Strong Words, Feeble Reporting: “60 Minutes” on U.S. Support For Israel

By: Tamar Sternthal January 14, 2025

“You believe that this has put a target on America’s back,” Cecilia Vega of “60 Minutes” prompted her guest, former State Department official Hala Rharrit. They were discussing the notion that unbridled U.S. support for alleged Israeli genocide and war crimes in the Gaza Strip have increased threats of terrorism on American soil.

“A hundred percent,” Rharrit replied on CBS’ widely–panned Jan. 12 broadcast (“Biden policy on Israel, Gaza sparks warnings, dissents, resignations“).

Tag team Vega (at left) and Rharrit

“Those are strong words,” the “60 Minutes” correspondent retorted, functioning as a seamless tag team with Rharrit. 

Indeed, the program was packed with strong words standing in for strong arguments.

Blaming Arab terrorism targeting Americans on U.S. support for Israel is hardly an innovative thought conceived post-Oct. 7 by sidelined State Department analysts. It’s been an anti-Western canard for decades. In 2001, for instance, following the 9/11 attacks on America, CNN ignored U.S. President George Bush, diplomats Dennis Ross, Robert Satloff, and even Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who all denied that the anti-American terror attacks were in any way connected with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Not only did CNN reject their opinions, but the network expanded the list of accusations to implicate Israel as being at the root of all terror attacks perpetrated against the U.S.:

It is impossible now to separate the taking of hostages in Iran, the bombing of barracks in Lebanon, the war with Iraq or even the current conflict in Afghanistan, from the question of Israel.

The anti-Western accusation, shifting responsibility for Islamic terrorism onto U.S. and Israel, was baseless then, and it’s just as false now. At the time, in the wake of CAMERA’s criticism, CNN acknowledged that its segment had not been subjected to the required editing procedures. Editors revised the item before rebroadcasting, with the amended narration attributing the anti-Israel sentiment to “Arab extremists.”

This week, leveling emotive libels devoid of both factual underpinnings and journalistic rigor, CBS’s Vega, along with Rharrit and other disgruntled former State Department officials, contributed to the Arab extremists’ long-running cacophony of excuses for targeting Americans with terror.

Vega herself accordingly set the scene for the “60 Minutes” segment with a strong word stripped of meaning: genocide. “The war has led to charges of genocide against Israel and has been fueled by American weapons and billions of taxpayer dollars.”

In the 13-minute long broadcast, Vega neglected to inform viewers that the U.S. government, including the U.S. State Department, has repeatedly rejected the genocide charge. As Vedant Patel, principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department reiterated for journalists Dec. 19, 2024:

But on something like genocide, that is just a conclusion that we disagree with. . . . But again, specifically, when it comes to a determination of something like genocide, the legal standard is just incredibly high. And so the finding in this scenario we just disagree with.

Vega never said, but U.S. officials don’t agree with this strong word precisely because its definition does not match Israel’s war against Hamas. Under international law, genocide is defined as certain acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” As CAMERA’s Gilead Ini has previously explained, Israel’s accusers of genocide have failed in their efforts to demonstrate intent. 

Undeterred, CBS’ Vega cited a deeply flawed Lancet study in an apparent effort to bolster the baseless genocide smear: “In a study published late this past week, the medical journal, The Lancet, said the death toll in Gaza has likely surpassed 70,000 people.” The Lancet’s dubious conclusion based on unreliable data using questionable methodology cited 64,260 deaths, exceeding Hamas’ own dubious figures by 41 percent. But Vega further overstated The Lancet‘s number by another nine percent.

Arab media reports which Rharrit monitored early in the war as part of her State Department responsibilities no doubt accused Israel of carrying out a “genocide,” but that didn’t make it so.

Accepting at face value the Arab propaganda which she regularly gathered, Rharrit alleged:

I would show the complicity that was indisputable. Fragments of U.S. bombs next to massacres of — of ch —mostly children. And that’s the devastation. It’s been overwhelmingly children.

In reality, there is no available data suggesting that fatalities have been “overwhelmingly children.” The aforementioned propagandistic Lancet piece, for instance, reported: “Women, children (aged <18 years), and older people (aged ≥65 years) accounted for 16 699 (59·1%) of the 28 257 deaths for which age and sex data were available.” According to latest data released from Hamas’ Ministry of Health, and published at the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 32.7 percent (13,319 out of 40,717) of identified fatalities were children, with no distinction drawn between combatants and civilians. An Associated Press analysis of Gaza casualties determined that the percentage of civilian casualties was much higher earlier in the war when Rharrit was still at her State Department post. Yet, even then, on Oct. 26, 2023 fatalities of children and women combined reached 64.4 percent, and that was the date with the highest percentage of children and women fatalities that the wire service reported.

