CNN’s Amanpour Smears Israel at Mandela Memorial Service

During coverage of the December 10 memorial service for the former South African president, Nelson Mandela, held in Johannesburg, frequent Israel basher and CNN (Cable News Network) personality, Christiane Amanpour reminiscing about Mandela, drew what she thought was a key lesson from Mandela’s leadership applicable to an intractable conflict of today. Not Syria’s civil war, not Iraq’s civil war nor any number of other bloody internecine conflicts, but to the Palestinian Arab conflict with Israel,

… as one who’s covered so much conflict around the world, you can’t help but really, really internalize this notion that without the kind of forgiveness that Mandela was able to exhibit, that’s not just something nice. It’s not just something between, you know, classroom bullies. It is the quintessential element of conflict resolution. It is a political tool. Forgiveness is a political tool to get over what seems to be intractable conflict. I honestly can’t help but think right now about Israel and the Palestinians and any number …

At this point, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo interrupted, interjecting what he thought was an important point, “Israel who doesn’t have leadership here today.” Amanpour attempting to correct Cuomo, claimed that Israel’s president (Shimon Peres) was present but not Prime Minister Netanyahu (but Amanpour erred about Peres since Israel was represented by the speaker of the Knesset [parliament] Yuli Edelstein leading a delegation of five ministers. According to the Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu cited the high security cost of the journey and Peres was sick). “And what does that mean, by the way?,” asked Cuomo. Amanpour didn’t pass up an opportunity to pontificate, falsely likening Israel to apartheid South Africa:

Well, the president is the head of state, and he’s come. But nonetheless, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under so much, you know, pressure these days and probably feels to a great extent that his country is isolated in the same way that apartheid South Africa was isolated.

But this is how you get over those intractable conflicts, by understanding the story of the other, by having a political process of resolution that is not just about domination or zero-sum game. Mandela knew there was no Africa for the blacks if it meant Africa without the whites. It was not possible.

It is hard to be more superficial. If the Arabs in general and Palestinian Arabs in particular had been interested in “getting over this intractable conflict” with Israel, the Israel-Egyptian and Israeli-Jordanian peace treaties would have grown from just semi-secret military-to-military cooperation to the anticipated economic, cultural and social exchanges. But these the Egyptian and Jordanian public largely rejected. As for Palestinian leadership, it violated most provisions of the Oslo accords, including the anti-incitement and anti-terrorism clauses, from the beginning. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s calls for a negotiated two-state solution have been met by a Palestinian Authority leadership that rejects Amanpour’s “Mandelaism” about “understanding the story of the other;” it adamantly refuses to recognize Israel as the Jewish state. Her unfounded and tendentious speculation that Netanyahu “probably feels his country is isolated the same way apartheid South Africa was isolated” pushes the “apartheid Israel” canard while ignoring that it has been Palestinian leaders who’ve insisted on “not a single Jew” in any new “Palestine.”

So, Amanpour is up to her old and obvious tricks smearing Israel and Jews just as she infamously did in a 2009 CNN special, “Generation Islam.” CAMERA showed that report as manipulative, falsely implying that the villains were not the Islamists who rule Gaza, teaching hatred of Christians and Jews, and attacking Israeli civilians with suicide bombers and thousands of rockets. Instead, for Amanpour, the aggressors were the Jews of Israel, for supposedly oppressing the Palestinian Arabs. Meanwhile she did not mention the hate indoctrination Hamas specializes in.

So, Amanpour remains Amanpour, a real-life cable television version of the film farce “Anchorman 2’s” Ron Burgundy character. However, she continues ponderous and misleading rather than the fictional Burgundy’s fluff and slapstick. Perhaps Amanpour is destined never to understand the news about Israel and Jews she claims to report.