2 Friday, May 6, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Purely Commentary
Disputes Over the Media Attitudes Relating to Israel
Stimulate Interesting Exchange Inspired by Pro-Likud
Author Yitshaq Ben-Ami . . . And a Major Newspaper Contrast
By Philip
Slomovitz
Seeking an Accord With the Media: A Disputation Viewed as Meritorious
Media attitudes, their commentaries and interpreta-
tive approaches to Israel in relation to the Middle East
problems, have been under scrutiny. They aroused bitter-
ness, both in relation to radio and television as well as
editorial opinions in newspapers.
The New York Times had an important role in these
discussions and its Op-Ed page has aroused concern be-
cause so many of the essays critical of Israel gave platforms
both to Arabs as well as to Jewish disrupters of the Jewish
unity. This, at least, is the reaction of many who have
joined in the criticisms. .
Among the critics is Yitshaq Ben-Ami, who was an
associate of Vladimir Jabotinsky in the Zionist Revisionist
and Herut movements and also of Menahem Begin. He is
the author of the revealing book "Years of Wrath, Days of
Glory," an historic document of Israel's rebirth and a defen-
sive declaration in support of Begin and the Likud.
Ben-Ami wrote an important statement analyzing the
attitude of the New York Times. It was addressed to Max
Frankel, editorial page editor of the Times. There was a
reply to it from Sidney Gruson, vice chairman of the New
York Tithes Co. The Gruson letter and Ben-Ami's counter-
argument carry much weight and merit serious considera-
tion:
* * *
The New York Times
and Its Editorial Pages
Dear Mr. Ben-Ami:
I read your letter to Mr. Frankel with great
interest. I don't think an argument about whether
all sides of the question are being aired equally on
the Op-Ed pages would be profitable. I believe
that over time the Op-Ed page presents a pretty
fair balance of issues and ideas, including the
"newer image of the real Israel." What I find mis-
sing in your letter is any reference at all to the
issue of what happens to Israel in the event that
another million Arabs have to be absorbed into
the state.
I think, on the whole, our editorial position
has been very supportive of Israel and suppor-
tive, too, of Israel's position in Lebanon. What we
fail to understand — and I share this failure — is
how Israel is strengthened by annexation of the
West Bank by whatever means. That hardly
seems to me the safest assurance of survival.
* * *
Sidney Gruson
Dear Mr. Gruson:
I do appreciate the
time you took to com-
ment on my letter to
Mr. Frankel.
You focus on one
issue: if one million
Arabs in Judea-
Samaria and Gaza are
absorbed into Israel,
will it contribute to the
security of Israel or
will it not?
Sorry, this is not
the crucial issue.
President Reagan,
Secretaries Kissinger
and Rogers, and
YITSHAQ BEN AMI
others, are offering to
the Jews of Israel what the Disapora had offered
them for the past 2,000 years, linking their survi-
val to a decree, a word of a prince, a signed
parchment, abstractions. The answer which
comes from that young nation is: we would rather
keep the physical boundaries of our sovereignty
up to the Jordan than at the foothills of Judea and
Samaria, regardless of how many Arabs dwell in
our midst.
-
For 2,000 years the Jews had to accept "pro-
tection" from others and paid dearly for such a
way of life. The Hebrew Renaisiance, like the Ita-
lian and Greek of the 19th Century, rejects the
concept of a nation's fate being dependent on the
goodwill or word of others. They said: When re-
establishing ourselves in our country, we can,
above all, rely only on our own strength for survi-
val.
The issue before the 3.5 million Israelis of
Jewish parentage is how not to share the fate of
the Maronites, Armenians, Assyrians, Copts, or of
Kurdish, Druze, Shiite and Sunni minorities or
indeed anyone in the Middle East who had the
misfortune of being a minority or of being out of
power; it is quite simply — how to assure their
own survival.
My family did not return to Eretz fsrael a cen-
tury ago (when the entire population on both
banks of the Jordan numbered 280,000), to substi-
tute the PLO murderers for the Cossacks. ,
If you have visited Israel, you are no doubt
aware that 70 percent of Israel's population lives
on a strip of land 60 miles long and nine to 14 miles
wide. No sane Israeli (except the "Peace Now"
fringe) is ready to trust the word of King Hussein
or that of Arafat, even if they would "vouch" for
the integrity of Israel and the lives of its citizens.
For the past six decades, the renascent He-
brew nation attempted to compromise with the
local population and later on with an aggressive
Pan Arabism. Compromises were offered all
along by "Don-intransigent" leaders, namely ac-
ceptance of the 1922 partition (the East Bank) and
a second one in 1947 (part of the West Bank).
These compromises were rebuffed as you no
doubt know.
There are no magic solutions to the problems
of the Middle East, and this includes wishing for
the disappearance of Israel. (See Curtis Jones,
former U.S. State Department expert, article in
the Foreign Service Journal, December 1982.)
* *
Israel as Middle East
Scapegoat for Arab Problems
At the moment, Israel is an ideal lightning-
rod for the stormy region's internal tensions
whose inherent turmoil would take other forms in
the absence of an Israel. The Middle East is one of
the most turbulent areas in the world. It is far
from ready to adopt logical compromises. One or
two centuries from now it may settle down.
Meanwhile, the sad fact is that human life is
cheap in the Middle East. Any minority attempt-
ing to survive in the. Islamic and/or Pan Arab
ocean can do so only by mustering the strength
necessary for survival. Observing this in connec-
tion with Israel, Western media call it "obsession
with militarism." Too bad. For the same reasons
Churchill was also "obsessed with militarism" in
the 1930s.'But even more — Israel knows it cannot
afford to lose even one war; it would be her last.
