Best-selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates has been promoting his new book The Message, a series of essays that look at issues of race and how narratives are shaped. But one recent interview quickly turned into a tense debate about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and many are criticizing a journalist who they say showed bias and unnecessary hostility toward the author.  

Coates discusses race, storytelling at home and abroad with The Message

Coates appeared Monday on CBS Mornings to promote The Message, which is introduced by co-host Nate Burleson as “a trio of interconnected essays that examine how the stories we tell — or avoid telling — can shape and even distort our reality.” The book covers Coates’ thoughts on Columbia, South Carolina, where a school board was considering banning a previous book of his, as well as trips he took to Dakar, Senegal, and the Middle East. That last topic soon dominated the interview when CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil took issue with Coates’ handling of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. He accused Coates of leaving out important context for Israel’s fights and of having a bias against Israel, accusations that Coates calmly refuted.

 

Dokoupil — whose two children live with his ex-wife in Israel — criticized Coates’ words about Israel and Palestine, saying, “The content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist” and asking in an accusatory fashion, “Is it because you just don’t believe that Israel, in any condition, has a right to exist?” Coates stood by his words, arguing that the voice of Palestinians are not well-represented. He also argued on principle against any state that discriminates or treats people differently on the basis of ethnicity, pointing toward oppression and discrimination against residents of Palestinian territories as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel. “I’m a child of Jim Crow,” Coates said, drawing similarities between “American apartheid” policies and current restrictions on Palestinian rights. “Either apartheid is right, or it’s wrong,” Coates argued before host Gayle King started to wrap up the interview.

Interviewer’s questions criticized

The questions and tone of the interview have been drawing intense criticism from supporters of Coates and supporters of Palestinians. “Critics call for CBS Mornings’ journalist, Tony Dokoupil to be removed after his line of questioning,” reporter Willi Quinn wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

https://x.com/TinyPrincess_D/status/1841124776623902785

“Wild that CBS challenges [Coates] more than they will Vance during the VP Debate,” human rights attorney Qasim Rashid wrote on X.

Journalist Abdallah Fayyad described Dokoupil’s questions as “incredibly hostile, combative, and rude” toward Coates and “cartoonishly racist, blaming Palestinians for their own oppression.”

So far, CBS News appears to be standing by its journalist and its interview, which remains prominently posted on the network’s X account. And Coates, after standing firm to his principles and point of view in a surprisingly tense exchange, will continue to promote his book and his analysis of race and ethnicity in Israel and the United States.

Ta-Nehisi Coates