What If Everything You Were Told About America’s “Closest Ally” Is Wrong?

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:21Speaker 01

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• 0:30Tucker Carlson?

  America has one great ally in the world. It's chief ally. By some calculations, maybe it's only real ally, and that's the state of Israel. And that has been the case for a long time. In fact, so long that few people question whether that's a good idea or why exactly that is. Everyone knows our closest ally is Israel. And we have all kinds of military and economic ties to Israel. But the main way you know Israel is our closest ally is that, really, up until just the other day, there was not a scenario you could conjure in your head in which the United States would take the side of any other country over Israel. It just couldn't happen. So Israel's our chief ally. Hasn't always been this way. Of course, Israel didn't exist until right after the Second World War.

• 1:14Tucker Carlson?

  So it's all pretty new, and it's accelerated with every decade. We've become closer and closer to Israel. Our commitment, not our legal commitment or publicly discussed commitment, but our, in effect, commitment, our on-the-ground commitment to Israel has become stronger every year. But there's no reason that should stay the way it is forever. What if we decided to change it up? What if we decided to get a new closest ally in the world? How about Qatar? What if Qatar was our closest ally? Float that one at the next dinner party you go to. People will respond strongly, especially if they're Fox News viewers. What? Are you an Islamist? Qatar? The bloodthirsty, Islamofascist state?

• 1:59Tucker Carlson?

  What, are you getting paid by the Qatar lobby? A quack? Of course, there is no actual "a quack", but if there was a Qatar lobby, it should be called "a quack".

• 2:10Tucker Carlson?

  And then you would be forced to explain why Qatar should be our closest ally. And of course, people would look at you like you were insane, in fact, dangerous and probably anti-American. But let's just take Qatar out of it for a second. How do you think about, if you're the United States, who ought to be your closest ally? Who gets that job? Who do you take to the prom? And it depends on how you think about it. If you think about it through the lens of American interests, which is to say, what's good for us? Then it's a very different picture. What's good for us? Well, you would want a country that had, I don't know, natural resources that you might want to have access to? Energy, probably first and foremost, but maybe not. Minerals too. But certainly, energy, oil and gas, because we need them, despite what they may tell

• 2:54Tucker Carlson?

  you, to continue our civilization and to be strong and prosperous. So a big energy supply would be important. A powerful military might also help. And to have a powerful military, of course, you need a big population to man the military, as Ukraine unfortunately is finding out now. It helps to have a lot of people. So there are a couple of different countries you might throw out there. If you were looking purely through the lens of what's good for the United States, an America-first perspective, the most obvious, of course, would be Russia. Russia! Why? Because it's the biggest country in the world. It's the biggest landmass in the world, and it has enormous mineral deposits, energy deposits, it's got a lot of oil and gas and gold and everything else you need to run a society.

• 3:35Tucker Carlson?

  And it also has a formidable military, by far the biggest on that continent, on the European continent, and huge manufacturing capacity. So like, if you needed an ally to help you in a conflict, or if you needed a country in which to stage a fight with some other country, a place to put air bases, for example, Russia would be like the best, of course. But we can't be allied with Russia because Russia's bad, they're immoral. They're bad. You might also say, well, Venezuela. Why Venezuela? Well, because they have the largest proven oil reserves in the world, they're in our hemisphere. I don't know, lots of natural resources, it's right there, why not make them a big ally? Talk about a place for military bases and trade, and that might help us.

• 4:20Tucker Carlson?

  They've got a lot that we might benefit from if we wanted to help our country. You can't, they're bad! They're so bad, we're going to invade them! They're so immoral, we have to go to war with them. We cannot be allies with them, we have to fight them. That's how immoral they are. Hmm, okay. Well, at a certain point, you get to places like, I don't know, Equatorial Guinea. You know, probably not a beacon of democracy, small country, tons of energy, though. And then the more obvious ones like Saudi Arabia, or UAE, or Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, the rest of the Gulf states, like, those might all be good. We don't have their same form of government. Those are all monarchies, six monarchies clustered next to each other, but all of them have a ton of energy.

• 5:03Tucker Carlson?

  And they're all pretty pro-American, and they're an important part of the world. So it's not a matter of being a Qatari nationalist, or trying to promote Qatar. As you think about who should be an ally of your nation, you think about your nation. What's good for us? How do we serve our people, our citizens, the people who voted for us, who pay for all of this? Like, what's in their interest?

• 5:24Tucker Carlson?

  And Qatar just seems like an obvious one, but it doesn't have to be the only one. And the only reason we're choosing it tonight is because there's so much falseness about Qatar. If you watch Fox News, you know Qatar is evil, and they're secretly running the United States. They probably don't tell you that their owner was just in Qatar trying to raise money, which is not an attack on their owner. It's merely an acknowledgement of what everyone who doesn't watch Fox News all day knows, which is Qatar is part of the world. And lots of people go there. We were there two days ago. So was Hillary Clinton. So was Bill Gates, looking kind of cadaverous. And it's not because we love Hillary Clinton or Bill Gates we're there, it's because, like, everyone's there. And if you want to interview people, you should probably go to Qatar, because everyone's there. And why is everyone there?

• 6:10Tucker Carlson?

  Because it's a pretty open society, because they have a lot of stuff going on, and they've got a lot of resources, and they welcome people to talk about things in their country. That's not bad. Those are not bad things. Why are we being told Qatar is so bad? Well, of course, for the same reason we hear a lot of countries are bad, because if we have other strong allies, that might affect the interest of our really, our only ally, which would be Israel. And so just for fun, just like a little exercise in Islamism, this is not endorsement of Islamic terror, it's kind of interesting to go through the criteria, the facts about these countries, compare Israel to, say, Qatar. And you decide for yourself what you think might be a more useful ally for the

• 6:53Tucker Carlson?

  United States to have, maybe even a chief ally. And these are all facts as far as we know, of course, feel free to look them up. Check our facts against Wikipedia or whatever, Grocapiedia. Go there, by the way, you should go to Qatar, wander around for a day or two. You can fly in the world's greatest airline, by the way, as you get there, which has Starlink the entire way. There's a lot of good stuff about Qatar. Good food, nice people, but just go there. Don't, don't take our word for it. If you're being told that, you know, Qatar is this hellscape with slave markets and, you know, women in burkas or whatever, spend a weekend, see for yourself. You're not encouraged to do that. You're never encouraged to see anything for yourself. Don't do your own research. Trust the science. Trust our view.

• 7:37Tucker Carlson?

  Trust the two-minute clip we put on Twitter, and if you don't agree with that, then you're obviously Islamist, Nazi, racist, whatever, we're going to attack your character. But for once, like, see for yourself. So here are some of the differences between Qatar and Israel. Again, this is not attacking Israel, for sure, and it's not promoting Qatar. It's just trying our best to promote our country, which could use allies right about now. So the first is resources, and Israel has basically no resources at all. I mean, its gasoline comes from Azerbaijan. I mean, it needs to import basically everything that it uses. Not everything, they've got a thriving tech sector, but, but for natural resources, they are very, very limited, and that would include water.

• 8:18Tucker Carlson?

  Qatar has, well, some of the largest natural gas reserves in the world, in their famous North Gas Field, and they are the, I think, number one LNG exporter to Europe, and one of the biggest certainly to Asia. Liquified natural gas, it's what a lot of the world runs on. It's also where a lot of consumer products come from, because it's converted to plastics. Polyethylene and many other things. So like, having a lot of natural gas is not just something that makes you rich. It's something that is really good for your country, your economy, and it can help your friends. So that's the first thing to know. Qatar has a ton of natural resources. Israel has no natural resources.

• 9:03Tucker Carlson?

