PART 11:THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS CONFRONT ISRAEL'S LOBBY, 'BEYOND THE BANKS OF THE POTOMAC'

THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT
PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS 
CONFRONT ISRAEL'S LOBBY 
by Paul Findley


11

Beyond the Banks of the Potomac 

Efforts by the pro-Israel lobby to influence American opinion and policy most often focus on national institutions. particularly the federal government. Yet the lobby in its various forms branches out widely into American life beyond the seat of government on the banks of the Potomac River. Local political leaders. businesses. organizations and private individuals in many fields experience unfair criticism and intimidation for becoming involved in the debate over Middle East issues. Many on "Main Street" have paid a price for speaking out. Particularly distressing are instances of discrimination against Americans of Arab ancestry. [Most Americans have been brainwashed to call these people Muslims,they ARE Arabs! DC]

The Stigma of Arab Ancestry 

Pro-Israeli P.A.C's contributed nearly a million dollars to Senate races alone in 1982, and many members of Congress place a value on A.I.P.A.C support which is beyond accounting in dollars. The political activism of such groups is legitimate and accepted as part of the American political system; yet when Arab Americans attempt to become involved in the electoral process, they find doors closed to them. 

On October 14, 1983. W. Wilson Goode was in the midst of a hard fought campaign to become the first black Mayor of Philadelphia. The widely respected front-runner. popular with virtually every segment of the city's electorate. attended a fund-raising gathering one evening in the home of Naim Ayoub, a local businessman who had invited a number of friends-prominent academics, scientists, medical professionals and business leaders-to meet Goode and contribute to his campaign. 

After a short social interlude. during which he was told of the discrimination often suffered by people of Arab ancestry. Goode expressed concern and declared, with feeling, "I renew my pledge to be mayor of all the people." Ayoub and his guests wrote checks to the Goode campaign. The candidate offered his thanks and departed. The total amount of the checks was $2,725, a small portion of the Goode campaign budget; yet it was enough to spark a heated controversy over Arab influence and the role of Israel in the campaign. 

In the increasingly bitter final weeks of the campaign, Goode's main opponent tried to inflate the contribution into a scandal by disclosing that Ayoub was regional coordinator for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee-a nationwide organization dedicated to opposing discrimination against people of Arab ancestry. Goode, who had been courting the large Jewish vote in the crucial northeast wards by constantly reaffirming his support for Israel, responded by announcing that the checks from Ayoub and his friends were being returned. He explained: "I want to make certain that no one is able to question my support for the state of Israel." 

Jewish voters were apparently satisfied with Goode's explanation of his "mistake," as he went on to win the election with overwhelming Jewish support. Yet as one Jewish Philadelphian later observed, 

One need not support the entire program of the Anti-Discrimination Committee to share the shock and pain of many of its members and friends over such a highly publicized affront to one of its leaders acting in his private capacity. Full participation in the political process should never be restricted to those who espouse only that which is currently popular. 

The Wilson Goode episode was the precursor of similar incidents involving Senator Gary Hart and former Vice-President Walter Mondale in their campaigns for the highest office in the land (see chapter four). 

Arab Americans who have tried to maintain contact with their heritage have found unexpected difficulties. Anisa Mehdi, a news director with TV station WBZ in Boston, observes that it can be "a frightening thing" to be an Arab in America: 

I grew up in New York City with a very politically active father. If there would be a commemoration of the anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre, usually that date would coincide with the Israeli anniversary parade. Jews would be on Fifth Avenue and we would be on Madison Avenue. 

There would be hundreds of thousands of people on Fifth Avenue and maybe ten of us on Madison Avenue. The point is there were at least 100,000 Arab Americans in New York City. Where were they? They were afraid to come out. 

Arab ancestry can also be a liability outside politics, as Dr. George Faddoul, a specialist in veterinary medicine at the University of Massachusetts, can attest. Faddoul's origins are Lebanese, but he was born in Maine and has never had any interest in politics or international affairs. In 1974, Faddoul was working at the Suburban Experiment Station at Waltham, Massachusetts, a facility established by the university to service the farming community in the state. When the directorship came open, he decided to apply for it. After a distinguished career of more than 25 years, Faddoul felt that he deserved it and that such an administrative post would add an interesting new dimension to his work at the station. 

Only one other applicant came forward, and a faculty committee voted 7 to 6 in Faddoul's favor. The rules of the university stipulate that only a simple majority is necessary, but the dean failed to appoint him. Faddoul's own investigation into the reasons revealed that there had been a number of slurs against him in the committee deliberations because of his Arab background. In the discussions Arabs were described as "worthless." Faddoul's assistant, who possessed only a bachelor's degree, was named acting administrative director of the station. Only after pressing his case for seven years did Faddoul receive the position. 

Another person of Arab ancestry, Mahmoud A. Naji, has lived in the United States for 19 years. His wife and three children are all U.S. citizens. He owns his own home in the Chicago area and has an impressive record of gainful employment and civic involvement. He has never been arrested or charged with any wrongdoing. Still, for reasons which the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service will not disclose, he faces deportation from the United States. 

Naji, a native of Jordan, was living in the Dominican Republic as a permanent resident at the time of the American intervention there in 1965. He was evacuated to the United States along with the other foreign residents of the island nation and at that time began his efforts to gain permanent residency status under U.S. immigration laws. Like many immigrants, Naji met with a number of administrative roadblocks and adverse rulings, but his persistence appeared to payoff as each was in turn overcome. His right to adjust his residence status was recognized by the INS district director late in 1980. 

But in February 1981 his petition was again rejected by the INS regional commissioner for a previously unmentioned reason: he had been declared a threat to U.S. security and ordered to leave the United States. 

Naji has been unable to learn the nature of the charges against him, except that the adverse ruling was based on "classified information which is relevant and material, and requires protection from unauthorized disclosure in the interest of national security." Inquiries by Senators Charles Percy and James Abdnor and several House members have been unavailing. 

Naji speculates that misunderstanding of his participation in several Arab American organizations has given rise to the undisclosed charges, although neither he nor any of these groups has ever been accused of any illegal or subversive activity. 

"80 to 85 Percent ... Are Terrorists" 

Arab Americans in the Detroit area have learned about discrimination firsthand. In a June 1983 meeting at Detroit between U.S. Customs officials and airline officials concerning the processing of luggage. a senior Customs official declared that "80 to 85 percent of Arabs in the Detroit metropolitan area are terrorists and the rest are terrorist sympathizers." 

This harsh accusation came after the arrest in 1983 of a 29-year-old Arab Canadian who tried to bring heroin in a false-bottomed suitcase through the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, and a vendetta in which Customs officials began to single out motorists who "looked Arab" for interrogation and automobile searches. In one case, an 18-year-old girl was strip-searched. 

Though the Customs Service later apologized for the remark charging Arabs with terrorism-the offending official received only a reprimand-a local publication joined in the racial stereotyping. After the arrest of a military officer from the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) for attempting to smuggle guns out of the United States, Monthly Detroit magazine carried a story entitled "The Mideast Connection: How the Arab Wars Came to Detroit." Though it cited no examples of Arab Americans being arrested for gun or drug-smuggling, the article portrayed the city's nearly 250,000 Arab Americans as a lawless and violent community. 

