Bob Simon, reporter for 60 Minutes, recently narrated a one-sided segment concerning the plight of Arab Christians in the Palestinian controlled areas. Every person interviewed, except for Israeli Ambassador, Michael Oren, took and anti-Israel stance. None were Evangelical and there were no interviews presented from Pro-Israel Christians, of which, there are many in this nation.
By Michael Utterback
Simon used statistics pointing to the decline of Orthodox Christianity in Jerusalem and the “West Bank,’ especially Bethlehem, with underlying implication that Israel was to blame. This assumption shows just how uninformed people like Simon really are. Unfortunately, he has the eyes and ears of the U.S. public who knows little of the realities on the ground in Israel.
Are Christian Arabs suffering in Palestinian controlled areas of Israel? Yes, but not because of Israel, something CBS 60 Minutes suggests. In any Islamic controlled region, Christians are considered infidels and second-class citizens, the very reason most Arab Christians have fled the “West Bank” towns, including Bethlehem.
CBS blew their anti-Israel cover when they chose not to examine how Christians are treated in the whole of Israel rather than politically heated regions. Sadly, CBS followed the oft-traveled route, sell the story and don’t let the facts get in the way.
However, the facts do speak for themselves. Christians are welcome anywhere in Israel. They can gather, pray, sing and read scriptures, preach without permits in most places, unhindered. Daily, Church bells ring throughout Jerusalem, even on Shabbat, the Jewish holy day. Christian tour groups fill Christian sites all over the land in record-breaking numbers. As of this writing over 750,000 tourists, mostly Christians, have visited Israel from the beginning of the year, without fear of governmental interference.
Another relatively unknown fact is even Muslims are allowed to broadcast their prayers daily from minarets all over the land of Israel without persecution (By experience, I know, sometimes I am awakened by the loud calls to prayer before the sun comes up. Many a tourist can testify to this as well). Clearly, Muslims and Christians are treated with fairness in the Jewish State of Israel, a fact overlooked in Bob Simon’s 60 Minutes report.
Is Israel a safe place for Christians? YES, and not only for Christians but also for anti-Israel reporters like Bob Simon. While gathering information to apply against Israel, he was protected by the very government he was here to malign! He was free to stay in Israel’s five star hotels, to travel at will and write anything he wanted, without condemnation. Why, because Israel is a democracy, the only one in the Middle East. As a democracy, Israel protects the rights of people to be free and to worship the way they wish.
Can you imagine how Mr. Simon would have been treated if he had decided to go to Iran to speak out against the treatment of Christians there? Or if he had gone to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Syria? One wonders what content would have filled the 60 Minutes segment following his visit to one of these nations?
Finally, people need to be reminded that this nation has filled the world with God’s moral laws. The very freedoms we hold dear in the US come from the moral standard handed to us through the Jewish nation and their God. To then claim that this very nation is against freedom is preposterous and unsubstantiated.
Without a doubt, Israel is the only safe place in the Middle East for Christians!
(Michael Utterback is director of Ministry to Israel, a benevolent organization, which is part of the Care Division of the Church of God. MTI has offices in both Jerusalem and Cleveland, Tennessee. Utterback and his wife, Gina, have a home in Jerusalem.)