60 Minutes Has Now Gravely Disappointed Those Who Look to It for Accuracy

Two of the three State Department employees who resigned in protest over what the regarded as a policy too favorable to Israel, and were interviewed by 60 Minutes, were Hala Rharrit and Andrew Miller. More on their stories can be found here: “Former State Department officials tell ‘60 Minutes’ they quit over Gaza policy,” by Alex Welz, JNS, January 13, 2025:

…Andrew Miller said that he resigned as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs for personal reasons.

Since leaving the department, Miller has become a vocal critic of U.S. Israel policy, and he and the other two guests accused Washington of being complicit in violations of international law.

Miller told “60 Minutes” that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received the message from Washington “that he was the one in the driver’s seat and he was controlling this, and U.S. support was going to be there, and he could take it for granted.”

Asked during the “60 Minutes” program when the war will end, Miller replied: “When Israel says it’s over.”

Miller seems to think that it is Israel that is insisting that the war continue. But the war would have been over long ago if Hamas had freed all the hostages. And as both Biden and Blinken have said, it was Hamas that was making new demands and delaying efforts to arrive at a hostage-prisoner deal. Nor does Israel have, as Miller appears to believe, carte blanche to do whatever it likes. The Biden administration has expressed it doubts about this or that IDF operation, and caused the IDF to slow down in certain sectors.. It withheld deliveries of 2,000-pound bombs in order to persuade Israel not to invade Rafah; the IDF went ahead anyway, but at no time has the IDF believed that it can do whatever it wants, obtain whatever weapons it wants, without taking American views into account, as Andrew Miller seems to think. Right now, for example, the Americans are still refusing to provide the IDF with the 30,000-pound bunker buster bombs that the IDF would need if it is to destroy the nuclear facilities built deep underground at Natanz and deep inside a mountain at Fordow.

Miller thinks that the IAF’s bombings are “war crimes,” that only American planes were used to drop those bombs, and so Israel has made us complicit in those putative “crimes.” But what if those bombings are not “war crimes” at all? What if they are simply a legitimate part of a war of self-defense that began on October 7, 2023, when 6,000 Hamas operatives smashed into Israel and proceeded to torture, rape, mutilate, and murder 1,200 Israeli men, women, and children, and to kidnap 251 Israelis who were taken back to Gaza? The Hala-Rharrits and Andrew-Millers of this world are consumed with such anti-Israel animus — often so extreme as to be indistinguishable from antisemitism — and cannot think straight. The bombs used in Gaza were dropped on Hamas targets — arms warehouses, rocket launchers, fighters in their hideouts, command-and-control centers. The IDF has throughout the war conducted a tremendous campaign, using leaflets, text messages, and robocalls, to warn civilians away from areas and buildings that are about to be targeted.

“CBS 60 Minutes Platforms Anti-Israel Voices in Skewed Segment,” by Chaim Lax, HonestReporting, January 13, 2025:

Since leaving the State Department, Rharrit has served as a speaker at several CAIR events, including as the guest speaker at a fundraising gala for CAIR Connecticut….

Her willingness to help raise money for CAIR, which is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding trial, shows Rharrit’s moral myopia.

In the wake of the October 7 attack, several CAIR leaders justified it as “legitimate” resistance, with executive director Nihad Awad even saying that he was “happy” on the day of the invasion of southern Israel.

This is the company Hala Rharrit is proud to keep: an organization, CAIR, whose director declares himself “happy” with the glad news that 1,200 Israelis have been raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered by Hamas operatives.

When not speaking on behalf of CAIR, Rharrit has also publicly accused Israel of “attempted ethnic cleansing” and an “unfolding genocide,” has disregarded the role that Hamas’ use of civilian infrastructure plays in Palestinian deaths in Gaza, and has extended support towards those who have been arrested for their anti-Israel activism.

What “ethnic cleansing” and what “unfolding genocide” is that? Out of 2.2 million people in Gaza, a total of 46,000 people have died. Of those, the IDF believes that 20,000 were Hamas members. We know that in Gaza before the war, 800 Gazans died every month, on average, from diseases, old age, and accidents. Assuming that same average holds steady, in the past 15 months of war, 12,000 Gazans have died from non-combat-related causes. That means that only 13,000 Gazan civilians out of a total population of 2.2 million have been killed in Gaza because of the war. Deplorable, no doubt, but hardly what anyone should call a “genocide.” And of course, Hala Rharrit needs to be reminded, the IDF has engaged in a tremendous effort to minimize civilian casualties by warning civilians away from sites about to be targeted. Earlier I listed the means used to war: leaflets, text messages, robocalls by the millions. This has made no impression, apparently, on the closed mind of Hala Rharrit.

60 Minutes has done itself, and its vast audience, a great disservice in its coverage of those State Department employees who resigned because the American government was, in their view, not nearly anti-Israel enough. Don’t worry about them. Josh Paul has found work with pro-Arab groups such as DAWN, and Hala Rharrit has speaking engagements on the Islamic circuit, beginning with CAIR. Andrew Miller has become a Senior Fellow at the left-wing Center For American Progress.

They’ll do just fine, those three, passing themselves off as Brave Prisoners of Conscience Who Were Silenced in the Blinken-run Gulag, where no one dares to disagree with the party line or utter a syllable against the all-powerful Zionist entity that dictates our foreign policy. But what about the millions who tune into 60 Minutes for what they assume will be the truth? 60 Minutes has now gravely disappointed them. Pull up your socks, 60 Minutes. Redeem yourself.