CAMERA on CNN

CNN's "God's Warriors" was discussed among some activists a while back when I was approached by people, David Wilder and Sondra Baras, who were asked to participate (no, they didn't want me and you know why). We debated and deliberated whether or not to go along with them.

Well, as you know, it's out and on and CAMERA tore it to pieces and here are two of my favorite themes:-

Settlements

• Amanpour suggests settlements are the cause of Arab anger: "the Jewish settlements have inflamed much of the Arab world," yet the Arab world was just as anti-Israel (actually more so) before the settlements were built.

• She presents at length the views of Theodor Meron asserting the illegality of settlements as the definitive word, but makes no mention of more senior Israeli experts such as former Supreme Court Chief Meir Shamgar, who disagreed with Meron. Nor does Amanpour mention such foreign experts such as Professors Julius Stone and Eugene Rostow who also argued for the legality of settlements. See for example From "Occupied Territories" to "Disputed Territories" by Dore Gold.

• She grossly misleads about America's position on settlements in the following sequence:

WILLIAM SCRANTON, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO U.N.: My government believes that international law sets the appropriate standards.

AMANPOUR: From the earliest days of the settler movement, even the United States, Israel's closest ally, blasted Israel's settlement policy.

SCRANTON: Substantial resettlement of the Israeli civilian population in occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is illegal.

AMANPOUR: Ever since American presidents both Democrat and Republican have spoken from virtually the same script. They consistently oppose settlement growth.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT: The United States will not support the use of any additional land for the purpose of settlements.

In fact, Reagan said: "As to the West Bank, I believe the settlements there -- I disagreed when the previous Administration referred to them as illegal, they're not illegal" (NYTimes, Feb. 3, 1981). Others did not deem settlements "illegal."

• Amanpour continuously discounts the context of the Arab world. She says with regard to the post Six-Day War period: "But the Israeli government was divided - trade the captured land for peace or keep it and build Jewish settlements." Unmentioned is the Arab refusal to "trade" anything for peace as embodied in the three "no's" delivered at a summit in Khartoum declaring there would be no negotiation, no recognition and no peace with Israel.

Jerusalem/Temple Mount, and The Holy Places

• Amanpour says: "It was from here, according to Muslim scripture, that the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven around the year 630. But Hebrew scripture puts the ancient Jewish Temple in the same location, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70. For the next 1,900 years, even the last remnant of the temple known as the Wailing Wall, or the Western Wall, was lost to the Jews."

a) Muslim scripture refers to Mohammed ascending to heaven from the "farthest mosque," which could not have been on the Temple Mount, since the mosque there wasn't built until well after the death of Mohammed.

b) The Western Wall isn't a remnant of the Temple, it is merely a retaining wall built to extend and flatten the Temple Mount. And there are indeed actual remains of the First and Second Temples on the Temple Mount.

c) Although Amanpour notes the holiness of the Temple Mount to Jews and Muslims, and some Jews in clips say that it is the holiest site for Jews, she never points this out herself, nor does she mention that Hebron is Judaism's second holiest city with its second holiest shrine.

d) Amanpour interviews the Muslim Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to give a Muslim perspective on the Al Aqsa Mosque, but no Jewish Rabbinical figure is presented to discuss the paramount religious importance of the Temple Mount to Jews.

And Missy Christy is married to a Jew.

Doesn't he know better?