I PURELY COMMENTARY
The Haven That Is Home And
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor Emeritus
R
edemption is on the
road to fulfillment. Its
realization is being at-
tained in the process of migra-
tions toward the Eretz Israel
of prophecy and the quest for
homeland with its aims to an
end to the agonies that were
on the trek to freedom out of
the oppressions that were
mankind's bigotries.
The road to freedom was
marked by the barbarities
that even enforced so many
Jews whose lives were treated
as merchandise. As the
redemption retains its
realism the earlier ex-
periences are not forgotten.
They are remembered in a
determination to prevent
repetitions of enslavements.
Nevertheless it is well to
know that they are still in
evidence.
The big march currently in
progress out of Russia is ac-
companied by more than an
echo of the many cruelties in
the atmosphere.
Among the accumulating
warnings of increasing
dangers to Russian Jewry is
the one in a New York Times
Op-Ed Page article which
declared, "A Fear of Pogroms
Haunts Soviet Jews." While
similar warnings now
reverberate, the facts in this
piece of William Korey, B'nai
B'rith director of interna-
tional research, demands
unhesitant concern. It calls
attention to the December
sessions in Moscow of the
Congress of Jewish Organiza-
tions, attended by delegates
from 126 Jewish cultural
groups in 70 cities. They were
told of a sharp upsurge of
public anti-Semitism. Jews
were depicted as becoming
the scapegoats for the pro-
blems of perestroika. The
Korey revelations about the
emerging pogrom fears point
to these developing terrors:
Documentation was not
difficult to come by: more
than 50 desecrations of
Jewish cemeteries, some
1,000 anti-Semitic rallies,
and vitriolic hate-leaflets
in the thousands
distributed everywhere.
Moreover, some 60 goons
from Pamyat, a chauvinist
Russian national move-
ment, greeted the delegates
with cries of "Yid!" and
"Jewish prostitute!"
Beyond these hate-
spewing vulgarities, and
reinforcing them, is the
defense and promotion of
Pamyat and anti-Jewish
stereotypes by prominent
and conservative na-
tionalist publications.
Then, too, there are new-
ly formed patriotic and
Defying Obstacles
pogroms . . . gathering
over our heads." He ex-
pressed dismay that "as
this incitement to murder
takes place before the eyes
of all," the authorities "ig-
nore the thugs and in-
citers."
William Korey
religious organizations
that would ostracize the
Jew as "alien" and
cosmopolitan" (a resur-
rected Stalinist era code
word meaning "traitor"),
and populist novelists fill
their books and essays
with flagrant appeals to
bigotry.
"
Only the Young Com-
munist League newspaper
has carried a Cassandra-
like warning. Written by
the Lithuanian Jewish
writer Grigory Kanovich, a
member of the Congress of
People's Deputies, the arti-
cle described "clouds of
The Korey expose of the in-
creased USSR anti-Semitism
adds a condemnation of
failures to prevent or reduce
the menace. The essay with
the warnings about the
pogrom atmosphere is a
challenge to Gorbachev with
a demand for recognition of
the terrorized threats. Korey's
accumulated revelations
about the threats to Russian
Jewry lend emphasis to these
indictments:
From President Mikhail
Gorbachev not a single
word has come — no
repudiation of Pamyat or
of omni-present Jew-
baiting. Last year, when
Mr. Kanovich, joined by
two members of the
Academy of Sciences, Vita-
ly Ginzburg and Oleg
Gazenko, submitted to the
presidium of the Congress
of People's Deputies a peti-
tion calling for a condem-
nation of anti-Semitism,
and for creating a special
committee to follow up on
the issue, the petition was
buried.
Even though the petition
was signed by more than
200 deputies, and Mr.
Kanovich is reported to
have conferred briefly with
Mr. Gorbachev on three oc-
casions, urging him to
make the appeal known to
the Congress, not only was
it not brought before the
Congress, it was stricken
from the list of petitions
submitted to the
presidium.
