EDITORIAL
Israel's Muffled Press
A
s the current strike of most of the editorial staff of the Jerusalem Post
indicates, a discouraging trend is infecting Israeli newspapers. Papers
are being sold to those interested in manipulating the news to their own
political ends. The new owners often have a right-wing bent and are frequently
backed with foreign capital. Publications which had a history of being pro-
Labor, or at least fairly liberal, are being bought by the very people whom these
papers criticized the most. Their editorial direction is then changed by the new
owners, who also try to sharply influence their news coverage.
(Purchases of several of Israel's pro-Labor newspapers by their right-wing
adversaries are covered in Leon Hadar's article on Page 1.)
What is at issue is not necessarily whether Israel shall be served by a right-
wing press or a left-wing press, although a nation whose press has voices repre-
senting all ends of the political spectrum is not only desirable but essential for
the full exchange of ideas that makes a democracy vital and healthy. What is
most at stake is information, and access to it.
The new publisher of the Jerusalem Post, for instance, recently suggested
that his paper would not have covered the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatilla,
the Palestinian refugee camps outside Beirut, because "the number of civilians
killed there didn't even reach 40." The gruesome murders in the camps were
horrible not just because of their numbers, but because they were committed by
Israel's Lebanese Christian allies —and because Israeli troops, which virtually
ringed the camps, should have assured that such atrocities did not occur.
Without a free press, the offense may never have come to light.
Lost Message?
T
his Tuesday at 10 p.m., WTVS-Ch.56 will present a unique documentary
on the 25-month-old intifada. The film, A Search for Solid Ground, at-
tempts to undo some of the damage that has been done through the po-
tent images of Palestinian Davids throwing rocks at heavily armed Israeli
Goliaths. It seeks to portray the intifada as an ongoing historic event that has
perhaps cost Israel more in moral agonizing than it has bestowed it any poten-
tial long-term political benefit.
In Solid Ground, Israelis debate one another, and they debate themselves.
They are seen as a people stirred sometimes to hatred by what the Palestinians
have done, stirred to fear by what they might do next, and stirred to confusion
about what the intifada — and Israel's handling of it — has done to the Zionist
dream. Israeli soldiers are shown as not callous, callow troops who shoot in-
discriminately at innocent Palestinian youths, but as 19- and 20-year-olds
engaged in a war that they admit they don't understand, that they were not
trained for, and that tests their patience and their sense of national destiny.
But what is wrong is the way the Public Broadcasting System handled the
film. In September, the network aired Days of Rage, a 90-minute film that gave
the Palestinian side of the intifada. PBS tried to impose some balance on the
broadcast by sandwiching Days of Rage between two short pro-Israeli films. The
films were followed by a half-hour discussion, most of which centered on Days of
Rage, not on the panelists' ostensible topic, the Middle East. Also, PBS almost
pulled Days of Rage when charges surfaced that the film had been made with
Arab and Palestinian money and that its independent producer had been a
board member of an Arab-American foundation.
PBS has not wrapped Solid Ground in pro-Arab documentaries as a
"neutralizing" measure. Nor has it publicly considered that the film's funding
might breach the network's own guidelines. These preclude underwriters who
have an interest — or the appearance of interest — in a program's point of view.
(The funding for Solid Ground was partly arranged by the Israel counsel gen-
eral in New York. It was paid for by five American Jews extensively involved in
Jewish philanthropies.)
PBS should treat Solid Ground with the same corporate skepticism that it
treated Days of Rage. Not to do so is to open the network to charges that it (and
American media in general) is biased toward Israel, and that it is tainted by an-
ti-Arab prejudice. Amid such accusations, the real message of Solid Ground
may get lost — that the intifada has put many Israelis in turmoil and doubt, and
that any solution to the Israeli-Arab conundrum demands a wisdom worthy of
Solomon.
6
FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1990
LETTERS
Faces Change,
Hypocrisy Stays
One of the most seriously
debated subjects today is a
possible reunification of Ger-
many. The prospect is discuss-
ed with dread by Europeans,
fearful lest one Germany
revert to its warlike past and
threaten the lives and liber-
ty of the continent. They
brush aside the past 45 years
of peaceful coexistence in
which West Germany has
been a model democracy, a
friend and a benefactor of the
free world.
At the same time, these
European nations cozy up to
the Palestine Liberation
Organization and its ilk. And
what has been the world's ex-
perience with the PLO for the
past 22 years? Cold-blooded
murder, torture, hostage-
taking, kidnapping, highjack-
ing, the most outrageous
criminal acts of the previous
two decades. And these same
Europeans unhesitatingly
counsel Israel to create a
PLO-ruled state on its
borders.
The United States, on the
flimsiest legal basis, dispat-
ches its armed forces to in-
vade a foreign country, in the
process of which hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of inno-
cent civilians are killed. All
this, ostensibly to remove a
brutal tyrant from power and
bring him to justice for
violating American drug
laws. Despicable as he is, the
despot is a former client of the
U.S. government and America
is home to the most voracious
drug users in the world.
And what was the reaction
when Israel entered Lebanon
on a mission to eradicate the
viscious miscreants who, on a
daily basis, waged bloody war
on its civilian population?
"We are seeing an imperial
Israel trying to solve its pro-
blems on someone else's
soil,"intoned a pompous net-
work anchorman.
Faces change, voices
change, friends and enemies
come and go, but hypocrisy
endures.
Phillip Applebaum
Oak Park
Food Bank
Offers Thanks
The Food Bank of Oakland
County and the 70 volunteer
organizations supplying
emergency food to the hungry
of our community want to ex-
press their warmest thanks to
The Jewish News for suppor-
ting our annual appeal.
Without your help, we never
could have reached the
thousands of people who
responded so generously to
their neighbors in need. You
are to be commended for the
public spirited way in which
you serve our community.
James Macy
Director,
Food Bank of Oakland County
Why Do We Save
Our Murderers?
I was greatly angered to see
in Rabbi Jack Riemere's arti-
cle, "Three Memorable
Moments From the Past
Year" (Jan. 5). He supported
the donation of the heart from
Zev Traum, the soldier who
died in a "Palestinian" am-
bush, to an Arab. In the arti-
cle, Riemere says Traum's
wife and family gave
"wholehearted permission" to
conduct the transplant. The
truth of the matter was that
his family was not told until
after the fact, and were silent.
Continued on Page 10