The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) issued a blistering statement Monday demanding that Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts either retract his support for former Fox News host Tucker Carlson or resign, calling Roberts “unfit to lead” the influential conservative think tank.
In a sharply worded release, ZOA President Morton A. Klein accused Roberts of “whitewashing and allying” himself and the Heritage Foundation with “Jew-hating Israel-basher Tucker Carlson.”
The statement came in response to a recent video in which Roberts defended Carlson following backlash over Carlson’s fawning interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi sympathizer.
In the video, Roberts praised Carlson as “a close friend of the Heritage Foundation” and criticized what he called a “venomous coalition” of critics attacking Carlson and Fuentes.
Roberts said those condemning Carlson were part of a “globalist class” serving “someone else’s agenda” — language that ZOA denounced as echoing antisemitic tropes of “double loyalty.”
Although Roberts later issued a follow-up statement condemning Fuentes’ “antisemitism, Holocaust denial, misogyny, and admiration for Hitler and Stalin,” the ZOA said his remarks were insufficient because he did not retract his praise for Carlson.
“Unless Kevin Roberts retracts and apologizes for his praise for Jew-hating Israel-basher Tucker Carlson … and publicly condemns and ends Heritage Foundation’s relationship with Tucker Carlson, Roberts is not fit to continue as Heritage Foundation’s president,” the ZOA declared.
The ZOA’s statement outlined a detailed list of allegations accusing Carlson of promoting antisemitic rhetoric and anti-Israel positions.
Among the examples cited were Carlson’s repeated attacks on pro-Israel conservatives like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, whom he allegedly described as “Israel-firsters” eager to start wars on Israel’s behalf.
Carlson, according to the ZOA, also dismissed calls to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program as “an utterly pointless bombing,” labeling those advocating strong action against Tehran — including prominent Jewish and pro-Israel figures — as “warmongers.”
The ZOA further accused Carlson of deriding Christian Zionism as a “brain virus” and “heresy,” and of invoking antisemitic imagery at public events.
The statement said Carlson has “given and broadcasted fawning interviews with the most hateful, Jew-bashing, Israel-hating, Holocaust-denying, neo-Nazis and racists,” including Fuentes, Darryl Cooper, Munther Isaac, and Dave Collum.
In particular, the ZOA condemned Carlson’s interview with Munther Isaac, a Palestinian pastor who accused Israel of persecuting Christians.
Carlson, ZOA said, “failed to correct” Isaac’s false claims and “libelously” added that American Christians were “sending money to oppress Christians in the Middle East.”
Carlson also reportedly praised Hitler apologist Darryl Cooper as “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States,” despite Cooper’s statements absolving the Nazis of intent to kill Jews and blaming Winston Churchill for World War II.
ZOA Warns of Damage to Heritage’s Reputation
Klein said aligning with Carlson would “destroy the Heritage Foundation’s reputation as a bastion of honest, moral, intelligent, pro-Israel conservatism.”
The organization warned that Heritage’s initiatives to combat antisemitism, such as its “Esther Project,” would be “irreparably harmed” by Roberts’ continued association with Carlson.
“As the son of Holocaust survivors, I have vowed to combat Jew-hatred everywhere it emerges,” Klein said.
“Tucker Carlson has mainstreamed Nick Fuentes and nodded along while Fuentes spouted disgusting, Jew-hating, racist, and misogynist views.”
ZOA’s Director of Government Relations, Dan Pollak, added that Roberts’ suggestion that pro-Israel conservatives “serve someone else’s agenda” was personally offensive.
“I served my country as an officer in the U.S. Navy,” Pollak said. “Supporting the American-Israeli relationship is in the national interest of both countries.”
Pollak further claimed Roberts’ rhetoric about “globalists” echoed antisemitic conspiracy theories while ignoring the real influence of nations like Qatar, which he said has “extraordinary influence with Tucker Carlson.”
As of press time, neither Roberts nor the Heritage Foundation had issued any new statement responding to ZOA’s demand.
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