CBS under fire for ‘60 Minutes’ segment attacking Israel

Christian leaders, Middle East experts, and observers on Capitol Hill are crying foul on a CBS News report that they say erroneously blamed Israel for the persecution and migration of Palestinian Christians.

The report by “60 Minutes” contributor Bob Simon blamed Israeli security policies for the outflow of Christian Palestinians from historically Christian areas such as Nazareth and Bethlehem.

In interviews with Palestinian Christian leaders and others, Simon concluded that Israel, through its settlements and security measures, is squeezing Middle Eastern Christians into obscurity.

The segment’s profound inaccuracies were startling, Christian leaders and other experts argued. Simon’s report, they say, whitewashed the extremist rhetoric of its various subjects and intentionally failed to tell the real story behind the West Bank’s Christian exodus—and the continuing growth in Israel’s Christian population.

“I find it incomprehensible for CBS to focus on one Christian population that is not actually shrinking and blame its troubles on the steps Israel is taking to protect itself from these same Islamic terrorists” who target Arab Christians, said David Brog, executive director of Christians United for Israel, one of the nation’s largest pro-Israel groups.

“They leave out the fact that the only Christian community that is thriving is the one in Israel,” said Brog, explaining that Christian minorities across the Middle East routinely face slaughter at the hands of Islamic extremists.