‘Deliberate Deception’: CNN’s Jim Sciutto Denounced for Pushing Anti-Israel Narrative of Religious Favoritism at Holy Sites

CNN is under fire after its chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, misleadingly reported that Jerusalem’s Western Wall — the holiest site for Jews — remained open to visitors while Muslim and Christian holy sites were shuttered during Iran’s bombardment of Israel.The Washington-based Mr. Sciutto, who has been stationed in Israel while reporting on the war with Iran, drew fierce condemnation over the weekend after sharing a series of posts on X that fueled the false narrative that Jews received special exemptions from nationwide safety protocols that had led to the closure of holy sites for Christians and Muslims.The CNN correspondent on Sunday shared images in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and an entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, noting that both sites were closed to worshippers. He then shared an image of Orthodox Jews praying near the Western Wall, claiming it showed the wall “remains open, though limited to 50 worshippers at a time.” Though Christians and Jews celebrated major holidays over the weekend — Easter and Passover — recent security guidelines have restricted gatherings in Jerusalem to 50 people at sites where a shelter can be reached within 90 seconds of a bomb siren.Mr. Sciutto’s post was quickly inundated with corrections pointing out what any visitor to the Western Wall would recognize: that the image did not depict Jews on the Western Wall plaza. He had captured a scene of Jews standing on a private balcony that was at least a hundred feet away.“CNN just got caught fabricating yet another fake story,” remarked a Yeshiva student, Yossi Farro, known online as the celebrity tefillin wrapper. “They know it’s false, but they ran with it anyway for the clicks, the views, and to smear Israel. This is their clearest case of deliberate deception yet.”Mr. Sciutto also drew a rebuke from the National Jewish Assembly in the United Kingdom: “Journalists are supposed to report on what’s happening, not spread misinformation. How can you call yourself a journalist when you can’t get even the most basic facts correct?”A rabbi and author, Yisrael M. Eliashiv, took Mr. Sciutto’s posts as exemplifying Israelis’ frustrations with CNN, which has been accused of anti-Israel bias for decades. “If you thought I was exaggerating when I said that Israelis probably have a better opinion of Hamas than they do of CNN, here’s another great example of why,” he wrote on X.Adding to the embarrassment, the post was slapped with a Community Note — X’s crowd-sourced annotation service that allows users to flag misleading content — reiterating Mr. Sciutto’s error.Under pressure, Mr. Sciutto conceded that the “exterior” of the wall was closed, but shared a new video purporting to show that the “Western Wall tunnels were open,” with police having told “worshippers they had 15 minutes to visit.” He later repeated the claim in a segment aired on CNN, showing footage of Jews praying in the Western Wall tunnels alongside shots of empty Christian and Muslim sites. “We found, in the midst of the Iran war, different rules now for different holy sites,” Mr. Sciutto said in the clip. Though Mr. Sciutto was correct that the tunnels were open for limited access, the segment drew criticism for omitting significant context. The Western Wall tunnels are a series of underground archaeological passages running along the buried remainder of the wall. They are distinct from the Western Wall plaza, which, as shown by a publicly available livestream, has been largely empty since the war began.During Passover, the Western Wall plaza typically draws tens of thousands of worshippers for the Priestly Blessing. Security restrictions on access to the wall have already stoked tensions within Israel’s religious community, with the chief rabbi of the Western Wall, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, vocally protesting the limitations.The CNN segment also failed to explain that partial access to the tunnels was permitted “because there are protective shelters nearby,” according to the media watchdog HonestReporting. The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, by contrast, lack immediate shelter infrastructure.“Stop pushing a false narrative,” HonestReporting wrote on X. “In a war zone, access is determined by protection, not religion.”Israel’s security restrictions sparked controversy last week when Israeli police barred Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — struck days earlier by an Iranian missile fragment — for Palm Sunday Mass, citing the closure of all Old City holy sites. Following an outcry from Catholic leaders, Israeli officials apologized and pledged to meet with the cardinal to arrange future access.Cardinal Pizzaballa was ultimately able to celebrate Easter Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre alongside several clergy, though the public was barred from attending.

‘Deliberate Deception’: CNN’s Jim Sciutto Denounced for Pushing Anti-Israel Narrative of Religious Favoritism at Holy Sites

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