It is not that Soviet pro-
secutors are unaware of
Pamyat's provocations. In
one instance, Pamyat's
chief was summoned by
the KGB and warned
against stirring up "na-
tional hatred." In another,
the Leningrad city public
prosecutor said he had
brought an end to
Pamyat's numerous rallies
in one of the public parks
because they violated the
Soviet Constitution. Yet no
arrests have been for-
thcoming anywhere and
Pamyat's provocations re-
main undiminished.
The absence of any of-
ficial public denunciation
is especially disturbing.
When anti-Jewish pogroms
seemed to loom on the
horizon in 1918, Lenin, the
founder of the Soviet state,
personally drafted the
Continued on Page 44
Reducing Distortions in Mideast News Coverage
T
here is a continuing
irritation over exag-
gerations in the Mid-
dle East news reporting. An
eminent investigative jour-
nalist dealt with the issue in
an essay he entitled "Too
Much American Reporting
in the Middle East Is
Deliberately Distorted and
Innacurate." Steven A. Emer-
son, writing under that title
in the February (1990) issue
of Penthouse magazine,
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Vol. XCVI No. 25 February 16, 1990
2
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1990
especially assails the charges
against Israel on the question
of human rights obligations.
Emerson
demolishes
numerous misrepresentations
by urging recognition of vital
truths by emphasizing the
following:
Curious about the
media's coverage of Arab
countries, I tallied a com-
puter printout of the total
number of stories on the
suppression of human-
rights in the Middle East
published in the top four
daily newspapers — The
Wall Street Journal, The
Washington Post, The New
York Times and The Los
Angeles Times — from
January 1988 through
September 1989. Egypt was
the subject of five stories,
Syria got two, and Saudi
Arabia, zero. In total, fewer
than 30 critical articles
were devoted to the Arab
world. Israel was the focus
of more than 300 critical
stories.
Does this mean that
Israel commits 1,000 per-
cent more human-rights
violations? No. In fact, in
relative terms, Israel has
committed far fewer viola-
tions than its Arab
neighbors.
Journalists give several
reasons for this imbalance,
but they don't hold up.
1. Israel is the only coun-
try in the Middle East that
grants access to reporters.
While Israel is certainly
more open and accessible
than its Arab neighbors,
human-rights organiza-
tions such as Middle East
Watch — whose burden of
proof is much higher than
that of journalists — have
been able to document
thousands of cases of tor-
ture, political imprison-
ment, and mass arrest in
the Arab world.
2. Israel is the recipient
of the largest share of U.S.
economic aid. New York
Times columnist Anthony
Lewis, a fierce critic of
Israel who almost always
ignores violations of
human rights in Arab
countries, recently wrote:
"Many governments in the
world violate human
rights. But none of them
receive $3 billion a year in
foreign aid from the U.S."
In fact, if economic aid is
the barometer for jour-
nalistic coverage, Egypt
receives the second
highest amount of aid, $2.1
billion. By my calculations,
Lewis should be writing
about Egypt at least 67 per-
cent of the time that he
writes about Israel. Yet —
at least in the past three
years — he has never
devoted a column to
human-rights violations in
Egypt.
3. Israel is a democracy
and holds itself to higher
standards. Sorry, but Great
Britain is also a democracy
that proclaims lofty
egalitarian ideals, and I
don't see American
reporters clamoring to
write daily about the
undeniable abuses of
human rights that plague
England's occupation of
Northern Ireland.
In truth, news organiza-
tions are loathe to admit
that the major reasons for
the absence of reporting
on human-rights violations
in the Arab world are their
own intimidation and
Faustian deals cut by
reporters. Reporters will-
ingly and voluntarily cen-
sor their stories in order to
stay on the good side of the
authorities. Censorship is
censorship, whether im-
posed or self-induced, and
in the end, the fourth estate
ends up supporting the
very censorship it decries.
Striking immediately at
the root of the problem involv-
ing the media, these are
challenges to be seriously
considered. The media are the
targets in this accusatory
compilation of recurring
treatments of the news. The
troublesome realism is that
the media, the espeCially
challenged, too often ignore
the facts provided for their
consideration.
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