"We Will Destroy You Economically" 

Bias and intimidation assume many forms and know no geographical boundaries. Mediterranean House restaurant became an instant success after it opened in Skokie, a predominantly Jewish suburb of Chicago, in 1973. With an Arab cuisine and a mainly Jewish clientele, owner Abdel-Hamid EI-Barbarawi-a Palestinian-born naturalized American citizen-held his staff to a strict "no politics" policy. He fired two employees for becoming involved in political discussions with clients. 

At the peak of its success, Mediterranean House was recommended in all major Chicago dining guides and was frequently praised in newspaper articles. A growing business led Barbarawi to expand, opening several other restaurants under the same name in other areas. 

On a summer night in 1975 a 6-foot pipe bomb was thrown through the window of the one in Morton Grove. No one was injured because the attack came late at night, but the restaurant was destroyed. Fire experts said the bomb was meant to "level the building." 

Trouble returned a year later when Barbarawi and members of his staff emerged from his restaurant in Skokie about 3 A.M., discovering that one side of the building had been covered with posters proclaiming that "Mediterranean House food in your stomach is like Jewish blood on your hands," and "Money Spent Here Supports PLO Terrorism." The graphic impact of the posters' message was enhanced by red paint and raw liver thrown on the walls. Though the vandals were nowhere in sight, Barbarawi found the editor of the Chicago Jewish Post and Opinion taking pictures of the display. The editor said he just happened to be passing. 

The next month, under the headline "Skokie Jews Unknowingly Funding Arab Propaganda," the periodical published an article which urged local Jews to boycott the restaurant, basing its recommendation on the fact that the Mediterranean House advertised on a weekly one hour radio program called "The Voice of Palestine." Ted Cohen, author of the article, described the program as a source of "anti-Jewish propaganda." 

Barbarawi points out that he advertised on six radio stations and also had commercials on several Jewish programs and an India-related program. "I was an advertiser, not a sponsor," he says. "I had never listened to the Voice of Palestine and was not interested in their editorial policy." 

Publication of the Cohen article marked the beginning of the end for Barbarawi. A propaganda campaign was mounted against the restaurant. Leaflets urging local Jews to "Stop Paying for Arab Propaganda" were distributed door to door in Skokie. Large numbers of abusive calls and false orders forced Barbarawi to stop accepting orders by phone. One call threatened his life. In exasperation, Barbarawi interrupted a caller's invective with an anguished question: "Why don't you bomb the place like you did before?" The answer was chilling: "We wouldn't give you that satisfaction. We will destroy you economically. You will die while you are still living. " 

In a Chicago Sun-Times commentary, columnist Roger Simon conceded that Voice of Palestine broadcasts were not anti-Semitic, as Cohen had charged, but concluded oddly by agreeing that Jews should hold Barbarawi "responsible for where his money goes" and backed the Jewish Post and Opinion in calling for a boycott. Barbarawi feels that this commentary damaged business more than any other single factor. Barbarawi appealed, to no avail, to local citizens of Arab ancestry, as well as to the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith to intercede with the Jewish community. He was told that ADL had nothing against him. Director Abbot Rosen stated personal sympathy-"It's terrible; you should sue"-but did not counter the hate campaign mounted by the Jewish Post and Opinion and the unseen callers. Meanwhile Barbarawi saw his revenues drop from $40,000 a month to less than $7,000. As regular Jewish customers stopped coming, a number of non-Jews told Barbarawi that their neighbors were refusing to speak to them because they patronized his restaurant. Facing financial ruin, Barbarawi in desperation turned to legal action, but high costs and repeated court delays finally forced him to abandon this last hope. In the end, the hate campaign of unseen enemies put him out of the restaurant business completely. After losing $3 million dollars, Barbarawi had $3 in his pocket when the local sheriff came to close down his restaurant. Dick Kay, a reporter for Chicago television station WMAQ, summed up the fate of the Mediterranean House and its owner: "They really did a job on him, and it was the militant part of the Jewish community that did it." An official of a Jewish organization faced still another form of pressure. In mid-1983, the Seattle chapter of the American-Arab AntiDiscrimination Committee (ADC) initiated a formal dialogue with the Jewish Federation of Seattle under the sponsorship of the American Friends Service Committee. Anson Laytner, head of the Jewish Federation, suddenly withdrew from the series, explaining to the Seattle ADC leader that his superior threatened his dismissal if he continued. He even asked that the ADC retract the report on the Seattle talks which had appeared in its national newsletter. 

Such intolerance can also damage longstanding personal friendships. In mid-1983, author Stephen Green took the bound page proofs of his new book, Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel, to Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress and a close friend of the Green family for many years. Together the two men had scattered the ashes of Green's father after his death five years before. The young writer wanted to explain his reasons for writing the book, which discloses intimate U.S.-Israeli military relationships. Bronfman declined to see Green. He directed his secretary, whom Green has also known for years, to respond. Green recalls her words: "Mr. Edgar does not want to discuss this book with you, Steve. You've written it. It's your affair, and he doesn't feel he needs to discuss it with you." Green was devastated that the man he had known and respected for so long would refuse even to speak with him. He recalled with irony that years earlier Edgar's father had frequently upbraided his son for "not doing enough" for Israel. 

Vanessa Redgrave: An 

Activist Playing for Time 

The Middle East conflict has affected the career of Vanessa Redgrave, a British actress who is widely hailed as one of the foremost stage and screen talents of her generation. Yet her success in the United States has been limited by her long history of political activism. While many performers shy away from controversial issues for fear of damaging their careers, Redgrave has structured her life largely around her political passions. Her career has suffered accordingly. 

Redgrave's apprehension was apparent on Labor Day, 1983 when I interviewed her in a backyard studio in a residential area of Boston. She had just cut a tape for a program directed to Arab Americans and was ill at ease. She spoke quietly of threats against her life, while glancing nervously through an open door. "I don't feel safe here," she said. "I've had so many threats." 

Always controversial, Redgrave's opposition to the Vietnam war and sympathy for leftist causes led the U.S. government to refuse her a visa in 1971 when she wanted to come to the United States to discuss writing her autobiography and a possible motion picture. The refusal occurred despite the pleas of her publisher and the intervention of numerous public figures. Undeterred, she directed her activism increasingly toward support for the Palestinian people. 

In 1978, the Jewish Defense League picketed the academy awards ceremony in which Redgrave received an Oscar for her supporting role in the movie Julia. The J.D.L was protesting her narration and financial backing of a documentary called The Palestinians, which included an interview with P.L.O chief Yasser Arafat. In her acceptance speech, Redgrave described the J.D.L picketers as "a small bunch of Zionist hoodlums whose behavior is an insult to Jews allover the world" and thanked the Academy for standing up to their intimidation. Many in the audience hissed and booed. 

Another controversy arose in the summer of 1979 when it was announced that Redgrave would play the lead in a CBS-TV drama about Holocaust survivor Fania Fenelon, a member of the Auschwitz concentration camp orchestra who was spared death only to play music for other prisoners as well as camp officials. Many Jews were outraged that Redgrave was chosen for the part. Fenelon herself declared, "Vanessa Redgrave playing me is like a member of the Ku Klux Klan playing Martin Luther King." The network was criticized for keeping "an unusually tight lid on the names of sponsors" for the broadcast, in an attempt to avoid expected pressures on them to withdraw. 

