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Because Meiselman is herself involved in a controversy that arouses strong passions, this line is all the harder to see. CAMERA was founded in 1982 to counter what Meiselman saw as distorted reporting about the war in Lebanon. The effect of this distortion, she said, was to portray Israel in increasingly harsh terms; stories un- favorable to the Jerusalem government were given front- page treatment, she said, and positive stories were ignored. "The Lebanese incursion seriously tarnished Israel's image as a champion of freedom and democracy. The stories in the Washington Post and on TV were so horren- dous that they brought many questions to mind." In 1983, Meiselman formed CAMERA to serve as a watch- dog of American reporting on the Middle East, and in par- ticular, to keep track of the in- fluential Washington Post, a paper that is regularly at- tacked by anti-Israel forces for showing a Pro-Zionist bias. Meiselman tiptoed around the question of whether the errors her group perceives reflect an intentional anti- Israel bias on the part of mainstream papers. "I would say that it's both sloppiness and bias against Israel. There is also a kind of bandwagon effect; terrorists were chic after Arafat was welcomed by the UN. Propaganda wheels from the Arab countries have ground on, the US press has picked up a lot of this." She was more direct about what she sees as a strong bias in the media against the Likud bloc in Israel. "There's no subtlety about the fact that the U.S. press supports Peres, and Shamir is always the heavy. The play that was given to the proposed interna- tional peace conference painted a picture that essen- tially said that this was the route to peace, but the Israeli government refuses, so Shamir doesn't want peace." Meiselman's group em- phasizes what they see as fac- tual errors in reporting about Israel. "These are things that shouldn't make it past the editors. For example, there was an article from Jerusalem recently dealing with one of the Arab leaders on the West Bank, and how his father was the Mufti Of Jerusalem who had tried un- successfully to set up links to the Nazis in World War II. In fact, he was VERY successful in setting up those links." In addition, the group is concerned about what they "I would say that its both sloppiness and bias against Israel." see as major omissions. Meiselman points to the fact that when newspapers run stories about Israeli violence against suspected terrorists in the occupied territories, they almost never give equal coverage to the long history of Arab violence against Jews. Providing such background on every story is not feasible, according to Joseph Laitin, the ombudsman for the Washington Post. And many of the errors that CAMERA cites reflect the hard realities of daily journalism. "There are journalistic calls that have to be made every day, every hour," he said. "These decisions are not always correct — and they are not going to please everybody in- volved in controversial issues." Laitin said that he receives similar complaints from Arab groups about the Post's Mid- dle East coverage. "I unders- tand all the emotion of the people involved in these issues. I appreciate the emo- tion. But the editors are pro- fessionals who have to make a huge number of decisions." CAMERA's newsletter re- veals another apparent goal of the group — to warn the pro-Israel community about what they see as pernicious Arab influence in American politics. A recent issue includ- ed an article reprinted from an Arab-American organiza- tion's publication. The story lists —without comment — campaign workers of Arab