A massacre suggests the deliberate, indiscriminate brutal slaughter of people. Collateral damage or a high civilian casualty rate in urban warfare cannot be defined as a “massacre.” Numerous American military experts who, unlike Rharrit, possess deep knowledge of the laws of warfare, have determined that Israel takes extraordinary measures to reduce civilian fatalities. For instance, John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, observed:

Israel has followed the laws of war, legal obligations, best practices in civilian harm mitigation and still found a way to reduce civilian casualties to historically low levels.

The broadcast’s two-part thesis jointly advanced by Vega and a cadre of ex-Foggy Bottom officials rests upon two fallacious arguments: First, Israel is carrying out a genocide and indiscriminately harming civilians. Second, the U.S. is facilitating these acts.

Facts aside, Vega forged ahead with more strong words: “You will also hear from State Department officials who quit their jobs, and their concerns about how far Washington is willing to go to support an ally who, they say, has conducted a war that runs counter to American values and threatens national security.”

“What is happening in Gaza would not be able to happen without U.S. arms. That’s without a doubt,” argued Rharrit. 

Her former colleague, Josh Paul, who himself stepped down days after the Oct. 7 massacre, before Israel even launched its ground invasion, chimed in: “There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S. because ever single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an American-made plane.”

Critical to the second argument is Rharrit’s complaint that her warnings about the public diplomacy damage in the Arab world as a result of U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas went unheeded. She maintained she was ordered to cease her reports after three months.

Meanwhile, completely absent from Vega’s report is the fact that the White House’s public position shifted within one week after Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion, as the administration began adopting messaging, directed both publicly and privately for Israeli leaders, reflecting State Department warnings about the impact on civilians and risks of possible future war crimes in the Gaza Strip. As Reuters reported (“Special report: Emails show early US concerns over Gaza offensive, risk of Israeli war crimes“):

The administration’s public stance began to change on October 13. At a news conference in Doha, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for the first time publicly recognized the “suffering of Palestinian families in Gaza.” Washington was in constant talks with the Israelis and aid groups to help civilians in Gaza, he said.

The next day, October 14, Biden’s rhetoric shifted. He said in a speech that he was urgently prioritizing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and directed his team to help surge relief into the war zone. It is unclear if the emails by [then top State Department public diplomacy official Bill] Russo and others influenced the statements from Blinken and Biden.

Moreover, Reuters added:

From the early days of the conflict, the US stressed that Israel has a right to defend itself but that how it does so matters, a State Department spokesperson said in response to questions for this story. “Israel has a moral imperative to mitigate the harm of its operations to civilians, something we have emphasized both publicly and privately,” the spokesperson said.

Whether or not Reuters could say with certainty that it was specifically State Department warnings which prompted the administration’s change of messaging, the record nevertheless proves that the White House adopted State Department concerns just days after Oct. 7, a salient fact which completely undermines CBS’ nefarious narrative.

Indeed, on the issue of civilian casualties, outgoing US Ambassador Jack Lew recently revealed in an expansive interview with The Times of Israel: “The message was, It has to be done in a way that minimizes [civilian casualties]. And I actually think the fighting reflects that [Israel took this] to heart.”

But Vega, not wishing to topple the pseudo-whistleblowers’ tottering arguments, neglected to interview opposing U.S. voices like Lew’s to counter the anti-Israel narrative of the bunch of Foggy Bottom dropouts.

The slightest bit of digging on Vega’s part would have unmasked her interviewees’ faux concern to protect Americans from Arab terrorism allegedly stoked by U.S. support for Israel. Strikingly, since her April departure from the State Department supposedly over unheeded warnings of the U.S. turning itself into a target of Arab terrorism due to its support for Israel, Rharrit has repeatedly appeared on behalf of the Council of American Islamic Relations, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, the largest terrorism financing case in U.S. history.

As for Rharrit’s ex-colleague, Josh Paul, he is now a senior advisor for DAWN, whose chairman is Nihad Awad, executive director and co-founder of CAIR, who praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, saying he is “happy to see” Palestinians “break the siege” of the Gaza Strip.

“The acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Brett Holmgren, told ’60 Minutes’ that anti-American sentiment driven by the war in Gaza is at a level not seen since the Iraq War, and that groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS are recruiting on that sentiment, issuing the most specific calls for attacks on America in years,” intoned CBS’ Vega.

Far from seeking to prevent the next terror attack on Americans, Rharrit and Paul have joined forces with Arab extremists hellbent on justifying the next terror attack on U.S. citizens. With strong words and deplorable journalism, CBS’ Vega shamelessly extended them a helping hand.

With research contributions from Ricki Hollander.

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