The two people most responsible for what one columnist called "the Vanessa thing" were Bernie Sofronsil..., the CBS executive in charge, and Linda Yellen, the producer. CBS explained that it could not bow to pressure. Yellen responded to the criticism more directly: 

I had always adored her as an actress, and I turned to her as the best person for the part. Basically, I was unaware of her politically. I never considered firing her for her political beliefs. That would have been anathema to me, given what I know about blacklisting and the McCarthy era. I believe her performance is extraordinary, and speaks for itself. 

The critics were nearly unanimous in acclaiming Redgrave's performance. One asserted that it "may be the finest ever seen on television." But the excellence of the program did not quiet her detractors. The Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies in Los Angeles urged a nationwide boycott of the film, entitled Playing for Time, and some Zionist groups went even further by urging a boycott of products sold by its sponsors. 

Obviously Redgrave's talents as an actress were not the real issue. As the Los Angeles Times cogently observed, 

Her dazzling portrayal of a Holocaust survivor has no bearing on the controversy.... The principle involved is the simple one of keeping separate things separate-in this instance, separating the artist on the screen from the eccentric and grating political activist off the screen. 

The difficulty in keeping this distinction clear was demonstrated again in 1982, when Vanessa Redgrave was designated to narrate Stravinsky'S Oedipus Rex in a series of April concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In the face of a vociferous outcry by the local Jewish community, the orchestra cancelled the concerts without explanation. The announcement did not mention Redgrave by name, but as columnist Nat Hentoff pointed out, "There was no mystery. Wishing to offend as few people as possible-particularly during the spring fundraising season-B.S.O made its craven decision" not to do the performances with Redgrave. 

Alan Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School noted both as a Zionist and as a defender of civil liberties, defended Redgrave's statement that, "No one should have the right to take away the work of an artist because of political views." 

Redgrave, who was awarded $100,000 damages, represents a complicated case, in that her political views are disagreeable to more than just partisans of Israel. Nat Hentoff quite properly invoked the wisdom of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes to suggest how Americans should react: 

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought-not free only for those who agree with us, but freedom for the thought we hate. 

"A Consistent Pattern" 

Efforts to stifle public debate on the Middle East focus to a great extent on the centerpiece of free speech in our country: the press. Over the years, support for Israel has become a requisite for respectability in journalism, just as it has in politics and other professions. 

Edmund Ghareeb, a scholar who has written widely on the Middle East and the American media, observes that the media present "a rosy picture of Israel as the democracy in a sea of barbarians in the Middle East .... " On the other hand, the Palestinians are often referred to as "Arab terrorists," the Arab is portrayed as a camel driver, somebody who is a murderer, or something of this sort." Journalist Lawrence Mosher agrees: "They have stereotyped the Arab as an unsavory character with dark tendencies, and they have ennobled the Israeli as a hero." 

Even Time magazine is guilty of perpetuating such stereotypes. In 1982 the magazine ran a four-color house ad with a photo of a sheik under a single-word headline: "Power." Columnist Richard Broderick described the sheik as "all you could want from an evil Arab dyspeptic, garbed in traditional Saudi dress, he stares out at the camera with palpable malevolence." 

Such stereotyping of Arabs is common in editorial cartoons. As Craig MacIntosh, editorial cartoonist for The Minneapolis Star, points out, "The Arabs are always in robes, the Palestinians always in 'terrorist' garb, with an AK 47." Robert Englehart, editorial cartoonist for the Journal Herald (Dayton, Ohio), agrees: "I could depict Arabs as murderers, liars and thieves. No one would object. But I couldn't use Jewish stereotypes. I've always had the feeling that I'm treading on eggs when I try to do something on the Middle East .... " 

The Israeli lobby works diligently to keep journalists from rowing against the tide of pro-Israel orthodoxy. This mission is accomplished in part through carefully arranged, "spontaneous" public outcries designed to intimidate. Columnist Rowland Evans writes: "When we write what is perceived to be an anti-Israeli column, we get mail from all over the country with the same points and phrasing. There's a consistent pattern." 

The ubiquitous cry of "antisemitism" is brought to bear on short notice, and it is this charge which has been most responsible for compelling journalists to give Israel better than equal treatment in coverage of Middle East events. Even former Defense Department official Anthony Cordesman was not immune from this charge when he wrote in 1977 an article for Armed Forces Journal International examining the Middle East military balance. Observing, for example, that the number of medium tanks requested by Israel for the decade 1976 to 1986 would approach the number to be deployed by the United States within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Cordesman questioned the need for ever-increasing U.S. military aid to Israel. For this straight forward assertion, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith denounced the article as "anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish." 

"Too Controversial and Fanatical" 

Journalist Harold R. Piety observes that "the ugly cry of antisemitism is the bludgeon used by the Zionists to bully non-Jews into accepting the Zionist view of world events, or to keep silent." In late 1978 Piety, withholding his identity in order not to irritate his employer, wrote an article on "Zionism and the American Press" for Middle East International in which he decried "the inaccuracies, distortions and perhaps worst-inexcusable omission of significant news and background material by the American media in its treatment of the Arab/Israeli conflict." 

Piety traces the deficiency of U.S. media in reporting on the Middle East to largely successful efforts by the pro-Israel lobby to "overwhelm the American media with a highly professional public relations campaign, to intimidate the media through various means and, finally, to impose censorship when the media are compliant and craven." He lists threats to editors and advertising departments, orchestrated boycotts, slanders, campaigns of character assassination, and personal vendettas among the weapons employed against balanced journalism. 

Despite this impressive list of tools for media manipulation, Piety draws from his own experience and blames the prevailing media bias more on editors and journalists who submit to the pressure than on the lobby which applies it.

Pressure began to build against Piety's employer, the Journal Herald of Dayton, Ohio, in the late sixties as his growing interest in the Middle East led him to write editorial pieces critical of Israeli policy. His editor received a long letter, hand-delivered, from the president of the local Jewish Community Council, along with a lecture on Middle East politics. A column asserting that American Jews "were being herded, and willingly so, into the Zionist camp" brought a lengthy response from the Zionist Organization of America and a delegation of six Jewish leaders to the paper for a meeting with the editorial board. A 1976 column on West Bank riots led Piety's editors to order him to write no more on the theme. 

Upon writing another column in April 1977 on the anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacres in which Jewish terrorists under Menachem Begin murdered more than 200 Palestinian villagers, he was sharply rebuked by his editors. Editor Dennis Shere informed Piety that he had received orders-presumably from the corporate management-to "shut you up or fire you." Piety was subsequently told that he was "too controversial and too fanatical" and that he would not receive a promised promotion to editor of the Journal Herald editorial page. Under this pressure Piety left his position. 

Mediawatch Blinks Out 

During the summer of 1982, Minneapolis columnist Richard Broderick devoted several installments of his "Mediawatch" column, a weekly feature on media coverage-to exposing such inequities in American media coverage of the Israeli invasion. Among his findings: 

Tapes purportedly of Yasser Arafat's 'bunker' and 'PLO military headquarters' being bombed aired over and over again while tape of civilian casualties wound up on the edit room floor .... 

