As online rumors swirl that Tucker Carlson could be landing in Israel on his way back to the United States from Jordan, at least one evangelical leader is warning the popular podcaster that “he’s in real danger spiritually.”
He’s in real danger spiritually
American Israeli evangelical Christian Joel Rosenberg issued the warning to Carlson through The Media Line this week, citing Genesis 12, which he said makes clear that God will bless those who bless the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—and curse those who do not.
“I don’t wish ill on Tucker Carlson, but he clearly wishes ill against Israel and the Jewish people and all Christians who love and support Israel, as it says to do in the Bible,” Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg runs the news agency ALL ISRAEL NEWS, a platform geared toward an evangelical audience, largely in North America. He was responding to a report Carlson released last week from Jordan, in which Rosenberg said Carlson “spewed lies, demonstrably provable lies.”
Days later, rumors began spreading on social media that Carlson intended to visit Israel. They were sparked by Bar Shem-Ur of HaTzinor, who posted on X. The Channel 13 correspondent said the government considered barring Carlson due to his blatant anti-Zionism but decided against it for fear it would harm the country diplomatically.
Israeli officials have not confirmed that report.
A master class in gaslighting
Even if Carlson never sets foot in Israel, Christian leaders there say his Jordan-border report was nothing short of “a master class in gaslighting,” according to Israeli civil rights attorney and chairman of the Judeo-Christian Zionist Congress Calev Myers.
“Carlson took half-truths or things that actually exist but blew them out of proportion, and then ignored other very important salient facts,” Myers said.
Carlson’s 30-minute video, released February 5, was titled “The Shocking Reality of the Treatment of Christians in the Holy Land by US-Funded Israel.”
Along with Myers and Rosenberg, The Media Line reviewed Carlson’s central claims.
One of Carlson’s strongest assertions is that Christians in Israel are disappearing.
“Their numbers are not growing. They are shrinking, and there’s a huge debate about why,” Carlson said.
Critics say that the claim does not hold up against the data.
Figures released by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics ahead of Christmas 2025 show an increase in the number of Christian citizens in Israel. About 184,000 Christians live in Israel today, representing nearly 2% of the population, with steady growth over the past year. Many reside in Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Haifa.
“While Israel’s Christian population is growing, the Christian population in countless areas across the region has been dwindling due to systematic discrimination and oppression,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted in his address to Christians worldwide on Christmas Eve last year.
Myers and Rosenberg echoed that point, telling The Media Line that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where the Christian minority population has grown over the last 80 years rather than declined.
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“In Iraq, under ISIS and, even before, under Saddam Hussein, the number of Christians has plummeted by hundreds of thousands,” Rosenberg said. “That’s true in Syria under Bashar al-Assad, and under the Palestinian Authority … the number has plummeted as people felt persecuted and that their lives were too difficult.”
By contrast, Rosenberg said, the number of Christians—and even Jewish believers in Jesus—has grown in Israel. He said that in 1948, there were only 23 Jewish followers of Jesus, and today there are between 20,000 and 30,000. Although “Messianic Judaism” or “Jews for Jesus” remains controversial, these citizens are free to live and practice their faith, provided they do not illegally proselytize to Jewish citizens.
He added that there are between 4,000 and 5,000 Arab evangelicals, alongside longstanding Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christian communities whose families have lived in the land for generations.
In the video, Carlson interviews Archbishop Hosam Naoum, head of the Anglican Church in Jerusalem. The archbishop says Christians in Israel are “not thriving,” though Rosenberg argues that it depends on how one defines the term.
“Christians are free to worship, free to walk their faith, free to talk about their faith,” Rosenberg told The Media Line.
Naoum points to “fringe groups of people who are radicals” in Jerusalem who claim they want to “purify Jerusalem from infidels, Christians,” and who sometimes spit at or threaten Christian residents in the Old City.
Both Myers and Rosenberg acknowledged that such incidents occur but stressed that those involved represent a small minority.
“There is a problem with young hooligans spitting on robed clergy in the Old City, but we all know that 99.999% of Christian clergy in Israel have never experienced that,” Myers said. “There is a very certain place, in the Christian quarter of the Old City, where a small group of rebellious youth know that priests will be walking down the street and then spit at them.”
He said the offenders are usually very young and that police do detain them. Prosecution is rare, he added, because spitting is not typically classified as a crime without direct contact. The youth do not spit directly at the clergy, as the archbishop has acknowledged, but rather in their direction or in front of them.
