CBS News host Margaret Brennan appeared to suggest on Sunday that Palestinians cannot be anti-Semitic because "all Arabs are Semites." Brennan made the remark in an interview with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R.) after playing footage of him saying Gazans are anti-Semitic.
"Anti-Semitism" is defined and widely used to mean hostility toward Jewish people as a group. "Semitic" is an obsolete term for a racial group that includes Jews and Arabs.
Brennan, like many of her colleagues in the news media, has a long record of stretching facts and logic to make Israel look bad. Before she took over as the moderator of CBS's Face the Nation in 2018, she shared her relentlessly negative views of Israel on X, formerly Twitter.
Both @netanyahu & @POTUS have spoken in very general terms of peace, Abbas specific in mentioning need to resolve refugee issue & prisoners
— Margaret Brennan (@margbrennan) May 3, 2017
Senegal paying a price for bringing the UN resolution to a vote today, and condemning Israeli settlements in the occupied territories https://t.co/sBvlYmEsqr
— Margaret Brennan (@margbrennan) December 23, 2016
Prime mover behind Israel's nuclear weapons development then transitioned to peacemaker... https://t.co/SGWlN0KHb2
— Margaret Brennan (@margbrennan) September 28, 2016
#SecClinton avoided word "settlements" when chastising Israel. Will UK & France take harder line by "considering" withdrawing envoys?
— Margaret Brennan (@margbrennan) December 3, 2012
Fascinating piece on how Israel planned to keep Gaza's economy 'on the brink of collapse' #wikileaks http://nyti.ms/fqB9uB
— Margaret Brennan (@margbrennan) January 5, 2011
Notably, when Brennan went on maternity leave during the 2021 Gaza conflict, Israel got a reprieve of critical coverage.
The @ADL reported 193 anti-Semitic incidents in the week after the Israel-Hamas conflict began. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who has said that it should be possible to be critical of Israeli policy, but not be anti-Semitic, says the rise of anti-Semitism in the US 'is an outrage." pic.twitter.com/GInzw6x9ba
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) May 23, 2021
Face the Nation did not respond to a request for comment about Brennan's reporting on Israel.