As Israeli ground forces swept through Southern Lebanon, the American press continued to employ the euphemism 'incursion' to describe what was clearly an invasion. 

In local newspaper coverage, Broderick found: 

While Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were being killed by the thousands, the Minneapolis Star and Tribune ran a front-page photo of an Israeli mother mourning her dead son. 

Later that same day, another photo showed a group of men bound and squatting in a barbed-wire enclosure guarded by Israeli soldiers. The caption described the scene as a group of 'suspected Palestinians' captured by Israeli forces. Simply being Palestinian, the caption implied, was sufficient cause to be rounded up.

Broderick also used his column to relate scenes of horror witnessed by the Reverend Don Wagner, who had been in Beirut inspecting Palestinian refugee camps when the Israeli bombing began. Wagner saw a wing of the Gaza Hospital knocked down by the bombing and was in Akka Hospital while hundreds of civilian casualties were brought in. Wagner described his experiences to the Beirut network bureaus for NBC, ABC and CBS, but their reports beamed back to the United States were never aired. 

While such examples of bias are disturbing, still more so are the consequences suffered by the journalist who publicized them. Soon after the "Mediawatch" columns on Israel ran in the Twin Cities Reader, movie distributors of Minneapolis-who collectively represent the largest single source of advertising for the paper-began telephoning editor Deb Hopp with threats of permanently removing their advertising as a result of the Broderick column. Hopp mollified them by agreeing to print, unedited, the thousand-word reply to the offending column. Contrary to usual policy, Broderick was not allowed to respond to this rebuttal. 

Later in the summer, Broderick reported an attempt, as he saw it, by Minnesota Senator Rudy Boschwitz to manipulate public opinion through the local media. Boschwitz coordinated and appeared in a press conference with members of the American Lebanese League (ALL), an organization which endorsed the Israeli invasion. Boschwitz cited the testimony of league members in arguing that the people of Lebanon welcomed the Israelis.[What a crock,cause all people want an invasion in their homeland...NOT...Total Israeli front ALL. DC] 

Broderick quoted in his column a report by the nationwide American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee which described the league as "the unregistered foreign agent of the Phalange Party and the Lebanese Front. They work in close consultation with A.I.P.A.C, which creates for them their political openings." Senator Boschwitz, upset at seeing this information made public, castigated Hopp and Broderick in a lengthy telephone call. Three weeks later, Broderick was informed that his services would no longer be needed at the Twin Cities Reader. 

"Frau Geyer" Under Fire 

Concern over appearances and external pressure also led the Chicago Sun-Times to drop the regular column of veteran foreign correspondent and syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer for several months during the 1982 war in Lebanon. The decision followed an outpouring of reader protest over Geyer's columns criticizing the war and Israeli policy. Letters assailed Geyer as "a well-known Jew hater," "an anti-Semite par excellence," and "an apologist for the PLO"-the sort of innuendos to which Geyer has grown accustomed during many years of covering both sides of the Arab-Israel dispute. She is frequently denounced in print and harassed at lectures with similar charges. Geyer, whose worldwide journalistic coups have made headlines for years, told me that receiving "this endless, vicious campaign of calumny and insults because you write what you know to be impeccably true" is the most distressing aspect of her life as a journalist. 

Editor Howard Kleinberg of the Miami News also suffered criticism for carrying Geyer's columns. He wrote in a 1982 editorial that 

I cannot remember receiving more outside pressure on anything than I have about Georgie Anne Geyer's columns on Israel. ... Geyer's antagonists have portrayed her not only as anti-Israel but antisemitic as well; 'Prau Geyer' some of them call her. 

Aware of the violent response, Geyer suggested that Kleinberg too not publish her Middle East column for a while, but he was adamant: "I steadfastly have refused to bow to the pressure." He added: "We carry syndicated columns of contrasting viewpoints because it is the role of newspapers to provide a vehicle for the exercise of free speech." 

Though the Sun-Times later resumed publication of her column and the criticism abated, Geyer finds that calling Middle East issues as she sees them exacts a personal price, noting sadly that her commentaries seem to have damaged permanently valued relationships with Jewish friends. 

On and Off the "Enemies List" 

Branding critics and thoughtful analysts as "enemies" is another familiar tactic of the Israeli lobby. Those singled out for inclusion on enemies lists-particularly The Campaign to Discredit Israel, published by A.I.P.A.C, and the A.D.L's Pro-Arab Propaganda in America: Vehicles and Voices-rarely take issue with lobby criticism, probably in the belief that a direct response would only give undeserved credibility to their detractors. But in December, 1983, a selective challenge to these enemies lists was offered by Anthony Lewis, a Jewish columnist who writes for the New York Times. 

In two installments of his regular column, Lewis took issue with the inclusion on the 1983 lists of Professor Walid Khalidi, a professor at the American University, Beirut, and a research fellow at Harvard. Klalidi, recognized as a leading Palestinian intellectual, has long argued for a Palestinian state living in peace and mutual recognition with Israel. He had outlined his position in a 1978 Foreign Affairs article,subsequently receiving sharp criticism from extremist groups in the Middle East and elsewhere. Hence Lewis was "astonished to find Professor Khalidi's name on lists of supposed anti-Israel activists." 

Lewis exposed the techniques used to implicate Khalidi in a putative campaign to discredit Israel. First A.I.P.A.C quotes him as saying in the 1978 article that Israel's existence is "both 'a violation of the principles of the unity and integrity of Arab soil and an affront to the dignity of the [Arab] nation.''' Khalidi in fact referred to this as an old view which has been discarded. 

The book identifies Khalidi as a member of the Palestine National Council, a body which serves as a PLO parliament and claims that on one occasion he "narrowly escaped expulsion" from the P.N.C for supporting George Habash's radical Popular Front. Khalidi responds that he has never attended"a PNC meeting "because of [his] lifelong commitment to complete independence from all political organizations." Lewis adds that Khalidi's views are the antithesis of George Habash's. 

Lewis concludes: "Some people see his very moderation as dangerous. He is a Palestinian nationalist, after all, and one must not allow that idea to have any legitimacy." The Times published letters from both the ADL and AIPAC protesting the Lewis columns, and the ADL assigned a team of researchers to review previous Lewis columns in search of anti-Israeli bias. Lewis was also sharply criticized in the January 1984 issue of Near East Report, the AIPAC newsletter. 

The Perils of Non-Orthodoxy 

A New York businessman almost made an "enemies list," thanks to media coverage of his views. Jack Sunderland, businessman and chairman of Americans for Middle East Understanding, a national organization which issues scholarly reviews, made statements supporting Palestinian self-rule and an end to Israeli West Bank settlement construction during a trip to the Middle East several years ago. His remarks were widely reported in the U.S. and foreign media, and shortly after returning to his New York home, Sunderland learned that a man had visited several of his neighbors asking personal questions about his family, including his children's schedule and routes to and from school. Concerned for his family's safety, Sunderland engaged a private detective. 