At times, tensions have escalated.
During Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, in 2023—just days before the Hamas massacre—several suspects were arrested for spitting on and attacking Christians in the Old City. One suspect was caught on camera spitting, and the video went viral. The episode prompted condemnation from officials, including the prime minister and the chief rabbis. The Jerusalem District commander ordered the establishment of a special investigative team into the incidents.
“Does this constitute a national crisis? No,” Rosenberg said. “Is it coming from government policy? Absolutely not. Are those attacks against Christians legally sanctioned? Absolutely not.”
Still, Carlson compared the incidents to al-Qaida.
“In the United States after September 11, we were told, and I think it was true, that there were these madrasas, these schools, Islamic schools that were producing radicalism, true radicalism against the infidel, Christians and Jews. It sounds like something similar is going on in Jerusalem now,” Carlson said.
There has not been a single incident of these Jewish extremists in the Old City murdering a Christian.
The interview also addresses Easter celebrations at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Naoum says Christians are sometimes prevented from fully celebrating, as police cap the number of worshipers allowed to attend the Holy Fire ceremony at any given time. He acknowledges that Israel Police say the restrictions are based on safety concerns.
Past tragedies shape those concerns.
In 2021, 45 people were killed, and more than 150 were injured in the Meron crowd crush during Lag B’Omer celebrations at the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The site was not equipped to handle the tens of thousands who attended. Investigations found that a narrow walkway with metal flooring may have become slippery, leading to a deadly chain reaction as people fell during a rush toward the exit.
Israeli authorities say crowd-control measures at holy sites are intended to prevent similar disasters. Carlson, however, uses the issue to argue that religious freedom is lacking in Israel. Rosenberg and Myers reject that claim, saying the restrictions are about safety, not discrimination.
The conversation then turns to Bethlehem and the West Bank. Naoum attributes the emigration of Christians from Bethlehem to Israeli “occupation” and the security barrier.
A study released last year by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA) found that while Bethlehem and its surrounding villages were 86% Christian in 1950, by 2017 the Christian population had declined to 10%.
“Palestinian Christians report systematic employment discrimination, forcing many to leave their communities to seek opportunities elsewhere,” the JCFA reported.
The think tank documented similar trends in other parts of the West Bank and in Gaza, which had about 5,000 Christians before Hamas took over and roughly 1,000 by 2023.
Carlson argues that American aid to Israel does not benefit Christians in the West Bank.
“Why wouldn’t they send help to Christians in the town where Jesus was born and the town where he grew up?” Carlson asks American Christians.
That claim is easily debunked. After the Hamas massacre of Israelis, the Biden administration sent more than $100 million in humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. In addition, substantial private American donations support Bethlehem-based Christian NGOs and other religious institutions.
Another flashpoint in the interview concerns the explosion at the Anglican Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, less than two weeks after the war began. Carlson suggests that an Israeli missile struck the hospital. Multiple investigations later concluded that the blast was caused by a misfired rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Naoum describes the incident as contested, saying “there are two narratives” and that “in Gaza they said … it was an Israeli rocket.”
Subsequent reporting, third-party analyses, and corrections by major media outlets found no evidence that Israel was responsible.
Carlson’s broader premise is that Christians fare better in Jordan. Yet Jordanian law presents serious obstacles, particularly for those who convert from Islam to Christianity.
A Muslim who converts can be brought before a Sharia court and declared an apostate. Judges may annul marriages, remove custody of children, deny inheritance rights, transfer property to Muslim relatives, and, in some cases, restrict civil rights, including the right to vote.
Myers said conditions are often worse in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria—each bordering Israel—where Christians have limited political rights and face periodic persecution.
According to Open Doors, which tracks the 50 countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution, eight of the top 10 countries in 2026 are Muslim-majority nations.
By contrast, “the Christian citizens in Israel have full and equal rights like every Jew, like every Muslim, like everyone else,” Rosenberg, who moved to Israel in 2014, said.
We have survived the Tucker Carlsons of the world, and we’ve survived the Candace Owenses of the world
He added, “We have survived the Tucker Carlsons of the world, and we’ve survived the Candace Owenses of the world,” speaking with an air of optimism. He told The Media Line that he is more concerned about Carlson’s spiritual salvation than about the resilience of Judeo-Christian values and faith.
“They have a lot of influence right now, and we need to take it seriously,” Rosenberg said of Carlson and Owens. “But as I recall, although Goliath was much larger, David won that battle.”