{"id":308652,"date":"2026-02-25T01:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T01:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/308652\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T01:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T01:17:09","slug":"tucker-carlsons-anti-zionism-shows-horseshoe-theory-nearing-a-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/308652\/","title":{"rendered":"Tucker Carlson’s anti-Zionism shows horseshoe theory nearing a circle"},"content":{"rendered":"

In December, the right-wing US media personality Tucker Carlson hosted the far-left UN special rapporteur for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, on his show.<\/p>\n

The two outspoken personalities, from opposite corners of the political spectrum, found themselves in agreement, with Carlson deferring to Albanese\u2019s explanations of the conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us have spent a lot of time doing our best to ignore what\u2019s happening in Gaza,\u201d Carlson said during a preamble to the interview. \u201cThe idea that they\u2019ve killed tens of thousands of women and children, non-combatants, accidentally, is a lie. No, they murdered them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, Carlson interviewed<\/a> US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, an Evangelical Christian and fellow Republican appointed by US President Donald Trump, who would seem more likely a member of Carlson\u2019s camp. Unlike his talk with Albanese, though, Carlson was confrontational, challenging Huckabee\u2019s justifications for Israel\u2019s existence, using talking points familiar to the left, such as disputing Jewish indigeneity<\/a> in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current prime minister\u2019s ancestors weren\u2019t from here,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cNetanyahu\u2026 his family\u2019s from Poland. They\u2019re from Eastern Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Carlson\u2019s adoption of left-wing anti-Zionist arguments highlighted the so-called horseshoe theory of politics, which posits that the political spectrum is not a straight line, but that its ends bend toward each other, particularly when it comes to Israel and Jews.<\/p>\n

With Carlson\u2019s emerging right-wing anti-Zionism, the horseshoe is increasingly nearing a full circle.<\/p>\n

The former US antisemitism envoy, Deborah Lipstadt, has described the horseshoe theory as the far left and far right being \u201ccloser to one another on the issue of antisemitism than they are to the center.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRather than the right-left dichotomy, a more accurate predictor of antisemitic worldviews is the adherence to conspiratorial worldviews, anti-hierarchical aggression, and a preference for authoritarianism.\u00a0This, of course, can describe someone at either end of the political spectrum,\u201d Lipstadt said<\/a> in 2024. \u201cThis might help us understand how people with conflicting views on a host of, if not all, other issues converge on antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIllustrative: Anti-Israel protesters in New York City, August 16, 2025. (Luke Tress\/ Times of Israel)<\/p>\n

The two sides traditionally took opposing views, though. Karl Marx framed Jews as inveterate capitalists, and the US right viewed Jews as communists. On the far right today, Jews are often seen as non-whites facilitating immigration to the US, while on the far left, Jews are treated as white invaders in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The start of the Gaza war has led to a new wave of discrimination against Jews as anti-Zionism saturated<\/a> many US institutions. A cadre of Jewish scholars argues that anti-Zionism marks Western society\u2019s third iteration of discrimination<\/a> against Jews. First came anti-Judaism, focused on religion, then antisemitism, a hatred based on race. Anti-Zionism targets Jewish peoplehood and Israel, with its own set of tropes, libels and tactics, the scholars argue. Carlson appears to be moving into the third category, using some of those tropes, with a right-wing inflection.<\/p>\n

Anti-Zionism can, in theory, remain purely political, but the ideology results in discrimination against Jews. Societies that have embraced anti-Zionism, like the Soviet Union and Iran, have become inhospitable to communal Jewish life.<\/p>\n

The far right, the far left<\/a>\u00a0and pro-Palestinian groups<\/a> form the three pillars of the US anti-Israel movement. All three blur the lines between legitimate political rhetoric and discrimination; there is no clear agreement over what Zionism even means<\/a>. The far left and pro-Palestinian groups elide their differences to ally over their shared enmity to the US-led West, capitalism and \u201cZionists.\u201d There\u2019s not much common ground with the \u201cAmerica First\u201d capitalist right, but there is an overlap with Israel.<\/p>\n

The confrontational interview with Huckabee illustrated Carlson\u2019s break with the pro-Israel Republican old guard<\/a>, while his friendly, recent talks with anti-Israel characters from the left and right underline his position as a point of convergence for both sides.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tUN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese in Cape Town, South Africa, October 28, 2025. (Rodger Bosch\/AFP)<\/p>\n

In the past year, on the left, in addition to Albanese, Carlson discussed Israel with Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry\u2019s, commentator Cenk Uygur and journalist Glenn Greenwald. On the other side, he\u2019s spoken with the Holocaust denier Darryl Cooper<\/a>, white supremacist Nick Fuentes<\/a> and conspiracist Ian Carroll. While Carlson gives these figures airtime, and has leaned into<\/a> classic antisemitism<\/a> and white nationalism in the past, his own recent statements sound more like leftist anti-Zionism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s purer and less vulgar than Candace Owens or Nick Fuentes. It has less classically antisemitic and anti-Talmudic stuff,\u201d said Adam Louis-Klein, a prominent critic<\/a> of anti-Zionism. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like a pure anti-Zionism that he\u2019s now developing from the right.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, both Carlson and the left accuse Israel of collective punishment (Carlson\u2019s term is \u201cblood guilt\u201d); charge Israel with targeting journalists in Gaza; dispute whether Biblical Jews are connected to Jewish Israelis today; attack the notion of \u201cGreater Israel\u201d land claims; and are fixated on AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and US aid to Israel.<\/p>\n

