Night Owl 9/Night Owl CD-ROM (NOPV9) (Night Owl Publisher) (1993).ISO/044a/camer293.zip/CAMERA

Internet Message Format | 1993-03-26 | 85KB

Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 20:12:02 EST
From: charles cramer <[e-mail]>

            CAMERA (R)    Action Alert
                          February 1, 1993

     As anticipated, "Journey to the Occupied Lands," a production of PBS's
Frontline which aired on January 26, 1993, proved to be another addition to
the Public Broadcasting Service's sorry record of biased documentaries on the
Arab- Israeli conflict.

     At last, however, public protest against the use of tax dollars to purvey
blatant distortions and misinformation may get a genuine hearing.  The
Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government entity that
dispenses funding to the public networks (to PBS, NPR, APR, Pacifica), has
said it will finally enforce the federal statute that demands of public
networks "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in programs or series of
programs of a controversial nature."

     CAMERA believes PBS has clearly violated that law by virtue of its many
biased documentaries on the Arab-Israeli conflict and strongly urges public
complaint.

     Your calls and letters are essential!

     1.  Call the new 24-hour 800 number.  It takes just a minute to leave a
         message.

          1-800-356-2626
         (Your message should be succinct; the operator only records 15 words.
         Say, for example, "I protest the many anti-Israel documentaries on
         PBS, including `Journey to the Occupied Lands.'")

          Or send a letter to the P.O. Box established by CPB:

          CPB
          P.O. Box 50880
          Washington, D.C. 20091-0880

      2.  Let the station manager of your local PBS affiliate know your
          complaint.

          Local affiliates purchase programming from PBS, relying in part on
          viewer contributions.  Let the manager know that you will not help
          fund the airing of biased and inflammatory Middle East
          documentaries.  Also remember, affiliates have the choice of airing
          or not airing a given PBS program.  No affiliate had to run "Journey
          to the Occupied Lands."

      3.  Contact members of the Board of Directors of your local PBS
          affiliate or attend a Board meeting.  (They are often open to the
          public.) Let the Board know that you oppose biased programming and
          will reconsider any future financial support for the affiliate.


          The following points may be useful in writing letters or making
                  calls about "Journey to the Occupied Lands"


1.  Like other PBS documentaries "Journey to the Occupied Lands," produced by
Michael Ambrosino and Gillian Barnes, advances a biased and false premise:
That achievement of Arab-Israeli peace hinges solely on questions of land
ownership in the West Bank and of Israeli conduct towards Palestinian Arabs.
This is the Arab viewpoint, which seeks to exclude or distort both the history
of the conflict and current factors, especially Arab opposition to Israel's
existence and the military threat to the Jewish state.

> Indicative of Ambrosino's willingness to manipulate the truth is his
description of the Six Day War: "Victory in the 1967 War meant Israel grew
again, taking possession of the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan." Despite
the film's focus on Israeli policies in the territory of the West Bank and
Gaza, not a word is uttered in 90 minutes about the aggression of 5 Arab
armies that prompted a defensive war by Israel and capture of that land.

> Ambrosino portrays Israel as a military aggressor and colonizer, never
mentioning the armed Arab dictators surrounding the Jewish state whose
assaults have necessitated continual military preparedness.  Nor is any
mention made of the central role of Palestinian Arab forces in attempts to
destroy Israel in 1948 and 1967.  Nor is any indication given that Israeli
citizens continue to be the victims of terror attacks committed by Hamas and
the PLO.

> At the same time that Ambrosino's film excoriates Israel for building
settlements on the West Bank and for allegedly seizing Arab land, it excludes
even recent historical background relevant to Jewish ties to the territory.
Omitted are any references to the 1948 Jordanian expulsion of all Jews from
the territories, the destruction of Jewish property and the passage of laws
invoking the death penalty for anyone selling land to a Jew.

2.  "Journey to the Occupied Lands" is strewn with outright factual error
concerning land ownership and Israeli actions.  In every case the false charge
is made in the service of advancing Arab charges of Israeli injustice or
oppression.

> Ambrosino claims: "The new settlers altered the balance between the Jewish
and Arab population to insure that Jerusalem will never be anything but a
Jewish city." Contrary to Ambrosino's irresponsible statement, the ratio of
Jews to Arabs has actually shifted slightly in favor of the Arabs since 1967.
Moreover, Jews have been a majority or plurality in Jerusalem since census
taking began in the city with the Ottomans almost two hundred years ago.  Yet,
the Frontline producer presents the influx of Jews to Jerusalem's suburbs as a
plot to usurp Arab territory and a despoiling of the native land by "a hundred
and thirty thousand settlers."

> Ambrosino claims: "..two thirds of the West Bank has now been reserved for
exclusive Jewish use." To the contrary, a recent review undertaken for the
Israeli delegation to the peace talks showed that 61% of the land is privately
held by Arabs, 30% is held by the state and 9% is under Jewish ownership.

> Ambrosino claims: "The trouble is, the land registration process was
suspended by the Israelis when their occupation began." The assertion is
false.  For twenty-six years Israel has continued the same registration
practices as existed under the Jordanians, British and Ottomans.

> Ambrosino claims: For residents of Gaza to be issued permits to work in
Israel they must prove they are "not suspected of political or trade union
activity." The truth is the opposite.  Legal trade unions function in Gaza and
participants may receive permits to work in Israel.  Only Gazans posing a
security risk are prohibited.  The Frontline producer also neglects to inform
viewers that Israelis have had special cause for concern about Gaza as a
number of its residents have perpetrated particularly gruesome terror attacks
against Jews within Israel in the last several years.

> Ambrosino claims: "A city [Jerusalem] that was supposed to be united in 1967
is still as divided as ever." Only the most extreme, pro-Arab ideologue would
fail to observe that before 1967 a no-man's-land physically divided Jerusalem
and that neither Christians nor Jews had free access, as they do now, to
respective places of worship.  The remarkable level of freedom, civility, calm
and prosperity for all residents that has developed in the last 26 years is
evidence of the progress in assuaging the problems of divisiveness in the
city.

> Ambrosino claims: "According to international law these settlements are
illegal." In fact, the legality of the settlements under international law is
disputed.  (Jimmy Carter termed them illegal, but Ronald Reagan considered
them legal.) Eugene Rostow, a framer of UN Resolution 242 that established the
basis for future negotiations regarding the territories after the Six Day War,
argues they are legal.  He points out that the previous legal sovereign in the
land was the British Mandatory authority which explicitly permitted Jews to
settle.  Thus, whether or not the settlements are politically, economically or
diplomatically advisable, they cannot be summarily dismissed as illegal.

3.  As glaring as the numerous overt misstatements are the omissions.  The
dramatic improvements in health care and education that have affected Arabs
under Israeli jurisdiction are, not surprisingly, excluded from the film.
Infant mortality in Gaza, for example, declined from 86 per thousand live
births to 28 between 1968 and 1988.  The number of institutions of higher
learning in the West Bank and Gaza rose from 0 to 22 during the first nineteen
years of the Israeli presence.

4.  Predictably, in a work such as this the choice of speakers is skewed and
the tenor of the interviewer's comments is partisan.  Thus, while Israeli
Ambassador Zalman Shoval is given opportunities to make formal statements on
issues, and Jewish settlers are interviewed, the extended and sympathetic
segments are reserved for the Arabs and for Israeli critics of Israel.  While
Ambrosino turns angry and confrontative in an interview with Jewish settlers,
he is consistently and openly sympathetic to the Arabs.  "Good Lord, Rami,
what happened here?" says he, on spotting a house allegedly demolished by the
Israelis for lack of a permit.

5.  Frontline executive producer David Fanning is responsible for at least
three other unbalanced documentaries on the Arab-Israeli conflict: "The Arab
and the Israeli," "The Price of Victory," and "Israel: The Covert Connection."

             Now is the time to make your voice count!!



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Electronic Version Prepared By:
Charles S. Cramer

Copyright (c) 1993 by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East
Reporting in America.  All rights reserved. Permission granted to
reproduce this information without changes or additions to
individual stories, segments or articles.  Reproduction may be in
either mechanical or electronic form, provided that this copyright
statement is included.

