Tucker Carlson’s Silence on Kanye West Is Deafening

Kanye West has excelled at everything he’s touched, from music, to production, to fashion, to shoes. So it only makes sense that he should excel as an antisemite as well. In the space of just four short weeks, Kanye has gone from someone whose views on Jews was ambiguous, to the foremost antisemite in America. Yes, Kanye the visionary always emerges on top.

But what’s been overlooked is how we all got here. It started with what seemed an innocuous interview on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News. Only later would we discover that Tucker’s producers had edited out all the antisemitic trash that Kanye had uttered on the show.

Why was that?

You can’t argue it’s because they found his words disgusting because then they should have scuttled the entire interview. Fox News is a pro-Israel network. Surely they’re not going to be in league with a lunatic antisemite.

But no explanation was ever offered as to why Tucker did not disclose that in his celebrated interview with Ye, the rapper (and let’s not forget visionary) went off the rails about how much he hates Jews.

Even more curious is the fact that Tucker has been so utterly silent on Ye’s Jew-hating fulminations. One would expect that as they all started on his show, he’d be the first to condemn them.

The Jewish community has a right to expect that the most highly-rated cable host in America would at least do better than Adidas and hold Kanye to account. So why has Tucker been silent?

Even if meant bringing Ye back on to his show to ask just about his antisemitic comments, as Chris Cuomo did, that would be enough. But to give Ye the original platform from which he spewed his antisemitism and then go completely silent is not something in keeping with Tucker’s brand for fairness and support for Jewry and Israel.

There was a time when I was impressed Kanye and his wife at the time, Kim Kardashian, took both their babies to be baptized at an Armenian Church in Jerusalem’s old city, and that Kim was involved in Armenian genocide memory. I was also impressed that Kanye seemed to be the kind of celebrity who swam against the stream and wanted to be his own man. Authenticity counts. But is there any virtue in being an authentic antisemite? Once you go down the road of being a dyed-in-the-wool antisemite, you have lost all virtue. You’re a hater and you deserve to be condemned.

Ye’s disgusting attacks on Jews of wanting to go “death con 3 [sic] On JEWISH PEOPLE” and saying he “can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also,” thereby even denying Jews an intrinsic existence, would not much matter except for what it reveals about how few allies we Jews have in combatting antisemitism. Jews control the world? The media? The banks? Are you kidding me. We can’t even get pro-Israel Fox News and Tucker Carlson to condemn antisemitism.

What would the African American community have done had a white celebrity said they’re going nuclear against blacks on Fox News? My guess is they would not stand for it.

Is it possible that one of the reasons that many in the Jewish community dislike Black Lives Matter is jealousy? Black lives matter has exposed the power of the black community and the weakness of the Jewish community.

Today in America you can falsely accuse Jews and Israel of genocide, like Bella Hadid, and get rewarded by Swarovski with millions of dollars, even as that disgusting company continues to hide their Nazi past. You can spew hatred of Jews and Israel to your millions of Instagram followers every day, like her sister Gigi Hadid, and be rewarded with being on the cover of Vogue more than 35 times. And why? Because there is virtually no price to pay whatsoever for antisemitism.

The fault for Jew-hatred falls directly on the shoulders of the antisemites. But that doesn’t mean that we in the Jewish community should tolerate it. Tolerating the intolerable is the liberalism of fools.

You can be the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and call Jews Hitler, Nazis, murderers, baby killers, for ten years. You can, like Erdogan, vilify and demonize Jews from your global bully pulpit. And then, as soon as you, in this case Erdogan, back the wrong horse on the world stage – Putin, in his war in Ukraine – and need a deal with Israel to whitewash your brutal reputation, you can just come running back.

“Yes, I’ve said Israel is more brutal than even Hitler. But hey, let’s now exchange Ambassadors.” And Israel will embrace you with open arms. No apology for calling us Nazis, even as Erdogan demanded, and received, an apology from Israel for the Mavi Marmara episode.

But the test of Jewish influence is our ability to demand of a friend like Tucker Carlson that if your show starts the ball rolling on Ye’s antisemitism then you should be the first to condemn it.

Kanye’s comments about Jews were inexplicably defended by some like Candace Owens. West, who has 32 million social media followers, continued his rant against Jews by saying, “You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”

Has someone been reading the protocols of the elders of Zion?

His comments followed Instagram banning him for intimating rapper Diddy is controlled by Jewish people.

West and his defenders don’t get to define antisemitism. Anyone threatening to go nuclear against Jews has engaged in antisemitism.

Owens tried to rationalize his remarks, questioning whether “death con 3” was meant as a threat and reference to the military alert level DEFCON. “It’s like you cannot even say the word ‘Jewish’ without people getting upset,” she said.

These were not West’s only anti-Semitic comments, but they were enough to get him locked out of Twitter and provoked criticism from fellow celebrities like Sarah Silverman and Jamie Lee Curtis, whose father was Jewish. Silverman seemed to be calling out her fellow liberals when she tweeted, “Kanye threatened the Jews yesterday on twitter and it’s not even trending. Why do mostly only Jews speak up against Jewish hate? The silence is so loud.” ‘

Similarly, Curtis tweeted, “The holiest day in Judaism was last week. Words matter. A threat to Jewish people ended once in a genocide. Your words hurt and incite violence. You are a father. Please stop.”

Conservatives should be held to the same standard.

I am not an advocate of canceling people for making controversial statements. But they deserve to be condemned when they cross a line into expressions of hatred directed at others. But, even then, I believe people still have an opportunity for redemption.

Curtis alluded to the fact that Jews just observed the holiday of Yom Kippur. This is the day when we atone for the sins of the past year.

According to Moses Maimonides, the greatest Rabbi since the original Moses, atonement requires four steps: First, a recognition of the sin. Second, a confession of the sin. Third, an apology to the injured party and a request for forgiveness. And fourth, restitution. Undertaking concrete action that demonstrates that one is charting a new course.

There exists the possibility that Ye actually repents and goes through all four Maimonidean stages. We know that people with some of the vilest beliefs can change. For example, there are former Klansmen who have renounced their previous white supremacist views.

But until he does so, Tucker Carlson and all those who have given him a platform to spew his Jew-hatred should be condemning him in the strongest possible terms.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi” whom the Washington Post calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” is the author of “Holocaust Holiday: One Family’s Descent into Genocide Memory Hell.” Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @RabbiShmuley.