Post-surgery fatigue, so we’ll just do this in general order without a lot of commentary:

The 60 Minutes Story

60 Minutes’ Bob Simon does a story on why Christian Palestinians are leaving the “Holy Land”, largely disputing any claims (made by Israel) that the Christians are a non-player, just caught up in the wider Jewish/Muslim conflict, and are fleeing because of MUSLIM fanaticism and persecution.

Bob Simon Story on Christian Palestinians

Israel's Attempts to Quash the Story

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, placed a call to the CBS Chairman, before the piece is even aired, calling it a hatchet job. This is pretty much unheard of. Bob Simon broadcast an interview with Oren, in which Oren baldly admits that the mere existence of the story, without knowing what’s in it, is already enough of a provocation to excuse one country trying to interfere with another’s free press. Uh, yeah.

But that’s not the first Hasbara attempt — here’s an article on some of the efforts made by the Israeli PR machine.

Here is a letter Oren wrote to the Wall Street Journal in which he tries to scatter blame on everyone but Israel.

And here is an excerpt from 60 Minutes where he tries to divert attention to bad things happening elsewhere in the Middle East (why do Israeli officials think that if someone else is doing something bad, that makes them look good?)

Michael Oren does Hasbara on the Christians of the Middle East

972 Magazine Gets Extra Footage of the Simon-Oren Interview

Humorous take on the Bob Simon / Michael Oren interview

But Seriously...

Palestinian journalist Omar Rahman has more to say on this. While the subject of Israeli Hasbara efforts is important, somewhere the plight of Christian Palestinians got lost in the shuffle. Rahman wants to tell us that they are PALESTINIANS, and that they suffer the same fate as all Palestinians under the Israeli regime. (read more…)

(Did anyone actually fall for Oren’s “We love our Christians!” routine? You are hereby banned from this blog!).