What are we to make of this 60 Minutes story on Israeli settler violence that aired last Sunday, a report that was unabashedly critical of the settlers and all those who are unable or unwilling to rein them in? Is CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss seeing the error of her ways? Are the Ellisons reading the polls that show a massive shift away from support of Israel among Americans of all political stripes?
Or has nothing really changed and, as reported by Status News and Variety, last weekend’s segment aired only after a knock-down-drag-out fight between 60 Minutes star journalist Leslie Stahl and Weiss, which led to Stahl’s flirtation with resignation?
Whatever happened behind the scenes, the segment did air, and no one can consider it supportive of the settlers. It shows how they use sheep to drive Palestinians off ancestral lands. So we can add cruelty to animals to arson, theft, destruction of trees, ethnic cleansing, and even murder. Their violent treatment of Palestinian farmers is an embarrassment to Israel1 and the Jewish people, and a betrayal of Torah. Even US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, long a proponent of settlement expansion, has been critical of the settlers recently. And incredibly, the prime settler spokesperson in the segment, Mordehai Minster, shows little concern for the deterioration of ties with America and the possible loss of defense funding, saying:
"I am bothered by the fact that America's turning on us, and we're turning on America. It's, like, I see it as losing a friendship. And I'm also concerned that, as a military ally, as a political ally, we may lose America as well. It looks like it's going in that direction. But Israel will find other allies."
Oh they will, will they? Do Israelis really believe this as they head to the polls? Are they really willing to write off American support so glibly? Is God that much in their corner? No God I believe in would support this.
This segment was not a good look for Israel, and it was only aired, as Oliver Darcy of Status reported, after frantic editing by Weiss that was “very hands-on.” One wonders why she didn’t cut it, and why she allowed it to be produced in the first place. Weiss, after all, aired a creampuff interview with Netanyahu for which she replaced Stahl with a creampuff non-60 Minutes interviewer last year - Netanyahu, who hasn’t submitted to an interview by a major independent network in Israel in many years, was given a gift then, but not this week.
Between Weiss airing this segment and Trump’s refusal to endorse or even see him, Bibi must be feeling unloved.
Until we hear about what specifically Weiss wanted to cut - and whether anything was cut - we can only speculate as to why this particular finished product aired and what it tells us about Weiss, CBS, CNN, Israel and perhaps most importantly. the near-term aims of the Ellison media empire.
Here are some of my own observations.
The Ellisons are the elephants in the room. At a time when the Skydance merger has just been finalized, when the Ellisons are going out of their way to project stability especially regarding CNN, the last thing they would need is another Bari Weiss-provoked 60 Minutes crisis at CBS. Stahl’s departure would be catastrophic for the program.
The report showed some journalistic balance. It presented the settlers’ side, which, granted, consisted primarily of “It’s ours. God gave it to us.” Surprisingly, the report didn’t dwell on terrorism directed toward Jews as much as I thought it would - not a hint of whataboutism - nor did it add the context of instability in the region following October 7. It was “one-sided” in that way, but sometimes accuracy demands that. The settlers’ motives are purely ideological and religious, not security oriented, and the takeover of Palestinian land had been on their agenda since long before October 7. Their attacks were unprovoked.
The folks at CBS News are hedging their bets prior to the Israeli elections in two weeks. If Netanyahu's right-wing government is evicted from power, as is quite possible, the opposition leaders have made it clear that they will crack down hard on the settlers2. Weiss is getting out ahead of that.
If that happens, a report like this will actually be a way of helping to justify Israel’s new policies. It will herald a new era of Israel-America relations, where being “pro-Israel” will not require people to leave their conscience at the door, thus helping Israel to begin to rehabilitate its tarnished image. I pray for that to happen. I can almost taste it!
Here’s a thought experiment: If you can only have one win by the opposition in the coming elections in Israel or America, which would you prefer? If you see this as an existential vote, as I do, it’s like the Trolly Problem. There’s no good choice. But if Trump is not checked, there will likely not be democracy here in 2028. And in that case, if Trump loses the House and Senate, it will serve as a check on both Trump and Israeli leaders, no matter who wins in Israel. Not great, but I had to pick one.