The Arabs of Palestine now control three-
fourths of the land originally designated by the
Balfour Declaration and the original League of
Nations Mandate after World War I as a Jewish
homeland. It was even then a tiny sliver of land
compared to what was allocated to the so-called
Arab "nations," none of which even had the char-
acteristic of a nation.
Nevertheless, Israel stands ready to guaran-
tee the lives and rights of a total of 1.5 million
Arabs who may choose to live within its borders.
They will probably be the only Arab speaking
people in the Middle East to live in a free demo-
cratic society for a long time to come. No one can
predict exactly how they will fit into Israel: some
will adopt Jordanian (Palestinian) citizenship;
others will choose Israel, others may emigrate.
Worldwide migration in the past 50 years has
involved tens of millions: Greeks, Turks, Hindus,
Moslem Indians, Punjabis of all faiths, Poles.,
Germans and millions more in Africa. Israel took
about 700,000 Jews from Arab countries in 1948,
almost doubling her population. France took in
300,000-400,000 Jews from North Africa. That's
the way political problems involving population
have, in reality ; been solved in the 20th Century.
Whatever happens, it will take centuries to evolve
a normal relationship among the peoples of the
Middle East, as it took in Western Europe.
Yitshaq Ben Ami
-
The justification for providing so much space to what
has become an issue over media interpretive roles is in the
need to defend an important instrument in the democratic
society. Many faults are attributable to the press. But they
cannot be treated as totally mischievous. There is no doubt
that many prejudices sank into the developments, espe-
cially those that arose during the Lebanese battles and the
struggle to assure the freedom and sovereignty of the
Lebanese. In the main, the media must be given recogni-
tion for seeking to fulfill a great obligation.
The errors must be exposed and they will hopefully be
corrected. They must be attained with full credit to the
sincerity of honorable journalists who aim to provide the
news. The public aim is to assure that there are no distor-
tions.
Meanwhile, there is a continuing concern over the
positions of two of the leading newpapers in the country.
In the process of studying the editorial attitudes of the
major American newspapers, Near East Report, official
organ of AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Commit-
tee, has an editorial comment entitled "Post versus Times."
It was a comparison of the New York Times and the Wash-
ington Post treatments of Israeli news, and it declared:
The two most highly regarded papers, the
New York Times and the Washington Post, are no
set of twins. Nowhere is that more evident than in
their coverage of the Middle East.
The Times strives for objectivity and often
achieves it. It gives sympathetic coverage to Is-
rael as a society. Its main correspondent in Israel,
David Shipler, although often critical of Israel, is
a fine journalist and a fair observer of Israeli
society — one who cares about the country and its
people. A Times editorial may be critical of an
Israeli policy or personality, but that editorial
slant is rarely transported to the news pages.
Not so the Post.- Post coverage of Israel and
Middle Eastern affairs is almost consistently hos-
tile to Israel. (In fact, it can safely be said that the
only page in the Post on which Israel gets an even
break is on the food page, which often carries nice
pieces on Israeli cuisine!) Post coverage of the
Middle East reached its nadir during the Lebanon
war. One example should suffice:
On July 7, the Post's Edward Cody wrote a
tribute to a PLO leader who had been involved in
major terrorist acts against Israeli civilians. Cody
wrote that "you can admire a man even when he is
part of deeds you cannot admire — the coastal
raid for example . ." (The coastal raid was an
attack by terrorists on a bus near Tel Aviv that
killed 36 Israeli civilians, including several chil-
dren.) It was a tribute one would not find in the
Times.
* * *
Differences Between New York
Times and Washington Post
Moreover, even in dealing with more routine
matters, the Times and Post differ markedly. This
is confirmed by an article in the April 1983 Wash-
ington Journalism Review. WJR writer Fred
Barnes writes, about the different handling the
two papers have given to recent events in Leba-
non.
- Barnes cites conflicting coverage of the var-
ious Marine-Israeli incidents. On Jan. 24 the Post
front page carried a story about a "U.S. Marine
Corps rifleman" who "had-an Israeli soldier in his
sights" in Beirut. It was, said the Post, "the closest
call yet." The Times ran no story on the supposed
confrontation.
Two days later the Times referred to the inci-
dent as "more an act of bravado than a serious
threat." It went on: "Officials said that it was 'just
not true' that a Marine had aimed his rifle at an
Israeli soldier."
On Feb. 3 the Post ran two page-one stories on
Marine Captain Charles Johnson, who had sup-
posedly halted an advancing Israeli tank with his
pistol. According to Barnes, "the Post gave the
story more prominence by twinning stories at the
top of the page, one on the incident itself, the other
on the Reagan Administration's protest over the
incident. The Times stuck with one story at the
bottom of the page."
Barnes concludes: "So different was the news
judgment of the nation's two most influential
papers on the running Marine-Israeli story that
even when they agreed an incident warranted
page one treatment, they were still far apart on
how extensive that coverage should be and haw
prominently it should be displayed."
Barnes does not discuss motivations and no
outsider can know , what influences the Post's
handling of Middle East news. However, one
thing is clear: the Post, in its editorials and on its
newspages, plays up stories that reflect adversely
on U.S.-Israel relations and on Israel itself — even
when there is little basis for the stories: The Times
does not. This may be one reason why 30,000
Washingtonians feel the need to supplement their
daily newspaper reading with the New York
Times.
The intention is the search for facts and adherence to
truth. Hopefully, criticisms will bring the desired results.
Israelis, Jews everywhere, seek accord. They hope and st-
rive for peace. The cooperation of the media is vital in the
dissemination of facts. In the quest for such attainments,
criticism is unavoidable, adherence to realism and factual-
ity compulsory. Therefore the present analyses.