CBS host grills Ta-Nehisi Coates on anti-Israel views in new book: Looks like it came from 'an extremist'

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CBS News host clashes with journalist about new book on Israel in tense interview

CBS Mornings anchor Tony Dokoupil pressed author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates on whether he believed Israel had a right to exist in a Monday interview.

"CBS Mornings" anchor Tony Dokoupil grilled author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates over whether he believed Israel had "a right to exist" in a tense interview on Monday.

Coates appeared on the show to preview his new book, "The Message," which is a collection of new essays by the best-selling author about his travels to different parts of the world. 

"In the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground," the book summary says.

Dokoupil confronted Coates on this section of the book, telling him bluntly that it read like something you would find in "the backpack of an extremist."

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Author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates was grilled about his views on Israel's right to exist by CBS anchor Tony Dokoupil, in a Monday interview. (CBS News/Screenshot)

"I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards, the acclaim, took the cover off the book, publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist," Dokoupil said. 

"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 café bombings, the bus bombings, the little kids blown to bits. Is it because you just don't believe that Israel in any condition has a right to exist?" the CBS anchor continued.

Coates defended the book, saying he sought to give a voice to the Palestinian people, whose views he argued were underrepresented in the American media. 

"I would say the perspective that you just outlined, there is no shortage of that perspective in American media," Coates replied. 

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Ta-Nehisi Coates on CBS Mornings defends his new book, "The Message." (CBS News/Screenshot)

"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 that part the world. I’ve been a reporter for 20 years. The reporters are 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 I have not heard. Those were the stories that I was most occupied with," he continued.

Coates also said the 260-page book was not meant to be a "treatise on the entirety of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis."

Dokoupil continued to press the far-left author, claiming his book would leave readers questioning why Israel even existed.

"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?" Dokoupil asked.

Coates rejected the question, saying that countries are established by force, not rights, and that Israel already exists.

Dokoupil said the author's book "delegitimizes" Israel's foundation and "seems like an effort to topple the whole building of it."

"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?" he asked Coates.

Thousands of people arrived at the Western Wall Plaza in the Old City of Jerusalem on the eve of the new Jewish month of Shevat to a mass prayer for the peace of the State of Israel, for the peace of the security forces and for the release of the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Jerusalem, Jan 10, 2024.  (Yoav Dudkevitch/TPS)

"There’s nothing that offends me about a Jewish state," Coates retorted. "I am offended by the idea of states built on ethnocracy, no matter where they are."

"Muslim included?" Dokoupil asked.

"I would not want a state where any group of people laid down their citizenship rights based on ethnicity," Coates said. He explained how he personally witnessed the "two-tier system" in Israel, where Palestinians had less freedom and access to resources in "occupied territories" than Israelis.

"I’m working with the person that is guiding me, 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," Coates said.

The two continued to spar as Dokoupil suggested Coates had portrayed a one-sided view of the conflict.

"But why is that?" the anchor pressed. "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 —" he asked.

Coates appealed to his own ancestry and America's history with racism to defend his particular viewpoint on the conflict in Gaza.

"I have a very, very, very moral compass about this. 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," he explained. 

"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," he went on to say.

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Coates' new book was released on Tuesday, the same day that Iran launched dozens of missiles against Israel.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said its latest barrage of missiles is in retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Lebanon, in an Israeli airstrike late last week and the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, according to Fox News Chief Foreign Correspondent Trey Yingst.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) warned citizens to shelter in place and follow instructions from the Home Front Command as the Jewish State's Iron Dome anti-missile defense system works to intercept incoming rockets.

Fox News' Stephen Sorace and Liz Friden contributed to this article.