Working with FBI cooperation, the detective soon located a graduate student who admitted to the obtrusive questioning and also to illegally gaining access to computer information about Sunderland's finances and credit record. The student said he was an employee of B'nai B'rith and that Sunderland was being investigated as a prospect for inclusion on the organization's "enemies list." Faced with the student's confession, B'nai B'rith officials refused to meet with Sunderland personally but agreed not to mention his name in future publications. When the "enemies list" appeared in 1983, under the sponsorship of B'nai B'rith's affiliate, the Anti-Defamation League, the organization Sunderland heads was listed as a "vehicle" of "Arab propaganda." Several officers were mentioned by name but not Sunderland. 

On a Saturday morning in 1977 producer Debbie Gage encountered peril of a different sort when she put on a one-hour program of interviews with local people of Palestinian origin on Minneapolis Public Radio. The station's switchboard was promptly swamped with calls demanding equal time for the Israeli viewpoint. Gage demurred, responding that she had decided to do her program because of the heavy coverage being given to the Israeli view in the local press. She saw her broadcast as "simply a small attempt to redress that imbalance .. " 

The following Monday news director Gary Eichten informed Gage that her job would be terminated in three weeks and that a program devoted to pro-Israeli views would be aired the following Saturday. Eichten denied that he was pressured into doing the follow-up program, but, as station intern Yvonne Pearson observes, "If dozens of angry phone calls aren't pressure, I don't know what is." 

Even when the media make an effort to ignore the dangers and resist pressure and bias, the price can still be high for those who speak out. James Batal, a man of Lebanese ancestry, was interviewed on Miami TV during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. He was 72 years old at the time. Batal sought to explain the little-understood Arab view of the conflict. Following the broadcast of his interview, he received an abusive-and anonymous-phone call warning that his house would be burned down or bombed in retaliation for his remarks on television. Batal appealed to local police and the FBI, but was told that they were unable to provide protection. In desperation, he and his ailing wife closed their home and moved into a small apartment with her sister. 

Grace Halsell, a noted writer on the Middle East, tells of a similar incident which took place in late 1983. While in Jerusalem, she visited Amal, a young Palestinian woman with whom she had become friends while living in Jerusalem some years before. An American TV journalist had asked to interview Amal while she was employed as assistant to the U.S. vice-consul in East Jerusalem, and her American boss had agreed to her being interviewed. But when the interview was shown, she was fired. She explains, "I was thought to be too pro-Palestinian. I had merely said, in answer to a question, that my family lived in a house where Israelis now live." 

The consequences of publishing reports which do not convey such a congenial message can be even more drastic than loss of employment or public pressure from lobby groups. John Law, a veteran journalist who founded and edited the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, a nonpartisan newsletter published by the American Educational Trust, once described the aim of the publication in these words: 

It would like to see Middle East issues approached in a way that will benefit the interests of the people of the United States, while being consistent with their standards of justice and fair play. 

On May 6, 1982, Law received a telephone call which threatened his physical safety and warned that he should "watch out." The following day John Duke Anthony, then an official of the American Educational Trust, was assaulted by two men near his home. One subdued Anthony by striking him on the head with a brick. The "muggers" took neither his money nor his credit cards-only his personal address book. 

An editorial in the next issue of the Washington Report responded: 

The man who threatened Mr. Law and the two men who assaulted [Mr. Anthony] were presumably hoping to deter them from doing their work. This is not going to happen. 

"Conviction Under False Pretenses" 

Opinions which depart from the pro-Israeli line cost a New York journalist his job in early 1984. For ten years Alexander Cockburn contributed the popular "Press Qips" feature to the Village Voice in New York. Though his topics and views were often controversial, his candor and originality were widely respected. One reader hailed him as "Guinness Stout in a world of Lite journalism." 

In August 1982 Cockburn applied for and received a grant from the Institute of Arab Studies, located in Belmont, Massachusetts, to underwrite travel and research expenses for a book on the war in Lebanon. The grant was not secret. It was recorded in the l.A.S public report, but in January 1984 the Boston Phoenix published a long article exposing Cockburn's "$10,000 Arab connection. " The article provoked a storm in the editorial offices of the Voice. 

Editor David Schneiderman decided that Cockburn should receive an indefinite suspension without pay, but permitted him to reply in print. Cockburn defended the grant, contending that the l.A.S is a legitimate non-profit organization, founded "to afford writers, scholars, artists, poets and professionals an opportunity to pursue the full exploration of the Arab dimension of world history through their special field of interest." He argued that the bottom line of the matter was that he "didn't properly evaluate the climate of anti-Arab racism." The book grant, he felt, constituted an ethnically dubious "connection" because it was "Arab money." 

Readers were outraged by Schneiderman's treatment of Cockburn, and many wrote to protest his "conviction under false pretenses." 

It is sad that even in the United States, with its traditions of free speech, there are still people who, when it comes to Middle East issues, will use force and threats of force to try to prevent the dissemination of ideas they do not like. 

Dow Jones Stands Firm 

Major national media have not escaped these pressures. Organized letter campaigns are a favored tactic of pro-Israel groups. Lawrence Mosher, a staff correspondent for the National Journal, observes that such groups have 

a seemingly indefatigable army of workers who will generate hundreds or thousands of letters to Congressmen, to newspaper editors, etc., whenever the occasion seems to warrant it.... 

Editors are sometimes weighed down by it in advance and inhibited from doing things they would normally do if they didn't know that an onslaught of letters, cables and telephone calls would follow if they write or show such and such. 

Mosher has himself experienced the pressures which speaking out bring. The National Observer of May 18, 1970, printed an article by Mosher on a hitherto little noticed court case then pending in Washington, D.C. The case involved Saul E. Joftes, a former high official of B'nai B'rith, who was bringing suit against the organization and its officers. The charge: 

That the Zionists have used B'nai B'rith, a charitable, religious, tax-exempt American membership organization, to pursue international political activities contrary to the B'nai B'rith constitution and in violation of federal foreignagent registration and tax laws. 

Joftes had been especially disturbed at the "employment" by B'nai B'rith of a woman whose post was funded and controlled by the Israeli consulate in New York City. She was given the job of providing "saturation briefings" for Jews visiting the Soviet Union, but her main duty was to "channel information back to the Israeli government on who went to the Soviet Union and what Russians visited the United States." The woman, Mrs. Avis Shulman, observed that "Jewish organizations, particularly B'nai B'rith, are especially useful" as a "base of operation." Joftes was obliged to meet her request that "a subcommittee" be "invented with her as 'secretary' to give her a handle that could be relatively inconspicuous but meaningful." 

The one-year employment of Shulman was but one aspect of what Joftes saw as the Zionist "takeover" of B'nai B'rith's international operations. He resented being compelled to develop the organization to serve policy mandates of the Israeli government, with "the identity of B'nai B'rith itself taking a secondary role in fostering the interests of a foreign power." 

Mosher's article went on to discuss the broader issue of national versus extranational loyalties raised by Joftes's case, quoting the views of numerous national and international Jewish leaders. He disclosed the mechanisms through which tax-free donations from U.S. Jews were sent to Israel for purposes other than the designated "relief" and discussed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings seven years before which had exposed and closed down an illegal Israeli propaganda operation in an organization called the American Zionist Council. 

