The Guardian of Biased Christmas Coverage
Harriet Sherwood
It just never gets old for some reporters — the annual Christmas-in-Bethlehem bias-fest centered on Israel’s alleged maltreatment of Christians. As CiF Watch’s Adam Levick recounts in a December 25 Algemeiner piece:
Yet, like a holiday ritual, [The Guardian’s] Harriet Sherwood, in the spirit of Phoebe Greenwood’s ugly Guardian piece last year (‘If Jesus were to come this year Bethlehem would be closed’, Guardian, Dec. 22, 2011) chose to advance, as if by rote, a predictable Christmas tale of Israeli oppression against Christians.
Sherwood’s piece, “Bethlehem Christians feel squeeze of settlements”, avoids entirely any context about the comparative treatment of Christians in the Middle East, and myopically obsesses on the putative threat to Christians posed by Israeli “settlements” in the Jerusalem region.
The litany of bogus claims about demography, population density, economic conditions and, of course, settlements obscures, as Levick notes, the actual source of danger for beleaguered Christians.
That the place in the Middle East where the population of Christians is growing just happens to be the sole country where Islamism is not a serious threat is essential to understanding the fate of Christianity in that part of the world – context about the contrasting religious freedom, tolerance and democratic values in the Middle East which Harriet Sherwood’s reports on the region do not provide.
It’s so much easier (and safer) to join the media chorus and blame Israel than to report the facts on radical Islam’s menace to non-Muslims.
More from SNAPSHOTS
Swarthmore Students Are Learning: It Was Never About Palestinian Rights
May 14, 2025
Students at Swarthmore College are so close to understanding the conflict. An article in the Swarthmore Phoenix details the frustrations of student activists with the college’s Students for Justice in Palestine. The gist of their criticism is [...]
AFP Arabic Stops Mislabeling Northern Israeli Communities ‘Settlements”
August 10, 2021
A view of Metulla, northern Israel (Photo by Hadar Sela)After failing to set the record straight last May when Agence France Presse's Arabic service repeatedly referred to Jewish communities in northern Israel as "settlements," the [...]
NY Times Praises Ilhan Omar’s Book While Glossing Over Her Antisemitism
August 19, 2020
A recent New York Times book review boosts Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) autobiography while glossing over her antisemitism. In the paper’s Aug. 16, 2020 edition, NYT reporter Christina Cauterucci writes: The memoir offers breathing room [...]
When TV Interviews of Ilhan Omar Constitute Journalistic Malpractice
August 11, 2020
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) documented animosity toward Jews and Israel was ignored in recent interviews by MSNBC and C-SPAN. MSNBC’s The Beat for July 23, 2020 included host Ari Melber’s 10-minute conversation at 6:16 [...]
Boston TV Station WCVB Teamed Up With Terrorist Supporter CAIR
July 7, 2020
WCVB-TV (channel 5) (Boston’s ABC network affiliate) recently misled area viewers about a matter involving antisemitic propaganda. This occurred on its local Sunday show Cityline hosted by Karen Holmes Ward who is described by the [...]
Harper’s Magazine Echoed Palestinian Propaganda Condemning Israel And America
June 2, 2020
Writing in Harper's, Kevin Baker condemns the U.S. Middle East peace plan [“The Striking Gesture,” Easy Chair, May 2020], mischaracterizing it as, “Give up all your [Palestinian] hopes and your holiest places, embark on a [...]