  Okay. The second thing to know is that Qatar is a very enthusiastic investor in the United States. So that's being spun as a bad thing. They're trying to take over our society. Now, if you've been in the US recently and wandered around and noticed it becoming markedly more Qatari, send us an email and tell us where you went, because we haven't noticed that, actually. Qatar is, in fact, quite a socially conservative society, in contrast to, say, Tel Aviv, which has got to be the world capital for drag queen story hours. Qatar is the opposite of that. Yes, women are not covered and can drive and go out without an escort and all that stuff you hear about taking place in the Gulf doesn't actually take place in the Gulf anymore, but it definitely doesn't take place in Qatar, which by regional standards is

• 9:48Tucker Carlson?

  very liberal, but by American, Western standards is actually pretty traditional. So they don't have a lot of pride parades in Qatar. Let's see, none. Qatari diplomats, ask them, ask anybody, when they're posted to the West, US, Canada, Great Britain, they send their kids to Christian schools because, not because they're Christian, they're Muslims, but because they're more socially conservative. They don't have government subsidized abortion on demand in Qatar, as Israel does. They basically have, in a lot of ways, the same social values, broadly speaking, of course, they're not Christian, they're Muslim, but broadly speaking, very similar social values to a lot of Trump voters.

• 10:33Tucker Carlson?

  There's a big emphasis on marriage and spending time with your family. I'm not trying to talk it up too much, it's different, it's not my culture.

• 10:41Tucker Carlson?

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• 11:27Tucker Carlson?

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• 13:00Speaker 04

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• 13:54Tucker Carlson?

  There's coffee. So, but they're investing in a lot of businesses. Qatar has pledged $500 billion in investment. I think they put about 150 billion in so far. We'll see if they make good on the other 350 billion, but 150 is a lot. You can say that's a bad thing, but tell us how and why? Unless they're subverting our values to make them more cuttery or whatever. Unless AQUAC has been subverting our values. Probably not bad to have other people invest in your country, especially in the brink of recession, maybe? How much does Israel invest in the country? Well, actually Israel's on the other side of the ledger. Israel is a massive, massive net cost to the United States every year. Not just the famous $3 billion. It's only $3 billion.

• 14:39Tucker Carlson?

  But the cost of defending, backstopping that country in every conflict in which it enters, which is like at this point, more than half a dozen. I mean, where are they not having a war? Who's paying for that? Well, we are. We are every single year going back, well, almost 80 years.

• 14:57Tucker Carlson?

  Every single one, trillions of dollars spent prosecuting wars on Israel's behalf, or wars that we wage at the behest of Israel, including the Iraq War, including whatever that was in Syria, including the regime change war they are pushing the United States government to have in Iran. Those are costs. Now, you could argue, well, we need to, because those wars make us safer, in case you're feeling a lot safer than you did before 9/11. So, I guess. But just in pure dollar terms, one country is a huge cost to the United States Treasury, and the other is a net addition. So that's one difference. You want allies to help you once in a while. So let's say you have a war, especially one they ask you

• 15:41Tucker Carlson?

  to get into, you'd want them to send a lot of their troops, or at least a symbolic number of their troops. How about no troops? Ever, really? Maybe I got that wrong. Maybe a troop or two went, advisors or something, but basically no real help in any of these wars? Hmm. Not attacking Israel here, by the way. As always, they're doing what they think is best for them, which is great. Godspeed. But if we're gonna do what's best for us, someone's gonna have to explain why that's best for us. Because it's not, obviously, best for us. So then you really get to the question of values and morals. This is the conversation that's happening right now. And the idea is that you're not allowed to

• 16:26Tucker Carlson?

  have the conversation that we're having right now, because Qatar is just so morally repulsive, it's like Russia or Venezuela, that even to consider, to talk about, to throw off the possibility of having an alliance with such a country, it'd be like, maybe we should go to vacation in North Korea. I mean, you're a freak. You're some kind of outlaw. How could you want that? Are you defending Stalin again? They're trying to make the possibility, the notion, so far out and discredited, that no one has the brass to even bring it up.

• 16:58Tucker Carlson?

  And the truth is, it's pretty hard to defend any system other than the American system at its best if you're an American, because it's our system. We like our system. I like our system. I don't want even a parliamentary system like they have in the UK or Canada. Why would you want that? I like the American system. So it's not a matter of preferring somebody else's system over ours. It's merely a matter of batting down some of the absurd lies. So Qatar, like every country in that region, the six Gulf monarchies, the fabled GCC, every one of those countries is an Islamic state. Islam is the official religion of

• 17:38Tucker Carlson?

  the country. And so in all of those countries, it's probably a bad idea, illegal if not unacceptable, or some variety of the two, to run around trying to convert people to, say, Christianity. If you show up in downtown Doha with a bullhorn and a sign that says, "Repent and turn to Jesus," probably somebody at some point is going to, at least politely or maybe not, tell you to knock it off, because this is an Islamic country. By the way, same thing is true in Israel. I'm not attacking Israel. It's a Jewish state. They don't want you showing up in Israel and trying to convert a lot of Israelis to Christianity. They don't. That was illegal. I don't know if it still is or not, but it's certainly discouraged. And the same is true in the Gulf, in Qatar, for example. But if the deeper question is,

• 18:22Tucker Carlson?

  where do Christians feel more comfortable in Qatar or Israel? I mean, it's sort of hard to know what people actually think. So maybe the best way to measure that is by where they live. So there are twice as many Christians living in Qatar as there are in Israel. Twice as many. At least twice as many. Did you know that? Again, not promoting Qatar. I'm not moving there. But there are twice as many Christians living there. So if it's like an ISIS state where people are beheaded for proclaiming the name of Jesus, why are there twice as many in Qatar as there are in Israel? And why are there so many Christian churches in Qatar? All, or at least most, on land granted to them by

• 19:06Tucker Carlson?

  the government. Again, not promoting Qatar, just saying, if you're telling me that this is a country whose values are so far from mine that even to go there is a crime of some kind...

• 19:20Tucker Carlson?

  You're lying. Or we have very different values, extremely different values. So, why are they telling me that? They're telling me that because the status quo works for Israel. It works. So if there's any other country that might displace it, with whom we might form a stronger or as strong alliance, if there's a rival for that loyalty, it's a massive threat to them. And by the way, I understand that. This is a tiny country, involved in a lot of conflicts, that has basically no real allies, other than the United States. So, I hate to use the word, because it's overused, but this is existential for Israel. This is a huge deal for them.

• 20:05Tucker Carlson?

  It's not just a matter of preference, this is like, a lifeline. And so you get it, you absolutely get it. But at some point, our interests, the interests of the country of 350 million, do have to play a role in this calculation. And by that measure, this is not a good deal for the United States. Because on the final question, this is the one that matters most, war, there's a massive difference. Israel, as noted, is involved in, you know, half a dozen conflicts around the world, in various stages. And the United States is effectively paying for all of them. Qatar, this terror state,

• 20:46Tucker Carlson?

  is full-time involved in, actively involved in paying for, resolving a lot of those conflicts. Including conflicts not even in its own region, like in Eastern Europe, the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Where do you think those peace talks, especially the non-public negotiations, where do those take place? Doha, Qatar. Why? Because they're willing to host them. That's why. And so if you have one country that's, every week it seems like, is bombing someone or declaring someone else a sworn enemy for eternity, and using American tax dollars to fight those conflicts, and then another country,

• 21:30Tucker Carlson?

  which, whatever its motives, almost doesn't matter, is trying to resolve conflict and just get back to commerce, coexistence, which is a better ally? Are you joking?

• 21:46Tucker Carlson?

  So if you've gotten to this point in the video and not turned it off muttering, "Osama bin Laden sympathizer, are you Al Qaeda? Are you a Muslim?" Nope, none of those things. Then, here is the punchline. The idea that Qatar should be our greatest ally? Donald Trump seems to agree. What? Why have I not heard that before? Because no one screaming about Qatar has any interest in telling you the truth, which is that Donald Trump, who was elected on a peace program, and it's been a little tougher than expected to make

• 22:24Tucker Carlson?

  good on that, but still means it, Donald Trump has taken sides in the Qatar-Israel dispute. And it is actually more than a dispute, it became a military conflict in September, on September 9th. Israel bombed Qatar, bombed Qatar. Qatar, by the way, is the site, in case you're wondering if they were an ally or not, of the largest US airbase in the entire region, right outside Doha. There are like 10,000-ish American troops who live in Qatar. They bear a lot of cost for that, by the way, it's a pretty nice thing to do. It makes you a target when you have an American military base, but they have

• 23:05Tucker Carlson?

  the largest in the whole region. So they're a, by definition, close ally. And Israel bombs them, kills people in downtown Doha, like walking distance from the Emir's house, and doesn't apologize for it. And why they do that? Because Donald Trump was working to bring peace between Iran and Israel, and Israel didn't want that at all. And so they tried to murder the negotiators in that round of peace talks from Hamas, in Doha.

