C-SPAN in 2017: Routinely Airing Defamation of Israel and the Jewish People

 
 
The Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN) three-hour daily call-in show, Washington Journal, routinely accepts callers’ anti-Jewish and anti-Israel defamation and misinformation including blaming Jews for a wide variety of problems. No other ethnic or religious group has been subjected to such continuous and virulent defamation on the network. Israel is the only country defamed on a regular basis by a cadre of determined, indulged callers who are rarely challenged by guests or hosts who otherwise routinely interact with callers. The United States is routinely vilified for allying with Israel.
 
Anti-Israel propaganda events are broadcast by C-SPAN without providing adequate, if any, context. The network never even bothers to issue a standard broadcast disclaimer, such as: “Points of view expressed in this program are not necessarily those of this network.”
 
Sampling from 2017 C-SPAN Watch Washington Journal entries

 

There are approximately 100 entries for 2017 in C-SPAN Watch, all of which contain non-trivial, nearly all negative, references by callers to Israel or Jews. The following 30 or so utterances are from the calls, most of which were met with silence by C-SPAN, the remainder eliciting inadequate or even complicit responses.

The only way I feel that this conflict is going to be resolved is to recognize that the Palestinians do have rights. It is occupied Palestine. (Dec. 23, 9:09 a.m. entry)

I think Mr. Trump lost everything inside and outside. First, he make a big mistake to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. (Dec. 13, 7:51 a.m. entry).

Israel attacked the U.S.S, Liberty to get the U.S. into a war with Egypt [a myth that is a staple of the anti-Israel crowd]. I really don’t think that it is a really good ally. Who knows whether they [Israel] coaxed us into war with Iraq and Syria. (Dec. 7, 8:42 a.m. entry)

Truman took the European Jews and set them right on top of the Palestinians; now that is our problem today. (Dec. 6, 9:04 a.m. entry)

Most of our military is being used by Israel, because all this is about who controls the Middle East, controls the world. That is what it is … it is about territory… So whoever controls the Middle East controls the Earth. Our military is being used by Israel to go around the whole Earth to take control. (Nov. 27, 7:35 a.m. entry)

The best way to stop terrorism [in the world] is to get control of Israel. (Nov. 9, 8:48 a.m. entry)

As far as [United States Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein, many people know this a just a Jewish cabal [secret political clique] that’s trying to control this. (Oct. 20, 9:25 a.m. entry)

The first gentleman on today talked about Israel. That is a forbidden subject. We don’t know how much money or arms we give them and we are not supposed to be that closely allied with anybody. (Oct. 13, 7:58 a.m. entry)

This is all about Israel…What they want to do is they want to bomb 80 million people over there and make Iran look just like Iraq… Israel, well, it has got nuclear weapons. Nobody said nothing. They have more weapons per capita than any other country in the world, but nobody says anything…It was the Israelis who introduced terrorism to the Middle East when they chased out the British. Now everybody adopted it. Israel has a heavy hand. (Oct. 11, 8:22 a.m. entry)

The number one problem in the Middle East that all 14 Presidents had is keeping Israel from attacking our allies there in the Arab states. (June 18, 9:53 a.m. entry)

The elites are located in the [Washington] D.C. area, in Manhattan [New York City], and in parts of Los Angeles. Now, don’t call me an anti-Semite, but they are primarily, most of them, left-wing Jews. Financially very wealthy, and they control Wall Street, they control Hollywood and they control the banking here in the United States. (June 14, 7:04 a.m. entry)

If you look at the Websites for AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] or ZOA, Zionist Organization of America, they brag, they boast, about their successes in winning policy and funding support from the United States. They explicitly control and meddle in our elections. Why the fuss about Russia? There is nothing that Russia could have done that would even remotely compare in this last election with a single AIPAC … (June 11, 7:25 a.m. entry)

Basically what we’re doing over there in the Middle East is taking care of Israel – we are in like a proactive war for Israel. They do absolutely nothing as far as the Coalition is concerned and we give them money and arms and they still don’t help us. (May10, 9:14 a.m. entry)

Hamas, Hezbollah, these are the people who are Palestinians just trying to get their country back. It’s not a difficult situation at all. My opinion is – it is not Israel, it’s occupied Palestine. China has North Korea. Russia has Syria. We have Israel. (April 20, 7:10 a.m. entry)

You know, it’s not only President Trump, but it’s also all white Christians in this nation demonized by the Jewish media. (April 13, 7:22 a.m. entry).

Israel is right down the block; they are using chemical warfare. (April 9, 7:47 a.m. entry)

Two weeks ago when Israel was rebuffed when their plane was shot at, he went to Moscow, Netanyahu. Israel likes to fly in and shoot and not expect retaliation. Soon after, we have this event. I say it’s a false flag [operation]. We should not be in Syria. (April 8, 9:46 a.m. entry)

But the United States didn’t have any problem with Israel killing 3,000 people in Gaza. I mean, we have also to look at our own government where we’re poisoning our own people in Michigan. (April 7, 7:48 a.m. entry)

We have propaganda, we have pretext and go in and use Israel as cat’s paw to go in and now carve up the Middle East between them. (April 7, 9:18 a.m. entry)

How about Israel’s actions in Gaza? Their reported use of white phosphorus. (April 5, 7:12 a.m. entry).

The United States is the number one supporter of state terrorism from Israel and other colonial states. (April 5, 7:13 a.m. entry).

