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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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Israelis and Americans deserve to know why they are still at war
Israelis have once again been asked to live under the shadow of war. Sirens and missiles punctuate sleepless nights. Families sleep beside safe rooms. Children measure their days between alarms.
People will endure that, when they believe there is a purpose behind the sacrifice.
Yet three weeks into the current confrontation with Iran, Israel’s government hasn’t offered anything resembling such clarity. Nor has that of the United States. And as the costs of war accrue in both countries — with Americans worrying about forces deployed across the region, and paying the price of the conflict at the gas pump — citizens of both countries deserve something basic from their leaders: a direct, compelling explanation of what this war is supposed to achieve.
In a democracy, citizens who are sending their children to shelters and their soldiers to the front absolutely have the right to know the objectives of a war. Yes, you cannot reveal operational details that could endanger pilots, intelligence sources, or soldiers in the field.
But explaining the purpose of a war is not the same thing as revealing tactics. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump aren’t exhibiting prudence by keeping things, as the Forward‘s Arno Rosenfeld wrote, “incoherent.” Instead, they’re showing contempt for those they govern.
The hubris would be troubling even if either government in question enjoyed broad public trust. But neither Netanyahu nor Trump are leaders who command such confidence. And the arrogance that has infected even officials under them reflects a deeper pattern that has long defined both men’s leadership: an extraordinary sense of entitlement to power.
An Israel defined by hubris
Many Israelis believe that Netanyahu bends the truth routinely and will do almost anything to remain in power. Under those circumstances, demanding blind faith in this war is insulting.
Consider the extraordinary elasticity of the government’s claims. In June, after the earlier 12-day confrontation with Iran, Netanyahu declared that Israel had pushed back Iran’s missile and nuclear threats “for generations.”
If anyone made the mistake of believing him at the time, it is now obvious that he was lying. Iran still possesses missiles, which we know, because they have rained down on Israel throughout this war. If this conflict is now necessary to confront the very same dangers, the public deserves an explanation of what exactly happened to the supposed “generations” of security their leader had promised.
Yet instead of engaging with tough questions from the press about why Israel engaged in this war, what its goals are, and when it will end, Netanyahu has opted to exclusively discuss the war on friendly platforms. There are social media videos produced by his team, which are pure propaganda; the rare stage-managed “news conference,” usually with the few questioners selected in advance; and a studious avoidance of interviews with the Israeli media — with the sole exception of the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14.
Incredibly, when asked by a reporter from Haaretz a few days ago what the goals of the war were — and why no explanation has been offered to the citizens of the country — Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs actually had the temerity to respond that, in his eyes, citizens don’t need to know about those goals. Some have been set, he said, but they are confidential.
This posture invites, of course, even more suspicion.
Muddled American messaging
If Netanyahu says too little, Trump, on the American side, possibly says too much.
He speaks constantly about the war, yet always seems to struggle with precision or coherence.
One day he suggests the conflict could last a long time. The next he says he thinks it may end soon. When asked about terrorism that could follow escalation, he shrugs that “some people will die.”
This is not surprising; Trump’s rhetoric on these things has always been belated, confused and focused on spectacle. Within hours of the bizarre American seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — a reprehensible figure but still the head of a sovereign state — Trump appeared on television explaining that the U.S. needed access to Venezuelan oil.
With short-term operations like that in Venezuela, Trump’s inability to explain why the U.S. needed to engage, and outline what Americans can expect going forward, was less glaring. Now, as he waffles between demanding NATO allies come to aid the war and insisting their help isn’t needed; bizarrely declares the war will end “when I feel it in my bones”; and makes clear that the war was initiated with no strategic foresight, it’s impossible to ignore
So Americans, like Israelis, are left struggling to understand what exactly their government is trying to accomplish. And while in Israel the war is still broadly supported — so great is the anger at the Iranian regime, and so effective has been Israel’s missile defense — that is hardly the case in the U.S.