Carlson\u2019s insistence in the Huckabee interview that Israeli Jews undergo genetic testing<\/a> to prove their connection to the land echoes the anti-Zionist Khazar hypothesis<\/a>. He cited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s comments about \u201cAmalek\u201d<\/a> after the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, as evidence of genocidal intent, sounding like a progressive academic.<\/p>\n

Both sides are sympathetic to traditional enemies of the West \u2014 see leftist streamer Hasan Piker lamenting<\/a> the Soviet Union losing the Cold War, Carlson gushing<\/a> over Russian grocery stores and Fuentes telling Carlson that he\u2019s an \u201cadmirer\u201d of Joseph Stalin. Carlson\u2019s defense of Qatar in December echoed points made by CodePink.<\/a><\/p>\n

Anti-Israel rhetoric surrounding the Epstein files was similar on the far left and far right, including on Carlson\u2019s show<\/a>, where he discussed Israel-related Epstein conspiracies with both Carroll and Uygur.<\/p>\n

Both sides portray Israel as controlling US President Donald Trump and US foreign policy \u2014 a trope, like some of the others, that is shared with more traditional antisemitism. Carlson said Netanyahu was \u201crunning around the world, saying I\u2019ve got Trump in my pocket,\u201d while anti-Israel activists had an actor dressed as Netanyahu lead American leaders<\/a> around on dog leashes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael has murdered tens of thousands of children on purpose and then locked the doors of Gaza, shot dozens and dozens and dozens of journalists so no one can film what\u2019s happening, and just leveled the place so they can move the people out and take it,\u201d Carlson said in December, a description of the war that could have come from the left.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tFILE \u2013 US President Donald Trump, right, answers a question from a reporter at the end of a news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, December 29, 2025. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon, file)<\/p>\n

Both also tend to dismiss antisemitism<\/a> accusations as bad-faith underhanded ploys<\/a> to protect Israel, seeing the accusations as impugning the accuser more than the accused.<\/p>\n

\u201cAntisemitism used to mean somebody who didn\u2019t like Jews. Now it just means somebody Jews don\u2019t like,\u201d former US Rep. Matt Gaetz said on Carlson\u2019s show.<\/p>\n

And on both sides, rhetoric that was once off-limits is becoming normalized, as the differing movements increasingly make inroads<\/a> in their political parties. Carlson is friendly with US Vice President JD Vance and was at the White House<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

Carlson\u2019s interview with Huckabee won plaudits from leftist media figures such as Mehdi Hasan and reporters from The New York Times and The Guardian, who did not mention his fabrications<\/a>. Islamist anti-Zionist activists have been sharing clips of the interview on social media.<\/p>\n

Other right-wing commentators like Owens have adopted some of the vocabulary more common on the left, like accusing Israel<\/a> of perpetrating a \u201cHolocaust\u201d in Gaza, calling Israel a terrorist state<\/a>, and attacking \u201cZionists<\/a>,\u201d alongside the old-school antisemitism<\/a> based on race and religion<\/a> that is less prevalent on the left.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tCandace Owens, US conservative political commentator, speaks on stage during \u2018Turning Point\u2019s The Peoples Convention,\u2019 at Huntington Place in Detroit, Michigan, June 14, 2024. (Jeff Kowalsky\/AFP)<\/p>\n

A common criticism from Democrats and Republicans has been that their opponents only recognize anti-Jewish discrimination in the other camp, but if both sides agree on anti-Zionism, there won\u2019t be problems on the other side to point to. Anti-Zionism is often not treated as discriminatory, but political, forming a major fault line<\/a> in US discourse, politics and in the courts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a perfect circle because there are still gaps between anti-Zionism in the two camps. Carlson isn\u2019t going to call North America \u201cTurtle Island,\u201d<\/a> he readily condemns Hamas, and his adherents aren\u2019t going to take over campuses, while leftists aren\u2019t going to censure Israel for providing citizens with abortions, back their arguments with Old Testament scripture, or support Trump.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the two sides attack the same targets from different angles, such as Carlson deriding Tel Aviv<\/a> as the \u201cworld capital for drag queen story hours,\u201d while leftists accuse Israel of \u201cpinkwashing.\u201d Carlson\u2019s charge that Israel persecutes Christians at the Holy Sepulchre mirrors the pro-Palestine movement\u2019s accusations of Israeli persecution at the Temple Mount\u2019s Al Aqsa Mosque. Right-wing isolationism dovetails with leftist anti-imperialism in their shared opposition to strikes against Iran.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time the two camps bonded over anti-Zionism. Adolf Hitler allied<\/a> with the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, for example, but Carlson\u2019s anti-Zionism is a more modern iteration.<\/p>\n

Carlson does not explicitly call for Israel\u2019s destruction, arguably the literal definition of anti-Zionism, but his propagation of \u201call the anti-Zionist libels,\u201d such as his portrayal of Israelis as European implants, puts his statements in that camp, Louis-Klein said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s delegitimizing Israeli identity by saying, \u2018Israelis are not really from there.\u2019 So even if he doesn\u2019t literally say, \u2018End Israel,\u2019 it\u2019s the same complex of ideas that\u2019s coding Israel as inherently evil and illegitimate,\u201d Louis-Klein said.<\/p>\n

Some tropes have cross-pollinated between the different camps before, such as anti-Israel protesters endorsing<\/a> the medieval blood libel or charges of Jewish deicide<\/a>. Carlson\u2019s anti-Zionist circle stands out, though, as an indicator of how pervasive that framework has become \u2014 from New York streets and the NGO world, to a right-wing media sphere that is adjacent to Republican party leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you feel the resentment? Because it\u2019s real,\u201d Carlson told Huckabee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In December, the right-wing US media personality Tucker Carlson hosted the far-left UN special rapporteur for the Palestinians,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-308652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}