Hunter Biden, Tucker Carlson deny criticism of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu is antisemitic

Tucker Carlson, one of the most prominent and provocative voices on the American right, and Hunter Biden, the son of former Democratic president Joe Biden, who for years was himself one of the right's favorite targets, bonded over a common enemy in an interview Carlson conducted with Biden on Tuesday: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and to a large extent Israel as well.Biden is continuing an unusual round of media interviews. Last Friday, in an interview with the BBC, he spoke about his father's condition and said that the cancer affecting the former president had spread to his bones.In the interview with Carlson, however, the discussion focused at length on the controversies surrounding Hunter himself, his drug addiction, the laptop that became a political weapon against the Biden family, and, at one point, Israel.During the conversation, Carlson claimed that at the time of the Hunter Biden laptop affair, Israeli figures or figures with ties to Israel were the ones who pushed claims to him that material showing the abuse of minors had been found on the computer. It is important to emphasize that Carlson did not present public evidence for this claim during the segment, but described it based on what was referred to as his personal experience."The claim that there was material involving the abuse of minors on the computer came from the Israelis," he said. "I'm just telling you that they came to me with it, and that's how I know it."Carlson rejects Russian involvement in Hunter Biden laptop Carlson went on to claim that at the time, he sent one of his producers to meet with a person who, he said, had ties to Netanyahu. According to Carlson, this particularly angered him when former senior US intelligence officials instead pointed to Russia in connection with the affair."They were behind it," Carlson claimed. "I felt like everybody in Washington knew it, but there was so much pressure not to criticize Israel in any way that they just said, 'It's the Russians, it's the Russians.'"Carlson also acknowledged that while he was working at Fox News, he did not say this publicly. "I admit it. I didn't say it. I was part of the problem too, but I knew."It was precisely at this point that a symbiotic connection emerged between the two participants in the interview. Hunter Biden, who explained how deeply the serious allegations against him had affected him, moved on to discuss the criticism now directed at Carlson himself and rejected claims that Carlson is antisemitic."I'm supposed to hate Tucker Carlson because he's antisemitic and all of that stuff," Biden said to Carlson, adding, "I know you're not. You're not antisemitic. I know 100 percent you're not antisemitic."From there, Biden launched his harshest attack on the prime minister. "If it is antisemitic to say that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is evil incarnate, then you know what? I don't know what to tell people anymore," he said. "All you have to do is open your eyes. Literally, open your eyes, open your heart for one second and understand."Carlson responded that, in his view, the claim that such criticism is antisemitic is "such an obvious lie," and effectively asked who else feels threatened by such an accusation.Criticism of Israel spreading across US party linesIn doing so, two people who for years belonged to almost entirely opposing political camps found themselves agreeing on an issue that in recent years has become one of the deepest fault lines in American politics: attitudes toward Israel and Netanyahu.Harsh criticism of Israel no longer comes only from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, but has also gained a foothold in parts of the populist right and the "America First" movement, in which Carlson is one of the most influential figures. Biden and Carlson are not political partners, and their agreement does not turn the two camps into one.But the moment in which the son of a former Democratic president and a star of the American right agree that Netanyahu is a legitimate target for the harshest criticism, and jointly reject the claim that such criticism is necessarily antisemitic, once again illustrates the extent to which negative attitudes toward Israel today cross the old dividing lines of American politics.