As CBS mourned the loss of veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon after he was killed in a car accident on Wednesday, Thursday's CBS This Morning invited CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley to share his thoughts on the late journalist. While eulogizing his longtime friend and colleague, Pelley took an odd turn when he praised Simon's advocacy, not objectivity: "Bob had a sharp intolerance for injustice and he had equal-opportunity rage for every injustice committed in every corner of this Earth."
As evidence of that "rage," Pelley recalled one particular interview Simon conducted: "I'll never forget an interview he did with an Israeli general, for example. He looked up at the general and he said, 'You're one of the greatest generals Israel has ever produced,' and the man smiled and nodded, and Bob said, 'So why are you killing children?'"
Pelley hailed the moment: "And that was – there was a Bob Simon punch, a roundhouse punch, that he could knock anybody out with, and it was in the form of a question."
In the October 24, 2000 segment on 60 Minutes that Pelley referenced, Simon grilled Israeli Brigadier General Benny Gantz:
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SIMON: General, you were here in 1987 during the first Intifadah. You're here now. Do you see any difference or is it the same thing?
BRIGADIER GENERAL BENNY GANTZ: Well, this is much more violent and the most extreme that I have ever seen.
SIMON: Brigadier General Benny Gantz was the commander who led the Israeli army out of Lebanon this year without a single casualty. His reward? An even tougher assignment. He was put in charge of the division whose mission is to keep the peace on the West Bank, one way or another.
SIMON: General, you've got the reputation of being a first-rate Israeli officer. There's talk that you're going to be chief of staff one day. Why are your sol...
GANTZ: Whose...
SIMON: Why are your soldiers killing so many kids?
GANTZ: First of all, I hope that we are not killing too many kids, though I know there were cases which killed--kids were killed.
SIMON: We're talking at least 40 kids.
GANTZ: Yeah. Well, if the Palestinian people want to be safe regarding their kids, they must make sure their kids stay in place where kids should be. And when they are sending their kids forward and they are firing at us, and then the kids are in the killing zone, so unfortunately sometimes, really unfortunately, those things happen.
SIMON: Do you think that the Palestinians are actually pushing their kids to the front line?
GANTZ: Yeah.
SIMON: With the objective of creating casualties?
GANTZ: That's right, sir. I'm sure that they are trying to get the world to see that Israel is a terrible, cruel people and cruel army, and that's really what they are want--what they want to do.
SIMON: Is this something that you can really imagine, that there are people who would do that, who would get their – their kids killed or wounded to make good television?
GANTZ: Yeah.
SIMON: In other words, the Palestinians are really different from Israelis in that respect?
GANTZ: Unfortunately.
(...)
Simon teed up a Palestinian politician to denounce Gantz's claim:
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SIMON: You're aware that the Israeli military claims that Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority pushes those children to the front so that they can become casualties, because it will be good for the image.
HANAN ASHRAWI: Yes, I'm aware of that.
SIMON: What do you have to say to that?
ASHRAWI: To me, this is the essence, the epitome of racism.
SIMON: Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian legislator. She's been in the forefront of the peace movement for years.
ASHRAWI: They're telling us we are – we have no feelings for our children? We're not human beings? We're not parents? We're not mothers or fathers? This is just incredible. I – sometimes I say I don't want to sink to the level of responding, of proving I'm human. I mean, even animals have feelings for their children.
(...)
Of all the strong reporting and harrowing experiences of Simon's career, it was strange that Pelley chose to highlight an instance when Simon turned his "intolerance for injustice" against Israel.