CAMERA
P.O. Box 428, Boston, MA 02258
USA
Voice [phone]
Fax   [phone]

==========================================================================


CAMERA Media Report
Vol. 4, No. 1  Fall 1992

The CAMERA Media Report is published by the CAMERA National
Media Resource Center, P.O. Box 428, Boston, MA 02258
Voice [phone]
Fax   [phone]

Editor
Andrea Levin

Contributors
Seth Corey
Jon Haber
Tamara Indianer
Nancy Katz
Kenneth Levin
Karin McQuillan
David Wolf

Electronic Version Prepared By:
Charles S. Cramer

Copyright (c) 1992 by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East
Reporting in America.  All rights reserved. Permission granted to
reproduce this information without changes or additions to
individual stories, segments or articles.  Reproduction may be in
either mechanical or electronic form, provided that this copyright
statement is included.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                  NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

              A Study in News Manipulation

{From time to time the "CAMERA Media Report" presents an extended
analysis of the Middle East coverage of a single media outlet.
This edition provides the results of a six-month study of National
Public Radio and an account of the meeting held by CAMERA
representatives with NPR officials regarding the study findings.}

Why NPR?

In response to continued complaints by CAMERA members over several
years about the hostile and slanted coverage of Israel purveyed on
America's public radio network, and on the basis of numerous
transcripts and tapes of NPR programs, CAMERA issued a number of
"Action Alerts" to its members in the spring and fall of 1991 and
published columns in the Jewish press critiquing NPR and urging
better balance and accuracy.  CAMERA sent formal letters of protest
to Douglas Bennet, president of National Public Radio, in August,
1991, and, receiving no reply, to Bill Buzenberg, Vice president of
News Programming, in early October, 1991.  In mid- December, 1991,
CAMERA received a response from Managing Editor, John Dinges.

Mr. Dinges stated that NPR would look closely at its coverage for
a period of three months during the fall of 1991 and that a meeting
could follow that study.  CAMERA then requested access to NPR
archives in order to commence an overlapping, but more extensive,
study covering the six months from July 1, 1991 through December
31, 1991.

In February, 1992, CAMERA representatives conducted research at the
NPR library.  (See Page 3 for methodology of the CAMERA study.)

The Study
CAMERA has long argued that NPR offers biased coverage of Israel
and the Arab-Israeli conflict.  More particularly, CAMERA has
maintained that the issues considered in stories, the issues
ignored by NPR, and the perspectives and rhetorical slant of NPR
stories consistently fail to take account of Israeli concerns and
Israeli perceptions of events.  Rather, coverage is skewed towards
the perspectives of Israel's enemies.


The Consensus Israeli Perspective

{The following are views endorsed by a broad consensus of both those who favor
territorial concessions and those who oppose them:}


The key issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict is Arab refusal to recognize
Israel's legitimacy and right to exist in the Middle East.  Major forces in
the Arab world, including in the Palestinian community, continue to see war,
with the aim of annihilating Israel, as an option, and Arab states are
actively expanding their military capabilities toward this end.

The Arab goal of destroying Israel transcends the Palestinian-Israeli issue of
territorial boundaries.  The Arab states' campaigns to destroy Israel have not
been waged for the sake of the Palestinians, and no Palestinian-Israeli
accommodation, however desirable for other reasons, would be an assurance of
peace.

Neither the status quo nor annexation of the West Bank and Gaza is desirable.
Since territorial compromise would inevitably entail military risks vis-a-vis
the Arab states, any agreement must allow Israel to retain areas necessary for
defense.

Israel's primary consideration in resolving the territories issue must be
security, and this issue far outweighs considerations of the historical or
religious significance of the territories.  Moreover, Israel's insistence on
the right to defensible boundaries bears at least as much moral authority, and
authority of international precedent, as any other principle of negotiations.



    Information relevant to this perspective



History of the conflict, which includes events before 1967.

Sabre-rattling, attacks, and arms build-ups by Arab states and the PLO.

Exploitation by Arab dictators of militant anti-Israel policies in domestic
and inter-State politics.

Arab anti-Semitism, as reflected in statements of leaders, in texts, and
throughout the Arab media.

Rise of Islamic fundamentalist groups, including HAMAS, with their outspoken
rejection of the peace process and demands for Israel's annihilation.

Statements by the PLO, particularly those made in Arabic for Arab consumption;
and the standing injunctions of the PLO charter calling for Israel's
destruction.

Arab Moslem attitudes towards and treatment of other minorities in the Middle
East.

a)  Kurds.
b)  Blacks in the Sudan.
c)  Christians in Egypt, Lebanon and elsewhere.


Numbers Betray the Bias

NPRs index cites 278 stories on Israel and the Arab-Israeli
conflict between 7/1/91 and 12/31/91.

How many NPR stories reported:

1. The military threat to Israel
       The balance of military power                                  0
       The threat to Israel posed by Arab acquisition of nuclear,
           biological, chemical, and missile technology               0
       Other strategic issues                                         0
2. The strategic significance of the disputed territories and
    how they figure in Israel's security concerns
       With regard to the Golan Heights                               1
       With regard to the West Bank and Gaza                          0
3. PLO goals and actions      0

    The status of the PLOs "two-step" plan which advocates the
    acquisition of whatever territory can be gotten through
    negotiation as a first step toward the annihilation of a
    weakened Israel                                                   0
    Statements by PLO leaders still endorsing the plan                0

4. The stated aim to destroy Israel and campaigns of violence of
    HAMAS, the Palestinian fundamentalist group that enjoys the
    support of an estimated 40% of Palestinians...                    0

5.  The Teheran rejectionist conference (10/22/91) whose theme,
    emblazoned in banners at the gathering, was "Israel must be
    destroyed"                                                        0

       The official PLO delegation led by the President of the
       Palestine National Council                                     0
       The official Jordanian delegation led by the Speaker of
       the Jordanian Parliament                                       0
       The official Syrian delegation                                 0
       Iran's objection to the Madrid talks                           1

6. The nature of the cold peace between Egypt and Israel              0

7.  Arab anti-Semitism                                                0
8.  Arab-Moslem treatment of minorities
       The newly-discovered Kurds (out of 154  Iraq stories)          15
       Blacks in Sudan                                                0
       Moslem-Christian clashes in Egypt                              0
       Moslem-Christian tensions in Lebanon                           0
       Iraq                                                           0
       West Bank                                                      0
9. Rise of Islamic fundamentalism
       Algeria                                                        2
       Pakistan                                                       1
       Egypt                                                          0
       Sudan                                                          0
       Palestinian                                                    0
       Lebanon                                                        0
       (Fundamentalists cited only in context of hostage stories)
10. The Intrafada (killings of Palestinians by other Palestinians
    that in 1991 took three times as many lives as were lost
    in clashes with Israelis)                                         0
11. Syrian seizure of and ongoing domination of Lebanon               0
                                      (out of 79 stories on Lebanon)


       The Consensus Arab Position

The following reflect standard Arab assertions about the Arab-
  Israeli Conflict:


  The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and Israeli expansionism, are the heart of
  the Arab-Israeli conflict and the source of all turmoil in the Middle East.

  In 1967, an expansionist Israel seized Arab territories, and Israel's
  continued occupation is illegal and immoral.

  The only legitimate issue to be negotiated is recognition of the territorial
  rights of the Palestinians and the Arab states and Israel's withdrawal from
  the territories.

  In the absence of withdrawal, the Palestinian-Israeli, and, secondarily, the
  Arab-Israeli conflicts will remain the Middle East's, indeed the world's,
  major powderkeg.

  As long as Israel does not accede to these legitimate Arab demands, Arab
  violence is justified.

  Palestinians claim, in addition, that Israeli withdrawal from the
  territories and creation of a Palestinian state will lead to real peace in
  the region.


Stories and Speakers Advance the anti-Israel Bias


More detailed examination of NPR reports on Israel and the Arab-Israeli
conflict reveal further evidence of the tilt in NPR coverage.


Number of program segments in sample group reviewed: 39


Speakers:

43 Arabs  (36 Palestinian, 7 other Arab speakers)
 No representatives of HAMAS
 No representatives of so-called hardline factions of the PLO

22 Israeli
 Of 10 non-government speakers, 7 are from the far-right (settlers focused on
 religious/historic justifications for their presence on the West Bank), 3 are
 far-left critics of Israel (Ehud Sprinzak compares Israel to South Africa;
 Akiva Eldar, who is heard twice, argues that Israel has been spoiled by the
 U.S.  and can't stand U.S.  playing the honest broker.)

 _No speaker from the centrist Labor party_

 No speaker to articulate concepts of territorial compromise or security
 concerns



The disproportionate reliance on Arab speakers and the misrepresentation of
Israeli opinion is exacerbated by the fact that he extended interviews on these
programs are predominantly with Arabs (5 out of 7).   The extended interviews
were:

  1) 7/23:  Bob Edwards with Hisham Milhem (Lebanese journalist)
  2) 10/23: Bob Edwards with Rashid Khalidi
  3) 10/31: Bob Edwards with Hanan Ashrawi
  4) 12/4:  Bob Edwards with Rashid Khalidi
  5) 12/9:  Bob Edwards with Hanan Ashrawi
  6) 12/3:  Extended interview with Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar, emphasizing
       how wrong Israel is vis-a-vis the U.S. and peace talks.
  7) 10/31:  Extended interview with Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Baruch
       Bina, right after the first extended interview with Ashrawi.  While
       Edwards merely paraphrases Ashrawis statements and asks _no_ probing
       questions, the interview with Bina is all tough questions and challenges.


