The fired Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, is facing backlash from conservatives after announcing during an appearance in the capital of Qatar, Doha, that he plans to buy property in the fossil fuel-rich monarchy — a decision made in part to prove he’s “a free man.”

“I have been criticized as being a tool of Qatar, and I just want to say — which you already know — which is I have never taken anything from your country and don’t plan to,” Mr. Carlson told the Qatari prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, during an onstage chat at the Doha Forum on Sunday. The annual event gathers a carefully curated lineup of notable figures ostensibly to discuss global affairs.

“I am, however, tomorrow buying a place in Qatar,” he said. “I like the city, I think it’s beautiful, but also to make a statement that I’m an American and a free man and I’ll be wherever I want to be. I have not taken any money from Qatar, but I have now given money to Qatar.”

Mr. Carlson’s engagement with Qatar has long drawn scrutiny. Critics have accused the talk show host of promoting Qatari interests even as Qatar’s ruling family, which is virulently hostile to Israel, hosts the leadership of Hamas and maintains its long and much criticized dalliance with Iran. Like its arch enemies in Abhu Dhabi, the Qataris are notorious for using their vast wealth to buy good favor and influence in the west.

Mr. Carlson was joined at the Doha conference by several mainstream American figures, including Hillary Clinton and Bill Gates (the Qataris are important donors to the Clinton Foundation and the formerly named Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), though Mr. Carlson’s role interviewing the prime minister signaled his elevated status at the forum.

Mr. Carlson’s comments drew sharp criticism from American political commentators, given that Qatar — which designates Islam as the state religion and follows Sharia law — is an authoritarian state that lacks freedoms of expression, press, politics, and religion guaranteed in America.

Same-sex intercourse, apostasy from Islam, and blasphemy are capital offenses. Discrimination against women is enshrined in its laws, which require women to receive permission from male guardians to marry, travel, work, and make other major decisions.

Qatar has also played a major role over the last two decades in fanning anti-Israel sentiment via its control of the highly influential Arab news channel, Al Jazeera. Going back to the second Gulf War, Al Jazaeera has had a discomfitingly close relationship with Al Qaeda, often serving as the first stop for beheading videos during the darkest days of the American occupation of Iraq.

Other Gulf states were so angry with Qatar over what they claimed was its support of terrorism and its close relations with Iran that they placed a three and a half year embargo on Qatar between 2017 and 2022. It did little to change the Qataris’s behavior.

Conservative influencer and Trump confidant Laura Loomer fired back at Mr. Carlson for conflating his support for Qatar with American ideals. “Nothing says ‘America First’ like giving your money to the funders of global Islamic jihad who have made being a Christian or Jew illegal in Qatar,” she wrote on X. Ms. Loomer, who has long accused Mr. Carlson of taking money from Qatar in exchange for his public support, went on to suggest that Mr. Carlson’s investment was actually a vehicle for laundering money from the Qatari government.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas responded to Mr. Carlson by posting on X an AI-generated photo of the former Fox News host sitting with his leg spread in the air and his hands clasped in a prayer position. “Live footage of Tucker Carlson interviewing the Prime Minister of Qatar,” he wrote alongside the image. Mr. Cruz followed up with a sexually explicit comment about Mr. Carlson’s cozying up to Qatari officials: “I thought fellatio was illegal in Qatar?” he wrote.

Mr. Cruz has emerged as an outspoken critic of Mr. Carlson over his increasing embrace of antisemitic ideas and figures. The exchange comes just days after Mr. Cruz criticized Mr. Carlson for claiming during an interview with Piers Morgan that Britain was not obligated to enter World War II after Germany’s invasion of Poland because the Nazis had not explicitly threatened Britain. Another contretemps erupted a few weeks earlier when Mr. Cruz called out Mr. Carlson for comparing Israeli military leadership to Adolf Hitler.

The back-and-forth between the two conservative figures underscores a deepening rift within the conservative movement over Israel advocacy and antisemitism. Mr. Carlson’s opposition to America’s support for Israel, embrace of the virulently anti-Israel rulers of Qatar, and defense of Israel’s arch-enemy Iran, have made him a lightning rod in the debate.