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PBS Draws Ire Over 9/11 Show
NY Sun ^
| 09-04-02
| IRA STOLL
Posted on 09/04/2002 4:24:18 PM PDT by veronica
Channel 13 on the spot over a documentarys web site
The citys largest public television station is marking September 11 with a documentary whose Web site is being lambasted by Israelis and American Jewish groups for offering an inaccurate and one-sided history of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Web site includes a map portraying all of Israel as Palestine, a time line that blames Ariel Sharon for provoking the recent wave of violence by Palestinian Arabs, and links to Web sites of Arab American organizations that have defended groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, which the American government considers terrorist organizations.
Thirteen WNET, the New York City station that is airing the documentary, Caught in the Crossfire: Arab-Americans in Wartime, listed it as one of the programs that offer analysis, comfort, and opportunities to reflect on September 11.
The flap highlights potential problems for New York and its cultural institutions as they get ready to mark the anniversary of the attacks on New York. Some memorial activities have been criticized as being too content-less, avoiding speeches. The Web site at issue here has plenty of content its just biased, critics say. That could put Channel 13 in a delicate position. According to its most recent annual report, it receives $9 million a year in government funding, this at a time when politicians in New York and Washington have been broadly supportive of Israel. According to the stations tax filings, among the trustees of Channel 13s parent, the Educational Broadcasting Corporation, are some of the citys most prominent Jewish leaders, including the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Mortimer Zuckerman; the chairman of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York, Morris Offit, and the chairman of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Gershon Kekst.
Its basically an embarrassment for a serious network like PBS to be associated with this, said a former ambassador of Israel at the United Nations, Dore Gold. He called the history of Palestine posted on the Web site atrocious and said it seemed aimed at belittling the Jewish connection to the land of Israel. A spokesman for the Israeli consulate in New York, Ido Aharoni, said that he had been unable to see the Web site himself, but that based on a description of it, he agreed with Mr. Gold.
The documentary, a look at the lives of three Arab-Americans, is scheduled to air tomorrow at 10 p.m. It is funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, by a $50,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation from its special September 11 fund, and by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Evangelical Lutheran Church takes an activist stance on Middle East policy questions; its presiding bishop, Mark Hanson, last week issued a statement opposing American military action against Saddam Hussein.
While Channel 13 is airing the documentary and promoting it in New York, the program and Web site were produced by the Independent Television Service, an arm of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The CPB gets about $342 million a year from the federal government.
The executive producer of Caught in the Crossfire, Calvin Skaggs, said the Web site was produced by the Independent Television Service, not by the producers of the film. There was no offense meant here, Mr. Skaggs said. He said that the two directors of the documentary are Jewish, and he said the filmmakers had asked the Web site makers to consult with some mainstream Jewish organizations and try to make the history on the site as accurate as possible. I think they did that, he said. He said no Arab organization had anything to do with the Web site. He said it was difficult to summarize centuries of history in a brief Web page.
The Israelis and Jewish leaders said they had no objection to a documentary on Arab Americans, but said they were taken aback by the history and resources presented on the Web site. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, called the Web site a serious hatchet job.
This is biased. It reads like it was written by an Arab organization, Mr. Foxman said. He said there were half-truths throughout the history.
The president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, said, This phony PBS history of the Arab war against Israel reads as if it were written by Arafat himself. The anti-Israel lies and omissions are so grotesque one can only assume that hatred against Jews and Israel are its basis.
Mr. Klein said it was troubling for taxpayers to pay for such rubbish.
The associate director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, Alex Safian, said, the information presented in the programs website would be more suited to a Saudi-financed propaganda effort than a serious documentary. He said congressional leaders may want to ask about the matter before rubberstamping the next appropriation for PBS.
The oil-rich Saudis, after all, can do propaganda on their own, they dont need the help of U.S. taxpayers, Mr. Safian said.
A few of the many aspects of the Web site criticized by the Israelis and American Jewish groups:
Israeli premiers Barak, Netanyahu and Sharon are described, respectively, as a former military leader, hawkish and a right-wing politician. But Yasser Arafat is described as leader of the movement for a Palestinian state with no mention of his connections to terrorism.
The site makes it sound like Jordan did not participate in the 1948 Arab attack on Israel. As Mr. Safian of CAMERA put it: That would be news to the defenders of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and those of the Etzion Block especially the ones executed after they surrendered to the Jordanian Legion. How exactly do the producers think Jordan came to occupy the so-called West Bank?
The Web site lists the election of Mr. Netanyahu and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin as setbacks to peace negotiations in the 1990s, but makes no mention of terrorist bombings by Hamas against Israeli civilians.
The site includes a timeline with an entry for when Mr. Sharon provokes al-Aqsa intifada. In fact, Palestinian Arab officials, including Mr. Arafats justice minister and communications minister, have acknowledged that the violence was planned by the Arabs weeks before Mr. Sharons visit.
The site says In 1991 Israeli officials met secretly with a Palestinian delegation in Madrid. In fact the Madrid peace conference was no secret it was on the front pages of the worlds newspapers at the time.
In a section listing resources for further study, the sites lists at face value several groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee that have been widely criticized in the press and by experts as soft on terrorism.
TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; Israel; News/Current Events
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1
posted on
09/04/2002 4:24:18 PM PDT
by
veronica
To: veronica
Evil Bert again?
To: veronica
The citys largest public television station is marking You mean they have more than one? Now I know why N.Y.er's have a rep for being crabby.
3
posted on
09/04/2002 4:27:19 PM PDT
by
steveo
To: dennisw; Lent; Yehuda; SJackson; BenF; Nachum; Bahbah; Catspaw; Alouette; Grampa Dave
FYI.
