CBS Mornings exploited their Tuesday edition to propagate a troubling fallacy, in the guise of former Army Maj. Harrison Mann, who invoked his Jewish heritage to frame Israel blatantly targeting civilians and orchestrating an ethnic cleanse. The interviewer himself hyped up a trivial “more than a half dozen government officials” that have stepped down in protest.
When news filtered in about a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, Mann predictably knew how events would play out. He noted the atmosphere was tense, “All hands on deck. People working late, 24/7 at the outset.” Yet, Mann found Israel’s response startling.
Hold on! If Mann was naïve enough to think an attack, bigger on a per-capita scale than 9/11, wouldn’t provoke a huge response from Israel that says more about Mann than Israel. Despite this, he brazenly declared, “We saw, even from the first days of the Israeli air campaign, a readiness to inflict very high civilian casualties.”
The interview sees Mann accuse Israel of using American weapons against Palestinian civilians. This 13-year veteran claimed the weapons indiscriminately targeted civilians.
Back to the interview, he is asked, “Were Israelis using American weapons against civilians in Gaza?” He responded, “almost certainly yes.” Asked if this was deliberate, he said, “I don’t know how you kill 35,000 civilians by accident.”
Astounding! A 13-year Army veteran feigns ignorance of the realities of urban combat and Hamas’s tactic of leveraging civilian vulnerability to fuel narratives such as these.
Mann flaunted his resignation letter which pointedly stated, ‘“At some point, whatever the justification, you’re either advancing a policy that enables the mass starvation of children or you’re not.’” After this, the reporter noted that “more than a half dozen government officials have publicly resigned in protest of U.S. support for Israel’s war.”
According to Reuters, this number stands at eight – a fraction of the 2.2 million who work for the U.S. government. This suggests CBS is enhancing this minuscule fraction for their own agenda.
In a rather amusing bit, Mann says, “I understand if people are angry that I chose to speak about this, but I didn’t really feel like I had that much of a choice.” Mann believes he is a Jewish custodian and doesn’t think Israel’s actions, in its bid for security, is justified, claiming it amounts to ethnic cleansing.
The conclusion by co-host Nate Burleson, “Powerful reporting from Jim Axelrod,” couldn’t be further from the truth. Hamas’s charter clearly defines its mission. If anything Mann and CBS, need to revisit that before accusing anyone of abuse.
In a nutshell, the CBS interview is merely a smokescreen, engineered to tar Israel’s reputation and misinform the public. It’s time to read between the lines and recognize biased reportage for what it truly is.
