Abba Eban’s “Israel” a Controversy for San Francisco’s KQED-TV

By Janet McMahon

Public television station KQED in San Francisco has recently been the object of vehement criticism from local Jewish organizations and media. The problem began when, instead of scheduling a five-hour film series entitled, "Israel: A Nation is Born, With Abba Eban, A Personal Witness" by itself, KQED sought to include it as part of a special series offering a variety of perspectives on the Middle East.

This almost unprecedented attempt to present both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute on a public television station triggered an immediate accusation in the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California that the station was trying to "present Israel through a hostile filter."

A "Hostile Filter"?

Even before KQED's programming decision, however, PBS had decided not to distribute the film, an independent production of Moreshet Israel (Israel Heritage) in New York. New York's PBS station, WNET, subsequently agreed to act as a "presenting station" and offer the program to local public television stations under its own auspices and those of the American Program Service (APS), a Boston distributor. Twenty-four stations, including KQED, agreed to air the series.

After the Eban series was acquired, according to KQED station manager and director of programming Kevin Harris, KQED's president reported to the board that the program probably would be aired in January and was likely to be "controversial. " That data was provided to the Jewish Bulletin in response to an inquiry from the paper.

Then, Harris told the Washington Report, the station decided to "take a longer view and think about it further." As a result, a final decision was made to air the five-hour series during the first week of March as part of a week-long "Viewpoint" presentation of "other perspectives on the Mideast, including other Jewish, Israeli, Arab and Palestinian perspectives," Harris said, as well as a live "Town Hall Meeting" of local leaders and scholars.

On Dec. 10, KQED's public information person called the Jewish Bulletin to notify the paper of the decision to show the film in March and to make sure the paper hadn't already gone to press with the January date. The KQED representative was told there was no problem.

The Dec. 25 issue of the Jewish Bulletin, however, announced that "Israel: A Nation is Born" would be aired in January. The Jan. 8 Jewish Bulletin reported the new schedule and, in an editorial entitled "KQED loses its balance," maintained that "KQED is unique. Twenty-three other public TV stations around the country also scheduled the documentary, but not one saw a need for 'balance."'

Meanwhile, the film's producer, Avi Almog, got into the act. In the same Jan. 8 Jewish Bulletin he was quoted as saying, "Our program is not going to be a target for attacks against Israel in any form or fashion." According to KQED's Harris, this meant that Almog insisted on having a hand in determining the other material that would annear in the "Viewpoint" series, a demand KQED resisted.

Ironically, even the series' presenting station, New York's WNET, eventually ran afoul of the company that produced the series. According to Harris, WNET aired the Eban series as part of a pledge drive, offering video cassettes of the series and the accompanying book as premiums. Moreshet Israel, which lost about $700,000 on the production, was not pleased when WNET made about a quarter of a million dollars in pledges because of the series and did not share the money with the producers, who then withdrew the series from WNET. APS in Boston withdrew its sponsorship as a result, and public television stations interested in the series had to deal directly with the producers and their stipulations for airing the program.

In the Jan. 25 Christian Science Monitor, free-lance journalist Sasha Futran, a member of KQED's board of directors, described the producer's "unprecedented set of demands" for airing "Israel: A Nation is Born" as including "when the programs may be aired, what may be said during station breaks, and what else may appear in programming surrounding the series."

Futran goes on to describe the dilemma confronting public broadcasters: "In this case, if they pull the programs they risk the outrage of the powerful Zionist lobby and the potential loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. If they agree to the demands, they allow a special-interest group to control public airwaves."

Summing up the controversy accompanying the Eban film, Futran wrote: "The end result may be that Arab and Palestinian viewpoints, already scarce in the U.S. media, could be reduced further."

Indeed, at KQED in San Francisco, the week-long "Viewpoint" presentation originally planned has been drastically scaled down. On Wednesday, March 3, from 9 to 11 p.m., Bay Area viewers may tune in to a "Town Hall Meeting" with 40 studio guests invited by the station's producer and associate producer. The station also plans to offer an extensive study guide on Middle East issues. If the guide is half as instructive as the controversy over how these issues should be presented, KQED viewers, like the station's management, will learn a lot.