NPR Study - Methodology

    For use as an index of its Middle East coverage during the last six months
of 1991, NPR provided us with its Program Library Geographic Report, which
lists, by country or region, all broadcast stories more extensive than brief,
headline-like glosses.  The lists contained 278 stories on Israel and the
Arab-Israeli conflict.  Titles of five to eight words conveyed the subject of
each story and allowed some evaluation of issues considered in NPR coverage.

    The Geographic Report also enabled us to compare coverage of Israel and
the Arab-Israeli conflict to coverage of other issues in the Middle East and
elsewhere in the world.

    As the large number of stories on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict
precluded our doing an in-depth study of the contents of all of them, we
sought some selection criterion that would give us a manageable representative
sample.  The Geographic Report also characterizes each story by a keyword
system (e.g., HOSTAGES; ARBITRATION, RECONCILIATION; PEACE) While NPR's
assignment of these keywords to stories is somewhat arbitrary, we decided to
look at all the stories under a particular keyword in order to have an
unbiased selection criterion.  We chose the stories under the keyword PEACE,
as this was the largest group and seemed to offer the widest range of material
and yet the numbers were manageable.  One CAMERA representative reviewed the
transcripts of all "Morning Edition" and "Weekend Edition" stories under the
keyword PEACE, while another taped the "All Things Considered" stories under
this keyword.  The transcripts included the entire "Morning Edition" and
"Weekend Edition" program for that day, and we included in our survey any
other stories on Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict that happened to be in
those transcripts.  We were subsequently informed that not all the "All Things
Considered" tapes were available and we decided to discard the "All Things
Considered" material from this part of the review in order to avoid
introducing a potential bias into the selection criterion.  We consequently
focussed our closer analysis on the thirty-nine stories from "Morning Edition"
and "Weekend Edition."

    Also made available to us were lists of all programs broadcast on "Fresh
Air" and "Talk of the Nation" during the six months under review.  "Talk of
the Nation," a two-hour program, typically devoted an entire hour to a
particular subject, and the lists were of these subjects.  "Fresh Air,"
although less rigidly structured, likewise typically offered two main stories,
hosted by Terry Gross, for each daily two-hour segment, and the lists were
typically of these stories and a daily item by an arts reviewer.

=============================================================================

Publishing Houses, Media Promote Bogus Mideast History

Renowned historian Bernard Lewis wrote in 1986:
"The rewriting of the past is usually undertaken to achieve specific political
aims.  By depicting the great Arab Islamic expansion in the seventh century as
a war of liberation rather than of conquest, the Arabs can free themselves of
the charge, even in the distant past, of imperialism--the most heinous crime
in the current political calendar.  By establishing a direct link with the
ancient inhabitants of their countries, they can strengthen national pride,
and moreover foster that sense of identity with the homeland through the ages
which is the basis of Western-style patriotism...In bypassing the biblical
Israelites and claiming kinship with the Canaanites, the pre-Israelite
inhabitants of Palestine, it is possible to assert a historical claim
antedating the biblical promise and possession put forward by the Jews."

Most Americans would be startled to know how dramatically this revisionist
Arab line has penetrated the mainstream publishing and media industry.
Writers, editors and publishers are generating articles, books, study guides,
encyclopedias and dictionaries containing an account of the past that conforms
to Arab political ends, chief among them the supplanting of Israel by the
Palestinian Arabs.  The venerable "National Geographic," for example, ran a
June 1992 article by Tad Szulc asserting that today's Palestinian Arabs are
descendants of the ancient Canaanites and the Jews simply one of the waves of
invaders of the region to afflict them.  Letter-writers protesting the bogus
history were referred to the writings of Philip Mattar in the Encyclopedia of
the Modern Middle East.  That encyclopedia, currently in development, is to be
published in 1993.  Philip Friedman, publisher of Macmillan references,
explained that Mattar is one of three editors in charge of the four-volume
project and, in Friedman's words, "a scholar in the true sense." Readers may
want to explore further what Friedman means.  Mattar is associate editor of
The Journal of Palestine Studies, which is headed by Hisham Sharabi, a friend
and advisor of Yasser Arafat, and specializes in publishing the most extreme
anti-Israel polemicists: Edward Said, Norman Finkelstein, Don Peretz, Muhammad
Hallaj, Marc Ellis ("Jews have become almost everything we loathe about our
oppressors.."), and so on.

Richard Bulliet, another editor of the upcoming encyclopedia, the former
director of Columbia's Institute of Middle East Studies, has been a signatory
of advertisements and letters condemning Israel.  In a 1990 interview he
advocated U.S.  support for "Islamic politics" and deplored the fact that "the
dominant view of Islam among U.S.  academics is that put forward by
conservatives, hawkish anti-communists and Zionists." The third editor, Reeva
Simon, is a former doctoral student of Bulliets.  Asked whether a panel of
recognized scholars would review the manuscript for accuracy prior to
publication, Friedman did not respond.

One reference already on American bookstore shelves is Webster's New World
Encyclopedia, a single volume published by Prentice Hall General Reference.
Buyers aware of the history of the region are certain to feel defrauded of
their $75 when they check the entry under Palestine.  It says Palestine "..was
in ancient times dominated in turn by Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia,
Macedonia, the Ptolemies, the Seleucids, and the Roman and Byzantine empires.
Today it forms part of Israel.  The Palestinian people...are descendants of
the people of Canaan." The ancient and often dominant presence of Jews in the
rea through three thousand years is omitted and the fiction of Canaanite
heritage for the Palestinians asserted.


Who, in fact, were the Canaanites?  According to standard scholarship,
confirmed by key archeological finds of the 19th and 20th century, the term
Canaanite encompassed a number of Semitic peoples, including the Moabites, the
Edomites, the Ammonites and the Phoenicians who can be traced at least as far
back as the middle of the second millennium BCE.  They inhabited the area of
Canaan that includes modern-day Israel, Jordan and Lebanon.  Biblical Hebrew
is closely akin to the language of the Canaanites, reflecting the influx of
the Hebrews beginning around 1200 BCE.  No scholarly evidence whatever exists
to indicate the Canaanites were Arabs.  The mass of today's Palestinian Arabs
are descendents of immigrants who arrived in the region in the 19th and 20th
century.  Many were fleeing to Turkish-ruled Palestine from Christian advances
in the Balkans, from French empire-building in North Africa and from Russian
conquest of the Caucasus and Central Asia.  Many others arrived from Egypt and
Syria, attracted by the economic opportunities wrought by Zionist development.
While there are Arabs resident in Jerusalem today who trace their ancestry to
the time of Saladin, the Kurdish Moslem who defeated the Crusaders in the 12th
century CE, the legitimacy of such Arab ties obviously does not justify
falsifications of the true history of the region.

Websters includes under the "Palestine" entry a historical chronology
beginning not with the Canaanites but with the Moslem conquest in 636 CE,
perhaps because the mutilation of fact required to omit the Jews throughout
nearly two thousand years daunted even the heedless writers of this work.  The
succession of milestones cited traces the emergence of an apparently new
Jewish presence in Palestine, and at the same time omits critical events that
certify the political legitimacy of modern-day Israel.  The encyclopedia
neglects to mention, for example, that the Balfour Decree called for the
creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and that the League of Nations
endorsed that proclamation.  European persecution is cited as the chief cause
driving Jews into the region, but the most catastrophic manifestation of that
persecution, the Holocaust, is omitted.  (A PBS-promoted study guide contains
a similar chronology that omits the League of Nations mandating creation of a
Jewish homeland in Palestine and excludes mention of the Holocaust.)

At the entry for the year 1948 readers find "a Jewish state was proclaimed.  A
series of Arab-Israeli Wars resulted in the total loss of the Palestinian
state, and the displacement of large numbers of Palestinian Arabs." In fact,
of course, there never has been a "Palestinian state." It is testimony to the
inroads achieved by the Arab campaign to rewrite history that a reputable
company such as Prentice Hall now propagates such unabashed inventions.

