Link to history
One reason it has hit a chord with Trump's support base is that American Christians increasingly see the Levant as the heartland of Christianity. This is nothing new. The Levant has held a special place in American Christianity since the 19th-century Ottoman era, when American pilgrims followed the trail from Antioch to Jerusalem via Damascus. At the time, the lands of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria were generally known as Syria.
The languages of Aramaic and Syriac were studied under Syrian monks, and various colleges were set up. Even the famed American University of Beirut was first called the Syrian Protestant College in 1863. Syria was very much associated with the earliest Christians. Jerusalem was even part of southern Syria in textbooks. To some extent, the recent war in Syria has renewed attention on the persecution of Eastern Christianity as a whole, from Iraq to Palestine.
Just as they did 200 years ago, Americans have once again started taking note of the Levant as the heartland of Eastern Christianity, changing the perception and the narrative concerning the importance of Arab Christians, whose lives have been impacted by war there. As in neighbouring Iraq and Lebanon, Christians in Syria bore a heavy burden after being targeted by extremist groups because of their faith.
In 2016, the Syrian civil war elicited the first meeting in 1,000 years between the Russian Orthodox Patriarch and a pope, Francis, spurred on by the killings of Christians in Syria and the Middle East. Earlier this year, Carlson put Arab Christians back in the headlines by raising the ire of pro-Israel lobbyists and Christian Zionists by questioning Washington's support for Israel if it was killing and persecuting Palestinian Christians.
Asking questions
Last year, Carlson interviewed Rev. Munther Isaac, a pastor from Bethlehem and a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Christian Church, and chronicled a persistent lack of awareness in the US about the treatment of Christians in the Holy Land. In a sense, he was continuing a theme. Back in 2018, at Fox News, he launched a debate in the US about the killing of Syrian Christians and questioned US support for groups targeting Christians in the Middle East.
Earlier this year, Carlson interviewed Ted Cruz, one of the most prominent Christian supporters of Israel, Ted Cruz, asking him where in the Bible it might suggest that America support Benjamin Netanyahu's Israeli government at the expense of Arab Christians (Cruz could not cite a passage). Yet while the former Fox News man has led the rallying cry for Syrian and Arab Christians among American conservatives, he has not been alone.
Brad Hoff, a former US Marine, and scholar Zachary Wingerd co-authored Syria Crucified in 2021, which chronicled the plight of Syrian Christians and the impact on Eastern Christianity, while also detailing how American Christians had begun to take notice. Hoff, who lived in Syria, later commenced a speaking tour of schools and churches about Arab Christians and the importance of American Christian evangelicals questioning the stance of Cruz and others.
Megyn Kelly, another popular conservative talk show host, has questioned how Christian it can be to ignore Arab Christians' plight. And US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—a Trump-supporting Republican once labelled 'Lady MAGA'—broke ranks from mainstream Christian support of Israel, calling Israeli actions in Gaza "genocide" (she was later called a "traitor" by Trump).
Shift in focus
With Carlson using his prominence to give Arab Christians a platform, Arab Christians have slowly taken a lead in policy, both in the Trump administration and the corridors of Washington D.C. Trump's lawyer and close confidante Alina Hubba is of Iraqi Chaldean heritage. Julia Nesheiwat, a former soldier and White House aide who is married to former US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, is from a prominent Jordanian Christian family.
Trump's daughter Tiffany is married to Michael Boulos, son of Massad Boulos, a Lebanese Christian businessman and presidential advisor who helped drum up support for Trump among America's 3.5 million Arab Americans. Marty Makary, of Egyptian Christian heritage, is the Commissioner of Food and Drugs and a key medical advisor to Trump. Even the actor playing Jesus (Jonathan Roumie) in biblical drama The Chosen is of Egyptian-Syrian heritage.
Conservative commentators have put Arab Christians back on the political map in the United States, changing the way Americans see Christians see the Middle East. The full effects of this are yet to be seen, but journalists like Tucker Carlson will likely carry the story.