Shortly after the article appeared, the offices of Dow Jones, which owned the National Observer, were visited by Gustave Levy, senior partner in a New York investment firm, and a group of other Jewish leaders. The group did not dispute the accuracy of the article but protested its publication as an embarrassment and an anti·Jewish act. They questioned the motives of Warren Phillips, then vice-president of Dow Jones, in publishing the Mosher piece: "Why create public focus on this information?" Despite the pressure, Phillips stood behind his writer. 

"Who Could Be Mad at Us?" 

In its April 1974 issue, National Geographic Magazine published a major article entitled "Damascus, Syria's Uneasy Eden." The article discussed ancient and modern life in the Syrian capital, but a brief segment on the life of the city's small Jewish community caused a storm of protest. 

Author Robert Azzi, a journalist with years of experience in the Middle East, found that "the city still tolerantly embraces significant numbers of Jews" and Sephardic Jews enjoy "freedom of worship and freedom of opportunity" although they live under a number of obtrusive restrictions, including strict limitations on travel and emigration. He had learned that about 500 Jews had left Syria in the years following the 1967 war, and that "reprisals against the families of those who leave are ... rare." 

A number of U.S. Jewish groups and many subscribers were outraged by Azzi's portrait of Jewish life in Syria. A torrent of angry letters poured into the offices of the National Geographic Society protesting the "whitewash" of Syria's treatment of its Jewish citizens and the refusal of the editors to correct Azzi's "shocking distortions." Society President Gilbert M. Grosvenor later recalled that his offices received more than 600 protest letters. This correspondence was liberally seasoned with harsh charges, including "hideous lies," "disgraceful," "inhuman," "Communistic propaganda," and "as bad as Hitler's hatred for the Jews." One letter threatened Grosvenor's life. As the controversy grew, the Society even received a letter from Kansas Senator Robert Dole expressing concern over the issue and forwarding a longer letter from the Jewish Community Relations Bureau of Kansas City. 

Unaccustomed to controversy, the National Geographic offices were shocked at the outcry raised over a small section of what had been seen as a standard article. Protestations by Grosvenor that the piece had been checked for accuracy by Western diplomats in Syria, the Syria desk officer at the U.S. State Department and even several rabbis-none of whom had found any problems with the text-were unavailing. 

The criticisms culminated in a public demonstration by the American Jewish Congress outside the Society's Washington offices in late June. Informed of the picketing outside the Society's opulent headquarters, a receptionist· was incredulous: "Are you kidding? Who could be mad at us?" 

Phil Baum, associate executive director of the A.J.C, met with Grosvenor and declared that the picketing became necessary due to the refusal of National Geographic to acknowledge its "errors" in print. This was the first instance of picketing against the National Geographic Society since its establishment in 1888 to "increase and diffuse geographic knowledge." As the picketers prepared to depart after marching in near 100 degree heat, one told a New York Times reporter, "The magazine doesn't print letters to the editor. 

This is our letter to the editor." Grosvenor views the picketing basically as an A.J.C fund-raising event: "A simple matter of dollars out, dollars in. You can hire pickets on short notice around this town." Though some of the picketers argued vehemently with National Geographic staffers who went out to speak with them, many were quite amiable. "We served coffee, doughnuts and bagels to the picketers," Grosvenor recalls. "In fact I think we picked up a few new members from the group." 

At the same time, Grosvenor did not ignore the pressure generated by Baum and the A.J.C. The Society decided to print an editorial commenting on the episode-another "first" in the 86 years of the organization. Personally signed by Grosvenor, it conceded, "We have received evidence from many of our Jewish readers since the article appeared which convinces us that we unwittingly failed to reflect the harsh conditions under which that small [Damascus Jewish] community has existed since 1948 .... Our critics were right. We erred." 

Yet the society's "confession" contradicts events in Syria itself. The Syrian government banned the controversial article and declared author Azzi persona non grata for spreading "Zionist propaganda." 

"A Mimeograph Machine Run Rampant" 

During the same period, CBS-TV experienced a similar controversy over a "60 Minutes" segment dealing with the situation of Jews in Syria. The program, entitled "Israel's Toughest Enemy," was broadcast February 16, 1975, and featured correspondent Mike Wallace. 

As his point of departure Wallace said, "The Syrian Jewish community is kept under close surveillance." He noted that Jews cannot emigrate, must carry special identification cards and must notify authorities when they travel inside Syria. 

Despite such restrictions, Wallace concluded, "today life for Syria's Jews is better than it was in years past." Wallace backed this claim with a number of interviews with Jews who were making their way comfortably in Syrian society. The most striking of these was one with a Jewish teacher which included the following exchange: 

Wallace: Where do all these stories come from about how badly the Jews are treated in Syria? 

Teacher: I think that it's Zionist propaganda. 

CBS was swamped with angry letters, and the American Jewish Congress branded the report "excessive, inaccurate and distorted." Protests were also sent to the FCC and the National News Council. As the complaints continued pouring in, Wallace realized that for the first time he had "come up against a conscientious campaign by the so called Jewish lobby-against a mimeograph machine run rampant." 

Wallace observed at the time, 

The world Jewish community tends somehow to associate a fair report about Syria's Jews with an attack on Israel because Syria happens to be Israel's toughest enemy. But the fact is there is not one Syrian Jew in jail today as a political prisoner. 

On 7 June "60 Minutes" again broadcast the segment on Syria, along with an account of the criticisms received and additional background on the film. The program also included a promise that Wallace would "go back and take another look" at the situation of Jews in Syria. 

The second program, broadcast March 21, 1976, disappointed critics who expected the second report to prove their charges: instead, it confirmed the findings of the first. A Syrian Jew who had fled Syria at age 13 and lived in New York declared that Syrian Jews "in general are much more prosperous now than ever before." 

Critics have since turned to attacking Wallace personally. In fact, A.I.P.A.C still bears a grudge nearly ten years after the original program. The February 1984 issue of Near East Report. the A.I.P.A.C newsletter, carried an anti-Wallace commentary by editor M. J. Rosenberg. He was disturbed by Wallace's observation in the January 8, 1984, edition of "Sixty Minutes" that "nothing affronts Syrian dignity and pride more than the fact that Israel has Syrian land, the Golan Heights, and Syria wants it back." Rosenberg responded that Wallace "mouths Syrian propaganda as if he were a member of the Ba'ath party's young leadership group." Recalling the controversy of 1976-1977, he wrote that "Wallace didn't learn much from that episode. After all, Mike Wallace is Jewish. Does he feel that he has to bend over backward to prove that he is no secret Zionist?" 

"A Double Standard 

Toward Terror and Murder"

 

CBS radio became a storm center about the same time as the Wallace controversy. On its "First Line Report" White House correspondent Robert Pierpoint used this forum in March 1973 to make a controversial statement on events in the Middle East. Focusing on two recent incidents--a commando-style raid against Palestinian refugee camps 130 miles inside Lebanon and the downing of a Libyan commercial airliner which strayed over then Israeli-occupied territory in the Sinai Desert-Pierpoint commented on the differing American response to acts of violence committed by Israelis and by Arabs. 

