Progressives Must Not Give Tucker Carlson a Pass

This week’s Zoom call will be at our regular time, Friday at 1 PM Eastern. Our guest will be Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate for Senate in Michigan, whose Democratic primary has become the most hotly contested in the nation. El-Sayed has been attacked for saying that both Israel and Hamas have acted in evil ways, for campaigning with Hasan Piker and for calling Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal. He recently declared that “AIPAC and Israel are not the same as Judaism and the Jewish people” and that “The most dangerous thing they’ve tried to do is extend the definition of antisemitism to include a foreign government.” We’ll talk about US policy towards Israel, about antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism, about the mood of voters in Michigan and about the state of the Democratic Party. (If El-Sayed’s opponents want to do an interview as well, they’re welcome to be in touch). This conversation will be co-sponsored by Jewish Currents. Join us.

This week I’m also hosting a conversation between Professor Omer Bartov, author of the newly released, Israel: What Went Wrong, and columnist Gideon Levy, who in a recent column criticized an interview about the book that Bartov conducted with Haaretz. Unlike our Friday interviews, that conversation won’t include a live audience. We’ll distribute the video to subscribers this week.

After this Friday’s call, we’ll take a week off and resume on Friday, May 29.

Cited in Today’s Video

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Tyler Oliveira.

Naftuli Moster, a long-time activist for reforming the ultra-Orthodox school system, condemns Tyler Oliveira.

Things to Read

(Maybe this should be obvious, but I link to articles and videos I find provocative and significant, not necessarily ones I entirely agree with).

In Jewish Currents (subscribe!), Josh Nathan-Kazis writes about how J Street is responding to the turn in public opinion against Israel.

Gilbert Achcar, Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, analyzes the reasons for America and Israel’s war against Iran.

Shaul Magid on the fracturing of American Jewish “peoplehood.”

I talked about Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza with the Real News Network.

Appearances

On May 11, I’ll be speaking at the New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Arkansas.

On May 18, I’ll be speaking to Town Hall Seattle and Third Place Books in Seattle, Washington.

Reader Comment

Daniel Brumberg, associate professor of government at Georgetown, writes:

I only watched ten minutes of your interview with Molly Crabgrass, but I have watched enough similar interviews with Molly Crabapple to appreciate how she has abused and misrepresented the history of the Bund to advance her own ideological project.

I say this as the son and grandson of Bundists; my grandfather was co-director of the Bund’s Medem Sanatorium, and my father was a leading scholar of the Bund who spoke fluent Yiddish and Polish, maintained lifelong friendships with Bundists, and never disowned his own Bundism, having grown up in Poland. Both of them would have been deeply offended by the propaganda campaign that Crabapple has launched, which is misplaced, misdirected, and misinformed. She doesn’t grapple in a clear and honest way with the meaning of the Bund before World War II, and after the Holocaust.

Instead, she implies that the Bund’s critique of Zionism had the same meaning during both eras. This is nonsense. Apart from decimating the Bund’s leaders and followers, the Holocaust decimated its central premise, even if the warnings of its leaders about the dangers of chauvinism were correct. Many Bundists moved to Israel because they concluded that, after the Holocaust, the basic idea that Jews needed a state of their own seemed compelling. I might add that a lot of folks came to Israel looking for a safe haven, not because of some deep embrace of “Zionism.” Their motive was not unlike the motive of many Muslims who supported the creation of Pakistan--a home of refuge for Muslims.

My father was born in Tel Aviv: his parents fled there in 1926 after the Soviet secret police issued a warrant for my grandfather’s arrest. Palestine was the only country on the planet where they could get a visa (that path was closed in 1930). They returned to Warsaw in 1930, and my grandfather began his work at the Medem Sanatorium. They fled Warsaw on September 5, 1939, and were almost killed by Nazi planes. The 350 or so children who remained at the sanatorium were all gassed at Treblinka. My father’s Bundism endured, but he was never “anti-Zionist,” whatever that means. We went to Israel together and met with many Bundists.

The world is a complicated place, and when we let our own ideological priorities drive our analyses, we get Crabapple’s ahistorical abuse of a complex story, one that does an injustice to the Bund.

Molly Crabapple responds:

It is a sad but common phenomenon that descendants are unable to accept the actual views of their ancestors. During his four years in Tel Aviv, the writer’s grandfather Yoysef Brumberg was the Palestine correspondent for the Bund’s newspaper Naye Folkstsaytung. In this capacity, he reported on the brutal Zionist evictions, racism and deliberate impoverishment of Palestinian farmers, writing “where Zionism speaks, socialism is silent.” (see Yoysef Brumberg, Naye folkstsaytung, March 22nd, 1929, translated by Eyshe Beirich). I hope that the writer will read the trailblazing book of Bundist anti-Zionist writings that Beirich and Nathan Tankus are publishing with Haymarket in 2027. It might enlighten him.