Distinguished publications such as the Encyclopedia Britannica may have
actually set the standard for the widespread revisionism to which others have
succumbed.  The 1992 edition contains nearly twenty astonishingly
contradictory and garbled pages under the entry "Palestine." From a map
captioned "Palestine as defined in modern times" that displays the boundaries
of Israel, to the omission of the Holo- caust, to an enumeration of PLO
subgroups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that fails
to mention their bloody terrorist records, this account presents an
exclusively Arab perspective.  Interestingly, the bibliography cites many
contributors to The Journal of Palestine Studies, whose editor Philip Mattar
now directs the new Macmillan project.

As schools, libraries and American homes fill up with reference books,
magazines and newspapers poisoned by the aggressive Arab effort to undo the
ancient Jewish link to the land of Israel, generations may soon believe that
Arab/Canaanites were shoved out of their land in dim antiquity to be liberated
by their Moslem brethren in the 7th century; not that an expansionist Islam
conquered Palestine in a drive that eventually reached all the way to Spain,
subsuming in its path Jewish and Christianinhabitants.  And Arab propagandists
will have successfully obliterated the historical truth that Jews, though
conquered and dispersed, returned persistently through the ages to Jerusalem
and the land of Israel, and achieved independence again, after more than two
thousand years, in territory to which they have profound and lawful claim.

Andrea Levin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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==============================================================================


 Talk of the Nation and Fresh Air


Neither "Talk of the Nation" nor "Fresh Air" are explicitly news programs but
both frequently deal with topics related to political events.  Like the major
news segments of NPR programming, the producers and commentators on these
daily programs displayed a notable preoccupation with matters Israeli and a
notable lack of interest in human suffering and turmoil elsewhere in the
world.

"Talk of the Nation," a two-hour talk show hosted at the time by John
Hockenberry, was inaugurated during the span of the six-month CAMERA study.
Of the 64 shows aired, 15 dealt with foreign affairs.  One third of those (5)
dealt directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and 4 more concerned issues that
brought Israel in as a part of either the hostage issue or other world issues.
There were no programs on any African or South American nation, none on China,
Kashmir, Yugoslavia, Ireland, Japan, Sudan, Kenya or Egypt.  There were 5 on
the former Soviet Union.


"Fresh Air" host Terry Gross did 40 segments that concerned foreign affairs
during the period of the study.  Thirteen focused on the Middle East.  They
included interviews with the following people:

o Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on the occasion of their most recent book
demonizing Israel, and Benny Morris, a revisionist Israeli historian who
accuses Israel of driving Palestinians out of their land;

o Ehud Sprinzak, an Israeli author, who sees the nation threatened by the rise
of the radical right;

o Thomas Friedman, whose reporting on the Middle East is infused with a
well-publicized personal agenda regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict.

o Seymour Hersh, whose book on the alleged villainies of the Israeli military
has been debunked for its reliance on discredited sources;

o Mark Heller and Sari Nusseibi, who co-authored a book on the merits of
creating a Palestinian state;

o Edward Said, an erstwhile member of the Palestine National Council, who
ranks among the most venomous and polemical critics of Israel in America;

o Lloyd Schwartz, who discussed the opera, "Klinghoffer," which enjoyed an
exclusive airing on NPR although it was panned by critics for its artistic
failure as well as for its anti-Semitism;

o Zeev Chefetz, the single interviewee permitted to defend Israel.

===========================================================================


                      Linda Gradstein Pushes Political Agenda


NPR's Middle East correspondent, Linda Gradstein, has consistently issued
reports colored by her publicly-stated views on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
While reporters naturally hold political convictions, most subscribe to a
formal "Code of Ethics" which explicitly states, "News reports should be free
of opinion or bias and represent all sides of an issue."

In an interview with the alumni publication of Pardes, a religious institution
in Jerusalem Gradstein attended from 1986-1988, the reporter revealed her
personal views of the Middle East.  Those views not only reflect an ignorance
of history but an extremist political position.


"Up until the Yom Kippur War, Israel was really ready for peace and the Arabs
werent.  Today that situation has reversed."

In fact, Israel's profound desire for peace and willingness to make
concessions was dramatically demonstrated when, nine years after the Yom
Kippur War, in response to Anwar Sadat's offer of peace, the nation
relinquished to Egypt all of the Sinai with its oil fields, settlements and
air bases.  Israel has continued to wait for similar evidence of peaceful
intent from other neighboring states.  The notion that Israel prefers an
environment of war coincides with the Arab view and is a perspective rejected
by the Israeli public.


"The PLO has done some unbearable, terrible things, but people can
change...Israel has to talk with the PLO."

The pro-Arab position downplays the terror campaign waged by the PLO and the
ongoing acts of terror for which the organization regularly and openly takes
credit.  Despite Arafat's alleged renunciation of terror in 1988, the PLO has
never ceased sponsoring assaults against Israelis and Jews, and its leaders
have continually repeated their aim of destroying Israel.  In the first half
of 1992 alone, Yasser Arafat publicly called for "Holy War" against Israel no
fewer than seventeen times.

"I do feel that Jews have a right to live in Hebron and other places in the
West Bank.  Yet, I don't think that's a right that should be exercised at this
time, because I feel it's a provocation, and because both Jews and Arabs are
losing their lives because of those Jews living there."

Regardless of the advisability of building settlements in the territories, the
notion that Jews are the cause of the violence is, again, contrary to fact and
history.  Terrorism against Jews long predates the settlements, has occurred
in all areas of pre-1967 Israel, and springs from a widespread Arab refusal to
accept the presence of Israelis anywhere in the region.

"I think the Palestinians have a right to a state. "

Again, Gradstein expresses the view of a small minority of Israelis and
Americans, a view which coincides with the Arab perspective.

"When I first came to Israel, I had starry-eyed notions of building bridges
between Arabs and Jews...  Just because Israel has a lot of problems doesn't
mean you give up on it.  If you want the state of the Jewish people to be what
you want it to be, you have to work on it from here."

Gradstein's avowed aim to "work on" changing Israel to conform more to her
vision of how the country ought to function is pursued unabashedly in her
reporting for NPR.  Her own candid description of her agenda suggests a
startling ignorance of professional responsibility to refrain from abusing the
power of the reporter in pursuit of personal aims.

Gradstein's views determine the choice of stories she files and the slant of
those stories.  Among the persistent themes is the insidious equating of the
actions of Arabs and Jews, a device that obscures Arab violence and implicitly
urges Jews toward greater concessions.  Gradstein's bias is entirely
consistent with NPRs overall failure to report Israeli security concerns.  The
following are excerpts from reports filed both during the period of the CAMERA
study and subsequently.


"In the Middle East, history repeats itself .  Seventy years ago, Jews in
Palestine living under the British mandate began building a foundation to
govern themselves.  They started an organization called the Jewish Agency to
run the daily affairs of the Jewish community.  Some of their activities were
legal; others, such as smuggling guns into the area, were not...Now
Palestinians say it's their turn.  Already they've formed committees."
                                       January 20, 1992

The Palestinians began organizing in 1964 when they formed the PLO, whose
objective was the destruction of Israel and whose strategy included worldwide
campaigns of terror against innocents.  In omitting the central "organization"
to which Palestinians look for leadership, and suggesting that the formation
of various "committees" in the West Bank demonstrates a similarity in the
evolution of the Israelis and Palestinians, Gradstein reveals her casual and
careless attitude toward fact and historical veracity.  The Jewish Agency,
primarily a social welfare agency, rescued, housed and clothed persecuted
Jews.  It never called for the destruction of other peoples or engaged in
terror campaigns.  Indeed, where Jews were involved in acts of terror the
Agency condemned them.



"Everyone in the Middle East has his own version of history.  Palestinians say
that in 1948 more than 800,000 Palestinians were forcibly kicked out of their
homes by what soon became Israel.  Israelis say the number is half that and
Palestinians left when their Arab leaders urged them to because they intended
to destroy the Jewish army.  Whatever the numbers or the cause..."
                                       May 14,1992


Evading the first tenet of journalistic responsibility to report the truth,
Gradstein reports the wildly inflated and unsubstantiated Arab refugee numbers
and Arab accusations against Israel.  Literature abounds on the subject of the
Arab refugees, and includes numerous documents by Jewish leaders in 1948
exhorting Arabs to remain in their homes.  Scholars generally agree that
between 450,000 and 600,000 Arabs fled the fighting.  Gradstein also states
misleadingly that the Arabs intended to "destroy the Jewish army." In fact,
the openly-advertised aim was not to destroy just the army, a goal that may
have permitted Jews to remain in the region, but to obliterate the people of
the newborn nation.

