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Fox News host Tucker Carlson fired back at the ADL Monday night in a segment which cited Israel and the ADL’s position on Arab immigration to the Jewish state.
Carlson, host of the popular “Tucker Carlson Tonight” primetime show on Fox News, dedicated a 20-minute segment on his show Monday night to responding to accusations that he spread a racist, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory regarding immigration policy.
Last week, Anti-Defamation League chief and former Obama administration official Jonathan Greenblatt demanded Fox News drop Carlson, claiming he had peddled a “white supremacist tenet”.
“It is anti-Semitic, racist and toxic,” Greenblatt tweeted, linking Carlson’s comments to “the ideology of mass shooters in El Paso, Christchurch and Pittsburgh.”
Greenblatt’s attack came in response to comments by Carlson during last Thursday’s show, in which Carlson accused the Democratic Party of pursuing open-door immigration policies and amnesty for illegal immigrants in order to bolster their party electorally.
“I know that the left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term ‘replacement,’ if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World,” Carlson said.
Carlson’s use of the terms “replace” and “replacement” drew fire from left-wing critics and the ADL, prompting Greenblatt to declare “Tucker must go.”
But Carlson rejected the accusations, saying Monday night that his claims were not racially-motivated, citing examples of mass domestic immigration altering the voting patterns of states like Vermont, once a reliably Republican stronghold which became solidly Democrat following an influx of mostly non-Hispanic white voters from New York.
Support for open-border migration policies are democratic issue, not a racial one, Carlson continued, arguing that black Americans have seen their electoral influence wane as a result of years of mass immigration.
Carlson went on to name several countries which strictly regulate immigration to protect their ethnic identity, and pointed to the ADL’s defense of Israel’s Law of Return, which applies only to Jews and their descendants.
“You wonder if people even debate questions like this in countries that don’t hate themselves; in countries like Japan or South Korea or Israel,” Carlson said Monday night.
“Go to the Anti-Defamation League’s website sometime if you’d like a glimpse at an unvarnished conversation about what a country’s national interest might look like. In a short essay posted to the site, the ADL explains why the State of Israel should not allow more Arabs to become citizens with voting rights.”
The essay, quoted on the segment, explains the ADL’s opposition to turning Israel into a bi-national Jewish-Arab state, and reads in part: “With historically high birth rates among the Palestinians, and a possible influx of Palestinian refugees and their descendants now living around the world Jews would quickly be a minority within a bi-national state, thus likely ending any semblance of equal representation and protections. In this situation, the Jewish population would increasingly politically – and potentially physically – vulnerable. It is unrealistic and unacceptable to expect the State of Israel to voluntarily subvert its own sovereign existence and nationalist identity and become a vulnerable minority within what was once its own territory.”
“From Israel’s perspective, this makes perfect sense,” Carlson said. “Why would any democratic nation make its own citizens any less powerful? Isn’t that the deepest betrayal of all? In the words of the ADL, ‘why would a government subvert sovereign existence’? Good question. Maybe ADL President Jonathan Greenblatt will join us sometime to explain whether that same principle applies to the United States. Most Americans believe it does.”
Former New York State Assemblyman and founder of Americans Against Anti-Semitism, Dov Hikind, published a video in which he also pushed back on the ADL's claims against Carlson.
“Yes, there’s a White Supremacist conspiracy theory called ‘The Great Replacement’ but that is about minority races replacing the white race. Tucker Carlson spoke of non-citizens being brought in large numbers to dilute the voting power of all citizens, regardless of color,” he said.
“Greenblatt’s attack on Carlson is nothing but a politicized witch hunt meant to neutralize another prominent Conservative,” continued Hikind. “When the alleged racism or anti-Semitism comes from someone on the left, or a minority, the ADL calls them to get educated.”
“One can disagree with [Carlson’s] position, but he can’t be made into a racist because of it. At this point, the ADL should just officially fold into the Democratic Party because they seem to be doing their exclusive bidding,” said Hikind.