The writer’s misrepresentation of Yoysef Brumberg’s legacy is sadly in line with other attempts to conceal the Bund’s principled internationalism. Built by socialists who believed in human equality, the Bund was an anti-Zionist organization throughout its entire pre-Holocaust history and maintained this view afterwards. I will quote one of the many articles condemning Zionism written in the Bund’s postwar Bulletin, written in 1948. “What a bitter irony that after the utter destruction brought upon the Jewish people by Fascism, the latter’s methods of terror are now triumphant in Jewish life. . . . It is as if the slaughterer had infected his victims with his germs during the slaughter.”

This is by Shloyme Mendelson, a great Bundist pedagogue who was a comrade of the writer’s grandfather.

Finally, despite how he addressed me, my name is Molly Crabapple. He should learn it.

See you on Friday,

Peter

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

I want to talk about a video that Tucker Carlson just put out yesterday because I think in the whole question now about who is Tucker Carlson, and what he believes today, I think it’s a kind of a smoking gun. Now, some people might say, well, why are you talking about Tucker Carlson? You’ve been talking about Tucker Carlson already. You wrote a New York Times column about it.

Most of what I tend to focus on in these videos are the human rights abuses committed by the state of Israel, and also the arguments, which I consider unconvincing, to justify those human rights abuses and the war that Israel and the United States are now in in Iran. I do that not only because, you know, not because Israel is, of course, the only country committing terrible human rights abuses in the world, but because I feel special obligation to be in that conversation as a Jew, and also as an American taxpayer whose money goes to fund these crimes.

And the reason I’m focusing on Tucker Carlson, the reason I think it’s important, is also because I feel a special obligation to talk about Tucker Carlson in this moment, because he’s enormously influential in the United States, and in the future struggle of whether America will move towards being a multiracial democracy, or move towards being a white Christian supremacist nation, but also especially because I’m on the left, because I’m a progressive. And so, I feel a special obligation to speak out when I see progressives normalizing someone who I believe is trafficking in bigotry, as I believe that Tucker Carlson is.

And I think we are at a dangerous moment, in which some high-profile progressives, because they’re so eager to find allies on the right who are willing to criticize Israel and criticize the Iran war. And to be clear: I think it is very good that Tucker Carlson is criticizing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, its aggression in Lebanon. I think it’s very good that he’s turned against Trump and that he’s turned against Iran.

But none of that changes the fact that this man remains a white Christian nationalist. And you can be glad that he’s criticizing human rights abuses against Palestinians and Lebanese, but if you allow that to lead you to silence yourself on the question of his white Christian nationalism, then I think you’re doing a disservice to the struggle for American liberal democracy, and you’re doing a disservice to the struggle against all bigotry.

When I say Carlson traffics in antisemitism, I want to be clear. This is very different than the kind of accusations, weaponized accusations, of antisemitism against people who criticize Israel. I’m not saying Carlson traffics in antisemitism because he criticizes Israel. I’m saying that his antisemitism is part and parcel of his general white Christian nationalism. And just as that white Christian nationalism comes out in anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-Black statements, it also comes out in antisemitism.

And the video that he just did, which just came out a couple days ago, is so revealing in that regard for this reason. It’s not about Israel. This video barely ever mentions Israel at all, so it so clearly shows the way in which Carlson’s antisemitic and bigoted attitudes are not about Israel, they’re about Jews, just as they’re about Black people, and they’re about Muslims.

And this is the video. So, Carlson chooses to interview a guy named Tyler Oliveira. Who is Tyler Oliveira? Tyler Oliveira is a YouTube influencer who goes around with a camera and a video crew trying to create YouTube videos that will go viral. And one of the things that made him best known was that a year ago, he did a video called ‘Inside the Ohio Town Invaded by Cat-Eating Haitians.’ Invaded by cat-eating Haitians. He’s one of the people who spread the racist slander, right, that Haitians were eating cats in Springfield, Ohio.

Then, he went on from there to do the same thing to ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Earlier this year, he did a video in the New York ultra-Orthodox town of Kiryas Joel, entitled, ‘Inside the New York Town Invaded by Welfare-Addicted Jews.’ Invaded by welfare-addicted Jews. And then, just more recently, he went to Lakewood, New Jersey, another town with a very large ultra-Orthodox community, and he did a video entitled, ‘I Exposed New Jersey’s Jewish Invasion.’ I Exposed New Jersey’s Jewish Invasion.

