The Australian that the attack had “shaken” his community, which had concluded Shabbat services shortly before the ramming.

“Friday night’s ramming of a synagogue, when prayers usually take place, seems to me like a pretty direct attack on a Jewish institution,” said Jaffe. “Lives could have been lost.”

Jaffe said that it was important that the “authorities come down strong on this kind of behavior,” adding that it had underscored the need for boosted security.

“Sadly, we need a lot of security because of these kind of events,” Jaffe said. “There needs to be more police presence around the synagogue, and there needs to be, sadly, armed guards.”

Rabbi Levi Wolff of the Central Synagogue in Sydney told The Australian that the attack had sent a “chilling message that even sacred spaces are not safe.”

“At a time of catastrophic antisemitism, as we saw at Bondi, this inevitably deepens fear and insecurity,” said Wolff. “People must know they can prayer, gather, and live openly without intimidation. Ultimately, the real question is whether there are strong, visible consequences for these crimes.”

The post Truck ramming at Australian synagogue prompts hate crime charges as antisemitism commission opens appeared first on The Forward.