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Congress-mandated panel accused of whitewashing Israeli discrimination against Christians

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is under fire from one of its own.
A worshipper holds crosses inside the Church of Holy Sepulchre during a Good Friday procession in Jerusalem's Old City April 14, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen - RTX35J9I

A panel of experts created by Congress to defend religious freedom is being accused of whitewashing Israeli discrimination against Christians and other religious minorities.

In an unprecedented public dissent against the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the only Middle East Christian on the panel is accusing the panel of a "continuing and glaring refusal" to hold Israel to account since the commission's founding in 1998. Arab-American activist Jim Zogby, a 2013 Barack Obama nominee whose term is up this year, argues in a scathing dissent to the annual USCIRF report that will be released April 26 that the panel is betraying its original mission and harming its reputation.

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