8 Friday, April 28, 1918
. THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
British Press Accused of Mideast Bias
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By MAURICE
SAMUELSON
LONDON (JTA) — A new
spate of accusations of bias
over the Middle East has
been levelled against the
British press from both
sides of the Arab-Israel con-
flict. The more common
charges are that the press is
pro-Arab.
The Israel ambassador,
Avraham Kidron, rarely
loses the opportunity of a
meeting with British jour-
nalists to complain bitterly
about their alleged lack of
understanding for his coun-
try's position.
The latest allegation of
pro-Israeli bias comes,
paradoxically, from a prom-
inent British journalist.
George Gale, a former
editor of The Spectator, said
in a radio talk show that
most British national pap-
ers sympathized with Israel
and, he claimed, this was
because of the number of
Jews who held influential
positions in the press.
Gale himself has often
been outspokenly critical
of Israel and, not surpris-
ingly, his remark elicited
heated complaints from
Jewish organizations to
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the London broadcasting
company for whom he
works.
Regardless of whether
Gale was right or wrong —
which I shall discuss shortly
— in one major respect he
was realistic. For the tone of
British press comment and
news presentation probably
depends as much on the
journalists employed by
newspapers as on the com-
mercial interests and policy
of the big businessmen who
own them.
This is particularly true
of the quality papers which
report foreign - affairs in
depth and breadth as op-
posed to popular papers
which contain more domes-
tic news and gossip.
Jewish journalists here,
in contrast with the United
States, are not very numer-
ous on foreign news desks of
national papers. And in the
Middle East departments,
which help to dictate the
tone of their papers' Middle
East coverage, there are no
identifiable Jews at all, ex-
cept for those stationed in
Israel.
So most of the influen-
tial Jewish journalists
who have caught Gale's
attention must have been
employed elsewhere in
the press. The reasons for
this are not hard to
fathom. But it shows that
Jewish journalists are far
more likely to be victims
of Middle East bias than
agents of it.
One of the leading Jewish
foreign correspondents
working for a British news-
paper is Eric Silver, The
Guardian's man in
Jerusalem. A few years ago,
one of his own colleagues
was reported as questioning
Silver's capacity to write ob-
jectively about Israel sim-
ply because he was Jewish.
Michael Elkins, of the
BBC, has also been fre-
quently sniped at by the
Arab lobby here for the
same reason. And yet the
Arab lobby counts several
non-Jewish Middle East
specialists among its av-
owed sympathizers.
But what of the allege-
tions of bias by the press as a
whole? The mere fact that
the press is so often assailed
by the opposing sides in the
conflict indicates that it is
reasonably neutral. And
this, in turn, can only be be-
cause the journalists in-
volved are too professional
to allow their personal pref-
erences to ruin their sense
of news judgment.
Nevertheless, there
should be no illusions
about the strength of
pro-Arab sentiment in
some influential circles
on Fleet Street For just
as older journalists were
often influenced in favor
of Zionism by the events
of World War H, so their
successors are more
likely to be swayed by the
claims of the Palestinian
Arabs.
One Middle East com-
mentator— whose work has
been quoted all over the
world — has told friends
that he opposes in principle
the existence of a Jewish
state. This journalist re-
cently gave a startling per-
sonal interpretation of the
statement by Israeli Ag-
riculture Minister Ariel
Sharon, that two million
Jews would one day inhabit
the Jordan Valley.
Sharon's vision could only
mean, the journalist said,
that the "Zionists" planned
to stimulate Jewish immi-
gration from the United
States by stirring up a wave
of Nazi anti-Semitism
there. Needless to say, this
interesting theory has not
yet appeared in the jour-
nalist's own newspaper.
Although this person is
more outspoken in his pro-
Arabism than other Middle
East specialists on Fleet
Street, most of them appear
to be more at ease on the
Arab side of the fence.
The influence of this
group is, moreover, rein-
forced by the existence of
several Arab-oriented
specialist periodicals for
which these people write,
in addition to their own
journals. Possibly, they
would also contribute to
serious Israeli-oriented
publications, if they
existed here.
Jewish and Zionist organ-
izations seem to regard in-
dependent publishing ven-
tures as a thing of the past,
and prefer to invest solely in
public relations and infor-
mation drives, usually
aimed at the converted,
with little impact on the na-
tional media.
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