We send money over to Israel to blow up things. We should save that money for healthcare. (March 14, 7:50 a.m. entry).

They don’t have the money for us for Social Security to raise our pay or nothing, but they have money to give to Israel and all these violent countries. (March 8, 7:05 a.m. entry).

I am strongly opposed to Israeli policy towards Palestinians. Why is it I am constantly labeled as anti-Semitic? (March 3, 9:14 a.m. entry).

[Israel’s Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu hated President Obama. I don’t think it was because of him being President. It was because of his color. That is one thing we have to deal with. (March 3, 9:26 a.m. entry)

I can bring up the point of the Jews in Israel machine gunning down boys at the beach. (Feb. 21, 7:47 a.m. entry)

Wasn’t it President Truman who did not let Jews come in and we ended up dropping them in Palestine and they occupied it and we are wholly subsidizing the occupation of Palestine. (Feb. 12, 8:48 a.m. entry)

The one that was behind all this was the Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu. He wants to have power over those seven Muslim countries in that region. He’s putting fear in the United States. (Feb. 10, 7:24 a.m. entry).

What are you doing to curtail Israel from continuing to steal technology and use it against foreign countries? (Feb. 6, 8:40 a.m. entry).

As many people have died in Syria as in the Jewish Holocaust. (Jan. 29, 7:30 a.m. entry).

The other thing is the abstention at the United Nations is to prevent the prime minister of Israel from becoming the Hitler of his area. (Jan. 5, 9:43 a.m. entry)

I would like to see them stop being friendly with violent countries like Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iran hasn’t attacked anyone in 400 years, yet we hate them. (Jan. 4, 9:34 a.m. entry)

I think the problem is we’re sending $38 billion to Israel over the next 10 years. I wonder where was Israel in Iraq? They’re supposed to be an ally. (Jan. 4, 9:53 a.m. entry)

2017 anti-Israel propaganda events broadcast by C-SPAN
 
Dec. 31, 2017 update:
 
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On December 18, 2018, C-SPAN aired an event defaming America and Israel. It was a Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) event staged mainly for C-SPAN’s millions of viewers. It featured notorious propagandist Salam Al-Marayati, MPAC’s president.
 
 
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In November, the network aired Rev. Louis Farrakhan’s “news conference” racially charged two-hour diatribe defamin g America and Israel. It included this Farrakhan rant: “How much do you owe us? Have you ever added it up? In today’s dollars it’s in trillions what you owe us. So just like you [United States] pushed the Palestinians out to give the Jews a homeland and we are the real ones [Jews], push some of your own people out, and we’ll take eight states [of the United States].” Using scientific and historical evidence, CAMERA debunks the falsehoods, “we are the real ones [Jews]” and “you pushed the Palestinians out.”
 
 
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In September, the network aired a panel discussion, debunked by CAMERA,  “One State or Two State Solution: What’s Best for the Palestinians?” The discussion was part of the annual conference of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). The four Palestinian American panelists rejected the two-state solution, characterizing it as unjust, unworkable and unlikely, while advocating either a (Palestinian-dominated) one-state solution or all-out resistance to the presence of Jews in the entirety of what is now Israel and the West Bank.

Panelist Noura Erakat likened Israeli “settler colonization” (meaning the presence of any Jews between the Sea and the River Jordan) to a cancer, charging that either the two-state solution or the one-state solution is like “using Tylenol to address the cancer… instead of chemo …the thing we need to do is remove the cancer… If we admit that the West Bank is occupied we have to admit that Tel Aviv and Haifa are occupied as well as Jerusalem.”

This solution, of course, amounts to ethnic cleansing of Jews from their ancestral land, while the one-state solution would be unviable for Jews given the predilections of Arab Muslim pluralities including a Palestinian one. The attitude generally of those anywhere who promote the single state solution can be reasonably characterized as “22 Arab Muslim states is fine but one Jewish state is one too many.”

 
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In June and July, C-SPAN repeatedly passed off to its viewers as factual documentation, a Palestinian propaganda film. The 1979 film conveys the false notion that Palestinian Arab peoplehood existed well before the re-establishment of the Jewish state in 1948. However, omitted is the fact that nearly all West Bank Arabs considered themselves to be “southern Syrians” until the 1960s when Arab terrorist leader Yasser Arafat and his disciples adopted the notion of Palestinian Arab nationhood as a rallying anti-Israel tactic.

The film portrays the conflict as basically that of good guys (Arabs) victimized by bad guys (Israeli Jews and others).

Wishing C-SPAN a moral and ethical rejuvenation in 2018

Providing anti-Israel propaganda platforms is standard procedure for C-SPAN. The extent of the possible harm inflicted by C-SPAN is indicated by the fact that C-SPAN broadcasts reach a television audience of potentially millions.

When will TV providers (cable or satellite) that support C-SPAN come to terms with C-SPAN’s chronic journalism malpractice that is bound to fuel anti-Israel, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories? Keep in mind that a portion of the public’s cable/satellite fees is paid to C-SPAN.

When will Congress, which enfranchises C-SPAN, come to terms with the problems?

C-SPAN’s chief executives are Susan Swain ([email protected]) and Rob Kennedy ([email protected]). Steve Scully ([email protected]) is C-SPAN’s political editor and executive producer. In 2018, will they eliminate or at least lessen C-SPAN’s journalistic malpractice pertaining to Israel and the Jewish people?
 
CAMERA will be monitoring.

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