CONTENTS
Does The Fourth Estate
Support Censorship?
STEVEN EMERSON
Special to The Jewish News
W
hen I was on the
West Bank last
summer, a young
schoolteacher was hacked to
death by masked Palestinian
youths and dismembered in
full view of some 35 children.
Why? The teacher had been
deemed to be a "collaborator"
with Israeli authorities. Yet
his wife, friends, and
neighbors all bitterly denied
this. The man's death was
reported in American news
dispatches in one sentence,
"Another suspected col-
laborator was killed today."
There were no quotes
around the term "col-
laborator." No interview with
any neighbor or- relative
disputing the characteriza-
tion.
The media has blindly ac-
cepted at face value the
justification for the killings.
The killing of alleged col-
laborators has been used to
settle old political scores, per-
sonal vendettas and financial
disputes, as well as to silence
moderate political voices and
factions.
Coverage of Israeli repres-
sion of the Palestinian upris-
ing has been appropriately
extensive and hard-hitting.
Yet the probing, skeptical
press corps so willing to
challenge the Israeli version
of events seems incapable of
applying the same skeptical
standards to the Palestinians.
The nearly total void in
critical coverage of the killing
of collaborators is just one
example.
Curious about the media's
coverage of Arab countries, I
tallied a computer printout of
the total number of stories on
the suppression of human
rights in the Middle East
published in the top four dai-
ly newspapers — The Wall
Street Journal, The Washing-
ton 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 percent more
Copyright 1990 Steven
Emerson. Reprinted with the
permission of Penthouse
Publications International,
Ltd.
human-rights violations? No.
In fact, in relative terms,
Israel has committed far
fewer violations than its Arab
neighbors.
Journalists give several
reasons for this imbalance,
but they don't hold up:
1. Israel is the only country
in the Middle East that grants
access to reporters. While
Israel is certainly more open
and accessible than its Arab
neighbors, human-rights
organizations 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 torture,
political imprisonment, 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 journalistic
coverage, Egypt receives the
second highest amount of aid,
$2.1 billion. By my calcula-
tions, 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 stan-
dards. Sorry, but Great Bri-
tain is also a democracy that
proclaims lofty egalitarian
ideals, and I don't see
American reporters clamor-
ing 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 willingly and
voluntarily censor their
stories in order to stay on the
good side of the authorities.
Censorship is censorship,
whether imposed or self-
induced, and in the end, the
fourth estate ends up suppor-
ting the very censorship it
decries. ❑
DETROIT
15
Gay Rabbis
What Detroit rabbis
think of the Reform vote.
23
CLOSE-UP
A Change
In Direction
37
JAMES BESSER and
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Smaller charities are doing
what federations don't.
INSIGHT
Lost In°T1ranslation
37
ANDREW CARROLL
Why are so many Jews
tongue-tied about Hebrew?
46
SPORTS
Traveling Man
MIKE ROSENBAUM
Mike Harris follows
cars across America.
FINE ARTS
Wings Of Desire
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
A Toronto artist
paints Jewish history.
71
TRAVEL
61 Avid For Aspen
SUSAN WEINGARDEN
The Colorado mountains
draw Detroiters year-long.
PEOPLE
Doctor In The House
75
SUSAN SALTER
A medical society installs
its first female president.
DEPARTMENTS
31
40
50
52
61
77
84
85
91
118
Inside Washington
Synagogues
Business
Cooking
Entertainment
Engagements
Births
Singles
Classified Ads
Obituaries
CANDLELIGHTING
71
Friday, July 6, 1990
8:55 p.m.
Sabbath ends July 7 10:05 p.m.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
7