• 23:40Tucker Carlson?

  And then they tried to tell the world that actually Trump signed off on this, you know, that Trump knew, totally false. Trump did not know. Not only they do this, they tried to implicate Trump in it. And he responded a couple of weeks later with an executive order that, I'm gonna throw my glasses and read this because it's, I bet not 100 people knows this even happened. So this was at the end of September this year. Listen to this. He signed an executive order, and this is verbatim, called the Assuring the Security of the State of Qatar. So next time you hear someone on Fox News be like, "The terror state of Qatar, if only Trump knew." Right. Assuring the security of the state of Qatar, and we're quoting, "Over the years, the United

• 24:21Tucker Carlson?

  States and the state of Qatar have been bound together by close cooperation, shared interests, and the close relationship between our armed forces. The state of Qatar has hosted the United States' forces, enabled critical security operations, and stood as a steadfast ally in pursuit of peace, stability, and prosperity both in the Middle East and abroad, including as a mediator that has assisted the United States' attempts to resolve significant regional and global conflicts." Listen to this. "In recognition of this history, and in light of the continuing threats to the state of Qatar posed by foreign aggression, it is the policy of the US to guarantee the security and territorial integrity of the state of Qatar against external attack.

• 25:04Tucker Carlson?

  The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the state of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States." Oh, wait a second. What was the last act of foreign aggression against Qatar? Well, it happened that exact same month. It was a bombing by Israel. So Israel bombs Qatar, and Donald Trump issues an executive order saying, "If you do that again," reading by the language here. We're going to war with you. Well, here's a pretty obvious question that too few ask. What's the smartest way to protect your home and your family? Is it A, waiting until a burglar smashes a window and tries to get in?

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• 28:06Tucker Carlson?

  Donald Trump took the side of Qatar over and above Israel and told Israel, and who knows if he'd actually do it, hard to believe, but it's in the executive order. If you do this again, that's tantamount to an attack on us. That's a security guarantee. That's unbelievable. So keep that in mind, because there are an awful lot of Trump voters, really nice, sincere people, who are still upset about 9/11. The residue is still in their mouth. That part of the world did it to us. Islam did it to us. And anyone who wants to have a normal relationship with an Islamic country is probably pro-Al Qaeda. I get it. I get it.

• 28:48Tucker Carlson?

  I, you know, I know those feelings, had them. But here's Donald Trump, the guy that you voted for, taking Qatar's side against Israel. And why is that? Because Donald Trump is a secret Islamist? No. Because Qatar is a lot better for the United States than Israel has been. A lot better, by any measure. And if you disagree, what, what? Tell me a way in which Israel has been better for the United States than Qatar. You could say, well, what about Jerusalem? And that's an excellent point. There's no city in the world more important or more beautiful, more humming with spiritual energy than Jerusalem. But Jerusalem existed before the state of Israel existed?

• 29:33Tucker Carlson?

  And it will, God willing, be there forever. So that's a distinct thing, right? That's a historical and spiritual site. It has nothing to do with the government of Israel. But tell me how the government of Israel has been better for us than the government of Qatar. And of course, you can't. So you've got two options. A, you can scream at people and call them Islamists and say, you're not really a Christian. You must be worshiping Allah or something. You're a suicide bomber if you go to Doha. And that, you know, intimidates the crap out of a lot of people. And they're like, it's not worth it, never mind, they'll be quiet. But over time, that doesn't work.

• 30:13Tucker Carlson?

  Or you can drop politics and statecraft and national interest. You can just change the terms completely of the conversation. You can stop talking about what's best for your country. Because neocons are never gonna win if those are the terms of the debate. What's best for our country? They're not even contestants in that. They have no interest in what's best for our country, of course. But you can change the conversation to theology. And you can just say it point-blank. "God demands that you support the government of Benjamin Netanyahu." Now, who would be vulgar and dumb and reckless enough to say something like that?

• 30:55Tucker Carlson?

  Who would actually invoke God Himself to justify a political alliance with a foreign country? Man. You'd have to be someone who's not worried at all about the afterlife to say something like that, because that is a reckless thing to say. If you've already guessed Ted Cruz, you're absolutely right. Watch.

• 31:18Speaker 06

  I will tell you, there is a movement among Christians, particularly young Christians. The public polling numbers of support for Israel among young Christians is plummeting. And they're being spread lies. They're being spread lies, isolationist lies, that we should withdraw from the world because nobody wants to hurt us. But they're also being spread theological lies. They are being taught replacement theology. Which is a lie that the promises God made to Israel and the people of Israel are somehow

• 32:01Speaker 06

  no longer good, they are no longer valid, that when God made a promise, He didn't mean the promise He made. And instead, it is an argument that the Christian church has replaced Israel and the Jews, and the Jews are no longer God's chosen people, and all of the promises throughout the Bible are now a dead letter. The church needs to engage and say, "The Bible is not silent on Israel. The Bible is crystal clear on Israel, and in the church, we will stand and fight."

• 32:35Tucker Carlson?

  Man. You know, it's one thing to get all worked up at the Waco Rotary Club about issues related to Texas, but you know, here you have a guy who's deep into the things that actually matter, the questions of what happens after we die and what's true and, and he has no idea what he's talking about. Like literally no clue and I'm not guessing, I'm not attacking the man's faith. I'm just remembering very vividly because it was this summer. When I asked that same guy, Ted Cruz, okay, where does, where specifically does the Bible tell Christians that they have to support Israel? And he had no idea.

• 33:17Tucker Carlson?

  He meant to misquote a phrase in Genesis, but he couldn't even name the book. And by the way, most people couldn't and it doesn't even mean that, but whatever. If you're going to have a theology about it, shouldn't you know where it is in the Bible? Shouldn't you be fluent in it? No, because it's all fake, it doesn't mean anything. But he says it anyway, and this topic actually matters. Because it deals not simply with the fate of nations, but the fate of humans. It's real. So to talk like that. The Bible is crystal clear on Israel. Okay. What is Israel as defined by the Bible? I asked him that question too. What, what does the word mean?

• 34:02Tucker Carlson?

  What does it refer to? Yes, there are a lot of references to Israel and to God's love for his people, the Israelites, the Jews, for sure. But in 2025, what exactly does that correspond to? Israel, okay, and he kept looking at me, Israel, it's, it's Israel. What does Huckabee says? Israel. I S R U L. Okay, got it. Can you define that for me? Is it the modern secular nation state of Israel? The drag, drag queen story hour in Tel Aviv state of Israel? And, and what borders? Does that include the West Bank, Judea and Samaria? Does that include Gaza? Does that go all the way to Iraq? I mean, like, what are we talking about here?

• 34:46Tucker Carlson?

  Shut up! The Bible's crystal clear. Well, of course it's not. But one thing the New Testament is crystal clear about, because it's in every book, on every page, is that the way to God is through Jesus. And there aren't any caveats that I've seen. I'm no theology student, I'm no Ted Cruz. But in every page, it's the same point. The way to God is through Jesus. And by the way, these are Jews speaking, as the early Christians were. And they were speaking to Jews, to their fellow Jews. And they were saying, "The way to God, repent of what you're doing now and turn to Jesus." That's what they were saying. Maybe Ted Cruz has another analysis of it.

• 35:30Tucker Carlson?

  But there's an entire New Testament about this one question. And by the way, if that's wrong, explain how. But of course, they never will. They never will explain how, because they don't care. And by the way, there are evangelical Christians in the United States who have a fully-developed theology on this question. I don't understand it, and to the extent to do, I don't agree with it. But I don't hate them. I know that I said I did once. I was just frustrated, and I'm sorry. And most of them are really nice people. But I think any person reading a conventional interpretation of the New Testament would

• 36:09Tucker Carlson?

  conclude the central, really the only unchanging command throughout the entire thing from Matthew to Revelation is, "Believe in Jesus." Everybody. Everybody. There are no special deals described at all. Everybody believes in Jesus. And that's how you get to God. And people who aren't going to live forever. And I don't see another way. But people like Ted Cruz, of course, are not interested in debating theology, because he didn't even know what book it was in. They're interested in shutting down any conversation on what's in America's interest, making it a theological conversation. And why are they interested in doing that? Because the last justification...

