Twenty-four hours after the group distributed an action alert, members of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) sent more than 29,000 emails to CBS News expressing concern with the 60 Minutes story “Christians of the Holy Land” that aired on April 22.
CBS News’ Bob Simon reported that the exodus from the Holy Land of Palestinian Christians could eventually leave holy cities like Jerusalem and Bethlehem without a local Christian population. A portion of the script of the “Christians of the Holy Land” reads:
“Christianity may have been born in the Middle East, but Arab Christians have never had it easy there, especially not today. In Iraq and Egypt, scores of churches have been attacked, hundreds murdered. In Syria, revolution seriously threatens Christian communities. The one place where Christians are not suffering from violence is the Holy Land: but Palestinian Christians have been leaving in large numbers for years. So many, the Christian population there is down to less than two percent, and the prospect of holy sites, like Jerusalem and Bethlehem, without local Christians is looming as a real possibility.”
“With militant Islam on the march throughout the Middle East, ancient Christian communities are collapsing in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere,” says David Brog, CUFI’s executive director. “Yet 60 Minutes ignored this larger crisis and instead chose to focus on Israel’s security response to this shared threat as the great source of Christian peril in the region.”
The email to CBS officials concluded noting “By failing to see past your own bias, you have done a tremendous disservice to all who truly care about the fate of the Middle East’s Christians.”
“This is nothing more than biased reporting that says more about the news outlet’s lack of objectivity than Israeli policies,” says Pastor John Hagee CUFI’s founder and Chairman. “America’s millions of Christian Zionists would have to abandon both our knowledge and reason to buy what 60 Minutes is selling.”
In contrast to CBS’s story, CBN recently reported that Israel is a safe haven for Christians amid Islamic terrorism.
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