4
posted on
09/04/2002 4:28:27 PM PDT
by
veronica
To: veronica
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation from its special September 11 fund That says it all right there. One of the biggest gun grabbing, left wing, green(I think), elitist foundations around.
To: Long Cut; Cachelot; grlfrnd; Torie
Bump.
6
posted on
09/04/2002 4:30:12 PM PDT
by
veronica
To: veronica
From the
aforementioned site:
The purpose of this Web site is to be a companion piece to CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE: Arab Americans in Wartime, a documentary which looks at the lives of three Arab Americans living in New York City following the events of September 11.
The "Homelands" section of the site drew attention away from the message of the film. Our goal was to provide background information that contextualized the cultural histories of the people whose lives are chronicled in the film. In an effort to keep the focus on the current experience of Arab Americans, we have removed that section of the site.
Guess they didn't want any evidence.
To: Dan from Michigan
green(I think) Good guess.
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Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Bolivia, La Paz, Bolivia
$80,000 for the development of environmental policies to improve the management of biological diversity in Bolivia (over two years).
Alianza Regional para Politicas de Conservacion en America Latina y el Caribe, San Jose, Costa Rica
$200,000 for efforts to implement private conservation at priority sites in the ecological corridor of the Americas.
Amazon Alliance for Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the Amazon Basin, Washington, D.C.
$150,000 for efforts to improve the implementation of environmental and indigenous rights in the Andean-Amazon region (over three years).
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BirdLife International, Cambridge, United Kingdom
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Caribbean Natural Resources Institute, Vieux Fort, Saint Lucia
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Fundación Peruana para la Conservación de la Naturaleza, Lima, Peru
$185,000 to design and implement community-based fisheries management plans in Peru's Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve (over three years).
Instituto del Bien Común, Lima, Peru
$180,000 for the conservation and management of aquatic biodiversity in Peru's Pachitea River basin (over three years).
Nature Conservancy, Latin America and Caribbean Division, Arlington, Virginia
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Society for Conservation Biology, Gainesville, Florida
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Universidad Metropolitana, Instituto de Educación Ambiental, San Juan, Puerto Rico
$180,000 to create a conservation and sustainable development plan for Ciénaga de Zapata ecosystem in Cuba (over three years).
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$150,000 in support of planning for the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa.
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Center for Clean Air Policy, Washington, D.C.
$75,000 in support of a state roundtable on global climate change (over two years).
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8
posted on
09/04/2002 4:36:09 PM PDT
by
Valin
To: veronica
Oh, my, it looks like PBS has removed the site depicting Israel as Palestine, etc. from your link. I wonder why? I already sent PBS an outraged e-mail. Guess they got the message already.
9
posted on
09/04/2002 4:37:45 PM PDT
by
demnomo
To: All
To: veronica
Last night I made a comment regarding PBS. The first half an hour was very touching and I shed a few tears, after that the smoke screen came off. Their special was aimed as a hit piece against GOD. They interviewed this atheist for the rest of the two hour special. I tuned out after the first hour. I pray God strikes those liberal anti-GOD dirtbags right in the rear!!
To: veronica
The Palestinian Broadcasting System, your tax dollars at work. The FBI should freeze their accounts as a suspected terrorist front...
12
posted on
09/04/2002 4:48:17 PM PDT
by
eureka!
To: Dan from Michigan; veronica
Right after Sept. 11, the news stations in Detroit kept running an interview with two Arabs in Dearborn who claimed they drove all the way home to Detroit after escaping from (get this) the
103rd FLOOR OF THE TRADE CENTER!.
The news stations kept playing this interview over and over again. It was only much later, months later, when it was known that nobody above the 94th floor (North Tower) and the 80th floor (South Tower) made it out, that it occurred to me these two guys made the whole thing up. But there was never any retraction (that I recall) from any of the news stations.
13
posted on
09/04/2002 5:09:09 PM PDT
by
Alouette
although...the Frontline show on 9/11 seemed to be pretty good. I didn't catch all of it, and they didn't seem to shy away from the horror of the attack.
To: veronica
I'm not going to watch any 9/11 programing unless it is vetted here first or my head will blow off and I will kill my television.
15
posted on
09/04/2002 5:23:36 PM PDT
by
Bahbah
To: RoseofTexas
I pray God strikes those liberal anti-GOD dirtbags right in the rear!!You mean God might not act in his
own interests without hearing from
you first? Damn. When's your
birthday? I've been wasting my
time at Christmas! ;)
16
posted on
09/04/2002 5:29:06 PM PDT
by
gcruse
To: Dan from Michigan; veronica
Dan: when did the Macarthur Foundation become so virulently leftwing. If you read the bio, he died in 1978, and she died in 1981. I think the trustees/overseers might have gone far far to the left.
Veronica & Dan: I made a thread here about how Connie Chung had this 9/11 thing on the other night (last night) and who does she have on but a Muslim child! I was outraged, but I got nothing but grief from freepers because of my outrage at CNN/Chung doing another Muslims are our best friends BS!
The thread is here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/744294/posts
To: veronica
Unbefreakinglievable bump.
18
posted on
09/04/2002 6:02:02 PM PDT
by
mewzilla
To: grlfrnd
19
posted on
09/04/2002 6:26:58 PM PDT
by
Spirited
To: veronica
Is it OK to ask what in the hell Israel and Palestine have to do with September 11? Or will I be considered anti-semitic?
20
posted on
09/04/2002 6:39:56 PM PDT
by
jackbill
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