• 36:56Tucker Carlson?

  For supporting Israel above all other countries has evaporated. And what is that? It's the claim that Israel is a uniquely moral nation. And that's why Christianity and also Old Testament Judaism is so often invoked. People of the book, people of God, no one would contest that. But what does that have to do with what Benjamin Netanyahu is doing in 2025? Of course, that has nothing to do with it at all. Well, it's the season to give gifts to those you love. And there is no greater gift than the first gift, the gift of life. With the abortion mafia doubling down, there's never been a more important time to fight back against them and for children, which is really all that matters, children.

• 37:39Tucker Carlson?

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• 38:22Tucker Carlson?

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• 39:15Speaker 00

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• 39:45Tucker Carlson?

  The unique decency of Israel is the reason they are our only real ally. And the problem is that what's happened in Gaza over the last two years has shown that not only is that not true, it's very close to the opposite of the truth. Now, a lot of us have spent a lot of time doing our best to ignore what's happening in Gaza on the grounds that it's kind of not our fight. Yes, there are weapons. Yes, we're paying for all of it. Yes, we're giving them cover at the United Nations. Yes, they're really kind of doing this in our name. Bibi is running around the world saying, "I've got Trump in my pocket. I can do whatever I want. Trump will defend me." He's told a lot of people that. "I control the United States Congress. I control the White House. I control the US."

• 40:29Tucker Carlson?

  He's said that on tape. If you haven't seen it, look it up. But a lot of us have thought, "Look, we've got enough problems. Don't want to get into it." But if you ever do look into what's happened in Gaza since October 7th, it's shocking. Now, it's not the only atrocity on the planet. The Israeli government is not the only bad government. Tons of bad governments. I covered the Liberian civil war in '06. There are a lot of bad governments, okay? But among so-called civilized governments, no one has behaved like the Israeli government has behaved in Gaza in a very long time, 80 years at least. It's almost unbelievable. Tens of thousands of children killed by a country with the most precise military technology

• 41:13Tucker Carlson?

  in the world, a country that somehow got explosive pagers into the pockets of Hezbollah leaders in Lebanon. These are people who are, again, world-renowned famous for their skill and their precision. Look at the bombing attack during the 12-day war on Tehran. It was precise. They didn't take out downtown Tehran. They took out IRGC leaders. They took out specific people, and they knew exactly where they were. So the idea that they've killed tens of thousands, tens of thousands of women and children, noncombatants accidentally is a lie. No, they murdered them. They murdered them. It's just a fact. You can call it whatever you want, genocide, everyone's all, "It's genocide."

• 41:58Tucker Carlson?

  Okay, it doesn't matter what you call it. That's murder. You're killing people on purpose. "Oh, but that always happens in war." Well, it certainly does. Innocents die in war. That is absolutely right. But in no modern conflict, in my lifetime, have this many innocents died without any apology at all. So what sets, you hope, the United States government or has during most of my life, apart from other governments, governments like the government of Israel, is when we kill people who didn't do anything wrong, like children, we are penitent. We apologize. Sometimes we put the people who did it, as in My Lai, for example, in Vietnam, on trial. Because we don't kill people who didn't do anything

• 42:43Tucker Carlson?

  wrong. Period. And yet, for over two years, Israel has murdered tens of thousands of children on purpose, and then locked the doors to Gaza, shot dozens and dozens and dozens of journalists, so no one can film what's happening, and just leveled the place so they can move the people out and take it. What's the justification for that? What's the excuse? Well, of course, there isn't one. Again, Israel's not the only country that's behaved that way in history, far from it. But no modern country has behaved that

• 43:25Tucker Carlson?

  way in my lifetime. And so the other day, we thought, for the first time, we would go see what this looks like. And so there is, maybe it's one of the reasons they hate Qatar...

• 43:38Tucker Carlson?

  The government of Qatar has taken in about 2,000 refugees from Gaza. They actually can't get anymore because Israel won't let them out. But there was a period at the beginning of the bombing campaign in Gaza where some people did get out. And the government of Qatar said, "Okay, we'll take them, these Palestinians from Gaza, and we will treat their injuries, especially the children, we'll take the kids." So they live in a compound in Doha, and we went over there, just to see it, in between other things that we were doing. People we were talking to, people we were interviewing, and just thought we should go see that. So we didn't bring like a regular camera. Our cameraman Kyle, who's really talented, had his iPhone, because we didn't want to, you know, stick a camera in people's faces and like exploit the suffering of others to make a point. We were not even planning on putting this on the air.

• 44:17Tucker Carlson?

  But it was so distressing, it was so shocking to see children, many of them orphaned, without any family at all, all their siblings have been killed. No parents have been killed, or their parents are stuck in Gaza and Israel won't let them out. Kids with no limbs, many with mangled faces, a child with a mangled face? That, but there were four of us, okay? Me, my business partner, who I've known my whole life, and two producers who we've worked with for many, many years. And these are guys who've really been around, like everywhere, and seen other wars and seen a lot of injuries and, you know, kind of hard to rattle. And by the time we get out of there, it was just four middle-aged men staring at the floor, trying not to cry. Here's part of what it looked like.

• 45:47Speaker 04

  My family, my parents, and also my niece, and my friends. I was 15 years old. My friends were like my same age. I'm the first one to come back. Welcome, welcome.

• 46:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you come back and inside, and when inside...

• 46:36Tucker Carlson?

  There's an awful lot we left out of there. You know, you don't, again, want to exploit the suffering of others. I felt a little bit weird even filming anything. But in the end, we decided it was important. Because like, what the hell? What the hell? All these kids with their limbs blown off? This little girl looked just like my goddaughter. You know, with no fingers? One hand and no fingers? Like, is she in Hamas? There are tens of thousands of those. And again, look, there's so-called collateral damage in war, I guess. Look at the pictures of Gaza. It's not collateral damage. They flattened the place so they could take it. And now they're trying to like, force the people into other countries, including ours, including the United States. Not only do we have to pay for the war, but also take in all the survivors?

• 47:19Tucker Carlson?

  Why do we have anything to do with this? But what's most shocking to me is that no one seems bothered by it. None of the people who support Israel seem bothered by it at all. And that's the real threat. It's not just the crime. Children whose faces are mangled by US munitions. Because why? The real crime is the way that the supporters of this atrocity are justifying it. Not simply to the world, but to themselves. They're justifying it by saying out loud, "Well, they're all Hamas because they're all in Gaza." And yeah, they're kids, but if we let them grow up, they'd become Hamas too.

• 48:04Tucker Carlson?

  What they're describing is the concept of blood guilt and the collective punishment and reward that naturally flows from that belief. And the belief is God favors some, but not others. And that is the enemy of Western civilization. That is the opposite of what Christians believe. Christians believe that every person was created as an individual by God. That's why antisemitism is wrong. That's why Gaza is wrong. Every person is created as an individual and must be judged as an individual. We don't like what you do. We can't blow the fingers off your daughter. That's not allowed. But they think it is allowed. They're celebrating it. And in the United States, we're allowing that attitude, which is the attitude behind

• 48:49Tucker Carlson?

  affirmative action, DEI, all of this, that people should be punished on the basis of how they were born or rewarded on the basis of how they were born. We are celebrating those attitudes. And never more clear than in the case of Gaza. So there is a member of Congress, a new member of Congress called Randy Fine from Florida, who is a passionate Zionist, fine. But Randy Fine sent out a tweet that I want to put on the screen that I've kind of never gotten over. Somebody tweeted Randy Fine a picture of a child, of a baby in the rubble in Gaza and said, "How can you live with yourself? How do you sleep?" Quote, "Quite well, actually. Thanks for the pic." Exclamation point.

• 49:34Tucker Carlson?

  This is a sitting Republican member of Congress. That's fine with me. "Thanks for the pic." Exclamation. As you're looking at a dead child? When that came out, I called the Speaker of the House. Mike Johnson, "This is the Republican Party." How can you allow this? How can you allow a member of Congress, a Republican, you're his overseer, you're the Speaker, you're in charge of all the House Republicans, this is the Republican Party? Where we laugh at a picture of a dead baby because Randy Fine thinks that child is infected with unholy blood or she's not human? She's Amalek or something? What are we doing? This is insane. Support Israel, great.

