Tucker Carlson just released a video comparing Qatar to Israel, trying to sell Americans on the idea that Qatar, not Israel, should be the chief U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Here’s the pitch Tucker delivered:

Qatar doesn’t have drag-queen story hours; Israel does.

Qatar doesn’t have abortion on demand; Israel does.

Qataris are “socially conservative,” like Trump supporters.

Qatar has natural gas that benefits the U.S.; Israel doesn’t.

 “Go visit Qatar and see for yourself,” he said. 

In 2016, a Qatari student studying in Ohio converted to Christianity. While visiting his mother in Doha, she found a Bible in his bag. She confronted him, learned he had left Islam, and immediately called her brothers.

They tortured him, tied him up, and imprisoned him in his own room. Weeks later, he managed to get a message out to a friend in Ohio. That friend reached out to me asking for help. I called a Lebanese Christian friend who worked in Doha, hoping he might know someone who could intervene. The moment I started explaining the situation, he hung up the phone.

Months later, when I saw him again, I asked why.

His answer was simple: If the Qatari authorities even heard a whisper of that conversation, he would have been fired and deported immediately.

This is the country Tucker Carlson wants to present as “America’s natural ally.” A place where you can’t even talk about someone being tortured for converting to Christianity without risking your life.

Tucker is manipulating Americans, he wants you to believe that Qatar is wholesome Christian-style conservatism, while Israel is liberal moral decay. 

But what Tucker didn't say is that Israel has something Qatar will never have: Freedom.

Freedom to be wrong. Freedom to be stupid. Freedom to live, argue, and make choices, even bad ones.

Israel is messy because free societies are messy. Qatar is clean because unfree societies are clean.

Tucker is not defending conservatism, he’s defending authoritarianism. 

Tucker claims that the U.S. only loves Israel because “Zionists control America” or because Israel spreads propaganda against Qatar.

But the truth is that Israel is a U.S. ally because Israel shares America’s civilizational DNA, open society, democratic institutions, freedom of conscience, rule of law, free press, accountability, a nation built on Western foundations, not tribal or theological authoritarianism.

But Qatar is a monarchy, a financier of jihadist movements, a suppressor of dissent, a state where conversion from Islam is punishable, a country whose wealth comes from natural resources, not innovation or shared values.