Far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson’s latest extreme rhetoric took aim at the Chabad Lubavitch movement, with sweeping conspiratorial language accusing the Hasidic sect of seeking to start a “religious war” amid the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. 

Carlson argued in an episode of his show that dropped late Wednesday night that Jews see the war against Iran as an opportunity to feud with Islam and to target Christians. He claimed that Jews seek to destroy al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and build the Third Temple on top of its ruins. 

Carlson specifically called out the Chabad movement, saying the group’s goal is the rebuilding of the Temple — and he argued that Jews who seek to see the Temple rebuilt are at odds with Christians.

“Christians have a way of dying disproportionately in these wars, which tells you something about their real motives,” Carlson said. Rebuilding the Temple, which was destroyed in the first century by the Romans on the site that is now home to the al-Aqsa Mosque, “is totally anathema to Christianity,” said Carlson. 

It is true that Orthodox Jews believe that the Temple will be rebuilt when the Messiah comes, a prophetic vision that has been a part of daily Jewish prayer for two millennia. But no mainstream Jewish denomination advocates for the destruction of the al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, in order to hasten the rebuilding of the Temple, and current Israeli policy forbids Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. 

“​​It’s not so subtle that the building of the Third Temple and the Messianic era is central not just to Chabad, but to all of Judaism as one of the 13 Principles of Faith,” Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone, Chabad’s social media director, wrote on X on Thursday. “Acts of destruction or the subjugation of other nations are an anathema to a time when good will flow in abundance and the occupation of the entire world, Jew and non-Jew alike, will be to know the divine.”

Carlson’s remarks prompted outrage among Chabad’s backers, who pointed out that Chabad emissaries have for decades played a crucial role in connecting Jews to their faith and to each other.

“This is so absurd. So ridiculously absurd. If you know anything about Chabad, they have one mission: encouraging Jewish people to practice Judaism,” Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman posted on X.

Karol Markowicz, a New York Post columnist, criticized Carlson for targeting “the warmest, kindest, most welcoming organization ever that does nonstop charity work.” 

The rhetoric also sparked concern about the physical safety of sites associated with Chabad, particularly after a man repeatedly drove his car into Chabad’s Brooklyn headquarters in January. The NYPD said it would increase patrols at Jewish locations amid fears of antisemitism after the Iran attacks began last weekend.