• 50:18Tucker Carlson?

  If you're laughing at pictures of dead babies? Oh, Israel, we're here. Well, we're commanded to support Israel. If this what it means to support Israel, a lot of us are out. If the United States is gonna have a close relationship with Israel, if they're gonna be our close ally, important ally, or even our friend, tell me why that's good. Stop yelling at me. And whatever you do, do not celebrate the murder of children, because that reveals you as the enemy of everything that's important to me and my country. And the main thing that's important is that we do not kill people who are innocent. Not simply because it's sad, but because it's an offense against our entire civilization,

• 51:02Tucker Carlson?

  which is based on one idea: We will be judged as individuals, not groups, not communities or tribes, as people. Because God created every one of us. That is Western civilization, and Randy Fine doesn't believe it. How can we allow this? So maybe we're being unfair to Randy Fine. So, poor Piers Morgan, who's taken a lot of probably well-deserved crap recently, but at least, you know, makes an effort to talk to people if he can. We immediately called Randy Fine. He called me a "worst anti-Semite in American history." Right. I'm not the one who hates people based on how they were born. You are. But Piers Morgan somehow wrangled Randy Fine into an interview and just asked him point

• 51:46Tucker Carlson?

  blank, "Do you believe this?" And he does. Watch.

• 51:50Speaker 06

  Randy Fine, when you said, "I don't give a shit about Gazans," were you proud of that statement? Well, I think the context there is Gaza attacked Israel on October 7th. Of the thousands of people who streamed across the border to kill every-

• 52:04Speaker 00

  Every man, woman, and child that they could, many of them, thousands of them, were not quote-unquote "card-carrying members of Hamas." And so, when you start a war and you are losing the war, if you do not like what that is doing to you, then you surrender in that war. Gaza chose to be the enemy, Gaza chose to attack Western civilization, and no, I didn't care what happened.

• 52:28Speaker 06

  I've not had, actually, any guest, I have to be honest here, I've not had any guest who has used the phrase "Gazans" rather than "Hamas", given it was specifically Hamas that perpetrated the appalling terror attacks on October the 7th. It is Hamas that has the governmental power still in Gaza. It's not the Gazan people, it's not the civilian population. Why are you deliberately conflating Gazans in totality with Hamas?

• 52:59Speaker 00

  To try to differentiate the two, attempts to imply that some small percentage of Gazans support or like Hamas, that is not what the data suggests, and we should not allow us to be say these two are completely different.

• 53:16Tucker Carlson?

  It's hard even to know where to begin, but we made the point. You cannot practice group punishment, collective punishment. We do not believe in blood guilt. Randy Fine is the enemy. The enemy of Western civilization, that way of thinking. And by the way, where does that line of thinking lead? Well, it leads to the Nazis, among other places, among many other examples. Of course, I'm mad at this Jew, therefore I'm gonna round up all Jews. That's where that leads, it leads to genocide, and it's led to exactly that in Gaza. And we have to just say that out loud. Not only is it not anti-Semitic to say that out loud,

• 53:57Tucker Carlson?

  it is the prophylactic against, the defense against antisemitism. When you say, "No, no, no."

• 54:05Tucker Carlson?

  Not all people are responsible for the actions of people who share their name, or language, or physical location, or religion, or genetics. Like, no. Every person is responsible for his own decisions and actions. We do not murder the children of people we don't like. And when we're caught murdering the children of people we don't like, we hang our head in shame, and we weep, and we apologize, and we ask for forgiveness. We do not go on Piers Morgan and brag about it. We do not attack anybody who calls us out on it as a hater. When we've been caught justifying murdering children, we do not behave that way.

• 54:48Tucker Carlson?

  And if we continue to behave that way, things will fall apart really, really fast. But unfortunately, we are behaving this way. And anyone who calls it out is treated as worse than the perpetrator of it. "Oh, that's genocide." No, you're the criminal for saying that. Really? You want to live in a society that rewards the virtuous and punishes the criminals. You do not want to live in the opposite. And that's exactly where we're going really fast, so it's important to just say it out loud. Our next guest has had a lot of experience with this exact principle. Francesca Albanese is the U.S. Special Rapporteur to the Palestinian Territories, which means she's an international overseer in those territories.

• 55:31Tucker Carlson?

  That would include, of course, the West Bank and Gaza. And not long ago, she pointed out that what Israel is doing in Gaza is indefensible. You can call it genocide, you can call it mass murder, you can call it the murder of innocents. It doesn't even matter what the name is. People who did nothing wrong are being killed by the Israeli government using American tax dollars. That's a fact. We met some of them. And what happened to her next? Well, that tells you everything about where we are in our relationship with our closest ally. Francesca Albanese, I hope, joins us now. Francesca, thank you so much for coming on. And I'm going to stand back and let you talk. If you would just describe what you said about what's happening in Gaza, and then tell us what happened to you in the United States after you said it.

• 56:18Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, Tucker, for having me. I've been a special rapporteur for the United Nations, not the US, since 2022. And in this role, I'm asked by the United Nations to document and report on the violations committed by Israel as the occupying power in the occupied Palestinian territory, of which Gaza is a part, but it is also the West Bank and is Jerusalem. And after one year and a half, after October 7, Israel started a brutal attack, which was the fifth in 17 years against the Gaza Strip.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  And five months later, I suggested that what we are seeing could constitute genocide in a report that had the title "Anatomy of a Genocide". After another six months, I said, "I do confirm that this is genocide and it's part of a colonial erasure of the Palestinian people. Israel is committing genocide because it aims to erase Palestinian presence, Palestinian presence from the occupied Palestinian territory. And it's a long trajectory that has led us to here. Then I looked at the, in the other two reports, I looked at the complicity of the private sector, including many businesses. Many are in Europe, others are in the so-called Global South.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  Many are in the United States. And the complicity that has sustained the economy of the occupation for decades. And there are people who have profited from this and Israel's impunity, including as this economy turned genocidal. During the two years of genocide, while many Israelis were losing their income, their businesses, their livelihood, the Israeli Stock Exchange has kept rocketing, increasing its value of 213%. And after this... I get sanctioned by the United States.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  I get sanctioned for my work, for my denouncing what the fact as I'm doing for the United Nations for free, because I'm, yes, I'm a US, I am a UN expert, but I do that pro bono. And, and yes, instead of focusing on the crimes that I denounce, um, the United States treat me as a criminal.

• 58:53Tucker Carlson?

  I mean, I'm a little confused. I mean, I believe you and I, I've read this, but I'm just confused by it. So, did you take up arms against anyone? Did you help any armed terror group? Like, what exactly was your crime? It sounds like you were describing crimes.

• 59:14Speaker 03

  Tucker, this is my only weapon. It's a pen. It's a pen. This is what I do. And yeah, apparently it's, apparently it's very dangerous, but this is what I've done. I mean, again, I, I, look, I've, I've had very interesting discussions with US officials and congresspeople until this year. But then what the United States couldn't process was me pointing the finger to the prophets. So it's okay to accuse Israel of committing crimes. No one cares, apparently, because this is what Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Palestinian Human Rights Organizations, and Israeli Human Rights Organizations have

• 59:57Speaker 03

  accused Israel of. But the moment I pointed to the fact that there are businesses who are profiting from it, yes, I was sanctioned.

• 1:00:07Tucker Carlson?

  Interesting. Okay. Well, that, that makes more sense. So it wasn't like you were shut down or sanctioned because you criticized the state of Israel. You were shut down because you criticized all the people profiting from mass murder.

• 1:00:23Speaker 03

  Well, two months, two months before sanctioning me, I mean, I got, I got a sign of frustration in the US administration for my work, which was apparently harassing US, US companies, which is not the case. Because in fact, I mean, I've gone after Brazilian companies, South African companies, Colombian companies. I mean, it's the entire world. I keep on saying there are 62 states who are complicit, providing political, military, diplomatic support, economic and financial support to the state, to the state of Israel. In the moment, it's committing seriously, as you said.

