Over the weekend, multiple media outlets—including CBS, NBC, the Associated Press, and Reuters—breathlessly reported that Jewish terrorists had carried out an arson attack on historic church ruins in the West Bank town of Taybeh. The problem? There was no fire in the church. More tellingly, beyond conclusory allegations by partisan sources, the only concrete evidence of Jewish involvement shows Israeli settlers rushing to extinguish a nearby fire which was reportedly also threatening an Israeli farmer’s land.
The disheartening coverage raises the question: did any of the journalists involved practice any actual journalism?
Media Misrepresentation
Consider how the story was reported. CBS stated: “the village of Taybeh was hit by an arson attack…Residents blamed settlers for the fire…” Reuters described “an attack on a Palestinian church in the occupied West Bank blamed on Israeli settlers,” adding that “clerics said Israeli settlers had started a fire near a cemetery and a 5th-century church.” The Associated Press covered “an incident last week when settlers set fires near the community’s church.”
But a number of details these journalists omitted suggests they didn’t bother to investigate the scene independently. Instead, it appears, they satisfied themselves with one side of the story and, in doing so, demonstrated a lack of journalistic professionalism.
What the Reports Omitted
Consider some of the key omissions from the coverage:
Courtesy: Israel Police.
3) Footage Shows Settlers Extinguishing the Fire
Flowing from their failure to reach out to the local Israeli residents, the journalists took church officials at their word when they suggested that “[n]o one filmed the arson itself,” suggesting media consumers can rely only on those vague allegations. But, in fact, footage does reportedly exist, showing “several young men from the adjacent Jewish farm…running up the hill with fire extinguishing equipment and reflective vests, attempting to put out the flames—not start them.” The journalists’ failure to report on this potentially exculpatory footage raises serious questions as to their professionalism.
A TPS-IL screenshot of a video showing Jewish settlers attempting to extinguish a fire near Israeli farmland and the Taybeh historic church ruins.
Put together, the omissions suggest each outlet sought out only one side of the story, accepting their narrative without question.
NBC’s Particularly Egregious Pattern of Bias
The omission of such critical facts suggests either journalistic negligence or bias. In NBC’s case, bias seems the more plausible explanation. Its article, “In the birthplace of Christianity, churches and communities are coming under attack from Jewish settlers,” written by Matt Bradley, is riddled with misleading assertions and overtly partisan framing. One need only consider the headline, which presents a dubious and incendiary charge as fact, to see the problem.
But beyond the headline, consider, for instance, Bradley’s claim:
Some have blamed this on an upswell of anti-Palestinian anger in Israel following the Hamas-led terror attacks from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023. But they had already been increasing after the most right-wing government in Israeli history took office in late 2022.
But, as CAMERA has previously noted, the notion that “anti-Palestinian” attacks surged post-2022 is demonstrably misleading. Even using the UN’s inflated figures, settler-related incidents began rising modestly in 2020—two years before the current Israeli government came to power. Meanwhile, Palestinian attacks on Israelis have risen at a significantly faster pace, a fact conspicuously absent from Bradley’s analysis.
Bradley also cited the controversial group Breaking the Silence to characterize settlers as violent extremists. He wrote: “Designating Hilltop Youth a ‘violent extremist group’ in October, the U.S. Treasury Department appeared to echo this assessment…”
What Bradley failed to mention is that the Treasury’s designation was later rescinded.
Another misleading assertion came in his discussion of Christian demographics: “Since Israel’s founding in 1948, the number of Christian Palestinians in what was once Mandatory Palestine has shrunk from around 10% of the population to less than 1%.”
In fact, Israel is one of the only countries in the Middle East where the Christian population is growing. Bradley’s figures speak in proportional terms, not absolute terms.
The decline in the Christian population in proportional terms began long before Israel achieved independence. Moreover, some of the sharpest declines in the West Bank occurred between 1948 and 1967, a period in which Jordan, not Israel, controlled the territory. While Bradley cynically tries to attribute the decline to Israel’s founding, the real causes are diverse. Jewish and Muslim immigration, combined with discrimination against Christians in Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, are key factors ignored by the journalist.
Whether due to laziness or bias, NBC, along with CBS, the Associated Press, and Reuters, did their readers a profound disservice in their coverage of the Taybeh fire. By uncritically amplifying unverified claims and ignoring contradictory evidence, these outlets undermined journalistic integrity and misled their audiences.