CBS Mornings co-anchor Tony Dokoupil displayed a lot of courage on Monday’s show when confronted race hustler and author Ta-Nehisi Coates for his new book The Message, where Coates took the side of anti-Semitic, genocidal terrorists in their fight to exterminate Israel. Dokoupil pointed out that Coates completely omitted Israel’s perspective in the conflict and suggested Coates essay read like the manifesto “in the backpack of an extremist.”
Coates responded by claiming he was morally superior because he’s black.
Dokoupil allowed to his co-anchor Nate Burleson to get a friendly question in before he took the gloves off. According to Dokoupil, if you stripped away all of Coates’s clout and notoriety, at the end of the day, what he had written was “extremist”:
Ta-Nehisi, I want to dive into the Israel-Palestine section of the book. It`s the largest section of the book. And I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.
He then grilled Coates on why he omitted all of the decades of terror campaigns and innocent Israelis that had been killed by Palestinians and their allies:
And so then I found myself wondering, why does Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I`ve known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very talented, smart guy, leave out so much? Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the first and the second Intifada, the cafe bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits? And is it because you just don`t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?
Coates argued that he didn’t need to give Israel’s perspective because there’s too much of that already and he needed to speak for the side that wants to exterminate the Jews. “I am most concerned always with those who don`t have a voice, with those who don`t have the ability to talk,” he said. “I`ve been a reporter for 20 years. The reporters of those who believe more sympathetically about Israel and its right to exist don`t have a problem getting their voice out.”
“I have asked repeatedly in my interviews whether there is a single network mainstream organization in America with a Palestinian American bureau chief or correspondent who actually has a voice to articulate their part of the world,” he proclaimed, despite the fact that CBS News had a correspondent sympathetic to the terrorists in Imtiaz Tyab, who Dokoupil slapped down earlier in the show.
The CBS anchor actually got Coates to admit that he believed that Israel did not have a right to exist, and essentially Israel needs to fight for it:
DOKOUPIL: So, I think the question is central and key. If Israel has a right to exist, and if your answer is “no,” then I guess the question becomes, why do the Palestinians have a right to exist? Why do 20 different Muslim countries have a right to exist?
COATES: My answer is that no country in this world establishes its ability to exist through rights. Countries establish their ability to exist through force, as America did. And so I think this question of right to Israel does exist. It`s a fact. The question of its right is not a question that I would be faced with with any other country.
Coates doesn’t seem to realize that his suggestion that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist because they need to fight to earn it, means that a Palestinian states doesn’t deserve to exist because they lose every fight for it.
Dokoupil hit back hard and pressed his guest to answer: “What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place, and not any of the other states out there?” But Coates gave a mealy mouth answer about being against any ethno state, despite the fact that that was what the Palestinians wanted.
Further, Dokoupil called out how Coates’s book gave “no agency” to the Palestinians as if things just happened to them and they did nothing at all. “They exist in your narrative merely as victims of the Israelis, as though they were not offered peace at any juncture, as though they don`t have a stake in this as well. What is their role in the lack of a Palestinian state?” he asked.
Backed into a corner, Coates relied on his race-baiting. He suggested that Dokoupil didn’t get it because he’s white and that he, himself was morally superior because he’s black: “I have a very, very, very, very moral compass about this. And again, perhaps it`s because of my ancestry.”
Unable to ask any deep questions and short on time because Dokoupil and Coates went at it for almost five minutes, co-anchor Gayle King awkwardly wanted to know: “Less than 20 seconds. What`s your message?”
“Okay, you`re still invited to High Holidays. I`ll see you at the show. I mean it, buddy,” Dokoupil took the high ground as the segment ended.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
CBS Mornings
September 30, 2024
8:44:36 a.m. Eastern(…)
TONY DOKOUPIL: Ta-Nehisi, I want to dive into the Israel-Palestine section of the book. It`s the largest section of the book. And I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.
And so then I found myself wondering, why does Ta-Nehisi Coates, who I`ve known for a long time, read his work for a long time, very talented, smart guy, leave out so much? Why leave out that Israel is surrounded by countries that want to eliminate it? Why leave out that Israel deals with terror groups that want to eliminate it? Why not detail anything of the first and the second Intifada, the cafe bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits? And is it because you just don`t believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?
TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, I would say the perspective that you just outlined, there is no shortage of that perspective in American media. That`s the first thing I would say. I am most concerned always with those who don`t have a voice, with those who don`t have the ability to talk. I have asked repeatedly in my interviews whether there is a single network mainstream organization in America with a Palestinian American bureau chief or correspondent who actually has a voice to articulate their part of the world.
I`ve been a reporter for 20 years. The reporters of those who believe more sympathetically about Israel and its right to exist don`t have a problem getting their voice out. But what I saw in Palestine, what I saw on the West Bank, what I saw in Haifa in Israel, what I saw in the South Hebron Hills, those were the stories that I have not heard. And those were the stories that I was most occupied with.
I wrote a 260-page book. It is not a treatise on the entirety of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
DOKOUPIL: But if you were to read this book, you would be left wondering, why does any of Israel exist? What a horrific place, committing horrific acts on a daily basis.
So, I think the question is central and key. If Israel has a right to exist, and if your answer is “no,” then I guess the question becomes, why do the Palestinians have a right to exist? Why do 20 different Muslim countries have a right to exist?
COATES: My answer is that no country in this world establishes its ability to exist through rights. Countries establish their ability to exist through force, as America did. And so I think this question of right to Israel does exist. It`s a fact. The question of its right is not a question that I would be faced with with any other country.
DOKOUPIL: But you write a book that delegitimizes the pillars of Israel. It seems like an effort to topple the whole building of it. So I come back to the question, and it`s what I struggled with throughout this book. What is it that so particularly offends you about the existence of a Jewish state that is a Jewish safe place, and not any of the other states out there?
COATES: There`s nothing that offends me about a Jewish state. I am offended by the idea of states built on ethnocracy, no matter where they are.
DOKOUPIL: Muslim included.
COATES: I would not want a state where any group of people laid down their citizenship rights based on ethnicity. The country of Israel is a state in which half the population exists on one tier of citizenship, and everybody else that`s ruled by Israelis exists on another tier, including Palestinian Israeli citizens. The only people that exist on that first tier are Israeli Jews. Why do we support that? Why is that okay?
I`m the child of Jim Crow. I`m the child of people that were born into a country where that was exactly the case of American apartheid. I walk over there, and I walk through the occupied territories, and I walk down a street in Hebron, and a guy says to me, "I can`t walk down the street unless I profess my religion."
[Crosstalk]
GAYLE KING: But Ta-Nehisi –
I`m with another-- No, no, no, no, no. I want to-- This is very, very important.
DOKOUPIL: It is important, it is.
COATES: Extremely important.
DOKOUPIL: Yes, lay it down.
COATES: I`m working with the person that is guiding me, is a Palestinian whose father, whose grandfather, and grandmother was born in this town, and I have more freedom to walk than he does. He can`t ride on certain roads. He can`t get water in the same way that Israeli citizens who live less than a mile away from him can.
DOKOUPIL: And why is that?
COATES: Why is that okay?
DOKOUPIL: Why is that? Why is there no agency in this book for the Palestinians? They exist in your narrative merely as victims of the Israelis, as though they were not offered peace at any juncture, as though they don`t have a stake in this as well. What is their role in the lack of a Palestinian state?
COATES: I have a very, very, very, very moral compass about this. And again, perhaps it`s because of my ancestry. Either apartheid is right or it`s wrong. It`s really, really simple. Either what I saw was right or it`s wrong.
I am, for instance, against the death penalty. What the person did to get the death penalty, it really doesn`t matter to me. I don`t care if they were selling a nickel bag of marijuana or if they were a serial killer. I am against the death penalty.
I am against a state that discriminates against people on the basis of ethnicity. I`m against that. There is nothing the Palestinians could do that would make that okay for me. My book is not based on the hyper- morality of the Palestinian people.
KING: What`s the last message you want in lessons? Because many people feel it`s complicated. You say it`s not complicated. Less than 20 seconds. What`s your message?
COATES: Less than 20 seconds. I want people to read the book. And I don`t make the assumption that somebody would just read the book and have read nothing else about Israel and Palestine.
DOKOUPIL: Okay, you`re still invited to High Holidays. I`ll see you at the show. I mean it, buddy.
(…)
