MEDIA MONITOR Why I 'Took' On the Arabs At an American Arab convention, the author discovered that U.S. Arabs distrust news media as much as American Jews do. ARTHUR J. MAGIDA Special to The Jewish News F MIN =IN MOM MEM IMMI IN= IN= MN NM NMI IMO =MI MIN Save $2.00 Per Yard On The Carpet That Resists Matting And Crushing. Here's an outstanding offer on Stainmaster Lk® the carpet that handles foot traffic like never before. With su- perior stain resistance too. See it today in a broad selection of styles and colors, all certified and warranted 6y Du Pont. And don't blame us if you have a tough time choosing. Coupon expires 8/21/92. Xtra Life Coupon not valid on previous orders or with other carpets already sale priced. BLOOMFIELD CARPET & FLOORING 39880 14 Mile Road — Corner of Haggerty Road 624-4477 Newberry Square Plaza Woodcreek Adult Day Care... Another way to say "We Love You." It's the GRAND OPENING of the Woodcreek Adult Day Care Center. 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We want to help you and those you love. 1 FREE DAY at Woodcreek Adult Day Care Center . 24 J EIRIDAY_II II V 1.11_1499 g Ct 14 Mile e ~ 13 Mile 12 Mile CALL NOW FOR AN APPOINTMENT SOME RESTRICTIONS MAY APPLY I- c 1 Woodcreek Adult Day Care Center 31275 Northwestern Hwy., Suite 215 Farmington Hills, MI 48334 (313) 932-8666 or decades, many American Jews have been convinced that the press treats them and, especially, Israel unfairly. What I discovered last Fri- day was that many Ameri- can Arabs harbor equivalent suspicions — if not rage — about the Fourth Estate. Journalists, say some Arab Americans, are anti-Arab, pro-Jewish, pro-Israeli and, on the whole, a pretty un- savory lot. This displeasure with the press became apparent while I sat on a panel last week at the ninth annual convention of the Arab-American Anti- Discrimination Committee in Washington. My col- leagues on the panel were not reputed to be especially fond of Israel: Christopher Hitchens, a columnist for The Nation; Norman Solomon, a media critic who specializes in bias in the media; and Saul Landau, a senior fellow at the left- leaning Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. Moderating was the ABC- TV news anchor, Peter Jenn- ings, whom Jewish groups have charged is anti-Israel. The panel's ostensible purpose was to address "Sensitivity Without Cen- sorship," which meant that we were supposed to discuss ways to report news so that it did not violate individual or group rights or impinge upon freedom of the press. As with many panel discussions, that agenda was largely ignored by the panelists and the audience. In his opening comments, Mr. Jennings assumed the audience wanted to "vent its spleen" about the news media. He was right. Once past the panelists' opening comments, there was a bar- rage of venting, and, ap- parently, a goodly supply of spleen. Opening remarks had a certain predictability. Saul Landau drew parallels bet- ween police actions against blacks in Los Angeles and Israeli police breaking the bones of Palestinians during the intifada. Norman Solomon chastised the press for its "good job" of covering certain pro-democracy movements abroad, while under-reporting similar movements in Gaza and the West Bank. From Mr. Hitchens, whom I had expected to be the most uncompromisingly ideological of the panelists, came a few surprises. He called for "self-criticism," maintained there had re- cently been an "enormous shift" in news media's depic- tion of "the Arab cause," and advised the audience not to blame the news media that "the Arab world is seen as silent, ambivalent, hypo- critical about the treatment of the Kurds" or that author Salman Rushdie is in hiding. That, he said, is the "fault of the Arab intelligentsia in j the Middle East." And from me came an effort to create a common ground. All of us, I said, — American Jews, American There was a barrage of venting, and, apparently, a goodly supply of spleen. Arabs, journalists and, even, TV anchors —are "victims of the press — sometimes. "What may be emerging," I said, "is a larger commun- ity of the aggrieved, the mass of which always seems to be defined by those who subscribe to the concept that `their' story is not being told." I proposed that Jewish- American and Arab- American journalists travel together to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. This might lessen, I suggested, "objectifying the other" and help journalists "see the other as fully human and not as this abstraction of 'Jew' and 'Arab.' " When Mr. Jennings asked for questions from the au- dience, the very first, as it turned out, was the Arab parallel to Jewish claims that the ABC anchor was anti-Israel. "You are a participant in dishonest reporting from the Middle East," a woman told