By Robert "RB" Arbetman
CNN’s “Christian Warriors” love Israel. The real Christian Warriors hate Israel and Jews with a passion
Any supporter of Israel who saw the CNN special “Gd’s Warriors” starring their leading correspondent, Christiane Amanpour had to notice the extreme anti-Israel bias of the series. Much has been written about Amanpour’s mis-stated facts and omissions as well as her choice of people who were interviewed. Yet the most glaring example of anti-Israel bias was not to be found in the segment about Jews, but rather the segment about Christians.
Here again, many of us have read the standard fare about how Evangelical Christians who go to church, vote, go to law school etc., are compared to Muslim suicide bombers. I have no arguments against these themes, but one issue stands out among CNN’s portrayal of “God’s Christian Soldiers”: they support Israel.
To some Jews and pro-Israel activists, this may have tickled a few instincts, but to date I have not found one commentator who has offered the following thesis: If Christiane Amanpour wanted to find “God’s Christian Warriors” who are genuinely analogous to Muslim terrorists, she didn’t have to look farther than the anti-Defamation League’s web site. There, anyone can find a whole list of home-grown Christian-based organizations with an established history of murder, lynching and bombing. The Christian Identity Movement, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Militia Movement are well known to everyone embarrassed by America’s home-grown terrorists. If Amanpour could reach back to the 1980’s and 1990’s to cite examples of Jewish extreme violence, certainly the Militia Movement which spawned the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing should qualify at least some air-time covering these organizations.
Instead, Amanpour handed us “smoking gun” proof of her anti-Israel bias by focusing her entire two-hour segment on Evangelical Christians who support Israel (for whatever reason), go to church, oppose abortion, vote, and go to school. Only in the most rare instances have abortion opponents committed violent crimes against abortion clinics.
Amanpour even spent considerable air time trying to explain WHY Evangelical Christians support Israel ignoring the simple fact that there is no simple or single reason for this support. By comparison to the deadly, murderous rampage of anti-Semitic Christian Warriors, the samples of “God’s Christian Warriors” provided by Amanpour and CNN are cream puffs. Having watched this segment three times, I have not noticed one mention of any well-known anti-Semitic Christian-based organizations listed on the ADL’s web site.
“God’s Christian Warriors” don’t lynch African-Americans, firebomb African-American churches, murder U.S. Marshals or bomb federal office buildings. They don’t even lead divestment and boycott movements within their churches. No! “God’s Christians Warriors” support Israel, vote, go to college and law school. Amanpour’s “Gd’s Christian Warriors” are compared to Al-Qeida while Christian anti-Semites on the ADL’s list of domestic terrorists received no mention in the program. This is what I call “smoking-gun” proof of Amanpour’s anti-Israel bias. I don’t know why other commentaries on this series’ anti-Israel bias haven’t taken notice.
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2 comments:
A slam dunk commentary if there ever was one! Great post and Kudos to the both of your! *L* KGS
RB has picked up on something other observers have ignored. Amanpour totally ignores Christian antisemitisim even though it's a far greater and more contemporary problem than the actions of a far smaller proportion of a far smaller number of Jews which she so overemphasizes.
The real problem, however, is the way she gave equal amounts of time she to the numerous Muslim fanatics who are murdering thousands of people and to the handful of Jewish and Christian extremists who aren't going around murdering people.
If she was going to divide her total of six hours to the three groups in proportion to the seriousness of the problems they pose, she should have given "God's Jewish Warriors" about ten seconds, "God's Christian Warriors" about fifty seconds and "God's Muslim Warriors" about five hours and fifty-nine minutes.
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