CBS Sparks Outrage by Declaring Jerusalem Isn’t Part of Israel

CBS News is facing intense backlash after it was revealed that the network instructed its employees not to refer to Jerusalem as part of Israel, sparking outrage among conservative and Jewish leaders. A coalition, organized by former Vice President Mike Pence’s group Advancing American Freedom, sent a letter on Wednesday condemning CBS for its controversial stance, which the signatories argue defies both history and U.S. policy.

The letter, backed by prominent members of the conservative movement and the Jewish community, criticizes CBS’s senior director of standards and practices, Mark Memmott, for an internal email advising employees to avoid linking Jerusalem with Israel. “Yes, the U.S. embassy is there and the Trump administration recognized it as being Israel’s capital. But its status is disputed,” Memmott wrote, citing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as justification for the network’s position.

This policy has been met with fierce opposition. Signatories of the letter include leaders of key Jewish organizations like Matthew Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition and Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America. They are joined by prominent non-Jewish conservatives such as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America. Together, they argue that CBS is denying reality.

• The U.S. has officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital since 1995, a policy reiterated by the Trump administration when the U.S. embassy was moved to Jerusalem in 2018.

• The coalition's letter calls CBS’s policy nonsensical, pointing out that Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital for decades and criticizing the network for distorting facts in an effort to appease one side of the conflict.

• The letter demands a meeting with CBS officials to “understand your organization’s policy of denying that Jerusalem is in Israel,” signaling that this issue will not be quietly swept under the rug.

This isn’t the first controversy CBS has faced recently. The network has been criticized for allegedly deceptive editing in a Kamala Harris interview on "60 Minutes" and for reprimanding one of its hosts, Tony Dokoupil, over his tough questioning of woke activist Ta-Nehisi Coates. These scandals have only added fuel to the current fire.

The coalition’s outrage stems from CBS’s willingness to ignore decades of U.S. policy for the sake of neutrality. The Trump administration’s bold move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was widely applauded by conservatives and the Jewish community alike, and CBS’s refusal to acknowledge that fact has left many questioning the network’s journalistic integrity.

Among the other signatories to the letter are Joel Griffith of Young Jewish Conservatives, Duvi Honig of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, and Clifford May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The coalition is unified in its stance that CBS is denying basic facts to push an agenda, and they are calling on the network to correct its course immediately.

As CBS grapples with multiple scandals, this latest controversy over Jerusalem could further damage its credibility. Whether or not the network chooses to amend its policy, the outcry from the conservative and Jewish communities is unlikely to fade any time soon.

Share this article or subscribe to our newsletter for updates on this ongoing controversy.