He observed that after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics Games in Munich, "the United States, from President Nixon on down, expressed outrage." Yet these two more recent acts by Israel had caused the death of more than a hundred innocent civilians, and there had been hardly a ripple of American response. Pierpoint's conclusion was blunt: 

What this seems to add up to is a double standard in this country toward terror and murder. For so long Americans have become used to thinking of Israelis as the good guys and Arabs as the bad guys, that many react emotionally along the lines of previous prejudices. The fact is that both sides have committed unforgivable acts of terror, both sides have killed innocents, both sides have legitimate grievances and illegitimate methods of expressing them. 

Knowing that he had voiced an opinion rarely heard over network airways, Pierpoint was not surprised when CBS switchboards in Washington and New York were jammed for hours with protest calls after his broadcast. 

The reaction grew so heated, in fact, that Pierpoint became concerned about the attitude of CBS management. Vice-President Sandford Socolow told him ominously, "Bob, you're in real trouble," and Gordon Manning, another CBS executive added, "It doesn't look good for you"-even though both men felt that the commentary had been professionally done and should be defended. When they walked into the Salant's office to discuss the matter, they quickly learned that Salant had already decided not to bow to the pressure. "Wasn't that a terrific broadcast Pierpoint did!" Salant declared, thus bringing the matter to a close within the CBS hierarchy. 

For Pierpoint, however, the controversy lingered. He received over 400 letters on his broadcast, some labeling him "a vicious anti-Semite" and describing his report as "like Goebbels's propaganda machine." He later remarked that his commentary had caused him to be perceived as a "public enemy" by some Jewish Americans. 

Soon after the "First Line Report" broadcast, Ted Koppel discussed the Pierpoint affair for ABC radio's "World of Commentary." Koppel cited the swift reaction of the pro-Israel lobby: 

The Anti-Defamation League responded immediately. Regional offices of the A.D.L sent out letters the next day, enclosing copies of the Pierpoint report, and calling on friends of the A.D.L to send their protests to the local CBS affiliate station. 

That kind of carefully orchestrated 'spontaneous reaction' disturbs me just as much coming from the A.D.L as it would from a politically partisan group. It is a tactic of intimidation. I hope that the Anti-Defamation League wasn't trying to  get Robert Pierpoint fired, because he's a decent and responsible reporter. But I suspect he will think long and hard before he does another commentary that might distress the A.D.L-which is why I did this one. American newsmen these days simply can't afford to be intimidated-by anyone. 

Affordable or not, the "tactic of intimidation" made its mark. Under pressure, Pierpoint dropped a chapter relating the details of the broadcast uproar and its aftermath from his book, White House Assignment. In the draft chapter Pierpoint wrote that "a very powerful group of Jewish businessmen and representatives of national Jewish organizations had demanded to see CBS news president Richard Salant" and that "a delegation of Jewish businessmen" called for a retraction by CBS affiliate station WTOP in Washington. 

In the excised chapter, Pierpoint candidly explained its impact on his work as a newsman: "It was many months before I voluntarily discussed the Middle East on the air again." Recalling his decision, Pierpoint says Elisabeth Jakab, a book editor for the publisher, G. P. Putnam's, predicted that the controversial chapter would divert attention from the rest of the book: "She told me Jews are major book buyers and might boycott my book." Another Putnam staff member had similar advice: "Joel Swerdlow told me he didn't like the chapter, but he admitted he was emotional about the subject because he is Jewish. He suggested that I change the text or drop it." "Finally," concludes Pierpoint, "I gave in." 

Indeed, Pierpoint admits that the intimidating pressure found its mark beyond his self-censoring decision on the book chapter: 

Ever since that strong reaction, I have been more aware of the possibility of getting into arguments with listeners and viewers, and therefore sometimes when I had a choice as to whether to do a broadcast on a topic like that or go in another direction I probably went in another direction. You don't like to have constant arguments, particularly with people you may like and admire but don't agree with. 

"Set Right This Terrible Thing" 

During 1981 Patsy Collins, chairman of the board of King Broadcasting in Seattle, was subjected to severe criticism for a series of reports on Israel and the West Bank. Just before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, she and a technical crew visited sites including Bir Zeit University in the West Bank, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and the Israeli Knesset. They put together a series of eight four-minute segments, which were broadcast on the evening television news over eight consecutive days. The reports sought to portray the life of the Palestinians under Israeli administration. A closing thirty-minute documentary was planned. 

Though public reaction to the reports was mild, the local heads of the American Jewish Committee and the A.D.L visited the station to "set right this terrible thing." They demanded and received a private screening of the final documentary before it was broadcast. Unable to cite any inaccuracies in the piece, they criticized its "tone and flavor." Among telephoned complaints was one accusing Collins of being in the pay of the PLO. 

The Israeli consul general in San Francisco, Mordecai Artzieli,telephoned a stem demand that air time be provided to "refute the lies" in the program. The King stations in Portland and Seattle agreed to follow the closing summary with a 30-minute discussion between representatives of the Jewish and Arab communities moderated by a member of the broadcast company staff. The planned discussion did not materialize, however, as no Jewish group would agree to send a representative to share air time with an Arab American. Collins believes that the refusal to take part in the discussion was urged by Consul Artzieli. 

Reflecting on her experiences, Collins concludes: "I don't think there's any Israeli or Jewish control of the media at all. It's influence; and people can be influenced only if they allow themselves to be influenced. " 

Criticism of Collins evaporated with the 1982 Israel invasion of Lebanon-during which Collins herself cited shortcomings in network coverage of the daily progress of the fighting. At the onset of the action, NBC was covering the attack on Lebanon not from Lebanon, but from Israel. Despite the courage of NBC crews in filming the progress and results of the Israeli advance to Beirut, film footage broadcast on the "NBC Nightly News" showed only Israel forces on their way to Lebanon. Moreover reports frequently described weapons used by Arabs as "Soviet-made," while the Israelis were never described as using "American-made" F-16's, or "U.S.-built" tanks. 

Her comments paralleled those of Alexander Cockburn, who had noted in his Village Voice column how New York Times editors struck the word "indiscriminate" from foreign correspondent Thomas Friedman's August 3 report on the Israeli bombing of Beirut. The action violated usual Times policy. Friedman sent a lengthy telex expressing his outrage: 

I am an extremely cautious reporter. I do not exaggerate .... You knew I was correct and that the word was backed up by what I had reported. But you did not have the courage-guts-to print it in the New York Times. You were afraid to tell our readers and those who might complain to you that the Israelis are capable of indiscriminately shelling an entire city .... 

NBC Charged with Anti-Israel Bias 

Despite the instances of pro-Israeli bias on the part of NBC cited by Patsy Collins, Alexander Cockburn, Richard Broderick and others, eight affiliates of the network in New York came under pressure in 1983 from partisans who alleged bias against Israel in "NBC Nightly News" coverage of the war in Lebanon. Americans for a Safe Israel (A.F.S.I), a New York-based lobbying organization, filed petitions with the Federal Communications Commission to prevent the eight affiliates in New York from renewing their broadcast licenses. A.F.S.I director Peter Goldman described the NBC coverage as "deliberate distortion of the news," claiming that the network presented the war "in a manner favorable to the Arabs." Goldman's campaign against NBC-presented in a film entitled "NBC in Lebanon: A Study of Media Misrepresentation"-has been backed by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), a Washington-based group which focuses its efforts primarily against anti-Israel bias it finds in the Washington Post. 