So, let’s just be entirely clear here, right? There are legitimate questions to ask about ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, about the way they run their school systems, about questions about how they use government benefits. There are serious people who deal with those questions. One of them is Naftuli Moster, who grew up ultra-Orthodox himself, and was for many years the leader of this group of ex-ultra-Orthodox people called Yaffed.

Naftuli Moster has denounced Tyler Oliveira because, as should be obvious from the titles of this video, this is not a guy with a good faith interest in looking at issues, troubling issues within alternative Orthodox communities, just like he’s not a good faith actor trying to understand the issues in Springfield, Ohio. This is a bigot who talks about Jewish invasion, welfare-addicted Jews, and cat-eating Haitians. So please don’t give me the nonsense that this is a good faith effort to look into issues of ultra-Orthodox Jews, unless you’re willing to say that that’s also the spirit that Tyler Oliveira brought to Springfield, Ohio, and the Haitian community there.

So, Carlson has him on his show. Carlson has him on his show, and Oliveira starts to talk about the work he did in Minneapolis, where he said—this is Oliveira speaking—he said that there is ‘blatant retardation, if you will, of people from Somalia who can’t even spell the word learning.’ People who can’t even spell the word learning. He goes on to talk about how the generous Scandinavian population in Minnesota, its generosity inevitably attracts some of the world’s most opportunistic, parasitic, if you will, population of people from a destabilized country in Africa. This is the way Tyler Oliveira is talking about Somalis in Minneapolis. Incidentally, it was that racist claim about Somalis and fraud in Minneapolis that led to the ICE invasion of Minneapolis.

How does Carlson respond to this? How does Carlson respond to this blatant bigotry? Carlson says, thank you for saying that. And then he goes on to note that what Oliveira is talking about in Minnesota is also happening in Maine, where Carlson now lives. He says, ‘Maine’—this is Carlson—‘Maine, which has similar demographics. Overwhelmingly, Northern European whites, who have no idea what an idyllic place they have, who hate themselves, because they’ve been taught to hate themselves. And so, to atone for sins they didn’t commit’—this is Carlson—‘they import the most destructive, parasitic populations they can find, and then sort of revel in the squalor, because it’s kind of self-abasement that turns them on. It’s sadomasochism.’ This is Tucker Carlson talking about people from Africa who have moved to Maine.

So, then, Oliveira in the interview goes on to say that after going through dealing with Haitians in Springfield, and then dealing with Somalis in Minnesota, he decided to Google Jewish ethnic enclaves, because this is what he does, right? So, he found out that there were these large Orthodox communities in the New York-New Jersey area, and he went to look to see if they, like the Haitians and the Somalis, were also taking advantage of the good-hearted generosity of white Americans.

And Carlson is deeply impressed. And so, Carlson says, ‘so, you still believe in principles? You must be a legacy American.’ This is what he says to Oliveira. ‘You must be a legacy American. You must be from here if you actually believe in higher principles.’ The supposed higher principle of ferreting out welfare fraud, except that it only turns out that you’re ferreting it out among Haitians, Somalis, and ultra-Orthodox Jews.

And then Oliveira goes on to talk about what he found in the ultra-Orthodox community of Kiryas Joel in New York, and he uses that same word again. He talks about their high welfare use, their many kids, and he calls them a ‘parasitic, insulated Jewish community.’ And then Carlson mentions that these videos are getting high ratings, and Carlson says, ‘I just love that you’re being rewarded for this.’ I just love that you’re being rewarded for this.

Then Oliveira goes on to say that while it was easy to get Republicans angry about what the Haitians and Somalis were supposedly doing, it’s harder with the ultra-Orthodox Jews because they have more political influence in New York and New Jersey. And so, Carlson says, ‘so, democracy has literally been subverted or hijacked here, in exactly the same way it has been in Lewiston, Maine, and Minneapolis, Minnesota by the Somalis.’

And then Oliveira says, you know, there are religious communities that don’t leech off the government. For instance, the Amish. They’re also very religiously conservative and traditional, but they don’t leech off the government and get all of this welfare money. And so, Carlson says, so the Christian community pays for itself, but the others don’t. So, the Christian community pays for itself, but the others don’t.

Then, Oliveira later goes on to say that the heritage residents—the heritage residents—I don’t know, by the way, why ultra-Orthodox Jews, whose families might have come here, you know, 75 or even 100 years ago, are not considered heritage residents, but obviously, it’s a euphemism for white Christians. And Oliveira says that the heritage residents are upset about the Orthodox Jews in Lakewood, New Jersey because they have to pay for their buses that they take to their private yeshivot, their private Jewish schools, and those buses can be gender segregated. And so, Carlson says, ‘there seems to be less religious freedom for some people, but a lot more for others’, right? That the Christians don’t have religious freedom, but the Jews have religious freedom.