The blame game
The risks of a war defined by ever-moving goalposts and a deliberately obscure timeframe are obvious and terrifying. Just look at the war in Gaza.
That conflict dragged on for nearly two years, accompanied by repeated declarations that Hamas would soon be eliminated. Today, Hamas still exists. Yet the government has offered no serious accounting of that reality. On the way to this endgame, in which the status quo has ended up preserved but with Gaza in ruins, Netanyahu repeatedly blocked off-ramps. He was clearly indifferent to the widespread perception that he was using the continuation of the war to avoid accountability: he explicitly and shamelessly argued that spectacular breakdown on Oct. 7 could not be investigated while the war continued.
In fact, he is using the exact same playbook in this new war, arguing last week — with Trump’s support — that Israeli President Isaac Herzog should issue him a pardon in his ongoing corruption trial so that he can focus on the war.
Some Israelis now genuinely fear that prolonged emergency conditions could become politically convenient. Netanyahu’s critics openly speculate that a monumental national crisis might provide justification to delay or manipulate elections — as Netanyahu is obsessed with remaining in power and is badly behind in the polls.
In the U.S., this fumbling has opened the door to an alarming new reality: one in which Israel and its international supporters are blamed for dragging the U.S. into war. On Tuesday, Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned over the war with a public letter making unproven allegations that Trump fell prey to an Israeli “misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform.” There is a clear risk that such rhetoric, fueled by the sense of directionlessness in this war, will increase already surging antisemitism.
The paradox of justification
Netanyahu and Trump’s failure to clearly justify the war does not mean that the Iranian regime deserves indulgence.
Tehran has brutalized its own citizens for decades and exported violence throughout the Middle East. Through Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq, it has helped fuel conflicts that have cost countless lives. The regime has given the world many reasons to wish for its disappearance.
For the past month I have been arguing relentlessly that the Iranian regime has forfeited any claim to sympathy and that its actions have justified the Israeli and U.S. attack.
A long war determined to bring the regime to its knees may not be fundamentally unjustified. But requiring blind faith in the leaders prosecuting that war is.
The post Israelis and Americans deserve to know why they are still at war appeared first on The Forward.
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Trump Official Resigns Over Iran War, Blames Israel
Mattie Neretin – CNP/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official resigned Tuesday in protest of President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran, accusing Israel of playing an outsized role in pushing the United States into conflict.
Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said he could not support the war, arguing Tehran posed “no imminent threat” to the United States. But it was Kent’s broader assertion, that pressure from Israel and pro-Israel voices influenced the decision to go to war, that drew swift pushback from the White House and national security experts.
In his resignation, Kent also drew parallels to the Iraq War, suggesting that similar dynamics shaped both conflicts, arguing that Israel pushed the US into the conflict. His comments revived long-running debates about how U.S. intelligence and foreign alliances factor into decisions to use military force, though many officials and analysts have rejected such comparisons as misleading.
“Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent wrote in his resignation letter.
Kent further claimed that he lost his wife in a “war manufactured by Israel.” Kent’s wife, Shannon Kent, died in 2019 when an ISIS suicide bomber detonated an explosive device during a U.S. military operation during the Syrian Civil War. Kent’s assertion suggests that Israel started the Syrian Civil War is completely unfounded. However, the notion that Israel controls the ISIS terror group is a popular conspiracy online.
The Trump administration forcefully disputed Kent’s claims, maintaining that the decision to strike Iran was based on credible intelligence about threats to U.S. forces and interests in the region. Trump dismissed Kent as “weak on security,” defending the operation as necessary to deter Iranian aggression and protect American personnel and allies.
Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary, lambasted Kent’s letter as inaccurate .
“The absurd allegation that President Trump made this decision based on the influence of others, even foreign countries, is both insulting and laughable. President Trump has been remarkably consistent and has said for DECADES that Iran can NEVER possess a nuclear weapon,” she wrote.
