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ELAL ISRAEL AIRUNES 7141V/ 0 7 l'IN
NEWS I
%Lem
Come to Israel This Winter!
Japan's Media Shows
Clear Anti-Israel Bias
WHY?
WILLY STERN
Special to The Jewish News
g The Price is RIGHT!
$699* Roundtrip Airfare Chicago/Tel Aviv
T
(same as New York) via El Al's direct service
from Chicago. HOTEL PRICES ARE MUCH
LOWER—Yes .•. . . LOWER than last year!
[2( There are so many NEW attractions
to see...Making it an unforgettable winter sunshine
ar
experience!
It's WARM There!
It Sure Beats FREEZING Here!
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Israel
Come stay with friends.
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Sounds Good To Me...Please send me information on...
•
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•
Israel this Winter.
•
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• • Israel Government Tourist Office,
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• 5 South Wabash Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60603
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•
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• • Address
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Zip
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State
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M. Sempliner
here is an uninten-
tional yet distinct an-
ti-Israel and pro-Arab
bias in the mainstream
Japanese newspapers, ac-
cording to numerous inter-
views with journalists, dip-
lomats and media experts.
The two major causes of
the inadvertent bias are that
most of the Japanese repor-
ting on Israel is done by cor-
respondents living in the
Arab world and the over-
whelming importance placed
on the plight of the Palesti-
nians by Japanese society.
This trend is particularly
worrisome today, when
Japan is already an
economic superpower and
increasingly trying to make
its presence felt in the realm
of international diplomacy.
Despite large budgets and
generous overseas staffing
levels, none of Japan's five
major national newspapers
has a correspondent
stationed in Israel. Instead,
reporters stationed in the
Arab world — usually Cairo
—are responsible for cover-
ing Israel.
"Those correspondents
tend to get their information
from Arab sources," ex-
plains Yoshito Takigawa,
chief information officer at
the Israel Embassy in
Tokyo. "Even when they do
make short visits to Israel,
these reporters tend to bring
their pro-Arab biases with
them."
Takigawa, who has
translated numerous Israel-
related books into Japanese,
including Menachem
Begin's The Revolt,
estimates that 70 percent of
Japanese reporting on Israel
is pro-Arab, 20 percent is
pro-Israel, and only 10 per-
cent written in a profes-
sional, neutral manner.
To be fair, one of Japan's
two international wire ser-
vices, Kyodo, has assigned a
correspondent to Israel since
1978 and this news company
has a distinguished record of
accurate reporting from
Israel.
Japanese media analysts
say that,. with a few excep-
tions, Israel is generally por-
trayed in the Japanese
media as a bullying ag-
gressor, while Arabs are
often lumped together as op-
pressed Palestinian victims.
Willy Stern is a former Tokyo
corespondent for Ma'ariv.
In fact, very few Japanese
know much about the Mid-
dle East, which is generally
considered a distant land
with strange cultures, lan-
guages and emotions.
Bernard Krisher, former
Tokyo Bureau Chief for both
Newsweek and Fortune
magazines, says, "The
Japanese reporting is not so
much anti-Israel as it is a
matter of indifference, and of
ignorance."
Further, few Japanese
journalists can speak Arabic
None of Japan's
five major national
newspapers has a
correspondent
stationed in Israel.
or Hebrew, and many of the
overseas correspondents
have marginal English
skills.
Furthermore, several
Japanese journalists who
asked not to be named say
that they feared a violent
reaction from Arab groups if
they filed articles which
could be seen as pro-Israel.
"The Arabs monitored my
copy and could be very ag-
gressive," said one former
Middle East correspondent.
"I didn't want to get in-
volved in any conflict with
them." ❑
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Women's Group
Backs Abortion
Los Angeles (JTA) — The
200,000-member Women's
League for Conservative
Judaism placed itself
squarely in the pro-choice
camp on the abortion issue,
at the opening of its three-
day national conference and
open board meeting Sunday.
At the same time, it re-
jected the casual use of abor-
tion as a birth control device,
stressing Judaism cherishes
the sanctity of life, even
potential life.
Evelyn Auerbach, presi-
dent of the Women's League,
said it would act in coopera-
tion with the other main
organizations of Conser-
vative Judaism, the Rab-
binical Assembly and the
United Synagogue of
America, to mobilize the
movement's 1.5 million
members against any fur-
ther erosion of Roe vs. Wade.
The Supreme Court's land-
mark ruling in the 1973 case