CBS Mornings co-anchor Tony Dokoupil went viral this week for his aggressive questioning of Ta-Nehisi Coates, asking the author and journalist why he did not explain the Israeli rationale and context for the system of apartheid it applies to Palestinians in the West Bank, that Palestinians are significantly responsible for creating the conditions of their own oppression. “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?” Dokoupil asked.

Coates said that for him the question was simple. “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?” he said. “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.”

He went on: “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.”

“And why is that?” Dokoupil asked. “Why is there no agency in this book for the Palestinians?”

Coates again said the question was simple. “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.”

In talking about what he witnessed in Hebron, Coates is calling the question. He referenced Hebron again on MSNBC with Chris Hayes, and Hayes’ response was diametrically opposed to Dokoupil’s. “I’ve been on the same streets in Hebron and had the same reaction, which is that this is obviously a moral abomination,” said Hayes.

So here is the challenge to Tony Dokoupil: If you are confident that Hebron’s system of discrimination is justifiable, take a CBS News camera crew to Hebron and show your viewers first hand what it looks like in practice.

Use your time to offer all the context and rationale that you can, and let viewers decide for themselves. If apartheid can be justified, then don’t shy away from showing it.