And then, in explaining why it is that these ultra-Orthodox Jews seem so willing to basically take federal money, right, welfare money, which is Carlson’s and Oliveira’s claim, right, that they’re doing so legally, but still it’s reprehensible because they’re leeches on the system, and good, honest, hard-working white Christian Americans wouldn’t do that. Carlson turns to the Bible. And he says, ‘I think what you’re seeing is a clash of worldviews. One is a legalistic worldview.’ This one he’s talking about, the Jewish worldview. ‘A legalistic worldview. This is the law, and we’re within the bounds of the law, which I think is totally defensible. On the other, well, there is a higher law having to do with your ethics, honor, shame, decency, and you see this repeatedly in the New Testament’, right?

I mean, so, the Jews don’t have honor, shame, and decency because they just have a legalistic religion rooted in the ‘Old Testament’, but white Christians who follow the New Testament actually have these higher values because those are the values in the New Testament. And then, you see that, Carlson goes on to basically say all of these different groups, the Haitians, the Somalis, all of these people, the ultra-Orthodox Jews, all of them are able to look out for themselves, but there’s one totally unprotected group, and that is white people.

And then Carlson goes on to say, it’s like normal whites who are like, I think we’re going to get necklaced at some point. If necklace, if you don’t reference that, it’s very telling. Necklace was the…there was the attack that the ANC used against Black collaborators when it was fighting apartheid, right? So, and this comes immediately after Carlson and Oliveira have been talking about how America’s becoming like post-apartheid South Africa, and in which white people are going to become oppressed, white people are going to become necklaced.

None of this is about Israel. Again, Israel barely comes up in this conversation. It’s super obvious what’s happening here. It’s exactly the same thing that Nick Fuentes has been doing. Nick Fuentes, his whole argument is basically, I’m an anti-Black bigot, I’m an anti-Muslim bigot, I’m super misogynistic, and you know what? I’m going to extend those same principles to Jews as well. And Carlson and Oliveira are doing exactly the same thing. They’re taking the template of this vicious bigotry against Haitians, against Somalis, and they’re doing the same thing now with ultra-Orthodox Jews.

So, the antisemitism, the claim that this is antisemitic, has nothing to do with what Carlson says about Israel, or even his views about Jews in particular. It’s that the antisemitism, as with Fuentes, is a natural extension of the white Christian nationalism that also makes him bigoted towards Muslims, towards African immigrants, towards Black and brown immigrants more generally, and to believe absurdly, right, that it is white Christians who are both the only truly noble group in America that doesn’t look out for themselves, and the only one that is really discriminated against and really is in danger.

And I say all of this, I think it’s important to say to progressives, because there are high-profile progressives who go on Tucker Carlson’s show. They go on Tucker Carlson’s show, and they do not challenge him on this bigotry, right? Again, I don’t have a problem with people going on Tucker Carlson’s show, but I do have a problem when people go on Tucker Carlson’s show, and it’s a love fest, and they talk only about the things that they agree about: Israel, Iran, you know, vague claims about how the two-party system is totally corrupt, blah blah blah blah blah. And they never call out the guy on this really blatant antisemitism, and the really blatant bigotry in white Christian nationalism more generally, right?

And there are a whole series of these figures, right, from Cenk Uygur, who I had a conversation with the other day, and would be very happy to talk to him more about. Glenn Greenwald, who goes on Tucker Carlson’s show repeatedly. Jeffrey Sachs. Jewish figures, like Dave Smith, the comedian, right? My plea to them, my plea to them and to anybody else who’s thinking about engaging with Tucker Carlson is not that you shouldn’t talk to Tucker Carlson, but that you should not leave your principles at the door. If you’re against bigotry, if you are against this kind of hateful targeting of people, and the argument that somehow white Christians are superior to these Black and brown immigrants and these Jews, and that the real problem in America is that white Christians, who are the only truly noble group that sees beyond their self-interest, are being persecuted. If you think that’s b******t, which it is, then say it’s b******t to Tucker Carlson’s face. Don’t go on this show and ignore all of that because you may think, right, that you’re just working with him to try to turn U.S. policy against Israel and to end the war in Iran, both of which I support, but you are actually giving him more credibility, making him more mainstream, and you’re assuming that the kind of politics that Tucker Carlson brings to bear will be fundamentally different than Donald Trump?

No, it may be different in its view of America’s wars abroad and Israel policy, but when it comes to the question of multiracial democracy in the United States, it’s every bit as vicious as what Trump is peddling. Carlson has been intimately involved in Trump’s rise and Trump’s racism, and Carlson is doing exactly the same thing. If anything, the only difference is he’s now clearly expanding it to Jews as well. And that should not be acceptable, it should not be normalized, and every time people have the opportunity, when they’re talking to Tucker Carlson, they should call it out.

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