Chris Wallace grilled Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on “Fox News Sunday” over a recent op-ed the former neurosurgeon wrote in The Jerusalem Post, which called Obama the “Divider in Chief” and accused the president of using “anti-Semitic themes” in a recent speech.
“Shockingly, his diatribe also was replete with coded innuendos employing standard anti-Semitic themes involving implied disloyalty and nefarious influences related to money and power,” Carson wrote, referencing Obama’s speech at American University where he said “it’s those hardliners chanting ‘Death to America’ who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus.”
“Question, Barack Obama, anti-Semitic?” Wallace asked Carson.
“All you have to do, Chris, is like I have, go to Israel and talk to average people, you know, on all ends of that spectrum. And I couldn’t find a single person there who didn’t feel that this administration had turned their back on Israel. And I think the position of president of United States should be one where you begin to draw people together behind a vision, not one where you castigate those who believe differently from you. I think it’s a possibility for great healing if it is used in the correct way.”
Wallace further pressed: “But it’s one thing, one could argue, your policy differs from Israel, but you say in your article — and you’re talking about his domestic critics here in this country — that there is anti-Semitic themes there. What specifically is anti-Semitic in what the president is saying?”
“Well, I think anything is anti-Semitic that is against the survival of a state that is surrounded by enemies and by people who want to destroy them,” Carson responded. “And to sort of ignore that and to act like everything is normal there and that these people are paranoid, I think that’s anti-Semitic.”