• 1:01:07Speaker 03

  I mean, I was watching what you said and what you've shown before. And it's, I mean, call it the way you want, but 70,000 people have been killed in Gaza. 150,000 have been injured, many with life, life-lasting injuries. I mean, I've seen, I've visited the same premises that you have in Qatar already in February 2024, and this is an abomination. So, but yes, I, there was already a distress because of, because of that. And yeah, I think that there were, there were things that upset the, the United States. But as you said, I mean, the United States intervenes so powerfully to silence and to, to reprimand so draconianly

• 1:01:52Speaker 03

  anyone who dares scrutinizing Israeli practices.

• 1:01:57Tucker Carlson?

  I think that's right. It's almost like people can't let it into their minds. I, I've had this experience, people I know, I just talked to some Israelis I know just the other day, who told me that within Israel, there's almost no discussion of what's happening in Gaza and that any criticism of it is immediately discounted as antisemitism. And of course, that's happened to me in the United States. Well, you're just an antisemite. And no matter how often you say, well, actually, I hate antisemitism. They don't believe you. And this does seem like a kind of defense mechanism, where like, no criticism can be true. It's all just hate. We're not doing anything wrong and no one can talk about it. Have you run into that attitude?

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've run into this attitude. I mean, what is shocking is that it doesn't only happen inside Israel. In fact, inside Israel, there is criticism. There are organizations like Betzelim and Physician for Human Rights, who have denounced the genocide. What is a bit shocking to me as a European, as a Western person, is the level of denialism, the vilification of the Palestinians as they go through what they go through. So Palestinians are killed, they are blamed, as we have heard, and they are smeared. And there has been a denialism of what is happening

• 1:03:24Speaker 03

  that is, again, has no precedent in recent history. Again, as a European, are you with me?

• 1:03:33Tucker Carlson?

  Yes, I'm right here.

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. As a European, I've been raised, educated to what the Holocaust has been. And I know that the Holocaust, it's a misrepresentation, arguing that the Holocaust happened in concentration camps only. No, the Jewish people, millions of Jewish people, were discriminated against for longer than we can name. And in fact, they were killed in ghettos. They were kicked out of civil life. They died because they were dehumanized to an extreme. And yes, there are records of the Jewish people ridiculed

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  as they were killed and taken to concentration camps. And it's this level of dehumanization that is the gene of any genocide. The genocide happens when people refuse to see the other as human, as it's happening today to the Palestinians.

• 1:04:36Tucker Carlson?

  And I think what makes this so notable is that there are cabinet ministers in the current Israeli government who say that out loud all the time. So I mean, there are cabinet ministers right now wearing golden noose pins on their lapels, calling for the execution of prisoners. So we're not kind of putting words in their mouths. And I've really been trying, as I've said, my best to ignore it. I haven't wanted to engage on this question. But at a certain point, this is America, this is my country's money. These are my tax dollars being used. How deep was the involvement of American companies in the mass killing in Gaza?

• 1:05:19Speaker 03

  Yes, it is important. Now, I want to say it's not just American companies, but Western companies, Americans, and Europeans account for the majority. But let me say, for those who might have not read my report, "From Economy of Occupation to an Economy of Genocide," it's not just businesses like arms manufacturers or heavy machinery producers, it's banks, pension funds, the big tech that are, I exposed, Amazon,

• 1:05:58Speaker 03

  Google, Microsoft, who have provided their services and access to data, Palestinian data that has allowed Israel to set up systems to mass target and mass kill Palestinians. I mean, there is an application called "Where Is Daddy?" that allows the army to randomly track people and reach them when they are with their families so as to inflict the most harm. How brutal is it? And I agree with you, this is something that people must understand, because this is the, really, this is the end of humanity, the end of the civilization that we have

• 1:06:43Speaker 03

  pretended to belong to until now. Israel has the most sophisticated military army in the region, and Israel is knowing exactly what it's doing and has been knowing this for two years. And this is why there are also so many soldiers now. The level of suicides is increasing among young Israelis who have served in the army. And of course so, because they are just older than teenagers and they have been turned by indoctrination into the willful executioners of a genocide.

• 1:07:27Speaker 03

  This is why I'm saying we must intervene. People who love Israel must intervene to save what remains of Israel. The biggest harm is being done by those outside of Israel who keep on defending this regime that not only has imposed a military dictatorship for decades on the Palestinians in the West Bank and in Jerusalem and until 2005 in Gaza, but also on Israelis who are part of the system. You cannot brutalize the other without losing your humanity in the process.

• 1:08:06Tucker Carlson?

  That's exactly right. So just I want you to clarify something I think I heard you say, that there is some kind of app maybe made by an American company called Where's Daddy that allows the Israeli government to murder men in front of their children? Did I, I mean, did I dream that or did you say that?

• 1:08:26Speaker 03

  No, I said, basically, Israel has developed, it's not an app, it's a system. Israel has developed this system, automized system to decide the targets through a computing system and the data has been provided by tech companies. I mean, I've mentioned also Palantir, who makes no secret of its support to Israel. And they quote in my report, one of the highest figure in Palantir, who's confronted in a public debate and by someone who say, "You are killing my families, you are killing civilians in Gaza." And he says, "Most probably terrorists."

• 1:09:10Speaker 03

  So, you see, there is a sort of acknowledgement of involvement in something that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people. And it's unfathomable for me.

• 1:09:27Tucker Carlson?

  I couldn't agree with you more. What's so perfectly American is that you are the one who was punished for it. We had a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan a few years ago under the last president, and yet no sitting US general was even reprimanded for it. The only person who went to jail was a Colonel called Stu Scheller who complained about it. And this seems analogous to me. You are being punished for pointing out what other people are doing that's criminal. So let me just ask, before I ask what happened to you exactly, it's my understanding that the day, or the day before, you were sanctioned, Benjamin Netanyahu was at the White House in Washington. Do you know if that's true?

• 1:10:10Speaker 03

  Yes, that's true.

• 1:10:12Tucker Carlson?

  Do you think, do you have any reason to believe that Netanyahu asked US officials to do this to you?

• 1:10:23Speaker 03

  I don't know, but the fact that the US did it, it's absurd. Because, look, Tucker, I mean, I would like people to understand what the sanctions are, because you talk to me and I don't think you see a criminal here. But this is what I am for the US system. I'm banned from travel to the US, which is something that impairs my functions because the United Nations Headquarters is based in New York. I was supposed to present my last report in New York, and I delivered it from South Africa, because I cannot travel.

• 1:11:08Speaker 03

  But not just that, I am financially censored, which means that I cannot own assets, bank accounts I had in the US. Then I will Explain why in the US, uh, everything, everything has been shut down. Um, my, I have an American daughter. I have an American daughter who's paying the price of having her mom telling the truth about crimes committed in another place and just as serving the United Nations. Yeah, I am the first UN person to receive this in eighty years. And it's absolutely abominable, you know, so it's very, it's very personal because

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  because it touches my, um, my financial capacity to exist. Because being sanctioned by the United States means that I cannot open a bank account anywhere. I cannot have a credit card, I cannot function. I cannot be, receive payment, I cannot make payments. My, um, health insurance has been suspended. Um, even rooms, hotel rooms booked in my name by someone else get cancelled because I'm in Europe, because I'm sanctioned by the United States. And think of, there is a deeper meaning of it, which is, which is the

• 1:12:34Speaker 03

  and a lay, an extra layer of absurdity, because I also have deep ties to the United States. I live in Washington DC, I gave birth to my first child, who's an American citizen. And she risked to incur into, to commit felony by give, offering me a present, by receiving, um, like a breakfast from me. Because the, the, the, the consequences of the sanctions are penalties up to one, um, million dollars and, uh, jailing up to twenty years. And, and my, and the, the thing is that if you spoke to my daughter, you wouldn't even,

• 1:13:17Speaker 03

  you wouldn't even realize that she's the daughter of any Italian, because she's American educated. She goes to the American school. She's raised according to American values, more than Italian values, I can tell you. And, and, and, you know, this is a betrayal for us, from the United States. Where is the freedom of thought? Where is freedom of expression?

• 1:13:40Tucker Carlson?

  I don't really know how to respond to what you're telling me. I just want to ask you one last time. Is there anything you're leaving out? Did you send money to Hamas? Did you shoot at the IDF? Did you... Are you secretly married to Nasrallah? Or like what? I don't understand how you could have been treated like this without actively aiding a terror group.

