Analysis of Tucker Carlson's Interview

Hunker Carlson is at it again, platforming pro-Islamic claims that defy reality.

During a recent episode, he interviewed one J.D. Hall on Christian Zionism.

Although Islam has no connection to this topic, pro-Islamic claims were, as usual, stuck into

the conversation.

The Ottomans didn't charge churches tax.

And so, when the Ottomans were in control of the Promised Land for 400 years, in the

millet system, they didn't charge churches tax.

Israel started just a few years ago.

Wow.

Is that true?

For 400 years, the Ottoman Turks, who controlled the Holy Land from around 1517 to 1917, did

not tax churches?

False.

At best, this is a highly disingenuous assertion.

The Turks may not have directly taxed churches.

but they directly taxed the Christians for the

privilege of existing and worshipping in those

churches. If the Christians refused to pay the

often significant, if not crippling, jizya tax,

the tribute all conquered infidels are required

to pay to their Islamic overlords per Quran 929,

not only would they be killed or sold into

slavery, but their churches would have, as on

countless occasions, been razed to the ground or

turned into mosques. Even so, and as might be

expected, Tucker proceeded to ask JD to elaborate

on this bit of Muslim magnanimity. And from here,

matters only got worse. Watch.

And their Muslim rulers didn't do that during the

Ottoman period?

Okay, so the answer is no. The Muslim rulers

didn't tax churches during the Ottoman period.

They were very kind to Christians. As a matter of

fact, they took care of our holy sites.

They had rebuilt, Islamic authorities rebuilt the Church of the Sepulcher three different

times over the centuries.

Did you catch that?

So now, not only did Muslim rulers not tax churches, but they were, quote, very kind

to Christians.

Now that's quite a mouthful, J.D.

Keeping Christians as vimmis, meaning oppressed subjects who do not in any way, shape or form

enjoy the same rights as Muslims, killing or enslaving them if they don't pay outrageous

taxes and tributes, and denying them any semblance of justice whenever Muslim mobs rose up against

them, which as we'll see was quite common then and now, all this was a way of being

very kind to Christians.

By the way, here's a fun fact.

During those same centuries that the Ottoman Turks ruled the Holy Land, they were the scourge

of Christian Europe, seen as the most vile of all Muslim oppressors which had come before

them.

Which is saying something.

The atrocities they committed during their conquest of thousands of miles of Christian

lands often beggar description.

Non-stop raids, massacres, enslavements, rapes,

the seizure of the strongest Christian boys

who were forcibly Islamized and turned into jihadis,

the notorious Janissaries,

and the seizure of Christian girls

who were thrown into Ottoman harems

and turned into sex slaves.

Not to mention, of course,

the systematic desecration and destruction

of thousands of churches.

As for Ottoman rule in the Holy Land,

where Christians were the minority

and had no choice but to submit,

or convert, or die,

the Ottomans were notorious

for imposing taxes on pilgrims,

haphazardly closing or harassing churches,

and simply having their way with the infidels.

If you want more facts,

see either of my books,

Sword and Scimitar, or Defenders of the West,

which are saturated with centuries

of Ottoman atrocities against Christians.

And by the way,

The Christians were treated this way, that is to say, not very kindly,

precisely because they were Christians.

See those books for copious documentation, if you doubt me.

But J.D. also says that...

As a matter of fact, they took care of our holy sites.

They had rebuilt, Islamic authorities rebuilt the Church of the Sepulcher

three different times over the centuries.

I honestly have no idea what he's talking about.

Throughout its history, the Holy Sepulcher has been attacked

and damaged on numerous occasions, almost always by Muslims.

But no Islamic authority ever rebuilt it.

At best, they permitted Christians to pay for and rebuild it themselves.

And even then, only because the Holy Sepulcher was a major source of revenue

for the Muslim authorities.

Thousands of pilgrims from all over Europe had to pay top dollar to enter it.

For example, in the year 1009, the Egyptian caliph, Hakim Ba'amr Allah,

permitted the Muslims of Jerusalem to raise the Holy Sepulcher to the ground.

Some 40 years later, it was rebuilt, entirely with Christian money and labor.

A later caliph had decided that he'd rather profit from pilgrimages.

All he did was permit the Christians to rebuild it.

He did not help in any way.

As for Muslim mob attacks on the holy sepulchre under Ottoman rule,

which were frequent,

there was only one time when the building needed serious rebuilding,

after a fire gutted large parts of it in 1808.

Although the fire is officially remembered today as an accident

due to a misplaced candle or an oil lamp,

the same exact cause Egyptian authorities have blamed

for the recent torching of dozens of Coptic churches in Egypt,

the Christians of the time, as the Copts of today,

said local Muslims torched it.

Be that as it may, all the Ottomans did concerning the 1808 fire

was permit the local Christians to rebuild it.

Again, with their own money and labor,

with the Christians' own money and labor.

And again, only so the Ottomans could profit from it via pilgrim entry fees.

In short, there was nothing kind in Ottoman treatment of Christians, in or out of the Holy Land.

Even the abolition of the Jizya tax in 1856 was a direct by-product of European, especially Christian, pressure.

Due to the constant persecution of Christians under Ottoman rule,

Orthodox Russia intervened on their behalf, leading to the Crimean War between 1853 and 1856.

The Russian Empire nearly managed to conquer the Ottoman Empire, now the Sick Man of Europe, as it was known,

until England and France scandalously supported the Turks, allowing Islamic rule to survive.

In exchange, and as thanks to England and France, the Ottomans issued the 1856 Reform Edict promising equality for Christians,

abolishing Jizya, and nominally improving their legal status.

This, in turn, only fueled local Muslim resentment.

After all, the whole point in being Muslim was to be treated superior to Christians.

If Christians were now treated equally, and didn't even have to pay tribute,

what was the point in being Muslim?

Many pogroms soon followed.

Mark Twain, who visited the Holy Land, wrote of one of these savage uprisings,

which occurred in 1861.

Quote,

5000 men, women, and children were butchered indiscriminately

and left to rot by the hundreds,

all through the Christian quarter of Damascus.

The stench was dreadful.

All the Christians who could get away fled from the city,

and the Mohammedans would not defile their hands by burying the infidel dogs.

The thirst for blood extended to the highlands of Hermon and anti-Lebanon,

and in a short time 25,000 more Christians were massacred,

and their possessions laid waste.

How they hate a Christian in Damascus,

and pretty much all over Turkeydom as well,

and how they will pay for it when Russia turns her guns upon them again.

Russia did go to war with the Ottomans again,

and did help liberate the Balkans.

But the chance to recover the Holy Land had passed,

thanks again to England and France.

Incidentally, by helping preserve Islamic rule,

the two Western European nations can also be thanked

for the Ottomans' final bit of kindness to those Christians under their rule.

That is the genocide of some 2.5 million Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks.

Massacred, mutilated, raped, crucified in the most horrific of ways.

Hey, come to think of it,

maybe what's happening to England and France right now,

also at the hands of Muslims, is mere payback.

Anyway, there you go, J.D. and Tucker.

A bit of clarity for you.

You're welcome.