Israel is repeatedly portrayed as the unprovoked aggressor, whether in
day-to-day encounters with rock throwers or in the 1967 war:


"In recent weeks there has been an upsurge in violence.  Israeli troops have
shot and killed at least ten Palestinians in the past month.  Arabs have also
stepped up attacks on Israelis."
                                       March 27, 1992


Offering no explanation, Gradstein implies that shootings by Israeli soldiers
were unprovoked attacks.  The words "at least" encourage listeners to
speculate that many more Palestinians died.  Also, why omit the number of Jews
killed by Arabs, and the number of Arabs killed by Arabs?  Gradstein
consistently avoids the matter of the "intrafada," the slaughter of
Palestinians by other Palestinians.  In the last year Palestinians were more
than three times as likely to be murdered by their brethren than to die in
clashes with Israelis (238 to 74).


"The land in question is the occupied territories, meaning the West Bank, Gaza
Strip, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.  Israel conquered this territory
in 1967."
                                       November 1, 1991

Sidestepping history, Gradstein implies that Israel gained the disputed
territories through aggression.  Gradstein repeatedly omits mention of the
facts of the 1967 War, in which Israel gained territory in the course of self
defense.

Gradstein's reports on two funerals, that of a Jewish schoolgirl, Helena Rapp,
and a Palestinian man, are a startling example of the differences in coverage
accorded the two groups.  The treatment given the Jewish victim is peremptory,
detached, and leans towards criticism of the Jews.  In contrast, the Arab's
death is described in a lengthy and highly sympathetic and detailed account.
It contains blatant errors of fact:


"Fifteen year-old Helena Rapp was buried today in an emotional funeral
attended by thousands of local residents.  Rapp's father called on Jews to
exercise restraint, but groups of angry Jews attacked Arabs.  In a town near
the funeral, Jews stabbed and seriously wounded an Arab who is a citizen of
Israel, not the West Bank.  Several other Arab Israeli citizens were attacked,
but not seriously injured."
                                       May 25, 1992

(Excerpts) "Anton Shamili was not very different from most 22 year-olds.  He
liked music and soccer, and his friends say he was always quick to tell a joke
and to laugh...Anton had been in and out of jail since he was fourteen.  He
has never been accused of kidnapping or murder, but the organization he
belongs to, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is suspected of
hundreds of such attacks...  Inside the home, visitors are offered cups of
bitter black coffee.  Drinkin the coffee shows that the visitor joins in the
familys mourning.  But along with the mourning there is anger...  One fact is
clear: Israeli soldiers are killing Palestinian men in increasing numbers...
But to Anton Shamilis parents, all of this discussion is little consolation.
His mother, Samira, sits dressed in black, looking much older than her age of
fifty-seven.  `I want my son' she says over and over.  `I could understand if
he was part of a demonstration and then been killed, but he wasn't doing
anything.  They just killed him.' Across the road, Anton's father Louis is
sitting with the men, his face covered with a grizzled gray beard.  Louis was
partially crippled from polio as a child.  He puts up a brave front, saying
he's proud to sacrifice his son for Palestine, but his eyes and his shaking
hands reveal his suffering."
                                       May 28, 1992


The lack of humanizing detail in the description of the girl, the
insignificance of her family's suffering, and the negative assertions about
her community, all stand in striking contrast to Gradstein's vivid, moving,
and extended portrayal of Anton Shamili and his family.  Apparently, for
Gradstein and NPR only Palestinian suffering deserves listener attention, and,
it seems, the death of a Palestinian is more relevant to the conflict than the
death of a Jew.

o The use of the word "suspected" to characterize the documented crimes of
  the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a blatant instance of
  the reporter's determination to obscure even the most notorious PLO
  violence.  Similarly, Gradstein evades reporting the particulars of Anton
  Shamili's crimes, implying his behavior had been inconsequential.

o Gradstein resorts to outright falsehood to advance her thesis of Israeli
  brutality and Arab victimization when she states, "One fact is clear;
  Israeli soldiers are killing Palestinian men in increasing numbers." The
  fact that is clear is precisely the opposite.  The number of Palestinians
  dying in clashes with Israelis has declined sharply since 1989, from 270
  that year to 93 in 1990 and 74 in 1991.  The number has continued to
  decline in 1992.

A particularly telling and willful misrepresentation of the Arab's funeral is
to be found in Gradsteins translation of the chanting of the crowd in
attendance.  Gradstein claimed the crowd chanted an innocuous, "We will never
forget you." However, an NPR listener fluent in Arabic differed.  "With fire
we will liberate Palestine," was the cry, a variation on the Arab chant
familiar to Israelis, "With fire and blood we will liberate Palestine."

Having defined what she considers the essentials of the Middle East conflict,
Gradstein presents these views as though they are the actual geopolitical
concerns of the parties.  As always, the central concerns of Israelis and
American supporters of Israel are omitted, superseded by her perspective:

"...the biggest issues remain what they were at the beginning: Who will
represent the Palestinians?  And if a conference is convened, will Israel be
willing to trade land for peace?"
                                       October 16, 1991

"Despite what Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir may say, the Madrid
conference is about trading land for peace."
                                       November 1, 1991

Absent from Gradstein's reports is the full Middle East landscape which
reveals that for Israel "the biggest issues" are not those involving the
Palestinians but those related to the irredentist Arab impulse to destroy
Israel and the emerging intensification of that drive with the growth of
militant Islam and Arab acquisition of increasing quantities of conventional
and non-conventional arms, including biological weapons and nuclear
technology.  From Gradstein's viewpoint and from the Arab view, however, the
peace conference concerned just one major issue, extracting territory from
Israel.  In the worst tradition of unprincipled journalism, the reporter knows
better than the involved parties, and shapes the facts to her opinions.

"The goal of the Intifada has been to force Israel to accept an independent
Palestinian state next to Israel."
                                       October 29, 1991

Conveniently, Gradstein excludes mention of the "goals" daily reiterated by
PLO and HAMAS spokesmen calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state.
Even among those segments of the Palestinian community assumed to be most
moderate, the Western-oriented Christians, many openly resist notions of
accommodation with Israel.

"But at least for now, the young men of Palestine and the young men of Israel
are killing each other in a war that seems far from ending.
                                       May 28, 1992

So impatient is Gradstein for the creation of an actual Palestine she employs
the power of her position on National Public Radio to promote the effort,
implying as in this quote that a Palestinian state exists.

=============================================================================

                      NPR: Islamic Fanatics = Jewish Fanatics

Among the most distorted and dangerous assertions by NPR's Linda Gradstein was
the following on October 10, 1991, in which Islamic extremists, numbering in
the millions, are compared to the tiny band of non-violent Temple Mount
Faithful (the only Jewish group that advocates supplanting Muslims on the
Temple Mount).  Unsuspecting listeners are falsely led to believe there is a
symmetry between "both sides."

"But the hard-liners and religious fanatics on both sides are fighting against
peace.  In radical Islam, there is no room for Israel as a Jewish state.  And
in messianic Judaism, there is no place for Muslims on the Temple Mount."
(Linda Gradstein, 10/10/91)


 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
              | Islamic Extremists                     | Temple Mount Faithful                                                         Islamic Extremists
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Number:      | Millions                               |  150
 -------------|----------------------------------------|----------------------
 Aims:        | Destruction of Israel, conversion of   |  Rebuild the Temple
              | infidels world-wide, obliteration of   |
              | Western and democratic values,         |
              | subjugation of women and minority      |
              | (dhimmi) groups                        |
 -------------|----------------------------------------|----------------------
 Methods:     | Discriminatory laws, war, terrorism,   |  Parades, speeches,
              | assassination, mass deportations,      |  newspaper ads
              | starvation                             |
 -------------|----------------------------------------|----------------------
 Nations taken| Sudan, Algeria, Mauritania, Iran,      |  None
 over or      | Tunisia, Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt,     |
 destabilized:| Jordan                                 |
 -------------|---------------------------------------------------------------
 Nation whose | Israel, United States, Britain, France,| None
 citizens have| Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, |
 been killed  | and others                             |
 by extremists|                                        |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Obsessed with Israel, NPR Ignores anti-Semitic Libels of Islamic Extremists

HAMAS, the burgeoning Palestinian Islamic organization, is opposed to any
peace agreement with Israel and, by the evidence of its leaders and written
documents, seeks the extinction of the nation.  The organization boasts
increasing popular support among Palestinian Arabs, as much as 40% of the
population of Gaza and the West Bank.  Evidence of HAMAS's influence is the
victory of its candidates in, for example, recent Chamber of Commerce
elections in the city of Ramallah, where the organization's adherents won ten
of eleven seats.  During the six months covered by the CAMERA study, NPR aired
not a single report on HAMAS, its goals and its potential impact on the
achievement of peace.  The following quotes are taken from the charter of
HAMAS:

Article 22:
"For a long time, the enemies [the Jews] have been planning, skillfully and
with precision, for the achievement of what they have attained.  They strived
to amass great wealth which they devoted to the realization of their dream.
With their money, they took control of the world media...With their money they
stirred revolutions in various parts of the world with the purpose of
achieving their interests and reaping the fruit therein.  They were behind the
French revolution, the Communist revolution and most of the revolutions we
hear about, here and there...They were behind World War I...They were behind
World War II..."