• 1:14:06Speaker 03

  Look, the only one who's aiding and abetting someone else committing crime is the United States. Let me be very clear.

• 1:14:16Tucker Carlson?

  I'm sorry. I'm sorry to agree with you on that. So who did this to you exactly? And how do you get it fixed?

• 1:14:23Speaker 03

  Well, I know that the United Nations is working hard behind the scenes to have the sanctions removed. There have been tons and tons of pledges to the United States from special rapporteurs, independent experts of the United Nations, many states. But here's the system. The system is very weak at the moment because the... Yeah, the United States is using its power, its leverage, to bend the arm of the system. And by doing that, it will make everyone, including American citizens, less and less protected.

• 1:15:04Tucker Carlson?

  It doesn't seem to be acting on behalf of its own people. I don't know what this has to do with what's happening in the United States. It seems like we are completely casting aside the rule of law, fairness, decency, on behalf of another country. Maybe I'm missing something.

• 1:15:25Speaker 03

  Look, you know, I... For a long time, for a long time, I've been thinking that Israel had the capacity to exert so much influence on the United States, and I couldn't figure out how... I don't think it's that, in the sense there is something deeper. And it's the fact that we are fooled by this idea of states representing us. No, eventually, states are in the hands of powers. Military power, economic, financial power, and the power of the algorithm.

• 1:16:06Speaker 03

  And this is why today, imagining states as responding, serving the interests of people, it's a fallacy. This is why I don't feel like blaming all the Italian citizens for what their government or our government does. And in the same way, I don't blame all the American people, also because there are so many American peoples who cannot meet ends. And I've seen this with my own eyes. When I was in Washington DC, I used to volunteer in shelters in underprivileged neighborhoods, and I see the contradictions of the country.

• 1:16:50Speaker 03

  So I would expect the states to take care of this, rather than investing taxpayers' money on seeding worse and seeding hatred all around. But so, I think that it's the United States who needs Israel for its, right now, its imperialistic purposes. And again, it's not the United States as a country, it's the United States as serving specific interests, which is very sad.

• 1:17:23Tucker Carlson?

  So it sounds like the way we're thinking about this, I think you're making a very deep point. Our framework is wrong. We think it's a contest between nation-states and, you know, some unduly influence others, but basically they're separate and distinct from each other. We have these separate countries. But you're saying, really, that's an illusion, and power, military power, economic power, the algorithm, as you said, is what's controlling these states.

• 1:17:52Speaker 03

  Well, the fact that we have multinationals who have wealth that is bigger than states and with wealth goes control proves it. But you know, while I was working on my report on economy of occupation, from economy of occupation and economy of genocide, I did realize that this is nothing new. I mean, when you look at settler colonialism, 500 years of history have been marked by settler colonialism. European forces, powers, moving from Latin America to North America to Africa. For what? For resources.

• 1:18:35Speaker 03

  And, but eventually, what has driven this is private interests. We think that with the consolidation of states, matters have changed. But the reality is that we still live in systems that are driven by economic and financial interests, which might be okay. I mean, I'm not advocating for the end of capitalism. This is not my purpose as a special rapporteur. It's just that this, today, today, my observation in Palestine, and Palestine becomes a mirror or a metaphor to understand the world, is that profits drive us and drives politics

• 1:19:20Speaker 03

  more than the need and the urge to stop massacring and slaughtering children.

• 1:19:25Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I get the sense from listening to you, you know what you're talking about. Can you be more, and I should have asked you this earlier, more specific about why you call what's happening in Gaza genocide? So it's a politically charged term, of course, it's the term we use to describe what the Germans did to the Jews and the Poles, you know, it's a term we associate with the Nazis, so of course the Israelis hate it when you use that term, I get it. But it has a specific meaning, I think. What is its meaning and when did this bombing campaign become genocide?

• 1:20:01Speaker 03

  Tucker, with all due respect, it's not a politically loaded term. It's a crime. It's a legal term.

• 1:20:07Tucker Carlson?

  I know that, but what does it mean? Why is it different from just mass killing?

• 1:20:13Speaker 03

  And excuse me, I mean, the Germans, the Germans, before committing and before leading the genocide of the Jewish people, Roman, Sinti, disabled, pursuing this idea of a superior race, had committed another genocide in Namibia, in modern-day Namibia, the genocide of Derero and Denama. And in fact, genocide is something that has existed in history. The genocide of the Armenian people. In my lifetime, there has been the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, of the Bosnians in former Yugoslavia, and the Yazidi. So, no, no, genocide is not loaded. It's a crime and should be treated as such. So this is something that is fundamental, because certain people tend to think that

• 1:20:58Speaker 03

  there is one and one only genocide.

• 1:21:00Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:21:01Speaker 03

  And the thing is that it's a crime, and it consists in the intentional destruction, the intent to destroy a group as such, an ethical, national, religious, or ritual group. And through acts of killing, the conditions of, sorry, creation, the creation of conditions of life calculated to destroy the group as such, or members of the group as such, the infliction of severe mentally or bodily harm, the prevention of births, and the transfer of children. In Canada, there has been a genocide, there has been a genocide of the Native Americans.

• 1:21:44Speaker 03

  Canada has recognized it, even if there has not been a pronouncement of the International Court of Justice. In Australia, the same thing. Say the same thing of the United States and there is no acknowledgement of what has happened to the hundreds of Native American tribes in the United States. But the fact is that this is what constitutes genocide from a legal point of view. Now, the thing is that there are some precursors of genocide and Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish legal scholar who coined the term genocide, had in mind settler colonialism when he envisaged

• 1:22:26Speaker 03

  the crime because he knew exactly what the genocide of the Jews had been produced from, that idea that there is one group that can dominate and erase the other. So, in the context of Gaza, I've been alarmed by the language. The language has been genocide-like, "They are all human animals, we will cut water, electricity, food and medicine" and they've done it. They've done it. Netanyahu and others have been on record saying, evoking this biblical image of the Amalek.

• 1:23:11Speaker 03

  "Go and destroy the Amalek." The mother, the suckling, the baby, the camel and the donkey. What is it? I mean, evoking biblical language? Using a moment of trauma, deep trauma in the Israeli society and in young men and women who have clearly, who had already, who are already harboring a level of dehumanization against the Palestinians' fight. It has always been like that. But eventually, there was already a dormant gene of hatred toward the Palestinians that has been activated. And there has been destruction, there have been mass killings, destruction of everything that was...

• 1:23:56Speaker 03

  Life in Gaza, why to destroy all the houses? Why to destroy all the universities, all the hospitals, all the schools? And killing the doctors and killing the journalists who are reporting on the genocide? There has been a rasure of life. And now, Tucker, I'm right now investigating something that no one has really wanted to see, that I have denounced partially and so the Commission inquiry on Israel-Palestine, which after two years has also concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Israeli organizations, again, like B'Tzelim and others, have spotted the use of torture.

• 1:24:39Speaker 03

  What has been done to Palestinians deprived of their liberty? And mind you, I'm only talking of civilians, because we don't even know where the combatants, those who have been captured as fighting in Gaza are. But those who have been taken as civilians, medical personnel, journalists, teachers and others, they have been tortured on a systemic and widespread basis. And I've been spending already a month interviewing people, interviewing lawyers, interviewing former detainees. And there's still two months to go. But it's abominable, it's traumatic,

• 1:25:21Speaker 03

  even to hear what has been done to these people, including children. So, I mean, what else? If not, again, this is a textbook case of genocide, destroying a people as such, mentally, physically, culturally.

• 1:25:39Tucker Carlson?

  And they'll pay for it in the end. And every murder is seen. And at some point, people who commit murder are punished, for sure. So what happened to the ceasefire? Is there a ceasefire?

• 1:25:53Speaker 03

  No. In place? There is no ceasefire. No, no, there is no ceasefire. There is just a bubble that has been, uh, has, has, has had to be inflated at a certain point to distract the attention from the mass protests that were taking place everywhere. Look, in Europe, uh, it's not different than the United States, but we have many states in Europe, and there has been a consistency of repression. Uh, protests from Germany, the UK, Italy, France have been either prohibited or harshly repressed. Journalists have been criminalized.