Even if Netanyahu somehow remains in the government, this cabinet will likely not be as far to the right, if current polling trends hold. And if he has any desire to maintain relations with America - including with Trump - he will need to show that he is dealing with the settlers more vigorously. But if he wins, it will be bad for the world, for Jews, non-Jews, Americans, Israelis, Palestinians. No sugarcoating it. Israel will see emigration as never before: Jewish and Arab.
Being critical of Israel is not only much more politically acceptable now than when Weiss took over CBS News…
…It’s more acceptable to Trump, who has been giving Netanyahu a very cold shoulder of late. And nothing that aired on CBS last Sunday night could be construed as an attack on Trump.
That’s a key fact for anyone who mistakenly considers the report an example of journalistic independence. “Independence” means being a check on the government in power - in your own country. In that context, this report could have bene much more critical. For a decade, Trump has been the settler movement’s enabler. His first ambassador, David Friedman, was a prime advocate for the settler movement. Maybe that’s the part Weiss cut, the line that criticized Trump and gave us some recent history. Trump got off easy in this segment. 60 Minutes remained loyal.
And that’s all Trump cares about: loyalty. Given a choice between Israel and Trump, and that choice is no longer simply hypothetical, we now know which way the Ellisons and Weiss will go. They know where their hallah is buttered. That is revealing and, frankly, not good for the First Amendment.
The settlers have also become a political liability for the AIPAC crowd. At this point, following the destruction of Gaza, the annexation of the West Bank would be a red line for all but the most extreme Jewish and Christian conservatives. Anyone who doesn’t see that is completely tone deaf.
And the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank includes Christian communities, which have also been attacked. Holy places - mosques and churches - have been desecrated.
No one is defending the settlers’ actions, and pointedly, the usual Jewish organizational suspects were not rolled out to condemn this highly provocative segment. Not a peep from the Jewish Federations, AJC and the ADL. It’s important to note that the settlers have been committing outrageously violent acts against their neighbors for years. But it’s different now. Everyone is recognizing that settler violence is no longer a nuisance. It has become a strategic threat.3 So this was an easy call for CBS. This was the time to pick on Israel, by picking on the settlers.
This was the perfect opportunity to stand up to Israel because they really were standing up to a government in absentia. Israel is between governments right now. Because of that, this is a report that will have a very short shelf life. However powerful its prevailing message, it will almost certainly be dated in two weeks.
But it could influence the elections’ outcome, if Israelis actually see it and get the message that they are about to lose their greatest ally. Did the Ellisons want that message to go out? Did Weiss? I don’t discount this. Stahl brings up the elections in her introduction.
Or, in the end, was it just about ratings? I must admit, I’ve stopped watching 60 Minutes, in principle. But as I was checking out football games, my clicker tick…tick…ticked onto the broadcast, and so I watched it. I wonder how many others did.
So we are left to ponder why they chose to air this devastating segment now, just two weeks before the Israeli elections and three weeks before the US midterms.
And why Bari Weiss went ballistic.
A third of Israelis describe Jewish rioters involved in recent violence in the West Bank village of Kusra as “Israeli terrorists,” according to a survey released by the Jewish People Policy Institute. Coupled with another 18% who called them “nationalist criminals,” the results demonstrate the degree to which the rioters, whose actions have roiled Israel’s relations with its allies, including the Trump administration, are outliers in Israel, JPPI President Yedidia Stern said.
“The survey shows that support among Israelis for the Jewish rioters in the West Bank is truly negligible, at just 5%,” Stern said in a release accompanying the poll. “More than half the public judges them very harshly, as terrorists or criminals, while others view them with varying degrees of severity. This represents an unusually broad consensus in Israel’s polarized society.”
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee condemned that episode at the time as a “horrific act of terror” meant to “intimidate and harass” families.
The survey was conducted September 1-3 among 663 Jewish respondents and 206 Arab respondents and weighted to represent Israel’s adult population. JPPI did not list a margin of error. (Jerusalem Post)
See Dahlia Scheindlin in the NYT on Gadi Eisenkot: “This month, in a wide-ranging conversation with The Times of Israel, one of a series of interviews he gave to Israeli media outlets, Mr. Eisenkot offered more specifics of his policy vision, including a crackdown on West Bank violence by Jewish Israelis against Palestinians and a robust return to the Trump peace plan for Gaza, assuming total Hamas disarmament. He said he opposed Israel’s extending “full sovereignty” over the occupied West Bank.“
