Ted Koppel's 1995 Jerusalem Town Meeting: Involuntary Good Journalism

By Richard H. Curtiss

Midway in the intifada and early in the "peace process," a "town meeting" arranged by ABC "Nightline" host Ted Koppel brought then little-known Palestinians such as Hanan Ashrawi into the same auditorium with members of the Israeli Knesset representing both hard-line and pro-peace factions. Some of the Palestinians pointed out that they had broken a curfew and risked their lives and freedom at Israeli roadblocks to reach the Jerusalem auditorium in which the program was made, and the Israelis spent most of their time debating each other in stunningly acrimonious terms. It was good journalism and the beginning of an education for interested Americans in some of the realities of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

Perhaps seeking to duplicate that innovative triumph, Koppel held another "town meeting" broadcasting live from the same Jerusalem auditorium immediately after the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Recognizing that since the Palestinians have nothing left to give up, the fate of the peace process now will be determined by the dynamics between its Israeli supporters and detractors, Koppel had on his right on the stage Israeli hardliners, including a spokesman for the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and on his left Israeli Labor and Meretz Knesset members, including Haim Ramon, who shortly after the program was appointed interior minister in the new Shimon Peres government.

The program opened with a live interview from her Tel Aviv home with Rabin's widow, Leah Rabin; another interview with Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu with whom Leah Rabin had avoided shaking hands at her husband's funeral; and still another live interview from his office with Shimon Peres. Interspersed between the interviews, which included a second interview toward the end of the program with Peres, Israeli, Palestinian Arab and American Jewish members of the audience asked questions of the Knesset members on the stage.

From the beginning, Koppel, a long-time Jewish supporter of Israel, professed shock at the bitterness expressed toward Jewish opponents of the peace process by Leah Rabin. She reacted with anger at his surprise, and things rolled downhill from there. Twice Koppel, almost in desperation, tried to hush the shouting partisans on stage by pointing out that since all six were talking at once, no one in the television audience could understand a word they were saying. The moment he finished, the shouting resumed.

The program continued for more than two hours until well after 1 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and twice Koppel interrupted the dialogue with news bulletins. He reported that thile the debate was on the air two Israelis had been arrested at Rabin's tomb. One had spat on it and the other apparently was preparing to urinate on it when Israeli guards intervened. Later Koppel announced that in Gaza Palestinian police had arrested persons apparently affiliated with terrorist Abu Nidal on charges that they had infiltrated into Gaza to assassinate Yasser Arafat. "It's been a busy morning so far in Israel and Gaza," Koppel explained to his U.S. audience.

Despite his best efforts to replicate the atmosphere of his original Jerusalem "town meeting," which contained the seeds of a Palestinian-Israeli dialogue, the 1995 Jerusalem town meeting finally degenerated into unabated shouting. Koppel, who had extended the program in an apparent attempt to bring about some order, looked utterly defeated at the image projected abroad of an Israel standing at the crossroads of peace or unending war with its neighbors, but so bitterly divided that its contending leaders would not consult with each other. As it turned out, Leah Rabin had the last word, but not on the Nightline program. In an interview with a Washington Post writer the next day she remarked, "I had no idea that Koppel was so right-wing."

Whatever Koppel intended, like his first Jerusalem "town meeting," his second Jerusalem program, which so accurately reflected an Israel at war with itself, still was good journalism.

Judging Journalists by Their Spouses

After an extensive campaign by pro-Israel media in the U.S., National Public Radio has stopped using news reports from Jerusalem by Maureen Meehan because she is married to a Palestinian Liberation Organization official. Other media which have dropped her reports for the same reason include NBC radio and New York Newsday. Monitor radio, prepared by the Christian Science Monitor , will continue using her reports.

Meehan, an American part-time reporter for the past two years, is married to Jiryes Atrash, who is employed in Jericho by the Palestinian National Authority. Pressure on the U.S. media to drop her reports was generated by CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, which takes a hard line anti-land-for-peace stance in paid advertisements in U.S. Jewish weeklies and pro-Israel publications with largely Jewish circulation such as the Atlantic Monthly, owned by real estate magnate Morton Zuckerman, who also owns U.S. News and World Report and the New York Daily News.

It might be interesting to examine the Israeli government and U.S. Jewish organization connections of spouses and close relations of mainstream media correspondents in Israel and in the United States. Perhaps none will be quite as astonishing as the case of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose wife is employed to attract U.S. companies to set up branches or businesses in an Israeli duty-free zone. She not only receives a salary from the Israeli-American organization setting up the free zone, but also a commission for each U.S. company that decides to locate there. It certainly doesn't hurt any U.S. company concerned with legislation before the House to view that Israeli free zone positively.

There's also the matter of Washington Post syndicated columnist and ABC talking head George Will, probably the most persistently pro-Zionist non-Jewish media figure in the United States. His first wife was Jewish but his present wife is Mari Maseng Will, a registered foreign agent for the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association. Her firm, Maseng Communications, was paid $198,721 last year to lobby for the Japanese automobile industry according to Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz.

Perhaps by coincidence, Will has written in his syndicated column that proposed Clinton administration customs charges on Japanese luxury cars are "trade-annihilating tariffs to coerce another government into coercing its automotive industry." And on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley," Will called the Clinton proposal for 100 percent tariffs "illegal" and "a subsidy for Mercedes dealerships." Will hundreds of American newspapers, including the Washington Post, be cancelling Will's column and dozens of television stations dropping the Brinkley show so long as Will is on it? Apparently not, since these facts about Will and his wife's employer were reported by Kurtz in the Post on May 23, 1995. It seems that some American media figures enjoy free more speech than others, and most of their media employers enjoy a double standard.