Article 28:
"The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion.  It does not refrain from
resorting to all methods, using all evil and contemptible ways to achieve its
end.  It greatly relies in its infiltrations and espionage operations on the
secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, the Rotary and
Lions Clubs, and other sabotage groups...It is behind the drug trade and
alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion..."

Article 32:
"...After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the
Euphrates.  When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will
aspire to further expansion, and so on.  Their plan is embodied in the
`Protocols of the Elders of Zion,'..."

=============================================================================


                             CAMERA'S Meeting with NPR

On June 1, 1992, CAMERA representatives met with NPR officials, presented the
results of the study, and urged reform of the network's Middle East news
coverage.  Among specific recommendations made were the following:

o Strict NPR monitoring of their own journalists for adherence to
  Federally-mandated statutes calling for balance and objectivity in the
  choice of stories, interviewees and experts.  Clearly enunciated and
  enforced prohibition against reporters employing NPR as a vehicle for
  advancing personal political views.

o An end to the practice of misconstruing small, leftist splinter groups as
  representative opinion, or as the voice of conscience of Jews; an end to
  the use of right-wing, religious extremists to exemplify the segment of
  opinion concerned about territorial issues.

o An end to broadcasting Palestinian allegations of Israeli wrong-doing
  without normal standards of verification and without including equal time
  for the Israeli response.

o Adherence to a policy of treating the suffering and deaths of Israelis
  with the same sympathetic attention as those of Palestinians.


CAMERA presented a list of critical issues excluded entirely from or severely
underreported on NPR and stressed the importance of _integrating_ these
fundamentals into Middle East coverage.

1.  Israel's Security Concerns
  o Views of _centrist_ American and Israeli strategic and military
  specialists.  (eg: General Thomas Kelly, Edward Luttwak, Michael Ledeen,
  Hirsh Goodman).

  o The strategic significance of Syria's take-over of Lebanon, weapons
  buying, and expansionist ambitions.

  o New weapons technologies and enlarged arsenals, including nuclear
  development, in Arab countries at war with Israel, and their impact on the
  strategic balance.

  o Arab fundamentalism's burgeoning power and its central aim of destroying
  Israel.

  o The political use by Arab dictatorships of aggressive policies towards
  Israel to deflect attention from domestic failures and to unite diverse
  groups.

  o The stunning absence of democracy and tolerance for pluralism in the
  Arab world, including in the PLO, and the effect on Israel's long-term
  security.

  o Arab intolerance towards and persecution of non-Arab minorities in the
  Middle East and the implications for Arab acceptance of Israel.

2.  Arab Anti-Semitism

  o HAMAS and its virulently anti-Semitic charter and terrorist activities.

  o The recent government-promoted, anti-Semitic campaign by Egypt that
  included charges that Israeli's were spreading AIDS, agricultural pests
  and hoof-and-mouth disease.

  o The Arab publishing industry's promulgation of both infamous European
  and newly-written Arab anti-Semitic books.

  o The regular appearance of anti-Semitic slanders in the mainstream Arab
  press.

  o The role of Gulf money in world-wide dissemination of anti-Semitic
  literature and funding for anti-Semitic groups.

  o Anti-Semitic statements by Palestinian leaders, including Arafat and the
  Mufti of Jerusalem.


3. Minorities in the Middle East.
   _Information about how non-Muslim and non-Arab minorities are treated in the
   Arab world is vital to an understanding of Israel's security concerns_.

  o Slavery and indentured servitude in Mauritania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia,
  Kuwait and other Gulf states.

  o The Arab massacre and deportation of hundreds of thousands of Christian
  and animist blacks in the Sudan.

  o Discrimination and violence against non-Arab or non-Muslim minorities
  such as Copts, the Christian communities of Lebanon, Kurds, Druze, Berbers
  and Jews.


4. The Intrafada

Today Palestinian lives are at most risk, not from the Israeli army, but from
masked Palestinian executioners.  In 1991 more than three times as many
Palestinians were killed by their brethren as died in clashes with Israeli's
(238 to 74).  NPRs virtual blackout of this issue underscores the network's
indifference to Palestinian suffering unless it can be invoked for criticism
of Israel.

5. The Arab Propaganda Machine and Lobby in America
  o Organizations, funding, links to the U.S.  oil industry, links to
  far-right and far-left anti-Semitic organizations

  o Targeting of the American education system, including textbooks and
  encyclopedias, with anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda

  o Targeting of American professional organizations and meetings to include
  anti-Israel propaganda

  o Relations with the American press

=============================================================================


What YOU Can Do About Anti-Israel Bias at NPR

1.  Reconsider carefully any financial support for NPR affiliates.  Affiliates
purchase NPR programming and can, if they choose, select another product.
Americans concerned about the welfare of Israel do not have to pay for the
defamation of the Jewish state.


2.  Write to the Station Manager of your local NPR affiliate as well as to the
local Board of Directors and sponsors to explain your concerns, especially if
you choose to suspend support.  Remember that NPR is mandated by law under
Federal Statutes of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (Title 47, Section
396, Article G) to provide "strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all
programs or series of programs of a controversial nature."


3.  Maximize your efforts.  Send copies of your letters to the following:



o Sheila Tate, Chairman - Corporation for Public Broadcasting, c/o Powell Tate,
  Suite 1100, 655 Fifteenth St., Washington, D.C. 20005

o Senators Daniel Inouye and Robert Packwood (Senate Commerce and Communications
  Subcommittee), United States Senate, Washington, D.C., 20510

o Your own elected officials

o Your local newspaper, Jewish, Christian, or secular



4.  Next time you hear a one-sided NPR broadcast call or write your local
affiliate and the national NPR headquarters (800-235-1212/202-822-2000; 2025 M
St.  NW, Washington DC 20036) to remind them why NPR is gaining a reputation
for shoddy journalism.

=============================================================================

                                 Bookstore Alert!!

CAMERA urges members to make a point to visit bookstores in your area and to
note the lineup of books and periodicals available on the Middle East.  If you
find the collected Middle East works of Noam Chomsky and Edward Said but
little mainstream scholarly work, talk to the manager.  (Chomsky is a linguist
and Said an English literature specialist; both pose as Middle East experts in
purveying virulent anti-Israel polemics.) Many book businesses are
increasingly featuring the works of fringe commentators,partly because of
media focus on these publications.  NPRs "Fresh Air," an arts and
entertainment program, has, for example, featured anti-Israel authors Andrew
and Leslie Cockburn and Seymour Hersh.  Another volume currently appearing in
bookstores is a collection of essays heavily tilted toward Arab views edited
by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea and promoted by the Public Broadcasting Service.
Many stores are responsive to suggestions and glad to add titles customers
request.  Be specific.  Ask that books basic to an understanding of the Middle
East be stocked.  Some suggested titles include:

"The Arab Predicament"  by Fouad Ajami
"The Jewish Idea and Its Enemies"  by Edward Alexander
"The Making of Modern Zionism"  by Shlomo Avineri
"O Jerusalem"  by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
"A Peace to End All Peace"  by David Fromkin
"The Arab-Israeli Conflict; Its History in Maps"   (and other works of
     Martin Gilbert)
"Slavery in the Arab World"  by Murray Gordon
"Politics in the Middle East"  by Elie Kedourie
"A History of Zionism"  by Walter Laquer
"The Israel-Arab Reader"  by Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin
"Semites and Anti-Semites" and other works  by Bernard Lewis
"The Saudis"  by Sandra Mackey
"Minorities in the Middle East"  by Mordechai Nisan
"The Siege"  by Conor Cruise OBrien
"Law and Morality in Israels War With the PLO"  by William O' Brien
"The Arab Mind"  by Raphael Patai
"The Seed of Abraham"  by Raphael Patai
"From Time Immemorial"  by Joan Peters
"In the Path of God: Islam  and Political Power"  by Daniel Pipes
"The Closed Circle"  by David Pryce-Jones
"The Redemption of the Unwanted"  by Abram Sachar
"The Jews of Arab Lands"  by Norman Stillman
"The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times"  by Norman Stillman
"Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs"  and
"Ben Gurion: The Burning Ground, Vol.1"  by Shabtai Teveth
"Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred"  by Robert S. Wistrich

