Israel, not America, first: Carlson’s Huckabee interview lays bare US foreign policy priorities « Aletho News
In a recent interview with the US ambassador to the Israeli-occupied territories, Mike Huckabee, prominent US journalist and commentator Tucker Carlson confronted an Israeli-led system of intimidation, censorship, and foreign influence shaping American policy.
In a blistering monologue before his sit-down with the controversial American diplomat, Carlson framed his trip to Israeli-occupied territories not as a routine diplomatic media engagement, but as a revealing encounter with an entrenched apparatus exerting sway over American power.
The interview, conducted at the high-security Ben Gurion Airport, 20 kilometers to the south of Tel Aviv, itself began with a public challenge on Twitter from Huckabee, who suggested that if Carlson was addressing Christians in West Asia, he should speak to him as well.
Carlson initially hesitated. Having known Huckabee for decades, he admitted that interviewing him would require “a lot of self-control,” noting that the hawkish former Baptist minister’s genial, grandfatherly persona makes it difficult to press hard without appearing hostile.
Still, Carlson concluded that the moment demanded it. The stakes, he said, were enormous.
The United States, he noted, is moving toward a war with Iran – and Israel is “driving that.”
The US, he stated bluntly, is acting “at the behest, at the demand of” the Israeli regime’s premier Benjamin Netanyahu, who has presided over the modern-day holocaust in Gaza.
Embassy obstruction and security refusals
From the very outset, Carlson described encountering bizarre and hostile treatment from the US Embassy personnel in Israeli-occupied territories.
He said he requested basic measures – private security or an embassy representative to accompany his team from the airport. He was flatly refused.
At the time, he noted, Israeli regime officials, including Netanyahu, had publicly denounced him, suggesting Carlson was effectively aligned with Nazis and branding him a “member of the Woke Reichstag.”
Given such rhetoric, Carlson believed modest security precautions were reasonable.
Instead, the embassy declined assistance and referred him to Israel’s foreign ministry, specifically to deputy foreign minister Sharon Haskell, who had released a video labeling him an anti-Semite and “enemy of Israel.”
Carlson was stunned.
“I’m an American citizen responding to an invitation from the American ambassador,” he recounted telling embassy officials.
Why, he asked, was he being handed over to foreign officials who had publicly smeared him? Why was the US Embassy unwilling to provide even minimal official accompaniment?
The explanation that “legal reasons” prevented it struck him as evasive. He described the behavior as “very strange” and later, more ominously, as “menacing.”
Flight data and a troubling refusal
Tensions escalated when Carlson’s team chartered a plane for a quick in-and-out trip.
He asked the embassy to pass along his flight details to Israeli military authorities, citing airspace protocols and regional volatility. Israel, he pointed out, is engaged in a “seven-front war” and has a history of aggressive military action.
The embassy initially refused. The refusal unnerved him. Only after pressing aggressively did they agree.
For Carlson, the episode underscored what he sees as a deeper dysfunction: American officials appearing either unwilling or afraid to act independently of Israeli authorities, even in matters concerning American citizens.
The Netanyahu rift
Parallel to arranging the Huckabee interview, Carlson had been trying for months to secure even a brief meeting with Netanyahu. Not for an interview, he says, but partially because of the attempts by the Israeli regime to target members of his family.
He references Netanyahu’s invocation of “Amalek,” a biblical concept for collective punishment, and says the rhetoric felt threatening to him and his family members.
Despite reaching out through multiple intermediaries, Carlson was rebuffed. He was told meeting him would not be “in [Netanyahu’s] political interest.”
To Carlson, this signaled not merely disagreement but fanaticism. “You’re dealing with people who are unreasonable, who are inflexible, who are, in fact, fanatical,” he later said.
The interview
When Carlson finally arrived at Ben Gurion Airport’s diplomatic terminal, he describes the setting as grim and shabby, a metaphor, perhaps, for the larger dysfunction he was witnessing.
Huckabee, he said, was friendly but constrained.
During the two-and-a-half-hour marathon interview, Carlson said Huckabee seemed less like an American representative and more like a spokesperson for the Israeli regime.
“You’re the US ambassador,” Carlson reflected. “You’re our representative to a foreign country. Why is your red line criticism of that country?”
He arrived at the conclusion that his country’s ambassador was “obviously representing the Israelis.”
Interrogation and intimidation
After the interview concluded, as Carlson’s team prepared to depart, Israeli military personnel detained and interrogated him and his team, including two of his producers.
The questions, Carlson said, had nothing to do with security and everything to do with intelligence gathering: What did you ask the ambassador? Was the interview hostile? Who works at your company? Where is your office? Show us your text exchanges.
“They’re doing an intel op and humiliation exercise,” Carlson said. “This isn’t security.”
Carlson slammed the Israeli regime as a “police state” and “surveillance state,” as constant monitoring and digital intrusion are routine.
The interrogation, he said, confirmed that criticism of Israel, even by an American journalist, triggers aggressive retaliation.
The aftermath
Carlson said he never received a follow-up from Huckabee or the US Embassy asking about the interrogation. Instead, Huckabee publicly dismissed Carlson’s account as false.
For Carlson, that response crystallized the deeper issue: “Who exactly is Huckabee working for?”
He pointed out that the incident revealed a harsh reality: “If you’re an American in [Israeli-occupied territories], you can be certain that your government will take the side of the Israeli [regime] and not your side.”
Worse, he said, the same dynamic operates within the United States itself. “Your government exists for you, not for a foreign [regime],” he declared. “But that’s not how we live in this country.”
In his telling, the episode was not just about one interview or one ambassador. It was about what he sees as an inversion of sovereignty — an American government reflexively defending a foreign power while marginalizing its own citizens.
The interview with Huckabee, Carlson implied, did more than expose diplomatic friction. It revealed a structure of influence and intimidation that, in his view, is “not sustainable,” “too humiliating,” and dangerously corrosive to American self-government...MORE...
Israel, not America, first: Carlson’s Huckabee interview lays bare US foreign policy priorities « Aletho News
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