The status of Christians in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza has been featured in the media on numerous occasions. The April 22 edition of CBS’s 60 Minutes, however, presented an unbalanced picture blaming Israel for virtually every difficulty experienced by Palestinian Christians.
After watching the segment, one is left with the impression that Christians are being deliberately targeted by malevolent Israeli policies when nothing could be further from the truth. Undoubtedly, Palestinian Christians are affected by Israeli security measures such as the West Bank security barrier, referred to by Bob Simon as a “wall” despite the majority of the structure consisting of chain-link fencing.
According to Simon:
Palestinian Christians, once a powerful minority, are becoming the invisible people, squeezed between a growing Muslim majority and burgeoning Israeli settlements.
Could Israeli settlements really be responsible for the plight of Palestinian Christians? Or is it due to issues that Bob Simon fails to fully investigate?
Related Content: Ignoring the Real Causes of Christian Exodus
Simon refers to settlements to explain the plight of Palestinian Christians. But his analysis is naive and demonstrates a weak grasp of the issues he’s presenting.
Reporters with more experience reporting on the region repeatedly point to the suppression of voices critical of the Muslim majority in Palestinian cities.
The Associated Press reports:
The number of Christians in the West Bank is on the decline. While some leave for economic reasons, many speak of persecution by the Muslim majority, but always anonymously, fearing retribution.
Justus Reid Weiner has researched the plight of Christians in the Palestinian territories extensively. According to Weiner, Arab Christians rarely speak about their situation in public:
The human rights crimes against the Christian Arabs in the disputed territories are committed by Muslims. Yet many Palestinian Christian leaders accuse Israel of these crimes rather than the actual perpetrators. This motif has been adopted by a variety of Christian leaders in the Western world. Others who are aware of the human rights crimes choose to remain silent about them.
Ha’aretz looks at Israeli reaction to the broadcast even before it was aired:
“We conducted a thorough examination and we found out that no official Israeli source was asked to comment on the assertions in the report,” an Israeli diplomat said.
Israel’s embassy in Washington met with “60 Minutes” several times and found that the report was almost ready for broadcast. In one of the meetings with the investigative reporters, an Israeli diplomat presented an issue of Newsweek with a cover story about the persecution of Christian communities in Arab states.
“The ’60 Minutes’ reporters said that this was not the subject of their article so it was not relevant,” said an Israeli diplomat.
How could Muslim persecution of Christians not be relevant to the subject matter? And how could a supposedly credible media outlet initially fail to consider asking Israeli officials for their views?
For more information on the status of Christians in the Holy Land, read Michael Oren’s article in the Wall St Journal.
Attacking the Ambassador
Legitimate lobbying, advocacy or dialogue on behalf of Israel’s position is all too often crudely portrayed as illegitimate pressure applied by an all-powerful Israel or Jewish lobby. Perhaps that’s why Bob Simon felt it appropriate to turn Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s intervention with CBS into part of the story.
Why is Simon prepared to let Palestinian statements go unchallenged or taken as read while Ambassador Oren is subjected to a grilling, including on why he felt it necessary to address CBS’s report before it had been aired.
The Kairos Document
Presented in the 60 Minutes report as a document based on hope, love and non-violence, the Kairos Document, endorsed by a number of Palestinian church leaders is anything but. According to the ADL:
Kairos is a prime example of an effort to undercut the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish State. It calls terror a form of legal resistance, it endorses boycotts and divestment against Israel, and it denies any connection between biblical covenants and the Jewish people.
For more on the theology behind the Kairos Document, see CAMERA‘s analysis.
While 60 Minutes may have attempted to present a consensus of Christian opinion firmly against Israel, the reality is quite different. Millions of other Christians are fully aware of the real dangers posed to their co-religionists throughout the Middle East as Christians are subjected to real violence and persecution by Israel’s Muslim neighbors. Christians United For Israel states the following facts in a campaign letter to CBS:
- Since its birth in 1948, Israel’s Christian population has grown dramatically.
- In the West Bank, the Christian population has not shrunk in absolute terms since 1967. On the contrary, the Palestinian Authority recently reported that the Christian population is growing.
- The only way in which the Christian population is shrinking is as a percentage of the overall population. This shift is due overwhelmingly to the fact that the region’s Muslim population is growing so quickly.
The Christians of the Middle East do face unprecedented threats. As Islamic terrorists have stepped up their attacks against Christians, we are witnessing the collapse of the ancient Christian communities of Iraq, Egypt and Syria. Yet you chose to ignore these threats and focus instead on the security measures that Israel has taken to protect its citizens — Jewish, Christian and Muslim — from the very same Islamic terror.
We wholeheartedly concur. Please send your considered comments to CBS through its online feedback form, selecting 60 Minutes as the Category and add your voice to the many who have been outraged by Bob Simon’s unbalanced and unholy attack on Israel.
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