CNN's Religious Warriors Series

Okay, so maybe I have to go back and watch the whole thing again. (six hours!?) I must admit, parts of the whole thing did make me cringe. And I'm not great at being unbiased when it comes to watching a program about Israel.

But in retrospect, and after reading CAMERA's critique of the Jewish and Muslim parts of the series, I have reason to agree with CAMERA's assessment. There was a great deal of bias in the reporting. I'm not sure that it was entirely intentional -- in many ways, although CNN believes that it's reporting about apples and apples, I think the comparisons between Jews, Muslims and Christians is more like apples, oranges, and bananas. One of the comments CAMERA makes:

It is false in its basic premise, established in the opening scene in which Jewish (and Christian) religious fervency is equated with that of Muslims heard endorsing "martyrdom," or suicide-killing. There is, of course, no counterpart among Jews and Christians to the violent jihadist Muslim campaigns underway across the globe, either in numbers of perpetrators engaged or in the magnitude of death and destruction wrought.

There does seem to be a lot of focus in the Jewish segment on the pro-Israel lobby in this country. Far more than in the Muslim section, which does not speak about any of the oil lobbies that are waged on behalf of Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia (...home of many of the 9/11 terrorists, why are we friends with them???)

In fact, there was, as CAMERA points out, a much more gentle tone towards the Muslim extremists, especially those in our own country...

There was a noticeably gentler and more cordial tone toward Muslim extremists in contrast to the often snide and hectoring tone displayed toward pro-Israel Americans and Israeli settlers in "God's Jewish Warriors." In "God's Muslim Warriors," Amanpour included two apolitical segments with appealing devout Muslim women who talked about why they wear a head covering and how Islam enriches their lives. No such apolitical segment about devout Jews appeared in "God's Jewish Warriors."

Read the rest of CAMERA's critique here...and here...and let me know what you thought!

Watch CNN Presents Tonight...

I am right now watching God's Warriors (part 1) on CNN. It is great -- I am fascinated by the retelling of Israel's history. I'm curious to see the other two parts, the Muslim and Christian perspectives. I know (thanks to my TiVo!) that part 1 is being re-run a couple times tonight and then the others are on tomorrow and Thursday. I can't wait to write a review of the whole thing. Let me know what you think!!!