The Middle East Media Sampler 2/18/2013: 60 Minutes' Bob Simon vs Iron Dome

From: +David Gerstman:

1) Bob Simon vs. Iron Dome 

Two thirds of Bob Simon's segment Will Israel's Iron Dome help bring peace? isn't bad. While his emphasis on American funding is a bit disconcerting (especially because of what it's setting up later) overall, the first part of his report is straightforward. But then he starts twisting the report to make his point:

Barak argues that if Iron Dome makes Israelis feel more secure, less threatened, they'll be more willing to make peace with the Palestinians. You wont find many Palestinians who agree. 

Husam Zomlot: Before the Iron Dome, they felt no pressure to make any concessions. After the Iron Dome, they will feel the pressure to make concessions? Of course not.
Husam Zomlot is a PLO diplomat and a professor at Bir Zeit University.

Ad: CBS's 60 Minutes Slandered Israel and Refuses to Set the Record Straight

CAMERA today ran an ad in the Wall Street Journal deploring the refusal of CBS News and 60 Minutes to correct factual errors in its "Christians in the Holy Land" story broadcast on April 22, 2012. CBS needs to understand viewers have not forgotten the incendiary and damaging falsehoods aired — and the obligation of a responsible news outlet to set the record straight when it misleads the public.

In addition, CAMERA Board Members attended a May CBS Shareholders meeting to raise concerns directly with the CBS Board. At that time, CAMERA’s detailed refutation of the falsehoods was distributed to the CBS Board and, of course, it had been mailed to Jeffrey Fager, Chairman of CBS News and Executive Producer of 60 Minutes. Although the five-page letter detailed specific factual errors, Mr. Fager disregarded every one of the substantive concerns raised and responded in a short paragraph that concluded by saying: "It was fair and accurate reporting about a newsworthy subject."

No. It was not fair and accurate. It was unfair and false.

The ad will also be appearing in Jewish newspapers across America later this week.

Here's the ad:

An Account Of Arabs And Jews Before The Advent Of The Palestinian Authority

I wrote earlier today that 60 Minutes journalist Bob Simon claims that left wing journalist Gideon Levy "is one of the very few Israeli civilians who has any contact with Palestinians"

I debunked Simon's absurd claim, pointing out the many thousands of Palestinians who have had contact with Jews either as employees, patients in Israeli hospitals, passengers in Israeli buses and taxis, shoppers in Israeli supermarkets and just being interviewed by other Israeli journalists.

LD recounts in an email an example of just how normalized relations could be between Israelis and Arabs,  away from the tensions of the conflict and the incitement of the Palestinian leadership:

60 Minutes' Bob Simon's Latest Factual Errors About Israel

In the week that three Presidents, a King and their own Prime Minister gather at the White House to begin a fresh round of talks on peace between Israel and the Palestinians, the truth is, Israelis are no longer preoccupied with the matter. They're otherwise engaged; they're making money; they're enjoying the rays of late summer. A watching world may still define their country by the blood feud with the Arabs whose families used to live on this land and whether that conflict can be negotiated away, but Israelis say they have moved on.
Karl Vick, Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace, Time Magazine, September 2, 2010

It seems that over at 60 Minutes, they decided to send Bob Simon to put on video what Karl Vick put to paper, put out the meme that Israel does not care about peace, in his latest piece on Israel: From fear to fortune: Tel Aviv's new attitude

Unfortunately, Bob Simon has no clue as to what he is talking about--and passes on that ignorance to his viewers.

60 Minutes: The Return Of The Bob Simon Amateur Hour

(Update: On twitter, David Lee Makowsky notes:

The description on Comcast is "Bob Simon investigates the possibility of an attack on Tel Aviv, Israel"

All fine and good. But based on Bob Simon's past inaccuracies in his last hatchet job, I am not reassured.

Update II: Read my rebuttal to Bob Simon's error-filled broadcast from last night )


The last time he attacked Israel, Bob Simon ambushed Israeli ambassador Oren with a deceptively friendly invitation. From there, Simon fabricated a story that Israel was responsible for Christians fleeing--in spite of the fact that Israel is the only Middle Eastern country with a growing Christian population.

Now 60 Minutes and Bob Simon are back--in Tel Aviv
If Bob Simon's Facebook page is any indication, we may be in for another snow-job:

Jonathan Rosenblum: CBS's Journalistic Malpractice

The following by Jonathan Rosenblum is reposted with permission

CBS's Journalistic Malpractice

by Jonathan Rosenblum

Outside the precincts of academia, the anti-Israel vitriol that is now mainstream in Europe has been largely absent in America. At the outset of Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, for instance, many of Europe's leading papers reported as fact Palestinian claims that Israeli soldiers had killed 5,000 Palestinians in Jenin, in many cases lining them up against the wall and dispatching them with a single bullet to the head. No major U.S. paper fell for the propaganda. (Even the United Nations own investigation established that only 55 Palestinians were killed, the large majority armed fighters.)

The recent 60 Minutes segment on Christians in the Holy Land, however, could almost have been drawn from the European playbook of tendentious, anti-Israel propaganda. Host Bob Simon began the segment, "The one place in the Middle East where Christians are not suffering from persecution is the Holy Land." But from there on, it was all downhill.

"60 Minutes Not Responding to Critics of ‘Holy Land’ Segment"

David Gerstman, writing in Pajamas Media, notes that to date 60 Minutes Not Responding to Critics of ‘Holy Land’ Segment:

Last Friday, Ben Smith at BuzzFeed [Polite Letter Brought Israeli To CBS For On-Camera Outrage] published emails exchanged by Bob Simon and Ambassador Oren ahead of the latter’s interview. Smith found nothing in the letters to suggest the outrage that Simon expressed on the Christians in the Holy Land broadcast. According to Smith, Simon’s “high dudgeon” was inconsistent with the tone of his earlier communication with Oren. CBS has not yet addressed Simon’s irregular behavior and bad faith.

CBS 60 Minutes: Not Only Can't They Report--They Can't Even Count

Jennifer Rubin reports how Backlash builds over ‘60 Minutes’ hatchet job on Israel.

Instead of responding to Rubin's questions about the inaccuracies in the 60 Minutes report and whether there would be an internal review, CBS released the following statement:

We received an organized negative email campaign of the type we don’t count because all of them were duplicates of the same letter sent from the same organization, Christians United for Israel, which apparently wrote the letter and urged others to resend it to CBS News. So far they number a few hundred, far less than 500 and well below what other such organized issue-based responses in the past have generated.

Eli Hertz: Bob Simon - Nothing New Under the Sun

The following by Eli Hertz of Myths and Facts is reposted with permission:

Bob Simon - Nothing New Under the Sun

In January 25, 2009 he had this to say:"Palestinians ... when they want to travel from one town to another, they have to submit to humiliating delays at checkpoints and roadblocks. There are more than 600 of them on the West Bank." 

In April 22, 2012 he had this to say:"For all Palestinians, just leaving Bethlehem is a struggle. Getting to Jerusalem, only seven miles away, whether it's to pray, go to a doctor, visit family members, or work, means going through this Israeli checkpoint. That can take hours but before Palestinians can get even this far, they need a permit from the Israelis which can take weeks or months to obtain and is frequently denied."

So Who is Humiliating Whom?

April 24, 2012 |Eli E. Hertz
Revised, originally published 2004 & 2009

Bob, you say Palestinian Arabs feel humiliated and harassed when Israeli authorities search them and their belongings; when they are prevented from traveling freely because of checkpoints, roadblocks, closures and curfews. You say they feel "corralled."