If you follow Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, or other members of the “Woke Right,” you’ve heard that Israel is the great persecutor of Christians in the Middle East, while its Islamic neighbors are tolerant of Christianity. 

That is patently false.

On February 5, 2026, Tucker released a video claiming Israel persecutes Christians and that Jordan, by contrast, welcomes them. Two weeks later, he tried to get US Ambassador Mike Huckabee to confirm the same claim on camera. Huckabee — himself an evangelical Christian who has spent considerable time in Israel — pushed back firmly and refused to go along with it.

Tucker’s evidence rests largely on social media videos showing religious Jewish youth spitting on Christian clergy in Jerusalem. These incidents are rare, universally condemned by Israeli society, prosecuted by Israeli police, and have prompted public demonstrations by Israeli Jews standing in solidarity with Christian pilgrims. Tucker seizes on these isolated incidents and presents them to his sizable following as though they represent the norm in Israeli society.

MTG’s version of this argument is even less grounded. She has claimed that Jewish “settlers” are seizing Christian homes in Bethlehem with the Israeli government’s blessing. This is impossible. Bethlehem is under Palestinian Authority control, and Jews are legally prohibited from entering it. No Jews live in Bethlehem.

The foundational claim underlying all of this — that Israel’s Christian population has declined since the state was founded — is also wrong. Israel’s Christian population has grown from approximately 34,000 in 1949 to around 181,000 today, an increase of over 400%. It is the only country in the Middle East where the indigenous Christian population is growing rather than shrinking. In 2024, 84% of Israeli Christians reported being satisfied with life in Israel. Christians there worship freely, run churches and schools, proselytize, serve in the military, and hold diplomatic posts. Israel is the custodian of the holiest sites in Christendom — the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Via Dolorosa, Capernaum — and millions of Christian pilgrims visit them freely every year.

It’s also worth noting what is happening under Palestinian Authority rule, since Tucker and MTG claim to care about Palestinian Christians. The PA’s legal system is rooted in Sharia law, and it has consistently failed to protect Christian landowners in Bethlehem, where the Christian population is collapsing under documented intimidation, land theft, and harassment. Churches have been vandalized in the historic Christian village of Aboud. Residents of the Christian village of Jifna near Ramallah have faced attacks from local Muslim militias. 

For people who barely go a week without criticizing Israel, Tucker and MTG have managed to say nothing about any of this. In fact, in November 2025, Tucker gave a platform to attorney Robert Amsterdam, who flatly denied that Christians in Nigeria are being massacred.

Tucker’s Muslim “Havens” for Christians

Tucker has pointed not just to Jordan but to Qatar and Saudi Arabia as examples of Muslim countries that are welcoming to Christians. The documented record in both countries directly contradicts that claim.

Jordan, which Tucker praised specifically, is on Open Doors’ list of the 50 most dangerous countries in the world for Christians. So are Egypt and Syria — every one of Israel’s neighbors except Lebanon.

Qatar, another country Tucker considers a beacon of tolerance, is even worse. Christianity there is heavily restricted by law. Churches cannot display visible crosses, advertise services, or engage in any form of evangelism. Proselytizing is a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment. Public Christian worship is confined to a single government-controlled compound in Mesaimeer, built on state-owned land — meaning Christians worship only where and how the state permits. Possessing missionary materials is penalized, and apostasy — converting from Islam to Christianity — is a criminal offense under Qatari law.

Saudi Arabia is no better. Open Doors ranks it among the most dangerous countries on earth for Christians, alongside Sudan and Iran. 

What’s Actually Happening to Christians in the Region

Syria tells the real story. Following the Islamist HTS takeover in December 2024, Syria jumped from #18 to #6 on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List of Christian persecution — one of the largest single-year leaps ever recorded. Twenty-seven Syrian Christians were killed for their faith in 2025. In June 2025, a suicide bomber entered the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus during the Divine Liturgy on a Sunday morning and detonated, killing at least 25 people and wounding 63 — the single deadliest attack on Syria’s Christian community since 1860. Trucks with loudspeakers drove through Christian neighborhoods ordering residents to convert to Islam. Then, on March 28, 2026, Muslim mobs linked to Syria’s new Islamist rulers attacked the predominantly Christian city of Al-Suqaylabiyah, storming civilian homes, looting property, and destroying businesses.

Syria’s Christian population has collapsed from over 2 million to barely 300,000 — an ancient community tracing its faith to the earliest days of the Church, now facing extinction.

George Deek, who served as Israel’s first Arab Christian ambassador, put it plainly in response to the violence: “As we will soon enter the Holy Week, the very communities that have kept the faith alive for 2,000 years are facing violence, fear, and extinction. Pray for Syria’s Christians, but don’t stop there. Speak about it. Share it. The silence of the world is part of the tragedy.”

The Bottom Line

Instead of defending Christians being slaughtered in Syria, Tucker Carlson and MTG are casting Israel — the one country in the Middle East where Christianity is growing and legally protected — as the chief oppressor of Middle Eastern Christians, while holding up totalitarian Islamic regimes as models of tolerance. 

Members of the “Woke Right” speak often about their Christian faith. But when the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is accessible to every Christian on earth because Israel protects it — and when ancient Christian communities in Syria are being bombed out of existence and forcibly converted while Tucker is busy praising Qatar and pointing fingers at Israel — it’s fair to ask whether their concern for persecuted Christians is genuine, or whether those Christians are simply props.

George Deek said the silence of the world is part of the tragedy. Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene are a loud part of that silence.

Sources

Tucker Carlson, Tucker Carlson, CNN, TOI, ITN, ITN, CBS, CBS, Algemeiner, BBC, Jewish Virtual Library, All Arab News, Middle East Forum, TCN, JNS, US State Department, Open Doors, Christian Daily, SOHR, WikiIslam, George Deek