Lawrence K. Grossman, president of NBC News, called the A.F.S.I charges "untrue and unfounded: The A.F.S.I film distorted NBC News' coverage and selectively ignored important aspects of NBC's reports." He notes that the Columbia Journalism Review has praised the "overall balance" of NBC coverage, and Washington Journalism Review has criticized the A.F.S.I film for "manipulation" of NBC's coverage of the war in Lebanon. Early in 1984 the FCC rejected similar A.F.S.I petitions against seven NBC affiliate stations in New England, although the group did not relax its pressure. The petitions were revised and resubmitted. 

Such attempts to stifle media coverage deemed uncomplimentary to Israel are augmented with a $2 million media campaign by Israel designed to "remind Americans that Israelis are 'nice, warm' people and not 'bloodthirsty militarists.' " 

William Branigin of the Washington Post covered the same event, but his editors did not delete "indiscriminate" from his front-page report. During the same period, however, Post editors experienced an intimidating presence in their newsrooms. 

Lobbyist in the News Room 

Fairness in reporting Middle East events has been a special concern of the Washington Post over the last several years. Complaints from pro-Israel groups about its coverage of Lebanon-especially the massacres at Sabra and Shatila-led to the unprecedented placement of a representative from a pro-Israel group as an observer in the Post newsroom. 

The idea arose when Michael Berenbaum, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, council president Nathan Lewin, and Hyman Hookbinder, area representative of the American Jewish Committee, met with Post editors to inform them that the paper had "a Jewish problem." The meeting followed substantial correspondence between the Washington Post and Jewish community leaders. As an accommodation, executive editor Benjamin C. Bradlee agreed to have Berenbaum observe Post news operations for one week, provided he not lobby or "interfere with the editorial process in any way." 

Many members of the Post staff were unhappy at working under the surveillance of an outsider. News editor Karen DeYoung declared the idea "not the best in the world .... There's no question that someone following you around all day is an inconvenience." 

Columnist Nick Thimmesch found the experience "very intimidating." He recalls a comment of one staffer which expressed the view of many: "Next thing you know, someone else will be in here." 

Post ombudsman Robert J. McCloskey termed the week a "worthwhile experiment": "Irregular, yes, but so is the shelling newspapers are taking." Criticism from the Jewish community diminished somewhat as a result, but editors of other major newspapers were critical of the whole episode. Boston Globe editor Thomas Winship commented, "I understand the pressures the Post has been under from the Jewish Community Council, and I have sympathy for what the Post did, but I would hope personally that I would not do it." Robert Gibson, foreign news editor of the Los Angeles Times, questioned the fairness of the Post's decision: "I honestly don't know how one could do it for Jews and refuse to do it for Arabs." 

When Moshe Arens arrived in Washington as Israeli ambassador to the United States in February 1982, he initiated monitoring and evaluation of the coverage given to Israel in American newspapers. His scoring system showed that the Washington Post had distinguished itself as "by far the most negative" in reporting on Israel and the Middle East in 1982-the year of Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Arens noted with dismay that the massacre of hundreds of civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in the fall of 1982 produced "a tremendous drop in the index, to the lowest point" since the beginning of the weekly survey. 

Armed with a battery of graphs and charts, Arens presented his findings to Meg Greenfield, editor of the Post editorial pages. Greenfield, who ranks among the most respected voices in U.S. journalism, disputed the very premise of the ratings. She protested that the Post had fulfilled its "obligation off airness" by having "as many of the important Arab and Israeli players as we could speak for themselves on our op-ed page." During the controversial Israeli invasion, commentaries by Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Abba Eban, Henry Kissinger, Alfred Friendly, Shimon Peres, and Arens himself had been printed. Two long editorials from respected Israeli newspapers had also appeared in the Post. 

The Boston Globe was the only other paper contacted by Arens  because of the low rating he gave its stories about Israel and the Middle East. Editor Winship recalls that Arens "started right off going after the American press on what he felt was very much a bias against Israel." He described the Globe as "one of the newspapers with the most negative attitide," and he made this view known to the local Jewish community. 

Like Greenfield, Winship rejects the idea of the Israeli ratings system: "My feeling is that having such a list smacks of the Nixon enemies list and strikes me as pretty close to harassment of the media." Globe staff writer Ben Bradlee, Jr. describes the Arens study and his meetings with newspaper executives as "an unusually bold demonstration of Jerusalem's effort to put the American press on the defensive and make itself heard among opinion-shapers. " 

Pressure to "Stop the Ads" 

Direct pressure to reject paid advertising unsympathetic to Israeli interests was applied beginning in late 1982 against major media in Maryland, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. The National Association of Arab Americans (N.A.A.A), a Washington-based private membership organization, purchased radio air time in these areas for commercials questioning the U.S. government's decision to increase aid to Israel. 

Typical of the messages was this one aired in Pennsylvania: 

While there are more than 12 million Americans unemployed, with over half a million from Pennsylvania alone, Congress decided to give Israel two billion, 485 million of your tax dollars. Senator Arlen Specter [D-PA] is on the Senate Appropriations Committee that wanted to give Israel even more. Is funding for Israel more important than funding for Pennsylvania? Call your senators and ask them if they voted to give your tax dollars to Israel." 

Thirteen Pennsylvania stations contracted to carry the N.A.A.A message, but four of these cancelled the ads after only three days of an agreed-upon five-day run. Mike Kirtner, an ad salesman representing two stations in Allentown, informed the N.A.A.A that its ads were being taken off the air because "they were getting a lot of calls, hate calls, and a lot of pressure was coming down on the station to stop the ads." Station management refused to comment on who was pressuring the station to take the ads off the air. 

Mike George, salesman for an Erie station which canceled the ads, was more frank. He informed the N.A.A.A that the station owner had been called by "a group of Jewish businessmen who told him that if he did not cancel the ads immediately, they were going to cause his radio and television stations to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars." 

In Maryland the N.A.A.A sponsored similar messages citing the prominence of Congressman Clarence "Doc" Long (D-Md) in supporting aid to Israel (see chapter one). Although the ads were aired on four stations in Washington and four in the Baltimore area, a number of stations rejected them as "anti-Semitic." 

Later, in California the N.A.A.A found stations in San Francisco, San Mateo, Berkeley and Santa Clara unwilling to carry the N.A.A.A's paid message, despite editorial statements in some local newspapers supporting the N.A.A.A's right to free speech. The stations offered no reason for their refusal. 

Ron Cathell, communications director for the N.A.A.A, is not surprised: 

This has happened to us before. People have been threatened with financial losses to prevent them from having a talk show with us or running our ads. But it hasn't happened to this degree before. This week was really pretty stunning. 

Cathell adds: 

The only way to get the Middle East conflict resolved is to talk about it. And if we can't talk about it here in the United States. how do we expect them to talk about it in the Middle East? 

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Repairing the Damage