=============================================================================


World Briefs
Sudan accused of genocide plan

NEW YORK - The Sudanese government is staging a campaign to eradicate the
Nuba people, a group of 1 million non-Arabs, Africa Watch said in a report
yesterday.  The human rights group charged that Sudan's campaign against the
Nuba includes detention and killing of the educated, burning of villages,
separation of men and women and relocation of the population to camps.  The
Nuba include many Christians and believers in traditional religions.  They
live in the Arab-dominated northern region of Sudan. According to the report,
Dr. Abu-baker al-Shingieti, counselor at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington,
called the allegations "false and unfounded." (AP)

THE BOSTON GLOBE
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1992

{The Arab/Islamic government of Sudan has conducted a decades-long war against
the Christian and animist blacks of the South in which as many as a million
blacks have been killed.  The carnage continues, but the "Boston Globe," like
many other media, exhibits near total indifference, burying the story of
genocide in an eighteen line newsbrief on _page 24_.  The silence of the media
tragically abets the deportation and extermination of men, women and children
of the ancient Nuba tribe.}

=============================================================================

                                      CAMERA
                                     SPOTLIGHT

"We need to start asking the same fundamental questions about the press that
we do of the other powerful institutions in this society--about who is served,
about standards, about self-interest and its eclipse of the public interest
and the interest of truth.  For the reality is that the media are probably the
most powerful of all our institutions today; and they are squandering their
power and ignoring their obligation."

Carl Bernstein,
"The New Republic,"  June 8, 1992

=============================================================================


                          Where's the Media Coverage?

The following are stories that received minor coverage in the American media,
or none at all.

                    Bush's Conflicting Policy Toward Gadhafi

Despite tough talk in public characterizing Libya as a terrorist state, the
Bush administration pursues lenient policies toward US oil companies with
business interests in Libya.  At the same moment the Justice Department was
preparing to indict two Libyan intelligence agents for their alleged role in
the bombing of Pan Am 103, several US oil companies were granted exemptions
from US sanctions barring travel to Libya.  US oil companies needed the
exemptions to continue the negotiations underway with Libyas National Oil Co.
The unpublicized trip was made to Tripoli (a month before the indictments were
handed down) and further negotiations and meetings with Libya continue.
(Excerpted from the "Wall Street Journal," 8/25/92, p.  A16)


              Black Panthers Slay Prominent Palestinian Physician

Palestinian assailants stabbed and shot to death Dr.  Ahmed Istateh, 53, head
of the civil administration health services in Jenin.  Istateh, an
orthopedist, was accused of collaborating with Israeli authorities.  In 1983,
Israel appointed Istateh to the Jenin city council.  Dr.  Istateh was the
555th Palestinian killed by fellow Arabs since the beginning of the intifada
four years ago.  Arab reports said the Black Panthers, an arm of the PLO's
Fatah wing, were responsible for the murder.  (Excerpted from the "Boston
Globe" 'World Briefs', 4/23/92, p.  26, and the "Jerusalem Post" 4/23/92)


                  Twenty-two Anglenos Slain in Single Weekend

The American media focus extraordinary attention on even the most mundane
events in the state of Israel (a leaky roof at Jerusalems Al Aksa mosque
elicited a page 4 article of 17 inches with a photo on September 8, 1992, in
the "New York Times") but often exhibit scant interest in violence elsewhere,
including in the United States.  During a weekend in late July twenty-two
people were killed and twenty-four wounded by gunfire and stabbings in Los
Angeles alone.  The "Times" ran a four-inch column on page 15 (August 25,
1992) and many papers did not report the carnage at all.


                              Women of Arab Lands

In May, 1992, an Egyptian administrative court upheld the 1991 government
decision to dissolve the Egyptian branch of the Arab Womens Solidarity
Association (AWSA), a highly-regarded women's rights organization, and decreed
that all assets be turned over to Women of Islam, a little-known group headed
by a government official that does not deal with womens rights.  The rise of
Islamic fundamentalism has brought increased oppression to the lives of women
throughout the Arab world.  In the Sudan, women are detained, tortured, raped
and murdered for failing to support the Islamic fundamentalist regime of
General Omar Hassan al Bashir.  The brutal practice of female circumcision is
performed on young girls in many parts of the Arab world.  Millions of women
cannot vote, drive cars, or travel outside their country.  They cannot leave
their homes alone without a male's permission, or work or attend schools with
men.  They cannot appear in public unless totally covered, for fear of being
splashed with acid or lashed by enforcers of the strict Islamic code.
(Excerpted from "Middle East Watch," June, 1992, and "Africa News," May 25,
1992)

=============================================================================


                             Thumbs Up!

    To "New York Times" columnist WILLIAM SAFIRE for his hard-hitting series
of articles on "Iraqgate," in which he traced the course of U.S.
aggrandizement of Iraq prior to the invasion of Kuwait.  Charging official
corruption in "the wrongful application of U.S.  credit guarantees," "the
misleading of Congress," and "the obstruction of justice," the columnist
recounted in detail names, dates and cover-ups.  In a particularly damning
revelation, Safire describes a memo written in 1989 by a Foreign Service
officer, Frank Lemay, warning the State Department that Saddam Hussein was
financing development of a nuclear bomb with loan guarantees from the U.S.,
allegedly targeted for grain purchases.  Safire reveals that the memo itself
was suppressed by officials of the State Department in order to ensure that
James Baker's request for an additional billion dollars in grain guarantees
for Iraq would not be obstructed.

Safire's high-profile opinion pieces contrast with the "New York Times" lowkey
emphasis on the important story.  Other papers, the "Los Angeles Times" and
the" Boston Globe" among them, ran front-page "Iraqgate" stories more than
twice as often as did America's newspaper of record.


    To STEVE EMERSON, author and journalist, for "Off Target" in the May issue
of "Washington Journalism Review" debunking a sensationalized series of media
reports that charged Israel with selling U.S.  weapons technology to China.
Emerson traces the distortions, often propelled by malice towards Israel, that
grew out of unsubstantiated government "leaks." Columnists Rowland Evans and
Robert Novak, rabid critics of Israel, are shown to have repeatedly published
baseless allegations and, when decisively countered by A.M.  Rosenthal in the
"New York Times", to have sidestepped the evidence and cranked out more
unsupported charges.  Faulting as well other journalists and editors who
rushed to indict Israel, then blamed the U.S.  administration for hasty and
irresponsible allegations, Emerson urges the media to issue its own apology
for the spasm of reckless reporting.

Emerson often goads his profession for tendentious work and indifference to
normal standards of accountability.  Speaking recently in Cleveland he charged
"there is an enormous, scandalous distortion in the way the Mideast is
reported." He noted that public opinion polls reveal Americans hold Egypt,
Saudi Arabia and Jordan in higher regard than they do Israel.  That preference
for dictatorial and repressive regimes over the region's one democracy flows,
in his view, from the media's obsession with Israel and indifference to the
behavior of Arab states.


                            Thumbs Down!

    To National Public Radio's LINDA GRADSTEIN for her remorseless hectoring
of Israel, and her contempt for fact and context (see related article).  On
July 30, 1992, Gradstein focused on Israel's supposedly capricious policy of
keeping Palestinian Arab "exiles" waiting when they cross the Allenby Bridge
from Jordan to visit family members in the West Bank.  In customary NPR
fashion Arabs, including a 37-year-old pregnant mother of nine, are
interviewed in sympathetic detail while Israelis are permitted only limited
self-defense against accusations and innuendo.  And, true to type, Gradstein
underplays Israeli concerns and omits critical information, stating "Israel
fears many of these people are unfriendly to the Jewish state." Among the
conspicuous and essential facts excluded are the following: 1) The heavy
traffic (as many as 50,000 people this summer) on the Allenby Bridge goes one
way only; Arabs crossing into Israeli-controlled territory.  Israelis are not
permitted in Jordan.  2) Israeli fear that some of these people may be
"unfriendly" is based on the experience of finding explosives smuggled across
the border in childrens toys, coffins, luggage, and so on.  3) There have been
persistent, recent terrorist attempts against Israel from Jordan.  4) Any
tourist entering Israel, even from nations not in a state of war with Israel
as Jordan is, submits to time-consuming security checks.  5) Israel has a
right and a duty to protect her citizens and bitter experience with the need
to take precautions against terror attacks.