• 1:26:36Speaker 03

  Activists have been criminalized and arrested because of, because of opposing a genocide. So eventually, in order to sedate this mounting, uh, distress in the population that doesn't want to see the slaughter of kids anymore, the word ceasefire has been imposed, but nearly four hundred people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire. One fourth, one fourth of the aid that had been agreed upon has entered. And as you and I are speaking, Tucker, there are nearly two millions of survivors in Gaza

• 1:27:15Speaker 03

  resisting a winter storm in, in ravaged tents, tents ravaged by the elements and the fact that these people have been displaced five, 10, 15 times from one, uh, rubble camp to another wasteland for two years. Look, again, I've said already one year ago, Israel is writing one of the darkest pages of modern history. It should have been stopped, uh, months ago, years ago, and not because I was saying that, you know, this is a critical point, Tucker. In January 2024, the International Court of Justice recognized the plausibility that

• 1:27:59Speaker 03

  Israel was committing genocide, recognized the plausible risk of irreparable harm done to the Palestinians in Gaza under the genocide convention. And you know what does it mean beyond the convoluted formulation of the law? That there was an obligation to prevent genocide. The obligation to prevent genocide kicked in at the moment the International Court of Justice recognized the risks and made certain recommendations, actually ordered certain measures to Israel. And no one, no one, not your state, not my state, no one has done anything to stop Israel

• 1:28:43Speaker 03

  other than cosmetic measures in the margins. Because eventually what was to be done was to stop transferring weapons to Israel, to stop trading with Israel, and to stop other forms of aiding and assistance, which has not happened.

• 1:29:01Tucker Carlson?

  When just the opposite actually happened. All those states, including the United States, turned against their own citizens and stripped them of their civil liberties. Lots of places in the United States made it illegal to boycott Israel. You can't boycott Israel. We celebrate boycotts, by the way. Something called the Civil Rights Movement is a feature of, you know, every sixth grade history lesson. And boycotts are good, except when they apply to Israel, in which case they're literally illegal. UK, Germany, big states, put people in prison for complaining about Israel's genocide. Tell me on what grounds they do that?

• 1:29:34Speaker 03

  They, well, several grounds, but basically what is common also to the United States. The main grounds are two. People are accused of antisemitism and are accused of supporting terrorism and being all Hamas. I mean, how can it be Hamas to ask to stop starving children? How can it be antisemitic to ask a state not to carpet bomb a population trapped in 360 square kilometers? Come on. Look, like you, antisemitism is repulsive. It's horrible.

• 1:30:12Speaker 03

  I mean, as a European, the first, the first thing that, that I, I, I feel when I hear the word antisemitism is, is repulsion. Because this is what I've been, I've been raised to recognize that hating others on the ground of religion, or race, or other things, is just wrong.

• 1:30:38Tucker Carlson?

  It is wrong.

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:30:40Tucker Carlson?

  But, but, but may I say it's, it's always wrong. Antisemitism is wrong. It is no worse than hating the Palestinians for being Palestinian, or hating the Italians for being Italian, or black people for being black. I mean, it's all the same thing, but somehow only one is a crime? I, I, that's not Western civilization, at all.

• 1:31:01Speaker 03

  No, but it's not even that. It's the lack of logic. It's the, it's really the performance of stupidity behind it. Because antisemitism, it's hatred against the Jews, because they are Jews. While, I, frankly, I, I, I, really, it's not, I, I don't have anything against Israel's for the religion it professes. Could be Buddhist, Muslim, it could be secular. But the point is not what Israel is, is what Israel does. And the other thing, I mean, people oppose, people like me, people who stand for human rights, like, the, the, the majority of European citizens who are taking the streets,

• 1:31:46Speaker 03

  they, they just can't sleep at night because of the images that pop up on their phones all the time. There are, really, there is, there is a level of distress that I've never seen, including in my own country. I mean, Italy is, is not the, the, the, the most active country when it comes to global tragedies. I remember I was in the, in the UK during the, the Iraq invasion, and the British people have protested for years. I mean, in Italy, much less. But this thing, this genocide in Gaza, it's something that has really awakened. Awaken a sense of a conscience that we almost had lost.

• 1:32:29Speaker 03

  And I expect no less in the continent that has seen already a genocide happening on its own soil. So again, I'm horrified by the fact that while there is an awakening of conscience among ordinary citizens, their governments continue to deny the genocide while obliterating international law, the international law that is our social contract at international level. It's what, I mean, has not benefited everyone. The global north has benefited more than the global south, I would say, but this is

• 1:33:12Speaker 03

  what has kept us protected for 80 years. And it seems to me that today it's all going in the same direction, rearming, rearming, investing in wars, preparing for wars, while schools and other services and hospitals, which are in need for our taxes, get poorer and poorer.

• 1:33:34Tucker Carlson?

  Last question. First of all, let me just say, in case I forget, I'm embarrassed by what the US government did to you, unless there's something I don't know. It's shocking behavior. And again, I'm ashamed of it, so I hope it's fixed soon.

• 1:33:49Speaker 03

  I like the fact that you say, in case there is something I don't know. No, there is nothing.

• 1:33:55Tucker Carlson?

  Well, I mean, it's so unbelievable that they would, you know, treat you like a felon when all you did was describe what's happening. I mean, I don't want to live in a country that does things like that. Even if I disagreed with everything you said, I would be opposed to your being sanctioned and treated like a criminal, especially with no trial. The whole thing is outrageous and sanctions themselves are wrong. They never help. I've never seen one time where they helped. So, okay, that's my view. This will end at some point, and tens of thousands of people have been murdered. And so there will be consequences. What should those consequences be?

• 1:34:35Speaker 03

  I think that the most important thing right now is to end the genocide. And look, there is an active genocide in Gaza, but what is happening to the rest of the territory, of the occupied Palestinian territory, should not be forgotten. Because, again, as you and I speak, there are groups of fanatic settlers, many of them come from your country and my country, and they are roaming around the West Bank terrorizing defenseless civilians, killing livestock, torching orchards, and preventing the harvest,

• 1:35:17Speaker 03

  which is what Palestinians live out of, and destroying property, beating up people. So the West Bank is also up for conquest. There is this crazy mentality that Israel really runs from the river to the sea and the Palestinians should not exist there. So first of all, we need to stop this. There are some lunatics that are saying horrible things in the Israeli government, and they must be stopped. But then, of course, there should be justice. Those who have ordered, architected, those who have made possible that the genocides take place, they need to be brought to justice.

• 1:36:00Speaker 03

  There are already two arrest warrants, again, by the International Criminal Court, for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former Minister of Defense. And these should be, I mean, these arrest warrants should be followed up on, and these people should go to the Hague, and like them, others that deserve to be investigated and prosecuted. Those who have double nationality and might have committed crimes, including soldiers and settlers, need to be held to account. And then, I do hope that there will be a way to enforce international law to the fullest. The International Court of Justice has already said that...

• 1:36:44Speaker 03

  The occupation is unlawful. So Israel must withdraw the troops, dismantle the colonies and stop exploiting Palestinian resources. What else? So this is what is to be done. And then one day, my hope is that the apartheid gets dismantled. Because only through full decolonization of that land, it doesn't matter the political solution, one state, two states. This is something that the people will have to decide. But meanwhile, as an international community, we have the obligation to make sure that the apartheid is dismantled. This is what I think should happen. And you see the noise around it, peace plan, the 20-point thought bubble and all the rest.

• 1:37:26Speaker 03

  These are weapons to distract the attention from where it should be. The only way to deliver peace to the region is to respect the basic rules that we have all agreed upon over 80 years of peace.

• 1:37:42Tucker Carlson?

  Amen. Francesco Albanese, thank you so much. I hope we're not violating sanctions by talking to you. Just kidding. Hope we are. It's great to see you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

• 1:37:55Speaker 03

  Thank you so much. Thank you. It was a pleasure, even if it's 1:29 a.m. for me. So I hope we may, and I made full sense at this time of the night.

• 1:38:07Tucker Carlson?

  Unfortunately, you did. Thanks a lot.

• 1:38:10Speaker 03

  Okay. All the best to you. Bye, Tucker.

• 1:38:12Tucker Carlson?

  Good night. And thank you very much. We'll be back next Wednesday.

• 1:38:20Tucker Carlson?

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