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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
28 Friday, February 28, 1986
MEDIA MONITOR
Jewish Community Council
DELEGATE ASSEMBLY
Arabs Angry Over Their
Portrayal In Hollywood
BY BERL FALBAUM
Special To The Jewish News
The recent production of sev- into a political one involving Is-
eral films which portray Arabs in rael.
Is was extremely troubling to
a variety of villainous roles has hear Arab community spokesmen
some of the Arab community up imply that the movies may repre-
in arms.
some sort of Israeli plot. And
Arab organizations protested sent
no effort was made in the media
the recent television showing of to separate the two issues.
Under Siege while condemning
Tcfm Hundley, aDetroit Free
several other similar films, argu- Press
reporter whose pro-Arab
ing that Hollywood is helping to coverage of Middle East issues is
cement stereotypes and, worse, hardly debatable anymore, went
that the films contribute to an so far as to point out that while
anti-Arab climate.
one movie was filmed in Israel
And the Arab community has a
case. The weaknesses inherent in and an F16 was provided by the
the film industry and the rest of Israeli military, "Israel is never
the mass media generally include mentioned in the film's credits."
oversimplification while catering It certainly would have set a pre-
cedent to have a country receive a
to The
a common
comp deominator.
heard by the film credit for having its land-
g.
Arab community is the same fre- scape used for location shootin
havin g
quently aired by individuals, pro- The Arab commuhity,
fessionals or ethnic groups who become more astute in the use of
for some reason became the the media in recent years, got its
target of Hollywood's movie lens. message through to the public.
(The black community is pre- But rather than alerting it to the
senly debating somewhat inherent distortions and dangers
heatedly
the merits of the movie, of pop culture project@ such as
he
Under Siege, it drove another
The Color Purple.)
Hollywood has neither the wedge between the Arab and
interest or time to make sophisti- Jewish communities.
Thus, while it used a communi-
cated distinctions —especially in
"quickee movies" — in its prod- cation issue to make political
uct, particularly when the pri- points of an international order,
mary, if not, only objective is the Arab community achieved
marketability. • little in assuring more responsi-
The development of the televi- ble television programming that
sion movie and mini-series also would enhance the Arab image.
has set a criteria of "newsworthi- The Arab community might
ness" to film-making and, unfor- consider two different ap-
tunately, at the present time, ter- proaches: Sit down with Hol-
rorism makes news. lywood and convince moviemak-
So the Arab community is jus- era for the need of a more respon-
tified in condemning the exploi- sible approach to these sensitive
tation of Arab terrorism for popu- subjects; and a united call by all
lar consumption just as Jews are Arabs for an end to terrorism and
moved to speak out against mass the killing of innocent people,
media projects steeped in what subjects which are presently of
they believe to be anti-Semitism. great interest to cinema barons.
Indeed, this is one issue where If the second approach were
way fol-
to
Arabs and Jews might very well lowed, it would go a long A
reach an intellectual consensus proving that the entire rab
because both have much at stake. community does not support ter-
While Arab protests were under- rorism and — more importantly
standable, discOncerting were ef- — if it . were successful, there
forts to turn what primarily is a would be no need for a meeting
mass media communication issue with movieland.
SENATOR GARY HART
'(D-Colo)
THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1086
8:00 P.M.
ADAT SHALOM SYNAGOGUE
29901 Middlebelt Road at 13 Mile Road
Farmington Hills, Michigan
Leon S. Cohan, presiding
The entire Jewish community is invited. No charge.
Advertising in The Jewish News Gets Results
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Israel Economic Outlook
Considerably Brighter
BY ELMER L. WINTER
Special to The Jewish News
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• • 1. •
•
What will Israel's economy be
like in 1986? In order to get a clear
picture of the future, it is neces-
sary to take a look at the im-
mediate past.
During 1985, Israel's austerity
program moved the country's
economy onto the right track. Ex-
ports for the first nine' months of
the year increased by more than
six percent, while imports de-
creased by almost five percent.
Together this means that Israel's
deficit declined by $620 million
for the period.
The inflation rate has been
Elmer L. Winter is chairman of
the Convnittee for F4cciliAmic •
Growth of brad•. •
dropping dramatically: it was 4.7
percent in October and .5 percent
in November. (In 1984, by com-
parison, the inflation rate was a
whopping 400 percent.) High in-
terest rates continua to discour-
age consumer spending.
The government has cut $600
million from the budget and has
benefitted from the $1.5 billion
emergency grant from the 'United
States.
Not unexpectedly, the austerity
, program — with its elimination or
reduction of subsidies on a wide
range of basic go* andliervices
-- has brought down the standard
of living' of Israelis by 25 percent.
In addition, major layoffs.in both ,
• the 'private , taTrcl. pnbke tieotorer
have , caused unemployment- to
•
'