    To "USA Today's" JOHANNA NEUMAN for an unabashedly biased and inaccurate
column on July 14,1992, about Arabs in Gaza.  Neuman first presents a portrait
of the family of Fuad al-Amram, accused of killing Israeli teenager Helena
Rapp near Tel Aviv in May.  Implying al-Amram murdered Rapp because he was
deprived of a job, Neuman emphasizes the angry reaction of the Israelis.
Neuman next relates the case of a child allegedly shot by Israelis who
describes from his hospital bed how his uncle had been killed by Israelis
while on an errand to buy ice cream.  Neuman excludes all Israeli response to
these charges.  She concludes her piece with further distortion, stating that
"for the first time since the Intifada began, Palestinians are at risk from
other Palestinians." Like so many others in the media, Neuman has simply
ignored the continuous intra-Palestinian violence that claimed close to 60
lives the first year of the uprising, escalated to 110 in 1989, 212 in 1990,
238 in 1991 and 103 thus far in 1992.  Palestinians are now 3-4 times more
likely to be killed by their brethren as by Israelis.  Apparently for Neuman,
when the facts interfere with personal views, they get changed!

=============================================================================



Number of Jews forced to flee their ancient communities in Arab nations after
                       the creation of Israel: 784,000

Number of square miles of land owned by Jewish citizens of Arab countries
     confiscated by Arab authorities after the creation of Israel: 63,000

        Number of square miles of land in the state of Israel:  8,450

         Number of member states in the World Islamic Conference:  43

   Number of democratic states in the World Islamic Conference: 1 (Turkey)

Nation whose representative to a U.N.  seminar on religious tolerance and
freedom, Dr.  Maruf al-Dawabi, stated that according to the Jewish Talmud "if
a Jew does not drink every year the blood of a non-Jewish man, then he will be
                     damned for eternity." : Saudi Arabia

Arab nation promoting circulation of anti-Semitic publications produced by
          neo-Nazi and neo-Fascist groups in the West: Saudi Arabia

Country whose nationals have recently purchased United Press International:
                                 Saudi Arabia

Nation whose minister of defense, Mustafa Tlas, wrote "The Matzah of Zion" in
         which he justifies ritual murder charges against Jews: Syria

Nation in which the government-regulated media recently charged Israel with
sending spies to spread AIDs, hoof and mouth disease and agricultural pests:
                                    Egypt

Nation in which junior high school textbooks state that "the Jews of Europe
were persecuted and despised because of their corruption, meanness, and
treachery": and whose high school textbooks teach that the God of the Jews "is
      a God who is bloodthirsty, fickleminded, harsh and greedy": Jordan

"Judenrein" nation whose Civil Law 6, paragraph 3 stipulates that "any man can
                 be a...subject, if he is not Jewish": Jordan

Palestinian organization whose charter blames Jews for the French revolution,
                 the Russian revolution, WW I and WWII: HAMAS

Palestinian organization whose unamended charter states that the existence of
      Israel is null and void regardless of the passage of time: the PLO

Number of times Yasser Arafat, chairman of the PLO, publicly called for Holy
     War against Israel during the first six months of 1992: at least 17

Cost to Israel of 40 years of Arab economic boycott, including damage to
    Israeli exports and impediments to investments in Israel: $45 billion

Number of Kurds systematically killed in the late 1980's by Iraqs secret
      police, while the U.S.  was giving aid to Iraq: 200,000 to 300,000

Nation providing Iraq $198 million in technology, parts and knowhow needed for
nuclear, missile, poison gas and germ weapon programs between 1986 and 1990:
                                   Germany

Funds U.S.  has paid to a Persian Gulf bank owned partly by the Iraqi
       government to compensate for unpaid Iraqi loans: $360.7 million

      Number of nuclear scientists and technicians still in Iraq: 15,000

               Number of Jews living in Iraq in 1948:  150,000

                  Number of Jews living in Iraq today:  140

                                                {Sources, See "Sources"}

=============================================================================

Recommended Reading

BOOKS
1.  "The Arab-Israeli Conflict: Its History in Maps."  "The Jewish
     History Atlas." "Jerusalem: Illustrated History Atlas," by
     Martin Gilbert (Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd., 1992) A renowned
     and prolific historian, Gilbert continues to update these
     books and maps which provide invaluable, basic information
     about the Middle East conflict and Jewish history.

2.  "Antisemitism:  The Longest Hatred," by Robert S. Wistrich
     (Pantheon, 1992)  This excellent single volume presents a look
     at antisemitism from pagan roots to its current flowering in
     Arab/Islamic soil.

3.  "Myths and Facts:  A Concise Record of the Arab-Israeli
     Conflict," by Mitchell Bard and Joel Himmelfarb (Near East
     Report, 1992) AIPACs outstanding, updated paperback provides
     ready information on the Middle East in an easy-to-use
     question and answer format.

4.  "Slavery in the Arab World," by Murray Gordon (New Amsterdam
     Books, 1989)  Gordon explores why slavery persists in
     Arab/Islamic nations today, afflicting millions of people.


PERIODICALS
1.  "Commentary," the eminent monthly journal of political and
     social analysis.

2.  "The Jerusalem Post" (Weekly, International Edition of the
     English language daily), must reading for anyone determined to
     get beyond the biased coverage of the American mass media.

3.  "The Jerusalem Report," a bi-weekly magazine published in
     Israel.

4.  "Midstream," a monthly journal of analysis focused on Israel
     and Jewish issues.

5.  "The New Republic," a lively weekly magazine with frequent
     emphasis on the Middle East.

=============================================================================


                Printed and Aired Letters from CAMERA members
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sudan's Genocidal War

To the Editor:
     Arthur L. Lowrie (letter, July 7) quotes Hassan al-Turabi, of
the National Islamic Front in the Sudan, as an example of Arab
Islamic acceptance of peaceful coexistent with other peoples and
religions.  Under Dr. Turabi's guidance, Sudan is carrying on a
genocidal war against black Christians and animists, including a
revival of slavery.
     According to your report of Feb. 22 and July 1, 800,000 black
Sudanese have been pushed into desert camps and offered food and
water only if they convert to Islam.  Dr. Turabi is infamous for
moderate statements to the West and barbaric leadership at home.


                                          KARIN McQUILLAN


New York Times,
Aug. 1, 1992
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear NPR:
If your Middle East correspondent from ten years ago is still
bewildered by how Israeli soldiers could have averted their gaze
from the Shatila massacre in Lebanon, let him consider how easily
world leaders, the media, and especially NPR have averted their
gaze from the suffering of those same Palestinians in Jordan,
Syria, Kuwait and in Lebanon before and after the 1982 war.
All of the dewey-eyed radio tales of Palestinian suffering cannot
change the fact that for NPR, and the rest of the world,
Palestinian lives becomes precious only when they fall under
Israeli jurisdiction.

JON HABER


{Read on NPR's All Things Considered, Sep. 24, 1992 (in response
to an extended series of stories reflecting on the Sabra and
Shatila massacre in Lebanon in 1982).}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To the Editor:
    Pearson Hunt is grossly inaccurate when he writes that "aid [to
Israel] exceeds any given to any other country, anywhere, at any
time."  The aid given to Israel pales in comparison to our defense
commitments to other allies.  In 1990, after the end of the Cold
War, the United States spent $90 billion for the defense of central
Europe, $65 billion to defend the oil-rich Persian Gulf, $19
billion for South Korea, and even $17 billion for the defense of
Norway.  The $3 billion the United States spent on Israel is a
bargain that allows us to advance our foreign policy interests as
well as stimulate our economy.
    Eighty percent of U.S. strategic aid to Israel is used to
purchase American merchandise.  Between 1987 and 1990 a Pentagon
study found that Israel's purchases with U.S. foreign aid
translated into over 115,000 American jobs.
LEE BOSSEN GREEN

Harvard Magazine
September, 1992

=============================================================================


Sources for Just the Facts

 1 "The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times," Norman Stillman; 2
"Jewish Week" 6/12/92-6/18/92; 3 Israeli Consulate; 4-5 "American
Scholar," Winter 1992; 6-7 "Semites and Anti-Semites," Bernard
Lewis; 8 "New York Times," 6/24/92; 9  "Antisemitism: The Longest
Hatred," Robert S. Wistrich;10 "Boston Globe," 4/92; 11 Embassy of
Israel-Information Department; 12 "Jerusalem Post," Eliezer
Whartman, 3/28/92; 13 Covenant of Hamas; 14 Palestine National
Covenant; 15 Nexis; 16 Israeli Federation of Chambers of Commerce,
JTA, 8/6/92; 17 "Time," 6/1/92; 18 "Washington Post," 7/23/92; 19
"Los Angeles Times," 3/29/92; 20 UN Special Commission for the
Disarmament of Iraq, "Foreign Affairs," Vol 71, No 1; 92; 21-22
"Jewish Week," 6/12/92-6/18/92;

=============================================================================

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