Dear Mr. Sims,
In regards to your series“Jerusalem: City of Faith and Fury,”it must be pointed out that there is little content that can be regarded as truth, and more than a little that is conspicuously false, disingenuous, lying claptrap.The series fails to meet any standard of journalism that can be recognized as researched, honest, insightful and instead is Jew bashing, ahistorical fiction, and should win an award for stretching every pro-Palestinian lie into a new trope against Jews.
Let me walk you through a few of the many disgusting and antisemitic statements or gaps in the story being created for your listeners.
Huda Imam, described as “Founder, Centre for Jerusalem Studies, Al Quds University,” is allowed to make, unchallenged, multiple incendiary assertions. Most shockingly, CNN gives her a platform to spew outright antisemitism in Part 6, which covered the Six Day War and beyond: “The whole of Palestine continues to be eaten up like a cancerous disease. Deleting, erasing, arresting, demolishing, and the world is silent again.”
This is a joke! The population of Palestinian Arabs has more than quadrupled under Israeli governance, the number of mosques has increased manifold and some imams are on the government payroll as are rabbis. The arrests of Arabs by the PA is notorious, for crimes such as befriending Israelis and seeking normalization, being willing to sell land to a Jew. The only demolitions are of either illegal structures and is equally applied to Jews, and to the homes of murderous terrorists who are found guilty of killing a Jew, or in the case of many such actions, several Jews. The state does not sanction the death penalty but the PA and Hamas do, and they carry it out. Which people is “guilty of deleting, erasing, arresting, demolishing and the world is silent”?? CNN IS SILENT WHEN IT IS THE PA AND HAMAS THAT COMMIT CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY!
In a series ostensibly about Jerusalem, CNN spent almost as much time (one and a half minutes) on Cleopatra and Mark Antony’s respective suicides – which occurred in Egypt and had little if anything to do with Jerusalem – as it did on the destruction of the Second Temple and much of the city of Jerusalem itself.
Saying that “The destruction of the Temple marked the withdrawal by G-d of the special blessing bestowed on the Jewish people, giving room for Islam. So in many ways, out of Herod’s Temple and its destruction, came the world we know today,” is baloney. The Jews were not all driven out, the temple was twice destroyed and the country many times invaded, including by Arabs, a non-indigenous people to the area. CNN seems intent in creating the impression that Jewish story is minor, that the destruction of the Second Temple is but a blip in history and not a major story, and ignores the fact that most of the western and Southern walls remain, not just a few stones. You seem eager to feed the Palestinian myth that the Temple is not Jewish and not the most Holy place for Judaism, today and throughout all of Jewish history. Did you remember to mention that Jerusalem is NEVER mentioned in the Quran and the Temple Mount is probably not the place from which Mohammed rose, as per the Islamic myth of his ascent to heaven. The Al Aqsa mosque is actually in Arabia as has been well documented by scholars such as Imam Mohammed Tawhidi, an Iranian ordained cleric, and former jihadi recruiter.
Muhammad Haj Amin al-Husseini was, beyond being the Grand Mufti and the president of the Supreme Muslim Council, the “leader of the Palestinian Arab national movement.” His clan, the Husseinis, would also effectively control the Arab Higher Committee. Al-Husseini used his leadership role to foment repeated rounds of riots and pogroms, but you ignore this fact of history and your series therefore presents another lie.Your series ignores the Arab-Nazi connections which were part of the reason that Jews were kept out of Mandate Palestine and murdered in cities across the region under direction of their recognized leader, al-Husseini. How on God’s earth could you ignore this monster?? How could you not report the massacre of Jews in Hebron and other centers by Arabs intent on eliminating a Jewish presence that was ancient, from a city that was since Biblical times a key center for Jews? A slight of hand—like the script writer dropped his pen, or an intent to disrupt the truth and feed Jew hatred with more lies?
The Arab Higher Committee (AHC), the principle representative body for the Palestinian Arabs at the time, was repeatedly invited to participate in the discussions on the fate of Mandate Palestine, yet CNN claims that the Arabs were not invited to participate in discussions about the division of Palestine. This is another outright lie. So, please explain how you managed to overlook this fact of history that is well documented? What is the purpose of the series since it is not educational but mis-informational?
One more distortion, though not the last, is your portrayal of the “refugee” situation in relation to Israel and the Arab population that lived there before the state of Israel was declared. A refugee is someone who leaves the country in which they reside, not someone who stays in it. Yet, CNN shockingly manages to label Israeli Arabs who were never actually displaced, who are citizens of Israel, and whose descendants continue to live in the same land, as “refugees.” Even UNRWA doesn’t go that far. That is saying much since UNRWA keeps alive its own set of lies and distortions, when the US State Dept affirms that maybe about 20,000 Arabs are real refugees and the rest part of a hoax, a public relations propaganda campaign produced by the PA that the world swallows. There cannot be millions of refugees as the only legally recognized refugee is one born in a country and displaced, not 6 generations of descendants born in other countries, including the US and Canada. This is one of the dumbest ideas propagated by the anti-Israel campaigners and Jew haters. It is fed by the UN due to the support it has from Muslim countries which are a large voting bloc at the UN. Try using some realism. So-called Palestinian refugees are more or less hostages in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and under the PA for in each of these jurisdictions the descendants of former Arabs in the Mandate area, are not given equal treatment and allowed to integrate with their Arab hosts. They are banned from holding certain jobs, educational attainment, land ownership etc and the only job that UNRWA handles successfully is keeping them hostage, keeping themselves employed, taking billions from donor countries and never attempting to settle these Arabs. Yet that should be their mandate as it is for the UNHCR which settles millions of true refugees every year. Maybe CNN should explain why this two tiered system exists and motivate people to end it and stop paying for it.
The dishonesty in your entire series is more than disconcerting and fits the definition of antisemitism as adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and its 34 member signatory countries, including the US and Canada. Isn’t it time that CNN also adopted this definition and held all of its staff and contractors accountable to End Jew Hatred??
Respectfully, (but not with respect for your lack of integrity,)
Andria Spindel,
Executive Director
Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation
PO Box 77598 Sheppard Plaza PO
Toronto, ON
M3H 6A7