National security experts and former officials also criticized Kent’s framing, arguing that it oversimplifies the policymaking process and risks promoting narratives that inaccurately portray Israel as driving U.S. military decisions. They emphasize that while Israel is a close ally that shares intelligence and strategic concerns, particularly regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions and support for proxy groups, decisions to go to war are made by U.S. leadership based on American intelligence assessments.
Israel has long warned about the threat posed by Iran’s regional activities, including its backing of armed groups hostile to both Israeli and U.S. interests. Those concerns are broadly shared across multiple U.S. administrations and within the intelligence community, regardless of political party.
Kent’s resignation marks the most significant internal break so far over the Iran conflict and highlights growing divisions within the administration and across Washington. While some critics of the war have echoed his concerns about the lack of an imminent threat, others have expressed alarm at his decision to center Israel in his critique, warning that such claims can distort public understanding of how U.S. foreign policy decisions are made.
Kent came under fire during his confirmation process over his reported connections to white supremacists Nick Fuentes and Greyson Arnold. Kent admitted that he had conversations with Fuentes over social media strategy. However, Kent later distanced himself from Fuentes and repudiated his views.
Kent also holds other unorthodox foreign policy viewpoints, such as a relatively forgiving posture towards Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In April 2022, following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Kent argued that Putin was “very reasonable” and accused the US foreign policy establishment of aggravating Russia into war.
Kent’s comments on Tuesday drew widespread backlash from many who accused him of peddling antisemitic tropes. Ilan Goldberg, Senior Vice President and Chief Policy Officer of liberal pro-Israel organization J-Street, praised Kent for leaving the administration, but added “the antisemitic stuff in here blaming Israel for the Iraq war and a secret conspiracy of the media and Israelis to deceive Trump into going to war with Iran is ugly stuff that plays on the worst antisemitic tropes.”
“Donald Trump is the President of the United States and he is the one ultimately responsible for sending American troops into harms way,” Goldberg added.
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UK Hate Crime Prosecutions Reveal Stark Disparities Between Muslim and Jewish Victims
Demonstrators attend the “Lift The Ban” rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
Hate crimes against Muslims in the United Kingdom are nearly twice as likely to result in prosecution as those targeting Jews, newly released figures show, exposing a striking imbalance in how justice is ultimately delivered.
According to data compiled by the British Home Office, the government department responsible for policing and security, figures on hate crime offences recorded over the past year show that Muslim victims of Islamophobic attacks were 76 percent more likely to see their attackers prosecuted than Jewish victims of antisemitic attacks.
Across the United Kingdom, 6.7 percent of hate crimes targeting Muslims led to a charge or summons — around one in 15 cases — compared with just 3.8 percent of offences against Jewish victims, or roughly one in 26, over the period from April 2024 to March 2025.
The gap is particularly stark in certain offences. Religiously aggravated assaults without injury against Muslims were over six times more likely to lead to prosecution, with 6.3 percent of cases resulting in charges compared with just 1.1 percent for Jewish victims.
Similarly, racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage was around four times more likely to result in charges, at 3.4 percent versus 0.8 percent.
Although 4,478 religious hate crimes were reported against Muslims compared with 2,873 against Jews, the smaller size of the Jewish population means such offences are far more concentrated and statistically significant. By raw population, the contrast is stark: around 3.9 million Muslims live in England and Wales, compared with 287,360 Jews
The Home Office’s data also reveals that Jewish people are disproportionately targeted, experiencing religious hate crimes at a rate roughly ten times higher than Muslims.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) — the body responsible for bringing criminal cases in England and Wales — said comparing crime reports with prosecutions is difficult because cases can only proceed once police submit sufficient evidence for a charging decision.
According to the CPS, a record number of hate crime cases were referred by police last year, with 11,140 defendants prosecuted for racially flagged offences, resulting in a charge rate of 87.1 percent and a conviction rate of 85.2 percent.
In the UK, the Community Security Trust (CST) — a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters — recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents from January to June last year. This was the second-highest number of antisemitic crimes ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.