It Friday, Decem er 30, 19

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Is Media Taking Leading Role in Mideast Negotiations?

By MURRAY ZUCKOFF

extant that Israeli and
Egyptian leaders are
conducting peace
negotiations and that the
plans each side is
proposing to the other are
in fact real. There is a
further illusion that
Premier Menahem Begin of
Israel and President Anwar
Sadat of Egypt are actually
talking to each other as
self-structured flesh and
bone human beings.
The reality is quite the

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opposite. The real
negotiations are being
carried on by the general
news media. The basic
peace plans are being
formulated by reporters
and columnists, and the
real protagonists are the
headline writers who try to
outscoop each other.
The fact is that Sadat
and Begin are not acting as
heads of their respective
states, but as instruments
of various news media. that
they are really
media-produced clones—if
one is to believe the front
page meanderings of the
daily press and television
and radio reports.
On any given day,
especially in recent weeks,
there are scenarios replete
with plots, counterplots and
subplots, dialogues and
monologues and complete
stage settings for the latest
chapter in the Middle East
drama carefully devised
and directed by reporters,
columnists and editorial
writers.
If the real Mideast
protagonists should stray
from these carefully
prepared scripts and
improvise on their own, the
same reporters and
columnists will, on the day
following, act as
critics—either decrying the
real events as having fallen
far short of what the script
had indicated would happen
or expressing surprise that
the events had taken an
unexpected good turn for
' which the scripts had not
provided.
This tragi-comic situation
reached its apex recently
when Begin was in
Washington having talks
with President Carter and
other administration
officials. Begin had
announced in advance that
he wanted Carter to review
Israel's peace plan that he
would present to Sadat, but
the Israeli premier
promised that he would not
publicly disclose the plan
prior to meeting with
Sadat. Begin kept his
promise but the media
immediately embarked on
its own version of -truth or
consequences."

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Some Israeli papers
"leaked" what they
claimed was the substance
of the peace plan. Major
dailies in the country
followed with reams of
copy about the plan as
learned from "Israeli
sources" (the newspapers).
The Israeli press, not to be
outdone nor outflanked,
reacted swiftly to
"American sources" press
reports. Depending on their
editorial bias, they either
denounced Begin for giving
away too much or too little.
The American press then
focused on what it claimed
was an "Israeli consensus"
and speculated or reported
on the basis of "sources"
that Begin was either in
trouble at home with his
own "rejectionist front" for
being too generous to the
Egyptians or a hero to
Israeli doves who were
sighting peace in the jump
column of the lead news
story.
In fact, the activity of the
Israeli and American press
that weekend in reacting to
each other's stories, rather
than to real events, was so
frenetic in trying to
"reveal" and "disclose"
what plan Begin had
brought with him to
Washington that when he
finally offered some
elements in that plan Dec.
18 on CBS-TV "face the
nation," some papers gave
it short shrift:
The New York Times, for
example, having exhausted
its pages with
"disclosures" and
"revelations" prior to the
television show in frantic
guesswork about the plan,
did not deem it necessary
to highlight Begin's
interview on CBS. After
all—with all due regard for
speculation—Begin's public
announcement was so much
less dramatic than its own
ruminations.
The same tragi-comedy
occurred last weekend
when Israeli and western
media reports had it that
Sadat and Begin would sign
an agreement "in
principle" on the
framework of a peace
treaty.
When this failed to
happen in the real context
of events the media had a
field day intoning that the
Christmas day talks
between the two leaders in
Ismailia had been far from
successful even, possibly, a
failure. If it was a failure,
and if the public in Israel,
the U.S. and other
countries felt let down, it
was only in terms of the
preordained media script.
Diplomacy-by-media is
not new and reporters.
being what they are, must
file stories every day to
justify their own existence
and importance as well as
that of their newspapers.
television or radio stations.
There is, in fact. nothing
wrong with reporters and
columnists trying to chart
the general course of

events on the basis of
objectively verifiable
trends, statements b'y
heads of state or their own
insights into ongoing
developments. However,
the practice of writing
scripts in their city rooms
or foreign news bureaus
and then judging real
events by their own
imaginings is a dangerous
game.
In the specific context of
the Israeli-Egyptian talks,
the leaders of both
countries haVe had to react
and respond almost as
frequently to media reports
about their talks as they
have had to react to the
talks actually taking place
between themselves. They.
have been placed in the
ironic position of having to
explain what did or did not
happen, and the
significance of either, more
in terms of what the media
claims happened or should
have happened than in
terms of the genuine
developments or
shortcomings in terms of
realpolitik.
Fortunately, both Sadat
and Begin are realistic and
astute enough political
leaders to avoid the pitfall
of becoming prisoners of

the media. Unfortunately,
however, the public is not
in the same position since
it can only rely on media
reports to shape its view of
the future. If peace does
come to the Mideast it will
not be the result of what
the media propounded, but
because of what the real
protagonists expounded.
The point is that the
media, in the final analysis,
can only serve as a conduit
for reporting real events if,
that is, it is doing the job it
is supposed to do. Its only
vested interest in that
history- is to publicize i
and to dramatize it by
highlighting reality. It
cannot make history.
History is being made, at
this moment at least, by
two men who have
courage and vision.

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