JERUSALEM, Israel – Prominent Jews and Christians in the U.S. have written a letter to CBS News, strongly protesting a recent directive by a senior member of management that the staff not refer to Jerusalem as being part of Israel.
According to The Free Press, CBS Director of Standards and Practices Mark Memmott sent a network-wide email in August directing employees to "not refer to Jerusalem as being in Israel.”
“Yes, the U.S. embassy is there and the Trump administration recognized it as being Israel’s capital," Memmott acknowledged. "But its status is disputed. The status of Jerusalem goes to the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel regards Jerusalem as its ‘eternal and undivided’ capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem—occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war—as the capital of a future state."
The Israeli news outlet Arutz Sheva reports that the effort to protest the CBS directive is being spearheaded by Advancing American Freedom, an advocacy group headed by Former Vice President Mike Pence.
The protest letter states, "CBS's inclination to dissociate Jerusalem from Israel defies comprehensive understanding and reason. To deny the geopolitical reality of Jerusalem as Israel's capital is both misleading and counter-productive."
Signatories to the letter include members of Young Jewish Conservatives, the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Last week, Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz weighed in on the controversy, posting on X, "Jerusalem’s status is clear and undisputed—the eternal capital of the Jewish people." He added, "It has been so for millennia, and will always remain so. No attempt to distort or hide that reality will change it,”
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion complained, “It’s disappointing to find that significant entities are trying to make the very fact of Jerusalem being an Israeli city a matter of debate. Jerusalem has never been a matter of debate and will never be. Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel, now and forever.”
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